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Merman tapped his glasses on the table and brought the meeting to order. “The first problem,” he said, “is what is the last year in the time sequence of the story?”

“1964,” Fleischer said.

“So in any street scenes, we can’t have cars later than 1964 models,” Merman said. “Right?”

“Right,” Fleischer said.

“And they weren’t wearing miniskirts in 1964,” Merman said. “So we’re going to have to watch that in the crowd scenes.”

Fleischer nodded.

Merman went through the breakdown page by page. Occasionally there was a discussion of potential problems within the individual sequences:

“Let’s do that right here at the Studio on the French street,” Fleischer said.

“There’s not enough room there for a parking lot,” Merman said.

Fleischer folded his hands on the table in front of him. He stared straight ahead, quiet, almost dreamlike, not looking at Merman. “It doesn’t have to be a parking lot,” he said. “We can dress the French street to make it look like a Boston alley.”

“Is this going to be an exact replica of Boston Homicide?” Merman said.

Fryer shook his head. “No, they wouldn’t let us in to get any pictures. The Boston cops didn’t like the way they came off in the book, so they’re not giving us any help.”

“You should go to Boston, get yourself arrested and take pictures with a Minox, Robert,” Merman said, his
beagle features breaking into a grin. “Isn’t that what a creative producer does?”

“Let’s just build a set,” Fleischer said.

“How about using the standing set we’ve got for
Felony Squad
?” Merman said. “It’s nice and modern.”

“Because it’s an old police station in Boston,” Fleischer said.

Merman threw up his hands. “So who knows from an old police station?”

“Me,” Fleischer said.

“Okay,” Merman said. “I was just trying to save you some money.”

Merman blanched when he saw the scene was going to be shot on location. “It’s an interior,” he said. “Why not build a set and shoot it here?”

“No,” Fleischer said. “You don’t get the same feeling, the desk, the chairs, the mementos.”

“We can take pictures,” Merman said strenuously. “Duplicate it here.”

“Uh-uh,” Fleischer said.

“When do you expect to use this office?” Merman said. “When the attorney general’s out taking a leak in the men’s room?”

“On a Saturday,” Fleischer said.

Merman looked down the table at Fryer for assistance. “I don’t want to interfere with your creative talents, Mr. Producer, but you’ve got four and a half pages of dialogue in this scene,” Merman said. “That’s a long day’s work and Mr. Director says you’ll be working on Saturday. Well, I’ve got to remind you, Mr. Producer, Saturday is double time. You build a set here, you’re saving money.”

“Let’s spend it,” Fleischer said.

“Why not build that one here?” Merman said.

“I’d rather use a real location and real faggots,” Fleischer said. He smiled benignly down the table at Merman.

“Well, I guess they must have a faggot bar somewhere in Boston,” Merman said.

“I want to do as many interiors on location as possible,” Fleischer said. “You get a better feeling, a better sense of place. If we have an interior where there’s a lot of people, which means a lot of staging and a lot of camera movements, we’ll do it here. You can get more control on a stage. Otherwise, if there’s just a small
group of people, I’d rather use the real thing on location.”

“We’ll freeze our ass off if we shoot this in Providence in the middle of winter,” said Buck Hall, Fleischer’s assistant director.

Fleischer nodded. “Let’s use a local location,” he said. “Santa Monica Airport, maybe. We can spread some snow around and make it look like winter.” He stared off into space, reflecting for a moment. “What airlines fly into Providence anyway?”

“Eastern and American,” Eric Stacey, the
Strangler
’s unit production manager, said. “But I don’t think Providence was a jet airport in 1964. So Hurkos would have had to come in on an Electra and American isn’t using them anymore.”

“Eastern still uses them, but Eastern doesn’t fly into L.A.,” the representative from the prop department said.

“That means we’re going to have to find an Electra and paint it,” Stacey said. “That gets expensive. It might be cheaper to shoot the scene in Providence.”

Everyone at the table looked at Fleischer. He shook
his head slowly. “Negative,” he said finally. “We use all the same actors in the next scene in the Providence motel room. That’s a set we’re building here at the Studio. If we shoot the airport scene in Providence, we’ve got to keep all the actors on the payroll until we fly them out here for the motel room scene. And
that
gets expensive. So let’s find an Electra—I think Western uses them—paint it and use one of the local airports.”

Fleischer tapped the breakdown with a pencil. “What do you mean only thirty extras, Doc?” he said impatiently. “This is a main city thoroughfare and the shot covers two blocks. Are you trying to tell me that in the middle of the day in Boston you’re only going to find thirty people on the street? Come on, Doc. We need 130 extras anyway, and even that’s not enough. Make it 150.”

Fleischer pressed his hands against his temples. “I think we’ve got to shoot that here,” he said. “You set up outside a department store at midday, you’ve got a madhouse. We need control.” He thought for a moment. “How about using the New York street at Metro?”

“That’s $6,000 a day,” Merman said. “Are you sure you can’t shoot it in Boston?”

“Sure I can shoot it, Doc,” Fleischer said. “But you start tying up a main drag, it will take four weeks to shoot.”

“If we’re going to spend $6,000 a day, I’d rather build a set here,” Merman said.

“Sure, if you can do it, fine,” Fleischer said. “I’m not in love with the idea of giving Metro money. But let’s keep the idea on the back burner.”

Late one afternoon, Richard Zanuck received a telephone call from Governor Ronald Reagan’s office in Sacramento. The caller was one of Reagan’s aides, who wondered if the Studio had a spare lawyer it could lend the administration to help out in the utilities commission during the summer holidays. Zanuck listened politely to the caller and said he would get back to him. When he hung up, he rang Harry Sokolov.

“Ronnie Reagan wants to borrow a lawyer,” Zanuck said. “They’re short-handed in Sacramento with everyone taking vacations up there. Check the legal department and see if we can spare one, and if we can, let’s
throw him one for four weeks. It never hurts to have a friend in Sacramento.”

Paul Monash was having trouble finding stories for his new television series,
Judd
. It was Monash’s hope that his lawyer hero would each week become enmeshed in a controversial case that involved a certain amount of social commentary. The difficulty lay in the fact that
Judd
still had not premiered on the air and so was unproved in the ratings; until it was proved, the amount of controversy was limited, and a crusading lawyer without controversy was a peculiarly bloodless anomaly. It was during this limbo stage that Monash met late one afternoon with a writer named William Froug, who himself had produced a crusading liberal lawyer series,
Sam Benedict
, for another studio several years before. A casual, slightly puffy man in his late forties, Froug had an idea for a
Judd
segment that he wanted to discuss with Monash. (Under the rules of the Writers Guild of America West, a member of the television branch cannot put one word on paper without being paid for it; the usual procedure is for the Guild member to talk over an idea with a producer, and if the producer likes the idea, the writer is given a monetary commitment and told to go ahead.)

Monash adjusted the air conditioner to high, opened a diet soda, shucked off his shoes and nestled into the chair. “Shoot,” he said.

“Support your local police,” Froug said.

Monash arched an eyebrow. “That’s your
story
?”

“An ironic twist off it,” Froug said. “We’ve got this editor in Texas …”

“Does it have to be in Texas?” Monash asked.

“No.”

“Then let’s put him someplace else,” Monash said, tucking his legs beneath him. “Texas is too easy.”

“Sure,” Froug said. “No problem.” He unbuttoned his Madras jacket. He had an even
café-au-lait
colored tan. “Anyway, this editor writes an editorial saying the local chief of police is a sadist. He beat up a suspect in jail or something. The suspect is a kid involved in a mugging, something like that, and our cop let him have it. He maybe even murdered the kid.”

Monash sucked on the soda bottle. “Why’s the editor write the editorial?” he said.

“Because he wants a libel suit,” Froug said. “He knows the cop will sue him for libel, and he figures if he can get Judd as his defense attorney, Judd can break down the cop in court and prove he was a murderer.”

“I don’t get the chief’s dilemma,” Monash said. He knotted his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling, considering the story.

“You mean the turn in the middle?” Froug said.

“Mmmmm,” Monash mused. “I mean what makes the chief a sadist. Maybe there’s some kind of venal reason.” He kept examining the ceiling. “And I don’t think your editor works. Editors are too careful about libel.”

There was silence in the office as both Monash and Froug contemplated alternative plot possibilities. The only sound was the whirring of the air conditioner.

“How about this?” Monash said finally. “How about a letter to the paper? The editor can publish a disclaimer, ‘the views in the letters column are not the views of the paper,’ some bullshit like that. You see, the editor covers himself, but at the same time he has some inside
information he wants out in the open. So he gets a citizen with status in the community to write the letter.”

“Someone with clout,” Froug said.

“Now we need a little motivation,” Monash said. He began snapping his fingers. “Why does a guy get hot pants to get the chief?” He thought for a moment. “Maybe he just wants the excitement.”

Froug looked doubtful.

“Look,” Monash said, “part of the reason I went to the peace march in Century City was because I thought it was going to be exciting. Sure, it mirrored my views, I think the Vietnam war is shit, but I thought I’d get a little jazz out of the march, too.” He stared somewhat enviously at Froug. “You were there, weren’t you beaten up?”

“No, I was just ducking blows,” Froug said. “Quite frankly, that’s how I came up with this idea.”

“Con-tro-ver-sy,” Monash said. He laughed disparagingly.

“That’s right,” Froug said. “I know you want controversial subjects for
Judd
. Well, you got one in police brutality.” He brightened suddenly. “We could even have a demonstration in this story.”

Monash seemed resigned. “What in TV terms would be an acceptable demonstration?” he said. “We can’t have a peace march, we know that.”

“The only acceptable demonstration in television land is against stamping on dogs,” Froug said.

“I’ve got it,” Monash said suddenly. “Who says we’ve got to say what kind of demonstration? What if we never said what the demonstration was all about? What if we just let the audience fill it in in their own minds?”