The alarm clock was still buzzing when I got back to the apartment. I poured a cup of coffee-it was on a timer-and filled a pipe. Then I reached for the phone.
I got through to Dr. Ropollo at his office in the English building and after telling him what I’d been doing the past ten years (it wasn’t much, after all), asked him about Sanders.
“Bill Collins is the guy you need to talk to. Teaches cinema up at Tulane. But he’s probably home, or in his studio, this time of day.” He gave me the two numbers and I wrote them down in my notebook. I thanked him and hung up.
I poured another cup of coffee and tried the first number. Nothing. I dialed the second, studio number. It rang five times.
“Collins.” A high, slightly effeminate voice, though businesslike at the same time.
I told him who I was and asked about Sanders.
“Bud Sanders, you mean? That asshole. Talk about birthright and a mess of pottage,” he said. “Talk about pissing it all away. Be one hell of a filmmaker if he wanted to. Horrible waste of talent.” He said it as though he were a man who couldn’t tolerate much waste of any kind.
“You know where I might find him?”
“Well, he teaches a cinematography course down at the free school. You might get in touch with him there.”
“Thank you, Mr. Collins,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to your epic now.”
“Epic, hell. I’m shooting another fucking TV commercial for ‘feminine hygiene products’ is what I’m doing.”
“I’ll look for it.”
“Along with the rest of the world.” And he broke the connection.
The free school wasn’t listed in the book and Directory Assistance had never heard of it. I finally called a flaky friend of mine, a stewardess who spent her off-time collecting lost causes, and got the address.
It was one crumbling building on the edge of Elysian Fields near I-10. From the look of it, it had been a hotel at one time or another. Now it was filled with long-haired sweaty kids and covered with graffiti. Don’t drop toothpicks in the toilet or the crabs will polevault to freedom, it said on one wall. God is watching you, it said above that. I wondered if he (or she) was watching Cordelia Clayson too.
I finally tracked down the Administrative Offices on the second floor and walked in. A girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen got up from a desk and walked toward me.
“Yessir,” she said.
“Yes’m. I’m looking for Bud Sanders, have a job for him but can’t seem to connect. Wondered if you might be able to help me.”
“A job, you say?”
“Right.”
“Well.” She considered. “You could leave a message with me, I’d see he got it.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m afraid I’m in a hurry. I really have to get through to him today. If I’m going to use him, that is.”
“Well.” She looked around the room as though he might be hiding in it somewhere. “Wow, I don’t know.” She reached around behind her and grabbed her braids, tugged at them. “There’s money in it for him, huh?”
“Yes’m. Quite a bit, really.”
“Okay. Well, I don’t think he’d want me to let you get away.” That decided, she let the braids go. “He’s on location. Belright Hotel, on Perdido near Tulane and Jeff Davis.”
“Thanks, Miss.”
“Ms.”
“Right.”
“Room 408.”