Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next thing that happened was me sitting at the Tucson airport again, but this time I was anxiously waiting for the two most important men in the world to get off the plane from LA.
I recognized Greenblatt coming down the ramp.
I figured it was Robinson behind him, looking very tall and lean and handsome.
Not that Greenblatt was exactly a slouch.
In the old days, studio executives used to be fat and smoke cigars and speak vulgarly and demand nasty little favors of young ladies.
Well, now studio executives are lean and well groomed and college educated, and they politely ask for little favors of young ladies.
Times have changed. Movies are a big business now, a little slicker than most, but basically still a business.
Greenblatt, I knew, got all his suits from London and his accessories from Paris.
Greenblatt was a tennis and physical fitness nut, and he didn’t smoke or drink.
Greenblatt went to Yale and made a very good appearance until he opened his mouth, at which point he sounded like a Seventh Avenue operator.
I didn’t know what Robinson would sound like, but it turned out he came across as very mild-mannered and casual. Greenblatt said, “This’s Jason, publicity,” in an offhand manner, but Robinson shook my hand nicely and said hello nicely.
They got their bags, and we made small talk about the weather and the flight. I waited for Greenblatt to bring up the death of McDougall, but he never did. And there wasn’t a feeling of avoiding the subject. It was as if it didn’t matter at all.
When we all walked out to the curb to the limousine, standing there by the curb were two big blonds with doe eyes and a pleading manner, waiting for a taxi.
Robinson spotted them and said, “You girls need a ride?”
“Oh,” Cindy said, “we’re trying to get a taxi, but it’s impossible.”
“We’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Robinson said, smiling.
The girls squealed and got into the limousine.
Greenblatt and Robinson got into the limousine.
I sat in front with the driver, Max. We all went into town.
Robinson and Greenblatt struck up a conversation with the girls.
They were laying over one night in Tucson on their way to Vegas, they said.
They didn’t have any plans for the night.
Neither did Greenblatt and Robinson, as it turned out.
The coincidence was remarkable, everybody agreed.
Now you understand what I meant about the art of my job. Nobody was kidding anybody else, but it makes things a little smoother when it works this way. And I had to admit, Herbie was right—the girls had class, and they did their little act smoothly, just the way I told them to.
By the time we got downtown, Robinson was patting one girl’s knee in a genteel and fatherly way. Everything was working just fine.
* * *
Robinson had a drink with the girls while Greenblatt met with Perkins. I wasn’t invited to that meeting, but it ran exactly one hour, and then Perkins emerged looking as unruffled as usual, and he suggested we go back to the Holiday Inn.
Driving back, I said, “How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
“Greenblatt is settled down?”
“Everything is fine.”
Obviously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, so I gave up trying.
We returned to the Holiday Inn around seven thirty.
The company was just arriving from the location, climbing wearily out of the bus.
Perkins strode past them all and went directly to the banquet hall, where the projector was set up.
For the next half hour, we watched the film he’d ordered from the lab: scene 290, takes one through three, including three hundred feet of extra footage run off because there were problems with the camera governor.
It started with the slate: “Scene two-ninety, take one,” and the clapper.
The slate was removed to show another version of the scene of Clete and Brenda kissing that we’d seen the day before.
It was the scene where Clete promises Brenda he’ll return after he kills Black Jed and avenges the loss of their homestead.
One look at the shot and I knew why Tom Franklin had scrubbed the setup.
It was clearly inferior to the later shot he’d made.
In this one, the camera was too far away from the principals—the composition didn’t have impact.
“I’ll be back, ma’am,” Clete said, on-screen. “I swear to you.”
“I worry,” Brenda said, staring into his eyes.
Clete considered this. “There’s no use your worrying, ma’am. Things’ll work out fine. I promise.” And he kissed her.
We heard Franklin off camera say, “Cut!” and there was a blip and the film went white. A moment later, there was another slate. “Scene two-ninety, take two.”
“Nothing much in the first one,” Perkins said.
The clapper struck for the second take. Clete said to Brenda, “I’ll be back, ma’am. I swear to you.”
“I worry,” Brenda said.
“You ought to worry,” Clete said, breaking his look and staring off camera. “In another minute, we’re going to have some fornication right here in the desert.” And then to somebody off camera: “Come on, kids, will you knock it off? We’re trying to do a scene here.”
“Okay, cut that,” Franklin said. “Claude, will you hold down the—”
And the film went white again.
There was a moment of black leader. I looked at Perkins. He was staring at the screen.
Another slate. “Scene two-ninety, take three.”
“Action,” Franklin said.
“I’ll be back, ma’am,” Clete said, staring into Brenda’s eyes.
And then there was a giggle off camera. Clete turned. “I swear,” he said.
“I worry,” Brenda said, still trying to do the scene.
“You shouldn’t worry,” Clete said. “It’s not your problem. Goddamn it, Tom, can’t we have a little quiet on the set? I don’t mean to make trouble, but McDougall’s sitting there with his hand practically down that girl’s blouse and—”
“Okay, cut it there,” Franklin said, and moved into the field of view.
“We’re running a minute for speed,” the camera operator said.
“All right, fine,” Franklin said, and turned his back to the camera. Franklin put his arm around Clete’s shoulder—which wasn’t easy, because he barely came up to Clete’s collarbone—and said something quiet and soothing.
Clete exploded. “Jesus Christ, Tom, we’re out here to do a job. That pipe-smoking pimp keeps feeling her up all during the take, and I’m telling you, it’s impossible to concentrate.”
Franklin made more soothing noises.
“I don’t give a shit about his problems. He’s fooling around with her tits, and it’s distracting me. He wouldn’t do that if Mann were around and—”
“Okay, okay,” Franklin said. He turned to look off camera. “Sally, wait in your dressing room, okay, honey?”
A moment later, a somewhat chastised Sally could be seen crossing one corner of the screen, going to her dressing room. There was a shout, unintelligible, from off camera.
“Take it easy, Art,” Franklin said.
“Shove it up your ass, you little pimple,” Clete shouted to McDougall.
At that moment, McDougall appeared in the frame and seemed to be about to fight with Clete Williams.
“I’ll break your skull if you don’t leave her alone,” Clete said, bunching his fists.
“Just because a woman shows interest in some other man—”
“—I’ll kill him—”
“—easy, fellas, easy—” Franklin was standing between them.
“—stupid son of a bitch—”
“—just because your ego is as big as all outdoors—”
“—that’s not what she says is big—”
“—you lousy stinking scum of—”
“—fellas, fellas—”
“—Clete, you haven’t got what it takes and—”
“—and do you?”
“—well, ask the lady, just ask her whether—”
“—fellas, now—” And then Franklin noticed the camera. “Did you cut that camera, for Christ’s sake?”
And at that moment, all the men on-screen froze with the sudden realization that the entire argument was being recorded. There was a kind of momentary tableau with all of them looking at the camera.
“Cut it now,” Franklin said. “Cut it right now.”
And then the film went white.
A moment later, the footage ran out of the projector and made a slapping sound before the banquet hall lights came on. I looked at Perkins.
“Very interesting,” Perkins said. He got up out of his chair. “Let’s go see the still man.”
* * *
Larry McBroom’s room smelled heavily of marijuana. He opened the door and smiled pleasantly. “Right on time.”
“I am always on time,” Perkins said. He looked around the room. There was a lot of camera equipment spread out on the bed. “Is that all of it?”
“Yeah,” Larry said. “That’s all of it.”
“I want to borrow a camera for tomorrow,” Perkins said.
Larry shot me a questioning look.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Give him whatever he wants.”
“What do you want?” Larry asked.
“You have a motor-drive Nikon?”
“Yes . . .”
“That’s what I want,” Perkins said.
“For tomorrow? Gee, I was going to use it myself. We have a stunt sequence—”
“You mean the wire-pull?”
“Right.”
“I need it before that. You can have it back before the stunt.”
Larry wasn’t happy. I could tell he wasn’t sure he’d get it back soon enough, and like everybody else on the crew, he didn’t ever want to be the reason for holding up a production.
“There’ll be a couple of minutes delay before the stunt. You’ll have time to reload.”
“How do you know there’ll be a delay?”
“Because I’ll cause it,” Perkins said. “Now what about film?”
“I shoot Tri-X.”
“Good. I’ll need a roll. Can you have the camera loaded and ready for me on the set tomorrow morning?”
“Sure,” Larry said. “What lens?”
“Five-hundred-millimeter telephoto. One last thing, Larry,” Perkins said. “Keep this under your hat.”
“Okay. Sure.”
And as we left, Perkins said, “That goes for you too.”
“I’d never breathe a word.”
“Not even to Mann?”
“Not if you say so.”