The Big Bamboo (14 page)

Ford was about to call it quits when he dialed the number for a one-man firm with an address at the dicey end of Sunset.

“The Glick brothers!” screamed the lawyer. Ford braced for a dial tone that didn’t come. Instead, the attorney went on a tear. “They’ve got to be stopped! They’ve been screwing people for years, but everyone’s too intimidated by their legal department! Not me!…”

Sure, he’d take the case. When could they meet? An hour?

Ford took a cab. The road hooked right, centering the L.A. skyline in the distance. He began checking addresses. Liquor store, bail bond, auto detailing. They came to the number he’d jotted down, and the taxi pulled up beside a decapitated parking meter. Ford looked at the building. There had to be a mistake. He checked the address in his hand. Yep, same number as the Mexican restaurant with the big rooster on the window and hand-painted signs in Spanish. Then he noticed a small doorway next to the restaurant. Same address, but with a
B
at the end.

Ford tipped the driver and went inside. Just a staircase. He climbed it. There was a door at the top with a translucent window and a name in chipped gold letters: Rodney Demopolis.

He knocked and saw a form move on the other side of the textured glass. “Come in!”

Ford opened the door. The man behind the desk stood. Receding hair and the right weight for his medium height, except it was distributed wrong. One of those thin guys with a gut. A paper napkin was tucked in the collar of his short-sleeved dress shirt.

“You must be Ford! Great to meet you! Call me Rod! Give me a second to clean this up…”

The desktop was a landfill. Random legal papers and loose notes around a bed of wax paper streaked with guacamole and sour cream. Ford looked in the corner at the only other chair, supporting a stack of filing boxes. The walls were empty except for two crooked diplomas. A ceiling fan rotated with an unbalanced clicking. The windows were open. Cars, yelling, a radio beyond the fidelity of its speakers. Rod chewed quickly. Balled-up wax paper went in the wastebasket, followed by the collar napkin. He ran around the desk to shake hands.

“So, we’re going to take on the infamous Glick brothers! Hope you know what you’re in for, but it will all be worth it in the end…” He hunted for something on the desk. “And not just money—justice has cried out too long! Here we are. My notes from our call. No, that’s something else. Where are they?” He resumed the search. “This is why I got into law in the first place. But don’t pooh-pooh the money either. We could be talking class action, and as the named plaintiff to give standing, you get extra. Could this be it?” He reached under a per curiam opinion. “Nope.” More digging. “Ever eat at the joint downstairs? Probably not ’cause only Mexicans go there. Killer tacos, totally different from the American kind. None of the pig goes to waste. There’s a language barrier. You speak Spanish? I just point. Ordered
orejas
and didn’t even know I was eating ears. Know any other writers they’ve done this to?”

“I’m sort of new here.”

“That’s okay. I’ll put an ad in the trades. It’ll have to be small, probably one column by a half inch because…”—he gestured around the office—“…well, this ain’t exactly
L.A. Law
. Ever watch that show? That’s also why I got in this racket. I know the actor who had a ten-episode arc as Brackman’s evil brother. Real nice guy in person. People confuse personas. So, we start with some ads. Have to shake the tree. Who knows what will fall out?” He found a video-game controller under an amicus brief and stuck it in a bottom drawer. “Know what? To heck with my notes! It was just an hour ago…”

Ford thinking: I’ve made a big mistake.

Rod walked around to the front of the desk again and leaned on a corner. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll take your statement. You don’t mind if I record it, do you? Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out. Then I’ll style the suit, file it first thing tomorrow and we’re off to the races. Where’s that tape recorder?…”

A’71 Buick Riviera was stuck in a sea of traffic on U.S. 192. A hundred cars moving a few blocks at a time, traffic light to traffic light, all red.

Greetings from Kissimmee, Florida. A thin, long strip city of cheap motels, go-cart tracks, bungee towers, family buffets and knockoff souvenir boutiques for budget tourists commuting to Disney on the other side of I-4. Rows of giant, screaming marquees lit up at night like Vegas, except 3-for-$10 T-shirts instead of Wayne Newton.

The light turned green. A minute later, the Riviera began moving slowly. The same light turned red again.

Serge smacked the steering wheel. “I can’t tell you how crazy this kind of traffic makes me. Why are all these people going this way?”

Coleman drained a beer and crumpled the can. “We’re going this way, too.”

“But they’re making lifestyle mistakes. We’re driving for truth.”

The Riviera continued east, businesses slamming up against each other for miles, then an uncharacteristic break in the new construction where an old establishment had refused to sell out. The small, weather-beaten shack sat far back from the road in an overgrown field. During the early ’70s, it was the only thing to the horizon in every direction, a place where the first performers and other Disney employees could retreat from the manufactured glee and kick back. Now it was under siege.

The Riviera turned off the highway and onto a dirt road that wound through the field. It would be generous to call them potholes—more like the road had been carpet bombed to prevent Panzers from reaching Dunkirk. The Buick bounced on its springs, passing a rusty, nonrunning ambulance from the TV series
M*A*S*H
. Serge pulled around back and parked in a shaded spot behind the Big Bamboo Lounge & Package.

The Boo.

Chi-Chi and Coltrane were already on stools when Serge’s black silhouette appeared in the bright, open doorway at the rear of the saloon.

“Serge!” Coltrane waved him over. “We saved seats.”

Serge moped across the room and eased himself onto a stool at the south end of the bar. Coleman hopped on the one next to him.

“We need to improve your mood,” said Coltrane.

“So, what have you been doing with yourself these days?” asked Chi-Chi.

“He’s bringing the movies back to Florida,” said Coleman. “Just finished a screenplay.”

“That’s great!” said Chi-Chi. “How long is it?”

“One page,” said Coleman.

The bartender arrived with two Mason jars. Draft for Coleman, OJ for Serge. He placed each of the drinks on the bar’s trademark “coasters,” three folded squares of toilet paper.

Serge picked up his jar. “Thanks, Jayson.”

“Sorry about your granddad. Anything you need.”

Serge pursed his lips and nodded.

Chi-Chi got the bartender’s attention. “Serge is a movie buff. Didn’t they film
Monster
around here?”

“The Aileen Wuornos thing with Charlize Theron?” asked the bartender.

“That’s the one.”

The bartender pointed at a wall. “Right up Orange Blossom Trail. The Little Diamond Motel stood in for that Daytona place where she holed up.”

“Hear that, Serge? They shot a movie about a serial killer nearby,” said Coltrane. “Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Serge took a deep breath, his eyes wandering around the interior of the tropical cave, plastered solid with memories tacked up by long-gone theme park employees. Badges, photos, felt pennants, ride tickets, driver’s licenses, bras. Big band on the juke. Crusty patrons began swinging by the end of the bar, paying condolences.

“Your granddad loved this place,” said Chi-Chi, looking down at Serge’s stool. “He was sitting right there when he got the famous Disney artist Ralph Kent to sketch Pinocchio on a paper plate. His favorite seat, so he could be next to the drawings.”

Serge turned and put his hand out to the wall, touching framed original illustrations of the Seven Dwarfs. Above them was a new framed item, memorial photo of a smiling Sergio Storms, 1918–2006.

“I know you miss him,” said Chi-Chi. “But he lived a long, full life. You need to remember the good times.”

“I remember I wasn’t there that last morning.”

“Stop it,” said Chi-Chi. “Everyone finds something to regret at this point. It’s part of the process.”

“At least you got to see him,” added Coltrane. “Imagine if you didn’t notice that article in the paper.”

Serge showed a trace of a smile. “He loved this old joint.”

Chi-Chi raised his jar. “That he did. Said the name reminded him of pulp paperbacks.
The Big Sleep. The Big Nowhere…”

“…The Big Bamboo,”
said Serge. A memory flickered and his smile grew larger. “I cracked up when he first mentioned the JCPenney job. He forgot he’d told me, and repeated it four or five more times, but it just kept getting funnier.”

“That was nothing compared to the Alabama score,” said Chi-Chi.

“Alabama?” said Serge. “When was my granddad up there?”

“Nine months ago. Something else you missed while you’ve been gone.”

“The perfect game,” said Coltrane. “Started in Panama City and ended over the state line west of Dothan.”

“He was trying to tell me something about Alabama,” said Serge. “Just thought it was more nonsense. Claimed he ran an oil company.”

“That wasn’t drifting,” said Coltrane. “He really did, at least in the script.”

“Script?”

Chi-Chi nodded. “The whole thing was written out. Very intricate. A hundred pages. That’s what made the score so incredible.”

Coltrane pulled wet toilet paper off the bottom of his drink. “We just assumed you knew about Alabama.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then settle in and get ready,” said Chi-Chi. “Have we got a story to tell…
bartender!…
”

The regular gang from the props department gathered around Ford as he emptied his locker into a cardboard box.

“I can’t believe they fired you,” said Ray.

“Of course they fired him,” said Pedro. “He sued.”

“It’s just not right.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get them,” said Ford. “I’m going to get them so good!”

“Who?”

“The Glick brothers. I’m going to get this whole studio!” Ford closed up the box and turned to the four humorless security guards waiting to escort him off the property.

A man in a suit walked up. “Is there a Ford Oelman here?”

“That’s me.”

The man handed him an envelope. “You’ve been served.” He walked away.

Ford tore open the envelope.

“What is it?” asked Tino.

“I don’t believe it,” said Ford.

“What?”

“They’re suing
me
.”

“Ford!”

Ford turned. Mark was across the room, holding up the receiver of a phone on the inventory manager’s desk. “You got a call.”

“Who is it?”

“Rodney something.”

A half hour later, Ford was standing in a loft over a Mexican restaurant.

“I don’t know how to say this,” said Rod. “I feel just terrible.”

Ford waited.

Rod put his hands together like he was praying. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. I have to withdraw from the case.”

“But—”

Rod waved him off. “I know it’s a shitty thing to do. But I don’t have a choice.” He lifted a hefty stack of documents off his desk. “They’ve buried us in motions. And they’re suing me personally.”

“You said I had a strong case.”

“You do. Doesn’t matter…” Rod continued, more to himself than Ford: “I heard they did stuff like this, but I never thought it could get this bad. No wonder everyone’s scared.”

“What’s happening?” said Ford. “What kind of motions?”

“The meritless kind. Just like their suit. But you have to answer every single one or they win by default. I was up past eleven last night responding to yesterday’s filings only to get hit with another wave this morning. It’s either shut down my practice to handle the paperwork or they win and take everything. Either way I’m burned.”

“They sued me, too.”

“I heard about that. SLAPP.”

“What?”

“SLAPP. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Unethical but legal tactic of big corporations. Usually used against everyday citizens protesting big polluters, developers, lobbyists and such, but it works here as well. A mountain of torts. Defamation, interfering with potential economic gain. It never flies in court, but they don’t care. The real objective is to wear down the little guys—that’s us—financially and physically.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Tell you what. Since I encouraged you, I’ll go to talk to the studio. Pro bono. If you drop the case, I can probably reason with them.”

“But I don’t want to drop the case. I think I can still beat them.”

“Son, you don’t understand. They’ve already won.”

Mason jars were topped off. Chi-Chi adjusted himself on the stool like he was getting ready for a long drive.

Serge leaned forward on his elbows.

“Alabama,” said Chi-Chi, raising his jar. “Damn.”

“I want to know more about this script business,” said Serge.

“For a short game like JCPenney, you can just bullshit it out over breakfast,” said Chi-Chi. “In a long game like Alabama, you need a script. We couldn’t believe it was so good, especially for such a young crew.”

“Other guys?” asked Serge.

“Will you let me tell the story?” said Chi-Chi. “That’s why they needed to team up with an older gang. Great script, but not enough character in some of those peach faces to sell it. That’s the thing about the long game: You’re working against other con men.”

“Criminals?” asked Coleman.

“Not exactly,” said Chi-Chi. “But the kind of people who can read other people. Businessmen who’ve built fortunes exploiting others in the gray edges of the law. The long game turns their greed against them and clouds judgment.”

“Tell him about the hotel in Panama City,” said Coltrane.