Hollywood Shakedown
Buddy Chinn, the son of a lauded beat poet from the seventies, ishappy to follow the dishonourable family tradition of booze, bets, books andbroads.
Then, at Hollywood Park one winter Saturday afternoon, two tough guys persuadehim to join them on a trip to Damascus, a sprawling mansion off MulhollandDrive, a palace surrounded by a forest of imported trees and lush vegetation.
There, he meets Mortimer Saxon, a, reclusive obsessive manuscript collectorwith an edge.
A sharp suited zealot searching for Buddy's dad's fabled Lost Manuscript; a oneoff, a unique piece worth thousands and thousands of dollars, an Americanliterary icon similar in cult magnitude to Hunter S Thompson's "Call tothe Post."
He asks Buddy whether he can help. Buddy hasn't a clue. Not a scooby.
Trouble is, Mortimer doesn't believe him.
Over the finest steak dinner Buddy has ever eaten, the collector makes him aproposition.
Find the manuscript and make one hundred thousand dollars.
Fail to find the manuscript and lose body parts on instruments restored fromInquisition times.
Worse, he's given two weeks and no choice.
Along with a British comic dealer friend, the two men go on a quest for themanuscript which takes them to the biggest library in the world in Venice Beach,a riotous chess tournament in Chicago, a pulsating FA Cup match in London andback again to the City of Angels.
All the time he's worried about his independent minded squeeze Monique, who,like a very independent minded cat, only ever comes home when she wantsfeeding.
Hoping against hope that the manuscript exists. Avoiding snipers, hitmen,hooligans, the attentions of strange seventies goons and an alluring,hyper-sexy bad girl with a fetishistic interest in low-life big guy writers.
Developing respect and admiration in an age of endangered male friendships, theodd couple face a race against time to find the manuscript, a contest whichleads to a pulse pounding climax, one in which Buddy has to face his deepest,darkest fears.
