“I told you I didn’t know what I was doing. I got a look at a Marvel or a DC contract, and those guys kept all rights, so I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I swear, I wasn’t trying to pull anything.”
“It seems to me that creators’ rights were an issue even then.”
“Hey, I didn’t force Leviathan to sign the contract. He could have tried someplace else.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tilda said in disgust. She’d met an awful lot of hungry writers, artists, and musicians who’d worked so hard and dreamed so long that they’d sign the first contract somebody put in front of them. She didn’t know if Fitzwilliam had really been that ignorant, or just sleazy, but it didn’t sound fair to her.
Fitzwilliam said, “If it makes you any happier, I didn’t make any money out of the movie deal, either, because I signed away all those rights way back when, long before Hollywood came calling. Nobody has even bothered to talk to me about it until now.” He sighed. “I sure wish I had a piece of that.”
Tilda was tempted to say that nobody had made him sign his contract either, but since she might need more information from him, she resisted the impulse.
“I’m really dying to see the movie,” Fitzwilliam said. “Hey, you think you could maybe get me into a movie preview or a premiere or something?”
“I could try. I bet they’d love the publicity if they could bring Leviathan and his original editor together.” Okay, she knew no such thing, but she’d write up the story herself if nobody else was interested.
“But I told you. I don’t know who Leviathan is.”
“You’ve got to have some clue. Didn’t he ever mention anything about where he was from, for instance?”
“Hell, it was over twenty years ago.”
“What about Alicia? Would she remember anything?”
“Alicia?”
“Tony Davis from the Million Year Picnic in Cambridge said he used to order from a woman named Alicia—he sends his regards.”
“Hang on.” Fitzwilliam must have moved his mouth from the receiver, but Tilda could still hear him yell, “Ma! I thought I told you not to flirt with my comic book customers.” There was a muffled response. “You remember some guy in Cambridge? Tony Davis?” Tilda heard giggles, and more answers. Then Fitzwilliam came back to the phone. “Alicia is my mother. She used to handle phone orders for me. I may have been working out of my basement, but I didn’t want anybody to know about it. Ma says to tell Davis that she remembers him, too, but she doesn’t know any more about Leviathan than I do.”
“Do you still have any files or anything you can look at, see if there is something you’ve forgotten?”
“I should still have some copies of our letters. I could look through them to see if there’s anything there, then let you know.”
“That would be great.” She gave him her contact info, and was about to end the call when he said, “I really hope you find him. I’d like him to get the credit he deserves. I mean, he really deserved a better publisher than me.”
Tilda said, “At least you had enough sense to bring out something good, and not another teenage mutant ninja creature. Though I kind of liked the hamsters.”
“Yeah, but the kangaroos were better.”
After a discussion that fortunately did not deteriorate to who was stronger—the Thing or the Hulk—they parted friends.
Chapter 12
Episode 16
When the Blastoffs land on a planet covered mostly by water, Sid wants to cancel their concert and blast off immediately. Marty realizes his big brother is afraid of water, and tries to help him through it. But it’s not until Marty falls in rough seas that Sid overcomes his fear to rescue him.
—SATURDAY MORNING SPREE BY CHARLES M. LUCE
TILDA wasn’t overly thrilled with her progress, but she wasn’t overly discouraged, either. It was just going to take a little more digging. She wasn’t ready to pull out the shovel that minute because both the clock and her appetite told her it was time for dinner.
Since she was going to leave for Cape Cod the next day, she took the opportunity to empty out a combination of doggie bags, starting with half a Caesar salad from Boston Market, followed by part of a quesadilla from the Border Café, and ending with a third of a bowl of fettuccine Alfredo from Polcari’s. As meals go, it was both economical and tasty. The only downside was the intense scrutiny she was under from both Honeypaw and Calvin. Dianne swore she never fed the dogs from the table, but since the dogs clearly knew what a doggie bag represented, Tilda wasn’t sure she believed her.
By the time Dianne got home from work, Tilda had disappointed the dogs by actually finishing her own meal, and was on her way back to her room to fire up her computer and see what she could find out about Leviathan on the Web. As Tony Davis had told her, the comic book boards were buzzing about the upcoming Leviathan movie. In between posts speculating about who was going to play Dylan O’Taine’s mermaid love interest and those trashing the script as antithetical to Pharos and perhaps the Constitution of the United States as well, there were quite a few filled with rumors about Leviathan’s identity and whereabouts. Sadly, most of the theories were ludicrous.
Still, not all the posts were from loony tunes, so she composed one herself, explaining that she was a reporter looking for Leviathan and asking people to send her any substantiated information they had. She knew, of course, that most of the “substantiated information” would be complete gibberish, but that was why she first created a brand-new e-mail account for the responses. She preferred to put all her Internet nuts in one virtual basket.
She went on to a number of comics sites and bulletin boards, and on each, asked for information. When she felt she’d spread enough virtual bread crumbs, she started for the living room to watch shows she’d saved on TiVo. But when she met a heavily laden Dianne on the stairs, she grabbed one of the two PetSmart shopping bags her roomie was carrying to help her bring it upstairs.
“All done with work?” Dianne asked.
“Just finished,” Tilda said, but could have slugged herself when she heard what came next.
“Could you give me a hand cleaning out the guinea pig cage?”
Tilda’s options were limited. She could agree, but she really disliked handling guinea pig poop. Or she could refuse, with or without a lecture about how the pets were Dianne’s responsibility, but that would probably get her the silent treatment for several days.
With some of her past roommates, the silent treatment would have been a blessing, but Dianne had the world’s noisiest version. Though she wouldn’t talk to Tilda, she would hold one-sided conversations with the animals to make sure Tilda knew how thoroughly she was being snubbed.
Thinking quickly, Tilda came up with a third choice. “Tell you what. I’ll hold Tama and Hershey for you, and keep you company.”
Dianne actually liked that idea, and Tilda wondered if she’d made a misstep. What if Dianne was trying to get Tilda to bond with the creatures, making her more vulnerable to future entreaties? The problem was, Tilda realized as she sat cross-legged on the floor stroking one pig with each hand while the piggies made chut-chut sounds at each other, that method just might work. They were pretty cute as long as they didn’t pee on her, and a couple of times, they even purred, which made Dianne look on approvingly. Oh yeah, it was a trap.
To distract herself, Tilda said, “Did you find a pet-sitter?”
“My mother is going to look in twice a day to take care of everybody. I just have to make sure that Ka is fed before I go. Mom says she can’t handle mealtime for him.”
They discussed work—Dianne was a physician’s assistant—and boyfriends—Dianne had a long-term one and was starting to become impatient about him proposing. Having met him and seen his hair recede month by month, Tilda didn’t think he was much of a catch, but he was as rabid an animal fancier as Dianne, which made him a rarity.
“Except he doesn’t like guinea pigs,” Dianne said sadly. “He says they look like
rats.”
“They do not,” Tilda said indignantly. Then she felt a warm, wet feeling on her jeans. “Shit! Tama just peed on me.”
Dianne was nearly done, so she took the pigs and put them back into their cage. “I’ll go fill the water bottle if you put some pellets in their bowl.”
“Fine,” Tilda said, no longer enthused by the creatures. She suspected that their cute little noises were laughter at her damp pants. So she dutifully filled the food dish, and then, not knowing where Dianne stored the bag of pellets, put it on top of the cage.
She was halfway back to her room to change when the pigs started squealing loudly, sounding like nothing so much as a car alarm.
“What did I do? What did I do?” Tilda asked as Dianne rushed in.
“Did you put that up there?” Dianne said, grabbing the bag from the top of the cage.
“Yeah.”
“You frightened them. Guinea pigs are a prey species, and many of their natural predators fly. They thought something was trying to get them.”
“Really?” With the bag gone, the piggies had ceased their squawks and were happily eating. “I didn’t realize they were so stupid.”
“They’re not stupid!”
“They were afraid of pellets.”
“Evolution taught them to avoid things flying overhead. To you it was a bag of pellets, but to them it was a predator.”
“Good thing it wasn’t a pack of their honey treats. That would have been really scary.”
Dianne gave her a look, and Tilda thought that maybe she’d managed to avoid bonding with the piggies after all. As soon as she changed her pants, she went downstairs to watch The Daily Show.
Chapter 13
A good director’s not sure when he gets on the set what he’s going to do.
—ELIA KAZAN
THE next morning started out well enough. Tilda got e-mail from Entertain Me! approving the article about Power Pets and accepting the John Laryea interview. Three of the places she’d queried about the Wilder interview were interested, and the deadlines were loose enough that she could wait awhile to actually write up the pieces.
But then she checked her Leviathan-specific e-mail account, and found nothing but spam.
She spent the next couple of hours washing clothes and packing for her stay at the Cape. It was tricky. The weather was notoriously changeable during the fall. That meant her coat and what salesclerks called layering pieces. And there was always the chance that she’d get invited somewhere nice, and she’d want something appropriate to wear. In the end, she stopped just short of packing her entire wardrobe.
Work-related stuff was more straightforward: laptop, camera, tape recorder, phone, and all the thumb drives and memory cards and cords and chargers to keep it all up and running. Plus actual pads and pens—they were traditional, after all.
Once all that was loaded into her car, she slipped her latest mix disc into the CD player and took off for the Cape. Even with a stop for gas, she was only an hour later than planned getting out of Malden, which was an hour earlier than she’d actually expected.
The two hours plus of the drive weren’t too bad, though admittedly not as nice as when she was riding in the limo with Pete at the wheel. It was early afternoon, so the rush hour hadn’t started and there weren’t many people heading to the Cape in October. Had it been spring or summer, it would have been a vastly different story on a Friday afternoon, but in the fall, weekend travelers were more interested in heading north for leaf peeping.
Tilda pulled in at the Glenham Bars Inn just before five, and went in to check with the front desk and see what arrangements had been made for her accommodations. With so many film people around, she was half afraid she’d be stuck in a broom closet in the basement, so she was pleasantly surprised to find out she had been assigned to one of the cottages. It wouldn’t be as convenient for the restaurant and bar as the inn would have been, but, on the plus side, she’d get lots of privacy and it would be a whole lot quieter.
She got back into the car for the short drive down Shoreline Drive to Atlantic Breeze, as the inn’s clerk had insisted on calling her cottage. It was on the ocean side of the road, giving her a view and fresh air along with everything else. “Do not get used to this, do not get used to this,” she kept repeating to herself as she unloaded her car and started marking her territory by arranging her belongings.
There were two bedrooms, and naturally Tilda picked the larger one, which was attached to the Jacuzzi-equipped master bathroom. There was a desk in the room, too, so she set up her work equipment, and then jumped on the king-sized bed a few times just for the fun of it.
When she went into the eat-in kitchen to get a drink, she found that not only was the kitchen fully equipped with dishes and pots and pans, but that somebody had stocked the refrigerator with Dr Pepper and her preferred sandwich fixings. Only after she’d gloated over the food did she notice the manila envelope on the counter.
Her name was on the outside, and inside was a note from Joni, a shooting schedule, a parking pass, and a security badge with lanyard. While she was looking it over, and of course continuing to gloat, her cell phone rang.
“Tilda? Nick. Did you make it back down here okay?”
“I did, and I’m standing in my sumptuous cottage. Do I have you to thank for the refreshments?”
“Only in the sense of my telling Joni’s minion what you like.”
“Said minion must not have realized that I’m just a freelancer.”
“It may be that I mentioned your byline has been seen frequently in national magazines of the highest caliber.”
“That explains the deli ham instead of the cheap stuff. I could easily get spoiled by this. And there’s not a four-legged, two-legged, or slithering creature in sight!”
“Excuse me?”
“New roommate, new set of problems. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Consider it left. Do you have dinner plans? The off-duty half of our security team is getting together for dinner at a Mexican place in town. Would you like to come with? It’ll be me and Dad and some of the other guys you’ve met.”
“Me and a tableful of guys? How could I refuse?”
Of course she should have stayed in and gone to work sifting through any e-mails that might have helped her track down Leviathan, but the aforementioned table of buff security men was too good to pass up.
The guy-packed limo picked her up a few minutes later, though she was surprised to see that Pete wasn’t driving. Nick told her he had a date, and the speculations about said date would have become risqué if Dom hadn’t cleared his throat significantly.
It was Pete’s loss. The food was great, the margaritas were tasty, and the guys had some hilarious stories about celebrity misdeeds. Naturally all were either told anonymously or off the record, since Tolomeo Personal Protection had a reputation to protect.
Tilda reciprocated with stories of interviews gone wrong, or just wacky, including the time a TV executive wouldn’t answer any of her questions in any depth until a parrot—which Tilda had thought was only a decoration—suddenly squawked loudly and came to sit on Tilda’s shoulder. That turned out to be a sign that she could be trusted, and she got one of her most candid interviews ever. It was worth a little parrot poop on her shirt.
As far as Tilda was concerned, they could have continued swapping stories and sipping margaritas all night, but Dom kept a pretty tight ship. Before it got too late, he herded them all back to the inn, and when they dropped her off, he himself made a sweep of her cottage to make sure it was secure.
Since it was still fairly early, and since the shoot wasn’t going to get rolling until late the next day, Tilda figured it was time to start earning her keep. She booted up her laptop, and grinned in happy anticipation at the number of e-mails waiting, especially since she saw more than one with the subject line, “Leviathan identified.” But as she started going through the notes, her happy mood started to fade, and before she was done, she w
as ready for another pitcher of margaritas.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t found Leviathan. It was the fact that she’d found too many Leviathans. Even when she weeded out the obvious crazies, there were twelve different notes from people either claiming to be Leviathan or to know who Leviathan was.
There’d been rare occasions when she couldn’t find an actor she was looking for, but this was the first time she’d found an even dozen.
Chapter 14
In the past decade, imposters (midgets, dwarfs, and average-sized people) have continued to poke their heads out and claim involvement in The Wizard of Oz. Why do they do it? If only for some recognition, some profit perhaps, or a bit of adulation, that’s why these imposters make these wild claims.
—THE MUNCHKINS OF OZ BY STEPHEN COX
“BUT why?” Joni wanted to know when Tilda called her the next day, by which time the list of contestants for Who Wants to Be an Obscure Comic Book Writer had swelled to fifteen. “What’s the point?”
“You’ve seen reality television—some people will do almost anything to get that fifteen minutes of fame. Pretending to be Leviathan is a lot less drastic than pretending that one’s child has gone up in a balloon.”
“I suppose. But wouldn’t an imposter want to pretend to be somebody more famous?”
“Not necessarily. You’re bound to get caught if you fake being somebody obscenely famous. Obscure people are easier. A few years back a dance instructor in Texas claimed to be Tommy Rall, who was a not terribly well-known hoofer in movie musicals. The real Rall had long since retired while the phony one was using his name to sell foxtrot lessons. Before that, there were all kinds of midgets pretending to have been munchkins in The Wizard of Oz to earn appearance fees. Some had even been in the movie, but pretended to have had bigger roles—a bunch pretended to have played the mayor of Munchkinland instead of anonymous soldiers and such.”
“But money was involved in those cases, right? We own the rights to Pharos, free and clear. There’s no money in it.”
Blast from the Past Page 6
