“Six.” It was Hoppy again, his mouth set to a grim, thin line. “You had six useable ideas. You told us you wanted adventure. Big costume-drama stuff. Exactly what sort of swordplay can we insert into the life story of Thomas Edison?”
Taggert slammed the pile of papers onto the table. “I wanted heroes, and Edison is an American hero.”
Why are you doing this, Hoppy? Marcus thought. Taggert’s spoiling for a fight and sounds THIS close to firing someone. Why are you giving him ammunition? Not to mention the fact that you’re dragging this meeting out longer than it needs to be. Shut the hell up.
But Hoppy struggled to his feet and launched into a blistering speech about the wellsprings of creativity and how to harness it. He yakked on and on about how to encourage the best from any creative team, and threatening them with their jobs was not the way to do it. Marcus agreed with everything Hoppy was saying, but this wasn’t the time or place for grandstanding.
Taggert was having none of it, and things quickly degenerated into a slinging match, getting more and more heated, louder and louder, harsher and harsher. Finally, Taggert yelled at Hoppy that he’d come into this meeting fully intending to keep his word about firing someone. “You just made my decision real easy. Effective immediately, you’re fired, Mr. Terrell!” More than one head in the room snapped up. Hoppy had been at MGM since the dawn of the movies; it was like firing Adam from the Garden of Eden.
“Don’t worry, you miserable bastard,” Hoppy said, “I’m already packed.”
Hoppy stormed out of the room.
Taggert took a moment to let the dust settle, then held up one of the submissions. “People, this is the sort of thing I was looking for. William Tell has instant character- name recognition. Costume drama. Father and son. Bows and arrows. Courageous hero fighting oppressive overlord.” He slid the paper over to Marcus. “I need a thoughtful, considered treatment. Don’t rush this one. Twenty pages. Detailed. But you look like crap. Go home until you’re over whatever the hell it is you’ve got.”
Marcus dashed from the room. It was eleven thirty-seven. If the traffic wasn’t too heavy along Venice and Washington Boulevards, he stood a chance.
* * *
The train station that brought together the three main railway lines under one roof had been open less than six months. It was an imposing building with four huge arched windows and a three-story clock tower that was visible for miles around. Marcus pushed through the heavy front doors and rushed to the information booth.
“The Super Chief?” he said to the woman behind the counter.
“Just started pulling in,” she replied. “Platform seven.”
The platform was dotted with steamer trunks and weary passengers. Marcus eyeballed each one: the wrinkled, the sleep-deprived, the maids, the bachelors, the career girls. The sweat of expectation dampened his collar, but he couldn’t see Ramon.
Marcus’ hopes began to sag as he watched the last of the travelers climb down from the train and supervise the porters collecting their luggage. The rear guardsman commenced his slow march of inspection.
As the guard passed him, Marcus asked, “No one left on board?”
The guy offered him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, Mac, she must’ve stood you up.”
Marcus opened Ramon’s telegram and reread it.
“Arriving Los Angeles on Super Chief STOP Noon STOP Halloween STOP”
Marcus peered down the tunnel that led out to the station concourse, then looked back at the train. He was the only one left on the platform.
CHAPTER 13
And they lived happily ever after was a big fat lie.
Marcus felt like a first-class dope to be learning this at the age of thirty-three.
It took him days to discover that Ramon had put off his return to LA by a couple of weeks after accepting a ten-day singing engagement at some Upper West Side hotspot. He hadn’t thought to let Marcus know until the final day, and even then his eight-word telegram didn’t say much. And when he arrived back in town, it was another week before he got around to calling Marcus for dinner—with no hanky-panky to follow.
“Those Latin types,” Hugo assured him, “they blow hot and cold. It’s just his nature, trust me.”
Marcus asked Kathryn for a second opinion. “What do I know?” she said. “Last month I broke up with a married man, and I still feel guilty.” She aimed her weary laugh at herself. “You’re better off asking Gwennie; she’s been quite the busy little bee lately.”
Marcus didn’t know what to make of Gwendolyn. Since her disappointment at being cut out of George’s new movie, she’d become a frequent dater. This Face of the Forties thing could be the making of her, but the three of them knew it was a long shot, and Marcus didn’t blame her for thinking of it as her last gasp. He was a little shocked to see her date every good-looking Johnny breezing in and out of the Garden of Allah and the Cocoanut Grove, but considering his own furtive, no-names love life, he figured he wasn’t qualified to call the pot black.
Gwendolyn confirmed Hugo’s diagnosis. “I’ve gone out with two Brazilians in the past month. Hot and cold is right. Boy howdy, those Latins can turn it on and off like a faucet! I wouldn’t worry about it,” she told him sweetly. “They don’t mean nothing by it. A guy would have to be plumb loco to leave you high and dry. From what I’ve seen, your Señor Ramon is a lot of things, but loco ain’t one of them.”
But Marcus wasn’t convinced until the night someone at the Garden threw Ronald Colman a party to celebrate the release of The Light That Failed, in which he played a painter whose eyesight was dimming. Colman had lived at the Garden for a while back in the late twenties, so it was a welcome-home party of sorts. Everyone came dressed as an artist—lots of paint-splashed smocks and berets. Marcus invited Ramon not expecting him to show, but not only did he arrive fully costumed with a bottle of Jack Daniels in each hand, but he stayed the night and insisted he and Marcus spend the rest of the weekend in bed. Then he took off with nary a backwards glance.
After that, Marcus started to experience writer’s block.
Ideas for movies, characters, subplots, even for newsreels had always poured out of him. When Taggert gave him Three O’Clock in the Morning, he’d outlined a drama, a comedy, and a mystery before knock-off time. Ideas flowed so easily that he’d doubted there was really such a thing as writer’s block.
Until now.
Getting assigned to write one of MGM’s biggest movies, not to mention elevation to A-list status and a huge pay raise to $750 a week, was the realization of everything he’d worked for since the day he saw The Jazz Singer and decided he wanted to become a screenwriter. All he had to do was take his one-page idea for a movie and turn it into a twenty-page outline. And he wasn’t even given a hard deadline.
But for days now, he’d been staring at the blank page wound into his Remington typewriter. He’d tried writing it out longhand in pen, then in pencil. Marathon swims didn’t help, nor did booze or cigarettes. One of his neighbors, a screenwriter over at Warners, gave him Benzedrine, swearing that staying up all night on the stuff was the sure-fire, no-fail cure. It failed.
It took Marcus a while before he was ready to admit to himself that Ramon was the problem. More specifically, his expectations that Ramon would behave like one of those romantic leads he’d portrayed on the screen. Relationships, Marcus was learning the hard way, bore little resemblance to the way screenwriters conjured them for the movie-going public. Ramon didn’t see him the way he saw Ramon, and the disillusion pierced him like one of William Tell’s arrows. After trying every stimulant and relaxant he could lay his hands on, he decided to turn to Hoppy. Surely, he figured, in the twenty-five years Hoppy had been writing movies, he’d come up with an effective kick start.
The day they came up with William Tell, he and Hoppy had developed a friendship that had grown closer as the months passed. They often bounced ideas off each other over lunch and at the Retake Room, a bar just off the MGM lot. They hadn’t y
et started to drop in at each other’s places unannounced, but Marcus felt that was only because the opportunity hadn’t presented itself.
It was a typically cool December morning when Marcus walked up to Hoppy’s house on De Longpre Avenue. He was glad to be wearing the dark-brown tweed jacket he’d just bought at the May Company; the snug fit kept him warm against the brisk air.
Hoppy’s house, like many in this neighborhood, was a wood-framed California bungalow with a roomy porch for whiling away summer evenings. It had a fresh coat of pale green paint, yellow trim, and a fire-engine-red door, but the front yard was neglected; the concrete path had a deep crack with weeds starting to sprout through it. Tufts of spiky grass overtook four weary flowerbeds. Marcus climbed the front steps and knocked. He heard floorboards creak, then saw the frosted shape of a head fill the leadlight window in the red door.
He was not, however, prepared to see Jim Taggert. Unlike the meticulous picture of professionalism he projected at work, Taggert stood in front of Marcus a disheveled, unshaven mess in a bathrobe threadbare with age.
Taggert squinted at him through bloodshot eyes, then glanced up and down the street. “Something wrong at the studio?”
The realization that he was gawking at his boss jolted Marcus into looking away. His eyes came to rest on a hallway table overflowing with unopened mail that spilled onto a narrow rug. “No,” Marcus said, “nothing like that.” He returned his gaze to Taggert’s haunted face. “Personnel must have given me the wrong address.”
“Personnel?”
Rye liquor punched the air.
“Don’t worry about it,” Marcus mumbled. “Sorry to disturb you. See you on Monday.”
As Marcus backed away, he realized he’d never pictured Taggert having a home, or a personal life, or a threadbare bathrobe, for that matter. He’d never thought of Taggert in terms of anything but work. Halfway down the ragged path he heard Taggert’s voice again.
“You looking for Hoppy?”
Taggert stood on the edge of the patio. His robe had fallen open to reveal the start of a paunch poking out over faded blue boxer shorts.
“Uh huh.”
“Come on in.”
Taggert closed the door behind Marcus, enfolding the living room in gloom. Sunshine seeped in through the green and pink leadlight window, but it failed to make much of an impact. Marcus wished he’d kept on heading for the sidewalk.
Taggert stared at the hallway rug’s blue and black stripes. “Hoppy’s moved out.”
Marcus felt his jaw slacken and he realized he was gawking again. This could easily be a bachelor house, he told himself. Two single guys sharing expenses. Don’t jump to any conclusions. Remember, this is your boss.
“You mean after he left MGM?” Marcus asked.
Taggert kept his eyes on the rug. “Don’t even know where to forward his mail.”
The sob in Taggert’s voice told Marcus that Taggert and Hoppy weren’t just roomies. Jesus Fucking Christ, Hoppy and Taggert were lovers. “You must miss him.”
Taggert’s whole body lurched. “More than I’ve ever missed anything.” He brought his hands to his face and let out a wet moan. Marcus stood two feet away and watched the man’s chest shudder. Taggert started breathing hard and deep, trying his best to restrain the emotions surging to the surface. Eventually, he reclaimed control of himself. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Marcus had come to the door expecting Solomon the Wise and found himself caught up in a homo version of a Bette Davis weepy. He wasn’t sure what his next step ought to be, but he knew he had to say something. “Any idea where he might have gone?” he asked. “What about his friends? His family? Where are they?”
“I can trust you not to take any of this B-grade melodrama into work, can’t I?”
“This isn’t melodrama, Jim,” Marcus said softly. “This is your life.”
“You want some coffee?” Taggert headed toward the back of the house.
Marcus didn’t feel like coffee. He wanted to get out of this dim place with the lone ticking clock on the mantelpiece. But come Monday morning, Taggert would still be the boss whose support he’d need as he struggled with the most important assignment of his career.
Taggert’s kitchen was done out in buttercup-yellow tile with blue accents as fresh as the paint outside and was filled with eastern light from three waist-to-ceiling windows. It was a stark contrast to the dinginess that pervaded the rest of the house. Without saying a word, Taggert grabbed cups and poured out the coffee; it was black as bitumen and the bitter aroma filled the room. He handed a cup to Marcus and sat down in the breakfast nook, elbowing aside an LA Times that was folded open to the crossword. The whole puzzle was filled in except one word that had stumped Marcus for a while, too. Ironically, the word was disclosure.
“I thought maybe he was staying with you,” Taggert said.
Marcus cocked his head to one side. “Why me?”
“I know he helped you with the William Tell idea.” Taggert stared into his coffee. “He’s good like that. Helps a guy draw his own conclusions.” He pressed his fingertips against his eyes for a few moments, then released them. “So. William Tell. Not going too well, I take it?”
“Maybe this isn’t the time to—”
“It shouldn’t take a good writer like you a whole month to write a twenty-page outline.”
A compliment from Taggert was a rare bird, and Marcus took a moment to savor it before admitting, “No, it shouldn’t.”
“I haven’t bugged you for it because it’s been hard for me to give a good goddamn lately.” Unsure of the appropriate response, Marcus offered Taggert a sympathetic smile and let him continue. “But I’m going to have to start asking questions soon. LB’s been making noise about it. I need a distraction, so out with it. Is there a problem?”
Taggert’s eyes were still bloodshot, but open and unblinking now.
“Let’s just say you’re not the only one with a heart condition,” Marcus said. He dumped another spoon of sugar into the coffee to make it palatable. “I’m in my very first relationship and it’s not like I thought it’d be.”
“They never are. Even the fifth one where you thought you knew what you were doing.”
“We’d been making goo-goo eyes at each other for years, so when we finally got together, I thought that’d be it. Being together means being together. Or so I thought.”
Taggert stared at Marcus, not blinking and not smiling. “You and Hugo hitting a rough patch, huh?”
Marcus nearly spat out his coffee. “What? Hugo and me? Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I just assumed—”
“Based on what?”
Taggert thought about it for a few moments, or at least pretended to. “The way you’ve started to dress alike, maybe.”
“Come again?”
“Oh, please, you’re Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
Marcus reared back. “Tweedle—what?”
Taggert cracked a splinter of a smile. “Don’t look at me like that. You both have at least three ties exactly the same. And the navy blue suit with the fine pinstripe. And what about this tweed jacket you’re wearing? You’re telling me you haven’t noticed he’s got one too?”
“You’re crazy.”
“If I’m crazy, then the whole department’s crazy. Loopy as loons.” Taggert pulled a pack of unfiltered Camels out of the pocket of his robe and offered one to Marcus.
Marcus extracted a cigarette. “I think that’s something I would’ve noticed.”
His boss blew out a stream of smoke. “If you say so.”
Marcus pondered the thirty writers who made up the writing department. Their personalities ranged from garrulous to mute, and from sociable to borderline sociopathic, but the one thing they had in common was that they were all astute observers of human behavior. He was about to ask Taggert for more information when the dour expression returned to Taggert’s face.
“I’ve got some news,” Taggert said. “By rights,
we should be having this conversation at the office, but what the hell. You’re here now.” Marcus took a long drag of his Camel and waited. “It’s about your screen credit on Strange Cargo. We’re going to have to give it to Lawrence Hazard.”
Marcus let the smoke out of his lungs in one controlled breath. “We’re not talking sole credit, I hope.”
“’Fraid so.” At least Taggert had the guts to look him in the eye.
Marcus felt his future quiver like a mirage. “Oh, no you fucking don’t!” He pounded the table so hard the coffee cups rattled. “I’ve got a stinkin’ contract!”
“I know you do. I—”
“Damnit, Jim, Strange Cargo is my picture!” Marcus wished Taggert had saved this conversation for the office so everyone could hear. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!”
Taggert raised his hands to placate Marcus. “I went to bat for you,” he said. “I did. I told them this isn’t fair on Adler.”
Marcus felt trapped in the bright breakfast nook and got to his feet to loom over his boss. “My contract specifically stipulates screen credit for Strange Cargo.”
“Which I also brought up,” Taggert replied. “And I reminded them how the Cargo script passed through a dozen hands but you were the one to crack it. Don’t you think I know how much a first screen credit means to a guy?”
You don’t know the half of it, Marcus wanted to yell back. “This is going to be Gable’s first picture after Gone with the Wind. This is as high-profile as it gets. Those conniving chiselers cannot take it away from me.”
Taggert jammed his spent cigarette into a palm-tree-shaped ashtray and regarded Marcus with a sly smile. “I like this new you,” he said. “Standing up for yourself. Not taking any shit.”
This threw Marcus for a moment and he paused, groping for something to say. Taggert nodded toward the nook. “Sit down.” He waited for Marcus to return to the table. “You need to understand, a situation came up. A solution needed to be found.”
Citizen Hollywood (Hollywood's Garden of Allah novels Book 3) Page 9