Middle Men (11 page)

“. . . I thought you were going to honor our agreement. Yes,
Jo Jo
, we did have an agreement . . .”

Adam quietly left the kitchen. After dumping the last bag, he opened the garage door and dragged both bins to the end of the short driveway. When he turned around, he saw Max standing at the back of the garage. He was still on the phone. Max waved cheerfully to Adam and pushed the button, closing the door.

Adam waited for a moment and then walked back to his
car. He wanted to ring the doorbell to ask for his shoes back, but he didn't want to make things awkward for Max.

•  •  •

Adam parked and made his way through the soundstages to the office. He figured if he was walking around in socks, everyone on the lot would be staring and wondering what had happened to him, but no one seemed to notice. Melanie was on the phone when he brought her the envelope. She immediately hung up. “Is everything all right?”

“Sorry it took so long. Max invited me in and we talked for a long time.”

“That's a first! He must like you.”

“I didn't do anything,” said Adam. “I just sort of stood there.”

“Well, yeah. But that's great.” She arched her eyebrows. “Maybe if we're lucky you'll stick around.”

Adam felt himself blush. He adored Melanie. When he got the job, Adam had confessed his creative ambitions, something he had always kept hidden from his other employers like a preexisting medical condition. As a former actress, she understood the necessity of his double life, but now he couldn't quite read her tone. Did she actually think it was only a matter of time before he departed for a brighter world, or was she gently preparing him for the daily grind of this one?

“This is the best job I've ever had,” said Adam.

“Five years guaranteed,” said Melanie. “Nobody in television has that.”

Later, Adam made a run in the Benz, delivering a box of tapes to the postproduction facility, where the editors worked in perpetual shadow. He walked down a darkened hallway,
passing every few feet through a penumbra of soft blue light. It felt like an aquarium and the editors, with their sluggish movements and wide, unblinking eyes, were like those strange fish that live at the bottom of the ocean. Adam entered one of the editing bays and quietly dropped off the tapes. The editor, a squat man in his fifties with headphones on, who had spent nearly two decades appending applause to the image of Max Lavoy, looked at Adam, slowly, without expression, and returned to his work.

On the drive back, he ran into Doug, who was wandering around in his gimp mask.

“What are you doing?” Adam asked.

“Getting some exercise.”

“Do you want a ride?”

Doug got in and Adam told him about his trip to Max's house.

“He talked about the Thirty Years' War, or the buildup to it, anyway.”

“Did he do his whole thing on Ravaillac and Oswald?”

“Oswald? Wow. He didn't get to that. The phone rang.”

“That's lucky.”

“No, I was sort of into it. I mean, not really, not at all, but still. His voice. It's so smooth. He's got that flow.”

“When he talks about what he likes talking about, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But I guess that's true of everybody.”

“Who's Joanne?”

Doug turned quickly. “His ex-wife. Holy shit—did he actually talk about her?”

“No. She called while I was there. Max got pretty upset on the phone.”

“They divorced a while ago, but I don't know much about it. Nobody does. Max is pretty guarded about his private life. Which I admire.”

“Me too.”

“But if you happen to find out something, I'd love to hear about it.”

“Of course.”

They turned a corner and found themselves in a traffic jam involving a catering truck and a Teamster flatbed loaded with two giant spools of black cable, and another truck pulling a star trailer. Everyone started honking and yelling.

“You'll lose this battle,” said Doug. “Pull in through the elephant doors.”

Adam didn't know what he meant at first, but then, turning around, he saw the giant open doors of an empty soundstage and had a sudden flash of intuition. He imagined some harrowing production from the Golden Age, a frazzled director with slick hair and a megaphone, trying to coax a pack of elephants onto his set.

“That's lingo from the old days, right?” Adam said, spinning the steering wheel. “The doors have to be big enough to fit elephants.”

“The doors have to be big enough,” said Doug, “to fit the egos of the men who walk through them.”

“Who said that?”

“I said that.”

“No,” said Adam. “That sounds like something somebody said.”

“Maybe it is. I don't know. I don't have a single original thought in my head.”

They took a spin around the dark soundstage. Adam floored
the Benz and did a long skid out on the slick concrete slab, scaring off some pigeons nesting in the catwalks. A security guard walked through the doors, her figure cast in silhouette against the blazing square of light; but once she saw Doug—everyone on the lot recognized Doug when he had his mask on—she gave them the high sign to continue. They got in a few more nice skids and then drove around in circles for a while.

“There's a lot of rich history around here,” said Doug, lighting a cigarette. “Did you know this is the soundstage where they filmed
Anaconda II: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
?”

•  •  •

The next day, at three o'clock, Adam's phone rang. He was busy making copies for one of the publicists; as the papers collated, he did punch-ups for his set later that night. On the third Wednesday of every month, one of the big comedy clubs on Sunset held a lottery for amateurs. If your name was picked out of a hat, you got two minutes before the early show, and if the promoters liked it, you got called back to open the late show. You paid ten bucks for a ticket in the lottery, and if you didn't get picked, the ticket got you into the late show, a consolation prize that nobody wanted. So far Adam's name had never been pulled out of the hat. Every time he lost out he felt foolish and vowed never to go back. But he always went back.

Adam picked up the phone on the last ring.

“It's me,” said a familiar voice.

“Mr. Lavoy?”

“Is this you?”

It sounded like a trick question. Adam said, “Yes.”

“The one from the other day.”

“It's me. Adam.”

“What you have to understand is that all our modern assassins descend from Ravaillac. One of the first men to understand this was Philippe Sonck. Have you read Sonck?”

“No.”

“That doesn't surprise me. Nobody reads Sonck, and yet he's probably the greatest spy novelist that Belgium ever produced. His oeuvre charts the history of continental espionage, from Cardinal Richelieu to Reinhard Gehlen.
The Lost Tide
is probably his best book. It's all about the final months leading up to the death of Henry IV. There are some historical inaccuracies, and too often he indulges in the kind of baroque flourishes that are
so typical
of the Flemish”—Max laughed softly at his joke—“but it's still a beautiful work of fiction and I'm proud to say that in many subtle ways it anticipates my own imaginings on the subject. Now, listen. You'll like this. In 1928, he sent a letter to his good friend John Buchan. Or was it 1929 . . . ?”

There was a long pause. Adam could hear Max flipping pages. “Yes, I was right: 1928. He told Buchan . . . do you know Buchan?”

Adam felt like he had been given a chance to win some points. He was about to say that, yes, he had read
The Thirty-Nine Steps
, though in truth he had only seen the movie. In any case, he was definitely aware of the work of John Buchan. But before he could say anything Max continued: “This is one of my favorite quotes. Sonck said, ‘For the novelist, mood is the only historical truth. Hence the persistence of fog in all our books.” Max took a deep breath. “Some men just understand things. Do you know what I mean?”

“I'd like to read something by Sonck.”

“All his books are out of print,” said Max. “Every single one of them.”

There was another long pause. Finally, Adam said, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Hold on,” said Max. “Someone's on the other line. I'll get rid of them.”

Adam heard a sharp, piercing tone, and then Max's voice. “Goddammit, Joanne. Not now.”

“Mr. Lavoy. I'm not sure you switched over. I think you pushed the wrong button.”

“There must be something wrong with the phone. Don't go anywhere.”

The line went silent. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, but Adam kept the phone close to his ear. A full hour passed; it was four o'clock and the woman from publicity came into the office to get her copies. Adam apologized for not getting them done.

“I'm on hold with Max,” he told her, but she didn't seem to believe him. Later, the line from Melanie's office blinked on and he was afraid to pick it up. After a while she came into the copy room.

“There you are,” she said. “Can you run this tape over to post?”

“I'm on hold with Max.”

“Is everything okay?”

“I think so. But I have a question for you.”

“Sure.”

“Who's your favorite Belgian spy novelist? Be honest.”

“Oh, God. I'm sorry.” She handed him the tape. “Just drop it off whenever he's done.”

At five o'clock, Adam decided that Max had forgotten about
him. He hung up, collected his things, and then delivered the tape. On his way to the parking garage he was thrilled to see one of the actors from
Office Space
, the old guy who gets hit by a drunk driver and becomes a millionaire paraplegic.

•  •  •

Adam fought his way up Fairfax and parked on Sunset. A few dozen paranoid comics were already lined up outside the club, trying to improve their chances. Most people, including Adam, suspected that the lottery was rigged by Les Thorpe, a famously mediocre local comic who had taken on a management role with the club, booking shows, handling the amateur hour, and performing other meager tasks that allowed him to stay around the action, if not in it. Adam regarded Thorpe with a certain pity. Despite his pleasant demeanor, Thorpe was suffering in a hell of his own making; he had cashed in his delusions and bought a sad little fiefdom. As Adam got in line, he saw Thorpe emerge from the parking lot, and he wondered if the guy had any idea how little he was respected by the people who befriended him. Adam was determined not to be one of these people; despite all evidence to the contrary, some part of himself—the most vital and destructive part of himself—believed that eventually his talent would be recognized as something pure and triumphant and somehow he would be granted dispensation from the degrading realities that made everyone around him seem so shameless and corrupt. Of course, he had a sinking feeling that everyone around him believed the exact same thing. No rugged, right-thinking American individual would ever admit to kissing ass. That's something the other guy did. It was “networking,” nothing more, nothing less. Farther down the line he saw Trapper Keeper from
El Goof and they pretended not to see each other. This was typical. All the sidewalk amateurs tried to maintain an air of aloof self-confidence, but beneath this Adam felt mortal fear, as if they were all racing each other for the last plane out of Saigon. Adam watched Thorpe nice-guy his way down the line, smiling, asking how everyone was doing, laughing with a few regulars who were as mediocre as Thorpe and who therefore seemed to win the lottery with stunning frequency, and then he started collecting his graft and taking down people's names. Someone slapped Adam on the shoulder.

“Hey, man, it's me, Chris!” said Chris Hobbs. “It's you, right?”

“Right.”

“This is way better than El Goof! I just found out about it.”

Hobbs was too loud, too obvious; everyone turned to look at him and Adam felt suddenly exposed. He had the feeling that all the drivers on Sunset Boulevard were slowing down to laugh at him and all the horrible decisions he had made in his life. He could be out with his old friends, drinking beer in righteous anonymity, but instead he was huddled on the sidewalk with a bunch of miserable strangers. He tried to remember the last time he got a beer with a friend, but he couldn't. “Don't get your hopes up,” he said.

“Is that the guy we talk to if we want on the list?” asked Hobbs, who was wearing Elvis sunglasses and a stylish denim shirt embroidered with some kind of Aztec symbol.

“It's supposed to be a lottery,” said Adam. “But if you're willing to suck that guy's cock, it'll improve your odds.”

There was stifled laughter from a few nearby comics. One of them, through clenched teeth, said, “Dude, be quiet.”

“Have you ever gotten picked?” Hobbs asked.

“No,” said Adam. “I have too much dignity.”

They watched Thorpe stop to chat with Trapper Keeper, who forced herself to laugh at the first thing he said. “We're fucked,” said Adam.

Thorpe finally got to Adam and said, “Good to see you, man. How's everything going? You okay?”

“Adam Cullen,” he said, with a cold, vacant stare, and for a moment he felt proud of his ability to sabotage himself. But he instantly regretted it and tried to think of something nice to say to Thorpe. He couldn't think of anything in time. Thorpe nodded and wrote down his name. Hobbs leaned forward and in one breath he introduced himself, complimented Thorpe on his shoes, and explained that he had just moved out here.

“Let's do this!” said Hobbs brightly, as Thorpe took his money, and everyone in line, everyone driving down Sunset, everyone in Los Angeles, winced. Thorpe finished taking names and went back inside the club. A few minutes later, he appeared at the front door, called out six names, the usual suspects plus Trapper Keeper, who gave Adam a guilty shrug as she walked inside. Thorpe wished everyone good luck for next time. Those who were kissing ass ten minutes ago were now cursing his name. Adam walked toward his car, but Hobbs caught up with him and asked if he wanted to get some dinner.