Cross Dressing (6 page)

Finally Oren looked up from the materials. “Damn,” he said.

“Damn good or damn bad?” Dan asked.

“Damn good,” Oren said. “I love it! More Is More. It’s a goddamn bull’s-eye.” Oren slapped his desktop. “I’ll set the
Fujioka meeting for tomorrow. Put some teams on this now. Don’t change a thing. I want kick-ass visuals!” Dan didn’t respond. He just stood there looking out the window thinking about Scott. “Is there a problem?” Oren asked.

The problem was that Dan really didn’t like to share. “No, no problems,” Dan said. “I was just thinking about the COD spot I’m shooting this afternoon.” Maybe he’d tell Oren about Scott’s contribution later. Right now he had to keep Emmons from getting wind of the Fujioka news. He called Scott and told him to come along on the COD shoot.

An hour later they were on a sound stage in Burbank shooting the first segment of the spot. They spent the rest of the day together. Scott, taking full advantage, dutifully stroked Dan’s ego every thirty minutes or so. Before long, Dan started to like him. Maybe he’d call Oren later and tell him that Scott had come up with the idea. Maybe.

The shoot went flawlessly. The spokesman had his character down cold. He was a jowly old stage actor who could have passed for an Ivy League law school professor with his dark suit and bow tie. As he peered over his glasses in old-money disdain, you could almost hear him say, “We make money the old-fashioned way. We
earn
it.” Between every take and setup, Dan called Beverly, but he always got voice mail. Dan and Scott spent the rest of the day in an editing suite. Finally it was ready to watch, stem to stern.

The spot opened with an exterior shot of a rain-slicked city street. Police cars with flashing lights blocked traffic as the cops struggled to subdue an obviously intoxicated man who was wearing only his birthday suit. Once the scene was established, the spokesman walked into the frame, gravely intoning the commercial message with perfect Kingsfield inflections.

“You’re drunk, you’re stoned, and you’re
naked,”
he said. He turned to survey the scene as he narrated a quick montage
of images. “There is a twelve-year-old with several pounds of
heroin
handcuffed to your
wrist.”

Cut to a wide shot as the police interrogated the suspect. “You’re in possession of a smoking
gun
, and the police are beginning to ask
embarrassing
questions that
you
can’t answer.”

Cut to an extreme close-up of the spokesman looking over the top of his glasses directly into the camera.
“You
may need legal help,” he said.

The spokesman walked down a hallway toward an impressive walnut door with gold lettering on it, spelling out the name of a law firm. “When you’re in a
tricky
situation and the
standard
avenues of legal recourse seem inadequate—call Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and
Marx.
We’ll get you off,
regardless
of the cost to you.”

The spokesman opened the door to reveal a happy customer writing a check and shaking hands with an attorney. “At Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and Marx, justice is as close as your
checkbook.”
The happy customer turned, revealing himself as the suspect who was arrested in the first scene. Quick cut to a court file being stamped “Dismissed.”

“Shaftem, Dickem, Hosem, and Marx—staying
above
the law,
just
for you.”

The spot ended with the firm’s logo, which included a large, rotating gold screw.

Dan got high fives from everyone present. Scott said he felt particularly honored that he had been there for the entire process. Dan leaned back in his chair, feeling like a dime-store James Cameron, his day nearly perfect. Moved by all the laughter and congratulations, Dan began feeling charitable, or at least vaguely honest. He was about to call Oren to give Scott partial credit for the “More Is More” idea. However, as he reached for the phone, a sound engineer burst into the editing suite and told them to switch the monitor to one of the local television stations.

The first image came from a news helicopter’s camera. It showed an eighteen-wheeler being followed by several police cars, their lights flashing. The helicopter pilot said the truck was picking up speed as it headed south on Balboa Boulevard. They cut from the helicopter shot to a reporter on the ground who was standing by an old Chevrolet, the front of which had been completely smashed. The reporter then narrated video footage from earlier in the chase.

“Not long after this chase started,” the reporter said, “as the giant truck turned from Chatsworth onto Balboa, the back wheels rolled over the hood of this low-rider Impala, crushing it under eleven tons of semitrailer and leaving the driver scared and angry, but unhurt.”

Dan and the others in the editing suite hooted. They began flipping from station to station to see who had the best pictures. From what they could gather, the truck had already left quite a trail of damage in its wake. Looking at the truck’s erratic path, some of the reporters began speculating that the truck hijacker was wild on PCP or methamphetamine or, possibly, both.

The reporters said that LAPD had two dozen cars converging from all corners of the San Fernando Valley and the CHP was mobilizing to put up roadblocks at all the on-ramps to the 405 between the 101 and the 118 freeways. Between the television and radio stations, there were ten helicopters, two fixed-wing aircraft, and six news vans following the events. All regularly scheduled programming had been interrupted for the spectacle that was the high-speed chase.

Dan leaned over to Scott and said, “The only thing that could improve this, from a ratings standpoint, would be some gunplay.” Scott smiled and felt like he had made an important friend.

News directors refer to greater Los Angeles as a “seasoned breaking-news market.” What they mean is that the town is
full of lunatics willing to commit all sorts of crimes in public with the full knowledge that if they get caught or killed, it will be on live television. Knowing this not only didn’t deter these people, but recent studies showed it actually served as encouragement. Thus, on a per capita basis, the Eyewitness and Action news crews covered more high-speed and low-speed chases, botched bank-robbery shoot-outs, and freeway-overpass suicides than any other news crews in the world.

As the chase continued, the news anchors, lacking any substantial information, could only speculate about the motives behind what was going on. The anchor for one of the TV stations stated there was the possibility that the truck was loaded with biological weapons—possibly anthrax—and that the driver might be a member of a militant Islamic organization. The only hard facts he had to support such wild allegations were these: A driver had left the truck idling in an alley behind an industrial park that housed, among other businesses, a couple of biotech outfits. When the driver came out from getting his paperwork signed, his truck was gone.

BAM! The huge truck cut a corner and crushed a brand-new Porsche Boxster. “Whoa!” the editor said. “That’s gonna cost somebody.”

The reporter put a hand to his earpiece. “It looks like the truck’s heading for Van Nuys Airport,” he said. A quarter mile ahead of the truck, LAPD officers laid down a spike strip, pulled their cars back, and drew their weapons. The truck continued straight toward them, its airhorn blasting all the way. The hijacker saw the spike strip too late. Tires blew and the driver lost control of the big rig, sending it careening into a sod farm where it bogged down in mud and St. Augustine. The cops quickly surrounded the cab of the truck, guns trained on the two doors.

The guys in the editing suite started making bets about
gunplay. “Twenty bucks says he’s dead before his feet touch the ground,” Dan said.

Before anyone could take the bet, the hijacker’s hands poked out of the driver’s side window, waving in an unusually friendly manner. A reporter said the police were communicating with the hijacker via bullhorn. A second later the driver’s-side door opened. The hijacker reached out to the chrome grab handle and eased onto the big step over the fuel tank.

The editor couldn’t believe his eyes. “Holy shit!” He started laughing.

“It’s a sweet little old lady,” Scott said.

Dan’s head landed on the video switcher with a thud. “No, there’s nothing sweet about her,” he said. “Not a goddamn thing.” Dan’s perfect day was suddenly and irreparably marred. After this, he could no longer afford to tell the truth about the Fujioka idea. He was going to need the whole damn bonus—and then some.

Although it wasn’t Ruth’s intention, just as sure as she had crushed that expensive German sports car, she had also just crushed Scott Emmons’s career.

M
r. Smith’s eyes were empty, his voice hollow. He was eighty-nine and would not see ninety. His sense of smell was gone. He couldn’t see, and sounds were only vague noises. He could no longer apprehend the world in which he existed so miserably. He lay stiff and slack-jawed, his black lungs discharging sour fumes. Had he been able to afford a doctor, the doctor would have explained that, among other things, Mr. Smith’s sweat glands had atrophied, drying his skin to the texture of salty crackers. A lawyer would have said it was well past time to get the will in order.

But Mr. Smith had nothing to leave. Sadder still, he had
no one to leave anything to. His wife and both of his children had preceded him in death. There were no siblings, no cousins, no old friends. There was one grandchild who lived somewhere in Arkansas, but he didn’t give a damn about the old man. He had problems of his own. Mr. Smith, whose life was as common as his name, was alone in the world except for one woman, a woman who had been through this sort of thing before.

Sister Peg was born Peggy Morgan. She was raised in a contented middle-class family in San Bernardino, California. Her father was a sweet, quiet man who owned a small electric contracting company. Her mother was the company bookkeeper. Peg was an only child and a straight-A student. She went to Sunday school and, a couple of times a year, she went to Catholic church with a friend of hers. She thought the stained-glass windows were beautiful.

In May of Peg’s junior year in high school, her father was diagnosed with cancer. Peg spent every day of that summer at the hospital holding her father’s hand, reading to him, watching him deteriorate. His treatment was expensive and they were forced to sell the family business to pay for it. Despite the doctors’ best efforts, Mr. Morgan died in early September.

It was three in the morning and Sister Peg was at Mr. Smith’s bedside, upstairs at the Care Center. She was holding his frail, spotted hand, but she was thinking about her father. Mr. Smith’s palsy had slowed in the last few days and Sister Peg knew he was about to die. His opaque eyes stared at the ceiling. He didn’t blink and he couldn’t cry, though he wanted to do both. He ran his parched tongue across his lips and whispered. “It’s cold.”

Sister Peg already had three heavy blankets on the bed. She pulled the top one up around Mr. Smith’s neck and softly tucked it in. “There you go,” she said. Her voice was sweet and peaceful. “That’s better.” She touched his forehead, then
stroked his hollow cheek. She wanted him to know that someone was there, that someone cared.

It was quiet now. The children were asleep and the police helicopters had gone looking for trouble in other parts of the Valley. Sister Peg picked up the book at the foot of the bed and tilted the dim lamp so she could read. She leaned close to Mr. Smith’s ear so that he might hear. “For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord; but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”

Despite his blindness, Mr. Smith could see the end. He began to tremble slightly, not at the Lord’s word, but because the death rattle demanded it as his last few breaths struggled through his mucus-choked throat. Sister Peg looked at this shell of a human and prayed she had given him some sense of dignity and worth in his dying moments. She sensed how terrible it was to be so alone in such an awful world. And, as Mr. Smith let go of her hand, she wondered if this was all there was.

“S
HE FORGOT TO TAKE HER MEDICINE,” DAN SAID. “SO
, legally, she’s not responsible for her actions, right?”

The cop at the desk looked up from her computer screen. “Don’t worry,” she said. “If your mother’s non compos, she’s not in any trouble.”

Dan was relieved. “Great,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Of course, someone’s gotta pay for all that damage,” the officer said. “And I assume that will be you.” The officer smiled and resumed her work.

During questioning, Ruth said she just wanted to watch the planes take off and land at Van Nuys Airport. Since no one from the nursing home would take her there, she decided to walk, but she got tired after a mile or so. That’s when she saw the idling eighteen-wheeler. Next thing she knew, the thing was going thirty miles an hour and she couldn’t make it stop. “I’m sorry if I caused any problems,” she said.

Ruth was up a judicial creek without a paddle. She was looking at charges of felony evading, hit-and-run, and grand theft big-rig to name just a few. Before any of the charges could be brought, Ruth had to submit to a 5150 evaluation to determine her competency. She also had a bail hearing in front of her, but none of that could be done until tomorrow. Meanwhile she’d be enjoying the taxpayers’ hospitality.

Dan made it back to Santa Monica at two in the morning. He found Michael sitting in the kitchen eating aspirin. He said he was feeling achy, like a flu bug or something was starting to get the better of him. Dan told him to get well quick and get Mom the hell out to the Care Center before something else expensive happened.

The next morning Dan made two phone calls before going to his office. He called Scott Emmons and told him to go to the production house to wait while the editor made a few last cuts to the Shaftem, Dickem spot. Then he was to take the tape to COD’s main offices and be sure the executive producer got it. Dan then called the editor and told him to take his time with the cuts.