Century Park West were sealed at Santa Monica and West Olympic by twelve-foot-high concrete tank barriers. Constellation Boulevard was now a pedestrian mall running between CPE and CPW The only way in or out was through the checkpoint gates at the north end of Avenue of the Stars.
The record labels, production companies, networks, talent agencies, and studio corporate offices that made CC home had long been seeking this kind of security from interlopers. No longer did they have to fear an unsolicited demo tape, head shot, or spec script. The gun towers were finally in place, and, rumor had it, a convoy of armored fighting vehicles was parked in one of the 20th Century Fox lot's many empty soundstages. Ready to whisk the inhabitants to safety should they come under siege.
I had a pass.
Of almost equal importance, I had a car that was suitably obscene and a wardrobe that matched. I'd been careful to choose both for the occasion.
Conspicuous consumption was the mode in these circles. Driving a Prius might still have scored status points in West Hollywood, but the power elites had taken to declaring their faith in the future and the sustainability of rampant consumerism by rededicating themselves to the better things in life.
African famine relief, environmentalism, election reform, alternative fuels, building homes for the poor, greenness of any shade, they all seemed to smack of ostentation, a self-glorifying austerity that betrayed a distinct lack of optimism.
If the rich could not be seen to believe that things were going to improve, then what hope for the masses?
I gave my name at the gate, let a black-uniformed, typically chiseled and severe Thousand Storks security contractor scan the RFID tag on my national ID card, pressed my thumb into a biometric reader, waited while they called to confirm my appointment, and took the parking ticket the contractor handed me, noting the sign that warned I'd be charged twenty-five dollars for every fifteen minutes, without validation.
I repeated a similar process at the security desk and elevator bank of Century Plaza Tower North.
In the old days the fortieth floor would not have been considered the penthouse level, but the top four floors of both buildings had been cleared of their regular tenants, replaced by multiservice command and observation posts. Southern California Theater of Operations Command was headquartered there, with liaison presences from the CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, DEA, CDC, FEMA, CBP, LAPD, LACS, and, I'd heard rumored, representatives from the DGA, SAG, and WGA.
But that may have been one of those L.A. jokes.
The very top floors of both towers, the forty-fourth, had been evacuated entirely. It had been necessary to clear the floors so that additional load-bearing beams could be installed to support the weight of the batteries of Avengers and I-HAWKs that had been brought in and deposited on the roof by Chinook helicopters. That combination of antiaircraft weaponry meant to ensure that nothing from a traffic copter to a C-5 Galaxy could be crashed into the towers.
Hindsight paving the way, as usual, to a safer future.
Standing at a corner window of the north tower, looking up at the tip of an I-HAWK poking over the edge of the south tower, I couldn't help but reflect on the chaos that would ensue when one of those things launched, raining debris and shattered glass onto the rooftop tennis courts of 2000 Avenue of the Stars. Bankers and lawyers, maimed during their lunchtime matches, would sue the Pentagon into submission and put a lien on the GNP.
"Is something amusing you?"
I turned from the window, erasing the slight smile that had sketched my lips for a moment.
"Mutilated lawyers."
She looked up from the mechanism in front of her, considered, and squeezed a few drops of Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber onto the tip of a cotton swab.
"Yes, I get that."
I came across the polished bamboo floor, gliding in my silk-stockinged feet, hands in my pockets, where
The record labels, production companies, networks, talent agencies, and studio corporate offices that made CC home had long been seeking this kind of security from interlopers. No longer did they have to fear an unsolicited demo tape, head shot, or spec script. The gun towers were finally in place, and, rumor had it, a convoy of armored fighting vehicles was parked in one of the 20th Century Fox lot's many empty soundstages. Ready to whisk the inhabitants to safety should they come under siege.
I had a pass.
Of almost equal importance, I had a car that was suitably obscene and a wardrobe that matched. I'd been careful to choose both for the occasion.
Conspicuous consumption was the mode in these circles. Driving a Prius might still have scored status points in West Hollywood, but the power elites had taken to declaring their faith in the future and the sustainability of rampant consumerism by rededicating themselves to the better things in life.
African famine relief, environmentalism, election reform, alternative fuels, building homes for the poor, greenness of any shade, they all seemed to smack of ostentation, a self-glorifying austerity that betrayed a distinct lack of optimism.
If the rich could not be seen to believe that things were going to improve, then what hope for the masses?
I gave my name at the gate, let a black-uniformed, typically chiseled and severe Thousand Storks security contractor scan the RFID tag on my national ID card, pressed my thumb into a biometric reader, waited while they called to confirm my appointment, and took the parking ticket the contractor handed me, noting the sign that warned I'd be charged twenty-five dollars for every fifteen minutes, without validation.
I repeated a similar process at the security desk and elevator bank of Century Plaza Tower North.
In the old days the fortieth floor would not have been considered the penthouse level, but the top four floors of both buildings had been cleared of their regular tenants, replaced by multiservice command and observation posts. Southern California Theater of Operations Command was headquartered there, with liaison presences from the CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, DEA, CDC, FEMA, CBP, LAPD, LACS, and, I'd heard rumored, representatives from the DGA, SAG, and WGA.
But that may have been one of those L.A. jokes.
The very top floors of both towers, the forty-fourth, had been evacuated entirely. It had been necessary to clear the floors so that additional load-bearing beams could be installed to support the weight of the batteries of Avengers and I-HAWKs that had been brought in and deposited on the roof by Chinook helicopters. That combination of antiaircraft weaponry meant to ensure that nothing from a traffic copter to a C-5 Galaxy could be crashed into the towers.
Hindsight paving the way, as usual, to a safer future.
Standing at a corner window of the north tower, looking up at the tip of an I-HAWK poking over the edge of the south tower, I couldn't help but reflect on the chaos that would ensue when one of those things launched, raining debris and shattered glass onto the rooftop tennis courts of 2000 Avenue of the Stars. Bankers and lawyers, maimed during their lunchtime matches, would sue the Pentagon into submission and put a lien on the GNP.
"Is something amusing you?"
I turned from the window, erasing the slight smile that had sketched my lips for a moment.
"Mutilated lawyers."
She looked up from the mechanism in front of her, considered, and squeezed a few drops of Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber onto the tip of a cotton swab.
"Yes, I get that."
I came across the polished bamboo floor, gliding in my silk-stockinged feet, hands in my pockets, where
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