Zeitgeist Page 5

  Liam owned a lacquered 1957 hollow-bodied Gibson in an exclusive run of twenty-five. He had bass strings made in total darkness by blind Portuguese gypsies. He owned Turkish cymbals made in a five-thousand-year-old Bronze Age foundry. Liam’s G-7 road kit included a cherry Roland 303, a vintage Mellotron, even an Optigan. Liam was getting his own way in the service of G-7. Liam was the picture of fulfillment.

  The time had come for a check on the girls. Leggy did not deal with the G-7 girls personally. He recognized this as unprofessional. For the artistes “Leggy the G-7 Manager” had to be a remote, mystifying figure, a creature of high-level deals and cryptic Masonic handshakes. Leggy would look in on the girls periodically, to distribute knickknacks and petty cash. He left the day-to-day discipline to the middle layer of G-7 management: the G-7 voice coach, the two G-7 choreographers, and especially the group’s chaperone.

  Tamara the G-7 Chaperone had joined the team from Los Angeles. She had skills and a personal background that were hard to match. Tamara had first become an Angeleno way back in 1990, after fleeing in abject terror from Soviet Azerbaijan, where the collapse of her husband’s Communist regime had made her a nonperson. A courageous emigrant in search of freedom and a better life, Tamara had arrived from the long shadows of the Kremlin onto the bright neon streets of Hollywood, alone and friendless, with no resources other than her Swiss bank account, a small valise crammed with gold bars, and three prime kilos of Afghani hashish. Despite these disadvantages Tamara had gamely worked her way up through the Armenian California mafia of gasoline pirates and chop shops. She’d established a thriving used-car business in Brentwood Heights. Finally, with her English fully polished and her seams straight, Tamara had infiltrated the glamorous world of “Irangeles.”

  Los Angeles, California, was the entertainment capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Once upon a time, in the distant royal 1970s, Iran had possessed a Westernized pop culture rather similar to Turkey’s. Iran had nightclub music on vinyl, punch-’em-up black-and-white action adventure movies, belly dancing on TV, quavering male heartthrob pop singers, and so forth. This pop scene had all been scraped painfully off the face of the country and flung overseas by Khomeini. The Ayatollah had installed a fifteen-year pop-music regimen, exclusively consisting of martial songs and folk hymns.

  However, Iran’s numerous exiles still required something to play on the stereo and watch on TV. There were a million Iranian emigrés, scattered all over the planet. Germany, Turkey, Britain, and Sweden all had extensive communities, but Los Angeles boasted an Iranian contingent that was eighty thousand strong. So the Iranian entertainment biz had grown and flourished beneath the Great Satan’s palm trees, attracted there inevitably, not by creative freedom, of course, but by Hollywood’s unrivaled recording and distributing infrastructure.

  With the passage of the years and a slow thaw back in Mullahdom, Iranian pop was seething back into the homeland, its tendrils weaving a vigorous smuggling network through the Arab Gulf States. After twenty bitter years of Yankee exile, Iranian pop was lean, mean, and beautifully produced, with big digital sound studios and genuine Hollywood set design. Los Angeles talent such as Dariush and Khashaiar Etemadi were hot property in every Teheran bazaar. If not for the fact that their work was pirated (for the Islamic regime brooked no royalty arrangements), these guys would have been the Ratpack.

  Mrs. Tamara Dinsmore (it had been a green-card marriage, but Tamara was a stickler for the niceties) had become a major fixer in the Irangeles pop scene. Tamara was a natural for the work of Hollywood, since she had once been married to the Azerbaijani Communist party chairman. Tamara had gamely undergone the obligatory L.A. tucks and face-lifts, and wore tall clacking heels and an Armani suit. Once a woman of rare, exotic beauty, Tamara was in midlife now, rather past mere exoticism and well on her way to the bizarre.

  Leggy found Tamara giving a brisk dressing-down to the German One. Though the German One somehow attracted scoldings from everyone around her, the German One was basically all right. She was trustworthy, clean, and obedient. The German One was G-7’s originally installed German. Nothing if not persistent, she had lasted out three entire grueling years.

  Leggy cherished the German One. He took the trouble to stay up to speed with all her various loony flirtations. He was best acquainted with her French self-declared fiancé, a minor-league Belmondo type who showed up every bank holiday with chocolate, champagne, and a sports car. The German One was always coolly polite and considerate to her French beau, but tattered, worthless stage-door Johnnies were the guys who infallibly won her ditzy little Love Parade heart. Sensing a soft touch, these ex–Warsaw Pact hustlers tracked the German One from gig to gig, sending her long ardent faxes in obscure local languages with acutes and circumflexes, and begging her for expedient loans. The German One had given her girlish all to the big blustery blond Polish kid. She’d fallen under the intellectual spell of the mild and acerbic little Czech kid. Worst of all was the crazed, pistoltoting Serbian kid, who had gotten her into big trouble.

  Now the German One was meekly sniffling under Tamara’s dressing-down. It had everything to do with some Turk.

  Leggy patted the German One’s dirndled shoulder. “How’s life treating you, German One?”

  “I love him.” She sniffled.

  “I see. And what does your mom say about that?”

  “Mamma hates him!”

  “Well, see, that’s your story all over. Nothing new there.” He turned to Tamara. “How’s she holding up?”

  “I guess she’s all right,” shrugged Tamara, “she’s just young and stupid.”

  “Come on, German One,” Leggy coaxed. “We’re depending on you to pull us through. You’re our rock, girl. You’re our locomotive! Nobody holds your past problems against you anymore! You’re all grown up and responsible now! You’re as sound as the mark! You’ve become our Sensible One.”

  The German One wiped her eyes, disturbing thirty dollars’ worth of layered gloss, mascara, and metallic dust. “You think so?” she said, touched.

  “Absolutely, babe.”

  She scowled. “I’m all right. But the American One’s acting like a stupid bitch!”

  “Not again,” Leggy said.

  The German One stamped her dainty leather boot. “She’s high on coke and she owes me a lot of money, Leggy!”

  “I’ll straighten that out for you, German One. Chin up! Shoulders back! Big smile! I need a word with Frau Dinsmore here.” Starlitz took Tamara aside.

  “It’s true. The American One is impossible,” Tamara hissed.

  Leggy considered this. It was bad news. “How many American Ones does this make for us now?”

  “This is your sixth American One, you big fool! Why can’t you get us an American One who can do the job? Do something right for a change! Try something different!”

  Leggy was perturbed. Despite his best, repeated efforts, he somehow had never been able to get an American One to fully click with the group. Maybe it was the fact that America was basically nine different cultural regions. Big continental empires always had weird demographics. “How bad is she?”

  “She is totally terrible! The American One is sloppy, rebellious, lazy, and disrespectful!”

  “Oh, well.”

  “And she believes her own press releases.”

  Leggy was startled. “Christ, that’s serious!”

  “I’m sick of your stupid American One! It’s time for you to do something! We have a big event coming in Istanbul, and she’s dragging all the other girls down.”

  “Tamara, I’ll look after that problem. There’s gotta be some kind of workaround there. Cheer up. I’ve got a big new development in G-7 backstage personnel.”

  Tamara looked skeptical.

  “This is gonna be a big personal surprise for you.” Starlitz offered Tamara a friendly leer. “Does the name ‘Pulat Romanevich Khoklov’ ring a bell?”

  Tamara considered this, her tight face bleak. “ ‘Khoklov’? Is
that a Russian name?”

  “Of course it’s a Russian name! I’m talking about Pulat Khoklov, the romantic war hero. The flying ace! He used to fly Ilyushin-14s out of Kabul.”

  Tamara was skeptical. “Why are you telling me about some pilot?”

  “He’s not some pilot, Tamara, he’s your pilot! Khoklov used to work for you and your husband! He flew contraband into Azerbaijan, during the war! He’s your kind of guy, babe!”

  “Leggy, I have plenty of men already. I have too many men. I don’t need your ‘my kind of guy babe.’ ”

  “But you and Khoklov were a hot item! He fell for you like a ton of smack! Last time you saw Pulat Romanevich, you were humping him in the back of a bus!”

  Tamara’s taut face grew stiff. “I don’t like that kind of language!”

  Starlitz was pained. “Look, Tamara, I wouldn’t make this up—I was there in the bus with both of you. Think back! Nagorno-Karabakh in the eighties, remember? A handsome, charming Russian guy! White silk ascot and a cool battle jacket full of medals!”

  “I never think back.” Tamara’s voice was wintry. “Those days are dead. I never think about that place anymore.”

  “But he’s here, Tamara. Khoklov is here in Cyprus.”

  Now Tamara was nearing panic. “There’s a Russian here? There’s a Russian in this casino? Someone who knew me? Someone who could talk about me?” She stared at Starlitz, unable to conceal her terror. “Did you tell him about me?”

  Starlitz lowered his voice. This wasn’t working out the way he’d hoped. “No, Tamara. I didn’t get around to telling Khoklov about you. Khoklov doesn’t know.”

  “You’re lying,” she concluded in anguish. “Of course you told the Russian about me. Now some Russian is here to chase me, with his big Russian tongue hanging out. Oh, my God!” She put her hand to her forehead. “Men are so stupid!”

  The extent of his misstep was now clear to Starlitz. The scattered, decentered entity that was Tamara Dinsmore simply couldn’t assemble a cogent narrative. There was no continuity in Tamara’s late-twentieth-century filmscript. No rewind button in there.

  “The Russian doesn’t know about you,” Starlitz promised quietly. “I don’t have to tell him a thing.”

  “Khoklov is here in the casino, yes? Where is he?” She began to gaze around in agitation. “What is he? He must be Russian Maphiya by now.…”

  “Look, Tamara, I can handle all that, okay? Relax. You’re a Yankee businesswoman now, you’re Mrs. Dinsmore from Los Angeles. Pulat Khoklov is this washed-up gun from Petersburg who’s running around on one lung. Pay no attention to him. He’s not even in your universe. This thing you once had with Khoklov, it’s gone, it’s not even of this world anymore. It’s yesterday. No one cares, no one’s counting.”

  Tamara wasn’t mollified. “Why do you still remember?” she demanded shrilly. Her doelike eyes beneath their eyelid tucks were full of obscure pain. “Why do you remember all of that old time and that old world? Why do you lick your lips like that, why do you roll your eyes, why do you laugh at me? I hate you.”

  Starlitz sighed. “Tamara, try and understand. You’re a pro and a trouper, a major asset to my operation. But if you wanna stay on my payroll, you just gotta come to terms with me being me. Okay? Being me has got its downside, I admit that. But I’m me right here and right now, I was me back then and back there, and I’m always me, and I plan to stay me.”

  Starlitz held up his hand modestly. “I got sentimental about the Russian. That was lame. I was totally out of line there. We won’t discuss it anymore; it’s completely off the agenda. In the meantime, girl, mellow out! It’s cool, because you’re from L.A.! Take a couple of Halcion.”

  At this sermon’s conclusion Tamara rallied herself. “Do you have some Halcion? I’m all out of Halcion.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Starlitz quietly pressed two pills into Tamara’s taloned hand. “I was kinda saving ’em for the Italian One, but yours is the greater need, babe.”

  Tamara signaled a bow-tied waiter and selected a double brandy sour. “No more surprises in personnel. All right? I hate surprises.”

  “Right.”

  Tamara drank and looked up wetly, her upper lip grainy with sugar. “Surprises never make me happy, Leggy. I had too, too many surprises in my life.”

  “No problem, Tamara. I’m cool with that.”

  “And fire the American One! Fire her tonight, while we still have a chance to hire a new one.” Tamara tossed back the pills and drank. Then she stalked away, clacking.

  Spotting her own opportunity, the French One sidled up to confront Starlitz. The French One was the group’s sophisticate. She had a good line in press repartee, and unlike her G-7 colleagues she fully understood how to sing and dance. The French One wore a ribbed designer bustier, a tricolor miniskirt, and a little red Marianne cap. She knew that the group’s stage gear was hopelessly louche and déclassé, but she was a pro, she was putting up with it.

  The French One had brought the Canadian One in tow. The tartan-clad, toque-wearing Canadian One spoke a little French, which naturally endeared her to the French One. The Canadian One was polite, modest, and self-effacing, practically invisible in the group’s affairs. She was blond and petite, the third Canadian installment. (Two earlier Canadian Ones had angrily dropped out, once they’d realized that the act had no intention of breaking in the USA.)

  “Comment allez-vous, la Française?”

  The French One put on her vinegar face. “Stop hurting my language.”

  “Right, okay. Not a bad night, Canadian One, eh?”

  “We need a favor,” said the French One primly.

  Starlitz was properly cautious. “Just tell me what you want.”

  “We want the Turkish girl to sing tonight,” announced the Canadian One.

  “Gonca Utz? Wow. Why would you wanna do that?”

  “I talked to Gonca tonight,” said the French One. “She can’t get a break in the music business. It’s sad. We’re famous musicians, so we want to help her.”

  “Look, you know that Gonca can’t be in G-7, right? Gonca’s got no English.”

  The French One nodded impatiently. “English, English, I know, I know. Who needs a Turk in G-7 anyway? Not me! But Gonca speaks French! Good French with good grammar, much better than her.”

  “Hey!” scowled the Canadian One.

  “Gonca sings in Turkish. She had classical Turkish voice training and can sing all the old songs. So I think, if Gonca sings here at Mr. Altimbasak’s big casino, then she could get a good chance later. A radio spot. Or a nightclub.”

  “Mmmnh.” Starlitz turned. “Well, if you girls were performing tonight, I’d never allow some local amateur to go onstage, but … What do you have to say about this notion, Canadian One?”

  The Canadian One was very pleased to be consulted. She drew herself up to her full height. “I concur with the French One! Minority voices deserve some time allotment! Besides, we own all the microphones anyway, so it doesn’t cost us anything.”

  “I like the way you put that, Canadian One. That was very worthwhile. Now tell me something. Did you ask Mehmet Ozbey about this?”

  “Mehmetcik loves the idea!” said the French One. “He said we were very generous.”

  “Mr. Ozbey cares about us,” said the Canadian One, her blue eyes glistening in big powdered pools of eye shadow. “He knows all our songs by heart!”

  Leggy soberly rubbed his double chins. “Well, you can’t just shove this guy’s girlfriend up onstage, and jam the mike in her hand. There’s a certain operational protocol involved here. We gotta walk carefully, because this can be kinda political.” He paused. “What’s your analysis there, French One?”

  The French One leaned back on her platform heels. “My mother says that Mehmet Ozbey is a typical Westernized Third World elitist who is bound to carry out the interests of his class and gender.”

  Starlitz nodded thoughtfully.

  “My mother also says that Turkish ca
baret music is an authentic form of proletarian expression despite its many patriarchal overtones.”

  Starlitz scratched his neck. “Okay. I guess that settles it. So can your pal Gonca rap over a backing track? We’re kinda low on Turkish cabaret musicians, at the mo’.”

  The French One reached into her Liberty hat and produced a C-30 cassette. Starlitz, who was not wearing his bifocals, squinted to read the label, which was hand scrawled in green ballpoint pen. “ ‘Muserref Hanim Segah Gazel.’ Oh, brother. Did you listen to this?”

  “Why should we listen to old Turkish cabaret?” shrugged the French One. “No commercial potential!”

  “Backing tracks are Liam’s job!” the Canadian One insisted.

  “Okay, you talked me into it,” said Starlitz. “I’ll run the tape by Liam. In the meantime, you tell Ozbey that he needs an MC who can do her intro in Turkish.”

  Starlitz delivered the tape to Liam and smoothed arrangements with the lighting guys. He appreciated Ozbey’s tact in arranging things in just this manner. A direct request on Gonca’s behalf would have smelled too much like a strong-arm. But exploiting the artistes to get his way, well, that was something that everyone did in the music biz. With this arrangement, if Gonca suffered a flop night, it was nobody’s fault. There were face-saving positions all around. Lots of win-win options and interlocking benefits. Ozbey was a professional.

  With the situation under control, Starlitz went in search of the American One.

  The American One had abandoned the party in an angry, dope-addled huff. As usual the British One was trying to cover for her.

  The British One had been working very hard on her own public image. Somehow, against all customary grain and expectation, the British One had become very buoyant and light of foot, almost as stagily vivacious as the Italian One. It seemed that some psychological barrier had finally snapped inside the British One. She’d burned her last royal rags of imperial dignity, abandoned all icy reserve. She was blatantly reveling in exhilarating sleaze.