Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
The saloon doors swung open, and Sally came running out. “Wait!” she called. And then she stopped.
“Cut!” Franklin said. He turned to the camera operator. “How was it?”
“Okay for me,” the operator said.
The assistant said, “Sorry, Mr. Franklin, but she missed her marks on that one. I couldn’t follow.”
Sally remained rooted where she had last spoken.
Franklin walked over. Indeed, it was true: The toes of Sally’s shoes were six inches past the black tape marks.
“Sally, honey,” he said, “when you come out of the saloon, you must not come further than these black spots. Otherwise, you won’t be in focus. ”
“Oh,” she said. She frowned prettily. “There’s so much to keep track of.”
“Yes, there is, honey,” Franklin said in his smoothest voice. “But you’ll get it. Let’s just try it again.” Franklin was so convincing that even I thought they’d get it the next time.
Sally went back into the saloon. They rolled another take. Franklin said, “Action!”
Sally ran out through the doors and said, “Wait!”
“Cut!” Franklin said. He looked over at the camera crew.
“Focus was okay,” the assistant said.
“Look was wrong,” the operator said.
“I thought so too,” Franklin said. He went over to Sally, still standing on the spot she’d delivered her lines.
“I made it,” she said, pointing down to her feet. Her toes were right at the tape marks.
“Yes, you did,” Franklin said, “but you looked on the wrong side of the camera. You have to look camera right. That’s the left side of the camera from where you are, and—” He saw Sally’s face fall.
“Give her a spot, somebody,” he said. He turned back to Sally.
“You have to look to the correct side of the camera or else we can’t put the film together. ”
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
I glanced over at Paul Fox. He was off to one side, talking animatedly to Clete Williams. Paul Fox didn’t know that either. I distantly heard Fox saying, “It’s a parody of Cain and Abel, and it would be perfect for you . . .” and Clete was sort of nodding in a vague, bored way.
A spot was fixed for Sally to look at—an X of tape camera right.
“Just do it exactly the same way again,” Franklin said, “but look over there.”
“Over where?” Sally said, squinting.
“At the X mark.”
“Where is it?”
“To the right of the camera.”
“I can’t see it,” she said, still squinting.
“Sally,” Franklin said, “do you wear glasses?”
“Yes, but only for watching television, because I’m a little nearsighted.”
Franklin frowned. “Can you see a man standing over there, do you think?” He pointed at the man who was standing no more than eight feet away.
“What man?” she said, still squinting.
“Oh my God,” Franklin said.
I looked over at Mann to see how he was reacting to all this. But Mann seemed to be deep in conversation with Al Chadney, and paying no attention to Sally at all.
“Spray a flag and set it up for her,” Franklin said. He turned to Claude. “How fast can we get her fitted with contacts?”
“Probably a week.”
“A week? Christ.”
“Oh, I always wanted contacts,” Sally said, and clapped her hands.
“Arrange it,” Franklin said. “And in the meantime, we’ll do the best we can.”
Claude nodded. He was about to arrange it, when Mann walked over to him. “I think we should keep Chadney on past tomorrow,” he said.
Claude moved closer to Mann and spoke quietly. I wouldn’t have heard the conversation except that I happened to be near them. “We don’t need him past tomorrow,” Claude said.
“I know that,” Mann said.
“We have no more stunts after the wire gag. It isn’t necessary to carry him.”
“I know that, but I think it would be useful to have him.”
“I don’t want to argue with you,” Claude said in his most respectful voice, “but you’ve got him as stunt gaffer on a thousand-dollar weekly. If you carry him for the rest of the picture, it’s another fifteen thousand dollars, and we don’t have any stunts.”
“I’d just feel better if he was here.”
“Fine, but the studio will never approve that expenditure.”
“Let me worry about the studio,” Mann said.
“Fine,” Claude said. “We’ll carry him. I’ll tell Ed.”
“Good,” Mann said, and walked away with a nod to Chadney, who was standing and watching the conversation across the set.
Now, I heard the whole thing, and I thought it was damned strange.
Mann was a freak about wasted money. Early in the production he’d even gotten on my back about the multilith costs I’d run up putting out releases.
I mean, he was petty. And now he was authorizing an unnecessary fifteen-grand expense.
That’s a lot of multilith press releases.
I looked over at Perkins, who was sitting next to me.
“You hear that?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. But he didn’t act surprised. Franklin, meanwhile, was setting up another shot with Sally, and then there was a voice shouting, “Mr. Franklin, the snake wrangler is here for you.”
Franklin turned to Claude. “Take care of that, will you?”
“Sure,” Claude said. “How many do you want?”
“Get about four strikers, and three or four crawlers.”
“Fine,” Claude said. “Big?”
“As big as you can get.”
“Fine,” Claude said, and went off to see the snake wrangler’s wares.
I could just see the wrangler’s station wagon pulled up at the end of the street.
The wrangler himself was pulling out several large wooden boxes from the back of the wagon.
Even from where I was sitting, I could hear the hiss of the rattlesnakes.
“That’s an unpleasant sound,” Perkins said.
I nodded.
You may be confused about wranglers. In movie talk, anybody who handles animals is a wrangler. There are dog wranglers and cat wranglers and even once a cockroach wrangler. That’s just what those people are called.
“I think it’s time to go back to the motel,” Perkins said, around that time. It was almost noon, and hot as hell. I said I didn’t mind.
As we drove back in the limousine, Perkins asked me, “What do you know about Mr. Chadney?”
“The stuntman? Not much. He’s considered a good one.”
“He seems a handsome devil.”
“They all are,” I said. “They’re all big ladies’ men.”
“Does Chadney have anybody in particular he’s fond of?”
“I haven’t paid much attention. I think I’ve seen him with a dark-haired girl several times.”
“I wonder how we could locate her,” Perkins said.
“We could ask Chadney.”
“Without asking Chadney.”
“Let me work on it,” I said. “I may be able to come up with something.”
Now, just between you and me, whenever a movie person says that, it means he’s already figured out how to do it.
And yes, I had already figured out how to do it.
I was pretty sure Chadney’s girl was a University of Arizona student, and there was one girl named Alice who was the head of some sorority and made a point of knowing everybody—you know, one of those premature social whizzes.
She would know Chadney’s girl. I could ask her tonight.
“I’m sure you’ll do your best,” Perkins said. “By the way, did you know that Chadney has been arrested for narcotics possession?”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said. “In Alameda County in 1967. He was working as a stuntman and was apprehended for possession of one ounce of cocaine.”
“No kidding.”
“I never kid,” Perkins said. “By the way, what time is Greenblatt arriving?”
“Oh my God,” I said. I had completely forgotten about Greenblatt and Robinson. I had some arrangements to make before they showed up. A thought occurred to me: “How did you know he was coming? It was supposed to be a secret.”
“He called me,” Perkins said. “I’m working for him, after all. What time?”
“Six,” I said. “Flying in at six.”
“You look positively stricken,” Perkins said.
“I have some arrangements to make.”
We got back to the Holiday Inn. I noticed in passing that it was L-shaped, with some windows looking out on the corridor, but I couldn’t make any particular sense of that. I went to my room and immediately called my friend at the Sands.
“Herbie,” I said, glancing at my watch, “I need a couple of your friends with a lot of class.”
“All anybody wants is class,” Herbie said. “Nobody wants trash. And I suppose you want now?”
“Tonight, Herbie.”
“Tonight. He wants tonight. How many you want?”
“Two.”
“Two with class tonight. And where are you, may I ask, tonight?”
“Tucson.”
“Why not,” Herbie said. I could hear his pen scratching on a pad. “Two with class tonight in Tucson. Will it be one night only?”
“Let’s leave that open.”
“Open costs more.”
“Herbie . . .”
“Okay, leave it open. Do we have any special preferences?”
“Tall blonds.”
“Two tall blonds with class tonight in Tucson. Do we have any special requirements?”
“Like what?”
“Like acts, parties, dogs, whatever.”
I wondered briefly what the whatever covered. “Well, look,” I said. “I don’t know, but you better send me versatile performers.”
“Now, Harvey,” Herbie said sternly. “You know as well as I do that class is not versatile. Class is class, and it doesn’t go in for your rough stuff or your dogs or your acts. Now you got to make up your mind.”
“Class,” I said.
“I got just what you need. It’ll be a thousand and expenses for the night from you, and tips are tips. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“One last thing,” Herbie said. “You got any call for a boyish figure? I have a terrific blond with a boyish figure.”
I wondered about that. Robinson was supposed to be so freaky. But I decided to play it safe. “Showgirl types,” I said. “But with class.”
“You keep saying that word, Harvey. Trust me.”
“I trust you.”
“There’s a Vegas plane puts them in Tucson at five thirty. Can you take it from there?”
“Sure.”
“Bye, Harvey.”
“Bye, Herbie.”
I made a note that it would be a thousand dollars plus travel and other expenses.
That would be a budget item, of course. It would go down somewhere between “Transportation” and “Electrical,” a thousand-dollar expense that would be called cables or something but actually represent two escorts who flew out from Vegas for a day for studio executives.