Gambling For Georgetown (A Jake Logan Private Tutor Mystery): A Jake Logan Private Tutor Mystery

1

As I watched the crowd of unemployed actors surround the casting director, I realized that the fire in my belly had become a dying ember.

She was a stylish middle-aged woman wearing an orange pashmina scarf. I was a youngish actor in shirt and jeans, a decade of bit parts under my belt. We were standing on opposite sides of the reception hall of a hotel in Santa Monica, along with two hundred other hopefuls, wannabes, and cast-asides.

I gripped my drink, not really sipping it, trying to look casual. Across the room, the woman in the orange pashmina scarf was being accosted on every side by actors frantic to make a Hollywood connection. I could smell the stench of their desperation.

To my left was a walking piece of sleaze named Brody. All the signs were there—the douchebag knitted cap, slouched shoulders, unshaven cheeks, darting black eyes, expensive phone. He vibrated high, nervous, like an addict, which he probably was.

See, I knew Brody, but he wasn’t my friend. We’d never even exchanged last names. We’d just recognized each other from various auditions. To my knowledge, Brody was a lot of things—drifter, drinker, drugger, dabbler in this, exploiter of that—but mostly a ne’er-do-well. I wouldn’t trust the guy with a sack of pencil shavings.

That woman looks familiar, I said. She’s a casting director. I think we read for her once.

I don’t remember, Brody replied. He was texting.

I’ve seen her somewhere before.

Then go talk to her, bro.

No way. After nearly a decade of in the acting business, I understood the pointlessness of the social massacre across the room.

This event had been billed as a networking event for actors. Nobody with any power had been stupid enough to attend, except for the woman in the orange pashmina.

Seriously, bro, get in there, get your face known, Brody said. Nothing to lose.

You first.

Ha, he said, "I don’t need to do that crap. The directors come to me."

He was boasting, and he was lying. I tried to be gentle. I heard Sandy dropped you, I said.

Brody deflated. His head plunged into his chest, his lower lip protruding in the most pathetic way possible. Yeah. Whatever. I don’t need that chick.

That was another lie. He’d really needed Sandy. She’d been his agent, and getting dropped was bad news. For bit actors like us, once an agency dropped you, you were tainted, unless you had some traction built up.

You’ll find another, I said. Keep your chin up.

It’s hard, he said. I’m thinking of getting out of the business. Doing something else. Then he smirked. I heard you started tutoring.

Yeah, I said. Mostly high school kids. It’d paid my bills for a while now. Because I’d attended Harvard, word had spread fast, and now most of my business was by referral. I hadn’t really thought much about it.

He nodded. Killer. There’s so much else I’m doing.

Like what?

A dark grin smudged his face. Hooking up teenagers with fake IDs.

Jesus, I said.

It’s high tech now, bro. That magnetic strip—people pay serious cash for that. I got the hookup at the DMV too.

Don’t tell me, I said. That’s a felony.

It’s chill, don’t worry. Then he shook his head. "I dunno, bro. I still can’t forget acting. It’s stronger than drugs. Keeps pulling me back. He nodded at the scrum. Look at them. They feel it too."

The actors had now formed a half-circle around the woman in the orange pashmina scarf. She was backed up against the wall, waving a cocktail in broad circle like a torch against the desperate mob.

I suddenly remembered where I’d seen the woman. I’d auditioned once for her, three years earlier, for a part in an HBO series. She’d cut me off early and thanked me for coming. That had stung, but I had a thick skin. You need it in the entertainment business.

The bad news was that my skin was cracking, in both senses. Corporate consolidations, shrunken production budgets, and creeping age had caused my career to slow down. In fact, it’d been three months since my last audition. That was why I was at this event. I’d rejoined the ranks of the miserable.

Hey bro, said Brody, maybe you could hook me up with Lew? Set up a meeting?

I rolled my eyes. Lew was my agent. He was a balding, conniving, sixty-two-year-old narcissist with a heart like a pebble and a taste for girls young enough to be his granddaughter. If he were a horse, I would’ve melted him down for glue—but he was the only person in the world who could still set me up for auditions.

You don’t want Lew, I said. The man’s a walking pathology.

"But he’ll hook me up. That dude’s been around forever."

I shrugged. Be careful of what you wish for.

A sudden commotion caught my ear. The casting director had decided to make a break for the exit. She was headed my way, en route to the door, the crowd following her. I stepped aside and flattened myself against the wall.

As the woman in the orange pashmina swept past, followed by a train of at least thirty people, her eyes lighted upon me. The casting director stopped walking and faced me, heyes searching my face.

I remember you, she said.

The mob fell silent. Thirty jealous faces swung towards me.

I remember you too, I replied.

The HBO series. You read for the part of Johnny.

Yeah. You didn’t let me finish.

Of course not, you were too smart. We needed someone authentically stupid. Are you still acting?

I shrugged. As much as anybody else here.

She cocked her head, studying me. Then she said, You should probably try something else.

The woman tossed her orange pashmina scarf around her neck and strode out of the room. I managed to keep my dignity until the voices of the mob had faded down the hallway. Then I finally doubled over, feeling the pain like a knife in my belly.

"That was awesome," said Brody.

I think I’m going to be sick, I said.

Are you kidding? said Brody. "She remembered you, bro. That’s half the battle."

I exhaled. She just told me to leave acting, you moron.

He waved it off. Whatever. She remembered you.

That’s when my phone rang. I looked at the display. It was a number that I didn’t recognize.

I always make ‘em wait, said Brody.

We are very different people, I said.

He held out his fist. I gotta bounce, bro. Let’s chill sometime.

I rolled my eyes for the second time. We would never hang out because Brody would never call me. It’d been written in the stars with his type.

I fist bumped him and watched him swagger away. Then I lifted the phone to my ear. Hello?

Is this Jake Logan? said a woman’s voice. She sounded scared.

Speaking.

You don’t know me, but my name is Joyce. You were referred to me by a friend for your tutoring services. She said you went to Harvard?

That fact was catnip. Of course, the fact that I’d been kicked out for helping another student during an exam—even though it was one whose father had just died—was never mentioned. I pretended like it hadn’t happened, and everybody was happy.

Yes, I did.

I was wondering if you had any time available to meet with my son, Michael?

A smile spread across my face. Her timing couldn’t have been better. My ego was a bleeding dog in the middle of the street. Yes, I do. Can you hold on a minute so I can get to place where we can talk a bit more?

Phone to ear, I walked out of the reception hall, out of the hotel, leaving the actors’ networking event far behind.

2

My conversation with Joyce had been short and direct. Her son Michael, a high school junior, needed help with English. She quickly agreed to my hourly rate, and we made plans for me to come over the next afternoon. No more details were offered.

The next day, I prepared for the session.

First, I showered and shaved and picked out a crisp pair of distressed jeans. It always helps to look crisp. Next, I picked out some photocopied materials from my bookshelf, mostly grammar and vocabulary. Lastly, I slipped behind the wheel of my car, and nosed the hood through rush-hour traffic on Wilshire Boulevard.

At a stoplight, I peered out my window. On the sidewalks, office workers were racing out of their office towers, phones pressed to their ears. Free of the shackles for another twelve hours. There were no shackles on my wrists except the ones I’d put there.

It was getting harder and harder to escape the conclusion that acting had been a stupid career choice. If you were a space alien watching a film set, you’d conclude that actors were insane. That’s no exaggeration. The successful television and movie stars have simply harnessed that insanity. They’ve learned to shape it.

Despite my sanity, I’d managed to eke out a living with small parts. The industry lingo for someone like me is working actor—which implies that it is some kind of unbelievable triumph merely to land a role. And I’d always taken pride in that.

I couldn’t do that anymore.

I looked at the address in my hand, then cranked the wheel and turned onto Michael’s street. An unremarkable series of dingbats slide past my windows. That’s the word Los Angelenos use to describe a cheap two-story apartment building with a carport underneath the cantilevered first floor. Dingbats were all built in the nineteen-fifties. Today, mostly single people and immigrant families live in them.

I craned my neck to read the parking signs. It was one-hour parking except for those with zone seven parking decals. I didn’t have a zone seven parking decal. This was a small problem, because our session was supposed to last two hours. I’d have to go outside and move my car halfway through.

That would be fine. It would give the kid a break. It would be similar to the way I always make an excuse to go to the bathroom on a first date. It gives the girl a moment to relax, to text her friends, to toss back another apple martini on my credit card. But it’d been a long time since my last date. Women can smell when a man is down, and they’d been steering clear of me like I was a hole in a road.

I parked, stepped out of my car, and locked it. In my left hand was a small bag with some academic materials that I’d had leftover from my last student. I’d never really expected to use them again.

I shuffled down the sidewalk, peering at the address on the paper in my hands, then down at the numbers painted on the curbs. Then I realized that I’d forgotten the number. I looked back at the paper, then forgot it again. I was like the dog that walks into a room and walks out again for no reason.

I found my brain and the address, in that order. To my surprise, Michael’s apartment was the only structure on the block that wasn’t a dingbat. It was a duplex that sagged like an old man in a chair at a public library. Curls of white paint sprouted from the siding like masses of Corinthian acanthus leaves.

I estimated that it had been built in the nineteen-twenties. That was the real golden era of Hollywood. Had I been alive then, I would’ve joined all the other hopefuls lined up along Gower Avenue, wearing my best cowboy garb, hoping for some background work that day. Back then, the studios had cranked out one Western a week, and they’d needed all the hayseeds and equestrians they could get.

The home squatted at the top of a short but steep driveway. I trucked up the steps and turned onto the front walk.

Three white plastic chairs were parked in the grass. Most people let their outdoor chairs collect dirt, but these were sparkling clean. That told me that Michael’s mother was conscientious.

On the porch was a small iron stand. On the tabletop was a collection of small ceramic pots, each holding a tiny cactus, none more than three inches tall. They used almost no water. That told me that Michael’s mother was frugal.

I bent over and touched my finger to one of the spines. A drop of blood appeared. I sucked it off and was left with the tangy taste of iron in my mouth. That told me I was a moron.

The front door stood partly ajar. I poked my head inside and realized that it was an entryway. One door stood to my right. A flight of stairs led to a second door at the top of the stairs.

My nose wrinkled. Then I saw why. An empty plastic jug of vinegar with the top sawed off lay behind the door. A small mop was jammed inside. They had just swabbed this entryway. Maybe because I was coming.

Clean. Responsible. Frugal. I was starting to get a sense of this family.

I didn’t know which door belonged to Michael—the downstairs or the upstairs. I stepped back onto the porch and studied the entrance again. There were two mail slots, but they’d been painted over years earlier. There were two doorbells, stacked on top of one another. Neither was marked. I tossed a mental coin and pressed the lower button with my finger.

From the lower level of the duplex came a faint sound of a doorbell. It sounded like the sigh of a fat girl who’s seen the last piece of cake disappear.

What is you want? said a voice from behind the door.

It was a woman’s voice. It held the faintest tinge of an accent, maybe Persian. I stepped forward into the entryway. A new phone book hung from the doorknob, sealed inside a plastic sheet. I sensed her standing right behind her door.

Then I looked into the peephole. A single brown eye was watching me. This was paranoid behavior. It wasn’t that type of neighborhood.

I waved sweetly at her. I see you, little girl.

The eye narrowed. Don’t play joke on me. What is you want?

My name is Jake. We talked on the phone.

We don’t talk on phone.

She was right, but I’ve always liked trying to get turtles out of their shells. I’m looking for Michael, I said.

The eyeball flicked towards the stairs. That family live upstair. Don’t ring my bell, please. It ruin my whole day when someone ring my bell.

I know, it’s terrible.

The eyeball squinted. Don’t bother me. I’m very busy woman. I have many things to do.

Of course.

The peephole closed. I listened for footsteps walking away, but there weren’t any. I sensed her standing behind her own door, just breathing.

She was a fuzzy mouse toy, and I was the cat that had just gotten bored. I turned away and began to climb the stairway. The bright overhead florescent lights assailed my eyeballs. Maybe I was just sensitive to lighting, but this must be a terrible thing to come home to every night.

At the top of the stairs, I rapped on the upstairs door. It was wooden and coffered and seemed original to the house. The brass had flecked off the knob from decades of use.

Footsteps echoed inside, and then the door opened. I found myself looking into the face of my new student.

3

If this kid was seventeen years old, then I was an Indian snake charmer.

He had muscles. Not small ones—but man muscles, spheres of striated tissue that bulged out from his arms and legs. It gave him the illusion of looking at least five years older than he was.

You must be Michael, I said. I’m Jake.

His eyes glanced over my shoulder. I could tell that his mind was somewhere else. Yeah, hey. Nice to meet you.

He offered a hand. It looked as strong as a staple gun. I warily grasped it. The pressure came so fast that I felt my knees buckle.

You’ve got a hell of a grip, I said, gasping.

Sorry. Come on in.

He dropped my mangled hand. I gingerly stashed it back in my pocket and stepped into his home.

The living room felt like it didn’t want to make a fuss. There was a sofa and chair, both covered in plastic. A small television had been squared off alongside a cabinet, inside of which was a set of chintzy blue-and-white china dishes. They felt very old-fashioned. The last time food had touched those plates, families probably still ate dinner together and Reefer Madness was being discussed without irony.

I inhaled. The smell of Lysol lingered in the air. My suspicions were confirmed. This family was middle-class.

It was a revelation. After all, many middle-class families have moved out of California. It started years ago, when ordinary people watched their property taxes begin to steadily rise. It sped up when the aerospace industry collapsed. Today, there are basically only three demographics left in Los Angeles—the wealthy upper class, the poor immigrant underclass, and struggling performers like me.

Michael gestured to the dining room table. We can work here, I guess.

I pulled out a chair. The back of the chair felt a little sticky. That was from long use. I placed my bag of materials on the floor and sat down.

Michael sat across the corner of the table from me. Do I need a pencil?

Yeah, you’ll need something to write with.

He disappeared into his bedroom. I glanced at the tabletop. Once pretty, the mahogany surface had faded with the years. Now, a series of wayward beverages had left an Olympic logo of rings.

Michael came back with a pencil and a deck of cards. He was drinking a frothy white liquid out of a tall glass. It looked like a protein shake.

Got everything? I said.

He finished the shake and wiped his mouth. Okay, I’m ready for this.

"Let’s