The views were magnificient, or would have been, if Los Angeles had anything magnificent to look at. From this corner office high in one of the silvery godless megaliths of Century City, one view was northward across the smog and over the boxy little houses in peach and coral toward the low but steep hills serving as the only redan against the proles of the Valley, while the other view was westward over flatter and peachier but less smoggy Santa Monica toward the eternal Pacific. Just down that way to the left lurked Venice, waiting for a far-sighted developer.
The office had been decorated with an eye to the exudation of casual power: relaxed, but potent, the spider's parlor as a philosophical statement through the art of interior design. In this light, well-cleaned space, Jack Pine sat transfixed on a beautiful but uncomfortable chair in the middle of the room while Irwin Sandstone paced slowly around him. Irwin Sandstone, a pear-shaped man with a bald-headed toad's face and a scalloped wrinkling of the ears, held a small slender bronze art deco figure of a naked, nubile girl in the short, stuffed fingers of his hands. As he walked, and as he talked, he fondled this statue, the light gleaming from his rings and from the clear nail polish his manicurist had assured him no one would notice. He said:
"Your career is important to me, Jack. And the reason your career is important to me is because it's unique. If I wanted to be in the shoe business, eight million shoes all the same, I'd be in the shoe business. The business I'm in, this crazy mad business of show business, not shoe business, in which I thank God I've had a certain modicum of success, in this business, every new face, every new body, every new voice, every new talent that comes through that door is a separate and unique challenge, another opportunity for me to prove myself. Do you know what I mean, Jack?"
"I think so, sir," Jack said. Today he wore brown loafers and tan chinos and a polo shirt with an alligator on it and an open, welcoming, guileless expression.
Irwin Sandstone's blunt thumb caressed the statue's budding breasts. "I am a mere servant of the creative impulse, Jack," he said, circling and circling. "It's your unique gift we're concerned with here, not the life or goals or dreams of Irwin Sandstone."
"Yes, sir," said Jack.
Irwin's fingers oiled and warmed the bronze. "How to mold, how to shape, how to bring out to the acclaim of the multitudes that unique talent deep within you, that is my humble duty, that is my mantra, to serve great talents, to be the willing stepping stone on which they rise, to do whatever is within my small powers"—with a wave at the power-reeking office—"to bring each wonderful unique private talent to its greatest glory. That is what I wish to do with you, Jack. If you agree. Will you give me that task, Jack? Will you order me to make you great?"
Accommodating, Jack said, "Sure."
Suddenly more businesslike, clutching the statue's legs, Irwin nodded. "Okay," he said, and stood still, to Jack's left, appraising him, nodding slowly to himself, while Jack struggled to decide whether he was supposed to meet Irwin Sandstone's gaze frankly or face forward to be studied. Compromising, he faced more or less forward, and flicked constant glances toward the man hefting him in his mind.
“Okay," Irwin Sandstone said again, the statue forgotten, its head in his fist. “For your type," he said, “we start with the biker picture, then your pathologic killer, then your patient picture. By then you're established, you can do whatever you want."
Jack, manfully smiling, said, “Patient picture?"
Irwin Sandstone negligently waved the hand with the statue in it. “Nut house or hospital," he explained. “You're a person with an affliction, see? Gives you that human dimension, rounds you off after the psycho."
“Oh, yeah," Jack said. “I see what you mean."
Irwin Sandstone brought his hands together. They found the statue again, apparently on their own, and the fat fingers stroked and fumbled as their owner gazed appealingly at Jack to say, “Is that what you want, Jack? Stardom? Fruition? Will you put yourself in my hands?"
Jack watched those hands fondle the thin bronze girl. He shrugged. “What have I got to lose?" he said.
LUDE
O Connor watches the movie star seated on his gray slate patio in his pale blue terry-cloth robe, vaguely smiling, ignoring the sounds from the swimming pool right nearby. He's good at ignoring things, O'Connor thinks.
The reminiscence of the introduction to Irwin Sandstone floats in the lambent air, dissipates like opium smoke in the sun. After a little silence, the famous Jack Pine sleepily says, "Irwin was the genius, not me, and we both knew it." Slowly he is arching backward, body collapsing gradually onto the slates. Lying there, blindlooking eyes gazing skyward, voice fading more and more, "But Irwin came thruuuuuuuuuu," Pine murmurs. "Ahh- hhhhh, I'll give himmmmmm . . ."
The eyes close. He has drifted off, his breathing deep and even. O'Connor waits a moment, memo pad in left hand, pencil in right, but the actor doesn't alter in any way. At last, O'Connor leans forward from his chair, extends his right arm forward, taps the sleeping star on the knee with the eraser end of his pencil. "Mister Pine?" he says. "Sir?"
No response.
Abruptly, the stone-faced butler, Hoskins, appears with a silver tray bearing a glass full of oily black muck. "Allow me to help, sir,” he says.
"He's all yours,” O'Connor says, and leans back in his canvas chair again to watch.
Hoskins goes to one knee, places the silver tray on the slate beside himself, props the actor up against his raised knee with practiced ease, pinches the actor's nose between thumb and forefinger of left hand, and with the right hand pours the glassful of oily black muck down Jack Pine's throat.
O'Connor winces, empathizing despite himself. He says, "Does this happen a lot, Hoskins?”
Still pouring, the viscous fluid slowly oozing from the glass into the unconscious man's mouth, Hoskins says, "We have an amazing amount and variety of chemicals in our body, sir. Maintaining the balance is not at all easy.”
"I can see that,” O'Connor says.
The glass is now mostly empty, only an oily metallic coating still staining its sides. Hoskins puts the glass back on the tray, and lowers the body to the slate. Then he picks up the tray, stands, and says, "We should be coming around any instant, sir.”
With which, the actor pops upright, sitting at attention, legs straight out in front, arms stretched out and back behind him like flying buttresses. His eyes are wide open. "Hoskins!” he cries.
Hoskins bows a deferential head in his direction. "Sir?”
Speaking at incredible speed, Pine says, "I've got it! We'll put white pillars every seven feet all around the side, and put the lawn on top, and then we can go underneath when it's too sunny!”
"Interesting, sir,” Hoskins says. As Pine's head twitches back and forth, his wide eyes staring here and there like a demented bird, Hoskins stoops, picks up the empty glass that once contained the fuzzy drink, puts it beside the black muck glass on the tray, nods at O'Connor, and departs, walking ramrod-stiff toward the house.
Pine's darting head and staring eyes find O'Connor, gawk at him. Pine giggles. He points at O'Connor, teetering on only one buttress, giggling with accomplishment, with his own discovery. “People'.” he cries.
O'Connor, bewildered, looks around and then points the pencil at himself, saying, "No, sir, it's just me. Like before."
“People magazine," Jack Pine says, nodding, smiling, cackling. "The cover again'.”
How much longer can the actor possibly believe this is a press interview? O'Connor sighs, and waits.
13
Hello, hello, here I am again, just fine, doing just fine, everything's just—
Hello, here I am again. I'm back with it now, it's back with me now, my with now is it—
Hello. There's something terribly wrong here, call a priest. No, wait. Maybe better not.
Hello?
Here I am. Lost myself for a while, fell down some rabbit hole—"I'm late, I'm late,'' as my girlfriends used to say— fell down some black nasty . .
. Dead? Who's dead?
Hello?
I gaze about me, and the interviewer sits patiently, sits watching me, sits patiently watching me. "Hello," I say.
"Hello,” he says. "Are you all right?"
"Jes fine," I say.
"And you remember—”
"The story of my life,” I tell him, "in its endlessly unreeling permutations. I remember now. Where exactly were we in the sequence of events?"
"Your new agent," he says, reading from his notes, "had told you to start with a biker picture."
“Precisely so!" I say, delighted to be on track again. So inconvenient to fade in and out like that, I really must talk to my doctors about it, find some different formulation— No; they'll all just use those dread words:
Cut.
Down.
And the hell you say, doc. I didn't come this far to cut down. Not me. “Shit!" I cry, staring at the interviewer, who looks more and more like a fish in a sports jacket. “I've lost it again," I confess.
“Biker picture," he says.
“That's it! Okay! All right, the biker was shot in the studio, came out exactly the way we wanted. I mean exactly the way we wanted: a crowd churner but a stomach pleaser as well, good gross, good reviews, good first step.
“Sounds good," the interviewer says.
Is he trying to be funny? I peer sharply at him, but he's as deadpan as ever, dead fish in a pan. “Right," I say. “Anyway, next was the pathologic killer, and that involved six weeks' location in Mexico. My first time out of the country. Marcia had another picture then, up here, so down there I went, all on my own. Money in my pocket. Fame starting. Travel in foreign lands. Starring in a movie! I told Buddy, up here, before I got on the plane, I said, 'My dreams are coming true before I dream them.'"
The interviewer actually brightens up; he looks actually pleased for me. “That must be terrific," he says.
“That's just what it is. That's just what it is. But then,
what happened next . . ."
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"Mr. Pine?”
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"Mr. Pine?”
"Nuhh?
"You were in Mexico. What happened next, you said.”
"Oh, what happened next. Yeah.” I make a smile. "Midway through, down there, my leading lady got laryngitis, couldn't scream at all for five days. I took the opportunity to rush home and see my darling Marcia.”
FLASHBACK 11
Having two salaries now, blessed with growing reputations, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Pine could afford, in fact needed, a larger house, a more prestigious location, better suited to greeting friends and the press. This house, until recently owned by a television star named Holt who'd committed suicide when his series was canceled, sprawled on three levels, a white blob cunningly worked into a fold of canyon up near Mulhol- land Drive. Though the view was of the Valley, the approach was from the Los Angeles side, and the area code was 213, not (gulp) 818.
The box hooked to the visor of Jack's rented BMW operated the gate at the end of the cul-de-sac off Mulhol- land, where their driveway began. He drove in, the gate swinging sidearm shut behind him, and steered around the carefully jungly plantings to the sudden blacktop puddle where the house began; three-car attached garage on the right, entrance and main living room straight ahead.
Gathering up his same old two pieces of luggage—the battered round, soft traveling bag and the well-worn soft suit-carrier—Jack unlocked his way into the house. He crossed the large formal living room with its large formal view of the Valley nestling its large blanket of dirty gray haze, and went down the stairs to level two, with its more informal family room and bedrooms all opening onto the large free-form pool, which sparkled and gleamed below the sightline of the formal view above. Coming into the large comfortable family room with its conversation pit and its walls graced with rented original oil paintings, Jack looked around with pride of ownership and the happiness of contentment. This was his; his and Marcia's.
The television set was on, showing Bringing Up Baby. A large book of the paintings of Hopper lay on the broad glass coffee table, open to "Nighthawks." Beside the book were a half-full coffee cup and a half-eaten sandwich. Jack looked at all these things, his smile quizzical, then dropped his luggage and crossed the room to feel the coffee cup. It was warm.
His smile broadening, Jack tiptoed across the room and opened the hall door. Tiptoeing past the rented framed etchings, he couldn't help a conspiratorial chuckle.
The master bedroom door was at the end, on the right. It was closed. Jack reached it, closed his hand around the doorknob, hesitated once more, grinning, and then leaped through the doorway, yelling, "Surprise!"
Buddy reared up in the bed, looking over his shoulder in amazement and shock. Beneath him, Marcia writhed. "Not noowww!” she wailed. "I'm coming!"
Jack stood in the bedroom where his momentum had left him. Turned to stone, he stared into Buddy's eyes. He could neither speak nor move.
Buddy was horribly embarrassed, achingly aware of the social awkwardness of the situation in which they all found themselves. But he was quite obviously also aware of the woman still desperately thrashing away beneath him. He offered Jack a ghastly smile, saying, "Give us a minute, will you, Dad, uh, just a minute, we'll . . .”
An electric jolt shot through Jack's body, slamming him back into life. Spinning about, he flung himself from the room, the door banging behind him with a sound like a shot. "Nice to see you, Dad, uh . . ." Buddy called after him, in despairing camaraderie.
"Oh, there it is," Marcia gasped, her hands clutching his shoulder blades. "Oh, there it is, oh, there it is, oh, there it is."
"There it is, all right," Buddy muttered, broody.
Marcia's breathing slowed, her arms relaxed, she raised her head beside Buddy's and looked toward the door. Lank hair plastered to her skin framed her face. Still panting a bit, beginning to look worried, she said, "Was that Jack?"
"Mmmmmm," Buddy said, meaning yes.
From far away came the sound of a car engine roaring, the accelerator pressed ridiculously to the floor. Then there was the grinding sound of some sort of crash, a tiny pause, and once again that roaring sound, this time receding to silence.
"What was that?" said Marcia.
"Jack's going," Buddy said.
14
The interviewer glares at me in prissy disapproval. “There you go again/' he says. “You didn't see that part. You were driving away.''
“With a broken heart," I say. “Plus two broken headlights and a cracked radiator. But one senses the truth of such scenes, doesn't one? One doesn't have to be present at every fucking instance of an emotional scene to sense the reality when one fucking well hears it, does one?”
“Okay, okay," he says, patting the air at me. “Take it easy, Mr. Pine. It's your story.”
“My wife and my best friend," I say, with my best brokenhearted chuckle. “The oldest story in the world, am I right?"
“Second oldest, I think," he says, nit-picking again. “Old, though," I say, too weary to fight. “Very old. Buddy came to see me in Mexico.”
FLASHBACK 12
The hot Mexican sun beat down on an old Mexican village: adobe walls, brown earth street, flat bleaching light. Jack, dressed in dirty black pants, black leather jacket, and white shirt buttoned to the collar, stalked cautiously along next to the wall, a six-inch bowie knife held at the ready in his hand, out in front of him, swaying like a snake to left and right. All at once a small Mexican boy, barefoot, in ragged shirt and pants, came whistling around the corner into Jack's path, paying attention to nothing. Seeing the knife, seeing Jack, he let out a bloodcurdling shriek and, as Jack lunged uselessly at him with the knife, the boy scrambled back around the corner and out of sight. Jack straightened, lowering the knife,
and leaned his free hand wearily against the wall.
“Okay, Jack,” came the amplified voice of the director. “Very nice. But the kid came in a little late.”
The kid came back around the corner of the false wall in this false mockup of a corner of a Mexican town out of Juarez, and frowned irritably in the direction of the director and all the technicians and the black hulks of the machines, haloed by the powerful lights assisting the sun. Out of character, it could be seen that the kid was a kid, but not a Mexican. With the impatience of the professional surrounded by amateurs, he said, “Who the heck’s supposed to cue me around here? I finally went when I saw the guy’s shadow.’’
The guy—that is, Jack—took no part in the ensuing discussion. He seemed muted, deadened. After a minute, when not given any further directions, he simply turned away on his own, knife hand dangling at his side, and plodded back to his starting position. As he did so, he glanced without interest toward the crew and equipment and stopped dead.
Buddy. In among it all, the camera, boom, sound equipment, lighting, grips, technicians, makeup man, script girl, stills photographer, visitors to the set, the whole shifting population of the village that lives just behind the camera, down there in the midst of them all stood Buddy. Jack’s vision contracted; it was as though his sight had irised into a tight circle surrounded by black the way they used to point at information in silent movies. There was Buddy, in the circle of the iris, and all the rest of the world was black.
A tiny, tentative, sheepish, hesitant smile touched Buddy's lips. A tiny, tentative, sheepish little wave of his hand barely reached as high as his waist.
Jack gazed across the dusty tan intervening space. People in the other world were talking, moving around, living their lives; he was aware of none of it. He saw only Buddy. The left side of his upper lip lifted, curling back, showing a moist glint of tooth. Slowly, deep in his throat, a snarl began. It flowed from his mouth, growing, louder. All at once, Jack raised the bowie knife above his head, bellowed like an enraged bull, and leaped across that intervening space directly at his oldest friend in all the world.
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 Page 6