"It's all right,” he says, “it's a picture. But I'm thinking chick kidnapping's been done, know what I mean?"
We do, having hit every cliché in the book as per his own request, because Herbie demands the sure thing. We'd had a script for Cute-As—a genuine talent; we'd had topical suspense—ripped from the headlines, no less, but that was too much novelty for Distracting Productions. So we went the other way and here we sit while he has second thoughts.
"Now,” he says, like he's just come up with inspiration, “you got a guy kidnapped, man against the elements, that kind of stuff, I'm maybe hearing you."
Man against the elephants, I think, elephants being a herd of Herbies with loud ties and black shirts and elegant little patent-leather loafers with no socks. I'm getting up from the table before I cross some verbal Rubicon, but Jack's into the challenge—he later told me he was desperate; he'd maxed all his credit cards and he was ready to run with whatever Herbie threw his way.
"Yeah,” he says, “no heist, no nukes, we heist a guy. A young guy—get the girlie audience."
Herbie shakes his head. “Stale. You need a guy in his prime. Harrison Ford of a few years ago."
"More than a few,” I mutter, but Herbie doesn't notice.
"All right, all right,” Jack goes, “guy in his thirties, maybe."
"Forties,” says Herbie, who's closer to fifty, I'm thinking.
That limits the pool of actors—and raises the price, but I can see this is personal for Herbie. He's got a stake in this, something beyond the usual profit margin for Distracting Productions.
"You want a kidnapping story?” I says. “With a man the victim?"
"Kidnapped but not the victim,” Herbie says. “Not the victim. Where you guys been? Audience surveys pass you by? We're sick of all these girlie men."
"Our perpetrators bite off more than they can chew?” This plotline's been around since O. Henry's “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Not that Herbie reads.
"Yeah. You got it."
"Diamond merchant, maybe?"
"Too ethnic,” says Herbie.
"But he's got portable goods on him. There's your motive."
"I got to plot this for you?” asks Herbie. “They hold him for ransom—"
"Requires an organization,” says Jack, thinking out loud.
I realize we could use our heist prep scenes if we modified them a little.
"Smart has organization. Dumb's different. These guys grab him and go. They're operating seat-of-the-pants,” says Herbie.
"This is a farce?"
I get a look of thunder. Herbie lowers the boom. Reaches for the death ray.
"Look,” he says, “this is real. This is reality, today's mean streets. Danger on every corner."
"Yeah, but the plot's got to be plausible. You got a big executive, ransom-worthy, he's got the bodyguard, he's got the chauffeur."
"Look,” says Herbie, “not all of us run scared. I drive myself unless I gotta find parking."
Jack gave me a sideways look. I think that was it; right then, I felt the idea. You know, you can feel an idea coming. Like with a story, you don't have an idea, and then you still don't have an idea but you have this feeling that one is in the vicinity, that you just have to watch and wait and you'll find yourself sitting down at the computer and typing in Scene I. That was the sort of feeling I had when Jack looked over at me.
"Gated property, though,” Jack says. “Like yours."
We've been to Chez Herbie, where we were checked and double-checked and scrutinized by little glowing lights—and recorded, too, probably. All this to keep down the covetousness of the general public, which might cast a longing eye on the velvet lawn, the topiaries, the roses, the marble-fronted palace, the soigné assistant, and the shrewish, if very desirable-looking, blond wife.
Herbie gives a snort of exasperation. “You get him at work."
"Most executive offices are better protected than your private homes,” Jack says.
"There's always a weak point,” says Herbie.
"Garage?"
"You got it. The monitoring in this one isn't worth shit. They got a fortune worth of trash compactors and air filters but they're cutting corners all the time on the monitors."
"Problem is their car, though,” I say. “And even a rental—"
"Maybe they walk,” says Herbie. “Maybe they drive both cars. Christ, I thought you were the writers and I was the producer. You get this done, I'm going to take a writing credit. You get him in the garage, see, and you wrestle him into the back of the car."
"Nobody wrestles Harrison Ford into the back of a car,” I observe. “Not in his heyday."
"Have to whack him good,” says Jack.
"No damage,” says Herbie, “not so soon. Drug him, maybe. Save the blood for later."
We talk about this awhile. Then Jack and I get our marching orders. Back to the script one more time. We're really punchy, but we rack our brains and study garages until we finally come up with a story that's ingenious, real quality, but at the same time, no good. We know all too well what Herbie wants now: man against the elephants, i.e., middle-aged, overweight CEO outwits the lowlife and emerges triumphant.
Still, we need money, we need money now. We put aside a clever, if brutal, plot involving a quick killing and a trash compactor and ditch a script loaded with smart lines to bring our CEO home in glory. We call the office and once again Herbie's secretary tells us to drop it off at his house.
"I don't like this,” says Jack. “Something here smells funny. Totally funny. It's like he wants to keep this out of the office. What's he got going here that's not strictly flicks?"
"Beats me,” I says. As it turns out, our professional imaginations didn't run as fast as Herbie's. “He doesn't like it, we pitch our other solution."
Jack looks at me. “He gets one more chance, this is it."
And I don't say anything, though I know what he's talking about and though silence bespeaks assent. Call it a folie à deux. Or trois—I got to include Herbie somehow.
We get the call late. Herbie's pleased. The script's crap, but Herbie's pleased. As writers, we don't feel great, but we need the cash.
Jack puts on his lucky Toledo Mud Hens hat, and we hustle off to Distracting Productions as lights come on in the City of the Angels. Upstairs, Herbie is alone, his decorative secretary departed. I don't see any sign of our script, which I take as a bad sign, but he says, “So you got it done. Not bad at all."
We're expecting our contract, but Herbie starts talking about his financing difficulties, certain problems with his stake in a special-effects action flick that ran over budget. “I love this, don't get me wrong; I love this,” Herbie says.
"You could have told us a month ago,” says Jack.
"A month ago, I didn't love the script,” says Herbie. “You understand this business. Things change."
We let him have it then, but Herbie didn't budge. The script was “great, super; ideal for my purposes” and “maybe in the spring finances will allow,” etc., etc.
Jack and I go slamming out of the office. “We've been had,” says Jack, “but I don't know what his game is."
I'm no wiser, and there we are swearing up a storm and kicking along the sidewalk when Jack says, “I forgot my hat."
Personally, I never want to see Herbie again, but that hat's a classic and Jack can't write without it. To save time, we cut back in the side door of the garage and we're tearing up the ramp when we see Herbie, suitcase in hand, heading for his black Mercedes. He's whistling as if he hasn't a care in the world.
"Hey,” says Jack. “I gotta get my hat out of your office."
"No time,” says Herbie. “I'm in a major hurry."
"It's my Mud Hens hat,” Jack says. “I gotta get it."
"Tough.” Herbie opens his trunk with the remote, throws in his luggage, and reaches for the door.
I've never seen Jack move quicker. Next thing I know, he has Herbie's arms behind his back. Herbie's struggl
ing and shouting, and I clock him one and then again. He deserves it. Jack's trying to trip him up, but Herbie breaks away and I stick out my leg. Crash, Herbie bangs into the side of the car and he kind of staggers and makes a lunge again for the door. I don't know yet if I hit him or Jack did, but in all the confusion Herbie falls, bam, onto the cement and doesn't get up.
He's out cold. So much for man against the elephants. The garage is suddenly very quiet; I can't even hear the traffic on the Strip. That's an effect often used in thrillers of the psychological persuasion, but in real life, it surprises me.
Jack and I look at each other. “What are we going to do?” he says.
"He comes to, we don't work in this town again."
That's a consideration. But I take a closer look at Herbie and suddenly I feel sick and hopeful at the same time. “I don't think he's coming to."
Jack disputes this, claiming esoteric medical knowledge.
I check again and shake my head. “He's not coming to."
We look at each other for a moment, then bang. That's what I mean by ideas in your head. We've plotted this out. And when somehow the situation jumps from the page to the VIP section of Herbie's garage, we know what to do. Without thinking whether this is a good idea or a bad idea, we pick up his keys, grab Herbie the Inert and drag him to the back, where, yes, indeed, there's the trash-compactor chute. Jack punches in the numbers; he always does his research, right down to trash-compactor access. With the over-the-top plots we cook up, you gotta have the details right.
Just the same, I'm in a sweat until the thing starts to grumble and the door slides open. One, two, three, heave! Herbie with his patent-leather loafers and his mean disposition disappears with a soft thud.
"What about his car?” I ask as Jack wipes the keypad and the handle.
"Leave it. We gotta get that hat, though."
Up the back stairs, down the hall. I'm drenched with sweat and I can hardly breathe. Doing stuff like this is seriously different from even the most vivid imagining. At the door, I pull my shirt cuff over my hand and when Jack turns the key, we open the door, adrenaline bathing every cell, alert for alarms and sirens. I think I'm going to pass out before Jack grabs his hat and we get ourselves downstairs and onto the street. It feels like we've hit a wormhole and accessed some parallel universe, because everything looks the same but feels different.
Nothing is quite real to us; we're light and new. At the same time, any thoughts about the garage and Herbie and the sound of the compactor bring certain details up to more reality than we can handle, number one being the script we followed. This is burned soonest and wiped off our computer disks, and we make an effort to erase the plotline from our neurons as well.
All this ultracaution blows up when we remember that our earlier copies made their way to Chez Herbie. Crisis time. Whatever fiscal or domestic machinations Herbie had in hand, he'd made sure his wife had access to our work. What for?
We're clueless, but anyone who looks at the script's evolution from heist to accidental kidnapping to executive kidnapping would sure have questions now. Especially the bereaved Mrs. Herbie.
By the end of the week, Jack and I are little more than sweat-soaked nerves. I get so that I'm hallucinating LAPD cruisers and I about leave my skin every time the phone rings. The longer—inexplicably longer—we wait for what seems inevitable, the worse it gets, and I think we'd both have been committable but for a lucky spell of hurry-up work on a soap pilot.
By the time we come up for air, the Rothberger case is on the back pages. A few months later, it's stony cold. Herbert A. Rothberger disappeared from his office, leaving half a million dollars skimmed from Distracting Productions in the trunk of his Mercedes. No one has heard from him since.
A year later, Jack and I have almost convinced ourselves none of this had anything to do with us, when we get a call from Leonie Rothberger. Major panic attack, but we can hardly snub the new—and able—head of Distracting Productions.
Next afternoon: same office, different secretary; no more Bowflex and NordicTrack. Mrs. R. ran to a nice line of Asian porcelain and modern furniture. She had a big mane of blond hair and a vaguely predatory air. A fat pile of familiar-looking scripts sat on her desk.
"I've been going through the files,” she says. “Herbert had a number of your properties."
"We'd been discussing some projects with him at the time—of his—” I'm at a loss for words, so I add, “So tragic for you,” though she hardly looks consumed with grief.
"Slipstream is a nice piece of work. I'd like to option it."
Well, well! It's nice to be appreciated even by the dangerous Leonie Rothberger. We have a good meeting about casting and production and she offers very fair terms. At the end, she puts her hand on the rest of the scripts. “What do we do with these?"
"We were under a bad influence at the time,” says Jack. “I think the shredder's the best place for them."
Leonie Rothberger gave a faint smile. She's not a woman to reveal her emotions, but—scriptwriter's eye—I pick up on that. “The wisest thing for your reputations.” A little pause; a warning? “Kidnappings and ransoms are so overdone."
"And maybe for you too,” I says.
"He'd have taken the money and run, if he hadn't been—intercepted somehow.” She looks at us very steadily. I guess right then that she has a good working theory of whatever Herbie's game was and maybe also who did the intercepting.
I don't trust myself to answer and neither does Jack. After a beat, Leonie Rothberger switches on an industrial-strength shredder and starts feeding in the scripts. “I hate to do this to gentlemen with imagination,” she says as our writing turns into packing filler. “But it's for your own good."
"Ashes to ashes and pulp to pulp,” says Jack.
Mrs. Rothberger gives a feline smile. “Amen to that,” she says.
(c)2007 by Janice Law
[Back to Table of Contents]
THE THEFT OF THE OSTRACIZED OSTRICH by Edward D. Hoch
* * * *
Art by Mark Evan Walker
* * * *
Inexhaustible is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Ed Hoch. It isn't only that he's written more than 940 published stories. He also generously serves on awards committees (most recently for the CWC's Arthur Ellis Awards), provides a necrology for the MWA annual, and often writes introductions to other writers’ books.
It had been more than a year since Sandra Paris, known in some circles as the “White Queen,” had last encountered Nick Velvet. She thought of him often, sometimes as a friend and occasionally as an adversary. Once, during a particularly passionate dream, she'd even imagined him as a lover.
She was thinking of him as her plane landed at the Palm Springs International Airport. This was a job like any other, she decided, and there was no need to call on Nick for assistance. Besides, even a six-month-old pair of ostriches could bring well over three thousand dollars, and a full-grown pair much more. They were hardly valueless. Ostrich farming had become a profitable business in many parts of the country, especially in the desert regions of California.
The first thing Sandra did after claiming her luggage was to pick up the rental car she'd reserved. Her destination was north of the city, near Desert Hot Springs, an ostrich farm called Bainbridge Acres that was home to half a hundred of the birds. Sandra had dined on ostrich meat at a New York restaurant and found it similar to beef, but it was supposedly much healthier. She'd been hired to steal one of the birds, but apparently not for the meat. Renny Owlish had been very specific when he hired her by phone. She'd see one ostrich away from the others, all by itself. “An ostracized ostrich!” he'd said with a chuckle. “That's the one I want you to steal.” He'd made a plane reservation for her and even booked a room at a nearby motel.
She'd been driving about thirty minutes when she rounded a curve and saw the ostrich farm below her in a little valley. There was no mistaking the great flightless birds with their long legs, mostly bla
ck feathers, and tall curving necks. The slightly smaller females had grayish-brown feathers with a bit of white. And yes, one ostrich was noticeably off by itself. Sandra pulled off the road and watched it for a time. Once it started trotting over to join the main group but they immediately scattered.
That was the bird Owlish wanted, but seeing the size of it she knew she'd need a truck of some sort. The birds had a large area to roam in, and with the warm weather they'd probably be left out at night. Her best bet was early morning, before the Bainbridge workers were out in the field tending to the birds. She was the White Queen, after all, and Impossible things before breakfast was her motto.
She spent the day searching out the right sort of vehicle and finally decided on a horse trailer. At a distance it was difficult to estimate the ostrich's height, especially with its head bobbing up and down, but she guessed at between six and nine feet, pretty much full-grown. If she could entice it onto the trailer's ramp, no lifting would be required. Otherwise she was faced with the task of tranquilizing the big bird and lifting its two-hundred-plus pounds into a truck.
She spent her second day observing the early-morning routine at Bainbridge Acres through binoculars from the nearby hill. Nothing much happened till after daylight, when a sturdy woman in jeans and boots came out to fill the trough where the big birds drank. She seemed to be checking their water supply and scattering food pellets, though Sandra knew that ostriches were a grazing bird that could live off natural vegetation and insects. She estimated the flock of about fifty birds would need around twenty acres for food but they seemed to have all of that. She'd read somewhere that the toothless ostriches ate almost anything, including pebbles and stones that remained in their stomachs and helped grind the swallowed food.
That night she went to bed early and was up well before dawn. The motel night manager, Sid Rawson, saw her backing out with the horse trailer and came over to question her, his squinty eyes on the lookout for trouble. He relaxed a bit when he recognized her as a guest, but still asked, “You got a horse in there?"
EQMM, September-October 2007 Page 24
