Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army

by Steven Paul Leiva

  Speak of the devil.

  As I was standing there musing on the recent history of Olympic Pictures, Sara Hutton emerged from the building. She was bundled up against the cold, but there was no mistaking her. Sara Hutton was more unattractive than any other person I could think of. Although unattractive may not be the right word, for she did attract—enough to have lovers of both sexes, enough to climb the Hollywood corporate ladder, which is surface sensitive, and enough to make more money than most. Nonetheless, she had a face that, by comparison, made the ugly look plain, the plain look beautiful, and the beautiful look divine. This was clearly demonstrated the second Bea Cherbourg followed Hutton out of the building. She was radiant; beaming. She and Sara smiled at each other; laughed; linked their arms the way women do, and began to walk up the street.

  It seems another couple had kissed and made up at my suggestion.

  *

  The flight home offered no amusements. The movie was one of those vanity films forced into production by a still gleaming star of action and sex determined to reveal the deep soul within. The screenwriters and director, though, had obviously had a hard time finding the deep soul within, although I’m sure they looked just about everywhere, for the film was just simply small, dark, and quiet, but not at all soulful. Roee spent the time scribbling on a new play, so conversation was out. I had been hoping for Gilgamesh Paul, of course, but…. As we were traveling in the guise of the chairman & CEO, and the president of Prosthetics of Providence (Roee had put on our business cards the legend: Let Us Give You a Hand), we were not even graced with the solicitous attention of a VIP flight attendant. So I slept.

  And dreamed of Bea Cherbourg.

  It was a strange dream. It was flesh. Bea’s flesh. I could see it, feel it, smell it, taste it. It was the center and all that surrounded. It was soft and warm and gave when I pressed into it. It was well shaped and fit. It was not naked. Naked had no relevance. It just was. Then it was her eyes. Then her smile. Which smile? The one that she had given the waiter? The one she had given Sara Hutton? Hey! Where’s mine? The flesh is given. The smile is not. The eyes condemn—

  The rude sound of landing gear locking into place woke me up. I took in a deep breath; scrub-cleaned the old brain with recycled oxygen, and stretched. Then there was a momentary sense memory of Bea Cherbourg’s flesh in my arms—then it passed. Reflex wanted me to lunge out to pull it back, but I conquered Reflex, which is a dark and impulsive god.

  *

  Several weeks passed during which I did not dream or think of Bea Cherbourg. Nor did I give any thought to the fact that I wasn’t dreaming or thinking of her. I forgot the matter.

  A few small commissions came our way. The most interesting one was from Bill Baker, a film producer who had been hoping to direct his first feature. He had line produced the last three pictures of Joe Waugh, a current hot one in Hollywood, the last two films being the first two of a planned fantasy trilogy. Waugh had directed the first, he had turned over the reins to another director for the second, and had promised Baker the third. Although Waugh was the acknowledged genius of these high box-office grossing films, much of their story and elemental details came from creative jam sessions Waugh and Baker had had when they were near nobodies working on their first film together: a low budget road picture that became a sleeper hit. Baker felt that being able to direct the third film was his justified reward, but, unfortunately, the second film had gone way over budget, mainly due to the demands of the director, but Waugh blamed Baker. As Waugh was himself financing the second film out of the profits of the first, that blame carried weight. Waugh decided to direct the third film. Baker was devastated, but he swallowed his pride—or, rather, squirreled it away in his cheek—and begged to, at least, stay on as the producer. Waugh agreed and preproduction began for a shoot that would spend 16 weeks in the Brazilian rain forest, which was to double for the fantasy realm of Thunnorak. That’s when Baker decided to find the Fixxer. He had heard of me, but wasn’t sure I really existed. He decided to believe. It was important to him to believe. It took him eight weeks of searching before someone clued him in to Norton Macbeth.

  Baker explained everything to me in a meeting Norton arranged at the Children’s Museum in Downtown Los Angeles. This was three days before the production was to move to Brazil. I knew a lot about Waugh. Anybody who had become as famous as him, I get to know a lot about. I immediately told Baker that I could, for a price, fix his problem. That by the time he left for Brazil in three days, he would be the director of the film.

  The solution was simple. I didn’t even have to go into the computer database. It had been reported that Waugh never made a move without consulting Mary Anne Richardson, the all-American homemaker psychic/astrologer who worked out of her house in the Encino Hills, and had quite a list of “A” talent clients, who had all spread the word about her remarkable, natural gifts. This is not unusual in Hollywood, it is, indeed, far too usual, but such Hollywood normality was useful if you knew how to take advantage of it—and I did. For I happened to know that Mary Anne Richardson of Encino started life as Clara Brown of Southampton, England. She left her native land ten years before when her New Jesus evangelical message wasn’t really bringing in enough sucker donations there to make it pay. So she came to America for the fruitful fields of the local suckers she had always heard about. Unfortunately, she found a preponderance of evangelicals running around sucking on the suckers. Too crowded. She tried to make ends meet by running a pyramid scam. Unfortunately the ends met in prison for eighteen months, where she picked up various American accents. Looking for a new gig, once she was out of prison, she had a revelation standing in a supermarket checkout line. She saw the stars—the ones in the zodiac and the ones on the big and small screens. She saw them merging under the protection of a spreading tabloid banner headline. Just converge the two star groups, she thought, and let the brilliance illuminate the path to gold. It worked. Another immigrant made it big in America.

  I paid her a visit. I paid her a substantial fee. The next day she warned Waugh that if he were to travel any time in the next three months, doom would be his name. The film was ready to go. A huge investment had already been made. A crew was waiting in the middle of a Brazilian rain forest. He couldn’t publicly delay the film giving his psychic’s warning as the reason. Baker got to direct.

  Roee was just congratulating me on a good job swiftly and lucratively done, when the call came in informing us that Bea Cherbourg’s body had been found in a snowdrift on the frozen Bering Sea just off the Seward Peninsula in Alaska.

  Chapter Six

  There’s No Place Like Nome

  The call came from Norton Macbeth.

  “Do you remember a while back, Fixxer, when you did a favor for Newsstand Mike?”

  “Talking sense to his unrequited love.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Obviously I do. Bea Cherbourg. Oddly enough, I saw her—”

  “She’s dead.”

  Dead is a word analogous, for many reasons, with an inalterable period, or, as the British like to say, a full stop—which I did for half a beat. Then I asked if it was murder, although I knew the answer.

  “Looks that way, he-he-he.” Norton’s laughter was not gleeful; it was nervous tittering. “How did you know?”

  “Why else would you be calling me? If she died of natural causes, or a simple accident, as unfortunate as that would be, it is not something you would take up my time with.”

  “Her body was found in Alaska. Nome, Alaska of all places. In a snow drift.”

  “That’s a little bit more than strange.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I assume Mike is devastated.”

  “Very. That’s what prompted him to call me, he-he-he. He was reluctant, but he wants your help.”

  “I assume it’s in police hands?”

  “Yes, but they won’t communicate with him. He’s not a family member, after all. Also, he’s convinced
they really won’t investigate—and he’s got information he won’t give them.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that. He says he’ll only give it to you. Now, I know this isn’t really any of your business, and there is certainly no fee involved, but—”

  “Is Mike available now?”

  “Uh, yes. He’s at the newsstand.”

  “Tell him I’ll meet him there in half an hour.”

  “Okay, but are you—”

  I hung up. “Roee, I’m going out.”

  Roee had gotten the gist of things from my end of the conversation. “Do you want company?”

  “No, but you can call the Captain and alert him that we may require information on the case.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  *

  I made the quick trip to Sherman Oaks wondering about Bea Cherbourg. What had gotten her killed? In Nome, Alaska, “of all places.” Nome, a small berg at the end of America whose city motto was, of course, “There’s no place like Nome,” was not the sort of place one would expect a Bea Cherbourg to vacation. Even to run away to—and I had just seen her with Sara Hutton, happy, it seemed, problem solved, what was there to run away from? Was it research for her film, then, or location scouting? I didn’t know what her script was about, but it was a good assumption that a woman who would describe herself as being somewhat Dorothy Parker-like was not going to tell a story that takes place in Alaska, rural Alaska at that.

  Mike was waiting for me at the curb, reserving by his presence, the parking spot.

  “I got a table set aside at Blues+Jazz,” was his greeting.

  “Fine, “I said and followed him to the restaurant. We entered just as a Jazz trio was finishing up a set with a not half bad rendition of Carmichael’s Stardust. (Ah, Hoagy, not completely forgotten, The Best Years of Our Lives, indeed, Mr. Bond.) We sat as applause showed appreciation and the players expressed their thanks. We ordered drinks. Mike was very specific in the kind of whisky he wanted.

  “Mr. Macbeth told you?” Mike started.

  “Bea Cherbourg is dead. Murdered. In Alaska.”

  “Yeah,” He choked on the word.

  “Mike, your grief will be as unrequited as your love, if you don’t get control of your emotions and deal with this.”

  Mike sucked in a long, moist breath through his nostrils and said, “You know, Fixxer, there’s no god damn justice in the world.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

  He was angry. “Oh, you have, have you? You’ve noticed injustice? When did you ever notice injustice?”

  I nodded towards the three musicians packing up to go home. “The day I realized that Rock was more popular than Jazz.”

  Mike looked at me with a high level of hate. “You probably think I’m a silly little man, don’t you? Silly little man in love with a beautiful young woman who would never—”

  “I think nothing of the sort, and what I do think, you’ll never be able to divine, so don’t try. Look, I’m not here as a grief counselor. I’m not here to hold your hand and witness you beating your breast. I am here at your request to receive information regarding the murder of Bea Cherbourg, which, you, for some reason, are holding back from the proper authorities. I am also here to advise you that that is a criminal offense. Now why don’t you just start telling me the story? Sequentially, please.”

  “Bea—Bea was pretty depressed for a couple of days after you met with her. Then, suddenly, she was feeling better. She said she had decided that you were right and she was going to call Sara Hutton and apologize for being so uncooperative and beg her, if she had to, to let her back on the project. You know, she said it in such a way that….”

  “That what?”

  “I don’t know. It was—chilling.”

  “She got back in the good graces of Sara Hutton.”

  “Yes, and she said Sara was cool about it. Took her back on the project, even took her to New York for a trip. She started spending a lot of time with Sara, I mean, you know, outside of the office, so to speak.”

  “Do you think it was sexual?”

  Mike looked deep into his drink. This was not comfortable for him. “I know it was.”

  “Go on.”

  “A little over a week ago she asked me if I would take care of her cat again.”

  “Again?”

  “I did it when she went to New York. I mean, I’m here close by.”

  “I see.”

  “Her cat’s name is Mr. Woollcott. Stupid name for a cat.”

  “Not so stupid if he is the friend of Dorothy Parker.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “This time she said she was going away on a retreat for a couple of days with Sara and some other Olympic executives and other people in the industry. She—she seemed quite excited about it.”

  “Where was the retreat held?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. She said she would only be gone two nights and could I feed Mr. Woollcott, take in the mail; water the plants. As she gave me the key to her apartment, she said—with this scary smile, Fixx, this really weird scary smile—‘I’m off to kiss the golden arse.’ I didn’t understand that.”

  “You probably don’t want to.”

  “Well, anyway, when she didn’t return when she said she was going to, I got worried, so I called Sara Hutton’s office and asked if the retreat had been extended. They said no. So I asked if Sara Hutton was there and they said yes, but she couldn’t speak to me. Of course, I was a nobody calling, so I couldn’t have gotten through in any case. So I asked if Bea was around. They told me Bea no longer worked there. I said I knew that, but was she just, you know, physically there, did she come back there after the retreat? They said they hadn’t seen her, and anyway, as far as they knew, she had not been invited to the retreat. It’s very exclusive.”

  “So she wasn’t an official guest.”

  “I guess not. Anyway, that’s when I called the police.”

  “What for?”

  “To file a missing person’s report.”

  “Did you really think she was missing? Maybe she had just decided to stay on for an extra day of R&R.”

  “No, I knew it, I knew something was wrong, but there was nothing I could do except this. At least this was doing something.”

  “I see.”

  “I even thought they wouldn’t take a report from me ‘cause I’m not a relative, or anything. I thought I was going to have to fight with them, but — but they did.”

  “Too many missing persons these days for them not to.”

  “Yeah. So I gave them all the information, you know, who she was, height, hair and eye color, what she was wearing when I last saw her, all that. They said fine, they’d put it in the system. Every day she didn’t return I called the police, but they said nothing had turned up. Finally, after about the fourth day they called me and wanted to know if I knew who her next of kin was. I asked why and they wouldn’t tell me. They said they had to talk to a family member. I told them I knew she had parents back east somewhere and I would try to get their phone number. So I went into her apartment and looked all around, found the number and called them back and gave it to them. I also asked them to please give my name to her parents and ask them to call me at the apartment, that I was Bea’s friend and I was taking care of things. Then I hung up—and cried.”

  “You knew.”

  “What else?”

  “The parents called?”

  “Her dad—about an hour and a half later—nice sounding guy. All he would tell me is that they had found Bea in Nome, Alaska, dead, and that in the opinion of the people up there, it looked like she had been murdered. I tried to get more out of him, but he said no, he didn’t really know me, and—and he really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He said he was getting on a plane to come here to meet—the body—and close up the apartment, take the cat, you know. I met him at the newsstand the next day. He was pretty upset, of course. Thanked me
for taking care of things. Tried to give me some money, but I wouldn’t take it. I gave him the key. It was like Bea. It was like giving him back Bea.”

  Mike stopped talking. He was staring at some insubstantial thing in front of him: the ghostly image of the key, most likely, a key in the shape of the shapely body of Bea Cherbourg.

  “And what is it you found in the apartment when you were looking for the parent’s phone number that you don’t want to show the police?”

  Mike was not surprised that I had figured this fact out. He just simply pulled out of his coat pocket a small bound notebook and handed it to me. “It’s—it’s something like a diary, I guess. Read the last couple of entries.”

  I quickly scanned the last pages. Then I turned to Mike. “Why didn’t you want to give this to the police?”

  “If Sara Hutton had anything to do with it—even if, you know, she’s arrested and put on trial—do you think she’ll be convicted? What justice did Vic Morrow ever get, or Nicole Brown? The rich, the powerful—and in this town, the movies are the power—they can influence, buy themselves out of anything. I don’t even want to give the police the opportunity. But you can take care of this, Fixx.”

  “Well, these pages are hardly evidence that Sara Hutton had anything to do with the murder of Bea, but even if they are a good hint and I could track down the facts, what makes you think I wouldn’t just turn them over to the police? I’m not an avenging angel, Mike”

  “Because it’s your responsibility.”

  “My responsibility?”

  “You should have taken her on as a—as a charity case and you should have fucked over Sara Hutton and then this all would have been over and she wouldn’t be dead!”

  “Interesting point of view. Considering it comes from the man who asked me to dissuade Bea from seeking to hurt Sara Hutton.”