Daddy's Car: An Out of the Body Shop Experience
Real Gone Daddy
A red Corvette pulled up to the curb. The doorman of the Knickerbocker in
his uniform and cap, after a moment spent in admiration, stepped up to the
car, and to pretty blue-eyed 17 year old Amanda, whose blonde hair was now
well-blown about her face and shoulders after the top-down drive from the
West Hollywood Strip.
"Good Morning, ladies. Are you here for the hotel?"
Charlie nudged Amanda so she would sit back, the better to address the man.
"Mona Jarrett, a lady staying here is expecting us. We are Ms Charlene
Chance and Ms Amanda Lane, thank you."
A white-gloved hand came to the door handle and pressed the button. "If
you'll leave the keys. I'll have the car parked for you." When the girls had
both come out the passenger side to the walk, they followed the doorman's
beckoning toward the foyer.
Amanda elbowed Charlie in the ribs. "How rooty-toot snooty can you get?"
Charlie gave her friend a look through half-closed lids. "It could get
worse."
The doorman stood near the inner entrance with a telephone to his ear. "Miss
Jarrett? Rudy. There are two young ladies here to see you?" He listened,
and then: "Very well. Thank you." He hung up and motioned them in.
Coming off the elevator on the seventh floor, and starting down the
corridor, Charlie stopped her friend. "Keep one thing in mind, Amanda."
"Yeah sure. Like, what?"
"Mona Jarrett won't look anything like she used to, so don't act, like, too
surprised or shocked or anything when you see how old and dried up she is."
Amanda started walking. "Uh, like, okay, I guess I have enough sense to
know that, Charlie."
"I'm just trying to make sure, is all. These washed up old movie queens can
be pretty vain about stuff like that, you know."
Amanda caught her by the arm and raised a finger. "Sh! Charlie! Is this
her door -- number 707?"
Charlie nodded; she raised a hand and knocked.
A voice, surprisingly audible came through the thick wood. "It's open! Come
in!" Charlie shrugged and tried the knob and when it opened, she let Amanda
go in before her, shutting the door behind. A short corridor led to a
surprisingly large sitting room for such an old hotel; a room not overly
crowded, and tastefully--if not decadently--decorated with Art Deco era
furnishings. Mona Jarrett was just setting an old silent movie director's
conical megaphone down on an end table next an expensive looking
hand-painted vase with peacock feather bouquet. The wall above her, as the
others also, were hung with framed, glass paned posters from, as it might
appear, every movie Mona Jarrett had ever starred in as leading lady. There
were romantic poses of Mona and Alan Ladd, Mona and Glenn Ford, Mona and
Gable, Mona and Cary Grant.
"Wow," said Amanda.
"Is that all you can say?" The aging star smirked, even prettily in a
long-faded sort of way, as she held one hand aloft with cigarette smoking in
a long black holder. The girls slowly approached, responding as the woman
beckoned from where she half reclined on a long broadly checked black and
white divan that Charlie found herself thinking was strictly from the set of
*The Fountainhead*. The woman had maintained her svelte figure, and as a
person in her mid-seventies, she was bearing her years with grace and a
vintage form of class that well befit her.
"You're looking well, Ms. Jarrett," offered Charlie.
"Aw, don't give me any of that 'Ms' shit, kid. 'Miss Jarrett' is swell
enough for me, and I don't change it to suit you young rascals in these
silly conceits." She waved the holder toward some gigantic plush cushions
in a pile near a window-seat beneath an open set of paneled French windows.
"Pull up a chair. Just grab one, each of you, and throw it on the floor
here near me where I can see you."
"Cool," said Amanda as she handed a big red silk brocade thing with tassels
at the corners to Charlie, taking an identical one in blue for herself.
Once they were seated on the cushions not far from the movie queen's feet,
Charlie took a notepad and pen from her purse. "Miss Jarrett, I would very
much appreciate it if you would tell us all you know about Rhett Pearson and
his disappearance?"
"Just as soon as you tell me what the hell business it is of yours. Then,
maybe I will, or maybe I won't."
Charlie and Amanda exchanged glasses.
"Well, come on then. Out with it. What's it to you?"
Amanda took a deep breath. "Well, see, the thing is Ms . . . er . . .
*Miss* Jarrett, that Charlie and me, or she, Charlene and I, well, we're a
couple of detectives, you see and . . . '
"Oh, the hell you are." She laughed. "Detectives, my eye."
Charlie spoke up. "Well, sort of, we are, in a way, Miss Jarrett, because
first of all, well, Mona, may we call you Mona?"
"Knock yourself out, kid. Mona is swell. Try it and see how it works for
you."
Charlie nodded. "Okay Miss Jarrett, Mona. You see, first of all we are the
President and Vice-President of the Rhett Pearson Lover's Club."
Visibly taken aback at first, Miss Jarrett then threw her head back began to
laugh.
"Oh please, Miss Jarrett. I know you think we're just being silly," said
Amanda. "But, honestly, we really do think we have what it takes to get to
the bottom of this terrible business. We are very serious, aren't we
Charlie?"
She looked up from her notepad. "As a heart-attack."
Mona Jarrett stopped laughing. "Do try to watch your language, young lady.
Those are not words to be speaking in the presence of an old dame like me."
"Sorry," said Charlie.
"All right. Listen, girls, believe me; I'm very sorry to disappoint you but
when it comes to exactly who is the real chief honcho of the Rhett Pearson
Lover's Club, well take a back seat, if you please." She pointed her
cigarette holder toward a framed, autographed black and white photo of a
man.
Charlie sat up straight. "Omigod. Is that him? Can we . . . "
"Go ahead."
The girls jumped up and went to the end table which held this portrait of a
man in his late forties, handsome with a well-trimmed mustache, black hair
graying at the sides, heavy dark-rimmed glasses. Charlie carefully lifted
it from the table. "To My Eternally Beloved Mona . . . Rhett Pearson."
Looking up from the photo, Charlie handed it to Amanda. "You mean . . ."
"Of course. Rhett has been my lover for the past fifteen years."
"Wow," said Amanda.
"That's a hell of a vocabulary you have there, girl."
"It's all I can think of to say Miss Jarrett. Just 'wow'."
"Okay, so now that you've got the picture, suppose you just set it back down
and start telling me what this nonsense is all about? My patience is
running a little short."
Charlie carefully returned the portrait to its place and came to the old
starlet's side where she suddenly sat down on the divan beside her. She
presumed to take the old girl's hand in hers and began to spill her heart
out, about how *Stars Over Savannah* was their favorite movie, and how they
thought it was awful that Rhett Pearson should have been robbed of credit
for it; she related how they were dedicated to solving the mystery of his
disappearance: they were here with her to discover--should she be willing
to cooperate--the reason for her suspicions concerning foul play. Charlie
explained that if anybody in Hollywood had an inside line on what's up about
town, it was her Daddy, and that if Miss Jarrett really wanted to get to the
bottom of this thing, then the agency of "Chance and Lane" was here at her
service.
Miss Jarrett, after expressing her highly bemused reservations that there
was anything a couple of "bobby-soxers" could do about it, at last softened
enough to say that since they were such ardent fans of Rhett Pearson's work,
then for that reason, strictly, she would informally confide a few things to
them, but on one condition. Gathering the gossamer black lace drapery of her
gown's sleeve to her lap, she sat slightly forward on the divan. "All right,
look you two. Anything I tell you must be held in the strictest confidence,
do you understand?"
"Oh yes," earnestly Amanda nodded her head in concert with Charlie. "Our
lips are sealed."
"We understand perfectly," said Charlie. "Because if foul play is involved,
we know how dangerous the whole thing could be, and we would never say or do
anything to bring any harm to you, our primary source."
"Never," said Amanda.
Charlie made a motion to her chest. "Cross our hearts." Amanda followed
suit, crossing hers.
"Aw, what the hell, I'm one foot out of Forest Lawn anyway, so what's it
matter?" With that as her prologue, the woman began to relate the matter: it
turned out that Pearson had most recently been working on another script for
Richard Shelby. There had been a falling out, finally, over the matter of
receiving co-writing credit.
"It was the best damn script he'd ever written, better than *Stars* and he
had finally . . . "
"Gawd." Charlie stared in amazement. "How could anything be better than
*Stars Over Savannah*?"
Mona pegged Charlie with a confidant stare. "I can show you the script and
you can see for yourself."
"Oh, well I . . ." Charlie looked to Amanda. "We'd be honored, I mean, we
believe you but . . . we'd be thrilled to pieces. Wouldn't we Mandy?"
"We sure would!"
Miss Jarrett waved the slender black holder back and forth. "They turned
this suite upside down looking for it."
"God!" Charlie scribbled something in her notebook and looked up again.
"Was this before or after he disappeared?"
"The day after. But do you think the police did anything about it?"
"Heck no," said Amanda. "They're too busy selling tickets to the
Policeman's Ball."
"Sure," said Mona Jarrett. "You bet, kid. In any case, whoever it was that
broke in here, they did not find the script. Rhett had it locked in a safe
deposit box. And don't ask where." She pulled the spent cigarette from the
holder, dropped it into a large crystal ashtray on the end table and took
another from a black, hand-painted Chinese box with a dragon in red and
green on the lid. She fitted that to the holder and took up a large silver
table lighter, an image of the Statue of Liberty, a flame automatically
leaping from the torch as it was raised from the marble surface.
Mona Jarrett set the lighter back down. "You see, the thing is that Shelby
had possession of only the first and second acts of a three act screenplay.
On the strength of just that much of the script, the studio had already gone
into production with it; they were already shooting. Shelby had never let
them down before, they had nothing to worry about, so they thought, until
Rhett refused to turn over the third act, unless Shelby would give him a
minimum of second billing on the writing credit."
Charlie, resting her pen and looking up from her notepad watched the woman
lean, in her so famously laconic manner, against the back of the divan.
"Two days after Rhett delivered that ultimatum, he disappeared. That was a
month ago."
Charlie sighed. "But, Miss Jarrett, honestly. What makes you think he's
been murdered?"
"What would you think? What would anybody? An entire month a man is gone
like this? God knows I should want for him to be alive, even if he was a no
good chiseling gigolo, the son of a bitch." The girls' eyes exchanged their
shock. "Yeah, what's the difference? I was lonely with him while he was
alive and kicking, always out cheating on me and chasing around, and I'm
lonely without him while he's dead. So what's the difference anyway, I ask
you? Yeah. Only listen to this: I don't think this kind of loneliness is
half as bad. At least if he's dead, I know where he is."
Amanda swallowed. "We're certainly sorry to hear that, Miss Jarrett."
"What are you sorry to hear, that he was a low down gigolo that drank all my
liquor, spent all my money, or that I loved him anyway in spite of it?"
Charlie mused over it. "I . . . think we . . . we're sorry that it had to
be like that, especially with him being such a genius and all."
Mona, with the light fairly faded from her eyes let her gaze rest on the
light coming in at the windows to the right. "Sure," she said. "You have to
give him that anyway."
Presently, Mona Jarrett turned back to look fondly upon Charlie. "So. You
really are Wilfred's daughter, are you?"
"I really am," said Charlie. "So, like, will wonders never cease?"
As a slight glint re-entered her eye, Mona Jarrett smiled. "I hope not."
--
JPD http://jpdavid.topcities.com/index.html
"I could never bend myself to any rule, not even as a child."
--Claude Monet
Rick
Daddy's Car: An Out of the Body Shop Experience
Good stuff. This is an excellent study in characterization. I regret not
followed your writing. Very professional too. It was a breeze to read.
For me, the only hitch was in the first paragraph.
> The doorman of the Knickerbocker in
> his uniform and cap, after a moment spent in admiration, stepped up to the
> car, and to pretty blue-eyed 17 year old Amanda, whose blonde hair was now
> well-blown about her face and shoulders after the top-down drive from the
> West Hollywood Strip.
I tripped on this sentence due to the focus shift between characters. Maybe
it's just my limitation.
Thanks for posting.
Rick
Real Gone Daddy
Rick <lebl...@nb.sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:IJxX6.10653$aW4.1...@news-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
Hm. If you could point out the specific point in the sentence where the
syntax went ka-blooey, I could form a better idea of what the deal is.
In any case, it is certainly gratifying to find your good report, Rick. If
you missed the first segment and would care to see it, you can find it here
. . .
Both chapters have been through some considerable revision since being
posted here. Take for example the first two grafs of the first chapter,
*Daddy's Chair*, which now read like this . . .
Did I happen to mention that Charlene "Charlie" Chance is sixteen and a half
years old, with pink hair and green eyes; that her Daddy was, still is, a
highly successful Hollywood, California hairdresser, and her mama is
good-looking: a Chinese-American nymphomaniac B-Movie Sexpot?
No? Well then it just goes to show that not every woman was cut out to be a
Divisional Tank Corps Commander in the Salvation Army; so there's no one
need for anyone to be getting his or her libido all in a twist over it at
all just because Charlie's Mama was (and still is) the very sort of woman
who not only would but actually did, upon one late Saturday afternoon, reach
out in heat of an irresistible passion to forcibly--can you believe
it--ravage Charlie's poor gay handsome Daddy right there in a chair of the
very beauty salon he runs? Listen: it happened when the blinds had been
drawn behind a setting sun; it happened after all the other hair was gone
and done, gone with the staff of other beauticians, when the door was locked
behind all but Charlie's daddy and the last remaining lady of the day,
Charlie's mama, Ms Lilly Lang, for whom he, Wilfred P. Chance was preparing
a fifty dollar deluxe permanent wave in that otherwise deserted palm shaded
parlor just a few doors down from Schwab's Drugstore at the intersection of
Laurel Canyon and Sunset Boulevard.
>
> Thanks for posting.
Well, thank you for clicking. :-)
--
John http://jpdavid.topcities.com/index.html
"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day."
--Ross Parker, Hughie Charles
Real Gone Daddy
other some glitches got into the text that just did not belong in it. This,
from *Daddy's Chair*, I believe, is the final version (at least until some
deadeye sharp, comma punchin' editor gets a shot at it) . . .
Did I happen to mention that Charlene "Charlie" Chance is sixteen and a half
years old, with pink hair and green eyes; that her Daddy was, even still is,
a highly successful Hollywood, California hairdresser, and her mama is
good-looking: a Chinese-American nymphomaniac B-Movie Sexpot?
No! Well? Then it just goes to show that not every woman was cut out to be
a Divisional Tank Corps Commander in the Salvation Army; so there's no one
need for anyone to be getting his or her libido all in a twist over it at
all just because Charlie's Mama was (and still is) the very sort of woman
who not only would but actually did, upon one late Saturday afternoon, reach
out in heat of an irresistible passion to forcibly--can you believe
it--ravage Charlie's poor gay handsome Daddy right in a chair of the very
Rick
> Hm. If you could point out the specific point in the sentence where the
> syntax went ka-blooey, I could form a better idea of what the deal is.
(Focus here is on the doorman.)
The doorman of the Knickerbocker in
his uniform and cap, after a moment spent in admiration, stepped up to the
car, and to pretty blue-eyed 17 year old Amanda,
(Now Amanda.)
whose blonde hair was now
well-blown about her face and shoulders after the top-down drive from the
West Hollywood Strip.
It is correct, I realized, but I had to reread the sentence to put it
straight -- the only instance.
Thanks. I will read the other segments.
Rick