The Ticket Out (21 page)

“Okay, okay, sheesh! Greta was friends with a professor, a real tombstone in Culture Studies named C. Margaret Kerr.”

“Jesus, not her.”

Catherine Kerr was a condescending, contentious, pain-in-the-ass film expert. I'd tangled with her on panels, and dreaded her letters to the editor. All the critics dreaded them.

“Aha, you obviously know C. Margaret. Well, I spied C. Margaret and C. Greta eating pancakes together. They were having a, shall we say, difference of opinion, and C. Greta stomped out in a huff.”

“You said you hadn't seen Greta since school. Why didn't you tell me this before?”

“Let's see, why
didn't
I tell you before? Could it be that I forgot? Or could it be that Ms. Kerr, who I've spoken to maybe twice in my life, called me after the tragedy? Could it be that she
begged
me not to say anything about The Fight At Farmer's Market, which she claimed was just a teeny-weeny contretemps that wouldn't interest the El Lay PD? Now that my conscience is clear, I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Have a gas—ciao.”

Proft hung up. I made a couple of quick calls, to Information, then to Kerr at home. I caught her coming in from classes. She was hard work, even just to arrange an interview. I did learn that she hadn't seen Neil John Phillips in years. But I couldn't follow the directions for getting to her place. To curtail the conversation, I said I'd find it myself.

Kerr lived in a pain-in-the-ass part of town, of course. I sat in the car outside Phillips's place and studied the map. Mount Washington was over the freeways from Los Feliz; it was a long trip by surface streets. I took off headed north, and cut over to Western. I was on Western, almost at Los Feliz, when the phone rang.

I picked it up, thinking it must be Lockwood. But an unfamiliar voice said, “Miss Whitehead?”

“Yes?”

“This is Officer Garcia speaking, up at the house. There is a dispute in progress here. We believe it involves members of your family—”

“I'm coming, thanks.”

I dropped the phone and stepped on the gas. I was only two minutes away. Traffic wasn't bad, and I pushed it past fifty, screeching the left turn onto my street.

A red car was sitting in the drive. I could see it from down the block—a red Ford economy car. When Father was flush, he rented monster Lincolns. The puny set of wheels showed that he'd hit a record low.

I got closer. The driver's-side door was standing wide open. Father had his back to me, bent over. He was straining with something. He was pulling a heavy object out of the front seat—

My sister.

I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. Father was roaring. His face was purple and he had a glazed look I knew from experience: his liquid-lunch look.

Sis was hugging the steering wheel with both arms. Father leaned back on his heels and yanked hard. His Stetson flew off. Sis gave in; she let go of the wheel and fell out of the seat.

I sprinted up the driveway, shouting. Sis spread-eagled facedown on the pavement. Father had her wrists and was dragging her away from the car. The cement scraped her bare skin bloody.

I took a leap and plowed straight into Father. His knees buckled. I smashed him on the back with my fists. He staggered sideways and let Sis go.

He roared my name, swung around, and looped a punch at me. I ducked and shoved him into the car. He thudded off the driver's side and fell on his hands and knees.

I stooped to help Sis up. She was sobbing; her whole body heaved and shook. I was shaking, too. I helped her through the driveway gate and slammed it behind us. Blood was dripping off her.

She leaned against me, wiping her eyes and catching her breath. She tried to say something, tried again, and couldn't manage. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to go with them—put Father to bed and talk this out.

Father yelled,
“I'm leaving now!”

We watched him crawl into the front seat and start the car. He floored the gas, revved the engine, and honked the horn simultaneously. Sis turned toward the gate.

I grabbed her: “Don't go!”

She pulled away with more strength than she used against Father. She wouldn't look at me.

Father blasted the horn again. Sis unlatched the gate and ran. Father's Stetson had rolled into a flower bed. She picked it up, ran around the car, and climbed in the passenger seat.

Father jammed the car into reverse and shot out of the driveway. I ran out the gate waving my arms, but Sis refused to look up. She was brushing the dirt off Father's hat.

 

T
HE TRIP
over to Catherine Kerr's gave me time to calm down.

Whitehead cardinal rule: no matter how blitzed Father was, he always drove. Sis and I used to joke about the family's designated driver, and arranged cars so that we never relied on him at night. But this was afternoon, and I'd only seen him that drunk this early in the weeks after our mother died. He might be drinking like that now, I didn't know. But Sis got stuck riding with him and probably got scared; which was why she'd tried to break the cardinal rule.

After that scene maybe she'd listen to me.

I called her machine from the car phone. I reviewed our mutual past and reminded her that predinner drinking was a bad sign with Father. I said he was out of control. She had to stay away from him—and she absolutely had to cancel the San Andreas trip, if it was still happening. I made every argument I could think of until her machine switched off. I called back and went over the same territory again. Every time the machine beeped off, I called back. I filled ten minutes of tape, hoping that it would do some good. Sis had gotten used to life with no violence; she'd told me so herself. I hoped today had been a lesson to her. Father was never going to change.

Mount Washington was a hilly old neighborhood east of Los Feliz. The roads were overgrown and badly marked but I found Kerr's address with only one wrong turn. It was a shingled Craftsman house tucked up under the eucalyptus trees.

I parked the car and climbed a rickety set of stairs to the veranda. The wooden railing creaked. A voice called, “It's open!”

I walked into the living room. Catherine Kerr was spread out on a couch, reading a book. She said, “Is that blood on your shirt?”

I looked down. Sis had left a red smear on me. I said, “I must have cut myself thinking.”

Kerr went, “Ha-ha.”

She was somewhere around fifty, and absolutely humorless. Ethnic dresses and folk jewelry were her trademark. She also chainsmoked cigarillos; she had one going now.

She pointed me to a chair. I sat down and glanced around. Her place looked like I'd expected: books, books, books, videos, papers, more books. Books were stacked in piles on the floor, and she had two computers set up on a long table.

I said, “What were you and Greta Stenholm fighting about at Farmer's Market two weekends ago?”

Kerr's hand froze by her mouth. “Penny Proft, that cow. Has she told the police?”

“I don't know. But I will, if you don't tell me what the fight was about.”

Kerr sucked on her cigarillo and shrugged at me. “It was nothing. I would have come forward, but I didn't want to get embroiled with the police for no productive reason.”

Her tone was way too casual. I shook my head. “Try again.”

Kerr sighed. “All right, Greta called me that morning. She wanted to get together, so I proposed breakfast.”

“How often did you see her?”

“That was the first time in months. We'd been in regular contact since SC but had fallen out of touch because she was working on a new screenplay.”

I said, “GB
Dreams Big.
What do you know about it?”

Kerr stubbed out her cigarillo; she never finished one before she started the next. “It was a period drama, set in wartime Los Angeles. That's all Greta would say except that she wanted it to be a wide-screen adventure story told from a feminist perspective. When I saw her that morning, she said she'd sold it for a lot of money.”

“To who? Was it Universal, Paramount, or Columbia?” I named the three studios run by women.

Kerr shook her head and fished around for another cigarillo. “Greta wouldn't say until the deal closed. She didn't want to jinx it.”

I said, “So what about the fight?”

Kerr took an age, putting the cigarillo in her mouth, striking the match, lighting the cigarillo, tossing the match into the ashtray, setting the matchbook down. I'd never seen her stall a conversation before.

She exhaled smoke and watched it float away. Finally she said, “It was a Saturday morning that Greta called. We met at Farmer's Market and she told me that someone had broken into her car the night before.”

“Did she know who did it?”

Kerr shook her head. “She said she didn't, but I had the distinct impression she suspected someone. She didn't report the incident to the police even though her clothes were taken and they ransacked the glove compartment. I found that peculiar.”

“But you have no idea who she suspected, or why, or what they were looking for?”

“None.”

“Did Greta tell you that someone broke into her apartment last winter?”

Kerr shook her head. There was a pause. I waited. Kerr acted like she had nothing to add.

I said one more time, “And the fight?”

“Oh, all right, damn it. Greta had no clothes, no money, and no place to live. I wanted her to move in with me, but she refused. She wouldn't accept a loan or even come here to clean up.”

“And you fought why? Because she refused your help? Did she have other offers?”

Kerr turned to gaze out the front window. I said,
“Why
wouldn't Greta stay with you?”

She ignored the question.

I stood up and blocked the window.
“Why
wouldn't Greta—?” Kerr burst out: “Because she wasn't being reasonable! She was jittery and distracted, she could barely sustain a conversation! It was because of her studio deal! The lawyers were finalizing details, and the process was driving her crazy!”

I sat back down. Kerr ground out her cigarillo and showed me the book on her lap. It was the first volume of English director Michael Powell's autobiography, A
Life in Movies.

She opened it. “Listen to what Powell says.”

“‘I am speaking in 1986 about talkies that I was directing in 1931. Fifty-five years—a long time in movies? Perhaps. But it is certainly a long time in art. The Impressionist movement, the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the Romantic movement, came and went in less than fifty years. But in the movies, nothing has changed. People go into films in this day and age to make money. And so long as money is the only yardstick, there will be no advance in any art. There will only be the surge of the wave on the pebbles on the shore, which sounds very impressive, until you realize the tide is going out.'”

Kerr stopped reading and shut the book. “Has it occurred to you that you don't have a future?”

I laughed. “You're changing the—”

“You can laugh, but look at reality. The era of serious film criticism for a general readership is dead. It was a historical phenomenon of short duration, linked to the rise and fall of a thriving counterculture and the cinema that came out of it. Nobody cares about the meaning of movies anymore. Nobody wants reasoned negativity. Thumbs up/thumbs down—that's film criticism now. Industry buzz, per-screen gross, celebrity profiles—that's how movies are discussed today. Review space shrinks while the Tom Hanks story runs ten thousand words and business experts analyze the demographics of the summer blockbuster audience. Critics are losing their jobs as media chains consolidate, and soon the only people left will be cheerleaders and junketeers.”

I said, “You forgot quote whores.”

“That's how low your profession has sunk. Studios send a choice of quotes to an unaffiliated critic, and ask them to sign their name to one for the ad campaign. The studios like corrupt critics—they'll manufacture one if they have to. And the independents are almost as bad. You're supposed to applaud them just for being independent, which means what anymore? Chiefly, it means nonstudio financed, not ideologically or artistically different from mainstream values. The movies don't want you and they don't need you. So where do you go from here?”

I would not be sidetracked. I said in an extremely slow voice, “Why-did-Greta-Stenholm-refuse-your-help?”

Kerr slapped the Michael Powell book. “Greta wanted to take
you
to Hollywood!”

I said, “What?”

“She sold
GB Dreams Big,
and it convinced her that Hollywood was ready for what she had to say!”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“Greta was going to ask you to quit the
Millennium
and sign on with
GB Dreams Big.
She wanted to storm Hollywood, and she wanted
you
to come with her!”

I
COULD NOT
make Kerr connect the dots. Greta refused Kerr's help because she wanted to take
me
to Hollywood? It didn't make sense; a logical step was missing. But Kerr wouldn't explain it. I finally called her a liar, and she kicked me out of the house.

I knew Kerr was lying. If Greta wanted to take me to Hollywood, why didn't she mention it at Barry's party? I remembered our conversation word for word. Greta didn't say a thing about teaming up. She wanted me to review her movie when it got made. And she definitely said, “I will beat the System.” Not
“We
will beat the System,”
“I
will beat the System.”

After Kerr, I dropped by Los Feliz to change shirts and check the answering machine. I still hadn't heard from Lockwood, but I didn't have voice mail on my car phone and thought he might've tried me at home. He hadn't. There was an old message from Sis. She asked if she and Father could drop by after lunch, and asked again why Lockwood had interviewed them. And there were six new messages from Barry. Each one was nastier and more profane than the last. “Where are you?” turned into
“Where are you?! What the fuck are you doing?!”
The final message was a threat:
“Call me, or else I'll pull your assignments and put you back on reviews.”