Under the Red Carpet of Babylon

By David M. Agrela

Under the Red Carpet of Babylon is story of Tagg Faulkner, a professional star wrangler assigned to escort and assist talent during award shows and rehearsals during the biggest movie awards night of the year. In this case, it is the show’s host—a disgraced drunkard comic attempting a comeback. Tagg’s job is to keep the host sober for the show. If he fails, it means his job.

When a stupid mistake takes Tagg off the assignment, he resolves to complete it under the radar. Complicating matters, the young wrangler is a budding alcoholic himself, and he must keep the host from drinking even as he fights his own battle with the bottle.

Now off the wrangling-the-host job, at least so far as anyone knows, he is assigned to wrangle a trio of old-time Hollywood divas, all prima donnas, who are in the show to bury the hatchet in a thirty-year-old feud. The three all threaten to quit and Tagg must keep them content and ready to perform or there will be hell to pay. He also wrangles a tantalizingly lovely young starlet he has always fantasized about. But she has her own ideas about how to treat wranglers, as he soon learns.

Meanwhile, a young woman nicknamed Marvelous, a play on her real name as well as her face and figure, is assigned to wrangle three talent of her own. One is a kid known for heartwarming movies and cute schtick, but who arrives with a set of problems she never expected. The second is a vain and abusing musical star whose demands on her wrangler exceed abilities to get the job done. The last is a hunky action star, someone Marvelous crushes on, but who has a dark secret that will bring his whole world crashing down on him if she can’t solve an impossible problem.

Can Tagg save the show and his own job despite the odds being stacked against him? Can Marvelous navigate the peccadilloes of three difficult talent with grace and success? And which of the three suitors vying for his romantic attention will Tagg finally choose? All will be revealed when the curtain goes up and the lights come on Under the Red Carpet of Babylon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646549764

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sunday, thirteen minutes until showtime

Have you seen Tagg?

Tagg’s probably busy. Thinks he’s important now.

Can you answer the question? Have you seen him?

If he’s anywhere, he’s getting good and drunk with Skipper Grimm, in his dressing room. The guy’s a lush.

Which guy?

Both.

Marvelous, gorgeous even in her dowdy page uniform, was asking Brett, the supe, now wearing a standard-issue page uniform instead of the tux he would have liked. Or even a dark business suit, something that would set him apart. He was still pissed about that.

Brett, you don’t get it. I caught Skipper Grimm with two bottles of wine heading to his dressing room.

Not my problem.

But it is, Brett. It’s all our problem. Xavier literally deputized us—all of us—to keep Skipper sober during the show. If something goes wrong, if he goes out drunk, it’s on us. She was talking about Xavier Zeman, the producer. He’d made a little speech and told everyone it was all on them. Then he’d put Tagg on Skipper to wrangle. A body man. Responsible.

"Deputized. That’s a big laugh. Joe should have put me on Skipper. Not Tagg. We wouldn’t have this problem. Tagg’s probably in there drinking with him, getting himself good and sloshed. Like I said, it’s not my problem. Brett the supervisor looked down at her feet, toenails painted sexy pink. Why aren’t you wearing shoes?"

She huffed. I was running all over, trying to find Tagg. I broke a heel on the stairs.

She’d been running up from the dungeon below the stage where wardrobe and hair and makeup were set up, two levels down, searching everywhere for Tagg. The stairs, switchbacks. She’d caught her heel taking the steps two at a time and broke one off.

Oh, shit.

Now she was out of uniform. And barefoot. She didn’t have replacements, no backups. There wouldn’t be any extra shoes in wardrobe, not tonight. Not ever, really. Shoes were on the staff to provide their own.

You need to put some shoes on, girl, Brett said, his superior attitude beaming out like a thousand suns. You can’t work the Louies in your bare feet. I’ll need to make a report to Joe. It’ll go in your file. I should send you home.

Her eyes narrowed. I’ve still got a job to do. Who’d handle my talent, Brett? You?

I’m the best page on the staff. I’ve always been the top wrangler. The best ever.

Sure, you are. That’s why they put you in the Siberia of seat fillers.

They were standing in the near corner of the lobby, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the carpet done in gold to match the walls, a brocade filigree there, also in gold.

Don’t sass me, Candi Marvin. I’m still a supervisor.

Well, act like one. This is a crisis, and we need to find Tagg. And you know everyone calls me Marvelous. Why don’t you?

Tagg and his henchmen gave you that nickname. It’s indecent.

The only indecency is in your mind, Brett. Now why don’t you do something about our problem?

If Tagg lets Skipper Grimm get drunk, it’s on him. He’ll be fired for it. I won’t shed any tears.

But you’re still a supervisor even if you’re stuck handling the seat fillers. You should think about the good of the show, about our promise to Xavier. Your attitude sucks. It’s very unprofessional.

Those were the magic words. Brett’s high opinion of himself was fueled by the notion that he was the best, the one who could be counted on. He said, Oh, hell. Let’s go try and stop Skipper.

Maybe we’ll find Tagg.

We’ll find him with a glass of something amber in his hand. I don’t know what Joe was thinking putting a drunk on keeping another drunk sober.

Just walk, Brett. And help me look.

On the way, they checked with some other wrangler pages, some in the lobby and some in the house, a few more backstage. No one had seen Tagg or knew where he was. Marvelous looked gorgeous as always, even in her dowdy page uniform—a blue blazer over a gray skirt. The cuts were bad, not flattering. Still, she seemed perfection to Brett and everyone else with blonde-over-blue coloring and her enviable figure. They kept searching.

Out in the house, one wrangler said, I haven’t seen him. Have you seen Lionel McGowan? He was right here a minute ago.

Another one, a woman, was standing there chatting with Scrabble Zepp, her talent. He was telling another of his dirty jokes, had said the dirtiness of a joke is in the mind of the listener, not the teller. You had to have a dirty mind to get it, right?

Has Tagg been by here? Marvelous asked her.

Scrabble Zepp’s wrangler said, Oh, hell. Is there a problem with Skipper Grimm?

It’s what we were warned about.

If I see him, I’ll send him to Skipper’s dressing room. Good luck.

Marvelous and Brett kept asking, getting nowhere.

The house, the audience part of the Chandler, was filling up with stars and other VIPs. Everyone was in formal attire. All the important people, the ones up for awards or presenting them, were in the orchestra section, red velvet seats there and a carpeted floor that didn’t seem to be seedy after twenty-five years. No one was looking at the stage yet, a pair of miked podiums on either side with a vast middle, black lacquered linoleum meant to look like marble. It was where all the action would happen.

What did you see him with? Skipper Grimm, I mean? Brett asked her. He should have been listening the first time.

Wine. Two whole bottles of it. He must have gotten it from the greenroom.

Yeah, booze is easy to get in there. Maybe Tagg got it for him.

Marvelous said, Brett, I really have no idea where he got it, but he got it. And he’s probably already started drinking.

Tagg should’ve done a better job stopping him.

He can’t be everywhere at once. He’s got the Glamor Gals. And Casey Hartlove. I saw him with her before. There was something about that she didn’t want to go into, a bad scene repeating on a loop in her head.

The Glamor Gals are over in a suite at the Taft. Maybe he’s there.

There’s no time to go check, Marvelous said as they walked, brisk with long strides. In the years before cell phones, the Louie wranglers had to find each other, make eye contact to communicate. It was 1989, and there were no shortcuts.

She was walking a little bit ahead of him now, talking over her shoulder, never noticing that the supervisor was stealing glances at her wiggling butt in her dreary gray page skirt.

They’d reached backstage, a dusty concrete floor and padded walls like mattress cushions with line after line of ropes attached at the rail. Lots of crew wearing black like ninjas, soft-soled shoes. There were all kinds of them—tall medium, even one little person (would have been called a dwarf in times past) with a beard they’d seen around.

She went to the greenroom, a generous space built like a four-sided set, right there in the wings, back a little bit, stage left. She scanned the room for a page uniform, maybe thinking the host’s wrangler had gone in for a pop. There were people in there.

But no Tagg.

At the dressing room door, just offstage, Brett said, Someone needs to handle this. We all got deputized by Xavier. It’s his show. He told us all to take responsibility. Saying it like he hadn’t heard Marvelous say it moments ago.

Marvelous said, You’re a supe. Why don’t you talk to Skipper? Take charge, man. You always say you’re a leader. Why not show some leadership right now?

Not today. I supervise his show on the lot, and I can’t afford to piss him off. If the network lets him keep his show, I’ll be supervising the pages on it. He could make my life hell if he’s got a grudge against me. Someone needs to take this. Someone expendable.

She said, her curiosity welling, Were you there, Brett? On Skipper’s show that night? You were working it?

It was a real clusterfuck. He was saying it like he wanted to be the one telling the story, an eyewitness to a train wreck. I was supervising.

She rolled her eyes at that. He never missed a chance to remind you he was a supervisor. Did it really happen? The way Xavier said?

He told the story, enjoying himself now. It was late in the show. Past one a.m., live to the East Coast. He was very drunk, literally staggering around, slurring his words. Then he was in the middle of a sketch, and he lost his train of thought and said, ‘Oh, fuck me.’

Out loud? On air?

On live TV. Then, just to make it even worse, he completely abandoned the scene he was doing, and he started saying, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. We’re live.’ Then they took a break, all of a sudden. And we never came back. They said release the audience, it’s a wrap. We were still a half hour short.

Dead air?

"They didn’t run the show in the other time zones. They ran a rerun at least on the West Coast. I tuned in to see what the network would do. That was the last time his show aired. They’ve started putting reruns of Remington Steele on in his time slot, just until they can figure out what to do."

And then they made him check himself into Betty Ford.

They gave him a choice: either he goes to rehab or they take his show away.

Marvelous wondered, I still don’t get why they’d have him host the Louies, live to the world, so soon after? Why take the chance?

He said, "Do you know how much money Character Sketches brings in? It’s a cash cow. The network has a vested interest in him making a big comeback. They want him back on top."

It’s a risk I wouldn’t take if they ever put me in charge.

Brett hissed, That’s not the big risk, not to me.

Oh?

I’d never have put that stinking drunk Tagg Faulkner in charge of keeping Skipper sober for the show tonight. It’s another clusterfuck waiting to happen.

How it had happened: Xavier Zeman, the Louies executive producer, had asked Joe DeLeo, the page boss of all the wranglers, who’d be the most responsible to keep Skipper from drinking before and during the show?

DeLeo had said, Tagg’s my best man. He always gets the job done, no matter what.

Then he’s the man I want, Xavier had told him. Decision final.

And Tagg had the assignment.

Marvelous, the only one there with Brett, said, Tagg got tapped to wrangle Skipper. He said he knew what he was doing. He told me he’s been keeping him away from alcohol since yesterday. We need to focus on finding him, getting him to get us out of this.

Brett said, If he, Skipper, goes out there drunk, it’ll be exactly what Xavier said the worst-case scenario would be. Heads will roll.

Tagg will be the fall guy, she said. I can’t let that happen.

You love the guy. For the life of me, I can’t figure why.

He’s everything you’re not, Brett. He’s a leader, not a paper tiger.

"I’m a supervisor."

You may have the title, but you don’t fill the shoes. There’s a reason Joe tapped Tagg to handle Skipper Grimm. You weren’t man enough for it.

I’d be man enough for you.

In your dreams, Brett.

They stared at each other a long moment.

It’s down to less than ten until open, said Marvelous. She had on the required watch, had been checking it, keeping track. Knock on Skipper’s door and say you’re just looking for Tagg. Maybe he’s inside.

If he is, we don’t have a problem, do we?

He was being sarcastic, she thought. Implying that Tagg was already in the dressing room with Skipper, and they were sharing the wine. She couldn’t help but think maybe he was right, given Tagg’s track record. He liked to drink. Everyone knew it. But he was also supremely responsible and always had a mind to getting the job done, whatever it was.

If you won’t knock, Brett, I will. She was just about to when…

There he is, Brett said.

Tagg was coming out of the greenroom, not in his page uniform but a sleek black tux. Why was he wearing that? Not a page uniform? His stride was purposeful, direct. He was coming right over. Marvelous and Brett parted like leaves in the breeze to let him through. No one questioned why he was dressed formally and not like one of the page crew. It didn’t seem important right now.

What was important: Tagg was swinging a fresh unopened bottle of scotch in his hand. Johnny Walker Black. And he was bringing it to Skipper’s dressing room. What the hell was he doing?

Marvelous opened her mouth to ask but could only feel the quickening of her heartbeat at the sight of him. He looked like he belonged at the Louies, ready to pick up his award. Tagg Faulkner, ready for his close-up.

As the other two stood, mouths agape, Tagg said, firm, confident, Don’t worry. I’ve got this.

He walked up to the dressing room door and reached for the handle. He didn’t bother to knock. Whatever his plan was, he was sure about it.

Too bad no one else had a clue what he was doing.

Chapter 2

The previous Friday

Marvelous sat along the wall of a cold darkened soundstage, the floor icy cement and the walls gray, puffy, and buttoned like a dingy mattress. Soundstage chic. The air conditioners were working overtime as always, offsetting the heat under the lights on set so the talent and crew would be comfortable. Like all soundstages, the dark froze. Over on the set, the only one lit right now, the last of Friday rehearsals were wrapping, the talent and the crew ready to break and get their phone messages.

In 1989, today, twin landlines still connected the stage to the rest of the outside world. Marvelous sat at a cheap plywood desk with a pair of handsets, each one with its ringer turned off but with a bubble light to signal incoming calls. She had a stack of pink message pads, several of them really, the written-on ones lined up in neat rows on the desktop roughly alphabetized by first name so the crew and the cast could come over during the downtimes and read whomever had called for them.

She leaned back in a swivel office chair, often repaired with patches of gaffer’s tape, in her page uniform—a mid-length gray skirt slit at the hemline, a white oxford, and a navy blazer with the network crest patch on the breast pocket. The blazer was currently hanging limp over the back of her chair.

After the wrap for the long break before the first taping, the dress rehearsal, the crew sauntered over amid small talk to check their messages and make their greetings to the phone page who never seemed to get a bathroom break, no matter how much craft service coffee she drank.

When the crowd meandered off to return calls and relax before the real work began, a lone wolf crept closer to Marvelous, sitting there like prey, and hit his opening hard, like a swing on a fastball.

Why does everyone call you Marvelous?

She could tell it wasn’t just curiosity; it was an entrée to her. Something she was used to, like it or not. She looked up at him, hovering above her, trying to simulate the sensation of him lying atop her in the sex act, his thrusts urgent and selfish.

She said, My real name’s Candi, last name Marvin. Some of the pages thought of Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the boxer, and they started calling me that. Marvelous.

It’s not a reference to your figure?

Here it comes.

No, Denley, it’s just a nickname.

But your body is marvelous. Surely…

No, Denley, it’s got nothing to do with that.

You know you’re very attractive, don’t you?

She touched the placket of her shirtfront to make sure she wasn’t giving him a primo look down her top, something probably every man did or at least tried. Sometimes it was okay, but not with him. Everyone in Hollywood is attractive. Even us pages.

Denley Harrington, the star of the show Rhodes Trip, pretended to yawn so his eyes could sleaze over her entire body. The show was a sitcom about a British expat, disgraced in his former life, who’d come to America to teach high school. It was a show written specifically for him. It was doing okay in the ratings.

She saw his gaze striking her legs. Laser eyes. He said, We’ve got at least a half hour until dress. Would you like to come to my dressing room so we could talk a little more privately, just the two of us?

He was British, had that oddly formal sentence construction. It didn’t hide the intent.

I can’t leave my post, she said. They’ll be bringing the audience in soon, and I might have to help. We can’t hold up the taping, can we? She just wanted to be left alone. Do her job.

He leaned over, hands on the desk, face right into hers. I need to blow off a little steam before we roll tape. Take the edge off. You’re the ticket, Blondie.

She rolled her eyes. He’d done this before, but he’d never been so damned direct. Blow off your own steam, Denley. I’m not interested.

Blondie, I’m the star of this goddamned show. You should feel honored you’re the one I’ve selected.

I’m just the most interesting girl onstage today, as far as you’re concerned. Another time, it’d be someone else.

He straightened. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He said, You’ll regret this, Blondie. I could make your life very difficult with a word or two.

It was true. He could.

Then you’d just have to abuse the next girl.

Come on, Blondie. I have all the power here.

I’m seeing a blackout. She smirked.

Pretty thing like you, you should be flattered.

I’d be flattered if you were more attractive. And less creepy.

Sharp now, he said, Watch your mouth, Blondie. I’d be careful if I were you.

This is what careful looks like, Denley.

Why don’t you just do what I want? You could tell everyone you were with a big TV star.

I’m already thinking who I should tell. Maybe HR.

And then what, Blondie? What’s anyone going to do? I’m a star.

Tagg Faulkner was in charge of the VIP guest list on Rhodes Trip. He needed the guest list—the overstage list—from the production company. Some production assistant would have it. He already had a wedge-tip Sharpie marker and a roll of masking tape, the tape crossing over seats from one armrest to another. He’d write the VIP name on the tape and then handle seating them as they arrived, chairs reserved.

He walked into the PA office, right there in the production office building next to the rehearsal hall and across from the soundstage and found a young woman mid-toke. The smell of marijuana, like stale dog shit, wafted to him as he closed the door behind him.

When she looked up, sloe-eyed, she saw a man of twenty-five, trim and taller than average but not towering. He was wearing the navy jacket and gray slacks all pages wore. The tie wasn’t knotted tight at the throat yet, a blue and red rep. His dark hair was snipped into a corporate wedge, perfectly average. Nothing remarkable, no mustache, no sideburns. There was a little comma of hair over one eye, one little cowlick that wouldn’t cooperate. Despite the flaw, he had a handsome face. He wore all his scars on the inside.

The fuck you doing in here? she said. You didn’t knock. She was right. Pages were supposed to always knock.

She stubbed the joint out in the top half of a little film cannister she was using for an ashtray and then stuffed the warm roach into her jeans pocket.

I need the overstage list, that’s all, he said, feeling like he didn’t deserve her wrath.

I was going to bring it to the stage.

When? I need it right now. He pointed at the watch on his wrist.

She said, You can wait for me.

It’s time to tape the VIP seats. Like right now. Half an hour until audience load.

She looked around to the wall where the white-faced analog clock hung, and she squinted like she couldn’t make out the time. Probably too high to focus her eyes on it.

Here’s your fucking list, page, she said, hissing it before throwing it at him.

It was a long sheet of yellow legal pad, names written in different-colored ink, scribbled.

The list is usually typed. One list for each audience.

I didn’t have time to type it. You can read, can’t you?

He looked over the lists, saw he couldn’t make much of it out. The PA had probably been adding to it all week, jotting as the names for the tapings came in, never thinking about getting the damned thing typed up neatly. Sure, I can read. I’m just not sure you can type. He kept trying to make the scribbles out. I can type this if you’ll help me read what you’ve written.

I can fucking type, page.

He looked at her, waiting for her to commit.

Get out of here. Right now. I’ll bring the list to you on stage in twenty minutes, she said angrily. She snatched the paper back and looked like she was trying to get her eyes to bring the scribbles into focus. She wasn’t succeeding.

He wouldn’t drop it. I need to load the audience in twenty. I need the list in five.

Pages are here to support us, mister. I’m not here to bow down to you.

Tell you what, he said, stealing another look at his watch. I’ll run an errand and come right back. You’ll have the list typed up by then, won’t you? Unless you’d rather have my help to…see straight.

This’ll be ready when you get back.

Great.

Tagg wondered if the smell of pot would be on him as he went over to the page office, on the first floor of a building that was just called the Five Story. He wanted to check his schedule for next week, see if he had any messages.

Joe DeLeo wanted to see him.

He popped into the boss’s office, a room he kept dark except for a single desk lamp that threw shadows all over the classic movieland posters that went for artwork.

Sit down, Tagg, said DeLeo. He was somewhere near sixty by now, head of the pages for more than twenty years. He liked to wear gangsteresque dark suits, often pinstriped, with the blue shirts that had the white collar and cuffs. He always wore a gold bar between his collar points to keep his knot up at a rakish angle, yellow today. It went with the gray hair slicked straight back and looking wet, a don having a plate of pasta in the place where he’d be gunned down.

I have bad news, Joe started. "Your time sheet for last week’s Rhodes Trip…"

What about it?

Everyone else clocked out at eleven. Yours is marked eleven forty-five.

Tagg shrugged.

DeLeo said, If you clocked out later than you actually wrapped, it’s falsifying a time sheet. I could fire you for that.

I clocked out when Brett said to, put down the time he told me to put down.

What time was that?

He thought about it, couldn’t pin it down. I don’t remember. It was after the last of the audience was out the tech gate. I put down whatever time Brett said to put down. He realized he was repeating himself. Couldn’t help it. He was feeling the anxiety of the accused.

It was later than everyone else. He riffled a stack of time sheets filled out by the other pages on last week’s Rhodes Trip and let them fall back through his fingers. He had proof and he knew it. Despite what Tagg was saying.

I really couldn’t say what time it actually was, the page said. But, you know, the supes always tell the page crew what the wrap time is for the time sheets. There’s always some wiggle room. Supervisor generosity. Get paid for driving home.

DeLeo glanced down at the time sheet in question, there on his desk, the out time circled in red pen by the accounting person. Everyone else’s sheets were in a pile alongside where he’d dropped them.

The boss said, Tagg, the fact is everyone else clocked out at eleven and your sheet says forty-five minutes later. I could fire you for lying, cheating.

I didn’t cheat anybody, Joe. I put down the time Brett said.

You admit it was earlier, the actual out time.

I wrote down the time Brett told me write down. I didn’t falsify anything.

DeLeo’s eyes were sad, puppylike. Tagg, I’m going to need to discipline you for falsifying a time sheet.

Why don’t you ask Brett why he told me a different time than he told everyone else?

I need to enforce discipline.

So? What? I’m not working the Louies this weekend?

No, said his peacock-dressing boss, shuffling papers as he said it. "I’m going to suspend you for a week starting Monday. You’ll still wrangle at the Louies tomorrow and Sunday. My staff is shorthanded, and I need all hands