The Big Bamboo

by Tim Dorsey

  “Your nine o’clock,” said Betty.

  The Glicks wiped their noses and slid coke drawers shut.

  Three unsure young men entered and stood in the center of the room. They all had spiked, gelled hair like the Glicks did— last week. They stared at the brothers’ shaved heads and suffered a loss of nerve.

  The Glicks simultaneously checked appointment books, then leaned back in padded European upholstery and folded hands in their laps.

  “So, you want us to back your independent film,” said Ian.

  “Indies used to be hot,” said Mel.

  “But now they’re ice-cold,” said Ian.

  “Which means they’re just about to get hot again,” said Mel. “Your timing’s perfect.”

  “Tell us about it,” said Ian.

  The young man in the middle timidly stepped forward. “It’s the story of a—”

  “No,” said Mel. “How much can we make it for?”

  The young man was off balance. “Uh, depends on what you want

  ”

  “We want shit,” said Ian.

  The young man glanced at his partners, then back at the brothers. “Do you know what the story’s about?”

  “No,” said Mel.

  “But we’ve heard good things,” said Ian.

  “How much?” asked Mel.

  “It’s hard to say because the story—”

  “Does the story have a beginning and an end?” asked Ian.

  The young man nodded.

  “Then you’re way ahead of the game,” said Mel.

  “You wouldn’t believe some of the people we get in here,” said Ian.

  “It’s got a beginning and an end,” said Mel. “So there’s your movie. Any problems in between, our indie department will hammer it out.”

  “Indie department?”

  “All the big studios have them now,” said Ian. “They’ve got that indie feel down to a science.”

  “Produce movies that look ten times more indie than any independent studio,” said Mel.

  “They can even make a movie look like it was shot on a credit card,” said Ian.

  “In fact, that would be better,” said Mel. “Less expensive. We can make a fifty-thousand-dollar credit-card movie for under three million.”

  “That’s our specialty,” said Ian. “Costs the other studios at least five.”

  “It’s settled,” said Mel. “Credit-card movie. What else?”

  “Well, because of the tone and texture of the period, we envisioned black-and-white—”

  “Black-and-white’s cheaper,” said Ian. “Good thinking.”

  “Looks like you got yourself a picture,” said Mel.

  “We start shooting Thursday,” said Ian.

  “Fourth floor,” said Mel, standing up to shake hands. “They’ll have your contracts.”

  “But

  ”

  “But what?” asked Ian.

  “We just wanted financing. We were going to make the movie ourselves.”

  The Glicks looked at each other and laughed.

  “Tell you what,” said Mel. “We’ll make you fourth assistant directors. Won’t that be a hoot?”

  Ian smiled at the young men. “Of course, we can’t pay you extra for the directing jobs.”

  “In fact, we’d rather you didn’t go near the set,” said Mel. “Insurance reasons. You understand.”

  “But

  ”

  “But what?” asked Ian.

  “Me and my friends worked on this script for years. All through college. It’s very personal.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Mel. “You won’t even recognize it.”

  “But

  ”

  “You want to be in films or not?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Glick.”

  “Fourth floor.”

  The young men shook the brothers’ hands and hurried out the door.

  The Glicks opened their cocaine drawers.

  “You try to help these kids,” said Ian. Sniffle.

  “Everyone wants to start at the top,” said Mel. Sniffle. “Nobody wants to pay the dues like we did.”

  “Actually, we started at the top,” said Mel.

  “Right. The dues were much higher up there.”

  A knock at the door. The drawers closed.

  “Come in.”

  Betty: “Your nine-thirty

  ”

  The brothers checked their appointment books. Joey Bucks. Theatrical agent. Shit.

  A fiftyish man in a tennis outfit entered. Trim, fit, salt-and-pepper hair combed like Hoffman. He was one of those people who looked like he looked ten years younger. Superconfident stride and an even cockier smile. The Glicks hated his guts.

  “Great to see you!” said Ian, standing and shaking hands.

  “Missed you at the club,” said Joey.

  “It’s this nutty business. All the egos. Like running a preschool.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Joey.

  They all sat at the same time.

  “I hear you’re doing good,” said Mel. “That client of yours, Grant? See his face everywhere, on so many magazines, I despise him.”

  “Yeah, he’s way too overexposed,” said Joey. “We just convinced People to do a cover piece on his overexposure.”

  “What can we do for you today?” asked Ian.

  “More like what I’m going to do for you,” said Joey. He reached in the tennis bag next to his chair, and tossed a pair of eight-by-ten airbrushed casting photos at the brothers’ desks. Both pictures fell on the floor and the brothers had to stoop. Joey leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “You’ll owe me big time for this one.”

  The brothers studied the head shot: an actress in a soft light with long, sandy hair streaming behind her. It had been taken in front of an exhaust fan. The brothers read the name on the bottom. Natalie Schaaf.

  Ian put his photo down. “Thanks for bringing her to us.”

  “But right now we don’t have any parts,” said Mel.

  “Yes, you do,” said Joey.

  “We really don’t,” said Ian. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” said Joey. “You might want to take another look at that photo.”

  The brothers did. Big deal.

  “Okay, we looked again,” said Ian. “We still don’t have anything.”

  “You don’t recognize her?” asked Joey.

  The brothers shook their heads.

  “The party Friday in Bel Air?” said Joey. “Heard she put on quite an audition.”

  Mel still didn’t recognize the photo. “Ian, was this yours?”

  Joey sprayed Binaca in his mouth. “And she’s also got a fascinating background. Long family history in law enforcement.”

  Ian began nodding in defeat. “I forgot. We have a small role that just opened up this morning.”

  Joey stood and grabbed his tennis bag. “Always a pleasure doing business with you.”

  Mel got up and shook hands again. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  A final stabbing grin. “I have a funny feeling I won’t.”

  He left and closed the door.

  “God, I hate that prick!” said Mel, opening a drawer.

  “He’s had work done,” said Ian, opening his own drawer. “You can tell. Around the eyes.”

  Knock-knock. Betty. “Your ten o’clock.”

  “Work, work, work.” Drawers closed. Their appointment books said: Development.

  A young man in jeans entered. Brad. He had a clipboard. “Not much to report. Regular mixture of big and small screen. Mostly rehash. Feisty mom brings corporation to knees, feisty amputee loses the Olympics but wins our hearts, an adult has to go back to grade school for some reason, a dramatic comedy based on The South Beach Diet

  ”

  “Tell us about it,” said Ian.

  “But it’s just a diet book

  ” said Brad.

  “

  That sold millions,” added Mel.

  “Couple of treatments,” said Brad. “The first one opens with the reading of a baron’s will. Jack Black forced to complete diet or forfeit estate to Ivy League half brother. Courteney Cox as the improbable love interest who inspir
es him to conquer all. Or straight-to-video with the Olsens stealing diet formula from bumbling foreign agents.”

  “What else?”

  “A Victoria’s Secret movie. A Sports Illustrated swimsuit movie. ‘A very special Botox Christmas.’ ”

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, there is one other thing. I hesitated to bring it up because it still has a lot of problems. But I’ve got this feeling

  ”

  “What is it?”

  He told them.

  “I love it!” said Mel.

  “You do?”

  “The plot’s a bit of a stretch,” said Ian. “I mean, nothing like that could ever happen in real life.”

  “So we’ll cover it up with sex,” said Mel. “Who’s the writer?”

  “That’s the best part,” said Brad. “Already on staff.”

  “One of our own writers?” said Ian.

  “Better,” said Brad. “Works in props.”

  “Props?”

  “He stuck it in my mailbox.” Brad checked his clipboard. “Ford Oelman. I’ve had legal take a peek. Looks like we might already own it.”

  “How’s that?” said Mel.

  “Not ethically,” said Brad. “But we’d win in court. Checked the security cameras. He was making notes and corrections on the clock, so we got him on intellectual property.”

  “Brad!” said Mel. “You’re a genius!”

  “We should give you a big bonus,” said Ian.

  “But we’re not going to,” said Mel. “Would fuck up the most-favored-nation clauses in everyone’s contracts. You understand.”

  “Is this Ford guy working today?” asked Ian.

  “Just saw him,” said Brad. “Wheeling a guillotine to the Potemkin set.”

  Mel leaned to his intercom and pressed a button. “Betty

  ”

  ** Chapter 8

  ST. PETERSBURG

  A gold ’71 Buick Riviera raced over Tampa Bay on the Gandy Bridge. Pelicans glided alongside the car at window level. Others dive-bombed the water for fish. The Buick reached the causeway on the west end of the span, featuring a coliform beach popular among shitkickers and sub-shitkickers genetically predisposed to Golden Flake chips, lapsed insurance, bottle rockets and Trans Ams with unrepaired fender damage.

  The Buick kept going: bait stores, radio towers, Goodwill, a Crab Shack, batting cages and finally what Serge had come for. He made a skidding left into a parking lot on the south side of the road. Old signs with red neon from the Eisenhower years.

  Serge jumped out and spread his arms. “There she is!”

  “But it’s just an old dog track,” said Coleman.

  “How can you say that about Derby Lane?” He began trotting toward the entrance. “Established 1925

  ”

  “Wait up.” Coleman stopped and panted as Serge bought tickets. “You’ve been going a million miles an hour, driving all over the place.”

  “I’m on a research roll.” Serge handed Coleman his ticket. “Ever since I found my hook.”

  “I still don’t understand the hook.”

  “I told you. It’s a movie about making movies. Works every time. It’s like crack in Hollywood.”

  “Sounds vague.”

  “The key to my hook is its vagueness. I’ve left room for the studio people to piss on it with their changes. Then it’s their idea and they fall in love with it.”

  “I got a movie idea,” said Coleman.

  “Go for it.”

  “Remember Planet of the Apes?”

  “A seventies high-water mark.”

  “ ‘Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!’ ”

  “And?”

  “That’s it.”

  They went inside.

  “The only way to research is complete immersion,” said Serge, heading up the grandstands. “That’s why we have to visit as many Florida movie sites as possible: Ocala, home of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Levy County, Elvis’s destination in the hillbilly tour-de-force Follow That Dream. And don’t forget Tarpon Springs, which gave us 1953’s Beneath the Twelve-Mile Reef, the often-copied-but-never-duplicated tale of a Greek sponge-diving love triangle complicated by a giant killer octopus.”

  Coleman stopped climbing and grabbed his knees. “Serge. I need a break.”

  Serge looked around. “This should be high enough anyway.” He took a seat and propped his feet up on the empty chair in front of him. “But sometimes studying Florida’s film legacy is like searching for a lost city that’s been covered by the dust of history. Like the studio that used to be over there.”

  Coleman sat in the next seat. “Where?”

  “Right there.” Serge waved an arm over the top of the scoreboard. “See all those mangroves on the edge of the water?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thousands of years ago, the original Floridians lived there and piled up a shell mound. Then, during Prohibition, someone built a speakeasy called the San Remo Club, because the site was so remote. The building was later converted into the headquarters of Sun Haven Studios. It didn’t last either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Movies like Hired Wife and Chloe, Love Is Calling. Don’t look for them on DVD.”

  Coleman pointed down at the track and giggled. “One of the dogs just went to the bathroom.”

  “Isn’t it soothing?” said Serge. “This is what it’s about, nothing but Old Florida: venerable race track circling the lagoon, palm trees, freshly mowed infield. But nobody appreciates it anymore

  ” He gestured at the people across the aisle. “Just a few triple-A personality types wired to their own doomsday clocks with disaster-filled day planners and family dynamics involving case workers.” The people across the aisle turned and looked at Serge. He smiled. “I didn’t mean you specifically. Or maybe I did. I haven’t had enough time to chart your demise. Guess what? Babe Ruth and Dizzy Dean posed right down there for advertising photos in 1934, holding the number cards they used before the odds board went electric

  ”

  The people got up and began walking down the stairs.

  “Oh, I get it!” Serge shouted after them. “Go ahead! Run from the past!”

  “I think you hurt their feelings,” said Coleman.

  “That was one of my mini-interventions.” Serge placed his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Let’s just relax and take this in.”

  Serge jumped up from his seat and moved down to the next one. Coleman got up and scooted over with him.

  Serge put his feet up again. “It was the golden era when pari-mutuels ruled. Horses, dogs, jai alai, celebrities, elegance. I love coming here.”

  “I didn’t know you gambled.”

  “I don’t. I hate gambling.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m good at math.” Serge got up and moved over another seat.

  Coleman moved with him. “But Serge, if you’re in such a hurry to visit all these movie places, why are we wasting time here?”

  “Because this grandstand is one of them.” Serge moved over again. “It’s where they shot Carl Reiner’s intro in the remake of Ocean’s 11. Except I don’t know his exact seat, so I have to sit in all of them. Otherwise, I’m just living a lie.”

  Coleman stood. “I’m going to place a bet.” Serge handed him a quarter. “Get me a newspaper.”

  Coleman came back a few minutes later, Tribune under his arm, walking extra slow not to spill the brimming cups of beer in each hand. He stopped and looked around.

  “Up here!” Serge waved from the top row.

  Coleman carefully climbed the stairs and set the cups on the ground. Serge took the newspaper and opened it. “What dog did you finally pick?”

  Coleman took a seat and picked up one of the cups. “I only had a few bucks left so I bet on beer.”

  “It’s a sure thing.” Serge flipped his paper to the metro section and folded it over. “Here we go. The Geriatric Rage Roundup.”

  Coleman had a beer-foam mustache. “What’s that?”

  “You know how the rest of the country is worried about the rage phenomenon? Aggressive driving, predatory kids, people going bonkers on airplanes?”
/>
  “Yeah?”

  “So in Florida, it’s senior citizens. Everyone makes fun like they’re a bunch of doddering old farts, but nothing’s further from the truth. I don’t know the cause, but they retire to the Sunshine State and turn into killer bees. Super-irritable, attacking everything that moves. They scare the hell out of me.”

  Coleman took another big sip and wiped his mouth with his shirt. “But they seem so nice.”

  “Right up until shit’s on,” said Serge. “I see an old person, I cross the street.”

  “I haven’t had any problems,” said Coleman.

  “That’s because they mostly just fuck with each other. There’s been such an explosion in gray-on-gray crime that Florida newspapers need special roundup boxes to fit it all in. Like this item from West Palm Beach: chairs flying again at a condo meeting. And Sarasota: Police had to clear the shuffleboard courts with tear gas. And Fort Lauderdale: the daily cafeteria meltdown

  . Oooo, this was a big one. Forty people involved. Half the retirees ran screaming, the rest jumped in the pile. Broken hips, heart attacks. They triaged in the dining room and took them to five different hospitals

  ”

  “How’d it start?”

  “Cops say some guy in the cafeteria line couldn’t make up his mind and got a bowl of Jell-O cubes mashed in his face. Here are the names and conditions and

  Oh, my God!” Serge dropped the newspaper and took off down the stairs.

  Coleman chased after him. “What is it?”

  They ran across the parking lot and jumped in the Buick.

  “Serge, what’s going on?”

  Serge was busy screeching back onto the causeway and grabbing a cell phone from the glove compartment. He called information, then other numbers. “Room 23? Are you sure?” He hung up and floored the gas.

  ** Chapter 9

  VISTAMAX STUDIOS

  A knock at the door. Betty stuck her head inside. “Murray’s here.”

  The brothers were finishing a late lunch. Ian chewed calamari. “Send him in.”

  A balding, middle-aged man with a pencil over his ear approached their desks. He wore a brown tie and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He read from a computer printout with sprocket holes.

  “Eight forty-two. White tiger escapes

  ”

  “Tiger?”

  “Morning rewrite,” said Murray. “New African scene. Zebras, too.”

  The brothers were already feeling ill. The worst part of their day. Updates from the set of All That Glitters.