David called two days later and told him the script was magnificent and they were getting screwed on the price.
“If I had known you could write like this, I would have asked a quarter of a million,” he said. He promised to have the script mimeographed and copies distributed.
Within only a few days, everyone from Alexander to Joyce had telephoned him and told him how great the script was. But he didn’t fall for it. They didn’t really know a good script from a bad one. If they did, things would be a lot easier in Hollywood. Rick knew the real test would be later, much later, because, goddamn it, you only knew what you had when the picture was finished. And even then, not a man on earth could tell you it would be a hit until the audience made it a hit.
That’s why people like Rick had such tremendous power after one hit. Others had confidence in them, and if they acted with confidence themselves, they could stay at the top, getting on feature after feature, without ever having another success. It happened once, it could happen again.
Rick and Elektra had a romping reunion in their big bed, and Rick started coming in to the office again. Other projects were heating up, and even newer ones awaited his opinion, his injection of confidence.
Then Alexander called him into his office. He was beaming. “Well, young man, we’re on the way. The corporation has just acquired the services of Peter Wellman for three motion pictures!” He laughed lightly and motioned for Rick to sit down. “Sit down, my friend, sit down.”
Rick sat. Wellman would be perfect. Darkly handsome with those big soulful Jewish eyes, Mister Slick with the ladies yet immensely popular with men. And if not Top Ten, at least Top Eleven.
“Has he read the script?”
“My boy, we have to put two million dollars into his hands before he will read a script. There are meetings and meetings to go, but I can’t think he’d balk at the role. He’s not like some of these hambones, he doesn’t claim to have literary genius. Only acting genius.”
“What’s the availability situation?” Rick asked.
“We can probably get him for fifteen days after he finishes the picture we just hired him for. Some time early in the spring.”
“Is this an Alexander Hellstrom Production?”
“No. So far, it’s a Donald Marrow Production. This deal was done in New York. That’s why it happened so fast.”
“You seem happy and confident,” Rick said.
“Oh, that’s different. My girl’s coming out.”
Rick grinned. Alexander grinned.
This was fun!
PART THREE: TURNAROUND
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TAHOE HAD been magnificent, if he said so himself. Tahoe had been perfect. Tahoe could not have been better if Alexander had written, cast and directed it. Even though it started out badly and got worse. In the first place, Alexander took the wrong clothes, and because he felt himself to be right (although he was obviously wrong) and because he hated the kind of Hollywood gesture that would have allowed him to have proper wardrobe flown up to Reno and then driven over to the lake by messenger, he stood his ground in the clothing of his choice and won out magnificently.
If he said so himself.
What got him into trouble at first, he reasoned, was that during his lifetime he had never gotten around to taking the kind of vacation that would expose him to the circumstances of existence along the northwest shore of Lake Tahoe, and he just never happened to have visited the place. Summers, in his life, were for working, and skiing was not so much a winter sport as a way of getting the survivors of wrecked airplanes down out of the mountains. When Teresa di Veccio had invited him to join her in the cabin she was borrowing he had pictured a rustic retreat, perched up among the rocks, with forest, mountain and lake views. Perhaps a small dock with a rowboat tethered to it. His two suitcases contained lots of jeans, sweaters, plaid shirts, colorful tee shirts he wouldn’t think of wearing in the city. Lots of wool socks. Boots and an old pair of loafers. A big pocket knife, in case they were attacked by bears.
They were, instead, attacked by suits and blazers. Alexander’s pocket knife remained in his pocket. And the little cabin in the rocks had twenty rooms, three porches, sleeping accommodations for fifty people (a couple of the rooms were nothing more than fancy bunkhouses). There was a sauna for ten, more old stone fireplaces than Alexander bothered to count. But the lake, the forest and the mountains, were as imagined. The dock was a little larger than Alexander had envisioned, however, and had tethered to it a couple of speedboats, a sailboat and a large launch that looked a little like a floating streetcar.
And there were other guests, male and female. He was surprised by them because Teresa had said nothing. When she picked him up at the Reno airport she looked at his two suitcases and raised her eyes, but said nothing, and all the way over Mount Rose and around the Lake (“Let’s take the scenic route!”) they babbled like children. They hadn’t seen each other for a while. Alexander thought they would be rolling through some countryside where on impulse they could pull the car over and make love among the Ponderosas, but it wasn’t like that at all, the road was too wide, everything was too open, and there was far too much traffic.
There was so much traffic by the time they were beside the lake, that, once Alexander got over the beauty and size of it all, he was actually bored. They were in a big station wagon, Teresa behind the wheel, beautiful as ever and dressed in tight jeans and a plaid shirt, a wisp of hair down over her forehead. The traffic was terrible. They were stopped more than they were moving.
“Maybe we could get a bite to eat,” he suggested.
“Oh, there’s nowhere to eat along here,” she said, even though they seemed to be passing restaurant after restaurant. True, all of them looked crowded and tacky. Now they were stopped beside a peewee golf course, a long stop, and Alexander was surprised to see a gigantic Buddha as one of the holes of the course, a plastic figure in the lotus position. You hit the ball into a hole in the base and it came out Buddha’s mouth and landed in his lap, on a plate. Alexander watched several people do it.
“Isn’t that awful?” Teresa said.
Finally they were past the crush, over a bridge by a dam, down a small private road that was nearly invisible from the main road, and in among the cabins of a very large compound, with massive cabins—no, you couldn’t call them cabins—massive structures, with green roofs and natural wood sides and porches. Various cars were parked about, rugged-looking stuff, only a few Mercedes and sports cars.
“Home at last,” Teresa said.
Carrying his suitcases, he followed her down a path to “Alta Verde”—their “cabin.” As they came up onto the big wide front porch, in the shade of some really tall trees, Alexander saw a foursome playing bridge, and an older man with his feet out and his hat down over his eyes, apparently asleep. The foursome turned and waited expectantly, and so he put down his suitcases and went over to be introduced.
“Well, well, we’ve heard all about you,” one of the men said politely, and he wondered if the guy meant “Boss Hellstrom” or “Teresa’s Hollywood friend.” Or both. They broke away with promises to see each other “at cocktails,” and Teresa took him up to “his room.”
“My room?” he said, looking around. There did not seem to be any of Teresa’s things in the room. But she pressed up against him gently and murmured, “I’ll be here, too, but I have a room of my own, it’s so convenient,” and they kissed fondly.
“I’m so damned glad to see you,” he growled, his throat thickening. “goddamn it, I love you.”
“I love you, my sweet man,” she murmured into his chest.
“Close the door,” he said thickly. “Never mind, I’ll do it myself,” and he closed the door and pushed her over onto the bed.
All too soon the passion was spent, and Alexander lay next to her listening to the sound of the wind in the trees. It was a good sound. He liked it. It was about the only thing he liked so far.
She told him what the
re was to do. Tennis, plenty of tennis. Swimming, sailing, hiking, bridge, drinking, dinners, backgammon, horseback riding . . .
“Sex,” he said to her.
“Mmmm, sex with you . . .”
“That’s all I want. I don’t want to ride on any horse.”
Then she helped him unpack and they had an argument. He had not brought his tennis clothes. He had not brought a dinner jacket. There were no suits in his luggage.
“I don’t even have any jockey shorts,” he said. “I thought we were going to rough it.”
“You could send for your things.” She indicated the telephone beside his bed. A telephone! He had told Willi he would be incommunicado!
He couldn’t very well communicado Willi now and tell her to send up his tux and tennis gear.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “there’s no telephone there, and there are no tennis courts outside.”
“Well, I have a date to play in an hour, and so do you.”
Alexander detected a petulant note. “You won’t be mad at me if I just pig around in these things, will you?” he asked her.
“I have some calls to make,” she said.
“Calls?”
“You know I have a lot of interests,” she said. “If you need me, I’ll be in my room. Dial nine and somebody will bring you sandwiches and beer, if you like.”
Of course she had calls, she was as rich as hell and had to keep track of her interests. Sandwiches and beer. Probably brought up by a maid in full French costume, opera hose, high heels and all. Alexander made the call, ordered a steak sandwich and a glass of milk from a vaguely Chinese voice, discovered a small private bathroom behind a door and took a shower. The food was there when he came out.
Teresa looked in on him, immaculate in her whites, about an hour later. “Why don’t you have a nice nap?” she asked. “I’ll wake you when I get back from Squaw Valley.”
Instead, he went downstairs after he was sure she was well away, and out onto the porch. The bridge players were still at it, although the sleeping man was gone.
“Is there a rowboat I can use?” he said.
There was a small debate, and the Chinese servant was sent for. Yes, there was a rowboat under the building, he would have someone get it and put it into the water.
“I’ll do it,” Alexander said, and spent the afternoon happily wresting the little rowboat out from the raffle of masts, furled sail, canoe paddles and junk under one of the side porches, dragging it down to the lake, sinking it, finding oars and oar-locks, seeing that the caulking was good and wet, floating the boat, and finally, just before Teresa got back, having a little row for himself. He was hot, sweaty, covered with small bruises and stuck with splinters, and happy as hell. This was more like it. He rowed out onto the icy clear water, enjoying the pull of the oars, the slap of water against the boat.
Then she was there, on the dock, waving at him. He rowed swiftly and well up to her.
“Come for a ride!” he yelled. Expertly and truly he reversed oars and made the little boat swirl around and offer its rear seat to Teresa.
“Oh, I’d love to,” she said, “but we have to dress for dinner. Come on, I found somebody your size who’ll lend you something.”
Alexander had a moment to notice that the little boat was slowly leaking, filling up from the long-dry cracks in her bottom and sides. He would sink her overnight, and by tomorrow, she’d float like an angel. And then he lost his temper.
“I won’t wear another man’s clothes,” he said ominously, in the voice he used to frighten gangsters and bankers.
“Oh, shit!” Teresa said and marched back to the “cabin.”
“Oh, shit, yourself,” Alexander said softly to the afternoon air.
BUT IT was only at cocktails and dinner that Alexander’s wardrobe made him conspicuous. There was something almost every night requiring clothes, but he could have simply not gone. Teresa was prepared for him to behave this way, and so he didn’t. Charm was the secret. Enough charm and you could show up naked, with cabalistic signs painted on your body, and people would forgive you.
Alexander made eyes at the women, treated the men as if he would like nothing better than to go into combat with them, told a lot of wonderful Hollywood stories, and generally acted like a sweetheart, if he did say so himself. Teresa had to forgive him.
It did not seem to be such a crime to wear a big woolly sweater to a lakeside cocktail party when everybody else was chilly and crowding around the open fire, and so he won them over almost completely. There were a few grouses, from old farts whose money had come from the dirty ragged miners of ’49 or from the sundries and railroad pirates who followed, but in general, the “Tahoe crowd” turned out to be pretty nice people. Alexander wished them well.
He arose each morning and took his little rowboat out onto the lake, nothing violent, just a row before breakfast, and on the third morning wondered why he felt so extremely good. The nights with Teresa were of course magnificent, but there was something lying underneath the surface, some great pleasurable bubble which had yet to burst on his consciousness. It had something to do with Teresa. Of course he loved her, that was not it. Something that was about to be. But what?
Parts of the day were pretty good, too. Teresa had a full schedule, as if she were still in the city, but she had enough free time (or was it planned?) for the two of them to grab a car or Jeep and ride off into the mountains together, babbling about everything under the sun and fucking out on the rocks beneath the tall trees. Still, there was something to happen, some great event about to take place. But what?
When he finally did consent to play tennis, wearing his bathing suit, a narrow slip of blue fabric that barely covered his enlarging buttocks (“You can’t drive a spike with a tack hammer!”) he was a welcome addition to the courts. Alexander played a mean, hard game, and the local players were all pretty much used to each other. It took three days of hard tennis to find out where he fit in. They played on courts from Squaw Valley to the Tahoe Tavern, singles, mixed doubles and men’s doubles, and Alexander became better known for his serve than his wardrobe. And best of all, there turned out to be three locals, at least three, all millionaires (although they did not think of themselves that way) who could clean his clock. At one time, tennis had been important to Alexander and he had played daily, thought about his game, dreamed about his game, but now he played only three or four times a week. sometimes even less. The three millionaire amateurs he enjoyed playing with most were in the same age group and situation as Alexander, all bemoaned their lost youth and dying game, and all played like animals.
These matches drew huge crowds, they were serious business, and he often forgot to wonder what it was his secretly joyful heart was concealing from him.
One evening, there was a dinner, as usual, this time at the home of a Sacramento publisher, and Alexander, as usual, showed up in jeans and a sweater. People had stopped even looking askance at him by now, but to his great delight, the three tennis players he was sure could beat him in the long run, showed up in their informal clothes, slacks and open shirts under tennis sweaters, and the four of them got royally drunk, tried to take out the sailboat tethered in front of the place, sank it and had to be rescued. That was maybe the best of the dinner parties, but the next time he saw his drinking companions they were back in their regular evening wear.
But all friends, fast friends, and many promises to get together “down below,” as the real world was called.
And then it was Alexander’s last day. He and Teresa were alone on a side porch, in the shade. They had just kissed, and a Steller’s jay, a big blue bird with a black head and crest, hopped along the porch rail toward a nut dish. As Alexander watched the jaybird, he knew:
He was not going to ask Teresa to marry him.
He did not want to live among these people. Even half the time, even a quarter of the time, even a week at a time. And he knew he could never get Teresa away from them. It was a different world
, a different life. Alexander was not even sure he had met all the people staying in the same building. He did not want to. They would be polite, they would be rich, from San Francisco or the East, they would exert enormous power, but it was not Alexander’s kind of power. Alexander got down and wrestled in the mud compared to these people.
The joy this caused was because he recognized that he was not, after all, just another jerk searching for respectability. He had been afraid of that, and afraid that Teresa appealed to him so much because she was so respectable.
No, it was actually love.
Alexander beamed proudly at her. “Let’s go to Los Angeles together,” he said.
The jaybird hopped over closer to the nut dish and cocked his head.
“Oh, I can’t,” she said.
“But you must,” he said affectionately. “I’m not through with you.”
“Then stay a few days. Can’t you call your office?”
“Time is money,” he said.
“You’ll be at the office and I’ll be stuck alone. There’s no one in Los Angeles this time of year.”
They negotiated, amid kisses and complaints. Finally it was agreed that Teresa would come down after the following weekend, but only for a few days. Then back to New York.
The jaybird pounced. The nut dish fell off the railing onto the porch and broke. The jawbird squawked and flapped away, and Alexander gave a big, happy laugh.
For months now, he had been suppressing the desire to ask her to marry him. It would have been the worst possible marriage for them both, and Teresa was smart enough to know this, and enough in charge of herself to refuse him. And now he didn’t even have to ask her.
“My dear Teresa,” he said.
“My darling Alexander,” she said.
They held a farewell party for him, and everyone dressed his way. It was sort of a costume party, each one dressing in his or her version of tacky. It was great fun, but Alexander somehow felt sorry for them. Many of them, he was sure, woke up in the morning with the dreadful fear that they were of no use to anyone, and all that kept them from having nothing to do was strict adherence to a schedule. Tennis, lunch, cocktails, extramarital affair, nap, cocktails, opera, dinner, drunk and to bed.
The Hollywood Trilogy Page 54
