Ooh La La! Read online

  OOH, LA LA!

  Robin Wells

  RED LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

  Kate Matthews was a professor of history, a straight shooter, and the pre-eminent expert on Storyville—New Orleans's red-light district. It made sense that she'd be the historical consultant for the new picture being shot on location there. So, why was its director being so difficult? Was it because he'd been a child actor and was used to getting his way? She doubted that; his last flick had flopped, and he was counting on this one to resurrect his career. Maybe it was because he was so handsome. He was probably used to getting women to do as he wished. And now he wanted her to loosen up. To take a note from the city they were in, from the red-light district itself. But Kate knew that accuracy was crucial to the story Zack Jackson was filming—and finding love in the Big Easy was anything but. No, there would be no lights, no cameras and certainly no action until he proved her wrong. Then it'd be a blockbuster of a show.

  Chapter One

  Marvin Goldman leaned back in his enormous black leather chair, the one rumored to be made out of bull scrotum, and fixed his pale, beady eyes on Zack. “I gotta say, Jackson, I admire your balls.”

  Zack Jackson fought the urge to protectively cross his legs. The movie mogul’s testicle fixation gave him the creeps—which was exactly what Goldman intended. Everyone in Hollywood knew that the C.E.O. of Parapet Pictures had a nasty, sadistic streak, and his office testified to the fact. The walls and ceiling were lacquered a hellish black, the floor was paved in black marble, and the only light in the room emanated from the flameshaped globes that topped the tall torcheres along the walls. The old man’s enormous glass desk sat on a recessed black pedestal, which made it appear to be levitating. All he lacked was a pair of horns and a pitchfork to complete the picture.

  “Yessir, you’ve got a lot of nerve, showin’ up here to pitch another movie after the way your last one tanked.” The short, paunchy studio head pulled his ever-present uncut cigar out of his mouth and pointed the damp, turdlike end at Zack like an accusing finger. “You went ten million over budget, and you didn’t even deliver it in time for a holiday release."

  It was an effort to sit still on the ergonomically incorrect metal bench, but Zack managed. Word had it that the slanted, bleacherlike seats in front of the movie mogul’s desk had been deliberately designed to make people squirm, and Zack refused to give the old goat that satisfaction. He might have to grovel, but he’d be damned if he’d squirm.

  Goldman waggled his cigar again. “What was that friggin’ film called, anyway—Up in Smoke?”

  Oh, hell—now he was going to have to play the old man’s vicious little name game. “The title was Trial by Fire.”

  Goldman’s lips curled into an evil grin. “Oh, right. Up in Smoke was what happened to all our hopes for it.”

  It was classic Goldman. Zack waited until the old man’s cackle had faded into a phlegm-filled cough, then forced a deliberate calm into his voice. “As you know, Marvin, the weather was a problem on that shoot."

  Goldman made a low grunting sound. “Weather, schmeather. A good director shoots around it.”

  “It’s a little hard to shoot around a flood when the movie’s about a forest fire.”

  Goldman narrowed his beady eyes. “You sayin’ I don’t know my business?”

  Damn—it was always a mistake to disagree with Goldman. The old man had the fattest ego in Hollywood but the thinnest skin, and he took the mildest dissent as a personal attack.

  “Of course not, Marvin. No one knows the industry better than you do. I’m just saying some things went wrong on that picture.”

  “Yeah. The main one being that I green-lighted it in the first place.”

  The studio head leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his bulbous belly. The man’s odd physique had always reminded Zack of a child’s drawing of a person—a large circle for the body, a smaller circle for his bald, round head, then short, skinny sticks for the arms and legs. His cartoonish appearance was enhanced by the fact that his chair back rose a good foot higher than the top of his head.

  “The film before that fire fiasco was an even bigger flop.” Goldman reinserted the cigar in his mouth and contorted his lips to speak around it. “You know the one—the one where everyone had microchips implanted in their brains. What the hell was it called? Brain Truss?”

  The vile old goat was sub-human—a depraved, brutish, warped, malignant sore of a man, with a soul as black as the walls of his office. Unfortunately, he was also Zack’s last chance of ever making another movie.

  Zack unclenched his teeth just enough to answer. “The name was Brain Trust.”

  “Oh, right. Must have been my brain in a truss, givin’ that project the go-ahead." Goldman let loose another ragged cackle. “What’s your excuse for that one?”

  “Come on, Marvin—you know how things happen. There were a lot of unexpected delays and expenses on that shoot.”

  “Your job is to expect the unexpected.”

  “How could I expect that, halfway through the shoot, the leading man would have a car accident that would leave him in a body cast for three months? There were a bunch of other problems, too.” Zack lifted his hand and ticked them off, starting with his thumb. “Special effects couldn’t deliver as promised, the gaffers’ union staged a strike, the set designer quit in a huff, and distribution screwed up the ship date.”

  “You left one thing out,” Goldman snarled.

  “What?”

  “You forgot to mention it was a lousy movie.”

  Zack choked back the urge to dive across the desk and throttle the man. He pasted on a congenial smile. “I understand it’s doing well in some of the foreign markets.”

  Goldman glared at him, clearly irritated to have any ray of sunshine injected into this black hole of a meeting. “Oh, yeah," he sneered. “It’s a big hit in northern Siberia. And I hear it’s got ’em linin’ up for miles in Outer Mongolia.” He leaned back in his scrotum-upholstered chair and shook his head at Zack. “Like I said, Jackson, you got guts, darkenin’ my door again.”

  "Well, you’ve got guts, too, Marvin,” Zack fired back. If he stroked the little ghoul’s colossal ego, maybe he could turn things around. “That’s why I came.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, all but disappearing in his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that you trust your own instincts. You know a jewel when you see it, and you’re smart enough to know that a diamond is a diamond, whether it’s delivered in a blue box from Tiffany’s or found lying in the dirt.”

  “You sayin’ you’ve brought me some dirty jewels, Jackson?” Goldman’s lips curled around his cigar. “What are they—your family ones?”

  Christ. Didn’t the S.O.B. ever give it a rest? “Sorry to disappoint you, Marvin, but I’m talking about a script. I’ve got a real jewel of a story, and since you have the option on my next movie, you get first shot at it.”

  The old man snorted. “First shot? Hell, I’m your first and your last, and don’t think I don’t know it.” Goldman leaned forward and stabbed his stogie in the air. “You know what they’re callin’ you? Jinx. Jinx Jackson. Hell, I’m the only studio head in town who’ll take a meeting with you, and the only reason I did was to see if you had the nerve to show up.”

  Bile, bitter and acidic, rose in Zack’s throat. He knew how things were in this business. He’d been born into it—his grandfather had been an early film star, his father had been a big-screen heartthrob, and Zack himself had grown up in front of America, playing the precocious son of a small-town private eye in a popular TV series. He’d been in Hollywood all his life, and he knew it was an unforgiving town.

  Unforgiving, and superstitious. No one wanted to be a
ssociated with a loser You were only as good as your last movie, and if you bombed, it was hard to get a second chance. It was even harder to get a third.

  But that was exactly what Zack needed—another chance.

  And it was his lousy luck that his best shot of getting one was the miserable excuse for a human being sitting across from him, If Goldman took a pass on the project, it would be the kiss of death.

  The old man’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “I’m gonna give you a little advice. The Jackson name still has a lot of charisma, and you’re not too bad lookin’. Maybe you ought to consider goin’ back in front of the camera.”

  Zack shook his head. “Acting’s not for me.”

  “You did all right for yourself as a kid.”

  Yeah, and he’d hated it. He’d hated waiting around, doing nothing more significant than trying not to wrinkle his pants, while all around him the real action took place. The power was in the decisions—big decisions, like what stories would be made into movies, which actors would play the roles, which footage would end up on the editing room floor and which would make it to the screen. Little decisions, like where the lights should be set, if the script needed tweaking, whether or not a scene needed another take. The public thought the actors were the key to a film, but Zack knew they were just paint and hubcaps.

  The producer and the director were the ones who made it go. And in an increasing number of cases, the producer and the director were the same person. That had been Zack’s goal from early childhood: to become a producer-slash-director. A producer/director had complete control of the picture from the first draft of the script to the final edit.

  And more than anything, Zack wanted control. His childhood had been one long set of instructions. Do this; do that—no, not that way, this way. Smile. Don’t smile. Say this. Don’t say that. Like a poodle at a dog show, he’d been carefully groomed, trotted out on a leash, and judged on how obediently he followed orders. When he grew up, he’d promised himself, he would call the shots.

  And that was exactly what he’d done. He’d made nine feature-length movies, and he’d made all the decisions for each of them, from beginning to end. He’d found the stories, commissioned the scripts, sold the concepts, assembled the crews, directed the shoots, supervised the editing, and coordinated the distribution. Each film had brought a fresh set of headaches and problems, but Zack had loved every minute of it.

  He loved the challenges, loved the creative process, loved the way each project completely absorbed him. Hell, he just flat-out loved movies. In movies, life made sense. People had clear-cut goals and motives, and it was easy to see the relationship between their actions and the outcome. Good was rewarded, evil was punished, and the characters got to live happily ever after.

  Real life, of course, was nothing like that. In real life, love affairs always ended, friendships eventually fractured, and family ties—if they’d ever existed in the first place—inevitably frayed and severed. Zack sometimes wished he had the ability to con himself like the rest of the populace, but growing up in Hollywood, he’d learned the truth early.

  Love and friendship were just gussied-up business arrangements. Like any business, they operated on the basis of supply and demand, and they only worked as long as both parties got an equitable exchange of goods or services. The fact of the matter was, people inevitably left you or let you down. Work was the only thing that could be trusted, the only thing that lasted, the only reliable source of satisfaction.

  Unfortunately, Zack’s ability to work was in the hands of the testes-obsessed gnome of a man squinting at him across the table.

  Goldman sucked on his stogie, making the sound of a boot being pulled out of thick mud. “I’ll tell ya what, Jackson—bring me a project that has you in it, and we’ll talk.”

  “Nah. I’m no actor.”

  Goldman applied more suction to his cigar. “No director, either, judging from your last two pictures.”

  His last two pictures—were they all that counted? Didn’t it matter that all of the others had done well—damn well, considering the nature of the business?

  Apparently not. Zack’s stomach gnarled into a painful knot. Two strikes and it was all over. He wasn’t even going to get a third swing of the bat.

  A desperate, grasping-at-straws gamble formed in his mind. What the hell—he might as well go for it.

  He rose to his feet. “Well, I won’t waste any more of your time, Marvin. MGM wants a meeting, but I told them I had to talk to you first. Since you’re not interested, I guess that frees me up.” Zack strode to the door, his heart slamming hard against his chest. It was now or never. If Goldman let him walk out, his career was over.

  His hand was on the doorknob when Goldman finally spoke. “Aw, hell. As long as you’re here, you might as well give me what you got.”

  It wasn’t the most encouraging invitation he’d ever received to pitch a project, but it was an invitation nonetheless. Zack loosened his death grip on the doorknob and slowly turned. “If you’re not interested, there’s really no point.”

  “Sit down, dammit, and give me your pitch,” Goldman growled.

  Zack strolled back to his seat, trying to pretend his entire future didn’t hang in the balance, trying to ignore the way his stomach coiled like a cobra, trying to act calm and cool and nonchalant. He lowered himself on the gawd-awful bench, drew a deep breath, and plunged in.

  “As the opening credits roll, we find ourselves inside a brothel called the Ooh La La. We’re in New Orleans, and it’s the late eighteen hundreds. The set is lush—velvet drapes, Aubusson rugs, lots of mirrors, nude sculptures, elaborate gold-framed paintings. We hear voices—a woman’s laugh, the tinkle of crystal, piano music.” Zack leaned forward. “The camera pans the room, picking up scantily clad ladies, expensively dressed men, and a blindfolded piano player banging out jazz. We see that the piano player’s peeking out from under the blindfold. The camera goes in tight on his hands, and then we’re in his point of view, seeing what he sees from under the blindfold.”

  Goldman stared at him, his expression as blank as a movie screen after the last credit rolls.

  “We get little peeks of what’s going on in various parts of the room,” Zack continued. “We see a man’s hand scooch up under some colored petticoats. We see a woman squeezing a man’s behind as they dance in the corner. We see a woman bend over to pour a man a drink, and we get a close-up of cleavage—I’m talking major cleavage.” Zack held out his hands, as if he were palming a pair of basketballs. “Our piano player throws back his head. We see a large, gaudy chandelier on the ceiling, and next to it, a ribbon-covered swing. The swing is being lowered from the ceiling by a squeaky pulley. And then we see…” Zack paused for effect. “A horse.”

  “A horse?”

  Zack nodded. “A stallion, A man leads it into the room. Everyone steps aside and stops what they’re doing—everyone except the piano player, who just keeps on playing. We’re still in his point of view, so we’re just getting little glimpses of the action.”

  Goldman pulled the cigar out of his mouth. That was a good sign. When Goldman took out his cigar during a pitch, it meant he was interested.

  Encouraged, Zack continued. “First we see a close-up of the horse’s face. Then we get a glimpse of a young woman as she sits in the swing. We get a peek of her leg as she peels off her stockings, then a colorful whirl of petticoats being tossed through the air. We see another close-up of the horse’s face. We hear the swing being raised. We hear loud, bawdy voices. We see a close-up of a man, then a woman, then the horse.”

  Zack talked faster to convey the tempo. “The crowd gets louder. We hear murmurs of amazement. More close-ups of people’s expressions—shock, disbelief, revulsion, fascination. Another close-up of the horse, this time looking wild-eyed. The music gets louder. We see the piano keys, see the player’s fingers flying across them.” Zack paused for just a heartbeat. “And then we hear a long, loud whinny.”

  Goldman
sat perfectly still, the cigar between his fingers, his hands on his belly. “Hmm.”

  A triumphant thrill shimmied through Zack. Throw in a little deviant sex, and Goldman’s interest level shot up like the thermostat on the back lot in July. The trick now was to keep him interested.

  “The horse is led out,” Zack continued. “The crowd applauds and cheers. The piano player’s eye pans the room and lands on a brawny young delivery man in the back room, who’s just set down several boxes of whiskey. He’s staring through the doorway, stunned by what he’s just seen. The man continues to watch as the madam, a buxom old dame dripping jewelry, steps forward and says something flowery like, ‘The Ooh La La is pleased to present Salome and the dance of the seven veils.’ ”

  Goldman leaned forward. “The delivery man is the hero?” Goldman was asking questions—man, oh man, he was taking the bait!

  Zack nodded. “His name is Joe, and he’s just come to New Orleans from the bayou. He falls in love with the dancer. Her name is Sadie, and it turns out she’s working in the brothel as an indentured servant. She’d needed some quick cash for a noble cause—she paid for her grandmother’s treatment at a tuberculosis sanatorium—so she agreed to work for the madam for three years in exchange for three thousand dollars.

  “Joe wants to pay off her debt and marry her, but he doesn’t have any money. He’s in despair at the thought of having to wait until her time is up. And then he sees an ad for a big boxing match that offers a purse of ten thousand dollars. Joe decides to go for it.”

  Goldman sat perfectly still, his face inscrutable. Zack drew a deep breath and continued, “The man putting together the fight, see—his name is Drago—he controls all the gambling in town, and he’s one bad dude. To make the point, we’ll show a rigged riverboat race that ends in an explosion, a wild carriage chase down Canal Street, and a huge gunfight scene in a French Quarter saloon. This guy will do anything—and I mean anything—to win."

  “Drago tries to get Joe in his pocket when Joe starts winning all the preliminary fights, but our boy won’t play. Drago starts to get rough, but Joe outwits him. There’ll be a chase scene through the French Quarter, where Joe tries to escape two of Drago's thugs. There’s another scene where Joe discovers that Drago’s men have hidden broken glass in the bag of beans that Joe uses for a punching bag.