The Fink Files
THE FINK FILES
BEANIE
At some point we have to stand together.
—YESINIA RODRIGUEZ
1981
Barry had long ago suggested that once Beanie got into Central Files, she needed to devise a plan to get the hell out. “It was a dead end,” he had warned, and though it provided a treasure chest of information, the “dead end” no longer justified the means. It was time for her to make a move. “But where?” Barry had asked.
“I’m working on it,” she told him, smiling with a confidence he had to admire. He liked Beanie. He liked her gumption, her drive, and her ability to illuminate the darkest corner at the Light Agency. She was unlike anyone he’d ever met.
And for her part, Beanie felt similarly about Barry. He meant the world to her and was one step closer to being a real boyfriend—though he still had a fiancée, or the idea of one. Because of that she kept herself in check. The extracurricular activities were just some fun they’d have every Saturday, going to gigs, then ending up in his studio apartment in Westwood with a hot plate and a view of a cemetery. They’d get high, have sex, but mostly lie in bed and dream of a future where they would both conquer Hollywood. “We’ll rock and roll this agency,” she’d tell him, and he’d lie closer if only to catch the dream.
“I think I’m going to be Ollie’s secretary,” she said to him one night as they shared a post-coital joint. She felt particularly good that evening because he had completed the act. Most nights he didn’t, claiming he was too high or too tired, which always left her feeling unsure. Sex with Barry was the only “real” sex she’d had, so it was important to her that he was satisfied. It made her feel validated and somehow whole.
“I thought he didn’t want a secretary?” Barry asked.
“That’s only because he doesn’t know he wants one,” she said with a mischievous grin, explaining that becoming his secretary was just a means to an end to becoming a floater. “Wait, so now you want to be a floater?” She nodded, hoisting herself onto her elbow as she explained that a floater was someone who could seamlessly fit in whenever a secretary was on vacation, allowing the agents as few disruptions as possible. Sylvan Light usually had three or four floaters on staff and the requirements were less stringent on appearance and more focused on skill and discretion. So, if she showed Ollie what a good secretary she could be, then when there was an opening in the floater pool, she would convince him to allow her to fill it.
Surely once an agent saw how good she was, how smart she was, how loyal she was, they would want—nay, demand that she be their permanent hire. “And then over time,” she told him, “they can help me become a trainee, and one day, if I’m good, really good, which I will be,” she added with confidence, “an agent.” While some might have called this multi-tiered plan at worst a pipe dream, at best a long shot, Beanie had good aim. And besides, she was used to long shots.
And so, without invitation or decree, Beanie Rosen moved her Central Filing duties to an empty desk outside Personnel where she began answering Ollie Burns’s phones, typing his correspondence, and even doing pre-interviews on secretaries when he was otherwise occupied. After about a week working the two jobs, Ollie, who didn’t object to Beanie being there, realized she had totally reorganized his files.
“When did you do all this?” he asked, unsure if he should be grateful or annoyed.
“After hours,” she told him, explaining that everything was sorted now by appearance, showing him the Polaroid pictures she’d attached to each résumé. She had divided everyone into categories and subcategories. “I mean, let’s call it what it is,” she told him, opening the file cabinet, and flipping through the folders. “We’ve got curvy, thin, long legs, big boobs,” adding that there was a subdivision within each category of blonde, brunette, redhead, etc.
His face was a blank. She couldn’t tell if he was pissed or impressed.
It was a gamble, she knew. The suggestion that secretarial hirings, especially for specific agents, were based on anything else was a farce. No one said that Matt Saperstein wanted a curvy redhead. Aloud. But until he found one, Ollie’s job wasn’t done.
“This way it’s easier,” she said. And without irony or judgment she went to the curvy section, then the subsection of redheads and— voila! —produced three possible candidates.
“Shall I set up appointments?” she asked.
There had never been a discussion of a raise or even overtime, she simply began doing her work and his: screening the applicants, the agent requests, the personnel complaints, the workman’s comp filings, the unemployment paperwork. Finally, after two months, Ollie hired a full-time Central File clerk and Beanie became his full-time secretary.
And that was when she found out about the Fink files.
They were in a separate file cabinet containing information about Mike Barron, Stu Geller, and other bad boys who’d had numerous complaints lodged against them. But no one got more complaints than Randall Fink. A television packaging agent who had taken credit for inventing the miniseries, putting together such shows as Rich Man, Poor Man, The Thorn Birds, and Roots, Randy Fink held the record of thirty-three complaints lodged against him. In September of 1981, Beanie witnessed the thirty-fourth.
Yesinia Rodriguez, a secretary who had worked for Fink for eleven months, accused him and a manager, Charlie Folder, of attempted rape.
“Fink held me down,” Yesinia said, “and he told Charlie to go first.”
Yesinia had apparently escaped by kicking one party and throwing a Rolodex at the other, then running to the ladies’ room where a secretary from Business Affairs advised that she go home and file a formal complaint.
Fink, for his part, was happy to be rid of her. He came into Personnel with an attitude that seemed to put all the blame on Burns. “Do me a favor,” he instructed Ollie, “get me someone who’s not crazy next time… like Greenberg’s girl,” he said, referring to another secretary who was much more accommodating. “This last one was a hysterical fucking mess.” He claimed that Yesinia’s work had fallen off and that she’d concocted much of the story because she knew he was looking to replace her.
But when Yesinia appeared in Personnel two days later to officially file a complaint, she was neither hysterical nor a mess, presenting a plan to move forward. She wanted to work for another agent, preferably a woman, she told Ollie, saying that she would float until the right position became available, as long as she didn’t have to work for Fink again.
Ollie told her that, unfortunately, there were no openings in the floater pool, and more importantly that they take formal complaints quite seriously. “We need to investigate this,” he said, adding that right now it was her word against theirs.
“And what are they saying?” she asked.
“That it was a joke,” Ollie said, “albeit a bad joke that obviously had gone too far.”
“A joke?” Yesinia repeated. “Fink held me down while Charlie Folder went up my skirt, tore off my panties, and put his fingers inside of me. So, tell me, please, really, tell me, what about that seems funny?”
“Nothing,” Ollie said quietly.
Beanie could feel the blood rushing to her face. She was angry. For the girl. For the situation. For the inertia that was settling around them, like the aperture on a camera, slowly closing.
Why was there no action? Beanie wondered. This girl had been violated. A line had been crossed. Surely, there were lines, even there. Hadn’t a law been broken?
“I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of this,” Ollie said. “In the meantime, we want to offer you this.” He pushed an envelope her way.
She opened it and pulled out a check for $932—two months’ pay.
“Hush money?” she asked.
“Severance pay,” he corrected.
She looked at him, slack-jawed. “So, I’m gone?” she said. “From the agency? That’s it. You squawk, you walk? You can’t be serious?”
“Mr. Fink said your work had fallen off, and that you were so dismayed you…” He didn’t bother to complete the thought.
Yesinia stared at him, daring him not to feel like the phony bastard he was—that they all were.
“It’s probably better this way, Yesinia,” he told her, passing her a paper and pen. “Sign the paper. Take the money. Get a job somewhere else.”
“And what does the paper say?” she asked.
“It simply absolves you and the agency from any responsibility,” he told her.
“What exactly am I responsible for in this scenario?” she asked rhetorically.
“Do yourself a favor, Yesinia,” Ollie said gently, “put it behind you.”
“Until what? Somebody else takes my place?” She looked at Beanie, sitting silently on the sidelines. “At some point,” she said to her, “we have to stand up for ourselves and stand together.”
Yesinia got up to leave, pushing the envelope and the unsigned agreement back toward Ollie. “Save it for the next girl he ‘plays a joke’ on.”
And she left.
Ollie shook his head, looked at Beanie, and sighed. “These girls,” he said sadly, “they act like they weren’t part of the tango.”
“Didn’t sound like they were dancing,” Beanie said.
But Ollie, who had walked back into his office, didn’t hear. “Let me know when the new girl gets here,” he said. “She’s here at Fink’s recommendation.”
Beanie felt dirty, complicit. Maybe we all are, she thought. Every man who allowed it, every woman who knew, who turned a blind eye, we’re all part of a system that makes it possible.
Thirty minutes later a leggy strawberry blonde walked into Personnel.
“Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Ella Gaddy, and I have an appointment with Ollie Burns to interview for Randy Fink’s secretarial position. And you are…?”
That made Beanie smile. No one asked her name. But this confident, gawky, and unselfconsciously direct young woman had a friendliness and genuine curiosity, along with a slight Southern drawl, and legs that folded under her as she sat—like a crane or an accordion.
“I’m Beanie.”
Ella nodded. “I figured it was somethin’ cool. Short for Barbara?”
“Bernice.”
“It’s a fine nickname,” Ella said. “My daddy used to call me Egad on account of our last name, Gaddy, and the fact that I was always in some kind of trouble. Kinda wish that had stuck, but my mother…” She drifted off, unfolding her long legs and walking over to a signed picture of Clint Eastwood that hung on the wall. “He a client here?”
Beanie nodded.
“You’d think Clint Eastwood wouldn’t need an agent,” she said, then turning to Beanie smiling, added, “but, thankfully, he doesn’t think so.”
They both laughed.
Ella Gaddy was charming, refreshing, and authentic. Beanie instantly liked her.
“Where’s your résumé?” Beanie asked.
Ella shrugged. “I don’t have one,” she said, explaining that she’d just met Fink the day before on the set of Hill Street Blues. “A friend of mine got me a small part,” she told Beanie, sitting back down. She wasn’t an actress, she clarified, but thought it might be a hoot to try it out. “Turns out it wasn’t,” Ella said. “Just a lot of standing around.”
Beanie looked at her, momentarily impressed.
“Who’s your friend?” Beanie asked, once again aware that this was a business based on connections.
“Veronica Hamel,” Ella told her, explaining that Veronica was friends with one of Ella’s exes. Beanie nodded knowingly. Randy Fink represented Hamel. “He said I might like being a secretary,” she told Beanie. “It might be fun.”
Beanie looked at this gawky birdlike creature with her idiosyncratic beauty and wondered if she could tell her the truth. Beanie’s job was to help Ollie fill the holes, not to warn incoming applicants to circumnavigate them. But something was different about Ella Gaddy. Or maybe it was Beanie who was different, changed by Yesinia, and all the other girls in the Fink files who’d come before her, replaced by complicity and ease.
“Send the new girl in,” Ollie said over the intercom.
Ella unfolded her legs and stood. “Nice to meet ya,” she said, extending her hand to shake.
“Tell Burns you want Accounting,” Beanie told her, holding rather than shaking her hand.
“What?” Ella asked, looking from Beanie’s hand to her face.
“We have a position we’ve been trying to fill in Accounting. Tell him you’re great with numbers, that you’ve done accounting before. You thought about it, and you’d rather be in Accounting than be a secretary for Randall Fink.”
Ollie buzzed again.
“I’m not particularly great with numbers,” Ella told her, “and I haven’t done accounting before.”
“Lie,” Beanie whispered, squeezing her hand for punctuation.
Ella could see the panic in Beanie’s eyes.
“Why?” she asked.
“At some point,” Beanie said, “we need to stand together.”
And they did. For the rest of their lives.