Chico, however, wheeled on her. “We’d look like assholes if we did that!”
“Sell more copies than with news that’s four days old,” Harpo said, throwing the line away. He meant this as bitter fact, not a rationale for giving in.
Again Chico chose to attack as though the speaker was in earnest. “Oh, great! So why don’t we just close up shop and let People Magazine handle all the news?”
“Maybe we should go with Redford,” Rounder said, only he was not kidding or musing philosophically. He spoke in a tone of wonder while making the suggestion, as if the notion hadn’t been discussed at all and he had just had a flash of inspiration.
His question hung in the air like a mysterious phenomenon of nature. They all looked incredulously at it, unable to guess at its origin, its future course, or what action could be taken. Primitive tribesmen couldn’t have been more stunned by a comet than they were by this naive indecisiveness.
“Fine!” Chico said abruptly, and sat down. He stared at the table, silent, like a sullen child, intending to deprive them of any further human intercourse.
Harpo stared at Chico, amazed by his silence. He looked at the others (David met his eyes briefly and saw the desperation, with a plea implicit in their quick, darting movements. Can’t somebody help me? they asked). Then he seemed to pull himself together. Harpo looked at Rounder. “I think we’d look really irresponsible.”
“But Weekly will put the Olympics on the cover, and there won’t be any way to distinguish ourselves from them.”
Rounder said this in a tone of discovery, a medical researcher uncovering a previously unknown and deadly microbe.
Again Harpo looked at Chico imploringly. Chico folded his arms and sank lower in his chair, his eyes fixed on the table. Harpo despaired of him and said to Rounder, “That’s always the problem. But it’s inevitable that we do the Olympics anyway. There are some news events that can’t be ignored, no matter how obvious or boring to our readers they will be.” The surreal quality of this moment, someone explaining to the editor in chief of a national newsmagazine its most basic fact of existence, washed over David, numbing him. He began to feel he wasn’t really present in the scene, that it was something he was watching or dreaming. “Sure,” Harpo continued, “on Monday everybody will pass the newsstands and groan at the Olympics being on the cover, but if it wasn’t …” Harpo stopped, as though the implied explosion of rage on the part of their readership was too horrible to imagine.
“But why?” Rounder smiled his brilliant smile, his blue eyes glistening with excitement. “We have to start questioning these assumptions we make. By Monday the Russian withdrawal will be old, old news. The magazine will sit on the stand for the next few days becoming more horribly dated with each day. I’m not saying we don’t banner it inside and give it thirty columns anyway, but let’s do Redford on the cover. At least we’ll sell more copies and therefore more people will have the benefit of reading our excellent coverage of the Olympics.” He beamed at them with the pleasant immodesty of a child topping adults at something their greater experience should have taught them.
“If we really want to surprise them,” Chico said in a mumble, “let’s not cover it at all. We could do a thirty-column takeout on Redford’s marriage.”
Several people laughed. David did not. He stiffened, a soldier ready for incoming artillery. Sarcasm at a Groucho suggestion was simply not done without consequences. Either it signaled the end of Rounder or the end of Chico, David believed, or rather felt instinctively. You don’t make fun of the boss’s major policy ideas. You can kid him about his tie, or the way Mrs. Thorn praised him at a general meeting, but never joke about his ideas in front of the staff—at least not when he’s there to hear you. To David it was unthinkable, unbelievable, something he never thought he would see someone like Chico do. It was as if the bartender had just tossed a shot of bourbon in Jesse James’s face—get away from the bar and duck behind a table, cause there’s gonna be some shootin’.
Instead of such dramatics, Rounder turned to Mary Gould and said, “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen the piece. Is there material about his marriage?”
Chico audibly groaned. He sank lower in his chair, his small eyes scrunched together, fiercely staring at the table. Mary, suddenly on the spot, dropped her cheerful attitude and answered in a hasty rush: “No, not really. Just an allusion to it. It’s really about the movie and how long it’s taken Redford to do one. Been four years since he’s appeared in anything, and three since he directed Ordinary People.”
“Wow,” Chico said in a dull, flat voice.
“It wasn’t intended as an exposé,” Mary said at Chico’s head, since he was still utterly absorbed by the conference table and made his comments in a tone that implied he couldn’t be heard, as though they were private thoughts. “It’s not controversial or newsy,” she added, apparently a polite way of voting no on its superseding the Olympics.
“But it’s fun? It looks good?” Rounder asked imperiously, making his question seem silly, since his attitude implied that only an affirmative answer was acceptable.
“Yes,” she admitted, but with a trace of reluctance. “We have great pictures. Redford looks sensational.”
“Easy, Mary, whoa, girl,” Harpo said pleasantly.
She winked at him. “Say, how come senior editors don’t get to do interviews?”
The room broke up, except for Chico, who seemed to have become statuary, his big body still, although in David’s mind there was explosive, ominous animation implied.
“This is what I suggest,” Rounder said. “Let’s proceed with both the Olympics and Redford as covers. We’ll see how lively the Olympics story is by the end of the week. If there’s more juice in it, we’ll do the Olympics and, run Redford the next issue.”
“Redford’s a cover either way?” Mary asked.
“Definitely,” Rounder said. “That’s a cover or it’s nothing. Don’t you agree?” he asked Chico, or rather, the body of Chico.
Chico stood up. The speed of it startled those around him. For a moment he said nothing. “Yes,” he announced to the wall finally. “Who’s top-editing the Olympics?”
“Ray, why don’t you do it?” Rounder said to Harpo, using his real name, of course. Harpo, now having won the battle he began, looked as though he considered it a Pyrrhic victory. Chico nodded knowingly at this news of his defeat and announced. “I have to go to the John,” and made for the door.
“We’re done,” Rounder said, continuing his style thus far namely making no acknowledgment of Chico’s behavior.
They filed out slowly and quietly. That was atypical of the end of cover meetings. David caught the eyes of several others while they moved, and each time, there was an embarrassed glance away on both sides. All of them knew that they had witnessed a remarkable meeting, that they would be gossiping like mad about it soon, but right at that moment they all tried hard, far too hard, to pretend that it had been routine.
Back in his office, David tried to think it through. He needed to have a line on it for the drinks at lunch. (He regularly ate on Tuesdays with a group of other senior editors and a number of the top writers.) But his search was for a real explanation. He felt upset. And that also bothered him. Why should he?
His Power Phone buzzed. He jumped at the loud squawk. It made him react nervously. No doubt it had been designed to produce that effect. “Yes?” he called into it.
“David.” Chico’s voice thundered metallically, “could you come up for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” he said. He tried to block out any thoughts of the meeting, assuming that Chico wanted to see him about something else and that even a hint of self-consciousness might anger Chico.
He found Chico reading blues. He nodded at David and held up a finger while he finished a paragraph. He nodded at the door. “Could you close it?”
As convinced as David had been on his way there that Chico wanted to see him about something other than the cover meeting, h
e was now persuaded that it was about that bizarre scene. He closed the door slowly, nervous, wishing he could delay talking with Chico until after lunch. He had had no time to think. But no matter how lightly he pushed the door, it still shut too quickly for David to have an answer to the question Chico then asked:
“What do you think that was about?”
“You mean the cover meeting?” David stalled.
Chico’s eyes shut with irritation. “Of course!” he said so forcefully that the phrase was almost an expletive.
David told the truth. “I have no idea. I couldn’t figure out what it was about.”
Chico cocked his head, interested. “I’m surprised,” he said. “I thought it was so obvious.”
David sat down, relaxed. He felt tremendously relieved by his admission. He didn’t know why he had felt obligated to have an answer, but now that he had failed to provide one, he felt sure of himself. “Not to me. Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t know what Rounder thought he was proving. I can’t believe he won’t do the Olympics as a cover.”
“If he does, he’ll be a laughingstock.” Chico shook his head no. “He won’t. It was all done to keep me in my place. He knows I should have his job. He wants me and everyone else to know that I don’t have it. He’s in charge.”
“You don’t think he’s trying to force you out?” David asked this so frankly because Chico’s words had been naked. By Newstime’s standards, they were an unprecedented catharsis. If David had had time to think, he would never have asked his question.
“He can’t. He wishes he could. But Mrs. Thorn wouldn’t allow it. She’s not prepared to trust him absolutely.”
“Maybe he meant it about the cover. Maybe he’s that naive.”
“He’s not that dumb.” Chico picked up a pen on his desk and threw it down hard. It bounced up and fell to the floor. “What do you think everyone else’s reaction was?”
“I’ll find out at lunch,” David said, again without thinking.
“Good. Call me after you come back and let me know.”
David nodded and rose slowly. I’ve just agreed to spy for him, he thought, appalled that he had committed himself so easily to such a role. No matter how much good it might do him with Chico. wasn’t it unseemly? Wouldn’t it lower him even in Chico’s eyes?
He left, went into the elevator, and on down to the lobby in a daze. He dreaded each step that took him closer to the Boar, the Newstime hangout. He had loved being in that elite circle, drinking and opening up to his peers, saying the unsayable to each other about the magazine. But now he’d have to take notes, remembering who said what, judging whether it was fit to report or not. He could alienate a rival from Chico’s affections, cast himself as Chico’s only defender. That simple promise was an endless ladder down into the depths of corruption: only his own will could keep him from the black depths of the bottom rung.
As he opened the dark glass doors and saw the gang already assembled, he almost felt like crossing himself or finding a clove of garlic to wear around his neck. Anything that could ward off the devil … and allow him to keep his soul above the slime of this opportunity.
Tony Winters waved to Lois while she turned off Sunset Boulevard. She had helped him pick the route he would take to the Valley Studios for a meeting at International Pictures, though she had laughed at his refusal to get on any freeways or to take shortcuts through the canyons. Instead, she explained he could stay on Sunset almost all the way, although a brief stint (one exit) on the Hollywood Freeway was unavoidable.
He felt a sad loneliness watching her car go. A childish, weak sensation in his belly. Maybe he was nervous about the meeting. The summons to Los Angeles had been so abrupt, and the lack of comment on his first draft of the script so puzzling and ominous. He had been sufficiently startled that he called his father—fresh from recently seeing him in New York—and asked whether the request for him to come without any comment on the script was a good or bad sign.
His father was silent for a moment or two. Then he sighed. “Neither. The odds are they neither love the script nor hate it, If they loved it. they would have said something. If they hated it, they wouldn’t want you out here for a meeting. They probably want changes, and Garth is notoriously insensitive. He probably doesn’t think you need to be stroked. After all, you’re just a writer.”
Just a writer. My God, what a universe of difference there is in the movie business between their view of writers and mine, Tony thought. He took the gentle curves of Sunset with pleasure, soothed by the silent flow of traffic and pavement, surrounded by the whoosh of his car’s air conditioning. Just a writer. To Tony, to be a writer was to be royalty. A breed of humanity that could survive time. The triumphant recorders of human life. A master psychologist, a delicate historian, a great lover, loving parent, actor, set designer, director, sound technician—to be a writer, to Tony, meant being all those things, and more, much more. Priest, comic, fool, wise man. A writer must know every line and every thought. The look of things, the sound of things, the ideas of life, and its trivialities. A writer must master everything or he is nothing. Just a writer! To him, the others were the limited ones. Temporal, insignificant. Tools to help him build his monuments.
The enormity of his task, the noble vision of its demands, cheered him as he approached the Hollywood Freeway. I have mastered these things. Maybe not as well as the great geniuses, but I have written good stuff. Shakespeare, Chekhov, Shaw, they would welcome me. I’d get a round of drinks from them. I’d get some stroking. And with determination and time, one day another Garth in another century will dream of playing the roles I write!
He negotiated a terrifying crossing of the freeway within a distance of a few hundred yards from an entrance on the extreme left to an exit on the extreme right with relative ease. Soon he was descending a hill into the pancake of the Valley. The huge billboards of International’s current movies loomed beside his car as he began to look for Gate Three. The low brown buildings of the studio seemed peaceful in the morning sun, like beach bungalows for a lower-middle-class resort. Only the parking lots filled with Mercedeses and BMW’s suggested money.
The security guard at Gate Three, who seemed to regard him suspiciously when he announced himself and whom he had come to see, became instantly servile when he found the drive-on pass that confirmed Tony Winters had a right to be there. Probably that was all in my head, he lectured himself while finding the lot where he was supposed to park. Why can’t I rid myself of this monitoring whether the world approves? I approve, dammit!
He glanced at his watch before entering the inner courtyard of the main administration building. He was on time. He found the silver-colored plaque that read WILLIAM GARTH and paused, listening to the faint steady hum of traffic outside the low buildings. Birds chirped. There was a small-town feeling to the place. This was and is the Valley Studios. Tony complained to himself. Bogey worked here. Faulkner typed away in one of those buildings. American fascism stalked these halls. And what does it look like? A small-town college.
Then the office itself was a shock. The furniture was tacky, fake wood desks, the usual plants, an ugly white shag rug. They might have been selling aluminum siding in Queens. Garth was on the phone when he was shown in. He acknowledged Tony’s presence with a wave, while Foxx, whom Tony had recently seen in New York, glanced up at him (he was reading Variety) and said casually, “Hi, Tony,” as though they were old friends accustomed to seeing each other daily.
Garth’s secretary asked if he wanted coffee. Tony said yes. Foxx put Variety away.” “How was the flight?”
This seemed to be a ritual. Tony had this conversation with everyone. “Fine.”
“What do you take out here?”
“TWA.”
Foxx shook his head as though Tony had answered a quiz incorrectly. “You should try Pan Am. They’re really much better.”
Meanwhile Garth was saying to the phone. “They say she fucks everybody on the set. Yeah!” He laughed. “Ev
en the cameramen. No. I don’t know about gofers.” He laughed. “Why? Your deal is so tough you’re gofering on the side? What do you mean, ‘gofer’ isn’t a verb. Of course it’s a verb. I got a writer here. I’ll ask him.” Garth moved his mouth away from the receiver, calling out to Tony loudly, as though they were far apart, “Isn’t gofer a verb?”
“I’m not sure,” Tony answered gravely. “ ‘He gives good gofer’ might be more proper.”
Foxx smiled. Garth roared and repeated the line, laughing again, presumably at the laughter of his listener. “Who?” Garth said. “Tony Winters.” Pause.
Tony was openly eavesdropping now, but Garth didn’t mind, he was smiling at Tony.
“Yeah, he’s writing a script for you and me. Concussion, it’s called. Concussion, not Curmudgeon.” Garth made a face. “Ha, ha. I gotta go. I’m not hanging up angry. I got work to do. I got a writer here. Yes, the same one. Ha, ha. Good-bye.” Garth hung up and sighed, staring at the desk. “What an asshole,” he decided.
“They say he’s in trouble,” Foxx commented, not committing himself to the opinion, merely reporting.
“He’s always in trouble. But if they fire him, the fat fuck’ll be president somewhere else.” Garth said this as though he were a scientist accepting a gloomy fact of nature.
The secretary entered with Tony’s coffee. Garth looked at her blankly and then said. “Get one for me.” He looked at Tony and smiled in a weary and forced manner. “How are ya? You look good. Flight all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you staying?”
“Beverly Hills Hotel.”
Garth nodded seriously, his brows furrowed. “Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Has Jim”—he glanced at Foxx— “had a chance to talk to you about the script?”
“No!” Foxx said, aggrieved. “We’ve been listening to you on the phone.”
“I was on for a second! He’s only gonna be making our goddamn movie,” he complained, pointing to the phone. “If only he knew we were doing it.”
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