Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army

by Steven Paul Leiva

  It was good to know I had the talent to amuse.

  The timing was absolutely—

  I simultaneously fell on my back while sliding my hands to the end of the broom handle, keeping it balanced as I swung the head around. As the Cassutt flew a bare five feet overhead I pushed hard, ramming the wide broom head up against the tip of the right wing, causing the plane to suddenly flip 90 degrees and fly sideways for just a second before its left wing scraped the surface of the tarmac, causing the little Cassutt to cartwheel down the runway. I thought I heard a bloodcurdling scream coming from the cramped little cockpit—but that may have just been wishful thinking. After about the fourth cartwheel, one of the wings broke off and the fuselage slammed into the ground, exploding upon impact. Then the fiery mess slid along the runway until it slid off and into the Quinnipiac River becoming a little floating island of flame.

  I stood up. I looked at the broom. On it was a label that read: Quality crafted in the USA. I was glad of that.

  The phone rang. It had fallen out of my pocket and was sitting on the pavement. I picked it up. It was Petey.

  “Well, it looks like you really tipped the scales!”

  Then he laughed—a much sweeter laugh to my ears than Mr. Gray’s.

  Chapter Nine

  Winkle Water

  Using the Spirit of ‘76 I was able to get out of the gate, into the car, and back onto the road before anyone showed up to investigate the crash at the airfield. About twenty miles out I saw a small, comfortable looking inn. I stopped, checked in quickly, and went to my room to give myself some first aid. Besides normal bumps and bruises from playing in the snow, I had a large knot on my forehead, which the checkin clerk, if he had noticed it, failed to mention anything about, even when I asked him to get an ice pack to my room ASAP. Professional discretion? He just didn’t give a damn? Didn’t matter. I was happy not to have to make up a story.

  When I got to the room, out of my clothes, and into the thick white terry cloth robe they provided, I noticed that I also had an ugly, cherry black bruise on my right shin where the tow bars had caught me. It was amazingly sore now that I didn’t need that leg to aid in my escape from death. The ice pack arrived and I gave the porter a quick and simple room service meal order. The biggest meat and potatoes meal on their menu; a bottle of vodka, Absolute if possible; a bottle of tonic water; two buckets of ice and a good portion of freshly peeled lemon twists. I promised him $100 if he got the meal to me quicker than humanly possible, and the booze even quicker than that. He announced that his name was Andrew and that he would not fail me. There’s something about a financial reward that makes people real personable.

  I got on the hotel phone and changed my plane reservations for the next morning. I also upgraded to first class. I was in no mood for further discomfiture. I called Roee on my cell phone and gave him a brief report of what had gone on, and asked him to prepare certain computer files for my review when I got home.

  “An unexpected bit of violence,” Roee said.

  “Yes.”

  “Of course, as I’ve always said, you should never go out unarmed. A Browning Hi-Power automatic would have done more than adequate damage to that toy.”

  “Yes, silly me not to assume I would be chased by a puny yet pugnacious plane.”

  “A mistake that should not be made again.”

  “True. Bodily harm seems to be second nature to these people. We’ll have to keep that in mind as we find a way to stop them.”

  “Stop them from doing what?”

  “Not quite sure, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s worth being stopped.”

  I then asked Roee to connect with Petey and see if between our files and the ones he had access to we could figure out just who Mr. Gray really was. I’ve always felt that if you are forced to kill someone, even in self-defense, you should damn well know—really know—just whom that someone was. It has a tendency to put the experience into perspective. Roee disagrees with me on this, but he said he would get on it.

  As I hung up the phone I remembered a phone number I had tucked away in my pants pocket. I grabbed my pants and retrieved it. It was of a man in the area who I had been told might have some information on Gilgamesh Paul. I called him, introduced myself as J. W. Crick the reporter, and stated, “I’m trying to find a Gilgamesh Paul.”

  “‘I don’t like the mundane. In people or in problems’,” he replied.

  “Then I apologize for bothering you.”

  “No, that’s a quote from Gilgamesh Paul. The only one I can really remember. I was never a big fan of his.”

  “So you wouldn’t…?

  “No. I wouldn’t. Plenty of others, but not Gilgamesh Paul.”

  I hung up disappointed. Finding a lead to Gilgamesh Paul might have just rescued the day.

  I drank my vodka tonics. I ate my meat and potatoes. I went to bed.

  *

  The next day when I got home I went straight to the library where Roee had conveniently placed the files I wanted to review on the desktop of the computer screen. First I opened the file I had been reading through before the trip. I wanted to confirm my basic understanding of the Olympic Pictures financial situation. It was still carrying a large debt, but Olympic had recently released enough successful films to gather some positive business press portraying the company in a financial turnaround. The rumors that Sveriges Riksbank was ready to find a buyer were probably true. I decided to call an old source of mine on Wall Street. For a quick digital transfer of cash to a particular offshore account of his, he was happy to reveal that, indeed, there would be an announcement in two week’s time by Sveriges Riksbank that they would start accepting bids. He already knew who was waiting in the wings to make the bids. At least three of the other major studios would be interested. It would give them Olympic’s current library of films. Not the fat one that had already been sold off, but some good, contemporary product for the simple amusements mill you could hear grinding 24 hours a day. Some well-financed independent suppliers of film would certainly make bids. They would love to have their own distribution set up, rather than having to tow some major’s line. Then there were some foreign media giants that, rich as they were, weren’t making “American” films, so had an inferiority complex.

  “What do you think Sara Hutton’s fate in all this will be?” I asked.

  “Well, she certainly helped bring the studio back from the precipice, but….”

  “But?”

  “She’s very young. It was a fluke she got this job. I can’t see any of these players—all run by very powerful, very egocentric men—I can’t see any of them making this investment and keeping her completely in charge. They’ll keep her as president, of course, but with a much smaller power base. They’ll put a CEO over her—and a CFO handling business strategy—and they’ll dilute her green light ability. She won’t be happy. She’ll probably quit, which would not be unwelcome.”

  “Despite her track record?”

  “Maybe because of it. Motion pictures depend on emotions to communicate. You know, ‘Make ‘em laugh; make ‘em cry.’ What few understand is that the business is run through emotions as well. In all the years I’ve been following the motion picture business, I could count on my right hand the times I’ve seen cool, dispassionate logic be the basis for a business decision, and, as you may remember Fixx, I lost two fingers in Iran.”

  “You were lucky not to have lost your head.”

  “Not luck. Roee. How is he, by the way?”

  “Cool and dispassionate.”

  “I would expect no less.”

  “I assume Sara Hutton herself has sent out some feelers.”

  “For a management buy? Yeah, you assume correctly.”

  “And…?”

  “No takers.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reasons.”

  “Okay. Good-bye, Ivan.”

  “You kidder, you.”

  I next turned to a file I maintain of interesting personalit
ies in the business. These are people just a little bit off from today’s norm of the powers that be. Not the slick MBA’s; the ironically well-suited lawyers and agents having love affairs with cigars; the Ivy League grads who “intellectually” dissect every script in development down to the sinews and bones, then don’t have a clue how to put it all back together again. Rather I was interested in people with at least a hint of the old show biz pizzazz, the gut instinct razzle-dazzle that makes them not necessarily better people, but far more amusing to be around. I had a role in mind that had to be played. I needed just the right combination of personality and a large amount of liquid capital.

  In the middle of searching, Roee came in with information on Mr. Gray.

  “His name was Ronald Berger. Flew transport in Viet Nam. Until a drug habit grounded him.”

  “What was he using?”

  “Not using; selling—the normal stuff, plus stolen goods from field hospitals. Had a whole network, I guess. Dishonorable Discharge. Pissed him off. Went on a rampage. Was stopped by an MP who hit him a bit too hard on the head. Been sort of surly ever since. Back home he flew for small cargo companies. Drifted to Central America. You can imagine what he got involved in there. Met up with Maxwellton James. Went to work for him. Chief pilot, mechanic, restorer of old planes. Until James seemed to retire from his illegal yet sanctioned activities. James is now based on the West Coast. Berger stayed where he was. He liked to tinker with planes and race that little Cassutt.”

  “Had he ever attempted murder before?”

  “Attempted and succeeded, it seems: nasty business in a Honduran jungle. Nothing else is recorded, but it’s probably safe to assume—”

  “Wife?”

  “No.”

  “Children?”

  “Probably quite a few from what I can gather. Some Vietnamese. All abandoned—same story in Central America. No family values here.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, turning back to the computer screen.

  Roee did not move. He was staring at me, I could tell. “Fixx,” he finally said, “it was self-defense.”

  “I think I’ve found a candidate,” I said, ignoring his comment.

  There was a beat of silence. Then Roee, interested in what I had found, sat down.

  “Lydia Corfu,” I announced. “Owns the top rated TV channel in Greece, husband owns ships. Used to be an actress, then—”

  “Became a director of B-movies for her own company here in the States.” Roee had finished my sentence from his own memory, which his closed eyes and concentrated brow indicated he was accessing. “First came to attention starring in an international coproduction—which she put together the financing for—as a Greek opera diva who has an affair with an American president. Moderate hit here, but enough of one for her to come here and start producing. The locals wouldn’t let her in the club, of course, for a number of reasons, none particularly attractive. All she could get going here were B-movies heavy on sex and violence financed by her profits from the Greek diva film. She then sold her films herself to the world at the film markets, mainly MIFED in Milan. Took the money and put it right into her next film. Then she continued repeating the process through most of the 80s”

  “Seems she was the kind of person who had to throw her own party, because no one would invite her to theirs.”

  “That’s right. Has a rather abrasive personality. Likes to sue people, but then, that’s sort of a Greek national sport. In 1989 when Greece privatized television she married Konstantinos Metaxsa, the quintessential Greek shipping tycoon, giving her the money to start her own channel. It’s been hugely successful.”

  “How much money does she have?”

  “How much money do you need?”

  “Enough to buy Olympic Pictures.”

  “She doesn’t have that much.”

  “That’s okay, we can make it look as if she does, or, at least has access to it.”

  “Oh sure.” Roee smiled. “We’re good at that.”

  I thought for a moment. Then I said, “If I recall, she’s not bad looking.”

  “Well, she continued to star in her films. Providing the sex part.”

  “And the violence?”

  “She kicked one or two groins in each picture.”

  I thought again. I went over everything that had happened since the night I met Bea Cherbourg. I had been doing this since my conversation with Farber at Yale. I was doing it one last time to see if the mental chart I had in my head still made sense. It did—too much sense. I turned to Roee and said, “I think I have an idea of what’s been going on. If I’m right then two people have died for no reason at all, or for a reason that is, at once, so nefarious it ranks in the top ten percent of evil, and yet, so absurd and just plain silly, it supports the contention that all evil is, in essence, mundane. I just need a little confirmation of my theory, and I think I know how to get it. Why don’t you call Norton and tell him I would very much appreciate it if he could set up a call between me and Larry Lapham.”

  *

  “What do you want?” Lapham said with little friendliness, understandable given our “connection,” but since Lapham isn’t known for friendliness I didn’t let it bother me. He probably wears a Medic Alert bracelet warning any potential health care professional that his normal temperature is not 98.6 but 68.9, and not to assume he was dead—just that he was a cold bastard.

  “I see where War of the Wimps has opened big, and congratulations on the full-page reprint of Robert’s Jordan’s review in the Times today.”

  “I sent the two million. Norton confirms he received the two million. So what do we have to talk about?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Two million dollars is not favor enough?”

  “That wasn’t a favor, that was commerce. You’ll be doing me favors for years to come.”

  “Jesus! Talk about a pact with the Devil.”

  “If you’re going to travel along the circles of Hell, you’ve got to expect to meet a devil now and then.”

  “All right. What is it?”

  “I want you to throw a party.”

  “Throw a party? What the fuck for?”

  “That’s up to you. You could celebrate your new car, your recent vasectomy, or the fact that you’re rich and other people aren’t. I don’t really care, but I can suggest that a party in celebration of the huge opening of War of the Wimps would not be illogical.”

  “And what trendy and expensive venue am I supposed to throw this party at?”

  “You will throw the party in the lobby of your building.”

  “In the lobby?”

  “It will be far less expensive.”

  “True. Whom do I invite?”

  “Whomever you want, but added to the list will be myself under the name of Tom McCabe—and Don Gulden.”

  “Who the fuck is Don Gulden?”

  “He’s been described to me as ‘this little shit VP’ at Olympic Pictures.”

  “I don’t invite little shit VPs to my parties.”

  “You will this time—and won’t he be pleased?”

  I told Lapham when I wanted the party to be held and gave him other precise instructions, including getting back to Norton when all the details were set. Then I called Roee back into the library. He had been making his own phone calls getting the most up-to-date information on Lydia Corfu, plus contacting Hamo Thronycroft, an old friend of ours in London.

  “Hamo agrees,” Roee said upon entering the room. “More than happy to help.”

  “Fine. Listen, do you remember that gunk Petey made up when we needed to lay up that delegate to the World Population Council?”

  “That stuff we put in his first aid kit in a bottle of Bactine?”

  “Yes, then we put a really dull blade in his safety razor.”

  “He had a four week snooze in the hospital. Did him some good. Lost some excess fat. Trimmed up nicely, then stayed in shape. Got rid of his old mistress, took on a much younger one.”
/>   “Mistress?”

  “Well, a priest can’t have a wife.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, see if Petey can supply some. Don’t pay more than two thousand. I only need a drop.”

  “I take it you’ve got a master plan in the works.”

  “Yes—we’re going to be lawyers.”

  Roee gave a sideways glance, considering the idea. “Oh, wouldn’t my mother be proud.”

  *

  Four days later I attended Larry Lapham’s party as Tom McCabe, non-entity. At least, that was the only designation anyone could put on me after a cursory glance brought no recognition. I wore a not-very-stylish business suit—real business, not show business—had a not-suitable mustache on my upper lip, and wore an ugly tie. I felt like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man. I moved among the masses unseen. I did have on an attractive tie tack, though. Of course, it concealed a hidden microphone.

  Lapham had done a good job throwing together the party. The stars of War of the Wimps were there. Studio executives were there. Well-groomed guys and nicely turned-out gals were there who were probably agents. You could tell because they looked uncomfortable in the suits that made them “Suits” —a designation partly descriptive, partly a curse. You just knew that their strategizing on behalf of their own futures included consideration of costume: “If I move from the agency to a studio, I’m still in —and a—suit. However if I become a producer, it’s jeans, maybe khakis, and a pullover.” Their hair was also a giveaway, especially for the guys, who all had close cropped bottom cuts that stretch from temple to temple, making them look like modern SS Storm Troopers in civvies.