Passing Through the Flame (3 page)

And Velva was a nice girl. She really was. He liked her. But her blind belief in the inevitability of her own stardom rubbed his face in the futility of his own existence, the sappiness of his coming to Hollywood at all.

“Why did you ever come out here, Velva?” he asked.

“Where
else
would you go to become a movie star?”

Paul laughed. Where else indeed? All at once, his sense of superiority dissolved. How different were they, really? Velva came to Hollywood to become a Movie Star, and I came to Hollywood to become a Film-maker. She’s been told she’s a natural movie star by every creep who ever wanted to ball her, and I’ve got cartons of plaques that tell me I’m a Great Talent. I lie here and know she’s got no talent, and somewhere else someone else is thinking that I’m a deluded jerk for believing that
Down Under the Ground
is anything more than a badly shot crock fawned over by a pack of other talentless esthetes who have never made a real movie. What do any of us have but our own belief in ourselves until we really
do
show the world something? Man, that’s why I’ve got to make a real feature somehow: what’s on film really exists. The great creations locked inside you are just so many wet dreams.

“Why did
you
come out here, Paul?”

“To become a great director, of course.”

“Isn’t it marvelous? Someday you’ll be a great director, and maybe I’ll star in the film that makes you famous.”

“And there’ll be articles in all the trades about how the new darlings of Hollywood met on a fuck film set. All the crappy pornies either of us ever worked on will become collector’s items. They’ll pull prints off them till the negatives fall apart.”

“I don’t mind making pornies,” Velva said solemnly. “I really don’t....”

“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean.....”

“I know you didn’t,” she said, touching a forefinger to his lips. “But I’m not as dumb as you think I am. Don’t think I don’t know how things really work out here. A beautiful woman has to ball her way to the top. I don’t really expect to be discovered in Schwab’s Drugstore. You ball some guy, and he gets you in a pornie where somebody a little higher up the ladder sees you and wants to ball you, so he gets you into something a little better. Then somebody even more important sees you in
that
, and he has to put you into something even better to get your pants off. And so up the ladder you go, until finally you get into a really big film and the whole country sees you and wants to ball you. Well, at that point, you don’t have to ball anyone anymore because all those men will go to the theaters just to be turned on. And then you’re a star.” Her voice and manner had grown ever more earnest as she progressed in her loopy Harold Robbins scenario.

Paul didn’t know whether to laugh or barf. It was funny, it was nauseating, yet it was also right on. There was no denying that Velva, in her way, knew exactly what being a star meant. Acting talent had no place in her equation, and not much more as the system actually worked. What counted was the feeling conveyed by an image on film, not who that image really was or how the footage had gotten onto the screen. Of course, what she didn’t realize was that the ability to turn men on in the flesh didn’t necessarily imply the ability to do the same on film.

Teasingly, he said, “And where do I fit in all this? I haven’t even promised to put you in a movie, and if I did, we both know I couldn’t deliver.”

“Oh, but someday you will—I mean—”

He laughed delightedly. “I know what you mean!” he said. And he bit her on the ear until her embarrassed frown disappeared.

“I like you, Velva,” he said. “And I don’t just mean I like balling you. So tell me honestly, do you really believe that if I got a big break and actually got to make a feature, I’d risk blowing it by casting someone on the basis of whether or not she had balled me? Do you think
anyone
is really that horny?”

“But you
wouldn
’t be blowing anything Paul. I’ve got it, I can feel it inside me.”

“Then why bother trying to ball your way into features?”

“Ooooh, you’re confusing me on purpose! The only way I can
prove
I’m a star is by appearing in enough footage that shows what I can do. And the only way I can get enough footage is to get into the films, and without the footage, the only way I can do that is to ball the right people. That’s the way it works.”

She stared at him with an impish smile on her face. “Tell me, Mr. Wise Guy,” she said, “what if you could get to write and direct a big feature film just by balling a fat old female millionaire with warts on her tits and false teeth? Just one good piece of your ass for this poor horny old lady, and you’ve got yourself a two-million-dollar feature....”

“Ah... er... I don’t think I’d be capable... I mean I couldn’t get it up, probably....”

“Come on, you’re not being honest. I’ll bet you could get it up just by thinking about that double credit line.” She ran her hand through his hair. “See, the idea is turning you on already.” Lord, Paul thought, she’s got me! It’s a ridiculous idea—the town is full of male hookers who come a lot cheaper than a feature film—but if some old bag actually offered me that deal.... “Well, if it’s for Art....”

They laughed together, and tickled each other, and rolled around the bed. Paul found himself finally on the bottom as she took him inside her and made love to him, straddling him upright, her beautiful body within reach of his fingertips. All the while, he couldn’t get that image of balling the ugly old female producer out of his mind.

Afterward, sitting on the bed with his aim around her shoulder, he felt a new closeness with Velva. As if they shared something indefinable.

“Tell me, Velva,” he said, “has any of this actually worked for you?”

“Well, I’ve been in a lot of films, haven’t I?”

“Pornies. With your body, you hardly had to ball your way in there. But I’ll bet you’ve never balled anyone with real clout....” He felt curiosity, and a kind of mildly perverse turn-on.

“Oh yeah?” she said with girlish pride. “I’ve balled Jango Beck!”

“Who?”

“Jango Beck!” The name seemed dimly familiar from somewhere. “Who is Jango Beck?” he asked.

“Jango Beck is president of Dark Star Records.”

“Big deal.”

“He’s also vice president of Eden Records.”

“Slightly bigger deal.” Eden Records was a subsidiary of Eden Productions Incorporated, which put this Beck at least on the fringes of the film industry. Paul didn’t know much about the record industry, except that it was a lot flusher than the film industry these days, and from what he had heard, twice as corrupt.

“And what benefit have you gained from balling this record tycoon?”

“Well, he invited me to a party at his house.... Say, that’s next Saturday! Why don’t you come along?”

“I’m sure the reason he invited you to the party would hardly apply to me.”

“No really, Paul, you’ve got the wrong picture of Jango Beck,” Velva said, a faraway look creeping into her eyes. “He doesn’t have to worry about extra girls at his parties. And I don’t think he’s just a record company president. He’s the strangest person I’ve ever met, frightening, and powerful, and... well,
heavy.
I met him at Valhalla... you know, that orgy ranch up in the Topanga where a lot of important people go. You should have seen the kind of people he pushed around, and
how
he did it, and how they let him do it. It was scary, and exciting too. His party will probably be full of important people. Record people, movie people, money people, producers, stars....”

“Sounds like a real Hollywood party, straight out of an old Hollywood movie.”

“Yes, I think that’s exactly what it’s going to be like. I’ve never gotten to a party like this before, the kind of party where big deals are made, where people get discovered.... We really should go together. I’ve got this feeling....”

“That you’ll finally have a chance to make the big score.”

“Right. This is the only way you can get in with the really important people in town....”

Paul smiled to himself. He could picture the party.... Rollses and Continentals clogging the parking lot. Rich hippies and minor-league actors preening for each other. Cheap caviar canapes and California champagne. Producers clustered together in one room like a wagon train drawn into a circle for protection against the hostiles, thirty or forty Velvas all trying to get into bed with someone important, a dozen or two Paul Conrads trying to make lightning strike. Maybe prerolled joints passed around by a longhaired butler, a couple of third-rate rock groups this Beck has under contract playing for the guests....

An orgy of phoniness, with everyone trying to hustle everyone else. But on the other hand, Paul knew that this sort of frantic hustling party was just about the only way people who were out got to meet people who were in. Everybody knew it, and that was precisely why “Hollywood parties” were what they were. The chances of scoring were minimally more than zero, but that was enough to keep the peasants capering for the lords. And who knows, he thought, maybe I
will
meet someone who can get me to first base. An agent. A producer. A film critic who’s seen some short of mine and liked it.

Or even that rich old bag with warts on her tits.

He laughed aloud. “The General’s Lady and Rosie O’Grady are sisters under the skin,” he said.

“What?”

“I said, what have I got to lose?”

“Then you’ll come?”

“Sure. Maybe you’ll meet your fat producer and I’ll meet my toothless millionairess. Or maybe we’ll run into a rich hermaphrodite together.”

“You are
weird
, Paul Conrad,” Velva said. She frowned. “Just one thing—” she said. “We’ll go together, but it won’t be like you’re exactly my date.... I mean I have to be able to...”

He laughed. “I read you loud and clear,” he said. “We cynics have to stick together. Sex is sex, and business is business.”

“You
do
understand!” she squealed happily and rolled him over onto her.

Mike Taub had never met either of his guests before, but he knew them both by reputation, and their names kept cropping up in the preliminary negotiations. That both of them had consented to lunch with him in his private dining room in the Eden Tower was a good sign. These certainly weren’t the sort of guys that went around scarfing up free lunches just to feed their faces; that they were both here meant that the deal was firming up. This lunch might very well be critical.

Anthony Carbo was tall, fair-skinned, perhaps fifty-five, with blondish hair fading into gray. He wore a tan double-breasted suit, a shirt of a very subtle brownish yellow, and a wide maroon tie. He was president of Carbo Enterprises, a successful real estate developer, reputed to have built his business around high-level political connections.

Derek Williams was shorter than Carbo, his tendency towards paunchiness cunningly concealed by the expert tailoring of his conservatively cut single-breasted pearl-gray vested suit. He wore a plain white shirt with a black ascott set off by a gold and sapphire pin, just the right small touch of flamboyance. He was about Carbo’s age, but his well-contoured hair was still black, except for a few gray streaks in his slightly rakish sideburns. He was vice president of the Bank of the West, director of other smaller financial institutions, had a piece of a New York brokerage house, and had been instrumental in the financing of several large films in the past.

Taub had taken great pains to see that everything came off just right. After much consideration, he had decided to wear his white 1930’s double-knit suit, which managed to look retrospective and futuristic at the same time. With it, he wore a red shirt, medium-width paisley tie, and black English boots with almost imperceptible good pinline tooling. His only items of jewelry were matching cuff links and tie clasp in the form of gold records. His not-quite shoulder-length, carefully groomed brown hair went perfectly with the image that befitted the president of Eden Records; a slightly-hip heavyweight businessman who would offer the right people (certainly not these guys!) a machine-rolled joint from a golden cigarette case. The effect, he hoped, was of an unabashed show biz type who was nonetheless at home in high financial circles.

He had even considered redecorating the private dining room, sitting like an eagle’s nest atop the Eden Tower, overlooking the Sunset Strip. One whole wall was a huge picture window that looked north over Sunset Boulevard at the picturesque houses and twisted topography of the Hollywood Hills, a much better daytime view than the more spectacular southern exposure, which overlooked the vast sprawl of lowland Los Angeles. The other walls were done in pecky cypress and wine-colored velvet, the carpeting was a luxuriant black, and the chandelier that hung from the domed white ceiling was a confection of genuine crystal, none of your crummy glass imitations.

The walls, however, were hung with the original paintings from Eden album covers and replicas of Gold Records. All very well for impressing the usual people he brought here—industry people, show business types, major groups he was trying to sign up, very high-class pieces of ass—but it seemed a bit too
commercial
for entertaining the likes of Carbo and Williams. A few original Picassos and a Klee or two might be more to the point, and it was all tax deductible anyway.

But several lower-level people involved in the deal had already eaten here; to redecorate would have been to run the risk of Carbo and Williams taking note of the fact that the place had been redecorated; which would have marked him as a pretentious show biz parvenu, bad karma indeed. After kicking it around for a while, Taub had decided to stand pat.

He was already seated at the round table in the center of the room when George showed Carbo and Williams in. He rose, shook hands, sat down with them, and asked what they’d like to drink, a nice warm touch.

“Wild Turkey on the rocks, just a little water,” Williams said.

“I’d like a small goblet of Demerara rum with a dash of bitters, slightly cut with about a tablespoon of coconut milk,” Carbo said, suppressing a smile. “Of course, if your barman can’t come up with that, a very dry vodka martina will do.”