by Helen Knode
The office was equipped and functioning. Desk, filing cabinets, ancient Dictaphone, ancient typewriter. The desk was covered with papers. An in-out tray was full of memos. A large graph tracked “Pictures in Production—1939.” A framed photograph of Irving Thalberg stood propped on the blotter.
A woman screamed. “Help!”
It was loud; it was right there. I whirled around. It came from a wall of cardboard boxes. I recognized the boxes—they contained Neil Phillips’s MGM memos. The boxes were being pushed outward from behind. An office adjoined: someone was trying to escape.
I grabbed a high box and toppled the stack. Loose paper poured out in piles. A body fell over the boxes and tried to tackle me. Fingernails clawed at my throat. My light beam caught a face.
I yelled, “Mrs. May!”
She kept clawing my throat; she was blind and deaf, crazed. I whacked her with the flashlight. She screamed and let go of me. I shoved her over the loose paper, back into the inner room, following her.
I slammed the door and put the light on my face. “Ann Whitehead!”
Mrs. May’s eyes went wide; she realized who I was. She wore her gardening clothes from Monday. She looked completely terrorized.
She fumbled at something inside her shirt. I started to duck. She pulled out her necklace, snapped the chain, and shoved it at me. I caught her flailing hand and grabbed the necklace.
Someone whimpered. I stuck the necklace in my jeans, turned and shined the light around the room. It was a doctor’s office. It was small and narrow, and the floor and walls were white tile. I saw a porcelain sink, glass-front cabinets, an examining table with stirrups, and a plastic model of the female reproductive system.
My light hit Isabelle Pavich. She was huddled in a ball under the sink. The light caught her and she huddled back, whimpering. I was actually glad to see her.
Mrs. May stumbled over and knelt down with Pavich. They put their arms around each other.
“Police!”
Male voices. They were close.
I heard running feet in the outer office. Someone was sprinting straight for us. I heard him trip and skid on the loose paper. He slammed into the door full force.
Pavich screamed. I dived for a corner. I aimed my gun and flashlight at the door.
“Police! Stop!”
The door crashed open. Neil John Phillips staggered toward us. He was waving an automatic.
I yelled, “No!”
I heard Doug yell, “Hold your fire!”
Phillips fired wild at the cops. I screamed and pulled the trigger. Gunfire drowned out my shot.
Bullets and buckshot shattered the door. White light dazzled the room. I tried to cover up. Phillips flew forward and hit the floor facedown. The women shrieked. Mrs. May panicked and stood up. She flung out her arms to deflect bullets. The sink exploded. Her chest erupted. I screamed and curled up tight. She collapsed on top of me. Blood gushed over me.
The roaring stopped.
I LAY VERY still. I was pinned to the floor. The air was filled with smoke that burned my nose. My ears were ringing. I couldn’t move my chest to breathe. Warm blood glued my eyes shut.
Someone lifted Mrs. May off of me. I was rolled onto my back. Blood seeped into my mouth. I tasted it and wondered whose it was.
Someone wiped my face. Someone pressed their head over my heart, and found the pulse in my wrist.
The Colt was pried out of my hand. I felt lips on my cheek and lips at my ear. I felt the lips move—someone was trying to talk to me. Someone wanted me to say something.
What was I supposed to say? Clearly it was the end of the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I WOKE UP on the couch in Doug’s living room. The hospital had given me an injection for the pain. It knocked me right out.
...
I could just turn my eyes. The clock said 1:54 A.M. I would’ve believed anything. I’d lost all track of time.
...
My head ached. I craved a drink of water.
...
I saw a pitcher and a glass on the coffee table. I tried to lift my arm and say, “Water.” The effort was too much for me.
...
I closed my eyes.
...
The last thing I remembered was the emergency room. The doctor had said I must have a lucky angel. I’d been hurt worse than I realized: bulletproof vests are useless for arms and legs.
I was full of wood and tile splinters, bone fragments, and shotgun pellets. The doctor tweezed, dug, probed, and stitched up multiple holes. I also had a cracked rib and three fractures in my right hand and wrist. The impact of Mrs. May’s body had done the rib; beating on Dale Denney had done the hand; the pry bar at the pool house had done the wrist. A ricochet had grazed my left leg and missed a big artery by inches. That, and no head wound, were the lucky parts.
The doctor had understood that I couldn’t talk. She’d called it shock. She gave me some pills and said they’d help with the shaking.
...
Doug had carried me out of the tunnel. He’d laid me on the Thalberg lawn and tucked his windbreaker around me. I remembered shivering; I was wet to the skin. I’d lain on my side, facing the Casa de Amor. My nose and throat burned. My ears rang for a long time.
The cops had carried the other bodies out of the tunnel. Neil John Phillips, Isabelle Pavich, Mrs. May. They were laid on the lawn near me. Doug tried to block my view—but I saw. Shotgun rounds had ripped out Phillips’s back. The exploding sink mangled Pavich above the neck. Mrs. May had no chest. I saw Smith push her intestines back into her belly. I saw Gadtke close the flaps of Pavich’s face. The cops were covered with blood. I threw up on the grass. I threw up and threw up until there was nothing left. I lay there looking at my own vomit.
A whole parade of new cops had arrived. Cops in plain clothes; cops from the Sheriff’s and the LAPD. Lawyers from the district attorney’s office. Everybody was asking questions. They’d tried to question me.
Scott Dolgin was still alive—I heard a paramedic say so. An ambulance had taken him to UCLA.
Doug drove me to the closest hospital. He’d carried me into the emergency room, jumped the line, flashed his badge, and demanded a doctor. He wouldn’t fill out any forms, or even wait for the nurse’s answer. Walking straight through to the examining rooms, he grabbed the first doctor he found and coerced immediate treatment. The doctor cut off my clothes and washed me clean. I was stitched, taped, and gauze-wrapped all up my left side. I got a plastic cast for my right hand and she gave me a shot for the pain. I had refused to be checked into the hospital. I had refused to let go of Doug.
...
My mouth was so dry.
...
Someone came into the living room. I opened my eyes. It was Doug. He looked grim and drawn; he still wore his bloody clothes. He saw I was awake and said, “How do you feel?”
I started to cry.
He came and sat beside me on the couch.
I couldn’t control myself; I was helpless and crying hard. The tears streamed down my face.
He wiped the tears with his hands.
The tears kept coming. I didn’t gulp or sob—I wasn’t making noise. It was just tears.
He had fixed me a bed on the couch. He took the sheet and pressed it against my face. He wiped my cheeks and eyes, found a new dry spot, and wiped my cheeks and eyes. He did it again and again until I’d soaked the edges of the sheet.
The tears stopped finally. Doug folded the sheet and smoothed the blanket over it. His expression was unreadable. He reached for the water, poured a glass, and helped me sit up. I swallowed two mouthfuls and lay back on the pillow.
Doug said, “Can you nod your head?”
I nodded.
“You’re going to be asked to make a statement, several statements, as to what happened this evening.”
I nodded.
“No one considers you in any way culpable, but you’ll be entitled to legal counsel if you wish.”
>
I nodded.
“I want you to nod if I’m correct. You heard gunshots and made the decision to enter the tunnel.”
To see if you were hurt, I thought. I nodded.
“You discovered Dolgin, and you heard the women call for help. Your intention was to rescue the women.”
His tone was so impersonal: he was mad at me. I shut my eyes. I prayed I wouldn’t cry again.
Doug said, “Was that your intention?”
I nodded.
Doug said, “You didn’t signal your whereabouts by radio because you didn’t think of it in the heat of the moment.”
I shook my head. I forgot the walkie-talkie in Phillips’s bedroom in my panic to find you. I felt tears start to ooze, and kept my eyes shut.
Doug was silent.
He said, “However it happened, in the last analysis, you almost prevented the deaths. We heard you call out to warn us that you were inside with Phillips.”
Doug was silent for a time.
“The guy was prepared to take everyone down with him—Dolgin, Mrs. May, Miss Pavich, us. He could have evaded us easily once he cut the electricity. Instead he led us back to the office.” His voice was tired; I’d never heard him so tired.
“You saw the boxes of memos. We also found the stolen transcripts, but we don’t know yet if they’re relevant to the crimes. It appears that Phillips was leading a make-believe life down there.”
As a protégé of Irving Thalberg, I thought. As the greatest screenwriter who ever lived.
“We have to assume he murdered Stenholm and Abadi, and that he’s the one who attempted to murder you. Until we can talk to Dolgin, however, all we have are assumptions.”
Doug paused. “They’ve operated on him—the bullet was lodged in his neck. He’s in critical condition, but the doctors think he’ll make it. He’s the only witness left.”
Doug paused. Then: “We need a motive.”
He was silent again.
“I’ve got to get back to Culver City—I never should’ve left. I have to do a walk-through with the shooting teams. This is a very big mess.”
I opened my eyes and tears just gushed out.
Doug lost his formal tone. He said, “Please, baby, don’t.”
My vision blurred. Doug leaned over and picked something off the floor. I felt a bath towel on my face. He pressed it there, and patted my cheeks and eyes.
I had no control; I tried. The tears wouldn’t stop. They stopped gushing after a while, but they didn’t stop. They slowed down to a steady drip. Doug dried them as they came. My nose was running. He wiped it, too.
He said, “I couldn’t reach your sister and I don’t want to leave you alone. Is there anyone else I can call?”
My sister. I had to adjust to remember her. She’d gone to the desert with Father today. I thought of Vivian or Mark: I couldn’t picture it. There wasn’t anyone who could possibly help.
Doug said, “Yes? No?”
I shook my head. My eyes were wet—Doug was a blur. He said, “Then I’ll get someone to check on you. I’ll leave provisions on the table, and I’ll leave this. We found it in Phillips’s office.”
I felt him set an object in my lap. I could see a white square, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Doug leaned forward and lay the back of his hand on my cheek. His voice was quiet.
He said, “Ever since I met you, I’ve wondered how far you would go. Now I know.”
He stood up. I watched him walk into the kitchen to get his things, and I heard the front door open and close. His car engine started; I heard him drive away. The tears dripped, dripped. I dried them on the pillow and lay there, listening to nothing. I forgot about the object on my lap until I tried to move my legs.
I lifted my head to see what it was.
It was a bound screenplay with a white cover. The cover said GB DREAMS BIG.
I COULDN’T SIT up, but I freed my arms from under the blanket. They moved—I wasn’t sure they would. My left arm was taped stiff. My right arm was okay except for the cast on my hand. Doug had dressed me in a pair of his pajamas and rolled up the sleeves. I flexed my fingers to see if they worked. Only one knee would bend very far. I propped the script against it and opened the cover.
I read the title page.
Someone had Xed out GB DREAMS BIG in pencil. The same pencil retitled the script: GEORGIE AND NANCE.
A second name was penciled in on the writing credit. It read: “by Greta Stenholm & Neil John Phillips.”
I turned the page. The script began:
EXT. OZEE’S AUTO COURT AND DESOLATE LANDSCAPE. EARLY EVENING.
A cheap motel on State Road 121 near Grapevine. Oil derricks litter the bald, churned-up, treeless land. In the background, isolated figures move around the derricks, silhouetted by the setting sun. There is the muted sound of machinery and men’s voices. The sounds are carried away by the wind. Closer in, bedsheets billow on a clothesline, spattered with windblown oil.
A title appears over the landscape and motel: EAST TEXAS. SPRING 1934.
INT. OZEE’S AUTO COURT. CABIN NUMBER 2. LIVING ROOM. EARLY EVENING.
A cheap, underfunished motel room—pure poverty. This and the following scene should be shot in black-and-white, or washed-out color, the way we imagine the Depression years.
Present are GEORGE BAUERDORF, a struggling wildcatter two wells away from the strike of his life, his worn-out first wife, MOTHER, and his two dark-haired daughters— CONNIE, 14, and GEORGETTE, 10. These aren’t trashy people. They’re a middle-class family turned into nomads as the father gambles on oil.
MOTHER is cooking supper at a primitive gas burner in a curtained-off area. She looks pale, even sick. GEORGE sits at a table in his shirtsleeves, reading the Dallas newspaper. CONNIE and GEORGETTE sit near him, playing with toys. GEORGETTE’S toy is a STUFFED RABBIT.
GEORGETTE
(to her rabbit)
When we grow up, Bunny, we’re going to roam the world looking for oil. We’ll start in Texas, and then ride a mule to Venezuela, and after we find all the oil in Venezuela, we’ll fly an airplane to the Dutch East Indies and find more.
GEORGE
Georgette, for Christ’s sake, stop your yammering! Tell her, Mother!
MOTHER
Your father’s had a long day, Georgie.
CONNIE
I miss New York. When can we go home?
GEORGE
(warningly)
Mother...!
MOTHER
Will you get out the plates for me, sweetheart?
CONNIE pulls a sulky face and GEORGE raises a threatening hand.
CONNIE jumps up and runs to her MOTHER.
GEORGETTE
(whispering)
The Dutch East Indies are really close to Russia, so we’ll go there next in a sampan and a dogsled—
With a swift, violent gesture, GEORGE grabs GEORGETTE’S STUFFED RABBIT and throws it out the open window.
EXT. REAR OF OZEE’S AUTO COURT. EARLY EVENING.
In extreme close-up we see the STUFFED RABBIT lying in the mud. It should look like an injured body. A gust of wind spatters it with oil.
INT. OZEE’S AUTO COURT. CABIN NUMBER 2. BEDROOM. NIGHT.
GEORGETTE has been sent to bed without her supper. There is a Murphy bed for the parents and two folding cots for the girls. GEORGETTE sits on her cot with her STUFFED RABBIT, which is damp from being washed. She is sewing a red velvet garment for the STUFFED RABBIT. The garment is trimmed in yellow fur, like the robe of a medieval queen. The garment should stand out from the bleak surroundings. The color can be enhanced in postproduction.
GEORGETTE
Baku, Bunny—just think, Baku. It will be cold in Russia, not like Texas. The rigs get ice on them and the roughnecks slip and hurt themselves. We’ll have to dress for the elements.
GEORGETTE’S voice caresses “Baku” as it caressed “Dutch East Indies”—magical and mysterious names to the little girl. She holds up the odd garment she’s workin
g on for the STUFFED RABBIT to see. From the next room we hear the raised voice of GEORGE.
GEORGE (O.S.)
When I come home at night, I expect three things, Mother. I expect clean clothes, I expect my dinner on the table, and I expect the girls to keep their damn mouths shut!
The rest of the speech is unintelligible, although we hear the angry tone of his voice. We hear MOTHER’S apologetic tone in response. With that fading on the soundtrack, GEORGETTE hugs her precious STUFFED RABBIT and smiles to herself.
SLOW FADE TO:
EXT. THE HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA. NIGHT.
A master shot of an old barn on Cahuenga Boulevard. A sign painted above the doors says HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN. There are stars-and-stripes banners, and arc lights shining crisscross beams into the night sky. Soldiers and sailors, all sorts of servicemen, mill out front. There are only men, no women, and there’s a long line at the door to get in. If a hostess is checking the servicemen in, we can’t see her. Cars pass, honking. Male motorists shout patriotic sentiment and bloodthirsty encouragement. The servicemen shout back.
A title appears: OCTOBER N, 1944.
There are young men in civilian clothes lurking in the street. They are 4-Fs and dishonorable discharges. Two men in uniform get into a shoving match with two men in civvies. We hear “Coward” and “Bug case” from the soldiers. Other servicemen spectate as the civilians are chased away from the Canteen. A big-band dance tune hops on the soundtrack. It’s coming from inside the Canteen.