Penzler, Otto Ed v2

  But I found out later that Linda did phone Steve, and he backed up what I’d said. Also he refused to discuss why we’d separated.

  “I have a hunch the script can go for big dollars,” I continued.

  “How big is big?”

  “A million.”

  Linda’s eyes widened. “That certainly isn’t small.”

  “Ballard heard there’s a buzz about Ric. Ballard thinks that Ric might be a young Joe Eszterhas.” The reference was to the screenwriter of ‘Basic Instinct’, who had become a phenomenon for writing sensation-based scripts on speculation and intriguing so many producers that he’d manipulated them into a bidding war and collected megabucks. “I have a suspicion that Ballard would like to make a preemptive bid and shut out the competition.” “Mort, you sound more like an agent than a writer.”

  “It’s just a hunch.”

  “And Steve doesn’t want a piece of this?”

  I shook my head no.

  Linda frowned harder.

  But her frown dissolved the moment she turned again toward Ric and took another look at his perfect chin. “Did you bring a copy of the script?”

  “Sure.” Ric grinned with becoming modesty, the way I’d taught him. “Right here.”

  Linda took it and flipped to the end to make sure it wasn’t longer than 115 pages—a shootable size. “What’s it about?”

  Ric gave the pitch that I’d taught him—the high concept first, then the target audience, the type of actor he had in mind, and ways the budget could be kept in check. The same as when we’d clocked it at my house, he took four minutes.

  Linda listened with growing fascination. She turned to me. “Have you been coaching him?”

  “Not much. Ric’s a natural.”

  “He must be to act this polished.”

  “And he’s young,” I said.

  “You don’t need to remind me.”

  “And Ballard certainly doesn’t need reminding,” I said.

  “Ric,” Linda said, “from here on in, whatever you do, don’t get writer’s block. I’m going to make you the highest paid new kid in town.”

  Ric beamed.

  “And, Mort,” Linda said, “I think you’re awfully generous to help your friend through the ropes like this.”

  “Well”—I shrugged—“isn’t that what friends are for?”

  I had joked with Linda that our trip to her office was a courtesy visit—to save her a long drive and the cost of buying us lunch at an expensive restaurant. That was partly true. But I also wanted to see how Ric made his pitch about the script. If he got nerves and screwed up, I didn’t want it to be in Le Dome, where producers at neighbouring tables might see him get flustered. We were trying out the show on the road, so to speak, before we brought it to town. And I had to agree with Linda—Ric had done just fine.

  I told him so, as we drove along Sunset Boulevard. “I won’t always be there to back you up. In fact, it’ll be rare that I am. We have to keep training you so you give the impression there’s very little about writing or the business you don’t understand. Most of getting along with studio executives is making them have confidence in you.”

  “You really think I impressed her?”

  “It was obvious.”

  Ric thought about it, peering out the window, nodding. “Yeah.”

  So we went back to my home in the hills above West Hollywood, and I ran him through more variations of questions he might get asked—where he’d gotten the idea, what actors would be good in the roles, who he thought could direct the material, that sort of thing. At the start of a project, producers pay a lot of attention to a screenwriter, and they promise to keep consulting him the way they’re consulting him now. It’s all guff, of course. As soon as a director and a name actor are attached to a project, the producers suddenly get amnesia about the original screenwriter. But at the start, he’s king, and I wanted Ric to be ready to answer any kind of question about the screenplay so he could be convincing that he’d actually written it.

  Ric was a fast study. At eight, when I couldn’t think of any more questions he might have to answer, we took a drive to dinner at a fish place near the Santa Monica pier. Afterward, we strolled to the end of the pier and watched the sunset.

  “So this is what it’s all about,” Ric said.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The action. I can feel the action.”

  “Don’t get fooled by Linda’s optimism. Nothing might come of this.”

  Ric shook his head. “I’m close.”

  “I’ve got some pages I want to do tomorrow, but if you’ll come around at four with your own new pages, I’ll go over them for you. I’m curious to see how you’re revising that script you showed me.”

  Ric kept staring out at the sunset and didn’t answer for quite a while. “Yeah, my script.”

  As things turned out, I didn’t get much work done the next day. I had just managed to solve a problem in a scene that was running too long when my phone rang. That was around ten o’clock, and rather than be interrupted, I let my answering machine take it. But when I heard Ric’s excited voice, I picked up the phone.

  “Slow down,” I said. “Take it easy. What are you so worked up about?”

  “They want the script!”

  I wasn’t prepared. “Warners?”

  “Can you believe that this is happening so fast?”

  “Ballard’s actually taking it? How did you find this out?”

  “Linda just phoned me!”

  “Linda?” I frowned. “But why didn’t Linda...?” I was about to say, “Why didn’t Linda phone me?” Then I realised my mistake. There wasn’t any reason for Linda to phone me, except maybe to tell me the good news about my friend. But she definitely had to phone Ric. After all, he was supposedly the author of the screenplay.

  Ric kept talking excitedly. “Linda says Ballard wants to have lunch with me.”

  “Great.” The truth is, I was vaguely jealous. “When?”

  “Today.”

  I was stunned. Any executive with power was always booked several weeks in advance. For Ballard to decide to have lunch with Ric this soon, he would have had to cancel lunch with someone else. It definitely wouldn’t have been the other way around. No one cancels lunch with Ballard.

  “Amazing,” I said.

  “Apparently he’s got big plans for me. By the way, he likes the script as is. No changes. At least, for now. Linda says when they sign a director, the director always asks for changes.”

  “Linda’s right,” I said. “And then the director’ll insist that the changes aren’t good enough and ask to bring in a friend to do the rewrite.”

  “No fucking way,” Ric said.

  “A screenwriter doesn’t have any clout against a director. You’ve still got a lot to learn about industry politics. School isn’t finished yet.”

  “Sure.” Ric hurried on. “Linda got Ballard up to a million and a quarter for the script!”

  For a moment, I had trouble breathing. “Great.” And this time I meant it.

  Ric phoned again in thirty minutes. He was nervous about the meeting and needed reassurance.

  Ric phoned thirty minutes after that, saying that he didn’t feel comfortable going to a power lunch in the sneakers, jeans, and pullover that I had told him were necessary for the role he was playing.

  “You have to,” I said. “You’ve got to look like you don’t belong to the Establishment or whatever the hell it is they call it these days. If you look like every other writer trying to make an impression, Ballard will treat you like every other writer. We’re selling nonconformity. We’re selling youth.”

  “I still say I’d feel more comfortable in a jacket by...” Ric mentioned the name of the latest trendy designer.

  “Even assuming that’s a good idea, which it isn’t, how on earth are you going to pay for it? A jacket by that designer costs fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “I’ll use my credit card,” Ric said.<
br />
  “But a month from now, you’ll still have to pay the bill. You know the whopping interest rates those credit card companies charge.”

  “Hey, I can afford it. I just made a million and a quarter bucks.”

  “No, Ric. You’re getting confused.”

  “All right, I know Linda has to take her ten percent commission.”

  “You’re still confused. You don’t get the bulk of that money. I do. What you get is fifteen percent of it.”

  “That’s still a lot of cash. Almost two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “But remember, you probably won’t get it for at least six months.”

  “What?”

  “On a spec script, they don’t simply agree to buy it and hand you a check. The fine points on the negotiation have to be completed. Then the contracts have to be drawn up and reviewed and amended. Then their business office drags its feet, issuing the check. I once waited a year to get paid for a spec script.”

  “But I can’t wait that long. I’ve got...”

  “Yes?”

  “Responsibilities. Look, Mort, I have to go. I need to get ready for this meeting.”

  “And I need to get back to my pages.”

  “With all this excitement, you mean you’re actually writing today?”

  “Every day.”

  “No shit.”

  But I was too preoccupied to get much work done. Ric finally phoned around five. “Lunch was fabulous.” I hadn’t expected to feel so relieved. “Ballard didn’t ask you any tricky questions? He’s still convinced you wrote the script?”

  “Not only that. He says I’m just the talent he’s been looking for. A fresh imagination. Someone in tune with today’s generation. He asked me to do a last-minute rewrite on an action picture he’s starting next week.”

  “‘The Warlords?’”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I’ve been hearing bad things about it,” I said.

  “Well, you won’t hear anything bad anymore.”

  “Wait a... Are you telling me you accepted the job?”

  “Damned right.”

  “Without talking to me about it first?” I straightened in shock. “What in God’s name did you think you were doing?”

  “Why would I need to talk to you? You’re not my agent. Ballard called Linda from our table at the restaurant. The two of them settled the deal while I was sitting there. Man, when things happen, they happen. All those years of trying, and now, Wham, Pow, all of a sudden I’m there. And the best part is, since I’m a writer for hire on this job, they have to pay some of the money the minute I sit down to work, even if the contracts aren’t ready.”

  “That’s correct,” I said. “On work for hire, you have to get paid on a schedule. The Writers Guild insists on that. You’re learning fast. But, Ric, before you accepted the job, don’t you think it would have been smart to read the script first—to see if it can be fixed?”

  “How bad can it be?” Ric chuckled.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “It doesn’t matter how bad. The fee’s a hundred thousand dollars. I need the money.”

  “For what? You don’t live expensively. You can afford to be patient and take jobs that build a career.”

  “Hey, I’ll tell you what I can afford. Are you using that portable phone in your office?”

  “Yes. But I don’t see why that matters.”

  “Take a look out your front window.”

  Frowning, I left my office, went through the TV room and the living room, and peered past the blossoming rhododendron outside my front window. I scanned the curving driveway, then focused on the gate.

  Ric was wearing a designer linen jacket, sitting in a red Ferrari, using a car phone, waving to me when he saw me at the window. “Like it?” he asked over the phone.

  “For God’s sake.” I broke the connection, set down the phone, and stalked out the front door.

  “Like it?” Ric repeated when I reached the gate. He gestured toward his jacket and the car.

  “You didn’t have time to... Where’d you get...?”

  “This morning, after Linda phoned about the offer from Ballard, I ordered the car over the phone. Picked it up after my meeting with Ballard. Nifty, huh?”

  “But you don’t have any assets. You mean they just let you drive the car off the lot?”

  “Bought it on credit. I made Linda sign as the guarantor.”

  “You made Linda ...” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Damn it, Ric, why don’t you let me finish coaching you before you run off and... After I taught you about screenplay technique and industry politics, I wanted to explain to you how to handle your money.”

  “Hey, what’s to teach? Money’s for spending.”

  “Not in this business. You’ve got to put something away for when you have bad years.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not having any trouble earning money so far.”

  “What happened today is a fluke! This is the first script I’ve sold in longer than I care to think about. There aren’t any guarantees.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I came along, huh?” Ric grinned.

  “Before you accepted the rewrite job, you should have asked me if I wanted to do it.”

  “But you’re not involved in this. Why should I divide the money with you? I’m going to do it.”

  “In that case, you should have asked yourself another question.”

  “What?”

  “Whether you’ve got the ability to do it.”

  Ric flushed with anger. “Of course, I’ve got the ability. You’ve read my stuff. All I needed was a break.”

  I didn’t hear from Ric for three days. That was fine by me. I’d accomplished what I’d intended. I’d proven that a script with my name on it had less chance of being bought than the same script with a youngster’s name on it. And to tell the truth, Ric’s lack of discipline was annoying me. But after the third day, I confess I got curious. What was he up to?

  He called at nine in the evening. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I said. “I had a good day’s work.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m calling about. Work.”

  “Oh?”

  “I haven’t been in touch lately because of this rewrite on ‘The Warlords.’”

  I waited.

  “I had a meeting with the director,” Ric said. “Then I had a meeting with the star.” He mentioned the name of the biggest action hero in the business. He hesitated. “I was wondering. Would you look at the material I’ve got?”

  “You can’t be serious. After the way you talked to me about it? You all but told me to get lost.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude. Honestly. This is all new to me, Mort. Come on, give me a break. As you keep reminding me, I don’t have the experience you do. I’m young.”

  I had to hand it to him. He’d not only apologised. He’d used the right excuse.

  “Mort?”

  At first I didn’t want to be bothered. I had my own work to think about, and ‘The Warlords’ would probably be so bad that it would contaminate my mind.

  But then my curiosity got the better of me. I couldn’t help wondering what Ric would do to improve junk.

  “Mort?”

  “When do you want me to look at what you’ve done?”

  “How about right now?”

  “Now? It’s after nine. It’ll take you an hour to get here and—“

  “I’m already here.”

  “What?”

  “I’m on my car phone. Outside your gate again.”

  Ric sat across from me in my living room. I couldn’t help noticing that his tan was darker, that he was wearing a different designer jacket, a more expensive one. Then I glanced at the tide page on the script he’d handed me.

  ‘THE WARLORDS - Revisions by Eric Potter’

  I flipped through the pages. All of them were typed on white paper. That bothered me. Ric’s inexperience was showing again. On last-minut
e rewrites, it’s always helpful to submit changed pages on different-coloured paper. That way, the producer and director can save time and not have to read the entire script to find the changes.

  “These are the notes the director gave me,” Ric said. He handed me some crudely typed pages. “And these”—Ric handed me pages with scribbling on them—“are what the star gave me. It’s a little hard to decipher them.”

  “More than a little. Jesus.” I squinted at the scribbling and got a headache. “I’d better put on my glasses.” They helped a little. I read what the director wanted. I switched to what the star wanted.

  “These are the notes the producer gave me,” Ric said.

  I thanked God that they were neatly typed and studied them as well. Finally I leaned back and took off my glasses.

  “Well?”

  I sighed. “Typical. As near as I can tell, these three people are each talking about a different movie. The director wants more action and less characterisation. The star has decided to be serious—he wants more characterisation and less action. The producer wants it funny and less expensive. If they’re not careful, this movie will have multiple personalities.”

  Ric looked at me anxiously.

  “Okay,” I said, feeling tired. “Get a beer from the refrigerator and watch television or something while I go through this. It would help if I knew where you’d made changes. Next time you’re in a situation like this, identify your work with coloured paper.”

  Ric frowned.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “The changes.”

  “So? What about them?”

  “Well, I haven’t started to make them.”

  “You haven’t...? But on this title page, it says, ‘Revisions by Eric Potter.’”

  Ric looked sheepish. “The title page is as far as I got.”

  “Sweet Jesus. When are these revisions due?”

  “Ballard gave me a week.”

  “And for the first three days of that week, you didn’t work on the changes? What have you been doing?”

  Ric glanced away.

  Again I noticed that his tan was darker. “Don’t tell me you’ve just been sitting in the sun?”