Double Exposure Read online

  Gladys had been in radio, decades back. Now she dropped into “Mrs. Nussbaum”: “So dun’t be such a strenjair.”

  I smiled as I let myself into the studio corridor.

  Today, Pepe favored the world with a fawn-colored shirt - unbuttoned to reveal gold neck chains - burgundy pants, and loafers the color of uncooked sausage. After the usual ritual of finishing more pressing business, he responded predictably to my request.

  “If we are fixing up the studio, why do I not know this, eh?”

  I shrugged.

  “And if Mrs. Tolman wants to interview the church about this thing, why am I not doing it?”

  “Denise’s orders, as you know, Pepe.”

  Silence while his wizened face grew even more prune-like. Then: “Hammond won’t see you.”

  “Why not?”

  “He does not handle the film production.”

  “Who does?”

  “I think his name is Nahan.”

  “You think?”

  “He is the church business manager. I think. I am not sure.”

  “Get me an appointment with Nahan. What’s his full name?”

  “Wilton M. Nahan.”

  “You think. Then call him.” Pepe sat there. “Pepe, did Denise phone you this morning?” Glum nod. “And did she tell you what to do?” Another nod. “Then shall we do it?”

  Finally he called Nahan, relaying my made-up story with all the conviction of a recorded phone message. It worked though: he got me an appointment for one PM.

  Pepe hung up, looking truculent. “First, I hear Mrs. Tolman is selling the studio. Then I hear she is fixing it up. But no one is telling me these things. I am only the manager, of course, but may one inquire...?”

  “One may inquire of Mrs. Tolman, Pepe. Like you, I only work here.”

  “Correction, my good friend: you do not work here. And I do not like you around.”

  “Then buy this lot and summarily evict me. Until then, Pepe, hasta la vista.”

  Turning to pull his door closed behind me, I saw Pepe at his desk, his expression a mixture of anger and fear.

  I strolled furtively down the echoing hallway toward the sound stage door, heaved it open and slipped through. No real reason for stealth, but the empty studio felt spooky somehow, as if I were searching someone’s vacant house.

  I was hoping to find some traces of Mr. Low Profile’s operation. Dim work light from ceiling fixtures thirty feet above, half-blocked by suspended boardwalks festooned with two- to ten-thousand watt lights. Hammond’s desert tent set was replaced with a hospital room: bed, bell cord, metal table. The big Fresnel-faced lights were aimed to hit this set, so it had been used.

  Not much else about: director’s chairs, a wooden prop table, dented wastebasket. I snooped through the dusty, twilit stage, behind the plywood flats, in the corners. Nothing. Even the cloth pocket on the script girl’s chair arm was empty.

  The wastebasket was full of white cloth tapes stripped from a camera slate. Pulling them apart, I deciphered the markings: separate numbers and letters to make up shot identifications. Nothing to indicate the production company or director. Wait, a title: #31; Night Nurse Nooky.

  Got it.

  I pocketed the tape as the stage door opened and a woman entered. In the dim light, it took a moment to recognize Peeper Martin. The jeans and Kabuki makeup were the same, but her mood today ran to Orphan Annie wig and green see-through blouse.

  “Winston?”

  “Hi, Peeper.”

  “What’re you doing in here?”

  “Snooping around. What are you doing?”

  She stepped forward hesitantly. “I saw you go in. What’re you snooping for?”

  “Where are your vitamins?”

  “Aw, I don’t do that all the time. It’s like a avocation, right?” She looked pleased that she’d remembered the word.

  “Right. Did you want to talk to me?”

  She clacked over to the hospital bed, then turned selfconsciously and sat down. I took a chair.

  “Hey, I don’t wanna yell.” She patted the bed beside her and I changed seats as requested. I seemed to be sitting on a lot of beds today.

  “I was thinking, you know, about Lee and all? I mean the studio thing. Well, I prolly might be able to help you find her.” She gazed reflectively down through the gauzy blouse at her gentle, sloping breasts. They reminded me of scenery foothills, softened by a scrim.

  “She wasn’t at Candy Wishbourne’s.”

  “Yeah, well, I knew that. The thing is, I didn’t really want to tell you. I mean, it’s gotta be worth it - oh, worth it to Lee, right? Not me, I mean. You know, maybe she wants to stay lost.” Another pause while her thoughts trudged on. “But like I said before, if she’s got something coming to her, well, it’s only, well, fair.”

  “Do you really know where Lee is, Peeper?”

  She swung her legs up on the bed and lay back. “Maybe.”

  “I see. What do you want me to say before you decide to tell me?”

  Groping at the side of the bed, she found the electric control and raised the head and foot. I ended up sitting in a shallow valley with Peeper draped behind me.

  “What do you want me to tell you, Peeper?”

  “I dunno. People tell you anything you wanna hear, right? But I can catch the vibes. I’m sensitive.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Just tell me what’s coming down. Are they gonna sell the lot? I mean, Pepe’s all steamed.”

  I decided to play my fish a bit: “Gee, Peeper, I don’t know; that’s kind of confidential.”

  Peeper shifted until her hip pressed against the small of my back. “Hey, I’m use to confidential. I’m like a doctor, remember?”

  I nodded, pretending to consider this, then: “Well, Denise Tolman’s going to sell the studio and that means some money for Lee.”

  “How soon?”

  “Whenever she finds a buyer, I guess. Only, there’s a problem.”

  I paused long enough to make Peeper prompt me: “Yeah?”

  “Okay, here’s the problem, but can I trust you to keep it quiet?” She pushed her hip against me harder. “You won’t believe this, but somebody’s making porno movies in this studio.”

  Peeper’s reaction was just a hair late: “Wow! Here?” She sat up and leaned toward me.

  “On this very stage. I found out some other things too.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t think I should talk about them.”

  Peeper looked uncertain, then something occurred to her. “Hey, you think they used this bed? That’s a great idea - this electric bed? Look what you could do!”

  She lay back, knees spread wide in the air, legs doubled under her so that her high-heeled boots almost touched her buttocks. “Okay, roll it!” Peeper pushed the button on the bed control. As the head of the bed reclined, she arched her pelvis and reached her hands toward me between her thighs, palms up, as if proffering a melon.

  “Wanna play?”

  When I made no response, she dropped the act and sat up, scowling. “You don’t think that’s a turn-on.”

  “It’s very stimulating.”

  “You don’t act like it.”

  I waved an arm around the stage: “I guess it’s the atmosphere.”

  “Yeh, I guess. Hey, I just remembered: you told Pepe you were gonna help fix up the lot. That’s not selling it. So which is it?”

  “You and Pepe seem to talk a lot.”

  “What’s that suppose to mean?”

  “What does Pepe have to do with these porno films?”

  “How should I know? Boy, you’re really something else.” She jumped off the bed and hustled toward the door.

  “I thought you wanted to help Lee.”

  “I thought you did, but you’re just working for that fat bitch. You think I’m gonna help her?” Peeper timed the line to take her to the door. She yanked it open and disappeared up the hall.

  I fol
lowed quickly, expecting Peeper to head upstairs toward Pepe’s office. Instead, she turned left, toward Gladys Dempal up front. I came into the lobby just as Peeper raced out the front door.

  I watched her hike across the parking lot, then turned to Gladys, acting casual. “Say, did Pepe go out?”

  “About ten minutes ago. You miss him?”

  “No, we had a nice chat. Listen, Gladys, I might have some business for you after all. Harry Hummel needs some editing space. I wondered if you had any rooms open.”

  “But of course.”

  “I’d like to check out the equipment. Got a key?”

  She fished a key from her top desk drawer. “Here, this submaster fits all the cutting rooms. I’m going to lunch, so just put it back when you’re through.”

  I thanked her and headed back into the studio.

  With everybody gone, I should have owned the place, but I still felt the grey, oppressive silence. I headed down the grimy, half-lit hall, up the creaking stairs, and along the hallway to the left, toward the cutting rooms at the back of the building.

  The first two rooms were empty and full of dust. A hand-lettered sign on the third door: Pisces Productions. I knocked softly to make sure. No answer. Inside, the usual chaos of a working editing room. Trim bin full of 35mm film. I held a length up to the light to find a slate: “Hartley’s Instant Coffee.” A commercial.

  The fourth room was similar, but the film was 16mm. Harder to see this smaller gauge. Pulling a shot from the bin, I snapped open the green Moviola head, and laid the film in the chrome channel. Head down, switch on, hit the foot pedal.

  The slate said “Night Nurse Nooky” and the footage showed a couple grappling on a hospital bed. The male was turbaned by an unconvincing bandage and the female was stripped to garter belt, white stockings, and sturdy nurse shoes - a nice touch of authenticity.

  Check the bench: the usual synchronizer, grease pencils, rack full of empty reels. No paperwork or anything else to identify the editor.

  Cracking the door, I scanned the empty hall and sidled out.

  A quick look into the last room revealed hundreds of dusty silver film cans stored on metal racks. Nothing there.

  Better get back.

  I headed through the empty lobby to drop the key in Gladys’ desk drawer. Sudden clatter of the telephone. Letting it ring, I worked the snap lock on the front door and eased out into the parking lot. Just time to get out to Burbank for my one o’clock appointment with Wilton M. Nahan.

  Chapter 6

  But first a quick trip home to consult my wardrobe department. Let’s see: my professor costume, I think: corduroy jacket, tan shirt and slacks, and penny loafers. Better submit to a tie; Nahan was a business manager. And for the final touch, a plastic nerd pack full of pens in the shirt pocket.

  Not bad. I guess if I wanted acting jobs, I would have to cast myself.

  Then up over Cahuenga Pass and down again into the San Fernando Valley toward Burbank and the Reverend Hammond’s Universal Church. “The Valley” should be off-limits to tourists. For some reason, it’s all they recall about Southern California: cookie cutter houses giving way to vast apartments done up as Polynesian compounds. Concrete office blocks strung along a few boulevards like cottonwood trees marking an underground stream. Endless stucco factories baking in the desert glare. Everything squat, drab, and unfocused. Textbook sprawl.

  Hammond’s domain looked like any other factory: no visible church; just a long, scabby building with a cross on one wall. A billboard proclaimed:

  Watch Isaiah Hammond’s Day of the Lord week nights at eight on channel 16

  in changeable marquee letters. The asphalt parking lot reserved eight stalls for handicapped driversCfaith healing candidates, perhaps. Double doors to the left labeled “Studio”; single door to the right marked “Office.”

  Behind the seedy facade, the foyer was a shock: all high tech furnishings and hot fabrics and everywhere, the symbol of corporate bravery: op art prints. Beyond, sleek bureaucrats carried papers through a maze of office dividers. It looked like IBM headquarters.

  The receptionist presided over a switchboard worthy of a war room - taking, switching, holding calls; attacking fifty buttons with candy apple nails. She phoned ahead on my behalf, then sent me fifty yards along a hallway.

  Nahan’s walnut bunker was guarded by a prison matron dressed in iron gray, with hair and complexion to match.

  “Mr. Nahan will see you if he’s free.”

  “I have an appointment.”

  Her silence signaled what she thought of that.

  I sat in a chair designed to mortify the flesh and hobnobbed with the plutocrats in Business Week while she communed with the screen of her computer.

  I’d absorbed a lengthy exegesis of offshore tax shelters before the Matron’s phone beeped.

  “Mr. Nahan will give you a few minutes now.”

  I walked toward his office door, pulling on the mantle of business consultant.

  No one emerged as I entered his office and there was no other door. Wilton Nahan had simply kept me waiting. He and Pepe were two of a kind.

  No greeting: “Sit down, Mr....” He trained silver-rimmed bifocals on his desk appointment book. “...Winston.”

  “Mr. Nahan, I’m doing some consulting for Denise Tolman. She owns the studio where your church makes its films.”

  “I am aware of that. Why is she consulting you?” His tone implied that I was a dubious source of advice on any subject.

  “Our firm is helping her plan a modernization project. Before she makes a substantial investment in new equipment, she wants to find out what her most important customers might need. She said you were the most knowledgeable person.”

  Nahan nodded his silver head, as if my compliment were a simple statement of fact.

  “But she didn’t explain your responsibilities here at the church.”

  “They are quite complex.” Nahan removed his glasses and held them as if posing for his picture in Fortune. “Of course, you know I am the Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Universal Church.”

  My nod implied that everyone knew that.

  “In that capacity I function as Executive Producer of all media projects, including inspirational and instructional films.”

  “But you’re not the line producer.”

  “Let’s just say I keep a very close eye on production.”

  “Fine, then to see what your needs might be, could we discuss your future plans?”

  “I’m afraid you will find them disappointing. We are phasing out film production.”

  “You won’t be providing any more films to churches?”

  “I didn’t say that.” He smiled thinly, as if he’d just won a little game. “I said we are phasing out film. We are converting to tape. We have a state of the art video facility here, so producing elsewhere isn’t cost-effective.”

  “Have you mentioned this to Mrs. Tolman?”

  “I believe our intentions are clear.” He consulted an oversize silver clock on his desk. “I’m due at the studio now, so if there is nothing more to discuss....”

  Thinking fast, then: “Mrs. Tolman’s planning to offer tape-to-film transfer. Do you record on two-inch, one-inch, or three-quarter?”

  Nahan looked distinctly sour at being caught without an answer. “I don’t concern myself with technicalities.”

  “To find out then, could I come look at your setup?”

  He paused, as if trying to think of a reason for refusing, then shrugged. “I suppose so, but I won’t have time to talk. I’ll be engaged with Reverend Hammond.” Standing up, Nahan twitched his vest into perfect alignment and added a silver Cross pen to two others standing at attention in his pocket. As he crossed to the door, I realized that his prissy delivery was misleading. Behind the desk, he’d seemed a small, almost elderly man. But Nahan was a well-muscled six footer in his late forties. He opened the door and walked out, leaving me to trail behind.

  As w
e left, the Matron was eyeing an emerging printout with grim vigilance, as if fearing that the computer was prone to frivolity. “A call for you, Mr. Nahan.” She proffered a slip of pink paper, which Nahan studied impassively.

  “When was this?”

  “Thirty minutes ago.” The slightest tart edge crept in: “I wrote down the time, like always. She’d like you to return the call.”

  Nahan put her back in her place: “You wrote that down too. As always.” He pocketed the slip and walked out, again leaving me to trail behind.

  Nahan paced off the distance to the studio as if he’d previously counted the steps and would allow the journey no more and no less. I caught him up, then matched his stride, and we marched along together, an army of two.

  “By the way, Denise Tolman sends her regards.” He nodded. “I guess you know her daughter, Lee, too.” He flicked a glance suggesting that this chitchat was uncalled for.

  I persisted: “She works here.”

  “Worked.”

  “Oh really? I didn’t know she’d quit. I guess I haven’t seen Lee for a while. How long ago did she leave?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Funny, she said she liked it here. I wonder why she left.” No reaction. “Did she say?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Do you know what Lee’s doing now?”

  This time, the look was distinctly cold. “No.”

  He pulled open the studio door, entered, and strode away in a plain gesture of dismissal. I followed him into the building, pausing just inside the door.

  A typical TV studio: six tiers of empty seats wrapping around two walls. Four color cameras on wheeled pedestals, aimed at the lit set by operators in jeans and golf shirts. To the right, a small choir in burgundy robes, watching their leader at an electric organ. Plain table center stage. Pretty makeup girl patting the forehead of an impressive figure sitting casually on the table edge: the Reverend Isaiah Hammond.

  Thick chest and shoulders under a cream shirt. Strong, big-nosed face tanned by sun or makeup, below the wavy brown pompadour of a used car salesman. The girl helped him into his sober blue suit coat. His large paw gave her shoulder more than just a friendly squeeze and his appreciative blue eyes followed her off the set.

  The speaker on the wall erupted: “All set, Reverend?”

  Hammond waved up at the director, invisible in the glass-fronted booth. The disembodied voice boomed, “Okay, let’s make one.”

  The color monitor showed a slate, then the picture shifted to the choir, on camera two.

  The floor manager drawled, “We’re rolling,” and cued the choir: