Samuel Holt - One of Us Is Wrong

When you invest in a shopping center, Karen told me, you dont look at the shopping center. Its not a shopping center, its an investment, and what you look at is the people running the investment. Leopold Associates has an excellent history in this area. Did you read the backgrounder?

Ill go take a look at the place, just for fun, I said, because of course I had not read the backgrounder and didnt want to admit it. Karen Platt is my accountant, and she is absolutely serious; when she sends you a backgrounder, pages and pages of computer printout complete with charts and graphs and references to annual statements, she expects you to read it.

Well, I cant read backgrounders. On the show I could never read the plot summaries, the character descriptions. Just tell me what I say and what the other guy says, and Ill figure out the details for myself. That system worked pretty well on the show, so why shouldnt it work now, when the question was whether or not to invest two hundred forty-two thousand for three points in this shopping center in Woodland Hills? Ill just wander by the place, I said. Sit behind the wheel, kick the tires.

Do what you want, she said, expressing deep disapproval. But you should have read the backgrounder, she told me, and that was the end of the conversation.

Of course, Karen was right about my not needing to go look at the actual shopping center before either investing in it or not investing in it, and, in fact, that afternoon I didnt go over to the Valley at all, and might never have gone except that the following Monday my agent Zack Novak put me on hold.

I hate to be put on hold, and the reason is, God has put me on hold. Im ready to go, ready to make use of myself, ready to show what I can do, and nothing ever happens. Its ironic, I suppose, because I started life as somebody with absolutely no drive or ambition, just another feckless kid drifting through the Mineola, Long Island, school system, with no goal out in front of me at all. Because Im six foot six I got a basketball scholarship to a college upstate, but just fooled around and dropped out after the first year, sliding into the army instead. They sent me to Germany, mostly to be on the brigade basketball team, and assigned me to the Military Police to keep me handy to headquarters.

After the army I drifted, didnt want to go back to college, wasnt good enough for pro basketball, eventually got a job with my hometown police. A year and a half later, scenes for a movie were shot in Mineola and a few of us cops were given short bits in it. An agent thought I showed promise, and signed me. I went out to Los Angeles, enjoyed myself, and got a few acting jobs, but worked mostly as a uniformed security guard.

That first agent eventually dropped me, having changed my name from Holton Hickey to Sam Holt, so it was my second agent, Zack Novak, who put me up for the lead in a new TV series called PACKARD, about a criminology professor who sometimes does private-eye-type work for his friends.

PACKARD was a big success; too big, maybe. It ran five years and was canceled only because we all ran out of steam; the audience was still there. A bunch of us got rich off that series, and as long as it stays in reruns, Ill stay rich. (I also wrote seven of the episodes, my only writing before this.)

You cant involve yourself in a TV series for five years without developing some strong work habits, and maybe even a taste for the work itself. By the time PACKARD went off the air three years ago, when I was thirty-one, Id matured from an easygoing drifter to somebody who knew how to work and wanted to work. And the work wasnt there.

Thats why I say God put me on hold. Youd think I could get a movie part somewhere, or a guest shot on a TV series, maybe even a play, but no. Im too identified with Jack Packard, like that fellow years ago who was so identified as the driver in the Greyhound bus commercials (...and leave the driving to us!) that he never worked again. Like him, Ive been typecast as one specific character, and that character doesnt exist anymore. Other people James Gamer, for instance got past that problem by taking other roles while still at work in their series, but I never did; I just drifted along for five years being Packard, and this is what I got: Sam Holt is Jack Packard, and Jack Packard is Sam Holt. Im thirty-four, I have no money worries, and its looking more and more as though, damn it to hell and back, Im retired. Come on, God, I say. Gimme a break.

Ill get back to you, God says, and puts me on hold.

Well, Ill take that treatment from God because I dont have much choice in the matter, but I wont take it from Zack Novak. Not from my agent. And he was the one who called me! I know youve been wanting to work, Sam, he started with wonderful understatement.

Yes, Ive been wanting to

Oop! Hold it! Ill be right back, Sam.

And he put me on hold.

I waited three minutes exactly by the digital clock on my desk, and then Id had enough. God can do this to me, Zack, I told the silent phone, but you cant. And I hung up.

After that, naturally, I didnt want to be home when he called back, so I remembered Karen and the shopping center in Woodland Hills and decided I would go look at the place after all.

And thats how I happened to be heading north on the San Diego Freeway seven minutes later in my red Volvo when the four swarthy men in the two Impalas tried to murder me.

The freeway at that point is eight lanes wide, four in each direction, with a tall rail and fence divider. I was in the third lane, being passed on my left by a block-long moving van, when a golden Chevy Impala came up out of nowhere into my right flank, sides wiped me hard, bounced off, and accelerated away.

I slammed on the brakes, yelling, Holy shit! as I shimmied. I used to do some of the stunts on PACKARD; not enough to risk life and limb, but enough to know something about how its done, so now I fought the wheel into a half turn right to keep away from that monster truck beside me, and I was still fighting for control when the other one took a shot at me.

Also a Chevy Impala, this one was a metallic green, and I had just enough time to see a grim-faced olive-skinned guy at the wheel, staring straight ahead, when he hit me. I was already rattled, the Volvo was bouncing around like a football, and there was no way this time I was going to stay in my own lane.

What saved me first was that Id already hit the brakes, and the moving van was really moving, so most of him had already gone by when I invaded his territory. And what saved me second was that I actually did hit the van.

Slightly. Left corner of the front bumper ricocheted off the rear right edge of the moving van, which I dont think the driver of that big rig ever noticed, but what it did for me was keep me from flailing all the way over into the guardrail and fence by bouncing the Volvo backward into its own momentum.

Up to that point I hadnt really been thinking, just reacting, but I suppose with that first hit some thought such as That clowns an idiot! would have crossed my mind, and even with the second one I still would have been more inclined to call it coincidence Just my luck, two meatballs the same day! but when I finally had the Volvo under control and looked out at the world around me, and when I saw the golden Impala ease into my rearview mirror just as the green one was sliding into position again on my right flank, I knew I was in trouble.