Finnegan's week

by Joseph Wambaugh

“The thief might get caught with the manifest in his possession.”

  “No truck thief is gonna keep owner documents lying around. He’d toss them away. The manifest doesn’t exist, not after you destroy those two copies in your hands. Now we’re both going to tell anyone who contacts us that the waste was indeed Guthion and that it was correctly manifested as Guthion and it was heading for incineration in Texas within three days. That’s in case the waste ever does show up and gets tested. I’m trying to help you, Burl.”

  “You’re trying to help yourself, you snake.”

  “I want my business to close escrow with no problems. If the EPA or the D.A. starts going over all my past manifest copies, who knows what mistakes they might find in some of my other cash transactions? Even some I’ve done with you.”

  “If that manifest is in the truck when the cops finally find it, then what?”

  “It won’t be.”

  “But if it is?”

  “The cops don’t know from jelly donuts about manifests or hazardous waste. They’ll notify me if the truck gets recovered and I’ll run down to their tow yard and destroy the manifest. But it won’t happen like that.”

  “I never wanna see your smarmy face again,” Burl Ralston said. “You’re never doing business with me after this.”

  “Not with anyone,” Jules Temple said. “Not this business anyway. You know, Burl, I got a very good price for my company, recession and all, but maybe I shouldn’t’ve sold. With Al Gore as vice president and all those ecology groupies flocking to Washington, waste hauling might become a very good business indeed. Environmental protectors, that’s who we are.”

  “Get outta my office,” Burl Ralston said. “You got what you came for.”

  When Jules headed for the door, he said, “It was okay for two years, wasn’t it, Burl? All those low bids I gave you? All those manifests you signed, not caring how I described your waste or where I was taking it? Now when something goes wrong you give me sanctimonious bullshit. Well, just remember that at your age any jail time could be a life sentence. That’ll stop your sniveling, old man.”

  When Fin got home that evening with too much booze in him, he checked his messages and found a call from Orson Ellis, who said, “This is the world’s greatest agent calling to inform you that tomorrow morning you’re going to read for Ms. Lenore Fielding, co-executive producer of Harbor Nights! Finbar, my son, you have but to command me. Remember, be yourself. Good luck. And dress tall. The professional killer is probably a formidable specimen.”

  After Fin turned off the machine he was excited. He ran to a mirror and looked for the face of a contract killer. But he saw nothing but a flushed middle-aged civil servant with fear in his eyes!

  Fin went to the medicine cabinet and grabbed a vial of Halcion that a nurse he used to date had given him for nights like this. He knew he shouldn’t mix the drug with all the happy-hour booze, but what the hell, George Bush took them and hadn’t expired yet. But Bush was close to expiration, being ten points behind Clinton with only a few days left.

  When Fin got under the covers he tried to relax every muscle and fiber. He almost succeeded until he thought about that earthworm of an agent telling him to dress tall.

  CHAPTER 11

  Fin only had twenty minutes to rehearse before going to work, but he made the best of it. He had to find the eyes of a killer. Instead, they looked like tide pools of disgusting red plankton, and he used half a bottle of eyewash trying in vain to clear them.

  When he got to the office he had trouble keeping his mind on the mound of paperwork: the reports requiring follow-up calls, license and VIN numbers to be checked, the glorified secretarial work that made up his job and his life. He was surprised when his thoughts kept flashing to Nell Salter, of the long-ago fog lights, and long legs, and the sexy broken nose.

  But on this day he had other things to worry about. He’d shaved as closely as he could, and he’d worn his best dress shirt, and a herringbone sport coat with an understated paisley tie. He thought he should dress against type. He was the professorial, calculating, professional hit man, someone who had it in the eyes.

  Fin hoped they wouldn’t videotape the reading. That had happened to him twice before and his performances had suffered. Of the dozen or so tricks he’d used so unsuccessfully during thirteen years of amateur and professional acting, the one that helped him most was to start an argument with somebody just before a reading, to elevate his energy level. John McEnroe used that gag in every successful tennis match.

  It’d been easy to find something to get mad at when he was still married, but now that he was single he had to search for sufficient aggravation to motivate a performance. Just before leaving for his reading, he settled on Maya Tevitch. You could rely on her to fly into a rage simply by confessing that you’d spanked your puppy with a newspaper.

  In addition to animal rights advocacy, Maya was one of the few cops he’d ever known who was an outspoken liberal Democrat, having championed Clinton from the moment he did the saxophone gig for Arsenio Hall. So when the time arrived, Fin looked over at Maya, who’d just hung up the phone, and said to her, “Maya, did you hear the latest medical report on Clinton’s laryngitis? They say it’s just an excuse to let Hillary make all the speeches, since all he is, is her beard anyway.”

  “He’s got allergies,” Maya said disgustedly. “My god, the poor guy was dripping!”

  “I hope it’s his nose,” Fin said. “With him you never know.”

  Because Fin was a Perot supporter, Maya retorted, “Did you get a load of Perot Monday night? You still think there’s a genius imprisoned in that grotesque little body? Like Toulouse-Lautrec maybe?”

  Another Perot man, Detective Jimmy Estrada, said, “At least Perot responds. Clinton’d just stand there and nod understandingly if you pissed on his leg. If he wins he’s a one-termer, then he’ll be out pounding nails for the street people, with Jimmy Carter.”

  Maya said, “At least he won’t be shooting birds in Texas like George Bush and all his cowboy pals. The same guys that buy special licenses to blow away peaceful grazing buffalo since it’s illegal to shoot cows. Clinton’ll heal the wounds of this country!”

  “Heal the wounds!” Fin scoffed. “That’s all I hear from the guy. Heal the wounds. Does he wanna be a president or a paramedic? And what’s all this about investing in infrastructure? What the hell’s infrastructure? Where do I buy some of this infrastructure he’s so hot to invest my money in?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy Estrada piped up. “And lucky for him the press overlooks his yuppie spokesman’s slight reluctance to tell the truth. What’s that kid’s name? Stephen Lollipops?”

  “Stephanopoulos is his name!” Maya’s voice was soaring toward falsetto when she said, “I suppose Bush tells the truth?”

  “None to top ‘Gennifer Flowers was just a casual friend,’” Fin said. “But I’m no Bush guy. They oughtta put that geek’s missing pronouns on a milk carton. If butchering our language was a crime he’d be in the electric chair.”

  “How can you vote for a guy like Clinton that’s never met a trial lawyer he didn’t owe,” Jimmy Estrada wanted to know. “And your middle class tax cut won’t buy a new toothbrush, Maya.”

  “He’ll bring us all together!” Maya cried.

  Since all San Diegans feared “Los Angelezation,” Fin said, “With all groups living in perfect harmony just like in L.A., huh? Better known as the Balkans West where you gotta pass through metal detectors to get in airports, courthouses and kindergarten classrooms.”

  Casper Johns, the oldest detective at Southern Division-ten years past when he should have retired-uttered the first political statement anyone had ever heard him make. He chewed on his pipestem, a habit he couldn’t break even though he no longer smoked, and said, “Maybe it’s time for old guys like me and George Bush to retire. We’re both confused. He can’t tell there’s a recession going on and I can’t tell a homeless unshaven unbathed schizophrenic hobo from Andre Agassi
. They look alike to me.”

  Jimmy Estrada said, “Speaking as a member of the testosterone-producing gender, I can tell you, Maya, Willie Weasel’s newfound celibacy has a definite shelf life.”

  “Sure,” Maya said, “and those slippery Republican hatchet men’re out there beating the bushes for another smoking bimbo in a spaghetti-strap. Is that any way to win an election?”

  And so forth. The political debaters had exhausted themselves by the time Fin got up, energized, to drive to the production office and reveal the chilling visage of a killer. To show them a roaring force of nature!

  Before he exited he said to the steaming detective, “Tell me Maya, was it good for you?”

  The production office of Harbor Nights was in the Hillcrest district of San Diego, a logical location because Hillcrest passed for San Diego’s Greenwich Village. In Hillcrest there were several cinemas showing art-house films and lots of places to hang out and drink coffee or juice. There were offbeat bookshops and a multitude of ethnic restaurants. Basically, it was nouveau hippie in a town that had for decades been known as the admirals’ graveyard.

  The production staff of Harbor Nights had done its best to glitz up the second story of a commercial building that had begun its life as an apartment house. There were cheaply framed, one-sheet movie posters hanging in every room, most of them from old Hollywood classics that had never been seen by any human being who worked for Harbor Nights Productions. The oldest member of the staff was the co-executive producer, Lenore Fielding, age twenty-nine.

  Everyone was hoping that the network would order additional episodes, but the members of the company weren’t holding their breath. Harbor Nights looked like a mid-season casualty; still, like the forty-first president of the United States, each person was praying for a November miracle.

  The moment he entered, Fin’s heart sank. This receptionist was all pout. She wore a coral tunic over spandex pants, and you could’ve served a family of four on the platters hanging from her ears. She was playing a U2 tape on a ghetto blaster, and deliberately ignored him until he’d said his name twice.

  “What’d you say?” she asked, after switching off the tape to hear what he’d said.

  Accustomed to war with show-biz receptionists, and being in character, all locked-and-loaded, so to speak, Fin said, “I don’t know what I said. But what I was thinking was, that music sounds like a pack a coyotes falling off a cliff.”

  “Can I help you?” Her lip wriggled upward. He saw that those beautiful violet irises were really beautiful violet lenses.

  “I’m here to read,” he said.

  “To read what?”

  He pulled back the jacket of his herringbone, showed her the badge on his belt, and said, “To read you your rights! When was the last time you bought a quarter of flake? Empty your purse on the desk!”

  “What?” Her scarlet pout fell open. “What?”

  “Point one milligram of white can kill you!” Fin said.

  “What?” she sputtered. “What?”

  Then he grinned and said, “Well, I passed the first audition. Just get on the phone and tell Ms. Fielding I’m here. The name’s Finnegan. I’m reading for the part of a hit man.”

  The girl kept both eyes on Fin as she punched the intercom button saying, “Lenore, there’s a … Mister Finnegan here.”

  When she put the phone down, she tossed her head toward the inner office and said, “Is that badge real?”

  As he passed her desk, he said, “I’m a costume cop. I do drive-by fashion checks, and that Betty Boop hairdo’s about as up-to-the-minute as an abacus.”

  When he entered the little office of the co-executive producer of the dying TV show, he tried to walk with a confident stride, but not a swagger. He’d learned that if you start over the top, there’s nowhere to go but down.

  “Mister Finnegan,” she said, holding out her hand, palm toward the floor.

  He didn’t know whether to shake it or kiss her ring, but he kept his killer gaze fixed on the bridge of her candy-colored eyeglasses. She wore an environmentally correct shirt grown from green organic cotton with no chemical dyes. Ditto for the jeans. Draped over the chair was a $600 jacket made from cork that was “shed from trees.”

  “Hello,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

  She motioned toward a rock-hard sofa, and she sat in a straight-back chair with her head a foot higher than his.

  She studied him while Fin continued to dead-stare her. Then she said, “Orson tells me you’re a real policeman?”

  He showed a hint of a smile and said, “That should give me an advantage playing a contract killer, shouldn’t it?” Then he lied and said, “I’ve known my share of hit men.”

  “Have you really? Can you talk about it?”

  Fin shifted on the sofa and cocked his head as if to say, “Sorry, you know how it is.”

  She said, “We’re thinking of changing the script so that our killer is actually a renegade FBI agent, or maybe a member of the CIA.”

  Fin figured that would make it the 1,532nd TV show where an agent of the government is the bad guy. Because every member of the Hollywood Elite liked to claim that his phone had been tapped, or a hit squad had tailed him when he was: 1) a student during Vietnam, 2) making a movie about Chile, 3) investigating the Kennedy assassination.

  That’s what Fin was thinking, but what he said was, “What a great idea! And given my law enforcement experience, I’d be ideal for that role!”

  “Orson sent me a list of your credits, Fin,” she said. “You haven’t done much TV. And I didn’t see anything in features.”

  “I did some extra work in two features,” he said. “Did you see …”

  She interrupted him to say, “Do you have formal training?”

  “Well, not formal formal,” he said. “I’ve done a lotta stage work …”

  “Locally?”

  “Locally,” he said. “I mean, I’m not the type to move to Hollywood and join one of those actors’ studios where you learn to imitate a ripe cantaloupe. I’m more of a natural actor.”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, would you read this for me, please?”

  She handed him a page of a script. One page. There was dialogue on the page involving three characters: Renfro, Skaggs and Gonzales.

  “Which character?”

  “Skaggs,” she said. “I think, Skaggs.”

  He read the dialogue. “He’s toast?” Fin looked from the dialogue to the co-executive producer.

  “It’s not a question,” she said. “You read it like a question.”

  “Is this it?” he asked. “The dialogue? One line? Two words?”

  She said, “Try it again. Remember, you’re a … let’s say a CIA man gone bad. You’re referring to our hero who you’ve been contracted to kill. You’re responding to Renfro who said, ‘Can you finish him?’ And you say …”

  “He’s toast?” Fin asked.

  “You did it again,” she said patiently. “You delivered your line as a question. It’s not a question, Skaggs. I mean, Fin. It’s a very definitive statement.”

  Fin gathered himself, studied his dialogue, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were slits. “He’s toast,” Fin said.

  “Try it again.”

  “He’s toast,” Fin said.

  “Once more.”

  “He’s … toast,” Fin said.

  “That’s close.”

  “I can throw it away,” Fin offered. Then he threw it away, mumbling, “He’s toast.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “I could play him as an Aussie,” Fin suggested. “I do Aussies.”

  “No Aussies, no.”

  “He’s toast, mate!”

  “I said no Aussies.”

  “A Canadian, then! He’s toast, eh?”

  “That’s enough. Thanks.”

  “I can Bogart the line for you!” Fin said desperately. “I can put so goddamn much menace in it you’ll hear background
music from Alfred Hitchcock!”

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “That was very good. Thank you, Fin. We’ll be in touch.”

  He stood when she did and took her dry hand in his clammy one. Then he asked, “Will the character be coming back? I mean, I was led to believe he’ll get killed or seem to get killed but he’ll come back?”

  “We hope he’ll come back,” she said. “We hope we’re all coming back. We’ll be in touch.”

  As he was about to open the door, she said, “Fin, do you have a moment to advise me about something?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  She went to a desk that still had the rental-company sticker on one leg, and took out a clipped stack of parking citations.

  “There’s no place to park,” she explained. “And our production van’s been collecting these. Would you know someone downtown who could … show us consideration and perhaps take care of these? After all, San Diego wants movie and TV companies to shoot down here. Would you be able to help us?”

  Fin shook his head and said, “I could pay them for you, but I think I’d need to have a thirteen-show contract from the looks of that stack. Sorry, we can’t fix tickets in this town.”

  “Of course,” she said, and her smile melted like a snow cone on Ocean Beach.

  “Does this mean I’m toast?” Fin asked bleakly.

  “We’ll be in touch,” she said with a papal gesture, closing the door behind him.

  The snotty little receptionist couldn’t have looked happier if she’d been masturbating to music. She knew he was toast.

  Fin glanced at the eight-by-ten glossies on her desk, local male actors in their twenties. Each had at least a three-day stubble on his unlined boyish face. Each probably read his lines in a whispery voice, both wise and sensual. Toast. Toast!

  “Guess you can’t expect a job if you shave every day,” he muttered.

  “Are you a cop?” the receptionist asked before he exited. “Are you a real cop?”

  Fin felt used, defeated, humiliated, old. He said, “I ain’t sure anymore, kid, but I got handcuffs older’n you.”