The Rough Cut

by Douglas Corleone

  Nathan was a few years older than Ethan and every bit as attractive. Dressed in a blue Hermès suit, he was thoroughly groomed right down to his manicured fingernails. I knew little else about him, then, other than that he was a partner at a successful personal injury law practice downtown.

  ‘Brody Quinlan. Camera operator.’

  ‘Riley Vasher. Director.’

  Church pointed to us one at a time, starting with Ethan’s brother. ‘You’re Nate Dogg, you’re BQ, and you’re Riles.’ He pointed to the speaker. ‘And you’re Charlie.’

  ‘I don’t want to be BQ,’ Brody said.

  ‘And I don’t want to be Riles,’ I added.

  He waved us off. ‘You’re gonna thank me someday when your film is a huge success, you’re both big stars, and AMC produces the new hit crime drama BQ & Riles, starring Shailene Woodley and a very scruffy Joaquin Phoenix.’

  ‘Wait,’ Nate Dogg said, smiling, ‘what about my brother? What do we call him?’

  Church frowned. ‘Well, I haven’t seen the evidence yet. Once I do, I’ll label him somewhere between lucky and motherfucked.’ He pointed to Ethan. ‘Which leads us to our next topic of discussion: the evidence and just how well it stacks up against your story.’

  At that moment, and over our strenuous objection, Brody and I were unceremoniously kicked out of the meeting.

  Once we were permitted back into the room and reseated at the table, Church pointed to me. He did a lot of pointing, Church.

  ‘Next order of business is your documentary,’ he said.

  A fully executed retainer agreement sat in the middle of the table beneath the speaker box.

  Jesse of the speaker box said: ‘I just want to reiterate for the record that I am opposed to the entire notion of making a documentary of what will likely already become a high-profile homicide case.’

  Church bowed his head. ‘The paperweight’s objection is duly noted.’

  I reached into the bag on the back of my chair and carefully pulled out a twelve-page contract.

  ‘Ethan and Nathan have already signed it,’ I said, passing the pages over to Church, ‘so it just needs your signature and …’

  Church tore it in half and set the pieces neatly down on the table. Then he reached into his own briefcase and pulled out a bound document six inches thick. Dropped it onto the table with a thud.

  ‘This is our contract,’ he said.

  Brody and I stared at one another for several seconds as Church leisurely nudged the tome in front of us with his fingertips.

  Grudgingly, I hefted the thing and started reading.

  This agreement by and between Nicholas Church & The Church Law Firm (hereafter ‘Church’) and Riley Vasher & Brody Quinlan (collectively ‘BQ & Riles’) dated …

  I looked up from the page. ‘You nicknamed us before you even met us?’

  ‘I knew as much about you then as I do now, Riles.’ He motioned toward the speaker box. ‘You don’t hire an investigator who lives in – and works out of – his mother’s basement for his sparkling personality.’

  ‘All lies,’ the speaker box said.

  I leafed through the weighty tome. Some of it was standard stuff I’d seen in other complex contracts concerning film rights; parts of it were anything but.

  ‘You get creative input?’ I cried. ‘An ownership stake? You can take control of the production by buying up all the footage and hiring a new production team to finish the film?’

  ‘Only under extraordinary circumstances, for that last one.’

  ‘You approve final cut? You’ve got to be kidding!’

  ‘Now, Riles.’ He held up his hands in a calming motion. ‘I can’t withhold approval unreasonably.’

  I flipped a page. ‘Says here, “Approval may be reasonably withheld if any part of the film includes any single communication which would be subject to exclusion under any relevant evidentiary rules as work product or attorney–client privilege.” That encompasses everything.’

  ‘Not everything. Not the hearings, not the trial.’

  ‘You want total control over how you and Ethan are portrayed. That’s outrageous.’

  Church leaned back in his seat, said calmly, ‘What did you tell my client when you first spoke to him? What, in your opinion, sold Ethan on your documentary? What was the primary reason he agreed to do this movie at all? Was it the money you offered for the defense?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he told me his brother, Nate, would have his back.’

  ‘Did he seem interested in fame? Or notoriety, rather? Is that how you sold him on this?’

  ‘No.’ It was all I could do to avoid Ethan’s eyes. ‘If anything, that was a con for him. He said he didn’t want to be known for anything other than his performing.’

  ‘Then what did you say to nudge him?’

  I suddenly felt like I was on the stand, felt myself starting to sweat. ‘I told him we were the Court of Last Resort.’

  ‘Ah, the Court of Last Resort,’ Church said. ‘And by that you mean the American public, right? Your viewership? They’re the jurors you’re tacitly referring to?’ He eyeballed me like a hostile witness. ‘Tell me, do you plan to wait until all of Ethan’s appeals are exhausted before releasing your movie?’

  ‘That could take years.’

  ‘That’s right, and that wouldn’t help at all, would it? By then it would be too late. Too late for you, too late for Ethan. It’s not literally the Court of Last Resort, then, is it? That would be the Hawaii Supreme Court and ultimately the United States Supreme Court. So the only way Ethan benefits from this film is if it is: one, riveting enough to capture the attention of millions of viewers; and two, persuasive enough to convince at least tens of thousands of American citizens to launch a public campaign. Correct?’

  I remained silent.

  ‘While the case is still on appeal,’ he continued, ‘I could not in good conscience allow you to release footage that would be detrimental to my client’s odds of winning a new trial. We can agree on that, right? That my paramount duty is to my client? Well, to successfully protect my client’s interests, I need to ensure that this movie is both riveting and persuasive, and I can only do that with approval of the final cut.’

  ‘I am not making a docuganda,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not asking for a hit-piece,’ he scoffed. ‘Nothing like what Marissa did to me in The Prosecutor, OK? And I’m not asking you to lead the audience. I’m not asking for narration here. You don’t have to endorse one position or another, in the film or in publicity. I’m merely scrutinizing what gets shown, and in what order.’

  ‘Taking what’s on camera and presenting it in a dishonest fashion is no better than—’

  ‘Nothing about it will be dishonest,’ he said. ‘Take my word; my word is good.’

  I studied his eyes but he had a practiced poker face, and I instantly realized that no matter how long I knew Nicholas Church, I’d never be able to read him.

  ‘Well,’ I said as casually as I could, ‘we’re going to have to consult with our lawyers.’

  On the way to the parking garage, Brody said, ‘We don’t have lawyers.’

  ‘No shit,’ I said.

  TEN

  I like to fantasize. Nothing unrealistic, nothing too grandiose. I’m not striving to be the next Werner Herzog, Ken Burns or Morgan Spurlock. I don’t need my name to be recognized alongside the modern greats in true crime. I’m not a young Andrew Jarecki or Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Brody and I aren’t the next Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi.

  This is our first film, after all, our maiden voyage. We filmmakers learn from experience, just like everyone else. We absorb our bloopers and blunders, we strive to surpass our past projects, we work our entire lives attempting to master an unmasterable craft.

  Thing is, I recognize – recognized from the very beginning – that the murder of Piper Kingsley is a once-in-a-lifetime opening. Thanks to Professor Leary, we have the money. Out of sheer luck, we were on location from Day One
. The reality is, we might never get another shot like this. Surely not without one or both of us getting a ‘real job’. So if our maiden voyage crashes and burns, there might never be a second. In other words, this film could be our Titanic. Either the doomed ship, or 1997’s Oscar Winner for Best Picture. And, I admit, it’s disquieting that we won’t know which until the final cut.

  I’m shitty at budgeting, just no good with money in general. That much was clear early in my first year of film school at NYU, when I realized I was on pace to blow through my parents’ inheritance before earning even half the credits required for my MFA.

  With Leary’s inheritance, I’ve been no better. First, the move to Hawaii cost more than I ever expected (and I thought I’d figured high). Then finding a long-term rental in Waikiki turned into a night terror. In the end our rent was nearly double what we were paying in Manhattan. Granted, we upgraded from a third-floor studio in a pre-war, red-brick walk-up in the East Village to a twenty-third-floor one-bedroom overlooking the Pacific. But then we also had to eat.

  I’d factored in just so much for groceries, with the asinine idea of sitting down with Brody and learning to cook. It never happened. In Waikiki, we rediscovered bar food. Not that bar food itself is ultra-expensive, but the dozen or so mai tais you down with your meal begin to add up. Then there are the Hawaiian necessities I somehow hadn’t anticipated: sunscreen, snorkeling gear, cute swimsuits and hats at Ala Moana Center. Payments on a Jeep Wrangler and insurance. All of it on top of rent, electric, cable, Wi-Fi, cell phones. And weed, an ounce between us, each week.

  Then there was the film. The equipment, the editing room, the occasional crew members working per diem. Plus we did, despite his purported motives for signing with us, contribute heavily to the cost of Ethan’s defense. Sure, Nate paid the lion’s share; according to his wife Cheyenne, half their life savings. But then, Nicholas Church is one of the costliest criminal attorneys in the United States. Worth every penny, of course. Ask anyone – from the upper echelon of legal academia right down through the streets of Detroit, St Louis, Miami, New York.

  Following The Prosecutor, the name Nicholas Church went viral, and his performance earned him several high-profile cases. The media love him. An easy cure for the slow news cycle, he regularly flirts with female anchors live via Skype on all three of the major cable news networks. A recent USA Today poll showed that nearly as many Americans are familiar with the name Nicholas Church as they are with the name Johnnie Cochran.

  Last year, while Brody and I were shooting a short doc in Los Angeles, we heard it firsthand – unprompted, unsolicited – from a bona fide gangbanger named Still: ‘You get hit with a one-eight-seven up in this bitch, fuck Better Call Saul – you better get yo ass to Church.’

  When I showed Church the clip, he raised a single brow and said, ‘That quote would look totally bad-ass on a billboard on I-5. If only I advertised.’

  As for production costs, we save where we can. We’d intended to hire a scriptwriter; instead, I’m writing the script. We’d intended to hire a location coordinator; instead, Brody took over the position. At home, we’ve stopped ordering extra cheese on our pizza, because fuck that additional dollar-oh-five. We eat in more too, prepare what food we can, which mainly boils down to pasta, English muffins, cold sandwiches, frozen pizza and blueberry Eggos. When we do eat out these days, we dine casual, limit alcohol consumption and screw servers out of tips. I’m kidding! But we have started taking home doggy bags, notwithstanding the fact that we have no doggy back home.

  At one point Brody even offered to get a job. ‘I can bartend,’ he said. ‘I can wait tables.’

  Made me feel terrible. He’s just so overqualified. Until we graduated film school, Brody had been a perpetual student and holds several prestigious, if useless, degrees. Bachelors in both philosophy (median salary for recent grads: $30K) and anthropology ($28K), a Masters in social work, a PhD in Comparative Religion. All from good schools, all paid for with student loans, placing him in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Each of these areas of study once held his passion, at least until he felt satiated and abruptly moved onto another.

  ‘I can’t seem to find my footing,’ he told me soon after we first met. ‘I don’t know my purpose.’

  He did know that he wanted out of the tri-state area in which he grew up, knew he wanted away from Connecticut, away from his mother. Since my two weeks with Piper were the most fun I’d had in years, I joked that after film school we should move to Honolulu.

  Brody, who’d traveled alone through Europe but otherwise never left the east coast, fell instantly in love with the idea. For a while it was all he could talk about.

  Although I gave lip service to the concept, deep down I wanted to stay in New York. I had no real desire to flee the feverishness of the city, to blow off the Big Apple’s opportunities. Above all, though, I didn’t want to leave Professor Leary.

  When the professor suddenly passed, the decision became that much easier. That week, New York ceased to be my city of dreams and mutated into something else. Something broken, something painful.

  The shock of the inheritance sealed the deal. Honolulu suddenly sounded a lot like hope, and on paper, it all appeared doable. But as it turns out, the rumors are true: it’s fucking expensive to live in Hawaii.

  What’s so clear only now that we’ve gone overbudget is that if Piper wasn’t murdered when she was, Brody and I wouldn’t have lasted another six months, not here in paradise, not without dipping into the money we’d set aside for production of the film. And the film, in many ways, was – is? – the glue that kept us together.

  Besides, by accepting such a significant inheritance, I felt as though I’d made an implicit promise to Professor Leary. And that was one promise, in a lifetime of broken ones, that I sure as shit intended to keep.

  But then, maybe the greatest price tag we paid over the past six months was the unremitting guilt, lingering like a canker sore still. Although we choose not to discuss it, there were so many times when it appeared Brody was about to throw down the camera and say, ‘I’m sorry, Rye, I can’t do this. This just isn’t right. You knew her, for Christ’s sake.’

  But that’s always been a possibility. From the evening we initially agreed to do a film, I questioned whether Brody truly has the stomach for this. And I admit, over the past six months, I questioned whether I have the stomach for it as well.

  I question it still.

  Going into this business, you realize your success must come at the expense of others. But that’s true of countless professions: certain doctors, understudies, second-string athletes, personal injury lawyers. But, of course, you never expect your success to come at the expense of a friend.

  I’ve rationalized over and over that no matter what I do – make a movie or go back to Oregon – Piper Kingsley will still be in an urn in her father’s hotel room. At times, I’ve even rationalized that I am helping get at the Truth. Piper deserves as much, I told myself, as does Professor Leary.

  But, at the end of the day, I fear that what I’m in this for isn’t Piper or Leary or anything as noble as Truth. I fear I’m in this purely for recognition, fear I’m in this for money. I fear I’m only in this because it’s my dream. Which is why, as I sit here in the editing room, I accomplish little tonight other than rewatching footage and assuaging my guilt.

  This is something I didn’t learn in film school, something even Professor Leary never taught me. Even if you’re born for this shit, as I think I was, this job becomes fucking hard once you meet the cast. Becomes fucking impossible once you start seeing the players as people.

  ELEVEN

  Sure enough, a week after the weathergirl died, the police arrested Ethan under circumstances we never could have imagined yet were somehow ready to capture.

  Earlier that day Brody and I were engaged in Day Four of negotiations with Nicholas Church over whether we – BQ & Riles – would formally join the defense team. The contract remained unsig
ned between us in Church’s suite.

  ‘I’m not sacrificing my objectivity,’ I shouted across the conference table. ‘I intend to act ethically. I intend to be credible. I intend to search for the truth.’

  Church waited until my echo faded, then used his indoor voice, in an effort, I realized, to make me appear hysterical.

  Softly, he said, ‘And what makes you think I’m in this for anything different?’

  I turned down the volume. A little. ‘Your job is not to search for the truth. Your job is to get your client acquitted.’

  Dressed meticulously in Brioni, Church gingerly placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward, a pensive look on his face, and like a silent train bolting out of the pitch, it suddenly struck me why he had allowed us to film this part of the negotiation and no other.

  Church pursed his lips. ‘What if those things are not mutually exclusive?’

  I was outraged, more now at myself for allowing us to be so blatantly used. ‘What if they are mutually exclusive?’

  He leaned back, folded his arms, shrugged and said simply, ‘Then I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I tried, now more aware of the camera than ever. ‘So I’m supposed to believe that each of the men you defended – who walked away scot-free after trial – were innocent?’

  ‘Unless you’re on my jury, I don’t give an orangutan’s ass what you believe, Riles. But to answer what I think you meant to be your question: yes. Each of the men – and one woman, by the way. Each man and woman I’ve walked since becoming a criminal defense attorney has been not guilty of the crime of which they were accused.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ I cried. ‘You couldn’t know it.’

  ‘Listen, Riles.’ He shot his cuffs, silent for a moment to allow that goddamn nickname to burrow into my skin. ‘As unbelievably talented and humble as I may be, I am not a miracle worker. The reason I was able to get all those individuals acquitted is simple. They had a tremendous benefit that, frankly, most criminal defendants lack – they were actually not guilty.’