"I don't give a shit if he thinks he can get them or not. He's gonna come through, or he's gonna get fired." Lubick was ranting as Shane ducked into the office unnoticed. "That neural flashback is pivotal. It's tits! This whole Civil War sequence is the seminal event of the entire film the idea of disenfranchised people, slaves to a repressive system, trapped in a world gone mad… the social symbolism of a nation torn in half. This is the neural manifestation of Rajindi's religious philosophy, right, Raji?"
Rajindi Singh was seated in a chair by the window, a pale ghost in a white suit. He was meditating or tripping, but either way he was in situ, eyes closed, legs crossed on the seat in the lotus position. He opened his eyes and nodded solemnly.
"It's just, where are we going to get three hundred pairs of authentic Civil War underwear?" Nicky whined. "Since it's underwear, and not being seen by the camera, it seems to me that trying to locate something that may not even exist is both time consuming and economically wasteful."
Paul Lubick got up from behind the desk and moved toward Nicholas. "You've obviously been so busy making your little skin flicks you don't understand A-list movie making. So let me lay this down for you once and for all. Reality, my little friend, comes froth everywhere. It comes from the sets, the wardrobe, and from my mouth to God's ear. It isn't just some concept of acting, where you say to a performer, 'Okay, pretend you're a Civil War soldier. Pretend you're about to die from those twenty-pounders thundering on that ridge.' Sure, the performers I'll cast as principals will have some ability to conjure up these feelings, but what about the extras? Ever think about them? A bunch of nineteen-year-old California surf bums. How do I put the spirit of Gettysburg into those pot-smoking assholes? I'll tell you how. We're going to have a Civil War school. We're going to hire as many of these extras as possible, by today or tomorrow, and we're going to make them live in tents out in Reseda, at my brother Peter's farm. We'll work something out with him, pay him a few bucks-I don't know, maybe it'll have to be a lotta bucks. It's gonna be a huge imposition on Pete, but he shares the vision, thank God.
"The extras are going to wash in buckets and shit in ditches. They're gonna wear honest-to-god, lace-up, Civil War underdrawers, so every time they gotta take a piss for the next eight weeks, they gotta unlace the damn things and do it exactly the same way those poor fucks in the Georgia brigade did it a hundred and forty years ago. Only then will they begin to metamorphose from California beach boys into my Georgia rebels. When we roll, and I'm shooting in some sixteen-year-old surfer's face, he's gonna goddamn sure believe he's a fucking Confederate soldier."
After this tirade, silence fell like ash from Mount Vesuvius. Then Paul Lubick leaned down even closer, until his nose was just inches from Nicky's. "I assume you hired me because you've seen my work, and want me to bring my unique style and vision to this project. Translation: I'm gonna shoot this my way. You wanna win a real Oscar and throw all these rentals away? Then you better buy or make three hundred pairs of Confederate soldiers' undies, circa 1864." He grabbed a costume book and flipped it open to a picture. His face was so red he looked like he had been working out on a StairMaster for an hour.
"Okay, got it," Nicky said. "I'll get right on it."
"And who the fuck are you?" Paul Lubick had finally spotted Shane in the office.
"Co-owner of Cine-Roma Productions. I'm also the guy who's gonna feed you every pair of those Civil War long johns if you think you're gonna waste our money on shit like that," Shane said calmly.
Paul Lubick moved toward him, but Shane took a step forward and the director saw something menacing in his eyes and stopped. The two of them stood a few feet apart, glaring at each other.
"Paul," Nicky said softly, "maybe you should tell my partner about the trees."
"That's one of my best ideas. It's tits!" Lubick picked up a drawing on the desk. "When we build the dragon's lodge, I think it's important that the ceiling beams on that set be massive. In the neural storm that follows, old Isom, the slave, says they symbolize the overbearing structure of society that hangs over us, dwarfing our freedoms, or dialogue to that effect. Excuse the paraphrase, Raji."
The writer nodded his head.
"Anyway, we'll have to find massive redwoods-I've got a guy up in Oregon looking. Once we've marked them, we'll cut the trees down and bring 'em in on double flatcars, by train. Then we'll get a construction crew into Stage Three across the lot, hoist those suckers up, and knock them into place."
"You ever hear of papier-mache?" Shane countered. "You could make those for one-tenth the cost and no one would ever spot the difference."
"But we'd know the difference, wouldn't we?" Lubick cracked a tight little smile. "Any other way is simply dishonest. Translation: I'm gonna shoot this my way."
He turned away from Shane and faced Nicky. "I'm going to walk the stages, see if I want to use Stage Three or Stage Six, so we can notify the studio and. Tie one of them up. We need to get going on construction." He started toward the door, then stopped and looked at Shane. "For your information, Mister Whatever-your-name-is, though slightly expensive, what I'm suggesting should be of no consequence when creative gold is being mined. Let me give you a little lesson on how we do things in Hollywood. During the filming of Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian DePalma needed a shot of a Concorde jet landing. Of course he didn't want to buy used stock footage at five hundred dollars a shot, because it would have been film already seen in someone else's movie, and like me, Brian insists on cinematic purity. He knew it needed to be original footage because he also wanted a setting sun in the background. So he sent a second-unit film crew out to get it. He rented the entire airport and a Concorde jet. It took him three nights, three sunsets to get the shot, but in the end that Concorde landed at exactly the right second into the setting sun. That piece of film cost the studio four hundred and fifty grand, lasted ten seconds, and was worth every fucking nickel. Here's another one. Michael Cimino saw a tree growing in London that fulfilled the symbolism he envisioned for a shot in Heaven's Gate. He knew he would never find another tree that perfect on his location, so he had the tree uprooted. He had every leaf cataloged and preserved. Then he sent the entire thing to a courtyard at Oxford, where it was hoisted up, and the leaves were reattached to the exact same branches. Fucking brilliant, too. The tree was awesome. This is the way directors conceive. A director's dick gets hard, he ejaculates, and it becomes cinematic creation. If any of this isn't working for you, speak now, and I'll be in my Jag and gone."
Paul Lubick picked up his briefcase and turned to Rajindi Singh. "You want to walk this with me, Raji?"
Singh got up and left the office on Lubick's heels, without so much as a look at either Nicky or Shane.
"I think you ticked him off," the little grifter commented.
"Three hundred pairs of Confederate underwear? Tree trunks you've gotta ship down from Oregon on double flatbeds? This lunatic is gonna bankrupt us in two hours."
"You haven't met his staff. He brought a whole crowd of people who think just like him. Wait'll you meet Buzz, the UPM."
"The what?"
"Unit Production Manager. We also have an assistant director, a director of photography, an art director, a casting guy, and two costumers and their staffs down the hall. They're all sharing the new offices we rented, making phone calls. It's a flicking madhouse in there."
"Nicky, we've got less than a hundred grand left in the bank. That's it. After that, all our checks are coming straight from Goodyear Rubber."
"Shane, whatta you want me to do? The minute anybody criticizes Lubick, he threatens to leave and Rajindi goes with him, Fallon follows Singh, then Valentine splits and I'm back auditioning bimbos in short-shorts."
"We gotta slow him down, Nicky. We gotta find a way to build a time loop into all of this. Maybe we can put all the purchase orders on this picture through a pay office… hold everything, all the accounts payable, for two weeks."
"Shane, if Lubick tells these vendors to begin work
ing, they'll start spending our money on his say-so alone. He's an A-list guy. Nobody's gonna tell him no."
"Whatta we do?" Shane was beginning to panic.
"I think we oughta consider getting the LAPD to really make this film. We're already in over two hundred grand on holding deals and preproduction costs. Once we factor in Fallon's step-option deal, plus Lubick's, we're gonna be pushing half a mil by Monday. The only hope we have of getting any of your money back is to shoot this thing and release it."
"Are you outta your Inind?!" Shane was almost shouting.
"Shane, a strange and wonderful thing is happening." Nicky lowered his voice confidentially. "My phone hasn't stopped ringing since this morning. Thing about Hollywood is: Activity is its own endorsement. We're rolling here. We got A-list people signed. Everybody who read this script a year ago and hated it now thinks maybe they misjudged it and missed its hidden brilliance. I've got studio guys calling and offering us slots in their distribution schedule, maybe even some P and A participation." Off Shane's puzzled look he added, "That's Prints and Advertising. I think I can actually sell a piece of this film to a major studio-Warner or Universal. We got offers for housekeeping deals at two major studios. That's a deal where they give us an office and some overhead, maybe a development fund. It's like I finally broke through because of this thing, and I love you for it."
"Nicky, we are not gonna make this movie, okay?" Just then, the door flew open and Champagne Dennis Valentine walked in. "Is Michael Fallon around?" he asked, smiling.
Chapter 27
ZELSO
Shane found out that Paul Lubick had a few numbered copies of the script. He saw one in the director's briefcase just before lunch. He would have swiped it and made a copy, but it was printed on red paper, which defeated Xeroxes. When Shane asked for one, he was told by Lubick that he wasn't on the approved distribution list.
"I'm the producer. I'm paying your salary. How can I not be on the approved list?" Shane argued.
"Woody Allen doesn't even let the lead actors who've already been cast in his movies read the whole script, just the scenes they're in. You have to operate on a little faith… have trust in your director," Lubick said.
"But I'm the producer," Shane raged impotently.
"Right. And you're not on the list. I don't know you from a box a rocks. How do I know you're not gonna get it retyped on white paper? Make copies and pass 'em around town? Next thing, critics are taking shots at me before I even shoot a frame. I'm hot news in show business. When you're tits, you're prime for trashing. Right now, just the few people I need to read it will get a copy, and then only the pages they're involved with. No exceptions." He left Shane standing in the hallway.
At twelve, Shane and Dennis Valentine, who had both been more or less ignored all morning, decided to keep each other company for lunch. They walked across the lot toward the Studio Commissary, which was really only a restaurant located just off the property, across an alley in an old railroad dining car. Nicky called it the vomitorium, but the manager gave discounts to people who could show studio gate passes.
They sat in a back booth. Framed cartoon sketches of old movie actors grinned down at them from red flocked wallpaper.
"When do you suppose Michael Fallon will show up?" Valentine said.
"Don't know. You should check with Paul."
"This guy, Paul, whatta you think of him?"
"He's an asshole."
"Purebred and overfed," Valentine agreed.
They ordered. Shane asked for the twelve-ounce rib-eye. Valentine ordered steamed vegetables and Taittinger.
"We don't stock Taittinger. Got a nice Paul Masson sparkling Bordeaux," the waiter said, and got the vitamin lecture for his suggestion.
They did some showbiz small talk, and after ten minutes, Shane finally worked his way around to Alexa. "That thing we were discussing yesterday?" he began as they both picked at a lettuce and tomato salad.
"Yep," Valentine said as his order of cooked vegetables arrived, looking like a steaming plate of dinner scrapings. The rib-eye followed.
After the waiter left, Shane continued. "I talked it over with her. I think we got a player."
Valentine stopped eating his vegetables and looked up angrily. "I don't wanta discuss this here. I don't talk about business in rooms I don't trust." Valentine had undoubtedly heard the tape of Shane and Alexa from last night and was well prepared for this conversation. But just not in a room he hadn't swept.
"If not here, how about tonight?" Shane said.
"Tonight's fine." Valentine forked in some steamed cauliflower. "My house, five-thirty this afternoon."
"She's pretty busy. How's after work sound… around seven?"
"Sure, seven's good." Then Valentine switched subjects quickly, pointing disgustedly at Shane's plate. "Y'know how long some of that meat's gonna live in your intestines?" he said.
"Not long… I shit logs."
"Yeah, you laugh, but most Americans carry around ten pounds of undigested meat in their colons. You're killing yourself one bite at a time."
"I'd rather be dead than hungry," Shane said as he took another bite. "We can compare notes in hell."
Shane's afternoon was full of couldn'ts. He still couldn't get a copy of the script, because Paul and Rajindi were locked in a Concept and Tone meeting, whatever that was. He couldn't hang with Dennis, because once the mobster knew Michael Fallon wasn't going to show up, he left. Shane couldn't beat up on Nicky because he had gone with Buzz, the UPM, on a preliminary location scout out to the Disney Ranch. Shane had been fielding phone calls from vendors that Lubick had already put to work. They all wanted down payments. An extras casting company had started hiring teenage boys for the Georgia regiment, and the bank had called twice to tell Shane that they were overdrawn again.
Nicky had somehow managed to add himself to the signature card on Shane's blind account and had been writing checks. Shane had totally lost control. He felt closed in on, and impotent, so he left the studio at four-thirty and escaped to the relative safety of Parker Center.
He pulled into the vast underground garage next to the Glass House, parked on the third level, then went to the fourth floor where the CRASH unit was located inside the Geographic Operations Bureau.
Shane found a sergeant he knew named Sylvia Hunt.
Everybody in the CRASH unit looked tired and overworked.
"What d'ya need, Shane?" Sylvia said, her green eyes still on the computer screen at her desk. She was scrolling Crip gang addresses.
"With all this going on, I'm guessing you're probably working The Hills pretty hard, am I right?"
"You can't piss on a wall in Las Lomas without getting busted," she said, finally looking up.
Shane handed over the Jeep's license plate number and vehicle description, along with the photo of Chooch he always carried in his wallet. "This is my son. He's half Hispanic and has a girlfriend in The Hills who's missing, named Delfina Delgado. She's American Macado's second cousin. I'm worried my son is gonna end up in the middle of this fire zone, trying to find her."
Sylvia stopped working and focused on him. "Your son's dating Amac's cousin?" she asked.
"Yeah. Anyway, that's his picture and his plate number. He drives a 1999 black Jeep Cherokee. If anybody spots him, I'd appreciate it if you'd pick him up."
She took Chooch's picture and the paper, and studied them. "If she's Amac's cousin, maybe she was abducted." "Yeah, maybe. But he doesn't think so."
"Who doesn't think so?" Sylvia Hunt was now drilling him with her green eyes. "What do you know? Who have you been talking to?"
"Nothing. Nobody," he said.
"Have you been in contact with American, Shane? If you've spoken with him, the head of DSG will want to talk to you."
"Hey, Syl, I'm married to the head of DSG, remember? This is her adopted son."
"Forgot." She blushed.
Shane turned and left the bureau. On his way to the elevator, his cell phone rang.
"Shane, it's Fineburg," the little computer jock said. "I got something, but maybe we shouldn't talk on an open line. When can you come see me?"
"I'm upstairs," Shane said. "I'll be right down." "See you when you get here."
Shane found Lee Fineburg at his console in the computer section. They headed to the coffee room at the end of the corridor. Nobody was inside, so they entered and closed the door.
"My brother finally put the hat on Farrell Champion." "Who is he?"
"His name is Daniel Zelso, but he doesn't look anything like the picture of the guy in People magazine. I went across the street and bought one." He opened his briefcase and pulled out a black-and-white fax photograph of a slender man with an undershot jaw, hollow cheeks, and dark hair. Then he took out the copy of People and opened it to a picture of Farrell at a movie premiere.
"Jesus, whoever did his face work was a magician," Shane said. "Got a new chin, different hair. Completely transformed him."
"Yep. Doesn't look anything like he does today. Back when he got busted by the feds, he was working as a money launderer for a bunch of Panamanian drug lords. The feds rolled him. The way I get it, they now fly him all over the country to testify in these complex criminal cases he woulda been a defendant in, but. the feds gave him immunity. They protect his identity he testifies behind a screen. So everything you said makes sense now. It explains how he can be so high profile and still be in WITSEC."
"How 'bout the two dead wives?"
"That's how the feds nailed him. They made him for the two wife murders both food-poisoning cases like you said. The A. G. threatened to gas him on a double-one, and he rolled," Fineburg said, referring to a double first-degree homicide. "Under the threat of getting a cyanide pill he gave up most of his pals and Panamanian drug associates. Only he didn't roll on everyone. A few got away, most notably a Panamanian who did the Syndicate's money transfers from Hawaii. Guy is named Generalissimo Miguel Fernando Ruiz, still missing."
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