Miss Wyoming (11 page)

«One of these young turks — Ryan Something. He's boiling hot right now.»

«I haven't heard his name. Is there an auction on it?»

«We have the option to make a preemptive bid.»

«How much you think?»

«Five hundred.»

«Make it three. You feel good about this?»

«First script in years to give my brain a hard-on.»

«It's the first script you've
read
in years.»

A bell rang, announcing somebody at the front gate. Ivan switched off the treadmill. «Come on, John-O, let's see who's here.» They walked around the patio, which was dripping with flowers and lush branches. Out front a police car was at the gate, one officer standing beside the car manning the intercom, another in the passenger seat. Ivan buzzed them in with a remote. The four of them formed a congress on the front steps.

«Officers?» Ivan said.

«Hello, Mr. McClintock,» the tall one said. «And you, too, Mr. Johnson. Do you have a moment, Mr. McClintock?»

«Call me Ivan. Of course. What's this regarding?»

«Doing a check. Do you own a white Chrysler sedan, license number 2LM 3496T?»

«Yes.»

«Were you driving the car last night around twoA.M . in Benedict Canyon?»

«That was me,» John said.

«Could you tell us where you were last night, Mr. Johnson?»

«Easy. I was getting tapes at West — West — West Side Video on Santa Monica.»

«What tapes?»

«About ten of them. Susan Colgate stuff —
Meet the Blooms,
and some cheesy B flick.»

The policeman shared a flickering meaningful glance. «What time would that have been, Mr. Johnson?»

«The guy was just closing the shop. Around oneA.M ., I guess.»

«What then?»

«Then I — went and parked in front of Susan Colgate's house. For about an hour.»

«Why was that, Mr. Johnson?»

«Is something wrong? What's going on here?» John was getting edgy.

«It's a routine check, sir. Why were you parked outside her house?»

«John-O,» said Ivan. «Just talk, okay? We're not cutting a distribution deal here.»

«She didn't answer my phone message. Susan Colgate. I thought she might be coming home late.»

«You live here, Mr. Johnson?» asked the shorter officer.

«In the house down there. With my mother.» The police looked down at the guesthouse, almost unchanged since the day John first saw it. «I lost my old Bel-Air tree-fort last year. You probably read about that in
People.
»

«You didn't lose it, John,» said Ivan, «you gave it
away.
»

«To the IRS. That's not me giving. That's
them
taking.»

«Is that the Chrysler down there?» asked the tall cop.

«That's it,» John said, his stomach turning to slime as he remembered the shrine still in the back seat. «There's a — oh fuck. You'll see.»

The four walked down the hill, the police clicking into almost paramilitary action as they discovered the shrine in the back. One called HQ requesting something technical immediately. The other blocked John from the car.

«Am I under arrest? Do you have a warrant?» John asked.

«No. And we don't have to go through that
if
you agree.»

«John, it's my property,» said Ivan. «Go right ahead, guys.» He looked in the back seat. The white towel around his neck dropped onto the gravel driveway and he didn't pick it up. «John-O, there's a goddam Susan Colgate parade float in the back seat of the car — you
made
this?»

«Did you make the shrine in the back seat?» the cop asked.

«No. I bought it from the kid at West Side Video. I think it's one of those campy queer things.»

At this point Doris came out of the house, cloaked in shawls, her bunned gray hair a porcupine of flyaway hairs. «Oh Christ — it's my mother.»

«Morning, darlings. Oh my — the fuzz.»

«The
fuzz
?» said John.

«I'm merely trying to be contemporary, darling. Officers — has there been a crime?»

There was mild confusion. A police photographer and forensics expert went over to the car. Ivan went back up to his treadmill and John phoned Adam Norwitz. «What the fuck is going on, Adam?»

«Susan's gone AWOL. She had a sixA .M. makeup call for a Showtime Channel kiddy movie and she didn't show up. So the producer phones and screams at me, and I go racing from my gym straight to her house and the doors are all open. There's nobody there, but her car's still out front. The coffeepot was still on, but the coffee was like tar, like it'd been on for twenty-four hours. So I called the cops.
You
tell
me
what's going on. I nearly had to donate my left nut to science to get her that stupid part on Showtime, and she fucks it up.»

«Compassion, Adam.»

«Yeah, right. Is she doing a project with you? Is she jumping into a bigger pond now — no more time for the little fish?»

«How can you make this woman's disappearance about you, Adam?»

«Spare me the melodrama.»

«Did you call the hospitals or anything?»

«That's the cops' job.»

Adam knew nothing. The police knew next to nothing. John refused to panic. Susan could be out on a tequila jag or maybe she was whipping one of those creepy Brit directors with birch fronds.
She's not that type,
he thought. He sucked in a breath, then phoned Ryan to buy the script.

Their first flop was a love story:
The Other Side of Hate.
Nothing about it came easily. To begin with, Angus, in the final depressing stretch of prostate cancer, told him the title was wrong. «John, “hate” is a downer word, and it doesn't matter if you make
Citizen Kane,
a title like
The Other Side of Hate
is box office poison from the word go.»

Doris had other concerns. «A love story?
You,
darling? Just keep making things that go bang and you'll be hunky-dory.»

«You don't think I can do a love story?»

«That's not it, darling. Love stories need to be made by …»

«Yes?»

«Oh, I
have
put my foot in it, haven't I?»

«Love stories need to be made by … ?»

«They need to be made by somebody who's actually been
in
love, darling, and I think I'd better have something very bubbly very quickly.» Over the years Doris's life had devolved into a pleasant timeless succession of sunny days, clay modeling, bursts of watercolor enthusiasm, gossip with a small clique of «card fiends,» and a well-worn path between her front door and the Liquor Barn a few miles away. John saw her twice a week and she remained a close confidante.

«I've been in love before.»

«With
whom
?»

«With …»

«Really, darling, it's okay, and doubtless you'll one day find some lucky young starlet who'll sweep you right off your feet. And until then, keep blowing things up in Technicolor.»

«Technicolor? I think I hear Bing Crosby ringing the doorbell.»

But John wondered why he hadn't fallen in love. He'd been in
lust
and in
like
countless times, but not something that made him feel like a part of something bigger. The energy from his filmmaking — as well as filmmaking's rewards, the delirium of excess — it all conspired to mask this one simple hole in his life.

It seemed to John that people in love stopped having the personality they had before love arrived. They morphed into generic «in-love units.» John saw both love and long-term relationships as booby traps that would not only strip him of his identity but would take out the will to continue moving on.

But then again, to find somebody who'd be his partner on the ride — someone to push him
further.
That's what he'd held out for. And as the years went on, the holding out got sadder and more solitary. He began to hang out with people younger than he as older friends drifted away. But even then he sensed the younger crew were contemptuous —
That fucked-up old wank who can't even get himself a girlfriend. He lives in a house like a nuclear breeder facility. Sure, he has hits, but he always takes his mom to the premieres.

Ivan was less doubtful than Doris about the fate of
The Other Side of Hate,
but during the production cycle he was sidetracked by an onslaught of collapsing real estate deals in Riverside County, and wasn't able to assign himself fully to his usual preproduction grind of rewrites, casting changes, and cleaning up John's well-intended messes. The director and the lead actress discovered they were sleeping with the same script girl and subsequently refused to listen to each other. The male lead tested positive for HIV two weeks before shooting and arrived on the set with a new and medicated personality greatly at odds with the cavalier froth demanded by the thirteenth and final script rewrite. The grimness continued through the dailies, through the storm that bulldozed a third of the Big Bear location set and through John's initiation into the world of crystal meth on the eleventh day of shooting.

After a profoundly dismal test screening in Woodland Hills, Melody said to John, «John, I know you meant well by this film, but if you want to do the right thing, go out and buy a can of glue and stick it onto the back of the negative and sell the whole thing as packing tape.»

«Mel!»

«Johnny, don't be a retard. It's crap. Burn it.»

«But it's tender — lovely …»

«Please. Don't even put it on video. Don't even dub it into Urdu. Burn it.»

Angus died shortly thereafter and Doris came unglued. They hadn't been lovers for decades, but he'd been her good friend. She lapsed into a cloudy fugue. Ivan inherited the estate and Doris stayed in the house.

The Other Side of Hate
was released after John ignored what proved to be sound advice from Melody. The film was violently thrashed by media organs with the glee of vultures who have long awaited the giant's first fall. It died on opening weekend, taking in just under 300K, close to the amount John spent on under-the-counter pharmaceuticals in any given year. There were the inevitable industry backlash rumors that the golden days of Equator Films were over. Some viewed the film as a burp, others a death cry. John and Ivan were unable to rustle up even the faintest, most vaguely kind word from a 200-watt radio station in the middle of Iowa. («Slightly amusing!» KDXM, La Grange, Iowa.) Nothing was salvageable.

All eyes were on the next film,
The Wild Land,
a historical saga set in early-twentieth-century Wyoming. The script was adapted from a best-selling novel by a two-time Academy Award—winning screenwriter. The cast was six of filmdom's most in-demand stars, all of whom got along famously with the Palme d'Or director. It came in on budget, with a sweeping musical score, and when it came out in theatrical release, it … flat-lined. It garnered none of the venom and acid of
The Other Side of Hate.
The film simply
vanished,
a response more deeply wounding than any of
Hate
's hatchets and chain saws.

After
The Wild Land,
John and Ivan had a dozen films in development. Time passed. Studios mutated and merged and vanished and some were born. Japan entered the arena. Tastes changed. New audiences evolved. The men had lost their footing.

John completed construction of his high-tech fuck-hut, which had been ongoing for five years. He tried to clean up his substance act, and lost entire years at a time in the effort, the very name Johnson becoming industry shorthand for slipping and lapsing and falling. He lost interest in making movies. His world narrowed and his circle shrank. John began to feel like some old mirrors he'd seen in Europe, at the once-grand old palaces, the glass that had slowly, fleck by fleck, over the years shed the flecks of silver that had made them originally reflective.

«Oscar season again,» sighed Ivan. «Is it March already?» They were in the back seat of a car, being driven to Century City for a morning legal meeting. Ivan was immaculately dressed and his skin had the shine of eight hours of drugless sleep. John's face looked like a floor at the end of a cocktail party.

«What are we up for this year?» asked John.

«Don't be facetious, John.»

John was doing lines of coke from a small oval of safety glass he stored in his attaché case. He noticed Ivan give him a glower. «So what is your
point,
Ivan? I've got to stay awake. You know lawyers hit me like animal tranquilizers.» Ivan waited.

A flatbed loaded with jumbo gold statuettes was headed off to the venue — a tourist's dream photo. The truck paused beside them at a light. John caught Ivan eyeing the statues. «No, no,
no,
Ivan. I can see that “I wish we had an Oscar” gleam in your eyes. Well,
forget
it. Oscars are for freaks.»

«You can't honestly believe that, John.»

«
Oohhhhh,
look at
me
— I've got a little statue for being this year's token Brit, or this year's on-screen hooker with a disability.
Oohhhhh,
look at
me
— in twenty-four hours nobody's going to remember my name.
Oohhhhh,
the studio can put lots of little Oscar™'s all over ads for my movie — not simply
Oscars
but Oscars with the little trademark ™'s up on top:
Oscar™
's.» He chopped up a crystal. «Oops — excuse me, I forgot to put the ™ at the end of it. Off to Alcatraz we go.»

«John …»
Ivan adapted his baby-sitting voice. «Go easy on that stuff. The guys we're meeting are ball-breakers.»

«Oscars …»
John began to mumble, not a good sign. Ivan began to brace himself for a crash-and-burn morning, and downgraded his expectations for the upcoming meeting accordingly. Ivan, like John, had been seduced by the rewards and extremes of filmmaking, but unlike John, he wanted a traditional life now. In his mind he was «officially disgusted» with his life up to that point. He was «officially through with carousing» and was now ready to begin «officially looking to settle down.» And it was at this point that he saw Nylla, at the foot of an office tower, tears trickling down her cheeks, swaddled in a printed silk scarf that fluttered over her right shoulder. Running up her neck and into her cheek was a mottled scar left by a massive jellyfish sting from off the Australian coast two years previously. Its trace had nipped her acting career in the bud. Her new agent, Adam Norwitz, had seen her jellyfish scar a month before and had finally succeeded, just minutes prior to her appearance on the sidewalk, in breaking her spirit. He convinced her that the scar would keep her out of work, «unless you want to do soft porn, in which case a scar like yours could be a definite asset.»

Ivan stared at her silk dress, patterned with gardenias, fluttering in a warm wind, and he felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, behind him, John's sinuses and lungs clapped and
glort
ed. Ivan watched Nylla chew her gum. She removed it from her mouth, and instead of flicking it onto the hot concrete, took a small paper from her purse, and placed the gum inside the paper, and tucked the result in her purse. It was the cleanest thing he'd ever seen anybody do.

«Look, she's crying,» said Ivan, entranced, as though witnessing the world's smallest rainstorm. He got out of the car.

«Ivan,» John said, «isn't the meeting in the next tower over?» He heard Ivan ask Nylla if she was okay, and then say to her, «Can I help you out here? I'm Ivan. I'm on my way to a meeting, but I saw you here and …»

She said, «Oh God, I must look like an idiot.»

«No you don't. Not at all. What's your name?»

«I'm Nylla.»

«That's a nice name.»

«It's spelled N-Y-L-L-A. My father came to the States from Europe after the war. He wanted to name me after New York State because the States had been so good to him. My mother wanted me named after her mother, Bjalla. And there's the result.»

«I'm Ivan.»

And they were married six months later.