The Player (11 page)

He watched the maître d' tell a man in a sweater that the Polo Lounge required jackets. The man wore glasses with a piece of adhesive tape holding the temple to the frame. Was this the Writer? The man said he'd go back to his room. No.

The day he lost the job, Griffin knew it would be harder to get the best table, or he'd get it, but he'd have to hang around the bar for a few minutes. Is that it? he asked himself. Is that what it's all about, the best table? All of history, all of power, to have the headwaiter's respect?

The waiter asked him if he wanted another drink. Griffin looked at the empty glass with suspicion, as though someone else had finished it. Whoever it was hadn't touched the shrimp. He said yes, he'd like another drink, and lifted one pink thing from the bed of crushed ice and dunked it into the red sauce.

One of the women at the bar watched him squirt a lemon wedge over the cocktail sauce. He tried not to let her know he could feel her stare, and eating the shrimp became a performance; he was now pretending to be Griffin Mill eating in the Polo Lounge. He wanted to stay in this mode forever, always at a short distance from himself, where he could admire the craftmanship of his being, every gesture, every word, each shift of energy a calculation.

The woman at the bar was not the Writer. She and her friends were great looking and faceless at the same time, like ten thousand women in town who were great looking and faceless. Maybe they'd come to Los Angeles to act, encouraged by a small-town photographer, but the movie camera did not love their faces, they were good to the eye, sort of, but in close-up the movie camera detected a numbing symmetry, something ordinary, the fear of revealing—what?—something small, something cheap, an overweening avarice and a fear of the poverty for which they were destined. The women at the bar vibrated with a feeling of complicity for a crime whose silence they were dying to protect in exchange for a big house, a German convertible, facials three times a week. They were all too thin from too much exercise, they needed five pounds more to look human, their creeping anorexia long ago sucked away what might have been most appealing, something to hold on to, something to pinch. The women at the bar used to end up typing scripts in little apartments in East Hollywood, but writers had computers now; no one sent out for typing. What would happen to the women at the bar? Would they ever get married, or married again; they looked divorced, abandoned
more likely, by men driven to hysteria after six months cooped up with the lunacy of these fuck baubles. Rich losers. He wanted to leave his booth and join the women at the bar, buy them drinks, and then compel them to the suicides they owed the world. One of them smiled at Griffin. She must have recognized him. If his Writer was a woman, and Griffin accepted the possibility without chiding himself for not having considered it before, she wouldn't have been one of the women at the bar. She would be dark haired and short, with old sunglasses and no makeup, with the face of a 1925 Berlin Socialist, a serious nose and a mouth that loved talking. She'd wear black, she'd wear flat-heeled shoes, or else she'd be blond and tall and depressed, a brilliant and panicked aristocrat, someone made miserable by interesting men. Women screenwriters did not hang out in the Polo Lounge, they weren't frightened cows. Griffin's private rant subsided and now he felt awful. Maybe these women really were screenwriters pretending to be sluts, out for a night of research. Or not even research, for fun. And what if they weren't writers, only two lonely women. And why lonely? Griffin wanted to apologize for all of his disgraceful thoughts. He wanted to say to these women, “I don't know anything anymore.”

No one in the room was the Writer. Maybe the Writer will call me here, he thought, the waiter will bring me a phone, and when I pick up the receiver, I'll hear breathing. Maybe he'll talk to me.

Civella and Oakley rolled into the room, pushing their way past the maître d' and dropping into Griffin's booth.

“So you've been stood up, huh, Griffin?” asked the manager.

“Looks like it.”

“She was no good for you,” said Oakley. He smelled of marijuana. They both did.

“You guys got stoned,” said Griffin, trying to be amiable.

“We want to pitch a story,” said the manager.

“The doctor isn't in,” said Griffin.

“We'll take it to another studio,” said the director.

Griffin laughed. “With my blessings. Let somebody else have the headache.”

“No, really,” said Civella, “I want to tell you the story now.”

“And I don't want to hear it right now,” said Griffin, enjoying the tension. The game was starting. He was in the deal flow.

“Back off, Griffin,” said Civella. “This is supposed to be fun. It's only rock and roll.”

“Wrong. It's the movies. We don't release a hundred albums a year, we make nine movies. There's no margin.”

“You've got to relax,” said Civella.

Griffin didn't want to fight anymore. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, you know.” He tried to smile. “What are you drinking?” he asked, and raised a hand to call the waiter. He ordered mineral water for himself and let them tell the story.

“There's this district attorney who's feeling confused,” said Oakley.

“That's not how to begin,” said Civella. Griffin saw Oakley curse himself. This was important to him, a rare chance to pitch outside of the studio, catch the executive away from the phone, and he was already messing up and he hadn't really started.

“Okay, try it this way. You're outside the biggest fucking penitentiary in California, the tallest walls—”

Griffin interrupted just to play with Oakley; it wasn't fair and he knew it. “Why California?”

“Because California has the gas chamber. It can be any state with a gas chamber, as long as there's the death penalty, and they don't use a firing squad, lethal injection, or the electric chair. You're outside the penitentiary, with a line of cars going in, and it's night, and
it's raining. There's a small demonstration near the entrance, maybe a hundred people, a candlelight vigil.”

“Candles in the rain?” asked Griffin.

“Under their umbrellas. The umbrellas are glowing like Japanese lanterns.”

“That's nice,” said Griffin. “That's a beautiful image. I've never seen that. It's good.”

Oakley settled a bit in his seat and picked up his drink. He looked at it, considered a sip, and then put the drink down. “Okay, we're inside one of the cars, and there's a demonstrator blocking the way, a black woman, a real matron, you know from looking at her that she's a good person. This isn't some kind of wild riot, it's very sober. The driver of the car is ready to nudge her with the bumper, but the guy in the backseat tells him not to. Then the woman sees the guy in the backseat, and he lowers his window. They look at each other. Then the car goes in. All right, it's the night of an execution, and the guy we're with is the D.A., who's won the brilliant prosecution of a difficult case and is sending a retarded black nineteen-year-old to the gas chamber. He believes in the law, the crime was awful, there was no question the kid committed it, and now he's paying the ultimate penalty. Which is, by the way, one of the working titles.
Ultimate Penalty.
Anyway, we see the execution entirely through the expression on the D.A.'s face, we hear the sounds of the doors being closed, all the atmosphere stuff, but watch the man responsible for this execution. It's his first. And he doesn't like it. Everyone congratulates him on a job well done, but he hates himself. And on the way out of the prison, he sees the mother in a hearse, leaving with the boy's coffin. At that moment he vows that the next time he sends someone to the gas chamber, they'll be rich, they'll have the best attorney in the state, and he's
going to make sure the law is applied evenly. He wants to balance the scales.” Now Oakley took a drink.

Civella watched Griffin. “Not bad for a setup, is it?”

“You know it's strong. But it's easy to start strong. Where does it go? I want to hear the story.”

“We cut from the D.A. to a wealthy couple in Bel Air, and they're fighting. It's the rainstorm, the same bad weather that they've got at the prison. They go out into the night, he drives away in a fit, she should go with him but doesn't, doesn't want to, there's a witness to the fight, maybe the kids, this part isn't all worked out yet, and then he spins out on a road, and the car goes down a ravine, into a storm drain, and he's drowned with the car, and his body is carried away by the current. When the car is examined, the police find that it's been tampered with, and suddenly it's a murder case, and the D.A. decides to go for the big one on this and put this woman in the gas chamber.”

“In twenty-five words or less,” said Griffin, “what is the story?”

“Come on,” said Civella, “give us a break. We're professionals, you have to hear it all.”

“No, I don't. I don't have to hear any of it.”

“Then forget about it,” said Civella. “I have relationships all over town, and I know ten people who'll sit for the whole pitch. I can think of two who'd give us a commitment based on what you've already heard. You've heard enough, is it yes or no?”

“Call your relationships and ask them if they'll buy a pitch that's only a first act.”

“Stop fighting,” said Oakley. “I can do it. I'll get right to the third act. First of all, this is a procedural story, and we see a jury deliberating, a D.A. preparing his case, a woman on trial. Of course he wins, and of course she gets the death sentence. While the appeals are running out, something starts to nag the D.A. The body's
never been found, that's why the case is so tough, he's sending a wealthy white woman with the best lawyers in the country to her death and he doesn't have a body. And then, the day before the execution is scheduled, he finds out the husband is alive. And now he has to get the husband, and then get a stay of execution. And to make a long story short, the final scene is: The D.A. breaking into the prison, running down death row and blasting out the windows of the gas chamber after the gas has been released. And at the end of the movie the husband is arrested for attempted murder, and when they ask the D.A. what the weapon was going to be, he says, ‘The State of California.'”

Oakley sat far back in the booth and finished his drink, pleased with himself.

“That's more than twenty-five words,” said Griffin.

“Griffin, goddamn it, it's brilliant,” said the manager. “You know that this is a breakout picture.”

He didn't know that, no, he didn't know that at all, but he didn't want to tell them. It was the kind of moral thriller that would appeal to Larry Levy, even to Levison, and if Levy wanted to wrestle with a story that had no second act, and no credible chance for a love story between the D.A. and the accused woman, Griffin would happily let him assume the responsibility.

“Who's going to write it,” asked Griffin. “You?”

Oakley spread his hands in a small arc of supplication. “It's my idea.”

“We should get somebody else.”

“It's his story, Griffin, come on, give him first crack,” said Civella.

“It'll cost us too much money. We'll need a rewrite. Don't tell me we won't. You're a wonderful director, Tom, but Levison won't trust you. He'll want someone with a little more heat on him.
I'm not saying you won't get story credit, but I am saying that I have to tell you that he didn't like your last film. And I wouldn't tell you that unless I was serious about this story. It has a chance.”

“We had a lot of problems,” said Oakley. Griffin wished he had blamed himself for some of them. “But this is my idea. I started as a writer. I wrote three plays for the BBC. I can do this one.”

“I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, make a list of top writers you know and can work with.”

Civella was about to argue, but Oakley shot him a look to keep quiet.

Griffin excused himself to go to the bathroom. He liked the story, he wasn't sure about the director. Oakley had good ideas and a nice haircut, and he was awfully fun to be with, but after his first movie his style had changed. His casting choices had been weak; it was okay to stay away from movie stars for the sake of balance in the picture, but his ensembles were soft. He worked hard, but his composition and camera angles were uninspired. Griffin would commit to a first draft written by Oakley only if he didn't own the turnaround. It would be hard to beat him on that, but if he held out, the director might cave in. He'd still have points even if he didn't direct it. It was worth a try. He'd give Civella a list of five writers.

When he got back to the table, Civella handed him a postcard of the hotel.

“What's this?” Griffin asked.

“The maître d' said, ‘A gentleman asked me to give this to Mr. Mill.'” Civella looked disappointed that Griffin hadn't smiled at the impersonation. “What's the deal, it's a blank postcard.”

“Invisible ink,” said Oakley. “Invisible ink. That's a good phrase, isn't it? It would make a good title for something, don't you think?”

Griffin nodded, turning the card over in his hand.

“Title,” said Civella, “we forgot to tell you the title. It's
Habeas Corpus. Habeas Corpus,
is that a great title or what?”

“Go for it,” said Griffin.

“I don't like
Invisible Ink,”
said Civella. “It sounds too much like the title on a development deal script. It's the kind of title you see on scripts that get paid for but never made. It's not a movie title.”

Oakley took the postcard from Griffin. “What's this about?”

“It's a signal from the person I was supposed to meet here tonight. He's telling me that the reason he couldn't have drinks with me was that he's getting laid.”