Close-Up

‘You miserable bastard, please have a drink.’ Stone held up the stopper of a cut-glass decanter.

‘It makes me careless and you fat.’

‘A tiny one?’

‘OK, Marshall, if you need the reassurance, pour me a pint of your best scotch. But I won’t drink it.’

‘You’re an obstinate old sod.’ Stone put the stopper back into the decanter.

‘That’s why you need me to represent you. I really don’t mind being disliked.’

‘And I do?’

‘Yes, you do.’

Stone chased a block of ice with a swizzle stick. ‘It’s good, the deal we made for The Executioner?’

‘It’s the most anyone ever got from Leo Koolman for that kind of package.’

‘I’ll send Leo a little present. Perhaps a first edition, or cufflinks.’

‘No.’

Stone looked up in surprise. Weinberger said, ‘It will make him wonder if we’ve put one over on him.’

‘You’re a devious bastard, Viney.’ Stone toasted him before drinking.

Weinberger smiled. ‘In Perrier water?’

Stone nodded, and sipped at the water. Then he put the glass down and tightened the knot of his neckerchief before consulting his gold Rolex. Once such a watch had been the prime ambition of every film actor. Now kids like Somerset flaunted Micky Mouse timepieces that anyone could afford. ‘Let’s go to dinner, Viney.’

Weinberger recognized it as Stone’s way of taking his leave. He said, ‘I’ve got a wife and dinner waiting. Another hour and both will go cold on me.’

‘Yes, phone Lucy. She must come too. My God, how long since I last saw Lucy.’

Weinberger smiled.

‘No, seriously.’

‘Off you go, Marshall. I’ll just use the phone and be off. I’ll let myself out.’

‘Ring for anything you want.’ Stone touched some of the tiny roses that he’d brought up from his country garden that morning. He missed the garden when work forced him to stay in his London flat. ‘Will you take the roses with you; for Lucy with my love.’ Weinberger nodded. Stone was reluctant to leave without being quite sure that his agent did not bear a grudge for his peevish outburst. It was one of his most awful – and most unfounded – fears that Weinberger would refuse to work with him any more. Or, worse, that Weinberger might deliberately go slow on Stone’s representation while pushing some other client.

‘It was good to see you, Viney, it really was.’ He paused long enough in front of a mirror to be sure his hair looked right. Then, still smiling to Weinberger, he let himself out through the carved double-doors that had once been part of a Mexican church.

Weinberger heard Stone greet someone outside in the hallway. A girl’s voice replied. Then he heard the front door of the apartment close and soon after that the sound of the doors of the Rolls and then its motor as it accelerated along Mount Street.

Weinberger looked around the room. It had hardly changed since a fashionable decorator had designed it almost ten years before. The colour scheme was pink and blue-grey and even the collection of snuff-boxes had been selected so that those colours predominated. An appearance of spontaneity had been achieved by the big bowls of cut flowers and the casual placing of the footstools and the cushions, and yet these had been ordained by the designer. The three silk-covered sofas were still arranged around the fire-place in the same way. Even the expensive illustrated books and the silver cigarette-box and lighter were the same ones in the same positions.

Weinberger helped himself to a cigarette and lit it before dialling the president of Koolman International Pictures Inc. It was some time before the agent was given a chance to talk, but finally he was able to say, ‘Well, I agree, Leo, but an actor must make his own decision about a thing like this. You don’t want him blaming you after, and I don’t want him blaming me.’

Again there was a speech by Koolman, then Weinberger said, ‘All actors are frightened of TV, they think it means they are on the decline. Especially a series – Marshall would certainly do a one-shot for you, or a spectacular, but an option for twenty shows is too many. Let me tell Marshall it’s ten. After the first few it will either be such a success that he’ll go along, or be such a failure that you won’t want more than five.’

Again Weinberger listened. Then he said, ‘OK, Leo, and I’d like to show you some girls to play the wife…’ silence, then, ‘Well, yes, and I wouldn’t mind that either,’ he laughed. ‘Goodbye, Leo, and thanks.’

Jasper switched off the tape-recorder and looked at Marshall Stone. The actor got to his feet and smoothed his tight slacks over his thighs. The girl looked up at him, but her face was expressionless.

‘Bloody Judas,’ said Stone finally. ‘He takes ten per cent of my gross income…’ he turned to the girl, ‘…gross, mark you, not net. It’s a bloody fortune.’ She nodded. ‘And he plots against me in my own home.’ He turned to Jasper. ‘Pity you couldn’t fix it so we could hear the other end.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK, Jasper. Goodnight. I’ll drive Miss Delft home.’

‘Goodnight, sir.’ Jasper closed the tape-recorder and put it away before going out. As soon as the door closed the girl got to her feet and put her arms round Stone’s neck. ‘We can’t go on meeting like this,’ she said, and giggled.

‘Seriously,’ said Stone, ‘you’re the only one I have. You’re all I live for, darling.’

‘I know,’ said Suzy Delft.

2

What does [Upton] Sinclair know about anything? He’s just a writer.

Louis B. Mayer

1949

‘All my brother ever wanted to do is make this a better town.’

The taller of the two men fingered the lock of the safe and turned to face the angry young cowhand. ‘Wait a minute, boy. Americans built this town with bare hands and know-how: anyone who don’t like it here can go back to where they come from.’

The young cowboy leaned across the banker’s desk and spoke in the manner of a man trying hard to control his temper. ‘Did you ever walk as far as your own ranch-house, Mr Sanderson? Did you ever see what kind of shacks those Mexicans live in, did you?’

‘Would,’ explained the banker, ‘but I just can’t stand the smell.’ He smiled.

They both turned as a sound of gunfire and galloping horses grew louder. Half a dozen horsemen galloped past, firing six-guns into the air. The young cowboy said, ‘Seems like you might be taking yourself a long deep sniff.’

Baxter kicked open the doors of the light-trap because he was balancing two thick-shakes and my pastrami on rye: a Hollywood breakfast! I used my thumbnail to prise the lid off the shake carefully, so as not to spill it. Around the cardboard lid, serpentine coils of film spelled out ‘San Fernando Valley Drugstore established 1934’. I flicked it as far as the front row of seats. Some days I could hit the screen. I always sat at the very back of the viewing theatre alongside the glass panel of the projection room. The big fans were there, so I could ignore the ‘No Smoking’ signs without worrying about top brass wandering in to sniff and see why the red light was on. Baxter unwrapped my straws and arranged the hot sandwiches and dill pickle on a paper plate. He was flustered. Normally he would have ducked under the projection beam, but now the mayor of the township was only one inch high as he stamped around on Baxter’s forehead.

‘You’re in the light, Baxter.’ He nodded but he hadn’t heard me. I wondered why I’d put up with him for five years, but in 1944 only dopes like Baxter and layabouts like me had escaped the Army.

‘You’re in the light,’ I said again.

‘They are not renewing your contract, Peter.’

We both knew I didn’t have that sort of contract. I was on monthly salary and that’s all they had to give me to say goodbye.

I started on the sandwich. ‘Every day I tell you, no lettuce. Every day!’