Voices in the Wardrobe (10 page)

The body of the article began with the fact that Mitch and Charlie were in San Diego for “supposedly” different reasons. She stopped there and put the paper down to pour herself more coffee and to find Kenny Cowper studying her.

“You didn't wake up to CNN, I take it.”

“No, but to messages I should have gotten yesterday, after I thought to recharge my cellular. Why?”

He handed her the front page of the
Union-Tribune
and she nearly choked on hot coffee.

“They blew up the Celebrity Pit?”

“We could have made front page but for that, Charlie, you and me.”

Most of the casualties were drunks, addicts, homeless who snuck into the enclosures around the closed-down colossus for shelter, privacy, and “street stuff.” Congdon and Morse Representation, Inc. was only a few blocks away. That's why Luella raced back to the office.

The meteoric rise and fall of the Celebrity Pit, due to the enormous expense of building and maintaining such a place that close to the real estate tax reality of Wilshire and Rodeo Drive, had been the talk of the world. There had been attempts afoot for several months to resurrect, restore, reconstitute the place just because of its outrageous theme and audacity and because in its way it was a tribute to Hollywood. It was a hit from the get-go—irreverent, stupid, and campy. It was fun. Reverent extremists consider unconcealed fun dangerous for the masses. Charlie loved it. “They bombed the Celebrity Pit.”

“Hey, tough agent lady,” Kenny reached for her hand over the small table holding the food and coffee, “innocent people died. And there was some major damage, but not much structural. Three bombs lobbed in from a pickup with a kludged backyard launcher—not dropped in the center from a plane or a nuclear missile from a ship at sea. Could have been worse.”

Built much like a coliseum, and inside laid out in circular tiers around a stage and an extravagant bar, the Pit was arranged so that all diners had a view of the open pit in the building's center and whatever entertainment was provided below on the stage or staged shenanigans at the bar. They were given a table and level number upon entering from the street and took an elevator to the proper level. The wait staff all resembled entertainment celebrities and some “looka-likes,” salted among the tables, would eventually go down to the stage and entertain. It was so much fun that real celebs enjoyed showing up on their own, often joining their imitators on the stage or staging bar fights at the “interactive” bar. Johnny Depp might be sitting at the next table. Or he might not.

The Pit had bouncers to keep the star-struck in hand and special hidden getaway exits for the famous. Too bad “Film Institutes” provided no such amenity.

Thirteen

“Two winners in consecutive years—men, early twenties, kidnap promoter of screenwriting contest when none of the advertised awards for winning—money, interviews with studio execs, and representation—materialize. They learn that they never do, but the great publicity of the contest draws so many submissions the promoter has grown rich on entry fees. They tie him to a chair, take turns reading aloud scripts stacked in unopened envelopes in his Tuff Shed, waking him with an electric shock when he falls asleep. Two weeks later they return him to his home, inert, incontinent, and incoherent. His family immediately dumps him in a nursing home—permanently. Kidnappers escape with hidden cash promoter tried to use to buy his freedom.”

The young man—early twenties—stood for a moment soaking up the silence in the crowded room behind him. Charlie guessed there to be a hundred fifty to two hundred people in here. He faced the panel of three agents, Keegan, and Dr. Howard. Behind them a screen showed the audience what the panel of judges saw.

The tables outside this conference room were piled with a plethora of screenwriting contest opportunities. Charlie wondered what had happened to all the unopened envelopes security took from her hallway and room last night. Did they end up in a Tuff Shed? Magazines for budding screenwriters devoted whole pages to listing these contests. The pitch had come with the title,
Just Crime
.

Charlie was the first to break the silence. “So what did the kidnappers use the stolen money for?”

“To start up their own contest.”

The other judges, even Keegan, were hard on this writer, Keegan admitting to having entered one of these contests, winning it, and never seeing any reward. But, he pontificated, it had been a good lesson. The other two agents and Dr. Howard were furious that anyone would suggest all such contests were out to swindle young hopefuls. Dr. Howard even offered, “What about the Sundance?”

“Which one?” The stalwart novice held his ground and his attitude.

As in most of the arts, entertainment, sports, modeling, publishing worlds more people make money on dreams than the “art” itself. It was no secret that the majority of voice trainers, writing, acting, locution, and dance instructors depended on “fees” from hopefuls who would never work in these dream fields. Charlie had always thought these classes added color to otherwise drab lives, until her daughter decided not to go to college next year.

But fees for contests that never paid the winners offered nothing and were well known in the industry's fringes. They just weren't dealt with, discussed. It was like special interests bribing congressmen and all the other injustices in this world that are too huge to get a handle on. You hope someone else will address the issue.

This young man's name was Brodie Caulfield. He was dangerous.

“As a pitch it needs work but I found the story idea intriguing and by the number of young faces gone suddenly pale out in the room behind you, I may not be alone,” Charlie told him and the room.

Each judge offered a spoken comment and then wrote on a numbered card with the sacrifice's name on it. Charlie had cringed when Dr. Howard called this “giving notes.”

Charlie wrote,
I'd like to see a treatment on this
and winked when she handed it to him.

Brodie was pretty much the bright spot of her afternoon, a long afternoon with a three-hour session. And only a twenty-minute break, during which Brodie slipped her an envelope and turned away to speak to nervous aspirants about the interesting mentality of the Hollywood fringe society. Charlie was earning her honorarium. Never again.

“They” bombed the Celebrity Pit, was her every other thought. How could all these people go on as if it hadn't happened?

And if she heard the words “segue,” “back story,” or “wrap” one more time she would throw up her late breakfast right there in front of the whole room. But she heard them and she didn't. Hollywood agents really are tough.

Her cellular had recharged overnight while she'd had a good night's sleep, and she'd returned calls from Libby, Luella, and Caroline VanZant, all of whom had been trying to contact her. Her room answering machine had refused to overdose on any more messages. Luella Ridgeway informed her there was no destruction at the office or the bank building in which C & M was housed. Some electricity and communications were out, but people still worked on laptops and by cellular. She could not leave now and come back to Maggie.

Charlie wondered if Mitch's new film would be jerked because distributors, theater companies, and customers might worry about a backlash from Muslim extremists.

“Nancy Drew meets J. Lo in outer space. And the universe will never be the same!”

Ohgod
.

Hang in there. You can do this.

“Roman gladiator travels forward in time and runs amok in sorority house. He …”

Time to pop a Pepto.

“Hallucinating stripper …”

Okay, let's look at it this way. There seems to be no swelling of emotional backlash in this room filled with such desperate hope. Maybe dear Brodie defused it with his own little bomb. We feel safer than we did last night in the hallway, don't we?

Libby's message had been, as it often was, mind blowing. “Mom, do not believe what you read. I am not pregnant. You are not going to be a grandma. Oh, that reminds me, Grandma wants you to call her. Mrs. Beesom OD'd on something but is fine and back from the emergency room. Jacob and I are taking care of her so I can't come to Maggie. Who the hell is Kenneth Cooper? You know how I hate to have my friends see your picture in the paper with some guy. You are my mother, don't forget. Oh, Kate came to clean up after Tuxedo and had a good talk with him. Gotta go, bye.”

Kate Gonzales, bless her every breath, cleaned their little house, and had more sense than half of Long Beach and all of Congdon and Morse Representation, Inc. Jacob Forney was the only male other than Tuxedo who occupied the four small homes connected by an inner courtyard and surrounding high stucco walls, gated from street in front and alley behind.

Caroline VanZant reported in, that Maggie Stutzman had finished another day with no medications, alcohol, fat, sugar, or tears. She had, however, removed the lid from the toilet tank and used it to smash the screen of the television inside the wardrobe. It would, of course, be charged to her account.

Charlie wondered if it was possible to overdose on Pepto Bismol. But hey, at least she wasn't a grandmother—where the hell did that come from? Libby didn't read newspapers or watch news on TV so how did she know about Kenny Cowper? Probably from Jacob Forney or Doug Esterhazie or his father, Ed, of Esterhazie Concrete fame, who was about to marry his third on Sunday. Charlie popped another little pink Pepto and wondered if she'd live to see Sunday.

“Hi, Jerry Parks with the
Union-Tribune
. We met at the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol the other day? Please don't run away this time. I'm investigating the murder there and understand—you sure don't look old enough to be a grandmother.” He'd caught her slipping out of the ladies' room in the lobby which was in a separate building from her room and the conference rooms.

“What is all this grandmother stuff?”

Kenny was just coming out of the gents next door. “Charlie, there's a private bar, not far if you want to sneak away. Monroe's there already. Said I'd bring you.”

“We'll have to kidnap him. He's press.”

“Give me your cell?” Kenny asked Jerry Parks pleasantly. “Don't want to miss the action, do you? Where's your photographer?”

“Who are you? What's my cell and photographer got to do with—”

“Guess he doesn't want to go with us, Charlie. I'm her bodyguard. Let's step into the men's and I'll block you into a stall so she can make a getaway. Real reporters don't pass up chances to get on the inside of a story.”

Jerry Parks went for his cell and Kenny grabbed it out of his hand before he could punch 911 or his photographer's number and handed it to Charlie. “You wanna hide this weapon somewhere in the ladies?”

“But that's against the law—you can't—”

By the time Charlie returned to the lobby after dropping the cellular weapon in the sanitary napkin bin's disposal slot, Jerry Parks had agreed that he'd rather go to the private party. But he squirmed when Kenny shoved him into a bright red car at the lobby door and they sped off to the Bahia close by.

“Photographer was in the parking lot,” Kenny explained.

Brodie Caulfield, driving, winked at her in the rear view mirror. “Lots of budding screenwriters were too. Word's out you drive a metallic blue Dodge Ram, Ms. Greene, and there's only one of those in the parking lot.”

“And it hasn't moved since you got here,” the reporter from the local paper said. “But you have.”

Kenny added, “Yeah, for somebody who doesn't want to get hassled, you sure know how to stand out.”

The patio bar at the Bahia was deserted but for their little grouping. Keegan had needed a break from the aspirants too. “I enjoy adulation, but there is something else in the conference air back there. It's a little scary.”

“Desperation.” Charlie ordered a margarita with salt and dug into the nachos somebody had ordered placed in the center of each of the two tables, shoved together.

Chorizo, pintos, corn kernels, melted cheese, chopped green chiles, black olives, raw tomatoes, green onion, leaf lettuce sliced into strips on corn chips with a lime, and pineapple and roasted-chile salsa. A welcome and delicious dinner, sadists would consider an appetizer. Charlie would need it. “How do I get my truck back? I have to go to Maggie at the Sea Spa. I want to try to kidnap her and bring her back to my room at the Islandia.”

Fourteen

“So who all is escaping, Jason North and the other shark? Sarah?”

“She's already here.” And Dr. Grant Howard was already looped. “In the ladies. The rest of the faculty, Jason and Morrie, are at the Islandia cocktail party where they should be and mingling with the attendees as we all should be. I was abducted by Mr. Monroe and Sarah. Why do you not wish to socialize with the students you came to teach? Who are paying good money for it too.” His voice deep and resonant, his diction dramatic, his thinning hair a comb-over dyed an innovative shade of dirty rust, his florid complexion deepening to rose when he felt thwarted.

“Not everybody feeds on desperation like you do, Doctor,” Brodie said. “You an MD, PhD, Masters in English lit or psychology? What? Veterinary medicine?”

“You know, I always wondered that too, Grant.” Sarah Newman returned to her chair and martini-up. It was that kind of day.

Grant Howard ignored the change of subject. “Have you no pity? Those desperate aspiring young talents are the future of Hollywood. We all have a responsibility here to encourage their endeavors in a very voracious and difficult field. I, for one, am proud of the Institute and all it stands for.”

“I kind of liked the hallucinating stripper, myself,” Kenny said, ignoring the subject too. “But then I'm not faculty.”

“Who are you exactly?” Jerry, the ferret, asked Kenny. “You seem to hang out with the big shots around here.”