Death in Nostalgia City

by Mark S. Bacon

  “Bobby, nice to see you,” Kate said, accepting a show-biz smack on the cheek and a generous hug that lasted a second too long. She held a sheaf of papers in her hand. She had just stepped out of her department offices into the elevator lobby when Bostic spotted her.

  “I heard a rumor you were here,” he said. “You work for NC now?”

  “Yes. My first week.” She pointed to the sign leading to the public relations office.

  Up close, Bobby Bostic’s hardened features made him look more like Bobby Botox. It was a nasty thought, but Kate was in a hurry and didn’t have patience for Bostic. Several years ago, she’d gone out of her way to obtain superstar publicity for him when he played the Vegas hotel where she worked.

  In return, Bostic became a querulous pest. He hung around her office, complaining about other stars who got bigger stories and, on one occasion, hitting on her. Uck. What a thought.

  “So, how are you doing?” he asked. “Are you still going with the football player?”

  “Bruce hasn’t played football in years, but yes. We’re looking to buy a house in the area.”

  “Did Max lure you away from Vegas?”

  Kate nodded. “Are you going to be appearing here? Is the band still the same?”

  “Oh yes. Same guys. Listen, Kate, can I talk to you for a minute? You could really help me. Is there some place we could go?”

  “Uh, sure.” Kate led him around a corner to a small conference room. She left the door open.

  “Kate, Kate, Max is trying to put us out of business. You’ve got to stop him.”

  “Hold on a minute, Bobby. Now, what’s Max doing?”

  “He’s dumping real groups like mine. Haven’t you seen the calendar? Next month, Danny’s Review is going to be here. They’re not originals. They’re kids, Kate, kids who do rip-offs. They copy everybody’s material, and they even dress like us.”

  “Don’t they do tributes to the stars of rock and roll?”

  “Tributes? Tributes? Know what that means? They steal your songs, they steal your ideas, and they put you out of business. What kind of tribute is that?”

  “Aren’t they just impressionists?”

  “Impressionists? Hell, no. Dana Carvey. He does impressions. He does a good one of me. But he doesn’t make a living being Bobby Bostic. See what I mean?” Bostic started to sweat.

  “Wait a minute, Bobby.”

  “I figured a place like Nostalgia City would hire the originals, not fakes. There’s another tribute group booked here later. This sucks. I hate it. Somethin’s gotta be done.”

  “Done?” she said, noticing Bostic’s momentarily clenched fist.

  “Talk to Max. You know him, Kate. Talk to him.”

  “Max doesn’t book talent. He probably isn’t even aware there’s a problem.”

  “Yes, he is. Mel Levy said Max told him they had to streamline the budget. Cut talent expenses. I’m booked for this summer--but just a long weekend! Mel says Max likes the idea of fake groups.”

  As he spoke, his voice rose, but his expression stayed the same. Maybe he really did have Botox shots.

  “Take it easy. I’ll look into it. And I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be a regular here.”

  “Maybe. But you know Bif Stevens, from Bif and the Rondos?”

  “I think so.”

  “I saw him in Branson last week. His agent told him Nostalgia City wouldn’t hire him ’cause they could hire a rip-off group for half the money. Then he told me there was some trouble here. I read about the accidents.”

  “What does that have to do with Bif Stevens?”

  “Nothing.” He patted Kate’s arm. “I just don’t want you to get a bad name. People won’t want to come here.”

  Kate looked at her watch. “Look, Bobby, four days ago twenty five people were hurt in a crash. We’ve kind of got our hands full.”

  “So you don’t care about performers?”

  “Bobby. That’s not fair. I said I’ll look into it.”

  Kate ushered the aging rock star back to the elevator lobby.

  “This is serious,” Bobby said over his shoulder as he entered the elevator. “We’re talking about livelihoods here,” he shouted through the closing elevator door. “Somethin’s gotta be done.”

  Kate turned to go and almost bumped into a man behind her.

  “Was that Bobby Bostic?”

  “The one and only.”

  “He looks different than on TV. Must be the makeup.”

  “Could be.”

  The man paused momentarily, so Kate introduced herself. Kevin Waterman was average height, five inches or so shorter than Kate. His blond hair was thinning prematurely; puffy eyes were the only distinctive characteristic in his bland face. Kate thought he looked like an accountant, an assumption he seemed to confirm when he told her he worked on the fourth floor.

  “Finance?” Kate asked.

  “No.”

  “I thought accounting took up the whole floor.”

  “It does, except for my office. I work for FedPat Corporation.”

  “A vendor?”

  “We’re investors, really. My title is liaison officer.”

  She was just about to ask what that meant, when the nearby door to the public relations office opened and Joann motioned to her. Kate excused herself.

  “A tourist just died,” Joann said.

  Chapter 18

  “Y’all tryin’ to bribe me?” Gayle LeBlanc asked as Lyle set a carton of doughnuts on the counter. “You wouldn’t be looking for a car to be ready, would ya?”

  LeBlanc eyed the box with mock suspicion. Lyle felt guilty bringing in the deep fried goodies when he saw the manager of the NC garage. She’d never be mistaken for Twiggy. She probably outweighed Lyle by seventy-five, maybe one hundred pounds. But to be charitable, half a pound was makeup.

  Gayle’s looks, however, weren’t the reason she was hired. She ran the sprawling NC repair and body shop as efficiently as a high-priced spa. Fenders, doors, and other body parts were smoothed out, sprayed with a glistening coat of paint, then placed under sunlamps. Gayle’s harried crew then followed her thorough directions to make sure the various parts got back to their original vehicles.

  Lyle had heard about the NC shop, and that you had to get on the good side of Gayle if you wanted to get your car fixed quickly. Sometimes the shop ran a week or two behind with body work. So on the way back from the reservation, he’d stopped and picked up a dozen Krispy Kremes.

  The manager’s desk sat on a platform so she could look out at the service bays and stations spread throughout the hangar-sized building. Her perch, Lyle thought, gave LeBlanc the appearance of a well-fed monarch. In a way, she was.

  “How many cars you figure we work on a day?” she teased Lyle. “I’ll tell you how many. Twenty, sometimes twenty-five. That’s a load o’ cars. I used to run one of the biggest body shops in Miami. That was nuthin’ like this. These old clunkers need constant attention. We’re either tuning ’em up, patching ’em up, or restoring ’em. Now don’t tell me. You have a cab, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do. It only had a smashed bumper and a few air holes in the trunk lid, but it’s been out of commission for a long time.”

  “It’s not a high priority, honey. There’s no shortage of cabs. The rental cars, they bring in the big bucks. We have to keep them runnin’.”

  “I understand. I just prefer driving my own taxi, if possible.”

  “Wait a sec.” LeBlanc’s chubby fingers started tapping her keyboard.

  “You’re Deming, Lyle Deming, right? Oh, Lord. I remember. You’re the guy almost got creamed by that runaway.”

  “That’s me. What ever happened to that Torino? I’d like to find out.”

  “We laid it to rest, ya know? Carlos can tell you.”

  She stood up and turned toward a row of junked cars that looked as if they’d been sitting in the desert since Liz Taylor played Cleopatra. “Hey, Carlos, you out there?”

 
Soon, a swarthy man in surprisingly clean work clothes stuck his head up and walked around from behind a rusted Mercury Comet.

  “That’s Carlos, honey,” LeBlanc said. “Go see him for your cab.”

  “Thanks.”

  “One good deed deserves ’nuther,” Gayle said, popping open the doughnut carton.

  Lyle introduced himself to Carlos Ortiz who had his name stitched on his shirt along with the word supervisor. Perhaps that explained the spotlessness of the shirt, though Lyle noticed the man’s slender fingers were obviously used to work.

  Lyle pointed to the Comet. “This one ever going to make it to the streets?”

  “Too far gone. We’ll use it for spare parts. Are you looking for your car? We’ll deliver it when it’s ready.”

  “I know. Just wanted to look around a little. I’m curious how you guys restore these old beauties.”

  “What’s your car?”

  “Seventy-three Dodge taxicab.”

  “Hey, you the guy--”

  “I’m him.” Lyle wasn’t even going to mention the monorail crash.

  He and Ortiz wandered slowly down the rows of service stalls looking at the irregular collection of ’60s and ’70s cars in various stages of restoration. Many were large American sedans: an Olds Toronado, a Plymouth Fury, and a Buick Riviera. Farther down, they came to several foreign cars.

  “That looks like a Renault,” Lyle said. “Those things sold new for less than $2,000.”

  “Close,” Ortiz said. “That’s a ’67 Simca. It’s kind of rare. They were imported by Chrysler. It does look like a Renault. And a little like a Corvair.”

  “Where’d you get all these?” Lyle asked as they walked. “Collectors?”

  “No, they charge too much. We look for cars that need work, junkers sometimes. We buy from auctions, but many come from Mexico and other Latin American countries.”

  “How do you get ’em up here?”

  “Mexican brokers send us some, but we’ve got a guy who travels the Southwest and Mexico, looking for old cars in garages, backyards, farms. Save money that way.”

  “What happened to the four-door Torino that did all the damage?”

  “We went over it for security. It was all smashed up.”

  “What about the parking brake?”

  “Release was worn. Could’ve slipped.”

  Lyle stopped walking and turned to Ortiz. “Really? Just an accident, like they said?”

  “Maybe an accident. That’s what I told the sheriff.”

  Lyle didn’t mention that the transmission was in neutral when he saw it after the crash.

  “I think the driver’s side wind wing was pried open. Did you notice that?”

  Ortiz shrugged.

  “Did you see the ignition? I wondered if it was--”

  “Hotwired? Coulda’ been. Some ignition wires were ripped out when the car was brought in. Crash would’na caused that.”

  “The old models were easy to hotwire. Not like today. What’d you tell the sheriff?”

  “Head security guy investigated first. Told me what he thought happened.”

  “I bet he told you it would be best for everyone if this was just an accident, right?

  Ortiz looked at the floor.

  Lyle let it drop. He stepped over to a Plymouth with its hood up. “Carlos, this Valiant doesn’t have an engine or tranny.”

  “It’s one of the prop cars. From outside they look normal, but they don’t have a power train and sometimes the suspension is shot.”

  “It’s one of the cars that are parked on the streets.”

  “Si, for looks.”

  “I’ve seen guys moving them around at night.”

  “They tow ’em around so they don’t sit in the same place all the time.”

  “Are they locked?”

  “We keep ’em locked so people can’t get inside. There’s a little ring you pull, under the wheel well, to pop the driver’s door.”

  “So your wrecks that are too far gone either become a prop car or a mini spare parts depot.”

  “That’s what happened to the Torino. Spare parts.”

  Chapter 19

  “Wrongful death suit?” Kate said. “Don’t know anything about it.”

  That didn’t take the Chen family very long, she thought. Monday morning, one week after the monorail catastrophe, Kate was surprised by a phone call from the Associated Press.

  Albert Chen, a 68-year-old visitor from San Francisco, had suffered serious head injuries in the monorail crash. He’d lasted four days in the hospital. His death the previous Friday had kept NC’s troubles at the top of the news statewide. By the last count, Kate’s office had received 137 media calls since the monorail crash, and YouTube hits reached more than 1.5 million.

  “The suit’s being filed in Phoenix,” the reporter said, “by the family of the Houston man killed in the car crash last month.”

  Kate took a deep breath and was glad she hadn’t made some remark about the Chen family. “Obviously I don’t have any information on it,” she said. “I’ll have to find out and get back to you.”

  Before she could put the phone down and pick it up again, Joann walked in and put the new attendance reports on her desk. Kate turned the report face down as she dialed the phone, looking for information on the lawsuit. No luck. Max was out of the building. Executive VP Brent Pelham was in a meeting.

  She wandered out to Joann’s desk in time to hear her secretary answer the phone. Joann scribbled on her notepad: Phoenix Standard -- Craig Gibbons. Kate made an “I’m-not-here” gesture and headed out the door in a rush.

  Two minutes later, she stepped off the elevator on the executive level. She found Brent Pelham in the coffee room. The tall man in his late thirties was filling his cup. He turned around when Kate walked in.

  “We just got socked with a wrongful death suit by that ego-maniac attorney Craig Gibbons,” Kate said, dispensing with pleasantries. “The media want to know our comments. Do we have any?”

  “I just heard about it.”

  And were you going to keep it a secret? Kate thought. She just looked at him, her brows arched.

  “I was on my way to call you,” Pelham said, forcing a thin smile. “Sorry, I should have known Gibbons would release it to the media immediately.”

  Kate had met Pelham the week before. As executive vice president of NC, he was second in command, but Kate knew that anyone who was second to Max had as much authority as Napoleon’s second in command. Nonetheless, Pelham had an impeccable background, including experience as CFO at another theme park and, Kate remembered, a Stanford advanced degree. Max hired good people. And often, he let them do their jobs.

  “I thought we settled with the family,” Kate said.

  “We were close. We gave them a big offer. But after the monorail thing they changed their minds.”

  “Gibbons’ll make a media circus out of this.”

  “To force a bigger settlement. Max has good outside counsel. Maybe we can get a quick agreement.”

  “I’ll tell the press we can’t comment on the specifics because it’s in litigation and then give them ten minutes worth of sound bites on the extraordinary steps we’re taking to assure safety. That sound okay?”

  Pelham nodded, the light glinting off his glasses. He had a sprinkling of acne scars that gave him a rough look, out of place with his three-piece suit. “I see you’re finding your way around here now.”

  “Haven’t taken a breath. I keep trying to stay two steps ahead of the media and learn all about this place at the same time.”

  “If I can help...”

  “Yes, you can,” she said. “What’s a liaison officer?”

  Pelham was Kate’s height, but he didn’t look her directly in the eye. “Like in government service?”

  “No. Like in FedPat Corporation.”

  Kate could see Pelham realized what she was talking about.

  “Oh, you mean Kevin Waterman.”

  “Does he
work here?”

  “Yes, uh huh.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s an accountant, a CPA.”

  “And he’s here because FedPat is our biggest investor?” Kate briefly had looked into NC’s finances after she’d met Waterman.

  “It’s not unheard of for large institutional investors to have liaison people in place.”

  “What is he, a watchdog?”

  “Not really. More of a financial consultant. It gives FedPat some input.”

  “Into corporate decisions?”

  “He attends some management meetings. He’s concerned with performance standards.”

  Kate wondered if Brent played poker. He was able to maintain the same expression, no matter what he said. “FedPat is the parent company of Federal Patrician Insurance, right?” she asked.

  Pelham nodded.

  “What’s an insurance company doing investing in a theme park?”

  “Insurance companies invest in lots of businesses,” he said. “Nostalgia City was a good choice.”

  Kate still thought it unusual that FedPat had an employee working at NC, but then she was in PR, not finance.

  “Why do you ask?” he said.

  “Just curious. Like I said, I’m trying to learn my way around.”

  Chapter 20

  Wandering through the brightly lit store, Lyle paused to look at a framed and matted oil company road map that dated from the 1950s. It showed a portion of Route 66 stretching across north-central New Mexico through Tucumcari and Gallup.

  Lyle turned over the price tag. “Whoa. Seven hundred for a map? And they’re free at the Auto Club.”

  “That’s an original, not a reproduction.” The matronly clerk had silently walked up behind Lyle. She smiled eagerly, showing exceptionally white teeth.

  “Bet my dad had a map like this. He should have saved it.”

  Except for Nostalgia City ashtrays and shot glasses, the Route 66 Emporium and Museum was stocked with tasteful gifts and artwork. Lyle picked up an Indian pitcher.