Another Perot man, Detective Jimmy Estrada, said, “At least Perot responds. Clinton’d just stand there and nod understandingly if you pissed on his leg. If he wins he’s a one-termer, then he’ll be out pounding nails for the street people, with Jimmy Carter.”
Maya said, “At least he won’t be shooting birds in Texas like George Bush and all his cowboy pals. The same guys that buy special licenses to blow away peaceful grazing buffalo since it’s illegal to shoot cows. Clinton’ll heal the wounds of this country!”
“Heal the wounds!” Fin scoffed. “That’s all I hear from the guy. Heal the wounds. Does he wanna be a president or a paramedic? And what’s all this about investing in infrastructure? What the hell’s infrastructure? Where do I buy some of this infrastructure he’s so hot to invest my money in?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy Estrada piped up. “And lucky for him the press overlooks his yuppie spokesman’s slight reluctance to tell the truth. What’s that kid’s name? Stephen Lollipops?”
“Stephanopoulos is his name!” Maya’s voice was soaring toward falsetto when she said, “I suppose Bush tells the truth?”
“None to top ‘Gennifer Flowers was just a casual friend,’” Fin said. “But I’m no Bush guy. They oughtta put that geek’s missing pronouns on a milk carton. If butchering our language was a crime he’d be in the electric chair.”
“How can you vote for a guy like Clinton that’s never met a trial lawyer he didn’t owe,” Jimmy Estrada wanted to know. “And your middle class tax cut won’t buy a new toothbrush, Maya.”
“He’ll bring us all together!” Maya cried.
Since all San Diegans feared “Los Angelezation,” Fin said, “With all groups living in perfect harmony just like in L.A., huh? Better known as the Balkans West where you gotta pass through metal detectors to get in airports, courthouses and kindergarten classrooms.”
Casper Johns, the oldest detective at Southern Division-ten years past when he should have retired-uttered the first political statement anyone had ever heard him make. He chewed on his pipestem, a habit he couldn’t break even though he no longer smoked, and said, “Maybe it’s time for old guys like me and George Bush to retire. We’re both confused. He can’t tell there’s a recession going on and I can’t tell a homeless unshaven unbathed schizophrenic hobo from Andre Agassi. They look alike to me.”
Jimmy Estrada said, “Speaking as a member of the testosterone-producing gender, I can tell you, Maya, Willie Weasel’s newfound celibacy has a definite shelf life.”
“Sure,” Maya said, “and those slippery Republican hatchet men’re out there beating the bushes for another smoking bimbo in a spaghetti-strap. Is that any way to win an election?”
And so forth. The political debaters had exhausted themselves by the time Fin got up, energized, to drive to the production office and reveal the chilling visage of a killer. To show them a roaring force of nature!
Before he exited he said to the steaming detective, “Tell me Maya, was it good for you?”
The production office of Harbor Nights was in the Hillcrest district of San Diego, a logical location because Hillcrest passed for San Diego’s Greenwich Village. In Hillcrest there were several cinemas showing art-house films and lots of places to hang out and drink coffee or juice. There were offbeat bookshops and a multitude of ethnic restaurants. Basically, it was nouveau hippie in a town that had for decades been known as the admirals’ graveyard.
The production staff of Harbor Nights had done its best to glitz up the second story of a commercial building that had begun its life as an apartment house. There were cheaply framed, one-sheet movie posters hanging in every room, most of them from old Hollywood classics that had never been seen by any human being who worked for Harbor Nights Productions. The oldest member of the staff was the co-executive producer, Lenore Fielding, age twenty-nine.
Everyone was hoping that the network would order additional episodes, but the members of the company weren’t holding their breath. Harbor Nights looked like a mid-season casualty; still, like the forty-first president of the United States, each person was praying for a November miracle.
The moment he entered, Fin’s heart sank. This receptionist was all pout. She wore a coral tunic over spandex pants, and you could’ve served a family of four on the platters hanging from her ears. She was playing a U2 tape on a ghetto blaster, and deliberately ignored him until he’d said his name twice.
“What’d you say?” she asked, after switching off the tape to hear what he’d said.
Accustomed to war with show-biz receptionists, and being in character, all locked-and-loaded, so to speak, Fin said, “I don’t know what I said. But what I was thinking was, that music sounds like a pack a coyotes falling off a cliff.”
“Can I help you?” Her lip wriggled upward. He saw that those beautiful violet irises were really beautiful violet lenses.
“I’m here to read,” he said.
“To read what?”
He pulled back the jacket of his herringbone, showed her the badge on his belt, and said, “To read you your rights! When was the last time you bought a quarter of flake? Empty your purse on the desk!”
“What?” Her scarlet pout fell open. “What?”
“Point one milligram of white can kill you!” Fin said.
“What?” she sputtered. “What?”
Then he grinned and said, “Well, I passed the first audition. Just get on the phone and tell Ms. Fielding I’m here. The name’s Finnegan. I’m reading for the part of a hit man.”
The girl kept both eyes on Fin as she punched the intercom button saying, “Lenore, there’s a … Mister Finnegan here.”
When she put the phone down, she tossed her head toward the inner office and said, “Is that badge real?”
As he passed her desk, he said, “I’m a costume cop. I do drive-by fashion checks, and that Betty Boop hairdo’s about as up-to-the-minute as an abacus.”
When he entered the little office of the co-executive producer of the dying TV show, he tried to walk with a confident stride, but not a swagger. He’d learned that if you start over the top, there’s nowhere to go but down.
“Mister Finnegan,” she said, holding out her hand, palm toward the floor.
He didn’t know whether to shake it or kiss her ring, but he kept his killer gaze fixed on the bridge of her candy-colored eyeglasses. She wore an environmentally correct shirt grown from green organic cotton with no chemical dyes. Ditto for the jeans. Draped over the chair was a $600 jacket made from cork that was “shed from trees.”
“Hello,” he said. “Good to meet you.”
She motioned toward a rock-hard sofa, and she sat in a straight-back chair with her head a foot higher than his.
She studied him while Fin continued to dead-stare her. Then she said, “Orson tells me you’re a real policeman?”
He showed a hint of a smile and said, “That should give me an advantage playing a contract killer, shouldn’t it?” Then he lied and said, “I’ve known my share of hit men.”
“Have you really? Can you talk about it?”
Fin shifted on the sofa and cocked his head as if to say, “Sorry, you know how it is.”
She said, “We’re thinking of changing the script so that our killer is actually a renegade FBI agent, or maybe a member of the CIA.”
Fin figured that would make it the 1,532nd TV show where an agent of the government is the bad guy. Because every member of the Hollywood Elite liked to claim that his phone had been tapped, or a hit squad had tailed him when he was: 1) a student during Vietnam, 2) making a movie about Chile, 3) investigating the Kennedy assassination.