Tinseltown Riff (15 page)

Flustered, Ben waited till Mrs. Melnick's crowing abated and, at last, her audience straggled off. He eased out of the car, but before he had a chance to reach the swale, Mrs. Melnick waddled over and blocked his path. In the near distance, Howie stuck his mop of hair out of the front door of his side of the duplex and waved. Shielding his eyes from the glare bouncing off the glossy-white façade, Ben waved back, holding Howie at bay with, “Be with you in a sec.”

“Well well,” said Mrs. Melnick, flaunting her orange muumuu and unfortunate permanent, piled so high she looked like a victim of incipient brain fever. “You heard, right? From Iris I bet. You were eating your heart out. But, mild-mannered class act that you are, you had to come over and offer congratulations. Plus maybe cash-in, huh?”

Shaking his head, he considered blurting out his simple question about Oliver's travel plans and quickly taking off. But, knowing Howie's doting cheerleader of a mother, he would have to ward off an additional dose of crowing.

“I see you're dying, Benjamin, so as a special favor, I'll let you in.”

Ben glanced at his watch. It was almost three. The traffic would step up and congeal any minute. The last item on his agenda was connecting with Chula and passing on his concerns about his accident if only he could zip past this Melnick hurdle.

“To make a long story short,” Mrs. Melnick went on, “it dawned on me that whatever Howie was doing wasn't working. All these years I've had to listen to ‘my son this, my daughter that.' So I asked myself, What angle can we play? What's Howie got nobody else has got?”

Deftly moving to Mrs. Melnick's side, his back to Howie and the glittering duplex, Ben said, “And what's the answer?”

Ignoring Ben's prod, Mrs. Melnick related how she dragooned Oliver's significant other, an assistant producer on
The Tonight Show,
into coming over. The pretext was that she had checked in on Oliver's orchids and thought they might be dying.

“So naturally,” Mrs. Melnick said, “I got hold of Budd, you know he spells it with two Ds. And we talked about the hothouse system breaking down. What do I know, right? But anyways, I said the one with the ivory petals and hot pink lips looks peaked. Not to mention the ones that look like explosions in a paint factory. Not to mention the ones that look like butterflies, lady's braids and little birds. And the one that smells like chocolate and the other one that smells like angel food cake.”

“Excuse me. I'm in a rush and I only wanted to know—”

“A rush? And you're driving Oliver's car? Is this wise? Are you taking care of it? If I were you—”

Practically screaming, Ben said, “Can we please have the kicker?”

“You got it, you got it. I said to Budd maybe Oliver should forget the orchid show in Lauderdale.”

“You didn't.”

“I did. Because Budd misses Oliver something terrible. Crafty me, I comforted Budd, said, No worries I'd ring Oliver, crying his plants are sick with loneliness too. Then I wangled my way round to the subject of Howie and you'll never guess. Budd was so grateful about the wilting orchids and getting Oliver back, plus he loved my idea about Howie.”

“So Oliver's ... ?”

“Flying back. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't right about those cockamamie plants.”

“And he'll be here when?”

“Who knows? Soon. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

“That's just great,” said Ben, twisting away from her.

“Hold it,” said Mrs. Melnick, tugging on his sleeve. “You're missing the angle, the pot of gold, you gotta hear this. They're billing Howie as the world's youngest oldest virgin! Fresh, undamaged goods. He's booked for a quickie Monday. If there's a call-in from sexually active ladies —his doctor tells me at his age it's not good for his bodily functions and you know how a mother worries. Anyhow, if it flies, and there's a follow-up after the first date and maybe some preliminary hanky panky—”

“Please, I've got to run before I'm caught in the slipstream. Tell Howie I'll catch him later.”

As he broke for the car, he suggested she consider the aftershock to Howie's system.   

Her jowl dropped a few inches, her beady eyes locked. Recovering, she hollered back, “Such dry humor. You
are
eating your heart out. And who could blame you?”

At times like this, Ben wanted to chuck anything remotely connected to the entertainment industry.

 

It was only five miles from the Melnick duplex to Chula and the Farmer's Daughter Motel. But with the escalating traffic, it took Ben a good thirty minutes to find a way past clogged Fairfax, around and down until he finally veered into one of the coveted parking spaces across from CBS.

The motel was another of those two-story L-shaped slabs divided into cubicles with one queen-sized bed, spongy mattress and a boxy frig on the floor permanently set to cool-but-never-cold. All that mattered to those who'd just checked in was getting a jump on the free tickets to the daytime shows across the street.

Ben hopped out of the car, skirted by the dank oblong pool and rushed into the lobby, hoping that Chula was more amenable than the surly albino he ran into this morning.

This time he got a break. There behind the cramped front desk, murmuring short answers over the phone in Spanish, stood a young woman with features as soft as her voice. Her hair was jet black, long and braided. Completing the image, she wore a muted blouse over a supple beige skirt, no makeup save for a little blush over her cheeks and no accessories except for a delicate gold bracelet.  

As soon as she replaced the receiver, Ben greeted her with a polite,” Que pasa?”

There was no reply. Just a sweet smile.

Trying once more, Ben said, “Que tranza?” but the smile only widened.

Ben tried another tack. “This town is amazing. I just ate at a Hawaiian Mexican bistro. Had a Polynesian tortilla wrap. To date, I've sampled every Angelino dish  except the real thing, like Pescado a la Veracruz, Sopecitos de Camaron  or mole rosa de taxco. I mention these only because Carlos Jose, better known to we lucky few as C.J.—Pepe to the uninitiated--lists them among his favorites.”

The wide smile lingered a while longer. Finally, she patted Ben's hand as if he were a lost child with a separation complex and said, “It's okay. You must be Ben.”

“How did you guess?”

“All those words.”

“Sorry, just a little anxious. I will do my best to pull back a tad.”

Doing so, he soon learned that she was a Montessori teacher. At the moment she was spelling her cousins Josie and Liliana so they could visit boyfriends and relatives in Mexico City. All in all, she seemed to have what one of Aunt June's housekeepers called a venga lo que venga, a come-what-may attitude toward everything. Ben couldn't help being jealous.   

The phone rang again. Chula handled it quietly and quickly, and jotted something down amid the stacks of glossy tourist leaflets. Hanging up, she smiled that smile of hers and said, “I heard about that little boxing match yesterday.”  

“Oh well. You never know what gets into C.J.”

“Nevertheless, you should never question his mom's virtue, especially in front of his boys from the barrio. They're so susceptible and you know how Mexican men feel about their mothers.”

“Look, the truth is I only want to pass on a few concerns to C.J. Okay? Do you mind?”

He had tried pulling back. He had tried on a come-what-may. Now he was getting testy. He never got testy. Maybe it was all this talk about mothers and families. Maybe it was the unfinished business with the maiden. Maybe it was all the pressures that were getting to him. At any rate, he politely gave her a capsule version of the accident and asked if there were any criminal ramifications or whether it was strictly civil. She jotted the question down.

“Okay, but here's the tricky part.” He told her about C.J.'s call last night concerning some nutty accountant which had to be a practical joke and had nothing to do with him. He also mentioned what little he could make of Leo's money-finagling practices. He hadn't planned to do any of this. With all the running around, it just came out.

Chula put down her pen and sat on the padded stool behind the counter gazing at him in wonder.

“Right,” said Ben, grabbing a sample menu from a tourist trap and scribbling on the back. “Just in passing—you see, C.J. ran into Leo at the gym. I mean, just for fun, I'll list a couple of kinda iffy details.”                                                                                                                   

The phone rang again, Chula spoke in Spanish, picking up where she left off. With her dulcet tones in the background, Ben jotted cursory references to cash flow from Budapest to the Bank of America and money changing shape with no names behind numbers.  Knowing that Leo had asked, Was this any of Ben's business now that he had his foot in the door? Knowing better than to overload the circuit, Ben did it anyway.    

He folded the back of the menu neatly and handed it to Chula who, in turn, remained glued to the phone. As he waved goodbye and turned to go, she cupped her hand over the receiver and said, “When do you need an answer?”

“No big hurry. No problem. When you hear from him.”

“And where can I reach you?”

Good question. He still had no cell phone. And even if the project was promptly green-lighted, the writer's bungalow had no phone either. What would be the point?

“I'll call you,” Ben said. .

Just as he pressed on the glass door, she called out again. “And what about your birthday?”

“What about it?”

“C.J. says we should get you something for consolation.”

“Cute, that's real cute. Tell him it's any time after the day after tomorrow. Tell him also that I've got irons in the fire and there is much more to me than meets the eye.”

He left the motel muttering, “Great exit line you gave yourself, kid. Here's hoping you didn't come across as a total jerk.”

After some impossible stop and go, finally reaching the dealership a few miles south on La Brea, he let the car off for repairs and grabbed the customer service phone just in time to check back with Leo.

“Dude, good good,” yelled Leo on the other end as if Ben was hard of hearing. “Listen, I am to ask question before you get absolute answer. What is it you do with business cards?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“For business, from Angelique with pink curlicues?” yelled Leo even louder.

“Is this a trick question?”

“Could be. You still got them?”

Ben thought for a second. He wasn't about to tell Leo he'd handed one of the calling cards to the maiden after crashing into her pickup; ostensibly the same card he'd  recovered lying on the floor of the bungalow. For want of a better answer he said, “They're all accounted for.”

At first, Leo seemed stuck. Then he said, “Meaning you have still got them?” When Ben said they were still in his possession, Leo countered with, “You are staying put, I will call right back.”

Ben did what he was told. In less than two minutes, Leo was back in touch. “Good news, is all okeydoke.”

“You're saying there are no more contingencies. We're on.”

“Yes, go, move to studio. All work tonight you are handing over while going is good. Using back lot and studio for locations. Like whatever Gillian is telling you.”

“Hold on. In Gillian's parlance, you're saying you want me at the writer's bungalow forthwith?”

“With--certainly, of course
with.
What you think,
without
? You bring what you use for storyboard, what is asked for, everything.”

Ben glanced through the plate glass window at the trunk of the Prelude. The other day he'd failed to return a shopping basket from Ralph's Market. All he had to do was toss in some remnants of Aunt June's cleaning frenzy and wing it.

“Okay,” Ben said without thinking twice, “I've got stuff that'll probably do. But I was hoping to get in a little practice first.”

“No practice. You are whipping up sure-fire hook and getting off the phone. Gillian is expecting handoff like in football.”

Leo garbled out the schedule and hung up. Ben gave himself a quick coffee break in the customer lounge and took stock. If he was reading this right, off the top of his head he had to come up with a thumbnail scenario that gave the gamer no easy way out. Once she entered the setting—that is, the studio—and began to play, the game took off to the point of no return. To make it work, the proxy on the screen needed some resemblance to Angelique. But, of course, with a lot more going for her like youth, stamina and physical prowess.

All well and good. But this time would everything actually hold still while he worked? As he, someone who'd never been the sole creator, let alone related to this kind of character, let alone had any acquaintance with real trouble—could he sketch away la-di-da while night fell on this shabby playground? If so, granted he could somehow call on C.J. for tips, it was possible.

Moving right along, as a favor the Honda service manager dropped him off at the studio gate. Ben tossed in what he needed from the keepsake carton, plus the binoculars for no particular reason, plus the Dr. Seuss book to con himself as a reminder he was on the verge.

Clutching the shopping basket, ambling past Lester's quizzical gaze, he pressed on hopeful as can be.  

Make that hopeful but unconsciously looking over his shoulder just in case.

 
 
 
 

Chapter Sixteen

 

 

Two days before on that same Sunday, Deke reckoned it was close to fifteen miles to Castroville and he was in no mood to walk, given the condition of his back and his tight schedule.