Hot Shot (11 page)

“You've had offers?”

“I don't even have an agent, man. This is ground-floor. Whaddaya say?”

“I'd say … that's interesting. Can I take this and look it over?”

“Sure. Hey, I value your opinion. And that's my beeper number on the front. Twenty-four seven, you got me? Hey, you like shiitake? Take these, I'm not hungry. I've gotta go make another call.”

*   *   *

There was a flyer for a band called Phlegm Banquet stuck under my wiper, and a fuschia-lipsticked kiss on my side-view mirror. Even money on whether the kiss was from a guy or a girl.

I made a right on Doheny Boulevard, heading off the Strip and back toward the Beverly Hillshire. Even at one
A.M
., Doheny was a parking lot. Sitting in the traffic snarl, I felt like I needed a flea dip.

It wasn't just Vernon Ash, or Bar Sinister, or the lousy trendy food, or Dianne the schmooze queen. It was everything. Mostly, though, it was Ash's book proposal, which was sitting on the passenger seat next to me.

Looking at it, I'd had the same queasy vertigo I felt sitting in Jack Danziger's office. It didn't matter what you did anymore. Sell your body. Sell drugs. Have a drug problem, or anorexia, or beriberi. Be the father of a mass murderer, or knock off a couple of people yourself. Everyone's got a book these days.

And I could remember when everyone in Hollywood wanted to direct.

How dumb could you get? True, Hollywood drug dealers aren't exactly MENSA candidates, but what could Vernon Ash have been thinking when he handed over his book proposal to a writer who was compiling another book on the same subject? “Theft of intellectual property” was the official term, but there was nothing intellectual about Vernon Ash.

Hadn't it occurred to Ash that I might rip him off? Dope dealers may not be smart, but they're paranoids, always on alert for a potential rip-off. The more I thought about it, the more it smelled fishy, from his eagerness to meet me up to the moment when he handed me his life story.

There was something in there that he wanted me to know. Or, more likely, something he wanted me to believe.

Down the hill, at the Santa Monica–Doheny intersection, two cars had collided in a spray of broken glass and chrome. A headlight dangled from the bumper of one car like an eye popped from its socket. Traffic was completely stopped, and a few drivers were leaning on their horns. To hell with it. I nosed my car into the far lane and hooked a right onto Elevado, crossing the border into Beverly Hills. It was the wrong way back to the hotel, but I couldn't stand the traffic.

All of BH is rare air, but some air is rarer than others. The “flats” (south of Sunset) are preferable to the “hills” above Sunset, and “south-of-Wilshire” is declassé compared to north of the Boulevard. This was the flats, north of Wilshire, and it was posh.

At this time of night, the Beverly Hills flats were like a closed museum of Tudors and ranch-styles and Norman castles with hot tubs under the turrets. Every single house had a private security sign stuck in the front lawn, even though the police station was only a few blocks away. Security companies made a fortune installing cut-proof phone lines and luxury bedrooms with foot-thick concrete walls. Some of the most paranoid ultra-rich were even installing microchips under their children's skin to foil potential kidnappers. At Elm, I caught a glimpse of the Menendez house, which had enjoyed a brief vogue as a photo-op for tourists who got tired of the Chinese Theater.

No one was on the streets, and the only other car I saw was a slow-cruising sedan from one of the ubiquitous private security patrols. It had a leather “car bra” on the front. In L.A., you see more bras on the cars than you do on the women.

Sometimes things happen for a reason. If it wasn't for the BHPD cruiser parked on the next block, I wouldn't have slowed down when I got to Foothill, and if I hadn't slowed down when I got to Foothill, I wouldn't have had a flicker of déjà vu.

Betty Bradford Mann lived on Foothill.

I had been at Mann's house several years ago. It was a kick-off party for a charity event: Rich people were going to play tennis or golf in Hawaii or Mexico, and somehow this was going to raise money for kids with CF or CP or something. All I remembered about Mann's place was an enormous leaded-glass window on the second floor, brilliant as a chandelier.

It took two trips up and down the block before I found the place. Since I'd been there, someone—Dick? Betty?—had enclosed the place with a wall and a privet hedge. It had a newish look, and I wondered if the extra security had been added since Dick's death. I eased the car up to the curb but didn't shut off the engine.

A speaker grille was concealed in a fake rock where the driveway bisected the sidewalk. Behind the barricade was a rambling two-story faced with gray stone and clapboards, and the top-floor window that was my landmark. Tonight it was as dark as the rest of the houses on the street. Not a branch moved in the yard.

As I watched, the glass lit up.

Someone was standing there, a dark smudge behind brilliant prisms.

Watching me.

I put the Buick in gear and drove away, and saw the light extinguish in my rearview as I reached the corner.

TWO

7

T
HE ADDRESS TOOK ME
up into the low foothills that separated Hollywood from the San Fernando Valley, just east of Griffith Park. Beaters and hoopties lined the street, their wheels dug into the hard dirt at the side of the road. Smog-burnt palm trees stuck into the sky like spent matches. Mexican kids played kickball in the street. They drew back grudgingly as my car approached.

I found Rascon Circle and pulled over in front of a scumbly little cottage that looked as if it should have a junk sale planted permanently in the front yard. More dusty palm trees lurched over the house. The only thing new was a gleaming onyx van that sat in the driveway. It had silvery antennas on top and windows tinted an illegal shade of jet black.

Dead grass crunched under my feet, and the doorbell gave off a clunking sound instead of a chime. I waited.

“Hey, come take a look at my new toy.”

I turned around and saw the head of an enormously fat man sticking out of the van window. It looked like a Halloween pumpkin gone mushy.

“Leo Lazarnick?”

“'S me. Come take a look at my new baby.”

I poked my head inside. It reeked of new car and some chemical that I'd smelled in the photo lab down at the paper.

Lazarnick was sitting behind the wheel, in a bucket seat that appeared custom-made for his incredible girth. Behind him was a tricked-out cockpit of a dashboard; I recognized a telephone, a fax, a police scanner, a radar detector, and a CB radio, but there were half a dozen other devices that I could only guess at.

“I can live in this motherfucker for a week if I have to.” Lazarnick picked some flexible metal signs off the seat next to him. “Here, take a load off.”

I sat in the passenger seat next to him and smelled something else: sweat and Gold Bond Medicated Powder. He probably rubbed it between his legs to prevent chafing. The metal signs were magnetized, the kind contractors stick on the doors of their vans: Alameda Home Security, Electryx Enterprises, Inc., California Cable, Echo Park Lock & Key.

“Unmarked black van parked on the street, somebody's gonna notice, right? I just slap one of those bad boys on the door and I'm invisible.”

Invisible; right. It would take more than a fake sign to make Leo Lazarnick disappear. It wasn't just his morbid obesity; his fat was so pale and suety, he looked like he was melting. A gelatinous roll of fat oozed over the back of his shirt collar like a goiter. And then there was the sweaty cornstarch smell, which was already overwhelming the scent of new car, making my lunch rumble.

It was hard to imagine Felina Lopez—no matter how young or innocent—even touching this man.

I looked around the rest of the van. It contained a refrigerator, a microwave, and a three-basin steel sink with jugs of chemicals under it. A small light table was folded up against the facing wall. Tucked next to the fridge was a stack of those heavy paper funnels that truckers use on long hauls.

Flash.

I turned around. Lazarnick was holding a Nikon.

Flash.
This time it caught me directly in the eyes, blinding me.

“Knock it off.” I hate having my picture taken as much as I hate being interviewed. Most reporters do.

“Hey, you want something, you gotta give something back, huh? Lemme get a couple in color.”
Flash. Flash. Flash.

His hands looked like piles of mashed potatoes, but his fingers were surprisingly dexterous little trotters. When he was done, he popped out the film and put it in one of the many pockets on his chinos. “Come on in the house.”

“What the hell do you want pictures of me for?”

He climbed out of the van with some effort. “Hey, you never know. You could win a Pulitzer. Or you could get shot on the freeway. Either way, I could find somebody to buy it.”

Something beeped. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Brad? Yeah, sure. Lemme get in the house. Where's it going? On the cover? Two thousand and don't argue.” He balanced the tiny phone under his chins while he unlocked the front door. I followed him inside. “Come on, Brad, don't try to screw the pooch. Two K and it's yours.… Yeah, yours as in yours. Publish it every week for all I care.”

The Nazi Paparazzi might have blown a wad on his van, but he sure hadn't spent any money on his house. The hall was dank, with faded wallpaper and more smells: dirty sneakers, fried food, ripe cat box. An old roseglass chandelier held a single bulb. Putty-colored file cabinets lined the walls.

It was what
wasn't
there that got my attention. The photographers I knew at the paper had framed and matted copies of their work displayed proudly all over their homes: fire shots, riot shots, the Lakers in action. But in the long hall that ran through Leo Lazarnick's house, the walls were bare of everything but seeping water stains.

“Come on, Braddy, come on.… Nah, you can't see the nipple, but you can see everything but.”

I followed Lazarnick into a kitchen that looked like my old apartment after the earthquake. Lazarnick yanked open the door on a vintage icebox and pulled out a bottle of Mountain Dew. “Okay, okay. With that kind of budget, you can't expect much. Lemme see what else I got on her.”

He clumped out of the kitchen, leaving me alone to eyeball the place.

Cases of Mountain Dew were stacked under the table. A mousetrap sat baited with peanut butter. The litter box in the corner was filled with a couple weeks' worth of kitty nuggets, which explained at least one of the smells. A battered kitchen table was hidden under strata of photographs, contact sheets, and magazines that had been folded back and marked with grease pencil. The credits read
LEO LAZARNICK PHOTOGRAPHY
.

Under an old pizza box was another stack of glossies, some with orange grease-pencil crop marks. I flipped through a few pictures. Long shots taken at movie premieres, mostly. I found a shot of Princess Diana climbing out of a limousine, which was vaguely disquieting, and a hospital shot of Elizabeth Taylor with a hose in her nose. More premiere shots, these grainier, as if taken a long way off at night. A topless shot of a young TV star in bed. She looked more drugged than asleep.

And a photo of Betty Bradford Mann.

It was a long shot, taken from at least several hundred yards away, probably snapped from a helicopter or a hillside. The actress was coming down a short flight of stairs in a plain business suit, her eyes hidden by Jackie O dark glasses. An arm came into the left side of the frame, supporting her. She was holding the hand of a sober-faced, almost painfully thin little boy with dark hair. In her other hand was a single rose.

The Nazi Paparazzi had crashed Dick Mann's funeral.

“Fuckwad!”

Lazarnick was standing a foot behind me. I almost peed my pants. For such a behemoth, he could move on cat's paws when he wanted to.

“Fuckwad! He wants to use it on the cover and he offers me four hundred bucks? Fuck him. Fuck him to hell!” His face was the color of an eggplant; a prolapsed vein on his temple was vibrating. “I'll sell it to
Celeb
for a dollar before Brad gets it now! I'll fucking walk in and set it on fucking fire on his fucking desk!”

With a normal person, I might have been ready to call the EMS. Obviously Leo Lazarnick had these grand mal tantrums about twenty times a day.

“… and when that fucking fairy has to report to those guineas he works for and tell them that he lost out just 'cause he was trying to Jew me down a few bucks—”

Next to the Kurds, I couldn't think of a minority he'd missed insulting.

He noticed the photo in my hand, and the squall subsided as quickly as it had come. “You like that? It's got a great story behind it.”

“This was taken at Dick Mann's funeral?”

He nodded. “See, they were gonna bury Mann out in Simi Valley for some reason—this half-assed little cemetery off the freeway. And the tabs were making noises about big bucks for the best photo of the wife. Now, Forest Lawn, Westwood, the
real
boneyards, I know 'em like the back of my hand, I can
work
with those places. This joint, they closed it down for the morning so no one could get in. Harry Carbo, that fuckwad, he hired a helicopter to fly over so he could hang off the bottom and get the shot. Well, I can't fit my fat ass onto no chopper, so I had to think. Know what I did?”

I shook my head.

“There was this freeway down the road.”

“You shot it from the overpass.”

His neck rolls bulged with pride. “Nah. I went up there beforehand, but the angle was just
that
much off. So I shot it from
under
the overpass. Climbed up there, right where the concrete meets the dirt. Turns out up under the rebar lives some wetback. Well, I told him he was gonna be my assistant for the day. Still didn't know if it was gonna work, but with these lenses I got from the government, I thought it would work. Carbo, he's dangling off his chopper, makin' a fool of himself, and I send the wetback out on his belly like a snake. I'm hanging on to my wetback amigo's feet, yelling at him to press the button and hold it steady, or I swear I'll let go his feet and drop his ass right into the middle of the 118 freeway. He shot off a couple rolls, I gave him twenty bucks for his help, drove the film over to
Celeb,
and picked up a check for twelve thou.”