Passing Through the Flame (27 page)

So don’t be snotty about riding a whorehouse elevator to the twentieth floor of the Eden Tower to close a deal to make your first film. Enjoy the surge, whether it feels real or not!

The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and took on two secretaries with perfect legs, trim California asses, and an aura of competence and self-importance. On the thirteenth floor, the elevator picked up two middle-aged men glowing with well-tanned health, wearing dramatically tailored suits and minutely barbered collar-length hair. The executives and the secretaries shared the easy self-confidence of insiders in the Los Angeles aristocracy: those who could legitimately claim they were somehow in show business.

A week ago he would’ve felt envy and contempt in the presence of such people. Contempt for their enshrinement of movies as show business over cinema as art, envy for proximity to the centers of power where the magic was, where properly budgeted films could actually be made. Where a director might blow ten times the budget of a thing like
Down Under the Ground
on one lousy shot that happened to turn him on. Where the power to make great films resided, and where assholes were pissing it away on show business trivia.

But today, he thought, I become one of the assholes. Funny how much more attractive assholedom looks from the inside!

The elevator stopped at the twentieth floor, the door opened, and Paul stepped into a jungle. The large reception area was choked with potted plants: small palm trees, rubber trees, giant ferns, exotic succulents, bonsai miniatures of live oak and mesquite, cacti of every description, including a large flowering clump of prickly pear. One whole wall was a waterfall tumbling over rugged black rocks into a shallow pool rimmed by a garden of luridly colored fungi. Moss grew on the rocks, and goldfish swam in the pool. The other walls, except for a set of glass doors, were overgrown with vines. The floor was covered with dark green Astroturf, except for flagstone paths leading to glaringly conventional reception room furniture set out in this indoor garden like park benches. Instead of Muzak, six brightly colored parrots chained to stands screeched and gargled.

Paul approached the receptionist’s desk like a man emerging from the Amazon bush. The receptionist was a huge, muscular, bald young black man, nude from the waist up.

“Welcome to Dark Star Records,” he said, in a hard, yet mellow voice. He had the eyes of a bodyguard and the smile of a nightclub MC. The total effect was quietly threatening.

“Uh... I’m expected in a meeting with Jango Beck....”

“Yeah, Conrad, right. The other dudes are already here.” The black man pressed an intercom button. “Hey, Sandy, Paul Conrad is here. Come get him before he gets ate by a crocodile.” To Paul, he said, “Sandy Bayne’ll be out to collect you in a minute. Meantime, maybe you’d like to feed the goldfish. There’s a bowl of breadcrumbs right by the pool. But don’t screw with the parrots, they are
mean
motherfuckers.” He picked up a battered paper, ack of
Nova Express
and gave his attention to it.

Paul wandered in a daze through the reception garden, peering into the goldfish pond, listening to the water falling and the parrots screeching, and trying to comprehend the mind of Jango Beck. To say this scene was weird was to say nothing at all; to say that it was designed to blow minds, to send visitors into Beck’s lair reeling, was to state the obvious. But there was something about it, about Beck, that hovered just beyond the reach of Paul’s understanding; some vital part missing that kept the pieces of Jango Beck from coalescing. Something, therefore, ultimately disorienting.

Which was a hell of a state of mind to be in when you were entering important negotiations where Beck would be a prime participant. Paul began to sense that part of Beck’s very power was based on this disorienting effect, this inability of others to encompass his total reality. It might be genuine broadness of soul, or it might simply be a series of clever tricks, but Jango Beck either was or knew how to make himself appear daunting. Not simply frightening but daunting.

“Welcome to the monkey house,” said a woman’s voice behind him. Paul turned and saw Sandra Bayne, Beck’s PR lady, the woman he hadn’t quite connected with at the party. “That’s what we called it before Jango finally gave up and got rid of the monkeys. They pissed on people, and they crapped all over everything. The place smelled like a zoo.”

She wore a textured brown leather suit with a short skirt, and her hair hung free to her shoulders. She looked slightly younger than she had at the party. He wondered exactly how old she really was. Could as easy be twenty-seven as thirty-seven. But she’s looking pretty good.

“It’s different,” Paul said. “The only waiting room in Hollywood with jungle rot.”

“Jango tells the accounting department that it’s good PR, shows that EPI is ecology oriented. Have you ever tried to justify a monkey-shit cleaning bill to an accounting department?”

“You mean
all
of this is on an EPI expense account?
It
doesn’t cost him any of his own money?”

Sandra Bayne laughed. “Jango doesn’t believe in paying for
anything
with his own money. Sometimes I think he doesn’t have any money at all, just a series of unlimited expense accounts. And on April 15, he tells the Internal Revenue Service how much
they owe him.”

“The hand is quicker than the eye?”

Their eyes met; Paul felt a small spark of communion jump between them. Sandra smiled a private noncorporate smile, just for him. “Jango Beck’s hand is quicker than your eye will ever be, Paul Conrad,” she said very softly.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I like your face, and I would like that nice face not to get fed through a meat grinder. Don’t think Jango is simply doing you a favor. Jango never simply does a favor. Jango never does anything simple at all, he thinks it’s immoral.”

“You’re telling me to look the gift horse in the mouth?”

“I’m telling you not to stick your handsome head in the gift horse’s mouth, because around this joint horses have a habit of turning into crocodiles.”

“I just love Oriental parables,” Paul said dryly. He was getting a little tired of being treated like a virgin about to sacrifice himself to the dragon. Sure, Beck had selfish motives: he wanted to produce a successful film, make money on it, see his own concept inscribed on celluloid and he could not achieve it by himself. What was so Machiavellian about that? What was wrong with taking the deal at face value?

“Look, I’m sticking my neck out a little talking to you about my own boss this way,” Sandy said, touching him lightly on the shoulder. “I like you, Paul. I know you’ve got to take an opportunity like this. You’d be crazy to just walk out of here. Just don’t believe everything that Jango tells you. Don’t believe that things are as simple as they seem. You’ve got to—”

“Paul, Paul, there you are! Isn’t this place fantastic?” Velva Leecock burst out of the elevator, waving her arms and shouting. She was wearing a tight lavender pants suit that displayed her breasts to fine advantage and a wide-brimmed black straw hat that served as a nice background for her long blonde hair. She hobbled along with as much elegance as she could muster on unfamiliar high heels. Thank God, no sunglasses, he thought.

She made her way toward them, stroking leaves, sniffing at blossoms, peering into the big ceramic pots, enjoying herself hugely. As she reached them, her first attention was for the goldfish; she leaned over, poked at the water with her finger, and squealed with delight when panhandling fish mouths came to the surface. “Isn’t this marvelous?” she said. “A fishpond! Parrots! My grandfather used to have a greenhouse something like this, but he never thought of fish or parrots.”

Paul felt a flash of affection for Velva, dressed like her own conception of a movie star, but still able to enjoy this indoor garden like a little girl. And awakening him to its beauty, for if you stopped trying to fathom the enigmatic mind behind the creation, you saw that Beck had indeed created a real refreshment for the soul, a work of art. And there was something touching about seeing Velva enraptured by the beauty, free of obsession with the personality of Beck on her own image.

“You probably would’ve loved the monkeys,” Sandra Bayne said dryly.

“Monkeys? Oh, monkeys would be perfect!”

“Well, let’s not keep the head ape waiting,” Sandra said. “He Tarzan, you Jane. You’ll probably get along marvelously.” Paul found Sandy’s superciliousness surprising. Why the cat’s claws? Because she knows Velva was with me at the party? Hmmmmm....

Sandra Bayne led them through the glass doors, past the big black receptionist, and into a large prosaic room with lemon-yellow walls and a deep blue ceiling, a stenography pool, divided up into cubicles. But each stenographer had a live potted plant on her desk, and there was a large standing cage of brightly colored finches in the front of the room, a chattering aviarium of feathered tropical fish.

A long corridor began at the back of this room, and down it they went—yellow walls, blue ceiling, and closed ebony doors with names and functions incised deep in the wood, then embellished with gilt paint. The corridor ended in an outsized door covered with a huge black-and white photograph of Jango Beck. The grinning photo of Beck had the doorknob in its teeth like a rose.

“This must be a strange place to work,” Paul said.

“You’re gonna find out,” Sandra Bayne replied, stopping at another door, this one marked “Conference Room.” She opened the door and stood aside for them, giving Paul a tiny bow, a feral flash of smile. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” she said, and closed the door behind them.

The walls of the conference room were painted pool-table green. The moldings and ceiling were massive oiled oak. A huge Tiffany chandelier hanging from a brass chain provided a cathedrallike cone of illumination over the central oval table, also of oiled oak. Five high-backed oaken chairs upholstered in plush burgundy velvet were arranged around the table: two empty chairs at the foot, and two men sitting on either side of Beck at the head. On the table were a carafe of brandy, a bowl of rolled joints, five snifters, five ashtrays, a phone, a gold lighter, five scratch pads, five ball-point pens. There was nothing else in the room—not a clock, not a picture, not an article of furniture. The place had the solemnity of a church and the functionalism of a pool table. And there were no windows. It seemed designed to make you nervous.

Jango Beck rose to greet them. He wore black wide-wale corduroy pants, a plain white shirt with an open collar and big billowy sleeves ending in tight cuffs, and a black belt with a big square silver buckle. “Paul, Velva, sit down, we’ve been waiting for you. We’ve got all the grubby little business details worked out already. It’s settled, we’re going to make
Carnival of Life.”

“Carnival of Life?”

“The working title of the film. I’m sure you’ll eventually come up with something better. Sit down, sit down,” Beck said, pouring himself some brandy, sticking a joint in his mouth, and reseating himself. “Help yourself to some dope or booze.” He paused as they seated themselves. “Paul Conrad, Velva Leecock—John Horst, president of Eden Pictures, Mike Taub, president of Eden Records, who will be close to this project.”

Taub—a carefully barbered man in a striking double-breasted black suit with mustard piping—sat stone-faced and immobile, as if the invitation to smoke or drink was some kind of subtle ploy. Horst, dressed more conservatively in a brown suit, white shirt, and paisley tie, pointedly folded his hands on the oak tabletop. Spirit voices told Paul not to take anything, and apparently the same spirits were talking to Velva.

“That’s a beautiful garden you have, Jango,” Velva said. “Your secretary told me you had monkeys. They must’ve been marvelous. What happened to them?”

Beck nodded enthusiastically. “They really made the place,” he said, “but unfortunately, they acted like monkeys. One even got in the elevator once, kept pressing the buttons. What a scene, a building full of security guards trying to catch an elevator hijacked by a monkey! I’ve been trying to figure out what to replace them with...”

“How about lizards?” Velva suggested. “Big green iguanas.”

“Beautiful!” Beck exclaimed. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do! If we can only figure out some way of keeping them out of the elevators.”

“What if—”

“Did we come here to discuss a feature film or lizards?” John Horst said evenly, but obviously with some annoyance.

“Yeah, Jango, fer chrissakes!”

Beck shrugged at Velva. “Some people have no souls,” he said. “Okay, business it is. I won’t go into the money end, Paul, because you’ll have enough to think about without getting involved in that; and the basic concept of the film you already know. I’m going to produce it myself. I understand you’re a European-type filmmaker, so I want to hire you to
make
the film. You can direct, write, edit, or even do some of your own camerawork, or you can farm out as much as you want to other people. Of course, whatever you farm out will have to come out of your end. I’d rather you wrote, directed, and edited yourself.”

A great silver gong note vibrated Paul’s being, a mantra of well-being and confidence that he had only felt once before: when he was shooting
Down Under the Ground
in the New York subways, when the actors were on, and he could sense the greatness of the footage he was getting, when he was deep into filmmaking as a peak experience, a creative act. He had warmed with the same self-confidence then, that feeling of surfing along on the breaker of destiny. He felt himself riding that wave again after a long wallow in the swamps of porn and self-disgust, and he promised himself that he would not fall off again.

With an ease that he experienced as surreal, he said, “I prefer working that way.”

Beck beamed at him. “Good, good. Great. It’ll be just you and me. It’ll be our film.” Paul felt himself enveloped in Beck’s psychic embrace. But he did not feel threatened; Beck exuded power and confidence and was welcoming him as an equal.
Our
film. I couldn’t look for a better producer to work with. And he couldn’t find a better filmmaker than me! Christ, it’s great to feel like this again! It’s great to feel that you can do something that matters, to have a Jango Beck tell you he knows you have it. Great? It’s being alive!