Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (31 page)

~ * ~

Finally, I called Lydia.

“I'm going to need to take your performance from a nomination to a win.”

“What?” she said in a groggy voice. “I was asleep.”

“Well, of course you were. Have room service send you up a pot of coffee blend 32A. Usually they only make it for me, but I'll be happy to share it. Now, what I have in mind for your performance is going to take a little rehearsal.”

“I never rehearse!”

“For this performance you will, my sweet Greek, you will.”

~ * ~

The calls done I looked up to see early morning joggers on the beach. They all looked happy and relatively carefree. They couldn't have been, of course. No one really is.

~ * ~

When I got home Roee had a hot breakfast waiting for me. A cubed lamb omelet seasoned with rosemary; his special hash browns made from small new potatoes; homemade sourdough bread, toasted to my standards, butter nicely displayed in a silver bowl, marmalade he had brought back from London filling the volume of a matching silver bowl, and, of course, a pot of very black, very hot coffee. He joined me and I discussed the details of the immediate future and how I would seek to control it to our advantage.

After breakfast we left for the Hotel Bel-Air, sneaking back into our suite. A room service breakfast had been ordered for us and had been devoured by a couple of loyal employees I have on the hotel staff. We put the cart of leftovers out in the hallway. We then dressed in Henderson and Pinsker casual clothes, well-pressed slacks, pink Izod short sleeve pullovers, loafers with tassels, and called Lydia to invite her out for the day. When she heard our plans, she passed, declaring a day on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills more to her liking.

We left our room and went into the lobby and received from the concierge directions to Santa Monica and the Museum of Flying. Then we got into our rented Town Car and headed in that direction.

It was not hard picking out the tail. He was good, but not good enough. We wondered if he was Sara's boy or Max's or working for both. It didn't matter. The information we wanted to impart was being imparted. Henderson and Pinsker were plane buffs. The tail joined us inside the museum, a very slick display of historic aircraft, and was treated to a boy-like enthusiasm rarely seen on the faces of these two usually much more dour legal professionals.

The next day we sat at the Hotel Bel-Air waiting for Sara Hutton's lawyer to call. At around two-thirty she did. A cool efficient woman, she confirmed from us the basics of the deal we were offering, as it had been explained to her by Sara, and set a time on Wednesday for us all to meet her in her office in Century City to discuss the matter in more detail. Up to that time we had spent the day in small talk and going over certain financial arrangements, all of which bored Lydia greatly. She made outrageous faces as we read the mundane chit chat from a script I had prepared, rolling her eyes; dislocating her jaw; sticking her tongue out farther than I would have guessed it could go—if I had ever been asked.

We knew the rooms were bugged. I had allowed it. It had been done on Saturday, while we were at Sara Hutton's. A man had bribed a porter to let him into our suite, where he placed a series of bugs. All of which we later found and greatly admired, but kept firmly planted. The porter, of course, belongs to me more than he belongs to the Bel-Air, and would normally have protected the sanctity of my room with his life, or, at least, to the extent of a good, solid beating. But I wanted the room bugged. I wanted Max and Sara to hear the mundane reality of Wall Street lawyers at work and play. I figured it would really confuse them. Especially if they suspected us. Which I suspected they did, but I didn't know to what extent, and I didn't know exactly what they suspected, but all that I was now doing was in preparation for the worse in both cases.

After the call had come in we—Lydia and her two lawyers—left the hotel for an early supper somewhere. As we passed through the lobby Pinsker and Henderson told Lydia all about the neat planes they had seen the day before. She was not impressed.

We got into the Town Car and quickly shook off the tail. Then we drove home so we could relax and drop the playacting, which, after a while, does grow weary.

That is, Roee and I dropped the playacting. Lydia, I'm afraid, had to put in some more hours as I made her rehearse a small but vital part of her upcoming performance that I was convinced she would be called upon to play. There wasn't a lot to memorize, indeed there were no lines at all, but the acting had to be saturated with verisimilitude. When she had satisfied my exacting demands, I told her she could quit and I poured her a large brandy. She drank it down somewhat crudely, forfeiting the delights of savoring for the joy of buzz.

“Ah!” she said with pleasure. Then she looked hard at me. “Nico, do you have any peanuts?”

I had no idea if I did or not. I turned to call Roee, but he was already entering the library with a bowl of the requested edible.

“Ah, bless you my child,” Lydia said as she grabbed a handful. “So, now what?”

“I'm expecting a visitor, who you are welcome to meet as he may become very important to you. I believe he will be willing to stay for dinner, assuming, Roee, that you are grilling swordfish.”

“I am. It's his favorite.”

“And who is this visitor?”

“The Captain.”

“Captain who?”

“Just, the Captain.”

“Oh. Like you are just the Fixxer.”

“Yes, somewhat. He's my main—uh, contact—in local law enforcement. I find him useful on occasion.”

“He's a policeman you have bribed,” Lydia stated, reading through my euphemism.

“Are you shocked?”

“Please, I do not shock easily.”

“Let's hope so. For we're betting on that, aren't we?”

~ * ~

The Captain arrived at six o'clock and was happy to accept our invitation to dinner, although he said Mrs. Captain would probably be upset, but he would deal with that later. Besides, he preferred her meatloaf cold and in a sandwich with plenty of ketchup. He was quite taken by Lydia, who, I'm sure, he found exotic. The Captain is like many American cops of his age: a Marine out of uniform, somewhat uncomfortable with changes in the country, and usually empathetic only with things Anglo-Saxon, even if they themselves are not. The Captain, I should add for clarification, is. Six foot two, naturally thin, but just now taking on the bulk of middle age, with light brown hair that was probably blonde when he was a child, cut in the typical police-military style, the Captain is a man absolutely sold on the stated mandate of Law Enforcement. He is also a man who damn well knows that administration, bureaucracy and the subtle-to-blatant intolerant bent of many who are attracted to police work, muddies the waters of that mandate. He also thinks the pay stinks—and that he, personally, is worth much more. An attitude I exploited with my original offer of secret employment. Which, I suppose, makes him a corrupt cop, except in this: I employed him not so much because I knew he could be bought, but because I knew he had a charmingly childlike love of Justice, a concept not often made concrete in the officialdom of Law Enforcement. This “good” quality about him is more useful to me and more malleable than any other quality he may have lacking in the standard norms of integrity.

After the introduction to Lydia and the pouring of drinks—the Captain and Lydia bonded over a blended malt whisky—we sat comfortably in the library as I gave the Captain a short overview of the pertinent past events, then sketched in my basic plan to bring Sara Hutton and Maxwellton James down, detailing Lydia's role in the proceedings. The Captain was impressed. Not the least by what Lydia had volunteered to do.

“But look,” the Captain said, “I feel it's only right to warn you that, given what I've found out today, this thing is not free from danger. People involved in this have some violent records.”

“Hey, it's drama! Real drama! Meat, not vegetables. I love it. Couldn't keep me away,” Lydia declared with straight back, high head and up lifted—pride.

“Captain, you have to understand,” I said, “this is the, ‘True Story' the film will be based on.”

“What?”

“It's probably too Hollywood to explain. Why don't you go on with your report?”

“Well, I've had a hell of a day. Ran into some real local roadblocks on this Ranger situation at Hearst Castle, but I managed to get to the right people and get the info out of them. Ten years in Internal Affairs gives you a real knack for interviewing civil servants. They got a real prominent sweat button you can push. Anyway, the story expanded into a Federal connection. So, through Roee, I tapped into Petey so we could follow that up, which wasn't easy either, but I think we eventually tracked down the story. It's pretty amazing. Here's what we think happened:

“About a year and a half ago the state officials who are directly in charge of Hearst Castle received a threat in the mail. It came from some outfit that referred to itself as the Underclass Avengers. The threat was to blow up Hearst Castle. No reason why was stated, no timeframe was mention, and no political statement was made. Well, you know, governments receive these kinds of letters all the time. It was turned over to the local San Simeon police as a matter of course and they came in after-hours and did a bomb sweep. Nothing was found.”

“Why after-hours?”

“The people running the Castle didn't want to upset the tourists. That place makes money for the state you know. Which is ironic because the state almost turned down the Hearst family when they offered it to them. The state thought it was going to be a white elephant. Hugely expensive to keep up and not enough interest from the public—especially seeing how it was so remote from any major tourist city, you know, like San Francisco or L.A., but they took it and the crowds flooded in from day one. Seems the common man loves to see how the elite live.”

“Except for the common men in the Underclass Avengers,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Except for them. Anyway, no bomb was found, so they chalked it up to a nut case. Then a second letter arrived. This one was more specific. It outlined exactly the kind of bomb it would use—aluminum nitrate—and it outlined why Hearst Castle was the target. It seems the Underclass Avengers sees it as the perfect symbol of the evils of what they referred to as, ‘The Overclass.'”

“Can't have an Underclass without an Overclass,” I reminded him.

“Don't get philosophical on me here, Fixxer, I'm trying to give a report.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, again the matter was turned over to the local police, another bomb sweep, nothing was found, they still considered it as no serious threat, but then, somehow, this State Senator from that area, Joe Skinner, heard about it and got involved, made himself a pest, and demanded action. He wanted armed men on guard 24 hours a day. He wanted metal detectors and bag searches. Well, the Castle people were dead set against it, of course, saying it would ruin the whole experience of going to the Castle. Yeah, ruin the ticket sales they meant. They absolutely refused, end of story. Until a third letter arrived declaring that the Underclass Avengers were still planning to blow up Hearst Castle, but they hadn't yet decided if they would do it at night, with little loss of life, or during the day in high tourist season, with a lot of lives lost. This was getting scary, even the Castle people were ready to do something, but they still didn't want to turn Hearst Castle into an armed camp. So Skinner gave them a palatable option. He offered to contact certain Federal authorities he knew who were well versed in terrorist activities and see if they would lend some men from this extremely secret anti-terrorist group that worked for, but somewhat independently of, both the CIA and the FBI. These were supposedly the best-trained men in this field. They were trained to operate subtly, without metal detectors, bag searches, that sort of thing. They would conduct hourly bomb sweeps, very inconspicuously and, through hidden video cameras and just good old eye contact, they would keep terrorist monitoring going on. Anybody suspicious, they would cut from the heard, so to speak, and gently question. They know the personality type so well, it was claimed, that no one could get pass them. And, here was the beauty of the whole idea: Skinner suggested putting them in Park Ranger uniforms. It's a State Park facility, after all, it shouldn't seem that unusual for a few Rangers to be around, and they can carry weapons. But they're Rangers, the weapons, to the public, seem almost ceremonial, you know, just part of the uniform. This, Skinner said, would be far better than normal police, or a bunch of guys in dark suits, sunglasses, and little earphones. Well, the Castle people bought it. It seemed to answer all their needs. So suddenly one day, boom, they've got these Guardian Angel Rangers hanging around making them feel secure.”

“What's this Federal group they supposedly came from?” I asked.

“Well, this is where I had to use Petey. He tapped into the Fed computers and had to break through a couple encryption codes, he told me, to get the info. It seems these men weren't really a part of any anti-terrorist group, but they were, occasionally, individually and as a group, temporary and secret employees of the government, used for, what one secret memo Petey found called, ‘Crummy Covert' operations. Real illegal stuff. When they were used this way they were under the direct command of a guy named Stanley Sands.”