answers, either. In this case, even Sherlock Holmes might have despaired at the odds of discovering the truth through deductive reasoning.
In the garage, an arriving car traveled the rows in search of a parking space, turned a corner onto a down ramp, and another car came up out of the concrete abyss, behind headlights, like a deep-salvage submersible ascending from an ocean trench, and drove toward the exit, but Ethan alone was on foot.
Mottled by years of sooty exhaust fumes that formed enigmatic and taunting Rorschach blots, the low gray ceiling appeared to press lower, lower, as he walked farther into the garage. Like the hull of a submarine, the walls seemed barely able to hold back a devastating weight of sea, a crushing pressure.
Step by step, Ethan expected to discover that he wasn’t after all alone on foot. Beyond each SUV, behind every concrete column, an old friend might wait, his condition mysterious and his purpose unknowable.
Ethan reached the Expedition without incident.
No one waited for him in the vehicle.
Behind the steering wheel, even before he started the engine, he locked the doors.
CHAPTER 8
T HE ARMENIAN RESTAURANT ON PICO BOULEVARD had the atmosphere of a Jewish delicatessen, a menu featuring food so delicious that it would inspire a condemned man to smile through his last meal, and more plainclothes cops and film-industry types together in one place than you would find anywhere outside of the courtroom devoted to the trial of the latest spouse-murdering celebrity.
When Ethan arrived, Hazard Yancy waited in a booth by a window. Even seated, he loomed so large that he would have been well advised to audition for the title role in
The Incredible Hulk
if Hollywood ever made a black version.
Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer with cucumbers, tomatoes, and pickled turnip on the side.
As Ethan sat across the table from the big detective, Hazard said, “Somebody told me they saw in the news your boss got twenty-seven million bucks for his last two movies.”
“Twenty-seven million
each
. He’s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling.”
“Up from poverty,” Hazard said.
“Plus he’s got a piece of the back end.”
“That kind of money, he can get a piece of anybody’s back end he wants.”
“It’s an industry phrase. Means if the picture is a big hit, he gets a share of the profits, sometimes even a percentage of gross.”
“How much might that amount to?”
“According to
Daily Variety,
he’s had worldwide hits so big he sometimes walks away with fifty million, thereabouts.”
“You read the show-biz press now?” Hazard asked.
“Helps me stay aware of how big a target he’s making himself.”
“You got your work cut out for you, all right. How many movies does the man do a year?”
“Never fewer than two. Sometimes three.”
“I was planning to chow down so much on his dime, Mr. Channing Manheim himself would notice, and you’d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges.”
“Even you can’t eat a hundred thousand bucks’ worth of kibby.”
Hazard shook his head. “Chan the Man. Maybe I’m not hip anymore, but I don’t see him being fifty million cool.”
“He also owns a TV-production company with three shows currently on major networks, four on cable. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan, doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer. He has a line of sports clothes. Lots more. His agents call the nonacting income ‘additional revenue streams.’”
“People just pissing money on him, huh?”
“He’ll never need to shop for bargains.”
When the waitress came to the table, Ethan ordered Moroccan salmon with couscous, and iced tea.
Taking Hazard’s order, she wore the point off her pencil: lebne with string cheese and extra cucumbers, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, lahmajoon flatbread, seafood tagine…. “Plus give me two of those little bottles of Orangina.”
“Only
In the garage, an arriving car traveled the rows in search of a parking space, turned a corner onto a down ramp, and another car came up out of the concrete abyss, behind headlights, like a deep-salvage submersible ascending from an ocean trench, and drove toward the exit, but Ethan alone was on foot.
Mottled by years of sooty exhaust fumes that formed enigmatic and taunting Rorschach blots, the low gray ceiling appeared to press lower, lower, as he walked farther into the garage. Like the hull of a submarine, the walls seemed barely able to hold back a devastating weight of sea, a crushing pressure.
Step by step, Ethan expected to discover that he wasn’t after all alone on foot. Beyond each SUV, behind every concrete column, an old friend might wait, his condition mysterious and his purpose unknowable.
Ethan reached the Expedition without incident.
No one waited for him in the vehicle.
Behind the steering wheel, even before he started the engine, he locked the doors.
CHAPTER 8
T HE ARMENIAN RESTAURANT ON PICO BOULEVARD had the atmosphere of a Jewish delicatessen, a menu featuring food so delicious that it would inspire a condemned man to smile through his last meal, and more plainclothes cops and film-industry types together in one place than you would find anywhere outside of the courtroom devoted to the trial of the latest spouse-murdering celebrity.
When Ethan arrived, Hazard Yancy waited in a booth by a window. Even seated, he loomed so large that he would have been well advised to audition for the title role in
The Incredible Hulk
if Hollywood ever made a black version.
Hazard had already been served a double order of the kibby appetizer with cucumbers, tomatoes, and pickled turnip on the side.
As Ethan sat across the table from the big detective, Hazard said, “Somebody told me they saw in the news your boss got twenty-seven million bucks for his last two movies.”
“Twenty-seven million
each
. He’s the first to break through the twenty-five-million ceiling.”
“Up from poverty,” Hazard said.
“Plus he’s got a piece of the back end.”
“That kind of money, he can get a piece of anybody’s back end he wants.”
“It’s an industry phrase. Means if the picture is a big hit, he gets a share of the profits, sometimes even a percentage of gross.”
“How much might that amount to?”
“According to
Daily Variety,
he’s had worldwide hits so big he sometimes walks away with fifty million, thereabouts.”
“You read the show-biz press now?” Hazard asked.
“Helps me stay aware of how big a target he’s making himself.”
“You got your work cut out for you, all right. How many movies does the man do a year?”
“Never fewer than two. Sometimes three.”
“I was planning to chow down so much on his dime, Mr. Channing Manheim himself would notice, and you’d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges.”
“Even you can’t eat a hundred thousand bucks’ worth of kibby.”
Hazard shook his head. “Chan the Man. Maybe I’m not hip anymore, but I don’t see him being fifty million cool.”
“He also owns a TV-production company with three shows currently on major networks, four on cable. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan, doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer. He has a line of sports clothes. Lots more. His agents call the nonacting income ‘additional revenue streams.’”
“People just pissing money on him, huh?”
“He’ll never need to shop for bargains.”
When the waitress came to the table, Ethan ordered Moroccan salmon with couscous, and iced tea.
Taking Hazard’s order, she wore the point off her pencil: lebne with string cheese and extra cucumbers, hummus, stuffed grape leaves, lahmajoon flatbread, seafood tagine…. “Plus give me two of those little bottles of Orangina.”
“Only
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