The Rabbit Factory (34 page)

"And you won't hold anything against me?" she said.

I didn't have to be a detective to read the double entendre. [ had turned down her invitation for a bowl of chili and a romp pn the Calvin Klein sheets, and now she was paying me back. ,ike I said to Frankie, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. "No, but I can really use your help," I said.

"Alright, I'll tell you what I know. Then maybe one day you can do something nice for me. Deal?"

"Deal." I wasn't sure whether or not I had just sold my soul, but after working in Hollywood for a less than a week, I felt like I lit right in. "I didn't know Dean Lamaar personally, but a lot of people ho did thought he was a bastard. He was definitely a sexist, Hncl probably a racist, a homophobe, and anti-Semitic. He was ;< >1 the most politically correct man, but remember, he lived in tin era when nobody was politically correct. The Civil Rights -- 389 -- f

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movement didn't happen till the sixties. Women didn't burn their bras till the seventies. In his defense, he was a product of his time. But even with that as an excuse, he was still a first class shit. I've heard stories about how ugly it was to work here back in the old days, especially in the animation studio. Low wages, long hours, no benefits, no unions. Basically, you either worked under the terms Dean Lamaar dictated or you didn't work at Lamaar."

"That's what the book says. Is it true?"

"Probably. Hollywood's a scummy place to work now. I'm sure it was no better fifty years ago. Especially for women and j other minorities. But I doubt if Lamaar Studios was much different from Universal, Fox, or any of the others."I

"Did Lamaar write an autobiography?"

"I wish he had, but no. Every writer in Hollywood offered 1 to ghost it for him, but he refused. Said his personal life was too I boring."

"Too bad. I've read enough bios. I was looking for some kind of personal statement."

"We could take a look at Deanie's Farewell,'" she said. "A few days before he died Dean Lamaar made a tape about the history of the company. That's as personal as it gets."

"It's also a major coincidence, and detectives don't believe in coincidences. Didn't you ever think maybe it was kind of just too perfect that he made this definitive tape right before he died?"i

"I love the way you think, but no. He made videotapes for all kinds of programming or events or special occasions. In this case we have an attraction at Familyland, The Homestead. It's a replica of the house Dean grew up in, kind of a mini-museum

of his personal archives. He made the tape to run on a screen at The Homestead, but it's so boring we never used it. It would have just faded into oblivion, but Lamaar died a few days after he made it, so it took on a whole new significance. It became our founder's final words. Deanie's Farewell." "I'd like to see it." "It's in the archives at Familyland. I'll have them send you a j copy."

"I'd like to see it now. I'll drive back down there. It would help if you came along." "I was hoping you'd ask me out to a movie," she said. "Let's go."

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Disneyland has Main Street. Familyland has Crane Street. The house at 23 Crane was a reproduction of the house where Dean Lamaar was born. As long as I had Jtnade the drive back to Costa Luna, I figured I'd check it out.

If the designers wanted to capture the look of a genuine Depression Era home, they succeeded. Young Dean's room was frozen in time, with clothes draped on the chair and shoes on llie floor like he was still a carefree kid. His schoolbooks and toys were placed strategically around the room and his early (drawings were proudly displayed. From what Eeg said about Lamaar's father, the art on the wall was revisionist history. If Eeg Ś Was telling the truth, Dean hid his drawings, or the old man would kick the shit out of him in a drunken rage.

There were photos of Mom and Dad with accompanying jios that made them sound like the all-American family. So who Was lying? Eeg, with his horror story about the abused boy who murdered his father? Or Familyland, for portraying the Lamaar ťmily as if they were Ward, June, and the Beaver?

We golf-carted to the Dexter Duck Building and took the

elevator down, this time to B Level. I followed Amy through a labyrinth of corridors. "Brace yourself for Maxine Green," she said. "She's a real character." "Cartoon variety or just another delightfully zany Lamaar employee?"

"More acerbic than zany. She's got a razor-sharp tongue. She's also the first black employee Mr. Lamaar ever hired."

And he stuck her down here in the bowels of the building, I thought.

We got to a door marked Video Archives. Amy swiped her ID card and we entered a room that was two basketball courts deep and crammed with rack after rack of videotapes. A tiny wisp of a woman with cocoa brown skin and white hair pulled back in a bun was seated at the front desk. Amy introduced us. "Maxine Greene, this is Mr. Lomax." I noted that I had been downgraded from Detective to civilian. "Max has been in charge of Video Archives since before they invented video," Amy said. "It used to be called Film Archives."

"And before that it was Stone Tablets," Maxine said, totally deadpan. "What can I get you this morning, honey?"I

"I need a copy of Deanie's Farewell," Amy said.

"I have it filed right here under Boring," she said, tapping on her computer keyboard. Ignoring the glasses that were dangling on a gold chain around her neck, she leaned forward and squinted at the screen. "I've also got it with Spanish or French subtitles, so it can put you to sleep in three languages. Oh, and I've also got the source tape." "I'll pass on the subtitles. The English version is fine," Amy said.

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"Excuse me," I said. "What's the source tape?"

Maxine reached for the gold chain and put on her glasses. Apparently she could see without them, but she could speak lu'tter with them on. "It's everything they shot that day. It's what they edited from." "Sounds interesting," I said. "Can we get that, too?"

"Mike, source tapes go on for hours," Amy said.

"Not this one," Maxine said. "Dean Lamaar hated being on (iiinera. He'd shoot everything in one take, maybe two if he ibbed a line." She removed her glasses and squinted at the wreen again. "Let's see, the final edit is twelve minutes; the Ninirce tape is eighteen minutes, forty-two seconds." "We'll take both," I said.

"I'll get them," Maxine said, "but I'll be damned if I can figure nul: how these are going to help you in your investigation." I could see the panic in Amy's eyes. "What investigation?" I mi id.

"Oh, please, Mister Lomax," Max said. "You're one of the llrlectives investigating the Ronnie Lucas murder." "Do I look like a cop?"

"No, honey, with that suit and tie you look like a middleiHtxl rap star," she said. "But I just finished filing away all the 'flrws footage of Ronnie's murder and your face is all over it." "You'd make a good witness," I said. "Yes ma'am. I'm investing Ronnie Lucas's murder."

She must have been seventy years old and weighed ninety pi Minds. Or maybe it was the other way around. She stood up > her full four-feet-ten-inches. A good stiff breeze could have own her to the next county. But when she put her spindly III If hands on her hips, she looked like a geriatric black

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Wonder Woman.

"Ronnie was one of my favorites," she said with her jaw clenched. "I hope you catch the fucker who did it. I'll get your tapes."

axine set us up in a private screening room. Amy and I watched the final edit first. The tape consisted of Dean Lamaar, the white-haired patriarch, sitting

I>ehind a desk telling folks how terrific his life had been.

Looking more like everybody's favorite uncle than a gazillionaire Hollywood mogul, Lamaar talked about how it all Ntarted with "the simple drawing of a rabbit with attitude." He (lidn't mention the possibility that a good chunk of that attitude may have come from the pen of Lars Eeg. He went on to explain how "that single rabbit evolved into

IIcompany that has come to symbolize the family values that make America great." It was totally self-serving. Now I underNtood why they didn't use it in the exhibit. Most people would rather spend their time on long lines waiting to risk their lives on Cosmic Cat's Space Plunge. "Maxine was kind," Amy said. "This is worse than dull." She put the source tape into the VCR. It opened on the desk we had just seen, but Lamaar wasn't seated yet. I watched the lime code tick by on the bottom of the screen.

"And you thought the first version was hard to watch," Amy said.

"Why the hell is the camera running if nothing's happening?" I said.

"Tape is cheap," she said. "With film they're very selective about what they print, because processing is so expensive. When they're shooting a busy executive like Mr. Lamaar they just keep the tape rolling."

After about a minute an off-camera voice said. "Hey Deanie, I'm all set up here. Step in." Lamaar entered the frame, sat behind the desk, and the camera moved in to the shot we had seen in the final.

"I'm just going to do an audio slate," the voice said. "Dean Lamaar, Vision Statement, May 19, 2002, Take One. In five, four, three, two."

There was a pause, then Lamaar began to speak. And now, once again, Amy and I were subjected to the avuncular Mr. Lamaar droning on about how he had shaped the values of America by giving it a cartoon rabbit.

My eyelids started to droop. About ten minutes into Lamaar's self-tribute, the picture started to shake violently. Lamaar screamed, "What the fuck was that?" which I distinctly recalled was not in the final edit.

The off-camera voice yelled, "Earthquake! Deanie, get under the desk, get under the fucking desk!" The old man took direction well. The camera captured Lamaar as he scrambled under the desk and disappeared from the picture.

According to the time code at the bottom of the screen, the earth shook for twentytwo seconds. Then it settled. The camera recorded it all. Finally, the off-camera voice said. "It's over.

The Rabbit Factory

Deanie are you all right?"

Lamaar surfaced from under the desk. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," he said. "That was some fucking jolt. What do you think--5.6? 5.7? Definitely under six." He sat back down behind the desk. After he settled back in, the off-camera voice said, "You want to take it from the top?"

"Hell, no," Lamaar said. "You got everything but the last two pages. Find a place where you can pick it up." I The off-camera guy didn't say anything for about twenty seconds. Finally, he said, "Why don't you back up a paragraph and pick it up from the phrase, 'Our history makes us strong, but our vision makes us stronger.' I'll start in close and pull back I so that it won't jump cut from where we left off." Lamaar grunted his approval. The camera pulled in tight. I Then the off-camera voice gave the countdown. "In five, four, (three, two," and Lamaar picked up his speech. About a minute later he finished. "And cut," the voice said. "Excellent. Anything more you I want to do?"

"I want to get the fuck out from under these lights before I the aftershock shakes them loose and kills me," Lamaar said. I I heard the beginning of a laugh from the man off camera and (then the tape went dark. The time code on the bottom said eighteen minutes, forty-two seconds. Amy was speechless. Finally she found just the right words. "Holy shit."

"There you have it folks," I said. "A direct quote from the Director of Lamaar's Corporate Communications."

"I've seen the edited tape before," she said, "but I never saw

the source. I'm surprised they didn't erase the part with Mr. Lamaar saying 'fuck.'" "They were in the middle of an earthquake," I said. "They probably didn't even hear themselves cursing. Who was the guy off-camera?" "At first I thought it was just some random studio director they pulled off the lot. But nobody called him Deanie unless they knew him well. So I listened a little more carefully and I think it may be Klaus Lebrecht. He was real close to Mr. Lamaar." "How close?"

"Did you ever hear of The Cartoon Corps?"

"Yeah, Lamaar's old cronies from his Army days."

"Klaus Lebrecht, Mitch Barber, and Kevin Kennedy were the last of The Cartoon Corps. A few weeks after Mr. Lamaar died, all three of them retired on the same day." "That's weird."

"It didn't seem that weird at the time," she said. "They were old, their Lord and Master died, and they didn't much like the new Lamaar." "They didn't much like the newLamaaf!" I repeated. "I don't remember seeing their names on any of the grudge lists." "I doubt if they had a grudge. They had a great life here. I think they just decided to cash in their chips. They worked as a team, they left as a team." "Where are they now?"

"Probably living in Palm Springs with trophy wives and more money than they can spend. Fortune Magazine did an article on them when they left. The end of an era. I can get you a reprint if you want to read about them." "Get me their addresses too. I'd also like to talk to them.

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And I'll need to borrow the tapes."

She handed me the videotapes. "I'll be back from Vancouver Friday night. No late fees if you drop them off at my apartment Saturday around 8:00." I had no intention of showing up, but I had already turned her down once. "Thanks," I said. "I'll drop them off." "Don't forget. If you don't bring them back, Maxine will kill

me."

Maxine wouldn't kill her. But somebody would.

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I took Amy back to Burbank, picked up two copies of the Fortune article, and drove to my office. Terry was at his desk. "I've got great news," he said. "Did Forensics come up with something?" "No, but I just saved a load of money on my car insurance by ťwitching to Geico. I heard you hijacked an airplane last night." "Yeah, I'm also working with the mob. I'll do anything to Ifllit crime."

I tossed him a copy of the Fortune article and sat down to r;id it myself. It was written a few months after Lamaar died. JKcnnedy, Barber, and Lebrecht gave their own sugarcoated verNl> in of the company's golden days. But according to Fortune, llie Lamaar balloon officially burst on October 19, 1987, the day u-go-go eighties came to a crashing halt. After that the compiiny's balance sheets were dripping with red ink.