California time, p.10
California Time, page 10
‘I had a pair of her pants in my desk drawer for three weeks and that’s no return on four million bucks, believe me. We all remember her. Jesus, Hullo pictures were bad enough but Goodbye pictures … Well, from here on in we run a tight ship. So when I tell you, Victor, that I want you to come here and make pictures for us, at a price, at a price, Victor –’
‘That’s what they call me,’ Victor England said.
‘They call you a smart son of a so-and-so with a quarter of Murchison Canyon to prove it.’
‘A fifth,’ Victor England said.
‘You could finance us. A fifth, do you really?’
‘That’s why I haven’t made a picture recently. I’ve been picking the oranges.’
‘I’m serious. When we give you a go-ahead, it’s never going to be because we don’t know how to say no. We know how.’
‘Why the threats, Frank?’ Victor England said.
‘Threats? Promises. By which I mean, if I say – and I do say – that we want you working out of this Studio, it’s because that’s what we want. No crap. When I say something like that, it’s as good as a contract.’
‘That’s not what my lawyer says.’
‘Unless Brute tries to screw us like he used to screw us in the old days. Morning, afternoon and night –’
‘He doesn’t come in much afternoons any more,’ Victor England said.
‘If he tries his old line on us again, he’s going to have to go and marry another rich broad because he’ll get no change this time around. You know he used to get nine air-fares for the Princess? In addition to her million; million-five one time. Nine air-fares. From Malta. She had a theoretical domiciliary arrangement for tax purposes, she lived in Malta. Brute said she had to have maximum mobility. Maximum mobility my ass. She was balling Sherman Knight the whole damned time, lives right round the corner from me. That broad never even knew where Malta was.’
‘Brute’s smart.’
‘Brute is a crook. He’s a crook. They killed the business, those guys.’
‘What do you want me to do, Frank?’
‘Victor, tell me something. You were and remain one of the greatest film editors this town has ever seen. Can you spare me one afternoon before you go winging home?’
‘You’re sending me home?’
‘To Malta. Nine times. And we go take one more look at this thing together?’ ‘Do I bring my scissors?’
‘Victor, if you did that – I don’t know why in hell you should, but if you did that –’
‘What would you do, Frank?’
‘I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d bring the paste.’
‘Frank, don’t break my arm. I may need it. That’s the one I thumb rides with.’
‘Bart, you know something? This is the way people ought to work. This is the way they ought to work.’
‘Behind the director’s back?’ Victor said.
‘Behind the director’s back? That sonofabitch won’t even talk to me. He will not talk to me. He wants money to talk to me about something you’d have to pay people to take away. You ever hear of paying people to deliver garbage? Sonofabitch, not yet thirty years old, he wants money to sit down and talk. Brute Andrews! People like that kill an industry. They kill it.’
‘Frank, save it,’ Victor England said. ‘We all –’
‘Don’t talk to me that way, Victor. I mean it.’
‘Mr King, I have to go now,’ Victor England said.
‘O.K. O.K. I’m sorry. I apologize.’
‘Victor, please,’ Bartholomew Heinz said. ‘Frank’s tired –’
‘Sure he is, but I never take shit until I’ve been paid,’ Victor England said. ‘The Directors’ Guild wouldn’t like it. I have to go.’
‘Fuck the Directors’ Guild,’ Frank King said.
‘Not starting with the letter A, I don’t.’
The three of them laughed again, and Frank King and Bartholomew Heinz had time to hold Victor England in the room.
‘Victor, I apologize, unconditionally, but one thing I am going to say. Help us on this one and believe me, Dotty Lampard’s going to be one grateful girl or I’ll know the reason why. You want to make a picture with her? You can make any picture you want. And Brute can draw up the contract. What more can I say?’
‘Frank, I tell you: you’re not that strapped.’
‘We’ll see,’ Frank King said, ‘when we go run the picture.’
During the course of this long and realistic scene Bartholomew Heinz is presented as a yes-man but it now turns out that he is something more than that. He is one of those characters, not uncommon in downtown Byzantium, who has learned that he can give his intelligence full play only by seeming to embrace what controls and limits its use. He enjoys the discipline of an almost demeaning subservience. He resembles a court philosopher who is obliged both to flatter the Sovereign and to keep faith with the truth. Later that day, after Victor has been driven back to his hotel, Heinz calls and arranges that they have dinner. They meet at the restaurant:
‘Victor, how are you?’ It was only that morning that they had been in Frank King’s office, but Heinz’s tone allowed for the possibility that Victor England had undergone major surgery in the meanwhile. ‘I hope you don’t mind eating here.’ They were in the best restaurant in town, but when was that good enough? ‘I come here a lot when Carol has to go back East. At least I know I can get a table. Places are so crowded right now you have to wait to be thrown out. How are you, Gianno?’
‘Very well, Mr Heinz, and you, sir? Good evening, Mr England, how nice to have you back with us again!’
‘Gianno,’ Victor England said.
‘We’d like a nice quiet table, Gianno, away from the people. Victor, I’m so grateful to you. And I’m so happy things are working out on our project.’
‘You spoke to Brute.’
‘I spoke to Brute; who was brutal, of course. But I’m sure we can close this thing out on a realistic basis. Victor, I hope you know that not only because of what you’re doing for us, but because of it too, we’re going to give you the finest deal we can afford, only right now –’
‘Are things that bad? I don’t hear things are that bad.’
‘Everyone’s making deals but that’s because they can’t stand to hear the guns getting closer when they stop talking. You ever see a major bank on the march? Soldier ants get out of the way. Angelo, we would like two Vodka Martinis straight up, without the olive. No one denies there’s plenty of action in town. Maybe they’ve all come for the funeral, but you can’t get a room between here and Malibu. I’ll tell you something: Carol resold a house last week, three months and two coats of paint after she bought it – up thirty-one per cent. Thirty-one per cent. Why do we kill ourselves making motion pictures? Why?’
‘Maybe she should be Head of Production.’
‘Think I’m not working on it? Personally, Victor, I want to tell you, I remain optimistic. We have some fine product lined up. Quality is the name of the game today. Otherwise –’ Bartholomew Heinz rehearsed suicide with a fish knife. ‘But tell me, I want to know, how is my dear divine Fleur?’
‘Beautiful,’ Victor England said.
‘I’ll never forget what she did for Carol. Do I love that woman! You remember what she did for Carol?’
‘I never knew she did anything for anybody,’ Victor said.
‘One of the great, great stories. Captain, will you please get somebody to come and take an order? You’ve met Brigid, haven’t you?’
‘Brigid,’ Victor England said.
‘Our divine Brigid? Sure you have. Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chihuahua?’
‘Your dog. Of course. Sure. We met. When did Fleur have anything to do with your dog?’
‘She only saved her life on the Golden Gate Freeway. You don’t remember? She only dived right into the traffic and grabbed her from under the wheels of a ten-ton truck. The total and definitive triumph of beauty over the military-industrial complex. The bravest thing I ever saw in my life. As far as Carol and I are concerned, anything Fleur wants, it’s hers.’
‘It is already,’ Victor England said.
‘I wonder where you were at the time.’
‘I was under the wheels of a ten-ton producer.’
‘Working for the Frog, of course you were.’
‘Nobody ever dived in and pulled me out.’
‘You heard about the Frog, I guess? Last thing I heard, he didn’t even recognize Red Frances when she went to see him. I guess he really robbed you on that one, didn’t he? How did Brute ever let you get into a thing like that? You did two pictures, didn’t you? with Frog? He robbed you once and then he robbed you again.’
‘If people hadn’t robbed me,’ Victor England said, ‘I wouldn’t be rich today. I came to this town with nothing. I’ve been robbed by everyone I ever worked with. Today I pay five-figure salaries to guys I never even see.’
‘You’re lucky. We see them. I wish you’d brought her with you,’ Heinz said. ‘Fleur. Carol and I truly dote on that girl. Gianno, come over here, will you? Tell me about these a minute, are they really all right? I don’t want Mr England here to get sick now.’
‘Mr Heinz, Mr Heinz, when did I ever give you a bad oyster?’
‘You never did, Gianno, you never did. That’s what makes you a dangerous man. Like I sometimes say to Frank, “Why pay a man who never laid an egg to come and lay his first one with us?” Take an oyster for granted, next thing you know you’re damaging your bridgework on a pearl.’
‘You have nothing to fear, Mr England.’
‘If this is fear,’ Victor England said. ‘I hope it always tastes this good. Don’t you like oysters, Bart?’
‘I was brought up in New England, Victor. And after New England seafood, nothing else tastes quite the same. I tell Gianno it’s the kosher in me, but it’s really Cape Cod.’
‘Bart,’ Victor England said, ‘why are we having dinner?’
‘Victor, you’re really an extraordinary character. You’re two people –’
‘Only for tax purposes,’ Victor said.
‘And I really like them both. You’re absolutely right. I do have something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Bart, I wouldn’t really want it any other way.’
‘It’s this girl. Not Dotty.’
‘The one Rex has in Mexico.’
‘You heard.’
‘I smelled.’
‘Victor, understand me right: I’m not acting as anybody’s emissary here tonight.’
‘Sure you’re not.’
‘Nor am I about to give you a lesson on the rules of survival. You’ve been in the jungle a lot longer than I have, and with a lot more success. Would you believe friendship?’
‘Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Chihuahua,’ Victor England said. ‘What’s she like?’
‘She’s a very good-looking girl. Karen Smith.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I’m going to lay it right on the line, Victor. A personal reaction but one that worries hell out of me. It’s what she’s doing to the old man.’
‘Is there anything left she can do that hasn’t been done already? He’s tough. Don’t worry about Rex.’
‘I’m sorry, Victor, but this is something else. Frank has to fly down there in the Lear every time we have to have a decision. You can’t get a response any other way.’
‘Don’t Heads of Production get to make decisions for themselves?’
‘Oh come on, Victor: your left hand knows what your right hand’s doing. Kings don’t abdicate. No way. Rex runs the Studio, no one’s kidding themselves. Except he won’t do it. This girl has got him in a full Nelson; it’s going to need more than Dick Tracy to get him out of this one and even if he does get out of it, we have problems.’
‘You want me to have her in our picture, is that it, Bart?’
‘The first of our pictures,’ Heinz said. ‘The first of our pictures. You know how our deal is shaping.’
‘I thought we didn’t make goodbye pictures any more. Or have things changed since this morning?’
‘No one’s said goodbye, maybe no one will. She’s a talent in her own right, this girl.’
‘Since when did that do anybody any good? You want her away from Rex, right?’
‘Or I want Rex away from her,’ Heinz said. ‘The Studio has to be run. Decisions have to be made.’
‘I was going to have Dotty.’
‘When we have the right subject, she’s yours. It’s a promise. But she’s not going to do you any good if Shap and his friends move in. These people aren’t rubber stamps any more, any of them. When they stamp, you’re liable to find there’s a hole in the ground. We need Rex out from under. All of us.’
‘First I’m recutting a picture for you, then I’m breaking the world’s record for the snatch and press. What do I have to look forward to?’
‘Brute and I are in a negotiation, Victor. I’m not asking you to rely on promises –’
‘I did it once,’ Victor England said. ‘She’s still getting the cheques.’
‘I’m not asking anything like that. You know that. We’re prepared to make some very solid commitments. We’re making some very solid commitments.’
‘Bart, I’m not about to shoot with a girl I don’t want to shoot with.’
‘This is a talented, beautiful girl,’ Bartholomew Heinz said.
‘They all are.’
‘If you don’t agree with that estimate, no one’s going to force her on you; no one can, no one will. That’s common ground.’
‘And frequently fought over,’ Victor England said.
‘Victor, the truth is, we have to pump ship. Everything is fine. We’re on schedule, we’re on course. But we still have to pump ship. Or else.’
‘Pump ship together or pump shit separately,’ Victor England said. ‘I can always retire, Bart, and eat oranges.’
‘They’re better for you,’ Heinz said.
‘Sink my teeth into just one piece of fruit and I’m probably in breach of my alimony agreements. What’s the girl’s name again? Karen –’
‘Smith. Victor, believe me –’
‘And spoil something that means a lot to both of us? Heinzy, my wife saved your dog, I’ll save the Studio. You’ll still be more grateful to her than to me. Only let’s not have it ruin our romance, O.K.?’
The two men laughed, and their laughter was a seal on their bargain, whatever it was. They might have been in a script conference where a laugh was the only proof that a scene was licked. They smiled at each other and a window seemed to open for them on green and happy sophomore days when they were simple buddies. Had they ever been simple? They had certainly never been buddies. They had not met until Bartholomew Heinz came West, on a train, to be Script Head of the Studio. Until then he had been a literary agent, with offices above a secondhand bookstore where clerks in striped pants wrapped purchases in brown paper, figured side inmost. He had been the first to read the manly manuscripts of writers who had since become the clients of people who no longer needed clients. His pensive pen had sieved early drafts of once proscribed and now prescribed reading. His marginal marks had been archly hived into archives by calm, collecting librarians. Who could believe that the movie executive was identical with the man who had suggested, in a sixteen-page letter now under glass, the cable-car confrontation in a novel said to be the key book of its decayed decade and whose fifty-one per cent Swiss-owned author lived behind locked steel shutters and weighed less than his weight in gold? Certainly Heinz himself could not.
The purpose of this long flashback begins to declare itself. One speaks of a flashback only as a locating device: it should now be clear that California Time is a sequence of presents. The Studio attempts to plan rationally, but it is attempting the impossible: to regularize the random, to order the simultaneous. California Time describes and exemplifies the paradox: reading, we see the author’s past presented as our future; the pages not yet started by the reader have already been finished by the writer. The coming year which Bartholomew Heinz and Victor England are discussing has already been and gone. Men of power are eternally powerless, which is what makes their deliberations comic. Need we decide whether the temporal collapse which California Time conceives in aesthetic and literary form, is also a model of more general, metaphysical significance?
Let us return to the restaurant:
The mossy banks of the décor were printennial with flowers, but all of them were rootless; their stems were stiff with wire catheters and their spring would not last the week. As for the patrons, Angelo, the Maître d’, assigned them to their tables with the vigilant calm of an officer, in a slow emergency, allocating places in the lifeboats. The restaurant had its mouth so full that even those with reservations felt privileged to have them honoured.
There was one ugly scene, however, when the son of a romantic producer, whose happy ending had left his offspring rich enough to mount the healthiest hell-raisings, dollar-for-doll, on the whole West Coast, arrived to claim an unregistered reservation for himself and his party, which included a recently uninterned international swindler, his mother, their child and a blonde professional woman, famous for her oral resuscitation. The young man snatched an old bottle full of new wine from its cradle and watered the candles at a table where a producer with a circulatory problem was entertaining two girls who claimed to be Romanoffs and who had taken a lot of trouble putting on their accents. The swindler, who had become so short-sighted that even his closest associates could no longer see him clearly, bit a selection of fruit in a ribboned basket and then stubbed out a bunch of grapes in a gay cowboy’s consommé. Angelo discovered a cancellation.
A little later, two actors were so affectionate towards an ageless agent that they tore her dress and dislodged one of her new breasts. At the same time Missy, the cigarette girl, who danced and sang a little, was kissed on the lips by a Star whose fourth (and second) husband had shot the man who came between him. Clients who had earlier been delighted to be seated grew testy when latecomers, with green grease palms, weighted the waiters in their favour. ‘Their service is worse than mine,’ said Babs Cologne to her tennis coach, who for twenty bucks an hour also supplied the balls. ‘What do you expect?’ he wanted to know, ‘with half the waiters under the table looking for one of Maxine Liebermann’s tits?’ Babs leaned forward, to prove hers were where he could count them; she loved him to a fault. Only one old man remained, polished and unblinking, smiling and benign throughout the evening. Gianno went up to him, as checks were being served in padded silver boxes, and asked him, Judge, whether everything had been all right. He was dead and had to be helped home.
