by Rick Copp
“I want to sleep in my own bed. I want to play ball with Snickers,” he moaned. “I’m done with Florida.”
I slid my arm around his waist, and with my support, he hobbled back toward the Taurus. He was still woozy from the head injury, so I held on to him tight to make sure he didn’t lose his balance. I don’t remember ever holding him that tight. And at that moment, I knew I was never, ever going to let go of him again.
Following is an exciting sneak peek
at Rick Copp’s next Jarrod Jarvis mystery
THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO GREED!
Chapter 1
As I raced through the thick, foreboding woods, entangled in a maze of sharp tree branches and knee-high shrubs, I gasped and sputtered in a panic, disoriented and lost in my surroundings. It was dark and the air chilled my bones. I couldn’t stop shivering. I darted my eyes back and forth, searching, so desperately trying to get my incessant wheezing under control. The last thing I needed was my lack of an effective exercise program to give me away. Taking cover behind an overgrown bush, I bent down and hugged my knees, praying he wouldn’t find me. I took a gulp of air and held my breath. I heard some rustling branches as if someone were walking steadily toward me. A twig snapped. He was so close.
After a few tense moments, he mercifully retreated and all I could hear was the restless gust of the wind. He was gone. And I was still alive. Exhaling an exhausted sigh of relief, I stepped out from behind my hiding place and turned toward the direction of the campsite, where the others were waiting. Suddenly I stopped. There he was. Looming over me in a cartoon Elmer Fudd mask and wielding a sharp hatchet in his white-knuckled fist. He raised it above his head, and before I could let out a scream, he brought it down. Hard. So hard it cracked open my skull like a melon. Blood spurted everywhere. I stumbled back, shaking my head in utter shock and disbelief, grabbing my head and then staring numbly at my blood-soaked hands. I sank to my knees and raised my eyes in time to see Elmer Fudd swing the axe down again. I prayed that at any moment I was going to wake up from this horrible nightmare. But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.
How could I ever have let this happen? How did I allow Laurette to talk me into making this dreadful movie?
Charlie and I sat in the fourth-row aisle seats at the New Beverly Cinema, a run-down revival house near the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, for the world-premiere screening of Creeps, an exploitative slasher flick I shot last year in south Florida. I knew the project was completed on a shoestring budget, but actors always hope that sharp editing, some realistic sound effects, and a suspenseful score will somehow make it look a little better at the end of the day. No such luck. This piece of schlock was an unmitigated disaster. People were chuckling at my death scene. It was so silly and unbelievable. And it wasn’t just the script or the way it was shot. It was me. I was awful. Completely over the top. Like Susan Hayward’s wacky performance in I Want to Live! But Susan won an Oscar and went on to play juicy supporting roles in camp classics like Valley of the Dolls. This celluloid Titanic was going to sink my career. Or what was left of it.
Charlie knew I was on the verge of a breakdown. He gently placed one hand on my knee while stuffing a fistful of popcorn into his mouth with the other. I knew what he was doing. He was afraid I was going to ask him what he thought of my performance and figured a mouthful of movie popcorn would keep him from having to give me an honest answer.
The camera lingered on my crumpled, twisted, broken body for much longer than necessary, finally panning and stopping for a close shot of my separated skull. What a memorable big-screen debut. A ten-foot-high corpse in Technicolor. Mercifully, the film finally cut away from the flies buzzing around my dead body to a new scene as my ten-year-old son in the movie (played by a four-foot-high, Satan-possessed child star) wandered through the woods, worried about his dad, who had suddenly gone missing. The film’s strapping, stoic, hard-bodied hero accompanied him.
I wanted to run screaming out of the theater, but the film’s director was sitting directly behind me. Larry Levant was a rising young artiste full of creative promise that would instantly be washed away upon this clunker’s release. He was in his early thirties, on the short side, with dark features and an intense gaze. With him was my manager, Laurette, a gorgeous, plus-size beauty who dwarfed him whenever they were together. They had found love on the set even though Larry never found a story for his movie. I wanted to yell at both of them for getting me involved in this mess. But when I spun around and was met with their expectant smiles, I simply gave my nervous director and my best friend an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
The film lasted another excruciating sixty-two minutes. Charlie shifted several times, especially at the gory parts. My boyfriend, Charlie, was a cop and saw blood and violence every day while investigating LA’s underbelly. Accompanying me to the premiere of this movie was above and beyond the call of duty. And I loved him for it.
When the credits finally rolled, there was a smattering of applause. Most of the audience bolted from their seats and out the door before there was any chance of running into Larry and having to comment on the film. The cluster of executives from Sunbelt Films, a small, independent releasing company that unwisely chose to pick up this movie nightmare for distribution, offered a few perfunctory pats on the back to Larry, then clamped their cell phones to their ears and made their escape.
Charlie and I were stuck. We had agreed beforehand to accompany Larry and Laurette to the postpremiere party being held a few blocks from the theater across Beverly Boulevard at Starbucks.
Yes, Starbucks. Not the Skybar. Or Chinois on Main. Or Mortons. Or any other high-end LA hotspot the studios flock to for their numerous celebratory events. Sunbelt cried poverty when it came to hosting a party. Of course, this was after they saw a rough cut of the film. So Laurette, who refused to let the evening go by without some kind of festivity, organized a gathering at the nearest coffeehouse. She even sprang for pastries.
The handful of moviegoers who hadn’t already dashed for their cars marched across the street. There was a somber mood in the air on this crisp, late-spring night. We were all thinking the same thing. What would we say if Larry and Laurette pressed us for our opinions on the film? Laurette and I had shared a years-long friendship based on honesty and I promised her very early on that I would always be up front with her, never hold back, never sugarcoat anything. And I expected the same from her. We had both zealously stuck to our pact. Well, almost. There was the time I traded in my BMW for a Prius in an effort to make an environmental statement and Laurette blindly leased a new Cadillac SUV that she had to fill up every time she made a two-mile trip to the nearest Nordstrom. Why make her feel bad? And then there was the time she made noises about her desire to adopt a toddler from China. I was concerned because the last thing she had to care for was a hamster she got when she was twelve that she forgot to feed for three weeks while she was busy mourning A Flock of Seagulls’ failure to win a Best New Artist Grammy. I never said a word to her. Okay, so maybe fibbing about my true reaction to her boyfriend’s new movie wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t stick to our honesty agreement.
As the small group of us poured into Starbucks, the workers with their black pullover Izod shirts and coffee-stained green aprons steeled themselves for a rush. Charlie and I were first in line, and I rattled off my usual iced venti sugar-free vanilla nonfat decaf latte. I know, I know, what’s the point? Charlie spied an inviting maple-nut scone that was calling out to him and ordered a house blend to wash it down with. I declined a pastry because I’m an actor and we spend half our day comparing body-fat measurements. Charlie was on his feet all day, active in his work as a detective, and never worried about what he ate. It just made me feel better to know I refused to give in to my sweets craving. Of course, Charlie would inevitably offer me half his scone, and I would happily accept it. So in the end, it would all work out for me. I would demonstrate self-restraint and get half a maple-nut scone.
As we stepped aside to allow the
next person in line to place their order, I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“Baby, don’t even go there!”
That was the catchphrase I made famous during my five-year stint as a precocious troublemaker on a hit 1980s sitcom called Go to Your Room. It felt like a million years ago, but those five words would probably wind up on my gravestone right next to Gary Coleman and his signature catchphrase, “What you talkin’ about, Willis?”
I plastered on a fake smile and spun around to see who just couldn’t resist dredging up my cheesy past.
Wallace Goodwin, a bespectacled, balding, slightly paunchy sitcom writer in his mid-forties, beamed at me. Wallace had been a staff writer on my show for its entire run. He loved to claim credit for that snappy retort I used time and time again on any given episode. It was always so important for Wallace to let the world know he had come up with that immortal line that made such an indelible impression on American pop culture. He was convinced that some day it would be the deciding factor in his possible induction into the TV Academy Hall of Fame.
“I came up with that, you know,” Wallace said, puffed up with pride.
“I remember.” That’s all I could think of to say.
Sitcom writers are a strange breed. They spend their lives cooped up on a studio lot in a bland, claustrophobic conference room with scuffed walls and stained rugs, eating most of their meals out of take-out Styrofoam at two in the morning as they pitch to improve bad jokes that rarely ever get better. They are also extremely competitive and hyperaware of how well other writers are doing. Who’s the funniest? Who’s the dead weight? Their entire self-worth is based on whether or not they can succeed in getting the show runner to laugh so hard he blows Diet Coke out through his nose.
After the show was canceled, Wallace went on to write for a string of successful shows, albeit no Emmy winners. He reached his peak in the late eighties by winning a NAACP award for a very special episode of a sitcom starring Marla Gibbs from The Jeffersons. Not bad for a middle-aged, white Jewish writer from New Rochelle. After that career high, his luck ran out. He snared freelance assignments on a few syndicated shows and at one point developed a pilot recharging the old Knight Rider franchise with a team of talking cars. He brought me in to audition for a gay minivan. By then, I was completely out of the closet thanks to a National Enquirer cover photo of me and a buddy making out at the LA Gay Rodeo. Wallace was hoping I could infuse my innate homosexuality into the personality of a screaming queen vehicle manufactured by Ford. He was polite when I came in to read for him, if not a little embittered by his circumstances. He wasn’t exactly writing Seinfeld. After the audition, he assured me I did an admirable job, but in the end, wound up casting his fey personal trainer, who offered him a lifetime of free workouts if he gave him the part.
I never heard from him again until tonight.
“It’s good to see you, Wallace.” I wasn’t lying. I had fond memories of those golden years of my childhood stardom. Go to Your Room was a seminal period in my life, and those of us involved in the show were like a tight-knit company of war-torn soldiers. We faced many battles together, lost some of our men, came back with a few scars, but were thankful we at least made it home alive.
“Great performance, Jarrod. I really enjoyed the movie a lot.” Wallace obviously didn’t get the honesty memo. His neck was beet red, a clear sign he wasn’t telling the truth.
“You die very well,” a woman’s voice purred as Katrina Goodwin marched up with a bottled water and slid her arm through her husband’s. Katrina was a raven-haired beauty, a former actress about nine years younger than Wallace was. She had guest-starred on Go to Your Room as the cheerleader friend of my older sister. Wallace had penned that week’s script, and during our first run-through for the studio, she complimented him on his fine comedic writing. Wallace’s script had been overhauled by the entire staff before the first reading, and there was only one line left from his original draft. “Hi, Mom.” But nevertheless, Wallace accepted Katrina’s gracious accolade and was smitten all week after that. The two became inseparable, but many naysayers suspected Katrina’s motives. Especially after Wallace insisted the show bring her back as a semiregular due to her overwhelming chemistry with the rest of the cast. Everyone else on the writing staff failed to see her potential, but Wallace was undeterred. Every story line he pitched and every script he turned in featured that sweet-natured, batty, and mammary-stacked cheerleader friend. And amazingly, the viewers responded. Mostly the teenage boys, but hey, that’s exactly who the show was designed for. Then Katrina started hanging around the set during the weeks she didn’t even appear in the script, and it soon became clear she and Wallace were an item. The crew placed bets that she would bolt by the end of the season, but she stuck around, and even after the show was scrapped, they stayed together. And remarkably, after all these years, Wallace and Katrina Goodwin seemed as happy and in love as the first day they met.
Katrina touched my arm, and with the utmost sincerity, said, “You look happy, Jarrod. You don’t know how happy that makes Wallace and me.”
Wallace nodded vigorously in agreement. Of course, he automatically agreed with anything his beloved wife said.
“I am happy.” I smiled. “I may not be so happy after reading the reviews of this movie, but hey, we’ve all been associated with a lot of crappy projects. You’ve got to pay the mortgage, right, Wallace?”
Wallace stared at me blankly. In his mind, everything he ever did was art that was simply misunderstood. I remember him telling me at my audition that his Knight Rider redo was a quirky, intelligent reimagining of the franchise, and critics be damned if they weren’t smart enough to see that. Wallace wasn’t about to group himself with me, whose only critically hailed project since the good old days of Go to Your Room was a memorable turn as an earnest rookie cop gunned down in the line of duty in an Emmy-nominated episode of Homicide: Life on the Street.
Katrina bristled at my unintentional slam aimed at her husband. She was very protective of him. I had to backpedal fast.
“So what show are you working on now, Wallace? Any sitcom would be lucky to have you.”
Katrina relaxed. I had tactfully sidestepped the land mine.
Wallace scoffed. “I haven’t done a sitcom in years. I got tired of the grind. It was time to stretch myself as an artist.” Writer speak for “No one will hire me, so I have to scramble and find something else to do.”
“Writing movies?” I said.
“No. Why waste my time in features? Writers get no respect in movies. Studios go through more on one film than a stuffy nose goes through Kleenex.”
Maybe if Wallace worked on his analogies, he would get more work as a writer.
“If you come out of sitcoms, the movie execs look down on you. It’s tough out there for writers,” Wallace said, almost growling.
“It’s even worse for actors,” I said, trying to offer my own perspective on the hardships of carving out a lasting career in Hollywood. “You get pigeonholed from one role. For years, I tried to break out of that child-star box they put me in, and then, when I finally prove I can do drama as a young adult on that Homicide episode, all the casting agents say, ‘We saw him as the cop, but can he do comedy?’ Everybody forgets I had my own sitcom!”
Wallace was looking blank again. He had been enjoying his rant, and as actors are prone to do, I had shifted the attention from him onto myself.
Katrina pouted, annoyed that I would so blatantly steal the focus from her husband.
More backpedaling. “I’m just saying, I know how frustrated you must be.”
Wallace shot a glance at his wife, as if to say, “Can you believe this guy?” Then plowed on. “I socked some cash away after the Knight Rider fiasco. Took some time to regroup, consider what it was I really wanted to write, and you may not believe this, Jarrod, but—”
“Wallace wrote a play,” Katrina chimed in, excited and proud of her husband.
There was an awkward silence.
Clearly Wallace wanted to tell me this exciting news himself. He glared at Katrina, but her enthusiasm was bubbling over with such intensity, she didn’t even notice.
“It’s a murder mystery. Wallace’s agent absolutely loved it. He said Wallace is going to be the next Ira Levine.”
“Who?” I said, recognizing the name as my dentist on the West Side, not a famous playwright.
“Ira Levine,” Katrina said, obviously put off by my stupidity. “The guy who wrote Deathtrap and Boys in the Band.”
“Levin,” Wallace hissed. “Ira Levin. And it wasn’t Boys in the Band, it was Boys from Brazil.”
“Whatever,” Katrina laughed. “It was about homosexuals in Rio.”
I bit my tongue.
Wallace sighed. “Boys in the Band was about homosexuals in New York. Boys from Brazil was about breeding young boys to be Nazis.”
“Were the Nazis gay?” Katrina said, completely serious.
“No!”
I quickly intervened. “What’s your play about, Wallace?”
The tension immediately drained out of Wallace’s face. He loved talking about his work. “It’s set at a bed-and-breakfast in Manchester, England. A rainstorm traps the guests in the house for the weekend, and one of them is an escaped killer. No one knows who it is, and the bodies start piling up, and there is a detective from America who ultimately exposes the killer—”
“Turns out it’s the Danish countess with a split personality,” Katrina said.
Wallace’s face flushed with anger and he turned to his wife. “You just told him the ending.”
“Well, you can pretty much guess it by the end of the first act,” Katrina said.
“No, you can’t!”
Somehow I remembered these two much happier. In one more attempt to defuse the situation, I said, “Sounds very Agatha Christie.”
It didn’t work. Wallace spun around and barked, “No! She was all about the puzzle. My play is a deep psychological portrait of a mind gone mad!”