Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army

by Steven Paul Leiva

  “What kind of ammo?’

  “I don’t know. Except it wasn’t for no handguns or rifles or stuff like that, these we big, serious metal boxes.”

  “Any markings on the box?”

  “The only thing I remember is Browning 303, because, you know, I recognized the name Browning and, well, 303 is an easy number to remember.”

  Roee looked at me. I shot him an eyebrow acknowledging that I shared his thoughts. Then Roee turned to Mike. “Did you look inside these boxes? Did you see rounds of ammo?” He asked.

  “Didn’t get a chance. I was about to when this Ranger came up behind me, grabbed my arm, and twisted it up around my back asking me what the fuck I was doing there. Oh, excuse the language, Lydia.”

  “Don’t give it another fucking thought,” she said.

  “Oh, okay. So he asked me what the fuck I was doing there, and I said well I was just curious so I thought I would look, and that’s when he pushed me into the ammo and my rib cracked against the edge of one of the boxes. Then he threw that old saying at me about the cat, curiosity and killing, then told me to get the fuck out. So I, um, so I did. So I got back to the tour, back to the parking lot and into my car, and I drove home—nonstop. I got to tell you, that ain’t easy with a cracked rib and a dislocated shoulder, but I think fear sort of took my mind off the pain.”

  “It will do that,” I said.

  “When Mike got home,” Roee said, “he called Norton, Norton connected with me, I went out to see him, saw that he was in pain. I brought him here and Norton sent Dr. Stone over. Mike’s been here ever since.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Now what about the photographs?”

  “Oh, I got ‘em. I think the Ranger would like to have taken the camera away but I pretty much convinced him I was just a dumb tourist airplane nut who got off the track.”

  “I’ve got the photos over here.” Roee got up and led us to my desk. A series of photos were laid out of both the castle and the air museum. Those of the castle revealed very little outside of the mock Italian grandeur of it all. Although one shot that featured one of the Rangers gave credence to Mike’s impression. The pointed Campaign hat that he wore, the kind not only worn by Smokey the Bear, but Canadian Mounties on parade, put his face into shadow, but you could still tell it was a hard face. Normal human beings shouldn’t hold that against him, of course—but we took the license.

  Mike had done a good job on the photos of the planes. There was a P-38 Lightning, an A-26, a B-29, a Japanese Zero, a Mustang P-51, even an old Northrop prototype of the Flying Wing, and, in a interesting display, two Messerschmitt Bf 109’s stood on the tarmac facing off two Supermarine Spitfires, the main mechanical combatants of the Battle of Britain.

  “They’re beautiful!” Lydia said, genuinely impressed.

  “Yes, they are,” I said. “Despite being powerful engines of destruction.”

  “That was just their function, at a time when that function was necessary,” Roee said, “but that is not their essence.”

  “They are so much more elegant than modern planes,” Lydia said.

  As we scanned the photos, admiring an elegance of a past era, my eye was suddenly taken by someone in the background of one of the pictures. It was one of the Rangers, hat off, just having finished wiping his brow. He was a bulky individual of possibly medium height, although it was hard to tell as he stood away from the tourists, alone on the tarmac with nothing close by for reference, but there was something about him. Something that nagged at the back of my neck. I grabbed my magnifying glass and took a closer look. The nag had been right. “Roee,” I said, “take a look at this Ranger.”

  “That’s the one that got me in the hangar!” Mike said, “Ugly bastard, ain’t he?”

  Roee took the glass and, bending down, gave the man the scrutiny he deserved. When he rose back up he seemed quite sure. “George,” he said.

  “George,” I confirmed.

  *

  After dinner we gave Mike the painkiller prescribed by Dr. Stone and sent him off to bed. Then we took Lydia, not to mention Henderson and Pinsker, back to the Hotel Bel-Air. We made much noise in the lobby when we arrived (Pinsker really can’t hold his liquor) just in case Sara Hutton had a “friend” hanging out. Once in our suite, Roee and I changed out of our East Coast formality into casual, although I assure you, quite stylish clothes, and quietly exited by our private garden entrances and left the hotel by a back way.

  On the drive home in the Porsche we considered the matter.

  Roee said, “So, things may not be so simple,”

  “I suppose you’re right. I’m always hoping they are and I’m always disappointed.”

  “George in London. A thug for banker Pye. George in California. A not very friendly State Park Ranger who dislocates shoulders at Hearst Castle.”

  “Specifically, the air museum.”

  “Which is run by Maxwellton James.”

  “An ex-gun runner and drug dealer who seems to have a, at least, philosophical relationship with film executive Sara Hutton.”

  “Who had secretly employed London banker Pye to secure financing for a management takeover of Olympic Pictures.” Roee turned to me. “I don’t suppose we can chalk any of this up to coincidence?”

  “No, I don’t suppose we can.”

  “So we have to assume….”

  “We have to assume it’s an even more dangerous game than it’s been so far, and that the trap I’m trying to lay for them could turn around and be a trap for us.”

  “So do we pull out, having no real financial stake in the matter?”

  “Oh, I’d hate to do that. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know if I would hate to, but—“

  “Good.”

  “That’s not to say that caution is not advised.”

  “Understood. We should call the Captain in the morning. We might need his services.”

  “That is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility.”

  “Do you remember Petey’s sound cubes?”

  “Oh, yeah. They’re cool.”

  “Cool? They’re cold.”

  “Well, apparently so, anyway.”

  “Have him ship two or three overnight to us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have him ship them out with, oh let’s say, some frozen ham steaks from that favorite butcher shop of his.”

  “Must they be ham?”

  “Lamb cutlets then.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, and I think it might be advisable to get ourselves out to Chino tomorrow, see Maloney, and put a few hours in the air. Agreed?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. Whereas, so many other things could.”

  *

  When I got home and climbed into my own bed for the first time in a number of days, my head on the pillow filled itself with thoughts of Lydia and the situation I was putting her in. She had not balked at the potential of danger, indeed she seemed to have welcomed it, but that was all just dramatic flair. A proclivity of hers I was taking advantage of. It was now my decision, given the new information, whether to continue taking advantage of it. She was not a naïve woman. Without us really discussing the peripatetic George in front of her and Mike, she still, I believed, got the connection and knew that the stakes had been raised. Nonetheless, she did not make a move to question. Of course, what I was offering her in exchange for her participation in my little ruse was too good for her to pass up: The Hollywood fame she could milk out of our success, and the addition to her fortune that would come from it. Mostly the Hollywood fame. It’s different from other fame. It’s Mount Olympus fame as opposed to just fame in the agora or the assembly. It’s fame that allows you to eat ambrosia and commune with the gods in the clouds. It is also fame about as mythic as ambrosia and the gods, and as insubstantial as the clouds, but that only adds to, does not diminish its allure. It is fame not so much for doing—although many do much—it is fame for just being.

  All atte
ntion on the essence that is I.

  What possible greater satisfaction in your self could there be?

  Worth the risk of your life? For some. Maybe for most, but most rarely get the chance.

  So a fair bargain had been struck between Lydia Corfu and the Fixxer?

  I turned the pillow, which had grown warm under my head, to its cool side for what comfort I could find there. Soon, I was asleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Freshly Squeezed

  Two days later, on a quiet Saturday morning of bright blue sky and wind-washed air, our limo took Lydia Corfu and her two lawyers to Sara Hutton’s house on the corner of Delfern and Faring in the Holmby Hills section of the Bel-Air Estates. Her house, seemingly a transplant from the plantation at Tara (sans the Civil War and its messy deprivations), was huge, white, pillared, and impressive. As Roee stepped out of the car he quietly said, “Mmm, Sara Hutton must be a romantic.”

  “Aren’t all girls?” I added.

  “Boys!” Lydia admonished.

  Having announced ourselves through the intercom at the driveway wrought iron security gate, the front door was already open and standing in the doorway was not an old family retainer of African-American ancestry in the elaborate livery of the main house butler—I admit, I half expected such—but a middle aged Latina in a simple gray dress and apron. She looked work weary as she squinted at the bright morning sun.

  “This way please? Miss Sara is in the living room.”

  She escorted us through a grand entrance hall with a liquid looking floor, past a sweeping staircase and through a set of tall double doors. There, in a large room filled with sunlight pouring in from tall windows that overlooked an extensive, lush backyard, Sara Hutton sat cross legged on a large, comfortable couch surrounded by film scripts.

  “Miss Sara, the guests are here,” the Latina announced.

  Sara Hutton put the script she had been intently reading down and stood to greet us. She was about five foot seven and wore black jeans and a white ribbed cotton tank top covered by an unbuttoned man’s black and white checkered shirt. Her brown hair was one inch short of shoulder length, and as straight and shapeless as her body, its only real feature being bangs. She was barefoot. She was all comfort.

  “Thank you, Josephina,” she said to the Latina, who then turned around and left. She then turned to Roee, who she knew as Pinsker. “It’s good to see you again Mr. Pinsker. Thank you for coming to my home.”

  “Ms. Hutton,” Roee began the introductions, “may I introduce Ms. Lydia Corfu and my partner Mr. Elsworth Henderson.” To us he introduced, “Ms. Sara Hutton.”

  “Good to meet you, but as this has become such an informal first name world, why don’t I just call you Lydia and Elsworth?”

  Lydia, who was wearing a simple Giorgio Armani outfit of gray slacks, light gray cashmere sweater and a charcoal gray blazer cut somewhat like a riding coat, and who had her hair down in stunning waves of black highlighted by gray strands, opened her face with a wide smile. “Of course you can call me Lydia, but it is dangerous to call lawyers by their first names. It only gives them license to become much too familiar. Keep them in their place, I say. Besides, how often do you want to have to say, Elsworth? No, the boys here, I think, have to remain Mr. Henderson and Mr. Pinsker.”

  “Okay, Lydia. We’ll keep the bonding among us girls. Please be seated. Should we have something to drink? Coffee? Water? Juice?”

  “Do you have fresh squeezed orange juice? I truly miss the fresh orange juice in California. In Europe it is, I’m afraid, not so good.”

  “Of course—and you gentlemen?”

  “Orange juice would be fine,” I said, pleased that Lydia was following the script. Roee nodded his assent as well.

  “Josephina!” Sara yelled, bringing forth in short order the Latina.

  “Yes, Miss Sara?”

  “Would you bring out a big pitcher of orange juice and three glasses? I’ll have coffee.”

  “Yes, Miss Sara.”

  “Oh, and,” Lydia said, “could we have a lot of ice cubes in the juice. I like it very, very cold. You have no objections, do you boys?”

  “That will be fine,” I said dryly.

  The amenities over, Sara’s long and narrow face dropped from introductory smile and welcoming eyes to the small slit mouth; haughty eyes aspect so well known by the Hollywood select. She placed those eyes on Lydia and moved them over hills and valleys.

  “So, Lydia, what is it about me that you find so appealing? What are my qualities that really turn you on?”

  Lydia stared at Sara and did not flinch. Then she raised her dark slash eyebrows. “I love a woman with small firm tits.”

  Sara pursed her lips before they broke to speak. “You misunderstand me. I meant in a business way.”

  “Oh, business. I thought you had confused my name. I thought maybe you thought my name was Lydia Lesbos.”

  “No. That is not the kind of mistake I would make.”

  “Good. Business?” Lydia sat up very straight and leaned towards Sara displaying well the extent and quality of her own breasts. Then she took in a deep breath through her nostrils. “You have the scent of success about you,” she took another breath, “and the scent of determination. The two, of course, mingle well.” She breathed in again, “I smell that good pungent smell of smarts, hard smarts,” she breathed deeply one last time, “and there is nothing rank in your scent. Like the rotten sweet smell of the sentimental.”

  There was just the tiniest bit of admiration in Sara’s eyes. “How very animalistic of you. Do you let your nostrils make all your business assessments?”

  “My nostrils are simply reporters. My brain writes the story.”

  “I almost feel like I should turn my tail towards you and let you get the real essence of me.”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  Sara Hutton gave Roee and me a glance. “Gentlemen, I hope you will remember all of this as the basis for any future negotiations.”

  “One could hardly forget it,” Charles W. Pinsker said.

  “Okay, let’s cut the cute crap.” Sara grabbed back control of the meeting. “Are you seriously here to tell me that an ex-direct-to-video film femme fatale with pretensions that she’s a writer and producer can fund—maybe to the extent of a billion dollars—my bid to buy a major motion picture company?”

  “Ms. Hutton!” I spoke up sharply. “That is a completely unfair assessment of Ms. Corfu. Although she once had a very successful career as a non-studio Hollywood filmmaker of highly programmable product in the domestic video and foreign distribution markets, she is currently the sole owner of the highest rated TV station in Greece which brings in advertising revenues 43.264% greater than her nearest competitor. She also has become a major player in providing coproduction funding for various European based TV and film product. Because of this she has become a highly respected businesswoman in Europe, who fields, every day of every week, solicitations by major European and Asian banking institutions interested in providing the wherewithal to allow her to expand her interests. They are interested in her pursuing one of two areas. The worldwide satellite business, which we have advised her against at this time, or the American media industry, which they admit is the best, strongest, and most profitable in the world. Added to this, of course, is her relationship with Konstantinos Metaxsa, arguably the wealthiest man in the world. I am speaking here of her business, not marital or conjugal, relationship, of course. So to answer your question, are we serious? Yes. You already believed that to be true or you would not have invited us to your home, away from prying eyes and ears in your office.”

  Sara assessed it all. Then she said. “She still used to earn her living kicking men in the groin.”

  “I can’t think of a better qualification for a business partner,” Roee stated.

  Sara snorted out a laugh just as Josephina returned carrying a large tray with a crystal pitcher of orange juice, the ice cubes clicking happily against
the side; three tall crystal glasses, each with their own wondrous ice cubes, and a small glass carafe of coffee and a china cup from which to drink it.

  Sara allowed Josephina to set the tray down on the large cocktail table before us and leave without being thanked. “Help yourself,” she said to us as she began to pour her coffee. It smelled wonderful. Guatemalan, I was sure. From the Huehuetenango region, I suspected from its spicy aroma. I would have loved to have had some, but a plan is a plan and I thanked Roee properly when he handed me my orange juice.

  Sara sat back on the couch with a sly smile on her face and took a sip of coffee. Lydia watched her, like a cat preparing to pounce. Which she did the moment she saw Sara start to speak.

  “Well—”

  “Sara, have you ever spent a dime of your own money in this business?”

  “Of course not. That’s something my father taught me. Never spend your own money.”

  “Really? My father might have advised the same, if he had ever had any excess of money, but he would always put what little he had back into the farm. ‘Back into the land,’ he always said. Which was not a business to him, a way of life, yes, a way to live, yes, but not a business. He died poor but—”

  “But a rich man inside, I’m sure,” Sara said, more sure that she had got the irony across.

  “No, not at all. He was a mean, petty, ignorant man who hardly said three words of love to his wife and none to his children. Sadly satisfied, I was going to say. For the life he led was all that he required. That doesn’t make him, ‘rich in spirit,’ or some such silly excuse for financial failure. Just undemanding. Well, his daughter has demanded more, but the technique remained the same. Put the money back into the land, back into the life. So I invested my own money into my own projects time and time again. I never hesitated to invest in myself. I funded my own movies so that I could write and act, because that’s the life I wanted—”