Blue Screen (6 page)

W
E LAY ON
top of the covers, propped with pillows, naked in the warm California night, with the air-conditioning on low. We were both tired, and very postcoital.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Tony said to me.

“No need to grade each other,” I said.

“True,” Tony said. “But good is good.”

“My ex-husband used to say the worst sex he ever had was great.”

“A valid point,” Tony said. “How is the ex?”

“Married,” I said.

“Whoops,” Tony said.

“Big whoops.”

“Well, it does clarify your relationship,” Tony said. “Would you like to get married again?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I try to just take things as they come.”

“Clever phrase,” Tony said. “Given the moment.”

I smiled.

“I don’t think about getting married,” I said, “or not getting married.”

“Do you wish to marry me?” Tony said.

“No.”

“Nor I you,” Tony said. “Makes things simple.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t have to worry if we love each other or can trust each other. That kind of thing.”

“We don’t love each other,” I said. “And I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

“No. But we can have a nice time together every couple of years.”

“We’re deeply in like,” I said.

“Anybody else in your life?” Tony said.

“Men?”

“Yes.”

“Not really,” I said.

“Any prospects?”

“I don’t think that way,” I said. “I just try to take it as it comes…so to speak.”

We lay quietly for a time, our shoulders and hips touching.

“Do you care if I spend the night?” Tony said after a time.

“Yes,” I said.

Tony turned his head to look at me. I thought there was a hint of dismay in his look.

“You do?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to.”

“You don’t?”

“And you don’t want to,” I said.

“I know,” he said, “but a lot of women get hung up on that.”

“So they won’t feel like slam, bam, thank you ma’am,” I said. “I know. But I don’t feel that way.”

“You don’t mind being slam, bam?” Tony said.

“Not as much as I mind having to sleep in the same bed with somebody I don’t know terribly well,” I said. “And dragging out of bed in the morning looking like shit, and having to share the bathroom and make small talk while I’m trying to get my face on.”

“God bless you, Sunny Randall,” Tony said.

We lay quiet for another moment.

Then Tony said, “What I’ll do is, I’ll go home and maybe come by in the morning and have breakfast with you before you go see Erin Flint’s former representation.”

“That will be lovely,” I said. “The breakfasts here are excellent.”

“Everything here is excellent,” Tony said.

I gave him a little bump with my hip where it touched his.

“Before you go,” I said, “would you, perhaps, like a little something for the road?”

“That sounds good,” Tony said. “Let’s see if I’m up to it.”

We rolled toward each other and put our arms around each other again and kissed again. We pressed against each other. After a moment, I spoke, with my lips brushing his.

“Oh good,” I said softly. “You are up to it.”

Tony ran his hand gently down the curve of my back.

“A hard man,” Tony murmured, with his mouth against mine, “is good to find.”

We both giggled about that for a while.

And then we didn’t.

E
RIN’S FORMER AGENT
had an office on the second floor of a two-story stucco building on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica a few blocks east of 7th Street. She was a very thin woman in her early fifties, with tightly curled blond hair and rimless glasses. Her skin was pale, with very little makeup. She wore dark purple lipstick. She spoke in little spurts, punctuated with little irrelevant giggles. Her gestures were sharp and angular. She wore black jeans and a black shirt with short sleeves. Her arms were thin. Her fingernails were painted dark purple. Her name was Trixie Wedge.

“When she came to me she had nothing,” Trixie said.

“Except the body,” I said.

Trixie giggled once.

“She had that. But she was nowhere. She hadn’t done anything. She didn’t know anybody [
giggle
]. She was nowhere.”

“And you helped her,” I said.

“I got her acting lessons. I got her an Alexander trainer.”

“Alexander?”

“Posture and breathing,” Trixie said and giggled. “I taught her how to dress. I mean, she had expensive clothes and a lot of them. But they were in awful taste, you know [
giggle
]? I got her a new wardrobe, and I made sure she wore it to the right places and was seen by the right people.”

“Pygmalion,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

I shook my head.

“Just someone I knew who had a similar problem. What was she doing when she came to you?”

“Doing?”

“For a living,” I said. “To pass the time. I gather she was not yet an actress.”

“Oh, no [
giggle
], she surely wasn’t.”

“So what was she?” I said.

“I have no idea.”

“She never said?”

Trixie giggled and shook her head.

“She married?”

Giggle and shrug.

“Do you have an address for her?”

“You can get her through the studio or Buddy Bollen’s office,” Trixie said.

“No,” I said, “I mean when she worked for you.”

“I suppose so.”

“Could you find it?”

Giggle.

“Now?” I said.

“You want it now?”

“Yes,” I said.

She giggled again.

“Well, okay, I guess.”

She got up and went out of her office for a while. I sat in the small room with its small, cold fireplace behind the desk. There was a gas log but it wasn’t lit. On the walls were head shots of a bunch of actors I didn’t know and a couple I sort of did. There were also a couple of posters for television movies. I read the posters carefully and looked at all the pictures, and got up and went to the window and looked down at Montana Avenue for a time, and finally Trixie returned.

“My assistant is on her honeymoon [
giggle
], and the files are in disarray.”

“But you found an address?”

“Yes. She wouldn’t be there now.”

I nodded. Trixie handed me a piece of notepaper with an address.

“It’s in Santa Monica,” she said. “Off San Vicente, I think.”

“I’ll find it,” I said. “Anything else you can tell me about her?”

Trixie shrugged and giggled.

“She was a bitch,” Trixie said.

“There’s always one,” I said.

Trixie giggled.

E
RIN
’
S FORMER MANAGER
had a desk in a little cubicle in a warren of little cubicles occupied by a large management agency on Beverly Boulevard. He was a wispy, middle-aged man with a swell tan and thick, white hair worn longish and brushed straight back. His name was Ash Crawford.

“She needed more managing than I could give her,” he said when I asked him to talk about Erin. “Wild child.”

“Was she married?” I said.

“Said she was. I never met him.”

“Do you know his name?”

Ash Crawford smiled like a happy uncle.

“‘My husband,’” he said. “That’s all she ever called him.”

“Where did she live?”

“Santa Monica, near Seventh Street, I think. I used to meet her sometimes at the bar at Shutters.”

“Do you have an address?” I said.

“Bet I do.”

He turned to the computer on his desk and worked for a moment.

“Here you go,” he said.

The printer started up and a page came out. He handed it to me. It was the same address Trixie had given me. There was a phone number, too. But it was not likely to be useful. I folded the printout and put it in my purse.

“So when did you start managing her?” I said.

“Start of her career. She was still trying to break into the business when she came to me. I got her an agent.”

“Who?”

“Trixie Wedge.”

“She a good one?” I said

“She’s as good as you’re going to get with no track record”—Crawford smiled—“and no discernible talent.”

“Why did you take her on?” I said.

“The look. You don’t see many people who look like Erin Flint.”

“You felt that would be enough?”

“Yes. We could teach her the rest.”

“Talent?” I said.

He smiled again.

“Film can be edited,” he said.

“So you can, ah, create a performance?”

“Sure,” Crawford said. “It’s not like the stage. In the editing room, you have enough film, you can make anyone better than they are.”

“Erin is better than she was?” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yikes,” I said.

“Fearful to consider, isn’t it.”

“What was her big break?” I said.

“Meeting Buddy Bollen,” Crawford said.

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know she’d met him until she fired me. Said Buddy was handling her now. I told her Buddy’s a producer. It’s like the chicken being handled by the fox.”

“What did she say?”

“She said in this case she was the fox, and see you later.”

“Do you know about her new movie?” I said.

“I heard she was making one about some great female athlete.”

“When I talk to her and Buddy,” I said, “they talk as if it’s done.”

“Hell,” Crawford said, “I don’t know. But people like Erin and Buddy, it has been made. Once the deal is done. The rest is just mechanics.”

“Making the movie,” I said.

“Yes. It’s like a new car you haven’t driven yet. But you own it. It’s there in your driveway.”

“All you have to do is drive it,” I said.

“Uh-huh. For Erin and Buddy, most of the hard work is over. Probably never was hard work for Erin. She just has to walk around and look like Erin. And by now, Buddy has his financing wired. He’ll have his distribution deal, he’s got a director and a line-producer type, whatever his title is, and a full crew to actually make the movie. Buddy doesn’t have to do a lot of hands-on. And Erin—the work is hard. Long hours, lotta retakes, boredom, she does most of her stunts, but it’s stuff she can do. She gets the biggest trailer on the set, and everyone calls her Miss Flint, and she’s a star.”

I nodded.

“When I was married,” I said, “we had a contractor working for us at our house once. There was a set of kneepads in among the rest of his tools. I asked him if they were for laying tile. He said no, they were for getting the job.”

“Exactly,” Crawford said. “You understand the business.”

“Oh hooray,” I said. “How about her personal assistant, Misty Tyler?”

Crawford shrugged and shook his head.

“Don’t know her,” he said. “I assume it’s a her.”

“Do you know any guys named Misty?” I said.

He laughed.

“You never know for sure anymore.”

“Melissa Tyler,” I said.

“Never heard of her. She must have arrived after I got the boot. When I had Erin, she didn’t need a personal assistant.” He smiled. “Except me.”

“What was she doing when she came to you?”

“Doing?”

“You know, work, career, whatever. How did she spend her days.”

“Working out, as far as I know.”

“That’s all?”

“All I know about,” he said. “I think she belonged to Sports Club/LA.”

“Isn’t that pricey?”

“It is.”

“And how did she get there from Santa Monica?” I said.

He looked at me blankly.

“Drove, I suppose.”

“So she had a car.”

“Yeah, one of those little Mercedes with the retractable hard top.”

“Not cheap,” I said.

“I suppose not,” Crawford said.

“So what did she do to earn it?” I said.

“Maybe the hubby had some money,” he said.

“She implied a couple,” I said.

“Of husbands?” Crawford said. “Could be. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Was she a feminist when you knew her?” I said.

He smiled.

“When I knew her all she wanted was to be a star,” he said.

“I don’t think she ever really thought about anything else.”

“Now she is a feminist.”

“She plays a kind of female Schwarzenegger,” he said.

“So she is living up to the role,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “And now she’s a star.”

“Stars are feminists?”

“Most of the stars are liberal,” Crawford said. “Except for the Mel Gibson wing. But the official position for a star is feminist, antiracist, gay rights, antiwar, civil liberties, environmental. Their views aren’t righter or wronger than those held by any collection of airheads. Say me, for instance, and you. But stars have access, so what they think actually gets treated as if it mattered.”

“Which it doesn’t,” I said.

“No more than your opinion or mine,” he said.

“Nor, I suppose, any less,” I said.

Crawford sat back from his little desk in his little cubicle with his hands folded across his flat stomach. He smiled.

“Maybe a little less,” he said.