13

THE MOVIE

The motion picture shifts to a night scene, the exterior of the Ultimate Pictures lot. The camera pulls in slowly to the administration building and a single illuminated window amid the darkness. We penetrate the window and now are inside a spacious office that is lit only by a shaded lamp on a broad desk. The room is full of shadows, the setting reminiscent of something from a German silent film made by the likes of F. W. Murnau or Robert Wiene.

Eldon Hirsch sits with his coin collection, placing his newest acquisition in a slot in a binder. He has the means and the wealth that could give him great pleasure in life, but instead he is alone—an angry, unhappy man. A black-and-white publicity photo, framed and sitting on his desk, is a representation of the obsession that is eating his soul.

It is a recent still of Blair Kendrick, inscribed and signed, “To Eldon—Thank you very much for everything! X X O O—Blair.”

“There he is, playing with his toys.”

Hirsch looked up and squinted into the shadows. The tall, shapely woman was a silhouette, but the white dress she wore took on a ghostly luminescence in the semidarkness. At first, he thought she was Blair, finally come to pay her respects, after hours, in the way he had been desiring … but then he realized he was mistaken. The woman’s outline certainly resembled Blair’s, but she was unfortunately someone else altogether.

“Malena?” Hirsch whispered.

“In the flesh and blood.”

“How did you …? I wasn’t expecting you.” His secretary, Camille, was gone for the night—but he thought he knew who might have let her in.

The woman strolled into the expansive office. She was in her early thirties, a lean, athletically built beauty who spoke with a faint Italian accent. She also had magnificent, flaming-red hair. Malena Mengarelli could have been a glamorous movie star if she had chosen that path. Instead, she had immigrated to join and sleep with her underboss in Las Vegas, who provided her with the means to enjoy an extravagant and indulgent lifestyle among a sinister family of colleagues. Malena wasn’t exactly a caporegime, nor had she ever been “made,” since women never received that honor. Nevertheless, soldiers in the organization did her bidding, and it was well known that anyone who refused her orders would soon, as they would say, sleep with the fishes.

Eldon Hirsch had no doubt that Malena Mengarelli was a very dangerous person.

“I was in town on business and I thought I’d drop in, pay a visit,” she said. “You don’t mind, do you, Eldon?”

“Not at all.” He stood and started walking toward the bar. “Can I get you a drink?” Then he stopped and nervously moved back to his desk, reaching for the cigar box. “Or maybe you’d like a cigar? You like Cubans, don’t you? Meyer told me so.”

“Sure, I’ll have a Cuban. And a drink.”

Hirsch fumbled with the box and managed to produce a Havana original. He handed it to her and flicked a flame from his elephant lighter. Malena puffed it and sat in the chair in front of the desk. Hirsch returned to the bar. “What’ll you have? Martini? Gin and tonic?”

“Bloody Mary.”

Hirsch spent too much time preparing the drink, retrieving cold tomato juice from the little bar fridge and conscientiously adjusting the right ratios of juice to vodka to spices. When he finally brought it to her, she didn’t thank him.

“You’re not having one?” she asked.

“Uh, no … I’m not. You enjoy it. How have you been? You look well. You look beautiful, Malena. That red hair, God … you sure you don’t want to be in a picture? Technicolor would do wonders for you. I could make you a star. You could be—”

“Hush, Eldon,” she snapped. “Screw your shitty movies.”

Even Eldon Hirsch was shocked when words like that were uttered by a woman.

Malena blew a few smoke rings. “This is good. I’m impressed.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He wanted to ask her why she had “dropped in” but knew to keep his mouth shut. She would bring up the agenda in due time.

She nodded at the coin collection, still spread out on the desk. “I see you’re admiring your baubles.”

Hirsch gave a little laugh. “Yes, yes. I can’t stop handling them. They are something, aren’t they? Their worth increases every day. In ten or twenty years’ time—”

“I know, I know, they’ll be very valuable. Screw your shitty coins.”

The studio boss swallowed and sat back in his chair. He considered pressing the call button and having Buddy Franco step into the room. That, however, would be a huge mistake. Hirsch was fairly certain that Franco was behind her visit.

“Eldon, I’ve come to ask you about the loan. You know it’s past due.”

“Ah, of course. I thought that might be what you wanted to talk about.” He sat forward with his elbows in the desk, his hands clasped below his chin. “The studio is making lots of money now. We’re finally in the black. I’ll be able to pay it back by Christmas.”

“Christmas? Why not now?”

“All right. Sure. I can do that. Tell Tonino I’ll send a check tomor—”

“You’ll write one now, Eldon. Three hundred thousand. That’s the down payment on the interest you owe. Tonino understands your liquidity problems, so he’ll allow you to pay off the rest in installments. Just know that the interest increases as time marches on.”

“Oh, I know. I’ll do it right now.” He opened a drawer and removed a studio check register. “Three hundred thousand? Made out to the same, uh, attorney?”

“Yes.” She squinted at the register. “You don’t want to use studio funds, do you? Won’t that … look funny?”

Hirsch cursed to himself. He would have to write a check out of his personal account. “You’re right, Malena. What was I thinking?” He laughed again and opened another drawer. He removed a different check register and wrote out the draft. Hirsch tore it off and handed it across the desk to her.

Malena glanced at it to confirm the check’s accuracy and then opened the Prada purse in her lap. She dropped the slip of paper inside and snapped the bag shut.

“Have you had dinner?” Hirsch asked. “We could go to—”

“Don’t have the time,” she said. Malena abruptly stood, crushed the lit end of her cigar in the ashtray near his elbows, and left the drink virtually untouched. “See you later, Eldon. I have to run.”

She turned and started to walk away from the desk, which was a relief to Hirsch. But then the woman stopped suddenly and turned around. “Eldon, you wouldn’t be embezzling a portion of Tonino’s profits from the studio, would you?”

Hirsch’s stomach jumped into his throat. “Wha—what? What are you talking about?”

The woman’s cold, dark eyes bore holes into his.

Christ. They know. Hirsch swallowed.

“Be careful, Eldon,” she said. “I’ll give you a few days to think about things. We’ll have another talk soon, all right?”

He just stared at her, speechless.

“All right?”

“Sure, Malena. You’re welcome to come back anytime. We’ll do dinner.”

The corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. “I’m not one of your little starlets you screw on your couch here.” She gave him a little wave and left the office.

Hirsch took a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed his forehead, and pressed the call button attached to the desk. He heard the faint buzz elsewhere in the building. A few minutes later, another figure—this time a bulky, stocky silhouette—stood in the open doorway on the other side of the room.

“Did you want to see me?”

“Buddy. Come in. Close the door.”

The man who entered was thirty-eight years old, had an army crew cut, and was still dressed sharply in a suit. Buddy Franco moved across the floor and took the chair that had previously been occupied by Malena Mengarelli.

“So, you’re still here,” Hirsch said. “Do you ever go home to your wife?”

“You know I don’t leave the studio until you do, sir.”

“And you should know you don’t have to do that unless we talk beforehand and I need you for something.”

Franco shrugged. “I’m like you, Eldon. I feel at home at the office.”

Hirsch emitted a short laugh that sounded more like a snort. “Trouble with the old lady, Buddy?”

“Not really. I just have priorities.”

Hirsch pulled out another cigar and offered the box to Franco. “Have a Cuban.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Both of them lit their cigars with the elephant lighter.

“Malena Mengarelli was just here.”

Franco nodded. “I know. I let her in.”

“I thought so.”

“I couldn’t very well refuse.”

“No.”

There was a pause as the men puffed. Hirsch considered the man who was the studio fixer at Ultimate. Could he trust Franco? The guy seemed to be very loyal. He had overseen the elimination of a number of problems that Hirsch hadn’t wanted the press to find out about. He did as he was told and protected the boss. The two of them had become friends—perhaps. Or was it all an act? Hirsch knew very well how Franco had come to be employed at Ultimate. The question was—to whom was Franco really loyal? Hirsch? Or the boys in Vegas?

Franco nodded at the stogie in the ashtray. “She didn’t finish hers.”

“Waste of a good cigar.”

“Everything all right?”

“She thinks I stole their money.”

Franco’s expression didn’t change. After a beat, he asked, “Did you?”

“Of course not. I still owe them some cash on the loan, you know. I made a down payment.”

“That should hold off Tonino for now.”

“And Meyer will be happy.” Hirsch drummed his fingers on the desk and looked away. “Beatrice wants to take Justin to the Grand Canyon this weekend. Wants him to see that big hole in the ground for his birthday.”

“How old will he be?”

“Nine.”

“I’m sure he’ll enjoy it, sir.”

“Are you kidding? Justin’s a little brat.” Hirsch inhaled on the cigar and blew several smoke rings into the air, just as he had seen Malena do. “What the hell … he’ll probably grow up and take over the studio someday. I guess being a brat is a good qualification for the job.”

Franco did not respond to that one.

Hirsch picked up a coin on his desk and held it between his thumb and index finger. It was silver-colored, with a man’s head in profile wearing a wreath of leaves in his hair, like a Roman orator. “Do you see this, Buddy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s a Barber quarter, S mint, from 1901. There are a lot of fakes out there, but this one’s real. Just a little over seventy thousand were produced, and it’s very rare.”

Franco had indulged his boss many times regarding the coin collection. “Very impressive, Eldon.”

“I’ll say. Meyer found it for me. Someone he knew in New York acquired it—somehow. I didn’t ask. I got it for a song. I guess it’s worth about five hundred bucks. But who knows what it’ll be worth when Justin’s my age, huh?” He gave Franco a grin. “Part of it belongs to you, you know.”

“I appreciate that,” the fixer said. “But I’m not looking for you to cash in. You need to hold on to them. I don’t care about my percentage until you decide it’s time. Or until Meyer Lansky does.”

“I know, I know. We all have a percentage, don’t we? He procures and gets thirty percent, and you get ten for, well, just being here.”

“And the other sixty is yours, Eldon. He knows that, I know that. It’s okay. It’s part of your deal.”

“Damn right, it’s okay. Every man has a fetish.” He laughed. “What’s yours, Buddy?”

Franco didn’t answer.

Hirsch slowly and lovingly rubbed a palm over one of the binder’s pages. “I’m grateful he allows me to be the custodian. He knows I’ll take better care of it than him.”

“True, but Mr. Lansky can be very enterprising in other ways. How’s the hotel doing?”

“They don’t tell you? It’s going gangbusters. He’s really turned it around. That fucking Bugsy Siegel was going to lose everyone’s money—I’m not surprised they bumped him off last summer. The hotel casino business in Vegas is taking off. In five years, there will be three or four more on the Strip, and I don’t know how many downtown. In ten years, God, who knows what it’ll be? It’s going to become the Hollywood of the desert. The Pink Flamingo—well, now it’s the Fabulous Flamingo—it started it all. Bugsy—may he rest in peace—was a visionary. But he sure was a fuckup. I’m going to the head. I’ll be right back.”

Hirsch got up and went to his private bathroom. Franco crossed his legs and continued to smoke. From his point of view, the studio mogul was certainly—and conveniently—in denial that the boys in Las Vegas had bankrolled Ultimate Pictures back when it was starting up. Hirsch wouldn’t be where he was without them. They had also placed Franco at the studio to keep an eye on things. While he technically worked for Hirsch, the reality was a different story. Hirsch’s “investments” in the casinos amounted to very little. The truth was that he owed the mob a great deal of money. Could the man also be stealing from them?

If they’d sent Malena Mengarelli to deliver a message, then perhaps, Franco thought, he should investigate the matter himself.

Hirsch returned, sat behind the desk, and resumed fiddling with his coins. “How’s the musical doing?”

“It’s on schedule.”

“Is that Kraut director spending too much money?”

“We may need to go over the budget a little. The water fantasy sequence is going to cost more than anticipated. Can’t be helped.”

“I figured we’d lowballed it. All right, you can approve the extra dough, as long as it’s not my arm and my leg. What about the war picture?”

“Doing fine. Wraps this week.”

“Any trouble keeping Bill off the bottle?”

“I read him the riot act before we started production. He sobered up real quick.”

Hirsch shook his head. “It’s a shame when a star is a drunk. Or takes drugs. Have you heard anything about, uh, what’s her name—Virginia?”

“Recuperating nicely, from what I’m told. You’re not going to renew her contract, are you?”

“No. She was a mess. That piece Hedda Hopper did on her nearly took down the studio. What was she thinking, that girl? No wonder the Hays Office gets after us all the time. We ought to outlaw Hollywood parties for anyone under contract.”

Hirsch took another drag from the cigar and then leaned forward. He spoke a little softer, as if he might be afraid someone else would hear.

“What have you heard about our girl?”

“She’s still seeing him.”

Hirsch slapped the palm of his hand hard on the top of the desk. The move was so sudden it made even Franco flinch.

“Goddammit.” The man moved his head back and forth, as if he was searching for something. “Why the hell does she want to sleep with a colored boy? That goddamn nig—”

“They were seen at the Dunbar Hotel just the other night,” Franco interjected. “Marley and his band were playing there. Blair was at one of the tables, alone, and then she was joined by some other coloreds from her neighborhood. After the set, she went off with Marley.”

Hirsch closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. “If Parsons or Hopper or Fidler gets hold of this … Christ, what is she thinking? Doesn’t she know she can’t do this?”

“What would you like me to do, Eldon?”

“I want you to stop it, Buddy! Jesus, what do you think I want you to do?”

Franco nodded. “I assume you’d rather not approach this from Blair’s side of things, but from Marley’s side?”

“That’s the place to start, certainly!”

Franco paused, inhaled on the cigar, and blew out the smoke. “Shall I hit ‘soft’ or ‘hard?’”

Hirsch looked at him and answered, “Why don’t you try ‘medium’ and see how that works?”