The Boy Who Never Grew Up (6 page)

She pulled off Century onto the San Diego Freeway, heading north toward the west side. The traffic was at a standstill, five lanes of cars stacked up end to end. More than a few drivers rode their horns as they sat there in anguish, broiling under the midafternoon sun.

I sat back and relaxed. “It certainly is nice to be back in paradise.”

“Hey, any fool back East still thinks of this as El Lay, land of quiche-eating volleyball players, is living in the seventies,” Sarge declared flatly. “Ain’t nobody smiles and says have a nice day around here no more. Too afraid they’ll get their head blown off. We got it all, man—high crime, bad air, lousy schools, too many people, not enough water. Lot of folks are moving on. Finding some new place to mess with. Portland, Seattle … Well, lookie, lookie …” Her eyes were on her rearview mirror. “We got us some company.”

“Who?” I asked, turning around for a look.

“Dude in the red Porsche.”

It was two cars back and a lane over, a whale-tailed 911 Turbo, brand-new, which would run you just a little more than a three-bedroom ranch home in Indianapolis. The driver wore sunglasses, and kept stalling it.

“Looks like he needs a tune-up,” she observed.

“Just driving lessons. Is he one of the reporters from the airport?”

“One of Zorch’s detectives. Been tailing me since I left Bedford Falls to come get you.”

“Kind of a conspicuous car for a detective, isn’t it?”

“Not for one who’s hanging around the lot. It’s all flash there. Honda would be what sticks out. By the way, I got something for you.” Sarge opened the glove compartment and pulled out a blue plastic three-ring binder with Bedford Falls stamped on it. She had a gun stashed in there, too, a Glock semiautomatic pistol. More new-wave Hollywood security. I suppose it beat body armor, what with the heat and all. “Studio directory,” she said, handing it to me. “Tell you everything you need to know. Your gate pass is in there, too.”

Her pocket phone bleated.

“That’ll be the man. Excuse me.” She answered it. “Yeah, darling, I got him …” She glanced over at me. “Looks
plenty
okay if you like tall, skinny white boys.” She laughed. “Taking him to his hotel, we ever get there.” I was billeted at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Lulu always likes to be within walking distance of the Ralph Lauren Polo Shop if possible. “That’s true,” Sarge said. “Uh-huh. Okay …” To me she said, “Studio’s on our way there. He wants us to stop by now. You can get acquainted, get the tour …”

“I’d rather get settled in first.”

Her eyes flickered at me. “He says he wants to get settled first,” she said into the phone. “Uh-huh …” To me she said: “He really wants you to stop by now. We may as well, traffic being so bad. Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“The thing is,” she persisted, “it’s really more convenient for him to do it now.”

“It’s not more convenient for me.”

“What, you having a bad day?”

“I’m having a great day. I’m just having a bad life.”

She stared at me curiously. I get a lot of that. “He says no,” she said into the phone, reluctantly. “That’s right. I don’t know why. He just does … Okay …” She hung up.

We inched forward in silence, the air conditioner struggling to keep up with the heat and Lulu’s fish breath.

Sarge narrowed her eyes at me. “What you doing on him?” she wondered.

“My job.”

“Your job?”

“It’s what they pay me for.”

“They pay you to disrespect people?”

“Vast sums. Why, don’t you ever say no to him?”

She didn’t care for that one. “You jammin’ me, man?” she demanded fiercely, a panther ready to pounce.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Just wondered.”

She relaxed, somewhat. “Not my job to be gas-facing him. Director always gets his way. He’s like a general. I’m just his associate producer.”

“I hear you’re a lot more than that.”

“I care about him, if that’s what you mean. He been nothing but good to me. And he’s hurting right now. You gonna help him?”

“I’m just a former writer.”

“I hear you’re a lot more than that,” she said, her face breaking into a smile.

“Been with him long?” I asked, smiling back at her.

“Ever since I got out of UCLA.”

“Film school?”

She erupted into laughter. “Get outta here, man!” she whooped. “My major was the four hundred meters. Finished third in the NCAAs my junior year. Made the ’80 Olympic team as an alternate, only we didn’t go that year.”

“Well, I was close. I was guessing high hurdles. You’ve got a hurdler’s legs.” I gave them an admiring once over. “No offense.”

“None taken, believe it. I ran those, too, only not as good. You know track?”

“I threw the javelin in college.”

“Spear-chucker, huh?” This seemed to amuse her greatly. “You any good?”

“Only for the Ivy League. You’ve stayed in shape.”

“Gets harder every year. Work out two hours every morning before work. Weights, Stairmaster …” She checked me out. “You have, too.”

“Appearances can be deceiving. How did you get together with Matthew?”

“He was a big fan of my honey, Sugar Bear. Started me out as a gofer on account of him. Sugar Bear Davis. He backed up Bill Walton at center when he was at UCLA, then Jabbar for three seasons for the Lakers. Until he blew out his knee. We been together since college.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Three to five in San Quentin for armed robbery,” she replied matter-of-factly. “He’s had some adjustment problems since he stopped playing. Got used to living large, y’know what I’m saying? His old Crenshaw High posse got him into some bad shit. But he’s up for parole next year. Shelley’s promised him a job on the lot.”

We inched our way along. We were near the Culver Boulevard off-ramp now.

I glanced at Grandfather’s Rolex. “Okay, you can call him. I’ve changed my mind.”

“What, now it’s okay to stop there first?” she asked, baffled.

“I think he’s sweated long enough.” I swiped at the back of my neck with my handkerchief. “I certainly have.”

I stared out at the traffic while she phoned him. When she was done she turned and looked at me, utterly mystified. Then she turned back to the road.

“You a strange dude, Stewart Hoag,” she said quietly.

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

The red Porsche got off with us at Culver Boulevard. He stalled it at the bottom of the off-ramp. Sarge took a right and guided us through the Culver City commercial district, which isn’t much, unless you happen to be looking for a dozen doughnuts or a discount muffler. At Overland we passed the old MGM lot, which had been Lorimar the last time I was in town, and then Columbia, by way of the Sony buy-out. Now it was Sony Studios. Just past there Culver angled into Washington Boulevard, and we were at Bedford Falls. The main office building faced right onto the street. It was quite old and had been designed to look like a colonial mansion, most distinguished. A baron might live there. But the giant soundstages looming behind it gave away its real purpose. Baldwin Hills formed a backdrop behind them. There were still a few old oil towers up there, poking up into the smog.

“Studio goes all the way back to people like Hal Roach and Cecil B. de Mille,” Sarge informed me, slowing up before it. “There was one soundstage built in 1913 that was still standing. We had to tear it down. Didn’t pass the new earthquake laws. Whole lotta history in this place. You into history?”

“I
am
history, category semiliving.”

“What, you mean like Count Dracula?”

“Except he gets out more at night.”

There was a guard in a booth at the main gate to stop people there, and a twelve-foot-high chain link fence topped with razor wire to stop them everywhere else. The red Porsche made a U-turn and parked across the street from the gate, where a few sweaty photographers were keeping up their House of Wax vigil in the shade of a catering truck. They were too hot to pay me any notice.

“Remember them old cavalry movies?” Sarge asked. “Where the soldiers lived in those forts with them big high walls? Only place they felt safe? Every time I drive in here I feel that same way.”

“Fort Bedford,” I said.

“You got that right.”

The uniformed guard on the gate was a thickly built black man in his fifties. He had a big belly and heavy, familiar features. Very familiar. He flashed Sarge a gold-toothed grin. She grinned back as we passed on through, and noticed me studying him.

“Recognize him?”

“I’m sure I do. …”

She stopped the car, backed up, and rolled down her window. “Got yourself another one, baby,” she called out. “Bust a move.”

He let out a husky laugh and stepped out of the booth, moved slowly around to the front of our car, and stood there, his back to us. He was armed with a Glock and a nightstick. He took out the nightstick and gripped it with both hands like a baseball bat. Then he went into a right-handed batter’s stance, a typical stance, bat cocked to swing. Until just before he got himself settled, when he did something unexpected. He wiggled his big butt once, twice, three times. Only one batter in history had ever done that. It was his trademark.

“Shadow Williams,” I declared. “Played outfield for the Dodgers in Brooklyn, then a few more seasons after they moved out here. No one stepped into the box like he did.”

“The ladies sure never forgot him,” Sarge chuckled.

She introduced us. He gently squeezed my hand with his huge one and told me to call him Shadow. I said I would. Then someone pulled in behind us and honked, and we drove on in.

“Matthew, you’ll discover, hasn’t much good to say about his dad,” Sarge told me, as we passed the visitors’ parking lot. “About the only positive memory he’s got is when he took him to a Dodger game one time when he was little. Shadow pinch-hit a grand salami with two out in the bottom of the ninth to win it. Matthew never forgot it. A few years back he read that the man was having some trouble finding work. So he got him a security job at Panorama City. When we took over Bedford Falls, he came over with us. He’s chief of security now.”

“Happy ending, huh?”

“Only kind there is. You’ll get off on Shadow—he’s deep.”

“That makes one of us.”

Ahead was a cluster of giant soundstages. We eased slowly along the shaded canyon between them. There were speed bumps to keep people from going too fast. Lulu climbed up in my lap, planted her rear paws firmly in my groin, and stuck her large black nose against the window so as to see. Not that there was really much to see. A studio is a factory like any other. Beer-bellied workmen in shorts and heavy boots wheeled cameras and sound equipment along. Many were shirtless in the heat, and wore do-rags over their heads. Young, tanned production assistants wearing Bedford Falls golf visors zipped along on bikes and golf carts with pouches of mail, scripts, tapes. A few waved at Sarge. She waved back. One of the stages had a row of makeup trailers parked outside it. A big sign said “Coven High.”

“ABC is taping a new midseason sitcom here,” Sarge said. “Something about a bunch of teenagers who’re all witches. I hear it’s real stupid.”

“Imagine that.”

Two dozen dwarfs in red silk underwear came spilling out of another stage, smoking huge cigars.

“New David Lee Roth video,” she explained, as we passed them.

Well, maybe not a factory exactly like any other.

We cruised past a prop warehouse, carpentry shop, machine shop. Then another parking lot. There were names on the curbstones here, and little or nothing resembling basic transportation. Vintage English ragtops seemed to be in that season. I spotted a couple of MGAs, a Triumph Spitfire, an Austin Healey 3000. Seeing them made me miss the Jag. We arrived next at the gift shop and commissary, then found ourselves in a bungalow colony. Dozens of snug pink stucco cottages with tile roofs were situated neatly around a chain of courtyards with fountains and benches.

“Most of our own offices are up in the main building,” Sarge informed me. “We rent a lot of these out to people who have development deals around town. Producers, directors, lots and lots of writers. Gives ’em a place to go every day. Gets ’em out of the house. I can get you one if you want.”

“No, thanks.”

“Don’t like being in an office?”

“Don’t like being around writers.”

She nodded wisely. That one she got right away. “Want to check out our back lot?”

Lulu snuffled excitedly in my lap.

“I guess we do,” I said.

Movie studios nowadays are mostly complexes of offices and soundstages. The old back lots, with their dusty Western streets, their medieval villages and rows of Brooklyn tenements have been sold off. The land was too valuable. Exteriors are generally shot on location now. Universal and Panorama still keep a few acres set aside in case someone wants the vintage Hollywood feeling, but their so-called back lots are largely tourist attractions now.

The Bedford Falls back lot was a different story. A different world—Homewood, the Anytown, U.S.A., of Badger Hayes’s boyhood. It was all here. The quaint old town square with its courthouse and town hall. The town green, the ornate bandstand, the steepled white church with its bell tower, where Badger first kissed Debbie Dale. Main Street—the Tivoli Theater, the malt shop, Mr. Hayes’s hardware store, where Badger worked after school. Elm Street, with its row of solid, comfortable houses, including the white cape where Badger lived. Debbie’s red brick colonial right next door. It was all here in living color, big as real life. And even more fake.

At the end of Elm, Sarge made a sharp left and we were right back among the soundstages. Only these stages were idle, grim evidence of the shaky ground Bedford Falls stood on. She pulled up at Stage One, and parked there next to a bike rack filled with shiny 1950s Western Flyer Springers. A white Jaguar XJ-6 was also parked there. Beyond was a courtyard that led up to the main office building.

It was cold inside Stage One and dark after the brightness of outside. I bent down and removed Lulu’s shades so she could see. A soundstage is a strange, disorienting place. There’s the vastness, of course. This one was big enough to hold four jumbo jets with a good-sized chunk of ancient Rome on the side. But the size isn’t the strange part. The sensory deprivation is. You can’t see or hear or smell anything from the outside world. Time and place cease to exist. It could be day. It could be night. You could be here. You could be anywhere. A soundstage is the hall closet you locked yourself in when you were a little kid, just to see what the utter blackness and silence would do to your head. And how long you could take it.