by Stan Lerner
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A Really Good Morning
The next day, Stan Peters' black Rolls Royce Phantom pulled into the Peninsula Hotel as it always did. Every employee greeted him as usual as he made his way to his table. All could tell Stan Peters was in a better mood than usual-because he handed out hundreds instead of twenties that morning.
It's another perfect day in beautiful Southern California. No wonder everybody wants to live here. Hey, why not? If the rest of the country would just move here, I could save a fortune on marketing costs. I made a movie that the studios hated. "It doesn't have one likeable character," they all bitched. But hard work, payoffs, and some sexual favors managed to get it released. Four hundred million dollars later, everybody who hated it loved it and they were all kissing my ass telling me that they had known it was a hit all along. So what do I know that they don't? The only thing people like more than their own good fortune is someone else's misfortune. Still better yet, someone else's reversal of good fortune. That's what I put on screen. My movies give the people what they want. Oh, and they always have a happy ending. It may be clich?. But if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.
"Your eggs Mr. Peters."
Stan looked down at his breakfast and decided to eat before reading the trades-they deserved his complete attention.
After, what could only be described as, a joyful ride to the office Stan sat at his desk, delighted, as he read the The Hollywood Reporter. Iren and Ray sat on the other side of the desk in the gray mohair barrel chairs.
"'Brad Jones, dead at age forty-two.'" Stan read the headline with deeply felt emotion and then wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye before tossing the Reporter to the desk. "Poor, untalented East Coast cocksucker. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
Ray finished picking something from his teeth with a solid gold toothpick. "Oh come on, even you have to feel a little bad?"
"Of course I feel bad." Stan turned the corners of his mouth down, creating a momentary mock frown. "Brad's untimely death ruined a perfectly good blackmail scheme."
"You're not kidding," Iren chuckled. "What are the chances of dying from an over stimulated prostrate?"
"Have to be a million to one," Stan said thoughtfully.
Ray brought his right hand to his forehead and gave it a rub. "A million to one is about the chance we have of getting "Two Jews and a Blonde Psycho" into production now that we don't have Brad to blackmail."
Stan took it upon himself to cheer him up. "The glass is half full. We have Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman in a Stan Peters' film. Did I forget to mention that we cut the budget in half yesterday?"
Iren's eyes widened as he conceived Stan's point. "Except for the fact that none of them are Jewish, Brad might have been right about the cast changes."
"You have a point," Stan acknowledged.
Ray nodded his agreement. "Really, when you think about it, if it wasn't for Brad we would have never ground everybody's salaries, especially your rapper buddies."
Stan began to feel like they were treading in dangerous waters. "True, but you're forgetting one thing: a Stan Peters movie with no fucking profanity and characters that are redeemed at the end?" He laughed. "Not ever happening. No, fucking way."
"I'm glad the prick is dead," Iren said, getting back to their reality.
Ray shrugged. "Well fuck it, better him than us. But I do feel sorry for his wife, what's her name."
Iren thought for a second. "Isn't it Muffy or Minkie or something like that."
Stan was always frustrated with Iren's lack of ability to recall names. "Binkie. Her name is Binkie. You've met her twenty times and you don't remember her name?"
Iren smiled. "I'd like to bang her to be honest."
"Well that's a shocker," said Stan, reaching over to open the solid gold case on the right side of his desk. He removed a diamond-encrusted Mont Blanc and began rolling it over his knuckles.
"Where the fuck did you get that?" asked Ray.
"Ellie sent it over this morning. A one hundred and twenty thousand dollar pen." Stan examined the one of a kind writing instrument in his hand. "Wait 'til the krauts really find out what he did with their money."
Ray laughed. "Ellie will talk his way out of it."
"I was being serious," Iren pleaded. "I want to bang her the day of the funeral."
Stan gave Iren a hard look. "You disgust me, you know that?"
Iren's voice reverberated with a sense of confusion. "You're disgusted with me because I want to bang the wife of a guy your girlfriend killed with anal beads?"
Stan sighed heavily. "No you putz. I'm disgusted that you want to wait until the day of the funeral. I don't think they're planting him until next week."
"He's right," Ray agreed immediately, seeing Stan's point. "If you're not banging her by this weekend, every fucking guy in town is going to be calling her by the funeral."
"I see what you guys mean." Iren shook his head. "Is this town filled with a bunch of lowlifes or what? I'll take some flowers over to the house today."
"What are you going to do about Brianna and this whole negligent manslaughter charge?" asked Ray.
"I talked to the district attorney this morning." Stan smiled. "Luckily, his son is an aspiring director."
Ray had been wondering who they were going to stick with "Murder In Tinseltown". "So you got everything worked out?"
"It took some convincing. But he agreed to keep her locked up until after I marry Marle."
Iren pulled his glasses off and began wiping them against his shirt. "Do you think there's a script to be written? Girls in jail kind of thing or do you think she'll be too pissed off about the marriage to give up the rights?"
"I'm hoping she's so appreciative that I got her out of jail that she'll forget about me marrying someone else."
"What, are you crazy?" Ray waved his right hand signaling that the situation had already passed. "She's a woman, it's going to take at least a week for her to get over something like this and move on to another guy. And that'll be after she convinces at least three of her friends to dump their boyfriends so they can all hang out on Saturday nights. And a year from now, she'll be fucking you on the side again anyway."
Stan's mood became pensive for a moment. "I can't believe I have to get married."
"Don't do it," Iren urged. "Take it from a married guy, don't fucking do it."
"That's how we get the money, Bozo." Stan threw his hands up in the air, "I have to marry her."
Ray nodded his agreement. "Especially now that we're back in limbo at the studio." He flashed a sarcastic smile. "Anal beads. What a great fucking idea that turned out to be."
"Actually, we might have just given new meaning to pulling one out of your ass," Danny said, walking into Stan's office with a noticeable bounce in his step. "Or in this case, someone else's ass."
Stan's eyes locked on Danny as he stood between where Ray and Iren were seated. "Do I detect good news?" His voice trailed up on the word "news".
Danny smiled and rubbed his hands together. "Well let's just say the news conference starts in ten seconds." Danny picked up the remote control from the Buccellati silver table between Ray and Iren. "May I?"
Stan held his hand out like a king granting permission. "Please do."
"This better be fucking good," Ray grumbled. "Remember what happened the last time we all sat around watching one of Danny's presentations."
"Could you just shut the fuck up please?" Stan looked from Ray to Danny. "I liked the last show, surprise ending and all."
Iren laughed. "You are hilarious. You know that, right?"
Stan looked from Iren to Ray. "I don't know what the fuck is the matter with you two today."
"He doesn't know what's wrong with us?" Ray asked Iren. "It's not like someone died or something. Oh they did."
Stan looked from Iren to Danny. "He talks just to hear himself. You guys do know that?"
Danny pointed the remote and
pressed the button that lowered the sixty-inch plasma from the ceiling to its spot fifteen feet in front of Stan's desk. All of their eyes were glued on the formally dressed gentleman at the podium.
"We now join the news conference in progress," the faceless voice of television announced.
The formally dressed gentleman at the podium waited for the last of the reporters to fall into place. The lights seemed to reflect off of his silver hair. The deep lines around his mouth were indicative of a man of great speaking stature. Or, at least they caught the light in such a way that it made his words seem more important than they were. "It is with great sadness that we extend our condolences to Brad's family, especially to his wife Binkie."
"I'll be extending her more than condolences," Iren said to the TV.
"Brad's tenure as studio boss was short." The studio's spokesman paused for dramatic effect. Cameras flashed around the room.
"Almost as short as his dick," Danny commented with a chuckle.
"Twelve hours too long for me," added Stan.
The spokesman continued with not a dry eye in the room. "But over the years we all learned so much from him."
"Like don't shove beads the size of pool balls up your ass," Ray contributed.
"But even in sadness, there is great hope. Although, he has suffered his own loss of a loved one recently, Warren Cort has accepted the board's unanimous decision to promote him to head of the studio. Warren will now say a few words and take some of your questions." The formally dressed silver haired studio spokesman bowed to the new head of the studio as he walked up to the podium and then shook his hand before exiting stage right.
Danny smiled, his face actually aglow knowing that all eyes were upon him. "That's what I'm talking about!" he said enthusiastically to Stan.
Stan looked from Danny back to the plasma just to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. "Un-fucking believable!" Stan stared at Danny. "This is just the best day ever."
Ray and Iren toasted each other with their latte cups.
"Guy used to work in our mail room." Ray held his latte up towards Stan, "Now he runs a fucking studio."
"It's a beautiful thing." Stan looked at the diamond Mont Blanc in his hand, thinking he really did deserve so much good fortune.
Danny pointed at the plasma. "And look, he's still wearing the suit I lent him yesterday."
Warren was a whole different man than he had been the day before. He began somberly. "I'd like to offer my condolences to Binkie and the rest of the family.
Ray looked at Iren. "Now that they're both single, maybe they should hook up?"
Iren's eyebrowless brow raised at the distressful thought. "I've got first dibbs."
Stan pointed the Mont Blanc at the plasma. "I'm trying to listen."
Warren continued. "This is a great studio, with a great tradition to live up to and we will live up to that tradition. We will do it with the great moviemakers that we are fortunate to be in business with. One of whom I would like to take a minute to discuss. As my first action as head of this studio, I am offering Stan Peters a ten-year deal to make any movie he desires. Stan and moviemakers like him are the backbone of this business."
Stan looked at Danny lovingly.
Danny smiled. "I wrote that part."
"I like it." Stan tapped the side of his head with the Mont Blanc. "The backbone-that's good."
"Should have called him the cockbone of the business," Iren snickered.
"That's what I was giving your momma last night," Stan shot back.
Warren seemed to look right through the camera into Stan's office-where just the day before he had sat, covered in the blood and brain matter of his cheating bitch wife and her fag decorator lover. "With strategic alliances like Studio/Peters, I have no doubt that we will continue to prosper even during the most challenging of times. Because it is during these times that you find out who your friends really are." Warren smiled slightly at the camera.
Danny clicked the button on the remote control and the plasma magically retracted back up into the ceiling. "Because it's times like these you really find out who your friends are," he repeated.
"The best mail boy we ever had, in retrospect," Stan said with deep respect for himself and his hiring choices.
"Lucky thing he killed the wife and her fag boyfriend or we could have been completely screwed," observed Ray.
"What do we do with "Two Jews and a Blonde Psycho"?" asked Iren, feeling like life was once again the dream that it should be.
Stan looked at the boys-time to get back to business. "Keep the new cast, go back to the old script and bill the studio for two rewrites."
"How much?" asked Iren, Ray, and Danny simultaneously.
"A million each." Stan smiled. "Think of it as Brad's going away present." Stan pointed the Mont Blanc at Iren. "And don't forget to get his old lady flowers if you plan on banging her." Stan thought for a moment. "Oh, and add a wedding scene to "Two Jews and a Blonde Psycho" that I can bill my up-coming unhappy occasion to."
"Speaking of that," Danny handed Stan a piece of paper. "Here's the husband's address. Given the amount of money that's at stake, you should probably talk to him man to man?Well man to former man?You know what I mean."
Stan looked at the address. "Can you imagine what this loser must look like?"
