The Detective & the Pipe Girl (3 page)

“Yeah. That’s how I became a filmmaker. By just diving in. I didn’t work in the studio system. I didn’t work as a TV director. I just made indie films. It took a lot of work. But more so, time. Things go much slower at first. It could take years just to get barely enough money to start. But eventually, things started to flow.”

I nodded. “I’m going to go look for Suzanne Neal.”

4

A
ll right, maybe he was telling me the truth, or some of the truth. And maybe not. I wasn’t really sure. Maybe he’s still involved with her, and she’s avoiding him. That was my first thought. Or maybe she simply got a new phone and now her old one doesn’t work and it’s got his mind racing. You know? Is she sick of me? Is she seeing someone else? Am
I
not good enough?

Believe it or not, people who are in their sixties and have won Oscars and have given speeches to a billion people still have the same little fears and vulnerabilities we all had on the goddamn playground. It’s amazing. Helps me in my business quite a bit. Not just in getting cases—paranoid cat walks in my office and pays me to follow his girlfriend. But in trying to figure out why somebody might have done something. Go back to the playground, John. That’s what I tell myself sometimes. Go back to the simple, pure emotions we felt as children. That’s where a lot of motives live.

Of course the possibility existed that he had indeed felt something and she was really in trouble. We’ll just have to see. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. But no matter what, I’ll tell you this, it didn’t seem like it was going to be that hard to find her.

Back in the Cobalt now. Oh yes, look at that beautiful Sahara Beige interior. The
official
color of the interior was cleverly named “beige.” I named it Sahara Beige. Better, right? So now I was sitting in a Mountain Gray car with Sahara Beige interior. You’d think that would be an unharmonious contrast. The mountains and the desert. Yet it was a perfect blend of visual comfort.

I called a friend of mine named Ken Booth. He’s a Hollywood agent who represents TV actors. I’ve never had any small talk with him. None. Ken is all business, always. It’s kind of nice. I call him when I want something, he calls me when he wants something, and we either help each other or we don’t help each other, and that’s it. I literally know nothing about him. Kids, wife, gay, straight, likes to put sexual conquests on a spinning knife board and throw things at them. I have no idea. I’ve only
seen
him once—the first time he hired me. Simple case. Find his ex–business partner so the cops could arrest him for trying to extort Ken. I found him pretty quickly and used a trick on him that I use on a lot of people I suspect have no real street experience. Within five seconds of meeting him, I pulled my gun on him and said, “Get on the ground with your hands behind your back or I’m going to shoot you.” He was terrified, did what he was told, and I took him to the cops.

Ken appreciated it: I had my check within twenty-four hours. Not to mention more business from him over the years on behalf of his clients. The most valuable payment I got out of that first case, however, is that Ken uses his Hollywood connections to help me from time to time—on the house. But let’s get back to the beginning of this little story within the story, to the fact that I don’t have any personal relationship with Ken at all. That never once have we so much as engaged in ten to twenty seconds of pre-actual-conversation chitchat. Never once.

And yet, I like him a lot. I feel like he’s a friend. I feel like if I called him with a serious problem he’d drop everything and help me. Weird how that works. It’s just a feeling. It’s something that isn’t there, but is there. I thought about Vonz, who had said he
felt
something was wrong. Whether or not that was true in Vonz’s case isn’t the point. The point is, those invisible sensations are often real.

“Ken. John Darvelle.”

“Yeah, my assistant told me. What’s up?”

“I’m looking for an actress named Suzanne Neal.”

“Is she commercial, TV, film, what?”

“Suzanne Neal. She just sounds hot, doesn’t she?”

I can’t describe to you the level of silence on the other line. Like outer space in a soundproof capsule. Ken would absolutely not get off track. He was just
not
going to say, “Yeah, she does sound hot.”

I moved on, basically glad that Ken didn’t break character. If he had agreed with me, or started to tell me some story about a girl with a great name, it might have freaked me out.

I heard some typing, and then: “She hasn’t done much. A few commercials, a couple, looks like, indie films. Yeah, indie, never heard of them. Probably didn’t get released. Her agent is Karen Alves at TT Talent. Hmm. Pretty big agent. Here’s Karen’s number.”

He gave it me and I said, “Thanks, Ken.”

“Yep,” he said, and clicked off.

Hung up on me.

I switched my phone over so it would read “private” and called TT Talent—Karen Alves’s direct line. Today so far I had met with a huge director and now I was on my second call to a Hollywood agent. Jesus, I was a player all of a sudden, I was a guy in a terry-cloth robe making a poolside call, I was Lew Fucking Wasserman.

Karen’s assistant answered. A guy. Eager-sounding. “Karen Alves’s office.”

“Yeah, I’m calling from Dowd Casting. Actually, let me back up. You represent Suzanne Neal, right?

“When she feels like working we do.” He laughed. I had no idea why.

“I have her down to be at an audition here at Dowd and she’s not showing up.”

“Hmm,” he said. “She has an audition today. But not at Dowd. The only reason I know that offhand is she hasn’t been going out much lately, and she is today. I guess it’s possible she double-booked. Hmm. When it rains it pours. With most of Karen’s clients, I’d know what’s up, but with Suzanne you never know. She meets people, gets called in, and doesn’t tell us. Let me look here . . .”

Typing. Shuffling. Hmm-ing. “I don’t see anything. What’s it for?”

I said, “Film. Indie. It’s called . . .
Cobalt
.”

Cobalt?
Nice bullshitting, Darvelle. What are you going to tell him next? There’s this hot new movie coming up called
LeSabre
? A terrific new film with the intoxicating title of
Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra
? Dammit.

The assistant didn’t see a problem with the title. He said, “Hmm. Well, she’s supposed to be at Raleigh in Hollywood right about now. Or a little while ago. She may have left already. I just don’t see anything about an audition at Dowd.”

“Okay. Well, maybe her audition today is for a national commercial or something. Those can happen out of nowhere. And I guess make you forget about your indie audition.”

“No, it’s for a studio movie called
Friendship
.”

He paused again. Then: “Let’s see. I can’t give you her number. I
can
call her, but . . .” He laughed again. “That doesn’t always do much good with Suzanne. What is your name, by the way?”

I had what I needed. Time to get off the call.

“Hello,” I said. “Did I lose you?”

I know. Not that original. But it works.

“No, I’m right here,” I heard the assistant say clearly.

“Shit,” I said.

Now to an imaginary person in the room: “Think I lost the agent’s assistant. She’s over at Raleigh. Going to give them a call and see if she can come over after her audition . . .”

Click.

Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. A
bunch of soundstages and casting rooms. You had TV shows and movies being filmed on part of the lot. You had TV shows and movies being cast on other parts of the lot. And you had commercials happening too. There were plenty of people kicking around hoping and praying and sometimes begging for their first break—getting the lead in a diaper commercial.

Like all studios these days, there was a security gate and a puffed-up security guard monitoring it. I couldn’t think of anything to say to the guy, so I didn’t turn in, I just drove right past. I think I might have even been whistling as I drove by to appear casual and not at all interested in entering the studio’s lot. I took a right at the first block past the lot and parked in a little residential area that bordered the studio. I walked over to the back wall of the studio, perpendicular to the security gate, and climbed up a jacaranda tree that hugged the wall.

Side note: Jacaranda trees. Cool.

I exited the jacaranda and hopped onto the top of the wall. Then: Down on to the ground on the other side. I was in. Amazing security. Jeez. I hope someone doesn’t want to show up on the set of some random sitcom one day and spray gunfire. It would be too easy.

I was in the parking lot now, the security entrance that I had bypassed over to the right. Big warehouse-y stages to the left, production bungalows and casting offices up ahead. I walked up to one of the little gray bungalows, opened the door, and walked in. There was a receptionist there. Fifty maybe. Attractive, but a little rough. Look in her eye that said: I’ve seen it all, babe. Hollywood glamour. Broken promises. Heartbreak. With a dash of: And by the way, don’t fuck with me.

I said, “I’m here for the
Friendship
audition.”

And then I thought: What if today’s auditions are only for women? Shit, Darvelle, this isn’t your best day.

She said, “Your point?”

Total smart-ass. I respected it.

“Sorry. Do you know where it is?”

“Didn’t security tell you? When you enter through security, they tell you where to go.”

Man. Another snafu. Yeah, that’s right, I used the word “snafu.” I said, “I’m an actor. I don’t listen to others. Like the security guy. Didn’t hear a word he said. When people talk to me I smile and nod, but I’m really just thinking about myself.”

“Well, you kind of look like an actor, but you’re not an actor, because actors don’t talk like that. Actors actually
do
that, but they don’t
say
they do that. And by the way, if what you just said is true, how are you going to hear what I’m telling you?”

“What?” I said. “I drifted off.”

She gave me a sly look, called security, and asked where the
Friendship
audition was. Then she told me. “Walk across the lot to stage seven, then go through a door marked A.”

“I think I can follow that.”

“Like I said. You’re not an actor.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

And I did. And I thought that, despite her remarks, she bought my story. I walked out the door.

Across the lot, I walked through the door marked A—I’d found the audition. Flanking one of the big stages, the waiting area was a stark, bleak, gray-walled room. Actresses and actors sat, some reading their scripts, some just blankly staring into the stark bleakness. Suzanne was not one of them.

The room housed a door that opened periodically to reveal the actual audition room. I’d catch intermittent glimpses of smug-looking black-turtleneck types determining the careers of people. But no Suzanne in there either. Must have missed her. I sat down in the waiting area; no one seemed to mind.

A weary, bearded casting director wandered in and out of the two rooms. Calling people in, sending people out. Man, this was depressing. No wonder actors and actresses were such freaks.

The thing is, though, this was a pretty big audition. For a real movie. That’s the reality. Even some of the biggest Hollywood pictures were cast in environments like this. For starring roles. Hard to believe if you’ve never seen it. If you took a tourist here and said: Do they cast big movies here or torture people? You’d get a 70–30 split—in favor of the torture.

I caught the bearded casting director’s eye. He looked at me. He seemed to know I didn’t belong there. “Can I help you?”

“Wait. This is the audition for
Friendship
?”

He nodded. He looked exhausted.

“Sorry, wrong room. This place is confusing.”

I walked back out to the lot and hung around. I stood between a Toyota Prius and a pickup. I felt obvious, but the reality is no one even gave me a second look. I watched people mill about the lot, casting people, Hollywood types, actors, actresses, randoms. Nobody walked by in costume like you see when people are on Hollywood lots in the movies. No aliens. No Roman gladiators. No bald strong man sporting a curly mustache and a wrestling singlet. I leaned on the pickup, watched the door to the
Friendship
audition. A young actor who I’d seen in the waiting room emerged. He would be filed under the “quirky” type. The pudgy-white-guy-with-a-charmingly-unkempt-Afro-friend who says outrageous yet somehow honest and real things. I watched him get in his car, an old red Jeep Wrangler. He cranked it up and headed toward the entrance I had bypassed. I took off. Ran back over to the back wall, climbed it, jumped over to the jacaranda, then dropped to earth on the other side. I got in the Cobalt, fired her up, took off, and yanked her around to the street where the gated entrance was.

The Jeep had already exited the lot and I just caught it going left at Sunset, two blocks up from where I was. I stomped on it, got up to the Sunset intersection fast, then ripped it left, in front of, way too close to, some oncoming cars. Had to, otherwise I would have been waiting forever. The guy’s red Jeep was at a light one block down Sunset. I put the Cobalt right behind him. I followed him for a bit, left on La Brea, right on Beverly. A couple miles later he parked. I copied him—parked ten spaces up on the same side of the street. Then through the glass of the Cobalt watched him head into the King’s Road Café. Coffee shop slash lunch spot. Hipster Heaven. Don’t even fucking walk in without the proper amount of irony. They should sell pencil-thin mustaches and pencil-thin cardigan sweaters at the door.

I got out, got my slim jim out of the trunk, walked down to his Jeep, and broke into it.

It took less than ten seconds. I looked inside for some headshots, figured he brought some to the audition. Found them. Right next to, you guessed it, some other headshots. A stack of black and white shots, no smile, his serious look, and a stack of colored shots where he sported a big smile that said: Hey, I’m a loose, fun, funny cat. I went color, looked at the picture, looked at the name on the bottom. Clay Blevins. Friendly-looking. Like I said—shaggy, curly hair. And, yeah, overweight. Charmingly overweight. The slacker friend. Perfect for the scene where the character is sitting on a couch, the remote control to the tube out of reach. And instead of getting off the couch and walking over to grab it, he grabs something within arm’s length, a nearby broom or rolled-up newspaper, to try and hook the remote and drag it over to himself, so he didn’t have to actually move.