Chapter Text
11:47 p.m. July 12th, 1983
It’s a cool autumn morning. Mary Flynn is supposed to be working on her next book, seated at her desk in her living room, but she can’t focus because behind her, Frank Shepard and Charley Kringas have taken to wadding up her thrown-out pages of writing and using them as projectiles in a battle that spans her third-story Manhattan apartment.
“MARY!” Charley calls desperately, but his call is broken by laughter, as a ball of paper hits the back of Mary’s head and bounces to the floor. “I need your help! He’s got the advantage!”
Mary sighs, giving in, and turns around in her chair to see Frank standing on her sofa, trying desperately to squeeze five balls of paper into his fist. He glances over at her, a sparkle in his eye. “Don’t listen to him, Mary, join the winning team–” and his sales pitch gets cut short by a ball of paper hitting him square in the forehead, and he mimes falling dramatically to the floor as if he’s been shot.
Charley lets out a whoop of victory, letting his own balls of paper drop to the carpet as Mary chuckles, rolling her eyes at them.
“I’m always on the brink of eviction because of you idiots, you know that?” She complains, but she’s grinning.
Charley reaches out a hand to help Frank up, and Frank tosses a ball of paper at the playwright, who catches it and unfurls it, reading the first few lines of Mary’s abandoned thoughts. He looks up at her, eyes wide.
“Mary, this page alone could make millions.”
“You’re just saying that,” she protests as her face reddens, and she starts towards the kitchen.
“Give it to me,” Frank demands, snatching the paper from Charley as he eyes Mary’s disbelief. “Charley’s a lot of things but an empty flatterer has never been one of them.” He scans the page for himself and lets out a lighthearted groan of frustration. “You need to get published again. You’ve got so many brilliant ideas rattling around in there.” He flicks at her temple playfully and she bats his hand away.
“I’m trying to work on it,” she points out, gesturing to the abandoned typewriter. “But something keeps stopping me.”
“Something like–” There’s an eager glimmer in Frank’s gaze and then he suddenly grabs Mary’s wrists, yanking her back towards the bedroom hallway. “I’m taking hostages!” He calls as Mary laughs, trying to break free.
“Hey, that’s my friend!” Charley yells, running after them, and as Frank pulls her back towards the bathroom to lock her in, Mary takes in the look on Charley’s face – full of love, happiness, a zest for life she hasn’t seen in the man since– since 1973, when– wait.
This isn’t real. Mary gasps and sits up in bed, and glances around her room. The clock reads 11:52. It’s dark outside her window. She’s sweaty and alert, and tries to pinpoint what has pulled her out of this horrible nightmare, and then processes the sounds in her room, namely, her bedside telephone ringing. She rubs her eyes, sighs, and picks it up.
“Mary Flynn sp–”
“Mary, oh thank god. I was scared you wouldn’t answer.”
Mary can’t believe the voice on the other end, and she sits up straighter, gripping the receiver in both hands. “Tyler?”
She hasn’t spoken to the inventor in a couple years – not since she’d called him up in ‘81 to apologize for throwing food at him at Frank’s premiere party in ‘77. It had been a short, lighthearted but much-needed phone call, and to be honest, she hadn’t given much thought to the man in the years since. He sounds terrified.
“What’s going on?” She asks worriedly, her heart beginning to race. Something’s wrong.
“It’s Charley,” Tyler says nervously, and the playwright’s name is whispered, like it’s still taboo to talk about Mary’s old friend. She rolls her eyes despite her fear. Stupid. Charley’s a good man and loyal to a fault, and she’s fed up with this sense of distant terror that Frank’s friends have taken towards him, even though it’s been several years since she’s actually spoken to him; he stopped talking to her once he found out Mary went to Frank’s premiere party. “I think Alistair Hall got to Charley.”
“The producer?” She’s familiar with the name – Alistair Hall is a bigtime Hollywood producer; in all honesty Hall was probably the person that Frank had wanted to become when he moved out west – rich out of his mind, more enemies than friends, present at every big-name party and hosting most of them himself from his Beverly Hills mansion.
“Yes, the producer,” Tyler spits, like he hates the guy. He inhales sharply. “What do you know about him?”
“Umm…” Mary wracks her brain. “Not much, to be honest, Tyler. He’s English, silver hair, taller guy, in his 50s. He makes all the big spy movies. He offered me two– uh. He offered to adapt my first book into a film, but he didn’t really seem all that… interested, I guess? I told him it wasn’t for sale. We went separate ways. He wasn’t particularly pleasant.” She coughs awkwardly. “Why? What do you know?”
“He wasn’t always a producer. The spy movies didn’t come from just anywhere. Before he was a producer, he was in the CIA. MK Ultra. That was him.” His voice breaks a little. “I get invited places, Mary, and I hear things. Rumors. Sometimes I’ll see him at a party, most times I just hear his name being whispered. Hall has never produced something original. He only makes movies of stories that already exist, and he cheapens them. He would’ve ruined your book. Be grateful he didn’t really want it. What he wants now is Charley’s play.”
“Take a Left?” Mary asks in surprise. It’s a political piece, and has done very well for itself on Broadway – it makes perfect sense that Hall would want it for himself. She snorts humorlessly. “Charley Kringas is the last person on Earth who would sell out to Alistair Hall.”
“Right!” Tyler shouts into the phone, and Mary pulls the receiver away from her ear, jumping in bewilderment. Tyler laughs manically, like Mary had just said something revolutionary. “Right,” he says again, his voice edgy. “That’s exactly what I thought. Do you know what Hall did before the CIA recruited him?”
“Not a clue,” Mary says, now fully awake and too curious to shut down Tyler’s crazed rambling.
“Mary, he was a hypnotist. He did stage mentalism. All that freaky psychology stuff, the brainwashing, the mind control, the things they did in MK Ultra, that came from Hall.”
Mary laughs incredulously, but she’s beginning to feel sick. “Alright, Tyler, I think maybe you and I just need to get some sleep. It’s been nice talking to you, but–”
“MARY!” Tyler yells frantically into the phone. “Mary, listen to me. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Do you know how many authors and playwrights have blindly given up their best works and their- their most hard-earned masterpieces – just to get ruined for cheap entertainment by Hall over the last several years? It happens over and over. We all see how far he strays from the source material, how much cash it drags in. But it keeps happening. Why do you think that is? Why do they all just give in to him, folding like there’s no pressure? He didn’t really want your book, or he would’ve gotten to you too. He always gets what he really wants.”
Mary swallows hard. “Tyler, what you’re implying is…”
“I just got home from a party at Hall’s,” Tyler says desperately, needing her to believe him. “I called you as soon as I got here. Charley was there, Mary. I talked to him, just for a couple minutes, and honestly before I did, I never believed the rumors myself, I thought all the MK Ultra stuff about Hall was just crazy conspiracy theories, I never would’ve believed it until I saw Charley standing next to Hall, and his hair was all combed, and his suit was all ironed, and he was holding a cigarette.” Charley has never smoked. Mary can’t breathe. This doesn’t sound real, but she’s always known Tyler to be laid-back, levelheaded, and the horror in the man’s voice is undeniable. Tyler breathes shakily. “I-I knew Frank wouldn’t want to hear it. I know Charley’s married, but I wasn’t sure- listen, Mary. I didn’t know who else to call.”
She speaks quietly. “You think Alistair Hall got to Charley.”