Lullaby Town Part 3

Peter's voice said, "Why am I wasting my f.u.c.king time?"

Karen looked unhappy some more, then made a little smile and stared back into the lens and made herself serious and said it. Then she giggled.

It went on like that, cutting from bit to bit. Most of the bits were just fragments, five seconds of this, eight seconds of that, and many of them were repet.i.tious. Peter would ask her a question or tell her to do something and she would answer or do it. There was something hopeful and naive to her manner, maybe because she was nineteen. She tried hard even when she looked unhappy.

My stomach grumbled and I kept looking at the lox and bagels. I had to keep reminding myself that lunch at Lucy's was only moments away.

At one point, Peter walked into the picture and handed her a couple of script pages. He was wearing an orange Marine Corps T-shirt with a couple of stains on the back. They wouldn't take me because of this hip thing They wouldn't take me because of this hip thing. He was young and skinny and built exactly as he was now, all wide b.u.t.t and coat-hanger shoulders and intense eyes. His hair stuck out in a tremendous natural that, within the small confines of the TV monitor, seemed to be a full three feet across. Karen cleared her throat and read the speech from Rocky Rocky that Talia Shire says to Sylvester Stallone to give him the courage to go on. She didn't read it well. She giggled when she finished and asked Peter if that was okay. He said no. that Talia Shire says to Sylvester Stallone to give him the courage to go on. She didn't read it well. She giggled when she finished and asked Peter if that was okay. He said no.

The tape lasted twenty-two minutes. Karen Shipley never once mentioned her family or her friends or her hometown. She giggled sixty-three times. I counted. Giggling is not one of my favorite things.

When the tape ended, Pat Kyle turned off the monitor and we went to lunch. Kapstone Pictures paid.

One hour and ten minutes later, full of pork burrito and Dos Equis beer, Pat Kyle resumed work and so did I.

Las Palmas above Santa Monica Boulevard is a community of flat, faceless costume-rental shops and film-editing outfits and little single-story houses with signs that said things like flotation therapy. Women in flowered tops pushed baby carriages and men who looked like they wanted day work stood outside little markets and kids on skateboards practiced jumping curbs.

I stopped in a 7-Eleven on Fountain just past La Brea, bought two dollars' worth of quarters, and ran outside to beat two fat guys to the pay phone on the side of the building. One of the fat guys was in a hurry and the other wasn't. The one who was in the hurry made a face like he had bowel trouble and said Ah, s.h.i.t Ah, s.h.i.t, when I got to the phone first. The one who wasn't leaned against the grill of a white window-repair truck and sipped at a Miller High Life. Did Mike Hammer use a 7-Eleven as an office?

I fed in a quarter and called a woman I know who works for the phone company and asked her if they had a listed or unlisted number for either Karen Shipley or Karen Nelsen anywhere within the state of California. She said she would have to get back to me, but it probably wouldn't be before tomorrow. I asked if she needed my number. She laughed and told me she's had my number for years. It's something I've been told before.

When I hung up, the fat guy in the hurry started forward. When I fed in another quarter, he raised his hands, rolled his eyes, and went back to the truck. Guess it wasn't a good day. His friend had a little more of the Miller and belched. When he belched, he covered his mouth with two fingers and said excuse me. Polite.

I called another woman I know who works the credit-verification department at Bank of America and asked if she would run a credit check on both Karen Shipley and Karen Nelsen, those names being either primary account names or maiden names listed to another unknown name. She said she would if I took her to a Lakers game. I told her to think of something else because I was going to take her to a Lakers game anyway. She made a little swooning sound, told me she'd get back to me tomorrow, and hung up. Some charmer, huh?

The fat guy was leaning past his truck like Carl Lewis set to come out of the starter's blocks, glaring at me. I showed him another quarter and fed it into the phone. His face went white, he slapped the fender of the truck, and then stormed the long way around the truck and into the 7-Eleven. His friend sipped a little more Miller and shook his head. "He's asking for a thrombo."

I said, "Get him into yoga. That'll help him relax."

The friend shook his head, looking sort of sleepy and tired, and made a little shrug like they'd been through it a thousand times. "You can't talk to him."

I dialed the North Hollywood P.D. and got a gruff male voice that said, "Detectives."

"Elvis Cole for Lou Poitras."

"Wait one."

The phone got put down on something hard. There were voices in the background and the heavy laughter of men, and then the voice came back. "I'm putting you on hold. He's gonna take it in his office."

I got put on hold, then Lou Poitras came on. The laughter and the male sounds were still there, but now they were muted and farther away. Poitras said, "I got my a.s.s chewed good for trying to fix your last ticket. Don't ask me again."

"Lou. One might think that our entire relationship is me asking favors of you."

"So what do you want?"

"A small favor."

"s.h.i.t."

The fat guy in the hurry came out of the 7-Eleven with a Miller High Life of his own. He leaned against the truck next to his fat friend and looked tired. They drank. If you can't beat'm, join'm.

I said, "I need to know if you have anything on a woman named Karen Shipley or Karen Nelsen. And I need you to go back ten years on the search."

Lou Poitras said, "Anything else?"

I said that should do it.

"You at the office?"

I told him where I was.

You could see him shake his head. "Some big-time private op, working in a parking lot."

"Beats sucking off the taxpayers."

He said he'd get back to me tomorrow and hung up.

Everybody was going to get back to me tomorrow. Maybe there was something going on today that I didn't know about. Maybe that's why the fat guy was in such a hurry. Maybe he knew who to call to find out where the action was, and upon making the call, he and his buddy were going to whatever it was that I didn't know about. Maybe I could go with them.

I hung up the phone, looked at the fat guy in the hurry, and said, "It's all yours."

He sipped more Miller and didn't move, giving me who cares? His friend looked at him, then me, and shrugged. Go figure. Some guys are never happy.

Five.

The Oscar Curtiss Talent Agency was two blocks below Sunset Boulevard in a small sky-blue clapboard house with a tiny lawn and a porch and a narrow sidewalk leading up to the porch. What looked like a Friedrich air conditioner stuck out of a window on the north side of the house and hummed loudly, water falling in a steady dribble from its underside. A couple of wine bottles were lying on the lawn. Midnight Rambler Midnight Rambler. The bottles were capless and empty.

I parked and went up the walk and through one of those frosty pebbled-gla.s.s office doors that no one has used since 1956. There was a large gold star on the door with Oscar Curtiss Talent Agency Oscar Curtiss Talent Agency written in an arc above it and what were supposed to be little spotlights lighting up the sky. written in an arc above it and what were supposed to be little spotlights lighting up the sky.

Inside, there were three young women sitting on a hard L-shaped couch and a black woman in her sixties sitting at a scarred pecan desk that faced the room. Another frosted-gla.s.s door was behind her. This one said Mr. Curtiss Mr. Curtiss. The three young women were spread around on the couches in a way that said they didn't know each other. Two of them were reading Variety Variety. The other one was chewing gum. There were a couple hundred framed black-and-white head shots on the walls, but I didn't recognize any of them. The carpet was beige and worn and the hard couch was a kind of green and the walls were a sort of mustard and nothing went together, as if the office had been built over the years without regard to style or esthetic. The Friedrich made it very cold.

The black woman looked up and smiled nicely. "May I help you?"

"My name is Elvis Cole. I'd like to see Mr. Curtiss." I gave her the card that said Elvis Cole, Confidential Investigations Elvis Cole, Confidential Investigations. The old cards had a picture of a guy listening at a keyhole. The new cards don't. Without the picture is probably better.

She took the card and nodded pleasantly, still smiling. "Unh-hunh. And do you have an appointment?"

"No, ma'am. I was hoping Mr. Curtiss could squeeze me in." I leaned forward and lowered my voice. Confidential. "It involves a former client of his."

More smiling and nodding. "Unh-hunh. Well, why don't you just wait right there while I go see." She got up, rapped once on the gla.s.s door, then let herself through.

I looked around at the three young women and gave them a smile. The two who had been reading were still reading, the one who had been chewing gum was still chewing gum. One of the readers wore a nice pastel pants suit and had a matching briefcase at her feet. She sat so that one foot was touching the case. The other was in blue jeans and knee boots and a purple sweater. The jeans and the sweater were too small, but she had the body for it. I made them early twenties, twenty-five tops. The gum-chewer had her legs crossed and her arms along the back of the couch and was looking at me with pale, steady eyes. She was wearing baggy culottes and pink Reebok tennis shoes and a blousy top that was tied off beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so that her belly was bare. It was too cool outside for the top, but that's show biz. Her hair was pale and washed-out, and so was the spray of freckles across her nose. Younger than the other two. Seventeen, maybe. She blew a large pink bubble the size of a goiter, popped it, then used a lot of tongue to lick it off her lips. Maybe sixteen. Run away and come to the big town to be a star. I said, "Pretty hot outside, huh?"

She blew another bubble, uncrossed her legs, then spread them.

I said, "Pretty hot inside, too."

She spread the legs a little wider, then popped the bubble and licked it off. Maybe I was a producer.

The gla.s.s door opened and the black woman came out with a short, thin guy pushing sixty. Oscar Curtiss. He had dark circles around his eyes and too many teeth and he was wearing a coa.r.s.e-weave light sports coat and huaraches and baggy pants like they do in Italian fashion magazines. It looked silly. He gave me the teeth, stuck out his hand, and said, "Hey, Cole, goodtaseeya." Then he looked past me at the two readers and the gum-popper, mostly the gum-popper. "You ladies excuse us for a few minutes, okay? Sydney, I'll see you next."

The gum-popper nodded and blew another bubble. Sydney. Her knees were bouncing open-closed, open-closed.

Oscar gave her some of the teeth, too, then motioned me into his office. He didn't bother to look at me while he was doing the motioning.

The office was larger than the waiting room, with a lot of plants and one of those heavy, dark wood secretary desks they made back in the forties. It needed to be oiled. There was a leather couch against the wall and another Friedrich in the window behind his desk and more photographs on the walls, but I didn't recognize any of the people in these, either. Maybe Sydney would be there soon and I could recognize her.

He shut the door and followed me in, holding my card. "Elvis Cole, huh? I like it. It's got catch. It's got pump and pizzazz. You got a nice look, too. You know who you look like?"

"Buddy Ebsen."

"Nah. Michael Keaton. A little taller, maybe. A little better built. But sensitive and sharp. A guy you don't mess around with."

"I always thought I looked like Moe Howard."

"Take my word for it. You got the look and the name. Some of the kids come in here, Christ, they got names flat as p.i.s.s on a plate. Pat Green. Steve Brown. I say that's no good. I say, you know what you need?"

"Pizzazz."

"f.u.c.kin' A. Look at Steve Guttenberg. Take away the Guttenberg, whattaya got? Nuthin!" He sat behind the desk and shot a glance at the door. "Listen, I don't have a lot of time."

"A long time ago you represented an actress named Karen Shipley. I'm trying to find her." I took out the 8 10 and showed it to him.

He nodded. "Yeah. Sure. I remember Karen. Great kid. Terrific body."

"Do you still represent her?"

He handed back the head shot. "Nah. I haven't heard from Karen in, what is it, ten years, something like that?" He put another glance on the door, anxious to get to other things. "She musta went to another agency."

I nodded. "Did you continue to represent her after her divorce from Peter Alan Nelsen?"

Oscar Curtiss stopped looking at the door and sat forward in the chair and blinked at me. "That's who she was married to?"

"Yeah."

"Karen Shipley was married to Peter Alan Nelsen?"

"Yeah."

"The Peter Alan Nelsen?" Peter Alan Nelsen?"

"Peter Alan Nelsen wasn't Peter Alan Nelsen when they were married."

Oscar slumped back in his chair and said, "Jesus H."

"He was in film school when they married. After he busted out of USC, he divorced her. Now he wants to find her again."

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h. I remember when she got divorced. She came here with the kid and sat down right over there and said she was divorced and needed to work. I said, sit-ups, Christ, a body like yours you wanna get it back, do sit-ups. Peter Alan Nelsen. Jesus Christ." He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was staring somewhere in mids.p.a.ce, seeing the old scenes, worrying them through to recall if he'd done anything that could p.i.s.s off Peter Alan Nelsen. All the worrying made his eyebrows dance around on his face.

I said, "Do you know how we can contact her?"

"It's been years. Christ, I saw her a couple more times after that, then zippo. Nada. I never heard from her again." The mouth started moving with the eyebrows.

"Okay. Where was she living?"

"It was somewhere over there." He made a gesture that could mean anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

"That's a little broad, Oscar."

"Christ, I never visited. She came here."

"Maybe you've got records."

He stopped all the moving around and looked at me with the kind of look they give you that tells you that the lights are going off behind their eyes. Getting The Big Idea. He said, "Maybe I should deal direct with Peter on this. We might be getting a little personal here, you know, and he might appreciate keeping it in the family, as it were."

I pointed at the phone. "Sure. He's at the Paramount office now. Give'm a call and tell him that even though he's trying to find his ex-wife and his kid, you're foot-dragging because you want to suck after some kind of deal. He'll like you just fine for that"

He said, "Hey, I'm doing a favor here, right? I'm trying to help here, right?"

"Quit being small-time and tell me what you know, Oscar. You're coming across like a chiseler."

"I look like I'm rolling in it here? I wanna help. I wanna do what I can. But, hey, Peter Alan Nelsen gives you the nod, my friend, you're made in this town." Peter Alan Nelsen, spitting a green M&M on Donnie Brewster.

"Sure, Oscar."

He worked it through some more, trying to get a fix on what was real and what wasn't and what he could get if he played it right and how much it could cost if he played it wrong. He said, "Listen, Elvis, I help you out here, you tell Peter, okay?"

"I'll tell him."

"You promise?" Like we were in fourth grade.

"I promise, Oscar."

"Hey, I wanna help. I wanna do anything I can for Peter Alan Nelsen." Nothing like sincerity.

"Where did Karen live?"

"I'm thinking."

"Look in your files."

"Christ, I'm supposed to keep files on people forever?"