Jump

by Mike Lupica

  “Who?”

  “Hannah. She and her brother and her lawyer, what’s-his-name with the dead muskrat on his head, are meeting with a couple of our West Coast movie guys at ten o’clock.”

  “Movie guys?”

  “What can I tell you? They don’t wait out there. They go. Especially when they find out Fox is interested already, Warner Brothers. Even the guys with the mouse ears.”

  “Let me get this straight,” DiMaggio said. “You, meaning Fukiko, employ the two guys she says raped her.”

  “Check.”

  DiMaggio said, “And me.”

  “Check.”

  “And now you are talking to her about doing a movie.”

  “Talking. Not doing. You ever been to Hollywood? Big difference between talking and doing. Big difference between making a deal and doing.”

  DiMaggio, fascinated, said, “You don’t see any conflict of interest there?”

  “You say conflict of interest. I say we’re just protecting our flanks here. Seeing the big picture, no pun intended. Hey, don’t turn this into ethics class, big guy. I just thought you’d want to know. Maybe when she’s done, you could accidentally bump into her. You said you were having trouble getting in touch with her.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to want to talk anymore. Especially after today.”

  “She’d be crazy to, if you think about it.”

  DiMaggio said, “Unless she is crazy.”

  “What does that mean? You told me they did it.”

  DiMaggio didn’t say anything. He knew that any kind of silence scared the shit out of Salter.

  When the silence stretched on too long, Salter said, “You’re saying now they didn’t do it?”

  “I’m a very open-minded person.”

  “Bullshit,” Salter said. “What’s going on here?”

  “What’s going on here is it’s not as simple as I thought at first. It usually isn’t. It means that there’s a connection between her and the Knicks before the night with Adair and Collins. Maybe it’s important for our purposes, maybe it’s not. But the meeting with them becomes a little less random all of a sudden. Maybe Adair and Collins knew who she was. Maybe she was trying to get back at Fine for dumping her.”

  “The plot thickens.”

  “I hope it doesn’t make the movie boys overheat.”

  “The paper says she dumped Fine, by the way.”

  “That’s not what Fine says.”

  “So you really did know about this? How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “Because I can’t do this and hold your hand. When I know where something fits, you’ll know.”

  “Very open-minded of you,” Salter said.

  “Almost as open-minded as Fukiko.”

  “You want to come over or not?”

  DiMaggio said he did. Salter told him to come to the Thirty-first Street entrance to the Garden, between Seventh and Eighth, and take the elevator to his office. There’d be a guy at the door expecting him. DiMaggio said he’d be there at nine-thirty. He hung up the phone, moved one of the speakers from the CD player next to the bathroom door and turned up the volume on his new Tony Bennett album, the one with all the Astaire songs on it. Then he got into the shower and wondered how Ted Salter figured in a movie about Hannah Carey.

  Maybe it was all a movie.

  Maybe he should approach it that way from now on. With the big guy from the Garden and with everybody else.

  It turned out that Salter was full of surprises.

  “Want to watch?” he asked DiMaggio. They were in his office at the Garden by then.

  “Watch?”

  “Her movie meeting. You ever sit in on one? They’re a scream. Usually you go in with an idea and have to pitch the moguls. This time it will be the other way around. The moguls pitching our Hannah.”

  DiMaggio said, “You’re getting me excited.”

  “Act cool all you want. I’m telling you, it’ll be a riot. You don’t want to watch?”

  “You’re saying they’re going to let us sit in on the meeting?”

  “Fuck no. We can watch.”

  DiMaggio looked at him. A black blazer today with charcoal gray slacks and a black crewneck sweater. A black shirt underneath the sweater, slipper-looking black shoes up on the desk, no socks. Tortoiseshell glasses. He was drinking water out of a plastic bottle, DiMaggio couldn’t see the label. DiMaggio said, “Watch?”

  “I’m telling you because it might help you. You don’t tell anybody else. Only a few security people know. Fukiko guys. They’d do the sword in the tummy before they’d talk.” Salter finished his water, casually dropped the bottle into a wastebasket. “Anyway, there are a couple of conference rooms where I can occasionally sneak a peak if I get the urge.”

  “You watch,” DiMaggio said. “And you tape.”

  “And I keep.”

  “You and the whole happy corporate family can sit around and watch them like home movies on the holidays.”

  “I only keep the tape if they say something interesting. Or really fucking mean.”

  “And if they do?”

  “Get out of line? Or if something’s going on behind my back?”

  “If somebody’s trying to screw with you.”

  “I never bring up something they said on the tape unless there were enough people in the room that any number of them could have given a particular bastard up. I call them in and give them my winning smile and say, ‘Oh, one hears things.’ ”

  He was really proud of this shit.

  DiMaggio said, “Do you tap the phones, too?”

  “What kind of paranoid do you think I am?” Salter dismissed phone tapping with a little wave of the hand. “It’s way too expensive, anyway.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah, but make it fast. She’s going to be here any minute. And the place where we watch is downstairs.”

  DiMaggio said, “You brought me in on this, you said, to find out what I could on Adair, Collins, Hannah Carey. If it helps them beat the rap, what I find out, you help them. If it doesn’t, and it looks like they did it and this is a problem that does not go away, you find a way to cut your losses.”

  “Right,” Salter said. He reached under his desk and came up with another plastic bottle of water. “What’s your point?”

  “Why are you even letting your movie people think about going into business with her? If they’re in business with her, you’re in business with her. Say she likes what she hears from them today. We’ll be sympathetic, they tell her. You’re the hero on this one. And Hannah hears them out and says, ‘Okay, I’m in, draw up the contracts, when do we start shooting?’ All of a sudden, you’ve got Adair and Collins on the payroll and you’ve got her on the payroll.” Salter was nodding, uh-huh, uh-huh, like it all made perfect sense to him. His feet were still up on the desk, the suede shoes making soft tapping noises in time with the head bobs.

  When he didn’t say anything, DiMaggio said, “That doesn’t bother you? Even a little?”

  Salter sat up now, feet down, elbows propped on the desk. It was some kind of heavy old antique and the surface was clear except for the telephone.

  “I never feel bad about good business,” he said. The hip-jolly guy was gone. “I never feel bad about covering my ass. Feel bad? All I’ve done is cornered the market on this rape, whether it happened or not.” He stood up. “Now are you coming?”

  They used the elevator in his office to go downstairs to the court level. Then they walked past a door that said VISITORS’ LOCKER ROOM, took a right, and walked around some security people standing around having coffee. They kept going until there was a door that had STORAGE written in small white letters near the handle. Salter knocked twice and it opened.

  As they went in, Salter said, “You’re going to love this.”

  Great, Hannah thought. More guy stuff.

  She sat on one side of the room with Jimmy and Harvey Kuhn. On the other side, the Hollywood boys—what
else could she call them? they looked like they should have brought nannies with them—sat in two comfy-looking chairs. The boys: The tall skinny one wore a blue blazer and a white T-shirt, baggy denim jeans, and brand-new white canvas tennis sneakers. The short one with curly hair and fat chipmunk cheeks wore a plaid shirt, baggy denim jeans, scuffed saddle shoes, white socks. He looked like he wanted to go right outside to Eighth Avenue and have a game of catch. That was part of guy stuff, too, all of them wanting to be ballplayers.

  She felt like she was in a locker room.

  The fat one with the baseball was named Kenny, the tall one was Bob. Hannah didn’t really get their titles. Both were vice presidents, she was clear on that. One of them had something to do with development. The other one, and she was pretty sure it was Kenny, was vice president of something, something, and finally creative affairs.

  Harvey was doing most of the talking so far. Hannah just sipped hot, orange-tasting tea out of a thick Madison Square Garden mug and waited. She was getting used to being ignored, she decided. Maybe she was born knowing how. She looked over at her brother. He seemed so excited to be in the same room with real movie people that Hannah was afraid he might cry.

  Finally, Kenny turned to her and said, “Boring, right?” He dragged the word out. Borrrring. Just the way a kid would.

  “I’m fine,” Hannah said, smiling. She blew on her tea.

  Kenny said, “You’re being too polite. The only thing more boring than talking about the industry is talking about mutual friends you have in the industry.”

  It turned out that a couple of lawyers from Harvey’s firm were working in Los Angeles with Fukiko now.

  Bob, the calm one, said, “Hannah, maybe the best way to start is for you to ask any questions you might have.”

  Kenny leaned forward. Hannah saw he was gripping the baseball pretty hard. He had small hands. “Like, do you want to know about other movies Bob and I have green-lighted?”

  “Ken,” Bob said. Just saying his name not only stopped fat Kenny, Hannah noticed, it snapped him back in his seat. The suddenness of it surprised her. It was like someone jolted his airplane seat into its full upright position. They might both be vice presidents, but quiet, calm Bob, who Hannah thought would be handsome if it weren’t for some old acne scars on his neck, was the one in charge.

  “I didn’t mean that Hannah should ask us to go over our résumé,” Bob said evenly. “I just thought she might have some general questions about the whole process.”

  Now Harvey jumped in. “We all know—”

  Bob ignored him and kept going. “Questions about why you should even be in a meeting like this at such a traumatic point in your life. About why we would even be thinking about a movie. Or presume to think we could handle your ordeal with any sensitivity.”

  “Why me?” Hannah said. “I guess that’s as good a place to start as any.”

  She directed it at Bob, that seemed easiest for her. He actually reminded her a little of A.J. Not the way he looked, necessarily. Just his soothing manner. Not talking down to her or around her. Not being pushy.

  He didn’t act like it was just all guy stuff. He was including her, maybe that was it. After all the times when she had been Hannah, the invisible girl, quiet as a mouse, afraid to get in anybody’s way.

  Not wanting to be a problem.

  Maybe she was kidding herself, but Bob seemed to want to know what she thought.

  What was on her mind.

  “I’m not even going to suggest that I have any understanding whatsoever of the pain you’ve been through, not just these last weeks, but over the last year,” Bob said.

  “What man ever could?” Kenny said. Hannah looked over at him a second. His face almost made her laugh. He was trying to be all grave and serious, but he just looked to her like he was frowning over a real hard math problem.

  He was the type who had to be involved in the conversation even when he really wasn’t. Bob, who didn’t make many fast moves, whipped his head around and stared at him now. The look seemed to say: Play with your ball.

  “We think there’s an important story to tell here,” Bob said. “A story with what I like to call ‘bottom.’ Not another Year of the Woman Norma Rae Momma Saves the Farm movie.” He allowed himself a smile. “Your story, and believe me I make no attempt here to reduce what you’ve been through to Cliffs Notes, is richer than that. When I first read about you, it occurred to me that you weren’t just taking on these two basketball players. You were taking on the system.”

  Hannah, feeling herself smile back at him, like it was the most natural thing in the world—flattered, really—said, “I did all that?”

  Kenny: “We sure think you did.”

  Hannah was watching Bob. He closed his eyes for just a moment, then said, “Do you like the movies, Hannah?”

  She nodded at her brother. “Jim here, he’s the big movie expert in the family. He always knows the name of the actor who played the star’s best friend.”

  Bob had one of those fashionable beards, a day’s worth, two at most. Maybe he was trying to cover up the scars. He gently rubbed his cheeks. Was he gay? Hannah always found herself wondering, especially with Jimmy’s friends. It was silly, just because it was show business, but there it was anyway. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. She usually liked Jimmy’s gay friends better.

  But now she found herself not wanting this Bob to be gay or bi. “I’m not talking about being a movie insider,” he said to her now. “We’ve got enough of those right here.” He nodded at Kenny, grinning, but Kenny missed the look. She was starting to like this guy more and more. The two of them, Bob and Hannah, they were the insiders. Everyone else was on the outside. Bob said, “Do you like going to the movies? Do you like watching them?”

  “Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Let me be frank with you then,” he said. “What we think we’ve got here is Anita Hill with a white heroine.”

  “With maybe just a little Silkwood in there,” Kenny said excitedly, having to get in with that.

  Bob sighed. “I came here thinking of this as a two-hour Movie of the Week. Now I’m not so sure, as I sit here thinking about it. With you right here in the room. This could be four hours, over two nights. That’s the luxury you have with an MFT.”

  “MF—?” Hannah said, and Jimmy jumped in, even before Kenny could, to say, “Made for television!” Like he had the answer on a game show.

  Hannah said, “I’ve sort of asked this question before, but now I’ll ask it to you.” She found herself shaking her head as she said, “How can you even start to write a script or make a movie when none of us … when nobody … knows how any of this is going to come out?”

  Bob stood up, arching his back a little. Not quite as tall as A.J., of course, but the same kind of cute body. Long legs. Pretty flat stomach underneath the T-shirt, as far as she could tell. He had one of those extra-long blazers, so she couldn’t get a good look at his butt in his jeans. They looked like 560s, tight at the waist and butt, baggy after that.

  “You have to understand,” he said, “this script is being written every day in the newspapers. That’s why the first O. J. Simpson movie was being shot as he was being arraigned.” He came right over to her now, pulled a chair next to her, got right in front of where she was on the couch. Even calm Bob seemed to be getting excited now. It was interesting, Hannah thought, how he had just completely taken over, even shutting Harvey Kuhn up.

  “I see this story already. It happens for me that way sometimes. Like I’m seeing a map in my head, from the start of the trip to the finish.” He drew a line in the air between them, slowly. “They did this to you,” he said, “and now you’re finally fighting back. Maybe there is a little Norma Rae in there after all. You fight back with a weapon they don’t even understand.” Nodding. “Your dignity. I’m not trying to blow smoke. I’ve watched you, on television and here this morning. Somebody taped that press conference. I’ve seen it twenty times by now. I don
’t know what will happen in court, but they did it.” Bob lowered his voice now. “They … did … it. They are guilty. There will be no ambiguities in our treatment of this material. Our treatment of you. If we’re still shooting when the jury comes in, fine, we’ll write the verdict in. But believe me, Hannah, by then we won’t need them. Because we’ll have made a movie. A great movie. And when the audience sees our movie, the audience will say guilty.”

  Bob was leaning forward. What color were his eyes? Hannah wanted to call them beige. She could feel Kenny leaning forward, so could Bob, so without looking, he just held out a hand.

  “Understand,” he said. “We’re not telling their story. The hell with Ellis Adair and Richie Collins. We’re telling your story.”

  He put the hand on her arm. “Our only problem is finding a writer who can tell it as eloquently as you did at the Plaza.”

  Ted Salter said, “What do you think his next move is? Unbuttoning her blouse?”

  DiMaggio didn’t pay any attention to him, just watched it play out, more interested in Hannah’s reaction than in the Hollywood bullshitter. He felt as if he were on the viewing side of some two-way mirror and Hannah and the bullshitter were in a motel room.

  Way back at the beginning, Salter had said he thought he was hiring a private eye. Now he felt like one.

  DiMaggio, the peeper.

  “This kid has sent more TV movies into the toilet than you could count,” Salter said. “But you’ve got to give him high marks on the pitch.”

  “She likes it,” DiMaggio said.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Listen,” DiMaggio said, staring at the screen. In the conference room, Bob said something that got lost because Harvey Kuhn talked over him.

  Hannah: “I think so.”

  Jimmy Carey: “It’s called a treatment. Like an outline.”

  Bob: “We’ve already got a writer in mind. You might even know of his work. People did a big story on him not long ago. He did the story of the breast-cancer doctor last year. Meredith Baxter? Did a huge number during the November sweeps.”

  Hannah: “When she finally decided to go holistic?”