Chapter 5 #3
Mann’s drink came. I was relieved to see it had an olive.
He sipped it without comment. “Now, he gets himself alone with Brenda, and I don’t know what he said to her.
All I know is that Brenda comes out pissed off and ready to walk.
Something to do with his comments on nymphomaniac angles in the character.
Now, Brenda is very sensitive about that.
Brenda hates him. Brenda wants me to fire him.
“But by now I’m in Tucson, too, and I can’t get a writer just by picking up the phone, and if I did, every agent in Beverly Hills would smell blood.
To switch writers on location would cost me fifty grand easy.
Bloodrock has a two-eight budget, and they’ll hit me for at least fifty grand.
So I soothe Brenda. Everybody settles down.
“Then McDougall starts talking to Clete. And he says something—Christ knows what—but he says something about Clete’s nose.
Now, Clete began as a stunt extra, and he’s a little bit of a clod anyway, and his nose is crooked.
Not much—he’s had it fixed ten or twenty times, but it is crooked.
McDougall, bless his heart, mentions this.
Clete goes into a rage. He hits the bottle. ”
Mann finished his drink and waved to the waitress for another. Everyone else at the table was quiet. Perkins watched Mann intently. Sally was sitting back and smiling her sweet, dumb smile. I was slurping my Scotch.
“Now,” Mann said, “it’s no secret that Clete Williams has a drinking problem.
So I work on Clete and get him off the bottle and soothe his ruffled feathers.
And then pretty soon something else happens.
McDougall makes some comments in dailies about the lighting.
The DP is pissed. Then he makes some cracks about wardrobe and women’s hair.
More people are pissed. Everybody is after me to eighty-six him.
But I can’t—because the revisions aren’t finished.
He knows it. I know it. We’re in the middle of shooting.
He’s got me over a barrel. That’s the kind of guy he is. Was.”
Mann lapsed into silence. Perkins waited a moment, then said, “In spite of all this, you liked him?”
“Yeah, as a person,” Mann said. “I try to be understanding. I liked him.” And at this point, he shot a glance at Sally, who had been sitting throughout all this like a beautiful doll, silent and lovely and impassive.
“Did he have any other friends besides you on the production?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did he have any real enemies?”
“You mean, somebody who might kill him?” Mann shook his head. “Let me tell you something about movies: Tempers run pretty hot sometimes, but movie people are not the type to actually kill anybody. They’re like kids. They get mad one minute and forget it the next minute.”
Sally smiled like a child. I found myself absently staring at her breasts and made myself look away.
“I’m familiar with film companies,” Perkins said.
Mann didn’t catch this. “Well, let me tell you, that’s the way it is. Nobody on this company would kill McDougall. If he died because of any foul play—which I doubt; he was a big boozer—it must have been somebody outside.”
“Outside?”
“Yeah. Some local person.”
“Did he know local people?”
“Hell yes. You know what he used to do? He’d go into town at night with a big wad of cash and flash it around the cowboys, playing the big movie man. Well, you do a little of that, and—” Mann shrugged.
“How do you know he did this?”
“Everybody knew. It was common knowledge. A movie company’s like a big family,” Mann said. “Everybody knows everything.” And suddenly he began to frown.
“Something wrong?” Perkins asked.
“Where’s my drink?” Mann said.
* * *
Dinner with Charles Mann was not an enjoyable experience on any occasion, and dinner that night was particularly exhausting.
Mann continued to talk nonstop, much of the conversation intended to verify his role as indispensable pacifier and organizer of the superhumanly difficult film project Bloodrock.
Perkins was noncommittal throughout dinner, but Mann didn’t seem to notice.
Sally never said anything. Finally, Perkins turned to her while we were having coffee and said, “How are you enjoying the production?”
“I think it’s nice,” Sally said, smiling.
“I understand this is your first film.”
“Yes.”
“You must find it all rather confusing and different.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I imagine exciting as well.”
“Oh yes.”
They went on like this for a while, and then Perkins gave up. Everybody gives up on Sally after a while. It’s a losing battle.
Around ten o’clock, we finished coffee, and Mann went off with Sally. Perkins watched them go and looked at me. “Are they an item?”
“I’d say so.”
“An exclusive item?”
“Well, I’m not sure.” I didn’t want to talk about this, but I knew Perkins would find out sooner or later.
“How do you mean?”
“All I know is what I’ve heard—nothing direct.”
“I understand,” Perkins said wearily. “What have you heard?”
“I’ve heard that Mann keeps trying to get Sally to join a threesome with one of the Arizona coeds, and Sally doesn’t like that. And I’ve heard that a lot of people have hit on Sally, and some of them may have succeeded.”
“Such as?”
“Clete.” I paused, then blew it all out. “Clete is pretty fond of her. He acts like the seasoned performer helping out the newcomer, but it’s more than that.”
Perkins said, “As I recall, Clete Williams makes overtures to every woman he sees.”
“He has that tendency.”
“But he has some special feeling about Sally?”
“Well,” I said, “if you know Clete’s reputation, you know that he particularly enjoys sticking it to other people’s wives. I think he considers Sally to be Mann’s wife, so it has an added attraction.”
“And Mann knows about this?”
I shrugged. “People can be blind and deaf, if they want to be.”
“Anybody else in the picture getting to know Sally?”
“Well, Sally is such a sweet girl. She was always nice to McDougall.”
“How nice?” Perkins said, looking a little exasperated.
“It’s just vague talk,” I said. “You know how movie companies are. The company comes back from location and everybody goes to their room to wash up. If Sally and McDougall happen to come down an hour later than everybody else to dinner, there’s talk.”
“I see.”
“Do you want to go talk to Clete Williams now?” He had to be the leading suspect at that point, I was thinking. I mean, right?
“Not yet,” Perkins said. “Right now, I want to talk to the one man who’s really in charge of this mess.”