1955 HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
“What makes you think I need a job, Woody?”
Edward D. Wood, Jr. sat across the table from me, his eyebrows lifted and that boyish grin across his face. “You look how I feel most of the time, Jimmy.” He ran a tanned hand through his dark hair.
When he tilted his head to one side he looked a bit like Errol Flynn. Me, I’m just a burly crew cut haired ex-marine (with a slight beer belly) that doesn’t take offense to being called a Jarhead.
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. Work has been a bit … weak.” I ran a thumb around the rim of my coffee cup and tried to look coy. We camped our butts at Frank’s Grill in North Hollywood, just a few blocks from Camarillo Street, after a night of drinking and debauchery. Ed, who I call Woody, is the director, writer and producer of more than several B pictures, and unlike his critics, I like most of them.
I’m not into the monster movies he had been working on lately, but his crime stuff was pretty good.
I tapped my wooden leg and frowned. “It’s this bum leg, Woody. Nobody has faith in a private detective with a wooden leg.” Every time I talked about my missing leg I’d get a phantom itch I could never scratch.
“I know what you mean, pal. I got my own troubles, too.”
This brings us to why we were hanging around the café at seven thirty in the morning when I was still clinging desperately to last night’s drunk. I wasn’t fully sober, but that was fine, I don’t make good decisions when I’m stone sober.
“So what’s the skinny?”
“I think someone is trying to kill me.” He said in a serious tone so I’d know he wasn’t kidding. “I’m sure of it.”
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