Gumshoe Gorilla (30 page)

"WELL I LOOKED UP ALL THE OLD NEWS STORIES ON HIM. APPARENTLY HE'S BEEN DOING IT FOR A FEW MONTHS. ALL SORTS OF STRANGE PLACES. NO ONE'S BEEN ABLE TO IDENTIFY HIM OR HER YET."

Burke drummed on the table with his fingers while he thought about it.

"OK. IT'S CUTE. IT'S LOCAL COLOR. BUT HOW DO WE USE IT? I MEAN WE COULD HAVE KURT AND MIRANDA STUCK IN TRAFFIC WHILE A POEM SCROLLS BY. BUT THAT SEEMS KIND OF LAME."

Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

"WHAT ABOUT USING IT AS A FRAME?" Kip suggested. "WE COULD START AND END EACH EPISODE WITH A SHOT OF ONE OF THE POEMS..."

"WAIT A MINUTE" Jeff interrupted, leaning forward and making a big gesture. "AREN'T THERE LEGAL PROBLEMS WITH US REPRODUCING THE POEMS ON SCREEN?"

"ACTUALLY, NO." Amelia corrected him. "COPYRIGHT DOESN'T EXIST TILL YOU SIGN YOUR NAME TO A WORK. SINCE THIS GUY IS DISTRIBUTING HIS WORK PUBLICLY AND ANONYMOUSLY, IT IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN."

Jeff frowned.

"I'LL HAVE LEGAL CHECK IT OUT, ANYWAY."

Burke tapped a single finger against his chin.

"I DON'T KNOW. THIS FRAMING STUFF SOUNDS AWFULLY ARTSY FARTSY."

Something hit me and I jumped in.

"What if ther r secrt messgs in the poems?"

Burke looked in my direction.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

"Supose ther wer secrt mssgs in t- poems. Krt + Mir realize tht t- poems contain info about t- conspiracy they r tracking down."

Burke's face lit up.

"YEAH! SO THEN THEY HAVE TO FIND THE GUY WHO'S WRITING THIS STUFF SO THAT THEY CAN LEARN WHERE HE IS GETTING HIS INFORMATION FROM!"

"WAIT A MINUTE," Jeff interrupted. "HOW CAN WE PUT SECRET MESSAGES INTO THE POEMS WHEN WE'RE NOT THE ONES WRITING THEM?"

"NOT A PROBLEM," Amelia shot back. "YOU ANALYZE ANYTHING HARD ENOUGH, AND YOU'LL FIND A HIDDEN MEANING IN IT. LOOK AT THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION."

"YES! THIS IS GREAT!" Burke stood up, waving his arms. "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED! PEOPLE WILL SEE THE POEMS ON THE NEWS, AND THEN THEY'LL TUNE IN TO THE SHOW TO FIND OUT WHAT THE HIDDEN MESSAGE WAS. IT'S FUCKING BRILLIANT!"

He snapped his fingers.

"AND BETTER STILL... EVERYBODY IS ALREADY WONDERING WHO THIS GUY IS. SO THEY TUNE IN TO SEE KURT AND MIRANDA TRACK HIM DOWN. AND THEN FOR THE SEASON FINALE, WE ADVERTISE THAT WE'RE GOING TO UNMASK HIM!"

His statement hung there on my visor. No one else spoke. No one knew what to say. I shot a worried look to Amelia. Amelia shot a worried look to Jeff. Jeff bit the bullet and asked Burke.

"UH... BURKE? YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT MAKING UP SOME CHARACTER TO BE THE POET, RIGHT? YOU'RE NOT SUGGESTING THAT WE ACTUALLY FIND THE REAL GUY AND..."

Burke shooed him away as if he was a gnat.

"WHAT? OF COURSE I WANT TO USE THE REAL GUY! OTHERWISE WHAT'S THE POINT? CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW NUTS PEOPLE WILL BE TO FIND OUT WHO HE IS? THEY'RE GONNA HAVE TO INVENT A NEW RATINGS SCALE TO HANDLE THAT EPISODE!"

Jeff made one more attempt to get through to him.

"BUT BURKE, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW..."

Burke banged his fists on the table.

"MAYBE NOT. BUT WE CAN FIND OUT. WHO KNOWS A GOOD DETECTIVE AGENCY IN THIS TOWN?"

The dream image of the gorilla flashed through my mind again. I saw the name on his business card, and caught myself starting to scratch "Drew Parker @ Fortress Security" on my touch pad. But I stopped myself in time. What was I thinking? How would I explain why I knew a detective in this town without admitting that he was already working a case for me?

Burke looked around the table, but got only shrugs in response.

"OH HELL, GET THAT BIG AGENCY ON THIS!" He shouted. "WHAT'S THEIR NAME? INTERNATIONAL? GLOBAL? WHATEVER. HAVE THEM PUT 50 GUYS ON THIS, IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES."

Burke jumped to his feet, and the meeting broke up into two centers of activity. At one end of the room, Burke was pacing back and forth, shouting things into his phone while Jeff tried ineffectually to talk him out of this course of action. At the other, the rest of us huddled together over a flow chart of the season's story arc, trying to figure out what changes we would have to make in order to accommodate Burke's latest brainstorm. We knew better than to try and talk sense to him when he's in one of these moods. And besides, it was a damn good idea. If he could pull it off, it would be the sort of season cliffhanger that people would talk about for years to come. Like that old "Who shot JR" stunt they pulled on
Dallas
, or the infamous "Which Witch?" stunt that they pulled on
Xarena the Cheerleader Witch.

Anyway, by the time noon finally rolled around, Burke had sold the publicity department on his new idea. Jeff had given up fighting it and moved on to cost containment. From the bits my visor was picking up of his phone call, it sounded like he was trying to talk Global Investigations into taking a product placement deal in lieu of payment.

Meanwhile, the rest of us had managed to patch together a revised story arc and episode break down. It wasn't pretty. In fact, it took up the entire conference table and looked like a dyslexic spider's web. But it would hold together. After lunch, we'd polish the outlines for the next four episodes and break them down into individual scenes, and then into the different versions for various sex and violence levels. That's where my headache would begin: making sure that all the various versions of the script fit together and made sense, no matter what settings the audience had their media filters set to.

Burke looked over what we'd done, suggested a few refinements, and then finally let us go to lunch around 12:30. Say what you will about Burke, he does have one saving grace as a boss: he's never back from lunch in less than an hour and a half. I called over to the High Museum to see how things were going on location. They were still shooting, but were expecting to break for lunch in the next twenty minutes. I decided to scoot on over and surprise Charles.

From the hotel, the High Museum of Art was a straight shot north on the subway. I watched the people on the train, making mental notes on them. Some white kids in karate outfits and eye make up and spikey black hair, looking like they belonged in a Japanese cartoon. A black woman in a business jacket and an African-print skirt. An Asian guy with moussed hair, wearing a black suit and a silk tie with a full color depiction of the crucifixion on it.

I was still trying to get a handle on Atlanta. It seemed to be a city of transplants. No one that I'd talked to yet was actually from Atlanta; they'd all moved here from somewhere else. LA is like that too. But in LA, there is this overriding sense of
place.
People go there to be actors, or dreamers, or just to be close to all that energy. You know it when in you're in LA. There's this kind of vibe. You can sense it.

New Orleans is like that too. There's this whole decaying Southern Funk that you can just feel in your pores. Or DC, with its brisk deal making politicos. Heck, even Orlando has a certain unique tackiness, a sort of theme-park-run-amok look to everything. But Atlanta... I just couldn't get a feel for Atlanta. According to what I've read, the city got started because this was where the train tracks happened to cross. And it seems like that still defines the city. It's just a place where a whole bunch of roads happen to meet, where a lot of people cross paths. But it doesn't really have a soul of its own.

I was still thinking about the personality of Atlanta when I got off the train at Arts Center Station. I was walking around the corner to the Museum, when I saw the flashing lights of the ambulance pulled up outside.

I saw the photographers lining up as my limo came to a stop in front of the High Museum of Art. I must say, the building was much smaller than I'd expected. Compared to the Getty in Los Angeles, it was miniscule. But then, I've heard that Atlanta isn't much of a town for the arts.

The driver walked briskly around and held the door open for me.

"Madame."

"Thank you so, Yohanne," I said, as he helped me out.

Actually, I had no idea what the fellow's name was, but I wasn't about to let the press know that. They're ruthless when it comes to appearances. As far as they're concerned, if you look like somebody, then you must be somebody. Who cares if you've actually done something significant, like raising four of the most gifted actors of this generation? Anyway, I was not about to let them know that this wasn't my personal driver, but just a rent-a-blond who'd come with the car. And besides, he looked like a Yohanne. And I knew that he wouldn't blow his tip by objecting.

I stood up slowly and looked around, to let the cameras catch my profile. There was a reassuring wave of flashes. Of course, the trick isn't getting them to take the picture, it's getting them to run it. And it pays to make things easy for reporters. There's nothing they hate more than actually having to do research.

I elbowed Yohanne, who had forgotten his line.

"Oh... Will that be all Ms. Rockland?"

"For now, Yohanne. Go and park the car, I'll call you when I need you."

"Very well Madame. Have a nice visit with your sons."

"Thank you."

Let's just hope those bozos with the cameras were paying attention. I'd practically written the caption of the photo for them.

I smiled at Yohanne, so that the photographers could get a good candid, and then walked up the steps to the cast entrance. A tall man in a black t-shirt and a cowboy hat was guarding the door. He looked a bit like a young Matt Dillon. Or at he least he could have, with a little work on his chin.

"Good afternoon," I said. "I'm Virginia Rockland."

I enunciated the words clearly, in case any of the photographers had missed the information the first time around. It doesn't pay to overestimate the intelligence of members of the fourth estate.

"I thought I would surprise my sons with a visit. Could you have someone show me the way to the set?"

The guard looked at me, and wrinkled his forehead like a confused ape.

"Do you have a pass?"

I forced myself to laugh pleasantly.

"Young man, I am
Virginia Rockland.
Do you really think I need a pass to see my own sons?"

"Uh... Lady, I'm sorry. But I'm not supposed to let anyone in without a pass."

A flash went off. I glanced to the side and saw a photographer standing there, listening to our conversation.

"I understand," I said.

Obviously this boy wasn't the brightest bulb. But then, I guess it doesn't take a Ph.D. to stand at a door saying "no" all day long.

"I'm sure that you get all sorts of crazy fans trying to get on the set. But look here, see?"

I opened my purse and got out my driver's license.

"I really am Virginia Rockland. So it would be quite all right for you to let me in."

He took the license and looked at it. Looked at me. Looked back at the license.

"This is a real ID?"

"Yes," I said, the annoyance beginning to creep into my voice. "It's a real ID."