The Ticket Out (2 page)

“I'd rather have a month off. You don't have to pay me.”

Barry shook his head.

“I could print a retraction for the video release.
‘Bridget Jones's Diary
—I laughed! I cried! See it!'”

Barry wasn't going to be moved. He crooked his finger and walked out of the alcove. I sighed, stood up, and followed him. He walked into the dining room and touched a younger guy on the back. The guy turned around.

Barry said, “Scott, this is Ann Whitehead, the writer I've assigned to your piece. Ann, this is Scott Dolgin.”

I said, “Hello.”

Dolgin smiled and looked past me. He said, “I'm a big fan of yours.” His eyes roamed over the crowd.

He was good-looking and probably my age, thirty-two or thirty-three. I remembered what Barry had said about his background. He'd been kicked out of film school and lost some studio jobs before he tried independent producing. His soul patch and Prada suit told me he aspired to the cutting edge. I really hoped he wasn't scum.

Barry said, “Give her your card, Scott. She'll call you tomorrow.”

Dolgin handed me a business card. His company was In-Casa Productions; the logo was an old-fashioned California bungalow and the office was in Culver City. Barry patted us both and walked out of the dining room. He headed back to the telephone.

I stuck the card in my pocket and waited for Dolgin to make his pitch. But Dolgin wasn't thinking about me. He was looking around the rooms, taking an inventory of the guests. I looked around, too.

The turnout was high for a weeknight. But the crowd wasn't as glamorous as I'd expected; it wasn't the famous people Barry had met in his anti-LAPD crusade. The famous people must have sent their personal assistants, I decided, or executives from their film companies, or midlevel studio contacts. Whoever they were, they couldn't dial a phone and get Scott Dolgin a producing gig. They could eat and drink for free, and maybe set up a few meetings.

Dolgin finished his survey of the guests. He said, “After you write your article, you should come to work for me. Critics don't create anything, you know. They're parasites—”

He stopped. Something in the foyer had caught his eye.

A tall blond had just walked in the front door. Her looks were striking, and so was her expression. It was the opposite of partylike: it was grim. She slipped past the woman checking invitations and crossed the foyer. She was carrying a beat-up duffel bag over her shoulder. As she scoped out the guests, she opened the hall closet and dumped the bag inside.

Dolgin took off in her direction, pushing through the crowd. The blond saw him coming but her expression didn't change.

Dolgin said something to her. She said something back and walked away. That didn't satisfy Dolgin. He followed her into the living room. Heads turned as she passed; she had that kind of looks. I saw a guy stop Dolgin for a talk. Dolgin didn't want to stop but his career instincts won. He shook the guy's hand and let the blond get away. She disappeared at the far end of the living room.

I realized I was hungry. I walked over to the buffet to see what they had. People stood two deep in front of the tables, and I had to wedge in. The group beside me had just seen a preview
of Training Day.
I served myself a spring roll and listened. They were raving about Denzel Washington's performance. They called him by his first name: “Denzel.” Someone asked if his character was based on Ray Perez, the crooked Rampart cop. Someone else had a crooked-cop script in development; they'd seen a working print of the movie months ago. Another person wondered how
Training Day
would do overseas; stories with blacks were a tough sell in foreign markets.

Barry saw me at the buffet and waved from the front hall. He had a new guy with him. I groaned inside, set my plate down, and walked out to them.

Barry said, “Ann, this is Jack Nevenson. Jack works for Len Ziskind at PPA. They're negotiating to sign Scott.”

Nevenson and I shook hands. This was interesting. Leonard Ziskind had left CAA to form his own management company. He'd caused a recent stink when he criticized the studios in
Variety.
He'd said that the star system wasn't working anymore, aesthetically or financially.

Barry was waiting for me to talk, so I said, “I'm anxious to see what Ziskind does. He's saying the right things.”

Nevenson smoothed his necktie; it had blue-and-white stripes. I knew they were Yale colors because Barry'd gone to Yale. Nevenson said, “Len is surrounding himself with very smart people.”

“Do you think smart people make the best artistic decisions?”

Nevenson was instantly offended. He looked at Barry and Barry frowned at me. I wanted to explain what I meant but Barry cut in. He said, “She'll call you about the Scott piece.”

He hustled Nevenson away, frowning at me behind Nevenson's back. I shrugged and turned, and saw Mark and Vivian at the bar. They must have just arrived. Mark waved and pointed toward the back of the house. Vivian made the strangling sign at her throat. I laughed and nodded. They picked up their drinks and we snuck around the edge of the crowd. We passed Barry in the back hall. He didn't see us. He was in the alcove again, dialing the telephone.

Back in the library it was quiet and cool. I opened the French doors for a breeze and a view of the swimming pool. I took my shoes off and stretched out on the floor.

Vivian said, “What a bunch of freaks.”

I said, “The guest of honor called me a parasite, and I insulted the guest of honor's future manager. I was beginning to think you guys wouldn't show up.”

Mark and Vivian were my closest friends at the paper. Vivian was a reporter and Mark was an encyclopedia of world cinema. He and I had a short affair when he was hired to run the film section. The attraction had been more about movies than sex; all his vitality, I discovered, was mental. But he'd taught me lots and we worked well together. I was a better critic because of him.

Vivian picked a spot against the wall and sat down. “It's the new DA. We're hearing rumors he's closing the Rampart investigation, but there's other rumors that he's impaneled a secret grand jury. I feel like I spend my life at city hall.”

Mark sat down beside me. He said, “I forgot to tell you—your sister was at the paper today.”

I said, “What for?”

“Your father arrived this morning. You're supposed to have dinner later in the week.”

I shut my eyes a second.
Father, damn.
My sister had mentioned a business trip, but I hadn't heard anything since and I was praying it wouldn't happen.

Vivian lifted her vodka. “To Barry's freaks. May they stay forever on the Westside.”

Mark lifted his beer and drank. I said, “I pitched him on the cop-groupies but he wasn't interested.”

Vivian said, “Then he's an idiot because they'd be a fun story. I've been talking to a registered nurse who has the Rampart logo tattooed in four places. Two pairs—think about it.”

Vivian lifted her eyebrows. I laughed. Mark said, “Tell Ann what else held you up.”

Vivian sighed. “First, I'm late at city hall. Then I get a tip on Doug Lockwood and go chasing over to Parker Center to check it out. He's back from suspension—excuse me,
leave
—and they've buried him somewhere until things cool off.”

Detective Douglas Lockwood was the cop in the Burger King siege. A Latin gangbanger took some people hostage and Lockwood, who was inside the restaurant at the time, shot and killed the kid. It was one of many second-tier police scandals.

Vivian said, “Lockwood's a mystery. He hardly talked to the media and it'd be a coup to get him on record. But I couldn't find out where they put him, and my usual sources are acting pissy. The LAPD's in a state, my god. The rank and file hate Chief Parks, they're drowning in internal audits and short on manpower, they're hamstrung. They can't go backwards, and they can't go forward either. It almost makes you feel sorry for them—almost.”

She poked at her ice cubes. Mark squeezed my shoulder. “Have you talked to Barry?”

I nodded. “If you can call it a talk. I resisted and he pretended not to notice.”

“And?”

“I'm in a different kind of trouble than I thought. He says my reviews have gotten bitchy, and he's not wrong.”

“But you don't like the Scott Dolgin story.”

I squinted at him. Mark said, “I know, it's terrible—but I want you to do it anyway.”

“What I really need is a break from movies. I'm going in tomorrow and demand a vacation.”

Mark pointed his beer bottle at me. “Don't.”

“But I'm burned out—I need a rest.”

Vivian said, “Don't do it, Ann.”

Mark nodded. “This is a bad time to leave the paper. Barry's in a mood, as we know, and I'm concerned because he's always been such a booster of yours, and now he's having problems with your stuff. I think we should do what he wants until he sees that this ‘mainstream' idea is nonsense.”

I said, “Which is why you're going along with Tom Cruise.”

“Which is why I'm going along with Tom Cruise.”

A knock at the door interrupted us. We all looked up: it was the grim blond from earlier. She stood in the doorway and she was staring straight at me. She said, “I want to speak to you.”

I sat up and patted the floor between me and Mark. The woman shook her head. “I want to speak to you
alone.”

Her manner was very bizarre. I looked at Vivian and Mark for an opinion. They just shrugged, so I got up and walked over to the door.

The woman backed into the hallway, signaling me to follow. Up close her looks were amazing. She was beautiful. She had green eyes, perfect skin, and ash-blond hair twisted up in a messy knot. She might have been an actress, but there was nothing selfconscious or artificial about her. She had a locked-down ferocity that suggested something else.

She said, “You can't give up.”

Her voice was low and gravelly; any actress would be thrilled to have that voice. I waited for her to go on.

She jabbed her finger in my chest. “You're ready to give up. But
I
didn't give up, and I won't let
you.”

I stepped back from the finger, noticing other details. Her clothes were too casual for the party: she wore a tight T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans. The hair around her face was damp, and her T-shirt had fresh water spots, like she'd just washed up in the powder room. But there was dirt under her fingernails and I could smell stale sweat.

She said,
“Thelma & Louise
is ten years old this year. Why didn't you write an anniversary article?”

“I_”

She grabbed my arm. “It's the most important movie Hollywood ever made about women! It took a subject no one wants to hear about—female freedom—stuck it in a traditionally male genre, the road movie, and hit big. It proved that the American public is ready for the truth about the condition of women,
if you present it entertainingly!”

She dug her nails in hard, and the emotion in her eyes was weird.
She
was weird. I pulled my arm free.

She said, “All we have these days is kicking feet and talking vaginas,
Lara Croft—Tomb Raider
or
What Women Want.
But
Thelma & Louise—”

I cut in on her. “Why don't you do a piece for us? It's a perfect time with Callie Khouri directing
Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
I can introduce you to my editor right now.”

“I'm not a critic—I'm a filmmaker. I've just sold a screenplay that starts where
Thelma & Louise
left off.”

I smiled. “They hit a trampoline in the Grand Canyon and bounce back alive?”

The woman was beyond humor. She said, “I'll send you a copy of the script when we close with the studio. I'm going to direct it.”

I caught a whiff of stale body. I said, “Really? Direct?”

She leaned close and clenched her fist in my face.
“I will beat the System.”

The body odor got more distinct, then she spun around and ran down the hall. I pinched my nose, waved the smell away, and walked back into the library.

Mark said, “She looks like a Swedish ingénue.”

Vivian nodded. “Fabulous collarbones. What's up?”

I rubbed the nail marks on my arm. “Just another unhappy reader. The consensus seems to be that I'm not doing my job.”

Mark smiled. I said, “We better get back.” Vivian shrugged and finished her drink.

The party was winding down out front. Most of the guests had left and waiters were taking dirty dishes to the kitchen. We split up at the foyer. Mark told me to call him tomorrow, and Vivian went to check the buffet.

Barry and Scott Dolgin stood at the front door saying good-bye to people. Barry had a mentorly arm around Dolgin's shoulder. A petite woman in a black pantsuit was trying to get Dolgin's attention. She pulled at his sleeve while he passed business cards to the people leaving. Barry waved for me to come and talk.

I pretended not to understand. I smiled, waved good night, turned around, and walked out of the foyer. Barry called my name. I ignored him and walked faster.

I hurried down the back hall toward the service stairs. There was a furnished office in the back corner of the mansion; it was for the film companies that rented the place. As I walked past the office, I saw the blond woman again. She was sitting at the desk, flipping through the Rolodex, talking to someone I couldn't see from the hallway.

The blond looked up and saw me walking by. I nodded at her. She didn't acknowledge the nod. She stared through me like we'd never met.

Too nuts, I thought, and kept walking. A few seconds later the blond raised her voice.
“In-Casa Productions is a farce and you know it!”

I heard that and started to laugh. It would have made a great lead for my Scott Dolgin story.