THE EVENT OF the season is the bar mitzvah of David Hartman, Jr.,34son of David Hartman, head of RepCo, the most powerful, most ruthless, most important agent in Hollywood. A select list of 250 are invited. Twenty of them are friends of the thirteen-year-old boy. The rest are people in the industry. It is the most sought-after invitation, it defines who is who, it is the ultimate A-list.
The cost of the catering, as released to the press, is substantially over $100,000. The cost of the party is hard to calculate. Entertainment is supposed to include performances by Michael Jackson and Bobby and several people I have never heard of. These people will not charge for their services and may, or may not, provide their backup musicians, roadies, mixers, special-effects personnel, light-and-laser shows as part of their homage.
One of the themes of the party—at least for the kids—is Ninja. There is some talk that this is tastelessly self-serving. Hartman is a student of kendo, the Japanese art of sword fighting. His sensei, or teacher, is a Japanese swordsman named Sakuro Juzo. It is common gossip that Hartman’s devotion to kendo is part of his rivalry with Michael Ovitz. Ovitz is devoted to aikido, a martial art invented in the forties, also in Japan. Hartman whenever he discusses martial arts, points out that kendo, the way of the sword, contains the real teachings of Bushido, the way of the samurai, and that all the movements of aikido are actually based on—that is, derivative of—movements developed for the sword.
Hartman is the prime mover behind a movie called American Ninja, which stars Sakuro Juzo as a Japanese Ninja master with a group of youthful American disciples who engage in virtually supernatural acts of derring-do in the service of truth, justice, and the American way. Hartman personally pitched it to David Geffen, describing it as Batman combined with The Mod Squad for the nineties, containing the spiritual and competitive values we should learn from the East.
Again, this is partly ascribed to his rivalry with Mike Ovitz,35who is credited with making a movie star out of his sensei, aikido instructor Steven Seagal.
Japan bashers and paranoids have accused Hartman of having more sinister motives than competition with a rival agent. That he is actually in the service of Japanese masters, who desire to create a new mythology, an illusion of Japanese-American cooperation but with a Japanese as the sensei of the Americans, now become the students. To the Japanese, in whose culture all relationships are hierarchical, this is a powerful statement indeed. Hartman’s motives are, of course, described as financial. This film and his sponsorship of Sakuro Juzo will establish him as a friend of the Japanese and they will therefore use him as point man, advisor, and deal broker as they buy up America, a position so lucrative it makes mere movie packaging look like spit.
Sakuro and his top students, several of whom have been flown over from Japan, will give a kendo demonstration. All the stuntmen from the film will be present. There will be lessons for children of all ages in how to become invisible, how to infiltrate Oriental castles, how to kill in complete silence, and other things that thrill thirteen-year-old boys.
Food will be both American and Japanese. Sushi chefs have been flown over from Japan. They specialize in serving live sushi, currently the hottest food trend in Tokyo. Included on the menu is puffer fish, also flown over, live, a fish which if not correctly prepared will cause paralysis and death. Serving it in America is illegal.
The party will be filmed in 35-mm, utilizing seven cameras. Marty Scorsese will direct. Vilmos Zsigmond will be the director of photography. This is both serious and something of an in-joke since Hartman’s first media experience is reported to have been producing bar mitzvah movies.
It is the first time Maggie is going to meet with Hartman since they had the lunch she told me about. It is also a major see-and-be-seen event, to which Maggie responds competitively. The preparation process takes several days. Selecting her clothes. Getting them tailored and retailored. Changing her mind. Getting extra exercise to firm up and slim down the already perfect form. Getting extra sleep to look radiant and rested.
She gets the guest list and goes through it name by name. Then she starts working the phones. She double-checks who is still married, who is freshly divorced, who she can ask about their children and whose children are best not referred to. There are a few names she doesn’t know, mostly Japanese from Sony, Matsushita, and Musashi corporations. She finds out about them. Whether they’re from Osaka or Tokyo or the country, if they have wives and children with them or left them behind, if they play golf or tennis. She has a terrific memory, but she jots the information down on file cards nonetheless.
With this much activity I am pushed further into the background. I am not even driving her to the party. Limousine service is being provided by the major studios. The party is to begin in the early evening.
I could take the night off as Mrs. Mulligan has done and go somewhere on my own. Part of me wants to go find some whore that looks vaguely like Maggie, the same color hair, cut the same way might be enough, or a torso about the same shape and size.
But I don’t. I stay home. I crack open a bottle of bourbon. I sit down and read the copy of Sun Tzu that Kim gave me.
Actually, I have been reading The Art of War since Preston Griffith gave me a copy in Saigon in ’70. Griff was CIA and an opium smoker. He said that he had had many people killed. Reading Sun Tzu brought him great despair. But he said for someone like me it would bring strength.
It was written sometime between 480 and 221 B.C. It’s very Oriental, and the first time you try to read it, it’s like trying to get serious about a fortune cookie. “Nature is the dark or light, the cold or hot, and the Systems of time.” Or “Those who are certain to capture what is attacked, attack locations that are not defended.” On top of that, every translation you read is different. So you wonder what he really said. If he said anything.
But we were in Nam. Where we had the firepower, the logistics, the organization, and the money. On paper we even had the manpower. And we were losing—to General Giap, who read Sun Tzu. And we lost China to Mao Tse-tung, who read Sun Tzu. We got our butt kicked, at least for a while, in Korea, by other generals who read Sun Tzu.
So even if he sounds like Ding Bat Woo, I have to understand that the problem is in my listening, not in his speaking. After I became a sergeant and got my own squad, I began to use what he said as well as I could. It worked. It helped me to save my people and to kill the enemy. When we had a captain who insisted on violating the principles of Sun Tzu, we had great trouble and many of us died.
At first I don’t like this translation. In fact, I resent it. Sun Tzu wrote about war. Real war. This book changes War to Strategy and calls itself the “World’s Most Widely Read Manual of Skillful Negotiations and Lasting Influence.” It is aimed at those business people who would like to think that business competition is war, that lawyers and accountants and agents are soldiers in the field, that money is blood, that a neurotic tic is the equivalent of life in a chair in a VA hospital, needing someone to wipe your ass and change the urine tube coming out of your dick. But if I refuse to hear what is said because I am prejudiced, then I am as blind as the men who lead us in Vietnam. So I try to listen as one who is ignorant to one who is wise.
The sentence to which Kim pointed is, The strategy of positioning evades Reality and confronts through Illusion. It is in chapter 6, which is called, in this translation, “Illusions and Reality (Using Camouflage).” The standard translation is “Weakness and Strength.” The translator’s commentary says, “The idea of creating illusions to obscure reality is a specific tactical maneuver designed to keep the opponent at a constant disadvantage.”
It is a very empty house without Maggie there.
I try to stay sober and come close to succeeding. I go into the screening room and watch Maggie’s films on videotape. The bottle comes with me. At some point I doze off. I awaken around 3:00 A.M. I have to piss and my mouth tastes like death. The house is still empty.
Shortly thereafter a car pulls in. Not the limo. It’s Maggie come home. With a ride or with someone. It’s not my place to be waiting up and watching for her. To appear to do so would be—bad strategy. I go upstairs to my room. I leave the door open so I can hear, go across the room and look out the window to see the car they’ve arrived in. It’s a white Ferrari 348 with the top down.
I hear the door. I hear the footsteps. Then the laughter floats up to my room. She sounds high. I can’t help but go to the bedroom door and look down. She is somewhat disheveled. I’m like an aged and jealous husband looking at a young and lively wife. Her nipples are distended. Erect and popping out. Is that from the cool air and the ride in the open car? Or is it the man she’s with: Jack Cushing, who plays young pilots and soldiers and gunslingers and spends a lot of screen time with his shirt off. His muscles have lots of definition. In his own way, I suppose, he’s as good-looking as she is. His eyes are famously blue and Fredo does his hair too.
They’re talking about who said what and who did what and reliving the party. But the subtext is what it always is. He wants her and she’s not sure. He wants it as soon as possible. She wants to drag out every measure of admiration and ego fulfillment that she can get before she commits. Apparently, Hollywood gossip has not taken Maggie off the A-list. At the party the famous actress-turned-director came on to her so strong that her current girlfriend stalked out of the party early. Someone, I didn’t hear who, told Maggie—in front of Melanie Griffith—that she had the most beautiful figure in films. Melanie was furious and shook her tits at whoever it was who spoke. Maggie, telling the story, does a deadly imitation of Melanie.
“Are those really real?” Jack says.
“You bet,” Maggie says. “A hundred percent homegrown organic, no preservatives added.”
“I don’t believe you. They’re too good. Let me do the touch test,” he says. “You know, these are infallible fingers. They can always tell.”
Maggie says, “I need the ocean air.” She rushes away from him and goes out on the deck.
Now I can’t hear them. I step out of the shadows of my room onto the walk that runs around the living room so I can see them better. The wind coming off the water plays with her hair. I’m in some damn nightmare of a movie. He sidles up beside her. He touches her hair. She responds with pleasure. He puts his other hand on her back, running it down to her hip. She moves away. But not far. Now they’re side by side. He turns to face her. She keeps looking out. He puts a hand on her shoulder, gently turns her so that they’re looking right at each other. She doesn’t make eye contact with him. He lifts her chin with his fingers. They make eye contact. Shit. This is it. You might as well cut away or cut to the hard-core from here.
Yeah, he lowers his mouth to hers and she lets him kiss her.
Didn’t I just play this scene with her. Damn her.
Then his arms go around her and she lets him pull her close. Her breasts against his chest. Him feeling her nipples hard. Her belly against his sculpted, every-day-at-the-gym-with-his-personal-trainer torso. The bottom of her belly, the soft rounded part feeling his cock, stiff or not. The mound of her against the thigh that he rubs gently between her legs. His hands find the shape of her ass.
He’s gyrating into her. She moves against him. My mouth is dry, my heart beats high in my chest. I should leave. Find a place to be that’s far, far away. I can’t even take one step back and hide in my room. I watch mesmerized.
He lifts her dress. The skin of her legs is smooth and fair in the moonlight. His mouth’s on her neck and then her shoulders.
She pushes him away. Panting. Her eyes are shining, her lips swollen and wet.
She backs into the house. He follows. They leave the door to the deck open so the night can come in, blowing cool against the fevers. Now they start again. Slower, but just as intense. Totally stoned into sex. I’m watching a porno film of two of Hollywood’s top stars and I’m lucky I don’t have a gun in my hand.
He unhooks her dress. It slides off her shoulders. Beautiful unblemished skin. His mouth moves down her neck to her collar bone. His hands push the dress lower. She lets him push it down to her waist. She covers her breasts with her hands. Half-naked, half-defensive.
Now he falls to his knees in front of her. He eases the dress the rest of the way down. His hands come back up, caressing from ankle to buttock. His head moves forward and he begins to kiss her belly. She sighs with pleasure. Damn her. His mouth is finding its way down, toward the fine line of lace that covers her mound. His tongue snakes between the fabric and the flesh. Her hands are on his head. Her head tilts back in anticipation of the pleasures to come. Her eyes are closed.
Then they open and she is looking into my eyes.
Up on the balcony, watching her. God knows what she sees in them.
“Stop,” she says to Jack.
He makes a sound in his throat and pushes his mouth downward.
“Stop,” she says again.
He doesn’t. She pulls away. He holds tight. She puts her hand in his face and pushes back at him.
“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” he says.
“Stop,” she says.
“Magdalena, baby,” he says in his sexiest voice. He looks at her. He sees that she’s not looking at him, but upward. So he looks up too. He sees me. “Who the fuck is that?”
“My . . .”
“ . . . chauffeur and bodyguard,” I say.
She’s standing there, nipples popping, naked but for her panties, his saliva drying at the bottom of her belly.
“Get rid of him,” he says.
“Yes, Joe. You should go.”
“No,” I say. Much to my surprise. This is not what is planned.
“Jesus, fire this asshole,” Jack says.
“I can’t do that,” Maggie says.
“Of course you can,” Jack says.
“Joe,” she says. “You should go. You really should.”
“I wish to God I could.”
“Listen, the lady said go. Now go. Or I’ll make you go.”
I walk slowly down the stairs. I should go. She’s not mine. She didn’t give me permission, or an invitation. Maggie’s body has been warm. Perspiring lightly. Now the breeze is evaporating the moisture. Her skin is alive with goose bumps. I’ve never seen so much life in a woman.
“Beat it, dude,” Jack says.
In spite of myself, I say no.
Everybody in Hollywood does some kind of martial arts. Jack does taijutsu. That is the technique they’re teaching at Ninja, the trendiest martial-arts school in L.A., which is run by Sakuro Juzo.
I’m shorter than Jack. Fifteen, twenty years older. My thickness looks like weight. Plus, everybody’s brain is in their dick at this point. He thinks he’s going to take me out with a Ninja attack that he’s been studying for six months. He assumes a stance. Goes for a quick strike. Maggie yells, “No.” I block. I step inside. I’m a close-in guy. I hit him hard, a straight punch into the solar plexus.
And it’s over.
Jack is on the ground gasping for air. I pick him up. Put him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. His gasps are desperate. Which is what happens when you take a hard shot in the solar plexus, it just pops the air right out of you, the lungs collapse with an internal vacuum effect and you can’t get them to open again. Not right away. Until you can, it’s terrifying. Even if it’s happened to you before. Which I don’t think it has, to Jack.
“Stop it,” Maggie says. “He’s hurt, Joe. He’s really hurt.”
“No,” I say. Because he’s not. And I know it I take him outside to the car. Maggie dragging along beside me, naked and, I think, loving the scene. I certainly am—now. I dump the movie star down beside his Ferrari. He’s starting to get his breath. His erection is definitely gone.
“You got your car keys?” I ask.
“Fuck you. I’ll kill you. Kill you. Sue you. You’re dead, dead in this town . . . fucking weirdos . . .” he says from the ground.
“You’ll catch cold,” I say to Maggie and lead her back inside.
34 Jewish Jr.’s are rare, II’s and III’s even rarer. It is considered “bad luck” to name someone after someone living. However, this is merely a custom, not an actual religious prohibition.
35 I guess it’s time to deal with this.
Certain details may lead some readers to think that Hartman is a thinly disguised Ovitz.
When I began to research the “Hollywood” portion of this book—I know less about Hollywood than the average viewer of Entertainment Tonight—I asked my then West Coast agent, Michael Siegal, to find me a researcher who could pull up some articles about various subjects, including major packagers like Mike Ovitz, since the concept of packaging was central to the events. His assistant called back the next day with a name—someone who did a very adequate job—but he also said, “If your next book concerns Mike Ovitz, Michael [Siegal] doesn’t want to represent it.”
I repeat that story to give the reader an insight into the power that someone like Ovitz commands. Subsequently, the reaction was repeated. Two things are worth noting. One is that these people did not wait for Mr. Ovitz to express disapproval or distaste, they anticipated for him that he might, and that was sufficient. The second is that no one has yet suggested that they feared, or that I should fear, the reactions of the (then) president or the (then) secretary of state who are not “characters like,” but named George Bush and James Baker.
And, of course, I want to confront the issue of whether this is a thinly disguised portrait of Ovitz and if it is and he doesn’t like it, or even if his people think he wouldn’t like it, does that mean I will never work in that town again? And am I afraid of that?
You bet I am. A writer can make more bucks off one film flop than from a best-selling book.
So, Mike, let me say this to you: This is not a thinly disguised portrait of you. If anything, it is a sort of homage, in general, to how important agents and packagers have become in our society and how truly creative their underrated contributions can be.