“Two questions,” he said tersely, “one: What do you know about Liechtenstein?”
“Roy Lichtenstein?” asked B. absently, nodding to acknowledge a greeting from across the room.
Sid grimaced in pain. “No, mishugenah, the country for Chrissake! Liechtenstein!”
Boris shrugged. “I drove through it once, if that’s what you mean—I don’t recall stopping for anything.”
“So you didn’t stop” said Sid, “big deal—it’s still a country, right?”
“It’s a country,” Boris agreed. “Actually it’s a principality. It’s run by a prince. I met him once, as a matter of fact—at the Cannes Film Festival.”
“Right, right, right,” said Sid, “it’s a sovereign principality. Now let me give you a little run-down on the sovereign principality of Liechtenstein: situated in the colorful Alps Mountains, between Switzerland and Austria, occupying an area of sixty-four square miles, population of seventeen thou—one half-hour by twin jet from Paris, Rome, Berlin, Vienna, you name it—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Boris interrupted.
“Will you please just this once listen to your own Sid Krassman,” he pleaded, but was momentarily distracted by a passing miniskirt. “Hey, I forgot to ask, did you get into that little chickie’s pants last night?”
Boris sighed. “Yes, yes, yes,” as though it were all too futile.
“How was it?”
“What do you mean ‘how was it’? Haven’t you ever been laid, for Chrissake?”
“She give good head?”
“Not especially.”
Sid nodded agreement. “Young kids like that never seem to give good head. What was she, about eighteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen, huh? She had a great ass.”
Boris nodded. “Yeah, a great ass.”
“You suck her pussy?”
“Ha. That would be kiss-and-tell, wouldn’t it?”
“Aw come on, fer Chrissake, did you suck her pussy or didn’t you?”
“No. Well, not much anyway, just sort of at the beginning.”
“How many times did you fuck her?”
“Uh, let’s see . . . four.”
“Four?!? Jeez, she must’ve been great ass! You fucked her four times, for Chrissake?”
“Yeah, well, you know, twice when we went to bed, and twice when we woke up.”
Sid seemed greatly relieved. “Oh, when you woke up. I thought you meant four times in a row, for Chrissake! Did she come?”
Boris shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. She said she did.”
“Couldn’t you tell, for Chrissake?”
“Yeah, she came.”
“What, every time?”
“Christ, I don’t know if she came every time.” He regarded Sid curiously. “Have you gone nuts or something? What was all that goofy talk about Liechtenstein?”
“I said I’d ask two questions, right? Okay, second question: You know Al Weintraub? He’s Joey Schwartzman’s cousin, right? Strictly legit. Now, are you ready for this? Al Weintraub is a very close friend of the Minister of Finance in Liechtenstein.”
“Uh-huh,” said B. He looked like he was about to fall asleep.
“Al knows everything about that country. We were up all night, we got a call in right now to his friend, the minister . . .”
“Listen, Sid,” Boris began, glancing at his watch, but Sid implored him, “please, B., just this once listen to Sid Krassman.”
“Well, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Listen, B., before I go any further, can you let me take a thou until Thursday?”
“What?”
“A thousand bucks—just until Thursday.”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“You’ll never regret it, B., believe you me!”
5
LIECHTENSTEIN, AS IT turned out, had the lowest per capita income of any country in Western Europe. Although of Alpine splendor scenic-wise, its relatively inaccessible location had simply not put it on the map, so to speak. The tourists—who, for generations, the country had tried desperately to attract—never came. And yet it had the requisites: inns (picturesque), saline baths (piping hot), ski slopes (mediocre), casino and opera house (closed). It seemed there was something missing—something perhaps even intangible, but a trifle more conveniently at hand . . . in St. Moritz, Klosters, Kitzbühel, Innsbruck, etc.
The plan devised by Sid and Al Weintraub (friend of the Liechtenstein Minister of Finance) was simplicity itself—the movie would be financed by the government of Liechtenstein, in return for which it would be filmed in Liechtenstein, and exhibited there exclusively. People from London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Geneva, Zurich, anywhere, would jet in on special charter flights—to the only place where they could see the latest film by the world’s greatest director. They would stay overnight, perhaps longer, at the picturesque inns, with eiderdown pouffe and the cozy hearth; they would go to the opera, the casino, the ski slopes, the health baths, and the shops, both quaint and smart; they would revel in the scenic Alpine beauty of the place. Perhaps they would fall in love with Liechtenstein—its simple charm, its majestic grandeur—it might even become a habit.
6
“THEY WANT A ten-year exclusive on the picture,” Sid was saying, about a week later.
Boris nodded. He didn’t care where the picture was shown, he just wanted to make it.
“And let me tell you something else,” Sid added slyly. “Know who I was talking to today?—Abe Becker. Bet you don’t know who Abe Becker is, right?”
“That film cutter at Metro?” suggested B.
“Abe Becker,” said Sid, almost tersely, “is the brother-in-law of Nicky Hilton. Know what he said? He said if this goes through, Connie will put up a Liechten-Hilton like that!” Sharp snap of fingers. “Shops too, the whole arcade bit. They’ll clean up—and Abe knows it, believe you me!” Adding this last with a note of resentment, as if he felt they should cut him in for a piece of the action.
The waitress arrived, and Sid was momentarily distracted by the fact that she was topless. They were having a late lunch—about four P.M.—at a restaurant on the Strip called the Shangri-la Tropicana, whose specialty was spareribs and barbequed chicken, and waitresses with names like Honey Pot, Fancy Box, Charity Ball, etc. Sid went there often, and it was no news to him that they were topless, but it was a sometime source of distraction nonetheless.
“Hey,” he said to the girl—a rather heavy Scandinavian type, who maintained a steady frown of suspicious consternation—“you met my friend, the internationally famous film director, Mr. Boris Adrian? I been telling him about you.”
“Boris Adrian?” She was impressed, but then her brow clouded a bit more. “Oh yeah? Listen, I know you’re in show business, Mr. Kratzman, I checked that out already, but some of these guys you bring in, what do I know, maybe they’re creeps or something. I mean, that’s some sense of humor you got there, Mr. Kratzman.”
“Yeah, well, the thing is,” said Sid, “we’re doing these commercials, and I been telling Mr. Adrian here you might be just the girl for the job. What we’ve got to be sure of though is nipple distention.”
“Huh?”
“There’s going to be a very tight close-shot, you see, and we’ve got to make sure that the line is just right. It’s a public-service spot for CBS, it’s for, uh, let’s see, yeah, it’s for breast feeding of infants, you know, to encourage breast feeding among young mothers. Some very harmful additives have recently been discovered in the, uh, you know, formula mixtures. It’s a thirty-second spot—wouldn’t show your face, of course, just the line of the, uh, bosom. Pays seven-fifty.”
“Seven-fifty? Seven hundred and fifty?”
“Give or take a few bucks—union dues, that kind of thing.”
The girl looked from one to the other. “Thirty seconds, seven hundred and fifty dollars? Wow.”
“Uh, yes, well, the thing is,” said Sid g
ravely, “we have to be sure about the line. Just step over here, will you, dear.”
“Huh?” said the girl, obeying immediately, “what line?”
“The nipple,” he said, “is a very important part of the breast line. Now just relax.” He put one hand on her right hip, placed his other over her bare (left) breast and fingered it gingerly. “Now, let’s just see . . .”
“Hey, wait a minute,” said the girl, glancing about anxiously.
“No, it’s all right,” Sid reassured her, releasing the nipple but still holding her hip. “Here, this is better,” and he took a half-melted ice cube from his drink and began massaging the nipple with it.
The girl tried to draw away, discreetly but somewhat wildly, looking right and left. “Listen, the manager will flip if he sees this!”
Sid ignored her remark, turned to Boris. “Yes, you see, Mr. Adrian, there’s quite a satisfactory distention there, don’t you agree?” And even the girl then looked down in curiosity at the nipple, which was perking out like a tiny top hat. And a number of nearby guests, ordinarily blasé, were shooting uneasy looks at the odd spectacle.
“Okay,” said Sid, “let’s try the other one.”
“Hey, listen,” she said, really quite apprehensive now, “can’t we do this later?”
“Okay,” said Sid abruptly, and returned his attention to the menu at once. “How’s your deep-dish Beaver Pie today?”
“Huh?” She stared at him dumbly for a moment, mouth half-open. “Say, that’s some sense of humor you got there, Mr. Kratzman, you know that?”
Boris sighed and smiled sadly. “Oh, he knows that all right. Yes indeed.”
In a town and an industry where the tasteless quip is rife and men of mauvaise foi are legion—even here was Sid Krassman notorious for his obsessively aggressive wit and chicanery, always with a slight compulsion toward the grotesquely banal. Getting into a cab, for example, he would sometimes wait for the driver to ask “Where to?” and he would reply, “What the hell, let’s go to your place!” And guffaw raucously. Or, stepping into a crowded elevator, he might intone with tremendous authority: “I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve called you together.”
“Okay, King, are you ready for this?” he asked now, still at the Shangri-la Tropicana, opening an attaché case which he had taken from beneath his chair. He extracted a large white folio, untied its ribbon, and began passing eleven by fourteen color prints across the table to Boris. Most of the photographs were of places, rather than persons, and featured town squares, cobblestone streets, country lanes, meadows, forest glades, streams, lakes, cottages, churches, castles—all of obvious European motif, and most against an overwhelming backdrop of snow-covered mountains. Boris went through them in silence, with a slightly bemused smile.
“Well, there’s our locations, baby!” exclaimed Sid, with a glee he prayed would be contagious.
“Where’d you get these?” asked Boris, turning one over to look at the back. On it was stamped: “Property of Krassman Enterprises, Ltd.—Unauthorized Reproduction Strictly Prohibited.”
Sid flicked his cigar, caught the waitress’s eye and signaled for another cognac.
“Flew Morty Kanowitz over to scout it,” he said easily.
Boris returned his attention to the photographs. “Didn’t you tell me the other night you were broke?”
Sid coughed and glanced about the room uneasily, tried a diversionary tactic: “Say, I think I just saw Dick Zanuck, going into the other room—”
Boris smiled wearily and continued to look at the pictures. “My thou?”
Sid was greatly relieved that the deception was finally out in the open, and that Boris did not seem too bugged by it. He leaned back in his chair, rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Well, B.,” he said with a grin, “it takes money to make money—am I right?”
“Nice pictures,” said Boris, handing them back.
“Perfect locations, am I right?”
“Locations for what? I don’t even have a story yet.”
“But that’ll come to you, B. baby,” Sid reassured in his most imploring tones, “that’ll come to you—from the Blue Fairy of Inspiration!”
It was common knowledge that his last two winners had been shot from “scripts” about as substantial as a couple of matchcovers.
“And the money?” asked B. dryly. “Blue Fairy too?”
Sid reached into his breast pocket, and produced with a flourish what appeared to be a folded cablegram. “Three big ones, baby! And final cut!”
“Three million? You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” he shook his head solemnly, “talked to Al last night—he’s done one helluva promo-job on this, you know—told him to get me a cable confirmation of the deal. Here it is.” He held the cable up in front of his face, gesturing with it as he spoke.
“Well, that’s terrific, Sid,” said Boris, and reached out for it.
“One thing, B.,” said Sid, not relinquishing it, “one thing I want to explain—a technicality, you’ll see it yourself in the cable, but I wanted to tell you about it first, so it don’t take the edge off. Know what I mean?”
Boris, whose hand was still extended for the cable, gazed at Sid without expression, and slowly lowered his hand. “Nope,” he said softly, “I’m afraid not.”
“The government of Liechtenstein,” Sid proclaimed in serious measured tones, “is prepared to advance us—in the form of both credit and cash—up to the amount of three million dollars . . .”
Here his voice faltered, and Boris reached out impatiently and snatched the cable from him. Unfolding it, he began to read, muttering the words half aloud, almost verbatim as Sid had described, until near the end, reading this part, quite distinctly: “. . . in combined accreditation and national currency, to a maximum equivalent of three, repeat three, million dollars (U.S.)—providing that such an amount as to be agreed upon is duly and equally matched by an investor or investors of the second party. Stop. Letter detailing proposal follows. Regards, Max von Dankin, Minister of Finance, Liechtenstein.”
Boris carefully folded the cable and placed it on the table. “Where’s my thou?”
“Now wait a minute, B.,” said Sid with real earnestness. “I swear to you I know how to get the match money. Just please give me the chance to explain.”
Boris sighed. “Go,” he said.
“Well, let’s get out of here first,” said Sid. “I don’t want anybody to know about this.” He looked anxiously around the room. “Place is crawling with fuckin’ lip-readers.”
Boris laughed at this, Sid’s feigned or real paranoia, and they started for the door.
Things seemed to be going Sid’s way again, and his spirits were rising. In the foyer they encountered their waitress.
“What’s the matter, darling,” asked Sid in concern, “do you have a cold?”
“A cold?” said the girl, frowning in surprise. “What made you think that, Mr. Kratzman?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sid ingenuously, “your chest looks all swollen.” And he reached out to proffer comfort to the afflicted area, guffawing raucously.
7
BENEATH THE GREAT oil portrait of big Dad Harrison, chairman of the board and chief stockholder of Metropolitan Pictures, sat young Les—sitting at his mammoth desk, slumped almost racing style, as if the desk were some extraordinary vehicle, capable of tremendous power and speed—sitting as though he had been fitted into it, while arrayed about him, like a fantastic dashboard, were the various controls he operated so masterfully—telephones, intercoms, cassette-recorders, tiny TV sets, video playbacks, and a miniature air conditioner (Braun of West Germany) that blasted right into his face, giving him an odd, windblown-hair look, and the illusion of actual motion. And, in fact, there were vibrations of power, speed, and above all, weird road-holding maneuverability emanating from this desk, for it was here Les Harrison wheeled and dealed—and that, indeed, was the name of his game.
“
I’ve got news for you, my friend,” he was saying quietly into the phone, “patriotism is in the shithouse these days. Too controversial. Nope, not even dancers—not if they’re under contract to this studio, they don’t. Nobody who works for this studio goes to Vietnam. Some of that shit might rub off on them, and who needs it? Right? Right. Talk to you later, Marty.”
He hung up, and in a simultaneous move with the other hand, flicked the switch of the outer office intercom.
“Okay, baby,” he said in his deceptively sleepy voice, “let them come in now.”
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped, fingers intertwined, so that his nose rested on top of the locked hands, and his chin on the two extended thumbs below—Caligula style. The door opened, and a brace of William Morris agents walked in, employing a somewhat affected saunter. When talent agents arrive in tandem, it means one of two things: an old agent is breaking in a young one; or, the agency considers the meeting critical enough, ten-percentwise, to double-team the adversary. The latter is done almost exactly the way cops do it—in counterpoint, with one playing reasonable, soft-hearted (“Let’s give him a break, Al”), while the other (“I say we take it to Paramount”) dons the antagonistic mask of the impulsive bad guy and ass-hole.
The grace and subtlety of such tactics would go for naught, of course, against the Rat Prick, and were not used by those who knew him well. It wasn’t that he was oblivious to ruse, nor even unappreciative of it well-wrought, but because he was dealing from such a monstro power position it was difficult for him to assign relevance to deceptions other than his own.
The studio had eleven features in production at the moment. Three were shooting in Europe, one in Mexico, and one in New York. This left six shooting on the lot; of these six, one was a Western, one a beach movie, one sci-fi, and one an art-house version of a two-character off-Broadway play. These pictures were budgeted at about a million each, and as a conglomerate, or individually, were referred to as “the garbage.” Their multi-nefarious function ranged from cross-collateralization (i.e., juggling production costs and profits between winner flicks and loser flicks), to renting studio space and facilities (to themselves) at exorbitant rates (paid by the stockholders), and finally, making a token fulfillment of actor, director, and producer commitments—or, in short, grooving with the proverbial tax write-offs, and keeping the gargantuan archaic machine in motion.
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