Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 10:17:51 -0700 From: "J. Hall" Subject: Re: [WRITERS] INT: Goldman Pictures > > Lareine made her way through the back of the soundstage, carefully picking her >way over cables. She opened a dark door that read "Janitor's Closet." Bruno >sat inside. > "Reine!" He stood up, all 350 puonds of him, and hugged her. > "Bruno! You still working door for my two-bit uncle?" > "It's a living," He opened the door behind him. It was a stairwell winding >down into the darkness. > "Good, because there is someone following me. I don''t know who it is,bu I >saw his car earlier and then I saw someone coming in behind me," Lareine >started down the stairs. > "I'll take care of it," Bruno touched his jacket. > "I don't want to know. What are they filming?" > "Some Bacall flick." > "Oh. Thanks Bruno," Lareine descended down the stairs. The door behind her >clicked shut and a door at the bottom opened. She took the last half of the >stairs quickly and emerged through the door into a large room. Uncle Tony was >sitting at a long table with a few of his men, playing poker. > "Uncle Tony?" > Tony turned. Tony Delauro > The Warners soundstage could have been used for filming blimp duels. As the massive door slid shut I realized a conga line of elephants might be mixing it up with Cugat on the other side of the building. No one would know but Cugat, and maybe not even then if the drummer was drinking. We probably could move around unnoticed providing no one saw us or they turned the overhead lights on. The lights came up on cue and we were immediately spotted by a script girl. She smiled at Bogart and he wiggled a few fingers in her direction. The director, a thin type with suspenders and a fedora caught the exchange and glared at both of us to be quiet. I pretended to be someone important and shrugged importantly. "See her anywhere?" Bogie whispered? I glanced around. Showgirls, some of them with headdresses the size of my aunt Bonneville's begonia bushes, shifted wearily on benches just outside camera range of the main film stage. Someone with very bad taste or poor eyesight had been painting scenery flats just off to my right. The houses were disproportionally crooked. On second thought, in this town it made sense. The usual army of sound men, stagehands, grips, assistant to assistant directors, catering ladies, producer's cousins and one dapper gent in a perfectly pressed black pinstribe with spats who had to be from the Hays Office rounded out the hoorah. Hinton had vanished, unless she was hiding in the cleavage of a blonde who was bent down to catch Bogie's eye. I checked for him. She wasn't. "Nope," I said quietly. "Is there a back way out?" Bogart shushed me with a hand on my forearm. "Lemme go round the grip shop, it's over there." He leaned close and pointed off toward France. He strolled off, perfectly at home, leaving me to jam my hands down in my pockets and like Andy Hardy, whistle softly on a hunt for someone I'd only seen the backside of once. Ok, well the frontside too. That kept me looking, otherwise Marlowe could have this case back with luggage stamps from Morocco. Chasing dames is nice work. Dangerous, but nice. I thought about calling my secretary to see if any checks from Louie B. Mayer had cleared. I sauntered over to the script girl. She was sitting in a high folding chair, crossing and recrossing her legs with an oversized binder full of blue pages in her lap. I wondered if she had a cat hidden in her heavy grey skirt. "Hya," I said debonairely. She looked up at me with dark, hard eyes that still had a little Kansas in them. You could hold a Private Investigator's convention in those eyes and still have a little room left for a couple of drinks. "Uhuh," she retorted. The director took his eye off the viewpiece of an ancient looking camera and yelled something in German at the lighting director. The lighting director yelled something in English back. Neither had said anything you'd want to repeat to the folks in the balcony on a Saturday afternoon. "There a phone around here or does everyone communicate telepathically?" She made a small, but important grin. "Over by the big sign that says 'Telephone'," she said, pointing to a wa ll sixty feet away. I saw Bogart waving excitedly at me from between two unhappy looking men in shabby costumes in the same vicinity when I followed her pointed little finger. "Economy of motion, I love that in a woman," I said and nodded, turned a nd nearly walked right into a camera dolly that had snuck up on the two of us. "It's a knack," she said and went back to reading the Life of Toulouse Latrec. Bogart was almost giggling. "She's here alright," he said, a hand on ea ch of his companion's shoulders. If it wasn't for the bad makeup and shadows, I could have sworn he was standing there with Alan Ladd and David Niven. "Do you know Al and Niv?" Bogart asked mildly. I shook my head and stuck out a hand. Each took it warmly, Ladd's grip was a little on the hard side and Niven's quick but friendly. "They saw her in the Casino. Alan, well, umm, he isn't too keen on gambling these days but Dave here will take you down there. Won't you Dave." Niven had seen better days, or maybe he was just filming "The Hobo's Lif e" somewhere with Cugat. Ladd was in western attire, replete with Colt Peacemakers and a fringed shirt. "Your young lady passed me as I was coming out of the jakes, I'm afraid, " Niven said, running a hand over his chin tiredly. "Sorry, I'd no idea she was a DeLauro. Just as damn well I guess." Ladd made a face. "I'm sorry guys, I'm a little slow this morning, but just what Casino ar e we talking about here," I said, a little confused. This was normal but in front of Alan Ladd I felt like I had to at least attempt looking awake. Bogart and Niven shared a glance. Ladd looked at the floor. "I thought you knew," Bogie said. "Tony DeLauro bought a piece of the action from Jack Warner. A shall we say, hidden piece?" Niven rolled his eyes. "What he's trying to say is that there's an underground Casino below the soundstages in the old access tunnels," Ladd said, serious as a priest on death row. "DeLauro runs it for the entertainment of the casts and crews and sometimes somebody even wins. But not often." "And Warners contracts are being used as markers, aren't they?" I said, staring at his downcast face. "Yes." "They got yours?" "Yes. Poker, of course." Ladd almost seemed on the verge of tears. Niven looked like the cat that lived in the script girl's dress was about to jump out of his throat. "Christ," I said. "Alright, point me." They turned in unison, as if on cue and I followed their gaze. A black door at the end of prefab hallway was slightly ajar. NO ADMITTANCE was stencilled in white on it. "She vanished down the rabbit hole, I'm afraid," said Niven. "Alan can' t go down there anymore, and neither should I. Nor Bogie. We've all got markers in to DeLauro." "Guarded of course." I played with a couple of .45 cartridges in a side pocket. All of the looked at me as if I were crazy. "Bruno," Ladd whispered. "He's there." I watched the door for a minute and when she didn't come out running int o my arms from my telepathic commands I walked over to the phone. Bogart, Ladd and Niven began passing around lighters and cigarettes under a huge No Smoking sign. I had an idea. It wasn't a good one, but at least I would see if they still wore red suspenders on the Los Angeles Fire Department. Bogart stared at me, smoke coming out of his nose, reading my mind and shaking his head with a half grin. "Do it," he said.