L A Woman Read online

  “Pearl Harbor.”

  “Uh-huh. Any particular reason you named me after Kate Beckinsale’s nurse and you used Ben Affleck’s hero for yourself?”

  “It was all I could think of at the time, and you don’t look anything like Ben Affleck.”

  “Hah, neither do you, and since it seems to have escaped your attention, I don’t look like Kate Beckinsale either.”

  “Point taken,” I studied his face for a long second, “Then again, there’s something about the eyes…”

  Hondo grinned, “At least you got us a way into the audition. That was good.”

  “Thank you. This could be our big break.” I finished my plate and rose from the seat.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Seconds. It’s a buffet.”

  One hour and two full stomachs later we reached our office and parked in the gym’s lot, which also serves as our parking area only because our office shares a mutual wall with Archie’s gym.

  Arch is the eighty-year-old bodybuilder who owns both buildings. He was a native Californian who worked out with and competed against the likes of Frank Zane, Franco Columbo, Dave Draper, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in their early years. But he made his money playing muscular badasses in all those B-motorcycle movies in the sixties and seventies and that’s what he used to buy the building thirty years ago when property was still affordable.

  Arch lives in the big two-story apartment that makes up the back third of the gym, so he’s always around.

  When we got out of Shamu, Arch walked out of the gym’s doors wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders. He came over to us carrying our mail, which is delivered to his gym.

  Arch is also our Agent. He doesn’t go out and hustle us film or TV gigs, but he does keep his Agency license current. In Los Angeles, you have to have an agent or you won’t get your career off of “start”. Arch got the agency license when he was acting so he could also make the agent’s fees for putting himself in a role. When he gave up acting, he kept the license out of something like nostalgia.

  Anyhow, it’s good for us, and Archie is a prompt mail deliverer, so we get our bills and mailed rejections right on time.

  Arch does it as a favor to us, but it’s also so he can snoop through our mail. He doesn’t open them, but he likes to keep track of what we’re getting.

  This was mostly magazines we used to find new casting calls and upcoming trends that might lend opportunities to our struggling acting careers: IndieSlate, the Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety, and several envelopes offering us great deals on credit cards.

  Most actors around town worked different jobs to augment their acting careers. We worked as Private Investigators to augment ours. Whatever it takes.

  Arch stood with us, stretching and flexing his arms. He had just finished his workout and he was pumped. His arms were huge, and as dark and hard as burnished oak logs. Not a lot of eighty-year-old men like him around. Of course, he dates women in their twenties and thirties. That helps too, I imagine.

  Arch said, “Hondo, some girl came by earlier looking for you. She was a good-looking number, too. I told her she could wait in my living room, but she said she couldn’t stay around.”

  I said, “You scared her off, didn’t you. Probably rubbed your hands together and cackled like a crazy old man.”

  Arch said to Hondo, “You been putting up with him all day?”

  Hondo nodded, “He’s a little pissy because they didn’t ask him to be in the commercial.”

  “I am not,” I said. “My appearances before the cameras are for art, not crass commercialism. I’m not so desperate that I’ll appear in just anything.”

  Arch hawed and slapped his thigh. “Ronny, you’d pose for a wanted poster if they told you it was going to be on television.”

  Hondo said, “What did she look like?”

  “Young, maybe nineteen, twenty, and beautiful, I mean a real heart-stopper. Don’t know if she was an athlete, but she carried herself like one. Bad, bad hairdo though, all short and ragged, like it was cut with a chainsaw. Definitely not a good look for her. She wore sunglasses so I couldn’t see her eyes. And she kept checking around like somebody looking for the boogeyman.”

  “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “Nope, didn’t say she’d be back, either.”

  Hondo shrugged. “Thanks Arch.”

  Arch said, “No problem-o. Hey Ronny, go take a chill pill. You have to face the fact that Hondo’s more photogenic than you. Come to think of it, so am I. Haw!” With that, he grinned and went into the gym.

  I unlocked the office door and as we stepped inside, Hondo stopped. There was a handwritten note lying in the center of his desk. Hondo said, “I’m assuming you didn’t put that there.”

  “Not me. I’ve been with you all day.” I examined the lock on our office door while Hondo read the note once in silence, then aloud to me: “Thank you for saving my life. I’m sorry I had to break in, but I couldn’t wait for you. It’s been a long time since anyone helped me, much less risked what you did. I will never forget it. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.” Hondo said, “She signed it: Grateful.” He rolled the note into a tube and tapped it against his palm.

  I said, “At least she thanked you.”

  “Uh-huh. Broke into our office to do it.”

  I said, “She didn’t leave a mark on the door, either.”

  “What did I do, save a professional thief? First, she steals a car off a sales lot in broad daylight and nobody sees her, then she disappears from sight at the scene of an accident, and now she breaks in after talking to Archie. That’s ballsy.”

  “Or desperate,” I said.

  “Desperate, yeah.”

  “Like you said, she’s running.”

  “From the people in the pickup,” Hondo said.

  “Yep. We need to find out who they are, then we can get a better ID on this phantom girlfriend of yours.”

  “We can start tomorrow. The news tape will be delivered in the afternoon, they said around three.”

  “What about the audition?”

  “We’ll have time.”

  I said, “Okay, so tomorrow’s good. Right now, I need to go home and take some alka-seltzer or something. My stomach’s rumbling like Krakatoa.”

  “Next time don’t eat so much.”

  “Hey, it was a buffet. I’m obligated by law to overeat.”

  “Remember those words at three AM when nuclear heartburn hits.”

  He was right.

  **

  The Le Montrose is a trendy hotel that a lot of rock stars and movie stars use. I got there a little before eight and went into the lobby.

  I saw the two actors from the Mongolian coming toward the front door and I stood where they could see me. I looked at the ceiling and frowned.

  They came over and Bob-O touched my shoulder and said, “Professor McCawley?”

  “Oh, hello fellows,” I studied them for a second, then said, “Oh yeah, the Mongolian, right?”

  “Yes sir,” said Davester. He cleared his throat and continued, “What, what are you doing here?”

  I pointed at the ceiling, “Got a call about the nano-quake last night that epi-centered here at this hotel. It’ll take about an hour for me to okay the building. I’ve already ordered a group of folks that were in the meeting room to vacate until it’s safe. You boys should leave too, just in case. Come on back at nine and check with me.”

  Bob-O said, “How come nobody else is leaving?”

  I leaned close to them, “These are my assistants, trained especially to act as stand-ins for real people. We use them to avoid panic. They look natural, don’t they?”

  Bob-O said, “They sure do.”

  “We don’t want panic. Panic is bad, especially in L.A. Lots of emotional people here, with all the actors and agents and directors.” I winked at them, “But you fellows look like you’re solid. I wouldn’t worry about you two panicking.”

  “Than
ks.”

  “No problem,” I saw Hondo coming through the doors and said, “Hello Professor Johnson.”

  That was the deal clincher for the actors. Bob-O said, “Thanks for the warning Professor. We’ll be leaving now. And we won’t panic or anything.”

  “I know I can count on you.” They shook my hand and stopped Hondo to shake his hand before leaving.

  Hondo came up and said, “I don’t even want to know.”

  I said, “Let’s go to the meeting room and use the secret code, see if we can get in early.”

  There was a gorgeous green-eyed redhead sitting at a small desk by the meeting room door. She looked up as we approached.

  “Yes?”

  “TBA,” I winked at her. “Nothing like a little secrecy, huh?”

  “The first auditions aren’t scheduled for another hour. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait.”

  “I know, but we really need to do ours early, it’s a matter of life or death.”

  The corners of her eyes crinkled as she rested her chin on her hand and looked at me. “Is that right?”

  Oh, I am a sucker for green eyes. I said, “By the way, what’s your name?”

  “Colleen, what’s yours?”

  “I’m Ronny Baca, and this is my comical sidekick Hondo Wells. Most of us call him Gabby Wells, like Gabby Hayes from the old cowboy movies.”

  She laughed and leaned back, glancing down at a paper on the desk as she looked from it to us. She said, “I don’t see your names here.” Colleen turned those green eyes on Hondo and said, “So, Mr. Wells how are you? I recognized you from the news last week. All you needed for that rescue was a cape and a big S on your chest to let people know who you were.”

  Hondo gave her a smile and said, “I always leave that stuff at home when I go fishing. All I had on were shorts.”

  “Oh, I know.” She smiled back.

  Colleen studied the paper for a long second, then said, “Okay you two, I’m not supposed to do this, but I’m going to add your names and let you audition. But don’t tell anyone.”

  “Our lips are sealed,” I said and held up my fingers in the Boy Scout promise.

  **

  Colleen went through the door and came back in less than a minute. She gave us three pages of sides and said, “Ronny, you’re up.”

  “Don’t we get a few minutes to look it over?”

  “If you actually had an appointment we’d give you a few minutes, but since you’re pretty much crashing the audition, then no. Good luck.”

  I opened the door and went in. The Le Montrose Meeting Room is impressive. A red carpet runs down the center of a room of ornate wooden chairs and passes between two red velvet curtains tied with gold cord. On the back wall is a black sign with “Le Montrose” angled across it in twenties style calligraphy. In front of the sign was a long desk where four busy people sat. Two others adjusted a camera positioned at the right side of the desk.

  I saw my mark and stopped on it.

  One person, who was shuffling papers back and forth like a Las Vegas card shark said, “So you’re an add-on, that right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He looked up, “We all know you crashed the audition, so let’s get that out of the way first. We’ll let you slide this time, but don’t ever try it again on me. Understood?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay. I’m David Gleason. Let’s hear your slate, then you’ll be reading with Vince here.” He pointed at the man to his right.

  I did my slate and read with Vince, who really gave some emotion to the lines. When we finished, David said, “Thank you.”

  I didn’t leave. He looked at me, “What?”

  “Could I do it again? I think I can do better.”

  David looked at the others, then back at me. “You’ve got some balls, I’ll give you that. Let’s do it again.” So we did, and I sucked worse that time than the first.

  CHAPTER 3

  I waited outside and flirted with Colleen while Hondo went in and read. When he came out we said our goodbyes and walked through the lobby just as Bob-O and Davester came through the entrance.

  I gave them the head-nod and a thumbs-up just in case they missed the head-nod. “Good news fellows, no major damage.” I looked around, then went to them and talked in a low voice, “I don’t know if you two are interested, but they’re doing auditions in the meeting room for some big, big movie. Don’t tell anyone I told you.” When we got outside Hondo bopped me on the shoulder.

  “Oww.”

  “That’s for fooling those two.”

  “Hey, they were still on time for their auditions. Besides, it helps me polish my improv skills.”

  “That stuff is going to bite you on the ass one of these days, just wait and see.”

  “Hah, it might just save my ass one of these days, just wait and see.” Hondo put one arm around my neck in a playful hug. His arms are long and powerful.

  I said, “This reminds me of that time in the jungle when that big python wrapped around my neck.”

  “You were never in a jungle and you’ve never had a python around your neck. We were in a big bad desert and big, terrible mountains. How soon we forget.”

  My great friend’s arm was still there, but only laying on my shoulders. I said, “Yeah, but if a python had ever wrapped around my neck…”

  Hondo said, “They told me to expect a callback.”

  “They did?”

  “They didn’t tell you the same thing? My, my.”

  “Crap.”

  “Nice of you to congratulate me.”

  “Congrats.”

  Hondo grinned, “I bet that hurt to say.”

  “No more than swallowing a tack.”

  “That’s all? Wow, you must really mean it. I thought I felt a lot of emotion there.”

  “Very funny, ha-ha. Did you read for the comedy part, because you are a funny, funny man.”

  We reached our vehicles and I said, “I’m going to check something out before I come to the office. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Hondo said, “Should I give you a…callback if you’re running late?” He laughed and drove off. My friends, they can be so cruel.

  **

  I took a slow drive in heavy traffic to the car lot where our mystery girl stole the Firebird.

  It was early and only a couple of salesmen were there. The lot was a moderate sized one with a good number of neat and clean cars and pickups. There were little colored banners flying from lines running overhead and their flapping noises were constant but not irritating.

  One salesman was talking with three of the employees as they washed and wiped down a row of sport cars, including several Firebirds, so I walked over to them. The salesman was Hispanic, as were the washers. He turned to me and smiled, “Morning, I’m Mike Fernandez. You’re our first customer today. Is there anything in particular I can show you?”

  He was a little shorter than me, but had good shoulders and wore his brown summer weight suit so that it hung just right. I said, “Were you working here five days ago?”

  He looked at me a moment, then said, “Yes, was I supposed to show you a car then? If so, I’m sorry-“

  “No, I was just wondering how that girl drove off with one of your Firebirds without someone noticing.”

  “You a cop?”

  “Private. My name’s Ronny Baca.”

  One of the car wash guys said, “Baca? Man, you don’t look Latino, ese.”

  “Parents were from Bolognia. Its west of Spain.”

  One of them got it, but one of the others said, “I heard of it, yeah. It was on the Discovery channel a couple weeks back.”

  I showed the salesman my license, “I’m trying to get an angle on her and this seemed like a good place to start.”

  “Well, if you find her let me know. She totaled that car, and it was the best one on the lot.”

  “That’s sure what I’d tell the insurance company if I were you.”

  “We told them t
hat because it was the best car. Low miles, had the big engine, ran like a bat out of hell.”

  “Any idea when she stole it?”

  “It must have been around one, one-thirty. Half the people go to lunch between one and two and the others cover for them. Same from twelve to one.”

  “You fellows see anything?” I asked the washers.

  “Just soap and water, man. It’s our life, you know?”

  There are always jokers around. I asked Miguel, “Which lunch shift do you take?”

  “Twelve to one.”

  “And you didn’t notice her on the lot?”

  “Nope. I was talking to a husband and wife about one-fifteen over by the pickups, but I never saw anybody around the Birds here.”

  “And nobody here noticed it was missing until after it was wrecked, is that right?”

  “Yeah, the cops called us around two-thirty or so about it.”

  I looked at the lot and spied several security cameras. “Could I look at your security tapes for that day?”

  “Sure. The cops already looked, so they’re still out. We use one for each twenty-four hours. Come on, you can use the meeting room. The TV and player are set up.”

  **

  He gave me directions on how to use the remote to fast forward, reverse and freeze any part of the tape, and then he left me alone in the room. It took me a minute to locate the Firebirds, then I fast-forwarded the tapes until I saw people near them. The camera took images about every two seconds so the people and passing cars seemed to jerk across the screen in little jumps.

  Several times, there were people by the Firebirds but none of them got in and drove one away. I almost missed the car when it moved and had to rewind the tape and look again.

  No one was near it, but I saw a small hand reach up from between the cars and open the passenger door. A shadowy figure moved across the console and into the driver’s seat. I got one flash of a long braided ponytail and a glimpse of a young, pretty face, then the engine started and the Firebird drove off the lot and into traffic.

  I backed up the tape again until I was a good five minutes before the theft. I watched every angle and never saw her. I did it again, this time rewinding even further, but there was no image of her anywhere. Wherever she had crawled from, it had started out of camera range.