Show Business Is Murder Read online

  HATOOM: The meeting deteriorated, and Odeh, from what I understand, was removed by security.

  KAGEN (to Monk): And you found this out by calling around?

  [Monk shrugs.]

  KAGEN (cont’d): Some Rolodex. Sam L. Jackson or Ving Rhames for sure, Monk. The best is what you deserve.

  MONK: Lovely. Look, Jabari, you know damn well I’m not going to be part of an attempt to railroad Odeh or anybody else. But somebody tossed those hot totties.

  HATOOM: And the Molotov is the Intifada favorite?

  MONK: Maybe it’s a set-up or it was done to send a message and a signature.

  HATOOM: You’ve already made up your mind.

  MONK: I’m suspicious by inclination, not vindictive, man. It comes down to this, you want it to be only the FBI that gets to talk to Odeh?

  HATOOM: You drive a hard mule, Mr. Monk.

  MONK: Make the call, will you, Jabari?

  HATOOM: Okay. But I’m not promising anything.

  MONK: Understood.

  {The two shake hands again.}

  CUT TO:

  INT. ’64 FORD GALAXIE—DAY

  {Monk and Kagen drive away and Kagen’s cell phone RINGS.}

  KAGAN (clicking on phone): Hello? (he listens, then:) Thanks, Mina. We’ll swing by there to see him.

  {He clicks off the phone, and over this says to Monk:}

  KAGEN: That was my assistant. She’s got a friend over at Cedars. Alan is awake and lucid, and the cops don’t know it yet.

  EXT. ’64 FORD GALAXIE

  {The car picks up speed along the city streets.}

  INT. BURN WARD, CEDARS SINAI

  HOSPITAL—DAY

  {Alan Ross is propped up in his hospital bed in the burn ward populated by several other patients, visitors, and hospital staff. His upper body is bandaged as is part of his face and head.} {Numerous flower arrangements are spread out on the night stand and floor near his bed. Monk and Kagen stand on either side of his bed.}

  MONK: That’s it?

  ROSS (soft voiced):’Fraid so. He was young, about twenty-two or so, dressed in normal clothes (beat) you know, jeans and a sweatshirt.

  MONK: Any logo on the sweat shirt?

  ROSS: No, no it was plain.

  KAGEN: And this kid was Arab?

  {Ross hesitates.}

  ROSS: He didn’t have an accent, but he was, well, brown-skinned and dark-haired.

  KAGEN (to Monk): All the more reason to get to Odeh.

  MONK: But he called you traitor?

  ROSS: That’s right.

  MONK: Are you of Arab extraction?

  ROSS: No, nor am I Jewish.

  {Monk says nothing, mulling over the information.}

  DISSOLVE TO:

  INT. KODAMA AND MONK’S HOUSE,

  STUDY—NIGHT

  {In the comfortable and book-lined study, Kodama is sketching with a charcoal pencil on a freshly stretched and guached canvas on a easel. Monk sits and sips on Scotch from a tumbler. His face is a barometer of his intense concentration.}

  KODAMA: Even if the attacker was Arab, that doesn’t mean he was operating on anybody’s orders. There’re plenty of people inflamed on all sides of this who are more than willing to act alone.

  MONK: Sure, but the reality is I’ve got to talk to Odeh to satisfy myself.

  KODAMA: What if he ducks you

  MONK: Then how would you interpret that?

  KODAMA: It doesn’t mean he’s guilty. It might mean despite Jabari vouching for you, he doesn’t want to in any way further jeopardize his organization. He’s doesn’t know you to be the big, sweet, voodoo daddy I love.

  {She laughs and he grins.}

  KODAMA (cont’d): But you’re right, you will have to have some face time with him.

  {She continues working.}

  MONK

  {—is sullen then brightens.}

  MONK: You got a sharp Number 2 pencil, baby?

  KODAMA (stops sketching): What?

  MONK (standing): Grab one and your sketch pad. We got a patient to see.

  KODAMA (hand on hip): I am not your secretary.

  {Monk has crossed to her, his arm around her waist.}

  MONK: You’re a Renaissance woman, you know that?

  {He points at the canvas.}

  MONK (cont’d): And bring your glasses, baby. I want those lines crisp in this next drawing.

  KODAMA: Kiss my ass.

  INT. BURN WARD, CEDARS SINAI

  HOSPITAL—NIGHT

  {Kodama, wearing her glasses, sits next to Ross’s bed, doing a sketch of the man who threw a Molotov at him. She stops and holds it up for the vp of development to see.}

  KODAMA: How this?

  ROSS: A little more shallowness in the cheeks and the eyes wider.

  C.U. OF DRAWING

  {Kodama resumes working on the drawing.}

  ROSS (cont’d): (to Monk) This is the second time I’ve done this. I described this guy to the police sketch artist the detectives who interviewed me sent this afternoon. (beat) They’ve got a head start on you, Ivan. I heard the younger one tell the older one they were going to check the drawing against the Homeland Security database. And canvas several Arab hangouts in the San Gabriel Valley a sheriff ’s friend was hooking them up with.

  MONK: When you hesitated this afternoon in describing this cat, that just wasn’t about guessing at his ethnicity was it?

  {Kodama stops sketching to look at Monk.}

  ROSS

  {—chews his lower lip.}

  ROSS: It’s just an impression.

  MONK: Come on, share.

  ROSS: As you know, I come into contact with a lot of actors. Not so much across my desk but at the hot spots, the watering holes that come and go on the A list one must frequent to keep up appearances.

  MONK: And a starlet or two you might stumble over.

  ROSS: Sure there’s that.

  KODAMA

  {—makes a face.}

  MONK: Are you saying you’ve seen this guy at one of those places?

  ROSS: No, like I said, it’s only a feeling. (beat) The way he, handled himself reminded me, well, like he was auditioning, you know?

  {Monk and Kodama exchange a look.}

  INT. TAYLOR’S STEAKHOUSE—

  NIGHT—CONTINUOUS

  {The steakhouse is an old school beef and booze joint with a dark interior and decor that hasn’t been updated since the LBJ Administration. Under the din of the patrons, a basketball game plays on the TV at the end of the bar.}

  {Monk and Kagen sit in a booth in the upstairs area, enjoying their heavy caloric intake.}

  MONK

  {—finishes chewing and swallows. He has a drink of water, then reaches over to extract a folded photograph out of his jacket’s inner pocket hanging on a hook. He unfolds the photograph and places it on the table.}

  CU

  {—of the photograph, an actor’s headshot. His hair is longer in the shot, but it’s the young man who tossed the Molotov at Ross. On the credit line of the photo it reads: ALEX TUCCO}

  WIDEN

  {—Kagen shows no reaction as he samples more of his whiskey.}

  KAGEN: Good kid. He’s got a kind of De Niro–Pacino thing going for him.

  MONK: And I bet he’s scared shitless, Walsh, wherever you got him stashed. I suppose your lawyer will argue in court that he never meant to set Ross afire. That like the other one you hired to chuck a Molotov at you, Tucco was supposed to miss. But Ross charged him when he was about to throw the Molotov and it shook him.

  {Kagen calmly cuts a piece of his steak.}

  KAGEN: That’s good, I’ll have to remember that.

  {He eats.}

  MONK: You like to gamble, Walsh, you once got a two picture deal in a poker game against a producer with a hand of trip kings.

  KAGEN: I play the odds, Ivan.

  MONK: Fake the attacks to build up interest in the property, and hire me to show you’re still a player. But how the hell did you think engineering all this
bullshit was going to get you a deal, Walsh? Nearly killing someone is a hell of a way to entice future prospects.

  {Kagen has another piece of his steak and cleans his pallet with another swig of whiskey. He then clears his throat.}

  KAGEN: Nobody was ever going to make Bring Me the Head of Osama bin Laden, Ivan.

  MONK (pointing): But the attacks and the aftermath would generate coverage, you’d be the controversial writer-director on people’s lips like you once were when you did One Deadly Night.

  KAGEN (misty-eyed): How many times have you seen it, Ivan?

  MONK: At least four. The scene where Hack has been beaten by the guards and pieces of glass ground into his face and he just grins and tells them, “The thieves and junkies will always be on my side.” (shakes his head) Yeah, Walsh, you had it, man. (beat) Of course you’ve guessed when I got up to use the bathroom earlier, I placed a call to the cops.

  {Walsh finishes his drink and dabs his mouth with his cloth napkin.}

  MONK (cont’d): It wasn’t the potential money you could make, was it, Walsh?

  KAGEN: The magic, Ivan, I missed the magic.

  Kagen places the napkin gently on the table.

  KAGEN (cont’d): Let’s have some dessert and coffee. The carrot cake’s great here.

  FADE OUT.

  Line Reading

  PARNELL HALL

  FLETCHER GREENGRASS HANDED me the silver samovar and fell over dead.

  I must say I resented it. That was the cue for my big speech, I’d been working on it all week, I was really looking forward to it, and I wanted to do it right.

  Now, don’t judge me too harshly. You gotta understand. I was nervous about my performance. For one thing, I hadn’t acted in years. When I had it was in summer stock, at an Equity theater, where the actors got paid. I’d also appeared in movies, granted only fleetingly, but still enough to hold a Screen Actors Guild card. All of which made me a professional. And this was community theater. Amateur theater. And as a professional acting in amateur theater, I was expected to be good.

  I had a lot to prove.

  Which, if the truth be known, I probably wasn’t capable of. Because if I’d been any good as an actor, I’d still be doing it, instead of working as a P.I.

  I also didn’t know he was dead. Because Fletcher Greengrass was one of the hammiest actors I’d ever met, and when he fell over on his face, I, like everyone else in the cast, assumed he was pulling another one of his outrageous stunts just to upstage me, and undercut my big speech. So I was justifiably pissed.

  It was near the end of act two. I was alone on stage, awaiting the object of my affections, the virginal Emily, when young Mr. Greengrass emerged from her room instead.

  “Surprised?” he inquired in an exaggerated mocking tone. “I don’t know why. These thing happen, don’t they? How do you like it? So I got to her first, what’s the big deal?”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. I brushed it off.

  “Remember what you said? About women being like trophies?” He snatched up the samovar, held it out to me. “Here’s the award for the world’s worst ladies’ man. I think this belongs to you.”

  His delivery was so over the top that when he proceeded to take a nose dive, I naturally figured he was clowning.

  So did the director. A little man with no hair, except on his chin, he was given to histrionics, whether in an attempt to match Fletcher Greengrass’s tone, or because he had seen a director portrayed that way on TV, I couldn’t say. At any rate, he vaulted up onto the stage, which was at the far end of the Ridgewood High basketball court, to tell Fletcher Greengrass off.

  “Fletcher,” he declared. “That’s the last straw. You cooperate, or you’re out of the play. You think I can’t replace you, well I can. I’ll play the part myself, if I have to, rather than put up with this.”

  That was a brave boast. Fletcher Greengrass was our leading man, our young love interest, the one enamored of both Emily and Charlotte, the two young women in the piece. I say Emily and Charlotte—that’s their stage names. Emily was actually a young housewife whose name I didn’t know. Charlotte was Shirley something or other, a voluptuous young woman with auburn hair and a most remarkable collection of shirts, sweaters, and pullovers, none of which ever seemed to be hiding a bra.

  But I digress.

  Anyway, the director descended on the fallen body of Fletcher Greengrass like Washington marching on Richmond, (if that’s where he marched; as I grow older, my American history fades with everything else).

  “Get up and stop screwing around,” he ordered.

  Fletcher Greengrass had stopped screwing around, but he didn’t get up. He just lay there, doing a marvelous impression of a dead man.

  The aforementioned Emily and Charlotte crept out of the wings, where they had been waiting to enter after I had delivered my big speech. Also from the wings crept the other actor in the piece, whose name I couldn’t remember, though his name in the play was Ralph.

  The stage manager also poked his head out from behind the curtain. An elderly, often befuddled man, he inquired, “Where do you want to take it from?” a totally inappropriate comment, even if one of the actors hadn’t been dead.

  “Fletcher, get up now or you’re replaced.”

  “Now, now, I want him in the show,” Barnaby Farnsworth declared.

  Mr. Farnsworth was the playwright, and I only knew his name because it appeared in huge letters on the front of every script. A balding, middle-aged man, with pudgy features and twinkling eyes, Barnaby Farnsworth was a bit of a joke to the actors in the cast. The joke was that his play, Ride the Wild Elephant, was largely autobiographical, and that the part of Brad, modeled after him, was the one played by young, handsome, studly Fletcher Greengrass.

  Emily and Charlotte repressed giggles when Barnaby declared he wanted Fletcher in the play.

  “Yes, I know you want him in the play,” the director said. “But he can only be in the play if he stands up. I cannot direct an actor who takes naps in the middle of scenes.”

  The director placed his toe in Fletcher Greengrass’s ribs. He pushed, not gently. His eyes widened.

  I followed his gaze.

  The director was staring at the white froth dribbling from the corner of Fletcher Greengrass’s mouth.

  I FELT SORRY for the cop. As the local chief of a small town in Westchester county, the poor man couldn’t have had much experience with murders. Not to mention on-stage murders involving a full cast of characters and a silver samovar. While this was his jurisdiction, still I wondered how long it would be before a homicide sergeant arrived to relieve him.

  “So,” he said. “Who saw what happened?”

  Everyone began talking at once. The actors, director, playwright, stage manager. Even the light man, who had climbed down from his booth when it was clear something was wrong.

  The cop put up his hand. A large, overweight man, he was sweating profusely in his uniform. It was mid-July, and the gym was not air-conditioned. “One at a time, please. Who’s in charge here?”

  The stage manager attempted to assert his authority, but was quickly shouted down.

  “I’m in charge,” the director said.

  “And you would be?”

  “Morton Wainwright.”

  “Splendid. And where were you when it happened?’

  “In the audience.” He grimaced, shrugged. “I mean on the basketball court. Right here, watching the action on the stage.”

  Our eyes were drawn to the current action on the stage, which consisted of a doctor examining the body, while two EMS workers stood by with a gurney waiting to take it away. There was a crime scene ribbon up, and a police detective was searching the stage for evidence. Frankly, I had my doubts.

  The cop cleared his throat for attention. “Who was on the stage at the time?”

  “Just the two of them,” the director said.

  “The two of who?”

  “Him and the other actor. Stanley Hastings.”
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  The cop looked me over. I tried not to look guilty. Try that some time. It’s like trying not to think of an elephant.

  The cop didn’t seem convinced. He grunted the police equivalent of harumph, and turned back to the director. “What were they doing?”

  “They were playing a scene. They were doing okay. Not great, but okay. This was the first rehearsal off book—that means without scripts—and they had to be prompted a few times. No more than average, still it’s hard to get any pace going when you keep blowing the lines.”

  “That’s a fascinating inside look at theater,” the cop said dryly. “But I have this dead body.”

  The director flushed. “Yes, of course. Anyway, they got to the point where Fletcher hands Stanley the silver samovar and he keeled over dead.”

  “You say he handed Stanley the whatjamacallit?”

  “Samovar. Yes, sir.”

  “And that would be this gentleman here?” He fixed me with a steely gaze.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you must have been rather close to him.” He tried to say it casually, without insinuation.

  “I was standing right next to him.”

  “And you two were the only ones on stage?” This time, the insinuation crept in.

  “Were you thinking of fitting me for handcuffs?”

  “This is no laughing matter, Mr. Hastings.”

  “Yes, I know.” I tried to appear properly grave. Still, with the officer regarding me seriously as a suspect, it was all I could do to keep from giggling.

  “Stanley wouldn’t do anything like that,” the actress playing Emily said. I found myself more favorably disposed toward her, wished I knew her name. The actress playing Charlotte, whose name I did know, said nothing. Emily was looking better, bra or no bra.

  The author chimed in. “What’s going to happen to my play?” he wailed.

  I was pleased. It distracted the officer from me. He wheeled on the unfortunate man like an elephant about to crush a bug. “That remains to be seen,” he said ominously.