by Todd Grimson
“You’re back,” he said. “Great.” He sounded warm and affectionate.
“Adrian, I’m sorry I haven’t called for a while. I’ve been really busy, but—how’ve you been? Do you need a job?”
“Well, actually … I’m doing pretty well, but … I think things have sort of fallen through for Christine on that documentary. Don’t tell her that I told you, OK?”
“I won’t. But really? When I called her from New York, she sounded so gung-ho….”
“She always asks about you, and she’s come over to pet Caz a time or two. You’re such an adventuress, you know, you leave some people behind. They can’t keep up with you. Oh, by the way, I was talking today to a friend in New York who’s going over for Cannes … and he heard from somebody at Variety that some weird film by a little-known filmmaker named Lisa Nova is causing a lot of talk.”
“The reviews I heard about,” Lisa said, “were like, uh, ‘Nova’s snuff-film poetics’ and ‘the nightmare of history, built on a mountain of corpses, formless and chaotic’ … and then I got on a plane. As far as I know, Idea One might be going to distribute, strictly an art-house release … well, it’s that kind of film, it’s all the visuals, there’s only about three lines of dialogue in the whole thing.”
“It’s getting you talked about,” Adrian said. “Selwyn Popcorn said something like, ‘Lisa Nova may have the most original vision of any young filmmaker I’ve seen.’ Jason—my friend in New York—said he heard that you took some good pictures, you’re photogenic … he asked me if it’s true you stabbed somebody down in Brazil during production of your film. Did you?”
“Yeah.” Lisa was speechless.
Adrian laughed, at least playing at being further delighted by this new revelation of her spunk. He wanted to know all about it. Lisa had to remind herself that he was a specialist in gossip, writing as he did for Details, Premiere, and Rolling Stone. Her status with him was now somewhat changed.
“I’m too confused right at the moment to make sense,” Lisa said. “I’ll tell you about it when I see Caz.”
“Do you want me to bring him by? Brad isn’t coming home till eight or nine.”
“Could you? I need to see him … you’ve got to remember, I just got off the plane less than an hour ago.”
“I understand. Don’t let me pump you. It’s an occupational hazard—I can’t help myself. Do you need anything that I can pick up on the way?”
“The refrigerator’s stocked with food. All I can think of is that Jules … well, he’s terribly thoughtful.”
“That’s what I hear.”
While waiting, then, for Adrian, Lisa gathered her thoughts for just a second or two before impulsively calling Christine.
“Lisa! I was just thinking about you. Somebody was talking to me yesterday about Eric Lemongrass, your policeman in L.A. Ripper. It sounds like he’s an asshole, and I was worried about you. His new movie, that mountain-climbing thing, is turning into a surprise hit, and supposedly he wants more money for everything, naturally, now that he’s medium-hot. And he’s a jerk about women. So … how was Berlin?”
“I didn’t think it was that great, but when I talked to Adrian he said I didn’t see deeply enough into the nature of reality, I didn’t understand anything—so I guess Berlin was pretty good.” Lisa felt like somehow she and Christine were back on the same channel. Before she could ask Christine if she wanted (not needed) a job, Christine said, “Now that a studio is actually willing to trust you with a budget and a schedule—can I have a job? This whole zoo-animal PBS thing went all to shit. But I’d really like to see you, to hear about Brazil and your film. I’m curious as hell. When you called from New York the other week, you caught me at a bad time. Oriole was just coming over, and I was getting ready for some sort of Strindberg deal or something, bitter recriminations on all sides. How is your tattoo situation?”
“I can’t remember the last time we talked about them,” Lisa said. She had by now realized that Christine was high or slightly drunk, but it didn’t matter. The friendly reconnection was there. “Of course you can have a job. What do you want to do?”
“Not production aide, that’s all.”
“Oh listen, Adrian’s here with Caz. I have a meeting tomorrow morning, and it might go through lunch, I don’t know—what about having dinner tomorrow night? I can put you on my expense account.”
“OK, sure. I’ll be here late afternoon.”
“All right, see you. Bye.”
She let Adrian in with her loudly meowing beautiful Burmese cat. Caz began purring as soon as he saw her, smelled her, heard her voice. Tears came lightly, sentimentally to her eyes. She kissed him and hugged him, petting him as Adrian Gee smiled at her and looked around. He wore a pale lavender shirt and faded, faded soft blue jeans.
“What sort of questions did they ask you at your press conference?” he asked with a certain Hong Kong-style insouciance.
“What happened to Roy. Where’s Roy. Is it true that he’s become a Buddhist. Are you two secretly married. What made Roy decide to star in such an offbeat film. Where is he. When’s he coming back.”
“And were the reporters satisfied with your answers?” Adrian often sounded like he knew more than he really did; it was one of his tricks to get people to talk.
So Lisa, gazing at him, said, “No,” and did not elaborate, as Casimir with great affection bit her hand, holding it there with his paws. Adrian himself didn’t ask her anything about Roy Hardway; he was more delicate than that. He changed the subject to Selwyn Popcorn and his latest film, the one for which Lisa had been set to be assistant to the director until Robert Hand’s daughter Alison had been given the job. Popcorn had talked about none of this, though over coffee and a piece of cake (he had a sweet tooth, which might account for the ten pounds or so he was overweight) he had intimated that Susan Heller, though hot now, was not making any friends. It had sounded as if he thought she was dumb.
But now this new shit about Alison, that she’d fucked up and was in rehab … while Popcorn was saying Lisa had the most original vision he’d seen … what a turnaround! Did Boro deserve very much credit? Regretfully, she supposed that he did. More or less on cue, Adrian began telling her about all the misfortunes that had continued to bedevil Lou and his family, using as his point of segue the fact that Robert Hand had fired Lou from the studio where he’d worked for twenty-three years.
Lou Greenwood, Lou Adolph, Lou Burke had separated from his wife and, after their house burned partially down, had embarked on an ocean voyage—possibly to Samoa or Australia. Veronica, according to rumor, was hard to reason with these days, having given her life to God. That is, she was said to have joined a church that might be described, in California or anywhere else, as a cult. The rumor was she was in New Mexico now.
“The son, Jonathan, may have gone off with some bikers,” Adrian said. “I heard he was hanging around with some leather freaks, anyway, out at Zuma Beach. Maybe they killed him and ate him,” Adrian said as a joke.
Lisa shuddered but managed a polite laugh. Despite everything that Adrian had told her about Lou’s family, she imagined the real story was probably much worse. After Adrian left, she just sat there, communing with her cat.
NINE
In the morning, Lisa discovered that her car was parked down on the street below; she tried her key, and the Trans Am started right up. The battery was fine. It was weird, but she could accept it; when the limousine came she told the driver, apologetically, that she preferred to drive her own car. Sure, he said. He drove away She was nervous and excited: This was what she had wanted, to be the director of a film at a major studio … she felt good. She hadn’t yet personally seen anything flattering written about Manoa, but assuming Adrian hadn’t gone completely insane, those notices would be on the way. Knowing that Selwyn Popcorn had said something nice gave her a certain confidence—confidence in her aura, her momentary heat. Her luck.
What to wear? What sort of look to present? Lisa wo
uld have liked to have worn fake clear glass wire-rimmed glasses, to dress more or less sloppy casual, loose clothes and messy short hair … but if she was going to use her newly forming image, she might as well have bare arms and show the tattoos right away, get it over with, let her hair keep growing out, go for kind of a rock-and-roll or punk thing. Not all of the young directors aimed at the youth audience had to be out-and-out nerds. For Christ’s sake, LA. Ripper II was a horror flick. Splatter. Exploitation, maybe done with style but still judged mostly by numbers of dead bodies, gallons of blood, and exposed naked breasts.
At the gate, sunglasses on, she told the guard her name. It was great. She parked her car. Underneath all this wonderfulness, however, was an uneasiness that would not go away, an uneasiness connected to Boro and Lou. Oh well.
Jules Brandenberg, as producer, was at the meeting, in the tranquil, cool, luxurious room. Also Eric Lemongrass, who played the cop, the homicide detective, extremely tan, having just scored fairly bad reviews but an unexpected moderate hit with Solo Faces, his mountain-climbing film. Lisa shook his hand and quietly said hi. Paul Bancroft, the longtime off-Broadway star who played the Ripper, struck her as friendly, reasonable, surprisingly unegotistic, probably gay. The director of photography, Dario Boccioni, had done the first film (and worked with Jules on almost everything he did). The art director was already chosen, Rosa Liszt, so Lisa evidently would not have the option of suggesting Julia Panofsky-Brown, from the School of Visual Arts. As the budget went up, the first-time director’s level of control was going down.
Eric Lemongrass complained about the script. Lisa asked what he didn’t like. “The ending,” he said with some heat. “I think it fragments the audience’s response to have the hookers band together and kill the Ripper. They’ll feel let down. In a film like this, they want a one-on-one showdown. That’s really crucial.”
“It’s corny,” Lisa rejoined.
Lemongrass didn’t respond, just giving her the blue-eyed stare he’d been working on. Jules said, “We’ll certainly consider your input, Eric.”
After the actors left, Lisa and Jules talked about the color scheme and look of the picture for a while, with the cinematographer and the set designer, and the fact that Jules knew these people so much better than Lisa—she’d never met them before—made her feel like quite a lot was being taken out of her hands. She offered ideas she had thought about for a long time, but Dario Boccioni… she felt little or no rapport with him. He didn’t seem to take her seriously. Could she fire people? She was beginning to wonder. Make the best of it, she thought.
Only when it got around to the casting did she feel like her ideas were avidly heard. She mentioned Mary Siddons, the star of Lisa’s Girl, 10, Murders Boys, and Jules recognized the name, and said, “Oh you’re right, she’ll be perfect.” When everyone was gone except Lisa and Jules, she said to him, “What do you think of changing the ending?”
“I don’t know,” he said tonelessly, revealing nothing, a model of half-baffled indifference.
After a very long time, he added, discreetly, “You’ve been out of the country Have you seen the figures on what Eric’s movie has done its first three weeks?”
“I haven’t seen any numbers, but I’ve heard that it’s a hit.”
Jules nodded. His hair was cut shorter than she remembered, and he seemed even thinner. Lisa didn’t find him attractive, and by this time she didn’t trust him very far, despite his enthusiasm for Manoa.
“Eric’s feeling it,” Jules said. “He feels larger every day. His agent is very bitter about the money he signed for—he’ll probably end up with quite a lot more. The studio thinks it’s great that he’ll still condescend to do this sort of material. Eric’s theory, if I read his mind, and I think I can, is to turn this into as much of an action thriller as possible, expand his role along with his money, and try to make the crossover into being an action star. This could be a nice transitional film for him. But if he’s smart, he’ll realize it’s too late for a major rewrite, and he’ll turn in a day’s work for a day’s pay and then go on to the rest of his career. This just isn’t the kind of film for too many car chases and that kind of shit. My bet is he’ll do his four weeks. Don’t look at me like that. I’m on your side. You’ll get used to Dario. You’ll see. Things’ll fall into place. I was thinking Wesley Crawford for first AD, and you’ll love him. He’ll do a lot of your dirty work— he’s great. Eric’s nothing. I know him; he’s a piece of meat.”
They walked out into the magnificent parking lot. Lisa knew that all this stuff was normal, typical of this factory town. Her ambitions seemed stupid to her right now.
TEN
At about two-thirty in the afternoon of this dirty-blond day Lisa stopped in Venice, going into a restaurant she vaguely remembered having read about in a review; it was cool inside, and she ordered an iced tea, a hamburger, and a small salad, house dressing on the side. She was wearing an emerald green halter that left most of her back bare, a gold bracelet, a watch with a thick leather band, a lucky ring on her little finger (gold with a piece of cloudy jade), sandals, and a short tan skirt. She didn’t remember to take off her sunglasses until her iced tea came, she had been clutching her keys while trying to look across the room at some drawings put up in a row.
She felt like a hustler … more successful than many, though still a baby by most standards. She sighed, looked at her tattooed fingers, and thought of Tavinho, that quality he had of never seeming to blame her for anything. If she got through this production, maybe she’d go back down to Brazil. She missed her dad, too. It had been reassuring just to know he was around.
A guy came in. The restaurant was just about empty, but she wouldn’t even have noticed had he not come over to her table, smiled at her, said, “Lisa Nova? Can I sit down?”
“Sure,” she said, neutrally wondering if he was a reporter and if so, why he hadn’t called. He was kind of a big, burly dark blond guy wearing tan chinos and an untucked mostly blue Hawaiian shirt.
“Who are you?” Her hamburger arrived, along with the check. She ate a pickle, looking at him, and he put a card down on the table for her.
“That’s who I’m working for. My name is Duane Moyer. I’ve been looking for Roy Hardway for about two months or so, without any luck. It shouldn’t be so hard to track down somebody like that, should it? A famous movie star. Everybody knows his face. Excuse me, though, Miss Nova. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal. I’ll just be a moment more.”
“You’re a detective?”
“That’s right.”
“What do you want from me?”
He smiled again, at her tone. “Why, Mr. Laughton, Roy’s agent, would like to talk to you. Is it OK if I call him, tell him you’ll come by this afternoon?”
Lisa took another sip of iced tea; picked up the card. Of course she’d heard of him. Nehi Laughton. He also represented Kimberly Chase, the former Miss Universe. He’d been pointed out to her once at a party, back when she had first come out here, way before she’d ever known Lou.
“Sherman Oaks. OK, I’ll talk to him.”
“Great. Thank you. It’s been nice meeting you. I’ll tell Mr. Laughton to expect you in, what, say about an hour?”
“Sure.” Lisa took her first bite of the hamburger only now, as Duane Moyer left. Shit. The way he’d looked at her. She didn’t feel like eating very much more. Fuck. She had them wrap up half the burger and give her an iced tea to go, to drink in the car.
Driving away, she knew Moyer was shadowing her, and it gave her a creepy feeling. He must have followed her to the restaurant from the studio.
The receptionist looked like Kim Basinger, and like she knew it and thought this was swell. Lisa said, “I’m here to see Nehi Laughton.”
“I see. Is he expecting you?”
“I think so. I’m Lisa Nova.”
Kim Basinger called back—absolute, heavy, expensive silence all around, like one could imagine in the buildings of Texas Nazi oil billionaires
who controlled the world—and said, “There’s a Lisa Nova here to see you…. What? … OK, I’ll send her in.”
Nehi Laughton was in his forties, short, intense, looked like he played tennis, only just beginning to lose a little hair. Those who were dying to meet him might even see him as handsome, with his large nose and thin lips, expensive clothes. He was wearing a very well cut suit, and Lisa admired it for a few moments; when he asked her if she’d like a beverage, she said yeah, she’d like a Coke.
“I’ve been hearing all kinds of good things about you,” he said. “You had this film in the Berlin Film Festival, people are talking about it, and Selwyn Popcorn says you have the most original vision of any young director he’s seen. Forgive me if I don’t have his exact words, but—as I’m sure you realize—my interest is in Roy. I’ve known him for twenty-two years, do you know that? When I was at ICM, he was assigned to me—that was before anything was happening for him at all. When I formed my own agency, he was my cornerstone client. We’ve been good friends. Until a couple months ago, we talked on the phone just about every day. At least once every week. Then, just like that, he goes out one night, and that’s the last anyone knows. The police checked into it, but nothing. He fucking disappears. He’s not touching his bank account, nothing.”
Nehi Laughton stood up, having excited himself to the point where he had to prowl around. Lisa drank the Coke that a different, less flashy secretary had brought in. She used the straw.
“I thought he was dead ” the superagent went on. “And then, all of a sudden, I’m told about this little film Roy’s starring in, in fact he’s down as coproducer … so please tell me, as his friend: Where is he?”