The Hollywood Trilogy (51 page)

“We are not interested in such things,” Mr. Lorbun said.

“You don't want us in your movie,” the old woman said. “You're just trying to weasel us.”

“All right,” Harry said. “I don't have the time. I honestly do not think there is anything immoral going on, and you will certainly be present while we film. I'm going to offer you five hundred dollars per day to use your place, with a minimum guarantee of one thousand dollars. If you think there's anything even slightly immoral about it, why don't you talk to your minister? I'm sure he will tell you if anything funny is going on.”

“Our church is over to Tuscaloosa,” the old woman said.

“Call them at our expense,” Harry said. It was going badly. He really did not want to give up this location. It would cost them too much time and sweat trying to dress, much less find, another place. This goddamn cafe was half their reason for picking Sugartown as their location in the first place; Harry could remember the marvelous breakfasts he and Lew and Jack and the cameraman had had on the location survey, when the old woman must have been out of town. But nothing was happening now, and he could see that the couple were frozen into a position they might really like to take back. On impulse, Harry put a five dollar bill on the counter beside the old woman.

“That's for the telephone call,” he said.

“Well, I guess it would be all right,” the old woman said.

Harry could never figure out what had worked. Maybe just the sight of real money. It did not matter: they had their location back, and Harry had work to do.

THIRTY-FOUR

WHEN HARRY got back to the production office the secretary told him Fats Dunnigan had called and wanted to speak to him. Harry's heart sank. Dunnigan had obviously been seeing the dailies as they sent them back, and now he was calling to scream. It was still relatively early in the morning on the Coast. But Donald Bitts the costumer was standing there looking tense and worried, and so Harry had to smile and pretend he liked the man and listen to another of his innumerable problems. Donald Bitts was not having a good time on location. In Hollywood he had been bitchy and self-important, with a reputation as an excellent man for the price, but since landing in Alabama he had been tense.

“Come out to the honeywagon,” he said to Harry. “I want to show you something.”

Harry held in the sharp retort and followed the smaller man out of the air conditioning and across the parking lot to the trailer used as a dressing room and toilet. Inside the dressing room it was terribly hot and stuffy. Donald Bitts waved his arm dramatically at the racks of clothing and said, “There!”

“All right,” Harry said, and waited.

“Well, don't you see? There's nothing, absolutely nothing, for the Helen character! I mean somebody back in Hollywood absolutely fucked up, and I am not going to take the responsibility.”

“You mean there's nothing for her at all?”

“Not a stitch. You remember, don't you? We waited so long to cast her there wasn't any time for me to take her for fittings. Remember, you said, I think it was you, that we could get things for the character down here, and now we're here and no one has spoken to me at all about taking her out and fitting her.”

“Well, that would be a good thing to do today,” Harry said.

“But my God she's in a scene tomorrow and the stores around here are the most godforsaken things I've ever seen. I've been to Selma and Montgomery and Tuscaloosa and they haven't got anything, and frankly I'm getting tired of mousing around those stores!”

“It's all right,” Harry said.

“It is most definitely not all right!” Donald Bitts said. Sweat was running
down his face and his lips were almost white with tension. “I'm the one who has to go out there all by myself and have those people staring at me. The pressure is unbelievable, and I've got all those things to get ready for the effects person, and I just do not have the time to run all over central Alabama with that woman looking for dresses!”

“Can't we get out of this heat?” Harry asked him.

“I just wanted you to see,” Bitts said. “There's no air conditioning on those damned streets, either. I've been dying from the heat.”

“Let's go back to the office,” Harry suggested, but halfway there he patted Bitts on the shoulder and said, “You go ahead, I'll meet you there.”

“I just don't have time,” Bitts said, and walked off toward the office. Harry watched him. He wasn't even walking the same as he had in Hollywood: back there he had moved with a nice economy and a sense of personal style; here he was just dragging along, putting one foot in front of the other. Harry decided that Donald Bitts was going to be the first of them to flip. Of course by the time they wrapped the picture just about everybody would have flipped at least once. But Bias would be first, Harry would bet on it.

He knocked on Jody's door, and after a moment she opened it slightly. Her hair was wet and he could tell she was naked behind the door.

“I just jumped out of the shower,” she said, and gave him a pretty smile. She opened the door and let Harry in. Actually, she was wearing a towel. He looked around her room. Since the night before she had unpacked everything and by putting her things around the room had managed to make it look less like a motel and more like a place to live. There were candles, a lovely old scarf thrown over the television set and some flowers in a water glass on her bedside table.

“I got those in the woods over there,” Jody said, pointing across the parking lot.

“Listen,” Harry said. “I have a problem and I could use some help. I fucked up and we don't have any clothes for your character. She needs the dress she wears as a waitress and runs off in, and some underwear that will be seen, shoes, purse, stuff like that. Just the things she would have at work.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“It was just a simple fuckup. I thought we could buy the stuff down here and then I forgot to reserve the time. So, would you go with a driver and look around and buy three or four alternative costumes and stuff?”

“Sure,” Jody said. “Give me a kiss.” She held her arms out for him, and he kissed her. “I love you,” she said.

Harry said, “I love you too, baby. I'll send the driver down in about thirty minutes, okay?”

“When do I have to go to work?” Jody asked. “I'm really getting up for it.”

“I just don't know,” Harry said. He kissed her lightly and left the room, snapping his fingers and wheeling to go back after only a few steps.

“Listen, what you have to do is get like three or four of the things you're going to wear. We're going to have to tear some, put squibs in, get them dirty; no, better get five of everything—shoes, dress, everything.”

“Five of everything,” Jody said. “Some little clerk's going to love me. But the clothes should be used, shouldn't they?”

“Bitts can age them,” Harry said, and went back to the production office. Bitts was waiting for him.

“No sweat,” Harry said. “Jody McKeegan will do the shopping, and you can get back to what you were doing.”

“Her?” Bitts said. “She won't know what to buy!”

“Do you want to go with her?” Harry asked.

“I can't! I just don't have time this morning!”

“Then that's that.” He broke eye contact with Bitts and said to Alice Wanderove, “Babe, get one of the drivers to run Jody around this morning, okay? And tell him to take her down to Selma to that new Sears first. Then get Fats for me, will you?”

Fats's voice sounded bland and noncommital. After the
Hellos
and
How's it goings
, Fats said, “I like the dailies, Harry. You people are doing a hell of a job. How many setups a day are you getting?”

“About twenty-five,” Harry said. “But it's getting better.”

“The stuff is really pretty. Tell Jack for me. Really pour it on, okay? Let him know we support him all the way.”

“Okay, Fats,” Harry said, still waiting.

“You guys are really shooting up the film,” Fats said. “How does the editor like it so far?”

“Why don't you ask him?” Harry said. “He's there on the lot with you, not down here.”

“Right, but I wondered if you'd talked to him. He's probably as happy as
can be, with all that film to work with. I certainly hope you people don't run out of stock before you get to the end of the picture.”

“We can always get more,” Harry said. “Film is cheap.”

“Ha ha, it sure is, Harry. Well, keep up the good work. Listen, one piece of constructive criticism: the stuff is really great, the acting is great, but I wonder about the pace. It seems kind of soft to me, do you know what I mean?”

“It's all in the cutting,” Harry said.

“Sure it's all in the cutting, these aren't my first dailies, Harry. I've seen uncut film before. This is not my first motion picture. What I mean to say is the pace is goddamned slow for a nice little action adventure movie of the type that we're making.”

“I'll talk to Jack about it,” Harry said. “But I think the pace is just fine.”

“I just wanted to pass along that little piece of advice,” Fats said. “We're not making
War and Peace
you know.”

“I know,” Harry said, and managed to get off the telephone. Two seconds later Fats was gone from his mind, as Lew Gargolian came into the office with the assistant director. For once, Lew's face was bright and cheerful.

“I think we found a place for one-thirty-five and one-thirty-six,” he said. “Come over and look at the board.”

“Lew, sit down,” Harry said.

“Oh Jesus, what now?” Lew said, and threw himself into a chair.

“We're going to have to put back the riverbank scene at least a week,” he said.

Lew closed his eyes for a long moment and then opened them, looking at nothing. His mouth was drawn down in fatigue and disappointment. “Somebody doesn't want to take off her shirt,” he said in a low flat voice.

“That's right,” Harry said. He did not explain who.

THIRTY-FIVE

JODY'S CALL for the riverbank scene was at ten, and she arrived in the production offices at nine, ready for her costume and makeup. She was wearing only her mallard-green robe, because the scene called for her to undress on camera and she would be wearing the things she had shopped for her first day in Alabama, just over a week ago. From then until now Jody had more or less
imprisoned herself in her motel room. She hadn't lain by the pool because Harry had almost been angry at her for the tan she did have, and wanted her to lose as much as possible while she waited. She did not go out to the set every day because she did not want to appear to be just Harry's girlfriend, so she read, watched television, went crazy on a regular basis, worried about her part and wished there wasn't a bar just on the other side of the motel. When Harry was back at the motel he was usually in his own room working or down in the production office having one of his endless meetings. When he did come to her room it was either to sleep, holding her tightly, or a flying visit to check if she was drunk on the bed or glued to the ceiling on some kind of drug. As far as Jody knew, however, there were no drugs of any kind in the entire Deep South, and even if there had been she did not want any part of them.

The production office was jammed with people, and Jody made her way through to the back where Benny the makeup man was working on Elaine Rudman. Benny was a handsome tanned white-haired man of sixty who had been in the business since early silent movies. He turned to Jody and smiled and shook her hand. “I'm supposed to do Johnny Bridger next, and then you,” he said. Jody moved into the background and watched him work on Elaine, who smiled at Jody once without really meeting her eyes and then went back to watching what Benny was doing to her in the big mirror.

They were all being made up to look as if they had spent the night crossing open fields and forest lands. The riverbank scene is where they clean off, wash their clothes and try to make themselves look as little like people on the run as possible. The makeup was subtle, and most of the effect was created by Nancy the hair stylist, who was working on Elaine in the next tall canvas chair while Benny worked on Jonathan Bridger. Bridger grinned and said hello to Jody and told her a Polish joke and read
Time
while he was being worked on.

When Jody's turn came most of the others were gone out to the set, leaving only the two women who worked in the production office, and after Jody's face and hair had been finished, Benny and Nancy went also, leaving her to wait for Donald Bitts and her costume. Jody sat in one of the high chairs and waited. Fifteen minutes and then half an hour went by, and still Bitts had not come back with her costume. Finally Alice Wanderove looked up from her work and said, “Hasn't that little bastard shown up yet?” and went looking
for him. In another ten minutes she came back, followed by Donald Bitts carrying Jody's five different sets of costume, each set in a different condition, from clean and well-worn to filthy and ragged.