The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “Charlie!” came a scream from the bedroom. Erica Collingwood appeared in the doorway, her golden hair disheveled. She was in the act of throwing on a robe and belting it about her waist. “What the fuck?” she cried, staring at the dead Jew on her floor.

  “Stay away from the windows!” barked Randall. “There may be more of them! You need to get dressed. Move!” Erica disappeared back into the bedroom and Randall quickly checked the door and all the windows. The courtyard appeared empty, although he noted Shulman’s parked Lincoln. He slipped into the back garden and peered over the wall. There was no sign of flashing lights or any other intruders, but he noticed that the light in Erica’s upstairs neighbor’s apartment had come on. He went back into the living room and checked out Shulman’s body, pulling his wallet from his now blood and feces-soaked trousers. “Do you know a guy named Martin Shulman?” he called into the bedroom, looking at Shulman’s driver’s license.

  Erica appeared in the bedroom door wearing jeans and a pullover sweater. Her feet were still bare. “Shit! That’s the Hebrew Hammer!”

  “The who?” asked Randall.

  “He’s a bad-ass Jew private dick the studio bosses use to do a lot of their dirty work. They call him the Hebrew Hammer. What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I checked the door,” Charlie told her. “He broke in. He must have disabled the security system somehow. He was carrying this.” Randall unzipped the gym bag and dumped its contents out onto the floor. He pawed through the pile, holding up the pliers and propane burner, unrolling the Velcro strap of scalpels and blades, and finally opening the plastic case of Dershowitz needles, and holding one up for her to see. “This is why he was here,” whispered Charlie, shaking with rage. “All this is for you, babe. He was here for you.”

  “He was going to torture me,” said Erica calmly. Her face was white with horror. “Probably kill me afterwards. He does that kind of shit for the studio Burger Kings. Did that kind of shit, I should say. He’s known for it. You saved my life, Charlie. Thank you.”

  “No worries, babe. When they cancel General Order Number Ten after the war you can buy me a beer and we’ll call it even. You’re lucky you’re so bloody delectable I just had to keep coming back for more.” Randall looked down at the corpse. “You’re lucky too, mate. You died way too quick.” He rammed the Dershowitz needle through Marty Shulman’s one remaining eyeball and into his brain. “Burn in hell, Jew!” Randall said in a low voice filled with loathing.

  Erica sighed in despair. “They’re onto me, Charlie. Damn, damn, damn!”

  “I know,” said Randall. “We’re going to have to pull you out.” There was a creaking on the ceiling from over their heads.

  “That’s Helen Morgan upstairs,” said Erica. “Nice lady, not a bad actress. She does a lot of bit parts on the daytime soaps. She must have heard the gunshots. You know she’s probably called the cops?”

  “Yeah, I saw her light come on.”

  “Charlie, please, don’t . . .”

  “No, no, not to worry. She’s got no idea what’s going on, she’s a civilian and we don’t hurt civilians when we can help it. What’s the police response time for this neck of the woods?”

  “Four or five minutes, depending on how busy they are.”

  “Then we need to hit the road, now. Get your bag.” Charlie had instructed Erica to put together an E & E kit containing essential items of clothing, money, and some false ID that she had been given by the NVA. Without a word she went into her bedroom and took the bag from the closet, and brought it back into the living room. “Anything else you want to take, load it up, but be quick about it,” said Randall. He went into the bedroom and quickly pulled on his own clothing and shoes. When he came out Erica was at her bookshelf, quickly selecting a half dozen volumes. “You’re taking your Henry Lawson?” asked Randall.

  “You bet,” she said. Police sirens were heard in the distance.

  “They’re playing our song, babe. We need to shoot through,” said Randall.

  Erica zipped up the canvas bag and took one last look around the apartment. “Well,” she said with a sigh. “Guess this is it. Twelve years past the hour. This town, this place, this craft, this life, all gone.”

  “I’m sorry, Erica,” said Randall compassionately. “Truly, I am.”

  “I was never one of those people who thought you could roll the dice but never put anything on the table, Charlie,” she told him. “I wouldn’t trade these past two months for anything on earth. No regrets. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  On a morning a week later, Julia Lear was sitting at the kitchen table in her own apartment in Burbank, having a late breakfast consisting of a croissant and half a grapefruit and turning over in her mind what to do with the rest of her life. Myron Silverstein seemed to have kept his word. Employment-wise, Los Angeles was now bone dry for her, at least as far as anything in show business went. She had made calls to as many people as she could think of anywhere in the television business or the movie industry, and in her years in California she had come to know many people. Most of them wouldn’t even return her calls, and those who did were sympathetic, but firm. The word was out on her. She was officially Poison, with a big Jolly Roger stamped on her forehead.

  “Julia, I’m damned sorry as I can be,” she’d been told by one executive producer, a man with whom she’d had a brief affair some years before. The affair had apparently left enough good memories behind it so he would still speak to her. “But you have to understand, it’s a nightmare out here. Everybody in town has paid their PC dues in one way or another, burned that pinch of incense on the altars of multiculturalism and diversity and buggery. Some of us burned more than a pinch. Now it turns out that some picture or TV show we were associated with in the past, even in a peripheral way, might get us killed. We never saw this coming, and now everybody’s going over in his own mind every line we ever wrote, every scene we ever shot or directed or acted in, wondering if we’re next on the NVA hit parade. Everybody’s running for cover. Even if you weren’t blacklisted, I’m not sure I could hire you for anything. Every project is dead in the water because the cast and crew are in hiding. The summer release lineup for theaters and DVD is decimated, and God only knows what the fall TV season is going to look like. But the fact is that you are blacklisted.”

  “Over a guy I knew in another life, when I was a teenager, a guy I haven’t seen in years and whom I’d run from in terror now if I saw him coming in the door,” Julia reminded him bitterly. “For all I know I might be on the NVA’s hit list myself, because Zack thinks I’m some kind of traitor for working for Jews, and they treat me like this!”

  “Yeah, it’s a tough break, kiddo, but it’s the break you got. Be glad those two FBI goons didn’t take you downtown and from there on to points unknown. You hear about it happening these days, more than once. After the bloodbath in the Kodak on Awards night, and then all these murders, and finally this incredible revelation about Erica Collingwood, the Big Boys are going completely batshit paranoid about everybody with a pale skin. They don’t know who they can trust. Neither does the FBI. They’re seeing Jerry Rebs under every bed. They’re lashing out in all directions. Hell, they were in here the other day giving me and all my white staff the third degree, not as bad as you because I’ve got a name in this town. Or had one, anyway. The rumor mill is roaring like a blast furnace. After Erica the bosses are supposed to be considering a complete ban on anyone of European descent working in movies or in TV who can’t document at least one gay or interracial sexual relationship.”

  “Well, that lets me out, so I probably would have been canned anyway,” said Julia with a chuckle. “Looks like you were smart after all to dump me for that China doll from marketing.”

  “Uh, Julie, I . . .”

  “Water under the bridge, Stan. I got over it. Thanks for calling. I know it’s probably not safe, and you’re taking a risk. I assume you’re using a pay phone so no one can tell from your phone records
that you’ve been in contact with me?”

  “Ah, yes, actually, I am,” said the man, somewhat disconcerted.

  “Jesus, Stan, that was a joke! Is it really that bad?” asked Julia in surprise.

  “It’s really that bad,” said Stan before he hung up.

  Now Julia sat disconsolately picking at her grapefruit, flipping idly through the tabloids she’d bought in the supermarket the night before through force of habit; part of her old job had been keeping up with the downmarket buzz. The front page of every tab displayed a video still of Erica Collingwood in her Prada gown, standing on the stage at the Kodak and about to make the presentation for Best Screenplay, with some caption to the effect of “a smile on her face and hate in her heart.” On the inside continuation there would be a studio head shot or a still from one of her TV shows or movies. The headline on the rag Julia was leafing through now shouted TRAITOR ERICA! Another tabloid’s lead article took a different line, sporting the headline IS ERICA ANOTHER VICTIM OF OSCAR NIGHT? This rag speculated that the NVA had kidnapped her, or murdered her and concealed her body. Marty Shulman as well rated spreads on the inside pages of most tabs, with some fuzzy photos of his cigar-chomping mug and a header along the line of P. I. TO THE STARS VOWED REVENGE ON OSCAR NIGHT KILLERS. The usual crap. Julia was stunned over the whole Erica Collingwood affair. She had known Erica casually from Fox and she didn’t know what to make of it. All she knew was that whatever the tabloids said was most likely nowhere near the truth of whatever had happened. The whole world seemed to be going mad.

  Julia knew she’d have to make a plan soon. She couldn’t afford the rent on this place with no job, and it looked like if she stayed in town and she did get something, temping for an insurance company or whatever, she wouldn’t earn anywhere near what Fox had paid her, so in any case she’d have to move to someplace cheaper. Leave L.A.? But where to? Going back to Astoria wasn’t much of a thought. Not only were her years as an assistant television producer not much recommendation for anything she might find open in Clatsop County, Oregon, but apparently her home town was now in the middle of a war zone, someplace the FBI and the media referred to as “NVA bandit country,” thanks to Zack Hatfield. Julia didn’t understand that. She still spoke with her mother and her brother Ted, the sheriff. Ted had told her by e-mail that he couldn’t discuss anything that was happening in the county because of “security considerations,” and then he’d sent her a postal letter telling her the phones were tapped and his e-mail monitored by the federal authorities, which confused Julia even more. Why on earth would the FBI be monitoring Ted’s phones and e-mail? He was the sheriff, for God’s sake! And when she spoke with her mother, her mom just rambled on and on about old neighbors and acquaintances and church stuff like nothing was happening, like she wasn’t living in the middle of a guerrilla insurgency. She actually sounded oddly happier and more at ease than normal. Julia had asked her mother several times over the past two years to move down to Los Angeles and live with her so she could be safe, and her mother had replied “Oh, no, dear, believe me, I’m a lot more safe right here than you are down there with all that horrible crime and all those drug addicts and gangs.”

  “Mom, just because you’re the sheriff’s mother doesn’t mean that you couldn’t become a victim of all that violent crazy stuff going on back home!” Julia had protested in exasperation. “In fact, you might be more at risk just because you are the sheriff’s mother! Ted can’t protect you all the time!”

  “You don’t understand, dear,” her mother had told her gently. “Ted isn’t the one who protects us all now.”

  “What do you mean?” Julia had asked.

  “Never mind, dear. When you come home for a visit next we can talk about it. In the meantime, little pitchers have big ears. But don’t worry, I’m quite safe.”

  Suddenly Julia’s cell phone rang. She picked it up, half expecting another obscene phone call of the kind she’d been getting ever since she was blacklisted. They all seemed to be from men with distinct New York accents who described in detail what they wanted to do to her, in bed and torture-wise. In several cases Julia had recognized the voices of some of her Jewish former co-workers at Fox, including a dignified vice president whom she knew had grandchildren and who had always treated her with unfailing courtesy until she had been tarred with the “Nazi bitch” brush. For some odd reason, these calls didn’t bother Julia. She had become familiar with Jews in her years in Hollywood, and familiarity must have bred contempt. Now she was a marked woman, she didn’t expect anything else from them. Usually she simply screened her calls through voice mail, but she was expecting a return call from another contact about a job this morning, and so she answered the phone herself, risking an outburst of filthy Yiddish obscenity. “Ms. Lear?” said a male voice.

  “Yes, this is Julia Lear,” said Julia.

  “Ms. Lear, this is Arnold Blaustein speaking, president of Paradigm Studios. Do you recognize my voice?”

  “Uh, yes, Mr. Blaustein, I do,” replied Julia, stunned.

  “How are you this morning?”

  “Up to shit, frankly. You’ve blacklisted me from my profession and you’re trying to run me out of town.”

  “Well, that’s actually what I want to speak with you about,” said Blaustein. The studio head had done some acting himself in his younger days, and he could still lay on a mellifluous voice and tone of genuine regret and concern. “I’ve spoken to Myron Silverstein about your case, and I have to say that I think he overreacted. I’d like to see what we can do to set things right.”

  “Who’s we?” asked Julia suspiciously.

  “Some of my fellow executives in the industry and I. Ms. Lear, I’d like for you to come in and have a talk with us. Right now, if it’s convenient. I think we can be of great mutual benefit to one another. In fact, I’m so eager to meet you that I’ve taken the liberty of sending my personal driver and limousine to your apartment to pick you up. He should be there in about an hour, but he’ll wait as long as you need to get ready, and then he’ll bring you here to Paradigm.”

  “One minute I’m blacklisted, and the next minute I’m getting invited to the Bunker?” gasped Julia. This was getting surreal.

  “Hey, what can I tell you?” said Blaustein. “This is Hollywood, where anything and everything is possible.”

  Julia remembered the pain of the FBI taser on her neck and the slaps on her head while she sat tied in her own office, and for a second or two she considered telling Blaustein where to get off, but she decided against it. In the first place, it was clear that the handwriting was on her wall, and this was almost certainly the last chance she would ever get to work in a profession she had come to love. Like it or not, Blaustein and his fellow Jews held the keys to the kingdom, and if she wanted back into the Emerald City the only way she’d get her Hollywood privileges restored would be from them. Also, she was intensely curious to find out what the devil was going on. “Sure,” she said. “An hour will be fine.”

  Since she didn’t know the exact nature of the occasion, after her shower Julia put on a neat and professional looking business suit, as if she was going to a job interview, which this might turn out to be for all she knew. The limo arrived promptly; the driver was a tall black man in a chauffeur’s uniform with a Blackwater insignia on it, who had a bulge under his jacket and must have doubled as a bodyguard for Blaustein, but that was situation normal in Tinseltown these days. She was definitely expected, because the car zipped right through the checkpoints and barriers at Paradigm. She was met at the entrance to the Bunker by an obsequious flunky in a sports jacket who escorted her directly through all the metal detectors and guard posts, into the elevator, and right up to a room on a sealed corridor, not the conference room but a luxuriously furnished lounge with plush carpet and leather armchairs and sofas. On her entrance, not only Blaustein but several of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Hollywood, which meant several of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, politely ros
e to their feet. Julia recognized Feinstein from Dreamworks-Disney, Glaser from TriVision, and Paradigm counsel Dave Danziger, as well as three other men she’d never seen before. Three of the seven were wearing blue yarmulkes. A buffet table in one corner was set with thermos dispensers of hot drinks and plates of exotic-looking sandwiches, even though it wasn’t lunchtime yet. A white-jacketed Hispanic waiter stood silently by. “Good morning, Ms. Lear,” said Blaustein graciously. He gestured toward the buffet. “Would you like coffee, or tea, or herbal? Or something stronger from the bar? A little nosh by way of brunch, perhaps?”

  “Uh, you got a double latté?” she asked, bemused. The waiter immediately drew her out a large ceramic cup of the white frothy liquid from one of the stand-up thermoses, brought it to her on a saucer with a napkin. At a brief head-jerk from Blaustein, he and the flunky left the room.

  “Have a seat, please, Ms. Lear,” said Blaustein, indicating an armchair with a coffee table beside it. Julia sat down, took a sip of the hot coffee and set it and the saucer down on the table. She decided to take the bull by the horns.

  “Mr. Blaustein, I have no idea on earth why you’ve asked me up here, but judging from the presence of these other gentlemen it must be something important,” she said. “You said on the phone you wanted to make things right regarding my blacklisting from employment in show business, something that I have to say right here and now I have done nothing to deserve.”

  “So I’ve been informed, Julia. May I call you Julia? You might as well call me Arnie.” Oh, God, here it comes, she thought. What the hell are these guys planning on doing to me?

  She went on in a calm but firm voice, “I was visited by the FBI, interrogated, intimidated, physically assaulted in my office, and fired from my job because a little over fourteen years ago I had a high school relationship with a man whom I haven’t seen since the summer I graduated. I know better than to expect any accountability from a government agency, and I haven’t even bothered to file a complaint that I know beforehand would be useless and probably just get me into more trouble, but frankly I expected better from an employer and an industry that I have served loyally, with enthusiasm and all the energy and creativity I could muster. I have earned every cent you have ever paid me. But not only was I fired by a security guard, with no chance to explain or tell my side of the story, but thanks to the gossip grapevine in this industry, I am now branded as Axis Sally, and no one will hire me. We all know perfectly well that you gentlemen in this room can turn that gossip mill on or off at will. I want to know what it will take for you to call off the dogs?”