Chapter 1

I hadn't talked to Pat Bishop since he gave me emergency actor's training preparing me for auditions in order to meet the runaway Joan aka Penny. "Hey man, what's up? How's the acting?"

"Up and down as usual," replied a somber Pat through the phone receiver. "At the moment up sort of."

"What is it, some shitty part?"

"Actually the part's not the problem. The shoot's the problem. I've never been involved in a more fucked up production. Everything seems to go wrong."

"You think it's suspicious?" I asked, realizing he called for my expertise.

"I don't think I've built up this much bad karma," said Pat.

"Do you want to meet?"

"It's not my call. The Sony exec in charge of this television pilot is a friend from the old days. It's actually a small upstart production company called Opal producing with Sony and most importantly my friend in charge of footing a substantial part of the bill. He's on thin ice, some recent bad decisions, and this could be the last straw. He's got his bosses breathing in one ear and the insurance company chewing the other."

"Maybe he's the one with bad karma," I suggested.

"The thing is it looked like a no brainer. Opal's pretty young but its track record's impressive. They hire brilliantly to keep costs down and get results. They pick projects that are genre sellable yet manage to sparkle with unique twists. They discovered some real talent and gave them the best background to set them off. And they lure a major star on a downward career trajectory to attract audiences and give the star a boost. And it's all in this pilot. The script's solid, the director's second tier great and the acting's tight and ensemble."

"Who's the ringer?" I asked.

"Me. Just kidding. Rebecca Whalen."

"Really? Whatever happened to her?"

"Exactly. Thing is, she always struck me as gorgeous but cold. Seems she's had some hard times: a stalker that fucked up her fiancé..."

"Just like that horror movie..."

"Yeah. Creepy hunh? He lived but they broke up. Her father committed suicide. Her mother's a mess."

"Shit."

"Yeah. But the thing is she's worked hard maybe to get through it. She's in the best shape of her life and not just physically. She trained with the best coach in LA and worked the boards for a couple years doing Ibsen and Chekhov and Shakespeare and Mamet. She ain't cold no more."

"But still gorgeous."

"Yeah, but no, I'm not fucking her. My wife would cut off my balls and feed them to my five kids."

"Five now. Congratulations."

"Thanks. I love my wife and she gives me everything I need in a woman."

Thinking of Pat's wife, half Philippine and half white, a petite ball of energy and beautiful inside and out made me nod my head, a gesture invisible to Pat.

"And we've become a new family for Becky. Maybe because I never came on to her like men do and we talked easily on the set and she seemed kind of lonely, I invited her for a family dinner and my wife of course welcomed her into the family as only my wife can."

"Goddamn. Imagining your wife and Rebecca Whalen..."

"Fuck you."

"I'm sure you must have imagined..."

"Of course goddamnit. I'm a man. I've got five kids." We laughed. "Yeah. The equipment's fully operational. Anyway to somehow pull your head out of the gutter I'm asking if you're available."

"Sure. Sandy's on vacation for a week fucking her latest stud."

"So you haven't nailed her down yet."

"Not going to happen. Both of us are allergic to commitment except of course professionally. He's some millionaire she met at Harry's Bar and he invited her to Kauai for some hiking, boating and fucking. She couldn't resist especially when he insisted their time together ended when the adventure ended. When he said that, she nearly sucked his tongue out of his mouth in the bar and kept him up all night in his suite demonstrating her skills while making both his and her sex organs raw. She could only suck me off when she told me all about it the next day."

"Poor thing."

"Yeah."

"So Mr. Brain in the Gutter, expect my friend Melvin Simmons to call. I'll pick you up at 5am tomorrow," said Pat before hanging up.

Less than a half hour later the business phone rang, surprising me. I'd dealt with film executives before working security for a couple location shoots and found them lax about returning calls. The guy must have been desperate or things had gotten slow. I expected a professional woman's voice saying "Hold for Mr. Simmons," but instead got the man himself.

"Joseph Solomon?" asked the baritone voice.

"Melvin Simmons?" I asked in return.

"Melvin's fine," he said.

"Call me Joe," I said.

"I hear you've acted."

"Local theater and, I guess if you can count it, undercover work. That I've done quite a lot."

"Pat said you've got some talent."

"I'll thank him for that when I see him. He trained me well in our brief sessions."

"No film work though."

"No, but I definitely think the undercover experience helps. You know, being real. Pat gave me insights and we shot some footage mostly because I wanted to. You have a role for me?"

"Pat does. The production company gets a little antsy when I try to put my foot in."

"I hear stories about artistic control, but usually the director calls those shots."

"Such directors are few, thank god," said Melvin, "especially in television. Artistic vision in this case comes from Opal Productions."

"Who is Opal Productions?"

"Bern Forough. He worked for Fox for a few years finding properties, you know, stories and screenplays. He had talent for unearthing gems from piles of unsolicited scripts and treatments. He got frustrated when the execs ignored him on one and quit and found a partner and bought the rights and turned it into a low budget success story. You heard of 'The Drovers?'"

"Of course. Didn't the director and the star end up big successes?"

"You know your trivia," said Melvin. "Same thing happened with his next one, 'Far Out.' No one wanted that crazy drug comedy. His partner even backed out. Bern spent all his profits from 'The Drovers' and put it in the Midnight circuit and it developed a cult following, got major distribution and made tons of money. And the director and star..."

"I get it."

"Yeah. The next feature, 'Hitch'...

"No shit. That was..."

"A box office smash. Helped start the new teen thriller craze. And..."

"Didn't that feature..."

"Yeah. He brought in a star. He could afford it. But..."

"The unknowns in it became well known."

"Yeah."

"So what's he doing producing a pilot television movie?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe he got tired of working his ass off for everyone else's glory. Maybe he wanted to step away from features and develop a series he could coast on. Maybe it's another new challenge. But it's the same model: talented but unknown director; undiscovered talent..."

"And a ringer."

"Yeah."

"I heard Ms. Whalen is doing great work."

"Pat told me," Melvin agreed.

"Haven't you seen the dailies?"

"Bern won't let me. The first glance I get will be the rough cut."

"So with everything going wrong..."

"To tell you the truth, since Pat's my spy, the one thing I'm not worried about is the quality of the dailies. He's impressed. Everything else worries me, but not the quality of the film."

"Okay, so what's gone wrong?"

"Faulty equipment, replacement equipment disappearing, film disappearing, staff getting sick, staff overdosing, the director nearly dying from an allergic reaction, and people disappearing."

"Disappearing?"

"A couple. An actor and the script girl. They're lovers. Went to the Big Island and never came back. They have to reshoot the actor's scenes. It's a minor role. I think you'd be perfect."

"Why's that?"

"He's a private investigator."

"That'll help. Anything from the couple's disappearance?"

"Yes as a matter of fact. But it's weird."

"How weird?"

"The actor sent a postcard saying he'd had enough of the business. Said he and Marnie, the script girl needed to get in touch with their spiritual being."

"What's weird about that?"

"Roger loves acting. I've known him for a few years. He's a character actor. He loves popping up in movies creating interesting characters. He lives for it. And Marnie ... she and Bern supposedly had an ongoing affair."

"So how am I going to step into this role?"

"Pat will get you in. I have a cousin who has his SAG card who stopped acting. You'll be him. I'll fax you his data and overnight his card."

"I'll fax you the contract. I'm going to hire a friend to check out the disappearances of the couple so expect my fee to be a bit higher."

"If you can fix this mess, any money spent on you will be well worth it."

"I'll do my best," I said.

My next day began early to say the least. Pat picked me up before the sun hinted of its return and we headed to the North Shore. Pat handed me the script. He caught me up with his sister's life. Through her, a schoolmate friend of mine throughout our public school education, I met Pat, four years older than us. She moved to the Mainland's version of Hawaii, San Diego, and while attending the University studying anthropology met a Navy Seal and married and ended up popping out a couple baby Seals, becoming a stay at home mother. The conversation stayed brief. I needed to read the script.

Déjà vu made me look at the author. There were three credited. One I knew.

Chloe Burton had written the successful true crime book about the New Age Crazed case, generously giving me a percentage because of my coincidental investigation and assistance. Two more true crime books followed, less successful but with moderate sales and always well written, which she sent to me signed with a note asking my opinion. We corresponded every few months over the years.

The last I'd heard from her she visited and got drunk with Sandy and me at Harry's Bar until closing time a year before. She asked me about cases I'd referred to during earlier correspondences and I brought her up to date with a couple more. It felt like I'd been grilled by a professional, a detective or a hard nosed reporter, which in fact she was. I didn't mind. Chloe charmed when she interrogated at least to me. I enjoyed her company. The clever dyke witch picked my brain.

Characters mashed together and reconfigured. Sandy became me, the young apprentice, played by Ms. Whalen. Her mentor became Moe, the mysterious taxi driver from the little sister case, transformed into a recluse father lured back into the business by his spunky daughter. His name even remained Moe. Uncle Sam remained a tough but sanguine hapa haoli police Captain named Kai. Even the ethnic Japanese police detective genius Nakamoto appeared as a flirting, teasing, sexually intriguing presence in the script. Pat played him.

The character I took over resembled me at my worst, a sleazy pussy hound PI trying to get into Ms. Whalen's panties as well as the panties of one of the villains. She even gave the character my name sort of.

The story? A group of beautiful women revenge their rapes and their friend's murder. Sound familiar? Instead of successfully infiltrating and catching the villains, I become one of their victims. Laura, Ms. Whalen's character stumbles into the case via a 10^th anniversary reunion of her high school class. She lives in San Francisco (her mother having divorced her father has a new age store there) and works at a large private investigation agency but gets no respect and hates it. She stumbles into the case because her friend in high school ends up being one of the villains. Out of it she decides to stay and start a partnership with her father; thus creating a series.

My laughter prompted strange glances from Pat. "The bitch stole my life!" I explained.

"Maybe if you sue her you could really fuck up the production," sighed Pat after I pointed out the similarities.

"She gave me five percent of her first book without me asking. Maybe this time I'll ask." A disturbing thought broke my amusement. "Is she there?"

"She's the new script girl," said Pat.