I yelled — nobody answered.
Cramped — I scissor-walked to the back. Three Border Patrol cars stood on blocks; a nightclub set stood on a platform: bar, tables, dancefloor.
Homey: sleeping bag, portable TV. Foodstuffs on the bar: crackers, Cheez Whiz, canned soup.
“Yeah, yeah, I live here. And now that you have witnessed this ignominy, state your business.”
Sol Slotnick, popping through bead curtains in a bathrobe.
“I also swiped this robe from the Fountainbleu Hotel in Miami Beach. Contino, what is this? First you steal Jane DePugh’s heart, and now you come to torment me?”
Why mince words?
“I’m happily married, and I’ve got no interest in Jane. I was sent in to pull her out of that Commie group before she hurts herself. You should get out, too. There’s an FBI plant in the group, and he’s interested in you. The local FBI’s got some bee in its bonnet that Wetback! is pro-Red.”
Sol grabbed a bar stool and steadied himself. Rainbow time: he went pale, then flushed bright-red. Lunch time: he wolfed a stack of saltines and Cheez Whiz.
His color stablizied. A belch, a smile — this clown digested grief fast. “I’ll survive. I’ll shift gears like when I lost my backing for Tank Squadron! and doctored the script into Picket Line! Besides, I just joined that fakoktah group to chase trim. I saw Jane on the street up by UCLA and followed her to my first meeting. You know, I think I want to marry her as well as drill her. I’m forty-nine years old, and I’ve had three heart attacks, but I think a young cooze like that could add another twenty years to my lifespan. I think this is one Jew she could seriously re-JEWvinate. I could make her a star, then trade her in for some younger poon before she starts cheating on me with handsome young greaseballs like you. Contino, tell me, do you think she’d consent to a nude screen test?”
The spritz had me reeling. Sol built a cracker/Cheez Whiz skyscraper and snarfed it. Fishbelly white to red and back again — the spritz hit overdrive. “You know, I’d love to use you in a movie — you and Janie, what a pair of filmic lovebirds you could be. Most of your publicity has been poison, but it’s not like you’re Fatty Arbuckle, banging starlets with Coke bottles. Dick, a wholesome young slice of low-fat cheese like Jane DePugh could ream me, steam me, dry clean me and get me off this B-movie treadmill to Nowheresville that has had me exploiting aggrieved schvartzes and taco benders to glom the cash to make these lox epics that have given me three heart attacks and a spastic colon. Dick, I own this factory. I hired illegal aliens to sew cut-rate garments until the INS nailed me for harboring wetbacks, because I let them sleep here on the premises in exchange for a scant one-half of their pay deducted from their checks. The INS nailed me and fined me and shipped most of my slaves — I mean workers — back to Mexico, so I glommed some Border Patrol cars for buppkis at a police auction and decided to make Wetback! to atone for my exploitation sins and defer the cost of my fine. Now the Feds want to crucify me for my egalitarian tendencies, so I won’t be able to shoot Wetback! I’ve got these Mex prelim boxers lined up to play illegals, but they’re really illegals, so if I shoot the movie, the INS will round them up and put them on the night bus to Tijuana. Dick, all I want to do is make serious movies that explore social issues and turn a profit, and slip the schnitzel to Jane DePugh. Dick, I am at a loss for words. What do you recommend?”
My head whizzed. I ate a cracker to normalize my blood sugar. Sol Slotnick stared at me.
I said, “I’ve got a date with Jane tonight, and I’ll put in a good word for you. And I know an FBI man pretty well. I’ll tell him that you’re not making Wetback!, and ask him to pass the word along.”
“You’re friends with one of J. Edgar Hoover’s minions?”
“Yeah, Special Agent Pete Van Obst. His wife’s the President of my National Fan Club.”
“What’s the current membership? We might make a picture together, and statistics like that impress financial backers.”
“The current membership is sixty-something.”
“So you add a few zeros and hope they don’t check. Dick, be a gentleman with Jane tonight. Tell her I think she has movie star potential. Tell her you’ve heard rumors that I’m hung like Roy Rogers’ horse Trigger.”
Dismissal time — Sol looked exhausted. I grabbed a few crackers for the road.
Kay Van Obst brought three .45 autos — FBI issue, “borrowed” from husband Pete. Nancy Ankrum brought a sawed-off loaded with rat poison-dipped buckshot — Caryl Chessman told her where to find one. Add my dad’s .12 gauge pumps and call the pad “Fort Contino” — L.A.’s cut-rate Alamo.
Ammo boxes on the coffee table.
Front and back window eyeball surveillance — four women in rotating shifts.
Four women packing kitchen knives in plastic scabbards — Kay hit a toy store on her way over.
Time to kill before my “Date” — I took a snooze.
Ink-smeared dreams:
COWARD REDEEMED; KIDNAPPERS STILL AT LARGE!
CONTINO FOILS FIENDS; SAVES BACK-UP SINGER FROM TORTURE AND RAPE!
L.A. FUZZ NIX PUBLICITY STUNT SPECULATION: “THIS CAPER WAS REAL!”
Chris held down by salivating psycopaths.
Cops swarming the kidnap shack.
Chief William H. Parker holding up scalps.
CONTINO KIDNAP PLOT REVEALS BIZARRE LINKS TO UNSOLVED MURDERS!!!
REDSKIN RESERVATIONS RAIDED IN SEARCH FOR KIDNAPPERS!!!
APACHE CHIEF SAYS, “HEAP BAD BUSINESS! ME SEND UP SMOKE SIGNALS TO TRAP SCALP KILLER!”
Chris woke me up. “You should get ready. I told Leigh you were jamming with some studio guys, so take your accordion.”
A last headline flickered out:
CONTINO CONQUEST CONTINUES! KIDNAP TOPS LINDBERGH SNATCH IN POPULAR POLL!
“I’m sure you must think that I’m just a naive young thing. You must think that any girl who hasn’t narrowed her career choices down any better than doctor, lawyer, movie star or recording star must be rather silly.”
Jane picked the restaurant: a dago joint off Sunset and Normandie. The Hi-Hat Motel stood cattycorner — “Vacancy” in throbbing neon made me sweat.
I drank wine. Jane drank ginger ale under protest — feeding minors liquor was a contributing beef.
“I don’t think you’re silly. When I was nineteen I was a recording star, but I just fell into it. You should finish college and let things happen to you for a while.”
“You sound like my dad. Only he doesn’t push the ‘let things happen’ part, because he knows that I have the same appetites my mom had when I was her age. I look like my mom, I act like my mom and I talk like my mom. Only my mom married this rookie cop from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who got her pregnant when she was eighteen, and I’m too smart for that.”
Scorch/scorch/twinkle — green eyes offset by Chianti bottle candlelight. “Sol Slotnick might fit that ‘let things happen to you’ bill. He likes you, and he’s a legit movie producer who could get you work.”
Jane futzed with her bread plate. “He’s a lech and a fatty-patty. He followed me to my first collective meeting, so he’s one step up from a wienie wagger. My dad used to drive me around when he was a detective in Sioux Falls. He wanted to show me what I had to look forward to as far as men were concerned. He showed me all the pimps and panty sniffers and winos and wienie waggers and rag sniffers and gigolos that he dealt with, and believe me, Sol Slotnick fits right in. Besides, he has small hands, and my mom told me what that means.”