Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  “And what’s this Roy of yours into, tattoos?”

  “Dirt bikes.”

  “Same thing. You want some advice of the been there, done that variety?”

  Felicity gave what to JayJay looked like a thoroughly teenage shrug. “I guess.”

  Kelly looked up to where JayJay still stood by what had formerly been his chair. “Make yourself useful, JayJay. Go ask the band if they know ‘Gotta Serve Somebody.’ ”

  Felicity made a face. “He makes you call him that on a date?”

  “It’s his real name.”

  “Get out.”

  “For real.”

  “That is just so totally twisted.”

  Kelly draped an arm around Felicity’s chair. “Honey, twisted is the one word that totally describes Hollywood.”

  “Are you an actress or something?”

  “Or something.” Kelly looked up. “What you waiting for, Slim?”

  JayJay asked, “ ‘Gotta Serve Somebody’ is a song?”

  “Tell me you’re kidding. As in Bob Dylan?”

  “Duh,” Felicity said.

  “I mean, really,” Kelly said.

  “Whatever,” Felicity said.

  The two ladies looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  JayJay crossed the empty dance floor and said to the band leader, “My place just got hijacked by a sixteen-year-old girl overdosed on lip.”

  The guitarist fingered a riff and replied, “My teenage daughter is why I spend so much time on the road.”

  The drummer called over, “His teenage daughter is why I want to get back.” Then he drummed the air over his snare.

  The band leader patted his side pocket and said, “I been meaning to shorten the life span of that feller. Somebody send a roadie for the six-shooter I left backstage.”

  The drummer grinned. “Lucky for me you can’t hit the side of a barn at two paces.”

  He asked JayJay, “What can I do you for?”

  “Y’all take requests?”

  The bass guitarist said, “We don’t do no Hollywood plinkety-plink.”

  The drummer said, “Does this feller look like a plinkety-plink kinda guy?”

  The bass guitarist said, “Hollywood does things. They make you eat squid and pretend you like it. There ain’t no telling what he wants. Could be something that killed old Fred Astaire, and then where would we be?”

  The lead guitarist said, “Don’t mind him. He was born in a bad mood and it’s only grown worse. What you want to hear?”

  “The lady asks if you’ll play ‘Gotta Serve Somebody.’ ”

  “That old Dylan number. I believe I heard that somewhere before.”

  The bass guitarist said, “My momma was always after me to learn that one. I told her I just play the music, I don’t live the lyrics.”

  The drummer pointed with both his sticks and said to JayJay, “I’ll even play you some Hollywood plinkety-plink if you’ll go ask your lady if she’ll come decorate our stage for a while.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” the guitarist said.

  JayJay said, “I don’t know if she can sing.”

  “Mister, if she’s got a voice to match her looks, we’re all in trouble.” The band leader pointed a thumb at the mixing board. “We’ll just crank the volume down and give all the folks here a reason to stare our way.”

  JayJay walked back to the table and waited for the two ladies’ heads to disconnect. “The man wants to know if you’d like to sing it with them.”

  To his surprise, Kelly rose and said, “I wouldn’t say no.” She hugged Felicity and said, “You’re a sweetheart.”

  “This has been so totally cool,” Felicity said, and even managed a smile in JayJay’s direction. “Bye.”

  He asked, “What was that all about?”

  Kelly patted his arm. “Sorry, Slim. You lack the necessary gene to understand.”

  Her approaching the stage was enough to draw goofy grins from all the band members. She shook hands with each of them. They stood around and laughed together long enough for JayJay to grow semi-jealous. Then they did some head nodding, talking through the music thing, Kelly giving the impression that she knew just exactly what she was doing.

  The lead guitarist stepped to one side. Kelly flipped her hair back over one shoulder, turned around, and plucked the microphone from the stand.

  For the first time that night, not a single eye in the place was directed JayJay’s way.

  Kelly said, “This song comes compliments of all the fine folks at New Road Baptist Church in Sioux Falls.”

  She turned and nodded to the band.

  The drummer clicked them down four beats. The bass and the lead guitarist came in together, the low-driving thunder of electrified Dylan after his conversion experience. Kelly danced them through that first round without moving her feet, just driving them along with a gentle motion. She lifted the mike and dived straight in.

  JayJay rose to his feet because the dance floor filled up and he couldn’t see. But the folks weren’t dancing. The floor was just too full for much motion. He pushed his way through. Folks made way reluctantly. He pressed forward until he was standing close enough to get a full view.

  The lady could just plain sing.

  Her voice was somewhere below what he’d have expected. A rich, raspy growl, like a proud lioness who just owned that mike. The second time through that refrain, she lifted her voice a notch and belted the words with a feeling that punched JayJay right at heart level. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. Oh yeah. He couldn’t nod strong enough without using his entire body. The lady wasn’t just singing now. She was telling truth.

  When she was done the crowd erupted. JayJay stood there so astonished he forgot to applaud until some fellow started slapping him on the back, like he had to hit somebody and JayJay was closest. Kelly looked down at him and grinned, then waved at the crowd and started off the stage. But the crowd wasn’t having any of it. The lead guitarist pulled her back and pleaded with words JayJay didn’t need to hear.

  She looked at JayJay. He motioned for her to stay where she was. She gave him a different look then, one that warmed him all the way back to his solitary table. One that left him full of something new. Something that was way beyond pride. Something that approached a feeling he didn’t even need to name.

  Chapter 22

  The Ivy was a Hollywood icon. It had starred in two recent movies. Bookings for lunch in the main room were impossible unless the table included somebody featured in Hollywood Reporter. Now there was a second Ivy, known by insiders as the Spillover. Ivy Two was down on Santa Monica Boulevard, three blocks up from the pier. Martin Allerby climbed from his evening ride and said to the parking valet, “How much to leave me a free space on either side?”

  “A ten spot should do.”

  “Fine.” He had the bill ready. Ten bucks was still less than parking in downtown New York. Which was a poor excuse for this polite Hollywood robbery. But in truth, Martin really didn’t care. After all, Centurion paid.

  Allerby’s daytime ride was a Volkswagen Touareg. He had packed it with twenty thousand dollars’ worth of extras, lifting the sticker within shouting range of a Porsche Cayenne. But Allerby had bought it for the emblem. When agents saw him pull up and park a people’s car, their faces fell.

  Nighttime, however, he drove a classic sixty-nine Rolls-Royce Corniche. Café-con-leche exterior, dun convertible top, ivory leather interior. Grace Kelly’s car. Cary Grant’s car. A ride so fine he chose this restaurant because it would take him an hour to drive there.

  Milo Keplar crossed the street and said, “Early as usual.”

  “You were walking through the park? Are you nuts?”

  A narrow park lined a fifteen-block stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard, fronting the cliff and the pier and the beach and the sea. Human flotsam flooded there at sunset. A Los Angeles Times reporter had recently spent a week undercover, hearing how vagrants from as
far away as New Orleans and Toronto used the park as their winter address. Messages were brought in and passed with the evening shadows. Rail mail, the reporter had called it, for the vagrants’ time-honored method of crossing the nation. Carried by alcoholics and druggies and psychos. It took months to arrive and cost the drug of choice to receive. Allerby had bought the story’s rights and now had a script under development for a television movie. The working title was Allerby’s idea: The Park at the End of the World.

  Milo replied, “Just taking a stroll down memory lane.”

  Allerby knew little about Milo’s early days, except that after escaping his Eastern European hovel, he had been raised by distant relatives in a gunfire-ridden stretch of Albuquerque. “Have you seen our guest?”

  “He’s already inside, drinking his third dose of atmosphere on the rocks.”

  When the hostess showed them to their table, the attorney’s first words were, “Robert De Niro just walked by.”

  “Could be. He’s got a place down in Malibu.” Allerby offered his hand. “How are you, Leo?”

  “Yeah, fine.” He shook hands without taking his eyes off a pair of blonde Valley strollers in their matching pick-me-up outfits of micro-suede. “Man, this is a universe removed from Ojai.”

  Leo Gish was forty-eight and still severely bruised by his ex-wife’s divorce attorney. He was overweight and balding and wore a suit that shouted lawyer from the sticks. His eyes held the desperate quality of a man who was watching his entire world spin out of his grasp. And every glance in a mirror only heightened his alarm. His days were numbered, and almost all his dreams were gone.

  Thump the man, Allerby thought as he opened his menu, and Gish would sound as ripe as a melon.

  They spent most of the meal enduring Leo Gish’s ongoing tale of woe about his avaricious ex. Gish halted his tirade only to sigh over the Santa Monica flesh market. The Ivy’s front terrace was the most expensive show in LA. Allerby barely touched his food, promising himself a decent meal when this tedious business was behind him. “How are things with the man?”

  The man, as in Carter Dawes, owner of Centurion and Gish’s principal client. “I just finished drawing up his will.”

  “And?”

  “No mention was made of his Centurion holdings.”

  Milo could not completely mask his eagerness. “So the man is definitely selling.”

  “Unless he gets better.” Gish tracked a trio of high schoolers dressed for the Ungaro runway. “He’s recovered before. But this time . . .”

  “You think it’s different.”

  Gish dragged his gaze away from the sidewalk. “Our deal is still valid, right?”

  “You have our offer down in black and white,” Allerby reminded him. “The five percent and the seat on the Centurion board are yours soon as our deal gets green-lighted.”

  Gish forced himself to focus. “He’s ready to cave, is what I think.”

  Allerby fought for calm. “We’ll have our attorney table the offer tomorrow.”

  “You’ve got the financing in place?”

  “All of it.”

  “Where is it coming from?”

  “Half from Solish and his group. The other half has to remain secret for a little while longer.”

  Allerby saw Gish flash a momentary concern. “What is it, Leo?”

  “Far as I can see, everything is solid. Dawes will receive an offer from a private group offering top dollar. He’s always said he wanted to keep Centurion from being swallowed by one of the majors.”

  “But?”

  Gish hesitated, then, “What if he changes his mind?”

  Milo’s tone was hardened by years of clinching Hollywood deals. “You told us this was exactly the sort of offer Dawes would want, Leo. And the timing is yours. Not ours.”

  “Leo isn’t trying to welsh on us,” Allerby soothed. “He’s just expressing a valid concern. Isn’t that right, Leo.”

  “Dawes is so secretive,” Gish fretted. “I’ve seen him pull out of deals I’d have called perfect. Done it seated at the table with the signing pen in his hand.”

  Milo was ready to crawl across the table and cram himself into the lawyer’s face. “That can’t happen.”

  “It can,” Gish replied. “It has.”

  A cloud descended over their table, one dark enough to obliterate the street theater.

  Then Martin felt lightning strike. He leaned forward. “What you’re saying, Leo, is we need a sweetener. Something that would push Dawes over the edge.”

  Milo knew his partner well enough to say, “You’ve got an idea.”

  “How about this.” Martin lowered his voice to a point where the two men had to crane forward to hear. “We move the Heartland piece from a TV special to a feature film.”

  Milo gaped. “What?”

  “Three times I approached Dawes about moving into features. Three times he told me the exact same thing. Do it with Heartland or not at all.”

  “We ran the numbers,” Milo pointed out. “It would have been a total disaster.”

  “Exactly.”

  “A full-on failure of that scale would cost us our careers.”

  “Which is why we haven’t moved forward,” Allerby agreed. “Until now.”

  Gish looked from one man to the other. “You lost me.”

  “Think about it, Leo.” Spelling it out for all three of them. “We contact Dawes. No. Wait. Even better, you tell him we’ve met here tonight. That way, if he ever catches wind of this meeting, you can say it was because we wanted to move forward on the film concept. Maybe he’s heard about our new JayJay Parsons, the hero.”

  “He has. Believe me. He spent half our conference talking about that instead of the will.”

  “There you go. So Milo and I, we’ve had a change of heart. We want to ride this wildfire publicity onto the silver screen.”

  “Perfect.” Milo breathed the word. “Starring an actor who’s never seen the front end of a camera before.”

  “Two actors,” Allerby corrected. “You’re forgetting the new leading lady, Kelly Channing. Her last role was smiling for mouthwash. Or gum. Something memorable.”

  “It’ll be a total mess.” Milo’s grin displayed rows of overly small teeth. “We might as well put the cash in a wheelbarrow and push it across the street to the park.”

  Leo asked, “You guys want this to fail?”

  “In the biggest way possible. You get Dawes to sign off on this feature film he’s always wanted to see happen. We set the project in motion. We’ll gear up our PR for a major push.”

  “Then we’ll watch the press write up what a total catastrophe Centurion has on its hands,” Milo said. “Meanwhile, I’ll be out there trying to pitch a film that nobody in their right mind would dream of buying.”

  “And this mystery group, who are based in a world far removed from Variety and Hollywood Reporter, will keep their offer on the table.”

  Gish saw it now. “Dawes would be desperate to sign.”

  “Exactly,” Allerby agreed.

  “I got to hand it to you,” Milo said. “This is a stroke of genius.”

  Leo Gish leaned back in his seat. For the first time that night, he looked happy. “You know what this means?”

  “Yes, Leo,” Allerby replied. Able to give the man at least one dream come true. “You’re about to become a Hollywood player.”

  Chapter 23

  The setting sun glared through Martin Allerby’s office window, drenching the chamber and the people in gold. A good DP would have paid with blood for such a shot. Every face was painted in big-screen accuracy. Milo Keplar, his sales director and secret partner in crime, was seated in his preferred corner from which he could observe and calculate. Two senior staffers from Contracts and one from Legal occupied the ring of chairs around Martin’s desk. There to warn them of any potential speed bumps. Britt Turner shared the sofa with his diminutive AD. Gloria, Allerby’s assistant, was in her standard position with laptop at the ready.
>
  The stage, as they said in the biz, was prepped. It was time for action. There would be no second take.

  Martin asked, “How are things going with the shoot?”

  “So far, pretty solid.” Britt was understandably nervous. He had been summoned back to headquarters on a moment’s notice. The phone call from Gloria had arrived about a half hour before the limo to take him to the local airport, where a flying taxi waited to speed him south. No reason given. Just come. “We’ve rehearsed all the scenes Peter has completed so far. We’ve gone over some of the connecting action. I like what he’s writing.”

  “And Derek?”

  “He’s working out well.”

  “He’s young for a DP role on location.”

  “He’s thirty-three. Seven years’ experience. He started in ads like most cameramen these days. Took a serious cut in salary to come on board here as assistant cameraman.” Britt scanned the faces. “Is that what we’re here about? You’re naming another DP?”

  “Do you think we should?”

  Britt shifted nervously in his seat. His AD might as well have been frozen solid. Not even his eyes moved. “It’s your show, Martin.”

  “I’m just asking your opinion.”

  “Then no, I don’t think a change is called for. The dailies we gained from his one day in the saddle on set were solid.”

  “That was here. Soundstage and location shooting are two different animals.”

  “We’ve been on location for nine days. I’ve been watching him carefully as we work the sets and light the scenes.” Britt had difficulty controlling the timber of his voice. “He’s blocked out the scene work and laid the lights and cables so we can move from rehearsals to shooting without any lost time. And done it all without a word from me. He’s got the makings of a solid professional.”

  “Then he stays.” Allerby watched his director breathe a fraction easier. Britt Turner was in his early fifties, which in Hollywood terms meant he was as good as cremated. He had a dead-straight style of composition that worked well with this kind of story and character. And this kind of medium. Television viewers might not be able to say it in words, but their viewing habits were dominated by straight-ahead stories. Shallow characters, easy plots, nothing that challenged or strayed far from the program’s principal task of delivering the audience to the next commercial. Allerby studied the director and watched his tension increase. Fear was such an exquisite tool in the hands of a master. “It’s good to see you defend your personnel, Britt.”