THE MOVIE MAKERS
A Grifter’s Song
Gary Phillips
Series Created and Edited
by Frank Zafiro
Copyright © 2019 by Gary Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Movie Makers
About the Author
Also by the Author
Preview from Lost in Middle America by Colin Conway
Preview from Main Bad Guy by Nick Kolakowski
Preview from Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez
Reed Bennek appreciated his cup of plain coffee as he gazed at one of his pieces in his study. Goddamn thing wasn’t even a painting. The artwork was a framed sketch on Bristol by the highly collectable Jackson Klemints. He’d bought it a few years ago at a private sale. The price it commanded then was akin to what he’d paid for one of the Lucien Freud oils he had hanging in an upstairs hallway. But to his way of thinking, Freud put in the work, the way he captured mood and the inner essence in his subject’s body poses and expressions in his controlled brush strokes. But this supposed artwork before him? Hell, he’d seen doodles drawn by art directors putting away their third margarita with more style and substance.
But that’s not why he’d bought the work. It was an investment and he’d been assured by his money manager that this simple effort before him—maybe it was a kite in the air over a sailboat in the water or maybe it was just a bunch of random ass squiggles—would only increase in value over time. Not double what he’d laid out for it, and that had been considerable, but a profit nonetheless. Klemints was a name and Bennek had begun to rake it in when he acquired it. The fourth installment of the Demolisher Road series, The Fate of the Fastest, had made close to five hundred million worldwide. Being the star and one of the executive producers, Bennek in total had banked more than seventy million after being in the four movies. Not too shabby for a working-class kid from Downey, an ex-stuntman and one who’d been listed below the line when the first movie was let out the gate over seven years ago.
That first one, Demolisher Road, was a low budget B effort about street racers in the ’hood, undercover cops at cross purposes and the smuggling of nanotech. The film, the plot hinting at the use of the machine to enslave humankind, was helmed by a veteran schlockmeister who had employed Bennek as a stunt driver some fifteen years before. The director was a former cutter, a film editor who was known not to require more than a third take from his actors but brought movies in on time and often under budget. The damn thing was the surprise hit of that summer. Thereafter, it was figuratively off to the races.
But in that initial outing, Bennek’s character in the script was just called Go-To, because of the sweet big-barreled ’68 Pontiac GTO he’d shown up in at the top of the second act. That and the guy he was playing was hinted at being an Iraq war vet. A few crossed wires in his head but a dude you could always depend on to have your back—thus a double meaning to his nickname.
This was before the top billed in the series walked away during the middle of the second shoot over the ubiquitous creative control issues, which was a cover for his increasingly out-of-control behavior finally biting him in the butt but good. This was before the #MeToo movement when a lot of “boys will be boys” behavior was still overtly tolerated. But while on a coke and hash bender, star George McGooghan had beat that poor woman so bad she lost an eye and no amount of hush money could keep the incident covered up. A hasty rewrite was undertaken and Bennek’s Go-To character was now second billed along with Tyler Roberts whose character began as the roguish master thief anti-hero. Even after Bennek received solid reviews for his performance in the middle-budgeted sequel, it was made clear to him and his reps that for the third outing, he would be playing second banana to Roberts’ character, Johnny “Gears” Holloway. None of that one guy’s name is in the upper right to the other guy’s in the lower left so it was sort of equal billing razzmatazz. That was until Roberts, having done a degree of his own driving in the films, got green screening and reality mixed up in his head, as actors have a want to do. Particularly as he felt competitive to the one-time stunt driver who he felt was trying to upstage him in their scenes together. At any rate, it seemed he came to believe that his being able to do a donut or a J-turn in a controlled setting meant he could actually do it. One evening, leaving a club in the gentrifying area of what used to be the grimy industrial section east of downtown, in the company of a much younger pretty woman, he braked at the stop light in his Porsche 911. It was in a color the dealer called Sapphire Blue Metallic, and it gleamed under the street light like it had been poured whole out of a mage’s cauldron.
A couple of young men, fans of the two movies, rolled up in a tricked out ’64 Impala. Head nodding was exchanged along with he the revving of engines, aided by the somewhat tipsy woman giving Roberts’ thigh a squeeze. Both drivers smoked their rear tires and tore away from the intersection like starving men racing toward a seven-course meal. The symbolism of the slick Euro machine versus classic Detroit iron not lost on anyone in the two cars.
Roberts’ fiery death was spectacular, the rave of social media. His Porsche bouncing off a parked van then as the vehicle whipped sideways at more than ninety miles an hour, plowed into the brick wall of a big box store. And just like in the movies, the fuel tank exploded, burning to death the actor and the woman instantaneously against the closed store. Also captured on shaky phone video was the Impala which had angled off a high spot in the curb. The car flipped over with three of its wheels in the air, crashed onto its roof and slid some, pole-axing a light post. Crazily, the passenger in the nox-powered Impala was unharmed and kicking out the door, ran away from the scene. Thereafter he’d been arrested and charged with various crimes including vehicular manslaughter and engaging in an illegal speed contest. Not having the resources to fight the charges, and what with public will against him for “causing” Roberts death, the passenger wound up serving time. The driver had been killed on impact.
All this mishegoss had raised the stock of the franchise to where Bennek perched financially and career-wise at this moment. His smartphone buzzed on his desk and he retrieved it and glanced at who was calling him. All three of his phones were compartmentalized one from the other, with particular people in his circle only contacting him on one of the particular instruments. This one was his business phone. He slid his finger across the lower portion of the screen and put the phone to his ear.
“Yes,” he said.
“Bob Ferguson needs to reschedule, Reed,” his personal assistant said on the other end of the line.
“He give you some alternate dates?”
“He did.” The assistant, Jeremy, ran them down and also mentioned other appointments Bennek had that might conflict with a given date or time. They worked out another lunch time and the assistant had him hold while he called Rosen’s assistant.
The new date was confirmed with the studio exec’s office and the
n Jeremy said, “I’m waiting to hear back on that other matter.”
“Okay. Ah, when you have time today, can you get over to Strosser’s a get me a pound and a half of pastrami? Rodrigo there knows how I like it trimmed.”
“You want it before noon?”
“No, just before five is fine.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
Of course there were more menial tasks for Jeremy to do with it winding up, maybe it would be better if the pastrami got to him before noon. He ended the call and sat heavily behind his desk. To his right were three scripts one atop the other. He’d read them this past weekend. The biopic about the jazz trumpeter was a maybe, and the one about a widower father raising his pre-teen son was a pass. He’d found the script pedantic and cliched, despite the screenwriter having been nominated for an Oscar in the past. The third one was about a gambling used car salesmen who falls down the rabbit hole. Now that was a role, with the proper rewrites and a director or two he had in mind, he could really sink his chops into. Put it all out there. A small budget effort that the monetary returns wouldn’t be all that, but could garner attention in all the right quarters. Finally shaking the image that he wasn’t a real actor, and not just a guy with an easy way in those big budget actioners.
Bennek sat back, hands now tight on the arms of his banker’s chair. His eyes shifted from his desk top where the two phones resided to the bottom drawer to his right where a third one resided. The business one he’d just used which was also used by his lawyer, agent, manager and the like. The third one was for his mother, sister and niece, his sis’ grown daughter. But that second phone was the pussy line. He couldn’t help but smile at that. Okay, it wasn’t PC but he was no monster like some in this town, beating off in front of some woman trapped in a hotel room or certainly not forcing himself on anybody. Morally and legally there was no need for that. There were plenty of women in town who…well, were around, who inhabited various levels of the Industry. Were they post-feminist gold diggers he’d mused now and then? These were bold chicks, not pretending to be in love or infatuated but out for a good time Those had that second phone’s number.
He was contemplating the import of what was in the bottom drawer, his attention then shifting to the small stack of scripts. Time to put on his big boy pants he surmised. He picked up the business phone and scrolling through his recent, called a specific number.
“This is Clay,” said a pleasant voice once the line connected. “That you, Reed?”
“Yeah, it’s me. You got time for me today? I mean in person, not over the phone.”
In the quiet, sparsely furnished office where the man calling himself Clay Morrison had answered the phone, inwardly he took a three count. He needed to make sure his pulse was glacial, that he didn’t smile as he believed the listener could “hear” that grin. Rather he made sure he was draped in the mantle of the life couch he pretended to be.
“Of course, Reed,” Sam said. “I have time for you today…in person it is.”
Not two hours later Sam drove up to the gate at Bennek’s North of Montana residence in Santa Monica. His fourteen-thousand-square-foot mansion was humble by Southern California uber rich standards though did include a home theater, a walk-in refrigerator and a Turkish bath. A majority of the star’s money was tied up in real estate and investments in commercial ventures.
“It’s Clay,” Sam said after pressing the intercom button.
There was a pause then, “Oh, yes, Clay, come on,” said Bennek.
He sounded distracted to Sam. The physical and psychological tells the conman had to pay attention to in his marks wasn’t much different than what the therapist had to be attuned to as well—to get inside their heads, albeit for opposite reasons. The gate parted and hummed open and in he drove in his late model Lexus. The car was a short-term lease, under the Clay Morrison identity. His path took him by the multi-car garage partially embedded in the hillside the mansion loomed over. Sam didn’t think much about the black Escalade parked in the roundabout as he also parked. That changed when he got out of the car and clocked the sort of people coming out the front door.
“You see, it always works out, mi amigo,” said a broad-chested man in a flowery print shirt. He was tanned and had a thick linked gold bracelet around one wrist.
“Sure you’re right, Mol,” the actor-producer said, giving it a thin smile.
Mol laid a heavy hand on the other’s shoulder, chuckling. “Yes, indeed.”
There was another man with Mol and it didn’t take an experienced eye like Sam’s to recognize this guy was muscle. He was well-dressed in a Hugo Boss suit sans tie, but Sam figured odds were there was a gun under that tailored coat.
Mol grinned big teeth at Sam. “You’re the guru, huh?”
“I’m here to help Reed realize his potential.”
“Me, too.”
Mol got in the passenger side of the Escalade, his henchman behind the wheel. They drove away, the boss talking on his smartphone.
Sam eschewed doing any probing with Bennek about who Mol was. He’d memorized the Escalade’s license plate. He had his phone in his sport coat’s inner pocket but didn’t dare make a move for it to clone Mol’s phone while the gangster, and he surely was some degree of that, was in eyesight. Regretfully, he didn’t think this was the last time he’d be seeing this guy.
As the two walked inside, Bennek talked to his housekeeper. “Esparaza, would you bring us some tea to the study?”
“Of course, Reed,” she said, pivoting on a heel and going off to the kitchen.
Sam knew from his research that the thirty-four-year-old Esparza Cantu was not the typical working-class Latina doing the dust and fold drudgeries for the entitled Westsiders. She was a single mother of two and was attending night school to get her degree in education. She was the cousin of a grip Bennek was friends with, and he’d never sexually harassed her.
The two settled in the study, Bennek sitting on his couch and Sam in a chair he’d pulled closer. Sam spread his hands, a bright cast animating his handsome face. “Where shall we venture today?”
Bennek crossed his arms, drawing in a deep breath. As he exhaled, he unfolded his arms and let them drop into his lap. “I guess I’m feeling blocked. At some sort of fork in the road, ya know? Continue doing what is safe and expected of me or make a bold choice and maybe torpedo my career.” He looked off and Sam sensed he wanted to add to what he’d said but he didn’t go on.
“You know as a life coach, we generally don’t examine your past attempting to resolve certain psychological issues. That doesn’t preclude acknowledging there might be an issue holding you back in the present, preventing you from moving forward.”
“Like a shark, Clay?” Bennek quipped. “’Cause God knows, I’m swimming with ’em constantly.”
He could have said was Mol such a shark but mentioned instead, pushing it with his mark, “It’s the art house script, right?”
Bennek nodded appreciatively. “It is one of my main concerns. I mean, I know I’ve got to be responsible for a certain amount to get others onboard. But that’s always a concern when you take on these kind of projects.”
“You worried it will be seen as too much of a vanity undertaking?”
The housekeeper knocked lightly on the closed door and wheeled in a teacart with a Japanese-style teapot and two handleless cups on it. As was the custom, the lining of the earthenware cups were white so the drinker could better appreciate the subtle color of their tea. There was a small plate of vanilla bean shortbread cookies as well.
“Thank you,” Sam said, reaching to pour for him and his client.
Almost imperceptibly she hesitated, regarding Sam for the briefest of moments then said, “My pleasure.”
Bennek continued once she’d gone and the door closed again. “The irony doesn’t escape me that it’s a gamble to do a movie about a gambler. And that those kind of movies don’t fare that well at the box office. And it�
�s not like you can get a brand to pony up for some product placement about a middle-aged, middle-class guy who has the bug and this leads him to underground poker games in Beverly Hills, cock fights in Compton and fixed MMA matches.”
“But it’s a journey of loss and rediscovery,” Sam said, quickly adding, “at least that’s what I understand from what you’ve told me.” He did after all have a hand in crafting the script but best not be hinting such to Bennek.
The actor hunched a shoulder. “There is that.”
Sam faked like he was considering his words. He knew precisely what he needed to say. “It seems to me we could best utilize this session in looking at the ways this project could be successful and not constructing roadblocks but blueprints for opportunities.” In prepping for his role, among the presentations he’d watched on YouTube, a popular exponent of what she called neuro linguist programming had used a similar phrase.
He went on. “If not in the short term, then in the long run. What with streaming and all that, the movie doesn’t have to open in theaters but there certainly are methods that can be employed to build word of mouth before it drops as the saying goes. It isn’t a red carpet type of film, but that’s okay. Could be it’s better to play on the outlaw qualities of the movie and promote it that way?”
The idea, Sam reminded himself, was to bait the hook but the fish had to be willing to bite.
Bennek got a focused look in his eyes. “Yeah, yeah I could see how that might work.”
They talked for another hour and a half, with Bennek making notes on a yellow pad of paper, nodding his head periodically as various suggestions from Sam sparked his imagination.
“That was very helpful, Clay. It really made a difference you could make the house call.”
“Good. You know you can call me anytime.”
The Movie Makers Page 1
