by Kevin Olson
“In the language of the gods and in that of the lus,
“In the language of the demons and in that of men,
“In all the languages which exist,
“I proclaim the Doctrine.
“Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum!”
The Green Lama is not cold. Ten years spent in a mountaintop Buddhist monastery taught him to master his body’s temperature.
After the man finishes half his Lucky, a large expensive black sedan pulls up. A chauffeur steps out of the car. He is dressed in a smart black suit and leather cap. The Green Lama surmises that the owner of the car would be riding in the cavernous rear compartment. Wanting a better look, the Green Lama silently slides down a storm drain to the street and makes his way through the shadows toward the imposing sedan.
From his new vantage point, the Lama sees through the back window that the car is unoccupied. The Green Lama expertly picks the lock on the trunk. The driver lets the waiting man into the car but doesn’t see the Green Lama slip into the large boot of the car. The Green Lama timed this action to be simultaneous with the waiting man getting into the car. The car drives off.
After a short time, the car rolls to a stop. The Green Lama hears two doors open and shut. Footsteps walk away. The trunk opens and the green hooded figure slips into the shadows of a deserted back alley. The air smells of cooked duck and rotted octopus. A light shines ahead, illuminating Chinese calligraphy above a doorway. “Mandarin Cuisine – The World’s Finest” the Lama reads. He slips the red kata out from around his neck. It is his only weapon on this night. His supply of radioactive salts would not be replenished until the morning. He enters the door without fear.
The kitchen is empty, but the Lama hears voices having an argument in the restaurant beyond. The green-cloaked figure silently reaches the door. The argument reaches its zenith. Kyu Lee, the man with the gun and the cigarettes holds one in each hand. He gestures with the lit nail at a balding, older Chinese man in a chair. The driver stands off to the side. The Lama feels he should not underestimate this man. Lee is shouting in Cantonese but the Green Lama understands him fine.
“Where is the money?” Lee screams.
“We have no money. It was stolen,” the restaurant owner says. “Please, give me more time.”
“Mr. Fong says you are out of time. But I will go easy on you,” Lee says and jams the smoldering cigarette into the man’s eye. The man screams. Lee nods to the driver and the driver grabs the screaming man’s head to steady it. Lee holsters his pistol and lights another Lucky.
Lee blows smoke in the sobbing restaurant owner’s face. “Tonight, I will let you live.” He moves to jab his fresh cigarette into the man’s good eye, but his arm won’t move. The crimson kata has wrapped around his wrist.
“Men who walk in darkness must expect to stumble on a rock,” the Green Lama says in Cantonese. The strength of his voice startles all in the room.
Mr. Fong’s enforcer, Lee, whirls to draw and fire the gun. The Lama ducks under the Colt’s blast and turns gracefully, the kata twisting the man around. The Lama raises his arm in a wide circle and the Tong enforcer is spun over crashing to the floor.
“I am that rock,” the Green Lama says, and renders the man unconscious with a sharp blow to the back of his neck.
The chauffeur steps forward, throwing off his cap. The man adopts a Xíng Yì Quán Steel stance. The Green Lama bows in respect and adopts the first stance of the Earth form. The chauffeur nods his head in respect, acknowledging the Green Lama’s obvious training.
Then the chauffeur closes in. He rushes the Lama, snapping his arms and launching into a tornado force spin kick. The Lama avoids the brunt of the attack, but still takes quite a wallop. He flies back toward the bar. The chauffeur pursues, arms whirling in a ballet of battle.
The Lama uses his momentum to flip over the bar. He sees the chauffeur in the mirror and grabs a pair of liquor bottles and hurls them hard over his shoulders. The chauffeur avoids one, but the other smashes on his temple, halting his momentum. The Green Lama vaults back over the bar, driving his feet into the driver’s solar plexus and knocking him to the ground. The Lama pursues, striking a vicious blow to the man’s neck, stunning him. Without his radioactive salts the Lama is required to apply more force to do the job, but the chauffeur is finally subdued.
The Green Lama turns back to Kyu Lee. He shakes him awake.
“Where is Mr. Fong?” the Green Lama asks in Cantonese.
“You or I will die before I answer,” the Tong enforcer answers.
“It shall not be I,” the Lama says. He makes a vicious fingertip strike at a certain nerve bundle at the base of the man’s neck, regretting the force necessary without the salts. The man’s body is paralyzed. The Lama uses simple fear to extract the information he needs.
Twenty minutes later Lt. John Caraway of the NYPD Special Crime Squad and his men are cleaning up the mess. Caraway says, “You couldn’t have waited until morning?”
“What is written, will be. We cannot choose the time. The time chooses us,” the Lama says, “Your man’s name is Mr. Fong and you will find him in a warehouse at the corner of Hester and 16th in Brooklyn. There should be enough opium there to put him away for a long time.” The Green Lama heads for the door, “Farewell, Lieutenant Caraway,” he says.
Caraway chuckles and shakes his head. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up,” he says to his team.
“It’s another gorgeous Hollywood day and the sun is already out. Despite what the calendar says, this January morning is looking to be another scorcher – eighty-five degrees and it’s only 10 a.m. In the news this morning are reports of more troubles in Europe with that reprehensible…”
Freddy Dmytryk snaps off the radio as his car pulls up to the main gate at Triumph Pictures. The driver waves to the guard and the car pulls in. In the back seat, Fay Reynolds looks into the director’s eyes.
“Freddy, I’m a little scared, you know, about coming back here. That stuff yesterday just gives me the creeps about coming back to this place. I think it’s haunted,” she says.
The director takes her hand. “Fay. I will never let anything happen to you. We need to go in there and look at the rushes and you will see what I saw. I was standing just off the set. There was nothing there. A bit of wind from a fan. That’s all.”
Fay sighs, “You’re probably right. It’s probably nothing.”
Dmytryk smiles and says, “Atta girl.”
Most of the crew has already arrived at the small screening room. There is the murmur of gossiping going on in the jammed theater. The whole crew is curious to see if Fay Reynolds is going to show. The cameraman, Linn Edwards, is talking to Triumph Pictures President Samuel Blintz and Herman K. Herman, the Producer of The Mayan Mummy. Fay Reynolds and Freddy Dmytryk walk in and suddenly, the room is silent.
Fay steps up and addresses Mr. Blintz and the crowd. “I know I caused a bit of a scene yesterday, and I’m terribly sorry,” Fay says.
Mr. Blintz says, “That’s alright Miss Reynolds. You’re here and that’s what matters. We are all thrilled to have you back.”
The room erupts in applause. Fay smiles in embarrassment. Freddy Dmytryk grins. As the applause dies down, Mr. Blintz grabs Dmytryk by the arm and pulls him off to the side.
The Mogul speaks in a harsh whisper, “Well, that was one of her better performances. Did you rehearse that in the car? You better keep her under control. We need that dame. You need that dame. Your last 3 pictures sank like the Titanic, and if this one goes down then you’re gonna be lucky to find space on a lifeboat. Nobody will hire you.”
“Yes, sir,” Dmytryk manages to squeeze in, but the Mogul steamrollers on.
“You’ll be lucky to direct traffic. Fix this. The Studio can’t afford to lose that dame.”
The Director looks at the St
udio Chief and says, “She’s here, isn’t she? She’s gonna be fine.”
“She better be.” Blintz turns away.
Freddy Dmytryk returns to his leading lady and says, “You ready?”
“Ready, Freddy,” she says with a grin. They sit.
Dmytryk says, “Roll ’em!” and the projectionist starts the film. The reel unwinds into the projector and the dailies start.
A clap board fills the screen and we hear the clapper/loader shout, “Mayan Mummy Scene 35 Apple, Take 2.” He steps out of view. A passageway in the temple ruins fills the screen.
“Action!” Dmytryk shouts. Fay, in expedition attire, finally enters the Mayan ruins carrying a torch. She pushes her way through the dimly lit tunnel. She comes to an abrupt stop. The temple is full of dust and cobwebs, skeletons and rats. As she looks ahead into the dark tunnel, something catches her eye. She looks genuinely scared. She pushes the torch forward a bit.
In her seat, Fay isn’t scared. In fact, the corners of her perfect mouth are starting to turn up with the beginnings of a grin. She lightly elbows Dmytryk. He looks at her and smiles.
On screen, a skeleton suddenly shoots out of a side passage and flies right past Fay. The skeleton is followed by a lanky grip, who trips over his own feet and flies past the stunned starlet.
The screening room erupts with laughter and applause. “Good one, Hess!” somebody shouts.
Up on the silver screen, we hear a crash off screen and Fay is again alone on the set of the ancient Mayan pyramid. Somehow she has maintained her composure, though we hear the film crew laughing. Then she breaks and turns to camera laughing. The crew in the screening room is laughing, too. In the dailies Dmytryk yells, “Cut!” and at that moment on the screen a strange shape starts coming through the stone wall behind Fay. An arm reaches out for her. The image only lasts a moment, but Fay sees it and goes cold. Then the screen flashes white and another slate appears.
Fay isn’t laughing anymore. She jabs Dmytryk. He doesn’t react.
Fay elbows him again, “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Dmytryk answers.
“It looked like a ghost or something.”
“I didn’t see anything,” he says. She looks at him in dismay.
Scene 35 Apple Take 3 goes off without a hitch. The skeleton falls at Fay’s feet, just as it should, she jumps back and yelps, and the grip even manages to stay out of the shot.
Two more scenes spool through the projector without incident. Fay however is getting more and more nervous. She is on the verge of a total panic attack.
While the projectionist changes reels, Dmytryk calms her down.
The next reel of dailies starts. This is the one. Fay squirms in her seat and Dmytryk holds her hand.
The whole theater is hushed in anticipation. On the screen, explorer Fay appears at the cobwebbed door and throws the torch through. Then she approaches the carved stone tomb and says, “You are finally mine. The Queen of the Mayan Empire is mine.” On screen Fay starts to look around nervously. After a moment, she seems to calm down.
Dmytryk looks at her and says, “See, honey. Nothing. No sounds. Nothing.”
Fay smiles faintly at him and then looks back to the screen. Her face goes white. Dmytryk’s too. There is a gasp behind her. Everyone in the screening room is transfixed by what they are seeing onscreen.
In the movie, Fay’s hair is blown around by a mysterious wind. Behind her an apparition floats through the wall and into the chamber. The ghostly shape approaches Fay with its arms out and a horrific maw opening up in a low groan.
Fay suddenly screams and spins around firing the blanks in her Colt wildly until it clicks again and again against the spent ammo. She screams frantically, the spectral shape stalking her.
On screen, Dmytryk yells “CUT!” Fay is shrieking and out of control. Dmytryk screams, “I SAID CUT!” The camera is jolted and the film runs out. The theater lights come up.
Fay is sobbing and enraged. Dmytryk is just staring at the blank screen. Fay slaps him and it jars him out of his fog. She stamps to her feet and storms out of the screening room with Freddy Dmytryk and Herman K. Herman chasing after her. Dmytryk finally catches her and grabs her arm.
“Stop, Fay…” he says.
She stares him right in the eye and says through gritted teeth, “Let me go.”
“C’mon Fay…” Dmytryk says.
Herman is winded but finally catches up. “Miss Reynolds, please don’t be hasty. Let’s all calm down and I’m sure there is a good explanation for all this,” the Mogul says.
Fay is not having it. She has not shifted her gaze off of the director’s eyes. In fact, she hasn’t blinked.
“Let go of my arm, Freddy,” Fay says in a monotone.
Dmytryk flashes her that patented Freddy Dmytryk smile that has worked so well on so many young starlets. Fay provides a different response.
“Go suck an egg,” she says coldly and socks him square in the jaw. The playboy director drops like a stone. Fay storms off and the Mogul is torn between his star and his sense of self-preservation. He ends up helping Dmytryk to his feet.
Jethro Dumont sits at the desk in his library reading the afternoon newspaper. A light snow is falling outside. Each day he clips the stories that catch his eye, or provide clues to cases in which he or the Green Lama are involved.
At one time, Dumont was a young Harvard graduate looking for adventure. He spent his youth satisfying the ambitions of his parents and one day he decided he needed something more, something for himself. He travelled the world, finally ending up in the mountains of Tibet. The place seemed to call to him. He climbed the Himalayas and found a monastery perched among the clouds. Dumont met a Buddhist Lama there and found the place compelling. He didn’t want to leave. He felt that this was the place where he would find his purpose. He stayed there searching for peace within his mind and in his life. He spent ten years in Tibet studying, eventually uncovering secrets hidden in the temple for centuries. Secrets that revealed even greater powers, secrets that surpassed even the powers gained as he became a Buddhist Lama, secrets that took a great effort to hide. But hide them he did. Or so he thought.
Shortly after entering the monastery, Dumont met a wise Tibetan monk named Tsarong and they became fast friends. When the time came to leave Tibet and return to New York, Dumont asked Tsarong if he would join him. Tsarong agreed.
While Dumont pays Tsarong a salary, Dumont considers the Tibetan a friend and colleague. Tsarong is the only one who knows the full story of Jethro Dumont and how his time in Tibet changed him forever.
Tsarong enters the library and plugs a portable phone into a socket on the wall. “Sir, it is a Mr. Herman.”
Dumont looks intrigued and picks up the line. “Herman! This is a surprise. Are you in the Big Apple?” Herman K. Herman had attended Harvard with Dumont and they are old friends.
“I wish, Jethro. Unfortunately this isn’t a social call. I’ve got trouble and I’m hoping you can help.”
“What’s the problem, Herman? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s a dame, isn’t it?”
“Sort of, but more like the trouble we had on The Last Dinosaur. You remember that picture, don’t you, Jethro?” Herman says.
This gets Dumont’s attention. The last time Dumont was in Los Angeles, Herman’s picture, The Last Dinosaur, was about to premiere when the starlet was murdered, seemingly by a dinosaur. Dumont and the Green Lama captured the real killer and saved Herman’s career.
“I remember,” Dumont says. “What’s the trouble this time?”
Herman proceeds to tell Dumont about Fay Reynolds’ antics on the set and the bizarre ghostly images on the film this morning. “So, what do you think?”
Dumont picks up a framed photo on his desk. “The film was tampered with.”
&
nbsp; “We thought of that, but the film goes straight from the camera to the lab right here on the lot. It’s developed and printed and then we screen it the very next day. There’s no time for someone to create optical effects.”
“That’s strange, alright…What about a motive?” Dumont says.
“That’s easier. There are a lot of people that would want to scare Fay Reynolds.”
“Like who?”
Herman pauses a moment. “Well, the other studios for one. That girl is the hottest thing in tinsel-town right now. They would love to scare her away from her 5-year contract with Triumph Pictures.”
“Who else?” Dumont asks.
“Jealous actresses, bitter writers, crazy ex-wives. Hollywood is full of people that would love to see her fail.”
Dumont thinks a moment and then says, “I think I’ve been needing some sunshine.”
“So you’ll come?” Herman asks.
“I’ll head out tomorrow.”
“What about your… friend?” the producer adds hesitantly.
“I’ll see if I can locate him.”
Dumont hangs up the phone. “Pack our bags, Tsarong. We are flying to Los Angeles.”
Late that evening, the Buddhist monk, Dr. Charles Pali is in his laboratory, hunched over a delicate instrument, carefully measuring out doses of radiation from his newest batch of salts. Satisfied, he puts the correct dosage into a series of small vials and closes each with a stopper. He puts the vials in a small velvet-lined steel case.
Then Pali presses a concealed button beneath the edge of his work-bench. There is a small click then a section of the bench slides back and a microphone rises up. Some switches are thrown and the hum of a transformer fills the air.
At precisely ten o’clock the Green Lama tunes his radio transmitter to a particular frequency and speaks into the microphone.
“Calling Jean Farrell; calling Jean Farrell. Nimitta; Nibána, lobha, dosa, moha. Calling Jean Farrell….”