The Movie Makers Read online

  The two stood outside at the entranceway to his mansion, the sun up high and the air dry. It was as if the desert were further encroaching into the developed areas of the Southland, threatening to overwhelm the asphalt, glass, wood and brick and return the land to a pristine prehistoric time. They shook hands and Sam got back in his car, eager for the arctic embrace of the AC.

  A block or so away, on his way toward San Vicente Boulevard, he dialed Rachel in her guise as the independent producer on his handsfree connected to his encrypted disposable. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, now,” she said with familiarity. To outsiders, the two weren’t supposed to know each other, working the grift as they did from both ends. If they talked over the phone they only used other cover names. Should Rachel use the name “Frank,” that meant she was someplace where she was being observed or easily overheard. He would then pretend to be a car dealer calling about the Mercedes she was interested in.

  “There’s a wild card in the mix,” he said flatly.

  “And that is?”

  He described Mol and his bodyguard.

  “But our source said he was faithfully attending his gambler’s anonymous meetings.”

  Sam said, “Could be another reason he’s in Reed’s life. Too, she could have just told us what you wanted to hear. She does like to be liked.”

  “Or she’s playing me,” Rachel noted. The grifter always maintained a healthy dose of paranoia. Relationships had to be viewed from various angles if you wanted to stay out of jail or the graveyard.

  Making his turn east, he said, “For now, see what you can come up with from his plate.”

  “Right. I’ll see too what we can find out about this gangster’s crew.”

  She meant the third one in on the grift, a veteran named Porter who at the moment was back in Cleveland. “Sounds right,” Sam said. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown. He might have a confidant, some vulnerability we can exploit.”

  “Possibly,” she said

  She had to do this as Sam had to maintain his front as much as possible. A month ago as the come-on was going down to rope Bennek in, Sam’s picture was inadvertently taken by a paparazzi. If they’d been in a secluded place or even if the picture hound had been hiding outside the gate to the house, Sam would have pounced on him and destroyed the camera.

  But the shot happened in a very public place, one of those trendy restaurants that was getting all the luv on the foodie blogs. Sam and Rachel knew from those blogs that Bennek was among the celebs who’d begun frequenting the place. They also knew he’d had a long and lasting relationship with a previous life coach who’d managed to get themself lost on a spirit quest in the Mojave Desert and damn near died of dehydration. The life coach had a vision in the hospital and now was happy working with the homeless on Skid Row.

  Sam and Rachel’s set-up was that a vivacious blonde playing the role of independent producer could be overheard just enough by Bennek as she praised Sam’s Morrison for the breakthrough he’d provided her. The blonde had been hired off a listing they’d paid to put up on an actors’ wanted site. There were plenty less than gainfully employed actors, ingenues and what-have-yous in Hollywood.

  “You want me to circle back to our girl?” she said, getting him back on track. She meant their unwitting informant, the ex-wife.

  “No, I don’t think we want to risk that kind of exposure at this stage.” When they’d initiated contact with her, Rachel had used another guise. Now that the script was in her ex’s hands, and they knew the two still talked now and then, it could well backfire for Rachel to show up again.

  “Let’s see what turns up,” Sam said. “Among Rakosian’s boys, you never know which number two wants to be number one.”

  “For sure. Hey, you know how bad I miss you?”

  “Not as much as me, baby.” He said a few lascivious words and she answered back affectionately. He then said bye, disconnected and continued heading east.

  The con had taken root for them after Rachel was, like any other square, in line at the grocery store almost a year ago—actually buying groceries. They were between jobs, doing the domestic bit in off-the-strip Vegas. Because it was where it was and because like any other civilian, she happened to glance through one of those gossipy magazines they place in the rack near checkout aimed at enticing the bored housewife to buy a copy. It was a piece about those in recovery from sex addiction to drugs to eating disorders and gambling. Bennek was only mentioned in passing in the piece as the gambling section included quotes from ex-wife, a one-time actress named Mikka Bolarus. She was now clean and sober and directing television and live theater.

  “What do you think?” Rachel had said, flopping the folded over magazine down for him to see that evening in the hotel suite which had a kitchenette.

  “How much could she be worth? A mil? Two? Three?” he’d said dismissively, scanning the article. “Most of that tied up in involved investments I bet. Be a lot of mining to get any results worthwhile.”

  Rachel understood you had to have the right bait on the hook, make the fish eager to bite. “Not her, her former millionaire several times over husband is the target,” she said, a lopsided smile on her face. “She’s going to be our unwitting roper.”

  “Cool,” he’d nodded, hooked.

  Thereafter Rachel laid out how this long end, this long con that would take months to set up, would lay out. It would start with two things happening at the same time. One was finding a veteran screenwriter to write the screenplay. He or she shouldn’t be living in L.A. these days as despite its sprawl, it was a small town when it came to the Industry. Those in and those wanting to be in it tended to congregate in the same places. As the two began their search, Sam and Rachel figured they’d find a film student or some misanthrope who populated coffee shops working away on screenplay after screenplay.

  Turned out they found a sixty-four-year-old part-time college instructor living with his ailing wife in a decade old, road-worn RV. The couple were temporarily living at one of the RV camp grounds the world’s largest online retail octopus provided with free propane, water and wi-fi hookups. Free being a slippery term, as the man worked a grueling shift inside the octopus’ mammoth warehouse walking back and forth, down one long aisle after the other fulfilling orders that ranged from non-stick miracle cookware, scale model geodesic domes to romance novels. Once upon a time, the adjunct had a book on the New York Times bestseller list for two weeks. But now he was part of what was called by the multi-pronged company their “Leisure Force.” Apparently this wasn’t meant in irony.

  The other part involved Rachel studying up on the recovery community. She had some idea from a few cable and TV shows, dramas and comedies, where the characters were in recovery from this or that addiction. There were also plenty of books written by the recovered and academic ones that also were useful source material. Too, their screenwriter, who they were paying a much needed fifteen thousand dollars to write the screenplay, knew about this world as well. He’d been clean and sober from alcohol going on thirty years, the wife some thirty-five. She needed to immerse herself in the mannerisms, the hesitations and the reveals of the share, and the slang, such as “going out” which meant you’d slipped and used again.

  As Rachel did this, the screenplay was being written. They paid the writer an advance and the writer was able to stop working at the octopus. That was until he moved on to the next Leisure Force gig at the next octopus warehouse in the next state after finishing the script and the contracted rewrites. Sam with Rachel’s input had to figure out his role. At first they had supposed they’d be a husband and wife producing team as that had a certain charm. But they determined the con would come off better if it seemed two unrelated parts of the mark’s life had aligned. People in the Industry believed in luck, or rather they believed they made their own luck either by will, karma or by happenstance—or a mixture of all three. With that in mind, Sam and Rachel brainstormed s
everal scenarios including one in which Sam underwent plastic surgery to look just enough like Bennek’s first cousin who drowned when they were teenagers. The thinking being the actor would for various reasons want to get to know him. Over wine one afternoon, feeling loose but clear-headed, they rejected this approach, its creep factor not an insignificant consideration.

  The con was always about angling the mark, getting inside their heads, anticipating their doubts and shaping their decisions. The greed in this case wasn’t about cash, Bennek was well off. And the two didn’t intend to drain him of all his assets, even if that were possible and it wasn’t unless Rachel was going to marry him and that kind of the long con would take years to pull off. It wasn’t like that hadn’t been done but that wasn’t the idea here. Relatively it was get in and get the hell out. How then, once the script had been brought to Bennek’s attention, could Sam work to seal the deal? They couldn’t let it languish in a slush pile or end up in turnaround. Their New York money was slowly trickling away and nothing new was coming in.

  For what the mark wanted—needed, in fact—Rachel reflected as she went through her yoga exercises, was vindication. Having reached a certain age and income level in this dog-eat-dog business, his psyche still needed boosting.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Mikka Bolarus had said to Rachel one evening after a narcotics anonymous meeting as they sipped quite wretched coffee. “For a guy who’s attained what he has, he’s managed not to wrap himself the garbs of the asshole to many of them do. All the while of course pretending to be humble and not give a shit.”

  She’d put the coffee to her lips, talking, the words bouncing around hollow in the confines of the Styrofoam cup. “But inside he’s still that working-class kid from Downey whose dad did twenty years at a nursery and his mom was a record keeper at an oven parts warehouse. He gives plenty to charities that work with under-privileged kids and doesn’t crow about it, doesn’t have his publicist leak it to the press so he can feel all squishy about himself like a lot of stars do.”

  “But he wants the respect of his peers,” Rachel had observed.

  “Don’t we all?” Bolarus countered.

  Refocusing, Rachel went into her bound-angle pose as the rest of the class did too. Their instructor, a lithe woman calling herself Dyline whose pottery was on display in several hotel lobbies along the upper end of Wilshire, slowly spread her arms and raised her chin toward the ceiling.

  “As we align the body, so we align our inner being,” she said. She brought her arms back to her chest, crossing her arms at the wrist. She rose effortlessly from her scissor position on her toned legs and added, “I thank you for your time and your effort. Let’s all go forth and have a purposeful day.”

  As one, several in the class murmured “Namaste,” clasping the flats of their hands together and bowing slightly.

  “Wow, that was pretty intense, huh?” One of the newcomers said to Rachel as she dabbled a towel on her sweating face. “I mean I’ve heard about her, you know? But she’s the real deal, isn’t she?” The woman was on the tall side with her stylish hair cut short and a taut body like an Olympic skier. She’d been using a yoga strap to make adjustments in a few of her poses. The newcomer put this in a genuine Gucci canvas duffel Rachel saw.

  “Oh yeah,” Rachel agreed, “she has some students who have been with her for years.”

  The two rolled up their yoga mats and Rachel wondered if the woman was an actress and looked to chat her up. Until the blow-off, she had to maintain her front. Not only could she and Sam not be seen together, but it also meant engaging in activities a woman like here would do. As movies, no matter how obscure could be tracked down, she and Sam couldn’t manufacture a past with those kind of credits. But a formerly estranged daughter of a Silicon Valley escapee who was looking to get into the movie business…textbook. It took little effort at selling this scenario beyond the expected outer trappings. They had a hacker they’d used in the past to work her magic and create a cyber trail online.

  “I’m Chloe,” the other woman said, offering her hand.

  “I’m Shawnee,” Rachel replied, shaking the woman’s hand. She felt callouses on Chloe’s palm. Must work out with weights, the pretend producer concluded.

  The Dharma Flow yoga studio was on Melrose in West Hollywood. Parking was a premium in the tiny municipality sandwiched between L.A. and where L.A. began again. They both found themselves walking to a public parking structure a few blocks away. Chloe chatted with her, mentioning she was new to town but it seemed she wasn’t looking to get into the Industry. She worked as a CAD designer at an architectural firm that specialized in mall redevelopment projects.

  “That one on Beverly Glen at Santa Monica,” she said, “that’s ours.”

  “Sounds very involved what you do.” Rachel said, faking interest.

  “I’m quite into it,” the other woman said.

  They rode the elevator up. The door opened on the third level of the five-story structure. Rachel started to exit, turning her head slightly to speak. “See you next time.”

  “For sure,” Chloe said, smiling broadly, back against the rear panel as if she meant to ride further up.

  Rachel turned face-forward. The near silent swish of flat footfalls across the flooring reached her at the same moment something was slipped over her head and continuing downward, tightened around her throat. She gagged, her tongue sticking out like some goof in an animated cartoon. She was yanked backward in to the elevator car, the door closing. The woman calling herself Chloe had used her yoga strap, which included a D-ding that one end of it had been threaded through, to choke her.

  Struggling, Rachel absently determined that yes, this woman did work out with weights. Her attacker used a foot to stomp on the button that stopped the elevator from functioning. Rachel was reared back, her butt pressing downward as she was pulled into an upright position again. The strap was cinched around her neck and the supposed Chloe had her other arm holding Rachel around the upper part of her body.

  “Who are you working for?” Chloe said into Rachel’s ear.

  “Wha…what are you talking about?” Rachel croaked out. She didn’t have to do much acting to sound fearful.

  “You know what the fuck I’m talking about. Why have you been asking around about Mol Rakosian?”

  Shit, she almost blurted, her cover be damned. She estimated she could stamp in the woman’s foot to cause her to loosen her grip and start swinging and kicking. But Rachel got it together, eyes on the ball as the old-timers liked to say. “Investment,” she wheezed.

  Chloe was a pro. She’d maintained the pressure on her choke hold but had let up just enough for Rachel to get air in her lungs and speak. “Investment?”

  Rachel had both hands on the strap. “He’s got money all over town. Someone,” she coughed, “someone I know used to play in one of his games.”

  “Who?” Chloe demanded.

  Rachel named a director who had been a regular in one of Rakosian’s underground poker games. “Okay, wait, see I don’t really know him, but a couple degrees separated.”

  “Why Mol?”

  “Taxes,” Rachel improvised. “I mean, I want to avoid them.”

  Chloe released her. Rachel stumbled forward, squelching the desire to punch the woman in her washboard abs. “Look,” she said, rubbing her throat. “I’m no kind of threat to him. I do know a little about him and well, I figured he might be a good source to see if we could parlay our resources.” In the three days since Sam had told her Rakosian’s first name, Mol for Molcous, and license plate, she’d been looking into him. The Escalade was leased to the gangster’s liquor distribution business. This was a legitimate concern of his, among several.

  “But he’s got his greedy fingers in all kind of pies,” Porter had told her over the phone, filling in information on Rakosian. He’d known the late Finch but didn’t hold a grudge against the two over his death on a previous con. Such was the price of t
he game they played, he’d told them and had meant it. Porter kept his ear to the ground, and he was as loyal as you could get in this game.

  Rachel was as far from Chloe as she could get in the steel box. She held her hand out to the enforcer, signaling she wanted a halt to any other aggressions. “I’m just trying to carve out my end, that’s all. If I pissed him off, I’m sorry. I’ll go my way and he goes his. I get it.”

  Chloe pursed her lips, weighing what Rachel as Shawnee was telling her. Maybe, Rachel hoped, it sounded just loopy enough here in La-La Land where all kind of ways movies were realized to come off legit.

  “I’ll report back,” the other woman finally said. “It’s up to the boss what happens next. But you damn well better keep your nose out of his business. Don’t you fuckin’ say boo about him to anyone. Because if I do come back, no kind of story will keep you from getting clipped. You get me?”

  Rachel bit her tongue not to be a smartass and say namaste. “Yes, ma’am.” She put the proper tremor in her voice.

  Chloe hesitated a moment more. Then, designer bag in hand, she hit the button to turn the elevator back on. The door parted and she walked out, not looking back.

  Rachel let out air and got centered. The yoga jive was good for something, she admitted, also walking out of the elevator on steady legs. Clearing the parking structure in her car, she dialed Sam but there was no pick up on his end on his end. “This is Shawnee,” she said, staying in character as they did. “Something’s come up.” She hung up and stopped at a bar to have two glasses of red wine while munching on celery and spinach dip.

  Later that evening at a motel up the coast in Oxnard, Sam and Rachel made love in a room overlooking a field of ripening strawberries and the 101 freeway beyond. As the couple co-joined their bodies, the pent-up tensions in them dissipated in the heat they generated as one. They finally separated and lay side-by-side on their backs looking up at the ceiling. An eighteen-wheeler headed west on the interstate, a low thunder roll that briefly shook the windows.