‘There’s a tombola,’ Hersh said now, very brightly, and began to turn away. ‘I have to organise things for the raffle — we’ll be coming round the tables to sell tickets, so you needn’t worry you won’t get your chance — so go now and see what you can win. It’s all good stuff. It ought to be. We worked hard enough to get it. You bought one of the brochures? They were hard work too. Melinda! Come and sell Mr — ah — Wiseman here a brochure — ’ and he went bustling away leaving Abner to take one of the glossy magazine-sized booklets which were clearly loaded with advertising, and dig out of his wallet another five pounds for the pretty painted teenager with her collecting box held ready. Tonight was going to be ruinous; he’d end up needing every penny of the lousy fee he was getting for that dog food commercial. Dave Shandwick had better come up with something else, soon, he thought bitterly, and moved across to the corner table indicated for him on the table plan, carefully avoiding the tombola where men were waving ten pound notes around with some ostentation, and began to read the brochure. There seemed little else he could do as that awful band went grinding on and on.
‘Roseacres,’ he read. ‘A real Home from Home for the Unfortunate Ones who need constant care. Every Facility, Physiotherapy pool, Expert staff, Single rooms, Kosher food,’ — he turned the page gloomily and read on — ‘at least a hundred thousand pounds needed every year to make up the deficits left after inadequate local authority funding. We try to charge the lowest fees we can and for some people of course, there can be no fees. Such as long-stay resident Mr David Lippner (see right) a survivor of the Holocaust who — ’
Abner sat bolt upright and stared down at the page. The picture was clear enough; a tall thin man in a wheel chair, a blanket over his knees, staring dispiritedly into the camera. The eyes looked blank, but not because they were unintelligent. It was boredom, Abner thought, not stupidity that glazed them. If I can talk to him, maybe I’ll find out more. Surely, surely, surely his mother talked to him more than she talked to the well-meaning but essentially rather silly Doris Singer? He’d have to make him talk, that was the thing. Make him.
He looked again at the brochure and then smiled. The address of the home was clearly marked. Better than that; there was a small road map to show exactly where in the leafy Cotswolds it was, and a phone number. And he tore out the page and folded it neatly and put it in his billfold, and then slid the remains of the brochure under the table. That had been well worth a fiver, he told himself, and looked then at the menu that was set out on the table in front of him. It read fancy and French, but he knew with every fibre of his being that it would be repellent. He’d rather have a hamburger any day.
And, he decided, he would have just that. He’d got what he’d come for without the trouble of talking more to Sam Hersh, who was now busily marching around on the dais in front of the bored musicians, arranging the table for the raffle and generally looking very important. He was getting his rewards in spades for what he did, clearly, Abner told himself. And I’ve got mine. Forty-five pounds was a lot to pay for a name and address, but never mind. If it got him what he needed, he’d be on his way. As soon as possible.
Eighteen
As soon as possible turned out to be longer than he’d hoped. First on Monday morning he had to see Dave Shandwick. There were not only too many unanswered questions about the guy himself, there was also information on other matters to be sought, and as much as he ached to get on with the research for the film, he had to get the matter of the funding sorted out first. Or at least, in tandem. So, at nine sharp he was standing outside Dave Shandwick’s office door in Bateman Street.
The place was locked fast and a woman sweeping the dirt around on the stairs in a desultory fashion, looked at him owlishly when he asked where Shandwick was.
‘Don’t ask me, I just clean here. I never sees none of ’em. They just leave snotty notes.’ She sniffed unappetisingly and put on a high nasal imitation of a middle-class English voice. ‘“Make sure you clean the lavatory well.” Bugger ’em and bugger their lavatories. Don’t ask me where they are. But I’ll tell you this much — none of these lazy sods knows what work is. None of ’em turns up till ten, so far as I can tell. And later.’ And she went on stirring up the dirt and making no attempt to actually clear it away.
Abner swore under his breath and went clattering down the stairs again. In New York at this time of day offices were buzzing; in LA they started even earlier, coming in as early as eight-thirty in their jogging clothes or damp from the pool, well before the sun got too hot for comfort. Would he ever get used to the way they did business in this town?
He sat in a sandwich bar in Greek Street, watching the steam from the coffee urns coalesce into greasy droplets on the window, drinking thin coffee and trying to keep his temper, but by ten to ten he had to admit defeat. He was in a foul mood and not fit company for anyone. He’d have to work hard at not getting right up Dave Shandwick’s nose.
But all his resolve melted away when he got up the stairs again, because the office was still locked; and he stood there, steaming with irritation, for ten more minutes before at last he heard the whistling below him and saw Dave’s stubbled, grey head appear round the bend of the stairs.
‘And where the goddammed hell have you been?’ he shouted wrathfully as the man arrived at the door, digging in his pocket for keys. ‘Christ, man, how do you make a living if you don’t start work till the day’s half over?’
‘Hey, now cool it, cool it!’ Dave said good naturedly. ‘Where’s the sense in me turning up all bright eyed and bushy tailed at nine a.m. when there’s no one else ever crawls out of the woodwork till ten? Do me a favour, Abner. What’s got into you? I thought we’d got that job all sorted out for Thursday and Friday. What are you doing here now? Not crawling out are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Abner said, still angry, but simmering down a little. ‘Christ man, do you go into hiding over a weekend? How come you’ve got no answerphone at that fancy pad of yours?’
‘Because I don’t want to be driven meshuggah by guys calling me when I’ve got my feet up. I reckon to work hard all week and play hard all weekend. I’m not into killing myself for a buck, you know. I choose to take the time — here, listen, Abner, what’s bugging you? You look the way you did the day the Mayor’s office got shitty, remember? I thought you were going to kill someone — anyone. I don’t know what’s happened to you today, but don’t come taking it out on me. Not an old pal like me.’
They were in the office now and he had snapped on the lights and hit the switch of a coffee maker, after filling it with water from a cooler near the door, and Abner stared at it and thought, that’s the first I’ve seen in an office since I got here, and felt again one of those deep pangs of homesickness. Shandwick caught his eye and laughed.
‘Just like home, hey? I can’t be drinking the warm tap stuff these people go in for, and as for that French bottled water — Christ, the buggers probably make it themselves. It sure as hell tastes like piss. Listen now, Abner. Calm down and tell me what’s got under your skin. You look like you need a bit of attention from a shrink, one way and another. And I’m a good shrink for this business.’
He began to run a coffee grinder and the scent filled the air with even more homesickness and Abner did as he was told, sinking into the armchair at the side of the desk with relief. He was, he discovered, so uptight he could have cried. In fact, he was as close to tears as he could ever remember being since he went into long pants, and that startled him. To get this mad about being kept waiting — it was crazy. It wasn’t as though he had any other urgent appointments to go to; why the hell was he in such a state?
Shandwick was clearly telepathic. ‘So, why the hell are you in such a state, fella?’ He shoved a beaker into his hand and it was full of hot and strong coffee. He sipped it gratefully.
‘Jesus, I don’t know. It’s this whole — I feel like I’m sinking into a bowl of spaghetti, and if I could just get hold of one end I could unra
vel it, find my way to the edge and be OK. But I just thrash around, falling over names and people, and crazy goings on and — and there’s that goddamn girl, and Saturday night Etting made me feel a real shit. I’m not doing this movie just for myself, I swear it. Only I suppose I am. Oh, I feel like hell!’ And he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes against the suddenly very bright light, amazed at his own fluency and the way churning emotion was pushing at his throat, needle sharp.
‘Start at the beginning, baby,’ Shandwick said. ‘Forget this is England where the bastards never talk. This is a corner of the Big Apple and here people say what they mean when they mean it. Here we ain’t afraid to let it all hang out, the way the man used to say — start at the beginning.’
Abner took a deep breath. He’d trust him; he’d have to. He needed to talk desperately; hadn’t realised till now just how lonely and abandoned he felt, and he sat there with the comforting hot beaker held between his hands, his eyes closed and his head back on the cushion behind him and let the words flow.
He told him all about it. The idea for the movie. The way he felt about what happened to his parents, and particularly about his rage at having been excluded from it for so long.
‘They robbed me, Dave,’ he said. ‘That was my life as well as theirs. I was well fed and comfortable. I had a bed to sleep in at nights and they never did, not in the bad years, and they never let me share the pain. It was mine as well as theirs. They wouldn’t share it, so they shared nothing. No pain, no love, not anything. I have to make this lousy movie to get it out of my guts. And it won’t be a lousy movie, for God’s sake. It’ll be the best I’ve ever done, if I can get it going. But everywhere I turn there are mysteries, there are guys here who — who — I can’t explain it. They seem to fit together like those dolls from Russia, you know? The babushkas, one inside the other, and every time you think you’ve reached the big one, there’s another on the top they all slip into. I need to know who they all are, and why they’re so interested in me and why they don’t just put up money instead of wriggling round like eels and — ’
‘And the girl?’ Shandwick said, and Abner opened his eyes.
‘The girl?’
‘You mentioned a girl. I think maybe that’s even more important. It usually is.’ Dave grinned crookedly so that his sagging cheek muscles bunched and he looked like a chipmunk. ‘That’s why I gave up love, Abner. I go in for sex in a big way — a very big way, take it from me — but love? Forget it. You don’t just hit a bit of trouble when you get into love. You hit the mother lode.’
‘The girl,’ Abner said after a moment, trying not to tell him, but knowing it was too late for discretion. ‘Miriam Hinchelsea. Lives in Oxford. Her mother was in the camps. It’s the craziest thing — I wanted to talk to this very high-toned English Professor of History and what do I find but a fellow traveller. He’d married a girl from the camps, so her mother had a lousy time too. But she told her daughter all about it. And the girl is one screwed-up lady — ’
‘And you’re leching after her,’ Dave said and lifted his brows at him cheerfully.
‘That’s a hell of a way to put it!’
‘OK, I’ll try the English way. You fancy her. You want to get into her pants.’
‘That’, Abner said, ‘is sure as hell not English. Shut up!’
‘Oh boy, but you’ve definitely hit that mother lode,’ Dave said and got up to pour him some more coffee. ‘It’s worse than anything I said. You’re in love, mister. God help you.’
‘Yeah,’ Abner said, and closed his eyes again. ‘God help me.’
There was a little silence and then Dave said, ‘Who’s Etting?’
Abner pulled himself up, slopping the hot coffee on to his thigh and ignoring the pain. ‘What the hell do you know about him? Ye gods, it’s getting worse! Now you know about people that…’
‘All I know is that you mentioned him a few minutes ago,’ Dave said mildly and reached for Kleenex and gave a sheet to him, jerking his chin to indicate the wet patch on his trousers that needed rubbing. Abner took it and bent his head to pad away at the damp, not because he cared about it, but because he was so ashamed of his sudden surge of suspicion.
‘You see how it is?’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve got so I’m watching my own shadow to make sure it doesn’t screw me. Etting’s a crazy old guy — I like him a lot. I got his name from a list my mother sent over from the club she goes to in Newark. It’s for Holocaust survivors. I went to see him and — well, I fell for him. He’s an incredible man. Greedy as all get out — hoovers up food like a gannet — and as sharp as they come. Saturday night I was with him picking up another incredible story and — he said things that made me feel bad.’
‘Like you’re exploiting your folks because you want to make this film?’
Abner lifted his chin sharply. ‘I don’t think he meant that, exactly — ’ he began.
‘But you’ve been thinking something like it ever since, hmm? What did the old guy say?’
Abner put down the Kleenex and began to sip at his coffee. Already he was feeling better, more relaxed. ‘Oh, it was general stuff really — about there being no such things as heroes or martyrs, that everybody does what they do out of self-interest. That no one, but no one, ever acts with true altruism. He didn’t say that in so many words, but it was what he meant. I felt like a shit. Still do. Look at how I was last night. Went to a charity fundraiser, complaining inside my head all the time because it was costing me money I can’t afford, and as soon as I got the information I wanted, to see me further on with my research, I got the hell out of there for fear I’d have to spend more money.’
‘That’s not the only reason you skedaddled,’ Dave said. ‘I can’t think of any normal guy who spends more than five minutes at a charity fundraiser unless his wife has made him do it. Or unless he wants to show all the other fellas on his patch how much richer and more generous he is than they. You’re getting too soft, Abner. Christ, it was because you were so soft I loved you. That movie you made, Uptown Downtown, that was real bleeding hearts stuff, but you believed it, so it worked. It didn’t stick in my throat like cheap candyfloss. It’s the best thing you’ve got as a movie maker, that tender skin of yours, but hold on and don’t peel off any more layers. You’ll get too soft and make yourself useless. It’s no sin to skip out on a fundraiser. It’s no sin to make a film because you want to do it, and to make yourself feel better about your folks. What sort of movies do people make when they don’t have anything they care about to say? They make “Who Killed Roger Rabbit?” and “Super-man” — ’
Suddenly Abner laughed, choking a little into his coffee. ‘They make money, you mean?’
‘Yeah,’ Shandwick said a little wistfully. ‘They make money like a horse makes shit. But all the same — there’s more to life than money.’
‘Is this Dave Shandwick I’m talking to?’ Abner managed to sound ironic. ‘The guy who spent all his time liberating this and that because he couldn’t bear to put down hard cash for it?’
‘Ah, that! That’s for fun, not for profit! At least, not just for profit. It’s the wheeling and dealing and making it happen I go for. If it was only money I was in for, wouldn’t I have an answerphone at home, be in here crack of dawn every day to make even more? Sod that for a life! I go for balance, baby, balance. I have fun making it happen, schlepping the shekels my way, but it don’t figure that big in my life, whatever I might pretend. You, you get your rocks off on opening up your heart and emptying it on to celluloid and you make sonofabitching magical movies because of it. Don’t ever knock the reasons you have for doing what you do. It’s no crime.’
Abner stared at him. Dave’s crumpled face had gone pink and his eyes were bright as he stared back and Abner felt his own face redden.
‘Well, hell, Dave, thanks a lot,’ he said at length. ‘You’ve been — well, you were right. I needed to talk. Thanks a lot — ’
‘Same hour next week, leave the check for half a gran
d with my nurse, send in the next patient if you please!’ Dave said, but he was pleased, and they both knew it.
‘Listen, Dave,’ Abner said then. ‘This isn’t why I came to see you, you know. I had other things I wanted to talk about.’
‘Sure,’ Dave said, assuming an air of businesslike alertness. ‘Talk away.’
‘These guys I keep barking my shins on — maybe you know more about them than I’ve been able to find out. OK, if I run a few names past you?’
‘Sure! Glad to help,’ Dave said promptly. ‘I know most of the people in the trade in London. Not all, mind you. There are some very funny ones. Porn and so forth. Not my scene, never was. Even when I was a kid. I like my sex personal, know what I mean? Can’t be doing with these one-handed movie merchants.’
Abner nodded ‘OK. Monty Nagel.’
‘Agent. Straight up guy, got a great list. I should be half so successful as he is and I’d be twice as happy,’ Dave said promptly.
‘Really straight?’
‘I never heard otherwise. Doesn’t take on a client he can’t work good for, you know? Some of ’em take anybody and leave them to rot if nothing happens from it. Nagel’s not that sort. He’s got the reputation of putting himself about for his clients.’
‘What about his financing?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What I say. Does he use other people for finance at all? Is the business he runs all his own? Or does he have sleeping partners?’
Dave grimaced. ‘This I can’t know. How could I? You’ll have to ask him. Are you joining his list?’
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