The Annes nodded…
But that still wasn’t the end of it. That night Duncan Feeney stole a rough cut of the Doom Documentary and disappeared.
SHOW BIZ
Duncan didn’t wait until he got into Manhattan. He phoned his ex-agent from the baggage claim area at LaGuardia. “Shelly, Shelly baby, it is I, Duncan Feeney, and I have gold in my grip.”
“Who is this?”
“Feeney, Duncan Feeney!”
“Oh yeah. Listen, I don’t handle prison memoirs.”
“Prison? I was never in prison! They’ll never get me!”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Okay, forget it, Shelly. Big-timers, forward-lookers, they’d kill for what I got. But forget it, sorry I imposed. Take dork in hand and go back to sleep. I’ll find a man of vision who’ll know what to do with what I got.”
“What have you got?”
Duncan Feeney told Shelly what he had in the six film cans he was waiting to claim.
“Jesus…Dennis Loomis? The guy who wrote Splendor?”
“Splendor was my idea! My fucking idea! Why does no one remember that?”
“This is all true? It actually happened?”
“I thought this might get your attention.”
“It said on TV that Donald Sikes drowned while swimming off his own boat.”
“Well, he didn’t. Do you want it or do you not want it?”
“Do I want it? What, are you nuts! It’s gold.”
Duncan grinned. He could see it now—acclaim, celebrity, money. Especially money. The offers would pour in. He still might become spokesman for a Japanese auto manufacturer, get his picture on an American Express ad, or one of those scotch ads where they tell the drinker’s profession (conceiver), interests (Spandex), and last book read (Splendor).
In a plushly private screening room on Broadway and Forty-ninth Street, Duncan Feeney, Shelly, and his associates viewed the Annes’ rough footage. It took five hours, and it left everyone speechless. A true crime story, on-the-scene footage of a criminal conspiracy in the making. Murder, arson, sun-baked intrigue, Oedipal stuff, you name it. As it happened! Could have been more about drugs, spics from Columbia with pinky rings, but what the hell, we have the downfall of heavyweights, everybody loves that, the sins of the father. This thing had themes, big themes, you know, like Equus. Christ, Florida’s hot right now, still riding the wake of “Miami Vice.” Now you mention it, we could get Don Johnson to narrate, or if he’s not available, the other guy, the lieutenant who never moves his mouth when he acts, the fuck’s his name? We’re looking at an Oscar for best documentary, at least a Pulitzer, points, video subsids, the Jap rights alone would set us up for life.
“Would you pardon us for a moment, Duncan? Let my associates and I discuss this matter?” asked Shelly. “Can I have my girl get you something?”
“No, but can I have your girl?” said Duncan.
“Ha, good one, Duncan. Have my girl, great.” Shelly’s associates grinned without mirth.
“He’s right, this is gold,” said Morty Goss after Duncan had left. Morty Goss was hot just now because he’d made a ninja version of Beowulf starring Brigitte Nielsen as Grendel, which lost twelve million dollars.
“Oh, big bucks, pan grande,” predicted Kink Frazier.
“I’m deeply moved by it,” said Mick Mercy.
“Only thing is, this Feeney guy—” added Taylor Crasswell.
“Yeah,” said the others too junior to express any other opinion.
“But what do we need this Feeney guy for anyway, a fugitive? So what he was there? Nobody cares. He didn’t make the movie, did he? He doesn’t own the rights, does he? Doom Loomis—and this Rosemary chick—they’re the ones we care about,” Kink pointed out. Kink was the literary man, the man in charge of structure, characterization, and verisimilitude. His job was to get to the artistic meat of things.
“So what do we do, buy him off?”
“Yeah, cheap.”
“I mean, fugitives hanging around a project—poison. Majors won’t touch it with fugitives. I mean, also the guy’s got no class.”
“So maybe he won’t want classy money.”
“How much you figure? Ballpark.”
“I got a better idea,” said Shelly. He shouted up to his girl in the projection booth, “Janice, get me the FBI.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Klepton?”
“Get me the FBI, please.”
“Did you say FBI, Mr. Klepton?”
“Yes, I did, Janice.” To his associates, Shelly said, “I’ll bring the poor bastard a fruitcake one of these years,” which cracked up his associates.
That very evening in the screening room, Shelly and his associates decided to get aggressive on this thing. They had to find out who actually made the movie, and secure rights, sure, but that could wait. For the immediate future, they scheduled test screenings before a strictly invited audience.
The audiences, over cheap champagne, Brie, and crudités served by out-of-work SAG members in mime whiteface, agreed that this was indeed a gold mine. No one in the audience could recall ever seeing anything like it.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“And it’s actually true!”
“No—”
“Yes! It actually happened. Conceptually, that’s the whole point.”
“What is?”
“That it’s true!”
“Who told you it was true?”
“Shelly Klepton.”
“Klepton wouldn’t know true if it nipped him in the bud.”
“Nevertheless. Do you know who made it? The Annes made it.”
“Who?”
“Big-time dyke documentarians. Artist types. Sincere. Don’t you read the trades?”
“Oh yeah, they made Mom, sure.”
“Mom? What was Mom about?”
“Uterine cancer.”
“Who was in it?”
“You know what I hear? I hear Shelly hasn’t got the rights. Might be time for a trip to the sunny South. Have checkbook, will travel. Even to Florida.”
“Yeah, but documentaries don’t do shit in Dubuque. Do you think we could release it as a theatrical film?”
“Come on, get with the program on this.”
“…Would you consider a docudrama?”
Word spread quickly from Broadway to Beverly Hills, and that New York heard about it first struck fear into the hearts of Californians.
“Why didn’t you hear about this Doom thing first? What? I got to hear about it from that dickup Klepton? Not even Klepton! Klepton’s girl!”
“We heard about it first.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t you get our memo?”
“It’s New York pretending like they mean something.”
“Yeah, New York’s pulling a fast one.”
“Amazing anybody still lives in that filth.”
Underlings lied to their bosses and their bosses lied to the majors. Seventy-two hours after Duncan’s arrest, the origins of the Doom Documentary were hopelessly obscured, tangled in power-breakfast lies and parent-company myth. The majors decided to see for themselves, scope it out, have an on-site look-see to blow the smoke away, figure out whether this thing had wings, and they hired special charter flights from LAX straight to Miami. There fleets of stretch limos waited, drivers studying maps to learn exactly how the fuck you get to this hick town, Omnium.
Duncan, in custody, wasn’t silent during those hours.
He sang like a mockingbird in the hopes of sneaking by with probation and a suspended sentence. “We’re talking murder here! Three, no four, capital crimes. Donald Sikes murdered! His boat sunk. Hell, you can still see it sitting on the bottom! I’m ready to cooperate with you guys. I’m a friendly witness!” That fucking Shelly. One day, one day he’d get that fucking Shelly. Shelly will never work in this town again.
“Hey, boss,” said Agent Deeds to the director at a urinal, “we got some funny busi
ness going down on Omnium Key, Florida.”
“Bullshit, Deeds, you’re just trying to cadge a cheap vacation.”
“No, sir, I think this is the real thing.” Agent Deeds peed on his hand by accident, but he didn’t let on in front of the director. “About the death of Donald Sikes.”
“The tycoon? He drowned, didn’t he?”
“I got a guy says he was murdered as part of a conspiracy. Guy says he’s got it on film.”
“So let’s see the film.”
“The guy ain’t got the film.”
“I thought you just said—”
“I mean he’s got it on film, but he don’t have the film. He says some associates stole it from him.”
“Sounds pretty murky to me, Deeds.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, check it out, but I don’t want to see a lot of funny business appear on the expense account. The Bureau ain’t paying for fellatio.”
“Oh, no sir.”
“Yeah, bullshit.”
THE MAJOR PLAYERS
Amorose crew gathered aboard Staggerlee in the dying light of dusk. It had felt sweet to Doom and Rosalind to emerge from Black Caesar’s sordid backwater into the soft light at the Flamingo Tongue docks, where the King Don sat on the bottom, brown pelicans and cormorants homemaking in her superstructure. Marvis was working on a deal to sell the salvage rights. Marvis and Bert were aboard Staggerlee; so were Longnecker and Holly and Professor Goode, who felt particularly guilty, since he and Duncan Feeney had come to Florida together.
When the Annes arrived, Rosalind cast off the dock lines and Doom got Staggerlee under way. He realized this was the first time he’d ever seen the Annes without the tools of their art in front of their faces. The Annes were limp, befuddled.
In a soft, moist west wind Doom and Bert set the main and the light number one genoa, which for the hell of it, Bert barberhauled out to the toe rail to improve sail shape, and they beam-reached down Small Hope Bay at under five knots. It was dark by the time Bert and Doom trimmed up the sails and joined the others in the cockpit.
Shortly after dawn that morning, the Annes had received the first of a string of disturbing phone calls from their agent, Agnes Steel. The night before, Agnes Steel had crashed one of Shelly Klepton’s screenings after rumor reached her that Shelly was showing her clients’ work as if he owned it. “I felt like I’d been raped,” said Agnes Steel.
At first the Annes were disbelieving. He wouldn’t dare! But they knew that was nonsense; of course he would dare. This was the worst that could happen. The Annes blamed themselves. Agnes would bring heavy clout down on Klepton’s skull and the Annes would eventually recover their film, but what would happen to them? They could all land in jail, but it would go worse for Doom, the ringleader, as their own footage established. He already had a record. It would be hard time for Doom Loomis.
Agnes called again before noon. She told them that the FBI had arrested Duncan Feeney on an outstanding warrant for fraud, conspiracy to defraud, mail fraud, and literary mischief.
She called again at 6:30. “It’s public knowledge now, the whole ball of wax is out of the closet.” A story about the Doom Documentary and its sensational contents had just appeared on “Eyewitness News.”
Shortly before Staggerlee got under way, Agnes phoned a fourth time to tell them that Ted Koppel’s people at “Nightline” had called. They wanted an interview with the Annes, and they wanted to meet Doom Loomis. They wanted to devote an entire show to the Doom Documentary. “What do you want me to do?” Agnes Steel had asked. And that’s where it stood when they boarded Staggerlee to make some decisions. Doom was sick of making decisions.
“There’s at least three limos parked in front of every motel on Tequesta Key,” said Rosalind.
“We know those people,” said Anne, “they’re ruthless.”
“They’ll stop at nothing.”
“What they can’t buy, they’ll steal.”
“It’s all my fault,” said Professor Goode. “I brought him.”
“Don’t worry about blame,” said Doom. “Anyway, it was my fault. I agreed to let us be filmed. I feel like Richard Nixon.”
“We shouldn’t have done it,” said Anne. “As soon as it turned illegal, we should have backed off.”
“Who knew it would get this big?” added Anne.
“But we were excited.”
“Titillated.”
“We let our feelings get in the way.”
Doom bore off slightly to port in order to stay in the channel, and Bert eased the sheets. Doom knew it wasn’t merely the show-biz sharks that had arrived. A couple of guys in blue pin-striped suits had been spotted hanging around the Flamingo Tongue. They’d arrest him anytime now, and all the publicity around the case would make them even more ardent. That’s how careers got made.
Rosalind sighed.
No one spoke. Small Hope Bay, safe now, gurgled beneath the hull.
The Annes had to do it. Politically it was the only correct course of action. They knew that Doom knew it, too—they could see it on his face—but he was too polite to bring it up. The Annes exchanged glances. Anne began: “The problem for us is that this movie is true—”
“It’s a documentary,” Anne clarified.
“Right,” said Anne, “but suppose it wasn’t?”
The concept began to dawn on the others.
Anne continued: “Suppose we accepted the invitation to appear on ‘Nightline’ and told Ted, what’s all the fuss about? This is”—the word stuck in Anne’s throat—“fic-shun?”
“A theatrical film.”
“All acting.”
“Who’s left to contradict us?”
“Nobody.”
Doom knew how much it would hurt the Annes to call cinéma vérité fic-shun on network TV, and the offer to do so touched him. It was the only alternative to hard time. But would Ted believe them? Probably not. There were too many loose ends.
Rosalind put her arms around the Annes and hugged them. They stroked Rosalind’s hair.
Staggerlee’s crew felt close, connected, familial. They sailed along in silence until the bridge over Hurricane Hole Creek loomed.
“Ready about?” Doom asked.
Captain Bert eased the barberhaul and took two turns off the port-side primary winch. “Ready,” he muttered.
“Helm’s alee,” muttered Doom.
After completing the tack and retrimming the sails, Doom said, “We still have to decide what to do with Omnium Settlement.”
After a brief discussion they concluded that they had no choice. They had to let it sink. Back to its pre–Broadnax/Throckmorton shoreline. As nature intended and history demanded. And then use the money they had stolen to keep it that way.
“But what are you going to do?” Holly, speaking for everyone aboard, asked Doom and Rosalind.
Doom and Rosalind looked at each other…Good question.
MUSEUM QUALITY
Snack Broadnax opened the sliding door and lowered the platform to its horizontal boarding position. Then he wheeled his father’s chair onto the platform, lowering him to the ground.
“Son?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Where are we?”
“We’re at the future site, Dad.”
“Future?”
“The future site of the Colonel A.C. Broadnax Memorial Museum. It’ll be very grand when it’s done.”
That made Big Al happy, Snack could tell. His father’s fingers began to tap the armrests.
Snack wheeled Big Al into the shade of the casuarina pines at the crest of the hill from which, six feet up, he could look down on the work already under way in Omnium Settlement. Snack sat on the cool, fallen pine needles beside his father and pointed out to him the features of the Broadnax Museum, its shape, contents, and future location. A Bahama longtail lizard scurried from under Big Al’s chair into the deep cover of sea grape and buttonwood along the road.
There was in fact work goi
ng on down in Omnium Settlement, but it had nothing to do with the Broadnax Museum. There would be no museum. The workers—squatters whom Marvis had hired at a generous wage—were disassembling the remains of the settlement board by board, brick by brick, and loading it into huge rented dumpsters. Marvis had made a sweet deal with the carting company. While the work progressed, Snack was housing the squatters in outbuildings, most opulently appointed for guests who had never been invited, on the Broadnax compound. His father, who now seldom left his canopied bed, never saw them. In, say, five years, when Small Hope Bay had reclaimed its bottom and Omnium Key had returned to its primeval shape, there would be no sign that Omnium Settlement had ever existed. Time passes, all things die.
“Well, son, it sounds grand, a grand museum for a grand man.”
Gone, dead, just like his father, before too long. Big Al seldom ate, seldom even raised his voice these days. Big Al had passed away; it’s just that he hadn’t died yet.
“Oh, yes,” said Snack, “I forgot to tell you about the Claudius wing.”
“The Claudius wing?”
“I talked it over with the architects and engineers, those type guys. It’s all set. We’ll have his diving gear on display, pictures of him under the ice in the Antarctica, all the great dives he made.”
“It sounds grand.”
The last of the dead bulldozers had been removed, but the earth still retained deep white scars. The scars would probably remain until Small Hope Bay covered them with brown water. Snack knew his father would be dead by then. Snack and his father sat watching while those squatters who had earth-moving experience pushed down Fred’s Hobby Shop with a rented backhoe. Fred’s squeaked in protest as it fell.
Watching, Big Al fell asleep. His lips vibrated with each exhalation. Snack stood up to take him home, but before he turned the chair around, Snack leaned down and kissed the top of his father’s head.
“Huh?” murmured Big Al.
“Nothing, Dad.”
“Son?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“What happened to Lucas Hogaboom?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t even say good-bye…He was like a son to me.”
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