Tinseltown Riff Read online

  And so, at a still tipsy remove, he took in the restless opening credits of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest punctuated by Bernard Herrmann’s agitated score. However, unlike all the others—bobbing their heads in front of him, tittering and chuckling like the cynics they were—Ben began to get drawn in.

  Which made no sense. Besides being half-sloshed and out of it, he knew the film inside and out. It was just a romantic spy chase from the fifties: Cary Grant in too-too-sunny Technicolor. There was no realism, no way whatsoever of taking it to heart. And certainly not while surrounded by people knowingly nudging their companions.

  Trying another tack, pretending he was back in class at Southern Cal, he affected a nod in sync with the trio of cronies seated on a blanket to his immediate right. He recalled that Hitchcock wanted to do a chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore. Lehman, the screenwriter, wanted to do a frothy “movie/movie” featuring a cardboard Madison Avenue type. Hitchcock insisted on the chase. Giving way, Lehman added a double-agent love interest and a bogus manhunt forcing Cary Grant to hop a train to Chicago. Thereby concocting a getaway north by northwest to the top of a fake Mount Rushmore. There Grant hung by his fingers with one hand as a ghoulish baddie crunched his knuckles with the heel of a boot and, simultaneously, the double-duty heroine dangled over the precipice clutching Cary’s other hand.

  Still nodding away like a seasoned pro, Ben took in the sequence as an equally tipsy Grant skidded out of control down the Coast Highway. His car almost but not quite skittering off the cliff edge and plunging into the churning Pacific on a road that was supposed to be Glen Cove, Long Island.

  What a hoot.

  But, try as he may, his old nemesis began creeping in. The scene kept reminding him of careening down Angelique’s driveway and smacking into the girl’s truck. And a subsequent scene, as Grant attempted to escape by sneaking aboard a train, reminded him of the time he himself attempted to leave LaLaLand for a job interview for a kiddie show out of the selfsame Chicago. As if the stifling heat of L.A.’s Union Station wasn’t bad enough, along with the hyper kids climbing the walls, the footrace to the coach cars had literally done him in. The hissing steam from the idling engines choked him. The screams of parents who’d lost track of their kids, the barricade of baggage handlers’ carts piled high plus the throng jostling for position only added to the melee. Out of nowhere, a heavyset guy with a shaved head rammed him against a sleeper car, stripped him of his train tickets and shoved him into the mob.

  And what was Aunt June’s response?

  “What is that, a joke? You looking for sympathy? Try closing a two-story multi-million dollar teak-and-concrete job on Carbon Beach. Try putting something on the line for once, instead of sneaking out of town or always doing a number on me.”

  Turning away from the flickers on the mausoleum wall, even in his grogginess he knew she was right. He was doing a number, a Cary Grant—talking himself into it while secretly looking for a way out. Anything to let himself off the hook.

  And that hook wasn’t planted by Aunt June. That hook was planted the moment his mother left him with the Dr. Seuss book. The ribbon of candy-cane roads on the cover led up to a dancing boy on top of a high peak, the words “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” floating overhead. In his kiddie brain, his mother would only return once he reached the top. Every year since, the words inside the cover worked on him. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! 98 and ¾ percent guaranteed. And not a day had gone by when someone didn’t say, “How’s it going, Ben? What’re you up to? Gonna snatch that brass ring?”

  As for this nutty last chance, he had to take it on. Chuck the mind games, the I-damn-well-can but How-can-I-possibly? underneath. His little kid’s hang-up aside, there was no way he could let everybody down.

  After the roll of the final credits and the cheerful, whistling applause, he was greeted by the trio of jobless cronies from the stomping ground at the Farmers Market.

  “Hey, buddy boy,” said the loudest of the three, the one in the baggy pants with the perpetual grin. “What a goof. Can you imagine?”

  Ben wanted to say, “You bet,” but let it go.

  “So,” said the one in the Lakers T-shirt, “how’s it going?”

  The quieter one of the bunch sheepishly piped in with, “Yeah, Ben. What’re you up to? Gonna snatch that brass ring?”

  Chapter Eleven

  A few miles due east of Fairfax on Beverly Boulevard, Iris’ house stood like a cinder-block sentinel. Like Iris herself, it was tan and resilient, impervious to everything. Twenty years ago, in lieu of a front yard and conventional living room, Iris had the builder erect an outsized fitness room. As an afterthought, a narrow hallway was tacked on with a tiny kitchen to the right, a den to the left, and two bedrooms at the rear. The smaller bedroom, next to a sliver of driveway, was filled with Iris’ junk and a cot and presently provided Ben with temporary sleeping quarters. The larger room next to the bathroom, smack up against the constant traffic flow, served as Iris’ boudoir. Thus Iris’ idea of a heavenly retreat continued to sit on the noisiest corner lot in captivity.

  It was here that Ben made his final pit stop at a few minutes past eleven. He doused the headlights and backed up a few yards away from the front curb in case Iris was still up and at it. Knowing Iris, if she spotted the condition of the back bumper of the borrowed Prelude, she would be off and running at the mouth.

  So far so good. Iris’s abode and the neighbors’ houses, set back and hidden by thick foliage, were quiet and dark. No one out and about save for the hum and roar of the traffic as it simultaneously headed east and west at the crossroad.

  A click of the latch key and it was only fourteen strides across the padded floor, a short shoeless trek down the narrow hallway, a shift to the right and, at last, to bed.

  But, alas, no such luck. Less than two seconds after he squeezed the front door shut, Iris was on top of him.

  “Whoa,” said Ben, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Relax, it’s just me.”

  Iris stood her ground in her terry-cloth shorty pajamas, rubbing her chopped ash-blond hair with a towel, training her beady eyes on him as if still unsure whether he was friend or foe.

  “Okay, Iris, I give. Did Leo run out on you after you’d pinned him for the umpteenth time? Or was it the other way around?”

  “Knock it off. How was the retro flick in the old cemetery? Filling your head with retro rot while I’m left holding the bag?”

  “Okay, come on, come on. What is it?”

  “Besides the fact that June gave me a jingle, interrupting the action, telling me to keep an eye out and make sure you were squared away by Saturday? Out of my hair, that is, and everybody else’s.”

  “Yes, besides that.”

  “It was the other calls, is what it was, and the stupid answering machine. So, okay, one interruption was good, namely June’s news about your fake birthday this year. Reminding me of our tough love pact and that you are outta here.”

  “We’ve covered that. Who else called?”

  “Angelique, that’s who else. Pulling her hair out even after I had given her a full workout, mixed her a mango stabilizer and left her place smiling. Which, by the time I got off the phone with her, was as good for Leo and me as a cold shower. And then we got the girl. Which totally put a damper on it. Which I don’t want to go into, or your qualms about healthy sex between two robust, middle-aged people. Which is putting me in the mood for a mango stabilizer myself before I too lose it and really let off some steam.”

  “What girl?”

  “Right,” said Iris, slapping him with the towel as if they were locker room buddies, and bounding away into the kitchen. “Don’t get me started. I cranked the ring tone from alarm to tinkle and am unplugging the damn thing for the rest of the night.”

  “What girl?” Ben asked even louder, traipsing into the kitchen as the juicer went into high gear.

  But it was no use. Amidst the hum of the air-conditioner over the sink, th
e grinding juicer and the traffic noise which managed to insinuate itself through the louvered windows, Iris was in the throes of peeling, fending off slimy glop and measuring assorted powders and herbs.

  For answers, Ben resorted to the answering machine in the den directly across. The news from Angelique only reiterated most of what Ben already knew: “I’m still like so antsy ... besides everything else, somebody was supposed to show who didn’t. And that Ben, that sorta cousin of yours. Cute, sharp in a way like I said, but I don’t know ... I just don’t know. A little nosy if you catch my drift. Oh well, talk at you later.”

  In sharp contrast to Angelique’s sputtering patter, the maiden in the Chevy pickup was perky and direct. The message she left was that Ben was in no way getting off easy. Among her issues was the fact she needed a place to hole up. She ended with, “So, buddy, if you are finally home, you can count on seeing my face. And I don’t mean perhaps.”

  Too beat to react, Ben put the messages on the back burner. Even the insistent tinkling sound that followed seemed remote and distant. Absentmindedly, he picked up the receiver. “Sorry, we are closed for the night.”

  “Hey! Que esta pasando aqui?”

  “C.J.?”

  “Who else?”

  “What do you mean, ‘What’s going on?’”

  “Soy serio, payaso.”

  “Okay, you’re serious. Cut the put-downs, give it to me in English and make it short.”

  From the scuffling sounds and echoes on the other end, Ben guessed that C.J. was at the Hollywood station. After he calmed down a bit, Ben learned that he had just intercepted some goofy message. Ben asked him to speak slowly and clearly trying to both keep from drifting off and make out what he was driving at.

  “Idiota dispatcher,” said C.J. “Who can read his gringo handwriting, you know? But it sounds like you. I tell you to call Chula at the motel if you want me. Ese foe el trato!”

  “I know that was the deal. Are you going to tell me or not?”

  “Hey, you don’t got to take a tone with me because they know I know you. You are on the nuisance file. No me hagas esas jaladas.”

  “Hold it,” said Ben, becoming more alert. “You’re the one jerking me around.”

  “Oh, yes? If it’s not you, then what payaso made the call?”

  “What call? Spell it out right now or I’m hanging up.”

  C.J.’s husky voice faded off as he shouted at someone. A tarty voice shrieked right back. This went on for a while until, as mercurial as ever, C.J. came back on the line laughing. “The hooker we dragged in, she says bad things but likes my chest and big muscles. Only the long hair, she says, it has to go. Dame un tiempo.”

  “Give me a break, you mean. How old will I be till you read me the stupid message?”

  There were more scuffing noises. Then the words came haltingly over the line as if C.J. were decrypting a secret code. “‘Evil enterprise ... coming your way ... the audit proves it ... start looking for—’”

  “What audit? What is this, a joke?”

  “Ay, Chihuahua, there is more. About the Rockies ... crippled ... high fever ... no I.D., somebody got to believe me.”

  “Listen carefully. I don’t know who this guy is or what you’re talking about.”

  “Es la verdad? You did not send this?”

  “No. Es la verdad.”

  Ben heard a groan on the other end and sounds of a scuffle.

  “Okay okay, it is late,” said C.J. “I jump the gun maybe. Nuisance call is passed around, so loco, so Hollywood, guys in the squad remember you and give to me. So maybe—”

  “No maybe. You jumped the gun and owe me an apology.”

  “Si, lo siento. It happens stations in Frisco and Vegas get this too. Maybe it is a promo.”

  “Calling police stations?”

  “Why not? Enough times then it gets on the news, you know?”

  “Nobody in Hollywood is that desperate.”

  “Everybody in Hollywood is that desperate. Especially you, pendejo.”

  “Oh, that’s cute. Another put-down. Are we through?”

  “Si, si. Hey, you still got a birthday coming up, que no? What you say I buy you drinks?”

  “Great.”

  “Bueno, got to go. Tranquilazate.”

  “Not me, you take it easy.” It crossed Ben’s mind to ask C.J. about an uninsured motorist in a borrowed car smacking into somebody’s old truck, but it could wait. Everything could wait.

  Returning to the hallway, he was greeted by a frothing beaker of Iris’s mango glop.

  “Down the hatch, buster. You are so outta shape, it’s pathetic.”

  “Gotcha.” Ben knew the only hope of hitting the sack was to obey orders.

  “Who was that?” said Iris as she disconnected the phone.

  “Nobody, nothing.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “It’s L.A. Only health freaks know it’s late.” Ben downed the slippery liquid, wiped his lips, handed her back the beaker and prayed he wouldn’t throw up. “Can we say goodnight now?”

  “Look at me, Benjamin.”

  Ben did as he was told and peered down. As seen through his watery eyes, Iris’ combative face seemed almost benign.

  “I promised ol’ June,” Iris barked, “that I would make sure you got your act together. Which is a no-brainer, what with Leo needing you to do the same and me dying to have this place all to myself again.”

  “Understood, Iris. Say it again and we’ll dance to it. Just post the drill on the frig. I will commit it to memory at first light.”

  “Damn straight you will.”

  With that, Iris marched back into the kitchen, tossed the beaker in the sink, whisked by him and, for emphasis, slammed her bedroom door. Traipsing down the hall, too out of it to do more than take off his shoes and unbutton his shirt, Ben shifted past the two racks of barbells and flopped onto the cot.

  In the dream, nothing worked, nothing fit. He got out an easel and tried to sketch a simple storyboard opening, but the panels turned into pictures of a crippled accountant dangling from a ridge, and the sheets of paper transformed into a ledger and then a ledge. Somebody stood above him crunching his knuckles with the heel of his boot; then a dangling maiden by his side was yelling at him while clutching his hand for dear life.

  The scene dissolved as he rushed here and there in the pitch dark searching for the Prelude but couldn’t find it anywhere. The traffic whizzed by him when he spotted her again wearing the same bib overalls. But there was no way of crossing over as the cars reached the speed of light and his legs were as heavy as the weights at Iris’s gym.

  She reappeared as a silhouette far off in the distance. “Let’s see some I.D. Let’s see it from both you and the accountant.”

  All at once there was nothing but a cutting room floor. At his feet were strips of film; directly ahead, a blank mausoleum wall. He shouted over the wall, insisting that the maiden and accountant didn’t belong in this movie and he had the outtakes to prove it. He bent down but all he could find was a toy box filled with crayons, binoculars and an oversized copy of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go. The binocular lenses were shattered. The wind whipped by and rustled the tops of the spindly palms. Ben cocked his head and heard something whistling down the canyon closing in on him.

  Startled, Ben sat straight up in bed. Sighing, dog-tired and unable to take it any more, he scrunched back down, rolled over and hugged the pillow. Reaching for the most benign imagery possible, he started counting mellow, sweet-natured sheep. Which, in practically no time, began to do the trick.

  Just before he dozed off again, the counting brought back fuzzy images of accountants and C.J.’s call. Which showed how much police departments knew. Accountants were just bookkeepers. Theirs was a simple balancing act. The reason you’d always find them at a remove--cool, calm and collected.

  Yes sir, no tension, no mayhem, no conundrums. Cool, calm and collected; that was the key.

  Chapter Tw
elve

  The day before, Deke was seated uncomfortably on a Southwest flight to Oakland. It wasn’t just the dark suit and new shoes that cramped his style. It was everything, including his stiff back.

  For openers, they told him at the check-in counter that the first seats on the plane were roomy, perfect for a long-legged fella like him. They didn’t tell him that the whole time he’d be facing a plump, moon-faced mom and her thirteen-year-old moon-faced son and sixteen-year-old moon-faced daughter. He’d never seen a threesome so bubbly in his life. Without asking, the bunch of them—sometimes taking turns, sometimes talking all at once—told him crap he didn’t want to hear. They were from Spokane, clad in sparkling Spokane sweatshirts—in-your-face commemorations of the son’s exploits at first base in the Little League regional championship. After a play-by-play of the final inning, mom skipped over to the girl’s triumphs on the swim team while the girl, at the same time, turned red and kept tugging at her short pleated skirt. Then mom switched to the wonders of the folks, schools and community get-togethers back home.

  Then it was, Was the gentleman going all the way to Disneyland? No, only to Oakland. But afterwards, on to L.A.? Maybe. First time? Not exactly. Well, let me tell you all about Disneyland and the sights you absolutely don’t want to miss.

  As if mom jabbering away wasn’t bad enough, the shapely flight attendants wore khaki shorts and matching loose blouses, and kept making dumb remarks up and down the aisles and over the intercom. It started with, “We’ve got good news and bad news.” And then moved on to groaners like, “Hope you brought some flotation devices with you ‘cause we’re fresh out. Just kidding, folks.” And, “If you’re hungry, too bad. What did you expect from a no frills airline?” After each bonehead announcement, one of the attendants would wiggle by, pick Deke out especially and say, “Hey, darlin’, having fun yet?”