Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Believe it or not, I got up the next morning in a wonderful mood.
I was wide awake and alert and almost bouncy.
It was five thirty, and the sun was just beginning to lighten the sky—normally, it depresses me to wake up in the dark, but today it was a wonderful experience. I was shaving when the phone rang.
“Good morning,” I said in my most cheerful voice.
“Good morning yourself, you slime-coated little bastard,” our producer replied. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that Greenblatt and Robinson were here?”
“Because I was told by Mr. Greenblatt not to tell you.”
“You’re lying. He never said anything of the sort.”
“Ask him,” I said, still cheerful. Nobody was going to ruin my mood that morning.
“I did,” Mann said, “and you’re fired. Start packing your bags. I want you on the next plane out of here.”
And he slammed down the phone.
Suddenly it wasn’t so cheerful anymore. I stood there with lather on my face and wondered what to do. Mann was the producer of the picture. Under normal circumstances, if he said I was fired, then I was fired. On the other hand . . .
The phone rang. “Jason,” Greenblatt said, “I think Charlie is going to call you in a few minutes.”
“He just did.”
In the background, I heard a girl yawn. I wondered which of the classy blonds Greenblatt had ended up with.
“And?”
“He fired me.”
“Well, you’re not fired,” Greenblatt said. “You’ve done a damned good job so far, Jason, let me tell you that. I’m very pleased with the job you’ve done. I’m going to see that you’re put on Madame Bovary when this is finished.”
The studio was doing a remake. It was a big production. The unit publicist would have steady work for well over a year. “Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me. You deserve it,” Greenblatt said magnanimously.
“What about Mr. Mann?”
“I’ll worry about that. You just go about your job as always. By the way, where is Perkins? There’s no answer in his room.”
“He told me he had some early-morning business,” I lied.
“What kind of business?”
“He wouldn’t say. I thought it was something you and he might have discussed.”
“Oh yes,” Greenblatt said, as if he were remembering what it was. I knew he wasn’t remembering anything. “All right, Jason. Keep up the good work.”
So there I was, fired and hired before the sun got up, standing there with cold lather on my face. I went back and finished shaving. And wondered where Perkins really was.
* * *
Perhaps it was my mood, but the company at breakfast seemed peculiar that morning. I noticed several people as I walked into the room.
Al Chadney was eating alone at a corner table.
He seemed very calm, almost in a trance, eating and staring into space.
He was unshaven, but that was for the part he was playing, the grizzled bad man.
He looked at me briefly but didn’t seem to focus on me at all.
I didn’t wave. I just went to another table.
Tom Franklin was eating and listening to Paul Fox, who was talking a mile a minute. “It would be a perfect opportunity for you,” Fox said. “It’s really a parody of the Cain and Abel story, with mythic proportions. It contains the elements of Greek tragedy.”
“Greek tragedy in a biblical story?” Franklin asked, without a smile.
“The elements only,” Fox said, undeterred. “I mean the psychic components. The recurring themes that comprise the psychic and intellectual substrate of the literature of the world from the beginning. And it is all here in this story.”
“What’s it called?”
“Shock Murder,” Fox said. And then he added, “You have to add something for the masses.”
“Uh-huh,” Franklin said.
I sat at my table and had my bacon and eggs. Over in a corner, Mann was talking with Claude and not looking my way. Mann was sniffling and seemed edgy. Sally was nowhere to be seen.
I distantly heard Mann saying, “What time?”
“No later than nine,” Claude responded. “We have the first setup at eight, and then we’ll shoot in the next hour.”
“An hour?”
“It’s a dangerous stunt.”
“That’s what he’s paid for,” Mann said.
Claude went over to see Millie, who was messy as usual. He said something to Millie, and she nodded and made a note in her book. Then Claude came over to me.
“Sorry to hear you’re leaving us,” he said, his face looking appropriately sad.
“I’m not,” I said.
“I thought Mann adiosed you.”
“Greenblatt rehired me.”
“Does the sniffer know that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Must feel good to be in the middle,” Claude said, with a smile. He was often in the middle himself, because a UPM is smack in the center of pressures exerted by the director, the producer, the stars, and the studio. Claude lived with those conflicting pressures all his life.
But I didn’t, and it was true—I didn’t like it. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, you know.”
“Tell me about it,” Claude said. “By the way, can’t we get rid of Fox?”
“I don’t know how. Franklin can close the set, I suppose. That’s the only way.”
“You can’t lay it off on Franklin.”
“It’s the only way.”
Claude shrugged. “I guess we live with him. You heard anything from the lawyers or the insurance people?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I gather there’s still negotiations.”
At that moment, Brenda walked in for breakfast with an elderly man dressed entirely in black: black sport coat, black turtleneck, black slacks, black glasses. It set off his full head of white hair rather spectacularly. He was the flashiest old man I’d seen in a long time.
But that was only half the surprise. The other half was that Brenda never showed up for breakfast in the dining room. She always ate in her room upstairs. And she was never in the company of a male over the age of twenty.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Her shrink,” Claude said. “Flew out from Couch Canyon last night.”
Couch Canyon is what they call Bedford Street in Beverly Hills. It’s the street where all the psychiatrists have their offices.
“She got him all the way out here?” I asked.
“A star is a star. And that’s Marvin Orgell.”
“It is?” I had heard of Orgell before. He was one of Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatrists. He was the one who got what’s-his-name to get cleaned up and get married and have a kid. He had also shrunk the heads of several other big stars and studio executives.
Marvin Orgell was in fact a member of a professional group living in Los Angeles and existing as stars in their own right.
A certain collection of doctors, lawyers, business managers, even chauffeurs were considered stars.
To use their services or to invite them to your parties was considered a big deal.
I mean people like Greg Bautzer and Rex Kennamer and Leo Rangell.
In Hollywood society, they were as familiar as Gregory Peck or Kirk Douglas. Marvin Orgell was in that category.
It’s what you call credits. All Los Angeles is built on credits, like screen credits.
You want to buy a house? The real estate agent will whisper in your ear that this house was built by Gary Cooper’s agent and was remodeled by Shirley Temple personally.
You want a school for your kids? You’ll be told that Bob Culp and Steve McQueen send their kids there.
You want a lawyer? Get the lawyer who handled one of Yul Brynner’s divorces.
A doctor? The internist who treats Groucho Marx is probably best.
Credits.
Well, Marvin Orgell had plenty of credits.
His patient list sounded like the cast for the biggest film spectacular ever made.
And that does something to a doctor or a lawyer or a psychiatrist. For one thing, they are privy to all sorts of information—who’s making what deals, who’s fucking who, who’s hiding in the closet.
That gives them a kind of power in a town that thrives on gossip.
For another thing, they have the usual professional power, magnified because of the stakes of the business.
A lawyer who holds up McQueen’s contract can delay an $8 million movie, where any delay costs thousands of dollars.
An internist who says that Mr. Peck is too ill to work can shut down a multimillion-dollar enterprise.
That kind of power can go to your head. And it often does.
“Better mention to him about the press,” Claude said to me, with a pitying look.
“Can’t we get one of the lawyers to do it?”
“Better do it yourself,” he said. “Now.”
I said I would, and Claude went away.
At this point, it was a little after six a.m., and my excellent mood was totally shot. I couldn’t remember why I’d felt good when I got up—I certainly didn’t feel good anymore. I sat across the room and watched Brenda talking with Orgell. He was being sympathetic and patting her arm.
I finished my coffee and went over. Because the truth was that Claude was right—somebody had to tell Orgell to keep his mouth shut.
The chances were that he would, of course.
But everybody remembered the fiasco in 1957, when Remember the West was shooting and got into trouble and somebody’s shrink told the press that it was all because the star was having an unhappy affair with a male extra.
That shelved Remember the West—which you don’t remember, because you never saw it.
Nobody ever saw it. The picture was killed and the star was canned, and the psychiatrist continued to babble about how it was better for everyone to be honest and straightforward and face up to reality.
He completely forgot that movies, like politics, are unreality. That’s the point of them.
I wandered over—sauntered, you might say—and greeted Brenda.
“Good morning, Harvey,” she said. “Do you know Dr. Orgell?”
“Only by reputation. It’s a pleasure, Doctor.”
“So good to meet you,” Orgell said, in a trace of a Viennese accent. I was surprised by that and then wondered why I was surprised. Of course he would have a Viennese accent, even if he was from Brooklyn.
“It’s wonderful to have such a distinguished visitor on the location,” I said as charmingly as I could manage.
“And you are wondering when I will leave?” he asked.
“No, of course not.”
“Something is on your mind.”
“Well, actually, I wanted to advise you that there are a lot of reporters around at the moment, and—”
“No statement from me?”
“It would be advisable.”
“I am here,” Orgell said, “to do whatever is in the best interests of my patient, Miss Conrad. I will follow that principle as I see fit.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “but I merely wanted to advise you that the legal ramifications may go beyond any individual’s circumstance.”
“I have no concern for legal ramifications. I have concern for my patient.”
“I merely bring the situation to your attention, Doctor.”
“Thank you for doing so.”
It was getting a little frosty standing there, so I said goodbye and left. I had the distinct impression that I had made no impression. But at least I had formally and publicly said my piece. If Orgell shot his mouth off, it was no longer my fault.
I went out to the lobby to get on the bus to go to the location. There was Jerry Fisher, in his usual nicotine cloud, wheezing toward me. “Jason,” he said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. When are you going to make a statement?”
“What statement?”
“I gather that Perkins has finished his investigation and gone home. Isn’t it time for a press conference to clear this mess up and get Clete off the hook?”
“Perkins has gone home?”
“Jesus Christ, Jason. You’re paid to stay on top of things.”
I was still stunned. “Perkins has gone home?”
“Well, he checked out this morning. His room is empty. He left at five a.m., and he asked the desk to get him a taxi to take him to the airport. I’d say that means he’s gone home.”
“I’ll have to get back to you, Jerry,” I said.
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s all I know to say. Let me check it out.”
“Jesus Christ, Jason.”
I went over to the desk and inquired if Mr. Perkins had checked out. Indeed he had—they repeated what Fisher had told me. Mr. Perkins had left the Holiday Inn early that day and taken a taxi to the airport around five in the morning.
That didn’t make sense. First of all, Perkins’s plans for the night before didn’t accord with a hasty departure.
Second, there were no flights out of the airport until seven a.m. Why would he go there two hours early?
And third—well, I didn’t know any third of all, but there must be lots of other reasons why it didn’t make sense.
I looked back at Jerry, who was watching me. I shrugged. He glowered and stamped a butt into the ground with his heel.
Then I went and called Greenblatt’s room at his hotel. There was no answer. And then, because I didn’t know what else to do, I got on the bus and went to the location, wondering how long it would take for me to be fired for the second time that day.