aware as a wary woman will be of a strange man's presence without necessarily having looked at him. well aware too that he stayed where he was -- so she unworriedly unlocks the building's security gate and goes through to the inner --
you're jenny's father.
you look alike.
not her brand.
why did you come here?
no, why did you come here?
been busy, have you.
it's been a while.
that's not what i heard.
i heard you were -- what's that adorable phrase? -- "at her majesty's pleasure."
in any case, i don't suppose the salary you make sewing mailbags is really commensurate with international airline travel.
and not with all that buried loot you had waiting for you when you got out. from the wembley staduim job, wasn't it? pink floyd concert receipts. jenny would've been .  fourteen at the time?
well, that kind of security can't be bought. must be more comforting than a daughter to greet you.
try calling me again.
i was just going to toss some vegetable rolls in the microwave, open a can of diet soda. want to take me out?
sounds like beverly hills.
sarcastic, moi? maybe i'll mellow when my ship comes in. it's expected any day now. i'm all packed and ready to go.
if it played in england somebody owes me money. who told you that -- eddie?
three seasons. they found that's the limit of human tolerance when it comes to following the adventures of a family of mormons on the chisum trail. i was wife number three -- the ingenue.
now who's being sarcastic?
i'm sorry. i guess the rest of us have no excuse for wondering where the time went. it must've been the bars.
it's a kind of prison, doing a series. early to bed, early to rise, no time off for good behavior, you grab the boodle for as long as it lasts. only difference is you can't get arrested afterwards.
not embarrassed.
not ashamed.
disappointed.
she never told anyone else. about the convict strain -- or is it stain? no, i was privileged. i was someone who helped jenny efface her past.
when i'm not honing my craft in episodic television i do double-duty as a voice coach. not that her accent would have hobbled her progress. not with that look.
modelling.
you weren't disappointed in her, then.
she was twenty-one when she came to me. .  straight from leaving you.
she was happy here. however the two of you might have parted. don't think she wasn't.
when did you get in?
you haven't been lurking outside my building all day.
i might've been away for the weekend.
and you've seen eddie rama.
i should really give him a call. he's a character, isn't he. well, not to you. i meant to us squares in the outside world.
i gave him yours. said, here, you want to write, i think this is a relative. i guess i thought i was being true to jenny. who told me she didn't have a father -- before proceeding of course to tell me why.
were you still married at the time -- to jenny's mother, i mean?
the address jenny gave me, that wasn't a prison, was it?
what's that, like a p.o. box.
where you get your bank statements.
some word.
that's what was estimated.
make yourself at home. steal something.
there's nothing i can't afford to lose.
do you even know who terry valentine is?
rock n' roll, is what we called it. he's sort of a forgotten figure now, but back when the west coast was the grooviest place on earth, terry valentine was where all the happenings happened. more of a kind of promoter, i guess, whatever that means. just took that whole southern california sixties zeitgeist and ran with it. packaged and sold it. made out like a bandit.
lives high off the hog and waits for the next big thing. like me -- but on a grander scale of failure.
-- your employer?
who's mr. lindgren?
what line is he in.
i see.
i bet.
i thought you said you never did an honest day's work in your life.
right.
in what capacity are you employed by this mr. lindgren?
-- when he wants someone run down, you're willing to do it for him.
so what's the deal. you and terry valentine at twenty paces. is that what this is about.
are you serious.
you fuckin' guys and your dicks.
you don't believe it was a car accident.
terry's never going to give you satisfaction. not the type.
on what. what makes you so certain.
there's the phone. you want his number.
past caring.
i'm not going to help you.
i was in the neighborhood. i come down here quite a bit. watch the planes taking off. study the architecture of early david lynch.
jenny was supposed to come to my place that night. she called me, asked if she could come over. she and terry had been -- having some trouble. lately. i don't know about what. on this occasion, it reached some sort of crisis point.
she'd never called me like that before. she sounded more .  pissed off -- angry -- than upset or afraid. but she never turned up. i called the house but only got the answer machine. when they found her .  she'd been going the wrong way. not the direction she'd have gone if she'd been coming to see me. or coming straight to see me. who knows. maybe she just wanted to drive.
you think terry gave me access to her things? probably sold her clothes.
she gave me your address.
this town's been chewing my flesh since .  what we now refer to as "the early 70's." christ, my past became nostalgia and no one even asked me.
these more highlights from the zagat prison guide?
you don't know how i've compromised my standards.
it's too involved; a lifetime of non- involvement. anywhere else i'd be an interesting little number, here i'm just sag number forty-eight thousand and one. sag meaning screen actor's guild.
still, there have been rewards. it's sunny. and some of the producers who call even have credits.
what did you do? to make them take the early 70's away from you.
you mean if they'd nabbed you before you actually broke and entered you would only have been charged with making a mess.
it didn't discourage you, though.
from pursuing your chosen profession.
i was inside once. i punched a cop at a demo.
who remembers.
overnight. what about just now?
you have been away. or is all this just new to you?
i don't believe it.
pushing the legal limit even then.
your most recent incarceration. what was that for?
at a mic. wearing headphones. matching her voice to the model's lip movements. looping this commercial or whatever it is.
-- they want southern, i do southern, they want midwest, i do midwest, they want tall, blonde, and twenty-two, i'm shit out of luck. one thing i can't do is english. americans can't. shouldn't even try. and laurence olivier couldn't do us.
only in the movies.
yeah, well, you're here now -- -- where hurricanes hardly ever happen.
stick with me, kid. looks big when you get here but you can cover it in five minutes.
what about your grandmother?
he alive to see this?
what'd your father do?
i guess you're just habitual.
won't he be looking for you about now?
minor officials bother you, don't they?
flattened herself back against a wall. petrified.
tell me you wouldn't prefer a steady income.
a leech on the welfare state in addition. you don't miss a trick.
yeah .  jenny spoke fondly of her imaginary siblings.
she told me you were a ghost in her life. daddy the friendly ghost. coming back to haunt her.
still, you could never .  do what she wanted.
she never would have turned you in, not in a million years.
up the coast.
i don't know -- few hours, i guess.
i could use a vacation. of course, i keep forgetting, for you this is a vacation.
what's in big sur?
how do you know?
i hear it's a nice drive.
not much -- you?
uh-huh.
probably.
really.
well, those are the breaks.
you just cooking then?
friends and colleagues.
poor baby.
you're just on a higher plane, wilson.
what is it, you just like the reassuring smell of disinfectant?
no, but i know what he means.
hard to miss.
i'd rather be with him than without him. i don't want to be found dead in l.a.