Loser's Town (13 page)

Spandau nodded to the office. ‘Is he in?’

‘Unless you’ve got your mileage logs, I wouldn’t go in there. He’s on the warpath today.’

‘Let’s see. First of the month. Ex-wife. First or second?’

‘Mrs Second. He refuses to pay the alimony and she’s taking him to court again. Meanwhile you got a message from somebody named Frank Jurado.’ She gave him the note. ‘Is he as important as he thinks he is?’

‘Nearly,’ said Spandau. ‘He is more important than you think he is, but less important than he wants to be.’

‘You’re really deep today,’ Pookie said.

‘It’s the medication,’ said Spandau. ‘Vicodin always brings out my philosophical side.’

‘All Vicodin ever gave me,’ she said, ‘was a yeast infection.’

‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ said Spandau. ‘I shall treasure it throughout the day.’

Coren was on the phone to an ex-wife when Spandau walked in. Coren’s face was purple and he held the phone with one hand while trying to negotiate the cap on a bottle of blood pressure pills with the other. Spandau took the bottle away from him, opened it and handed it back. Coren swallowed a pill while managing to talk around it.

‘Look,’ Coren said into the phone, ‘I pay you three thousand a month already. I bought you that fucking beauty shop, which makes more money than I do. I’m not kicking in any more money to keep you supplied with
horny Zen Buddhists on day-trips down from Mount Baldy. Why can’t you fuck cabana boys like every other middleaged divorcee? . . . Yeah, yeah . . .’

She hung up on him. He put down the phone and looked up at Spandau haplessly.

‘She’s fucking a Zen Buddhist monk, for chrissake,’ Coren told him. ‘The guy comes down from the monastery on Thursdays and goes to see her. The next-door neighbor saw the guy sashaying in the front door in his fucking kimono. Can you believe this?’

‘Maybe he’s just her spiritual advisor,’ offered Spandau.

‘Yeah, and maybe the next-door neighbor didn’t hear him moaning like a Holstein. What the hell do you want? You got your fucking mileage logs?’

‘We’re working for Bobby Dye now. I just thought I’d tell you.’

‘Great. What are we doing for him?’

‘He’s being blackmailed.’

‘I thought his life was being threatened.’

‘That was yesterday,’ said Spandau. ‘Today he’s being blackmailed. You know showbiz.’

‘You want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

‘Good,’ said Coren. ‘I’ve got my own problems. Be sure to file a report and turn in your goddamn logs, will you?’

On the way out, Pookie was removing the paint from her nails.

‘What’s wrong?’ Spandau asked her. ‘Is the date off?’

‘It really is an ethical decision, you know. I can’t do this. It’s too Columbine, if you know what I’m saying. I called him and said I wasn’t coming.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Spandau. ‘Will you stay home and reheat a chicken pot pie?’

‘I’m going to the opera,’ she said. She held up both hands palms inward and wriggled her fingers. ‘What color for
Madame Butterfly
, do you think?’

Seven

The office of Guttersnipe Productions was in a beautiful old building on Melrose. A great deal of money had gone into restoring it to its 1920s glory, and inside the place was done up in period antiques. Nothing proves success like a roomful of old furniture you’re afraid to sit on. The only things out of time were the thoroughly modern Apple computer and the beautiful girl behind the Napoleoniclooking desk. She stood up when Spandau came in. She was nearly as tall as he was, physically flawless, the sort of girl Spandau, as a lustful teenager in Arizona, believed he would never meet. Here, they were everywhere, and it always took some time to get used to it. Her hair was long and blonde and danced like a perfectly choreographed companion, never missing its mark. A model. An actress. Hometown beauty queen waiting for the big break that was hers by right of her virtual perfection. One day somebody would walk in here and discover her. Let’s forget the
million and a half in town just like her, or the curious fact that some of our most successful actresses look like pizza waitresses when you meet them. If it were just about beauty, plastic surgeons would charge even more. What you really needed was soul – or, even better, the ability to convince a camera you had it, whether you did or not. Spandau looked into the perfectly proportioned face, the pale-blue eyes. She didn’t have it, even if she clearly had everything else, and the tragedy was that no one was ever going to tell her. Not when you could get so much use out of it.

‘Mr Spandau?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m Marcie Whalen. Frank is busy at the moment. If you’d like to have a seat, I could get you something.’

‘Do you have any absinthe?’

‘We just drank the last of it,’ Marcie said without missing a beat. ‘Will a Perrier do?’

She smiled beautifully and fetched a Perrier from the kitchen.

‘Nice place. Whoever restored it did a beautiful job.’

‘This is all Frank. All these used to be apartments back in the thirties. Bing Crosby used to stay in this one when he came to town.’

The desk phone buzzed. She picked it up and said, ‘I’ll send him right in.’ She turned to Spandau. ‘Frank says to come on in.’

She knocked on a large oak door and pushed it open.
Frank Jurado was lying on a table, naked, partially covered in a thin sheet and being pummeled by a giant Samoan. Marcie went out and closed the door. Except for a desk large enough to land a Cessna, the rest of the room looked like someone’s apartment. There was even a fireplace.

‘Nice place, huh?’ said Jurado between blows. ‘This used to be Bing Crosby’s in the thirties.’

‘So I’ve heard. Me, I live in Rin-Tin-Tin’s old kennel.’

‘Thanks for coming. Sorry to meet you like this, but it’s a long day for me. I don’t get my massage, I seize up like an old car. You want a massage? You ever had lomi-lomi? It’s traditional Hawaiian massage. Fidel here will fix you right up.’

‘No thanks. I get too relaxed I start crying.’

‘I know just what you mean,’ said Jurado, though Spandau didn’t think he did.

Fidel went to work on Jurado’s glutes. Jurado lay there with his eyes closed and allowed Spandau to watch his ass being massaged. Then he said, ‘You’re working for Bobby now, I hear.’

Spandau didn’t reply.

‘Oh come on,’ said Jurado. ‘You can talk to me.
Wildfire
is my picture. Bobby is a friend.’

‘I’m sorry, but if you want to know anything you’ll have to talk to Bobby.’

Jurado waved Fidel’s hands off his ass and sat up on the side of the table. Wrapped in the sheet he looked like a Roman senator. He hopped off the table and went across to a small refrigerator and took out a green smoothie. Fidel
packed up the table and crept away. Jurado drank at the Soylent Green milkshake and walked around for a minute, ignoring Spandau, pretending he was looking for something on his desk. Spandau figured he just liked wearing the sheet. Finally Jurado said:

‘Look, we all want what’s best for Bobby, right? I can’t help him if I don’t know what’s going on. Tell me about the note.’

Spandau said nothing.

Jurado said, ‘I’ll pay you whatever Bobby is paying you. All you’ve got to do is keep me informed. It’s all under the table, cash, you don’t even have to tell your boss about it. All I want is to stay in the loop, that’s all. Nothing else.’

‘It doesn’t work that way.’

‘
Wildfire
is my picture,’ said Jurado. ‘Bobby is my star. I don’t think you have any idea of what is at stake here. I have a right to any information that might affect Bobby or the picture. I will do whatever I have to do to protect my picture and my star. Are you understanding this?’

‘I think so. I’m being threatened somehow, right?’

‘Nobody is threatening you. I’m just stating the facts as they present themselves.’

‘Okay,’ said Spandau.

‘Okay, what?’

‘Okay, I think I have a clear picture now of what you’re saying.’

‘Good,’ said Jurado. ‘I’m glad we understand each other. Now you want to fill me in?’

‘No. But I really do have a clear idea now of what you’re saying.’

For a moment Spandau thought Jurado might choke on his smoothie. He spilled a little of it on the sheet, where it made a lovely color.

‘Do not fuck with me, Mr Spandau. I didn’t get where I am by letting pissants like you get in my way. You fuck with me, you are going to think the wrath of a vengeful God has fallen down upon your shoulders.’

‘That’s a good line. You do that very well. I think the vengeful God thing is overdone by Tarantino, though.’

‘I could hire somebody to follow you.’

‘That would make Bobby mad. And it would make me mad too, come to think of it.’

‘You’re putting your dick in a wringer, guy. I’m telling you.’

‘Why is it everybody this week is talking like an old Ronald Reagan movie? I’m almost homesick for some genuine hoods. They don’t talk so much, and when they do, they know when to stop.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Jurado said to him. ‘But understand me on this one. If anything happens, if there’s even the slightest hiccup that interferes with my movie, you can bet your life I will make you the fall guy. I will ruin you, I will take everything you own, I will put your fucking children and their fucking children’s children into abject poverty. And that’s just me. There’s also two hundred lawyers, a major film studio, and an entire fucking media empire just
waiting to help me. Think about that. These people shift entire governments around like office furniture. Imagine what they’ll do to you.’

Jurado appeared to be looking around for his pants. ‘You mind if I get dressed?’

‘Sorry. I wasn’t sure you were done. I got kind of caught up in the moment.’

Spandau went over behind a chair where Jurado’s pants had fallen. He picked them up and handed them to Jurado. ‘You really are cute,’ said Jurado.

‘I could look for your socks,’ offered Spandau.

‘You keep out of my way,’ Jurado said. ‘You get in my way and I will cut you down.’

But the threat seemed rather thin, coming from a man wearing a bedsheet, and they both knew it. Spandau smiled at him and went out the door. As he closed it he could hear Jurado cursing. Spandau couldn’t tell if it was at him or the missing hosiery.

Richie Stella lived in a nice old house in Echo Park. The place was full of yuppies and faggots nowadays, but it was a good address, stylish, and real-estate prices had shot up since Richie bought it. His ambition was Bel Air, of course. It seemed grossly unfair that a murderous spearchucker like O.J. Simpson should live in Bel Air and he couldn’t, but that would be remedied soon enough. Richie sat in the back of the big black Audi as Martin wheeled it through the neighborhood and onto his street.
The Audi pulled into the drive and rolled to a halt. Richie took another look at the screen of the laptop he always carried with him. He smiled and got out of the car before Martin did. Martin started to get out but Richie told him drive around the block a few times.

‘Why?’ asked Martin.

‘Because I fucking told you to, numbnuts.’

Martin slumped behind the wheel, looking forlorn. Richie went up the steps, unlocked the door and went inside. He tossed his keys into a bowl in the entrance hall and went into the living room. Spandau was sitting in one of his chairs.

‘What the fuck are you doing in my house?’ Richie asked him.

‘Don’t you want to know how I got in?’

‘I’m more interested,’ said Richie, ‘in how you think you’re going to get out. This is B and E. People get shot for this.’ Richie went over to the bar and poured himself a glass of white wine. ‘You change your mind about working for me?’

‘I want you to lay off Bobby Dye.’

‘You definitely got some cojones, my man. I’ll give you that.’

‘I know you’re blackmailing him, and I know what for. I want it to stop.’

‘Look, I appreciate your effort, I really do. But I’m the wrong guy to try and strong-arm. Hasn’t anybody explained this to you?’

Richie climbed up on a barstool and sipped his wine.

‘This is just between me and Bobby and it has nothing to do with you,’ he said to Spandau. ‘Frankly, the only reason you’re not in some garbage can bleeding from every hole is because Bobby seems to like you. I just want us all to be friends.’

‘How much would it take?’

‘It’s not about money.’

‘He’s never going to do your picture,’ said Spandau. ‘You know as well as I do it’s not even his decision. At this point he’s nothing but a meat-puppet for his agency, the studio and Frank Jurado. They’re never going to let you anywhere near him. So maybe they’ll buy you off. Is that what this is about? Look, just say so and I’ll go to Jurado and pimp the deal for you. They don’t want any trouble and they’ll make it worth your while. Take the money and buy yourself an entire cast.’

‘You really don’t get it, do you? You think I’m just some cheap little hood from back east, looking to score. I got a chance to do something I always wanted to do. Everybody’s got a dream, right? This is my dream. I’m going to make a movie.’