Tinseltown Riff Page 15

  What that meant was anybody’s guess. But Ben was in no mood to go around another circle.

  She retrieved her shoulder bag, gave her do a quick once-over with a comb and scented spray and escorted him out of the bungalow. One more quizzical look as he took his seat next to her and she put-putted the pair of them up the tech alley.

  Pulling in next to Lester’s glass-enclosed station, Gillian glared at him. “You’ve been invited to the dance, buster. Don’t make me sorry I extended the invitation.”

  Ben had nothing more to offer.

  “I will give you till ten. If you come up empty, if this thing tanks, if I have to go back to the drawing board, you, my little friend, are dead in the water.”

  Apparently it didn’t occur to her that the steel-meshed barricade was wide open and Lester was nowhere in sight. She slid behind the wheel of her BMW convertible, backed out and sped off into the darkening afterglow. Heading up Van Ness. Doubtless over to her office to scour her computer files in case she might very well have to cut her losses.

  Chapter Nineteen

  In limbo, Ben stood there motionless. Gillian may have had her suspicions, but he was still in the game. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help thinking about normal people. They would never find themselves in this loopy predicament, constantly trying to keep more and more balls in the air. He wondered what they were doing at this moment. Washing the dishes perhaps, talking about the lighthearted events of the day with the kids, feeding the dog, getting ready to settle down and watch a warmhearted family show.

  Snapping out of it, he went inside Lester’s station, swept aside the empty Pepsi cans, bags of chips and peanut butter and jelly crackers that littered the counter. As long as he was here, Ben decided to accomplish something. Besides, there was no way he could race back to the stable in time and he knew diddly about operating the go-cart which he had no business touching in the first place. So he punched in an outside line and dialed Chula.

  After four rings, Chula picked up. In that soft, reassuring tone of hers, she informed him that tapping the grill of the girl’s pickup was an insurance matter, gracioso and a waste of C.J.’s time.

  “Not a police matter?”

  “Correct. But this thing with this Leo Orlov ...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “They’ve had their eye on him. But C.J. is so upset about this vaquero maldito who ran over his kids, it was hard to follow what he was saying.”

  “A cowboy? Are you serious?”

  “A cowboy type ... I don’t know. You know how C.J. gets. Anyway, some of the kids are okay, bruised and banged up and shouldn’t have been playing hooky on the first day of school. But a few others are ... ”

  “Are what?”

  “In the hospital. So, C.J. is wondering who put this vaquero on to him. Was it this Leo, the one you said from the gym?”

  “Leo again.”

  “Yes. Like I am telling you, I couldn’t quite follow, couldn’t take it all in. At the same time, they got another crank call at his station, in Vegas and San Francisco.”

  “Oh no. Not the crippled accountant in the Rockies?”

  “I suppose. ‘Coming from the mountains ... has a cowboy drawl’. Who can follow it?”

  “Follow what?”

  “Some connection too, C.J. is saying. When he calms down, maybe it’ll seem different to him. But right now, I must tell you, his brain is racing.”

  Since Ben had no idea what any of this was all about, all he could tell Chula was he doubted there was any connection between Leo, some cowboy and what befell C.J.’ s kids in the barrio. Let alone some ranting accountant if that’s what he really was. All the while Ben felt more time passing, everything getting more and more jumbled, including the abiding image of the girl stashing something by the hayloft and scurrying off into the night.

  “Anyway,” Chula said, “I guess you’d better keep your ears open and let him know.”

  “Let him know what?”

  “Anything you might get wind of.”

  “Oh sure, you bet.”

  Chula noted Lester’s number and rang off with a reassuring, “Okay, take care.”

  Turning back, Ben spotted Lester dead ahead in the deepening shadows, sneaking around past the cylindrical media center. He seemed to be holding his air rifle low, bending his knees, like a kid playing Indian scout.

  Ben shook his head, passing beyond Lester’s playtime, hurrying by the stretch of soundstages. He could just hear what his cronies’ at the Farmers Market would say chortling over morning coffee and croissants:

  This is the part when you should’ve finally wised up.

  Used your brain.

  Seen it coming.

  For crissake, Ben, how whacked out can it get?

  Picking up his pace, Ben cut over and headed down the tech alley, barely noticing that the door to Studio Three was slightly ajar.

  What brought him out of it was a sudden tug on his shirtsleeve and a blur of tousled honey-blond hair and dusty bib overalls.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I’m saying I could use a hand,” said the girl.

  “A hand?”

  “Look, in case you didn’t get my phone message, in case you clean forgot--you owe me.”

  “Now where have I heard that before?” Completely taken aback, Ben knew that with all that was going on, he had to at least take half of it with a grain of salt to keep from going into brain-lock.

  “Look,” said Ben,” as it happens, I am on deadline. I have already looked into your lodgings problem. However, if you let me know what you’ve been up to, I’ll give you a hand later. Okay?”

  At this stage of their little tiff, they were milling around under the high arching grids of the soundstage, close to the holding cells, interrogation cubicles, briefing room and the like.

  Exasperated with Ben’s response, she clamped both hands on the metal railing leading up to the motel facades and haunted attic on the second tier. As she confronted him again, the dim overhead work lights made the circles under her eyes even more pronounced. Jamming her hands into the side pockets of her overalls, she blurted, “How can you act this way? How can you turn a blind eye when there’s a redheaded nut case stalking around?”

  “Lester. So that’s it. You’re talking about Lester.”

  “Whatever. He’s got an air rifle. He could climb up any second.”

  “Climb up where?”

  “On this roof.”

  “So what? Apparently deserted studios make him restless, especially when he hasn’t been paid.”

  “All the more reason. You got to stop him before he shoots.”

  “Shoots what?”

  “The pigeons, the pigeons!”

  In the ensuing dead silence, Ben wasn’t at all certain he’d heard her correctly. “Hold it, are you telling me this is all about an off chance Lester is gunning for some stupid pigeons?”

  “They’re not stupid. And if I weren’t so out of it—listen, if anything happens to those pigeons, if even one feather’s been harmed, you are really gonna get it, buddy.”

  “Brilliant. To humor you, I’ll steal his BB gun and race around while you and your idiot pigeons beat it. As a result, I will have lost precious time coming up with a hook for my scenario. Meaning, and I quote, as far as any future is concerned, ‘I am dead in the water.’”

  Arms crossed, eyes downcast, she went straight for the door.

  “Don’t do that,” Ben said, despite himself. “Don’t pout, don’t go.”

  As she hesitated, he said, “I’m sorry. Truce? Okay, one last chance?”

  Why he said these words he would never know. What he should have said was, “In point of fact, my debt to you extends no further than a slightly bent front grill on a truck not long for this world. What this all comes down to is some kind of quid pro quo. Shall we be reasonable or not?”

  Responding, however, to what he actually said, she dawdled some more, her hand working the metal bar back and for
th, and finally said, “I pulled you in here ‘cause this is what I figured. What with the card you gave me with Angelique’s pink curlicues and all, and you seeming more or less harmless ... What I mean is, still no Angelique coming by, and now with the pigeons up there and this Lester stalking around ...”

  “Never mind. I am going to regret this, I know. But since there’s an obvious tie-in between you and Angelique, I will check and see if there really are some endangered pigeons and take it from there. Who knows? In some discombobulated way, this may all work out.”

  As he moved by her, he noted that even up close she was an enigma: partially hardbitten, partially vulnerable. She could be taken as a wholesome farm girl or someone doing a number. There was no way yet of nailing down her character in his storyline.

  “Come on, buddy,” she said wearily. “You gonna move it or what?”

  “Ben. My name is Ben. And yours? Can I at least have that?”

  She did another of her ceiling scans.

  “Look,” said Ben, “if you can’t even tell me your name, what’s the point?”

  “Molly,” she said, staring right at him this time. “Just make it Molly.”

  “All right, Molly. I’ll see what I can do.”

  He left her, pressed the door shut, circled around and clambered partway up the steel ladder till he heard the cooing sounds. Somewhere on the roof of this airplane-hanger-like structure was a cage harboring no more than a few birds. He climbed down, returned to the tech alley and headed back toward the front gate. His mind reached for something sensible to tell Lester but nothing registered.

  Lester’s beanpole form suddenly appeared out of the glare of the spotlights about twenty yards ahead. His long, bony fingers tightened around his air rifle as he squared off to block Ben’s way. “Where you been and what the hell’s goin’ on?”

  “Ah yes, that same old question.”

  Ben quickly joined him, the mesh barricade serving as a backdrop in the near distance along with the occasional blur and whoosh of a car traveling up Van Ness.

  “First off,” said Lester, “this Gillian rings me on her cell from the bungalow wanting to know where you’re at. Now I don’t mind that, of course. Only good thing that’s happened, gettin’ to play Lester the protector for the ladies. Especially when they’re in them skin tight pajamas and—”

  “Can we drop this? I only came by to ask you to stay put.”

  “Do what? Forget about the noise sounding like a shot or a backfire from somewheres in the back lot? Forget this Iris character who made me cart her to the bungalow with a sack of tins?”

  “Iris? You’re kidding?”

  “Don’t I wish. Then, when you ain’t there, she goes nuts.”

  Lester plucked out his mobile phone from its sheath and held it up for emphasis. “And she’s called every ten minutes since. And all this after over eight hours I’ve been at it and not seen so much as a dime from that bald headed Russian. Wouldn’t surprise me if this whole thing was a total screw. Like as not, betcha some far east telecommunications consortium steps in after this Russian bails out, I get replaced and have to call my union and sue.”

  Unable to put up with the contortions of Lester’s sliver of a face as he punctuated everything with the barrel of his air rifle—unable to put up with any more static whatsover--Ben pulled out a few bills Leo had plied him with and said, “Here, on account.”

  “What for?”

  “To hold still and man your post. Stick to the gate for a while. Can you do that at least? Can you?”

  “Why? What’s it to you if I scout around, seein’ there’s nothing else to do?”

  As fast and best he could, Ben told him he desperately needed everything to completely stop. He had to lock something in before Gillian returned. The way things were going, what with Iris now tossed into the stew, if everything didn’t simmer down, he didn’t stand a chance in hell.

  Lester handed Ben the air rifle, riffled through the bills a few times as if to make sure they were genuine, and said, “And after you get your story thing squared away, we both settle up with Leo.”

  Ben nodded and started to leave, but Lester was still not satisfied. “And what about the weird noises and stuff?”

  “I’ll get back to you, I swear.”

  As if on cue, Lester’s own mobile phone began to buzz. “Yup, here we go again.” Lester pressed a key, said, “Yes, ma’am, you’re in luck, he’s standin’ right here,” and slapped the padded receiver in Ben’s hand.

  “Finally,” Iris hollered in his ear as Lester retrieved his rifle. “I’d like an explanation, please?”

  “Priorities. No time, Iris.”

  “Leo is your priority, buster.”

  “Please, I’m begging you before I crack up.”

  “Just as I thought. It’s stress. No worries, I took care of it, left you a tote bag full of—”

  “Tins and tubs of the usual.Goodbye.”

  Cutting off the signal, he handed the mobile straight back to Lester and told him if Iris calls again, he is incommunicado. Salvaging what he can for everybody’s sake.

  As he started to make his way back to the tech alley, Lester shouted out, “Yo, there was another call. From that old pop singer on MTV. It was right after that hot pants Gillian rolled in.”

  “Enough, okay? Enough!”

  Lester yelled out other things, including the fact it really rankled him when people told him to cool his heels.

  Ben let Lester’s complaints fade off as he picked up his pace. By now the stars were out and the moonglow bounced off the metallic facades, stripping him of the last of his illusions. As his old college professor would put it, once external fluctuations got really going, things are bound to flare up. In short, only if Ben’s luck held out a tad longer could spontaneous combustion be averted.

  Returning, he pressed the door handle of Studio Three and slipped inside. A quick scan brought him nothing. She was nowhere in sight.

  “Molly? Molly? It’s me. No problem, your pigeons are safe.”

  He glanced up at the spiral staircase and spider encrusted attic and moved in and around the makeshift dungeons, wrought-iron gates and open graves on the ground floor. He looked inside the police station and scurried over to the ramp leading to the motel façade. Perhaps she didn’t trust him. Perhaps she brought the cage down from the roof and split.

  Casting his gaze up to the grid, attempting a calm, reassuring tone, he said, “It’s all right. Lester’s been paid off. He’s sitting tight. Tit for tat, now you can humor me.”

  A door to one of the motel rooms swung open. In the pitch dark of the upper recesses, she seemed even more exhausted, her windblown hair hanging loose, her shoulders sagging.

  “You scared me,” said Molly, in a voice as tired as she looked.

  “Sorry. What were you doing?”

  “Dropped something. And it’s none of your business. I thought you had to get back to work?”

  “Oh, that’s cute. Before you threw me off course, you mean. That’s the whole point.”

  Scuffing partway down the ramp, Molly said, “You really pay this Lester guy off?”

  “I did.”

  “Well, if you think that makes us even, you’re wrong.” As if dismissing any further need for his services, she went back to rummaging around and retracing her steps and then faltered. Turning back she looked a bit dazed.

  “Listen,” said Ben, “if you want to freshen up or you could use a little energy boost, my sort-of cousin left some stuff in the bungalow. Then we can get on with it. What do you say?”

  He babbled on about tins of protein mixes infused with Siberian ginseng, royal jelly, spirulina and what-have-you. The usual revitalization kit for flagging slackers like himself.

  “No thanks,” said Molly, her disembodied voice shuttling somewhere above between the back of a motel door and the spidery lair.

  “Better still, I spotted some tea and stuff somebody left behind.” Grasping for any way to use her, he ad
ded, “As a respite, I mean, in a nice, quiet, familiar atmosphere.”

  “I hear you. Maybe. Now go.”

  “Absolutely. Got to go now. You bet.”

  He eased out the door as gingerly as he’d slipped in. This last exchange made him feel like a despairing teen inviting the head cheerleader to the prom.

  He hurried back to the bungalow and willy-nilly pressed on. Clipping another set of formatted sheets to the easel, he sketched in a blurry suggestion of a cowboy ramming into C.J.’s delinquents. Another set of panels followed with shots of Molly rummaging around Studio Three and a close-up of a pigeon cage atop the studio roof. As a storyline, this also came to zilch and wound up tossed on the floor.

  At another impasse, he wandered into the kitchenette and put some water on to boil, hoping for a gentle knock as Molly came for tea. For better or worse, he needed her to propel the story to a point of no return. But he wasn’t able to admit to himself that he was the one who needed a respite, longing for her company and a way to block out whatever gonzo forces may be closing in.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Wearing his Levi jacket over the silky mauve T-shirt he was dying to ditch, Deke slid into a vacant booth at Islands Polynesian Delight, placed his cell phone on the inlaid tile tabletop and waited for Angelique to call back.

  By now he’d driven around a bunch of times and saw no sign of an old green pickup. In the twilight afterglow, with the hunger getting to him, he reminded himself not to confuse motion with action.

  The second rule, which went with the first, was not to move at all till he had something to go on a damn sight better than this. And getting definite information out of Ray, who believed the Feds could tap him if he stayed on any device more than sixty seconds, was harder than getting Angelique to use what little brains she had. But at least Angelique had snuck out, rang Deke’s cell and offered to call the guy manning the studio gate. She did it, so she said, because she had to hook up with some dead ringer or at least get in touch with this Ben character. Failing that, she would get hold of her fitness trainer who put her on to Ben’s situation. Bottom line: Angelique was in need of Deke’s tracking service as much as Ray but for a different reason. And Deke was in need of some clear cut beeline to the payoff.