Fashionably Late (For My Funeral) Pt. 03

After three days rest we once more headed west, pausing briefly fifty miles out of New Orleans while I fitted my purchases.

"What are you doing?" Sendi had picked up what appeared to be a tube of lipstick.

"What you have there is what is known as a lipstick camera. It's a small video camera that can be hidden just about anywhere and the image is transmitted to a video recorder located somewhere else, in this case under the driver's seat. In this way we can monitor if anyone breaks into the van and someway tampers with it or hides something in it."

"You sound as if you think something is going to happen to us."

At one o'clock we stopped at a truck stop for lunch. The Winnebago was parked in the parking area at the side of the diner, out of sight. The opportunity for someone to do something was perfectly presented.

The black Ford cruised through the filling station and disappeared round back. Several minute later the driver entered the diner and studiously avoided eye contact with us. He ordered a burger with fries, coke and a piece of pie before sitting in a booth where he could see us without trouble while we would have to turn around to see him.

Replete we headed out to the motor home. I quickly removed the tape from the recorder under the seat and placed it into the VCR. The screen was filled with a split image of the interior of the motor home. A man entered carrying a plastic bag that he placed under the mattress of our bed. I suppose he assumed that we would keep moving until nightfall and wouldn't notice the package for some time. I assumed that whatever was going to happen would happen between now and nightfall. I was right.

I retrieved the package and substituted it for one that I had prepared earlier. Making sure that the planted package was not ruptured in any way I asked Sendi to throw it as far as she could from the motor home.

We had just passed through what was little more than a fly speck on the road map when we came across a Highway Patrol cruiser parked across the road with the patrolman waving us to stop.

"What's the problem officer?" I asked as we stopped.

"Just a routine check Sir. Do you mind if I have a quick look through your vehicle?"

"Surely, be our guest." He clambered aboard and after making an extremely cursory search through the front part of the vehicle he ran his hand under the mattress and came up with, surprise, surprise, the bag of a white powder.

"What is this?" He asked holding the bag towards me.

11

"I really don't know. I've never seen it before and it certainly wasn't there when we made the bed up this morning." He was about to poke his finger into the bag and taste the contents when I stopped him. "If you don't mind I want that bag to remain intact until we can have the contents examined in a proper laboratory with a lawyer present who represents us."

"Then I guess you had better come with me."

"Do you want me to leave this motor home here and come with you in your car, or me come with you while Sendi drives in our vehicle, or we both follow you into town in our vehicle. We won't try to run for it, we wouldn't get far in this anyway."

We followed him. He must have been talking on his radio to his superior in town because no sooner had we followed him into the Sheriff's office than a young lawyer came panting in behind us.

He identified himself as Franklin Mint, a newly graduated from the University of Texas Law School. He was overweight, out of condition and dressed in crumpled, sweat stained, once white shirt, loosely knotted tie over grey trousers with railway lines where the creases should have been.

Looks can be deceiving. He listened while I explained the predicament that we found ourselves in. "How much time can you spare in our metropolis?"

"We would like to be on our way as soon as possible."

"I need a little time to organize for an independent laboratory to test the contents of that bag. I should be able to arrange the test in no more than an hour. After that it's up to the judge. He has a reputation for being severe with any form of drug dealing."

"I also want the test to be carried out in court, with the judge present. I also have here a video tape, which I will not let out of my sight, and that may just interest the judge."

"What's on it?"

"I'd rather keep that as my surprise. We have been set up here, that patrolman hardly searched the rest of the motor home. It was almost as if he knew exactly where to find the package."

"You may just be right. I'd better get to work if you want to get away from here this evening." He clambered to his feet and lumbered out of the room.

It was around ninety minutes later that we found ourselves in the small wood paneled courtroom. The clerk announced the judge's arrival and we all rose to our feet.

"Your Honor, in the matter of the State versus Feldham, the prosecution alleges the possession of narcotics."

The judge sat behind his bench and we all sat facing him. He nodded briefly at the prosecutor, "Well Mr. Macmillan what do you have for me today?"

The prosecutor rose to his feet. "Your Honor, the defendant was stopped for a routine search just East of Black Plains. The officer found a plastic bag containing a white powder that we allege to be cocaine."

"You allege to be cocaine, haven't you tested it?"

"Not yet Your Honor, the defendant requested that his lawyer be present when the contents were tested and that the testing take place in this courtroom."

"Is this correct?" He looked closely at me. Mint rose to his feet, "Yes Your Honour. My client is alleging that this bag does not contain narcotics of any description."

Looking back at MacMillan with a puzzled expression on his face the judge spoke. "Do you want to produce your evidence before we test this substance or after?"

"Your Honor we feel that we should produce what evidence we have so that this hearing is conducted as speedily as possible so that we take up no more of Your Honor's valuable time than we have to."

"We agree with the sentiment but not the sequence of the hearing. We, the defense contend that Your Honor will be delayed less by having the tests conducted first before any evidence from the patrolman is called, because we contend that his evidence is not necessary because my clients are innocent of any wrong-doing."

"I am inclined to agree with you. But, as you know I prefer to leave nothing to chance." He looked at the prosecutor, "You may call your first witness."

The patrolman was sworn in. "You were conducting routine searches of vehicles on the highway this morning?"

"Yes Sir."

"Tell me in your own words what transpired this morning when you stopped the defendant."

"I requested permission to carry out a routine search for illegal substances."

"And what did you find during that search?"

"I found a plastic bag that I believe contains an illegal substance."

"You Honor I submit peoples' exhibit N13, MacMillan held aloft the plastic bag.

"Do you have any idea what this substance could be?"

"I believe that it contains pure uncut cocaine."

"Thank you, your witness"

Mint rose and walked slowly over to the patrolman. "You are sure that this bag contains cocaine?"

"Yes sir."

"What experience do you have in the matter of drugs?"

"The identification of narcotics was a large part of my officer training and I have been involved in several drug apprehensions in the course of my career."

"Thank you, now I want you to take a look at that bag." Mint held the bag out. "Is this the bag that you found in the defendant's motor home?"

"Yes sir."

"Now look closely, has the bag been opened or tampered in any way?"

"No sir, it's exactly as I found it."

"So there is no way that the contents of this bag could have been substituted for anything else?"

"No sir, this bag was held secure at all times."

"At whose request?"

"The defendant requested that it not be opened except in court and in the presence of a lawyer representing himself and the judge."

"Thank you, that will be all." Turning to the bench he addressed the judge, "Your Honour I suggest that at this point the best interests of this court would be served by conducting the chemical analysis."

"I agree. Who do we have to conduct these tests?"

"Your Honor," the prosecutor said, "we have had flown down from Houston Dr. William Henderson who is a forensic pharmacologist with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His area of expertise is in the field of narcotics." He sat down looking tremendously pleased with himself.

"Your Honor, we have called on the services of Mr Henry Murchison who you probably know is the druggist down the street. He is a competent pharmacist who has an interest in narcotics, and who has published several papers on the constitution of a whole range of street narcotics. We are confident that he will be able to verify or not any findings of the prosecution's expert witness."

"Then shall we begin." A table was wheeled into the courtroom. On it were several flasks and test tubes and a variety of bottles containing testing agents.

Dr. Henderson opened the plastic bag and placed a small quantity on his tongue. A puzzled expression crossed his face. He placed a small amount of the powder into a test tube and added a few drops of a liquid from his test kit. Nothing much happened. The powder mixed with the liquid but remained the same color, the only reaction was that it effervesced.

"Allow me." Murchison took some of the powder from the bag and placed it in a test tube. He took a small phial from his bag and inserted an eye-dropper into it. He squirted a small amount of a bright red liquid into the tube and the reaction was immediate and spectacular. The contents frothed up and spilled out of the tube onto the table. "Gentlemen, what I just added to the powder in this test tube was a mixture of white vinegar and cochineal, which is a common enough and inert red food colorant. While the results were spectacular, it served to prove the innocence of the defendant. I can tell you without any doubt at all that the contents of that bag is nothing more or less than sodium bi-carbonate, a common compound found in any good kitchen and used for all sorts of things from cooking to putting out fires."

"But it couldn't be!" Henderson grabbed the phial from Murchison's hand and sniffed the contents.

"You were expecting something much different weren't you?" Mint was beginning to enjoy himself.

"What do you mean?"

Mint took the video tape from his brief case and inserted it into the VCR that he had placed on the table in front of him. The monitor burst into life to reveal the man entering our motor home and placing the bag under the mattress. "As you can plainly see, a bag containing a white powder was placed under the mattress of my client's vehicle. What the officer and the prosecutor didn't know was that the interior of the vehicle was under constant video surveillance. My client disposed of the original bag and replaced it with his own bag that contained the harmless substance bi-carbonate of soda."

"You can't admit this as evidence!" MacMillan was on his feet.

"We don't intend, nor do we have a need to submit this as evidence. My client has been a victim of a crude attempt to frame him for a crime of which he is entirely innocent. As far as we are concerned this is the end of the matter. I request that all charges against my client be dismissed and that he be allowed to resume his travels in peace."

"I so rule!" the gavel almost broke from the ferocity of its blow on the block. "Mr. MacMillan I want to see you in my chambers, now!"

We said our farewells to Mint and pressed on, this time to Houston. From there we headed through Austin to El Paso. We were both on the lookout for trouble as we drove across the wide open space that was Texas. We figured that the perfect place for anyone to bring harm to us was the vast open Texas plains. But trouble never came to us although the black Ford was back in position escorting us cross country.

From El Paso we headed through Tucson across to San Diego before turning north to Los Angeles and home, at least Sendi's home, well I suppose, given our relationship I could consider it my home as well.

I rang Ruiz as soon as we had settled in. "Where have you been?"

"Obviously you had nothing to do with the black Ford that has been our constant companion these last couple of weeks."

"What Ford?"

"A black four door with New York plates has been following us since we left Maine."

"Give me the license number and I'll check it out. Now what are you planning to do?"

"Sendi has a re-shoot on some scenes from her last film so she will be busy for a couple of days. I'm going to stooge around here to see if there are any script writing jobs to be had that will keep me occupied. I guess that I'd better ring Felix and let him know where I am."

"Please do, the man has been driving me bananas trying to find out where you are. Why did you have to give him my number?"

"There is no phone at the house and while we were on the road we didn't know where we would be from one day to the next. We thought that if we were unpredictable in our movements then whoever it was that was keeping their eye on us wouldn't be able to plan in advance if they wanted to do something nasty."

"That sounds like the sort of thing that one of your heroes would do. Writing the type of books that you do has its advantages."

"Getting away from me, how is Phoebe?"

"Driving me almost as crazy as Felix. She wants to go back to work so that she can help me catch those responsible for the attack on her face."

"Are you going to let her?"

"I might not have much say in the matter, she's threatened to go over my head to the police medical officer. If she does that then there'll be no stopping her."

"Tell her to take it easy. I want her to be still around when Sendi and I get married. Sendi wants her to be the Matron of Honor."

"That's great news! When's the big day?"

"We want to get this mess cleared up first. We are having some difficulty in concentrating on us at the moment."

"I look forward to it. Take care and keep in touch."

I rang Felix. To hear him answer the phone one would have been excused for thinking that I was some sort of long lost relative, wealthy of course. "Jason! Where are you? Where have you been and why haven't you been in touch. I worry so much about you, you're some mensh you know. If I don't keep my eye on you I find that you've gone off and done something stupid like killed your wife and best friend and have the whole police force out looking for you. What have I ever done to you to deserve such a lack of respect? Am I not like a father to you?"

"Felix, shut up and listen to me!" My interjection made no difference to the torrent of words.

"You should speak to me like that? You wouldn't speak to your parents like that. Have some respect for your elders my boy. Now to business, I have the publishers screaming to me for your next manuscript and they want to take advantage of your present situation, this sort of publicity you can't buy. When can we see something from you?"

"When I find the time and the peace to write. It may be some time, when this is over I plan to take a couple of months off and laze around on a beach in the Bahamas enjoying life in the company of a beautiful woman."

"How can you say that? Your wife's body isn't even cold and you are talking about another woman, who is she?"

"Nothing. My lips are sealed. As to my beautiful wife, I don't suppose that the press reports mentioned that she was pregnant and if they did they probably wouldn't have mentioned the fact that I am sterile."

"You, sterile? But you and she, I can remember the first time that you did it, like the cat that ate the canary you were, now you tell me that you are sterile?"

"Sterile yes, impotent no. My libido is as good as anyone else's, it's just that I can't father children and that's how I knew that she had been having an affair with James Craigmore the whatever, sleazy bastard."

"James couldn't have done that, he comes from such a good family."

"Not only could but did and it wouldn't surprise me if the two of them were lovers before I came onto the scene."

"Away from this topic! What can I tell the publishers?"

"Tell them whatever you like but don't make them any guarantees that I can't keep. I'll talk to you later."

The studio rang to see if I could do some urgent rewrites on a script. It seems that the original author had refused to compromise his art by making any changes, said that the proposed changes altered the ambience of the piece and he wouldn't do it. I understood how he felt, but agreed nonetheless.

The rewrite was an easy task and I made a token attempt to maintain the original ambience and I thought that I'd succeeded. The studio were happy enough and the author, when he saw the changes that I had made rang me. "Can we meet? I'd like to talk to you about what you did to my script."

"I hope I haven't offended you in any way. I tried to keep to your original feeling."

"That's what I want to talk to you about. I have done creative writing courses and script writing courses and I couldn't get it right."

We met in a downtown coffee lounge. "Look, with anything that the studio wants you have to compromise. It can have the greatest artistic merit, but art doesn't necessarily sell. The studios want formula writing because they know that the formula sells. If you want to preserve the integrity of your piece you should take it to one of the independent producers. It's a lot more risky and the returns are usually not as great because art house films do not get wide distribution. If you are in this for the money, compromise, if you are in it for the art you will probably never get rich or famous."

"Did you feel this way the first time one of your books was made into a film?"

"I could have lynched the producers. I wrote what I thought was a magnificent screenplay and when I went to the preview I hardly recognized much more than the central characters and the title. When the credits scrolled through I was listed as having written the screenplay along with a couple of other writers that I hadn't even met. You see how it works? If the studio doesn't like what you've done and you won't change they just employ some hack who knows what they want to make the changes."

"Is that what you are now, some hack?"

"No. I'm just doing this to keep busy for a week or two while the creative juices are being used on another project."

We left each other on good terms, he to explore the hidden meaning of his future life and direction and me to go home and make life easier for Sendi when she got home. I made a mental note to trade the Winnebago in on something a little more appropriate to this life. It did one's image no good at all to be seen driving along Rodeo Drive in a mobile home.

While we hadn't become recluses, we stayed in that night. Sendi was tired from a long day. Starting at five in the morning and working for fourteen hours re-shooting the one scene over and over again because the director wasn't happy with it was frustrating for her, especially as the male lead kept blowing his lines because he'd been blowing something else, what was left of his mind.

The next day Sendi had to be at the studio at five again so we had an early night, that is we went to bed early, we didn't go to sleep that early and when we did we were physically exhausted. It was much better than I ever imagined it would be.

At four thirty the studio limo picked her up to take her to the studio. I was just about to take the Winnebago to a car lot to exchange it for something more in keeping with our lifestyle, I had in mind a Porsche, when the phone rang. It was the studio looking for Sendi.