Tinseltown Riff (18 page)

Ray went over to the gaming table, pushed a button, reached into a drawer, snatched out a business card, scribbled something on the back and shoved it in Deke's jacket pocket. “At first I thought Angelique's ditsy cards tipped our hand. But I just heard it's only the two and they're accounted for. I got all the rest here she had printed. Nothing on the street, so what am I missing here?”

As his mirror-blue goggles faced Deke dead on, Deke wanted to ask, What am
I
missing here, you mean? But he knew better. Ray would get even more frazzled and start running off at the mouth again.  

“So listen up,” Ray went on. “You are getting on your horse back to the Prado, get the jacket pressed and ditch the tux shirt. I got word a silky purple T-shirt is the next thing. ‘Cause if the tux shirt is in yesterday, as any dummy knows, it's on it's way out today. There's a shop around the corner, next to the Vegan boutique, open till seven. They'll fix you up.”

Deke was about to tell Ray where he could shove his purple T-shirt, but let it pass.

“Anyways, when you're set, look in on this.” Ray patted Deke's pocket. “Since timing and looks is all, this'll lead you to the hole which you will frickin' plug!”

Deke realized that in the warped movie in Ray's mind, Deke was once again some kind of janitor. No matter how many bonehead moves he'd made, Ray figured he could always hang back, let Deke mop it up so Ray could wipe the slate clean. That's how far gone he was.                                                                                                                         

“Keep in touch,” said Ray, patting him on the shoulder. “Nine gets you ten the Mexicans will bunch up. They got to move, can't just let her keep it. I tell you, it is goin' down.”

Deke was dying to know, Let who keep what? But before he could figure how to say it without tipping his hand, Ray was putting the finishing touches on his daydream.

“Now when you check in with me,” Ray said, “no longer than sixty seconds. After that call to Angelique which I deleted, you never know what bugs the Feds are using nowadays. I am talkin' tonight, no later, you read me? I am talkin' everything and everybody back where they belong. I am talkin' frickin'
pronto
.”                                                                                                       

Ray returned to the gaming table, banked some dice against the side walls and watched them bounce. He threw the dice harder and started mumbling to himself. “Can you beat it? You slip outta Sin City, play it close to the vest and for no reason it unravels on you. Twice. And now what? I got accounts frozen ... dicksters horning-in ... just ‘cause I got vision. Where's the justice?”

“Why tonight ?” said Deke.                                                                                      

“Read the message on the card and do what I say. She's got to unload, I tell you. If it don't move, it dies.”

Again it was a
she
. Deke eased out into the glare of the sun porch, his exit punctuated by another screech on the electric guitar. .

Angelique was in the pool now, tossing her head back, trying for another sexy pose. As he strolled by, she splashed his trouser legs. “What's the verdict? Good to go?”

“Just about.”                                                                                                                   

“And what about my business cards?”

“No problem.”

“Awesome.”

Deke kept walking toward the gate.

“Aren't you even gonna offer me a fresh cigarette?”

“Don't smoke,” said Deke flipping the latch.

“Then what's with the little wooden matches?”

“You never know.” Before Deke closed the gate behind him, he asked who she'd given the cards to and why? Her only answer was that she wanted this writer, this Ben guy to be impressed and start letting the word out that Angelique was back on top.

Deke left her and walked past the gate.

“And what's with the slick briefcase?” Angelique called after him. “You get a present and I get knocked around? Terrific!”

She jumped out of the pool, trailed after him and pulled him back. She claimed she was the brains behind this new venture and insisted on his cell phone number. With nothing to lose, Deke gave her the number and resumed his retreat down the winding drive. Scanning the possibilities, and as near as he could figure, the deal came down to what Walt called “financial resources hittin' a snag.”                                                                                        

Appreciating the long cool shadows toning everything down, Deke knew there was only one thing for it: getting there first, laying his hands on those resources. And leave them all to yak themselves to death.                                                                                                                                      

He slid behind the wheel of the beige Ford rental, made sure there was nobody coming by, and unlatched the case. Predictably, the “insurance” courtesy of Ray was in a leather pouch. He slid out the silvery Walther PPK/S: light, slim, the best palm pistol bar none. He checked the safeties, injected one of the three 8-shot clips and tossed the piece from hand to hand. It had been a long while.

Flipping through the notepads, pens and all, he unzipped one of the hidden binders and spotted the belt slide. In this one particular instance, Ray had thought of everything.

Just before heading back to the Prado, Deke pulled out the pink calling card from his jacket pocket. Unlike Ray's usual bullshit, the scrawled message on the back was clear: “Check out this address. Find Angelique's double.”

 
 

Chapter Eighteen
 

 

 

At a loss, Ben stepped back from the easel. As a rule, when people would ask him what he did for a living, he would say he was, more or less, a screenwriter: an idea man, if you will; a fix-it guy, a quick sketch artist. When that didn't do the trick, he would simply add that he was a team player, on call, ready to help out for the next project--TV show, commercial or whatever.    

But here he was as late afternoon wore down, on his own, staring at the first page of a set of formatted panels. Each panel poised over an empty slot for captions. Nine blank panels over nine blank slots per page, waiting to be sketched, noted and clipped together like an oversized comic book for Gillian's perusal. Only Ben didn't have a clue how to begin.

Ordinarily, by this time it would look like a rough set of camera shots. Still images that suggested moving images: an establishing long shot, say, then a close-up of a girl; then a montage leading the eye on and on as other figures came into the background; the expression on the girl's face changing; a medium shot of the girl running past, entering a barn, disappearing into the shadows until, following the brief captions, you just had to turn the page. And so it goes, hopefully, through the whole sequence.

But ordinarily this would only come about after a bunch of sessions with other writers, producers, production company spies, and some showrunner (if it was TV) put his or her two-cents in. Ben would then add his ideas to whoever came up with this project in the first place. And he was
then
told: “Hey, Ben, crank out a thumbnail sketch of what we got so far and let's see if it flies.”

In short, Ben had never been in this position before. In short, everything about it was strange.

Frustrated beyond belief, Ben grabbed a soft-lead pencil and kneaded eraser and sketched in the back of a female figure in overalls ascending a steep, curving drive. A stick figure of a male holding up a calling card came into view above her, along with the hood of a Jaguar in the background. Panel three found the girl clutching the card and backing away. In the next panel, through an opening in a gate a near-naked figure lay a short distance away by a pool. Panel five: a close-up of a ratty-looking male wearing goggles. Another close-up accenting the girl in bib overall's wide eyes and cupid-bow lips. Then aerial views in panels seven and eight as she turns and runs down the drive, ending with a medium shot of the back of a pickup driving away.

It wasn't great, it wasn't that promising but at least it was a start.

At another impasse, realizing he had to come up with a grabber before Gillian popped in, he snatched the binoculars out of the grocery basket, walked out of the writer's bungalow and looked around. He took in the long shadows glancing off the ficus trees and the café veranda and, turning around, eyed the hitching posts all the way down to the pitch of the livery stable roof. The temperature was cooling down, twilight coming on, and he was in that pressure zone where anything was grist for the mill.

He thought again of the maiden. True, her sleeping bag was gone, along with the food wrappers and Styrofoam cups. But he could swear he heard the drone of the old truck motor and the grinding of gears. Which could mean she'd circled past Lester's gate looking for a back entrance. Or already knew there was one and was just making sure. Possibly come to settle accounts with Ben, that is, if you took to heart her message on Iris' machine. Or came to hole up again tonight, or to keep hiding from Ray or someone.

“Simmer down,” Ben said to himself as he wheeled around and strolled over to the side of the café. “You are reaching, spinning your wheels.”

With nothing better to do, no further imagery coming to mind, he passed the café and worked his way up, through the moonwalk and the wide-leafed banana plants. Climbing atop the rickety remnants of a space pod, he balanced himself, adjusted the focus on the binoculars and peered all around. No back gate, no opening that he could see.

He kept going till he came upon the secluded Swiss chalet cottages, with their fairytale balconies fabricated for Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Or was it Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald?  He couldn't remember. Besides, it was locked-up tight like most everything else and he was still stuck with nine frames of a storyboard going nowhere with no reason to turn the page.

Returning to the bungalow, he switched off the overhead fans, cranked open the windows as wide as they would go and looked about.

Then he started berating himself. Nobody worked like this, hoping someone would show up and fuel his tale. As any of his cronies would tell you, when in doubt, do the tried and true: do a spin on a spin. Or appropriate anything he'd gleaned this morning from MTV or the stupid soap. Why fight it? In a pinch, who needs originality?

But the only lasting impression from that cursory stint at the gym was how much the maiden resembled the young Angelique. A factor Angelique had vaguely hinted at; a factor Gillian wanted shoehorned into the mix. Besides, why would a young woman who looked like Angelique be so drawn to this studio if there was no connection? Was it only to confront Ben directly and demand payback?

Though keenly aware he was mixing fact with fiction, and for want of a better option, Ben stuck with the maiden's possible storyboard plight.

Which still got him nowhere without a link to this back lot.                                                                                                                                             

But if he had one last ditch ploy it was always,
In a pinch
,
there's got to be something close at hand—open your eyes, use it.
 

Scanning the bungalow's interior, all there was were a few potted palms spent and drooping. The scarred Formica-top desk in the far corner was equally forlorn. The rattan couch occupying the center with its flowery seat cushions and the throw pillow on the coffee table only reminded him of the maiden and her need for some place to crash.  

At the same time, the cover of Dr. Seuss's
Oh, the Places You'll Go
sticking up from the shopping basket seemed to be baiting him. Telling him to get off it and keep moving. As in, “See the rainbow paths leading to the top? Pick one, you simp, any one and get on with it.”    

So it was back to the easel, another sheet, page two and he was at it again.

Second scene: the maiden sneaking into the studio ... into the bungalow ...  past the alcove; a jog forward and a shift into the kitchenette ... returning, checking out the fans overhead ...  the crank-out windows and jalousies facing the stunted orange trees.

Next sequence: locking herself in ... wolfing down doughnuts and coffee ...  curling up at the foot of the couch ...  then sneaking out again and taking off ...

But where? And why? Playing hide-and-go-seek for what reason? What's really at stake here?

Ben drew another blank.

He left the bungalow, turning the other way this time, past the hitching posts, raised planked sidewalks and the facades of a saloon, boarding house and general store. He hesitated by the barn doors of the livery stable, cut back around through the coarse chaparral and made his way behind the building.  He reached up and yanked on a rope attached to a pulley overhead in an attempt to scale a dumpster to gain a better vantage point. But he no sooner started to clamber and hoist himself up when the rope snapped, the huge shutters overhead smashed against the screened windows, sealing them shut.