The sun was going down. Gertie drove south to the 10 and turned west. When I made it onto the highway, the lowering sun’s rays coming directly at me turned all the cars ahead into silhouettes, and I couldn’t see shit. For a while I followed the trail of exploding cigarette butts, but finally I lost her.
Since she was headed west, I figured she was on her way home. I drove to Venice, parked on Pacific and walked with Ballsack to the canals. I knew that with the big poodle I’d stand out, so I tried to stay as far away from her house as possible while still being able to see if a light came on. I got bolder after the sun went entirely down, but there was still no sign of Gertie.
I had decided to give up on her for the night when I heard a lot of honking on a neighboring street. Sure enough, a minute or two later I saw the ‘78 Eldorado Biarritz pull into the garage. As the garage door was closing, I saw Gertie get out of the car with a couple of shopping bags from Victoria’s Secret. I hung around the neighborhood long enough to see that no one else was joining her that evening, and then I went home.
26
Tommy was still up when I got back. He did that thing again where he stares right at me while his lips start to quiver. I knew that meant he had something he wanted to tell me, so I made an effort not to look bored while I waited for him to get it out.
“L.O.,” he said.
“Hello Tommy,” I said.
“Err, uh…I yam taking message earlier,” he said.
“All right. Lay it on me.”
“What?” he asked.
“The message. Tell me.”
“Oh. Okay. L.N. called. She saying that nice to talk at you.” I knew that was all he had to say, because his lips were smiling.
“Thanks.”
I didn’t remember giving my home number to Ellen. Those real-estate people were real leeches, tracking me down like that. Gertie would get to talk to my alter ego Dick Hedley soon enough.
I decided to spend a little time with Tommy. Maybe he missed me now that I wasn’t around in the day. It had crossed my mind that he would want to listen to me speak and that if he didn’t get to, he’d feel ripped off at having to pay a ridiculous rent to live with me. But mainly I still needed to resolve the lint enigma, and I figured that since the day was almost over, he had probably had enough time to accumulate a bunch of it in that belly button of his.
He went back to watching some realty show about a bunch of has-beens who had been forced to live with each other on a farm in Africa. The current debate was over which has-been had to pick up the giraffe poo. Different continent, always the same problem.
I sat down on the couch and watched with him. I didn’t know if he understood, but he moved his lips like he was trying to repeat things they’d said. Then after a while I noticed that he always laughed right after I did. Most people don’t find all the same things funny, so I was thinking that he was covering for the fact that he didn’t understand jack. I waited until one of those losers said something about how this show had made him understand how important it was to protect endangered species, and then I started laughing my ass off. Tommy aped me, the big fraud.
I could only take the show for a few minutes more. I gave a few fake yawns hoping that I’d make Tommy yawn and stretch his arms out, giving me the opportunity to check out the lint, but he just sat there looking happy.
“You are tie-red,” he said.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll hit the sack.”
I took the big poodle into my room and we dozed off fast.
27
On the way over to Dennis’ place the next morning, I noticed that Ballsack had a lot of dirt matted up on his feet and belly. I hadn’t bought any dog shampoo yet, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to soap him up once with a little human shampoo. I took him upstairs, put him in Dennis’ big whirly bathtub, and lathered up his poodle afro. I thought he would enjoy the hot tub bubbles, but when I turned on the jets he freaked and jumped out. He ran all the way downstairs, shaking soap everywhere as he went. When I caught up with him, he wouldn’t let me take him back upstairs, so I had to stick him in the downstairs shower. I closed the glass door, reached over the top of it and directed the nozzle all over him. He looked kind of dejected, as if he knew he looked like a big rat when he was wet.
I let him out and dried him off. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t shedding on the white towel—all the loose hairs must have come off in the hot tub. I thought maybe he’d catch a cold if I didn’t completely dry him off, so I found a hair dryer in the cabinet, put it on low so I wouldn’t scare him, and dried him completely as I combed him a little. When I got done, his afro looked even bigger than before.
28
Since the Gertie case was probably going to be over after this weekend, I needed to find out how much to rip Spieldburt off for. I found Dennis’ number and dialed him up. It took a long time for the call to go through, and when it finally started ringing, it sounded different than it did normally.
Some guy answered it. He was speaking Mexican, so I didn’t understand a thing.
“Is Dennis there? Dennis?” I asked.
“Just a minute,” said the guy. He didn’t have an accent or anything when he spoke English.
I could hear Dennis walking over to the phone. When I heard the noise of the receiver changing hands, I also heard the first guy ask who I was.
“It’s my lover. What do you care?” answered Dennis. “Just keep packing your suitcase.”
I guessed the first guy was Ignacio, Dennis’ lover.
“I’ll be back before you know it. There’s no reason to get like this,” said Ignacio.
“Hello Lonnie. Great to hear from you,” Dennis said, talking into the phone but loud enough to be sure Ignacio heard him.
“Hi Dennis. I just wanted to let you know that your house and your dog are doing fine.”
“That’s great,” he said. “Manolete’s not giving you any problems?”
“No. He’s been great. Hey listen—I was talking to my buddy the other day, and we were wondering how much a big-shot private investigator made for a job.”
“Well, it depends on the difficulty of the job and the expenses incurred, but anywhere between 300 and 500 a day.”
“A day?”
“Yes, unless I decided the job wouldn’t take long enough to be worth my time. Then I charged a flat fee.”
I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been all my life, thinking that working had to be difficult. People like Dennis knew how to go at it. And I was sure that he could charge that much because he worked on the west side. If he’d been a private eye in the east, he’d have worked for minimum wage. Why did anyone want to live out east?
“Thanks Dennis. So, are you having fun out there?”
“I was until Mr. Businessman decided to cut his visit short,” he said loudly so Ignacio could hear. “He hasn’t even been here for one day. He had enough time to unpack his suitcase, and then the office called.”
“I’ll be back in three weeks!” said Ignacio in the background.
“No, seriously, Ibiza is amazing. I love it,” he said.
“Cool. I’ll call you again in a week or two to let you know how we’re doing here.”
“Thanks Lonnie. Glad I can count on you.” We said goodbye and hung up.
I realized that my strategy had been all wrong. I was trying to get done with this Gertie case as fast as possible, but what I was really doing was cheating myself out of a lot of that E.T. money. Spieldburt probably knew that private investigators got paid by the day—who knows how many times he’d hired one before—so I couldn’t ask him for a ton of money for something I had done in under a week. I decided that if I got the goods on Gertie this weekend, I’d keep it from Spieldburt until a few more weeks had passed. I’d string him on with a little more info every week, and that way when I finally gave him the pictures of Gertie rubbing those smoky whiskers of hers all over some dude, he’d be so exhausted and angry that he wouldn’t even notice my enormous fee.
>
29
That morning I had my dad walk the big poodle while I hit the store and bought some more supplies, mainly more clothes for him and chocolate for sculpting. So far, he hadn’t gotten too bored with this arrangement.
I needed to find out how to get in touch with Spieldburt. I figured he’d want an update, and since I was about to begin the next phase of my plan, this would be a good time to sum up everything I’d done so far. He had told me that he didn’t want to be contacted because he didn’t want anyone to be able to put us together, but I was feeling pretty sneaky, so I wasn’t worried about it.
I knew I could drive around Hollywood and pick up a star map from someone, but even if Spieldburt did have a house in L.A., his old lady would be stalking around there. I needed to find him at work, where I could try to blend in long enough to get close to him. Lucky for me I now had contacts in the movie business.
That afternoon the big poodle and I took the Charger to my Starbuck’s stakeout place. I read over my notes for tomorrow’s open house so my writer buddies would think I was working, but as soon as I thought I’d put in enough time, I went after what I needed to know.
When USC-Shirt Jake got up to grab another coffee, I followed him and got behind him in line.
“Hey Jake,” I said, “don’t tell this to anyone, but I got a sweet idea that I’m working on. The thing is, I don’t want to get too far in before I get permission to run with it. It uses someone else’s characters, but I’m sure the guy will like it. It’s completely in the spirit of the original movie.”
“Oh yeah? Getting permission to write a sequel for someone is a real long shot, to be honest.”
“I know, but this is the shit.”
“What is it, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well, you ever see that extra-terrestrial movie, with the crazy glowing finger?” He looked at me like it was a stupid question.
“Um yeah,” he said with a valley-girl accent.
“Here’s the deal. Every good movie ends with people doing it. That movie didn’t show us the doing, but you know it happened. Are we really supposed to believe that that little green dude just got in the ship at the end and that was the end of it? Come on! His friends forgot about him, left him on a strange planet, and then didn’t even realize he was missing until he called them. There’s going to be a lot of guilt there. So my movie starts with the little dude getting it on with all the guilty alien chicks on the ship. But what none of them realizes is that he’s spreading a human virus around to everyone. Now, he’s got immunity to this because he’s eaten so much human food, but everyone else is going to croak wicked fast. That leaves our little guy with no one to do, so he gets all enraged, comes back to Earth and goes futuristic all over us. He captures a whole harem of beautiful chicks that he can’t actually do because he doesn’t have the right equipment, and that just makes him even angrier and crazier.”
“You should definitely look into getting permission for that before you spend any time on it,” Jake said.
“Where do I go for that?” He told me Spieldburt had his own studio up in Glendale. As soon as I got a coffee, I grabbed my stuff and took off in the Charger.
30
I drove downtown and then cut up north past Dodger stadium. It was really hot out there and the pollution was a lot worse than it was near the ocean. It got so bad that all I could think about was the tail pipe of the car in front of me and how I was breathing all that in. I started feeling better when I pulled off the highway.
The studio didn’t have any public parking, so I found a place a few blocks away near a Starbucks. When I got to the front gate, I couldn’t see any ticket prices to tour the place. I asked a security guy what was up, and he said they didn’t do tours because they didn’t have sound stages or lots there, just animation studios and offices. He recommended Paramount on Melrose.
“What if I need to talk to someone in this place?” I asked. He looked at me suspiciously.
“Does anyone in this place need to talk to you? Because if they do, your name will be on my list. Should I check?”
“You can check next time I come here, smart guy,” I said and started walking back to the car. Maybe I was going to have to wait for Spieldburt to contact me after all.
I couldn’t bear getting back on the highway so soon, especially now that it was closer to rush hour. If I left immediately, I’d just spend an extra hour blocked in traffic sucking on someone’s tail pipe, so I wouldn’t get home any faster than if I sat around at the coffee place for another hour and then left.
The Starbucks was swarming with people. I got in line and within a few minutes there were so many people that the line behind me was all the way out the door. As I stood there, I was thinking about how I was going to order without Max, my usual coffee guy. I couldn’t remember exactly what he had made for me, and if I told this new guy to make me a P.I. coffee, I’d be pissed off when it didn’t taste the same. I figured I’d change and ask him for something new.
The guy at the register’s badge said his name was Daniel and that he was the manager. He looked really straight-laced. Everything about him said he made a conscious effort to make everyone think he was clean and organized. His hair was clipped short, his clothes were wrinkle free, and his smile came and went with every opening and closing of the cash register.
“Hey,” I said when he was ready.
“Hello good sir. I hope you’re having a fine day. What can I do you for?” he said so fast that I had to let it replay in my head before I could register everything.
“Um…here’s the thing. My normal guy at the other place always makes me stuff—”
“Well sir, we have all the same excellent drinks you’ve come to love at any of our nation-wide chains. Would you like to step aside a moment and consult the menu?” he asked and directed his gaze at the next customer.
“No,” I said, scooting in front of his glance. “Here’s what I’d like. You know that guy who works down the street—that E.T. director guy?”
“I always liked Jaws myself.”
“He did that, too? Damn…Well, if you were going to make a coffee for that guy—and I mean for his E.T. side—what would you make him?”
“Sir, there’s a long line here. I’d like to help you, but you’re going to have to tell me what you want,” he said nervously. This whole creative aspect to coffee making was overloading his dollars-and-sense brain.
“Just give me a Spieldburt, minus the razor-sharp teeth and plus some freakishly long alien neck.”
He took a small cup and turned toward all the coffee machines. He put the cup under one dispenser and then moved it to another. He was about to pour the coffee when he snatched the cup back up. He looked back over at me and the line of now-hostile customers, and then up at the menu. He nodded and shook his head as he tried to find the right one. Then he stepped back over to me and leaned over close.
“I really, really don’t know what you want. But…” he stopped speaking and his eyes lit up as he caught sight of something behind me. “But that guy back there, he’s one of the director’s assistants.” He pointed discretely at a wormy-looking, dark-haired, pencil-thin kid who was texting away on his phone. “He gets coffee for him all the time. Just wait here and see what he orders.”
I stepped aside and got dirty looks from the next four or five customers as they came up to order. I took a closer look at the wormy kid while waiting for him to make it up to the counter. He was one of those guys who always have a five-o’clock shadow, but on him it didn’t look tough because he was so scrawny. He also had a concave chest that made you think he had been stepped on by a horse.
He made it to the register and then ordered without waiting for Daniel the manager to be ready.
“Two skim vanilla lattes and a chai,” he said. His voice was whiny and pompous, like some new-England egghead.
“Will you be drinking the chai, sir?” Daniel asked and looked over to see if I was paying attention.
<
br /> “Yes. And this is important because…?” asked the kid.
“I’m just trying to memorize our regular customers’ favorite drinks.”
Daniel poured the coffee and gave it to the assistant, who paid and headed out. I was about to follow him when Daniel held up an extra vanilla latte that he had already poured. I paid for it, thanked him, and then left.
I needed to talk to this assistant guy before he got away. I followed him to his car, and while he balanced his coffee tray and dug around for his keys in the pocket of his cargo shorts, I came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re the guy who works for that director, right? What’s your name again?”
“Grant. Do I know you?” he asked.
“Well, no, but I’m trying to see your boss—”
“Look,” he said, cutting me off. “Are you a writer or an actor? It’s always one or the other.”
“Uh…a writer.”
“Okay. Yes—I read scripts for Steven, but the scripts are already picked from among the best available, most of which come from agents we’ve worked with for a long time. We don’t take submissions from just anyone.”
“But imagine someone came up to you with an amazing idea. If you were the person that discovered it and brought it to your boss, he’d think you were always doing your best to look for talent. That’s the kind of guy he’d want working for him for a long time.”
“And you’re the guy who’s going to give me this idea?” he asked, with one of his eyebrows arching up. “I’ll tell you what. I’m headed out of here now—I need to get back before this gets cold. But some day, if I ever see you here again, I’ll let you tell me about your idea the time it takes me to get through the line. And you’ll buy the coffee.”
This wasn’t what I wanted at all. I was hoping he’d like my bogus idea and take it directly to Spieldburt. Of course, what he’d really be taking him would be a pile of papers with a note from me inside, explaining how smoothly I was handling his case. This Grant guy was turning out to be more of an obstacle than anything else.
L.A. Success Page 8