Marcus walked into the Hollywood Reporter’s offices with the overwhelming urge to wash his hands, an impulse he’d suffered since dropping off the manuscript for No Stranger to Champagne earlier that morning. It was a better story than A Dash of Lavender, so turning Roundtree’s script into a novel had been easier.
He’d made several stabs at coming up with an original plot but nothing had gelled, which was all the more disheartening because it wasn’t like he’d been reaching for an impossibly high bar. Until A Dash of Lavender, Ty’s best-selling title had been The Boys from Barracks B. But every time Marcus sat down at his typewriter, he wound up staring at the Japanese maple outside his window and thinking about how there were nine more abandoned scripts in the basement.
He hated himself for taking the easy route, and for how easily he’d rationalized his actions. Roundtree doesn’t need them and I do. So what would be the harm?
And then Humphrey Bogart had died and Kathryn had gathered together the people who’d been at the Garden during either of the times he’d lived there. They’d tried to give Bogie a high-spirited wake but it had been a desultory affair. Marcus went to bed that night plagued with the thought that time was ticking and nobody had any to waste. The next day, Marcus slunk down into the basement and swiped No Stranger to Champagne.
Out of the elevators, Marcus made a sharp right into the men’s room. The soap had the strong floral smell that he needed to scrub the stink of plagiarism off his paws. Kathryn had been down in the dumps since Bogie’s passing so he was taking her to a Misery Loves Company lunch.
Walking through the newsroom, Marcus realized he hadn’t been to her office in a long while and had grown used to the quiet of the Garden. How the hell did she get any work done amid this racket? At least at MGM they’d had their own offices. They weren’t very big, and the frosted glass walls didn’t partition off all the sound around him, but it was better than this.
Kathryn yanked a sheet of paper out of her typewriter and pointed him to the wooden chair next to her desk. “I bet your publisher was pleased to see his next bestseller.”
Kathryn and Gwendolyn were now aware that he was writing dime-store pulp—he’d had to tell them something—but that’s all they knew. He pointed to a press release with a Paramount logo next. “What’s the latest?”
“They’ve finally realized that science fiction is the next big thing.” She lifted the press release and read from it. “‘Paramount’s The Mariana Trench will elevate the science fiction genre by articulating a social commentary on American–Russian Cold War relations.’ I’m not even sure where the Mariana Trench is.”
“Near Guam, isn’t it?”
“I need to duck in to see Wilkerson about the Dorothy Dandridge situation. She’s filing suit against Confidential for two mill. But first I need to make sure he’s not feuding with anyone connected to her new movie. I’ll be right back.”
MGM had done very well with Forbidden Planet and now that Columbia was filming The 34th Parallel, Paramount risked falling behind if they didn’t come out with a science fiction picture, too. The Mariana Trench was a smart idea—God only knew what monsters might lurk in its depths.
Included in Paramount’s announcement was a description of the plot. It was only two paragraphs, but it was enough to send a chill down Marcus’s back. All they had done was swap Ancient Rome for the deepest point in the Pacific, turn a bridge across the Tiber into a bridge across the trench, and substitute aliens for Etruscans.
That miserable little prick.
Marcus scribbled out an apology that he couldn’t take Kathryn to lunch after all. He picked through the maze of newsroom desks and ran out into the foyer. In too much of a hurry to wait for the elevators, he took the stairs two steps at a time.
Marcus pounded on Windermere’s door until his fists couldn’t take it anymore. From what Marcus could see beyond the lace curtains covering the bay window, there wasn’t any movement. Nor was there any music or voices coming from inside the house. He tried the side gate but it was locked so he had no choice but to sit in his car and wait for the bastard to come home. Drumming his fingertips on his dashboard, he finally grasped the harsh irony of his situation.
Within minutes of dropping off a manuscript pilfered from another writer’s work, he had learned that someone else had passed off his story as their own.
A family of starlings nesting in a nearby eucalyptus tree started chirping. “But this is different,” he told them. “Roundtree left those scripts behind years ago. He’s forgotten all about them. I gave Horatius to Windermere, he claimed he sent it back, and now abracadabra-presto-change-o, suddenly it’s The Mariana Trench.”
He rapped his bare knuckles on the dashboard over and over. He knew it was a form of self-flagellation. He was a fool to have trusted a stranger. He was a fool not to have copyrighted it. And he was a fool to have handed Horatius over without retaining a carbon copy.
Six o’clock became seven, which dribbled into eight. At eight-thirty he told himself he’d give it thirty more minutes. Hunger and thirst and the need to pee were starting to dampen his indignation. If Windermere hadn’t appeared by nine, he might be out until late. At nine o’clock, Marcus gave himself ten more minutes, and at nine-ten, he gave himself another five. As he watched the second hand tick toward the quarter hour, a Chrysler New Yorker convertible roared around the curve and into the driveway.
Marcus bolted from his car. “You goddamned thief!” he yelled. “Did you really think you could add some goddamned fucking aliens and I wouldn’t notice? Or did you think you could get away with it because—”
The man staring back at him was ten years older than Windermere and wore the unimaginative three-piece suit of a middle-management executive from the telephone company.
“I’m so sorry,” Marcus apologized. “I was expecting someone else.” He pointed to the house. “Does Windermere still live here?”
The man lowered his briefcase from in front of his chest. “I’ve been renting this place through Western Realty on Hollywood Boulevard, if that’s any help.”
Marcus backed away. “Thanks. And I’m sorry to have startled you.” He mustered a smile but in the enveloping darkness, he doubted the guy could see him.
After a fitful night, Marcus was on the phone at nine the following morning. Yes, they did have a contact for the owner but it was against company policy to give out details over the telephone. They could, however, take his particulars and pass them along to the owner. Marcus dutifully recited them but knew it was a waste of time.
A two-paragraph description was one thing, but Marcus needed to see the full Mariana Trench script, so his next call was to Quentin Luckett.
After leaving his number with Luckie’s secretary, he loafed around the apartment within telephone-grabbing distance until he heard back. It wasn’t Luckie who finally called but his secretary, who told him that Mr. Luckett was tied up in a crisis script conference. However, he would be at Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe across the street from Paramount at six.
At exactly six o’clock, Marcus walked into Lucy’s and asked to be pointed to Mr. Luckett’s table. He was directed to the last booth on the right, which he found already occupied, but not by Luckie.
The astonishment on Rex’s face was hard to miss, but the slight upward curl at the edges of his lips indicated that this unexpected turn of events came as a welcome surprise.
“I wanted to speak with Luckie,” Marcus said. “He told his secretary to tell me to meet him here.”
Rex’s smile widened. “An Affair to Remember is due to start production next week and the script isn’t ready. Poor Luckie’s been working sixteen-hour days. Tomorrow’s the deadline and Leo McCarey’s been tearing his hair out.
“If you guys haven’t seen much of each other lately, I don’t want to intrude—”
Rex patted the space beside him in the booth, so Marcus slipped in next to him, stopping when he felt Rex’s leg press against his own. He knew what he wanted to drink but grabbed up the menu to avert his eyes.
He’d only met Rex once—a year ago at his fiftieth birthday. Every time he thought about it, that same fluttery sensation in the chest came back to him. But Rex was Luckie’s and therefore off the market. Why torture himself by being around the guy? It was easier to avoid him altogether.
And now here they were, alone, knee brushing knee. “So,” he said, keeping his eyes on the menu, “what’s your poison?”
Rex lifted his glass. “Four Roses.”
Marcus’s head shot up. “Really?”
“Ever since my navy days. I had a buddy in the merchant marines and he kept me supplied. It’s how I made it through the war intact. Well, that and other . . . services.”
Rex pressed his leg against Marcus’s long enough to feel the guy’s body heat. He wondered what it was like to feel that sort of heat from head to toe.
“SORRY! SORRY! SORRY!” Luckie collapsed into the booth, his hair windswept and his collar loosened. “What a day! But halle-goddamned-lujah! Affair to Remember has been put to bed. Leo’s happy, Cary’s happy, Deborah’s happy, and I need a double.” He called to the nearest señor for a round of Four Roses.
As they waited for their drinks, Marcus laid out his Horatius at the Bridge and The Mariana Trench dilemma. Marcus had assumed that Luckie would come down on his side, but the skepticism in his eyes was apparent by the time he’d finished. “And that’s just from the press release,” he added. “If you can get me the full script, I can go through it line by line.”
“Isn’t that the picture you pitched to Zanuck after you came back from Italy?”
“It is.” Marcus sat back to let the waiter deliver their drinks. “And if he’d said yes, I wouldn’t be scrambling to reclaim my work.”
They clinked glasses but there wasn’t much to celebrate.
“So it’s Windermere we need to go after,” Rex said.
We? Marcus didn’t dare look at the guy.
“Hey, Rexy.” Luckie swallowed half his double Four Roses in one gulp. “Don’t you have a cousin who’s a cop? Maybe he could help track down this Windermere guy.”
“My brother-in-law. He was a cop but he retired last year and now lives on Catalina Island where he goes fishing all day. But your friend Kathryn—isn’t her boyfriend a private eye?”
Marcus had already thought of Nelson, but he wasn’t sure it was wise to mix friends, boyfriends, and business. Also, Nelson didn’t come cheap. On the other hand, he was very good at his job, and if anyone could track Windermere down, it was him. Did he have any other choice?
“And the script?” Marcus asked. “Can I come back to your office and see it for myself?”
Luckie rubbed the stubble of his beard. “Management is awfully particular about protecting new properties nowadays. Corporate spying and all that.”
“It’s just the three of us.” Rex jiggled his knee against Marcus’s again. First ‘we,’ now ‘us’? “Nobody’ll know.”
Luckie looked around for a waiter. “All I’ve got is a detailed treatment. If you want the Writers Guild to arbitrate in your favor, you need to produce your script.”
“Sure, but can I at least see the treatment?”
“Okay, fine. But first can we please order? If I don’t get some tacos inside me, I’m going to expire.”
Luckie switched on the lights in his office and crossed over to his desk. With three double bourbons inside him, he was a little unsteady as he jerked open a deep drawer, produced a beige cardboard folder, and handed it to Marcus. “Remember: the buttoning of the lips starts now.” He pressed a finger to his mouth and made a wet “SHHH!” sound.
Marcus opened the folder and found a stack of a dozen paperclipped sheets. The front page read:
THE MARIANA TRENCH
(ORIGINAL TREATMENT)
“No name?” Marcus noted. “Screenwriter, byline, nothing?”
“Check the last page.”
Marcus flipped to it and asked Luckie to switch on his desk lamp, but he refused. “I don’t want security to see!”
“They let us in, didn’t they?”
He switched on the light and angled it toward himself. At the bottom of the page were the only four words Marcus needed to see.
1957 COPYRIGHT
WINDERMERE PRODUCTIONS