Joseph Wambaugh by Hollywood Crows

Author:Hollywood Crows
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781616812805
Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc
Published: 2007-12-31T06:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

T WO OF THE CROWS at Hollywood South had worrisome thoughts the next day about Bix Ramstead, but neither was aware of the other’s concern. Ronnie wanted to know if Bix had fallen off the wagon and been drinking on duty the night before, and Nate wanted to know what the hell Bix Ramstead was doing up on Mt. Olympus at the home of Margot Aziz. But neither had the nerve to ask him.

That morning, Ronnie and Bix were tasked to do follow-ups to neighbors of various tanning salons, an aromatherapy salon, an acupuncturist, and a chiropractor. All complaints had come from neighborhood residents and businesspeople, and most concerned illegal parking and nighttime noise. There was an accusation of prostitution directed at tanning salons because of an excessive number of men entering and leaving all day and late in the evenings. One of the tanning salons and the aromatherapy salon had been busted in the past by vice cops posing as customers, but both businesses were said to be under new management.

As Ronnie and Bix were getting ready to hit the streets, their sergeant was involved in a peculiar debate with Officer Rita Kravitz about running an errand to the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre to pick up a generous donation check it had offered for the Special Olympics fund-raiser. Rita gave the sergeant a couple of lame excuses as to why she was too busy to handle the job and suggested he send one of the guys.

“But you might run into John Travolta or Tom Cruise up there,” the sergeant said. “Wouldn’t that make your day?”

Officer Rita Kravitz pushed her newest and trendiest-ever eyeglasses up onto her nose and with a curl to her lip said, “I might also get taken prisoner by those robots and brainwashed till I turn into a smiley-faced, twinkly-eyed cult cookie. And if you think that can’t happen, ask Katie Holmes.”

The other Crow with Bix on his mind was having a late-morning Danish and cappuccino at his favorite open-air table in Farmers Market, listening to a former director and three former screenwriters at the usual table railing about the ageism that had killed their careers and promoted mediocrity in Hollywood.

“The last meeting I took was with a head of development who was twenty-eight years old,” a former screenwriter said.

“All they wanna do is preserve their jobs,” another one said.

“They’d rather have a flop they can blame on somebody else than take a risk on their own that might produce a hit,” a third one said.

The first one said, “Every time my stuff gets rejected, they say it’s not enough ‘outside the box,’ whatever that means. Or not enough ‘inside their wheelhouse,’ whatever that means.”

The former director said, “Bottom line, they’re terrified of people our age because they think we might know something about making movies that they don’t know. And they’re right!”

There was a chorus of amens to that one.

Nate wasn’t enjoying the show business grousing. All he could think of was how Margot Aziz had looked when he’d first seen her here, and how she had not called him, as promised.

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