Jimmy and Fay (21 page)

“Bobby,” he said.

“Bobby then. It's been a long night and I'm exhausted.” I stood up, and she said, “No, Jimmy, you stay here and catch up. I'll be just fine.”

“No, I'll come with you just to be sure.”

Bobby looked like he wanted to ask something. I said I'd be right back, and Connie and I left.

In the hall, she said, “Really, Jimmy, you don't need to do this.”

I said, “I had to get a little rough with that guy Trodache. Like I said last night, he knows where we work, he might know where we live. So humor me. What do you think of Bobby?”

She smiled a little. “He certainly is, I don't know, exotic? We see a lot of interesting characters in the bar, but he's really something, and that room of his, wow. And he sure knows how to flatter a girl.”

“Ain't that the truth. You better watch out for him.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said as we got to her room. She unlocked the door and I went inside with her. “See, nobody here,” she said. “Nothing to worry about.”

I said, “I worry,” and put my arms around her and kissed her. She responded but just for a second before she pushed me away. I let her go and gave her a curious look. She looked right back at me, giving away nothing.

I said, “You've still got Marie Therese's pistol, right? You didn't give it back to her?”

Her expression changed then, getting serious. She said yes, she still had it.

“Keep it handy for a few days. I'll see you tomorrow.”

Back up in his room, Bobby flopped back down on his cushions and said, thinking out loud, “Isn't that girl the sweetest little peach. I wouldn't mind a taste of that. Are you and her . . .”

“She works for me,” I said.

“And?”

I shrugged. “We get along.”

“From time to time, I host private soirees. In fact, I've got one coming up. Dress her up right and she could do very well for herself, double what she'd clear on a good night at your place, easy. A lot more if she was interested in it.” He stopped like he'd just thought of something, and then said, “But where was I? Oh, yeah, Dieter and Gus, those assholes.”

One night outside a town in south Jersey, when they were near the end of their circuit, Dieter and Gus really tied one on. Though Bobby didn't say it, I got the idea he might have helped them along. After both of them had passed out, he took their strongbox out of the back of the truck and got the key to it in Gus's shoe. He left them fifty bucks, the truck, the pictures, and the equipment and figured he was doing them a favor. He hoofed it into town and caught the first train heading west the next morning. He knew if he was going to learn anything about the other side of the picture business, he had to go to California.

“That's the source of the quality material, not the crap we were showing, I learned that when we were on the road. Guys want to see naked women screwing, it's that simple. But because I really like good movies, I was spoiled. I wanted a stag picture to look as good as a real picture. Okay, there was no way to tell a real story, but I knew that if I learned how they made pictures at the studios, I could make one that
looked
as good as theirs.”

He said, “First, you need a beautiful girl. That's not as hard as you think. You can't swing a dead cat out there without hitting a dozen of them, and with the right makeup and clothes, you can make just about any girl look like you want her to. So I learned about makeup and hair dressing and costumes.”

He did that by getting in tight with the guys nobody ever heard of, the guys who worked on the sets and made the backdrops and did the rest of the hundred little things you've got to do to make a moving picture that I never thought about. Bobby didn't say it in so many words, but I figured that he managed to get close to those guys the same way he wormed his way backstage at Minsky's, by supplying dope and booze and smokes. Working with those guys, he was able to see how all the little pieces fit together to make the kind of moving picture he imagined.

The first trick, he said, was light. He had to make light do what he wanted it to do. He told me to think about outdoor scenes. A lot of them looked so bright that you could tell what was happening but you couldn't make out any details, like when the Keystone Cops were chasing each other down dirt roads. That wouldn't do if you were trying to show a sexy woman's body. He said there was a guy who shot portraits of all the famous actresses. Maybe I'd seen them. The guy's name was Hurrell. And there was a Chinaman out there, a cameraman who could do incredible stuff with filters and frames to make a girl's eyes look better. And there was another guy who made these real arty, dreamy photographs. Their work was like nothing Bobby had ever seen and he wanted to capture that same satiny texture and glamour with naked girls.

But it wasn't the same with still pictures and moving pictures. He had a lot to say about different kinds of orthochromatic and panchromatic film stocks that I didn't understand.

After Bobby thought he'd figured out all those things, he had to rent a camera and lights and a private place where he could build his sets. Then he had to find a lab that would develop his film without asking any questions. And he had to keep all of it secret. Once he had those lined up, he called a girl he knew, a tall girl who looked a little like Theda Bara but hadn't had any luck breaking into the business. She had developed a taste for cocaine.

Bobby said, “I thought back to the days when I first got in backstage at Minsky's, remember that time? Well, there was this one night, some of the girls were talking and didn't know I was there. One of them was saying how cute I was and how she liked me, and there was another one, an older bitch, who laughed and said, ‘Yeah, if you get 'em when they're young enough, you can get them to do anything,' and they laughed with her, and she said, ‘So work him for all you can before he wises up.' It made me mad to hear it, but, shit, the bitch was right and I didn't forget it. And it cuts both ways, don't it? A little flattery, a little money, a little gin, a little snort, my Theda Bara was ready to do anything I asked her to do.”

He made a lot of mistakes on that first one, even with what he'd learned from the professionals, and wasted a lot of film, but he kept at it. At first, he tried to be the guy who was seduced by her, but that just didn't work. He had to be behind the camera. The only actor he could find refused to work without a mask because he thought he still had a chance to be a star. The girl though, she was fine. In some shots, you would think she really was Theda Bara.

“I look back on it now,” Bobby said, “and compare it to the work I've done since and it doesn't look so great, but at the time, it was damned good. If it wasn't the best stag film ever made, it was a hell of a lot better than any of the shit I showed with the Projectionists, and I'm still damn proud of it.”

“What did you do with it?” I asked.

“Brought it back home. What else would I do? That was the idea all along.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, like I wasn't buying it.

“What, you don't believe me? Come on then. I'll show you.”

Chapter Eighteen

Bobby got up from his pillows and pulled a key ring out of a blue-and-gold box on a table by the door. He said, “Honeybunch, don't touch anything,” but she was busy with her pipe.

I followed him out into the hall and down to 618. He had to unlock two locks, one a heavy deadbolt, to open the door. “It may not look like much,” he said as he snapped on a light, “but this is where the magic happens, or part of the magic.”

To me, it was more impressive than his Arabian Nights tent in a different way. It was filled with stuff and smelled of ink and glue.

A workbench made of boards that had been nailed and screwed together ran along one wall. On the opposite wall there were shelves made of the same rough lumber. They were stacked with bolts of bright cloth, folded dresses, long wigs on model heads, shoes, cosmetics, and masks trimmed with feathers and fur. In the middle of the floor were a sewing machine and an easel and a drawing desk and dress forms and a big trash bin. There was a typewriter on the bench, but most of the space was taken up by a hand-operated printing press with a round metal plate and a long handle, tubes of ink and rollers, a fat pot of glue, boxes of heavy paper and cardboard and envelopes, and a metal stapler almost two feet long.

“This is pretty impressive,” I said and meant it.

Bobby sat in a chair by the press. I perched on the stool at the drawing table. “Yeah,” he said, “I built the shelves and the bench. Funny, after I left Dieter and Gus, the first thing I learned about making moving pictures was carpentry. The second was sewing.”

“I don't understand,” I lied. “What does this have to do with movies?”

“You've got to have something to take a picture of. Sure, you need the girl, but she has to be in a place or a situation, and you've got to make that. Then she has to wear clothes so she can take them off. You see, you've got to create a world on the screen. The studios, they've got their own shops. They can make a western town or a French palace. I make mine myself. It starts with drawings. From those, I paint my flats and props. They ain't here, they're too big. And then there's the costumes. They're not like regular clothes. They just have to look good for the camera and come off easy.”

“And the press?”

“That's for my promotional material.” Until then, he'd sounded proud but not bragging. When he walked over to the press, his voice changed. This part of it, he really liked. “I can't do the billboards and newspaper ads they use, but I don't have to. My audience is smaller, but they pay more and they get a lot more than just a movie for their money.”

“Not that I'm doubting your word, but I see all this stuff here and in your other room, but I don't see any moving pictures.”

“I got another place for the rest of it, a loft down in Chinatown that no white man could ever find. But if you don't think my pictures are real, take a look at these.”

He pulled a box down from one of the shelves over the bench and took out a couple of picture books, the same size and shape as Miss Wray's.

The title on the first was
The Real “It” Girl
. It was the one Daphne described, the one he showed her before he took her to see his partner in the Grand Central Building. The second book was
The Fool and the Vamp
. Except for the black wig and a bra made of metal snakes, the girl didn't look much like Theda Bara, but there was no mistaking how she seduced her fool.

“Okay,” I said. “How does it work?”

He said that when he came back from California with his first picture, he took it to a gentleman of his acquaintance, a fellow he got to know when he was with the Projectionists. This was a rich guy who shared Bobby's tastes in “the highest-quality exotic entertainment.” He was a collector who bought the best movies and had a library of “masterpieces of eros.” I didn't ask for his name. The guy was impressed with Bobby's movie and agreed to bankroll him.

Bobby said, “One of the big problems is just finding a place to develop the negative and make prints. With still photography, you can set up a lab in a closet, but it takes more with moving pictures, if you care about quality the way I do. So, first thing, we bought this little shop down on the Lower East Side. It used to do work with an animation studio when they were still in business. I can work there and not worry about nobody bothering me or turning me in to the cops. The regular work we take in is starting to make a little money, too.”

Bobby made silent one-reelers that were quick copies of whatever was popular in real movies, but he didn't call them “real movies.” The stories didn't mean much as long as the girls looked enough like Mary Pickford or Claudette Colbert or Clara Bow or Fay Wray.

Bobby's partner financed the first pictures and introduced Bobby to some of his like-minded blue-blood pals, and they formed the Oscar Apollinaire Société de Cinéma. “This is not some jerkdog outfit. The premieres are strictly black-tie or costumes. Catered, nothing but the best. The members are masked but not all the masks stay on all night. Some of 'em bring companionship, or that can be provided. I make up these photo books to build interest in every new picture. The members love 'em. Always asking for extra copies. Of course, the members can buy their own prints of the movies after the premiere, and I can arrange entertainment for their private parties.”

“Sounds like a hell of a lot of work for one guy.”

He frowned. “It is. I've had guys helping me but nobody I've been able to trust.”

He looked like he was about to offer me the job, so I cut him off. “Where do you find the girls?”

“Cathouses and burlesque shows. That part ain't as easy as I thought it would be either. There's plenty of girls, but the ones who'll do it for fifty bucks are the ones you don't want, and the ones you want, they'll string you along forever before they turn you down. Ain't it always the case,” he said and laughed.

“Quite an operation,” I said to keep him talking. I could tell he was still looking for me to show him a little respect.

“The crash damn near did me in, and the year after it was grim.”

“You don't need to tell me about that,” I said.

“Now, I can't complain. We're doing all right. The one I've just finished is a two-reeler that's the most ambitious yet. I'd invite you, but things are busy at the moment. Some other time, maybe.”

“Probably too steep for me anyway, but I wouldn't mind taking a look at one of your pictures.”

“Like I said, right now, I'm booked solid. Talk to me in a week or so and we'll work it out. Now, your girl Connie, I could use her. I'm having a
soirée cinématique intime
in a couple of days. I've had to change the date once already, and I'm scrambling to find some last-minute help. Do you think she'd be interested? She'll be serving drinks and food. I'll pay her whatever you give her. If she's willing to do a little more, she could double or triple that in tips. What do you say?”