As I milled about, not being invited to mingle, a snatch or two of conversation would rise above the din of what used to be called cocktail chatter, and now could only be referred to as wine walla.
“Hollywood is sick of paying the Stallones, the Willis, the Carreys. That’s got to be the push behind animated features. I mean, does anyone really want to work on fucking fairy tales?” said a producer who used to be a studio head who used to be an agent who used to be written about.
“His problem is he wears his heart on his sleeve,” said one well groomed guy fingering an unlit cigar.
“That’s not his heart. That’s snot from wiping his nose,” said another well-groomed guy.
Just beyond them I saw the big hulking frame of Bernie Green. His name had been Greenblatt but he had changed it in college in a horrible case of misdirection. It’s his first name he should have changed. Bernie was the president of production for Brookman & Bloom, a company that had started in personal management, moved into TV production for their clients, mostly hot comics, and was now becoming a burgeoning force in feature films. Bernie had once called me, through Norton, about a job. I met with him and found him particularly stupid and the job he wanted me to do particularly vile. I turned him down. Which agitated him greatly. He started screaming that he would put the word out on me, and then he threatened me with “You’ll never work in this town again!” Then I slugged him very hard in his big, squishy stomach. He doubled up. I clasped my hands together and pile drove them down onto his bowed head. I used as my excuse the fact that I hate clichés, and told him so as he sprawled, groaning, on the floor.
I thought it would be amusing to get near Bernie and see if he recognized me through my disguise.
“Did you hear about the bombing in Kansas City?” Bernie was saying to a group, as I got close. “How many dead? Hundreds? That’s the way the country is going, one tragedy after another, but you know, for us, it’s good because we make comedies and people are going to want escapism. I mean you really should buy stock in our company.”
“Can I shoot him?” Roee’s voice came in over the tiny earphone I was wearing.
“He’s gay, you know,” I said quietly in response.
“I don’t care.”
“And Jewish, I believe.”
“Yes, I know, I know exactly who and what he is. Brings no credit to either my race, or my religion, or my sexual preference. Can I shoot him?”
“Not tonight. Maybe later.”
“Promise?”
“If you’re good and eat all your pork. Oh, this looks interesting.” I had noticed a tall, neatly bearded man about forty-five, a charitable contributor to the future of Italian tailoring, in an intense discussion with a beautiful woman in her twenties whose body demanded to be heard behind the preshrunk cotton. I passed close enough to catch:
“But I don’t want to come between you and your wife,” she was saying.
“Hey, you can’t come between us, if I only have you on the side,” he responded.
I thought it best to move on to a group where a young man was pitching an idea.
“I want to make a film about a serial killer who is killing all the great people in Hollywood.”
“Must be a short film,” Roee editorialized.
“Must be a short film,” I said popping my head into the group.
“Hey! That was my line!”
The group looked at me, unamused. I quickly passed. “You can have it,” I quietly said to Roee. “What a stinker.”
“It wasn’t the joke. It was the delivery.”
Off in a corner, standing in front of a huge poster for War of the Wimps, George Christy was interviewing Larry Lapham for his “Great Life” column in The Hollywood Reporter. One of the last entertainment reporters with an old fashioned sense of show biz, Christy was going on about the reassessment of Lapham’s work by Robert Jordan, obviously willing to spread the word. Lapham did not seem displeased and stood there smiling, which, unfortunately, emphasized his overbite. “He-yuck!” I could almost hear Goofy exclaim.
Moving on I soon heard: “The only way you could get him to sit down and read a script is if he had diarrhea for three days running.”
“Yeah, but then he would probably wipe himself with pages from it.”
I passed that one quickly, finding myself close by Bernie Green again, who was now talking about a major radio personality just moving into film.
“He’ll never be a big movie star because he has admitted over the air to having a small penis.”
I moved between Bernie and the two-story glass window before Roee could get off a shot.
Then the elevator doors opened and Don Gulden arrived. He was about 5’7” and thin in that way that angered anyone who wasn’t. He was wearing a dark gray suit that leaned towards Armani, but not far enough to hide its fake Italian, discount store origins. His hair was longish and combed straight back, but with the sides falling forward enough to allow him the occasional brush back with his hand that he probably thought was sexy. He had no facial hair showing. Whether from meticulous shaving or insubstantial hormones, it was hard to tell.
Gulden gave his invitation to the attractive Lapham assistant who sat at a table right by the elevator. He looked both cocky and nervous at the same time. Getting the invitation must have been a surprise. He handed it over to the assistant as if he believed it was forged and he would be caught at any moment, but she just looked at it, smiled and waved him into the lobby. He moved cautiously at first; looking and looking to be seen. He and a young female agent caught each other’s eyes. They love-danced towards each other and came together, the female going to kiss him but stopped by Gulden, who then allowed her to kiss his cheeks. He did not return the kiss. She was not insulted by this and, indeed, displayed quick compassion—and not a little admiration—as she stared at his lips.
I wanted to watch him for a while before I made contact. What I knew about him from the digital text in the computer was typical. Twenty-seven, graduate of an Ivy League college, started five years ago as an assistant to a director-actor based in New York, with a snobbish pride in all that. Considers himself somewhat literary, although his real tastes tend towards alternative comic books—many balloon boobs; much graphic violence. He came to Hollywood when Sara Hutton offered him a VP position in development. She had been having a hard time staffing Olympic, as most people felt it was on its way out. It was an offer too good to pass up, so he came. He had a reputation of being eager to please his bosses—as it is nicely put—and of trying to build a reputation as “Artist Friendly.” He was not succeeding in the latter, but he was trying.
Gulden had moved on from the female agent and was standing with Bernie Green. They probably knew each other well as Brookman & Bloom had a first-look deal at Olympic. I moved closer to hear what Gulden had to say.
“Look, Bernie, the writer just hasn’t cracked Chimp’s Holiday yet. I mean, think of The Iliad, think of Ulysses traveling around the sea there for all those years, trying to get home, but he keeps getting waylaid, but he learns from that, doesn’t he? So there’s got to be something there we can use for Chimp’s Holiday. I mean, when a man is turned into a monkey, what does he learn by that? What does being a monkey, living in the essence of monkey-ness teach him?”
“Yeah! Yeah! That’s the question, what does he learn?”
Gulden took in a quick, deep breath, started to talk, started to raise his right finger to point out the what, then froze for a beat before saying, “I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.”
Gulden had an affected accent, a careful, drawn out style of enunciation, like he was in a bad play about the old guard upper crust in upstate New York, or maybe it was just a carefulness imposed on him by the pain from two small, not quite healed sores on his lips. This explained his no kissing policy—at least, no kissing at the moment.
As Green and Gulden separated, I approached Gulden.
“Mr. Gulden?” I said in a soft voice with just the hin
t of a twang in it.
“Yes?” He was, of course, confused. I did not look like a man he needed to know.
“My name is Tom McCabe from McCabe & Wilde. Have you heard of us?”
“No, sorry. Are you a lawyer?”
“No. We’re an executive recruitment firm. Headhunters. We work very quietly, but we place about 45% of all executives in the motion picture business.”
“Oh.” His interest had been piqued.
“Now, I know you’re very happy right now at Olympic, but—”
“I could be happier,” he said with all the drooling-tongue eagerness of a neophyte canine when the Puppy Chow is opened.
“Well, then I really would like a few minutes of your time. If we could just move over to those chairs.” I pointed to two unoccupied chairs on the far end of the lobby that faced the floor-to-ceiling glass window that looked out to Washington Boulevard and the Sony lot across the street. Lapham had been instructed to place the two chairs there, and to keep the flow of the party focused on the opposite end. He had done a good job. No one was in that area. I walked Gulden over, offering him the closest chair, which he sat at. I naturally crossed behind him to get to the other chair. As I did I casually and slowly brushed his hair with my right hand, twirling a lock of it around my forefinger. He felt something and started to react, but I placed my left hand down hard on his left shoulder and pinched with force while quickly tightening the twirl around my finger, pulling hard as I leaned down and whispered, resonant and raspy, into his ear, “Don’t even say, ‘Ouch,’ or you’ll be dead in flash.”
“What the—?”
I yanked on the lock of hair, pulling his head back. “Look! Over there, across the street, what do you see? What do you see on top of the Sony billboards?”
Gulden looked, but said nothing at first. I pulled harder. “Ah—ah—a man.”
“That’s right, there’s a man up there. Good friend of mine. He’s got something in his hands. Do you see that? Can you see what it is?”
Between sweat and tears he managed to make it out. “A—a rifle?” He was reluctant to admit it.
“It’s a Galil Sniping Rifle with a telescopic scope. His father gave it to him. He loves that rifle. He’s very good with it. You might notice he’s aiming it this way. If you could look through the scope—you would see your sweating self. Now let me tell you what’s going to happen if you make any sudden moves; if you make any noise I don’t like, or if you refuse to answer my questions. My friend, who, by the way, can hear everything we’re saying, my friend will pull the trigger on his beloved Galil Sniping Rifle, and a round—known to you amateurs as a bullet—a round will leave its nineteen brothers in the magazine, spin through the rifled barrel, leave the muzzle at a velocity of 2,674 feet per second, shatter this wonderful plate glass window in front of us and slam into your chest, bursting your heart.”
“Why—why are you doing this?” The fear was intense; pungent.
“Why do any of us do what we do for amusement? I mean, why do people watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island? There’s a modicum of pleasure in it, I suppose.” I tugged on his lock again. “Now keep your eye on my friend across the street and answer my questions. What’s it called?”
“Wh—wh—what’s what called?”
“It! It! The most important ‘It’ in your life right now, right? What’s it called, Gulden? Is it the Order of the Golden Arse? The Union of the Golden Arse? The Golden Arse Association? Maybe the Society of the Golden Arse? The League of the Golden Arse? The Fellowship of the Golden Arse? The Federation of the Golden Arse? The Golden Arse Guild? The Benevolent And Protective Order of the Golden Arse? What the fuck is it called?”
“H—h—how did you know…?”
“I know a lot. What I don’t know you’re going to fill in the gaps! Now what is it called?!”
“Th—the Communion—the Communion of the Golden Arse.”
“The Communion of the Golden Arse,” I repeated. “Sounds inviting. By the look of your lips, I take it you’ve just been initiated into this communion of—like thinkers.”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve kissed the Golden Arse?”
“Yes.”
“When did Sara Hutton start this little club?”
“I—I—”
“My guess is at Yale. Good guess?”
“Yeah.”
“So how big is it now? Lots of industry people, not just Olympic employees?”
There was a hint of reluctance. I tightened the twirl. Something close to a whimper came out.
“I almost heard that,” I said. “I hope the microphone didn’t pick it up. How many?”
“About—about twenty.”
“Any heads of other studios?”
“No, just some VPs, and some other development and production executives. Some agents, and readers. There’s about five or six readers.”
“Up-and-comers with futures?”
“Yeah?”
“How does Max figure into the Communion of the Golden Arse?”
There was just that one-second beat before he answered. That one-second of a flash thought, silent, yet so loud. “Who?”
“Max!” I whispered a scream in Gulden’s ear while I yanked the twirl.
“Ow!” Gulden said, cutting it short.
“Are you still looking at my friend? He heard that. It upset him. Hell, I can feel his finger itch from here! Maxwellton James!”
“He—he pays for—he pays—”
“Finances the group?”
“Yeah, and—and—”
“Helps shape the philosophy? Because you do, don’t you, you’re little communion has a philosophy?”
“Yeah. Philosophy.”
“This industry retreat Sara Hutton hosted a while back. It was a meeting of the Communion of the Golden Arse, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s when you were initiated, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And is that where Bea Cherbourg died?”
Silence.
“Are you looking at my friend?” I pulled down on his hair, raising his eyes again.
“Ye—yes.”
“He’s not hearing you. Is that where Bea Cherbourg died?”
Silence. A stream of sweat.
“You are an accessory to murder.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“She died there, but she….”
“She what?”
“She wasn’t murdered.”
“Do you really think Sara will reward you if you cover up—”
“Sara didn’t kill her!”
It was stated too emphatically to be a lie. “Max?”
“No.”
“Gulden, we keep talking about death in the past tense. It’s going to be present tense momentarily if you don’t tell me who killed Bea Cherbourg.”
“No one killed her. She killed herself!”
This was shocking, I must admit. It was a shocking thing to have heard. “She killed herself?”
“She—she—she wouldn’t let go. I mean she couldn’t let go of the Golden Arse. She couldn’t stop kissing it!”
What an image was coming to mind, a confused and horrible image. “Electricity, was it?”
“Yeah, yeah, but normally not, you know, I mean, I did it just before her but—but, she must — she grabbed the button away from Sara and wouldn’t stop pushing. Weird bitch!”
I yanked hard on the plug of hair with a grit of my teeth and through that grit said, “Where did this retreat take place?”
“San Simeon.”
“Where in San Simeon?”
“The castle.”
“The castle?”
“Hearst’s Castle! They’re always at Hearst’s Castle!”
Hearst Castle? A state run public attraction? It didn’t make sense, but it made less sense that he could make this up on the spot. In my consternation I must have increased the force of my pull on Gulden’s hair, for he sudden
ly whispered between clenched teeth:
“Stop! Please stop! You’re going to pull my hair out!”
“Yes, you’re right, Gulden. I am going to pull your hair out, and it’s going to hurt, but the conditions are the same. Any noise at all, any indication you are in pain, and my friend will pull the trigger. Do you understand?”
“Ye—yes.”
“Good. Then prepare yourself.”
The twirl of hair was now very tight around my finger. I pulled it with concentrated force; pulled against the resistance of the roots; pulled until my arm shook from the effort; pulled hard until the blessed relief of release came when the lock of hair separated from Gulden’s scalp with a jerk, leaving behind a small patch of slightly bleeding scalp. True to the deal, Gulden made no vocalization of pain. He had only added to it by biting clean through his lower lip, right through the middle of the old sore, his badge of induction into the Communion of the Golden Arse.
“You did very good,” I said as Gulden swallowed blood and blinked away sweat and tears. “Now don’t worry about infection. I have something for it.” I took out of my pocket a little plastic tube of clear liquid and unscrewed the lid. “Of course, it will also put you into a coma for quite a while. My friend who invented it, not the same friend who still has you in his sights, by the way, I have many friends with various talents—anyway, this friend amusingly calls this stuff Winkle Water, as in Van Winkle. I’m going to assume you get the literary allusion. Don’t worry, you won’t sleep for twenty years, only for about four weeks, or so. When you awakethe Communion of the Golden Arse will be no more, and you will be under arrest.” I squeezed the contents of the little tube into the bloody patch on his head, then leaned down and quietly said, “And by the way, Ulysses’s travels were recounted in The Odyssey not The Iliad.” He looked at me with wide-eye wonder. Then the eyes began to droop. “I would wish you sweet dreams, but that would be dishonest of me.” His eyes shut. His breathing became slow but steady. I felt his pulse. It was steady as well. I positioned him on the chair so that he would not slump.
Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army Page 12
