Passing Through the Flame (36 page)

“From the first draft, it looks like you should be able to bring the picture in for under half a million,” Horst said. This kid Conrad was showing a surprising finesse for writing a script designed to keep the budget down. Aside from the exteriors at the festival, the whole thing would be shot on only seven interior sets—two apartments, two offices, two motel rooms, an airliner cabin—with a few pickup shots at any convenient airport. We’ve got enough sets lying around the studio gathering dust to redress for all that without really having to build anything new. And only ten speaking parts besides the two stars, and none of them major.

Jango Beck grinned at him. “Our end of the project should come in well under half a million,” he said. “It doesn’t look as if Mike Taub is going to be quite that lucky.”

Horst took a sip of coffee, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated the nearly empty executives’ lounge. By unstated studio policy, this holy of holies was reserved for major studio executives and producers of feature films. Television producers were relegated to the private commissary dining room, along with stars, directors, and the more important writers.

You can tell the health of the studio from the crowds in the lounge, the dining room, and the commissary itself, Horst thought. In the good old days, this place was full, and so was the commissary and dining room. We were making four or five features at a time, and today we’d call all of them high-budget pictures, with big crews and lots of extras. Now, this place is almost empty; just us and Cy Coleman trying to hustle some network executive for a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollar ninety-minute TV pilot. Television is giving us enough work to keep the dining room crowded, but the commissary itself is never packed the way it was in the old days because big crews and crowds of extras aren’t needed on one hundred and fifty thousand dollar one-hour TV episodes, the hackwork that’s keeping Eden’s head above water. Or at least close enough to the surface to come up for air once in a while.

Horst looked across the table at Jango Beck, an outrageous figure in a blue velvet suit trimmed with maroon piping, a paisley T-shirt, and a maroon neckerchief. Is it possible that
this
is the savior of Eden Pictures as a major feature film producer? Have I been misjudging Jango Beck all along?

“Just what kind of bills are you running up on Taub?” he asked. The more money Beck spent on the festival, the stupider Taub would look when Eden Records got stuck with the tab, and the more production values the film would have. If we can have what looks like a successful three-million-dollar feature, I’ll be able to get board approval and financing for more feature films, Horst thought. With Taub out of the way, and the studio secure, and a go-ahead to go back to decent budgets, we can still make good feature films that will make money. And of all people, it looks like Jango Beck is going to do it for us!

Beck sucked on his cigar. “I’m not running up any bills on Taub,” he said. “I’m letting him run them up himself.”

“Run them up himself?”

“Sure. As far as Taub is concerned, he’s putting on a rock festival with your money. Naturally, he wants to spend as much of your money as possible. So who’s a better choice to run up the festival expenses? I work out the grand designs, as befits my talents, and he spends the money on what I think up, as befits
his.”

Horst shook his head in wonderment. What a man to have on my side! How better to run up bills on Taub than to let him do it to himself, thinking he’s doing it to me! Talk about poetic justice! But I hope it all isn’t total waste....

“I hope the money’s being spent with a view toward maximizing the film’s production values,” Horst said.

“That was Conrad’s whole point. We’re working out a series of events and attractions that will make knockout backgrounds for the film, and Taub’s job is to organize the details and pay for them. If he wants to blow
more
money on his
own
crazy ideas, who are we to stop him?”

“I hope you know what you’re doing. Conrad’s first draft was pretty vague on the details of what’s supposed to go on at the festival itself.”

“That’s because we’re going to create a partly spontaneous event. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“That’s the part I don’t like,” Horst said. “What if nothing very interesting happens? Then all we’ve got is a trite love story without a major star set against a promotional film of a dull rock festival.”

Jango Beck puffed luxuriantly on his cigar. He laughed. He stared across the table at Horst. “Don’t worry about that, John,” he said. “I guarantee that whatever happens, it won’t be dull.”

For some reason, Beck’s words, the way he said them, sent a tremor of unease through John Horst. “What do you mean by that?” he said.

Beck kept his eyes locked on Horst’s for a disquieting extra fraction of a second. Then he sat back, sipped at his coffee, and said, “All I mean is that
I’m
designing the festival as a shooting background for Conrad, and Taub is only handling the grubby details. And this kind of thing is my line of evil.” He smiled. “It’s true that I’m collaborating with random chance, but I’m not letting it run the whole show.”

Again, Horst felt a twinge of dread in his chest, but this time he understood why. English was coming out of Beck’s mouth, but he still didn’t quite understand what Beck was saying. I ask him about production values, what kind of scenes are actually going to be staged for about three-quarters of the running time of the film, and I get hocuspocus about “partly spontaneous events” and “collaborations with random chance.” Does he really know what he’s doing, or is he just good at faking it? Can he produce a film or just bullshit?

“Look, Jango,” Horst said, “I admit you’re doing fine so far, but you have to realize you’ve got no credits, no track record. What I want to know is what the film will really
look like
for most of its running time, which is hardly a trivial matter. What I have from you is a first-draft screenplay that doesn’t tell me this. You’ve got to have enough visual material set up for this script to work. I ask you what visual events you’re setting up, and I get back generalities. What do you think this is?”

Beck laughed out loud. “I thought you were asking me what was going to
happen
at the festival, in a karmic sense,” he said. “Not what kind of props I’m setting up. Don’t worry about
that,
we’ve got plenty of extravaganzas set up. We’re going to have a carnival midway, nightly fireworks, industrial exhibits, and a great big People’s World’s Fair. Plus whatever other crazy ideas Taub, Conrad, and I can dream up before Labor Day. But don’t expect me to tell you what will
happen.
If I knew that at this point, I’d be too bored to continue.”

Jesus Christ, why am I always misjudging this guy? Horst thought. He really
does
have it all thought out professionally. But why didn’t he tell me, why did he first try to snow me like a producer with an unshootable mess up his sleeve?

“Why didn’t you say that in the first place, Jango?”

Beck laughed. He leaned his elbows on the table and looked into Horst’s eyes. “I assumed you knew how good I was at erecting partially controlled realities,” he said. “It’s the nature of my game.”

Horst wondered why those innocent words gave him yet another flash of dread.

Mike Taub leaned back in his chair, letting the drone of McDonnel’s financial report wash meaninglessly over him. Before today, meetings of the board of directors of EPI were occasions of dread for him. Birnbaum, Palacci and Sanderson were Horst’s stooges from the movie end, and Palmer, Gilbert and McDonnel were banker types who cared about nothing but balance sheets. So Horst had a solid block of four votes which could only be overridden by unanimity among Taub, Beck, and the bankers, an unlikely event which had never yet occurred.

The ugly square room, in one of the nameless little office buildings on the Eden lot instead of in the new Eden Tower, had always been a bed of pain for Taub. The oily old paneling, beige walls, and worn old oblong board table gave the place the odor of an old library in Taub’s nostrils or, worse still, of a high school principal’s office, a place to which Horst periodically summoned him to put him in his place.

Horst sat at the head of the table with Beck at his left and Taub at his right. Horst’s three stooges—graying and balding old men wearing light-colored suits and bright colored shirts—sat on Jango’s side of the table. The bankers—younger, puckered men in dark suits and white shirts—sat on Taub’s side. Ordinarily, there was not a place to look for comfort.

But today Taub found himself sneaking sidelong glances at Jango, drawing psychic sustenance from their occasional eye contact. Jango was wearing a parody of the bankers’ uniforms: a black pinstripe suit, white shirt, and dark Ivy League tie. The kicker was that the whole outfit was made of velvet.

McDonnel droned on meaninglessly. I’ve got the power, Taub thought. When I stick Horst with the festival expenses, the bankers will jump over to my side faster than cockroaches running across a hot frying pan, and with Jango, it’ll be five to four to push the studio sell-off through and Horst out. Horst looked so old-fashioned Hollywood cool in his pale-brown suit, yellow shirt, and sculptured gray-blond hair, but he was already a hollow shell, whether he knew it or not. Play president while you can, John, it won’t be long before you join the dinosaurs.

“...net profit this quarter of one million seven hundred and fifty-four dollars.” McDonnel paused, ruffled his papers back into his attache case, pursed his lips, lit a cigarette, and abruptly took on the demeanor of an inquisitor.” And now I’d like to hear what we’re budgeting for the Sunset City project. That’s a figure nobody seems able to pin down.”

Taub avoided looking at Jango, but he noted with some satisfaction that Horst was staring right at Beck. John must be shitting a pickle. He’s sure he’s sticking Eden Records with the festival bill; but he doesn’t want me to know it, and he certainly doesn’t want the board to smell out the game that’s going on any more than Jango and I do. How weird—right now the three of us are all on the same side!

Appropriately, mercifully, it was Jango who answered the treasurer. “Do you mean the festival or the film?”

“I mean the whole damn project,” McDonnel said sourly. “Just who
is
responsible for the overall project?”

Jango looked at Horst, at Taub, then shrugged. “That’s a hard one to answer, Ed,” he said. “Mike’s putting together the festival, I’m producing the film, and John holds the purse strings. Who do
you
think is in charge of the total project?”

“I think no one’s in charge, and I want to know how much money we’ve already spent on this thing and how much more we’re going to spend.” The other two bankers nodded like solemn penguins. Horst seemed nervous, but in tight control of his face and himself. Jango was relaxed and easy, and Taub was glad to let him keep talking. So, apparently, was Horst.

“Well, Mike’s in charge of the festival, and John watches my expenditures, so why don’t you just ask them and add the two figures up?”

Taub held his breath as McDonnel’s pale-blue eyes passed over him and settled on Horst.

“The actual film is budgeted at five hundred thousand dollars,” Horst said firmly. “I have every expectation that we can bring if in under budget.” He smiled a confident smile at Taub. “What about your end, Mike?”

“We haven’t spent much yet at all,” Taub said slowly, stalling for time while he tried to think his way through the maze. Horst knows I’m running up a huge tab, but he expects
me
to be stuck for it, so he probably won’t challenge any figures I throw out. “Ten thousand on publicity, a hundred and sixty on the legal and technical setting up, another twenty thou or so on odds and ends. It comes to under two hundred thousand.”

McDonnel glared at him with those two dirty chips of ice he used for eyes. “How much is this festival going to cost, Mike?” he said.

Taub glanced at Jango, hoping for a cue, for some kind of rescue, but getting only a steepling of Beck’s long, mobile fingers. I’ve got to lie, Taub thought. But I’ve got to lie in a way that won’t make it look as if I told an outright lie later on. Horst won’t call me on it now, and Jango will back me up....

“That’s a complicated question, Ed,” he said. “A major part of the expense will be the recording of at least twenty live albums by our groups, which is money that would eventually be spent inside the tower anyway....”

“How much, Mike?”

Taub saw that McDonnel was not going to let it go. He did some rapid-fire mental calculations. I can hide the graft, the money paid the artists, the technical expenses of recording, PR, advertising, and a few odds and ends in the general Eden Records accounts until I want to surface those expenses. I can shave another twenty percent off and justify it later by the usual bullshit.

“Call it a million and a half in round figures,” he said, meeting McDonnel’s eyes with a confident expression painted across his face. A persona that filled with reality from within as McDonnel’s face softened, as Horst sat there impassively, not challenging the gross underestimation.

“That’s a lot of money,” McDonnel said. But then that’s what he
always
says. I think I’m really going to pull it off....

“It’s still a feature film for under two million,” Horst said. “But can we expect to get our money back?” Gilbert asked. Finally, Jango spoke again. “Gentlemen, you’re overlooking the value of those twenty albums we’re going to cut at the festival, and you’re overlooking the considerable promotional value of a film that is largely designed to promote the sale of those albums. You’ve got to subtract the promotional value of the film in respect to the albums from the total budget to get a realistic figure.”

“And how much might that be?” Gilbert said.

Jango smiled ingenuously.
“Quien sabe?”he
said. “But certainly in the high six figures.”

McDonnel almost looked happy. “That appears quite sound,” he said. “But it still appears that no one is in overall charge of the damned thing.”