Frolic of His Own (35 page)

—Only problem there Oscar, see your only problem is you've got right there in your original complaint where you're alleging professional distress for your second cause of action.

—I'm sure that's not his only problem Mister Basie, how are you? She waved off a handshake across the room, —please don't get up. What has he done now.

—Just talking about this letter he's writing to the . . .

—It's nothing Christina, it's just, give it back to me!

But she'd lifted it lightly from his hand, coming round behind him, —this? scanning it, —is it a joke?

—I said give it back to me!

—Who in God's name is Sir John Nipples.

—He's none of your, he's a director, he's the prominent British theatre director who . . .

—Surprised you never heard of him Mrs Lutz, he's put on some of these great productions from the Elizabethans. Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster, did a Marlowe's Tamburlaine there two years ago knocked them out of their seats.

—There! you see? You see Christina? How he could bring out the pure poetry in my battlefield scene at the end of act two? and Thomas? my character Thomas torn between his demands for justice and his destiny being stolen from him by, the whole last act, and the curtain, when John Israel comes back and . . .

—He hasn't even read it has he?

—That's what this is all about, this letter, he wants to read it. How many people do you think get a letter from Sir John Nipples asking to look at their play, to see the whole thing up there on the stage just the way you imagined it and the whole . . .

—That's a good question isn't it, how he happens to write to you of all people at a moment like this?

—What do you mean of all people! He probably, he may have read my interview in the paper when I set the record straight on the vulgar desecration of the great passions and paradoxes of man's existence that have been the very heart of theatre since the Greeks to bring them down to the . . .

—Oscar?

—to the cheap appetites of the movie, what.

—See when she says at a moment like this, only way he'd even hear about your play is from this lawsuit in the papers.

—That's what I just . . .

—Where you're asking these triple damages there for your second cause of action?

—And it ought to be quadruple, quintuple, profaning the ideas and passions in a thing like this it ought to be ten times the . . .

—Asking money damages Oscar see that's what you have to prove, you've suffered money damages. Say old Sir John here'd come along a year or two ago wanting to do your play, took an option on it, you've got grounds there to project your Broadway profits maybe a movie sale coming out of that, miniseries, merchandising, money, just plain money. Court doesn't give a good God damn about desecrating these great poetic passions you've got. What you're alleging in your complaint is this movie they made whether it's a great movie or just a piece of, whether it's any good or not that they stole it from you and shut you out of any chance of ever seeing a dollar on your own creation like it has it right there in Section 8 of Article 2, same thing if your play is junk and a movie turns it into Coriolanus there's your constitutional right to protect a piece of junk, see that's what these cases are mostly all of them about, protecting one piece of junk against another piece of junk and there's your precedents. Sir John gets your play up there in lights and you blow your whole case because without this movie he'd never have heard of it. You don't even want anybody to know you heard from him, they hear about it and they'll come back suing you for a finder's fee. That brings me to the next thing here. They just made us an offer to settle.

—To, you mean my lawsuit? to settle my lawsuit?

—Settle it out of court, clean up the whole thing. Two hundred thousand dollars.

—That they'd, you mean they'd give me two hundred thousand dollars?

—Thank God.

—No now wait Christina I, two hundred thousand dollars!

—Well my God Oscar what are you hesitating for! Take the money, forget about the movie and call up the great Mister Nipples, that's what you've wanted all the time isn't it?

—Two hundred thousand dollars! Cash? in cash?

—To clear up this whole mess of course he'll take it Mister Basie, won't you Oscar.

—No but wait, wait . . .

—Up to him Mrs Lutz. Help him out on these legal expenses here wouldn't it.

—No but, help me out?

—See I don't know right where you stand on our last statement there but they maybe haven't got my trip to the coast in there yet, that whole deal going out to the coast, you got your last statement?

—Well I, it's here someplace but I, but the coast you mean California?

—Well where is it Oscar.

—Where is what. You mean you went out to California?

—Had to go out there to take their depositions, the writers, Kiester, the whole gang, sat around the Beverly Wilshire for two days waiting for Bredford to sober up to where he could spell his own name, couldn't even remember making the picture.

—Their statement Oscar. Where is it.

—It's right there, Christina! It's, it's probably over in that blue folder with some bills I haven't had time to open yet but, now wait! Put it back!

—Even bumped into an old buddy out there from when I knew him back in the, back in my little theatre days, plays the main house slave in the movie and . . .

—Christina I said put it back! You have no business opening my . . .

—My God.

—Maybe didn't get my trip south in there either, down there trying to register those old Historical Society letters. Turned out the old Judge was one step ahead of us, got in there and registered them in his own name.

—My God Oscar.

—Doesn't hurt anything Mrs Lutz long as they're protected, this law clerk of his told me the old Judge says as long as he's alive this per stirpes stops right here at his door.

—I mean this statement, my God. Well here Oscar, look at it!

—See what I mean about this settlement they want to palm off on you, talking before taxes too probably just about eat it up.

—Eat it up! and what about, look at them! paper tearing all the way —doctors, hospitals, x-rays, therapy here's the one for mutilating our trees out there you haven't even paid them yet? Trash removal, eighty dollars and a quarter? How long have you . . .

—I just told you I, the battery in my calculator burned out and I haven't had . . .

—Haven't had time to open them my God Oscar what do you do here all day, sit there with your Pinot Grigio and plan your little luncheon menus in the Spanish style? Now who's this one, law offices of Kevin who's he, that ambulance chaser she dug up for you?

—Well that's not, I haven't seen it no that can't be a bill, it was all a contingency arrangement that he said would be . . .

—Hours, disbursements, filing your case with New York Supreme Court seventy five hundred dollars.

—No!

—You make a written agreement with him Oscar?

—Well no, it was a, it was clearly understood that we . . .

—Clearly understood! Oscar never even met him.

—No, I simply won't pay it that's all. I won't pay it.

—Might have a problem getting your file back from him if you get yourself a new lawyer on it.

—I've got a new lawyer.

—Where did you get a new lawyer, Oscar.

—Well I, never mind where I got him Christina I've already had a telephone consultation with them and they're taking it, they're specialists that's what they specialize in, they specialize in personal injury cases like this one, in negligence, they . . .

—They probably sent a request for your file to this Kevin so he sits on the file and signs off with a bill.

—No well wait now listen, listen. I've been through this before, listen. He stepped in and took a divorce case for my, for a friend of mine from another lawyer who did the same thing, she wouldn't release the file till we paid her off for the mess she'd made of it and I won't do it again. I won't pay him. It's blackmail, I won't pay him, isn't it? blackmail?

—Pure and simple Oscar, legal blackmail.

—Well what are you going to do. You have a check here, did you know it? from your college health care Blue Cross program?

—Where, no, no I thought it was a bill.

—It's a check from Blue Cross for thirty seven dollars and eighty cents. Subject of course to any other insurance settlement you may have received.

—Do you know what they offered me? this, this other insurance settlement they offered me fifteen hundred dollars for everything, for the whole thing, fifteen hundred dollars!

—That makes a grand total of two hundred one thousand five hundred thirty seven dollars and eighty cents if you accept all these generous offers, doesn't it. What do you plan to . . .

—Yes and that's, he just said that's before taxes too so it probably wouldn't even cover the, all this, I don't understand all this, these disbursements and these, all these depositions in California?

—Disbursements Oscar, see that's money we lay out. Travel, filing fees, duplication, stenographers, that stenographer who came out here taking down your deposition that's ten dollars a page right there.

—Well I'm not paying her am I? They're the ones who wanted the deposition, that revolting little Mister Mudpye?

—Just to give you an idea how these depositions can run into money, see the ones I took out on the coast there were all . . .

—That's what I mean, who are they these, Railswort? Afhadi? Probidetz?

—They're the writers on the picture, they . . .

—And this Button somebody, who in the . . .

—That's the old buddy I just told you about, played the head house slave from right there in their opening scene through the whole . . .

—No but wait, wait, I mean just because he's your old buddy sitting around drinking in the Beverly Wilshire for two days while this Bredford's sobering up? What's the . . .

—Try to calm down Oscar, just calm down.

—It's all right Mrs Lutz, ought to ask me anything he wants to. See we had a little setback there. About the scar.

—What scar. On his face in the movie? That's one of the best proofs we have that they stole it, that they stole my play it's right there in the first scene when the curtain goes up.

—What I thought too Oscar, I surely thought so. Turns out they've got affidavits from old Button there and the doctor who sewed him up for their claim that right before they started shooting those scenes where he comes in with his scar Bredford got in an altercation with a cab driver in New York right beside General Sherman there outside the Plaza Hotel and the cab driver bit him on the cheek, would have held up their production schedule losing half a million a day so they just wrote it in.

—But that's, I don't believe it.

—They've got their original script there without it and this affidavit from my old buddy who happened to be on the spot trying to babysit Bredford even have the cabbie they're holding for deportation when they can figure out what country he comes from, couldn't take his affidavit because nobody can figure out what the hell language he's speaking.

—I don't believe any of it!

—But see the court will Oscar, got the sworn affidavits right there to prove it.

—Maybe this solves everything Oscar. Turn down their settlement, lose your case, and you're perfectly free to go off on your Broadway honeymoon with Sir John Nipples and be in debt for the rest of your life my God, you know what Harry told you, that you can always lose a case? He said it would cost you money didn't he? Well here's the money Oscar, take their settlement pay the taxes and start to clean up this whole mess, it's the chance you always wanted isn't it? This great director you're so besotted with if he really wants to do your play isn't that everything you've dreamed of? seeing it done the way you imagined it when you saw it in your head while you were writing it, to let Father see what you really wrote and be proud of you? Isn't that, doesn't that make sense Mister Basie? Doesn't it?

—Hate to see it drop now we've come this far Mrs Lutz.

—But with your, with this story about the scar and the, and if you lose? if he loses?

—We appeal Mrs Lutz.

—Yes and if you win they appeal and the clock keeps right on running?

—We knew that right off from the start didn't we, like Harry said you bring a big lawsuit it's going to cost money? See we got a strong case here, real strong. Why do you think they want to settle? This about the scar here it's a bad break, there's always bad breaks you got to expect them but that's all it is, just one little bad break in a real strong case why do you think they'll pay up to a quarter of a million to settle? See most cases, like maybe ninety percent of cases they're settled out of court at the last minute like this one, like they're trying to bait the hook here on this one. Why do you think they just settled with that documentary maker, they knew he had them by the short hair on that sledgehammer scene he did in Uruburu, same thing here. You think they're offering to settle if they're sure they can win?

—Yes and if they lose, if they lose they appeal and . . .

—If we lose, what we're talking about here if we lose. See they've assigned this case to this brand new district court judge, no track record you can't tell which way she'll go, the ABA sits real hard on these appointments and she's got a real high priced reputation as a negotiator, can't tell which way she'll go then what. Say she finds for the defendant and throws it out, then what. Maybe that's good Mrs Lutz. You take how many cases lose in the district court and win on appeal because that's where this Second Circuit Appeals Court's got a real appetite for cutting down the court below so maybe you play to that. Maybe that's how we play it.