Scavenger Hunt

by Robert Ferrigno

Genres: Hard-Boiled

Synopsis

Philip Marlow and Lew Archer would recognize a kindred spirit in Jimmy Gage, reporter for SLAP magazine, troublemaker by trade and inclination, and the hero of Robert Ferrigno’s sinuous new crime novel. While taking part in a Hollywood scavenger hunt, Jimmy meets Garret Walsh, a bad-boy movie maker in the truest sense: He’s just been released from prison after serving seven years for the murder of a teenaged girl. But Walsh claims he was framed and is writing a screenplay to prove it. He wants Jimmy to help him peddle it, sight unseen.

The next time Jimmy sees the director, he’s floating face-down in a koi pond and “The Most Dangerous Screenplay in Hollywood” has disappeared. Is Walsh a casualty of bad habits or has somebody crossed him off a list? And is Jimmy next? Combining nerve-shredding suspense and heat-seeking satire, Scavenger Hunt is an addictive read.

Release date: December 18, 2007

Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

Print pages: 336

Sample

Chapter 1

Seven years later

“God, I hate blondes,” said Tamra Monelli. “What’s the big whoop about
pink nipples anyway?”

“What’s a blonde?” said Jimmy, standing with his arms around the Monelli
twins, Tonya and Tamra, as Rollo checked the viewfinder of the camera,
making sure the hollywood sign was perfectly positioned behind them.

Tonya giggled and pinched Jimmy’s bare ass.

“Last week we lost a part in a slasher film,” complained Tamra. “Three
callbacks, and at the last minute the director decides that the
high-school shower scene is a blondes-only zone, because, and I quote,
‘Blood contrasts better against white skin, and besides, blondes look
more innocent. That’s why everyone wants to fuck them.’ Innocent?” She
cupped her breasts, her nipples dark as anthracite. “Do these look
guilty to you, Jimmy?”

“Smile.” Jimmy Gage showed his teeth to the camera, dropping his hands
to discreetly hold down his erection as the twins pressed against him,
warm and naked and perfect. Jane was going to flip when she found out
about this.

Rollo hit the auto-timer and rushed back, making sure they were all in
the frame. The rickety hollywood sign was behind them, paint peeling,
covered in graffiti, the letters dangerously canted from the last
earthquake. California Stonehenge. The timer clicked, the flash blazed,
and a Polaroid slid out. Item number six on the scavenger hunt list of
seven: nude group photo at a recognizable L.A. landmark. “I still don’t
like this place, Jimmy.” He glanced around at the debris that littered
the ground, winced at an air-conditioner half-buried from the impact.
“All kind of bad shit happens here.”

“Bad shit happens everywhere.” Jimmy checked the backdrop of dark
sandstone bluffs above them; the hollywood sign was built near the top
of a ridge, higher hills looming overhead. Dropping bowling balls off
freeway overpasses was passé among young wannabees. Today’s future lifer
took pride in hauling heavy objects up onto the bluffs and dropping them
on the sight-seers below. A couple of months ago a tourist had been
flattened by an empty fifty-gallon propane tank.

Rollo scooted over to where the camera was perched on a broken Styrofoam
cooler, a nervous, twenty-year-old filmmaker with thick round glasses
and a Trotsky goatee, wearing only a pair of two-tone bowling shoes.

The Monelli twins stretched and preened in the warm night air, smooth
and sleek as weimaraner puppies.

Rollo watched the twins, fanning himself with the Polaroid to speed the
development. “Do you think I look okay, Jimmy? Physically, I mean.”

“You’re a credit to the human genome.” Jimmy slipped on black pants and
steel-tipped welder’s boots, a powder-blue ruffled tuxedo shirt
completing the ensemble. He was tall and lanky, somewhere in his
mid-thirties, with dark tangled hair and an open smile. If you didn’t
know better, you’d think he was just another laid-back hipster–until you
noticed his eyes, saw the edge there. A reporter for SLAP magazine,
Jimmy was a troublemaker by trade and inclination, with fast hands and
too much curiosity for his own good. Fight or flight, it made no
difference anymore.

“Do I really look okay?” Rollo examined the Polaroid, then stepped into
a pair of tie-dyed shorts, almost falling over as he hopped on one
skinny leg. He reached for his Hawaiian silky, an original aloha shirt
from the 1920s, museum quality, worth more than the VW van he drove. “I
mean, if you were a woman, would you find me sexually attractive?”

“Sexually? So we’re past ‘physically’ now?”

“Yeah, it was sort of like a rolling stop. So would you? If you were a
woman?”

“I’m not really in touch with my feminine side.”

Rollo glanced at the twins cavorting among the broken TVs and shattered
microwave ovens. “I think I should start working out or something. Maybe
get some B-twelve shots. Or human growth hormone. They say you can get
cancer from that stuff, but it takes a long time. Five or ten years at
least.”

“At least.”

Rollo glanced up at the bluffs. “We should get out of here.”

The four of them had spent the last few hours driving around Los Angeles
trying to fill the scavenger hunt list that Napitano had passed out at
his party. Antonin “Nino” Napitano was the autocratic publisher of SLAP
magazine, a smash-mouth monthly with a no-corrections, no-apologies
editorial policy. Vanity Fair had perfected the art of the Hollywood
air-kiss, fawning yet dignified, but SLAP’s kisses drew blood, its
eviscerating profiles and critiques sending the rich and famous
scuttling for their spin doctors and libel attorneys.

Invitations to Napitano’s lavish parties were sought after by bit actors
and screenwriters with a P.O. box instead of an office, potential rock
stars, and models-of-the-moment. Scavenger hunt winners had their faces
splashed across the “Shock of the New” section of SLAP’s next issue, a
guarantee that their phone numbers would be on speed-dials all over the
city. For a month, anyway. Jimmy didn’t need the ink–he was Napitano’s
favorite, the only writer who stood up to him–but Rollo and the Monelli
twins could use all the help they could get.

Rollo tugged at his goatee as he stared at Tamra posing inside the giant
letter O, back arched, her belly bronze in the moonlight. “Too bad
Jane’s not here, Jimmy. I’d like to scope out the goods.” He saw Jimmy’s
expression and took a step back. “Jimmy’s girlfriend was supposed to
come to the party,” he explained to the twins, “but she stiffed him when
she heard I was on the guest list. She’s some hotshot detective with the
Laguna PD; real pretty too, but she doesn’t like me.”

“Jane got a call from the assistant DA. One of her cases is going south.
That’s why she had to back out of the party.”

“I’m glad she didn’t come,” flirted Tamra. “Out of sight, out of mind,
that’s my motto.”

“Why doesn’t Jane like me?” asked Rollo.

“She says that every time you come by, she feels that she should count
the silverware afterward.” Jimmy grinned. “I convinced her to cut you
some slack, but bringing the palm tree to her dinner party–that finished
it.”

“You know what that tree was worth?” sputtered Rollo. “Dwarf sago palms
are protected, man. I could have sold it to a collector for a thousand
bucks.”

“He dug it up from a botanical garden,” Jimmy told the twins. “He
arrived at Jane’s door with this palm tree in a shopping cart. All these
lawyers and cops standing around drinking martinis, and here’s Rollo
pushing the cart into the living room, wheels squeaking, dirt falling
all over the carpet.” He shook his head. “I told you to bring flowers.”

“The greenhouse was locked,” explained Rollo.

“You told us you were a director.” Tonya looked at her sister.

“I am,” said Rollo.

“He is,” said Jimmy.

Jimmy and Rollo were the only people in L.A. who were convinced. His
oddball documentaries devoid of commercial potential, Rollo financed his
films with assorted scams and hustles: counterfeiting Disneyland
tickets, peddling hot electronic gear, hacking into databases to improve
credit histories. He was a gawky high-school dropout with an IQ over 140
and barely enough common sense to keep himself out of jail, and though
he slept with a night-light on, he had risked his life for Jimmy and
never mentioned it afterward. They were friends.

Rollo bent down and tossed Tonya her panties, the black silk rippling
through the air like a fleeing octopus. “We should go. The last item on
the list is the hardest.”

“Where we going to find an Oscar?” said Tamra.

“A real Oscar,” said Tonya, spinning her panties around one finger. “No
best-costume or best-song crap.”

“Major-category gold,” finished Tamra. “That’s what the rules said.”

Jimmy reached into his pocket and answered his phone.

“How goes the hunt, dear boy?” cooed Napitano. “Did you get the
rubbing?”

Jimmy could hear music at Nino’s end, and the tinkle of glassware.
“Yeah, we got it.”

“Splendid. Some of the other players had difficulties with that one.
Legal difficulties.” Napitano clucked his disapproval. “Most of the
teams saw ‘A tombstone rubbing from a silent film star’ and headed
directly to Forest Lawn, even though it’s after hours. Arrests have been
made, Jimmy, it’s quite tragic.” He hummed softly. “I was wondering,
though, how the police knew that there was going to be a mass scaling of
the gates.”

“I have no idea.”

“Bravo. ‘Admit nothing’–if that’s not on your family crest, it should
be.” Napitano was chewing something. “Which star’s tombstone did you
visit?”

“Rex the wonder dog. The pet cemetery in Encino is unguarded.”
Napitano’s laugh was a blubbery wheeze as Jimmy broke the connection.
“Get dressed. We’re being watched.”

Rollo craned his neck toward the bluffs.

“Don’t look,” said Jimmy. “Just move.”

The Monelli twins shimmied into their matching black dresses.

Rollo squinted. “I don’t see–” A portable TV crashed onto the ground
about ten feet away, exploded in a spray of glass. He screamed, grabbed
at his ankle.

War whoops sounded overhead.

“Head toward the van,” Jimmy said quietly. A cinder block thudded into
the weeds right beside him. “Don’t run.” He watched Rollo race toward
the van, arms folded over his head, the Monelli twins right behind him,
wobbling on their high heels. Jimmy smiled and ambled up the path, hands
in his pockets, waiting for a grand piano to land on his head.

Rollo didn’t even wait for Jimmy to close the door to the VW van before
peeling off. No one spoke for a long time. They were almost at the I-5
freeway before Tamra finally broke the silence. “So whose Oscar are we
going to borrow?”

Rollo veered into the carpool lane. “It’s a surprise.”

“So is a cerebral hemorrhage,” said Jimmy, suspicious now. “Who are we
going to see?”

Rollo cleared his throat. “Garrett Walsh.”

“Motherfucker,” said Jimmy.

“I knew you weren’t going to like it,” said Rollo, accelerating.

“Who’s Garrett Walsh?” said Tonya.

“He made that kinky movie from a long time ago. Firebug,” said Tamra.

“Firebug won two Academy Awards,” said Rollo, easing through late
evening traffic. “It was his first movie, a cheapo thriller full of
twists and reversals, with lousy distribution and no stars, but Mr.
Walsh walked away with two Oscars, best director and best screenplay.
Even Tarantino didn’t pull off a double play his first time out.” A
silver Lexus cut him off, and Rollo leaned on the horn. “And it wasn’t
that long ago. Nine years, big deal.”

“He murdered a teenage girl,” said Jimmy. “Walsh was only released from
prison a few months ago.”

“Heather Grimm,” said Tamra.

“Who?” said Rollo.

“The girl he killed,” said Tamra. “Her name was Heather Grimm.”

“Seven years for murder–he should have gotten seventy,” said Jimmy.

“I remember now, we were in junior high when it happened,” Tonya chirped
to her twin. “There was a picture of her in Entertainment Weekly. She
looked like a cheerleader.”

“Blonde, of course,” the twins said in unison, clasping pinkies.

“Where else are we going to get an Academy Award, Jimmy?” said Rollo.
“It’s not like there’s a black market in them.” He considered it. “At
least not for the major ones.”

“You sure you know where we’re going?” Jimmy asked a half-hour later.

Rollo squinted through the cracked, dusty windshield. The VW’s lights
barely illuminated the winding, two-lane road as the van lurched its way
up Orange Hill, second gear slipping. There was a restaurant on the
peak, and houses strung along the ridges of the Anaheim foothills,
million-dollar crackerboxes with views of the ocean ten miles away. On a
good day at least.

Jimmy stuck his head out the window to get a better look. The air
pollution cut off the stars, and it was the myriad glittering lights
below that looked like the Milky Way, the rakish, cocked neon halo atop
the A in the angels stadium sign shining brighter than Polaris. It was
as though the world had flipped over, and they were not moving higher
but lower, into the darkness.

“I ran into Mr. Walsh at the Strand’s midnight movie a few weeks ago,”
Rollo said to the twins. “He was getting–”

“What is this ‘Mr. Walsh’ crap?” said Jimmy.

“I was the only one who recognized him,” continued Rollo. “He didn’t
want company, but I followed him to his car afterward anyway. It
wouldn’t start, which I thought was a good omen, because it was three
a.m. and he didn’t have money for a tow truck.”

“Walsh should have called O.J. and asked him for a lift,” said Jimmy.
“Killers helping killers–it sounds like a bumper sticker.”

“How could he not have any money?” said Tamra. “Firebug did over seventy
million domestic. That’s a cost-return ratio of almost fifty to one.
He’s got to be sitting on a pile.”

Jimmy turned around and stared at her.

“What?” said Tamra. “I majored in business at community college.”

“Mr. Walsh was pretty nervous that night,” said Rollo. “Pretty drunk
too. He kept asking me to run red lights and dodge through alleys. I
think he was scared we were being followed. Fans can be pretty
aggressive.” The van lurched, and he fed it more gas, then suddenly
veered off the main road and onto a barely visible gravel path, the
wheels spitting up stones. “Mr. Walsh told me to stay on the paved road,
then had me drop him off in front of this big house. He said it was his
place, but I watched him in my rearview as I pulled away and saw him
pretending to unlock the gate.” Rollo grinned. “He’s a tricky guy. I
guess you have to be when you’re famous.” The van hit a pothole, and
Rollo’s chin banged against the steering wheel, but he was so pleased
with himself that he didn’t seem to notice. “So I started back down the
hill, then cut my lights, parked on the shoulder, and waited. Sure
enough, ten minutes later I see Mr. Walsh walking up this path. I tagged
along on foot. He had to stop a couple of times to throw up, and I
thought once he heard me, but now I know where he lives. Smart, huh?”