Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (19 page)

Despite the challenge, she quickly took off her coat revealing a short-skirted purple suit made out of a quilted material covered in a rash of Dalmatian-like black spots. It clung closely to her body, which held up beautifully under the cling. Matching ankle-high boots, black leggings, black gloves, and a black mock turtleneck pullover completed the outfit. She sat in the fourth chair provided for her and made herself comfortable as she waited for a reply.

“That's a lovely Rena Lange you're wearing,” was the only one I would give.

She snorted a refusal to be impressed with my knowledge of haute couture as she turned to Roee. “Jew!”

Roee was startled. Not something he was used to. “Yes—proudly so.”

“Don't get defensive. Wasn't an accusation, just a point of fact.” She dismissed Roee and turned to me, “And you're an American.”

“Why does everybody always assume I'm an American?” I innocently asked Hamo.

“Must be your rugged good looks,” he replied. “Very cowboy.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

Lydia Corfu laughed and got up, starting to put her coat back on.

“Please resume your seat Ms. Corfu,” I instructed.

“I would if I thought I was going to like you enough. I came for information on two dangerous assholes in the Greek parliament. Do you have it or not?”

“We do not.”

“Then good-bye.”

“We have something possibly far more interesting to offer.”

“Fine, take out an ad in the Sunday
Times
. I'm going to Harvey Nichols. As long as I'm here I might as well spend some money.”

She started to leave.

I started to sing.

“
Lydia, oh Lydia/ Say, have you met Lydia?/Lydia the tattooed lady
.”

She stopped. She turned around. “How did you know I have a tattoo?”

“More important, how did I know you named yourself after that song? Your real name is Iphigeneia Venizelos. You come from the island of Corfu, the only daughter of a fig farmer. You went to Athens as a young woman with pretensions of rising high, pretensions that caused you to imply to any one of interest that you were of a stock somewhat higher than peasant. You renamed yourself Lydia, after a song in an old Marx Brothers movie, and chose Corfu because, I suppose, you can take the girl out the island but you can't take the island out of the girl?”

“How do you know these things?”

“I paid close attention in school when they taught us how to do research.”

“So? What? You're applying for a position as an investigative reporter on my station?”

“There's a rumor starting to circulate that you're planning to make a bid for Olympic Pictures in Hollywood.”

“What?” She was genuinely stunned.

“Makes sense in a way. Olympic was founded by a Greek, and it's now in the hands of the very cold Swedes who are trying to unload it.”

“I have not thought of Olympic Pictures since the time they passed on a brilliant film I wanted to make.”

“Not
Noontime Nightmare
?” I said with a certain mock umbrage. “How many groins did you kick in that one?”

Lydia Corfu took her coat off again, threw it on Hamo's desk, and sat down, then, very opened faced, she smiled at me. It was an amazing face. Beautiful in the way a woman can be beautiful and a girl never can. She had black, thick, bold eyebrows that arched over black marble eyes that picked up and reflected all available light. Her nose was strong and long and no nonsense. Her cheeks were high and full of color. Her lips were full, sensual, painted in a subtle, natural red. Her teeth were even and white. Her hair was thick and long, although now piled on her head and pinned in place. It was black, mostly, but with shameless individual and discrete strands of gray throughout. There was something very sexy about those strands of gray flowing in a black sea. She was officially forty-three years old. I decided it was no standard female-actress lie. This is a woman who would look grand at ninety and take every possible credit for it.

“Tell me, this rumor, how did it get started?”

“I started it.”

“And do you have the billion dollars I would need to buy Olympic? Because as rich as I deserve to be, I do not.”

“So you are aware of the situation with Olympic?”

“I am aware of everything!”

“I know the feeling. If you had a billion dollars, would you want to buy Olympic?”

Lydia looked up into a heaven of her own design. She smiled again. “I could do much with it.”

“You own the most successful TV station in Greece.”

“Yes, I am very big in Greece. I am a star, a celebrity, a national icon.”

“But...?”

“You are obviously a man who understands the human soul. I deserve the world, and all I have is a once glorious corner of it. It satisfies on alternate Tuesdays. Otherwise, I am unfulfilled.” She leaned in my direction and shot her black marbles at me. “What have you got to fill me with?”

I took a moment to successfully run the obstacle course of possible answers, then explained the story of Bea Cherbourg and how her employment at Olympic had lead to her death. I talked about Sara Hutton, who Lydia had never met, but knew much about. I detailed the history and assumed involvement of Maxwellton James and she seemed genuinely shocked that such a person would become involved with Hollywood in any way other than as a drug supplier. When I told her of the Communion of the Golden Arse and what exactly I thought it was all about, what I assumed was its raison d'être, she not only understood, she applauded.

“I will be truthful. It is sad about this Bea, but I do not necessarily see this Communion of the Golden Arse as evil.”

“Yes, I thought you might not.”

“Nefarious perhaps and uniquely well thought out, but not necessarily evil. I might well want to join this Communion of the Golden Arse myself. Sincerely!”

“Yes, I thought you might, and it is that sincerity that's key to my plan.”

“Your plan? Why should I subscribe to your plan?”

“Because of what I can offer you. Although we will portray you—and backup that portrait—as someone able to marshal the billion dollars plus it would take to buy Olympic, it will be a fake. We cannot offer you Olympic. I am, though, determined to destroy the Communion of the Golden Arse and—”

“Why?” She again challenged, quickly and fiercely. It demanded an answer, but the answer was complex—complex in its simplicity.

“Because I choose to. Choice is freedom. I am a free man.”

“Oh, and I thought maybe you had been in love with this girl Bea.”

“I hardly knew her.”

“Love can happen in an instant. Although lust is more likely.” She had caused a crack, and she knew it. “You know, no one has answered my first question. Who the hell are you? Not lawyers. Obviously not government, as this seems a personal vendetta. Organized crime? No. I do not see that in your eyes. Yet you are not casual in what you are doing, I mean, you are not amateurs. This is most fascinating. You are most fascinating. Even beyond your, ‘Rugged good looks.' Answer my question, cowboy, and we can continue to talk.”

“For those who need to address me, I am called Fixxer.”

“Fixer?” She asked with no hint of real wonder or surprise in her voice. “Just that? Not, Bob Fixer, or, Joe Fixer?”

“No. Just, Fixxer. With two Xs”

“With two Xs?” She smiled, chuckled, and shook her head. “Boys!”

“Will be boys—yes. Mystery has its advantages.”

“Hey, you don't have to tell a woman that!”

Had I made a mistake? A part of me, a several million year old part of me, wanted to walk away, traverse the savannas of the Great Rift Valley and find some other female, big of breast but with a more compliant will. Another part, though, the part that could laugh at more than just the misfortunes of others, wanted to start all over, to take another tact—but it was too late for that.

“Maybe we should concentrate on the advantages to you in this endeavor,” I said.

“Ah, but I was trying to get at the advantages to you. I've heard of you, of course, Fixxer! I think I once threatened somebody with you. I had to; my lawyer was out of town, but I thought you were like Santa Claus. The one who knows when you were naughty, not the one who knows when you are nice.”

It became obvious that I had to tell her something that would fit within her sentiment of rationally. “I eventually will reap great reward for this endeavor.”

“Filthy lucre?”

“The filthiest.”

“Good. Now that I know what kind of man I am dealing with, what are you offering me?”

“Despite any attraction you might have to the Communion of the Golden Arse, I think you would agree with me what a damn silly enterprise it is. Even outside of it having caused the death of a young woman, who, as fragile as she may have been, had no business skipping out of the joys and pains of a full life. Now, if the sophisticated likes of you and me can see the absurdity, how do you think the general population would react? Especially given the death of Bea Cherbourg. Depending on how well the media milks it, it could even be scandalous. Which could make it potent commercial stuff. Help us with my plan, follow my instructions exactly, and I am prepared to give you all the credit for our eventual success. My associates and I never seek publicity. You can have it all, and the celebrity that will come with it, and nothing, as you know Lydia, is as powerful in America as celebrity. Then you just build on it. You produce exclusive reports on the matter and sell them worldwide. More important, you fashion a feature film version. You star as yourself, as Lydia Corfu, crusader for the right. Hollywood would be afraid not to make the movie. If it's a hit, the Hollywood that once snubbed you will suddenly be yours—for as long as you can keep it charmed.”

Lydia Corfu again looked to her heaven. Then she looked back to me as she leaned back in her chair. “Well, I suppose if you can assure me that it will be a designer cloak and a jewel encrusted dagger, I might be interested.”

At every decent pub and wine bar in London, shortly after five PM Monday through Friday, crowds of eager drinkers flow in, fill up, and overflow with incredible speed and urgency. It is a phenomenon dictated by the human need for social interaction, the effects of alcohol on bloodstreams uncomfortable without it, and a government-mandated early closing hour. As London is a city that is geographically well-defined by its various professional pursuits, often such establishments will take on the character of the dominant occupation crowding their particular page of the A to Zed. Without, of course, ever losing their essential character as traditional English watering holes.

In certain pubs and bars in the West End, for example, the walls fairly reek—or smell sweetly, depending on your attitude—of several hundred years of English theatrical tradition, even as their dark wood paneling and posters of shows long gone play host to the modern heirs of that tradition. Men and women of considerable talent and immeasurable pride in their profession who, over pints and G&T's and French wines and the occasional rebellious glass of California wine, discuss the theater with a certain sense of jaundice awe; mention radio dramas they were not ashamed to have been a part of; complain about the lowering standards of British television, and the near nonexistence of British cinema, and, of course, almost every evening, the whole of Hollywood is disparaged without qualification.

Just to the northwest, in trendy bars that often gleam from glass and chrome, film, television and radio producers, directors, editors, lighting cameramen, harried executives and legions of young attractive women working their way up, gather in a communal spirit, wave and kiss and shake hands and agree over everything wrong in their industry while they drink hurriedly so they can quickly get back to “it” for some “bloody sod” on their staff did a real “cock-up today” and they'll have to spend the rest of the evening making it right. And, of course, almost every evening, the whole of Hollywood is disparaged without qualification—while still being eagerly looked to for coproduction coin.

Then off to the West, by the Inns of Court, barristers, solicitors and judges (and probably the occasional criminal) gather within walls more staid and sober than not, to relax their guards, their guards being a slightly irritating burden to maintain—but, considering they uphold the traditions of English common law, a reasonable one.

Then, back around the Houses of Parliament, politicians and bureaucrats gather in green lamp shaded rooms of whispers to lubricate compromise—and to try to ignore the existence of the United States of America.

In the City, dark-suited but happy men and women get together in places such as The Pavilion in Finsbury Circus, places with an innate respect for the Good Life, and speak of little but money while thinking of little but sex. For, unlike theater, which can produce art; film, radio and television, which can produce information and entertainment; law, which can produce justice, and politics which can produce legislation, regulation and confusion, these dark suited men and women produce nothing but wealth—and wealth is sexy. They are happy little warriors having fun watching money move through their computers like digital sperm from one end of the world to another and back again, returning the proud parents of a bundle—of joy. Of course, as Adam Smith had pointed out, the wealth of a nation is far more than just its cash reserves, but that is too arcane for these dark-suited men and women.