Survivanoia

by Baroness Von Smith

  Or in Geo’s case, stepbrother. What a weird thing to have acquired at age 29. Eddie had been only 24. Looked closer to 18.

  Dressed young, too, mostly in black like tonight—black T-shirt over black jeans. Should have been on the other coast, would have fit in; here in L.A. he just seemed hostile. Ed reminded Geo of an angry teenager, the kind of sullen kid who might bring a gun to school.

  Their food arrived. Ed’s mountainous comfort food looked frumpy opposite Geo’s tidy steak, his soda childish next to Geo’s neat bourbon.

  “I have something else you might be interested in,” Ed informed Geo around a mouthful of chicken.

  “Uhm?”

  “NOx credits.”

  “What?”

  “State-issued nitrogen oxides emission credits. Anything with combustion requires them and right now they’re worth thousands each because of the energy problem.”

  “I know what they are. How did you get your hands on them?”

  “They came as a sort of bonus.”

  “In?”

  “One of the books I stole.”

  Geo took a drink of his strong, thin bourbon. He licked his lips. “You know, they’re going to figure out that the guy who sat their house probably stole their first editions.”

  “No, no, I don’t steal from the houses I watch anymore. I got nailed.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. Some comedy agent guy. These NOx credits came in his book actually.”

  “He busts you for his book and you don’t think he’ll miss the credits?”

  “Naw, once he met me he said I could keep it. He never asked me about them, I don’t think he knows they were in there. Book’s got somebody else’s name in the imprint.”

  “Only you. Of all the things to steal.”

  “Some of these books are worth a lot of money! First editions and anything that’s signed. Books are like…Cinderella. They’re the Cinderellas of the antique world.”

  “So are you done stealing them now?”

  “Naw, I still lift ‘em, I’m just far more surreptitious now. I go—”

  “Far more what?”

  “Uh, sneaky.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I’m sneakier about it. I go to estate sales, sneak around in rooms I’m not supposed to, like libraries and offices People blame the auctioneer, figuring he didn’t tell me. Anyway, these NOx creds, you know, it’s best to unload them soon, while the market is up.”

  “What makes you think I’d want them?”

  Ed tossed a hand in the air. “You know people. You hang out with business people and stuff. People who might need these things.”

  “I’ll keep my ears open,” Geo promised, figuring he could take a finder’s fee. He was also coveting Eddie’s apple dumpling but didn’t want to admit it. Successful people weren’t supposed to desire dessert, apparently. Or maybe it was Attalla’s secret way to let Ed get back at him for dinner.

  Geo sipped his coffee. Eddie finished his dumpling (taking his time, in Geo’s opinion), and stopped just short of licking the plate. Geo paid, left a handsome tip. Outside the air remained thick with heat. Geo offered Eddie a ride.

  “Naw, I’m gonna maybe sneak into a movie. You working tonight?”

  “Yessir, and I’m looking forward to it.”

  “You still act?” Eddie asked around the cigarette he was lighting. “Or does directing keep you off screen now?”

  “Seldom. Cameos.”

  Eddie laughed. “You’re a porno extra. There’s a job.”

  “Better than a fluffer.”

  Eddie blew a stream of smoke like a dragon. “And the money seems to be good.”

  “I keep telling you, any time you want to be on film, I got a place for you.”

  Eddie turned him down, red-faced and polite.

  Geo got in his Jeep. “I’ll be in touch later in the week about the new place. We’ll get a filming schedule together.”

  “Cool,” Eddie said, and Geo watched his step-brother saunter down the dirty sidewalk like a red-headed James Dean.

  * * *

  Geo rested his forehead against the soothing cool of his desktop. His body ached for sleep. It occurred to him that three weeks of trying to film one movie while in preproduction for another might kill him. Thank fucking God, no pun intended, that the Palm Springs shoot was in the can. Nearly a two-hour commute each way? Screw that! Again, no pun intended.

  God, he was tired.

  Now he got to shoot at Eddie’s new-found beach house. Shorter drive and no creepy old people who passed for twenty-something until you saw their hands. Brrrrrr!

  He took a deep breath, focused on the spreadsheet displayed on his laptop. A tally, by region: Sales of the Panic Bed. The Panic Bed scared him. No pun…yeah. What if you closed up the bed because people broke in, or they dropped the bomb, or crop-dusted the city with anthrax or whatever, you closed it but then when it was over you couldn’t get out again? Sure, the bed came standard with an air filter and two weeks’ water stored in the mattress, but then what? Would it be worse to die out in the world of a fever or the inability to breathe, or to dehydrate to death in your own bed? Of course, maybe you’d just fall asleep and not wake up, given that you were, in fact, in a bed. A soft, warm, climate controlled bed; you could just sleep forever.

  Wow, that sounded nice. Sleep forever. Geo wondered idly if anyone had ever died from lack of sleep. Not from falling asleep at the wheel or getting caught in a piece of heavy machinery for lack of alertness but just plain died as a direct result of not sleeping enough ever.

  Just twenty minutes, he thought, and I’d be fine. It didn’t seem like much to ask. Hell, the plant floor guys got a ten minute break that typically extended to twenty. Nobody scolded them. Who would notice, anyway? He stood up and eased his office door closed, the sign that his staff knew meant he was on the phone and not to be disturbed. But the moment his head lay on his crossed arms, his phone rang.

  He squinted at the in-house ID. “The Baroness,” it said. Not “Company President,” not even her name; just her self-proclaimed, dubious title. It took less effort to push the speakerphone button than to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Wakey, wakey,” the Baroness cooed. “Your expense reports are fakey.”

  Geo sprang awake instantly, searching for cameras and wondering aloud, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Come see me, please, Geo. You know where my office is, right?”

  He didn’t but he hung up anyway. After getting directions to her office—the old president’s office—from the bemused Chloe, he pulled himself together and nonchalantly swaggered through the U of the upper floor to the end.

  The president’s office sat opposite the CEO’s. The fact of the CEO having an office was a waste of space in Geo’s opinion, since the CEO apparently lived in some other country and only came to visit about four times a year. Why not let one of the VPs have the office?

  He realized as he approached the Baroness’s closed door that he hadn’t been in the room since the old company president quit. Or was murdered. Abducted? Whatever. Nervousness slowed his strut. Who worked with a closed door, anyway?

  He knocked on it and the door opened slightly. The Baroness’s plush voice bid him good morning. “Enter.”

  He did. It felt like walking into a dream. Gone was the institutional fluorescent lighting, banished were the matching non-colors; the seafoam green, the clamshell pink. Geo had to adjust to the low light—actual sunlight, filtered through crimson velvet curtains.

  Having been friends with the former company president, Geo knew this office. As it had been. A bigger particle-board desk than everyone else’s, made with a more convincing veneer, and the bottom drawer housing a bottle of single-isla
y Scotch along side the occasional bag of illicit white powder. Now, everything had changed. Even the carpet felt different, springy and thick.

  He took a look at it. White! This chick had a white carpet on her office floor. Behind her enormous desk stood an equally imposing white bear. Its arms were up and its fangs were bared, it seemed quite angry.

  The Baroness had done away with the standard particle-board office shelving, replaced it with mahogany paneling that matched her desk, and above that, from about waist-height to the ceiling, built-in bookshelves.

  One of the shelves held a buzzing thing, two stiff wires meeting in a V at a block beneath them. A spark ran up the wires with a tiny zap. Like in old horror movies. Geo stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  “What is that thing?”

  “It’s a Jacob’s Ladder.”

  The crackling line of light made the hair on his neck stand up. He moved away from it. “Did you kill that bear?” he asked.

  “No. You’re in some trouble, Geo. Have a seat.”

  He stood next to the leather chair facing her desk but didn’t sit. The Baroness stood, came around to his side of the desk. She produced a file folder seemingly from mid-air, opened it, and read for a moment. Then told Geo, “Jack Hayward is a close personal friend whose thirty-fifth anniversary party I attended last summer, so I know you didn’t take him to Bill’s Tacky Lady.” She gazed at Geo, crumpled up the report, and tossed it at his feet.

  Scanning another one, she said: “T.C. Aupperle consistently pretends to be a vegetarian when he’s in Los Angeles so I’m certain it’s not him you took to Ruth’s Chris.” Crumpled and tossed.

  “And Ali Farah is a Muslim. He doesn’t drink or gamble. I know some of them do but Ali doesn’t. Hollywood Park? I don’t think so.” This time she tossed the entire folder into the air. Expense reports fluttered down around them as she gazed at him.

  “Hollywood Park isn’t even classy, Geo.”

  “Yeah, I wait too long to do ‘em and I forget stuff . I’ll fix them. It’s—you’re—things are—why are you doing expense reports anyway?”

  “Because I fired Sandy.”

  “Oh.” He waited and she let him. Continued to gaze at him with those impossible eyes. And she smelled fantastic.

  His eyes drifted to the curve of her hip, broad compared with her slender waist oh how much he’d give to run his hand along it, run his tongue along it shit! He brought himself back to work. Work and Dad Voice—flat and cool. “Is that why you called me in here? Am I fired?”

  “Would you like to be?”

  Their eyes locked. He counted a slow ten but then fought a smile, looked at the floor.

  “I know why you leave early.” She leaned in next to him, whispered her next words. “I’ve seen your movies.” A pause. Then she drew a sharp breath. Geo steadied himself with an arm against the chair.

  The Baroness moved away, taking her heat. “What you do on your time is your business.” Her eyes caught his and held them. Cool as chrome in winter. “During office hours, you are my business. And at the moment, business is bad.”

  Geo shrugged carelessly. “I’ll fix it. All of it. Gimme a week.” He passed half way through her office door before looking back at her. She remained leaned against her desk and displayed a fiendish grin.

  Geo cast a hand at the mess on the floor. “I’ll send Chloe to get this.”

  “Of course you will.”

  Geo made his way back to his office feeling like he’d smoked out. Time was all messed up and everything made him want to laugh. He ducked his head into the cube-farm, asked Chloe to see the Baroness for him, and then he kept right on walking down the stairs and out the door and to his Jeep, which would take him home to bed.

  * * *

  “It’s too windy,” Eddie said. Again.

  This time, Geo relented. Rubbing his temples, he called the cast and crew to wrap it up and move it indoors. “We’ll film the kitchen scene today.”

  He’d stopped at Ishmael’s for a giant coffee, but the caffeine had left him more irritable than awake. He grouched to Eddie the whole trek up the wide, wooden, sandy stairs from the house to the private beach.

  “How can it be this hot and this windy? It’s not Santa Ana season. And why won’t Colleen break down and buy some tits? She’s got that great pouty underbite. Built for blowjobs. But then I always have to bring Kristin in for the money shot. That means a fluffer, which costs me.”

  “They’re only housewives,” Eddie reminded him. “If you want circus tits, hire real porn stars.”

  “That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to accomplish here. The whole point is that they are real. Real bored and real horny. And real housewives.”

  “Real, real, real. Then Colleen’s breast size shouldn’t be a concern.”

  “You don’t understand this industry, Eddie.”

  Ed tossed a hand in the air. “Some guys like small breasts.”

  “Some guys like it in the ass, too. I’m not making—what the hell’s that!”

  They had reached the top of the stairs, and Geo stopped, staring wide-eyed at an actor’s trailer emblazoned with a five-pointed star formed by the silhouettes of two kissing go-go girls. He recognized the logo; anyone in the industry would have. Zane Frears defined the new pornography, getting as close to live sex shows as was legally possible, and in fact many times crossing the line and going to court. So far he’d won every case. Zane was a pornographer’s pornographer.

  Geo jogged to the house, muttering under his breath.

  In the kitchen, sure enough, a tall, athletic man the color of a Bing cherry held Geo’s cast and crew at bay with a frown and his demeanor. When Geo entered the kitchen, Zane set velvety grey eyes on him. He ran a large, sculpted hand through his short, tawny dreadlocks. His other hand clutched a document which he shoved at Geo.

  “You’re not supposed to be here, man.”

  Geo took the paper, skimmed it over and noted the signature, and, when Eddie came loping through the door, brandished it at his brother like a weapon. “What the hell!”

  Eddie’s face widened in revelation, betraying him. “Uh…oh. Yeah. Mr. Fallon did mention that some people might be stopping by on occasion.”

  “And?”

  “And that these people had free reign of the house and to just leave them alone to do their thing. Keep out of their way.”

  Geo felt Dad Voice rising. “You never said anything about this.”

  Eddie looked at the floor, worried his lip with his teeth. “I figured they’d just use the beach.”

  “You figured. Your math sucks.” He turned back to Zane. “What are we—”

  “Like you would have put the pieces together?” Eddie demanded.

  Geo turned back to face him, mouth open.

  “Like if I had told you,” Eddie took a step closer, “about this warning three weeks ago, you would have had the foresight to figure, oh, that must mean there’s a film crew coming and we’d better—”

  “You have clearly lost your mind. I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, my young friend, but he’s not here. I’m here. And I’m not taking this from you.”

  Zane’s slightly Brooklyn-accented voice interrupted them.

  “Are you two lovers?”

  “Brothers,” snapped Geo. “Even worse,” Zane laughed.

  “Step-brothers,” Eddie specified through clenched teeth, and Geo again saw the gun-wielding adolescent.

  Zane’s face lit up with recognition. He looked from Geo’s face to Eddie’s, suddenly grinning. He turned to Geo. “You’re the guy whose mom married Maureen Spencer.” He laughed whole-heartedly and without malice. “You ever film her?”

  “That’s gross, dude. She’s, like, my mom.”

  “She’s your step-mom.”
/>   “Okay, yeah, I did. But before.”

  Zane’s smile revealed his large, pointed teeth. “Is that how they met?”

  Eddie cringed. “Stop!” He looked from one man to another. “How does everybody know all this?”

  Zane put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s a small industry, man. When your mom is a porn star,” he tapped Eddie’s chest, “your privates are public.”

  Eddie, looking now at the floor, whined like a tired toddler.

  Zane patted his back. “So you got two moms and one’s a porn star, big deal. This is L.A.” He turned to Geo. “You and me, though, we gotta chat, man.”

  He took Geo by the elbow and led him out of the kitchen and into the foyer. “Listen up now. I got no beef with you. But this here is uncool. If I call Sonny and tell him what’s going on here, you and your entourage are toast.”

  Geo nodded and nodded and nodded some more. “So what is it—what do you need? What should we do? In your opinion?”

  “Reparations or repercussions.”

  Geo blinked at him.

  Zane lifted his hands in an ironic gesture of surrender. “It’s your choice. Know what I’m saying?”

  Geo didn’t, which was actually the trouble. Reparations? Repercussions? Did Zane want money? A drum set?

  “How about,” Geo asked slowly, “if I move my crew out. And we leave. And we don’t come back. Ever.”

  “That’s a start.”

  Jesus, he did want a drum set. Geo swallowed back Dad

  Voice, tried to sound neutral. “Tell me what would be a finish.”

  “Maureen.”

  “What!”

  Zane nodded. “Get me your step-mom for a shoot.”

  “You’re kidding. Dude, she’s, like, over fifty.”

  “So is every goddamn baby-boomer in the country, man.”

  Geo rolled his eyes. “The last thing old saggy people want to look at is other old saggy people fucking.”

  “Maureen isn’t all that saggy. Besides, the men might all get off to Lolita, but the women? They want to see an image of themselves with some college-aged stud.” Zane winked, handed Geo a business card. “Check into it and let me know. Meanwhile, get your shit out of my way. I got a movie to shoot.”