“I’ve never been a ghost before,” mused Stegman.
“Now’s your chance. You might like it.”
“To be honest, I need to think about this. It’s a lot to take in. I just don’t know.”
Harry said, “The offer is on the table for one week.”
Stegman nodded. “OK. Got it. I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know in a few days.”
The waitress returned and they ordered dessert. Harry chose the apple strudel, but barely touched it. He felt angry and discouraged that Stegman had not snapped up the offer. The kid was playing hard to get. It only made Harry more determined than ever to acquire the film.
After dessert, Harry paid the check and thanked Stegman for hearing him out. Standing up from the table, the two men shook hands. Stegman promised to get back to Harry soon with an answer.
“Just to reiterate,” said Harry, “the eight hundred thousand will be in cash. There’s no reason that Uncle Sam needs to be involved.”
Stegman returned the yellow sunglasses to his head. “It’s a sweet offer,” he said. “Please understand that I’m very flattered. You’re like an idol to me. But I don’t know if I want to do this.”
“I understand,” said Harry.
As they walked the boardwalk together, Harry indulged in a shameless creative fantasy. He couldn’t help it. It was the filmmaker in him.
He imagined a scene where Stegman died a dramatic death.
The setting, several minutes into the future. The scene, returning to his car, parked on the curb, the director wunderkind inadvertently steps into the path of a speeding truck. Or perhaps he trips when given a strategic push in the right direction by his filmmaking rival.
Harry almost chuckled, thinking, now there’s a wild idea for a movie. An embittered, jealous, washed-up horror film director, kills a hotshot young director and steals his film to bring his own career back to life.
During his drive home, Harry invented a few more tragic death scenarios for Stegman, including a fallen power line that lit up his skeleton like an old cartoon. The imaginary violence released some of his pent-up stress. It was a terrible habit dating back to his adolescence, but no one ever really got harmed. Nobody could read his terrible thoughts.
In fact, people often asked Harry how such a gentle, well-mannered soul could create such brutal and bloody horror films. Harry’s response, the two go together, like yin and yang.
“I release tension through my art rather than aggression,” he would explain. “It’s my pressure valve. It helps soothe my nerves, just like meditation or a salt bath.”
Then they would look at him as if he was crazy.
But Harry would continue defending his point. “Think how better off this world would be today if everyone else lived that way. If all the murderers wrote stories or poems about killing, instead of committing the act. If rapists painted their sexual fantasies. If terrorists expressed themselves through songs rather than bombs. If countries went to war with one another in epic films, funded by the government, and blew each other up on celluloid, with special effects, rather than in real life. Everybody would be better off if we all moved our dark side from fact to fiction. Civilization can save itself through art.”
“That’s a pretty elaborate justification for your shitty little horror films,” responded a drunk television network executive, a few years earlier at a party in Culver City.
While tempted, Harry didn’t punch him. He simply nodded. He went to work the next day and named a character after the executive, in his next film. He impaled the character through the chest with a four-foot spear...and made him die slowly.
12
The back screen door was unlocked. George Grubbis slapped it open —to hell with knocking, he owned the god-damned house —and entered the kitchen.
Half-eaten food and dirty plates filled the countertops. Junk littered the floor. It made his heart sink. This used to be a nice place...
“Marcus!” he shouted. After a long silence, he said, “I know you’re in here. Let’s not play hide and seek.”
Stegman shuffled shoeless into the room, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt sporting a cartoon of The Incredible Hulk. His unbundled ponytail released a mess of sprawling black hair.
“I was asleep,” said Stegman, eyes blurred.
“Good for you. You still owe me half of last month plus all of this month.”
Stegman nodded, listening but noncommittal, like a teenager responding to a nagging parent.
“I want to show you something,” said Grubbis, producing a document. “Do you know what this is? It’s an eviction notice. See that line near the top? That’s where your name goes. Take a look. Read the fine print. It requires the renter to leave the property in 30 days.”
Stegman rubbed his face.
“You think I’m bluffing?” said Grubbis.
“No,” said Stegman. “I don’t. I just need more time. The movie’s done. I have an offer on the table. I just don’t know if it’s the right deal.”
“You got an offer?” Grubbis did not suppress his surprise. “A real offer? Then stop screwing around. What’s the matter with you? I suggest you take it and use the money to start paying your bills. Otherwise you’re going to be sleeping on a park bench. Is that what you want? You owe me —”
“I know I owe you!” shouted Stegman. “I owe a lot of people. I’ve got credit card companies on my ass. I’ve got a loan shark who says he’s going to put me on crutches. I’ve got money problems, OK? But I’ll get it all sorted out soon.”
“Soon’s not good enough,” said Grubbis. “I’ve been hearing ‘soon’ for a long time. Soon is a word that doesn’t mean shit.”
Grubbis glanced at a table littered with empty wine bottles and beer cans. He shook his head sadly. “You need to get straightened out. Your mother, bless her soul, would be a total wreck if she were alive to see this. Nice bar you’ve got here. Is this your breakfast? What else are you on? Because I don’t think it ends here. Either you’ve always got a cold or you’re shoving crap up your nose again. You know what I’m talking about.”
“I need to work long hours.”
“You’re on a path to self-destruction, Marcus,” said Grubbis. “Look in the mirror sometime. You’re a kid with an old man’s face. What do you want to do that to yourself for?”
“I have a passion in life, and I am following my passion; and I will do everything I can to make it happen.”
“And ruin your health in the process?”
“I’m not ruining my health.”
“What is it you hope to achieve, exactly?”
“I’m going to be the world’s greatest horror movie director.”
“Why?”
Stegman appeared startled by the question. He had a hard time articulating a response. “Why? Why? Because...it’s all I ever wanted.”
Grubbis picked up an empty bottle of cheap wine, looked at the label, and put it back down. “Your mother, bless her soul, brought you into this world and raised you to be something, really be something, but I see nothing. A zero. You’re a disgrace, Marcus. And I know you’ve lived your whole life in this house. It’s your momma’s womb. But sooner or later, you need to leave the womb and face the big, bad world. I’m not here to take care of you. Your mother had the patience of a saint. But I am not your mother. She’s gone.”
And then Marcus Stegman dropped into a chair and began to cry.
Grubbis watched him for a full minute. The sight was pitiful. A grown man reduced to a shuddering, sobbing child, wearing a cartoon T-shirt, surrounded by piles of garbage and booze bottles.
As Stegman cried, reddened mucous flowed from his nostrils. Grubbis pulled paper towels off a roll and handed them over. “Wipe your nose for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m sorry,” said Stegman, choking back the tears.
“You better clean yourself up and take care of business,” said Grubbis. “Because if I have to come back, it will be with a court order. Got it?”
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Stegman nodded, face in hands.
Grubbis left him.
13
Harry watched Marcus Stegman’s movie several more times, hoping it wouldn’t be as good as it was the first time.
It wasn’t. It was better.
He felt mixed up inside, a sour stew of emotions. There was bitterness about his own disappointing career, admiration for what this young man had accomplished, anger and jealousy because he hadn’t acquired the film, shame for trying to buy ownership of someone else’s work, confusion over the ugly vanity that drove his actions, insecurity and doubt about his own artistic abilities, hurt over the ongoing public indifference and hostile critical reception toward his work, and loneliness.
Loneliness was not necessarily connected to the other things, but an ingredient in the mix, nevertheless. With his business partner gone on an extended trip overseas, his next film canceled, and a profound lack of romance in his life, Harry felt more isolated than he had felt in a long time.
He walked the rooms of his Eagle Rock house, restless. His various televisions chattered to displace the silence. Tuned in to different stations, they kept him company, familiar programs showing themselves like old friends.
Then he saw his ex on E!
He happened to be in the den, sorting through piles of old magazines — DV and Film Comment —when the chirpy host of an entertainment news program began pumping hype into Army of Steel.
Harry had a bad feeling in his gut and a prickly sensation under his skin. He felt sickened yet curious. The sensation mirrored the time he witnessed a gruesome car wreck on Highway
101. A van filled with Hispanic workers had been crushed by a truck. It was a terrible sight he really did not want to see, yet he had slowed down and rubbernecked, straining to catch a view of the twisted carnage.
Instead of leaving the den or shutting off the TV with the handy remote, Harry rubbernecked. He saw his ex-wife Julie, beautiful with big hair and big teeth, hanging on the arm of writer-director-hotshot phenomenon Nigel Howard. They discussed their blockbuster-to-be like proud parents.
“This movie will have some of the biggest, most exciting action sequences ever filmed,” boasted Nigel. “We will be shooting all over Los Angeles. You won’t be able to miss us. This entire town will become our movie set. The stunts we have planned will set a new standard for the industry.”
The interviewer asked Julie about her role in the movie and if it was awkward being directed by her husband.
“Not at all,” said Julie. “We get along so great. He wrote the part with me in mind so we wouldn’t be apart. It’s such a fantastic script, how could I say no? He’s the best.”
“He’s the director on the set, but who’s the director at home?” asked the interviewer playfully.
“I am, of course,” laughed Julie.
“She is,” chimed in Nigel, giving his wife a playful squeeze.
Harry squeezed the remote and the television shut off.
It was all so cute and adorable that he wanted to puke.
Instead, he meditated.
Today’s mantra, success.
He imagined that he was pushing bad thoughts out of his pores. He dispelled the negativity into the air, where it lifted away, evaporating into the atmosphere.
Success, success, success...
Is that the phone?
Yes. I forgot to turn off the damned phone.
Let it go. The machine will get it. Don’t swear when you’re meditating.
“Uh, Mr. Tuttle, Harry, this is Marcus Stegman...”
Harry jumped up from his meditation rug and dashed for the telephone, grabbing it so frantically that he almost upset a lamp.
“Marcus, I’m here.”
“Oh, hi. I’m... I hope I didn’t call at a bad time...”
“No. Not at all.”
“I’d like to meet about your offer.”
“Great. When would you like to meet?”
“How about one hour.”
“Fine. I can do that. Where?”
“At the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Let’s meet at Bela Lugosi.”
“Bela Lugosi?”
“You know, Bela’s star.”
Harry replied, “Sure. Whatever you want.”
Harry arrived early and searched the sidewalk for Bela. He felt like a tourist, wandering with his head down, reading all the names. Stan Laurel...James Cagney...Big Bird...
Harry found Bela near a Thai restaurant at Hollywood and Vine. He firmly planted his feet inside the charcoal square, stepping on the five-pointed star rimmed with bronze.
“Hello, Bela,” he mumbled at the sidewalk.
“Hello, Harry,” said Marcus Stegman a few minutes later, walking toward him. He wore a black GWAR rock concert T-shirt, shorts and sandals. His toenails were long and garish. His ponytail was tied tight behind him. His eyes appeared tired and collapsed, sunken in small dark wells.
“Good to see you again, Marcus,” said Harry, shaking his hand.
“I’m accepting your offer,” said Stegman.
Harry nearly stumbled off the star. “Wonderful.” He fought to remain calm.
“It’s not like I have a lot of options out there,” said Stegman, chuckling without a smile. “Besides, I’m not in this for the fame. I just love making horror movies. It’s what I do. If it’s going to have your name on it, I can live with that. I’m a Harry Tuttle fan, after all. That’s why I came to you in the first place.”
“I appreciate that,” said Harry. “I think this is a great deal for both of us.”
“The money,” said Stegman. “It’s the amount we discussed?”
“Yes, of course,” said Harry.
“Good. And I’d like to ask for one more thing to seal the deal.”
Harry gave him a careful look. “One more thing?”
Stegman nodded. “Yes. A special request.”
“What is it?”
“Mr. Tuttle, I want your soul.”
Harry cocked his head. Had he heard right? “You want... excuse me?”
“Your soul, Mr. Tuttle. I want the soul from your movie Soul Snatchers. I collect horror movie props and memorabilia. I’ve always loved Soul Snatchers, especially the scenes where the warlock takes the souls of his victims and you can see the spirits ripped from their bodies, against their will, like a skin being peeled off. It’s an amazing image, like that painting, The Scream.”
“Sure,” shrugged Harry. “The soul is just a prop we cast from a plaster molding. It looks better in the movie, with the lighting gels and effects. I think it’s in storage. I don’t even know if it’s still in one piece, but you’re welcome to have it, or any other movie props you want.”
“Neat,” said Stegman. “Thank you. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Soul Snatchers. I was fourteen, sick with a fever, and I couldn’t sleep because I had slept all day. I’m flipping the channels at one a.m., and there he was, the Master Warlock, the soul snatcher, sucking the essence out of his victims while they slept. And the way the souls screamed when they were removed. How did you make that horrible groaning noise?”
“We just recorded ourselves screaming and slowed down the audio. It wasn’t very high tech.”
“Yeah, well when I was fourteen, it scared the living hell out of me. It gave me nightmares for a week. I loved it.”
Harry said, “Thanks. It’s yours. Now let’s talk about your movie. When do you think I could get the master elements?”
“Anytime. I can deliver them to your office tomorrow.”
“Just so you know, I’m probably going to tinker a little. Remix the sound, change the music, make some minor edits, tighten a few scenes, create a new title sequence.” Stegman said, “Of course. Do what you must. I trust you.”
“And remember, in your role as ghostwriter, nobody can know about your true involvement with this movie. I don’t even want my business partner to know about it. This is between you and me. We’re going to keep it very quiet. Everybody must be
under the impression that I wrote and directed Deadly Desires. You need to promise me that.”
“As your ghostwriter, I shall remain invisible.”
“What about the people who worked with you on the picture?”
“It’s a small, tightly knit group. We’re friends. I’ll talk to them.”
“All of them will continue to receive credit. They have nothing to lose. Yours is the only name that will be replaced, but you will be paid handsomely for it.”
“You bet.”
Harry and Stegman shook hands and sealed the deal. “How cool is this?” said Stegman. “Two horror movie mavericks sealing a deal on Bela Lugosi’s star. It’s good luck.”
“Is it?” Chuckled Harry. “Bela’s last movie was Plan 9 From Outer Space, the worst movie of all time. He became a drug addict.”
“I’m not a drug addict,” said Stegman sharply.
Startled, Harry looked him over. “I didn’t say you were.”
Stegman blinked a few times, and then babbled nervously to cover up the awkward moment. “No. Of course not. I just prefer to remember Bela’s classic period. Dracula. White Zombie. Mark of the Vampire. Son of Frankenstein...”
“You really know your horror movies,” Harry told him.
“They’re in my blood,” said Stegman. “You could say I’m obsessed, and maybe a little weird.”
“The same could be said about most of us in the movie business,” said Harry. “That’s why they call it la-la land. We’re all a bunch of weirdos who never grew up, playing in the land of make-believe.”
REEL TWO
14
In Pottstown, Pennsylvania, across the street from a closed pizzeria and shuttered beauty salon, Randy Furson began his first day as bartender at the Owl Creek Lounge. The pay was shit, but Randy was happy just to have a job. The owner of Owl Creek, Nick Macero, chewed on the end of an unlit cigar and taught Randy everything he needed to know in twenty-five minutes, including how to operate the clunky, old-fashioned cash register, the terms of the daily “Frosty Mug Special,” and how to change the channels on the two color televisions hanging from the ceiling on opposite ends of the bar. Currently, the TVs were tuned to a sports network showcasing rodeo bloopers, watched in rapt attention by the grizzled regulars who sat together —but alone —at the counter.
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