Tinseltown Riff Read online

  Switching to the third channel he found a wide-eyed brunette who was starting up a band and was excited because they were “beginning to vibe” over her new song entitled I’m a little mixed up in my head.

  Refusing to give up, Ben scanned a dozen more channels until he came upon a young women apparently praying to herself as she scaled a rock wall on a show called Really Real replete with standard-issue types like a slutty girl, a sweet one and a racially ambiguous one.

  For relief, Ben glanced over at the soap the Amazon was glued to. All he could gather before the next instant break was that a jilted night nurse was stalking a doctor with a syringe.

  “Oh, give me a break,” Ben pleaded.

  Without missing a beat, the Amazon jerked her head and gave Ben a quizzical look.

  Shrugging, Ben wanted to tell her to hang in there because surely, no matter what venue Gillian had in mind, Ben could come up with something a lot less mindless. But he kept the thought to himself as she jerked her head right back to the soap, continued to pound away and gave the night nurse a thumbs up as she stuck the needle in.

  Finished with this cursory research, just as he was about to hit the cool-down button, Iris’ muscled forearm reached over and pressed the accelerator. With her beige jumpsuit and chopped hair pressing in on him, she shouted over the blaring speakers, “Go for it and then get with it. You’re due at the studio in forty minutes.”

  “No kidding,” said Ben, trying to sneak the speed indicator back down.

  “Come on, Benjamin, at least jog. Get in shape, shape rules. How many times I’ve told you?”

  “Too many.” Ben hit the stop button and hopped off.

  “Just looking out for you,” said Iris, grabbing a towel and wiping off the machine’s jutting handles.

  “You mean Leo,” said Ben, drifting over to the water-cooler.

  “You bet your ass. Guess what happens if this deal with Angelique tanks. Guess what your life’s gonna be worth.”

  Before Ben could answer, two nubile teens on the adjacent step machines and the grunting Amazon had all shifted their focus to Iris’ jabbing finger as if checking out a new reality show.

  Impervious to the scene she was making, Iris followed him to the men’s locker room door. “Hey, I’m talkin’ here. Don’t get dreamy on us, for God’s sake.”

  “Will you please, kindly, back off?”

  “No way. I am officially in Leo’s corner, Angelique’s coach and June’s proxy.”

  In what passed for a display of affection, Iris reached up, mussed Ben’s hair and tweaked his cheek.

  As he watched her stride off in that jaunty way of hers, Ben couldn’t help noticing the close-up on the nearest monitor. There again was the marked resemblance between the old Angelique and the maiden in the vintage pickup.

  As for Ben’s next and primary destination, for the most part the Avalon Studios were a well-kept secret. Only people in the business knew that somewhere south of the sprawling empire of Paramount/Viacom stood a miniature production facility down Van Ness and around a sleepy corner on Clinton. And few people recalled that in its heyday, as movies segued from silent to talkies, it was called Famous Studios. From there it went through name changes like Prudential Pictures and Allied Producers. Later on in the 1940s, it was known as Cimarron and, later still, the logo changes included Phoenix, Odyssey, Galaxy and a host of others until it settled in as a production facility rental.

  Remnants of the old days still littered the back lot, like the set pieces for an outer space TV series and what was left of a generic Western town. Recently, just before the latest failed venture, the three airplane-hanger-sized sound stages were employed for a yet another short-lived shopworn TV cop series; the selfsame show featuring a distracting sexpot “muchacha distraido” C.J. discredited for Leo’s edification. Ostensibly as a result of this fiasco and subsequent bankruptcy, the studio gate was now manned by a guy shaped like a beanpole with a goofy drawl to match. Ben expected a skeleton crew till the new operation got up to speed, but this was ridiculous.

  “Hold on,” said the beanpole as Ben jammed on the brakes just past the metal barricade.

  “Why? What’s the problem?” said Ben, switching off the engine.

  “Just hold on, is all. I’m Lester, who are you?”

  Ben sent the electric window sliding down and said, “Ben Prine. I’m expected.”

  Drawing closer, Lester’s flame-red hair glinted in the sunlight, his sliver of a face pale in comparison. Leaning down, Lester said, “Then maybe you can tell me what’s goin’ on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was supposed to be four of us. I report and find the other three opted for some theme park somewheres. And a little while ago, this Russian comes by and says not to worry, he’ll be right back. I mean, hell, how do I know who to let in? Am I supposed to man this whole thing by myself? And for how long? And who pays me? What is this, some kinda hustle?”

  Lester ran back to his glass-plated station, ducked inside and scampered out holding up an air rifle. “This is all I got. For guard duty and such.”

  Smirking and changing his tone, Lester added, “But hell, since this place has an old western set and all, which is the only reason I took the job ...” For emphasis, he peered through the front sight. “Pretty neat though, huh? Oak wood stock—butt and forearm. Blueing, steel cocking lever, gravity fed. Just like Steve McQueen ridin’ shotgun next to Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven. That old movie is my favorite.”

  Ben didn’t have the heart to tell him McQueen’s gun had a pump action. And he didn’t have the patience to put up with him a second longer. “I’ll take up your concerns with Leo. See you in a bit.”

  “Not so fast. You still ain’t told me who you are. And what, if anything, this new operation’s got goin’ for it?”

  “Desperation.”

  “Come again?”

  “The Russian has to make it work. He has no choice.”

  “Oh?” Lester cranked the lever of his air rifle, aimed at the flat rooftop of the nearest sound stage and said, “Okay, that’s more like it. Maybe I jumped the gun. Get it?”

  “Uh-huh. Where do I park?”

  “Just a sec.” Lester ambled back to his station and reappeared with a handful of printouts and notes. Shouting over to Ben, he said, “Office building’s locked. So is soundstage one and two, plus the screening rooms, editing, media, grip, electrical, hydraulic lifts, carpentry and set building, tank stage, café, plus—”

  “Then what is operational?”

  “Everything else I guess. Which don’t leave a helluva lot except soundstage three, writer’s bungalow, what’s left of the western town and—”

  “Never mind. I get it.” Ben put the Prelude in gear. Lester banged on the trunk.

  “One last thing,” said Lester, returning to Ben’s side. “Got this here note from some gal from Paramount.”

  “Gillian.”

  “That’s the one. Says for you to check it all out and she’ll give you the skinny during her break.”

  Ben drove on, passing the cylindrical office building and media center and the brace of main sound stages. Following his nose and his memory, he took a left and cruised down a narrow alleyway flanked by the tech support buildings and post production site and the vast sound stage two. He hung a right in front of the pink stucco café with its matching tile roof and open veranda; then parked in the shade of a stand of ficus trees whose multiple trunks bundled together like swollen tubes.

  There, in the stillness, he reminded himself if he was going to pull off this juggling act, if he was truly going to keep all the balls in the air, he’d have to make sure nothing got scrambled.

  Along these same lines, Ray from Vegas belonged in a completely separate box. So did the girl in the old truck and Leo’s one-big-happy-family promo.

  It was bad enough he knew next to nothing about crossovers streaming in cyber space. Or what they were currently throwing in the mix including any
thing Gillian may have in mind. His newfound accountant mindset not withstanding, as everyone had made abundantly clear, he had no recourse but to play it as it lays while avoiding any more deflections.

  Thus, following Gillian’s directive till she and Leo returned, Ben doubled back around the corner and walked up the tech alley to the side entrance of soundstage three. Inside the huge dimly lit cavern, he meandered in and out of the warren of police offices, holding cells, interrogation rooms and the like; each furnished with every detail down to the log book and roster sheet on the desk sergeant’s counter.

  He glanced up at the second tier of motel room facades, shabby interiors doubling as hideouts and stakeout blinds and a cutout of a sniper’s lair. Rimming the walls, encircling the entire cop world, he found fire-escapes, spiral staircases, spider-covered attics, back alleys and various clichés of Halloween Hollywood including a rusted wrought-iron gate encircling a number of open graves.

  Leaving the soundstage and returning to the locked café, he gave the back lot and the rest of the area a quick once-over. Diagonally across from the ficus trees and his parked car was the salmon-colored writer’s bungalow. Fanning out and away from the bungalow was a cut-rate moonwalk replete with craters, fragments of a shattered space ship and simulations of a windswept barren outcropping. Ruffled-leafed banana plants and rubber trees and a sea of palm fronds fought for purchase and were succeeding in their quest to conquer outer space.

  On the other side of the bungalow, in the opposite direction, he took in Lester’s beloved western town, complete with hitching posts, raised planked sidewalks, livery stable and corral. A cursory inspection revealed that all but the livery stable consisted of facades and partials that leaned up against a steel-mesh fence that enclosed the entire property. The western town, like the moonwalk, had lost the battle with the foliage with only a few dumpsters offering any resistance.

  But for no reason he was drawn to the livery stable. He told himself he was only killing some more time and would give this backdrop only a quick once-over.

  Lifting the heavy metal bar up and over, he pressed the warped flanking doors open a smidge and squeezed in. Again for no apparent reason, he checked out the dusty buckboard, harnesses, bridles and other gear hanging from the supporting posts, and the rickety wooden ladder propped up against a landing about thirty feet away.

  Ambling around, he noticed the huge oil drum sitting in a far corner under a hay loft filled with greasy rags redolent of motor oil and rancid gasoline. Dangling from a chain directly above the oil drum was a rusty motor, probably taken from the Model T sitting way over in the far corner.

  Moving left, he came upon a pit, partially obscured by the buckboard and filled with a pile of burlap grain sacks.

  Edging back, just out of curiosity, he climbed up the ladder and eyed the hay loft and a flimsy wooden door close by. He lifted the latch, entered a cramped piney room and took in the sagging cot and a wash stand serviced by a hand pump. After a half dozen tries, the crank only produced a trickle of rusty water. The only ventilation came from a slot in the wooden screens next to the cot. Twisting around, staring down from the landing onto the plank flooring, he spotted a half-dozen bales of hay wedged next to the grain pit.

  Climbing down the ladder, Ben muttered, “Grist for the mill, Benjamin. You never know.” But, then again, why had he studied all this so carefully? The cop world sound stage made some kind of sense but what did this livery stable have to do with something streetwise with backup while shaking off the denizens of the underworld—the kicker he’d tossed out to appease Angelique? What did the livery stable have to do with anything?

  Coming to his senses, he got out of there, closed the barn doors and clamped the metal bar in place. He had to quash these nagging, incessant omens if it killed him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A few moments later, heading back to the writer’s bungalow, he spotted Leo clambering out of a golf cart that had stalled by the café. By the time Ben reached him, he’d turned the ignition key a dozen times and assaulted the dead battery with some flavorful Russian invectives. Sporting the same California-black outfit he’d worn last night at the Polo Lounge, and with his bald pate shimmering in the sunlight, Leo curled his thick lips upward into a lopsided grin.

  “No worries, dude. All things not gold yet, is true, but my hand to God, becoming silver as we speak.”

  Before Ben had a chance to ask for a definition of “silver,” Leo spun him around, escorted him across the way to the writer’s bungalow and stopped short at the entrance.

  “To you, bungalow is neutral zone between outer space and old west, plus cop city and haunted house up tech alley.”

  Again, trying to get a word in edgewise, especially about the dubious use of the extra set pieces, got Ben nowhere. Pointing to the scrawny orange trees nearby, Leo said, “Like oasis beckoning to you, and what could be better? Nothing. I am right or I am right?”

  Leo carried on about how he had laid the groundwork, provided Ben with an easel in anticipation of his storyboard sketches leading to “what I am hawking to finance boys as tax shelter. Which Gillian is then right away pitching to production company right after you are providing the goods. I’m telling you, out of old ashes is rising ... Is rising what?”

  “The phoenix.”

  “Exactly. Beautiful, beautiful, is old name of studio in days of glory. Perfect. Whole package is gathering steam and before you can say long Slavic prayer, out of ashes is rising the Phoenix.”

  Finally cutting in, Ben pointed out the limited access to facilities and reduction of staff to a skeleton crew comprised of one clueless guy named Lester; a person whose dim prospects of getting paid would make anyone leery. On the face of it, it was hard to believe this Phoenix would see the light of day, never mind get off the ground.

  At this point, Leo totally lost it. Plucking handfuls of oranges the size of miniature billiard balls, Leo began hurling them at unseen enemies: through the wide-leafed banana plants, past the rubbery thickets and beyond to the ruptured space pods.

  “Oh, so now I must talk business with rinky-dink scraping-bottom-of-barrel writer? How money flows and is changing shapes is for his brain also? Funding, accounts in Budapest where bank lends you, no questions where collateral is from, also his business? Proceeds, wired clear of taxes, baking like bread in Bank of America too is for his brain? And no names behind numbers for preliminary expenses is also deadbeat scribbler’s business?”

  “Look,” said Ben, not understanding a word of it, “you tell me not to worry. You tell me it’s none of my business. You pepper me with financial double-talk. And all I ask is for some plain old reassurance.”

  Recovering, Leo quit hurling the oranges and shambled back to the golf cart. He fiddled with the key as if a couple more clicks would somehow revive the dead battery. Talking to himself and then to Ben, he finally said, “Is what I get for wheeling-dealing so everyone can enjoy the fruits? Is what I deserve?”

  A few deep sighs and Leo was back to being Leo again. He yanked out his cell phone, punched in a number and mumbled something incoherent that ended with, “One o’clock for sure. Yes, I am going. Yes, is okay, is all okay.”

  Leo smoothed the black strands of hair by his temples and returned to Ben’s side by the stunted orange trees.

  “Benjamin, for last time, who says hack must know how project is bankrolled? From where you get this idea, please?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “Answer please? Who is last to know, if ever?”

  “Yours truly, the hungry hack.”

  “Positively. When opportunity is knocking, who is answering and not looking gift horse in the mouth?”

  “A grateful, opportunistic hungry hack.”

  “Absolutely, positively. Make or break we are talking here. Make or break.” Pulling out a wad of bills, Leo shoved some money in Ben’s dress-shirt pocket. “So, to mover-and-shaker I am going now and you are minding your business for sure. With sealed lips, otherw
ise word gets out, everybody races, everybody loses. Is name of game in town, yes?”

  Though dying to ask, Word gets out about what? Ben let it go.

  Leo scribbled down his cell phone number and added it to Ben’s bulging shirt pocket. “At quarter-of-six you are calling. I will have answer and, hoping on lucky stars, drill for getting you this positively crackerjack job. Okeydoke?”

  Tired of fighting it, Ben gave him an, “Okay.”

  With nothing else to be said, for a time both of them fell silent. As if to make up for yesterday’s agitated Santa Ana, the air remained dry and still, the sky the clearest blue. As a bonus, the incessant traffic noises stayed far off in the distance, except for a lazy drone like a homing device seeking the two of them out.

  At the same time, Ben realized his post-Labor-Day resolve had slipped another notch. If everything would only keep still for a minute, he could conceivably pull this off.

  Just then, Gillian appeared astride a second golf cart like a model on a parade float. Today’s outfit was a lavender satiny-pants-suit, fitted to her slender form; the top lacey and open at the neck. The chestnut do was, as ever, lacquered down framing her oval face. The translucent nail polish and lip gloss shimmered; the three-inch heels on her side-less, backless, slippers a perfect match. She was so poised, there was no indication that here was an employee from Paramount/Viacom about to rush back from her break.

  Her cart glided to a halt close to Leo’s by the café veranda. Leo hurried over to her and said something typically incomprehensible. Apparently satisfied with Gillian’s response, Leo turned his head in Ben’s direction. “So, Gillian is giving you kicker and project is off and running in your brain and sealed lips and wishing on a star.”

  Like a man under the gun, Leo scurried away, leaving his defective cart behind.