“Shusheth thy mouths, captives!” Marvin demanded, clearly offended. “Tomorrow shall be thy testing. So prepareth yourselves, oh ye of little brains, for absorbing wisdom from my soon-to-be bestseller.” He pulled the glossy-covered book from inside his robe and held it high.
“The Dummies’ Guide to Zealotism?” asked DJ Ned, unable to see the title for lack of light.
“The Marvinci Mode.”
With a swoosh of his robe Marvin the Apostle left the dank room, and this time he tugged his purple train through the threshold before slamming the door.
Before anyone could swallow his next bite of fish sandwich, the burliest guard reopened the door and counted down dinnertime on his watch. All this coming and going was confusing to the captives, but Lanny and crew ate without complaint and tried to look as energetic as possible. The guard counted off the last seconds and told Crackhead to collect the paper plates and dump them in a plastic bag, which he did.
Everyone settled back into their lawn chairs, and the guard stood in the doorway and gripped the frames. “Everyone comfy now? Everyone gonna sleep well before facing the next level of reform?”
The Former Donald reclined the back of his lawn chair and tested it for squeaks. Then he stood again and addressed the guard. “Sir, I have a question.”
“About the lawn chairs? These are the only beds you’ll get.” He swept his arm across the room like a furniture salesman.
“No, not about our accommodations,” said the Former Donald.
“About Marvin’s? He sleeps in his Lear Jet.”
“Not that, either,” said the Former Donald. “I was wondering, since there are so many buildings left to be whitewashed, if my team of four could be allowed to work a night shift and possibly earn points for initiative… or at least good attitudes.”
Lanny and DJ Ned and MC Deluxe all nodded earnestly, as if they loved the idea.
The guard rubbed his chin and said, “Let me check on that.” He shut the door, and the room plunged again into total darkness.
The men lay on their backs and put their hands behind their heads. “Think he fell for it?” Ned asked.
“Let’s hope so,” Lanny replied.
“Gullible religious dudes always fall for it.” MC whispered.
Five minutes later the guard returned with four spotlights, extension cords, and a little red wagon filled with paint buckets and brushes.
The Former Donald rose from his lawn chair and thanked the guard in a manner that could only be described as overly enthusiastic. DJ Ned and MC Deluxe quickly volunteered to carry the extension cords and spotlights.
Lanny was last out the door—and was left with the duty of pulling the wagon of paint buckets and brushes. He felt embarrassed to be pulling a little red wagon through Cuba, though he’d do anything to assist with the escape plan and renew his search for Miranda.
Down the baked streets of Havana, the guard led the foursome past the building they had whitewashed earlier in the day, and on to an abandoned, four-story apartment building. A rusty fire escape ran from top to bottom on one side, and the grafitti of forty summers covered every brick and crevice.
“This one looks like it needs lots of work,” the Former Donald said, first to remove the lid from his bucket and take up his brush.
The others hooked their extension cords to spotlights and lay the lights face up on the sidewalk, beaming up the side of the building.
Their initiative impressed the guard, and he stepped back into the street and crossed his arms, surveying their progress. For a good hour—it was now just after 10:00 p.m.—he stood and observed. Spaced in their usual ten-foot intervals, the foursome painted with diligence, very aware that they were being watched.
“What now?” whispered MC Deluxe, re-dipping his brush.
“Shhh,” Lanny whispered back. “Maybe he’ll get sleepy or visit the restroom and leave us out here alone.”
The guard remained in the street, monitoring progress, occasionally moving one of the spotlights to adjust its beam. For a long time he sat on the curb with a flashlight and read the first chapter of The Marvinci Mode. Meanwhile DJ Ned tried to appear calm by whistling while he painted, though he remained stuck on the chorus of “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
MC Deluxe could not take much of that. “Don’t you know any other songs?”
“Perhaps you’d like to rap for us while we paint?” Ned shot back.
The Former Donald moved between the two men. “Relax,” he whispered, “each of you can have a turn at steering the yacht.”
Sometime after midnight the guard told the men that he had eaten some bad fish and would thus be reading Marvin’s next chapter in a Portalette. He said he would check back with them before quitting time, which he set at 2:00 a.m. He began to walk away but turned with one last comment. “I’m only allowing you captives to work five hours. This is because we want you fresh for Marvin’s lecture on the long-term advantages of joining the big team. And we all want to know the advantages of joining the big team, don’t we?”
He made a whipping motion with his right hand and walked away.
All four kept painting and did not reply, although MC did give a brief wave with his brush, if only to urge the guard to leave.
As soon as the guard was out of sight, the Former Donald hurried to the fire escape and climbed the metal stairs to the roof. Lanny peered up from the sidewalk. “Can ya see anything?”
“The yacht is still there,” said the Former Donald. “And the lights are off at the estate.” He hurried back down the metal stairs to find the others anxious, waiting to bolt.
“Which way do we run?” asked Ned, dropping his brush in a paint bucket.
The Former Donald pointed south. “We go down one block, then left at the next street, then it’s about a mile to the waterfront.”
MC Deluxe wiped his hands on his shorts, flexed his leg muscles backward like a sprinter, and said, “Let’s get goin’, then.”
Lanny said, “Wait, guys. There’s something else we can do to help ourselves.” He went over to the unpainted part of the apartment building and stood against it, nose to brick. “Someone come paint around me,” he said. “Quick, do it.”
“What?” asked Ned, incredulous at this stupid idea. “Let’s get going, Lann-o.”
The Former Donald was the first to catch on. He saw the spotlights casting Lanny’s shadow against the wall. “Lanny’s right. Grab a brush.”
The three others painted white around Lanny as he faced the brick wall and raised his right arm as if it held a brush. When they finished and he stepped away, Ned and MC realized the effect—a guard peeking from down the street would see the silhouette of a man painting. And though it might only buy them a few minutes, those minutes could be critical.
“Do me next,” whispered MC Deluxe. He faced the wall some ten feet farther down than Lanny, held his arm high in the brushing position, and watched the others paint around him.
The Former Donald was next to face the wall, followed by Ned, whose silhouette turned out extra pudgy due to everyone being in a hurry to finish.
With the spotlights shown at just the right angle, the result was startling. At night and from a distance, the effect was of four men of varying height in the midst of painting a wall. MC being the tallest at six-feet two, Ned and The Former Donald the shortest at five-nine, and Lanny somewhere in the middle.
They left the buckets, the brushes, and the little red wagon on the sidewalk and ran down the street, heading the opposite direction from the dark and dank room. Past a dilapidated school and more graffiti—“Cuba Libre!” spray-painted on three consecutive store fronts—then past a basketball court and two cats on a fence, the men ran sweating into the night.
“Left now,” whispered the Former Donald, running in a threesome with Lanny and MC.
DJ Ned trailed behind, panting. The next street was even darker than the last, and though the men all listened for the sound of sire
ns, none blared.
Ahead lay Castro’s compound. Beyond that was the bay. Nearly out of breath from the long run, the foursome was relieved to see that the fence bordering the estate, instead of being barbed wire, was stone and masonry, perhaps seven feet in height. They stood panting, hands on hips, surprised to see an auctioneer’s sign propped against the wall. The top half was written in Spanish, the bottom in English:
Notice of auction: Mansion and yacht to be auctioned off on September 2. Bidders must register before bidding. Monies to go toward construction of one of Marvin the Apostle’s language schools on Puerto Rico. Thou shalt bid high!
“Does this make anyone feel bad about stealing the yacht?” Lanny asked, one hand already atop the wall.
“Nah,” Ned whispered, “They can still auction it off from the States when they find it. They’ll get higher bids there anyway.”
Lanny was first up the wall—with a boost from MC. He helped the others over, they pulled him by the arms, and together they ran across acres of manicured lawn.
“Castro must have a thing for Bermuda grass,” said the Former Donald, as if anyone cared.
They stopped and knelt in the grass when they thought they heard a siren. But it was just an electronic keyboard, sounding from the area of the guard quarters.
On their bellies now, the foursome crawled across the lawn, past a cobblestone driveway and a military jeep, then to the low stone wall on the waterfront. A long wooden pier extended out to the yacht. Midway down the pier, a single yellow light shone from atop a pole, and a pair of gulls sat in slumber on the railing.
The bay appeared tepid and motionless, almost innocent. Nervously glancing over their shoulders, MC Deluxe and DJ Ned waited for the Former Donald to tell them what to do next.
Lanny, however, was already running down the pier.
Two blocks off Rodeo Drive, I entered the plush., long-windowed office of producer Mylan Weems. A very blonde and very polished secretary had just shown me in. “Mylan is a busy man,” she whispered on her way out.
He was on the phone, so we exchanged nods. I sat in his guest chair—mahogany, I think. I glanced first out his windows at sundrenched Los Angeles, then at his awards displayed prominently along a burgundy wall, gallery lighting to boot. He kept talking and smiling and switching the phone from ear to ear. For the next ten minutes I watched business being done the California way: Showy, classy, and with glimmers of attitude.
I felt out of place. On one side of that opulent desk sat this producer, a man of gray hair and handsome wrinkles etched from decades of big deals and big dollars. And on the other side, Ned Watson of Atlanta, a man of slight paunch, formed from too many donuts and Saturday afternoon bar-b-ques. For all of her strange ways, Angie made a killer bar-b-que.
I was intimidated, and I think Mylan knew it;even before he hung up and introduced himself, he knew it.
After he’d shaken my hand and we’d settled into our seats, he began with compliments. My previous experience with producers had led me to believe they usually began in this manner. “Great tie, Nick. I, too, love orange.”
“It’s Ned.”
“Right, sorry.” A slight blush. He picked up a stack of paper from his desk, Larry’s title page on top. He thumped it in the center. “Ned, I was interested after the first chapter, very interested after six. Then last week, as I was reading the reform school thing, well—” he picked up a silver-framed picture from his desk and turned it so that I could have a look. It was the producer and his wife at the Oscars, posing with Jane Seymour and Kate Winslet. “Your manuscript may never capture this kind of attention, but someday there might be potential for something low-budget.”
Nervous, I nodded at his prized picture. “Yessir. I don’t expect for this to—” I was choking. “But I feel like it has at least some potential. My wife, however, she—”
“Protested, right?” He sat the picture back on his desk and smiled at it. “You told me about her over the phone. Is this going to be a problem?”
I figured that’s why he began with compliments, so that he could ease into his concerns over Angie starting some kind of grassroots protest. “I doubt it. She’s just a bit reactionary… a Southern Baptist.”
“And yourself?”
“I’m not reactionary at all.”
“I meant are you a Southern Baptist?”
Nerves and fear and guilt all assembled at once in my head. Would confessing this small detail make or break a deal? Nah, I’d play it straight. Perhaps a smidgen of vaguery, just to be safe. “Maybe once a month. You know, to keep the wife happy.”
He nodded, smoothed his thick gray hair. “Ned, the last thing we’d want, if we were to commit to the project, would be some kind of grassroots protest forming out of the Bible Belt.”
Maybe the guy is a mind reader. “I guess it might depend on the ending, Mr. Weems.”
His eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. “That’s the other thing I wanted to mention. This manuscript I read doesn’t contain an ending to speak of. Am I missing some pages?”
“No, sir. Larry Hutch is writing the ending this week.”
He sat up, tapped his fingers on his desk, adjusted his framed picture again. “I’d like to read that ending as soon as possible. But you do know that Hollywood likes to invent their own endings.…”
“Yes, but perhaps we should see what Larry comes up with.”
He thumbed the pages, chewed his bottom lip. “Yes… perhaps.” He had avoided all mention of monies and deal points, and I knew better than to push. And yet, he’d paid for my plane ticket to come out and meet with him, so I figured he was somewhat serious. Plus, he looked like he wanted to say something. “Before I get to required deal points, and what we might be able to offer, I’d first—”
His secretary buzzed in.
Mylan checked his caller I.D. and covered the receiver with his hand. “Ned, my medieval drama is about to start shooting in New Zealand. This one has me by the throat. A-list actors, big budget, the works.… I’m sure you understand.” He gestured toward his door. “Mind waiting outside?”
“Of course.” I rose from my chair and took two steps back. “I’ll just, um, wait in the lobby.”
He picked up his phone with his left hand, offered a brief wave with his right. No eye contact;he was staring out his middle window at L.A. in all its palm-treed splendor. I opened his door and glanced one last time. He was smiling at his fair city and switching his phone from ear to ear.
Out in the lobby I sat alone and checked my cell phone for messages. One from Angie, six from Larry. I knew what Larry wanted—an update. Angie, however, had left the kind of message that was a rarity for her—an apology. Of sorts. I listened to it a second time. “Ned, perhaps I overreacted. Okay, I’m sure I did. But I have some news: I just found out that the church is under budget, so I thought I would humor you with what one of the ladies in my women’s group suggested. She suggested that I urge you to get Larry to tone things down a bit so thatgou could cut a big deal for his work and we could tithe generously. Sixteen of twenty women—all of them protestors—thought this a great idea, but I hope you’ll be pleased to know that I was not one of the sixteen. Is it possible that this women’s group is my own double-bogey? A bad influence? Anyway, I’m a mess today. I’ll pick you up outside the United terminal at 6:35 tomorrow evening.”
Tithe generously? I’d flown to California, only to discover that my wife was hanging out with fruitcakes.
I folded my phone and set it back in my briefcase. I had the briefcase open at my feet, digging for a pen, when I noticed that a pair of rather long legs were occupying the seat next to me. These legs were muscular and toned and covered in black fishnet stockings.
I sat back in my chair and felt the stranger staring at me.
I glanced to my right. She was taller than me, had bigger arms than me, and wore a tight yellow skirt and blouse. Her hair was large and platinum. Her eyelashes could have doubled as a broom.
&
nbsp; She noticed that I’d noticed. Then she nodded and smiled.
I nodded and noticed her very broad shoulders. Too broad. Much too broad for a broad.
She batted those eyelashes, crossed her fishnet legs. “Your suspicions are correct, sir,” she said, kicking her leg up and down.
Was everyone in Hollywood so perceptive and direct? I turned uncomfortably in my chair. “You’re a—”
“Yes, that’s correct.” She fluffed her thick hair and glanced at her nails. “But don’t worry, I’m harmless. Mylan just asked me to try out for a part.”
“For the dark medieval movie being shot in New Zealand?”
“No, a sci-fi thriller in the wine country.”
“Ah.”
Small talk was over, and she picked up a pair of magazines from the coffee table.
Gender confusion rocked my brain. I had never sat beside, or spoken with, a cross-dresser. During the ensuing minutes, as I sat silently staring at the floor, I decided that I could do it—I could muster the energy to treat this person like anyone else. I was too reserved for a formal introduction, however, so I decided that I’d assign her some kind of neutral name in my mind, something like Lynn.
Lynn tossed a Hollywood Insider and the latest issue of People down on the coffee table.
I felt her staring.
“What is that?” she asked next. “Are you a screenwriter?”
“An agent.”
Lynn leaned a few inches closer, looking at the papers in my lap. “Must be good stuff if Mylan Weems wanted to see it.”
“I believe it’s decent,” I replied, trying my best to be humble. “Wacked but decent.”
Lynn admired her nails for a long minute. She reached inside her blouse and adjusted something, then something else, then turned her attention back to me. I could feel her staring over my shoulder.
“Mind if I…”
“Read?”
She checked her watch. “Yes, if you don’t mind. Looks like Mylan is going to be a while.”
I didn’t want anyone else to read;cutting a deal had me preoccupied. “I really don’t think… well, Mylan could call me back any minute now.”
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