The Hollywood Trilogy (24 page)

“Don't answer, we aren't here now,” Jim said, but I had said hello by then.

WHAT I had for lunch was a soggy, fishy-smelling crab and avocado sandwich with shredded lettuce, Miracle Whip and tired-looking slices of tomato, all on this really bad French bread that cut the roof of my mouth and gave me the gut-rumbles for an hour. Also there was some pale champagne they must have recovered from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

“Luncheon” was in the office, across the lot, of Terrance Segebarth, truly one of the most repulsive and outrageous of Hollywood's collection of contemptibles, and the point of the meeting was to try to get Jim and me to participate in Segebarth's big annual telethon, which, of course, we refused to do. Segebarth was wearing a turtleneck sweater to cover up his real turtle neck, sunglasses to hide his little red eyes and clumps of transplanted hair all over his head that made him look more than ever like somebody assembled in Transylvania.

You probably get the idea I don't like this man. So true.

The walls of his office were covered with framed photographs—Roosevelt, Truman, Dewey, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Humphrey, Nixon, you get the idea—all these presidents and hopefuls shaking hands with Segebarth or grinning at him while he beams at the camera, senators, judges, international leaders, kings and heiresses, all beaming and grinning and smirking at the camera to testify that they were on the side of God, Charity and Terrance Segebarth.

There were no photographs of teenage girls. How strange.

Naturally, Segebarth was not without ammunition. We had refused to be on his telethon every year for quite a while, and so he knew that even to get us to a meeting he would have to have something. One year he came at us with a straight blackmail proposition, it seemed there was this
girl
and her
mother
, both well known to Segebarth, who had an interesting story to tell about Jim. It took the old crock about an hour to slime out the proposal and to get around to the
woman
and her
child
, and when he finally oozed it all out, Jim laughed and said, “Yeah, they're famous. They once fucked nineteen cops in one night, the two of them. You wanna put 'em on your show? I got the phone number here someplace . . .”

Didn't work.

This year Segebarth had managed to get to Jim's wife and put her, all fussed and twittering, onto the Committee to Save the Universe, or whatever the hell the old fart called his organization, and she was to be the crowbar
that would get me and Jim to disgorge about fifty thousand dollars of free entertainment. She was at the meeting, Mrs. Larson, with her fox fur collar and her perfect ass, still perfect after all these years, a woman who just by walking past could make you grunt.

When Jim and I entered Segebarth's office we saw her sitting there with Karl on one side and Sonny Baer on the other, the three of them lined up on the couch. Karl jumped up, his eyes mighty nervous because he must have known how edgy the situation was, Jim never divorcing his wife, loyal to her or maybe just nasty stubborn, never visiting her and never complaining that she used his name in her activities as if they were practically inseparable; and of course Sonny was there for me, Sonny was going to get to be on the telethon
with
us, Karl said, his eyes glittering as he shook our hands. I love the way they do that. They begin the meeting as if it were all over and everything perfect; we have agreed,
of course
, to appear this year because it was really going to be a
family party
, just about everyone in the business would be present, everybody loved Larson & Ogilvie, and (never spoken, always under several layers of implication) we wouldn't want people to think we were
skinflints
, would we?

“Even Jack Benny did my telethon, heh heh,” the old fart said.

I had to put things on an official basis right away by saying, “This isn't in our contract.”

Karl grinned and said, “I was counting on you guys, this particular year.” In other words, do it for poor dead Max, God rest his soul.

“I don't understand,” I said. “What do you mean?”

Just then Segebarth's fat old secretary came in with the tray covered with sandwiches and the two bottles of pre-Ptolemaic champagne, and Segebarth “held sway” by cracking his own brand of one-liners, all filthy, all very funny, damn him, I hate him most when he's funny.

Jim, with a mouthful of stale king crab: “What the hell makes you think we'll play ball this year?” He is not looking at his wife.

But she replies, “I told them you were available. I hope that wasn't the wrong thing to do.”

“What happens, do they kick you off the committee if I don't show up?”

Segebarth laughing: “Not that easy, but we do hope this year after all, it's the
kids
. . .”

“We don't have kids,” I said. “Which makes it kind of impersonal.”

Karl gave me a hurt look. “Let me ask you, Why is it you never want to do
any things like this? You're not mean, you're not cheap, you have plenty of free time, and I think the American public has been pretty good to you . . .”

“Why don't
you
do the show, Karl?” I said.

“Yeah,” said Jim. “You and my old lady could sing a duet.”

Segebarth's face darkened. Storm clouds. If flattery and blackmail won't work, let's try a little good old paternalism:

“Boys, I'm getting a little tired of this problem. You aren't the only people in the business who won't cooperate, but you're among the biggest, and I think it's a goddamn shame you don't have any room in your heart for these kids.”

“This sandwich is the worst I ever tasted,” Jim said. He looked at me: “We should have gone to Musso's when we had the chance.”

“Now, boys,” Karl said.

“Lissen, Karl,” I said, putting on a little heat, “us boys happen to be in the middle of shooting a movie for you, and we're goddamn sick and tired of being harassed by evil-smelling old farts!”

“I represent that remark,” Segebarth said and cackled. You couldn't insult the man.

“You really aren't that strong,” Karl said to me, cold.

“What is this, Gunfight at the OK Corral? In front of these women? Maybe we'll go someplace where they don't ask us to work free!”

“You shook hands,” Karl said, trying to look shocked.

All through this Sonny is sitting there with her mouth shut and her hands in her lap. It must have been fun, watching these rich idiots, two of them in full makeup, waving their arms and yelling about what was, after all, a foregone conclusion. I thought it was charming myself and wanted nothing more than to be out of there, back in my trailer with my feet up, maybe a bottle of beer to calm my intestines. But no. If there was any one thing in this world I hated to be it was an imperious bastard.

SO THERE we were, the five of us, standing out in front of Producer XII, blinking in the sunlight. As far as I knew, Jim hadn't said anything directly to his wife, and nobody had said anything to Sonny. Karl's big metallic-blue stretch Mercedes was right there, the engine quietly mumbling, the driver, a
nice guy named Jimmy, was leaning on the fender with his arms folded. We had been in Segebarth's office for a long time, and I for one was tired and irritated.

We were
not
doing the benefit. Another six months of being ignored and reviled by Terrance Segebarth.

At a glance from Karl, Jimmy straightened up and opened the back door.

Karl said, “Can I give you a lift back to Stage Five?”

I said, “No, I'm gonna walk across the lot.”

“Me, too,” said Jim.

“Aren't you going to see that I get home?” Jim's wife said to him.

Karl said, “Oh, Jimmy will take you home.”

“Let him take her now,” Jim said. He went over to Jimmy and shook his hand, whispering something in his ear. Jimmy laughed broadly and put his hand in his pocket, putting away the money Jim had given him.

“Get in the car,” Jim said to his wife. To Karl he said, “Come on, walk across the lot with us.”

Karl looked at his watch meaningfully, having to poke at it a couple of times to get the digits to appear and then hold it away from the sunlight so he could see the time.

“Oh, shit,” I said. “Are you afraid to walk across your own lot?”

Jim closed the back door of the limo and patted it on the fender like a horse and the Mercedes moved off. Various people walking around or riding bicycles stared at the long famous car and tried to get a peek at its contents.

It was a nice pleasant walk on a sunny yet sweetly cool day, with, as I said, various types moving around on their own business. This was the new end of the lot, with acres of parking spaces and big military-looking two and three-story office buildings, some with lawns between them and little groups of secretaries and assistants, editors and whatnot sitting on the grass, making it almost look like a college campus. But not quite.

Here was a lot full of antique cars, everything from old Pierce-Arrows to 1922 Rolls-Royces, 1936 Ford three-windows, 1937 Chevy taxicabs, all kinds of old cars. I had spent many a blank afternoon looking over the old cars, enjoying their smell.

Then we were in the shady dim caverns between the enormous old brown sound stages, marching past the parked Mercedes and Jaguars of producers, directors and actors, each parking spot marked with a famous name, and sure enough, as we were striding by Stage Nine we saw a studio employee
in grey pants and shirt pulling up the little sign with a guy's name on it, just uprooting the sign and tucking it under his arm, with one backward contemptuous glance at the little green 280SEL with its rusty crease on the front fender.

“Sic transit Gloria Mundi,”
I said.

“Oh, was that her parking space?” Jim joked, but nobody laughed.

“Poor fucker'll come back from lunch all full of gin and plans, get into his office and find his secretary gone and a nice fat pink slip right in the middle of his desk,” I said.

Karl was walking faster now, and we almost had to trot to keep up with him.

“Karl probably fired him before lunch,” Jim said.

Our route took us past the little commissary just as a knot of people came out, and we saw a couple of apple-cheeked producers in cardigan sweaters look surprised to see Karl, and then wave and start toward us. Karl waved and grinned but was definitely not in the market for a conversation at this time. We sailed past the little group waving and grinning and not stopping, and watched the kissass grins turn to tight bitter lips.

Now we were in front of Stage Five, the huge door open and some of our crew out in front, lazying in the sun or playing with a Frisbee. They saw us round the corner like a color guard. They squinted at us but did not move.

Often when the crew is hanging around outside, it means that something is going on inside that they wish to disassociate themselves from, like a star tantrum or a royal ass-chewing, but we did not even suspect, or at least I didn't, and when Karl said, “You boys go on in, I want to speak to Sonny for a minute,” we just went ahead. Since the crew was there, I kissed Sonny and said, “Don't let him put his hands on you.”

She smiled at me sadly and I turned around and stumbled on some goddamn thing and went in. Jim was in his trailer by then, which was close to the door. I crossed the open area back of the set toward my own trailer and into the lights, which were blazing down on nobody, and heard out of the gloom over by the camera, “Yeah, well fuck you, and fuck your job!”