Free the Plan (1995) by Stephen Cannell Page A

out of here. All the memories, the shadow dreams. The self-centered sameness of his life was crushing him. He'd been heaping one lie on top of another to stay afloat, hoping everyone else he knew failed so he might win. He'd never been that way before. He knew that he had somehow poisoned himself. . . .
    "You still with me?" Mickey asked, bringing him back. "Like I said, it isn't my boogie, but I know I could set it up. Tell you what . . . I gotta stay out here for a day and fix some things for Pop. I can set it up tonight and we'll fly back to New Jersey tomorrow. I'll introduce you to these guys."
    Ryan was frozen with indecision. Mickey read him.
    "What happened to you, man? What happened to the guy who used to run fucking Z patterns in front of rabid linebackers? You're sitting here with a complexion gray as spoiled meat. The Mick has gotta pump some voltage in t' you."
    Something about Mickey's energy stirred old feelings.
    "Why not," he finally blurted. "Make the call."
    "I can tell you, now you've said yes, you're saving my ass on this, buddy." Mickey grinned. "I promised these guys I'd find somebody to do this film, and here I end up with Emmy-winning Ryan Bolt. . . . They're gonna shit."
    Ryan felt himself blushing, and Mickey looked at his watch.
    "I gotta go. Could you do me a favor? I promised Lucinda I'd take her to dinner before this came up. Would you get me off the hook and take her for me?"
    "Sure."
    "Tomorrow, you and me and Lucinda fly on my dad's jet back to Jersey. It'll be old times."
    It was happening so fast, it was all Ryan could do to hang on.
    They were sitting on the porch of the bungalow in the yellow sunset. She had changed since her tennis lesson and was wearing shorts and a silk blouse. She was breathtakingly beautiful. There was something so sweet, so simple about her that Ryan felt he was in the presence of royalty. He felt recharged by the light in her green eyes.
    Without warning, he heard himself say, "I've been having a terrible time lately. I've been acting irrationally. I'm having . . ." He stopped. Why was he telling this gorgeous girl this? He sounded like a complete head case.
    "You have anxiety attacks?" she said, finishing his thought.
    "Yes, dreams where I'm chased by dark, evil presences that I can't identify."
    "You've pushed your shadow away."
    He looked at her. She was staring into his eyes, completely invested in him.
    "Whafta you mean?"
    "I'll give you a book . . . it's called Meeting the Shadow. It's a lotta Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, but it's fascinating. What it says is, if you deny your dark side, you will stifle yourself. Everybody has a devil in them. These kids I'm working with are so angry, they could almost kill. I try and get that darkness out. I try and get them to confront it. Maybe you have something in your past that you've repressed. If you could find out what it is, it would fire you."
    "Repressed, you mean something in my past that I don't even remember . . . ?"
    She nodded.
    "And it has something to do with Matt?"
    "It could, but Matt is in your conscious. The shadow is in your subconscious. Losing Matt could be stirring it up . . . like sediment coming up from the bottom."
    He looked at her for a long beat. They were sitting here in this artificial lily pond with white swans, in the middle of a riot-plagued city, breathing smog and talking abou t h is psychotic tendencies, yet somehow it seemed perfectly normal.
    "Will you marry me?" he joked.
    "If you'd asked me when I was seven, the answer would have been yes."
    They sat in silence for a long moment.
    "Do you ever think of Rex?" she asked suddenly, her face strangely blank.
    "Yes, occasionally." He wondered why she had asked. "That was the weekend we met," she finally said.

    Chapter 11.

GETAWAY
    THE LEAR WAS ALREADY OUT OF THE HANGAR WHEN Elizabeth pulled her Ghia through the gates that were manned by a field attendant.
    "I still think you should stick around," she scolded Ryan. "Just 'cause Marty