The Player

by Michael Tolkin

  “What’s your schedule like?”

  “It’s been so long since I stood you up. Why don’t you come in tomorrow? You want to have lunch?” Griffin wanted to be as nice as possible. What was Danny Ross thinking?

  “Sure.”

  “The Grill? One o’clock?”

  “Sure,” said the bewildered writer.

  Griffin was supposed to have lunch with two producers. He told Jan to have them come to the office at the end of the week. They were friends, it wouldn’t matter.

  Griffin worried that Ross would spread the word that he was losing his mind, but it was such a confusing little story, and he was probably overjoyed to get the meeting, get the lunch!, that he’d forget the circumstances. And it was a good time for Griffin to seek peace with the postcard Writer.

  The studio was quiet. Larry Levy was skiing for the week in Deer Valley, and Griffin watched the painters working on his office. Old bamboo wallpaper was scraped away, the gray industrial carpet was taken out. Griffin stopped by the day that the color was put on, a dusty peach. One of the painters held a pillowcase next to the wall. The pillowcase was almost the same color. He studied it carefully.

  “What do you think?” the painter asked Griffin.

  “About what?” Griffin didn’t understand the question.

  “It’s the guy’s pillowcase, he wanted us to match it. How did we do?”

  “Looks good. What’s going on the floor?”

  “I hear he wants something red.”

  Later Griffin told Jan about the pillowcase, and the next day, at breakfast in the Polo Lounge, Levison told Griffin.

  “It took me a long time to put my own things in an office,” said Levison. “I was always scared of bringing on the evil eye. I wanted an efficient room, nothing too personal or optimistic. You know what I mean? Even if I’d never have a poster on my walls at home, and I could bring in a nice painting or two, I go with posters in the office.”

  “So Larry Levy has a different style. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.”

  “Well, you like that Southwestern stuff. It’s a little precious, but you’re a cool guy, you can pull it off.”

  “And you’re saying Larry Levy can’t?”

  “What I’m saying is, it’s a pillowcase. You can be as individual as you want. He asked me if he could make over the office, and I told him if one of his pictures did well, I’d build him the Taj MahLevy. Griffin, if he liked the color, he could have cut a piece of the material and brought it in. But the whole pillowcase. This boy is getting off to a bad start.”

  “He didn’t want to ruin the pillowcase.”

  “Don’t do this to me.”

  “You can’t have it both ways,” said Griffin.

  “Yes I can.”

  “If you want Larry Levy to shake things up, you have to go with his style. I think he’s being smart. Everything is gray now, or pastel. He wants red, and whether it’s strategic or really aesthetic, he’s not embarrassed.”

  “He should be.” Griffin watched Levison look at him, and he imagined that his thought was complicated. Now Griffin sounded like the true team player; maybe his deference to Levy’s eccentricities signaled his willingness to stay with Levy if Levison was forced out of his job. Griffin saw that Levison regretted an annoyance that was an obvious cover for his own fear of the new kid on the block.

  This is all so subtle, thought Griffin. Again he hated the Writer, who must think that we just sit around patting each other on the back, or that when we stab each other, there’s a ritual joy to the slaughter, an agreement with the victim. Griffin wanted to push the Writer around, scrape his face against rough concrete walls. How dare you, he wanted to say, try to scare me with your feeble murder attempt when you are dealing with a killer. He wanted to see the Writer dying in the bottom of an elevator shaft, he wanted to stand over the Writer with a big gun and ask him if he knew the difference, at this level of the game, between strategy and taste. Did the Writer understand that for Larry Levy, taste was just one arena to play out strategy?

  There was a message at the office that June Mercator had called. What would he say to her? What did she want? Of course, she’s calling to thank me for coming to the funeral. It had been ten days. He would apologize for running out so quickly, but he had a meeting; he knew she’d understand.

  He called her back. A man answered the phone. He sounded old, eighty. What was he, father, uncle? Hers or Kahane’s? June took the phone and then asked Griffin to hold on while she picked up the receiver in another room. He listened while she handed the phone to the old man, and he heard her walk away. Hard shoes on a wood floor. It was an odd sound; what woman wore heels at home, why not softer shoes? Because she was in mourning? Maybe they’d come from the reading of the will. No, luckless writers don’t have wills, who wants their shitty old stereos, their small television sets, their record collections with the years they were flush better represented than the years of no money. And their old college textbooks, room numbers scribbled on the inside jacket.

  “Sorry,” said June Mercator, and the other phone was put back in its cradle in the other room. She was in a quiet room with the door shut, Griffin could tell; she might even be lying down, on a sofa or on the bed. He hoped she was lying down. “I saw you at the funeral.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay, I had a meeting.”

  “Don’t apologize, please. It’s remarkable enough that you came.”

  “Why?” He said this lightly. He knew what she meant—why would a big-time executive go to an obscure funeral?—but he wanted to be careful not to seem insulted. He hoped he sounded a little bewildered by the question, as though good breeding alone would send him.

  “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I mean, it was nice of you to come, you hardly knew him, you didn’t have to.”

  “He was a rare commodity. He was talented.”

  “Was he really?” She wanted to know. There was a sound in her voice that carried this sentence: I used to think so, but I started to doubt. If you, Griffin Mill, tell me my man had talent, I’ll believe you.

  “He needed a break. He needed some luck.”

  “But he was a good writer. I always thought so. That’s why I fell in love with him. His letters, he used to write me letters.”

  “How long were you together?”

  “Six years.”

  “A long time.” Griffin wondered what the call was really about; was there a tactful way to probe? “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

  “They gave me a few weeks off from work at the bank. I don’t know, go back to work when I’m ready. Actually I’m ready today, but I think that if I go back, they’ll be too disturbed. It wouldn’t look good, would it? I should wait.”

  “You do what you have to do,” said Griffin.

  “But won’t everyone think I’m horrible if I go back to work? Don’t they want me to stay away? Aren’t I a little threatening to them now?”

  “Why?”

  “I remind them of death.”

  It was natural for her to call him; hadn’t he been the last person to see Kahane alive? That was no small connection. And the short conversation with her, when she’d told him where to find Kahane, hadn’t they played with each other so nicely? Friendship was fated. Maybe even love. If he hadn’t killed Kahane, would he have pursued this woman, anyway, sight unseen? It could have been a false match.

  He was stigmatized, too. Jan, Stuckel, the police—wasn’t everyone fascinated with him just because he had seen a dead man right before he had died? He would force himself to remember that he was not a suspect when they asked him lots of questions. The questions were natural. Griffin wanted to ask a question. There was really only one thing he wanted to know about June Mercator. The unasked question filled him with a kind of steam; the pressure to ask it grew. He wanted to know if she’d see him. More: He wanted to go to bed with her. But what did he want to ask, right now, ask and be done with questions? He wanted to know if she would go to b
ed with him. He could never tell Bonnie Sherow he had slept with the widow of the man he had murdered. Not widow, but the same thing.

  He heard June Mercator repeat a question.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “my secretary just handed me a note.” The pressure blocked his ears. It didn’t matter what June looked like. It didn’t matter if she had bags under her eyes.

  “Well, that’s all I really called for, anyway, to thank you for coming.”

  “Business can wait, June.” He’d never said her name out loud. It felt odd, stolen, like sitting at a coffee-shop counter and nibbling the food off a stranger’s plate. “You were asking me a question.”

  “I asked if the police had said anything to you, if they knew anything more.”

  “Have they said anything to you?”

  “No, but I thought maybe since you’re, well, who you are, that maybe they’ll extend some kind of courtesy and keep you posted.”

  “I’m sorry, no. Maybe they will, I’ll let you know, but they haven’t said anything, not yet.” He drew out his answer. He wanted to keep talking, he didn’t want her to hang up, how could he approach her again?

  “Well, then, thanks, and … good-bye.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t want to hang up, either, he could tell. It was obvious. They were lingering over the good-bye like two people who’ve met in a museum and are negotiating the next half hour, that crucial time to have a drink and either say good-bye or mess up each other’s lives for six months. It was on his shoulders.

  “Keep in touch,” he said. He meant it.

  “Yes, thank you.” End of conversation. Would she?

  He tried to remember her face, and improve it if he could. How did she compare to Bonnie Sherow? Thin Bonnie with her long dark hair. She was sort of perfect. She always knew what to wear, she always looked cool and dry, as though she spent her life in air-conditioning, as though nothing were a threat to her. And she had such an aura of competence. What was there to love, really? Once or twice he had seen a gulf between her polished character and something else, as though she were watching herself and wasn’t happy with what she saw. In those moments he loved her.

  If he had been a girl, what kind of woman would he be now? he wondered. An unloved woman driving a five-year-old Honda Civic she bought used, always the friend, never the center of the story, living in an apartment, all of her friends living in apartments, not knowing anyone who owns a house, saving up all year for a week at a Club Med? Would he become ugly because no one loved him? Ugly like a failed movie?

  It bothered him that his thoughts so often returned to Bonnie Sherow. Was it a sign of love? He didn’t think he loved her. He owed her nothing, they hadn’t even eaten a meal together in weeks, and still he felt like he was cheating on her when he imagined a night with June Mercator. He picked up the phone to have Jan call Bonnie, then dialed her number himself, because he didn’t want Jan asking him about her.

  Her secretary said she was on another line and asked if Griffin wanted to wait. He said he did. He didn’t recognize the secretary’s voice; she was new. She must not have known who he was; otherwise, she would have said, “I’ll tell her you’re calling.” He wasn’t used to waiting on the phone. The secretary came back after at least a minute.

  “She’ll be right with you.”

  Then she was on the line.

  When she said hello, he was sorry he had called, her voice was too warm, too happy, to hear from him. The part that was too friendly was stirred by a few molecules of discomfort. She wanted something from him. He thought that this combination of warmth and awkwardness, embarrassment, might force him to marry her, the way two strangers who meet at a wedding buffet and don’t particularly like each other but, held in the thrall of good manners, are forced to strike up a certain kind of already familiar, smile-filled conversation and wind up married a few years later.

  Griffin said hello to Bonnie. “I just want you to know this isn’t a business call. I miss you.” He knew he sounded like he was reading his lines, If she felt the insincerity, maybe she’d finally let him go.

  “I miss you, too.”

  “It’s this business, it’s impossible.”

  “You’ll never quit. You love it.”

  “You think so?” He liked it when he could talk about himself as though he were out of the room.

  “Come on, Griffin, you’re a natural at this, you know that.”

  “Yeah, maybe I do.” What were they saying? Why?

  “I have to go to New York for a while, maybe a few weeks. Can you get away?”

  “Not right now.”

  “When does Larry Levy show up?” Her tone said she was kidding, that he had no competition.

  “You think I can’t take a break until things are settled with Levy?” He wished he could say, You believe in me, don’t you? He couldn’t.

  “I hear he’s painting his walls red.”

  “The carpet is red, and he’s not coming on any way at all, he’s skiing. And what’s this trip to New York?”

  “They want me to see a few plays, and there’s a book they’d like to buy, but the publisher is only letting one person into the room at a time, to read the book, and then come back with an offer. Sealed bids, one bid only.”

  “And the studio is sending you to make the bid?” Suddenly he was jealous of her.

  “To read the book. I need to call them before I get a blank check.”

  “Ohhh,” he said, immediately regretting the sliminess of his envy, delivered in a W. C. Fields drawl, but it was too late to stop his sentence, he was falling into it. “So you’re back to writing coverage.” He meant this to hurt.

  “Griffin, that’s mean. This is a real responsibility.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. This is a big step.”

  “Well then, you have to get the book. It doesn’t matter if the movie is made, it doesn’t matter if the movie isn’t made, it doesn’t matter if the movie is made and only three people pay to see it. You have to get the book.” He didn’t completely believe this, but the compulsion to derail Bonnie’s career was too strong. If the studio spent half a million on her recommendation and then had to hire a writer at a quarter of a million, because no one less expensive would do, and the book was unadaptable, too interior, then someone might remember that all that money had been given away because Bonnie Sherow had taken a shot at the first target on the range. Someone would remember. Someone always remembers.

  “But what if the book is terrible? What if I think it’s a waste of money? Do you know how high the bidding could go?”

  “Five hundred thousand.” Now he was telling her how much to bid, and he was pretty sure that no other studio would go higher than three. If it was a million-dollar book, they wouldn’t send Bonnie Sherow. They’d send someone at his level.

  “Wait, why am I telling this to you? You could be in on this. Are you? I can’t believe I’m telling you about this. I must be incredibly self-destructive.”

  “Now do you see why we can’t get married?”

  “Griffin, is that a proposal?”

  He supposed it was. He had to stop this. “But don’t worry, I haven’t heard anything about a big book.”

  “And you’re not going to go after it now?”

  “No.”

  “We could make a great team.” Griffin heard someone else come into her office. Bonnie covered the phone with her hand and then came back after a few seconds.

  “You have to go,” said Griffin.

  “Yes. I’ll call when I know I’m coming back, and we’ll get together then. Promise. Wish me luck. And thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For a little strategy.” He could imagine the wink that went along with that. The phone call was over. He had made her happy and he had hurt her. Did Levison ever sidetrack him with the same display of affection? Was there anyone in the world whose motives were pure?

  And what if she bo
ught the book and the movie was made and it did well? She wasn’t strong enough to fight for that kind of credit; her part in the process would be lost in the lights. Or was that only his wish, wasn’t she that strong now? Would they have sent her if they didn’t have confidence in her? If he was going to marry, ever, wasn’t she a good choice? Who else could he marry? He had to marry in the business; otherwise, he would only be half there, and people who married out of the business were admitting failure, were admitting that there was something lacking in their lives. Yes, he thought, success. He could marry an agent, but as long as he was at a studio, his power would be difficult for her; it’s easier sometimes to help friends than family. He could marry a lawyer, someone who worked in-house, or from one of the big firms, but he was a little scared of their security; no matter how much authority he had now, he didn’t know if he was one of the elect who would run the town when he was sixty, and there was no reason a good lawyer couldn’t hang around and just get richer and richer. So he couldn’t marry a lawyer because of doubts for his future.

  Would marrying Bonnie Sherow be marrying himself, a less aggressive version? Once in a while he would go to a party, or dinner at someone’s house, and there’d be a few friends from outside the industry—bankers, doctors, the occasional art dealer. Sometimes there would be a single woman in the group who had been brought there for him to consider. He didn’t. He hated to explain what he did, and they always asked. They wanted to know about Hollywood. He resented it when they asked for gossip, he was annoyed by their superiority when they didn’t. Maybe it was boredom. They bored him. Maybe he bored them. Of course, they’d been prepped to meet him, and if they were cool, then they saw him as an interesting man with an interesting job, the kind of job held by, what, twenty people in the whole country? Sometimes they didn’t know what to talk about with him; maybe they were afraid to talk about whatever interested them. It was just as well, their interests weren’t his. They were civilians. He could never marry a civilian. They didn’t love the movies the way he did. They asked, “Why does Hollywood make such awful movies, why must it pander to the lowest common denominator, why does it persist in making movies that demean us all?” They liked movies from Europe. They couldn’t enjoy an American action movie, but let the Japanese copy a Western and they tripped over themselves adoring it. Creeps. Film buffs. Pear-shaped morons with their shirts buttoned to the collar, whining about the cinema. Their fucking cinema was subsidized by government television stations; it was all a European scam to pretend to America that someone else had real culture. And their precious little negative stories failed over here the way they failed over there. Griffin saw it all as a giant circle jerk, phonies with prissy taste, with their Saabs, and here he realized that David Kahane was as much of a loser as the Writer, their precious European taste and their precious taste for old movies, against the big virile American public, those millions who create the movie stars, who demand polish, who demand emotional roller coasters, big laughs, big explosions, big tears. He avoided civilians because he’d heard their arguments, and he guessed that the Writer was part of the same nagging mob, people who resist entertainment out of fear that if they like it, they’ll be mistaken for slobs. Yes, the Writer was a civilian, he was one of them.