Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 01:10:09 -0700 From: "J. Hall" Subject: Re: [WRITERS] INT: Goldman Pictures Continues with Orchestra and Strings > > Lareine had slept fitfully the night before. She woke up at 12:30, knowing >she had 30 minutes to get to the cafe. She threw on a red dress and pulled her >hair up. Putting on a hat and locking her door, she quickly walked to the >cafe', hoping Jeff would be there at one. > > Dames. My face was red, but not from the slap, though she threw a mean right. The goober cabbie was snickering in the front seat, the sound of the meter clicking happily away in synchronized ticktocks with Reinie's heels. "Go," I said. Warren (I finally realized the line of grease on his shirt was an embroidered nametag for Yellow Cab) took a good look at my face and slid around with a grunt, stamping the accelerator. For a split second the car hung in another world. Oz, maybe. I'd hated that picture, even though Garland was in it. The second passed and we began to fly down the backside of Runyon Canyon and into the lights of West Hollywood. Normally I enjoyed seeing the city lit up at twilight but tonight it left a rancid taste in my throat. I glanced at the matchbook and stuffed in my shoe, the only place that wasn't soaked through. Dreamland, Hedda Hopper told me after a few belts at the Mocambo once up on a time, it's just a mural painted on tissue paper by an unhappy kid with a hangover. Cooper had laughed, and so had I but tonight the kid had a few extra brushes and in the distance a fire raged near Culver City mixing browns and reds with the long green lines of neon that draped Hollywood in descent. My leg ached from where I'd banged a knee on the stairs, dragging her ou t of DeLauro's little playhouse. I closed my eyes and let the rocking cab lull me into a dream. One where Hopper and Cagney and Marlowe and I were playing old maid in the sewers. It ended abruptly when Cagney threw down his cards and called me a dirty rat. The cab radio crackled angrily with someone yelling in Greek and I realized we were parked under a streetlamp on the corner of Fuller and Hollywood Boulevard. "You got someplace special, or do I just keep going till the money runs out?" "And how long would that take?" I replied, digging out a sodden pack of Luckies. I fished out a salvagable one and threw the rest out the window. His eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. Custer's dead trooper peeled off a few bills and threw the rest of the money back into my lap. "'Fraid you won't live that long, pard," he said. "Here. Just in case your in-surance don't cover a fancy marker." Charity from a cabbie. Nothing like a new low to give a man the blues. I gave him an address. Not mine, not anybody's. We pulled up in front o f an office building on Wilshire fifteen minutes later and I got out. A streetlight on the corner shone down on a single parked Ford, but otherwise the block was empty. "Happy trails," the cabbie said, his face solemn. "Sure." I limped up to the doorway and turned the knob. "Seeya Warren, " I said as I turned around. He clomped his jaw shut with a snap and shook his head. "That ain't my name!" he shouted and pulled out into the street, dusting my shoes with a heavy cloud of blue exhaust. I shrugged and waited till he was halfway to MacArthur Park then began walking south. Dames. I put the key in the lock and pushed sideways on the door. It gave, grudgingly, bent since Marlowe had sublet the place. He claimed a jealous Mexican woman named Sereta Lopez had tried to throw him through it once after he showed her some photos of her husband in the arms of a Santa Monica dog groomer. The groomer's name was Fred. Reinie Hinton, or DeLauro or whatever the hell her name was today had impregnated my suitcoat with the sweet odor of gardenias and promise. I took it off and hung it over the radiator that hadn't seen heat since Chaplin dated Pickford. Whatever she was, she had taste in perfume and I picked a long dark hair off my collar. It had been a long time since my divorce, and Caroline had been fond of the same kind of scent. A fire engine flew by downstairs, headed for the coast. Maybe someone had torched Dezi Arnez's zoot suit. One could only hope. The clock radio in the corner told me it was almost 8 and my stomach growled. I flipped it on and sat down on the old psychiatrist's couch in the corner that doubled for a bed when my landlady was less than understanding about late rent. Sinatra had a new song, something from Can-Can and I listened for a whil e, thinking. Ladd's fake piece was still in my holster and I took it out, marvelling at how close I'd come to trying to bluff DeLauro with it. I put it on the floor and kicked it under the couch. Ladd could afford to buy me a howitzer now that he had his contract back. In any case, the big one, the one called Bruno, would have probably taken it apart and fed it to me with cheese if I'd tried anything cute. I got up and called a few people, checking on other cases. A runaway wa r bride in Inglewood had turned up in San Fransisco and her husband said he was cancelling my services. A check would be forthcoming. I told him to make sure the envelope had a stamp on it when he mailed it. Lester Mathews, the night clerk at the Roosevelt had a tip for me on tomorrow's race at Santa Anita. My landlady said she was making Irish stew would I like a dish I could leave it covered by the door just bring it down when you finish and by the way your rent is due tomorrow. Caroline said she was moving to San Diego, the Navy was hiring again. Marlowe wasn't home. Artie Shaw's Frenesi came on and a man with a deep voice announced that it would be swell if I bought Sugar-Maid donuts, the donuts even the sensitive stomach loved. I played with the radio until it coughed up some news. The fire was a stalled freight train over on Exposition. Several boxcars were ablaze and there were reports of hobos being trapped inside one of them. I took my shoes and socks off and the matchbook she'd given me dropped to the floor. Her handwriting was perfect, a little slanted, but perfect. I got out m y Thomas Street Guide to Greater Los Angeles and found it after a few minutes of futzing between coffee stained pages. It was two blocks south of Columbia Pictures, on a side street. Casting agency? I took out my Yellow Pages and checked. Something called Creative Screen Agents, Peter D'Angelo, President. I wrote the number down under the address and stuffed it in my shirt, which by now had dried but smelled like a farmer's boot. Warner's could have at least afforded chlorinated water for their sprinkler system. I needed a bath, a drink and a cheeseburger. Instead I got dressed, took out the spare Smith and Wesson from my secretary's desk drawer and decided to visit my mechanic. My Crosley was coming out of mothballs with DeLauro's wad in my pocket. Later, I booked a room at a hotel near the Pantages under the name "Geor ge Gordon" and left the car parked next to a Bentley on Sunset. The sheets were crisp and I needed a place to sleep where no one knew me. My suit went to a Chinese valet and I slept the sleep of the innocent for a few hours. In the morning, I found my suit and a note on the door. Marlowe's writing: "Mr. Gordon, Khartoum is no place to buy. Rent, and watch the girl. DeLauro called, said you were cute at Warners but the rushes were water damaged, and requests a retake. Advise you go but leave Shane home. I'll be in Palm Springs for the next three days, don't shoot anyone we like." He'd signed it "Jack Pershing". After a quick breakfast of Luckies and coffee I took off in the Crosley reasonably dry and wondering if Reinie would get me killed. She was standing in front of D'Angelo's little office dressed in black, looking like Greer Garson's younger sister, her hair tied back severely. My heart did a little side shuffle when she smiled at me. "Who died?" I asked, as I crawled out of the car. My knee clicked when I stood up. "Mickey Cohen," she smiled. "That's who. Didn't you hear? He's been se nt up for taxes." Every bell, whistle and electric buzzer in my head went off in warning frenzies like a Tex Avery cartoon. Cohen had controlled LA vice forever but he'd beaten every rap before. No wonder DeLauro was in town. Dames. "No," I said quietly, "I didn't. He wasn't riding the rails with a bunch of hobos was he?" She took my arm and pulled me toward the door, laughing as if I'd told t he world's funniest joke. I let her steer me along, the odor of fresh gardenias coming off her lik e electric sin. "Here we are," she announced, pressing herself slightly against me as I pulled on the brass handle. The side shuffle turned into a full blown waltz with strolling minstrels. "Just like Nick and Nora," I said, "except one of them was a detective." She wrinkled her nose at me behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. "You don't say," she replied, her mouth twisting into a little grin. "Well come on, I'm testing for a part." "I think they already did Dark Victory," I muttered, opening the door an d being hit by a wave of icy airconditioning. Reinie laughed. Tiny lines of something that could have been happiness pulled at her face and she showed a mouthful of very white teeth. "You idiot, I'm testing for something better than that old thing," she said. I waited for it. "Salome. I hear Rita Hayworth is about to have an accident," she whispe red. The waltz boomed on, a mind of it's own, but the musicians had stopped playing. We went in anyway. To be continued..... - j e f f -