Sex & Genius

by Conrad Williams

  'Hello, Michael.'

  The tone was concessionary.

  He stood up suddenly and swung his chair over to Michael's table.

  'Mind if I join you?'

  Coburn was massive across the table, bull's shoulders and neck filling out the view. He smiled with his eyes, smoothed his moustache thoughtfully.

  'You're a great poker player.' He nodded. 'Rick and I dig your style. Ballsy English types are rare.'

  It was a man-to-man approach and it explained Rick's demotion to the beach. 'We've shot a few rounds into the sky, checked each other out and, from where I stand, you got what it takes.'

  He raised the flat of his hand, a cease-fire gesture.

  'Let me give you a perspective. If Shane Hammond, bless him, wants to leave us, he'll go. Clients come and go, and that's the reality of agenting. We've been in business ten years before Shane, and I figure we can stay afloat with or without him. He's a star. But we have our pride. And we don't believe that if Shane quits folks are gonna think the worse of us. Let me tell you, Hollywood is a psychological war zone, a crucible of total competition. What counts in the end is not this deal or that deal, not execution on any terms, but the humane way of putting talented people through the grief of Tinseltown. That's as much as we can do. Luck makes the rest. Everybody knows that. Say this here deal flunks, and Last Muse ashes out, I don't think Shane's gonna walk on us. He knows we're doin' our damnedest. Hey, we're right here, talking to you. And if we can't fix it, nobody can. See, I'd tell him the facts. Like Michael Lear's a man of taste and manners. But Shane's a star, and stars need to move with senior talent, not rookie producers. And when Shane tells me you got the rights, I say not because you want to make the film, because your company's going bust and you're desperate. And when he says Michael Lear's a friend of Adela Fairfax, I say Adela's great at socialising but she's not a qualified head-hunter. And when he says he's unhappy, we say here's a ninety-million-dollar movie for him to walk into and while he's doing that we'll talk to Ike Petersen and Felipe Garcia Gonzalez about creating another vehicle, for him and Adela, which he can direct. And if he says something else, we will too, because actors are our business, and we can make them listen to their own best interests.'

  Michael nodded neutrally. Coburn's depiction was not unsustainable. Things could be made to look like that and it was in his interests to know how an agent might report the situation to a client.

  'So maybe we can forget the coffee break this morning and talk business?'

  He shrugged assent. Silence was his ally.

  'Michael, this is one hundred per cent good faith.' He raised a finger. 'You'll not get a better deal this side of Hollywood. And I think you deserve it. One: ''Produced by'' credit. Two: a seat at the table. We'll consult you on script, cast and other creative decisions. Three: real money. We'll arrange thirty thousand dollars to assign the option and assume all financial responsibilities to James Hilldyard. We'll get you a retainer payment off of the development package. Forty thousand dollars phased to the script schedule. We'll give you two hundred thou bucks additional to the option budget and retainer. You're looking at a round trip of two hundred and sixty K, which for a first-time Hollywood outing is rich in the extreme and damn near guaranteed. You want the bad news? You're not the only producer. You got an exec, Babe Hogan, client of ours, and a co-producer, Jonathan Drake. Babe controls the money. Drake is boss on set. Without this support, the bread won't touch you. But, you get visibility and kudos. You learn bags from Babe and Drake. And you're in great money for less sweat.'

  Coburn looked at him far-sightedly as though the deal he had sketched would be music to the ears of Michael's agent, if he had one. When the trance was over he cocked his head and pouted realistically. 'Hey, I never say take it or leave it, but if you turn that one down, there ain't much I can do.'

  Michael gazed into the agent's brown eyes. The offer was now balanced, rounded out, calculated to seem reasonable to a party acting in good faith. It was a deal generously proportional to the role he would have played in ordinary circumstances and a wise man might be grateful for that much concession. He almost wanted to please Coburn by accepting and reward him for the respect he had shown. Coburn, once co-operative, was the kind of man you wanted to appease. Honour was involved and to say yes was to endorse Coburn's assertion of good faith. Here was a Hollywood player paying his dues and stretching his pragmatism to the absolute limits.

  'No thanks.'

  Coburn inhaled deeply, against the surprise.

  Michael felt a line of power, as if it were something he could hold on to.

  'Not in the ballpark.'

  'Michael!' Coburn raised imploring hands.

  'I'd like more money and more control.'

  'You got lots of money and lots of control.'

  'I have terms to suggest.'

  Coburn exhaled, shaking his head. 'My friend, be real!'

  'I'm feeling dead real.'

  'Rick,' he shouted.

  There was a moment.

  'Would you like to hear my terms?' he said.

  Weislob was in position in seconds, chair drawn up, mobile on the table, palms wedged between his thighs. He looked around and about him, all eyes and ears for the state of play. He was ready to ride in on the details of tense argument.

  Coburn barrelled forward. 'You're seeing one and a half per cent of final less contingency out of a zero-slack budget. We're jammed on money, and as for control, not even Shane caps out on that.'

  'D'you want to hear my terms?'

  It was necessary to do this, he thought.

  'Why should I hear your terms?'

  'Because you want to close the deal.'

  He received Coburn's anti-British look.

  'You're in good faith, Frank?'

  'I'm up to my neck in good faith.'

  'Good faith listens as well as talks.'

  Coburn shook his head.

  'Let him shoot, Frank.' Weislob had the adolescent baritone of the eternal shorty.

  The waiter approached, tray in hand. Weislob watched the array slide on to the table, tomatoes and mozzarella, white bread, red wine.

  'Would you care for some lunch?'

  Coburn's eyes were flat.

  Earlier, Michael had noticed that they were sitting at the table where, only a week ago, he and Hilldyard had lunched together. They had tucked into a plate of fritto misto, and Hilldyard had talked about Italian light and the quattrocento sensibility of landscape whilst attentive Michael had raised morsels to his lips and gazed at the sea's fluttering aquamarine and the cathedral of a cliff at the end of the beach and tried to pinpoint the centre of his unearthly elation. And it came to him then, in the listening trance, that consciousness held infinite connections, was woven in dimensions of time and space radiating from the sensory present. One lived on a meniscus of experience, one thrived on subjective flux, and yet this kaleidoscope of transient life, the more one submitted to its vivid beauty, the more depths were stirred, connections realised, as though the absolute present contained the code for all layers of meaning; layers which Hilldyard automatically perceived because his channels of experience were so extraordinarily dilated. And this thought, of the latency of revelation, its immanence in the palpable present, had moved Michael. Everything was there, if one cared to look: all explanation, all meaning.

  'I want full producer status. You can give me back-up. Call it what you like. Everybody in the food chain defers to me. I account to the money. I argue with the money. I call the creative shots in collaboration with Shane. If Shane and I see eye to eye, his authority will pass through me to everyone else. If we disagree, the project won't even start. I asked you to give me your coverage on the book but so far haven't received it. As far as I'm concerned any deal is dependent on there being an overlap of approach to the task of adaptation and that's something that has to be squared with Shane as a pre-condition to all this.'

  'We haven't given you the coverage because you haven't shown us
the option agreement,' said Weislob reasonably.

  Coburn sat with crossed arms and dark eyes.

  'If you're still hung up on the option agreement, call Curwen.'

  Rick hesitated.

  'Go on.'

  'Frank?'

  'He'll tell you. Call him now.'

  Weislob picked up his phone.

  'Go ahead.' He was not himself. 'Double zero, double four . . .'

  'What else, Michael?'

  Weislob held the phone aloft.

  Michael gazed hard at Coburn. 'A hundred thousand dollars on signature.'

  Coburn scowled.

  'Plus five hundred thou or half your packaging fee.'

  There was silence.

  'Whichever is the greater.'

  Michael looked at the dead quick of Coburn's eye. 'On first day.'

  Weislob seemed not to hear the figures. His face was mild, almost abstract, as if nothing of significance had been said.

  Coburn's face had creased up with distaste. Now he shrugged, shook his head. 'No can do.'

  'Think about it.'

  'Nothing to think about. It's not right you should have that money. And there's no packaging fee on this pic.'

  'Then add one.'

  Coburn laughed harshly. 'If only movies were like that.'

  'It's a budgetable item,' said Michael coolly.

  'Oh yeah. But this film's different. This money's tricky money.'

  'You better talk to the money then.'

  'Michael, you're in over your head. Take the offer while it lasts.'

  'Those are my terms.'

  'Hey.' Coburn was sudden. 'Don't hardball me!'

  Michael held his eye.

  'Easy, guys.' Weislob raised a hand.

  There was a curious pause.

  'Michael, if we stand up and walk, that's the last you'll hear of Last Muse.'

  'You can't afford to walk away.'

  'That so?'

  'You have to deliver.'

  'You're stopping us delivering.'

  'Hammond won't believe that.'

  Coburn's face masked hard feelings.

  'Go on then,' he said. 'Walk away.'

  Coburn exhaled harshly; his voice was like gunsmoke. 'Don't push me.'

  'Unless you deliver, Hammond'll quit your agency.'

  'OK, Rick. We're out of here.'

  'What's a client worth?' He was getting into it. 'Two hundred? Three hundred? Half a million?'

  'Rick and I are cabbing to the airport right now.'

  'Don't lose the only star you ever had!' His heart pounded.

  Coburn leaned on the table. 'Thanks for your time, Michael. Sorry we couldn't close a deal.'

  Weislob rose, too, fastened the button of his jacket. 'Best of luck with the movie.'

  The agents exchanged glances.

  Coburn took off first, gliding past tables and chairs towards the steps at the back of the restaurant. Weislob attached his wraparounds, took the mobile and gave Michael a goodbye nod. They gathered at the back near the cash register and then pushed off up the ramp.

  He watched Coburn's meaty fist progressing up the banister and Weislob's dorsal profile rising in its wake.

  'I'll give Shane your regards,' said Michael.

  His heart leapt. He tensed in his seat.

  The agents stood on the ramp, staring at him across the length of the restaurant.

  'When I see him tonight.'

  Coburn maintained an expression of scepticism for a second longer than disbelief might suggest. Rick clutched the mobile in both hands, as if compressing the truth of Michael's statement from its shell.

  'There'll be a message at the hotel,' Rick told his boss.

  'Call the hotel,' said Coburn.

  Rick stood aside, dialled, waited.

  'I know more about your client than you do,' said Michael.

  Coburn's eyes were bruised with ire.

  'Hey, Frank! You're on the way out.'

  'You're on the way out, motherfucker!'

  Coburn covered the ground fast and his fist came down hard on the table, bouncing wine out of the glass and cutlery on to the floor.

  'Nothing at the hotel.'

  'If you're lying you're so fucking dead.'

  Michael hated these men; he hated them with rich anger. He wanted to see them go down, as he knew they would, because he had the leverage and it was only a question of nerve.

  'Shane's coming because he'll deal with me.'

  'We'll tell him not to.'

  'If he wants your opinion, he'll ask for it.'

  The rage in Coburn's eyes was fathomless, helpless, and Michael saw instantly the glaze of tactical confusion.

  'Shane likes results, not opinions. He wants to believe that when big Frank Coburn gets going deals are cut, not fucked up.'

  'You trying to blackmail me?'

  'Cool it, Frank.'

  'You fucking jerkoff!'

  Coburn lunged at him, pulling a handful of air from in front of his face. Michael lurched sideways. A fist came down on the side-rail, sending a vibration around the edge of the structure. A finger came up like a blunt spike.

  'Listen, cocksucker. I busted my guts ten years turning Coburn Agency into a top-talent outfit. I spent six months on Hammond's ass persuading him we were the best place in town. We hooked Grade A talent because we're a fucking Grade A agency. And for longer than you can imagine we've been everywhere trying to raise twenty million dollars of very oh-so complicated weirdo money to let Shane make an uncommercial movie that no friggin' studio would touch with a toilet brush. If there's a packaging fee on this film we earned every cent of it and we are not going to be ransomed out of nothing by a free-loading limey cunt.'

  This was it, Michael thought, the distance, and he knew he had to go it. 'You raised the money but blew the rights, Frank. You can sweet-talk fund-holders, but when it comes to writers, you're grease monkeys. And that's the truth about your agency. You don't have the class to handle real talent, because if you did you wouldn't ask turd bullet here to hustle Hilldyard. Oh sure. Rick blew your deal right out of the water. You didn't have a prayer after that.'

  Coburn glanced at Weislob.

  'No novel, no package. No packaging fee. You can bribe and bully with the best of them but you can't understand men of genius like Hilldyard because, bottom line, you've no respect for writers. And when Hammond quits, Hollywood will know you can't handle thoroughbreds. You'll be written off as boutique merchants. Little Caesars doing movie-of-the-week deals for superannuated starlets. Fringe hucksters. Showbiz parodies. If that's what you want, fine. Otherwise, put your brains back in and think this through. I've got the rights from Hilldyard. I've defused the anger he felt on dealing with Rick. I'm bringing to the table the last link in the chain. If you agree my terms you can take the credit for resolving the problem. You can portray yourselves as white knights. I'll back you up. But, gentlemen, if you think I'm going to do all that for less than top dollar, think twice.'

  Coburn raised his eyebrows in ironic appreciation of Michael's sang-froid. Anger still lurked about his broad mass and heavy hands, but the anger was not directed.

  'Frank, those allegations are totally false.' Weislob crossed his hands, licked his lips perfunctorily.

  Michael could feel the give now, the hinge raised and loosened. Coburn had heard him and there was a sense of completed exchange in the air, all rhetoric spent. He wondered how Coburn might shift gear without losing face.

  Rick watched his master with apprentice curiosity. He had seen him confronted, faced up to, coolly countered. He must have wondered what extra resources Coburn would summon.

  Coburn flexed his fingers and turned round to face Michael.

  'Make a note, Rick.'

  Rick produced pen and pad.

  'I want a deal memo for tomorrow. Memo to include Michael's conditions. Michael to fax us a résumé of terms. Two fundamentals. That you and Shane are in synch. And that we have sight of an option agreement by eleven tomorrow
morning. The option assignment will not be operative till Michael's received one hundred thousand in a designated account.'

  Rick dotted his pad and replaced it in his pocket.

  It was Michael's turn to look admiringly at Coburn. These agents were extraordinary. Huge, puffing pistons of theatrical rage one moment, glib pragmatists the next.

  Coburn held his stance. His face was empty-eyed. 'Before we split, one thing. We sign off tomorrow and the lawyers'll draw long-form. That's the deal. I'd like to shake on something else.' His eyes were dead. 'If Shane leaves us now, I'm makin' you a promise.'

  Michael waited.

  'It's like this,' said Coburn, raising his hand as if to shake Michael's.

  'Bye bye, my friend.'

  Coburn pushed his hand forward.

  Michael could not refuse the gesture.

  The grasp was forceful, sudden, a consummation of hatred, horribly personal; and in his palm when Coburn let go was a bullet.

  Michael regarded the thing coldly.

  'When you least expect it.'

  He set the long, bevelled shell on the table. He felt a thud of fear but knew the threat was theatrical, a cowboy bluff for Rick's benefit. Coburn could not lose face.

  Coburn nodded actorishly. The hate was real but not of the moment. He had lost the plot of his own machismo and was now wiped and lumbering, an American agent pitted against uncool dynamics in an uncool environment.

  They took leave of the restaurant unmomentously. In Weislob's eye there was the parting look of reproach for Michael's attitude and the unfairness he had inflicted on professionals. Coburn strode lightly, his bearing watered down by defeat. He did not look over his shoulder but walked up the ramp that joined the restaurant to the footpath along which picturesque and overgrown seaside route the two men would return, no doubt silently, to the first beach, the restaurants, the domed church, the tessellated paving of Via Murat with hibiscus peering down at them through the overhead trellis.

  Michael nodded at the proprietor, secreting the bullet in his fist as the weathered man approached to clear the table.