Simon Says

by William Poe

  For ten days, Nicolò and I spent most of our time in a medium-sized office negotiating contracts. Many buyers spoke neither Italian nor English. Nicolò’s minimal command of French helped in some cases. Other times, I wasn’t sure the clients understood what they were signing. Once, I saw Nicolò add a zero to the deal after the contract was signed, but prior to his giving the client his copy.

  During slow periods, Nicolò roamed the halls to find people he recognized. Though I did most of the negotiating and greeted everyone who came by, to hear Nicolò talking to his cronies, one would think he was doing all the work. A wink from his friends, though, told me that his braggadocio didn’t fool them.

  One afternoon, Nicolò taped a “come back later” sign on our door and took me to lunch at an elegant restaurant deep in the heart of the convention center.

  “I’ve ignored you for too long,” Nicolò said, to my surprise. “I’m sorry about that.”

  After a few sentences, I understood his true motivation. He had noticed my lack of interest in making new sales. It had become clear that Nicolò was a crook, and I didn’t want to be associated with his shady deal making.

  “We are in the magnificent city of Milano,” Nicolò said. “What would you like to do?”

  I was sure I would never see the commission he had promised me. So this would be my only perk.

  “What about going to La Scala?” I had loved opera since I was a child listening to Wagner’s Das Rheingold on Sunday afternoons.

  “No opera,” Nicolò said glumly. “This is not the season.”

  “Surely there’s something going on at La Scala,” I said.

  Nicolò promised to call and find out.

  That evening, we took a cab from the convention center to the Teatro alla Scala. Floodlights shone on the baroque facade, enhancing its otherworldly grandeur. At the door, we learned that the evening’s show—a concert including the Brahms violin concerto with Anna Sophie-Mutter performing—was sold out.

  Undeterred, Nicolò led me to the performers’ entrance. He scurried up some steps and spoke to an usher. The fellow stood his ground. Nicolò shook his head at the boy and took out his wallet, placing a bill in his hand. It appeared to be a £50,000 note—about forty dollars. The usher waved me up the stairs. Nicolò patted me on the back and said, “See you in the morning.”

  The usher pointed me up a small stairway only two feet wide. It led to the spectator’s gallery—a space that abutted the ceiling, barely large enough for a pigeon to roost. Round wooden seats lowered from the walls, leaving about six inches between one’s knees and a low railing. If a person were to become dizzy, he could plunge to his death without knowing what happened. But even these precarious seats were taken. I leaned against the door.

  La Scala was magnificent, with its elaborate gilt moldings, ornate boxes, rich burgundy curtains, and crystal chandeliers. The acoustics were stunning. I could hear the strings of Anna Sophie-Mutter’s bow gliding over the strings beneath her delicate touch. The violin’s dialogue with the orchestra was like that of an angel conversing with God. Ah, Brahms! My chest swelled with emotion. When the violin reached its highest register, I couldn’t stop the tears. My journey to that moment seemed an unfathomable distance that stretched from hope to heartbreak, companionship to abject loneliness. I had been a naïve boy growing up in a town so remote from the modern world that the Civil War was as real as if it had happened last year. I had been the effeminate kid whom everyone bullied, who fell into the snare of sexual complexities when he was just seven, lured by his best friend into “games” taught to him by the boy’s lustful older brother. I’d dared to fall in love as a senior in high school, only to get my heart broken. I had attempted suicide before turning into a hippie, taking LSD, and believing that my mind had been opened to the wonders of the cosmos. Then, as a member of a despised cult, I had thought I could save the world, or at least rid myself from the shackles of homosexuality. What a mistake, to think I was abnormal because I desired the companionship of men. Self-deception had caused me to hurt innocent Masako and driven me to use drugs.

  Why did I choose damaged hustlers such as Lyle instead of seeking mature love and affection?

  After the performance ended, I waited until everyone had left the pigeon’s roost. I peered over the railing at the darkened auditorium as workers began to remove the piano from the stage, and others began vacuuming the aisles. I was ready to dive over the edge, to write a romantic ending to an otherwise meaningless life.

  The usher whom Nicolò had bribed approached me. In terribly broken English, he implored me to leave. “Please, you go now,” he said, “Concerto. It is finish.”

  I smiled weakly and took a last look over the ledge. How inviting the red carpet seemed. My blood would hardly make a stain.

  The usher grabbed me by the arm. “Please, sir.”

  Shaken by his touch and the concern in his voice, I ran down the stairs, crashed through the doors, and rushed toward the middle of the piazza. It was Friday night. Hordes of roller-skating young men were showing off for their girlfriends. Lovers sat close to each other on the benches. I spotted a bar at the edge of the piazza and went inside to find another type of oblivion.

  The next morning, I awoke lying fully clothed on my bed at the Windsor with no recollection of how I got there.

  CHAPTER 12

  Early in 1987, just before the American Film Market was held, I asked Nicolò to pay the commissions he had long promised. He had endless excuses about why he couldn’t afford it. There was the cost of renovations to his house in Santa Monica. The private schools for his children had nearly broken him. He seemed to think I should care about these personal inconveniences. The man had no idea what a crummy apartment I called home; a tiny one bedroom on Poinsettia, between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset, was all I could afford on the salary he gave me.

  I let him think I was sorry I had asked.

  The American Film Market, an event similar to MIFED, was held every year in Los Angeles. Halfway through it that year, while Nicolò was at lunch, a fellow came around handing out glossy flyers for a novelty video called Coed Jellorama, an hour of male and female seminude models slipping and sliding in a rubber-lined pool filled with squishy Jell-O. An audience of buxom women and beefcake men cheered from the sidelines. It was pure kitsch.

  The producer introduced himself as Wally Freeze, a name he always repeated to make sure the person understood that it really was his name.

  “My boss won’t be interested,” I said after reading the description on the back of the flyer. “He only deals with movies shot on film.” I checked the hallway to make sure Nicolò wasn’t on his way back. He probably wouldn’t be interested, but I had a Japanese buyer in mind. “Perhaps I can do something for you,” I told Wally. “Let’s have dinner and talk about it.” We arranged to meet later at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard. Before leaving the office, Wally confessed that I was the first person who hadn’t thrown his flyer in the trash.

  At dinner, Wally explained that he had sold the US license to a label called Bareback Video Sales. I held back a chuckle.

  “But the international rights are free, correct?” I asked, taking out a legal pad and jotting down a letter of agreement.

  Wally nodded.

  “There’s still a few days left in the market,” I said. “Let me see what I can do for you on my own.”

  Overwhelmed with gratitude, Wally signed over all the remaining rights. He even agreed to let me have dibs on future productions as well as rights on a catalog of old films that he owned.

  The next day, I spoke to Sugiyama-san, the Japanese client, and set up a meeting in his hotel room to screen Coed Jellorama. Sugiyama, who usually maintained a stern appearance, could barely contain his enthusiasm. I negotiated a contract for $20,000, though later I realized I could have asked for much more.

  Working behind Nicolò’s back, before the AFM was over I sold Coed Jellorama to Korea and Taiwan, and then to Australia. Wh
en the money arrived, I’d be $100,000 richer.

  Nicolò’s stinginess became easier to tolerate. I needed access to his fax machine and telex, as well as the computer, and I saw no reason to buy all that equipment with my own money. Each day after Nicolò went home, I stayed at the office to work on my contracts. Money became a consuming passion, the thrill heightened all the more because I was doing it at my boss’s expense. I was fast becoming another Nicolò.

  The long hours I kept didn’t afford much time for any fun. By midsummer, I suggested that Nicolò get a new secretary since I was still answering the phones on top of everything else. Nicolò agreed. He wanted me to focus more on the contracts, believing that my efforts were all for his benefit.

  I screened applicants sent by an employment agency and eventually hired Clarice Smith, a jolly, overweight woman with a terrific personality. On the phone, Clarice spoke with a voice one might expect from the vixen in a film noir movie. She enjoyed it when clients visited. Clarice would put on her best phone voice and giggle at the disappointed reactions.

  Clarice never suspected my nocturnal use of the facilities, or at least she never let on that she did. I appreciated her ability to keep Nicolò in check. No matter how upset he got, she was able to calm him down.

  Toward the end of the year, just after our annual trip to MIFED, Nicolò hired a full-time accountant, letting it slip that he needed someone to work on “back taxes.” He had run afoul of the IRS, a situation I knew a thing or two about from my work defending Reverend Moon against charges of tax fraud.

  The accountant, Moe Dirksen, was recommended to Nicolò by one of his Italian friends, a man I felt sure had connections to organized crime. Moe was a disagreeable guy in his midfifties, always dressed shabbily in oversize suits that must have come from a thrift store. His steel-gray hair was trimmed in a bowl cut. He showed up for work at exactly the same time every day, arriving by bus from his tenement apartment downtown. He invariably smelled of liquor and stale cigarettes.

  Moe disliked me from the start. He distrusted computers and was unwilling to accept the printouts I gave him. He demanded that Nicolò have me transfer the figures into an old-fashioned ledger book. I refused.

  “Just because you’re from the Middle Ages doesn’t mean I have to join you,” I told him.

  Moe glared at me fiercely.

  The next morning, I was keying contract information into the computer when Nicolò came into my office. Moe followed two steps behind.

  “Why are you being so uncooperative with Moe?” Nicolò asked.

  “Uncooperative?! The man is illiterate.” An overreaction to be sure, but I simply could not be bothered with Nicolò and his troubles. I was sure that Moe wanted the ledger so he could fudge the numbers and that Nicolò was complicit in the plan.

  “Moe says you refused to show him the contracts. He thinks you’re hiding something.”

  “If he can’t read the printouts I give him, what’s he good for?”

  Moe stepped from behind Nicolò and approached my desk, arrogantly flicking cigar ashes over my keyboard.

  “Did you see that?” I shouted.

  Nicolò was dumbfounded.

  “Apologize,” I demanded, rising from my chair.

  Moe shuffled to my side of the desk. He stood so close that his alcoholic’s breath made me nauseous. He spat as he said, “What did you say, you snobby little bastard?”

  “Get this maniac away from me,” I said, looking toward an ashen-faced Nicolò.

  Moe reached for the telephone and raised it above his head, primed and ready to crush my skull. I stooped just as the phone crashed against the wall.

  Clarice was at the door as I ran toward her, followed by Moe. He tried to jab me with his burning cigar.

  “Stop it, Moe!” Clarice shouted. She looked desperately at Nicolò. “Do something!”

  Nicolò grabbed Moe by the coat. I made it to the stairs and stumbled onto the sidewalk. I thought about pressing charges, but figured it would cause more trouble than it was worth. I went to my car and drove to the Spotlight. I had to have a drink. After guzzling three beers, I felt calm enough to phone the office. Clarice answered.

  “Is that asshole in jail?” I asked.

  “He’s in his office.”

  “Didn’t Nicolò fire him?”

  Clarice’s voice betrayed her own exasperation. “After you left, Nicolò mumbled something about both of you being idiots. Then he went into his office and shut the door. He’s been on the phone ever since.”

  “Tell Nicolò something for me, will you, Clarice? Tell him that I need to take off the rest of the day.”

  “I think that’s wise,” Clarice said. “Nicolò’s under a lot of stress. The IRS is coming down pretty hard. Nicolò thinks Moe can get him out of it.”

  I wasn’t sure if Clarice could truly be so naïve, or if she was being paid to look the other way.

  The rest of the afternoon, I sat at the bar talking to Twiggy. We shared ideas about ways I could hurt Nicolò’s business. Maybe I’d fax his clients and cancel the contracts, sneak in after hours and scramble his files, or even wipe the computer clean. Whatever I might do, it would have to wait until after I picked up my paycheck on Friday. I wasn’t going to quit before getting every last cent he owed me.

  On Thursday, Nicolò didn’t come to the office. Moe was there when I arrived, but I went to my office and shut the door. I made backup disks of my private computer files. Then I copied Nicolò’s files to a different set of floppies and put them in my desk drawer. I reformatted the hard disk to hide all evidence of my activities.

  When Friday came, Nicolò acted as though nothing had happened. I waited until Clarice handed me my paycheck. During lunch, I went to Nicolò’s bank and cashed it. Returning to the office, I marched in to see Nicolò and handed him my letter of resignation.

  “You made your bed. Now lie in it, Nicolò.”

  He made a halfhearted attempt to dissuade me. “Simon, please. Let’s work this out.”

  “Tell me one thing,” I said. “Are you going to fire that crazy bookkeeper?”

  “I can’t,” Nicolò said. He started to say more, but I walked out.

  As I passed Clarice, she put her hands over her face. She knew this would be the end of Nicolò’s business, and it was.

  Nicolò didn’t understand anything about computers and threw out the floppies I had left behind, not understanding that all his inventory information, contracts, and other business data were stored on them. He began to speak maliciously about me to anyone who would listen. But people knew him well enough, and his words had no impact on my reputation.

  I never saw Clarice again, but I did run into Moe. I was shopping at a wholesale clothing store in downtown Los Angeles, a place that sold brand-name suits for a hundred dollars. There was Moe leaning against a wall near the Jesus Saves rescue mission. He was tightly clutching a brown paper bag. I handed him a quarter, but he didn’t recognize me.

  CHAPTER 13

  To match my new status as an independent businessman, I moved into a house on Lookout Mountain Drive in Laurel Canyon, a split-level structure with hardwood floors in the cavernous living room that reminded me of an old-fashioned dance hall. The master bedroom had its own fireplace. I used the bedroom for my office and made the walk-in closet a storage vault for master videotapes. A balcony stretched across the front of the house and joined the master with the guest bedrooms. The patio behind the house had a hot tub at one end and a barbecue on the other. A steep hill planted with rare flowers from Indonesia rose behind the patio. An ancient avocado tree shaded the roof and raccoons made great sport of bombarding the roof with avocado seeds. At night, the raccoons raced through the limbs, leaping onto the roof and back into the tree as they played. I counted nine of them as I soaked in the hot tub one night.

  Scott and Sandra called from time to time. On a few occasions, we got together at Dan Tana’s or Cyrano’s. They would catch me up on news about their latest sexual conque
sts, and sometimes they wanted to share lines of coke with me. During that period, I refrained. I liked the high too much and was having a hard enough time balancing my desire to drink with my need to be focused on business. The entrepreneurial spirit of the eighties had me clenched firmly in its teeth.

  Wally had come up with a new video called Bel Air Babes, a soft-porn romp that was hardly more risqué than burlesque. It sold to every Asian market because it easily passed censorship panels, yet was titillating enough to find an audience. That one crummy video made me a small fortune.

  No matter how busy I got, my day ended at the Spotlight. Sitting in the smoky darkness, listening to the eclectic jukebox, lost in an alcoholic haze, and usually hugging a shirtless hustler, time seemed to stand still. The owner, a retired law professor named Don, had long been a close acquaintance. Don allegedly had connections to Hollywood’s crime underworld, but I figured the less I knew about that, the better.

  One memorable night, after my seventh or eighth shot of Boodles, a fight broke out. That was not an unusual event at the Spotlight, of course, except that these weren’t the usual lowlifes getting into a brawl. One was a fellow named Rudy Gutierrez, whom I’d seen at the bar from time to time. At six feet four inches tall, he was the proverbial mountain of a man, an effect heightened by his weight of three hundred pounds. Rudy dwarfed his opponent, an ex-jockey named Tinker Bell, whom he had pinned against the bar by the sheer force of his own body weight.

  Don intervened, rising from his honored spot near the entrance to the bar and marching toward Rudy.

  “Release that man, or I’ll eighty-six you for a year,” Don said.

  Rudy didn’t budge. “Tell this motherfucker to apologize, and you won’t have to eighty-six me—I’ll never come back. He apologizes, or I’m sticking to him like glue.”

  “Back off, Rudy,” Don demanded. At this point, the spike-gloved bouncer was ready to clobber Rudy on Don’s orders.