Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (13 page)

“‘Sara Hutton couldn't be taught.' Your words.”

“Once she lost her emotional virginity and discovered that no real harm was going to come to her if she gave up caring what other people thought, her true nature came out.”

“Which was?”

“Icy. Haughty. Superior. Condescending—no point could not be argued.”

“Her mind was not compatible with yours.”

“No, although I'll admit enjoying the sparring. I think we became friends.”

“Lovers?”

“Not my type.”

“Too ugly.”

“Well, I do have standards along that line, but it was more—”

“A total lack of influence on her thinking. Do you think she even likes movies?”

“Not the ones I like.”

“Yet she's now the president of a major motion picture company.”

“Interesting, isn't it?”

“Do you think she only entered the industry because nepotism made it an easy job to get?”

“Riding in on the back of a clown? I'm sure it helped, but she entered at the suggestion of Max.”

“He's in the industry?”

“I don't know, but that's what she told me on graduation day eight years ago. ‘Max thinks it's a good idea if I get into the movies, so I guess I'm going to go to Hollywood,' is the way she put it.”

“Ever hear of the Golden Arse? And the kissing thereof?”

“No, I don't think so. Sounds very Greek though, doesn't it?”

“You referring to sodomy?”

“No. Sororities. In this case, anyway.”

“Gamma Phi Epsilon.”

“That's right. You do your research, don't you?”

“A film themed sorority that Sara Hutton was the president of.”

“Yes, in her senior year. This was Max's idea again, I think.”

“How come you know so much about Max?”

“I don't, really. One just got to know a lot about Sara. People talked about her. She talked a lot about herself. She was sort of a continuing story you couldn't help but follow.”

“What do you think Sara Hutton's influence on the American film has been?”

“It's not so much what it has been as what it could become. I mean she hasn't really been there that long has she? The movies she makes at Olympic are essentially the equivalent in art to the original paperback novel trade. Cheap entertainment made for a cheap crowd. Only these films are anything but cheap. The crowd hasn't changed much though.”

“So who do you blame? Sara Hutton or the crowd?”

Sam Farber smiled. “It's such a symbiotic relationship I wouldn't know how to divide it.”

~ * ~

An apt alliteration to call him an arrogant academic, I thought as I left Sam Farber's office. How arrogant? There was no hint of emotion, and certainly no indication of grief, when we discussed Bea Cherbourg's death, but then, despite them having been lovers, she had not really been a person to him, but, rather, a conduit of his ideas. He had not impregnated her, as far as I knew, in any biological way, but he certainly felt he had in an intellectual way, giving her a packet of, not genes, but memes, as Dawkins might declare. Is it a cause of grief if such a “mother” dies in “childbirth?” That would be antithetical to the rational basis of the conceit. Casual regret is the best one should expect.

Yet, there is something very red meat about the lack of survival of these memes in comparison to those that Sara Hutton propagates. Had the contest been fair? Had the fittest truly survived? Had...?

It must have been strolling along York Street into the campus proper that affected me. Something about the grand gothic architecture forming hallowed halls, and the bricks, the oh-so serious bricks. The bastard had balled her and propagandized his own thoughts into her head, then sent her off near defenseless to Hollywood to effect changes he never had the guts to personally try to do his self. Those were the hard facts. I didn't much care for Sam Farber, but he had given me some valuable information. There is nothing like philosophy to get you into trouble.

I had continued to walk deeper into the campus, but at a quicker pace, allowing the brisk air inhaled to stimulate the senses and add a little snap to my brain. I turned right at one point, ending up at a corner in sight of what I assumed was Harkness Tower, judging by the sign that was pointing its way. Across the street I could see an open area leading to a square surrounded by the Old Campus, the generative core of the university. I jaywalked and made my way there, to look for a comfortable place to alight and do some hard thinking. Unfortunately, as starkly beautiful as the square was with its snow covered ground; tall, bare, frost covered oak and elm trees; and deeply European feel to the surrounding buildings, I found not one place to sit to take this all in. Not one bench. Not even a fountain with a convenient ledge. Obviously, when snow did not cover the ground, the lawn now hidden underneath was the main cushion for the young bodies housing the young minds that were in the midst of Ivy League enlightenment—but that is age old for the young, who don't worry about the effects of Nature on clothing and spinal columns. I, on the other hand, even when young, always somehow found it demeaning—“demeaning” may be too strong of a word, of course, but it's close to the meaning—to sit, squat and sprawl like a primitive man who had not yet invented the obvious improvement of the chair. To do so for reasons of stealth, of course, was another matter, but when there is no professional impediment to comfort required, I require comfort. Given the limited resources, I leaned up against a tree.

In my search I had made my way across the two acres of the square and was now facing the extent of it, looking across it directly towards Harkness Tower. Very Gothic, very natural looking framed by the skeletal trees in winter starkness, very Old World.

This was the area where the freshman come to live, I recalled from the quick research I did before coming. I tried to imagine an 18-year-old Sara Hutton sitting here surrounded by this old brick womb of best-and-brightest nurturing, dealing with her newfound revulsion for the Underclass. I thought of her staring at the beauty of these buildings, their Gothic Revival and Romanesque styles seeming to speak of just what wonders Man has built and I thought of her comparing that with the blight of the urban decay that surrounded the campus. Who did the building? Who caused the decay? Natural questions. It's her answers that may have been unnatural.

I took my cell phone out of my pocket and called Roee and had him patch me through the secure line to Petey.

“Fixxer! Where are you?! I hear bells!” Petey came through, as always, loud and clear.

“Bells?”

“Yeah, you know, of the ding-dong variety!”

I stopped to listen. Petey was right. The crisp air was alive with the successive tones of striking clappers beating out music unfamiliar to me. Having been deep in thought, I hadn't notice. “I'm on the Yale campus in New Haven. There's a big gothic tower in front of me. I guess it's coming from there.”

“Yeah, but what's that music? I know that?”

“I don't know. Listen, I want—”

“Sure you do, you've got to know it. Everybody knows it!”

“Well, assuming you're a part of everybody, Petey, you tell me.”

“No, no, I just can't think of it right now, but I know it.”

I listened for another second. “Well, it's innocuous and inane. Does that help?”

“No. So many things are these days. Oh well. Yale, uh? What could they possibly teach you?”

“I haven't decided on a major yet. I need your help, Petey. You anywhere near the computer?”

“Sure, I just happen to have been poking around in it when you called.”

“Can you check the database on air fields in this area? Not Tweed-New Haven, or any other commercial field. I'm looking for some small, most likely private fields.”

“Well, let's see what we got.” There was a moment's pause during which I could hear Petey humming the inane music that the bells had been playing, accompanied by the clack of computer keys. “Well, we got three private fields. One's connected to a big wholesale distributor out in East Haven.”

“No, that wouldn't be it.”

“One's a private flying club.”

“Give me the details on—”

“Oh, this is interesting.”

“What?”

“There's a file on one out in Mom's Cove that's got a stop sign on it.”

“Really? You don't have that level of security clearance, do you?”

“Well—not so you would notice, Fixx, but then I've always preferred going in the back door anyway. After all, I am but a servant of the State. Here we go. Oh wow! You'll never guess. The field is owned by—”

“Max somebody.”

“Hey, don't bruise my lines by stepping on them. Not just Max somebody. Maxwellton James!”

A bell rang. Not one of the ones in Harkness Tower. “Why do I know that name?”

“Well, you and I never worked with him.”

“He was a gun runner.”

“That's right!”

“Central America.”

“Lot of frequent flyer miles to Honduras.”

“How did we compensate him?”

“Well, according to this, we didn't.”

“What was he, one of Reagan's new George Washingtons?”

“Nope. It just seems that we allowed him to transport certain illicit drugs back up here.”

“Not, I would assume, for private consumption.”

“Not unless he took an occasional toot for quality control.”

“And this air field?”

“Just never seen by the good old blind eye of Uncle Sam. Nor, it seems were the air fields he owns in Texas, Central California and in—”

“Nome, Alaska.”

“Yeah! Just outside of.”

“And his current activities?”

“None listed here. I guess he's retired.”

“A rich man?”

“Well he's got an expensive hobby.”

“What's that?”

“He collects and refurbishes antique planes. You know World War One, World War Two war birds, that sort of stuff. Rents them to movies. He's a big deal at air shows. Very respect—
The Monkees
!”

“What?”

 
“That's what the bells were tolling. The theme from
The Monkees
!”

“Oh. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for cultural kitsch.”

“Yeah!
Hey, hey, we're the
—”

“Petey?”

“What?”

“May I have the address of the air field?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, Fixxer!”

~ * ~

I walked back to my car, which I had left in a parking lot on York, across from the 305 Crown Street building. It was a rented Ford Taurus painted a very strange nightmare version of green. Just what I thought a freelance journalist on a limited expense account would be forced to rent. I drove out of the central city to the area known as Mom's Cove, which sat on the wide mouth of the Quinnipiac River, where it merged with Long Island Sound. The airfield was not hard to find. It was a desolate plot of land surrounded by one of the tallest chain link fences I had ever seen. A narrow road with muddy, snow-slush tire ruts lead to the gate that had a dirty white sign on it that read in red letters:

Private Air Field.

Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.

If
They Survive Their Wounds.

I parked the Ford and got out and went to the gate. It was locked with a brand new keypad system that was all shinny and sleek, compared to the fence, which obviously had had a long acquaintance with the various faces of weather. I looked through the fence. The property ran to the river's edge. Between the fence and the shore was one lone runway, running perpendicular with the river's edge; a large, two story hangar, much larger than one would think a field this size would need; and a small one story building, most likely the office, attached to the side of the hangar. There were no planes on the runway and no other activity that I could tell. There was one car parked by the hangar, a bright yellow Corvette.

I decided, despite the sign, to make my way in. I went to the trunk of the car and pulled out the Bag o' Tricks, a case just larger than a standard attaché that held an amazing variety of little tools lovingly created by Roee. I pulled from it the little device Roee was most lately proud of, and which he had dubbed, “Fingers Malloy.” Looking like a one button remote control, it housed various electronic this-and-thats, including a little microchip that had stored on it every possible combination a keypad was capable of. Attached to the side of a keypad, and the button pushed, “Fingers Malloy” tried every one with amazing rapidity until a match was found. Then it displayed the proper number sequence on a little screen. Unfortunately there are many combinations possible, so the amount of time one has to wait varies from a minute or two to twenty. That's its only drawback. It could possibly keep you rooted in the illicit act longer than you felt comfortable. In the dead of night, under cover, that may not be a problem — especially if you have a good book and a tiny flashlight to kill time with, but in broad daylight with nothing to hide behind, it gave you a feeling reminiscent of that reoccurring nightmare where you show up for school with no shirt on.