Bird, Bath, and Beyond

by E. J. Copperman

  It was a good question. All the drama getting Barney from the ceiling molding back to his cage—and make no mistake, that’s where he was going—had overshadowed the idea that he had something attached to him, possibly something that might have some relevance to Dray Mattone’s murder. I looked carefully at his left foot.

  “Yeah, it’s still there. Give me a second.” Mom and Dad fell back, like good troopers will do when ordered, and I got Barney to the door of his cage.

  He held the stick in his beak, so he wasn’t talking, but he seemed perfectly happy to be back in his familiar environment, the one that was there whether he was home at Patty’s house, working at the studio, or having a sleepover here with his agent and her family. Barney’s life was grounded in his cage and he was comfortable there.

  Then he dropped the stick and yelled, “Put down the gun!”

  “That one’s getting old, Barney,” I told him as he hopped off my finger and onto the floor of his cage, where he dropped the stick for further gnawing. I reached over and gently held his claw; then I reached in with my other hand (which wasn’t easy in his travel cage with the smaller door) and extracted the stuff moving with his talon wherever it went.

  It was hair, and as Mom had said, it was brunette and curly. I pulled out both hands and closed the gate on Barney’s cage to avoid his deciding to take another tour of the house and to quiet him down for the night. I put the cover over his cage. He needed sleep, the dogs needed a break, and I needed a vacation in San Juan for about a week.

  The only one who wasn’t going to get what they needed? Guess who.

  I took the hair over to the kitchen table where the light was better. The dogs and my parents trailed after me. Mom and Dad wanted to see what I’d recovered, and the dogs just follow people around in case something edible gets dropped. It’s an ecosystem.

  As we got to the kitchen, me gripping the hair tightly so it wouldn’t just blow into the air and end up part of the lovely patina of dust and neglect I have on every surface of my home, I asked Dad to turn on the overhead light and he did. I sat down carefully at the table and my parents followed suit. Even the dogs seemed to think this was an important moment and did not make a sound other than the clicking of their nails on the ceramic tiled floor—best for pet owners because it absorbs nothing.

  It was so quiet in the room I expected Dr. Banacek to conduct an autopsy. But then we were actually sort of looking into Dr. Banacek’s death, so it seemed oddly appropriate. I took a napkin from the holder on the table and spread it out, then put the hair on top of it.

  The clump of hair was about half an inch wide and almost as long. It wasn’t much, but it clearly was not something Barney would have naturally picked up in his day of hanging around in his cage and occasionally spitting out a quip about zombies. There was an audible exhale from all the humans in the room and then we all leaned over to look at what was on the napkin.

  It was hair. That was about it.

  “What do you think?” I asked my parents.

  “It’s curly hair,” Dad said. “Did anybody at the studio have curly hair?”

  I looked at him. “It was a television production,” I reminded him. “The only thing you could say about all the hair was that it was gorgeous. Except of course for the teamsters.”

  I turned my attention to my mother, who had been in charge of hair, makeup, and costume for as long as I’d known her (and to be honest, before that as well). “Do you think it’s natural?” I asked her.

  Mom takes her work seriously. “Do you have a magnifying glass?” she asked.

  “No, but there’s an app for that.” I got out my phone and turned on the magnification application I’d downloaded once when trying to read the fine print on the contract for employment a chimp I knew was about to sign. I handed Mom the phone and showed her how to use the app.

  She examined the hair for a decent interval, maybe seven or eight beats on stage (that’s a long time if you’re an audience member and worse if you’re an actor). “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s dyed, but there’s something more interesting than that about it.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. I was born to play the straight man.

  “It’s artificial hair, not real,” Mom said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I can’t tell if this is carpet fiber or a really bad wig.” Janine Petinsky, the chief hairdresser for Dead City, looked over her half-glasses and into my eyes. “But it’s nothing we’d use around here.”

  I had brought the sample from Barney’s claw to Janine because I figured she would know even more than my mother about the composition of fake hair, and I was right. Mom had little to add other than it wasn’t natural, but Janine, with one glance through her magnified lenses, had already determined its quality.

  Bad.

  The production meeting at which the measures taken following Dray Mattone’s death would be discussed was going to start in a few minutes. I’d sought out Janine first even as I’d been dodging other company personnel, a few of whom actually remembered me from the day before. Without any information other than wanting an opinion, I’d asked her what this sample might be and she had immediately defended her department against even considering something so shoddy.

  “Best guess, where would it have come from?” I asked. The group was starting to assemble on the sound stage adjacent to the makeup trailer where we were talking, so I didn’t have a lot of time for subtlety.

  I know what you’re going to say: I had been determined to drop Barney off at Patty’s house and get her to go to this meeting so I could continue my career and my life. You’re right, that was the plan. But Patty had still been coughing and sniffling to beat the band—assuming one was for some reason angry with the band—and had pleaded with me to attend the meeting. She had agreed to keep Barney with her (at least for the time being) because he was certainly not going to be required for filming today. Besides, I was out of bird food.

  “If I had to say, I’d guess it was a costume store, like for Halloween or something,” Janine said. She looked me over. “Where’d you get it?”

  “One of my dogs coughed it up,” I said. “Don’t worry, I washed it.” She immediately handed me back the tuft of hair just as I heard commotion from the adjoining sound stage. The meeting was about to start.

  I thanked Janine, who immediately used disinfectant on her hands, and went to the stage. Pretty much everyone I had seen the day before was there, and so were some additions to the crew.

  The man at the center of the room, clearly commanding everyone’s attention, was wearing a suit he did not pick up at Sears and was doing his very best to look absolutely devastated, but I know bad acting when I see it.

  “Everybody settle down, please,” he said in a quiet but authoritative voice. Sure enough, the company came to an almost complete silence; there was barely the sound of anyone’s chair scraping on the floor. I felt conspicuous trying to find a place to be inconspicuous. It’s funny how life works out that way.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered to the young woman immediately to my right, a production assistant (read: intern) I’d met briefly the day before.

  She looked annoyed. This guy had told her to settle down and I was demanding she make a sound! Did I not realize how much she’d dreamed about this job when she was majoring in film at New York University? “He’s Les Mannix,” she hissed. “The showrunner.” Then she moved away from me, doing her best to be totally silent as she did so.

  “I’d like to start by deferring to Nesha Pakresh,” he said. “For just a moment of spiritual reflection on this solemn occasion.” Dray’s funeral wouldn’t be for almost a week and would be held in Los Angeles, but the rituals were beginning now.

  Nesha, whom I had not met the day before, stood up in front of the assemblage. She bowed her head and everyone in the room (except perhaps me) did the same. Then she chanted for a few minutes in a language I did not recognize, occasionally showing off a very lovely singing voice I’m sure
she wanted the producers to hear. When she finished, the company didn’t know whether to applaud, so they didn’t. Nesha bowed once and walked backward without looking so Mannix could once again take center stage.

  “I’m sure everyone has heard the dreadful news about yesterday,” Mannix began. Of course everyone had heard the news; they’d been here and he had not. The only issue was whether he had heard the news, and he was certainly answering that question. “We’re all stunned. We’re crippled and we’re dazed.”

  That struck a chord before I realized he was quoting Elton John’s (actually Bernie Taupin’s) elegy for John Lennon, “Empty Garden.” But Mannix wasn’t anywhere near finished.

  “What happened yesterday is something we would not wish on someone we despised, let alone someone as beloved as our own Dray. But I’ve learned something about love that I never knew before. You speak of love when it’s too late.” That was from Stage Door. I didn’t know this guy, but he could quote with the best of them.

  “The fact is, somebody killed Dray, and that has an impact on all of us here.” Mannix rubbed his upper arms as if he was cold and stood to better be seen being troubled. He still wasn’t convincing, but he was making all the right moves. “And that’s sad and it’s wrong and it’s unfair. It’s a bloody tragedy, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing!” He pointed in the air to emphasize his intensity and distract from his quoting a Peter O’Toole movie called The Stunt Man.

  People hung their heads. Some were openly weeping. I don’t think too many of them were sincere, and nobody was buying Mannix’s act, but they were show people and I know show people. If there’s an opportunity to be dramatic, they are certainly going to leap on it and stomp it to death.

  “And that means we have to consider reality even as we deal with the horror and sadness we’re still all feeling, and will feel for a long time.” You had to wonder if Mannix had consulted with Aaron Sorkin about the speech he was making now. Although I’m not sure Sorkin would work at television rates anymore, and he doesn’t quote that much.

  “I’m sorry, but we do have to think about what we’re going to do next. I know the adage is that the show must go on, and we agree with that, but it’s not always possible.” There was an audible gasp from the crowd, which Mannix clearly heard, because he looked up from his facedown “brooding” pose with a slightly surprised expression. “Now, hang on. No decisions have been made yet.” The crowd relaxed, but not much.

  “Believe me, nobody wants to shut this show down. But this is a business. We’re still reeling from the shock of yesterday, and so is our fan base. We have no idea yet whether they’ll follow us without Dray, who as you know was a very popular feature of Dead City.”

  A hand went up somewhere to my right and I heard a woman’s voice ask, “Are you going to recast the part of Dr. Banacek?” That was met with some grumbles and the hand went down, probably in fear of physical attack.

  Mannix’s mouth twisted a little, probably involuntarily, since he wanted to look wounded, not angry. “No, that is not a consideration,” he answered, and a few in the crowd actually applauded. “This is a very delicate situation. Dray Mattone was a special talent who connected to viewers in a unique and wonderful way. It would be an insult to him for us to recast the role.”

  “What about the crew?” a man to my left shouted. “Are we still working?”

  “Not today,” Mannix said, holding up his hands, palms out. “Let me tell you what we are doing.

  “We’ll be suspending filming on the first unit immediately, but the second unit will continue for this episode only. We had almost all of Dray’s scenes shot before … this happened.” Mannix closed his eyes a moment to get back into character. Good: mourning. Right! The eyes opened again.

  “So for scenes that don’t require Dr. Banacek we will continue filming, but not until tomorrow, out of respect,” he went on. “After everything is in the can we will be suspending filming temporarily while the creative team makes a decision about how to proceed.”

  “The creative team,” muttered Heather Alizondo, who had appeared just to my left, arms folded. “Like the rest of us are just manual laborers and don’t have a useful idea among us.” I don’t even think she was talking to anyone in particular. She certainly couldn’t be heard more than a few feet away.

  “How long will it take to decide?” asked someone I couldn’t see at all. I’m not that tall and I was standing in the back. So sue me.

  “We hope not very long,” Mannix said, not really answering. “We’ll be meeting with some studio people and some network people to get their input, and we’ll figure something out.”

  A burly looking grip a couple of rows (such as they were) in front of me stuck up a paw. “Do we get paid while you people decide?” he asked.

  Mannix raised an eyebrow to indicate he’d gotten the note of defiance in the man’s question. “Yes, you will,” he said. “Everybody on the crew will continue to be paid at least for a week, and we expect that our path will be clear before then. Okay?” The defiance was on the other foot now.

  “Okay,” the grip said. He knew the union rules. Everybody got paid as long as the show was considered in production. If it went on the dreaded “hiatus,” meaning it was probably canceled, everybody would be making phone calls and polishing up résumés. Not that they weren’t doing that already, but after a cancellation, the activity would be considerably more overt.

  “But for the moment,” Mannix said, composing himself again, “let’s concentrate on our lost friend Dray. Reach out to Denise if you can.” Denise Barnaby was Dray’s second (third?) wife, whom I had not seen on the set. “She’s having a rough time, as you might imagine. If any of you need counseling, we’ll have a therapist here on the set for the next couple of days or for however long it’s necessary. No expense is being spared.” That was nice; Dray Mattone was dead and Mannix wanted us all to know it was costing him money.

  “And one last thing,” he said, holding up his hand like a traffic cop again. “The police will be here today and probably tomorrow and, frankly, for as long as they want. We’re telling everybody to cooperate with them to the fullest extent that you can. The priority here is to find the bastard that killed Dray and bring him to justice. Are we clear?”

  There were some nods and a few mumbled words of agreement, but for the most part everyone was studying the floor, or as much of it as they could see with an entire company of television people crammed onto one sound stage. Those things look huge until you bring in the whole crew, from the executive producers to the guy who locks up the doors at the end of the day.

  “Good,” Mannix said, as if there had been unrestrained shouts of assent. “Now we’ll have a short memorial service today at noon, right here on the stage. Everyone is invited.” He made invited sound like it was spelled required to show up for fear of termination. Which, to be fair, it probably was.

  I didn’t have to worry about future employment by the production company because I wasn’t working for them; I was working for Barney, and by extension Patty. So I made up my mind on the spot to skip the memorial service and move onto more productive things, like heading to my office and seeing if there was a talented otter or something that could get work without running into a murder just by accident.

  But heading for the exit was something of a gauntlet. Even after Mannix left the floor and the meeting was clearly over, people were milling about, no doubt gossiping about Dray’s shooting and wondering how long they would remain employed in television.

  Janine stopped me first. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “That fake hair you’ve got? Could be from a mannequin, you know, a department store dummy? I’ve never seen anybody try to get by with something that bad, but I have seen it in party stores and whatnot. You might try there. What do you want more of it for?”

  I didn’t want more of it—in fact, I was hoping to get rid of what little I had, but I thanked Janine and pressed on toward the door, which seemed fart
her away than it had been the day before. Before I could make much more headway through the crowd without a machete, Heather took hold of my arm.

  “I don’t want to bother you, but do you think Barney might be able to come back tomorrow?” she asked. “With Dray gone, I might want to cut to more close-ups on the bird.”

  Nice that the company was so grief stricken at the loss of their star. “I can tell Patty to get him here tomorrow,” I said. “But he has only one facial expression. If you have old footage it’ll look like the new footage.”

  “Not after I get done lighting it.” Everybody wanted to make sure they were doing great work now; they had to line up another job.

  We agreed on a time and I noted it on my phone to tell Patty when I got there, assuming I could make it through this jungle and out the door. Sure enough, Les Mannix himself stood in front of me and beckoned with his index finger for me to approach. I looked around, but no, he seemed to be pointing toward me, which made very little sense. I was just the parrot’s agent.

  “What did you think of the eulogy?” he asked. And that stumped me more because I had no idea it had been a eulogy so much as a status meeting for the crew.

  “Very touching,” I said. It’s my responsibility to keep my client employed, so insulting the boss was not part of my game plan.

  “I’ll say more at the memorial service. You’re coming, right?” He glared with the kind of intensity that I’m sure had crushed more than one personal assistant into a fine powder.

  “I’m just the bird’s agent,” I blurted.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking past me to see if anybody cooler was there. And by my own reckoning, there pretty much had to be. “You were the one who suggested the parrot should stay in Dray’s trailer, right?”

  Oh, no. I wasn’t about to get saddled with that one. “As a matter of fact, no,” I said. “Heather asked if Barney could stay a while longer. When I said he needed to rest for a while, it was her idea that we take his cage to Dray’s trailer.” I was in second grade and Juanita Lewis had been copying off me, not the other way around!