number, ten years older than Ronny. If they’d been partying late and had visited her coke dealer in Westwood on the way home to his Los Feliz condo, the center passenger partition would go up and she’d jump him right in the car. I like that. I liked her. She was funny and pushy and oversexed and refused to take any shit from her asshole boyfriend.
There were some nights when Ronny would go gambling alone at Hollywood Park Casino or one of the clubs in Gardena. I’d sit in the parking lot smoking cigarettes, reading a book, or jotting short story notes in my binder. Portia had instructions from me to only ring my cell phone in an emergency. Stedman didn’t know that I was Dav-Ko’s main guy in L.A. and I wanted to keep it that way.
He continued to request me to drive him primarily because I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t a wannabe anything, not an actor and not an aspiring director and I didn’t need a job in film production and I wasn’t one of the hundred people a day trying to get over on him or his uncle.
When, a couple of weeks later, he began a new film, I became his driver on a twelve-hour-per-day basis, shuttling assistants back and forth from the production office and running local errands. I was determined to stay busy and stay away from Portia and my boozing. I drank only a pint of Jim Beam while I worked, stretching the jug out as long as I could, plus a few wine coolers mixed in with my normal Xanax and Vicodin regimen to keep the edge off. I put in three days straight and had logged thirty-two hours behind the wheel.
The first day of actual shooting on It Creeps was a location at Santa Monica Beach beneath the Palisades, a quarter mile away from where a hundred Baywatch episodes had been filmed. It was a summer night-swimming scene where two girls are in the water nearly nude and their stalker, a tattooed serial killer called Kozmo in the script, wades in to slash them both up with his barber’s razor.
I drove Ronny and his secretary Kimberly around L.A. all that day running errands and then to the location during the setup at sundown. Ronny was edgy—barking orders—and constantly on his cell phone. We’d been fighting the home-ward-bound rush-hour traffic that feeds north on the Pacific Coast Highway from the 10 freeway.
As we pulled into the parking lot young Ronny became unglued. Some unsuspecting human shitball that was working on the film had been in a hurry and parked his Toyota sedan in the spot marked “X-Producer.”
Stedman threw his cell phone across the car, smashing it against the wooden console. Then he got out and slammed his two-thousand-dollar briefcase on the roof of the limo. Then he stomped over to where the director and the cast were running lines in preparation for the scene.
Kimberly had been putting up with his crap all day. She sighed deeply then jumped out too, hustling after him carrying the briefcase.
Standing there by Pearl, waiting for the shit to fly, was one of the grips, who came over to check out the stretch. He said his name was Chico but he wasn’t Mexican. Chico asked to look inside the limo and ogled the red leather and the woodwork and the TV and stocked bar. “Nice ride, my brother.”
“Thanks,” I said back. “Holllleeeewood. You know.”
“So how long have you been driving Mr. Big?” he asked.
“Not that long, but he’s become a damn good customer.”
“This is my third film with him. Ever been to his office at 9200 Sunset?”
“No,” I said.
“So you’ve never seen The Orchid?”
“The Orchid?”
“Yeah, he has an orchid in a big pot behind his desk on the cabinet. Ronny’s famous for that orchid.”
“Okay,” I said. “How come?”
“Well, you know that Mr. Big almost never leaves his office during the day. He never goes out. During business hours when he gets busy on the phone and that stuff, when Mr. Big has to take a squirt, what do you think he does?”
“He pisses in The Orchid?”
“Yup.”
“Isn’t
There were some nights when Ronny would go gambling alone at Hollywood Park Casino or one of the clubs in Gardena. I’d sit in the parking lot smoking cigarettes, reading a book, or jotting short story notes in my binder. Portia had instructions from me to only ring my cell phone in an emergency. Stedman didn’t know that I was Dav-Ko’s main guy in L.A. and I wanted to keep it that way.
He continued to request me to drive him primarily because I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t a wannabe anything, not an actor and not an aspiring director and I didn’t need a job in film production and I wasn’t one of the hundred people a day trying to get over on him or his uncle.
When, a couple of weeks later, he began a new film, I became his driver on a twelve-hour-per-day basis, shuttling assistants back and forth from the production office and running local errands. I was determined to stay busy and stay away from Portia and my boozing. I drank only a pint of Jim Beam while I worked, stretching the jug out as long as I could, plus a few wine coolers mixed in with my normal Xanax and Vicodin regimen to keep the edge off. I put in three days straight and had logged thirty-two hours behind the wheel.
The first day of actual shooting on It Creeps was a location at Santa Monica Beach beneath the Palisades, a quarter mile away from where a hundred Baywatch episodes had been filmed. It was a summer night-swimming scene where two girls are in the water nearly nude and their stalker, a tattooed serial killer called Kozmo in the script, wades in to slash them both up with his barber’s razor.
I drove Ronny and his secretary Kimberly around L.A. all that day running errands and then to the location during the setup at sundown. Ronny was edgy—barking orders—and constantly on his cell phone. We’d been fighting the home-ward-bound rush-hour traffic that feeds north on the Pacific Coast Highway from the 10 freeway.
As we pulled into the parking lot young Ronny became unglued. Some unsuspecting human shitball that was working on the film had been in a hurry and parked his Toyota sedan in the spot marked “X-Producer.”
Stedman threw his cell phone across the car, smashing it against the wooden console. Then he got out and slammed his two-thousand-dollar briefcase on the roof of the limo. Then he stomped over to where the director and the cast were running lines in preparation for the scene.
Kimberly had been putting up with his crap all day. She sighed deeply then jumped out too, hustling after him carrying the briefcase.
Standing there by Pearl, waiting for the shit to fly, was one of the grips, who came over to check out the stretch. He said his name was Chico but he wasn’t Mexican. Chico asked to look inside the limo and ogled the red leather and the woodwork and the TV and stocked bar. “Nice ride, my brother.”
“Thanks,” I said back. “Holllleeeewood. You know.”
“So how long have you been driving Mr. Big?” he asked.
“Not that long, but he’s become a damn good customer.”
“This is my third film with him. Ever been to his office at 9200 Sunset?”
“No,” I said.
“So you’ve never seen The Orchid?”
“The Orchid?”
“Yeah, he has an orchid in a big pot behind his desk on the cabinet. Ronny’s famous for that orchid.”
“Okay,” I said. “How come?”
“Well, you know that Mr. Big almost never leaves his office during the day. He never goes out. During business hours when he gets busy on the phone and that stuff, when Mr. Big has to take a squirt, what do you think he does?”
“He pisses in The Orchid?”
“Yup.”
“Isn’t
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