Tinseltown Riff (14 page)

“The phoenix.”

“Exactly.  Beautiful, beautiful, is old name of studio in days of glory. Perfect. Whole package is gathering steam and before you can say long Slavic prayer, out of ashes is rising the Phoenix.”

Finally cutting in, Ben pointed out the limited access to facilities and reduction of staff to a skeleton crew comprised of one clueless guy named Lester; a person whose dim   prospects of getting paid would make anyone leery. On the face of it, it was hard to believe this Phoenix would see the light of day, never mind get off the ground.

At this point, Leo totally lost it. Plucking handfuls of oranges the size of miniature billiard balls, Leo began hurling them at unseen enemies: through the wide-leafed banana plants, past the rubbery thickets and beyond to the ruptured space pods.

“Oh, so now I must talk business with rinky-dink scraping-bottom-of-barrel writer?  How money flows and is changing shapes is for his brain also? Funding, accounts in Budapest where bank lends you, no questions where collateral is from, also his business? Proceeds, wired clear of taxes, baking like bread in Bank of America too is for his brain? And no names behind numbers for preliminary expenses is also deadbeat scribbler's business?”

“Look,” said Ben, not understanding a word of it, “you tell me not to worry. You tell me it's none of my business. You pepper me with financial double-talk. And all I ask is for some plain old reassurance.”

Recovering, Leo quit hurling the oranges and shambled back to the golf cart. He fiddled with the key as if a couple more clicks would somehow revive the dead battery. Talking to himself and then to Ben, he finally said, “Is what I get for wheeling-dealing so everyone can enjoy the fruits? Is what I deserve?”

A few deep sighs and Leo was back to being Leo again. He yanked out his cell phone, punched in a number and mumbled something incoherent that ended with, “One o'clock for sure. Yes, I am going. Yes, is okay, is all okay.”

Leo smoothed the black strands of hair by his temples and returned to Ben's side by the stunted orange trees.

“Benjamin, for last time, who says hack must know how project is bankrolled?  From where you get this idea, please?”

Ben shrugged.

“Answer please? Who is last to know, if ever?”

“Yours truly, the hungry hack.”

“Positively. When opportunity is knocking, who is answering and not looking gift horse in the mouth?”

“A grateful, opportunistic hungry hack.”

“Absolutely, positively. Make or break we are talking here. Make or break.” Pulling out a wad of bills, Leo shoved some money in Ben's dress-shirt pocket. “So, to mover-and-shaker I am going now and you are minding your business for sure. With sealed lips, otherwise word gets out, everybody races, everybody loses. Is name of game in town, yes?”

Though dying to ask, Word gets out about what? Ben let it go.   

Leo scribbled down his cell phone number and added it to Ben's bulging shirt pocket. “At quarter-of-six you are calling. I will have answer and, hoping on lucky stars, drill for getting you this positively crackerjack job. Okeydoke?”

Tired of fighting it, Ben gave him an, “Okay.”

With nothing else to be said, for a time both of them fell silent. As if to make up for yesterday's agitated Santa Ana, the air remained dry and still, the sky the clearest blue. As a bonus, the incessant traffic noises stayed far off in the distance, except for a lazy drone like a homing device seeking the two of them out.

At the same time, Ben realized his post-Labor-Day resolve had slipped another notch.  If everything would only keep still for a minute, he could conceivably pull this off.

Just then, Gillian appeared astride a second golf cart like a model on a parade float. Today's outfit was a lavender satiny-pants-suit, fitted to her slender form; the top lacey and open at the neck. The chestnut do was, as ever, lacquered down framing her oval face. The translucent nail polish and lip gloss shimmered; the three-inch heels on her side-less, backless, slippers a perfect match. She was so poised, there was no indication that here was an employee from Paramount/Viacom about to rush back from her break.

Her cart glided to a halt close to Leo's by the café veranda. Leo hurried over to her and said something typically incomprehensible. Apparently satisfied with Gillian's response, Leo turned his head in Ben's direction. “So, Gillian is giving you kicker and project is off and running in your brain and sealed lips and wishing on a star.”

Like a man under the gun, Leo scurried away, leaving his defective cart behind.

With no sign that Gillian would deign to give up her perch, Ben walked over to her side. “Well there then now, can it be?”

“Can we dispense with the patter, Benjy?”

“Funny, that's what I was going to say. Great. So let's have it.”

“Are you alert? Are you intrigued?”

“Lady, you better believe it.”

“All right then.  Do you recall the video game you bungled at the house party in Malibu?”

If he was reading her right, the game she was referring to was
Crossfire
. And if memory served, you the player (as ex cop Bruce) learn at the outset that your wife and baby were murdered by druggies. You're out for vengeance the second you come home and discover their bodies. Thus, if Ben hadn't chosen to enter the house, the game would've ended. But even on
easy mode
, Ben lost track of the druggies hiding upstairs. Prompted by a voice-over to shift to the next scene, Ben had Bruce cut down a dark alleyway rimmed by fire escapes. Within seconds he was met with a barrage of crossfire and was instantly gunned down. It was silly, but after three attempts, Bruce still got three in the chest. At that juncture, Ben swore off video games forever.

“Well?” said Gillian, tapping her false fingernails on the cart's steering wheel.

“Okay, okay. I blew it and gave way to a pair of jaded starlets who did a lot better.”

“Not only that. But what did they keep bitching about?”

“After blowing away an army of toothless thugs, they'd had it. Claimed the macho stuff was as lame as the lady-countess tomb-raider crap. Kept eyeing me as if it was my fault.”

“And? What did they say?”

“I don't know. ‘Show us something, man. Bring it on.'”

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so'? They are the focus group! That was the test marketing! They were clamoring for an iPod with touch-screen joystick controls. And open-ended hard core scenarios.”

“Uh-huh.”  

“Come on, come on,” said Gillian. “Don't pretend you don't gobble up the buzz, don't hear what's trending. That you laid it on thick with Angelique totally out of the blue.”

With his mind clicking away, it dawned on him that she was currently in a relationship with some gaming media designer in the Valley—another part of the industry Ben knew zip about.

“Gotcha,” said Ben, as though he was on point all along.

“Well I should hope so,” said Gillian, constantly checking her flimsy designer watch. “Are we or are we not in an upgraded world?”

“We are indeed,” said Ben, recalling the Amazon on the treadmill egging on the jabbing night nurse as if she wanted a lot more.

“Ergo, Angelique needs a sure-fire vehicle with intense visual exposure and saturation. One her old form can be jigsawed in with real, not CGI, backgrounds.”

As if Leo's sputterings about financing weren't enough, Gillian rattled off so much shop talk, all Ben could catch were snippets like “... emotional impact ...
Angie's
Run
—perfect  ... game to film adaptation ... potential of 124-million units worldwide ... first sequence grabber leading you on like a killer elevator pitch ... ”

Breaking in before he went into brain-lock, Ben said, “Okay, okay. But what does that have to do with conning me to check out actual crime scenes? And the hype about Pepe at the writers' workshop? What does it have to do with this wreck of a studio? What is the simpleminded upshot?”

“The upshot is an annual growth rate of 20-percent and an untapped market topping it by another ten.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Gillian, however, was on a roll. She was standing now, so psyched she'd flung her slipper off her right foot and hadn't even noticed.  

“Ask any girl under thirty,” Gillian went on. “Would you rather spend your time watching a screen, waiting for the story to happen? Or would you rather take charge?     ‘Retro but new'—you nailed it. A real-time experience. Mission after mission no matter how dicey and to hell with the consequences.”

Still at a loss, Ben came back with, “Then let me just ask you this. My job is to--”

“Good God, isn't it obvious? Come up with a hook, backed up with whatever smarts Pepe can provide. To put in my hot little hands a thumbnail sketch complete with captions I can pitch to bozo execs who can't read and have the attention span of a toddler.”

“Okay, I hear you, I hear you,” said Ben, recalling the videos and the soap as Gillian plopped down on the go-cart bench to catch her breath. Just as suddenly, she demurely wedged her toes back into her slipper, pulled out a compact from her clutch bag and re-perfected her façade.

“Otherwise,” Ben added, “you keep leasing ancient reruns for Viacom and the proverbial handwriting is on the wall.”

‘Oh, puh-lease,” said Gillian, applying a dab of lip gloss. “Just shut up and, while you're at it, work in a double.”

“A double?”

“You heard me. A double, a stand-in. My Lord, what does it take? See you in a bit.”

Left in the lurch, Ben noticed neither Gillian's fading form as she headed back toward the front gate, nor the dissolving drone of her go-cart. Having no idea how he was going to come up with a cheap thrill for girl gamers, let alone shoehorn an Angelique stand-in, he shuffled back through the stunted orange trees, absentmindedly turned the knob and entered the bungalow.  

He passed through the alcove, found a switch for the three overhead fans and stood there glancing at the action-flick posters lining the walls. He told himself to quit slip-sliding and just buy in. The last time he worked, he'd been summoned to storyboard a pilot featuring a potty-mouthed hotel heiress on the loose. It seems the producers were getting cold feet over logistics. Ben had no sooner begun thumbnail sketches of the resort hopping itinerary when he got word the project had been scrapped in favor of two underemployed potty-mouthed waitresses on the prowl on Melrose.  In turn, hapless agent Oliver threw up his hands in favor of tending to his orchids.  

So, at this juncture, Ben should bloody well do what he was told. For the first time in living memory he was there at the inception and given carte blanche.

This firm conviction held steady for all of two minutes. Then it was, But still and all, why the rush? Why was there no time for development? It took months before a project--any project—started to see the light of day. Take the potty-mouth fiasco. Take anything Ben had had a hand in. With this scheme it was as if
Starshine
had to be repackaged quickly. And just as quickly work in a double.

Not to look Leo and Gillian's gift horse in the mouth. And yet ...

Then he noticed it. A rumpled sleeping bag lay in the corner highlighted by glints of dappled sunlight. Strewn about were a couple of Styrofoam cups and wads of Krispy Kreme doughnut wrappers.

Walking over and hunkering down, he fixed his gaze on an Avalon Studios card, the one with Angelique's signature pink curlicues. He also noted one of the cups was embossed with a trace of lipstick.  

“Right,” said Ben. “Just what I need.”  

 
 

Chapter Fifteen

 

 

With this next glitch, Ben's juggling act became more problematic. The itinerant maiden in the bib overalls obviously crashed last night at the bungalow. The bungalow was his slotted work space. Getting her squared away, along with the other two immediate concerns, would allow him to concentrate solely on his job.

Heading east on Beverly toward Beechwood, Ben decided to kill two birds with one stone. There was a good chance Mrs. Melnick, Oliver's landlady, would reassure him that Oliver wouldn't be back for a few more days to reclaim the Prelude. That would give Ben enough time to have the car fixed and slip the girl temporarily into Oliver's pad. The maiden would surely agree that a secluded hideaway was worth the slight inconvenience of a bent grill on an obsolete pickup and a helluva lot better than trying to hole up on a studio lot about to swing into gear.

There was, of course, Aunt June's as an alternative. But Ben had promised to keep it off limits. Aunt June's cactus fortress was out and Oliver's rented hacienda was the best bet.  

Suddenly finding himself famished, he swung into the upscale shopping area on Larchmont, popped into a pricey bistro and wolfed down a Hawaiian tortilla wrap stuffed with rock lobster, pineapple, mango and swabs of wasabi mayonnaise. This he washed down with another iced Kenya AA.

Soon after, he took a couple of side streets and tooled down Beechwood. But when he pulled up in front of Mrs. Melnick's duplex and spotted her in all her glory, he realized he'd be lucky just to get her ear. There she was at the edge of her rock garden, her squat body gyrating, her scrunched-up face animated, carrying on with a gaggle of stoop-shouldered neighbors. She obviously had news as her honking bark kept underscoring the name “Howie.” Which, for Ben, meant yet another stumbling block.

As it happened, Howie and Ben had attended public school together. The major difference, aside from the fact that Howie had a mother and father, was the fact that Ben had gone on, whereas Howie never worked a day in his life. As soon as he became of age, he declared his independence, occupied the other half of the duplex, ate all his meals with his parents, and dutifully collected his allowance. He also continued his lifelong pursuit: gathering trivia relating to the entertainment business, attending live TV broadcasts, and attempting to get on game shows. While his introverted father collected rent from Oliver and tenants in his dilapidated apartment buildings south of Pico and Robertson, Mrs. Melnick became Howie's personal manager. Lately, she'd sworn as soon as Howie's star began to rise, she would help Ben with his flagging career; an offer Ben took with the largest grain of salt on the planet.