Famous (15 page)

It’s done up quite professionally. The pages
are bound with two brass brads, and the cover is heavy stock,
protected by a sheet of plastic.

The screenplay is called
Until the End of
Time
.

It’s three hundred pages.

I turn to the first:

FADE IN:

Sunset over the Caribbean Sea.

EXT. BEACH – DAY

STEWART and BARBARA sit in the sand watching
the sunset. A pair of ducks fly by, fucking in midair.

STEWART

Are you sure you’re going to leave me?

BARBARA

(becoming misty)

Yes, Stu. I’ve made my decision.

And you won’t talk me out of it.

STEWART

I’m so sad, Bar-bar.

BARBARA

I never meant to hurt you.

That’s the God’s honest truth.

They kiss one last time as the screen
darkens.

The only reason I keep reading this horrid
script is because there’s nothing else to do.

The day slowly brightens all around me, and
occasionally a jogger passes by. I wonder if they think I’m a
private investigator or a bodyguard. This bright yellow Hummer
isn’t exactly what you’d call inconspicuous.

Since you’re probably dying to know what
happens in
Until the End of Time,
I won’t keep you in
suspense. Stewart, the lead, gets dumped by his wife on their
honeymoon in the Caribbean. Understandably, he’s devastated. He
returns home to Chicago and goes back to work at the bank, making a
concerted effort to get on with his life.

One day, while he’s out to lunch, he happens
to see his ex-wife in a restaurant. She’s with a man, and Stu
becomes very jealous. He follows them back to their house in the
suburbs and learns that they have children together and have
apparently been married for several years. Stewart breaks into
their house and finds out that Bar-Bar is a Russian spy and the
only reason she married him was because she thought he had access
to top secret information.

At 10:35 a.m., a white Porsche emerges from
Jansen’s gate. I crank the Hummer as it peels out and tears down
the street, doing better than sixty by the time it streaks past me.
I follow along the winding trajectory of Carmella Drive, doing my
best to keep up, but the Porsche is absolutely hauling ass. After
several minutes, I think I’ve lost it, but I come around a curve
and see the Porsche stopped in front of the slowly opening gate of
a Santa Fe-style mansion. It disappears inside, and the gate closes
me out.

I think I saw the back of Jansen’s head. He
was wearing a baseball cap.

A hundred yards down the street, I pull off
the road again to wait.

I sit in the Hummer for four hours, and by
three o’clock, I’ve got to pee something fierce. I imagine
urinating on the side of the road will get you arrested pretty
quick in a Star neighborhood. But I chance it, because my bladder
is aching.

I feel much better climbing back behind the
wheel.

Another four hours pass.

I call Kara, but she says she’s cramming for
an exam and to call her back tomorrow before noon. She hangs up
quickly, almost like she wasn’t thrilled that I took the time to
call. I suppose she’s just stressed. If we’re going to get married,
I have to learn to accept this intense side of her.Since I’ve got
my cell out, I call the fledgling screenwriter.

He answers: “Talk to me.”

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Jim Jansen. We met at Bo Bo’s
this—”

“Mr. Jansen! How are you?”

“I’m well. I’ve spent the morning reading
your script.” I pause for a moment. It’s fun to mess with people.
“And I absolutely…can you hold on one second?”

“Um, sure.”

I put the phone down and stretch my arms.
Man, it’s toasty in this Hummer.

You may think it’s mean, but I see it this
way. Connor has zero talent, and he’s never going to sell anything.
He’ll be a failure all of his life. Why not let him feel important
and truly talented for a day or two. I pick up the phone again.

“Connor?”

“Yes.”

“I love it.”

“Really?”

“The writing is exceptional. I think we can
do some business.”

“Oh my God, are you kidding me?”

“Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to
talk to some people this week, and get you a few meetings. You’re
going to pitch them with me attached, and I’ll start hunting up a
director. I’ve got a few in mind, but I want to think about
it.”

“Okay.”

“Now, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“You and your friends go out and celebrate
tonight.”

Connor starts weeping.

“Mr. Jansen, you can’t imagine what this
means to me. I’ve dreamed my whole life of something like this, and
now—”

The white Porsche pulls out onto the
street.

“I got to go now, Conner.”

I crank the engine and zoom off after Jansen.
He certainly likes to speed.

I follow him down into West Hollywood, and on
N. Highland Avenue, he stops at a red light.

I’m directly behind him. The top is down on
his Porsche. He isn’t wearing a hat anymore. His haircut is similar
to mine, though maybe a little longer. In his rearview mirror, I
see his deep dark shades.

When the light turns green, he punches it
through the intersection, and I follow him at a comfortable
distance up the 101 into Universal City.

He turns eventually, and I start to turn as
well until I see his destination.

A guard waves him through Gate 4 of Universal
Studios.

I’m still stopped in the middle of the
road.

The car behind me beeps.

I head on up the street and park in a
handicap space.

Chapter 18

famished * Mikey’s Slice of Joy * The Brick
Room * the jazz quartet * observes Jansen * Jansen requests “The
Summer Wind” * Lance approaches the Star

JJ pulls out of Gate 4 at 7:25, and I follow
him, miserably, back up into the hills. I haven’t eaten anything
since my bearclaw nearly twelve hours ago, and when he turns back
into his driveway, disappearing behind yet another gate, I’m on the
verge of abandoning my stakeout.

Fifteen minutes pass, and I’ve just decided
to turn around and go home, when the white Porsche emerges from the
gate and zips out again.

Once more, I follow him back down into the
Valley.

JJ pulls off N. Fairfax into the parking lot
of this place called The Brick Room. I park several spaces away and
watch him walk quickly across the pavement and disappear inside.
Everywhere Stars go, they always move fast because they’re
important. Their time is more valuable than ours. Yours,
rather.

If I don’t eat something immediately, I’m
probably going to die. There’s a pizza joint a couple blocks down,
so I leave the Hummer and set out for the restaurant. I gas up on
soda and several slices of the greasiest pepperoni pizza you’ve
ever seen. The place is called Mikey’s Slice of Joy. I think it’s a
high school hangout, because I’m far and away the oldest guy here.
There’s this table of a dozen teenagers near my booth. Very loud.
Very entertaining. Rich, too. They keep saying things like “yeah,
my Lexus is so filthy,” or “I maxed out my Discover again.”

I eat fast, because I don’t want to lose
JJ.

By 8:55, I’m walking down Fairfax again in
the hot Pacific evening.

I run my fingers through my hair and eat a
breath mint. The lights of this endless city have begun to wink on.
I smile. JJ’s white Porsche is still there.

The Brick Room is mostly empty tonight. It’s
a dim place. The bar’s straight ahead, and a couple of televisions
hang from the ceiling, though you can’t hear them. On the left end
of the room, there’s a small stage. A jazz quartet is swinging
through a song called “Black Coffee.” The quartet consists of a guy
playing a Fender Rhodes, another guy on stand-up bass, a woman on
acoustic guitar, and another tall, pretty woman with short, black
hair and a gorgeous voice.

There are booths, tables, and barstools. A
few of the tables are occupied, as well as about half of the
barstools. All of the booths are empty save one near the stage,
where Jansen sits alone, watching the musicians. On his table sits
a fifth of Absolut, an ice bucket, and a glass.

I approach the bar, and when the bartender
notices me, he comes over and asks, “More ice, Jim?” I’m not quite
sure what to say.

“Could I just get a beer?”

He looks over toward the booth where Jansen
sits, sees him there, and then returns his gaze to me. His eyes
have lost their reverence. He pulls me a pint of beer off the tap
and charges me seven dollars for it.

I take my beer to a booth directly across the
room from JJ and have myself a seat.

It doesn’t feel real to be in the same room
with him. I feel like I’m watching him in a movie, and that him
sitting over there in that booth with his bottle of vodka is all a
part of the story. But the story goes nowhere, because he just sits
there, watching the jazz singer, oblivious to everything else.
Plain life is pretty boring.

I could probably scream and he wouldn’t look
over. Stars are accustomed to people screaming at them. He doesn’t
even know I’m in the room.

I’ll tell you how he sits. He sits with his
back against the wall, his legs stretched out across the bench
seat. He’s dressed very obscurely. Blue jeans, hiking boots, a
tight white polo shirt, buttons undone of course.

When the jazz quartet finishes a song, he
always claps.

I steal glances at him for the next hour.
Boy, he drinks a lot. He’s already gone a third of the way through
the bottle.

When the quartet finishes the set, the jazz
singer tells the eight patrons, “We’re going to take a short break,
but we’ll be back.”

The three musicians head straight for the bar
where they’re probably getting comped. The singer has a seat on her
stool and unscrews a bottle of water. While she drinks, she thumbs
through several pages of sheet music.

JJ slides out of the booth and walks up to
her. You can tell by the way he walks that he’s very drunk, but
that he’s been very drunk enough times not to act very drunk. I
guess you could call him a professional drunk. This is what he says
to her:

“You’re wonderful. I love your voice.”

“Thank you,” she smiles. You can tell she
knows who he is. For a second, I thinks he’s hitting on her, but
then he pulls out his wallet, removes several fifties, and drops
them in the open, velvet-lined guitar case.

“For the record, if you could do “The Summer
Wind” it would make my night.”

“Well, that’s a guy’s song, but I’ll see what
I can do.”

She smiles, Jansen smiles, and then he
returns to his booth and slides back in.

First song of the next set is “The Summer
Wind.”

The thing with Stars—they always get their
way. People just want to please them.

I wait until Jansen is halfway through the
bottle.

It’s after eleven o’clock.

The jazz quartet is on its third, and what I
imagine is, its final set. The Brick Room has nearly cleared out.
It’s just me, Jansen, this guy drinking martinis at the bar, and a
semi-boisterous table on the other side of the room.

I stand. I probably don’t have to elaborate
on how insanely nervous I am. My beer remains untouched on the
table. I hate beer. Tastes like liquid cardboard.

I cross the room, and Jansen doesn’t even
notice me until I slide into his booth right across from him and
stretch my feet out on the seat, just like he sits.

Man, do we look like twins.

He just stares at me for a moment, eyes
squinted, mouth open.

“Holy shit,” he laughs. “I’m pretty fucked up
right now, but I’m fairly confident you look exactly like me.”

“It’s not the vodka.”

“What?”

“It’s not the vodka. I do look like you.”

“Did you have plastic surgery or
something?”

“No.” Probably wise not to mention the scar I
gave myself.

The bartender is suddenly standing at our
booth.

“Is this a guest, Jim, or should I show him
the fucking door?”

JJ looks at the bartender, grins, and then
looks at me. He’s amused. I think Stars are often amused by
nobodies.

“I’ll leave if you want to be left alone,” I
say. “I just thought you’d—”

“No, stay. Bruce, we’re all good here.”

“Sure, Jim.” Bruce stills glares at me like,
the fuck are you doing at his booth?
I just hate guys like
that. You can tell he really wanted to show me the door. He’s a
very big, strong guy. I suppose if you spend that much time in the
weight room, you live for the moments when you get to show people
the door.

“Hey, Bruce!” I yell after he’s started
walking away. “I’ll take an Absolut straight up.”

He nods. You can tell he’s super-pissed he
has to get me a drink now.

When Bruce is gone, JJ says, “What do you
want?”

“Nothing.”

“You a reporter?”

“No.”

He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his
pocket, taps one out, brings it to his mouth. Wish I had a light
for him.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Lancelot.”

“Cute. How’d you know?”

“What?”

He sighs and leans forward. “I’m not wearing
a sign or anything. You read it somewhere?”

“No.” I have no idea what he’s talking
about.

“She’s great, isn’t she?” He points to the
jazz singer.

I don’t even look. I can’t take my eyes off
him.

“You’re pretty drunk, aren’t you?” I ask.

“Not
too
drunk.” He blows a mouthful
of smoke toward my face.