The Big Bamboo Page 11

  The Glicks tried to hide their trembling. They’d been introduced a couple of times in Japan: the leader, Mr. Yokamura, and his lieutenants, Mr. Takita, Mr. Bushijo and Mr. Komodo. But inside the Glicks’ heads, the names sounded like this: “Blah, blah, blah.” The quartet was usually in the background when they met the top Vistamax executives in Osaka. The executives said the men were investors. And they made the executives nervous, too. Then there was the guy by the door. A whole different level. And dammit if the Glicks weren’t looking at his face again! But how could you not? It wasn’t just the full facial tattoo, but the design. A life-size human skull. When the brothers were in Japan, they’d heard the whispers. Torture, execution, soulless. One story had a five-man hit team sent to take him out, and the next morning a rival gangster found five severed heads on his hat rack. No more hit teams were sent. They called him “The Tat.” But not to that face.

  Mr. Yokamura flicked his cigarette on the floor again and cleared his throat.

  The brothers were staring at the tattoo again. Shit.

  “Uh, yeah,” said Mel, shifting his eyes. “As a matter of fact, the movie couldn’t be doing better.”

  “You should see the rushes,” said Ian.

  The man stood and crushed out his cigarette with a pointy shoe. “Then I must be speaking to people who are mistaken.” He headed for the door, and the others followed. “Please keep me informed.”

  “Absolutely,” Ian yelled after him. “What about lunch? You already got a hotel? If you need anything

  ”

  But they were already gone.

  ** Chapter 12

  ORLANDO

  Late morning. Already too hot.

  A large rectangular hole was cut in the manicured lawn. A priest stood at one end. Thirty folding chairs at the other. The chairs were empty except for four people in the front row.

  “I wasn’t there,” said Serge.

  “You can’t keep beating yourself up,” said Chi-Chi.

  Altamonte Springs Memorial Gardens was wedged in the newly developed, high-traffic retail district on Semoran Boulevard. The dew burning off the grass made it extra humid.

  “I don’t like this cemetery,” said Serge.

  “What’s not to like?” said Coltrane, wiping his forehead with an already drenched handkerchief. “It’s practically new.”

  “Shhhh!” whispered Chi-Chi. “The priest is starting.”

  “Dearly beloved

  ”

  “New is the problem,” said Serge. “No headstones. Just brass plaques flush to the ground, plastic flowers. I was going to get a big monument.”

  “This is what he wanted,” whispered Coltrane. “Picked it out himself when he was visiting Lou. Her grave’s right over there.”

  “God is with us

  ”

  Serge looked to the side. “We’re next to an ABC store.”

  “You’re distracting the priest,” snipped Chi-Chi.

  “

  Although Sergio may not have been a great man

  ”

  “Did I just hear right?” said Serge.

  “He was the priest on call,” said Chi-Chi. “We did our best.”

  “

  I understand from his friends that he was far from a failure

  ”

  “What the hell?”

  “Quiet,” said Chi-Chi. “He’ll hear you.”

  “

  He did his best trying to help raise his grandson, who I understand is with us here today”— the priest glanced down at a piece of paper—“Sare-gay

  ”

  Serge’s face fell in his hands.

  “Easy,” said Chi-Chi. “A lot of people mispronounce that.”

  The priest left. The four men continued sitting silently.

  Chi-Chi finally turned. “You going to be okay?”

  Serge nodded.

  “You took a big chance coming here today,” said Chi-Chi. “Lots of warrants out.”

  “There’s no way I wasn’t coming.”

  “He’d be proud of you.”

  Across the street from the cemetery, a white sedan sat at the curb. Extra antennas, blackwall tires. Two men in dark suits and thin, dark ties held binoculars.

  “He took a big chance coming here today.”

  “I knew he’d come. There’s no way he’d miss it.”

  “We ready to move?”

  “Not yet. Wait till the civilians leave, in case there’s trouble

  How’s our backup?”

  The second man grabbed a microphone. “Unit two. Status.”

  On the far side of the cemetery, two workers in green overalls raked leaves. They had flesh-colored wires running into their left ears. One furtively raised a wrist to his mouth.

  The man in the white sedan put down the mike. “Backup’s ready.”

  “Okay, this might be it,” said his partner. “The two old guys are getting up

  Stand by

  ”

  Binoculars focused on a pair of hunched, white-haired men slowly making their way with canes. “Tell unit two: Wait for my command. I want to make sure they’re clear of any fire lines.”

  The binoculars followed the old men down a footpath and out the cemetery’s western gate. The binoculars swung back to the grave. Two guys in bright floral shirts started getting up.

  “Now!”

  Men in green overalls dropped their rakes and sprinted across the grass. The sedan’s doors flew open, its passengers converging from the opposite directions with guns drawn.

  “Freeze!”

  They did.

  The men in the suits ran to the gravesite. The first one pulled up short. “What the hell’s going on?” His partner yanked dark wigs off Chi-Chi and Coltrane.

  A ’71 Buick Riviera raced past the Sea World exit on I-4. Coleman threw his cane and white wig in the backseat, on top of Serge’s. “Where’d Chi-Chi say to meet for the reception?”

  “The Boo.”

  Coleman cracked a Schlitz. “I love the Boo.”

  HOLLYWOOD, ALTO NIDO APARTMENTS

  Ford was at his kitchen table with the yellow pages, alphabetically crossing off names in the bulging local section for entertainment attorneys. Twenty calls already and no luck. The conversations always started out promisingly enough, lawyers asking identical questions. Yes, friends had seen the script. Yes, he could verify it was long before production started. Yes, he could prove he submitted it to the studio. Then he mentioned Vistamax or the Glicks and that was it. Most strongly advised him to drop it; others just hung up.

  Ford was about to call it quits when he dialed the number for a one-man firm with an address at the dicey end of Sunset.

  “The Glick brothers!” screamed the lawyer. Ford braced for a dial tone that didn’t come. Instead, the attorney went on a tear. “They’ve got to be stopped! They’ve been screwing people for years, but everyone’s too intimidated by their legal department! Not me!

  ”

  Sure, he’d take the case. When could they meet? An hour?

  Ford took a cab. The road hooked right, centering the L.A. skyline in the distance. He began checking addresses. Liquor store, bail bond, auto detailing. They came to the number he’d jotted down, and the taxi pulled up beside a decapitated parking meter. Ford looked at the building. There had to be a mistake. He checked the address in his hand. Yep, same number as the Mexican restaurant with the big rooster on the window and hand-painted signs in Spanish. Then he noticed a small doorway next to the restaurant. Same address, but with a B at the end.

  Ford tipped the driver and went inside. Just a staircase. He climbed it. There was a door at the top with a translucent window and a name in chipped gold letters: Rodney Demopolis.

  He knocked and saw a form move on the other side of the textured glass. “Come in!”

  Ford opened the door. The man behind the desk stood. Receding hair and the right weight for his medium height, except it was distributed wrong. One of those thin guys with a gut. A paper napkin was tucked in the collar of his short-sleeved dress shirt.

  “You must be Ford! Great to meet you! Call me Rod! Give me a second
to clean this up

  ”

  The desktop was a landfill. Random legal papers and loose notes around a bed of wax paper streaked with guacamole and sour cream. Ford looked in the corner at the only other chair, supporting a stack of filing boxes. The walls were empty except for two crooked diplomas. A ceiling fan rotated with an unbalanced clicking. The windows were open. Cars, yelling, a radio beyond the fidelity of its speakers. Rod chewed quickly. Balled-up wax paper went in the wastebasket, followed by the collar napkin. He ran around the desk to shake hands.

  “So, we’re going to take on the infamous Glick brothers! Hope you know what you’re in for, but it will all be worth it in the end

  ” He hunted for something on the desk. “And not just money— justice has cried out too long! Here we are. My notes from our call. No, that’s something else. Where are they?” He resumed the search. “This is why I got into law in the first place. But don’t pooh-pooh the money either. We could be talking class action, and as the named plaintiff to give standing, you get extra. Could this be it?” He reached under a per curiam opinion. “Nope.” More digging. “Ever eat at the joint downstairs? Probably not ’cause only Mexicans go there. Killer tacos, totally different from the American kind. None of the pig goes to waste. There’s a language barrier. You speak Spanish? I just point. Ordered orejas and didn’t even know I was eating ears. Know any other writers they’ve done this to?”

  “I’m sort of new here.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll put an ad in the trades. It’ll have to be small, probably one column by a half inch because

  ”— he gestured around the office—“

  well, this ain’t exactly L.A. Law. Ever watch that show? That’s also why I got in this racket. I know the actor who had a ten-episode arc as Brackman’s evil brother. Real nice guy in person. People confuse personas. So, we start with some ads. Have to shake the tree. Who knows what will fall out?” He found a video-game controller under an amicus brief and stuck it in a bottom drawer. “Know what? To heck with my notes! It was just an hour ago

  ”

  Ford thinking: I’ve made a big mistake.

  Rod walked around to the front of the desk again and leaned on a corner. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll take your statement. You don’t mind if I record it, do you? Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out. Then I’ll style the suit, file it first thing tomorrow and we’re off to the races. Where’s that tape recorder?

  ”

  ** Chapter 13

  FLORIDA

  A ’71 Buick Riviera was stuck in a sea of traffic on U.S. 192. A hundred cars moving a few blocks at a time, traffic light to traffic light, all red.

  Greetings from Kissimmee, Florida. A thin, long strip city of cheap motels, go-cart tracks, bungee towers, family buffets and knockoff souvenir boutiques for budget tourists commuting to Disney on the other side of I-4. Rows of giant, screaming marquees lit up at night like Vegas, except 3-for-$10 Tshirts instead of Wayne Newton.

  The light turned green. A minute later, the Riviera began moving slowly. The same light turned red again.

  Serge smacked the steering wheel. “I can’t tell you how crazy this kind of traffic makes me. Why are all these people going this way?”

  Coleman drained a beer and crumpled the can. “We’re going this way, too.”

  “But they’re making lifestyle mistakes. We’re driving for truth.”

  The Riviera continued east, businesses slamming up against each other for miles, then an uncharacteristic break in the new construction where an old establishment had refused to sell out. The small, weather-beaten shack sat far back from the road in an overgrown field. During the early ’70s, it was the only thing to the horizon in every direction, a place where the first performers and other Disney employees could retreat from the manufactured glee and kick back. Now it was under siege.

  The Riviera turned off the highway and onto a dirt road that wound through the field. It would be generous to call them potholes— more like the road had been carpet bombed to prevent Panzers from reaching Dunkirk. The Buick bounced on its springs, passing a rusty, nonrunning ambulance from the TV series M*A*S*H. Serge pulled around back and parked in a shaded spot behind the Big Bamboo Lounge & Package.

  The Boo.

  Chi-Chi and Coltrane were already on stools when Serge’s black silhouette appeared in the bright, open doorway at the rear of the saloon.

  “Serge!” Coltrane waved him over. “We saved seats.”

  Serge moped across the room and eased himself onto a stool at the south end of the bar. Coleman hopped on the one next to him.

  “We need to improve your mood,” said Coltrane.

  “So, what have you been doing with yourself these days?” asked Chi-Chi.

  “He’s bringing the movies back to Florida,” said Coleman. “Just finished a screenplay.”

  “That’s great!” said Chi-Chi. “How long is it?”

  “One page,” said Coleman.

  The bartender arrived with two Mason jars. Draft for Coleman, OJ for Serge. He placed each of the drinks on the bar’s trademark “coasters,” three folded squares of toilet paper.

  Serge picked up his jar. “Thanks, Jayson.”

  “Sorry about your granddad. Anything you need.”

  Serge pursed his lips and nodded.

  Chi-Chi got the bartender’s attention. “Serge is a movie buff. Didn’t they film Monster around here?”

  “The Aileen Wuornos thing with Charlize Theron?” asked the bartender.

  “That’s the one.”

  The bartender pointed at a wall. “Right up Orange Blossom Trail. The Little Diamond Motel stood in for that Daytona place where she holed up.”

  “Hear that, Serge? They shot a movie about a serial killer nearby,” said Coltrane. “Doesn’t that make you happy?”

  Serge took a deep breath, his eyes wandering around the interior of the tropical cave, plastered solid with memories tacked up by long-gone theme park employees. Badges, photos, felt pennants, ride tickets, driver’s licenses, bras. Big band on the juke. Crusty patrons began swinging by the end of the bar, paying condolences.

  “Your granddad loved this place,” said Chi-Chi, looking down at Serge’s stool. “He was sitting right there when he got the famous Disney artist Ralph Kent to sketch Pinocchio on a paper plate. His favorite seat, so he could be next to the drawings.”

  Serge turned and put his hand out to the wall, touching framed original illustrations of the Seven Dwarfs. Above them was a new framed item, memorial photo of a smiling Sergio Storms, 1918–2006.

  “I know you miss him,” said Chi-Chi. “But he lived a long, full life. You need to remember the good times.”

  “I remember I wasn’t there that last morning.”

  “Stop it,” said Chi-Chi. “Everyone finds something to regret at this point. It’s part of the process.”

  “At least you got to see him,” added Coltrane. “Imagine if you didn’t notice that article in the paper.”

  Serge showed a trace of a smile. “He loved this old joint.”

  Chi-Chi raised his jar. “That he did. Said the name reminded him of pulp paperbacks. The Big Sleep. The Big Nowhere

  ”

  “

  The Big Bamboo,” said Serge. A memory flickered and his smile grew larger. “I cracked up when he first mentioned the JCPenney job. He forgot he’d told me, and repeated it four or five more times, but it just kept getting funnier.”

  “That was nothing compared to the Alabama score,” said Chi-Chi.

  “Alabama?” said Serge. “When was my granddad up there?”

  “Nine months ago. Something else you missed while you’ve been gone.”

  “The perfect game,” said Coltrane. “Started in Panama City and ended over the state line west of Dothan.”

  “He was trying to tell me something about Alabama,” said Serge. “Just thought it was more nonsense. Claimed he ran an oil company.”

  “That wasn’t drifting,” said Coltrane. “He really did, at least in the script.”

  “Script?”

  Chi-Chi nodded. “The wh
ole thing was written out. Very intricate. A hundred pages. That’s what made the score so incredible.”

  Coltrane pulled wet toilet paper off the bottom of his drink. “We just assumed you knew about Alabama.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then settle in and get ready,” said Chi-Chi. “Have we got a story to tell

  bartender!

  ”

  VISTAMAX STUDIOS

  The regular gang from the props department gathered around Ford as he emptied his locker into a cardboard box.

  “I can’t believe they fired you,” said Ray.

  “Of course they fired him,” said Pedro. “He sued.”

  “It’s just not right.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get them,” said Ford. “I’m going to get them so good!”

  “Who?”

  “The Glick brothers. I’m going to get this whole studio!” Ford closed up the box and turned to the four humorless security guards waiting to escort him off the property.

  A man in a suit walked up. “Is there a Ford Oelman here?”

  “That’s me.”

  The man handed him an envelope. “You’ve been served.” He walked away.

  Ford tore open the envelope.

  “What is it?” asked Tino.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Ford.

  “What?”

  “They’re suing me.”

  “Ford!”

  Ford turned. Mark was across the room, holding up the receiver of a phone on the inventory manager’s desk. “You got a call.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Rodney something.”

  A half hour later, Ford was standing in a loft over a Mexican restaurant.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” said Rod. “I feel just terrible.”

  Ford waited.

  Rod put his hands together like he was praying. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. I have to withdraw from the case.”

  “But—”

  Rod waved him off. “I know it’s a shitty thing to do. But I don’t have a choice.” He lifted a hefty stack of documents off his desk. “They’ve buried us in motions. And they’re suing me personally.”

  “You said I had a strong case.”

  “You do. Doesn’t matter

  ” Rod continued, more to himself than Ford: “I heard they did stuff like this, but I never thought it could get this bad. No wonder everyone’s scared.”