Lullaby Town

Snowbirds, come down to beat the cold. At a red light on Santa Monica and La Brea I pulled up next to a maroon Buick sedan from Alberta with a very short man and a very short woman in the front seat and two very short children in the rear. The man was driving and looked confused. I gave them a big smile and a wave and said, 'Welcome to Los Angeles.' The woman rolled up her window and locked the door.

I stayed on Santa Monica to Gower, then turned right and followed Gower down past the Hollywood Cemetery to Paramount.

Paramount Studios is an Olympian structure on the corner of Melrose and Gower with a beige stucco siege wall running around its perimeter. The wall is very high, with a heaviness and permanence that has kept Paramount in business long after most of the other original Hollywood studios have gone. In a neighborhood marked by poverty and litter and street crime, it is free from graffiti. Maybe if you got too near the wall, thugs in chain mail poured boiling oil on you from the parapets.

I rounded the corner at Melrose and tooled up to the guard at Paramount 's front gate. 'Elvis Cole to see Donnie Brewster.'

The guard looked in a little file. 'You the singer?'

I shook my head. 'Elvis Presley died in 1978.'

The guard found a yellow slip, stuck it to my window with a piece of tape. 'Not the King. That other guy. With the glasses.'

'Elvis Costello. No. I'm not him, either.'

The guard shook his head sadly. 'Christ, I remember a time, you said 'Elvis' there was only one.'

Probably just promoted from parapet duty.

Donnie Brewster was in a two-story earth-colored adobe building with a red tile roof and bird of paradise plants the size of dinosaurs. A receptionist led me to a secretary who showed me into a dark-paneled conference room. In the conference room were Patricia Kyle and a man in his late thirties with a sharply receding hairline and an eight-hundred-dollar sport coat that fit him like a wet tent. What hair he had left was pulled back tight into a short ponytail. Style.

Pat Kyle stood up and smiled and gave me a kiss. She'd been working on her tan since I'd last seen her and it looked good. 'Elvis Cole, this is Donnie Brewster. Donnie, Elvis Cole.'

Donnie Brewster gave me a moist hand and looked nervous. 'Christ, where were you? I thought you'd never get here.'

'The pleasure is all mine.'

Donnie gave me everyone's-out-to-get-me eyes and glanced at Pat Kyle. 'She warned me you thought you were a riot. What you've gotta understand is that this isn't funny.' He held up three fingers. 'There's Spielberg, then Lucas, who doesn't direct anymore, then Peter Alan Nelsen. Peter's grosses total one point two billion worldwide over six pictures. He's the third most successful director in the history of film, and he knows it.'

'Hard to keep it a secret from him.'

Donnie rubbed his hand over his scalp and tugged at his ponytail, When he rubbed, he rubbed hard. Maybe that's why his hairline was receding. He said, 'Peter's gifted and brilliant. Gifted and brilliant people are sometimes difficult and have to be handled carefully.' I think he was saying it as much to himself as he was to me. He looked at Pat Kyle. 'Did you tell him what this is about?'

'Yes.' Pat repeated what she had told me.

Donnie nodded and looked back at me. 'That's about it. We need someone who can find the ex and the kid and not waste a lot of time doing it.'

'Okay.'

He sat in one of the swivel chairs, leaned back, and gave me the appraisal look. Getting down to the business of hiring a private eye. 'You charge by the hour or the day?'

'I get a flat fee. In advance.'

'How much?'

'Four thousand, plus expenses. The expenses I bill later.'

'That's absurd. We couldn't pay four thousand in advance.'

'How about six thousand?'

He tapped on the table and gave me his best business-affairs frown. 'You give it back if you don't find what you're looking for?'

'No.'

More tapping. Convincing himself. 'I had our lawyers call around. They spoke to a guy in the D.A.'s office and a policeman named Ito. They say you're pretty good at this sort of thing. How many cases like this have you handled?'

'Maybe three hundred.'

'Uh-huh. And how many times out of that three hundred did you find the person you were looking for?'

'Maybe two ninety-eight.'

Donnie raised his eyebrows and looked impressed. Maybe he was feeling better about the four grand. 'Okay. We get you going on this, how long is it going to take to find them?'

'I don't know.'

'Well, can't you give me some sort of ballpark?'

I spread my hands. 'If she's living in Encino and telling her friends that she used to be married to Peter Alan Nelsen, maybe I find her tomorrow. If she's changed her name five times and working as a missionary in the Amazon, it takes longer.'

'Jesus Christ.'

I made a little shrug and smiled. Mr. Confident amp; Assured. 'It's rarely that bad. People usually don't change their names five times and move to the Amazon. People use credit cards, and credit histories list prior residences, and people own cars and driver's licenses and social security numbers, and any of these things are ideal for tracing someone.'

He didn't seem bolstered by my assuredness. He rubbed at his hair again and got up and paced. 'Peter is three weeks away from making a film, and he has to start this crap about finding his family. Christ, he hasn't seen the woman in over ten years. You'd think he could wait until the picture was finished.'

'Insensitive of him.'

Donnie crossed his arms and kept pacing. 'Hey, I know what that sounds like, but you've got to understand. We've got forty million dollars committed to Peter's film. I've already spent eighteen mil. I've got sets and soundstage rent. I've got stars with play-or-pay deals and a crew I'll have to carry. If Peter is distracted, we could run over budget into the tens of millions. We could end up with another Heaven's Gate. I could lose my ass.'

Maybe I'd be nervous, too. 'Okay. Then maybe it makes sense to wait until the picture is finished before we get started. The ex-wife will still be wherever she is. I'll still be around. Call me then.'

Donnie rolled his eyes and stopped the pacing and dropped into another chair. 'Did you see Chainsaw?'

'Yes.'

'Chainsaw was Peter's first picture. He made it for something like four hundred thousand. It grossed four hundred million and overnight Peter Alan Nelsen went from parking cars to being Hollywood 's new wunderkind. Every picture he's made has grossed a fortune. Every studio in town wants Peter Alan Nelsen's next picture. The biggest actors in the business suck around him for a role and Oscar-winning screenwriters pimp their mothers for a shot at a development deal. You hear what I'm saying?'

'You're saying that Peter gets what Peter wants.'

'Abso-fucking-lutely. Peter being happy is the most important thing there is. Peter wants to find these people, and we want Peter happy, so we're gonna hire somebody.'

I said, 'Make Peter happy.'

'Abso-fucking-lutely.' Donnie slapped his palms down on the table and stood. 'I like you. I like you fine. Peter knows about you, and wants to meet you, so all we have to do now is go over and see him. If Peter's happy, you're hired.'