by John Fusco
Malone considered the bill collecting and said, “Would this have anything to do with outstanding student loans?”
No one answered him, but he was used to that.
“Bottom line,” Dutch said, keeping with her translator tone. “Louie loves your script.”
“Sweet.”
“He wants to do it.”
Troy was leaning forward in his chair, drumming a pencil on his knee and smiling in a way Durbin hadn’t seen in thirteen months.
“Mr. Mo,” Troy said. “This is unbelievable.”
“You are very smart,” Louie finally said. “Good script. But no ending.”
“No, no, I know. I had to stop when I started the Avi movie.”
“Where do you see it going?” Dutch said. She was drawn to the glass doors now, a silhouette against the ocean view.
“I don’t know yet,” Troy said. “Endings are always a bitch.”
“Explosion,” Louie said assuredly.
Troy started to laugh, thinking it a sarcastic joke about Hollywood depravity. Durbin grinned too, but then they saw that Louie was dead serious. Malone arced his red brow. “A man after my own heart,” he said.
When the boys broke into their “Malone Zone” chant with sports-bar vigor, Louie smiled uncomfortably, looking to Dutch for perspective. Malone gave a thumbs-up and Troy explained that the kid was the effects talent in the house.
“Serial arsonist,” joked T-Rich.
“Pyrotechnician,” the redhead insisted.
“Big exploding,” Louie kept on. “Me, I am running from the guys. Bad guys. What is my name again?”
“Cho,” Troy said.
“Cho,” Louie echoed, letting it sink in for a moment, like he was tasting and assessing some wine. “Cho running from guys in building. Ready to explode. I do the biggest jump ever for Louie Mo. No wires.”
“Yeah, buddy,” said Troy, leaning back and punching the air. Durbin fidgeted, uncertain. Malone just grinned, staring at the former stuntman with an almost morbid curiosity.
“I can do this,” Louie said, removing his tinted Ray-Bans. “Sign contract, I do this. Biggest fucking Louie Mo jump ever. Bigger than Jackie. Jet. No kung fu bullshit. Real. People won’t believe.”
Troy paced, kept flinging excited glances at Durbin, and then Malone. “Well, that’s kind of perfect,” he said. “Cho gets trapped in a building,” he said. “Caged.”
“We can blow a condemned fire trap,” said Malone. “A lot of L.A. ’hoods are eager to have a film company take one down for free.”
“It’s The Cage, man,” said Troy, growing near feverish. “It’s the metaphor. Nowhere left to run.”
“Can you score those kind of fireworks?” Durbin asked Malone.
“I don’t know, man. I can rig charges and shit, but I don’t know where to get the big loads.”
“I do,” Dutch said. They all looked at her. She was standing there, contemplating the ice cubes in her empty glass, mumbling something about an effects guy over in Irvine. Then she said, “You know your movies, Troy. You know your stunt drivers?”
“A few.”
“Ever hear of Dutch Dupree? Drove a lot for Mickey Gilbert in the nineties.”
“Precision?”
“Yeah. Only chick in the club. Dutch the Clutch.”
“No, don’t think I know that name. But I’m not that up on my stunt drivers.”
“That’s her,” Louie said, cocking his head in the girl’s direction. “Driver. Very good.”
“Mostly out of Santa Fe,” Dutch said. “I’m in between gags.”
“Good,” Louie underscored. “Good control. Fast.”
“Nice,” Troy said. “We could use that.”
“Roll another five grand into Louie’s fee, and you’ve got my wheel.”
When Troy looked back to Louie, the legend was gone. Then he appeared again, coming out of one bedroom, looking into another; he was casing the place like a prospective buyer.
“I stay here?” Louie said. “While we make the Cage movie.”
Troy looked at Durbin. “You guys have any issues with High Flying Louie Mo, Hong Kong stunt king, staying at Dog House?”
“Shit no,” Durbin said. “That’d be sick.”
The others shrugged or nodded, but no one contested.
“Friggin’ Louie Mo, living with the Dogs,” said Troy.
“Why you say Dogs?”
Louie was looking at Troy, suspicious, his eyes darting to his driver for some help.
“That’s what we call our crew,” Troy said. “The Dogs.”
“The Dogs of Entropy,” Malone explained. “It’s kind of a loose production company, co-op, think-tank, garage-band kind of enterprise.”
“Louie,” Dutch said, the way one might speak to the hard of hearing. “They’re not having you sleep with the dogs. They call themselves the Dogs.”
When Troy laughed, Louie did too, even slapped his leg, but he still didn’t get it, “dog” being a serious slur in China. Didn’t really matter now. He felt a great opportunity here. Big money, big house. On the beach. Funny boys. Light hearts, cold beer. With lime wedges. Louie leaned back in the white shabby-chic chair, relaxing. But somewhere inside, he still felt unsettled as hell from the rooftop donnybrook.
Dutch said she had to go; Louie said he’d call her. As she headed out, both Troy and Durbin took note of her tattoo and ankle bracelet. And her well-made bottom. If she drove stunts in the ’90s, she must’ve been a mere kid back then. At the door, she turned, tapped a cigarette loose and set it on her lip.
“Take good care of Louie Mo.”
“He’s the man,” said Troy.
Louie liked that. He sank deeper into the overstuffed chair and looked out at blue sky and ocean. Troy caught a look from Dutch then, saw her taking in the full view of the nice house. There was something in her demeanor that unsettled him. Something dubious, maybe—what Malone would call “sketch.” But Louie Mo’s body of work spoke for itself, and when Troy turned back, he lowered his Corona to Louie’s and clinked. “Old school,” he said.
“Old school,” Louie echoed back, but he didn’t have a clue what it meant.
He was soon outside on the back porch, looking at the surf and the Las Flores Beach walkers while Troy and the boys downed more brews in celebration, never taking their eyes off him. Life is very strange, he thought to himself. You just never know. Yesterday, he was in a low-rent neighborhood in Monterey Park, convinced his miserable life was going to end there. Now, here he was in Malibu, in a fancy beach house, making a movie deal with Hollywood’s new generation. Maybe, he mused, he had been meant to come to Southern California all along. . . .
• • •
It was 1993 when he left Hong Kong for good. His escape destination was a natural choice, a routine flight plan in the business: Vancouver. A thirteen-hour trip to another continent yet familiar enough to Louie that he could call on a favor, maybe find a gig.
On the plane, feeling safe and wishing he could just stay up there, he carefully dislodged business cards from his battered wallet. Some of the cards were so old they were faded and stuck together. One of them, the one he was hoping was still there, had a logo of an exploding car and the title: Sean King, Stunt Rigger.
Sean King was an Englishman based out of Vancouver. “You think English are sissy boys, all the time drinking tea?” Louie used to say in the days he worked with Sean. “Tough boys. Like to fight. Mean.”
He did stunts up in Calgary twice with Sean’s crew, but he couldn’t remember the films now. Just a lot of wire work and free tumbles from cliffs, rock-climbing action. So he put Sean’s card in a wallet pocket behind a photo of an infant girl and took a deep nap. When he got to Vancouver he would ring Sean, let him know he was available. Canada was a good place to work.
He checked
into a crappy motel outside of Chinatown, not in Chinatown because those places made him anxious. Just close enough so he didn’t stand out to anyone who might be looking for him, or bump into anyone who might recognize him. It took Sean a week to return his call.
“Sorry, man, I was in fucking Romania.”
“Romania is good,” Louie said. “I come work for you.”
“We’re about wrapped,” Sean said. “I’m back in Vancouver in three weeks. Let’s get together then and get jolly drunk.”
“Jolly drunk is good,” Louie said, and they made plans to meet up when the tough Englishman was back. Three weeks became four, then five, and Sean had still not called. That was normal in the biz. Most movies ran over schedule, especially second unit crews that had to go back and shoot pick-ups. So Louie didn’t take it as a slap. He was low on money, though. His one credit card was now rejected, and he cashed in all his Chinese money to get a disturbingly thin wad of Canadian notes.
He had to take a job.
At a restaurant in Chinatown, a large, tacky place all red and gold called the Monkey King, he applied for a dishwashing job. The owner, a tiny Fujianese woman with a pretty face and angry scowl told him no, right then and there. He was standing at the bar while she mixed a vodka with lychee and stabbed a plastic umbrella into the froth.
“I don’t like your face,” she said.
Louie lingered while she glided off in her emerald silk to deliver the tropical drink. He walked out into the night and felt terrible. Not so much about being broke and out of work as he did about the woman’s remark. Mean lady, he said to himself. He wanted to get jolly drunk, but didn’t. He went back to the motel and looked at the newspaper ads again. A few calls later, he had an interview with some industrial painters. Two days later he was on scaffolds and ladders, painting buildings. The French brothers he worked for were nasty suckers, but he stayed quiet and soon earned their respect for his agility up on the scaffolds. They would gaze at him with a kind of bewildered amusement as he painted eaves with one foot on a ladder rung and the other suspended in the air, like Harold Lloyd in the silent Safety Last! But his painting skills were awful; he made an unholy mess of things, ruined a good pair of pants.
Still, he replenished his wallet, paid his rent. Had enough to eat. A month later, Sean King called him, said he had finally made it back to Vancouver. Some shit had gone down in Romania, he said; his crew hadn’t been paid for the extra work, so he got caught up in politics and accounting and finally collected a rucksack full of cash, under the table. Paid his boys off and came home.
Louie warmed to the story about getting paid in cash. Especially when it was delivered in rucksacks. Romania sounded ideal.
“Let’s meet for a dram, mother,” Sean said. Louie said he didn’t have wheels, so Sean told him to name a place where they could grab a drink and talk shop.
“Monkey King,” Louie said, not sure why he suggested the gaudy place that wouldn’t hire him. It just seemed convenient and the only name he remembered.
At five that night, Sean King walked into the Chinese restaurant wearing his leather jacket and tennis shoes that made him light on his feet even as he limped like most stunt veterans. He hugged Louie, they laughed, then sat at the bar and ordered tall glasses of vodka, no ice.
Mean Lady turned from her cash register and squinted at Louie for a long moment. He gave her the sweetest smile he could muster and she curled her lip in disgust.
“Did you wrap the Mandarin Films gig?”
“Yeah. All done.”
“You usually overlap, mate, you’re never available.”
“Tired of Hong Kong.”
Sean sipped his vodka and studied Louie up close. He seemed to be able to read him, could tell something wasn’t right. Sometimes a stunt gone bad could have that effect, turn a man dark for a while.
“TV series starting up in about two months,” Sean finally said. “Cop show.”
Louie looked at him with keen interest as Sean lit a cigarette, then lit one for Louie.
“No kung fu, though,” Sean said. “Straight-up fighting. Cop shit.”
“Cop shit, I like,” Louie said.
“How’s that knee, man?”
It was then that Louie’s eyes picked up something in the mirror near where Mean Lady was straightening bottles of alcohol and little jars of umbrellas. A young Chinese man entered from the street, a beanie on his head, sunglasses, hands jammed into the pockets of a sleeveless jacket. One of his thin arms bore a tattoo that Louie couldn’t make out. Behind him, three more teenagers followed, so closely they touched one another. Something both nervous and angry in their steps.
“The knee, Louie, you still getting those shots?”
Louie could see all four teens looking at him from behind. He could see Mean Lady turning slowly, then fully, as if she recognized the youths and didn’t like their faces.
The guns came up at the same moment Louie’s adrenaline surged. Bullets smashed the mirror and Mean Lady yelled. Deep, almost like a man. Sean went to the floor, shielding his head. Louie went over the bar, rolling, and launching himself toward the kitchen area door.
Mean Lady took a bullet in the forehead and was pitched back against the bar bottles. People were screaming from the tables. Louie passed through the kitchen, overtook a running chef and a dishwasher. Both men dove to the ground, thinking that Louie might be one of the shooters.
In the back parking lot, Louie kept running. He knew that Sean was all right. Only four shots had been fired. Three had hit the mirror and one had struck Mean Lady. Sean was savvy enough to stay low and still. A professional. Louie was certain of that.
So he didn’t look behind him as he slowed his run to a casual jog and made his way to the motel. The phone in his room was ringing off the night table. Could be Sean, he thought, but could be trouble. People looking for him. Those Chinese youths were some kind of street gang, the kind that serves a bigger and badder organization.
Breathless, Louie sat on the edge of his unmade motel bed and listened to the phone ring. Maybe they were aiming for Mean Lady. Maybe she hadn’t paid lucky money to a Chinatown street gang. Or maybe they had come in to off Louie, shoot him in the back while seated at the bar.
He had to get out of Vancouver.
Had to catch a bus because he couldn’t afford another flight. Had to find somewhere else where he could get lost, yet still keep some tenuous hold on the only work he really knew how to do. When his doorknob moved and someone tried to get in, he sprung from the bed, moved to the tiny bathroom. But it was only housekeeping, a Mexican girl who never waited more than two knocks to unlock the door and enter. When she saw Louie, she began to apologize and leave.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said.
He set two crimped and sweaty Canadian dollars on the bed, grabbed his duffel bag, and left the room. As he hurried his way to the Greyhound station, baseball cap and sunglasses on, he made a decision under pressure. He was hardwired to do that, still alive because of it.
Los Angeles. Hollywood. He knew people. Kind of. It’s where he should have gone in the first place.
9
THE COFFEE BEAN
Avi Ghazaryan sat alone at an outside table at 8591 Sunset Plaza Drive. It was an overcast morning, a tad cool for late June. Although he rented office space at Lantana in Santa Monica, the place was making him nervous. Too many fly-by-night productions came and went, often coming in with money, going out broke and looking scared, just to hang their shingle at Lantana for six months and roll legit. Avi much preferred his table at the Coffee Bean and was seriously thinking about putting its Sunset Plaza address on his business card. He could say he had an office upstairs, but he preferred casual outdoor meetings.
It was a soothing ritual: The L.A. Times spread open under a double espresso and a script, his focus on his iPhone, scrolling the trades. But he was brooding today,
still surly over Tyler at Paramount. It had taken a few days, but the WME boys had gotten him in to see the production prez. Tyler, he’d felt, screwed him again. The meeting itself felt like a home run. At one point during the pitch, Tyler interrupted and asked if the concept had any foreign value. Avi had come prepared, leaned forward in his chair:
“Cross a street in London, there he is. In Germany he wears a hat—they call him Ampelmännchen. In Mexico City, he moves his feet. Taiwan? At every crossing you will find him. What do you mean, ‘foreign’? The guy is as international as fucking Robin Hood. Or Snow White.”
Avi let the words sink in: Robin Hood. Snow White. International. Home run. Grand slam, even. Yet in the elevator, going down, Avi had a nagging feeling. No sooner was he out the door, he imagined, than Tyler turned to his D-girl and had her call Sacco and Vanzetti or whatever their names were, that young writing team barely out of braces that had the Midas Touch of the month. He’d pitch Caution to those eager little gamers as if it were his own idea, have them tag-team a draft in a month’s time. The business always had a reptilian scent, but it was worse these days. At least reptiles had blood in their veins, cold as it might be. This new breed was robotic. Robotic cannibals, eating the scrap metal of their comrades and crapping out homogenous product. How badly he missed the old days when dirtbags had souls and studio heads didn’t have names like Tyler.
Scrolling Nikki Finke, Avi’s mind went to his next fixation: Troy Raskin. Little motherfucker. The clock was ticking. Avi needed a cut to show his nervous investors, especially Hektor’s L.A. crew from Little Guatemala; they were getting antsy. He had paid a grand to Papagallo’s guy and heard that a “persuader” made a visit to Troy, gave him a real-world warning. He’d see now if that had put a fire under his ass. Then Avi could put together a distribution deal, the fun stuff.
“Avi,” a voice said. The guy who pulled up two chairs wasn’t just fat, he was the kind of guy who got kicked off of planes for taking up a row of seats. He wore bling over a bright blue-and-black-striped tracksuit and a baseball hat turned backward, and he talked like a brother even though he looked Polish American. “Where’s the movie, yo?”
