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  THE BIG BAMBOO - Š 2006

  A Novel by Tim Dorsey

  Serge A. Storms returns!

  The world’s most lovable serial killer is back, bringing together an Oscar-worthy cast of Sunshine State nut jobs with his insatiable passion for All Things Florida.

  During this latest cavalcade of nonstop felonies — from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale to Orlando — Serge finds time to resurrect his obsession with movies, particularly those showcasing his beloved home state. And he wants answers! Why aren’t more films shot here? How come the ones that are stink so bad? And what’s up with filming “Florida” scenes in California? Then there’s the cryptic message from his grandfather, Sergio, telling him to go to Los Angeles to uncover a mysterious secret from the distant past.

  It’s too much of a coincidence.

  It’s fate.

  Naturally, Serge, accompanied by his substance-sustained sidekick, Coleman, must immediately hop a transcontinental flight to straighten out Hollywood once and for all. But, of course, being Serge, his mission is sidetracked by perpetual detours to irresistible celluloid landmarks … and intrigue.

  Meanwhile, in Burbank, production of what may become the most expensive flop in Tinseltown history is interrupted by the brazen abduction of the female lead.

  Meanwhile, a couple of midwestern dreamers head west for their shot at fame — and find it at the center of a celebrity murder investigation.

  And even more meanwhile, infamous studio heads Ian and Mel Glick continue to produce juggernaut high-grossing dreck, casting-couch perversion, and cocaine hijinks.

  But there’s more. Much more.

  How is the Japanese mafia involved? The Alabama mafia? Is the castrating cult throwing a membership party? Will Coleman survive his binge at the Belushi hotel? Who can defuse the nuclear bomb? It all comes crashing together in a breathtaking climactic sequence that prompts an enthusiastic Serge to proclaim: “Two thumbs way, way up!”

  So come on in and grab a seat. The show’s about to start… .

  For Lawrence McConnell

  No one goes Hollywood— they were that way before they came here. Hollywood just exposed it.

  — RONALD REAGAN

  PROLOGUE

  LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

  You think this is a game? You didn’t snuff some hooker. You killed Ally Street, the famous actress. You’re facing the gas chamber!”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  The detective lunged. His partner restrained him. “We don’t have the gas chamber anymore. Let me talk to the kid a minute.”

  The wormy young suspect sat at a plain metal desk. Dress shirt and slacks. Hands trembling. His untouched coffee was cold.

  The second detective opened a notebook. “Maybe we can work something out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A deal. Tell us what you know.”

  “But I’m innocent!”

  “You’re in deep shit!” yelled the first detective, the one named Reamsnyder.

  “Take it easy,” said his partner, by the name of Babcock.

  The young man stared down at the scratched desktop. “I think I need an attorney.”

  A technician shot video from behind a two-way mirror. The interrogation room was an off-putting shade of mildew green that psychiatrists said would help to break suspects.

  Babcock took a sip of his own coffee. “Sure, you can have an attorney. Whenever you want. But as soon as one arrives, we can’t help you anymore. Maybe we can figure a way out of this.”

  The young man looked away.

  “Still want that lawyer?”

  No answer.

  Babcock opened a folder. “Ford Oelman. That your real name?”

  Ford nodded slightly, no eye contact.

  “Says you work at Vistamax Studios. What do you do?”

  “

  Props

  ”

  “That’s a good job—”

  “Why are you being nice to this asshole?” said Reamsnyder. “He’s a dead man! He’s going down!”

  “We don’t need to talk like that,” said Babcock. “He hasn’t told his side of the story. Maybe it’s not what it looks like.”

  “Bullshit! He was stalking her. We have witnesses. And just look at those eyes— some kind of pervert.” Reamsnyder leaned into the young man’s face. “Tell us where the body is, and maybe we’ll ask the prosecutor for life.”

  Ford jerked back in his chair. “I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what’s going on!” His head snapped toward Babcock. “You already questioned me last month, right after it happened. You believed me then.”

  “That was before we found you with those panties,” said Reamsnyder. “The lab positively matched her DNA. And you’d just been fired. People heard all those threats you made when security threw you off the lot. Then there’s your cell phone. How do you explain the ransom calls we traced?”

  His whole body was shaking. “I— I can’t

  ”

  Babcock calmly folded his arms. “You have to understand how this looks from our side. It’s not good.”

  “But I really am innocent!”

  “You’re a loser,” said Reamsnyder. “Some lowlife who drove a golf cart around the set.”

  Ford wouldn’t look at him.

  “Hey, shithead! You still don’t get it, do you? You don’t realize who you killed.” The detective seized the young man by the collar and yanked him out of his chair. “The weight of this town is about to fall on you like an anvil!”

  Babcock jumped up and grabbed Reamsnyder again. “What the hell are you doing? Let go of him!”

  The detective pushed Ford back down in his chair. “What did she do? Laugh at you? Make you feel small?”

  Babcock squared around on his partner. “I think you need to go cool off.”

  “Fine!” Reamsnyder straightened his shirtsleeves. “I can’t stand the stench in this room!” He slammed the door on the way out.

  Babcock returned to his seat. “Sorry about that. He’s actually a good cop. Cases like this get to him.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it! You got to believe me!”

  “I do,” the detective lied. “But you have to give us something to go on. Any idea who’s involved? I mean, you’re connected to this thing at every stage. It can’t all be a coincidence.”

  “But it is!” said Ford, eyes big and watery. “This whole thing is insane. A bunch of weird stuff just kept happening. If it made any sense at all, I’d swear I was being framed.”

  “Maybe you are.” Babcock opened his folder again. “So, this started when? About four weeks ago?”

  Ford rubbed his forehead.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it, from the beginning?”

  Ford nodded and took a deep breath

  FOUR WEEKS AGO

  Hollywood Tattletale

  SHOOTING SCHEDULE DELAYED BY DEATHS

  HOLLYWOOD— Three people were killed on the set of All That Glitters when a medieval catapult malfunctioned Monday, accidentally firing on several craft-service workers preparing lunch for the cast and crew.

  The fatalities are but the latest in a litany of problems that have plagued the production of Werner B. Potemkin’s ambitious epic. The film— intended to encompass the entire history of Tinseltown— is $120 million over budget and two years behind schedule. The death toll now stands at 18.

  Filming was indefinitely suspended after Monday’s accident when special effects coordinator Olaf Blřt stormed off in a rage. “I don’t know why we even had a catapult. There’s nothing in the script.”

  Potemkin is notorious for incessant rewrites on the set, not to mention a meticulous attention to realism bordering on the obsessive. Sources report that earlier in the day, Potemkin and Blřt argued loudly over the director’s refusal to use a less powerful catapult. Hospital spokesmen revealed that the
victims would have survived the lightweight foam boulder, but they were standing at the end of the full-scale weapon when the thirty-foot spring arm sheared loose and followed the fake rock down on top of the workers as they removed steam lids at the buffet table.

  “You start cutting corners on catapult strength,” remarked Potemkin, “next thing you’re cheating on your wife with a blackmailing hooker named Candy. I mean someone else is.”

  The entertainment media quickly descended again outside the gates of Vistamax Studios, where police were called in to clear the driveway for departing vehicles.

  “If only he had listened,” Blřt said out the window of his baby blue Alpine-Renault. “Those caterers didn’t deserve that.”

  On-set quarrels are not confined to the special effects chief. Movie insiders attribute a state of total chaos to Potemkin’s brusque directorial style of perpetual shouting punctuated by sudden, unexplained bouts of weeping in the corner. Defenders, on the other hand, argue that this same tempestuous European approach was the genius behind such Potemkin classics as The Deconstructionist’s Dilemma, Anatomy of an Enigma and Die, Mr. Snodgrass, Die!

  As rewrites and broken deadlines mount, however, the friction has become the source of constant feuding with all the actors. The first four female leads have either been fired or quit, and the last— model-turned-actress Naomi Passious— had been seen fleeing the soundstage in tears on a daily basis before being replaced by newcomer-model-turned-actress Ally Street. Complicating matters was Naomi’s on-again-off-again relationship with boy-band heartthrob Jason Geddy (see related story), who was a regular distraction on the set until being banned after mistaking one of his own bodyguards for a member of an archrival boy band and repeatedly striking him with the golf club he always carries.

  “That was a mistake,” Geddy later said. “It’s time to move on.”

  Meanwhile, Potemkin’s already strained relationship with the studio has become untenable in recent months. Privately, studio brass are said to be furious with the director’s whimsical treatment of the shooting schedule as well as an utter intransigence in the editing room. Vistamax is seeking a commercially viable running time of 90 to 120 minutes, while Potemkin refuses to budge on his ever-growing eight-hour cut.

  The director, in response, is said to be livid about the studio’s decision to target younger moviegoers by recruiting Snoop Dogg to perform the theme song, “There’s No Bizzle, Like Show Bizzle.”

  In other developments, tonight’s cast party at Skybar is apparently still on. Originally planned as the “wrap party,” it had already been postponed six times before studio officials finally decided to go forward with the event as a “midpoint” publicity bash, issuing four times the usual number of press credentials in an effort to offset chronic rumors that the film is in danger of becoming the most expensive flop in Hollywood history.

  A Vistamax spokesperson requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Caterers, Grips and Personal Assistants Home in Pasadena.

  RELATED STORY, PAGE 17

  PASSIOUS , GEDDY GET BACK TOGETHER , BREAK UP

  HOLLYWOOD— No sooner had publicists confirmed the latest reconciliation between model-turned-actress Naomi Passious and boy-band heartthrob Jason Geddy, than the stormy relationship was reportedly off again.

  The latest about-face came during a Sunset Strip altercation in the trendy Viper Room, where a melee broke out during a private party thrown to celebrate the star couple’s reconciliation. The exact order of events is unclear, but witnesses generally concur Passious sparked the donnybrook by flirting with archrival boy-band singer Frankie Flatone. Before anyone realized what was happening, Passious and Geddy had both removed their matching Rodeo Drive belts with each other’s name encrusted in diamonds, and began horse-whipping each other in front of the stage.

  “It was like The Passion of the Christ, but worse,” said one unidentified observer. “Everyone wishes them the best.”

  Bodyguards quickly separated the couple as members of the entertainment press rushed out to report that the volatile relationship was off again. Soon, however, the couple was observed sloppy-kissing on the dance floor, and journalists quickly refiled that the rocky courtship was back on. That’s when Flatone asked to cut in and sustained blunt head trauma from a golf club. Accounts vary greatly, from a three iron to a sand wedge, but emergency room personnel place the official number of stitches at 36. Passious fled the lounge in tears with a support entourage of unemployed models and/or drug connections.

  “I overreacted,” said Geddy, wiping the end of the club with a bar napkin. “I guess I should send him something.”

  Just after midnight, Passious’s publicist called a hastily arranged news conference and blamed the media. She attributed her client’s behavior to “professional exhaustion” and pleaded for everyone to respect the star’s privacy in high-profile nightclubs.

  The couple’s earlier troubles have been well chronicled in the celebrity press, particularly Geddy’s volatile temper and intense hatred of paparazzi. Several lawsuits had been settled out of court before it came to a head last August, when Geddy was sentenced to a year’s probation after a pistol registered to him discharged six times poolside at the Argyle. Fortunately, Geddy was holding the gun sideways to look cool, and didn’t hit anything.

  “It was a misunderstanding, as well as an accident,” said Geddy’s celebrity attorney, Calvin Sass. “He’s become very respectful of firearms.”

  Then, of course, was February’s infamous 72-hour weekend in Las Vegas that resulted in the panicked pair racing down to the courthouse Monday morning for an annulment, which was denied on the grounds that they had forgotten to get married in the first place.

  “It was supposed to be an innocent joke,” said Passious. “But it went too far.”

  Added Geddy: “That’s what happens when you drink for three days without eating anything.”

  THAT EVENING

  Just after dark, an endless convoy of stretch limos cruised down Sunset Strip with precision and social urgency. The vehicles were soon backed up for blocks, waiting to burp passengers onto the sidewalk at 8440, the address of Ian Schrager’s landmark Mondrian Hotel.

  The hotel was famous because it was the home of Skybar, the nightclub that was famous because you couldn’t get into it. If you could get inside, you might see Cindy Crawford or Tom Hanks or Cher, but you couldn’t.

  The club’s entrance was defended like the gates of a U.S. embassy in a refugee crisis, which described every night on the strip: dumpling-shaped tourists with Instamatics, autograph hounds with maps of the stars, barefoot street musicians, runaway wolf children, meth-monkeys, winos. A riot formation of block-shouldered bouncers in black dress shirts stood fast and held the Maginot Line, waving through the cultural elite with air kisses.

  Tonight, Skybar’s admittance policy was even more rigorous. The “midpoint” party for the runaway-train-wreck All That Glitters. A private function, which meant The List. Cast members, movie moguls, entertainment press and lower-rung studio employees who wangled extra invitations that floated around the soundstages like a separate form of currency.

  Another limo pulled up. Paparazzi pounced. They’d been alerted by the studio, then reminded. The backdoor of the stretch opened. Cameras flashed. Which alerted more tourists.

  “Look!” yelled a fan from Toledo. “It’s Ally Street!”

  Another limo. Sightseers stampeded across the boulevard. Traffic screeched.

  “And there’s boy-band heartthrob Jason Geddy!”

  More photo flashes. More tourists flocked and fused tightly into a single screaming blob. More limos. The Brylcreemed tumor of Middle America pulsed forward. Bodyguards pushed back. VIPs shielded their eyes and ducked inside.

  Next limo.

  “It’s the Glick brothers!”

  Out came Ian and Mel, owners of Vistamax Studios and coproducers of All That Glitters. The Glicks had earned their way to the top of Vistamax by being born to the previous owners. Identical twins, the brothers exited the limo in identical,
untucked white linen shirts, loafers and no socks. Their short, gelled black hair stood up in a crop of tiny stalagmites. Thick-rimmed reading glasses. In addition to being power players, the Glicks were style setters, and their sense of chic had become the gold standard. They understood that “hip” was a rapidly repeating cycle, and the brothers stayed so far out in front on the trend track that they often lapped those in the rear of the herd. Like tonight: All the fashion observers were uniformly wowed by everything the brothers had going on. They’d done it again, way, way ahead. Others at the party had the same look, but it was because they were so far behind, and they were aggressively shunned.

  The brothers turned around one last time at the entrance, smiling and waving to the little people, then darted inside to more photo flashes.

  Next: a crammed Malibu convertible. Five guys from the props department who roomed together and scored invitations from a third executive producer who hung out on the back lot with no obvious duties. The paparazzi didn’t recognize them but took pictures in case. A bouncer found their names on The List and inside they went. Or out, to be more accurate. Because Skybar was located under the stars, spread across a poolside patio where unnatural concentrations of supermodels lounged with the sultry, bedroom eyes of people coming around after surgery. The decor was minimal, the big color white, lots of candles. The Hollywood Hills dropped off steeply behind the hotel, and the back of the club appeared to rest on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the vast, twinkling grid of greater Los Angeles, where the night air seemed to conduct voltage; the thick daytime haze, now invisible, trapping various wavelengths from fluorescent streetlights that gave the palm trees a slimy glow like low-budget porn.

  The props guys couldn’t hide their surprise. Despite countless attempts, they’d never made it inside Skybar before.

  “Damn!” said Mark, the one with sideburns. “I can’t believe we’re in the movie business!”

  “You mean you are,” said Ford.

  “Sorry, forgot about you getting fired,” said Mark. “Let me get you something to drink.”