Chapter 57 - The Next Production
We were ready to start on the food and champagne but I thought now we needed to do one more piece of business, so I said to Jinny, "Can you call up your friend? Ask about tomorrow night?"
He took out his cell, punched in a long number, waited, and said, "Zdrast-vwee-tye." He waited again, then said, "Da, da." Waited again, and then launched into a full conversation. After a minute he turned to me and said, "The first time was because he owed me. Now he says I'm gonna owe him."
I said, "What am I, your mother?"
He smiled and went back to talking with the guy in the Hermitage Museum, who, hopefully, was talking on a secure line. Another couple of minutes and he hung up, saying, "He wants to come here next March when it's still minus ten degrees in Saint Petersburg. Said the deal includes me setting him up with an American babe." He looked at Gale and said, "How about you?"
She looked at Tommy and said, "I'm taken."
I said, "So it's set for tomorrow night?" He nodded. I looked at Gwendy and said, "That work for you, hon?" She nodded. "Then let's break out the champagne," which we did. When the two bottles were gone, along with the antipasto and paties, Gwendy said, "I enjoyed that almost as much as y'all. Now, I have one more request."
Tommy said, "What? Anything."
"I want to be in a movie. Like Vivien Leigh."
The dog said, "Now this ought to be interesting."
"I don't know how, but that's what I want. Me and the other specials in the museum. You're creative. You did The Lost Ballet with Pete Townshend and the rock opera with McCartney. You can figure something out; I know you can."
My mouth was full of cold cuts and Jinny was holding the bottle of cognac, ready to pour into the shaker. Gale and Tommy were doing telepathy, shielded from the rest of us, planning their first night together. Richard was eating and drinking, but feeling left out, which I sensed. I turned to him and said, "You ever written a screenplay?"
"A what?" he said.
"A movie. Have you ever written a movie script?"
"No."
"Well, can you? You heard her."
He sat there like a dimwit; I couldn't tell if he was thinking about it or not. I wondered what type of person would marry a writer. Finally the dog said, helping him out, "He can do it. Anyone who can make meatloaf that good can write a screenplay." He looked at Richard and said, "You get stuck, I'll help you out."
Richard mobilized by getting his cumbersome ass off the sofa, and started pacing the living room. He motioned to Jinny to mix the first batch of stingers, went around the piano a few times, looked up at Gwendy hanging on the wall, watching him, ate a handful of olives from the antipasto plate, took the coupe glass Jinny handed him and knocked back the ice-cold stinger, shook his head, looked at me, and said, "Yes, I can do it."
I wasn't sure I believed him, so I looked at Gwendy and said, "What do you think?"
She paused, closed her eyes, looked at him, closed her eyes again, then looked at me and said, "He can do it. I'm good."
I thought, 'Thank god, now I can have a stinger,' when Jinny said, "Whoa, that's not the end. Who's going to produce the movie?"
Tommy said, "Who's going to finance the movie?"
Goddamn it. More problems. I really wanted that stinger so I said, impetuously, "I'll produce it. Roger and me. I don't know who will finance it."
Gwendy said, "Thank you, dear."
Jinny stood there shaking the shaker, full of ice, cognac, and creme de menthe, not very graceful but getting the job done, and said, "I'll finance it."
Gale said, "It's gonna take more than your two million."
He said, "I got a plan."
Gwenny June's Tommy Crown Affair Page 57
