Mystery Moon

The Great Depression descended on an unsuspecting world like the hand of God. The prosperity of the twenties folded. The New York Stock Exchange bloated with the exaggerated optimism of the stock gurus plunged into financial Hell. Within a year, banks and businesses were destroyed in droves. Unemployment followed. Fear spread through the land. Civil unrest lurked in city slums. The seeds of revolution started to sprout. Something was wrong with the government. Changes were needed. The poor began to starve.
Lloyd Val Halovitch sat in his office on Hollywood Blvd., feet on his desk contemplating out his window the scene below. He worried about the sudden transition from silent pictures to talkies. Why in the hell are so many of my clients unable to make the switch? He ran his hand through his thinning hair and almost dropped his horn-rim glasses. He rested his elbow on the desk an held his head in one hand. What was wrong with them. He knew the answers the directors gave him. Art Manfred had a German accent you could cut with a strudel. Rita Conchita couldn't remember the picture's title. Several couldn't perform without using the exaggerated gestures of the silent films. The directors were turning to stage actors who could speak lines and had a better sense of presence before the cameras.
Lloyd Val Halovitch took up the latest edition of Variety. He scanned the main story about Louie B. Mayer. "I ain't making no more damn pictures where they use feathers to write," the reporter quoted the great man as saying. Turning the page Lloyd Val spotted an ad in the lower corner. Golden State Pictures was casting another war story and needed experienced stunt pilots.
Lloyd Val grimaced. Hub Kemp was at one time was one of his best clients before Golden State fired him. I wonder, is this a message I need to heed? He pulled his appointment book out of his desk and scanned his list of clients.
"What am I thinking?" Lloyd said aloud. "Hub found some kind of treasure near his hometown in Tennessee and could buy Golden State."
He shook his head and put the book back in the drawer. It was close to a year ago he made a trip to Buena Mesa. The summer of '29. The Moon Grove, Hub called his orange grove in Santa Barbara County. He nearly had Hub convinced to invest in his idea of making talkies, when Opal, his wife, put in her two-bits. She knocked the whole idea into a cocked hat. Val remembered he said some words to her he shouldn't have and Hub kicked him out.
He reached for the phone, then hesitated. "This is the summer of 1930," he said to himself.
"Mert, come in and bring your pad," Lloyd Val called. Mert had been with him for ten years, ever since her husband had died in an auto accident and left her with two kids. He knew he should fire her but he didn't have the heart.
"Yes boss?" Mert said. These days she always looks anxious, reflected Lloyd Val.
"I need to write a letter to an old client, Hub Kemp,Lloyd Val said.
"I remember him, a real keen guy," Mert said.
Good grief, thought Lloyd Val, she looks frayed around the edges, a frizzy blond.
"Yeah, one of those good-looking aviator types," Lloyd said.
"Didn't he get hold of a lot of filthy lucre?" Mert asked.
-to be continued...