“That’s why you’re going to be able to finish this picture, kid. If she was doing Duse today, she can do the Eastwood and Newman scenes before the ten days are up, no problem.”
“Paul proposes to her during a sleigh ride, and the fight scene takes place outdoors, on the steps leading to Clint’s mansion.”
“Not anymore. See here, on page eighty-eight, where I’ve marked it, that’s where she’s going to be thrown from a horse—a stunt double, naturally—and be injured. The proposal and the fight scenes will both take place in the hospital, with her in bed. Hair, makeup, period nightie, period cast and sling. When she’s back on her feet, which I predict will be sooner than anyone thinks, you can get her and the horse, not actually getting on, just about to. And from then on you’re home free, she plays the rest of the picture with a cast or sling or whatever. New costumes are your only problem.”
“But, Vito!”
“But what?”
“Melanie’s a piano teacher! It’s important in the book.”
“The shots of her giving lessons, you’ve got them, right? Great, so from now on she’ll start to teach singing—she can sing, can’t she?—if she can’t, you’ll dub her. Don’t be so literal-minded. The year I won the Oscar for Mirrors, the thing people remembered most about the film was Dolly Moon’s water breaking when her Best Supporting Actress Oscar was announced. People don’t read the book and then compare it frame by frame with the movie—ninety-five percent of Gone With the Wind isn’t in the film. Cheer up, Zach, no book is sacred. Who won the Pulitzer last year? See, you haven’t a clue. Why isn’t your scriptwriter here anyway? Get him here tomorrow, he can sleep on the floor.”
“Vito, for the love of God, how can we film in a hospital room? Melanie has the biggest one in the hospital, but the cameras, the crew, the lights, the cables—it’s an impossible fit.”
“How much would it cost to rent the operating room for a couple of days? In fact, why doesn’t the studio plan to build the hospital a new wing? Do well by doing good? You can build your set in the operating room, working nights. They can set up with a stand-in, wheel Melanie’s bed in just for the takes, and forget about master shots. Close-ups only. I did it once in Sicily at the beginning when I was still making spaghetti Westerns.”
“Have I ever told you I loved you?”
“More or less. Come on, Zach, I’ll buy you a drink.”
The bar of the Outlaw Inn was so crowded that Zach and Vito had to search for a table. Since the production was shut down until decisions were made, everyone but the busy studio arrivals seemed to have time on their hands and nothing better to do than gather and gossip and think about their paychecks mounting up.
“Grab that booth,” Zach said, as a group of cheery wardrobe people got up to leave. They slid in as the others slid out, with the unmatchable expertise of men who had spent their early years in New York and ridden the subways daily.
“What are you having?” Vito asked Zach.
“A Negroni, sweetheart, what else?” said a woman’s famous voice as Maggie MacGregor joined the party. “You bought me my first one, remember, pussycat? Rome, 1974, at the Hostaria dell’ Orso. I’ll never forget it.” She leaned over and kissed Vito on the lips. “If they don’t have Campari in Montana, I’m going to be very disappointed. What the hell are you doing here anyway?”
“I figured you’d show up, so I’ve been camping out waiting for you,” Vito said, laughing. He was astonishingly glad to see her, and if she wanted to start out by remembering the first time she’d interviewed him for Cosmo, when she’d been an unknown magazine writer, an interview followed by two weeks of lovemaking and deeply friendly mutual appreciation, it meant that any interim unpleasantness could be considered buried.
“As usual, you look like the best kind of cross between the young John Huston and the young Vittorio De Sica,” Maggie said, approvingly checking Vito out and noticing that his flash, his toughness, and his quality of bronzed warmth hadn’t suffered by either the passage of a few years or the drop in temperature. His short, curly hair was just as thick as she remembered, and of course his aristocratically large Italian nose and full mouth were as boldly Latin as ever. “Trust you, Vito, to wear heavy deerstalking tweeds and a cashmere vest in a place where everybody else is dressed like lumberjacks. Did you bring your astrakhan coat? Who’s this gent?” she asked, pointing at Zach.
“Maggie, may I present Zachary Nevsky, the director of Chronicles.”
“I loved Fair Play, Zach.” Maggie trained all the force of her round, dark, Betty Boop eyes on him, weighing and judging eyes that had cajoled and terrified half of show business into admitting things they had never planned to reveal on the most public of forums, her interview program. At thirty-two she was in the prime of her prime, divinely voluptuous in all the vital places, utterly poised and an addictive presence to more than three-quarters of all Americans who watched television news shows in prime time.
“Thank you, Maggie,” Zach said respectfully.
“What exactly is Vito doing here?” she asked him.
“Ah … Vito … well—”
“I came up to persuade Zach to direct my new picture, Maggie, and when the fireworks happened I decided to stick around and watch.”
“What new picture?” she demanded imperiously.
“It’s top secret, too soon to announce it, even to you, love, but Zach has given me his word, haven’t you, Zach?”
“Sure have,” Zach said, knowing he was now committed to a picture he’d never heard of, as tightly as if he’d signed a deal memo. This was a neat answer to the question of how easy it had been to get Vito to jump on a plane. Well, such an exchange was less than he already owed Vito for Chronicles.
“So you’ll be working together again. That’s wonderful—keep me posted. Say, Vito, do you remember the time we had dinner together at the Boutique of La Scala in Beverly Hills? Am I crazy, or was Billy pissed off that night about our reminiscing about the Mexican dog? I’ve always wondered about that … she’s never liked me, still doesn’t, but, my God, when I called to tell you that you’d won the Best Picture Oscar the day before the ceremonies, didn’t that make up for it?”
“Oh, you know how Billy used to—”
“Didn’t she realize that nothing really happened that time?”
“Listen, folks, I’ve got to run,” Zach said, getting up abruptly.
“Something I should know about?” Maggie queried automatically, never taking her eyes off Vito.
“My CPR class, wouldn’t do to be late for that,” Zach said, and left the bar in a hurry, before a hysterical bellow of laughter could fight its way out of his chest.
“He’s cute,” Maggie said, “very cute indeed.”
“Taken, Maggie.”
“How taken?”
“My daughter. He’s family.”
“Well … in that case …” Maggie’s momentary spark of interest disappeared.
“It’s so noisy in here I can hardly hear you,” Vito complained. “Why don’t we have our drinks someplace quiet, like your room? We have a lot to catch up on. I’m sharing Zach’s suite or I’d ask you there.”
“Come to my place. We can kick off our boots, order dinner from room service, and just relax. Nothing exciting is going to happen here tonight.”
“You’re staying here too?”
“Well, obviously, Vito,” Maggie said in amazement. “I have the Presidential Suite—my network knows how to treat a girl.”
By the time dinner was served, Vito had made Maggie believe that it was her idea to make an hour-long special on the saving of The Kalispell Chronicles.
“Funny, it’s not the movie itself as much as the human interest that I’m fascinated by,” he said as they lay entwined, having postponed food for an intensely thorough reunion.
“The attempted murder-suicide? But, Vito, that’s the story that everyone’s covering. There’s going to be so much written about it that people will be sick of it in ten d
ays. I almost didn’t bother to come, but the program department insisted.”
“I agree, you’ve seen one attempted murder-suicide, you’ve seen them all, even with Melanie Adams as the victim. What interests me is what’s going to happen next. Here’s this actress who’s enjoyed the easiest and quickest rise to stardom in film history. She’s never had anything bad happen to her. Sure, she’s a huge talent, sure, she’s exquisite, but we both know those are things she was born with. And there’s something so basically unfair about that. She’d led a charmed life. You weren’t born to one and neither was I, and neither were most people.”
“I’m listening.”
“So I want to know how this trauma is going to affect her. She can’t just carry on as if nothing happened, it’s not humanly possible. One night in her bedroom she faced an ultimate nightmare, a murderous man with a gun, running her down, shooting at her face, narrowly missing killing her. That’s something she’ll never get over, never. She can’t help but realize how close she came to dying, or at the very least losing her career. How has this experience changed her? I don’t think anybody is ever going to get that story.”
“Oh, tosh. Melanie’ll hire round-the-clock bodyguards like a lot of people, and get some big German shepherds, and if she has some sense, which I doubt, she’ll be a lot more careful about the guys she lets into her room at night. Maybe she’ll go into therapy, like all the other stars, but that’s not a story.”
“Maggie, you amaze me.” Vito tied a bedspread around his waist and picked up the phone to order dinner. He knew her so well he didn’t have to ask what she wanted to eat.
“They said a half-hour wait,” Vito announced. “Want a walnut or a piece of this delicious complimentary fruit?”
“Uh-huh. Why do I amaze you?”
“Because you can get a story no one else can get and increase your ‘legendary power,’ to quote those cover stories on you in Time and Newsweek, and all you’re doing is lying there looking sexier than ever and saying the obvious things.”
“The hell I am!” Her pride was stung.
“You just did. You took the point of view of the average housewife reading about this. So Melanie Adams almost got shot by a jealous lover. Yawn. I should be so lucky, look at her anyway, just as rich and gorgeous as ever. Yawn.”
“Hmmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“When I say ‘hmmm’ instead of ‘bullshit,’ that means you might be right. Tell me how you might be right. I’m too exhausted to figure it out for myself. You certainly haven’t slowed down with age. What are you now, Vito, nineteen?”
“Forty-eight. I have slowed down a little, but you inspired me, Maggie.”
“There’s still hope for the human race. So tell.”
“It’s the eternal question of the before-and-after syndrome. We all know, or think we know, what Melanie was like before. We’ll never know what she’s like after. We’ll never have a heart-to-heart talk with her, only what the PR people let us know … unless you get to her. We’ll never know what it felt like for her to suddenly discover that the person she thought she was—one of the most celebrated and protected women in the world—was, in reality, nothing but a helpless cipher begging for her life. Will she ever feel strong again? Will all the bodyguards in the world take away her feeling of vulnerability? Those are your kind of questions, Maggie. I can hear you asking them. I can hear you asking her what she wants to be remembered for, what she wants as her epitaph.”
“I’m still listening, but I haven’t had that click yet.”
“Does she still have courage? Not an actress kind of courage, but a human kind of courage. That’s what I want to find out. And you can’t ask that, you can only show that.”
“How?”
“Zach has figured out how Melanie can do two of her biggest, longest, most emotional scenes, one with Paul Newman, the other with Clint Eastwood, lying on her hospital bed nine days from now. Only if she’s willing, only if the doctors let him, of course, and he won’t know until the last minute. These scenes would be draining under the best of circumstances, performed by an actress in the best of health. Now, Melanie absolutely does not have to make this effort. Nobody expected it of her. Nobody would blame her if she used all her energy to recover from the shooting. Nobody would hold her accountable for the picture being shut down. And she knows all that. But will she make a try? Will she want to give it her best shot?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “Personally I might, I might not, but I’m no Melanie Adams. You’re right, Vito, it is interesting.”
“It’s going to be tough to make it happen,” Vito went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “It’ll take a miracle of timing from the crew. Zach’s going to use the operating room as if it were a film set and work in there. Provided that Melanie has the guts and willpower to go through with it, she can save this picture single-handedly. Now if she can do that—she’s got something special. If she even tries to do it and breaks down under the pressure—which I’m inclined to think she may, considering that she only got out of intensive care a day ago—it’s just as interesting as if she doesn’t. Not as heroic, but more human. In any case, don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to get all that behind-the-scenes action on television.”
“What makes you think that they’d let my crew come in and get all this, if it’s going to be so hard to do as it sounds?” Maggie was torn between suspicion and covetousness.
“Because Zach’s the director, and the director calls the shots.”
“Why does he need all that extra trouble, a television crew breathing down everyone’s neck, shining their lights at everything that moves, asking annoying questions, getting in the way? He’ll have a job and a half making the whole thing come together as it is.”
“Because his future father-in-law will ask him nicely.”
“Bullshit! Just what’s in it for you, lover?”
“He’ll be a lock for an Academy nomination for best director, who knows, maybe an Oscar. And that’s good for my next picture. Very good. Plus, as I told you, Zach’s family.” If he said that once more, Vito reflected, he was going to start believing it himself.
“See, Vito, you can never fool me for long,” Maggie crowed, delighted. “I knew you had to be getting something for yourself. But it’s a hell of an idea and if you can fix it, lover, I’ll do it and we’ll run an hour in prime time.”
“I’ll get on the case after dinner,” Vito promised her. “If it ever comes.”
Just what, he wondered, was his next picture? He’d just guaranteed Zach and Chronicles a new treasure of publicity, he’d captured a possible Oscar-winning director … and he didn’t have a single book or screenplay up his sleeve. Something would be magnetized to him, he thought, as he went back over to the bed. Why waste his energy on thinking about properties while Maggie was lying there purring so prettily at having figured him out? He and Susan Arvey had called it quits after Curt Arvey died suddenly and she became head of the Arvey Studio. They’d agreed that their business relationship was too important to spoil with sex, and there had been no one since then.
Room service, Vito reflected, had said a half an hour or more, which meant at least an hour before dinner. Maggie had learned some fascinating moves since The WASP ended their relationship. Was it all the fresh air, was it the Presidential Suite, or was it just Maggie that made him so horny?
The mass of the media, as Maggie had predicted, had gone home by the end of little more than a week’s frenzied digging for details, endless informal interviews with everyone on the crew they could capture, many formal interviews with a patient Rose Greenway, a nastily impatient Roger Rowan, a fluffed-up Norma Rowan, and every doctor and nurse in the Kalispell Hospital. The rumors about Allen Henrick had surfaced and floated for a few days and eventually drifted to the bottom for lack of any hard proof. No one had been allowed inside the Kalispell Hospital, no one had been permitted closer to Melanie Adams than a photo taken of the wi
ndow of her room, Newman and Eastwood declined to be interviewed, and Zach Nevsky had been too busy to talk to anyone from the press.
Maggie MacGregor had been as busy as Zach, but her loyal crew had the talent of invisibility and the forthcomingness of a religious order vowed to silence. In a fur hat pulled down to the collar of her fur coat, fur-lined waterproof boots, and sunglasses, Maggie hustled about on her errands almost unrecognized by the rest of the media, who took her continued presence as a compliment to the importance of the story on which they themselves were working.
All of the television equipment was moved, piece by piece, into the hospital at night and stowed away.
Zach planned to film one of the big scenes on a Friday and the other on a Saturday, waiting until the last possible dates before the schedule would cause him to lose Newman and Eastwood. Either Melanie could do it or she couldn’t, but it would be too much of a risk, he decided, to ask her to work until she absolutely had to.
As he worked on the infinite number of details that went into bringing off his plan, he became aware that Wells Cope was in Kalispell, staying at a private house he had managed to rent. He was being allowed, at Melanie’s request, to visit her for a few minutes each day. Cope kept out of Zach’s way, never intruding on Zach’s turf, never even having a drink in the Outlaw Inn bar, but he had been spotted here and there by dozens of the production staff.
“What’s he up to, best guess?” Zach asked Vito.
“He can’t be protecting his investment, Melanie doesn’t owe him a thing anymore. Since that’s the only motive I’d ever count on with Cope, I’d have to say he’s more sentimental than I thought. Maybe he just came to visit a sick friend, for old times’ sake. Hey, maybe he’s in love with her. Ever think of that?”
“Give me a break, Vito.”
“I’m as mystified as you are. So long as he stays out of the way, there’s nothing we can object to. You said Melanie didn’t seem upset by him, didn’t you?”
“Yep. It’s almost as if he isn’t here, according to her. He brings flowers, asks her how she is, talks about the weather, and leaves.”
Lovers Page 24