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B
y Friday that week the Malibu shoot with Stedman was over. The director of
It Creeps,
Mel Kleinman, had been sacked and I was hoping for a week layoff between locations. That, apparently, was not to be. My Monday morning dispatch instructions were to pick up Ronny at his production office at 9200 Sunset.

I was parked at a meter outside the building when my cell phone rang. It was Ronny’s new secretary Brandi telling me that Mr. Stedman wanted me to come up to the eleventh floor.

When I got off the elevator and walked into the lobby of Hollywood Star Productions, sexy no-bra Brandi asked me to have a seat, then went into Ronny’s office to report my arrival.

I was sure that I’d screwed up but I couldn’t figure out what I’d done. I hated to lose Stedman as a client for Dav-Ko at twelve to fifteen hundred bucks a day. I hadn’t had so much as a beer in over a week and aside from a few vikes and Xanax here and there I was totally clean, so I searched
my head for an insult or some off-color wisecrack I’d made but could only think of one incident where I’d told an actress after a bedroom scene that I liked how her thong fit. But that was lightweight snot. Nothing. They hear that stuff all the time. Then I realized Stedman might somehow have heard about the crazy incident with Don Simpson. They were both movie producers. Maybe my remarks by the pool with Zeke about his tweaked-out weirdness in calling the cops and the fire department over a fucking koi fish had been overheard by Snipson himself and had gotten back to Ronny Stedman. This meeting might be retribution for my big mouth.

Brandi appeared again and directed me to step into Stedman’s inner office.

Once inside I took off my chauffeur’s cap and Ronny got up from behind his desk. I prepared myself for a shitstorm.

But Stedman was smiling. Instead of a face-off confrontation I was introduced to the new director of
It Creeps,
a twenty-five-year-old film school grad named Billy Cohen—a kid with a short Afro sitting across the room on the plum-colored velour couch.

The knot in my stomach went away. Long-legged Brandi wanted to know if we’d all like some coffee.

Then Ronny picked up a stack of manuscripts from his desk and, in a gesture of mock exasperation, tossed three of them in the wastebasket. I saw the title page of the one he was still holding. It was
Belly Up,
my story collection.

“This fucker is gold,” he barked. “Remember, in the car, I told you that I’d read your stuff. And I did. I kept my word.”

I nodded.

Ronnie went on. “And ‘Santa Monica Pier’ is perfect for a film. Billy read it yesterday and thinks so too. Right, Billy?”

Young Billy nodded approvingly.

“Edgy shit, Bruno,” Stedman went on. “Raw and gut level
and
in-your-face
writing. This is the kind of stuff—L.A. street stuff—that, as a film, just might get hot the way
Pulp Fiction
got hot. Both Billy and I think
raw
just might be the new wave in the film business. Know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah,” I said, attempting to get my head into the conversation, “I think I know what you’re saying.”

“Billy thinks we can combine three of the stories into a single plotline and pitch it to HBO as a movie or a series. With a little editing, ‘Santa Monica Pier’ and ‘Two Beers’ and ‘Granite Man’ are ONE idea. Ya follow?”

“Okay, I hear you,” I said, now sure that Dav-Ko and a bite out of my ass was not going to be the topic of conversation.

Ronny went on. “The cab driver theme is spot-on. The jaded eye of your main character Ricky is exactly right for someone like Colin Farrell or maybe an older guy like John Travolta.”

Then Billy spoke up. “Or Robert Downey, Jr.,” he chirped. “He’d be great for it too. I know Robert’s agent. We went to Pali High together.”

Stedman pointed at a matching plum chair. “Sit down, Bruno. Let’s talk this idea through.”

I sat down and lit a cigarette.

Then Brandi appeared again, dancing back in with a tray of coffee and pastries.

Stedman’s arms were across his chest. “Hey, do you mind, my man? My office is a smoke-free office.”

I put the smoke out on a brass dish that Brandi provided, then reminded myself that Ronny snorted more blow than almost any of my customers.
Absolutely,
I thought.
Second-hand smoke is poison. The shit kills millions every day.

Now Stedman was grinning again. “So how would you like to be in the film business, my man?”

The question put a knot in my stomach. Brandi passed me
my coffee mug and I dumped in two teaspoons of sugar and milk. “I’ve never written anything like a screenplay,” I said finally, tasting the concoction. “It’s not something I’ve even thought about.”

“Not a problem, Brun-issimo! The point is you pick up a copy of Final Draft software and the goddamn program writes the thing for you. It’s a no-brainer, I promise.”

Brandi, in the miniskirt, was leaving the room with her empty coffee tray in hand. Me and Stedman and Billy couldn’t help but watch her exit. After she closed the door behind her Ronny was leering. “I’m a lucky guy to have talent like that in the next room.
Fabulous
broad, right? Am I right or am I right?”

No one disagreed.

Ronny’s next leer was directed at Billy. “Hey, even the kid here can write a fucking screenplay. He’s written three already. Right, Billy? Or is it four?”

Billy faked a smile. “The point Ronny’s making is that with the right tools it’s not that difficult, especially since you’ve written the stories already.”

“So what about it!” Stedman leered. “Welcome to Hollywood. Join the team. It’s who ya know and who ya blow. We take your three stories then connect the themes and come up with one kick-ass, edgy, mothafucka of a movie?”

“Sure, I guess,” I said, trying to act like I was going along. “But at the moment I write in the morning. Two hours a day. I’d have to stop what I’m working on to concentrate on the screenplay.”

“You bet, my man! The faster I get your pages the sooner we go into production. Ninety days later I can guarantee you one ballbuster of a movie. We can start pre-casting next week.”

My look went from one guy to the other. “So I guess my
question is, what do I get paid for my stories and the screenplay?”

Ronny paced across the floor, across the big, black, red-and-gold rug in the middle of the room; a bizarre woven, mock-Persian piece that depicted two swans dismembering a fish—possibly a koi. He flopped down next to Billy on the
fabulous
velour couch where the kid was seated. I asked myself: Was I that goddamn fish?

Stedman slurped has coffee then wrapped his arm around Billy, mussing his hair. “What a team! We’ve got everything we need right in this room. Okay, look, Billy and I talked this out before you came. Naturally production costs are the major factor, I won’t bullshit ya, Bruno. But the good thing with a cab driver story like yours is that it has real advantages cinematically—a lot of the film will be exteriors. Street stuff. L.A. grit. That really helps keep the friggin’ costs manageable.”

Now Billy chimed in: “We see L.A. itself as a major character here. That’s the vision so far.”

“Right,” I said. “So what do I get paid?”

Stedman’s expression became somber. He shot a look at Billy, then turned back to me. “Well, the way it’s structured is that there’s really no front end for any of us. I, as producer, am taking all the risk. I front all the production expenses myself. Right, Billy?”

“Right, Ronny.”

The head of Hollywood Star Productions continued weaving his flimflam. “Billy and I have a similar arrangement to the one I’ll make with you. A percentage of the net from the movie. Right, Billy?”

“Right, Ronny.”

Stedman began closing the deal. He was on his feet. “In other words we’re all eating out of the same pot here. True
communism—ha! just kidding, Bruno. One guy wins—we all win. Fair is fair. Are you with us?” He extended his hand.

I looked from one guy to the other to try to read their expressions. This cocksucker was in the film business. Didn’t he know that this kind of scam was legendary in Hollywood? The net! There never was any NET in a movie! I grew up in Hollywood. Didn’t he know that? Hadn’t he done his homework? I’d spent summers sitting around writers and directors and actors guzzling gin and tonics on my old man’s back patio in Malibu listening to just this kind of step-’n’-fetch-it, the-check’ll-be-good-on-Wednesday yarn, summer after summer. Jonathan Dante had once even punched a producer in the nose after the fool offered Pop a net profit film contract. NET was a bad joke.

For once I kept my mouth shut. Ronny Stedman was a Dav-Ko account. A client. His business was important to David Koffman and I was skating on thin ice with my partner as it was. If I told these guys to go fuck themselves that would be the end of their business with my company. No more Hollywood Star Productions work.

I set my coffee cup down and got to my feet. Then I pointed behind Stedman’s desk. “By the way,” I said. “Nice plant. Is that an orchid?”

Ronny looked distracted. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s an orchid.”

I started for the back of his desk. “I like how plants smell. Do you mind?” I asked.

My question caused Stedman’s eyes to open wide. “Hey, do you mind, Bruno? We’re talking business here.”

But now I was at the orchid. My nose close to the stinky fucker. “Funny smell,” I said.

“It’s plastic, for chrissake.”

“Oh,” I said, touching one of the fake white blooms. “And
it actually looks real. But, you know, it smells funny. A bit like piss.”

Without saying good-bye or shaking Stedman’s hand I began moving toward the door. “Look,” I said. “Let me think all this over. There’s a lot to consider. How about that?”

Stedman appeared puzzled but immediately recovered himself. “Abso-fuckin’-lutely, my man! Give yourself a day or two. The point is, after we have the screenplay—the pages—we get the ball rolling. You write it—we shoot it. No screwing around.
Belly Up
is now our next project.”

“I hear you,” I said, still backing across the flesh-eating swans toward the door.

“Billy,” Ronny bellowed, “I’m really excited that the three of us will be working together. Aren’t you?”

Billy nodded. Billy now looked excited. Maybe Billy would perform oral sex on Ronny too after I left the room or empty his piss pot for him.

Stedman grinned again. His best million lira,
I gotcha,
film-producer leer. “It was—like—an amazingly cool surprise when I read those stories. Like finding a diamond in a Dumpster.”

“Really,” I said, “A diamond in a Dumpster? No kidding? That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“Hold up,” Ronny barked. “You’re driving us to see the new location, right? We’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my cap on, “I meant to tell you. I guess I’ve got the flu or something. I’m sick to my stomach. I’ll call in and get you one of the other guys to drive you for the day.”

Ronny Stedman gave me a long look. “Well—okay—I mean, if you’re sick. Sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sick. I’m sick to my stomach.”

In the elevator on the way down to the street I felt my
crotch scars itching like crazy. I began shaking. I needed to smash something, anything. Then in my mind
Jimmy
gave me a direct order:
Listen to me, asshole: drive yourself to the nearest gun store—buy a used .38—the same kind that you got from your old man—the kind that Portia took from you and threw away—and come back here and shoot these two cocksuckers deader than the deadest lowlife snakes that they are.

Then I noticed the glued-on, maroon-colored nameplate next to elevator button #11 that read HOLLYWOOD STAR PRODUCTIONS. I took out my pen knife and pried the plastic fucker away from the fake formica paneling, then snapped it in half, tossing the pieces onto the floor. From now on, no matter what, I promised myself I would not set eyes on Ron Stedman again. Let Rosie and Joshua at the office deal with the slithering feral fuck. I’d develop a slipped disk in my back or contract hep C or whatever excuse I needed to come up with to avoid being in the same car ever again with these pricks.

Down on the street behind the wheel of Pearl I phoned Rosie with instructions to replace me with another limo and chauffeur, telling her a sudden and important business appointment had come up.

On the way back to the office I stopped at Wells Fargo Bank, waited in the usual line of eleven people, then cashed my check: $1,357.00. I told the smile-trained imbecile behind the counter to give me my money all in twenties. I wanted to feel the weight and the roll in my slacks. The kid sighed and ha-humphed and mimed his best Jay Leno, roll-your-eyes to the camera expression, then reached under the counter for more bills.

Back at Dav-Ko I parked Pearl in the driveway, walked into the office past Rosie, then wordlessly grabbed the keys to my
Pontiac and took off. For the last hour my mind had been a screaming monkey. I had to escape, to go anywhere and to be anywhere else. I despised Hollywood and the bizarre greedy deranged mutant jerkoffs it had spawned. I hated myself for not facing Stedman and telling him how I felt about him and his obvious and ungenuine conniving manipulations and stupidity. I hated the limousine business. I hated it all.

I
t happened to me rarely these days. Working and making money and writing and managing Dav-Ko was all that I’d been doing for months. But I now clearly had a serious case of the
fuckits.

I can’t say it was Ronny Steadman and I can’t say it wasn’t but within me there is this leveling device thing that, when my mind exceeds a certain point, just goes on
tilt.
Snaps. I know that normal people can take a pill or go to bed or call their friend Bob and watch TV or have sex with their wife or jerk off, or some goddamn thing. But that stuff doesn’t work for me.

I know what I was thinking. I was thinking:
What’s the big deal. Life is too short for this shit and I need to take the edge off. Fuckit. I deserve it. Fuck it!

A door slammed. I woke up.

It was a strange room. It looked to be a nearly unfurnished one-room apartment with only a small window and dark yellow walls. No pictures.

Clearing my head, I rolled toward the floor and looked down—a woman’s dirty underwear and a pack of cigarettes and a strange half jar filled with blue liquid tucked just beneath the head of the bed.

Lifting the jar up I studied it: a set of false teeth, bridges, uppers and lowers. The sight of these in the strange colored water unnerved me and the glass slipped from my hand and fell to the floor. A pool of blue liquid now flooded the linoleum and nearby underpants.

Reaching back down I picked up the teeth again and held them in my hands, examining them.

How the hell did I get here on this bed with these goddamn things? The top bridge had six fronts with one missing space. No back teeth. The bottoms had no molars but like the uppers, all the front teeth were there. In other words whoever owned these had no real teeth on the top and bottom. My brain collated this information and gave me an image of the toothless bitch who owned them. Whoever had slammed the door must have left in hurry and neglected to put her teeth in.

Near the underpants on the floor, but away from the blue pool, were my pants and socks. Both my shoes and my jacket appeared to be missing.

Reaching for the pants I found that the pockets had been turned inside out. The wallet was gone. My money was gone. The cell phone too.

Pulling back the sheets around me I discovered several hairpins and a sex stain. I was naked except for my torn and soiled shirt. Two buttons were missing.

Finding the bathroom I vomited again and again until my head hurt so much that I had to fall to the coolness of the tile
floor and curl myself around the porcelain toilet, in a ball. Then the shakes started.

Fifteen minutes later I’d pulled myself together enough to leave the crapper. But lighting a cigarette forced me back into the bathroom to puke again.

Back in the main room I checked for more signs of where I was and what had happened. I saw more dirty women’s clothes and underwear strewn in the corner. Under some socks was a stack of supermarket coupons held together by a rubber band. Nothing else except a large, gold plastic crucifix looked down from above the apartment’s main door.

The window was partially covered by a sheet. The only furniture other than the bed was a dresser. I opened the drawers. They contained a child’s clothes. Old and worn.

Outside, looking down from the second floor, the neighborhood appeared to be Ghost Town, in Venice—a row of old, rundown houses with sad, unwatered lawns. But maybe not. Maybe I was in Compton or Old Torrance or even Long Beach. I couldn’t be sure.

On the window sill were two green plants. They still had their price tags stuck to the black plastic pots.

Then something shiny got my attention: my car keys. Across the room in the corner.

But that was it. Nothing else belonged to me. All of my shit was gone—gone with whoever slammed the door and departed in a rush.

Back in the bathroom I washed myself. There was no soap. No towel. No toothpaste. Nothing.

I gulped as much water as possible from the faucet until I felt myself wretch convulsively, but somehow I kept the liquid down.

So far so good.

Drying my face with the end of my shirt I then ran water
through my hair with my rattling hands in an attempt to smooth it into place. Then I used the last of a toilet paper roll that sat on the toilet tank to clean my teeth.

I now had a sudden and immediate need for a drink. Without a drink I would start puking again or pass out. Or die.

Picking up the set of teeth I stuffed them in my pocket, one in each, along with my car keys. Then I pulled on my socks.

On the street in the heat I intended to circle the block until I found my car. But a few minutes later, with no luck, I reached a main drag with a sign: North Van Nuys Boulevard. Fucking Van Nuys Boulevard. The ghetto. Had I spent the night with a Mexican hooker? That figured. My
thing
had always been Latin women.

My feet were starting to burn badly and swell as they scraped the asphalt. A mother with her two young daughters averted her glance as she passed me crossing the street.

I kept moving, my brain aching and slamming itself inside my skull. I couldn’t stop. I had to locate my car and I had to have alcohol. A drink. Immediately. The voice of
Jimmy,
my hangman, scorched my brain.
Well done, fucko! Lost in the goddamn Valley! No shoes. No money. Just swell. You’ve outdone yourself once again. You’re a gutless juicer and a loser just like your fucking brother. You deserve this. Hey cheesedick, with a little luck you just might get yourself arrested for vagrancy—or drunk in public.

There was only one way I’d ever been able to shut
Jimmy
up: drown him in bourbon.

Finally, my fists sweating and still clenched around the teeth in each pocket, I reached a section of shop fronts: A ninety-nine-cent store. A 7-Eleven. Instant payday loans. A porno arcade. A pawnbroker. In the window above a display of beat-up used watches, the pawnshop clock read ten twenty a.m.

I stopped. I felt myself starting to pass out.

Leaning against a wall I sucked in air. It took thirty seconds for the dizziness to pass, then I was okay. I could walk.

Maybe the 7-Eleven? I decided to turn back. I had no money but maybe I could steal two talls or a forty-ouncer while the guy’s back was turned. For once
Jimmy
screamed some good advice:
Hey nutcase, are you completely crazy? You’ve got a torn shirt and no shoes!…Keep moving, for chrissakes.

So I kept going.

Then, on the corner, I saw it. A bar! It was open—a square neon sign in the window flashing.

I pushed the door open and went in.

Two working guys sat at the rail drinking bottled beer. The jukebox played mariachi music.

Then it happened. I was inches away from the stools. The bartender had seen me and was moving toward me when I felt the spasmodic rush of hot liquid hit the inside of my pants. I’d crapped myself! Without underwear I felt the heat of the mess running down my leg.

As I reached the stools I tossed my car keys up on the bar, trying to appear self-confident.

The bartender’s expression changed. He knew. The stench had been immediate and overwhelming.

“What’s up?” he snarled.

“Look,” I said, “I’ve got an idea. Hear me out, okay? Do you want to make some money?”

“I ka smel jour idea from ober here! Take a walk,
cabrón!
Now. No chit. I mean it. You wann troubl in disa plaze, you got troubl!”

I raised my hands in the air like a guy under arrest. “No kidding!” I blurted. “Do you want to make a hundred bucks? For real.”

“For wha, chitman?”

“For a pop. One drink! A hundred dollars for one drink. Straight business.”

“Lemme guez, okae. Jour problem is jou ain’t got the hundred on you. Am I rie?”

I nodded.

“Mira, stupido,
jou got ten seconds to get jour stinky
culo
outa here and go bak on da stree. Ten seconds,
comprende?
Nine…eight…”

“Two hundred! No joke!” I was panting now. Gulping air. “I’ll pay you two hundred bucks for one drink…and a phone call! I run a business. I’ll have someone bring the money. It’ll be here half an hour after I make the call. C’mon, cut me a break.”

“Thaz it, chitpants! Timz up!”

The guy scooped my car keys off the bar and held them toward me. “I tole jou, take a fukking walk!” he hissed. “I ain no kiddin’!”

Then something happened. With my key ring in his outstretched arm, the bartender’s expression changed. He was looking at what he held in his hand. “Whaz about thez?” he said.

“What?” I said.

“Deez one, my man!” he snarled, pinching the coin on the ring between his fingers.

It was a fifty-cent piece. A silver half dollar. The coin and chain had been a gift from my ex-girlfriend Cynthia years before, when I bought the Pontiac.

I felt my body breathe again. “What about it?” I asked. “You want it?”

“I collek. I collek koinz.”

“So?”

“Dis one iz a 1916. Firss jear minn. Walkin’ Leebertee. Goo
condicion
too.”

“I know what it is,” I lied. “How about a trade?”

The guy folded his arms across his chest. “Hokay, chitmajn, herez dee deal: Jou get jour stinky, shakin ass to the bahroom ’n’ clean up an when jou come back I giff jou one drink—an one phon call. For dis.”

“Two drinks” I blurted. “Two drinks and you have a deal. Double shots. Deal?”

“Deal,” he snarled. “Now go wass jour ass.”

It took Robert Roller almost an hour to travel the twelve miles from Dav-Ko to the Tanampa Bar and Grill in our brown stretch, Cocoa.

When he walked in he stuffed the hundred dollar bills in cash in my hand, wordlessly eyeing me up and down, shaking his head.

We found my Pontiac where I assumed I’d left it, in the alley behind the rundown apartment house where I’d come too. There were no new dents and it was unlocked. And I was okay now. Feeling much better. Two more sets of doubles at the bar and a quick stop at a liquor store for a pint of Jim Beam had restored the calmness to my brain.

While big Robert sat in the limo I looked inside my car for signs of trouble. There were none. But in the backseat, in a box, I discovered some old clothes and two pairs of shoes I hadn’t yet returned to my closet after the firing episode with David Koffman.

No one was around, so I took off my shirt and shitstained chauffeur’s slacks and replaced them with a pair of jeans, an old warm-up jacket, and tennis shoes.

Telling Robert to wait for me I went back inside the
building and walked upstairs to the one-room apartment. I knocked. When no one answered I tried the door. It was still unlocked. Inside I could tell that whoever she was, she had not returned.

I put the set of dentures down next to the plants on the window sill where they could be found, then checked again for anything in the room that might be mine. There wasn’t anything. I’d been picked clean.

I took a long pull from the bottle in my pocket, then went to the door. Above me was the big gold plastic crucifix. A new thought caught my attention and stuck: A choice. An option.

Returning to the window I removed the plants from the sill, then put them down on the floor in the blue puddled water.

Then I unzipped my pants, took out my cock, and pissed in each one.

That done, I picked up the two custom-made bridges and set them down in the mess on the floor next to the whore’s dirty panties. Then I crushed each one with the heel of my shoe.

Back at the door, ready to go, I looked up at the crucifix on the wall. Big Jesus was smiling.

But, as it turned out, I wasn’t done. I wasn’t done at all.

After Robert followed me back to the Dav-Ko office I took seven hundred bucks from the petty-cash drawer, left an IOU, and informed Rosie that I was taking a payroll advance. Then I told her that I was taking a day or two more off, telling her that if David Koffman or anyone else asked, I was using up sick-leave days to attend a weekend AA seminar. Rosie’s expression was blank. “It’s Wednesday,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I’m getting an early start. Is that okay with you?”

“You’re the boss, Bruno.”

“Correct-a-mundo, Ms. Rosie. That I am,” I said smiling.

My favorite porn is anal action. Number two is deep-throat blowjobs with oral cum shots.

At the liquor store I picked up large bottles of Mad Dog 20/20. Mogen David. It had been years since I’d hit “the dog,” but this was a special occasion. I needed to get
downtown
in my brain and Mad Dog is the best and fastest train there is. After picking up the wine I made a stop at the best X video store in Hollywood, on Santa Monica Boulevard. I rented half a dozen titles that looked promising then drove back to Highland Avenue to an upscale tourist motel against the Hollywood Hills called the DeMille, off Franklin Avenue. I knew the day manager, Russ. He’d been my new pill connection since I moved to Hollywood.

To me Mad Dog and porn in a clean motel is the best vacation a person can take. A spiritual retreat.