The Big Bamboo (13 page)

“Take it easy and rest,” said Serge. He adjusted his granddad’s pillows.

“Did I tell you about the big Alabama score?”

“What Alabama score?”

“I didn’t tell you? I thought I told you. You sure I didn’t tell you?”

“When were you in Alabama?” asked Serge.

“Biggest score yet. My finest piece of work. I was president of an oil company! Can you believe that? Your ol’ granddad…” He looked up at the TV. “Ooooo, this is a good part. Crockett and Tubbs have another buddy talk on the nature of women. Everything you need to know about relationships is in this series…”

“Grandpa,” said Serge. “What about Alabama?”

“Alabama? What are you talking about?” Cough.

Serge sighed.

“Lean closer, Little Serge…”

He did.

“You have to go to L.A.”

“What?”

Sergio began snoring.

Chi-Chi woke up and came over from his chair by the door. “How’s he doing?”

“Sleeping.”

“Did you talk?”

“Yeah, but he was rambling at the end.”

“At least you got to talk.”

Serge’s butt was numb. He shifted weight in the chair. Chi-Chi put a hand on his back. “Serge, you look like shit. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

“No. I have to stay.”

“I talked to the doctors,” said Chi-Chi. “Completely stable. But he needs his rest. So do you.”

Serge shook his head. “What if something happens? He’ll be alone…I can’t imagine anything worse.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” said Chi-Chi. “I’m heading back to the HoJo. Why don’t you come with me, just for a few hours?”

Noon. A rejuvenated Serge walked briskly down the hospital hallway, breaking into a trot. He reached the door of room 23. “What the—?”

A nurse walked by with patient files. Serge grabbed her by the arm. “Who’s that woman? What’s she doing in my grandfather’s bed?”

The nurse checked the chart on the door. “That’s her room.”

“Where’s my grandfather?”

Another nurse heard them and came over. “Were you related to Mr. Storms?”

“Were?”

A secretary’s voice in the lobby: “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just barge in there!…”

The door flew open.

Ian looked up from a desk drawer. “Who are you?”

“Ford Oelman.”

“Who?”

“I was just in here the other day.”

Mel squinted at Ford’s face. “Uh, sure, right…”

“You don’t remember me?”

“Of course we do,” said Ian.

“But we see a lot of people.”

“What were we talking about again?”

“My screenplay,” said Ford. “The oil scam in Alabama.”

“Did we like it?” asked Ian.

“No. You said you couldn’t use it.”

“I see,” said Mel. “Well, don’t get discouraged. It’s a crazy business. Just keep up the good work.”

“But right now we have some other matters…” said Ian.

“…So if you don’t mind,” said Mel.

“You started shooting it,” said Ford.

“We have to—…What?”

“You’re filming my movie,” said Ford. “I just came from the soundstage.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

“They got the oil derrick and the limo and the old guys, just like I wrote.”

“Which stage?”

“Fourteen.”

Ian leaned and pressed a button on the intercom. “Betty, could you bring in the shooting schedule for Fourteen.”

“We’ll straighten this out,” said Mel.

Betty came in and handed Ian a pack of stapled pages with grids. He flipped through and stopped near the end. “Here we are. Yeah, you’re right. Oil scam movie. But says here it was written by this guy over in Warsaw. You know, the one who did that Altmanesque comedy on Pol Pot. Very dark. Didn’t do well here.” Ian turned the page around to show Ford. “See? There’s the writing credit.”

“That’s so like this business,” Mel added with a chuckle. “Ten thousand screenwriters in this town and we have to go to Poland—”

“He didn’t write it,” said Ford.

“I just showed you the page. Weren’t you paying attention?”

“You’re shooting my fucking movie over there!” yelled Ford. “That was my big break and you just stole it!”

Mel picked up the phone. “I’m calling security.”

“Wait a second,” Ian told his brother. “I think I can handle this.” He got up and walked over to Ford, putting an arm around his shoulders. “I understand how you feel. A totally normal reaction. But I’ve seen this same kind of thing a million times.”

Mel joined them and put an arm around Ford’s shoulders from the other side. “He’s right. It’s not your fault. I’d be angry, too, until I understood what was going on.”

“There are only so many ideas out there,” said Ian. “And only so many variations on those ideas. Virtually everything bears at least a vague resemblance to something else.”

“It isn’t vague,” said Ford. “It’s my exact script.”

“Look, I don’t want to say you’re imagining things,” said Ian.

“I’m not,” said Ford. “It was based on a true story. That’s how I know.”

“True story?” said Mel. “Were you involved?”

Ford was suddenly flustered. “W-w-what do you mean?”

“Look at that treacherous peach face,” said Ian. “Definitely a con man. Probably originally wrote the script for the real oil scam.”

Ford lost color.

The brothers broke up laughing. Ian made a dismissive wave. “Must have read it in the papers.”

“Uh…yeah,” said Ford. “That’s right. I read it in the newspaper.”

“There you go,” said Ian. “Someone else must have read the same articles.”

“You don’t have a copyright on the papers, do you?” said Mel, laughing again.

“People are always complaining that we’ve ripped off their stories,” said Mel.

“Normally we sic our lawyers on them,” said Ian.

“But you’re family,” said Mel, squeezing Ford’s shoulder. “We’ve heard great things about what you’re doing in props.”

“You have?”

“I’m speaking hypothetically.”

“But it really is my movie,” said Ford. “You have to believe me.”

“I believe you wrote a great screenplay. But you have to start accepting that it’s just a coincidence. I know it’s hard for a writer. In your mind, remote similarities become huge, overarching plot duplications.”

“Someone just retyped it,” said Ford.

“That’s exactly what they all say.”

“But we like you, kid,” said Mel. “So we’re going to forget your little outburst. A harmless misunderstanding.”

“You’ll forget?”

Ian squeezed his shoulder again. “That’s right, we forgive you.”

“No need to thank us,” said Mel. “It’s just the kind of guys we are.”

Ian began walking him to the door. “Now, we really do need to be going. Get back over to props and keep doing that special Ford thing that we haven’t been hearing much about.”

Ford left the office in a daze. The door closed.

Desk drawers opened.

“You’d think he’d be happy seeing his work on the big screen,” said Mel.

Another commotion in the lobby. The secretary’s voice again: “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just go in there!…”

“Shit, he’s back!” Ian closed his drawer.

The door opened. Six bulky Japanese men entered.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Mel.

Betty came in behind. “I tried to stop them.”

“It’s okay,” said Ian. “You can go now.”

Betty closed the door. The brothers were already rushing around their desks to pull chairs over from the wall.

“I didn’t hear anything about you coming for a visit,” said Mel. “You should have called.”

“We were in the neighborhood.”

The brothers dragged the last chairs into place. Some of the men had digits missing. Ian and Mel went back behind their desks. Everyone sat. Except one. He remained standing by the door. The more Ian and Mel tried not to look at his face, the more they found themselves looking. That was the desired effect.

Ian’s eyes returned to their leader, sitting in the closest chair. “What do we owe the pleasure?”

The leader had heavy acne scarring. He lit a filterless cigarette and pinched it between his thumb and index finger. “Should we be worried?”

“About what?” asked Mel.

The man answered by using the floor as an ashtray.

“Oh,
All That Glitters
?” said Ian. “No, everything’s under control.”

The Glicks tried to hide their trembling. They’d been introduced a couple of times in Japan: the leader, Mr. Yokamura, and his lieutenants, Mr. Takita, Mr. Bushijo and Mr. Komodo. But inside the Glicks’ heads, the names sounded like this: “Blah, blah, blah.” The quartet was usually in the background when they met the top Vistamax executives in Osaka. The executives said the men were investors. And they made the executives nervous, too. Then there was the guy by the door. A whole different level. And dammit if the Glicks weren’t looking at his face again! But how could you not? It wasn’t just the full facial tattoo, but the design. A life-size human skull. When the brothers were in Japan, they’d heard the whispers. Torture, execution, soulless. One story had a five-man hit team sent to take him out, and the next morning a rival gangster found five severed heads on his hat rack. No more hit teams were sent. They called him “The Tat.” But not to that face.

Mr. Yokamura flicked his cigarette on the floor again and cleared his throat.

The brothers were staring at the tattoo again. Shit.

“Uh, yeah,” said Mel, shifting his eyes. “As a matter of fact, the movie couldn’t be doing better.”

“You should see the rushes,” said Ian.

The man stood and crushed out his cigarette with a pointy shoe. “Then I must be speaking to people who are mistaken.” He headed for the door, and the others followed. “Please keep me informed.”

“Absolutely,” Ian yelled after him. “What about lunch? You already got a hotel? If you need anything…”

But they were already gone.

Late morning. Already too hot.

A large rectangular hole was cut in the manicured lawn. A priest stood at one end. Thirty folding chairs at the other. The chairs were empty except for four people in the front row.

“I wasn’t there,” said Serge.

“You can’t keep beating yourself up,” said Chi-Chi.

Altamonte Springs Memorial Gardens was wedged in the newly developed, high-traffic retail district on Semoran Boulevard. The dew burning off the grass made it extra humid.

“I don’t like this cemetery,” said Serge.

“What’s not to like?” said Coltrane, wiping his forehead with an already drenched handkerchief. “It’s practically new.”

“Shhhh!” whispered Chi-Chi. “The priest is starting.”

“Dearly beloved…”

“New is the problem,” said Serge. “No headstones. Just brass plaques flush to the ground, plastic flowers. I was going to get a big monument.”

“This is what he wanted,” whispered Coltrane. “Picked it out himself when he was visiting Lou. Her grave’s right over there.”

“God is with us…”

Serge looked to the side. “We’re next to an ABC store.”

“You’re distracting the priest,” snipped Chi-Chi.

“…Although Sergio may not have been a great man…”

“Did I just hear right?” said Serge.

“He was the priest on call,” said Chi-Chi. “We did our best.”

“…I understand from his friends that he was far from a failure…”

“What the hell?”

“Quiet,” said Chi-Chi. “He’ll hear you.”

“…He did his best trying to help raise his grandson, who I understand is with us here today”
—the priest glanced down at a piece of paper—
“Sare-gay…”

Serge’s face fell in his hands.

“Easy,” said Chi-Chi. “A lot of people mispronounce that.”

The priest left. The four men continued sitting silently.

Chi-Chi finally turned. “You going to be okay?”

Serge nodded.

“You took a big chance coming here today,” said Chi-Chi. “Lots of warrants out.”

“There’s no way I wasn’t coming.”

“He’d be proud of you.”

Across the street from the cemetery, a white sedan sat at the curb. Extra antennas, blackwall tires. Two men in dark suits and thin, dark ties held binoculars.

“He took a big chance coming here today.”

“I knew he’d come. There’s no way he’d miss it.”

“We ready to move?”

“Not yet. Wait till the civilians leave, in case there’s trouble…How’s our backup?”

The second man grabbed a microphone. “Unit two. Status.”

On the far side of the cemetery, two workers in green overalls raked leaves. They had flesh-colored wires running into their left ears. One furtively raised a wrist to his mouth.

The man in the white sedan put down the mike. “Backup’s ready.”

“Okay, this might be it,” said his partner. “The two old guys are getting up…Stand by…”

Binoculars focused on a pair of hunched, white-haired men slowly making their way with canes. “Tell unit two: Wait for my command. I want to make sure they’re clear of any fire lines.”

The binoculars followed the old men down a footpath and out the cemetery’s western gate. The binoculars swung back to the grave. Two guys in bright floral shirts started getting up.

“Now!”

Men in green overalls dropped their rakes and sprinted across the grass. The sedan’s doors flew open, its passengers converging from the opposite directions with guns drawn.

“Freeze!”

They did.

The men in the suits ran to the gravesite. The first one pulled up short. “What the hell’s going on?” His partner yanked dark wigs off Chi-Chi and Coltrane.

A ’71 Buick Riviera raced past the Sea World exit on I-4. Coleman threw his cane and white wig in the backseat, on top of Serge’s. “Where’d Chi-Chi say to meet for the reception?”

“The Boo.”

Coleman cracked a Schlitz. “I love the Boo.”

Ford was at his kitchen table with the yellow pages, alphabetically crossing off names in the bulging local section for entertainment attorneys. Twenty calls already and no luck. The conversations always started out promisingly enough, lawyers asking identical questions. Yes, friends had seen the script. Yes, he could verify it was long before production started. Yes, he could prove he submitted it to the studio. Then he mentioned Vistamax or the Glicks and that was it. Most strongly advised him to drop it; others just hung up.