A corpse in NoHo, and the mayor's not home

Scene: Detectives Deland and Gallardo drive to Malibu to give Celeste the bad news: her husband died in the restroom of a North Hollywood theater, the Vermouth. Murdered — while she was catching a ride home from Mandeville Canyon with Mayor Russell Napolitano.

His Honor is nowhere to be seen, but the cops make note of his Lexus in the driveway on their way out. Gallardo is still mesmerized by Rachel, Celeste's 22-year-old daughter. She's even hotter than her mother was, "and twice as much trouble."

Why was Larry suffocated with a "mud-like substance?" What's the connection to Mayor Napolitano's vision of a subway along Wilshire to the ocean? All we know is that when Celeste sees his hand-drawn map, she tells the mayor "Larry has been playing Monopoly for two and a half years above that subway route of yours."

So it goes on the LA Observed Script Project, the screenplay being written by you, the readers. This week's pages are credited to Jonah Lazar, 11-year-old son of previous winner Jerry Lazar — we'll let the Guild hash it out later. Jonah gets a coveted LAOSP T-shirt, and bragging rights on the playground. Runner-up this week is KP Mackie, a San Diego proofreader and mother of three teenage boys who once graded 75 entries for the HBO/Bravo series "Project Greenlight."

Story editor Eric Estrin has all the notes and more at his blog, so check it out. If you get a hankering, tell Eric where the hottest L.A. noir story in town should go next. This time you've got an extra week, since Eric has to go out of town to clear his head of all the plots and subplots he's been reading.

View the whole script (so far)
Script Project video on YouTube

Edited post