The Douglas Kennedy Collection #2

by Douglas Kennedy

  “Happy?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘impossible.’ Or maybe completely impossible.”

  “All right, all right. I won’t get too indolent.”

  “That’s nice to know,” she said dryly.

  “But I tell you, in the future, I am definitely taking a week off every—”

  The phone rang. I answered it. It was Brad Bruce. He didn’t say hello, he didn’t greet me with any pleasantries. He simply asked, “Is this a good time to talk?”

  “What’s wrong, Brad?” I said, causing Sally to immediately look at me with concern. “You sound bad.”

  “I am bad. Bad and very upset.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Long pause.

  “Maybe we should do this face to face,” he said.

  “Maybe we should do what face to face?”

  Another long pause. Finally he said, “Tracy has just walked into my office with this Friday’s edition of Hollywood Legit. And yes, yet again you feature prominently in Theo McCall’s column. In fact, you’re the entire column.”

  “I am?” I said, my unease now edging into fear. “But that’s impossible. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “That’s not what his new evidence shows.”

  “His new evidence? For what?”

  “For plagiarism.”

  It took me a moment or so to speak.

  “That’s crazy. I am not—repeat, not—a plagiarist.”

  I glanced over at Sally. She was staring at me, wide-eyed.

  “You said this last week,” Brad said in a low tone, “and I believed you. But now . . .”

  “Now what?”

  “Now . . . he’s found three other examples of plagiarism in your scripts for the show. Not only that, he’s found a couple of lifted lines in all those plays you wrote before . . . before . . .”

  Before I was famous, perhaps? Before I had it all? Before I was exposed as a literary thief, even though I never, ever intentionally stole anything. So how . . . ? How . . . ?

  I sat down slowly on the sofa. The room was spinning. My professional life was, once again, passing before my eyes. Only this time I knew that the plunge wasn’t like one of those falling dreams, which concluded with me landing on my pillow. This time, the plunge was real—and the landing would be anything but soft.

  NINE

  THANKS TO THE dubious wonders of technology, Tracy was able to scan Theo McCall’s new column and have it dispatched to my home computer screen within minutes. Sally stood over me as I sat down to read it. But she didn’t put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, nor did she utter any words of support. In the time between the end of my phone call with Brad and the arrival of the article, she said nothing. Nothing at all. She simply stared at me with something approaching incredulity. The disbelief that accompanies a betrayal.

  But I hadn’t been trying to betray anyone. Not even myself.

  I sat down at the computer. I went online. Tracy’s dispatch was waiting for me. I opened it. There, in bold print, was the article in question. I was stunned not just by its length, but also by its headline:

  THE INSIDE DIRT

  by Theo McCall

  Is the “Accidental Plagiarist” Really That Accidental?

  New Evidence Uncovers Selling You Creator David Armitage’s Penchant for the Borrowed Line

  As we all know, Hollywood is an industry that will overlook any venal or mortal sin committed by one of its own . . . as long as the individual in question is well connected and profitable. Whereas a mere mortal like you or me would find themselves permanently unemployable after being found in sizeable possession of a Class A drug—or caught in flagrante delicto with some jailbait minor—the entertainment industry closes ranks behind their own whenever such pesky little problems besmirch them. And whereas most self-respecting newspapers, magazines, or centers of higher education would immediately dismiss (with extreme prejudice) any writer or academic who perpetrated the offense of plagiarism, in Hollywood they will go to excessive lengths to guard the reputation of a literary shoplifter. Especially if the shoplifter in question is the writer of one of the hottest television series of the past few years.

  Two weeks ago, this column pointed out that David Armitage—the abundantly talented, Emmy Award–winning creator of Selling You—had allowed a couple of lines of dialogue from the classic newspaper play The Front Page to end up in one of his scripts. Instead of simply acknowledging the error and moving on, Mr. Armitage and his people at FRT went on the offensive, finding a sympathetic hack at Variety to write his side of the story . . . the same hack, by the way, who was, just last year, romantically involved with FRT’s head of publicity while on sabbatical from his marriage. And before you could say “nepotism,” many of Hollywood’s leading scribes were lining up to sing Mr. Armitage’s praises and to damn the journalist for daring to point out the transposition of four lines from one script to another.

  Naturally, the most bellicose of all the writerly voices was the Papa Hemingway of Santa Barbara, Justin Wanamaker—the cutting-edge radical screenwriter of the sixties and seventies who, in his twilight years, is now reduced to turning out lucrative, but generic, action scripts for Jerry Bruckheimer. And his jeremiad not only provided a passionate defense of Mr. Armitage, but also kicked off a character assassination campaign against the journalist in question—a campaign later furthered by the LA Times, who sought to make the Dollar Book Freud point that the journalist had had a brief unhappy career as a television writer and was now simply wreaking vengeance on the first successful television writer he could get in his sights.

  But, to quote Sgt. Joe Friday from the first truly post-ironic cop show, Dragnet, this column deals with “Just the facts, ma’am.” And the fact of the matter is that, in the two weeks since Mr. Armitage’s plagiarism was first revealed, his unnecessary fight back has forced “The Inside Dirt” to commission a pair of researchers to trawl through the entire David Armitage oeuvre, just to make certain that the gentleman’s cribbing offense was a mere one-off.

  But, surprise, surprise . . . what did our researchers find:

  1. In Episode Three of last season’s Selling You, Bert—the skirt-chasing account executive—talks about his ex-wife, who’s moved back to LA after taking him to the cleaners in court. “You know what the real definition of capitalism is?” he tells his associate, Chuck. “The process by which California girls become California women.”

  Virtually the same line can be found in Oscar-winning dramatist Christopher Hampton’s play Tales from Hollywood, in which the Austrian dramatist Odon von Horvath, notes that “Capitalism is the process by which American girls become American women.”

  2. In Episode One of the new season, Tanya, the gum-snapping receptionist, informs Joey that she doesn’t want to sleep with him anymore, because she’s got a new guy who looks exactly like Ricky Martin. Later, Joey sees the new boyfriend at the office and tells Tanya: “Ricky Martin? Get outta here. The guy looks like Ricky the Zit.”

  Ricky the Zit, as it turns out, is the name of a character in Elmore Leonard’s novel Glitz.

  3. In the same episode, the company’s founder, Jerome, has a particularly unpleasant run-in with a B-list Hollywood actor shooting a commercial for a client. Afterward, Jerome tells Bert, “The next time we ever do a commercial, no actors . . .”

  In Mel Brooks’s classic film The Producers, Zero Mostel turns to Gene Wilder and says, “The next time we do a play, no actors.”

  Ah, but there are more examples of Mr. Armitage’s literary shoplifting. Our researchers sifted through some of his early stage plays—most of which never received anything more than staged readings off-off-Broadway—and discovered two intriguing facts:

  1. Armitage’s 1995 play Riffs concerns a love triangle between a onetime jazz pianist—now a housewife, married to a doctor—who develops a passion for her husband’s best friend, a jazz saxophonist. They start playing duets together—and, courtesy of the increasingly steam
y music, their passion grows. Then, when hubby’s out of town for a weekend, they finally consummate their passion . . . only to have hubby burst in on them. And in a tussle with the saxophonist, the wife intervenes, only to be accidentally stabbed through the heart by hubby.

  Intriguingly enough, the plot of Riffs is a virtual facsimile of the plot of Tolstoy’s famous novella The Kreutzer Sonata, in which a bored pianist housewife becomes enamored with her husband’s best friend . . . who happens to be a violinist. When they play Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata together, romantic sparks fly. But when they finally get it on while hubby’s out of town, shazam, hubby shows up and, in a jealous rage, accidentally kills his beloved wife.

  2. In Armitage’s new screenplay Breaking and Entering (currently in development at Warner Brothers, in a deal worth $1.5 million, leaked to us from an inside source), the central protagonist opens the film with the following voice-over line: “The first time I robbed Cartier’s, it was raining.”

  How strange to discover that a classic John Cheever story opens with the line “The first time I robbed Tiffany’s it was raining.”

  As can be gathered, Mr. Armitage isn’t simply a one-off “accidental plagiarist,” as he and his supporters so passionately contend. Rather, he’s a repeat offender. And though he might argue that the offenses in question simply add up to a borrowed joke here, a borrowed plotline there, the fact remains that plagiarism is plagiarism . . . and there’s no way he can refute the obvious conclusion: the guy is guilty as hell.

  By the time I finished reading, I felt so angry that I had to stop myself from putting my fist through the computer screen.

  “Can you believe this bullshit?” I asked Sally, turning around to speak with her. But she was already seated on the couch, her arms wrapped around herself (seriously negative body language), looking very perturbed. She refused to look at me as I spoke.

  “Yes, David—I can believe it. Because it’s there—hard evidence, in black and white, that you are a habitual plagiarist.”

  “Oh come on, Sally—what’s the asshole accusing me of? A line here, a line there?”

  “And how about the plot line of your play? Borrowed from Tolstoy . . .”

  “But what he failed to mention was that, in the program note for the play, I acknowledged the debt to Tolstoy.”

  “What program note? The play was only given a staged reading, right?”

  “Okay—had it received a proper production, I would have very clearly acknowledged the debt . . .”

  “You say that now.”

  “It’s the truth. Do you really think I would do something as moronic as steal from Tolstoy . . . ?”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “Well, I know this—that little shit McCall is doing his best to destroy my career. It’s his way of making me pay for him being exposed by the LA Times as a failed writer.”

  “That’s not the point, David. The point is he’s nabbed you again. And this time, you’re not going to get away with it.”

  The phone rang. I answered it immediately. It was Brad.

  “You’ve read the story?” he asked me.

  “Absolutely—and I really feel that he’s just taking a few minuscule examples and—”

  Brad cut me off.

  “David, we need to talk.”

  “Of course,” I said. “We can fight this. Just like—”

  “We need to talk tonight.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was 9:07 p.m. “Tonight? Isn’t it a bit late?”

  “We have a crisis, and we must respond fast.”

  I breathed a small sigh of relief. He wanted to talk strategy. He was still in my corner.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “Where do you want to meet?”

  “Here at the office. At ten, if that’s okay. Tracy’s here right now. Bob Robison is on his way over as we speak.”

  “I’ll be there ASAP. And I’d like to bring Alison.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, see you at ten,” I said, hanging up. Then I turned back to Sally and said, “Brad’s on my side.”

  “Really?”

  “He said we need to respond fast and he wants me to come to the office right now.”

  Once again, she didn’t look at me.

  “So, go then,” she said. I approached her and attempted to put my arms around her. But she shrugged me off.

  “Sally, darling,” I said, “everything’s going to be fine.”

  “No, it isn’t,” she said, then left.

  I stood frozen to the spot, wanting to pursue her, to convince her of my innocence in all this. But instinct told me to leave. So I grabbed my jacket, my phone, and my car keys, then headed out.

  On the way over to FRT, I called Alison on her cellphone. But I got her voice mail and a message reminding all callers that she was going to be in New York until Thursday. I glanced again at my watch. It was well after midnight on the East Coast . . . which is why I was listening to her recorded voice. So I left her the following brief message: “Alison, it’s David. And it’s urgent. Call me on my cell as soon as you get this.”

  Then I put the pedal to the metal and headed toward the office, rehearsing the arguments I was going to put against McCall’s smear campaign . . . not to mention the broadside I’d send in the direction of Warner Brothers about finding the mole who leaked my script to McCall.

  But when I got to FRT, Brad and Bob were looking grim, while Tracy had that red-eyed look that usually accompanies crying.

  “I am so sorry about all this,” I said. “But look, this maniac hired a pair of researchers to microscopically inspect all my scripts. And what did they find? Five lines that could be attributed to other writers. That’s it. And as for his ridiculous charge about the Tolstoy story—”

  Bob Robison interrupted me.

  “David, we all hear what you’re saying. And frankly, when I saw the piece, I pretty much thought the same thing: it’s just a couple of lines here and there. In regards to that old play of yours: fuck Tolstoy. I’m sure anybody with half a brain would realize that you were deliberately reinterpreting the guy’s story—”

  “Thank you, Bob,” I said, relief washing over me like a high-intensity shower.

  “I’m not through, David.”

  “Sorry.”

  “As I said, I don’t think that McCall’s case against you is either fair or just. The problem we have now, however, is one of credibility. And like it or not, once McCall’s column hits the streets on Friday, you are going to be tainted merchandise—”

  “But Bob—”

  “Let me finish,” he said sharply.

  “Sorry.”

  “This is the situation as we see it. You can explain away one case of unintentional plagiarism. But four additional cases?”

  “Four goddamn lines,” I said. “Nothing more.”

  “Four goddamn lines that McCall’s pushed into print, following on the four lines from The Front Page . . .”

  “But don’t you see that this asshole is trying to be Kenneth Starr . . . taking the flimsiest of evidence and transforming it into Sodom and Gomorrah?”

  “You’re right,” Brad said, finally entering the conversation. “He is an asshole. He’s a character assassin. He’s decided to fuck you over. And, I’m afraid, your scripts yielded just enough minor evidence for him to taint you with the plagiarism brush and get away with it.”

  Bob came in here. “More to the point, I promise you that his very long article will be picked up by every news organization imaginable. It’s not only going to leave you looking like damaged goods, it will also decimate the credibility of the show.”

  “That’s crap, Bob . . .”

  “Don’t you fucking dare tell me what’s crap,” he said, the anger now showing. “Do you have any idea of the damage this has done? And I’m not simply talking about to yourself and your show, but also to Tracy? Thanks to that shithead McCall, her credibility has been wrecked too, to the point where we’re h
aving to accept her resignation . . .”

  “You’re resigning?” I said looking at Tracy, wide-eyed.

  “I have no choice,” she said quietly. “The fact that my onetime ‘adulterous’ involvement with Craig Clark was revealed . . .”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong, Tracy,” I said.

  “Maybe—but the perception is that I called an ex-boyfriend to write a sympathetic puff piece on your behalf.”

  “But he called you.”

  “Doesn’t matter—the perception’s otherwise.”

  “What does Craig say about all this?” I asked.

  “He’s got his own problems,” Tracy said. “Variety’s just fired him too.”

  “You have not been fired,” Bob said sharply to her.

  “No—I’ve just been given the bottle of whisky and the gun with one bullet and told to do the honorable thing.”

  She looked like she was on the verge of crying again. Brad squeezed her arm as an attempted gesture of support, but she shrugged him off.

  “I don’t need anyone’s sympathy,” she said. “I made a stupid call, and now I’m paying the price.”

  “I’m appalled by all this,” I said.

  “You should be,” Tracy said.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But as I said before, I didn’t mean—”

  “Understood, understood,” Bob said. “But you also have to appreciate our tangled position right now. If we don’t let you go . . .”

  Even though I had been expecting it, the news still hit me like a slap across the face.

  “You’re firing me?” I asked, my voice hushed.

  “Yes. With the deepest regret, I should add, but—”

  “That’s not fair,” I said.

  “It might not be,” Brad said, “but we have our own credibility to consider.”

  “I have a contract with you . . .”

  Bob shuffled some papers and pulled out a document.

  “Yes, you do—and as I’m certain Alison will explain to you, there is a clause that voids the contract should you be found to have falsely misrepresented your work in any way. Plagiarism would certainly qualify as a major misrepresentation . . .”