MARIO PUZO WON’T BE WRITING THIS ONE

At last, the truth comes out.

This might seem trivial news. After all, who really cares if some Hollywood fat cat is brought low? But what’s significant about Ovitz’ fall is the reason he gives for his failure. Ovitz insists that He had been targeted by, in his words, the "Gay Mafia", which, he insists, runs Hollywood.

Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised about this, since for years I’ve been told it’s the Jews who run Hollywood. But hey, Ovitz used to head up Disney, so he must know what he’s talking about. I decided to do a little investigating of my own. I called up the FBI.

"Are you doing an investigation into the Gay Mafia that runs Hollywood?" I asked the receptionist. "And if not, why not?"

"What?" she said.

"The Gay Mafia. Michael Ovitz says they rubbed out his career. Why isn’t anyone investigating this? Is it because of that whole J. Edgar Hoover wearing a dress thing?" She hung up on me. Guess they’re still a little touchy about it.

I decided to call up my friend Sluice Tundra, Private Eye, who, you may remember, has contributed a few guest columns. As usual, he answered his own phone. "Tundra," he said.

"Sluice! It’s Dusty! What’s happening, buddy?"

"Nothing much," he replied, his voice roughened by years of cigarettes and rotgut whiskey. "I’m just an honest gumshoe, trying to make a living on the mean streets, where life is cheap and the women are…" I put the phone down on the counter and went to get myself a Diet Coke. He was finishing up when I came back.

"So what’s the story on this Gay Mafia I’ve been hearing about?"

His lowered his voice. "Who told you about that?"

"It was in the paper. Michael Ovitz said…"

"Shhh!" He interrupted me. "I can’t talk on the phone. They may be watching. Meet me at Mom’s."

"Mom’s Diner? The one on the corner of…"

"No. My Mom’s house. She’s in Atlantic City and I have to go by and feed her cats."

When I got to the small but immaculately clean bungalow where Mrs. Tundra lived, my friend was already there, dressed in his trademark trench coat and fedora.

"Man," I said, "Isn’t that hot? It’s ninety degrees out here."

"Union regulations," he explained. "C’mon inside."

As we sat at the kitchen table, Tundra filled me in. "The Gay Mafia started in the late 70’s in Trenton, New Jersey. There were a lotta turf wars, a lot of bloodshed before things stabilized. The current capo de tutti capi is a guy named Lyle "The Hairdresser" Pizzicato."

"Lyle the Hairdresser?" I said.

Tundra nodded. "He started off small as a button man for the Coloratura family. Little stuff at first. His first big score was hijacking a truck full of Barbra Streisand CD’s. That got him noticed by the big boss, a guy named Chad "The Decorator" Coloratura. It wasn’t long before Lyle was a made guy."

"Does that mean what I think it means?"

Tundra sighed. "No, get your mind out of the gutter. It means he had become a full member of the family."

"Oh. So how did the Gay Mafia take over Hollywood?"

"In ‘84, they decided that Jersey was getting just too tacky. So Coloratura sent Lyle to L.A. to check out the possibilities of moving out West. The boys out there didn’t like the idea of The Hairdresser moving in on their turf. There was a lot of hair-pulling, a couple of guys got slapped. Then Lyle snuck into the house of one of the big bosses, a guy named Bruce "the Florist" Mezzo, and left something in his bed."

"A horse’s head?"

"No, a male model named Evan. Mezzo and Evan moved out to Vermont and got married. The Hairdresser moved into the power vacuum and the rest is history."

"Wow." Was all I could say. As I got back to my car, my cell phone rang. I answered it.

"Listen, column-boy," a voice said. The caller was obviously trying to sound menacing, but the lisp spoiled the effect. "You been asking too many questions."

"Who is this?" I demanded.

The voice went on. " I’m only gonna tell you this once. There is no Gay Mafia, capisce?""

"Actually, you may have a point."

"I do? I mean, yeah, of course I do."

"Sure. Most complaints about some sort of secret cabal running things and keeping people down are imagined or made up by disappointed people trying to justify their own failures."

"Yeah. Right. So lay off, unless you want to sleep with the fishes."

"Sorry, pal," I said. "I don’t go for that kinky stuff."

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.