Tinseltown Riff (31 page)

Angelique looked up into the brownish haze as if for divine inspiration, took a deep breath and said, “It's a kick-ass iPad video game for chicks. Gillian's idea.”

The name Gillian rang a bell but, for now, he let it go.

“You listening?”

“I am listening,” C.J. said, ready to cut her off but curious about the front Ray Shine had been talking about.

“The gamer becomes me, naturally. And there's lots of puzzles to solve. She has a hot bod like me, only better like before. And, hey, you got a hot bod too. You could be cloned-in for a bad guy or something. Ooh, awesome. Wait till I tell Leo.”

“Orlov? The one who is in this with your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?”

“Ray.”

“Oh, puh-lease. I am the star in Starshine. That scumbag is my business manager.”

“But he is not happy. He is looking for a new way to hide.”

“He is looking for a knuckle sandwich. I should've said former business manager. He has had it, he is through. Plus, if you see her, tell miss Molly, Who needs you? Same goes for the cowboy. Same goes for everybody who botched it. That was just a trial whatchamacallit.”

“Balloon?”

“Righty-O, muchacho. Yeah yeah, wait, wait, it's coming to me. ‘Stead of drug dealing on the side, you will cut way down on the cop thing and throw in with me. ‘Cause, hunky, you'll be the draw, the candy that sucks the babes in. Hey hey, yeah yeah. And right after this hot-bod thing goes viral—I am jig-sawing myself back in with no bitchin' stand-in-- we follow with the chick-flick and ... oh my God, my gosh, my golly.”     

As her eyes started to cross, she blurted out for all the world to hear, “Hey there then now, my Stardust is kickin' in! Top of the world, Zorro! Top of the world!”

The jackhammer noise suddenly quit. Ray came tearing through the bamboo curtain demanding to know what she was blabbing about. Was she giving away more of her calling cards, “screwing him over with Pepe?”

Ray was on top of them before C.J. had a chance to slip away. Ray raised a fist aimed at C.J., thought better of it and shook Angelique so hard, her see-through robe flipped open revealing everything. C.J. backed out past the high wooden gate as she slapped Ray across the face, ordering Ray to get his bony ass off her property before she called the cops.

“Dios mio,” said C.J. walking away. “The police? Que pasa?”

It began to dawn on him how many spin-offs there were. Drug trafficking.  The front (unknown to too-hungry Ben), banked by a blanqueo, an international laundering de dinero. This front up to its ears in fraud and cooking the books. Then, on the head of the cowboy, there was arson and many counts of assault.  When you factor in all the links--cartels, the overseas banks and that Vegas crime syndicate ...   

He tried not to get ahead of himself but it was hard to resist. He could see his life so different. No more the payaso on loan on the Hollywood tourist beat. A big promotion was in store for him, certificates of merit, his finger in a muy grande case load. The extra money to his mother for a dress shop in Sonora, and for him and Chula to start a new life.     

Walking briskly alongside the curving, walled drive, C.J.'s face broke into a wider grin. Snapping his fingers to a cumbia beat, he made his way down to his flashy    Mustang. What a break this was. Faster better English had not been necessary with those two idiota. What's more, even the few words of Spanish helped do the job.

Approaching the bottom of the drive, he poked a finger through the open weave of the lower pocket and shut the micro recorder off.

 

Returning to the stop-and-go on his way back to West Hollywood, he settled on a last gambit before handing over his findings. In the meantime, nearing Sunset, he made a call to the station. He learned from the desk sergeant that the cowboy's property bag contained two little boxes of wooden matches from a Durango Trading Post. No I.D., nothing else that would tell you who he was.

Swinging down Fairfax, he made another call. In short order, the fire chief's assistant told him used wooden matches were found on the livery stable floor and in different places around the loft, along with a charred handgun and an empty clip at the bottom of an oil drum. And one more thing: bullet casings on the plank flooring and bullet holes in the barn doors. The casings, clip and handgun had been turned over to Mac, C.J.'s super.

As C.J. reached Melrose, he knew he was much closer to nailing this Deacon but good.

Following another of Ben's leads, C.J. drove around the back of the studio till he spotted a parked mid-sized Ford, metallic-beige with rental plates.  

After contacting Hertz at LAX, he got out some white cotton gloves and an evidence bag, got in through the unlocked driver's side and began poking around. When the first try got him nowhere, he took a timeout. With nothing better to do, he checked out what was going on close by. He found trucks grinding in an out of a back alley; workmen busy plastering, fitting in new glass and dragging panels of sheetrock. That was all. No tie-ins.

Back to the rental car. Working slowly and patiently, he came upon a spare magazine clip for a Walther handgun carefully hidden beneath the floor padding under the passenger seat-adjuster. He placed it into the evidence bag and zipped it shut.

 Returning to his own car, he made two more calls. In twenty minutes time he was told two more things: The Ford was rented to Deacon James; a just-reported stolen Walther handgun was registered to Ray Shine, both residents of Las Vegas.

Next, C.J. popped the lid of the trunk. Unzipping the overnight bag he came across a silver attaché case, handwritten notes on a notepad and another cell, this one a smartphone with a bunch of messages. Most telling were voice mails from the SEC and the DEA. It seems the Feds had been trying to reach Elton Frick, the one sending crank calls to police stations in Hollywood, Vegas and San Francisco. This was his phone. They were not crank calls. They were legitimate.

Out came C.J.'s mini-recorder. As he added to his collection of leads and tangibles, he connected more dots and filled in the blanks about this Elton Frick. From the way things looked, the Feds were trying to reach this Frick hombre, as if Frick still had this cell but was afraid to answer. The latest message told Frick it was okay. They now knew he'd had a fever, loco in the cabeza when he made those calls. Up in some hunting and fishing lodge, suffering from a badly swollen ankle and pneumonia when he was found a day or so later near a mountain lake. Also nearsighted without his glasses to make things even worse.

How they'd traced the calls and why some agent was on his way this morning to a spot west of Montana's Glacier National Park was beyond C.J.'s imagination. Somehow it all figured and added to the charges the cowboy was up against. The testimony of the accountant alone was enough to do him in. All C.J. could do was submit his discoveries  and let those higher up take it from here.

Checking back once more at the station, he got word that the cowboy had started banging a stool against the bars demanding to be turned loose. Pretty soon the other guys in the holding cell had to restrain him. It reminded C.J. of the time some hombre tried to keep a wild coyote. First the coyote gave him the evil eye, then it tore open the pen, then it howled and bayed so much they had to come and put it away.

“Dios mio,” C.J. muttered. “First Frick, now the cowboy is going loco. What next?  Lo que mas puede pasar?”

 

As the early afternoon wore on
,
C.J. became aware it had become very quiet.  Returning to the narrow alley, curious as to why the cowboy had chosen this very spot to park his car, he saw that the workmen had quit. Then, moments later, he heard a squeak and a clang.

Presently, a muchacha bonita slipped through a hidden opening in the security fence. She was dragging what looked like a pigeon coop with handles. So busy she didn't look where she was going, tripped and stumbled but kept going and rushed down the alley heading toward the back of the building site. C.J. couldn't help thinking of the young women he'd seen many times since his Hollywood posting. Hopeful at first with that entusiasma look in the eye. But, like now, hurrying to cut their losses and leave it all behind.

 
 

Chapter Twenty-nine
 

 

 

Stuck in his daiquiri cubicle a while longer, Ben faked a smile and listened to Perky go on about what a lucky guy he was. She raved about the fact that in less than fifteen hours he had gone from smoke inhalation victim to a dude about to rejoin the living. He'd passed the latest battery of tests with flying colors and, like a tooth fairy, some lady had dropped off a change of clothes and a battered but still serviceable suitcase to boot.

“One lucky guy,” Perky repeated, giving him a thumbs up.  

Offering another fake smile, Ben sat up a bit straighter on the remade bed, wondering who the next floater would be. He also wondered how he would deal with Oliver's Prelude which was still in limbo at the Honda place. Good thing, of course, that Oliver didn't drive. Maybe the service department accepted Perky's plea that Ben was in no condition and could they please drop the car off on Oliver's driveway. Maybe they bought the idea, maybe they didn't. Be that as it may, slipping back to the forefront was the gist of Iris's note still clutched in his hand. That and a growing concern over what had become of Molly.

“No no no,” Perky continued in a vain attempt to read his mind. “No heartfelt thank-yous, no cheesy goodbyes. My reward for playing nursemaid and errand boy comes from never seeing your backside again. Which means, the second the orderly pops in and wheels you out, you're no longer my concern.”

She lingered at the fluted curtain and cocked her head. “Well there, kind of quiet out there right now, huh?”

“Yup.”

“That's a break “

Ben nodded.

“Eyes better, throat okay?”

“Still a little sore.”

“And your knee? Still ache? Not up to speed naturally, but you handled that long corridor real good.”

“That I did.”

“Yes, sir. Like a champion rodeo rider who might've taken a little fall.”

“Yup, that's me.”

“Oh, and don't forget the meds and stuff on the cart. Follow the directions.”

“You bet.”

In the ensuing silence, he knew the question was finally coming. To counter, he hung on to another fake smile.

“The lady who left the clothes and suitcase. A relative, huh?”

“Sort of.”

“She coming back to pick you up?”

Waving the note, warding off any full blown query, Ben said, “Probably not. I haven't read this yet. I'll know more soon as I do.”

“Sure, of course. But just in case, want me to ring somebody else? That number you gave me before?”

“No thanks. Thanks anyway.”

Stalling some more, Perky said, “Pretty cool, having the L.A.P.D. pay your bill. Like I said, you are some lucky guy.”

Ben had no idea what she was talking about. It occurred to him that he hadn't any medical insurance as well as car insurance, couldn't afford to keep up payments on anything. Perhaps C.J. had wangled something.  

”Yup, I am some lucky guy,” Ben said, hoping the well-meaning interrogation was now over.  

“Right.” Still doing her damnedest to end her stint on the upbeat, Perky said, “Tell me, those duds you're wearing. Button-down shirt, khaki pants, loafers—you're an actor right? Getting into your part for some old-timey flick. Like a take-off on stuff on Turner Classic Movies.”

“Not really.”

“A Hallmark TV thing?”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Oh, don't hand me that. You are somebody in the entertainment business, I just know it. ” Settling for this tag line, Perky blew Ben a kiss and dashed off.

Ben killed a few more minutes thinking again about Molly. Then, unable to put it off any longer, he unfolded the printout and scanned Iris' message:  

 

Go figure. I send a cool, strictly business guy to straighten out your head. Next thing you know, the back lot is up in smoke and Leo has gone bananas. The last time I lay eyes on him, he's whining about his visa running out, sees immigration officers behind every bush. Not only that, he tells me some cockamamie balloon has burst and shekels to a bank in Bucharest are no longer in the bag. How anybody could understand any of this crap is beyond me. Anyways, thanks to you, he's flown the coop and my love life is down the toilet. So here's your stuff, enough to get by.  Mrs. Melnick told me where to drop it off.  She says you'll live and she's going to get you on TV to milk this, your latest screw-up. I told her if she even thinks about it, I will tear out her throat. So you can see from the way this message is going, it'll take a boatload of supplements and non-stop Yoga to even start to get my blood pressure down.  And as far as your birthday goes, what do you say we do one of your let's pretend? You get lost and I'll tell June your mom finally came by and dragged you off, which she should've goddamn done in the first place.

  Your used-to-be fake cousin,  

Iris.

 

Ben crumpled up the note as the ache that had no name began to come over him. He tried to shake it off but to no avail, tossed the note into the waste-bin, returned to the bed and waited for the orderly.

In the meantime, the area around his knee began to throb and the noise level picked up. Some blowsy woman out in the corridor declared she had no idea who she was, how she got here and where she got the lump on her head. As usual, the attendant muttered a few uh-huhs and wheeled her off.  

As the noise level abated, Ben forced his thoughts in another direction, still trying to get Iris' note out of his mind. The part about Mrs. Melnick took him to the dubious prospect of rejoining his fellow hacks. But try as he may, the old gang seemed like people he used to know. The coffee klatches, buzz sessions and rewrites, front pages of
Variety
and networking at the unemployment line--the whole industry began to fade like memories from a former life.