“It’s not him, Chooch,” Shane said. “He’s way too careful to be hanging around in some dirt-floor nightclub in Las Lomas.”
“Dad, please let me go… .”
“I think he should,” Alexa agreed.
Without waiting for further rebuttal, Chooch bounded out of the pool and ran inside to get his clothes.
“You can’t take him to a murder scene,” Shane said.
“Why not?” she shot back. “Since he’s still obviously flirting with this, I think maybe he needs to see what a gang war is really all about.”
“I don’t want him to see it. I won’t allow it.”
“What about what I think, or have you forgotten I’m his adopted mother? I’ll cut you some slack and put that aside because none of us are thinking too clearly right now, but I think this is exactly the right thing for us to do.”
“You wanna take him to a triple shotgun murder.”
“Yeah.”
Shane climbed out of the pool and faced her. “Look, Alexa, I don’t want him exposed to this, okay?”
“Shane, I talk to him about things he doesn’t want to tell you. He’s … he’s not out of this. He’s still a part of that world.”
“La Eme?” Shane was stunned. “I got him out of that two years ago. Amac wouldn’t take him back. He wouldn’t do that to him.”
“He’s not an Erne. He’s not in the gang, but he’s still emotionally tied to it. They’re his old clica.”
Shane tried to absorb this.
“I think he needs a little shock therapy,” Alexa continued. “Maybe this shooting in The Hills is just what we need to show him it isn’t some romantic game they’re playing.”
Shane was stunned to learn Chooch had confided in Alexa and not him. Worse still was the idea that his son still regarded gang life as romantic. Shane thought they’d seen the end of that. “I’ll go with you,” he blurted.
“No, that would change it. It would force him to react differently. Let me do this.”
“He can react with me there.”
“Shane, he knows what you expect of him. He loves you and he wants to please you, but this is about his ethnic blood. Can’t you see that? Let me take him. I’ll look out for him. I won’t let him out of my sight.”
After a long moment, Shane concluded that, as usual, she was probably right. “How long will you be gone?”
She looked at her watch. “I’ll try to be back before midnight.”
“Okay,” he finally relented.
They left ten minutes later. Shane was suddenly alone in the huge house with Carol’s marmalade cat. Franco came over and sat right in front of him, deep hurt etched on his face. Or was Shane just projecting his own hurt into those huge yellow eyes? Then Franco started to yowl; his cries as plaintive and sad as Shane’s own dark thoughts.
“Don’t start up with me, man,” he said. “I’ve got problems of my own.”
Shane was asleep in the drug dealer’s bed when he heard Alexa’s department-issue Crown Victoria pull in. He looked at his watch: eleven-fifty. The front door opened, then he heard Alexa and Chooch talking softly. Soon she came down the hall into the bedroom.
“How’d it go?” Shane asked from his side of the king-size bed.
“I don’t know. It was messy. He threw up. It wasn’t Amac, of course. Three teenage kids … all wearing gang tatts and colors. Chooch has been very quiet since he saw the bodies.”
“You think it shocked some sense into him?”
“I hope.”
She undressed and climbed into bed.
They made love. It was the first time they’d had sex in three or four days. They were both tired and worried, so to be perfectly truthful, it wasn’t their best effort, but afterward, they lay in each other’s arms and a sweet softness descended.
“It’s weird,” she said.
“You mean with Chooch?”
“No,” she said, and kissed him on the tip of his nose. “Screwing you in a drug dealer’s bed. You’ve always been a unique date.”
“Eat me.”
“You first.” Then they both started laughing softly and he took her into his arms, relishing the heat of her body and the strength of her mind.
Wrapped in the warm protection of these qualities, snuggling in her embrace, he felt the edges of his day softened, and he soon drifted into a deep sleep.
Chapter 20.
THE POWER BREAKFAST
It was ten-fifteen, and Michael Fallon was already a quarter of an hour late. Shane and Nicky were sitting at one of the power tables in the Polo Lounge. Nicky said it was one of five power tables located in the back of the restaurant, on a slightly raised platform, next to the wall, affording them a great view of the room. The table had cost Nicky an extra hundred bucks.
“Seating is important,” the little grifter was saying to Shane. “Where they seat you in a power restaurant like the Polo Lounge speaks volumes. Like, see that guy over there, at that little postage stamp table by the window? Murray Streeterman. His last picture, Alaskan Ice, tanked. Look where they got him … gonifsville.”
“What bullshit.” Shane glanced at his watch and began to wonder if this movie star was going to stand them up.
“You think so?” Nicky continued. “At Universal, back in the nineties, they had this big executive dining room where the tables were lined up in rows. The head of the studio, the late, great Lew Wasserman, had his permanent booth next to the east wall. So naturally, the closer you were to the king, the more important you were. Guys under contract on that lot would fight to get their permanent tables a row closer to that wall. It was like World War Two in there—the invasion of Italy. Producers were taking tables like fucking hedge rows. If you moved one row closer to the east wall, it was like a huge career victory. Friendships were lost over it.”
Just then, Michael Fallon appeared in the doorway and started talking to the maitre d’.
“There he is,” Shane said as Nicky let out a groan. “What’s wrong?” Shane whispered.
“He brought the fucking writer, Rajindi Singh. Nobody brings the writer to an important meeting. The writer is useless as an appendix.”
“Doesn’t the writer supply the material?” Shane asked. “Isn’t he sort of important?”
“Writers are creative furniture. You don’t like one, you get another … and they got no loyalty to one another either, the pricks. Don’t ever share a foxhole with a fucking writer, ‘cause they’ll give you up in a heartbeat. Hand one a these hacks some brother writer’s script, and the first thing they say is, ‘Who wrote this piece a crap?’ Writers are the worst.”
Michael Fallon and Rajindi Singh were now headed to the table. Fallon was turning heads all over the restaurant. He was dark complexioned and implausibly handsome in a very unique way. Nothing on his face looked like it went together. His mouth was too big, his nose too long, his forehead too short. But like Sylvester Stallone, once you added it all up, it spelled movie star.
Trailing Michael like a pale orbiting moon was Rajindi Singh. Shane had been expecting an East Indian, but Singh looked more like an albino. He was so slender and washed out that Shane was surprised a team of paramedics wasn’t trailing him dragging a stretcher and oxygen. He was bald, but had a few wisps of spidery white hair growing out of the top of his head.
Then they were at the table. Nicky didn’t speak, so Shane stood and took the lead again.
“Hi, I’m Shane Scully. This is my partner, Nicky Marcella. We’re the co-owners of CineRoma.” He had his hand stretched out but Michael refused to shake.
“I don’t shake hands,” the star said. “I have a germ transfer phobia.”
Is everybody in Hollywood afraid of bacteria? Shane wondered. If they’re all so scared of one-celled amoebas, what’s gonna happen when they run into something that’s got real teeth? Shane turned and shook hands with Rajindi, who had a grip like a glove full of ice water.
“Rajindi Singh,” the man said in an unaccented voice as he re
leased Shane’s hand.
They all sat at the power table, looking for the right way to get started.
“Anybody left-handed?” Michael Fallon suddenly asked.
“Huh?” Nicky said. Shane was beginning to realize that Nicky wasn’t much good at meetings. This surprised him, because on the street, the little con man was so full of shit, he needed constant flushing. Maybe it was the high-profile nature of these power players that froze him.
“We’re not left-handed,” Shane answered.
“Good,” Michael said. “If you’d been left-handed, it would have changed things.”
“Really?” Shane was hoping he’d explain, but the star didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
“Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I’d like to hear how you loved my script,” Rajindi said, a strand of his huge ego suddenly escaping.
“Nicky, you want to handle that one?” Shane asked, but Nicky was vapor-locked, sputtering like a jalopy with sand in the tank. Reluctantly Shane turned back to Rajindi. “We love it.” He hadn’t read it yet. Nobody, including Wireman, seemed to have a copy, so an in-depth discussion was going to be impossible.
“I’d like some specifics, please. There’s a clause in the contract you signed that gives me approval over the producers. I need to know you grasp the global significance of the work, its Nostradamus-like projections and far-reaching social consequences.”
“Oh,” Shane said. “Well, Jerry Wireman didn’t mention that we had to be approved.”
“You sign documents you don’t read?” Singh asked. One white, plucked eyebrow shot up into the middle of his forehead and arched there precariously.
Shane marveled at how he’d gotten locked up with these assholes, but he brushed the thought away and smiled. “Okay, well, I think starting at the end and ending at the beginning is brilliant.”
“How so? State your rationale,” Rajindi challenged.
“Time is like a man-made convenience and not too important in a conceptual sense,” Shane mumbled, trying to fill dead air, but he must have guessed right because they both nodded.
“And? …” Rajindi said.
“The, uh … the whatta ya call-its? … The neural storms and dragons and things. Really, really inventive.” “And? …” Rajindi prodded.
“And … look, Mr. Singh, we love the script, okay? We both think you’re a writer of indescribable talent. This is major stuff. We’re talking neo-impress … neo …”
“Neo-impressionistic heroism,” Rajindi completed.
“Exactly.” Shane was beginning to sweat, himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dennis Valentine walk into the restaurant accompanied by a heavyset man with extremely long arms and huge shoulders. Standard-issue mob muscle. Valentine had the Hollywood trade papers, Variety and the Reporter, in hand. He was already looking around, trying to spot his favorite actor. Then he saw Shane and Nicky at the table with Michael Fallon. Dennis Valentine and his knuckle-dragger were led to one of the postage stamp tables by the window and were seated. Valentine opened the trades, but never stopped looking over at them.
“Okay, okay, so you love the script, and you think I’m talented. So far, so good,” Rajindi Singh was saying, “and I assume you know about and agree with the no-rewrite clause. I want to make sure we’re not going to argue about script changes after the director is aboard.”
“Absolutely. No changes,” Shane said firmly.
“It’d be like stepping on a fucking Rembrandt.” Nicky had regained his voice and everyone turned to look at him.
“Okay then,” Fallon said, “I’m sure my agent told you that my acting price is the standard twenty mil a picture, but on Neural Surfer, because it’s my passion project, I’ll work for ten up-front and ten on the back, against twenty points from first-dollar gross.”
Shane nodded.
“And of course my agent has told you about my dietary and personal needs… .”
“We haven’t talked to him about that in detail yet,” Shane said. “But I’m sure we can deal with them, whatever they are.”
“I am strictly Singh Herbal Kosher. I can’t eat anything that isn’t prepared by the Singh Church of Herbal Healing and blessed by Rajindi personally.”
“I will supply you with my catering costs,” Rajindi said. “They’re a bit pricey, but keeping Michael healthy and spiritually pure ought to be everybody’s main goal.”
“I have to eat every forty-two minutes, exactly,” Fallon chimed in. “Forty-two is my genetic holistic number, perfect in its cubic dimension. Also, my personal trainer and massage therapist have to be hired at their hourly rate and housed in trailers equal to the director’s accommodations. I’d be lost without them. They help me combat my panthophobia. .”
“Your what?” Shane interjected.
“Fear of disease. We’ll supply you with a complete list of my phobias,” the movie star said.
“Phobias?” Shane was getting a headache.
“That’s right. Rajindi is helping me with them. We’ve discovered that by confronting them, and dealing with them openly, I’m much less stressed.”
“It’s part of a holistic herbal healing program we’re administering at the Life Realization Center of my Church.” Singh smiled.
“Gimme an example of what’s gonna be on the list,” Shane asked, fearing the worst.
“Well, obviously sinistrophobia, so we can’t have any left-handed people on the cast or crew.”
“Uh . Mr. Fallon, I’m not trying to be argumentative, but won’t we be inviting a class action discrimination suit?” Shane said.
“I don’t give a shit if you wanna hire fifty left-handed people and give them the L. A. Times crossword puzzle to do every day, that’s up to you. I just won’t have any lefties on my shooting set.”
“We believe left-handed people are disciples of darkness,” Rajindi Singh explained calmly. “While not satanic per se, they do attract the dark neural dragons, and quite frankly, it just isn’t worth the risk.”
Shane had to remind himself that none of this mattered, because they weren’t going to make the damned movie anyway. But these people were insufferable. How did movies—scratch that—films ever get made in this town?
“Obviously, I have the germ thing, too, misophobia, and its first cousin, parasitaphobia.” Michael was looking over at Singh as if to gain strength as he spoke of these fears. “I also have enosiophobia, the fear of committing an unpardonable sin. I want my soul to go to heaven.”
“Very reasonable. Who can blame you for that?” Nicky brown-nosed, folding like a deck chair.
But Shane was frowning and Rajindi Singh was quick to spot it. “Dealing with our fears and weaknesses out in the open helps us adjust to them, helps us build our neural fortresses. Then, of course, we have our ‘Three H Program that buttresses and fortifies all of that.”
“You have a farm program?” Nicky asked.
“You’re thinking Four H,” Rajindi said. “Three H stands for Holistic Herbal Healing.” Then, reading their frowns, he rushed on. “We are very set on neural healing through the practice of self-realization and dietary purity.”
“Then you guys probably won’t be ordering the Canadian bacon,” Shane quipped.
Rajindi gave them a thin, condescending little smile. “We are quite impervious to attempts at humor at our expense,” he said tightly. “Have you been thinking of a director? Michael has director approval, but we are prepared to work inside a limited A-list.” Singh was not behaving like creative furniture. He was already taking over.
“I was thinking of Milos DeAngelo,” Nicky blurted, referring to the sallow old director Shane had met in Nicky’s office two days ago.
“Never heard of him,” Fallon said.
“Extensive background … did some extremely creative animal films a few years back.”
Animal films? Shane thought. The Mr. Ed episodes? “We like Paul Lubick,” Mike Fallon offered.
“Uh, Paul Lubick . yes, yes … what
an interesting idea. Very, very talented.” Nicky was now in full retreat.
“Wonderful. Then we’d like you to sign him to an immediate holding deal,” Fallon continued. “I happen to know he’s between pictures right now and Paul and I are simpatico. We speak the same language. I have chronomentrophobia, and believe me, having a director who understands that helps me a lot on the set because we don’t have a buncha A. D.‘s running around yelling about the damn schedule. We work at our own pace. It’s graceful, and it frees my creative spirit.” Michael Fallon had a look of rapture as he spoke.
“Paul Lubick? You happen to know who his agent is?” Nicky had unholstered his gold LeBlanc and was clicking the lead down. He was poised to write the information on a piece of paper he had just pulled out of his pocket.
“He’s with Talent Associates,” Rajindi Singh contributed.
“Excuse me,” the gray-haired, white-coated waiter said, holding a bottle of champagne. “This is a gift from the gentleman at that table.” He pointed to Dennis Valentine, who gave them a little wave of his hand, flashing a couple hundred thousand worth of diamonds and sapphires on manicured fingers.
“Champagne?” Shane said, taking the bottle of Taittinger and looking at it.
“What kinda asshole sends a bottle of champagne over at ten in the morning?” Fallon asked, looking at Valentine, who was smiling like a jack-o’-lantern and waving like a starstruck tourist. Then, because Mike Fallon was still looking at him, Valentine interpreted that as an invitation, stood, and ambled over to their table.
“Nicholas, perhaps you might introduce me to Mr. Fallon,” the mobster said, smiling his perfect smile. Shane had to admit that, on balance, Valentine wasn’t giving away too many hottie points to the handsome movie star.
“Michael Fallon, this is Dennis Valentine,” Nicky croaked. Then, simultaneously, they both pulled back and held their hands up, palms out.
“I never shake hands,” Valentine said.
“Me neither,” Fallon agreed.
They stood there for a second, with their palms extended, like two guys waving off a dinner check.
Hollywood Tough (2002) Page 14