Hot Shot (15 page)

“You can get a cab tonight, as far as I care,” I yelled.

No response.

I was too tired to argue. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

10

H
OTEL COUCHES ARE MEANT
for writing postcards, not sleeping. At six I'd had enough. It was still dark outside, but I went up to the health club and sat in the whirlpool for an hour. It was so early that I had the place to myself, except for a couple of Japanese businessmen who padded through in towels and zoris.

It wasn't just my back that had kept me awake; it was the prospect of facing Betty Bradford Mann. Did the tab reporters still have those twinges of conscience, or did those nice fat paychecks massage away their qualms? And once I'd run that professional gauntlet, there was still the personal one: Tonight was the opening of Canem. Small talk with Claudia's parents would lead inevitably to the question of what I was writing these days. It was a tricky situation even without the nitroglycerin presence of Lydia, who seemed to contract Tourette's whenever she had an audience.

I took a quick sauna and a long cool shower before going upstairs to get dressed. I was supposed to be on the set at ten to meet Betty Bradford Mann and Susan D'Andrea.

Sloan still wasn't up. Surprise, surprise. I put on a nice Perry Ellis shirt, slacks, and a plain blazer. The blazer was in the front closet, crushed to one side by Sloan's outfits, and while I was digging it out, I noticed the floor safe. It seemed like a good place to keep my work, so I stowed my laptop and a copy of
Mann's Woman
in it. The other one I took with me so I could Fed Ex it to Jocelyn.

On the way out, I took the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign and reversed it. On the back it said:
MAID CLEAN ROOM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
.

Just a little parting gift for my roommate.

*   *   *

Tourists are always surprised to find that they don't actually shoot movies in Hollywood. They used to, back in the age of the silents, but lack of space and cheap real estate sent most of the soundstages out to the San Fernando Valley and beyond. Hollywood the city was now one of those perennial urban-renewal areas that never quite gets renewed.

I was headed to a lot in Studio City, just off Ventura Boulevard. Trekking out to the Valley on a summer weekday is usually hell, with overheated cars and their overheated drivers lining the sides of the freeway, so I left early, cranked up the A/C and KROQ, and said a quick prayer before I got on the 101.

It worked; I pulled up at the studio gate with half an hour to spare. The guard found my name on the list, slapped a parking pass on my dashboard, and directed me to Stage 10.

Like every other lot, this one was a collection of numbered beige hangars with people in golf carts scooting between them like pinballs. The studio had installed speed bumps every few feet to keep real cars from mowing down the golf carts.

There was even an empty parking spot outside Stage 10 with
VISITOR
on it instead of the name of some executive. I pulled right in. “Doris Day parking,” Claudia called it, after all those old movies where Doris would find a spot right in front of wherever she was going. I hoped that Doris Day parking was a good omen.

A placard on the door of Stage 10 announced that this was the set of
Miracle Over Atlanta: The Lucille Simon Story.
Lucille Simon had been in the news a few months back; she was a flight attendant who had saved a planeload of passengers after a mechanical failure. It made me think of Vernon Ash's book and the covers on Jack Danziger's walls. Whatever happened to original stories? Were there any titles left that didn't have a colon in the middle of them?

Inside the hangar it was dark and cool. I picked my way over a mole's nest of cables. All the action was at the other end of the cavern, through a thicket of Panavision cameras, gaffs, booms, and other equipment. At the center of all the fuss, on a platform, was the interior of an airplane. Not a whole airplane, but a 727 mock-up sliced in half from nose to tail. Behind the plane was a blue cyclorama. A faux-ceiling curved up over the whole thing, arching up in a way where the whole set could be lit from outside. The platform was mounted on a system of rollers and mechanical balances, to simulate choppy weather and mechanical failure.

Some people scurried around, but most were standing around in packs or slouched in canvas chairs, taking five. Caterers—
craft services,
in Hollywoodspeak—were laying out a spread on a long white table. I approached a harried-looking woman and introduced myself. She scurried away and returned with a Dockers-clad guy who stuck out his hand and said, “Darren Li. I'm the unit publicist on
Miracle.
”

“Kieran O'Connor,” I said, trying not to snicker. Having a publicist named Li was like having a dentist named Drill, or a proctologist named Butts.

“Kieran, Kieran, sure. I was just reading your column the other day. The one about the…”

“Party?”

“That's the one. So Susan tells me you're here to powwow with Betty. She's not ready yet, so you're stuck with me for a while, ha-ha. Hey, it's too bad you couldn't come on Friday. The real Lucille Simon is coming to meet Betty, and—”

“I'll take over from here, Darren,” said a brisk voice.

A lot has been said in Hollywood about Susan D'Andrea's legendary harridanism—most of it in whispers. She was famous for not returning calls, screaming obscenities at reporters, and having more assistants quit than any other publicist in town. If Leo Lazarnick was the Nazi Paparazzi, Susan D'Andrea was the Flack Fatale.

“You'll be talking to Betty when they break for lunch, in her trailer.” She looked around, as if there might be a shelf where she could put me. “I guess you could sit over there,” she decided, pointing to a corner where a couple dozen extras were taking a break. “I'll come get you when Betty's ready, so don't wander away.
And don't talk to anyone.
”

“Ja wohl,”
I said cheerfully, and wandered off to my corner.

A couple dozen members of the Screen Extras Guild—
atmosphere
—were chilling out between takes. Though they ranged from teenagers to seniors and wore everything from business suits to jogging outfits, all of them had a certain studied blandness. Distinctive looks spelled career doom to a professional extra. And these
were
professionals; most of them had brought their own directors' chairs, along with Game Boys, knitting, word-search puzzles, even a laptop or two. I maneuvered through the crowd until I found an open spot next to a heavyset fiftyish woman. Her name was Magic Markered on the canvas back of her chair:
PEG SCHUCKETT
.

I sat down on the floor next to Peg Schuckett and she started chatting away. “We'll be up and going again in a few minutes.” Whispering: “Roger Dahlgren is in his trailer. I hear he's being difficult.”

“Roger Dahlgren is in this?”

She gave me a funny look. “He's the pilot. Where have you been, dear?”

Peg Schuckett, it turned out, had been in more than two hundred movies and television shows, and remembered most of the titles. “You might remember me from this,” she said, handing me a well-worn copy of
Biz.
“The page with the paper clip.”

It was a one-sixteenth-page ad with a photo of Peg wearing a waitress's cap.
PEG SCHUCKETT, TONIGHT ON
SEINFELD,
was the caption, along with contact information for some small-time agent out in Van Nuys. “Got a part opposite Valerie Bertinelli with that ad.”

“So what's Betty Bradford Mann like?”

“Oh, very professional. I don't know. She doesn't go out of her way to talk to the extras, but she's nice enough.” Her voice lowered again. “Of course, you know about the trouble she's had, poor thing.”

Peg was about to give me the extras' poop on Betty Bradford Mann when an A.D. came over and told us, “That's it. We'll pick up after lunch, people.”

I saw Susan D'Andrea steaming toward me. “There you are,” she said sourly. “Let's do it.”

*   *   *

A chubby young woman met us at the door of Betty's trailer. She carried two craft-services plates of sliced fruit: kiwis, mangoes, pineapple. “Hi, I'm Lesley,” she said. “C'mon in. Betty's changing.”

The trailer was pleasant but not particularly luxurious. It was furnished in soft peaches and purples, with a small sitting area, a makeup table, and a large desk. On the desk was a stack of eight-by-ten publicity glossies of the star, along with a few magazines and a PowerBook of considerably more recent vintage than my own.

Lesley sat the fruit down on the coffee table and knocked on a closed door. “Your lunch is here. So is your twelve o'clock.”

“Okay,” came a familiar voice. “I'll be out in a sec.”

“Richie, you want a Coke or something?”

The head of a small boy poked out from around the sofa for a second before disappearing again.

“Come on out and say hi,” said Lesley.

Nothing.

“Come on, Richie.”

Slowly, a kid emerged: a thicket of ebony hair, sloe eyes, and bony legs sticking out of a pair of shorts. He wore an absurdly large pair of yellow basketball sneakers that made his feet look like Donald Duck's. A green Tonka was clutched in his fist.

I never know what to say to kids. I settled for, “Hi. I'm Kieran.”

Silence.

Lesley made a what-can-you-do face at me. “Come on, Richie. You're a big boy. Say hi to Kieran.”

Richie regarded me with kindergarten solemnity. “Hi. I'm
Rich,
” he said, with a pointed look at Lesley.

“Rich, you big silly! Aren't you going to say hi?” Susan D'Andrea's voice was stickier than a Gummi Bear. “You remember me!”

With the most exquisite timing and only the slightest trace of condescension, Richie managed a singsong, “Hel-lo, Susan.”

I tried not to grin. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The bathroom door opened and out came Betty Mann, wearing a terry robe over a flight attendant's uniform.

I compared her to the publicity glossies on her desk, and the juxtaposition was not flattering. She was either a good-looking forty-five or a well-preserved fifty. Smoker's cobwebs creased the corners of her lips. The face was reasonably tight, but her neck was stringy and the skin on her hands was like tissue. Plastic surgeons still haven't mastered necks and hands, and the first one who does is going to make a fortune.

Susan made the introductions. Betty shook my hand absently. “Did you get any lunch?” she asked her son.

“I thought maybe me and Lesley could go
out
for lunch.”

Lesley and Betty exchanged a glance that I couldn't quite decipher. “Fine by me,” said Lesley. “If your mom says so.”

“I think I want some pesto.” In the mouth of another kid, it might have sounded spoiled or precocious, but Richie said it like a tiny adult, just expressing a preference.

Betty still looked surprised. “Well … I don't see why not. You've been very good all morning.” She grinned, and for a moment the creases in her face were laugh lines.

“Yes, definitely pesto,” Richie decided. “California Pizza Kitchen would be good.”

“Sounds fine to me.” Lesley picked up her car keys. “We'll be back in a couple, Betty. I'll get your dry cleaning on the way back.”

“Okay. Give me a hug, bug.”

Richie gave his mother a quick one around the neck, the Tonka never leaving his fist, and headed out the door of the trailer.

“Richie! Say good-bye to everyone.”

“Bye.” He bunny-hopped down the steps, making as much noise as possible with his sneakers.

“Cute kid,” I said.

Betty ignored me. “Why don't you get yourself some lunch, too, Susan?”

For once, Susan D'Andrea was at a loss for words. “Betty, I … I really think—”

“Thanks, but we'll be fine. Go eat.”

“Betty…”
Susan wheedled, in the tone of a defense attorney telling a client to
shut up,
“I
really
think it would be
best
if I—”

“
Susan.
We'll call you if we need you.”

As the door closed, Susan shot me a look that reminded me of one of those cobras that could spit poison out of its eyes. Too bad there weren't any other reporters here to enjoy it. I'd be dining out for weeks on the tale of Susan D'Andrea's public spaying.

When we were finally alone, Betty sat down on a taboret across from me. She took a pack of Merits and a lighter from the pocket of the robe. I got out my microcassette.

“He's got quite a vocabulary. How old is he?”

“Six. Six at the end of September.” She exhaled smoke from her nostrils dragon-style.

“Kindergarten or first grade?”

“Richie
was
in kindergarten. He's been having trouble sleeping lately. The doctor decided we should hold him back half a year.”

I didn't say anything.

“Last time he was in school, he did a … he had a bowel movement. In class.”

“I'm sorry. That's terrible. Poor guy.”

“He gets hysterical if I leave the house.” She wasn't even speaking to me anymore, just talking out loud. “If I can get him to eat once a day, it's a victory. I'm shocked he wanted to go to lunch with Lesley. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe he's doing better, and we can … get back to … get him back in…”

“Thank you for meeting with me,” I said, trying to find a subtle way to steer the conversation to our topic.

“You could have left that tape recorder at home, you know. I'm not going to give you any interview.”

I slipped the microcassette into my blazer pocket. “We can make it off the record.”