Blue Movie (32 page)

At one end of the maze was the cutting room where the film was edited, and at the other end was the projection room where it was shown; and, in fact, at this very time a screening was in progress; a rough assemblage, comprising a selection from the sequences already completed, was being presented to all principals involved in the production: Boris, Sid, Tony, Nicky, Lazlo, Morty, Lips, Phil Fraser, Helen Vrobel, and Dave and Debbie, who had stayed over to see it. In addition to this stellar gathering was the grotesque triumvirate: C.D., Les, and Lynx Letterman; the reason for their otherwise questionable presence was that, after due consideration, they had decided to support the production, instead of the dead star. This attitude, on the part of C.D. and Les, merely reflected what was now in the best interest of the studio and the stockholders and was quite understandable as such. The sustaining interest of the redoubtable Lynx Letterman, however, was another matter; to secure his full cooperation, PR-wise, they had, following a certain amount of negotiation, assigned to him Angie’s share, which had been determined in this case to be two and a half points of the gross action.

Sid, despite his
professed,
indeed almost
professional,
cynicism, was somewhat shocked when he first learned of the matter-of-fact disposition of this part of Angie’s estate, indeed of Angie herself. Mort Kanowitz, however, was quick to reassure him. “Okay, Sid, so she was a great star—one thing is sure, no matter how you slice it, nobody makes money on a
stiff,
Right?”

Other than the aforementioned members of the audience, also in attendance was the almost legendary Tina Marie Holt—known to most as “Teeny Marie,” she who had jetted in from the film capital that very day, and was now squealing with unbridled delight as she watched the exquisite Arabella writhing beneath the rude hunching embrace of big Sid Krassman.

“Put the wood to her, Sid!”
she screeched.
“The uppity frog dyke!”

It was at just about this moment that the first
“Hey, Rube!”
reverberated through the vaulted corridors from the direction of the cutting room, scene of the initial strike of the assault party’s lead-element flying wedge. Sid, Morty, and Lips—in each of whose past was a phase of carnival life—were quick to harken to the alert, mouths dropping agape, eyes rolling back, “What the fuck!?!” muttered almost in unison. Sid and Morty bolted from the projection room and into the corridor, while Lips, heeding the beat of a different drummer now, clocked C.D. once, then stepped into the shadow near the door, loosened his jacket, and allowed his fingers to trial lightly over the contour of the heat-piece beneath.

In the corridor outside, pandemonium was rife, and the passageway echoed with strident shouts in German and Italian.

Two men from the cutting room, clothes torn and awry, looking very much under duress, suddenly rounded the corner.

Sid grabbed one of them as he tried to rush past. “Eddie, what the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

“Run for it!” the other shouted, “it’s the
goons
!” He wrenched free from Sid’s grasp and bolted away.

Sid wheeled and forcibly detained the second man. “Harry, what’s he talking about?
What
goons, for Chrissake?”

“Beats me,” said Harry, breathing hard and looking over his shoulder. “Eddie thinks it’s a
union
beef . . . thinks they sent a goon-squad to break up the joint . . . I don’t know, look like straight
hoods
to me . . . Mafia types . . . some kind of shakedown operation, I guess.”

Sid couldn’t believe it. “You mean they . . . broke into the
cutting room?”

Harry nodded, “They grabbed the out-takes and the second dupe . . . I think they’re after the
negative.”

The last word hit Sid like a twisting knife.
“Holy Christ!”
He turned to Morty in panic, “Morty, quick,
get the gorillas!”

“Right!” said Mort, and disappeared into the maze, with Harry close behind.

At that instant, from the opposite direction, appeared an advance echelon of the raiding party, intent upon storming the projection room, with Card at the fore.

“Holy Christ,” Sid muttered, “I should of guessed it!” And he rushed out to confront him. “Hold it, buster,” he said firmly, “where do you think you’re going?”

“We have come for the film,”
the Cardinal replied, equally firm, and in an accent reminiscent of Eric von Stroheim.

Sid looked uneasily over his antagonist’s shoulder to the ruffian band behind him, many of them dressed in what appeared to be the cloth of the Church.

“Now, step aside,” the Cardinal ordered, and he pointed a huge golden cross at Sid, flourishing it the way one might to banish a vampire—but because of its size, it was not without a threat of a more tangible nature.

“Wait a minute,” said Sid, “you mean that you . . . you would take the law into your own hands like that?”

“Ha!” the Cardinal bellowed, “and why not?
You did it with Eichmann!”

“Huh?”

“Now get out of the way!” And he brandished his cross again.

‘Go fuck yourself, buster!” Sid roared, gave him a straight shot to the snoz, whirled around, and darted into the projection room and up to the stage, switching on the lights as he did and yelling at the top of his voice, Paul Revere style: “IT’S THE FUCKING WOPS! THEY’RE AFTER THE NEGATIVE!”

The “audience” poured out into the corridor, just as the marauders finished ransacking the projection booth and emerged, carrying six cans of film, and trailing it behind them like a Les Harrison bandage.

What ensued was one of the most extraordinary occurrences in the history of group conflict. The maze of corridors was choked with scenes of strangeness as the Hollywood weirdies joined in pitched battle with the freaks from the Holy See, and the halls rang with a conglomeration of earthy obscenities and curious biblical anathema.

The tide of battle seemed to shift almost momentarily, usually related to the arrival of reinforcements for one faction or the other. First, it was the timely appearance of the grips and gaffers, led by Freddie the First and stout Morty himself, plunging into the melee to set the churchmen reeling. But this was soon more than counterbalanced by the advent of another of their own fanatic contingents, black robes flying.

Meanwhile, on the individual level, instances of prowess and valor were not uncommon. Nicky Sanchez and Teeny Marie worked together as a hard-hitting little team, confounding the adversary with their pesky windmill flurries of scratches and bites.

Sid and Most used their street-fighting heritage to good advantage, laying about them with great gusto, constantly looking for some heavy object to wield. “Where is
Lips
and that fucking
gun?!?”
Sid kept shouting. But Lips remained aloof, content to do his own thing, which now consisted of protecting old C.D.—one of the first to fall—and he managed this by dragging him to one side of the raging fray, and then merely waving the gun about—a smart .38 Police Special—whenever anyone ventured too near.

“Use the
gun,
Lips!” Sid had shouted once when things seemed at their most dire, “For Chrissake, use the
gun!”

“Fuck
you,
Krassman!” was the reply. “I ain’t risking no capital-punishment rap just to save
your
fat ass!”

Boris and Lazlo had immediately begun trying to film the sensational fracas, shooting with hand-held Arries while perched on pinnacles and turrets, or crouched in wall niches which used to accommodate great oil lamps and torches. Tony and Dave were also in one of the niches—but they weren’t shooting, they were smoking pot and observing the scene.

“Beautiful,” Dave kept murmuring, nodding his head and beaming,
“beautiful.”

Les Harrison, meanwhile, was in the midst of the action, behaving like a maniac. Fancying himself something of a karate expert, he was leaping about, attempting to deliver deadly chops and kicks all around him, to friend and foe alike—but his coordination had been so undone, to say nothing of his head, by the big M, that he consistently missed his target, and simply went flying about, more often than not doing certain injury to himself.

Lynx Letterman, acting half on hunch and half on cunning, had abandoned the rumble in its earliest stages, but did have the savvy to do so under the guise of “getting Debbie and Helen Vrobel out of here!”

As for editor Philip Fraser, he was acquitting himself decently enough, in a straightforward Marquis of Queensberry manner, when suddenly his eye caught a series of very familiar blue-striped film cans being lugged through the crowd.

“Oh my God,” he said, “they’ve got the negative!”

The word ran through the film company like a lighted fuse.
“They’ve got the negative!”

This served to rally them terrifically, with even Boris, Laz, and Tony joining the struggle, but the odds were hopeless. Just as Tony was going down under a torrent of blows, his glance chanced on Dave, still sitting where he had left him. “You little cocksucker,” he yelled, “get your ass down here and help us!”

But Dave only nodded and smiled beatifically. “Everything’s cool, baby,” and he pointed, in the distance, over their heads, where, lo and behold, there appeared a vast procession like Caesar’s legions, banners aloft, colors flying, “FREE KIM AGNEW!” “OEDIPUS SUCKS!” etc.

Thus, the balance of power had abruptly changed once more, as Sid saw all too clearly, when the fighting slowed to a stop. “Okay, you ass-hole,” he shouted at the Cardinal, “you’re
finished!
Those kids are with
us!”

The Card appeared confounded indeed and muttered something to a man with a lean and hungry look nearby—his head-honcho, as it were—who, in turn, frowned his angry consternation, and spoke in rapid Italian to a young, bearded acolyte beside him; the latter nodded tersely and doffed his priestly raiment, leaving him in snug jockey shorts and T-shirt, whereupon they conferred again before the young man abruptly departed.

Sid, feeling no pain now, had watched this odd skit with curious bemusement—until he suddenly realized what was afoot. “Look out!” he shouted, as he saw the young man emerge from his own group, and cautiously slip into the ranks of the unsuspecting Hippies, where he immediately seized a placard (“NIXON LIVES!?!”), and smashed it over the head of one of the rival Crazies—thereby instigating a full-scale fratricidal riot.

“No, no,” Sid kept crying, “he’s one of
them!”

Tony had also seen it, and joined to sound the alarm:
“Provocateur! Provocateur!”

But it was to no avail and, as the fighting grew heavier, the blue-striped cans were obscured from view, and Sid slumped to the floor with a heavy heart indeed.

“W
ELL,”
B
ORIS WAS SAYING
over one last drink on the veranda at the Imperial, “at least now we know it
can
be done.”

“Ha,” Tone laughed bitterly, “that’s some fucking consolation.”

“We’ll get our film back,” said Sid, toneless.

“Forget it,” said Boris, “there are plenty of other things to do. I mean we
did
it, that’s the important thing—now, let’s do something that
hasn’t
been done.”

Tony nodded understanding—at the same time shaking his head, unable to accept it. “I don’t know,” he said wistfully, “I really would have dug seeing the Dave and Debbie thing—” he broke off, laughed, as at himself. Then he sighed, and added, almost sadly: “No, they
had
to destroy the film—it would have put too many people out of work.”

“I been over it a hundred times,” said Sid, possessed by total morbidity since their loss. “He practically
told
me what they done with the film. He said to me:
‘You
did it to Eichmann!’ So I ask myself, ‘Did what?’
Kidnap,
right? Eichmann was
kidnapped
and taken to
Israel!
Right? Okay, so where were
those
guys from?
Rome,
that’s where! And that’s where they got the film right now! Jeez,” he shook his head sadly, “I still can’t get over it—those guys being from
Rome,
and to do something so . . .
tricky,
and then that whole
provocateur
bit . . . well, that’s pretty
sneaky
. . . and there I was all along thinking about Rome as being someplace where everything was on the up and up . . . and where guys like
Saint Peter . . . Saint Paul,
guys like that, come from—am I right, Tone?”

“Right, Sid,” said Tone, having a drink. “Not to mention the late great Nick Machiavelli.”

“Yeah?” said Sid, with only sullen interest, “who is that?”

“Oh . . .” Tony shrugged, “one of the boys. Right B.?”

Boris nodded. “Yep,” and he looked over with a sad and weary smile. “Just like the rest of us . . . right, Tone?”

“Dig
it, B.” And Tone even toasted it.

New Protocol Mystery at Vatican

By JAMES H. MILLER Special to
The New York Gazette

VATICAN CITY, Dec. 13—In recent weeks, a number of
“privileged visitors”
to the Vatican—i.e., persons granted official access to, among other things, the balustrade overlooking the celebrated “inner-court”—have reported observing processions moving both toward and from the lower vault
(sanctum sanctorum),
also known as “Saint Anthony’s Vault.” A surprising number of such reports have originated with persons who are recognized authorities on Vatican protocol and processional observances, and who say that these “processions” do not correspond to any previously known or existing practices, as officially prescribed (in accordance with the
Dictus Regis Omnium,
etc.). None have felt it within their prerogative to speculate as to the meaning or purpose of these “processions” and they are unable to add much, if anything, of objective value to their descriptions of them. Having observed the phenomenon from a distance, little or nothing can be deduced from the demeanor of the processionals themselves—moving slowly, almost contemplatively, faces shadowed by their ceremonial hoods, expressions shrouded in a somber obscurity, pierced only on occasion by the glitter of their eyes.