The Hollywood Trilogy

by Don Carpenter

  HIS PLEASURE deepened as the audience settled down and began to pay attention to the picture. The attentiveness was a good sign. Alexander waited for the first big joke:

  KINGSLEY

  I don’t like your attitude, Marlowe . . .

  MARLOWE

  That’s all right. I’m not selling it.

  KINSLEY IS STUNNED.

  The audience loved it. They always love to see pomposity punctured. And the timing was good—the laughter lasted about as long as Kerry held on Kingsley’s take, and then things flowed on. Alexander slumped down in the seat as he had when he was a kid and knew the movie was going to be good.

  Well, what are you? his mind asked him. Never mind the picture in front of him—he had seen every frame half a dozen times, and the audience was completely in Kerry’s hands. What about you? Fat-rumped, lazy, rolling over the hill, sex drive gone, bored with the perks and privileges . . . here was the perfect time of life to join ranks with the Hollywood Old Guard, those happy, smiling, cardboard millionaires who have nothing to do every day but go down to their offices and make life tough for their yes-men. “I’m writing a book, developing a property, eliminating hog pellagra, making the desert bloom; I’m having lunch, seeing my doctor, playing pinochle, getting to bed early, deflowering virgins and lying awake until five a.m., in the vast mistiness of my silk sheets, waiting for hell to define itself . . . I’m flashy at the benefit and the whole world knows my friends, I’ve got six cars. I’m hot stuff, with a Presidential Citation and a basement full of Krugerrands. When I walk in the front door of a restaurant the headwaiter commits suicide in my honor . . . I’m the guy who . . . Who what?

  He thought about Teresa, not here tonight, busy in New York. He knew what she and Kerry were doing when they came around that blind curve, he knew his Teresa pretty well, grabbing Kerry by his dick and whispering hot nonsense in his ear, Kerry so hot his eyes about to come out of his head. And then coming around that curve, seeing those faces . . .

  Teresa, brave bitch. He wished . . . well, he did not want to wish. He wanted his life back. But that wasn’t going to happen. It was going to go on this way, and he would dry up and everybody would start telling him how good he looked. Which never seemed to come up in the conversation unless you looked half-dead . . .

  MILLIONAIRE SUICIDE

  Unbearable Ennui Cited

  Well, no, he would not throw it away. They were going to have to pry it from his fingers.

  The audience was roaring with laughter, and Alexander joined them. What the hell, we probably have a hit on our hands, let’s enjoy it!

  Little did he know how soon he would begin the enjoyment, little did he know. After the picture ended, everyone in the house half exhausted from the fun of it all, fools who did not know any better were crowding around him with their red-faced congratulations. Elektra made her way to him, and he bent down to hear what she had to say, putting his big paw on her tiny shoulder:

  “Uh, can I stay at your place tonight?”

  He looked his question and she said, “I was just hanging around long enough to see if he’d be all right. He’ll be all right. You gotta hit here for sure.”

  Good old Elektra, hermit crab, darting from shell to shell. “Of course, my dear,” he said fondly.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JERRY REXFORD watched Boss Hellstrom hold the door open for the exquisitely beautiful Elektra Soong, and felt a pang of jealousy. He wondered where they were going. Probably to a party Jerry hadn’t been invited to, even though he was currently working on a project for Hellstrom. He knew Hollywood better now, although it continued to mystify him and always would. He just wondered why he was so terribly depressed. There was no reason for it, except perhaps the butchered movie he had just seen.

  But he should have felt wonderfully elated, because the audience had loved it and the commercial prospects were rosy. Jerry was working again, had money in the bank, a reasonably active sex life, why the long face? He looked around the lobby. Here were the Harrises, Richard and his wife, Barbara, even Toby, and Helen from the donut shop, all here to see Jerry triumph, to see him hobnobbing with the likes of Eric Tennyson and Joanne Clay. And it had all worked out the way Jerry dreamed it, with Eric sweeping him up after the picture was over and carrying him into the mob surrounding the Tennysons, and introducing him to Joanne Clay, who kissed him on the cheek and said, brightly, “You’re a fine writer!”

  Jerry could not help sneaking a look at Barbara, across the lobby. Yes, she had seen the kiss.

  Barbara was with a man in a cheap business suit that looked about fifty-five inches around the waist. Probably her new boyfriend. Jerry had to grin to himself at the image of this tub of lard huffing down Ventura Boulevard in a gigantic grey sweatsuit, trying to catch up to the woman of his dreams.

  The gang from the U-court where Jerry lived had left in a body the minute the picture was done. They were not hanging around like a bunch of civilians who had never seen a movie star. They were all over at the Hamburger Hamlet having hot apple pie and ice cream. Jerry was expected to join them but he doubted if he could swallow even one mouthful.

  While Jerry was bent over the drinking fountain he heard Toby’s voice behind him saying, “This is the guy I was tellin’ you about.” He turned, wiping the water from his chin, and saw Toby with a slim young oriental-looking kid with a hairline mustache and a bored expression in his flat black eyes. Jerry barely heard the name and forgot it immediately. The kid’s handshake was limp and moist and unpleasant.

  “How ya doin’?” Toby wanted to know.

  “Well, you know,” Jerry said.

  “The picture was swell,” Toby said without much conviction.

  “Thanks,” Jerry said.

  “Look, there’s Helen from the donut shop,” Toby said. “You really spread them comps around.”

  Jerry saw Helen by the door to the men’s room with a tall, mean-looking boy with greasy long hair and a black leather jacket. The boyfriend, she called him.

  Rick Heidelberg came out of the men’s room, looked around, saw Jerry and headed their way. Jerry was relieved that Toby and his friend moved off before Rick got there.

  “Hello, my friend,” Rick said to him. “How’d you like the picture?”

  “Great, just great, Rick,” he said, looking Rick right in the eye. Rick was not his friend, and had never been his friend. “Have you seen my old lady?”

  “No,” Jerry said, looking him right in the eye.

  “Maybe she went out to the car,” he said. The limos were all pulled up in a row outside, and a crowd of civilians, including Barbara and her boyfriend, were watching.

  Rick grinned at Jerry and punched him lightly on the arm. “You feel like shit, right?”

  Jerry nodded.

  “You’ll get over it. Just think, in a year or so, you can sue the studio for your points.” Rick was being so charming Jerry could not help laughing. And then Rick was gone, and he turned to see Helen coming up to him, alone.

  “You like the show?” he asked her cheerfully.

  “Oh, I loved it!” she said, looking at him worshipfully, fondly, and—could it be?—erotically.

  With a thrill, Jerry said, “Uh, you want to get together later?”

  “Um, sure, just let me ditch the boyfriend,” she said, and blushed beautifully.

  They would meet in two hours, at his place. Jerry felt a squirm of pleasure as she carefully wrote down his address and apartment number and even his telephone number “just in case.” She was really going to do it. She tossed him a last wonderful smile and went to find her boyfriend. Heigh ho, Jerry thought, another of life’s little mysteries. Was it because he had sent her the invitation? Because his name was up there on the screen with the others? Because she had always liked him and he had been too dense to see it? Made no difference. At least he didn’t feel sad anymore. Time for coffee with his friends at the Hamburger Hamlet.

  Jerry walked out of the theater, past the still-loading l
imousines and the herd of onlookers, his head down, his hands in his pockets. He trudged along, avoiding his reflection in the Westwood store windows, avoiding contact with the swarms of young people out on this typically warm Los Angeles night. The young people avoided him, too, and once Jerry had to laugh as he heard the words “option the property” drifting through the night. So that was what they learned at the film schools! It was all such a screwing. Jerry hoped the young student whose property was being optioned had his feet firmly on the ground, because it could get hairy. Jerry knew, now. Jerry knew the extraordinary velocity that had to be achieved to leave Los Angeles and enter Hollywood. Escape velocity.

  Well, Jerry had achieved escape velocity and was a member in good standing of the Hollywood community, Guild card and all, saddle sores and brand marks, floundered, blown out, run hard and put away wet, ah, never switch metaphors in the middle of a thought. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. But he felt a lot more like a broken horse than a rocket ship. The movie, which he had supposed would make him feel kingly, parental and proud, only made him sad and disappointed. Almost betrayed. And it was even worse that the audience seemed to love it, and did not miss Jerry’s best efforts. Jerry had to grudgingly admire Dardenelle’s way of developing a scene, of making a lot more of it than appeared to be there, but to counterbalance this, Jerry’s heart sank when he heard the way the actors delivered the lines. Obviously the performers, even the most experienced, would do anything to keep the camera pointed at themselves, and would drag out their speeches or business until Jerry wanted to scream. But nobody else in the theater seemed to notice; in fact, they all loved the way Eric Tennyson would drawl out his lines, and it was obvious, even to Jerry, that Tennyson was going to be the most successful Marlowe since Bogart.

  Well, that was all right. Jerry liked Eric Tennyson pretty much, more than the rest of the picture company put together. Tennyson and only Tennyson treated Jerry with any respect after the production got rolling.

  “Oh, yer the writer, huh?” was his normal greeting when introduced to somebody on the set. If a technician, the person would become immediately impatient and nervous, and soon would get away from Jerry, as if they had been told he had a fatal disease. If a performer, they would either ask Jerry unforgivable questions about the script, or would beg him to write a part for them in his next movie.

  Jerry was stunned at first by the fact that nobody wanted his comments on the script except the performers, and they were forbidden to ask him. This was the director’s job, Jerry was told, and division of authority could be fatal. So instead of lording around the set, as he had imagined, he skulked, fearful that he would be barred. After a while, no one paid any attention to him.

  The truth was, he had no business on the set, because there was nothing for him to do. The script was finished but the picture was just beginning. There were daily changes, of course, front-office changes, which never seemed to stop, and changes coming from Kerry Dardenelle, who, because of his recent tragedy, could not be argued with, and spent every night in his mystery apartment, making changes, changes, changes.

  At first, Jerry had been invited to take part in the preproduction madness, and invited to production meetings, but instead of being a leading figure in these meetings, Jerry sat in the background, hugging his knees and listening to the incomprehensible conversations around him, having to do with the number of trucks, who was available, costs-per-diem, far more often than with the business of nailing down the script for once and for all.

  And when Jerry was included, it was often not to his liking. In fact, it was like being whipped on the face with a wire coat hanger. Production people do not like writers. Writers make all the trouble. Mountains have to be moved. Expensive sets built. Large numbers of cars destroyed.

  “Why does Degarmo have to run off the cliff?” Jerry was asked at a meeting, by the production supervisor, an irascible swarthy man named Dellorio. Everyone looked at Jerry impatiently. Rick Heidelberg seemed to have a gleam of humor, but nobody else. Looking at Rick for confirmation, Jerry said, “That’s what happens in the book.”

  Dellorio sighed. “It’s gonna cost us a lot of money, that scene.”

  Somebody suggested that the character should, instead of driving off a cliff, run into a tree.

  “What’s the advantage of that?” Jerry wanted to know.

  Easier to control, he was told. And so over the first few weeks he learned that most of the people on the project were not devoted to getting the script on the screen, but were devoted to making a picture, any picture, so long as it was cheap.

  It was a shock to Jerry, something he brooded about in his little office, where more and more he was being left to sit with nothing to do. Things were booming, actors swarming the offices for readings, but Jerry was not invited. So he brooded, and more often than not, when Rick Heidelberg or anybody else did ask his opinion, he would deliver it with curt sarcasm.

  “What, you’re asking the writer?”

  Then the production got under way, and Eric Tennyson came into Jerry’s life.

  On the first day of shooting, everybody was excited, and Jerry got a sense of what it must be like to be in charge of the spending of millions of dollars. On the first day of principal photography, as they called it, the floodgates of money opened and the blood began to flow without the possibility of stanching it. There was a conscious sense of relaxation on the set that Jerry recognized with a thrill as the highest kind of tension, as people went about their work in a polite calm that was the descendant of many bloody battles, destroyed careers, mortally wounded productions; the war between the need to save time and the need for human beings to be treated decently at work.

  As Jerry watched the lighting being set up, Eric came up to him out of the shadows.

  “Jerry Rexford, you wrote one hell of a fine screenplay, and I thank you. You pulled my ass right out of the soup.”

  “Thank you very much,” Jerry said, reddening.

  “Just don’t let the shits get to you,” Eric said with a grin.

  It was obvious that Eric, the old hand, was scared to death. How he could stand there and talk to Jerry was more than Jerry could understand. Under his makeup the man looked as if he needed to vomit. Jerry did not mention this.

  Then the setup was complete, the camera in place, all the vast emptiness of the sound stage concentrated into this circle of hot light. Kerry Dardenelle came around a corner with a dozen people trailing him. He came right up to Eric, who was still standing next to Jerry.

  The two men shook hands warmly, and then, as an afterthought, Kerry shook Jerry’s hand. But his eyes were on Eric.

  “Let’s begin,” he said in an oddly reverent voice, and the two men walked into the middle of the light.

  Jerry looked around, moved by what was about to happen, the first film of a new motion picture. In a moment, Eric Tennyson was going to become Philip Marlowe. But first Eric had to help the young girl who was playing the switchboard operator. She was having some personal panic, and while thousands and thousands of dollars flowed helplessly through the hands of the producers, Eric chatted quietly with the girl.

  The set glittered magnificently under its lights. It represented the lobby entrance to a perfume company and was filled with displays of perfume bottles and Art Deco furnishings. Jerry looked upon the set proudly, for he had fought like the devil for it. One day he had been told by Richard Heidelberg that the perfume lobby was “out of the picture” and, stunned, he asked why.

  “Because it’s a pain in the ass,” Rick said. “We start with Marlowe in Kingsley’s office, blam, L.A. out the window, and that saves us you don’t know how much money.”

  It seemed Rick was more concerned these days about money than about the picture. All those little perfume bottles. A label would have to be designed—design fee—the shelves would have to be designed, the furniture picked out—all in all, Rick made it sound like an awesome task.

  “But in the book,” Jerry said weakly.

&
nbsp; “Fuck the book,” Rick said. “Why blow all that money for a set we use for about three seconds?”

  They argued about it for weeks, on and off, and it had a lot to do with the cooling between Rick and Jerry, Jerry thought, although it was not Jerry but the director, Kerry Dardenelle, who put the scene back in the movie.

  “What do you need it for?” Rick asked the director, in front of Jerry. They were all standing in Rick’s secretary’s office.

  “Give me a break,” Dardenelle said dryly. And the scene was back on the production board.

  Jerry had been a little mystified at the time, but now he could see it. The director wanted something to play with, something flashing and glittering, to jack up the feeling here at the beginning of the film. It was not just slavish adherence to the book, as it had been for Jerry. Nor was it just for the camera, he thought, as he looked at Eric in costume on the set. Here’s shabby but neat old Phil Marlowe in among these shining bottles, these walls of glass . . .

  Eric had the girl calmed down now, and they were chatting easily. As if by secret signal, Dardenelle returned to the set, and everyone else took their positions. Jerry, along with many others, did not have a position, and so just stood out of the way.

  The hush fell.

  Sound rolled, camera rolled, the clacker clacked.

  Jerry felt a welling of pleasure inside himself, intense pleasure, which he was absolutely certain everyone on the set shared.

  “Action,” said Kerry in the mildest of voices.

  Tears came to Jerry’s eyes, and he quickly backed away into the darkness, hoping no one had seen him.

  But he needn’t have worried. All eyes were on Eric Tennyson.

  THEN THINGS got very bad very fast. Jerry had been living in a dream world. He had been thinking of himself as a member of the picture company. He came in to his little office every day, but most of the time he had nothing to do, and when he was brought into script-change conferences he was told rather than asked about the changes. Oh, from time to time he would be given little chores to do like rewriting runbys, a horribly boring business of setting up on paper a series of scenes in which nothing happens but a vehicle goes past: