The Los Angeles airport was so bewildering that Pamela was almost in tears by the time he steered their rented car into the maze of Freeways.
“What do I look for?” he asked her as the enormous green-and-white signs loomed and passed overhead.
“Look for Sunset Boulevard,” she said. “That’ll at least be—look out, John—that’ll at least be a place to start.”
All he knew about this city, from two brief business conventions, was that it wasn’t really a city at all. It went on for miles in all directions without ever becoming a city, and the part of it called Hollywood was the most elusive of all; but starting at Sunset Boulevard sounded better than starting at Hollywood and Vine.
“Good,” she said when he’d navigated the exit and they were riding down the pleasant, palm-lined avenue. “Now if we just stay on this for a while it ought to turn into the Strip.”
It did, and they checked into a motel not far from Cyrano’s. Soon he was pouring whiskey over little motel ice cubes and she was kicking off her shoes on a king-size double bed. If nothing else, they were here.
“Cheers,” he said.
“I guess the first thing we ought to do is find an apartment,” she said, “even before we call Edgar Freeman. Don’t you think?”
Edgar Freeman was their only “contact,” a producer-director at Columbia Pictures whose uncle was an acquaintance of her father’s. He had answered her letter with a cheerful note saying he’d be happy to see them for “lunch at the studio.”
“Right,” he said. “And listen, let’s allow two days for finding an apartment. Three days tops.”
It took them four, and the place they found wasn’t very rewarding. It was on one of the streets running south off the Strip, and its only real advantage was in being on the ground floor, with a private entrance. The living room was decorated mostly in the colors of cantaloupe and honeydew; it was habitable, once they’d removed the large-eyed Keene reproductions from the walls, and the bedroom was better, but the whole place looked as impersonal and transient as a motel suite.
“Hell, it’s only temporary,” he said as they unloaded bedclothes and kitchenware and groceries from the car on the fifth day. “We’ll find a better place once we know our way around. Besides, it’s cheap and convenient and it’s got a phone. That’s all we need for now.”
“I’m so glad we didn’t get involved in a two-year lease,” she said, “or anything like that.”
He watched her while she called Edgar Freeman, watched her tense artificial smile when she said “I’m so glad you remember me …” and then the joyous dip of her head when she said “Today? Well, that would be marvelous, if you’re sure you … All right, fine, then.… Twelve-thirty.… Fine, then, Mr. Freeman.…”
Then they were driving up to the parking lot outside the big, forbidding hulk of Columbia Pictures, and she was carrying a copy of the “Bellevue” script on her lap.
“Freeman?” said the uniformed man who sat just inside the door, screening all visitors. “Second floor, fourth door to your left.” And the little metal sign there read “The Freeman Company.”
“Just a moment,” said a pretty young secretary who was evidently British, and in a moment out he came—a tall, slender man, elegantly dressed in the Eastern, Madison Avenue style, shooting his cuffs and smiling as if Pamela and Wilder were the two people he wanted most to see in the whole of his busy day.
“Come in, come in, sit down; I’ll be with you in just a second,” he said, and he ushered them into a big sunlit room where four or five other men were standing. He made the introductions so quickly that Wilder could remember none of the names, and then he returned to what had apparently been an interrupted conversation. There was nothing to do but sit in one of the deep sofas and wait.
“I think that’s the answer, Edgar,” one of the men was saying. “If we can’t get any support here we’ll take it to Japan.”
“It’s a long shot,” Edgar Freeman said, “but it’s worth a try. Let’s get Sarah in here.” He sat at his ample desk and pressed a button, and the young British girl came in.
“… letter to Mr. E. C. Moyoto, Executive Producer, Japanese World Films, Inc., Tokyo, Japan. Dear Mr. Moyoto: Remembering our pleasant conversation at the International Conference of Filmmakers last June, I hope you will be interested in the attached screenplay—Okinawa—and will agree with me that it’s a splendid property for joint Japanese-American production. Paragraph.”
“Beautiful,” one of the men said.
“As you will see, the screenplay is based on extensive research into all aspects of the historic battle, from both sides, and some of its most moving and memorable moments are those depicting the heroism and sacrifice—no, scratch that, Sarah—depicting the humanity, heroism and sacrifice of the Japanese armed forces. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely yours, et cetera.”
“Beautiful,” the man said again. “That’s a great letter, Edgar.”
There was some other talk that Wilder couldn’t follow; then the cluster of men left the office and Freeman stood up. “Sorry to keep you people waiting,” he said. “Some mornings are like that. Ready for lunch?”
The executive dining room served no liquor—that was Wilder’s first disappointment—and had no windows, but an Italian sex goddess sat two tables away from them and there were recognizable if lesser stars nearby.
“I ought to be celebrating today,” Edgar Freeman said. “It’s my fortieth birthday; sort of a milestone. I guess all it really means is that I can’t call myself a young director any more. Have to move aside for the new generation.”
“How many pictures have you made, Mr. Freeman?” Pamela asked him.
“Oh, let’s see.” And he studied a sauce-dipped shrimp on the tines of his cocktail fork while he thought it over. “Seventy-two. No, wait—seventy-four.”
“Seventy-four pictures?”
“Oh, it’s not a record. Comes close, though, for a man my age, especially since nearly all of them showed a profit. I did most of them for Bonanza International over the past twelve years. A lot of people bad-mouth B.I., but I enjoyed a very happy relationship with them.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Are they the people who do those teen-age beach pictures?”
“Beach pictures and bike pictures, right. Also horror pictures. B.I. was the first to understand and exploit that market, and they’ve done extraordinarily well. They’re very sound, astute businessmen. Generally when you hear someone knocking B.I. in this town it turns out to be envy, pure and simple. An awful lot of people would like to know how they do it. I came over to Columbia because I thought it was time to get into a more ambitious kind of product, maybe catch up with my European reputation—I have quite a critical following in Europe, you see, especially in France, especially for my horror films—but so far I must say I’m not very pleased with this studio.” He popped the last shrimp into his mouth and shoved the iced dish neatly to one side. “With certain of the ruling executives anyway. We can’t seem to get together on properties,” he said. “We’ve developed three or four good scripts—what I consider good scripts—and none of them has generated much enthusiasm. First I gave them a really exciting Civil War Western.”
“What’s a Civil War Western?” Wilder asked.
“Northern cavalry, stockades, escaped Southern prisoners, Indians, chases, gunfights, a rape—thank you,” he said to the waiter, accepting a plate of beef-and-kidney stew. “Then I gave them a good solid gangster script based on the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and now I’ve given them a World War Two piece about Okinawa. It’s like pulling teeth. If we don’t agree on something soon I’ll go over to another studio. Well; tell me about yourselves. What’ve you got there?” And he reached across the table to pluck “Bellevue” from beside Pamela’s plate.
“I don’t think you’d be interested in that,” she said quickly. “It’s an experimental short feature; we—some friends of ours—”
“ ‘Screenplay by Jerome Porter,’ ” he read aloud. “Is that the same Jerome Porter who wrote Burn All Your Cities?”
“Yes. I didn’t know that was—”
“It hasn’t been released yet,” Edgar Freeman said, “but everybody’s talking about it. The director’s a young man named Julian Feld; apparently he’s done quite a job.”
“Oh? Well, actually, Julian directed this picture too; it was filmed, you see, back in the East, but it was never edited. We—”
“That so?” he said, thumbing the pages of the script. “Well. You travel in good company.”
“Are they out here now?” she inquired. “Jerry and Julian?”
“Either here or in New York. They’re probably working on new things; I imagine they’ll be very busy young men from now on. How do you people feel about dessert? Rum cake or chocolate parfait?”
“God!” Pamela said when they were out in the parking lot. “Beach pictures, bike pictures, horror pictures. So much for Mr. Edgar Freeman.”
“Never mind. He’s not the only man in Hollywood.”
But he was the only one they knew, and that knowledge made their ride home a cheerless one. This was an appropriately desolate part of town—an Orange Julius stand, gas stations, a mammoth drugstore, the grubby white edifice of the Hollywood Palladium—and Wilder drove with great care because he wanted to get home safely, as soon as possible, and have a drink.
“Even if Jerry and Julian are here,” Pamela said, walking around the apartment with a tinkling glass, “how do you suppose we’d ever get in touch with them? And even if we got in touch with them, what could they do?”
“I don’t know, baby. We’ll just have to—you know—play it by ear.” He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that (Play what by ear? What did they have to “play”?) but it sounded like a good answer, and he trusted the whiskey to ease them both through the rest of the afternoon.
Burn All Your Cities opened in a great many theatres across the country the following week—they read about it in the Los Angeles Times—and there were very favorable reviews.
In his first time out, young Julian Feld displays a formidable directing talent. Jerome Porter’s muscular screenplay is a faithful rendering of the Chester Pratt novel, and Feld makes the most of it. Few viewers will come away from Burn All Your Cities unmoved; many are sure to find it one of the top cinematic experiences of the year …
Pamela wrote letters to both of them, addressed in care of the production company, and while waiting for answers they explored the city. Beverly Hills looked suitably rich, but the houses—at least those that could be seen from the road—were too close together. The Hollywood hills were prettier and some of them commanded nice views, but the canyons led too quickly into the enormous suburban waste of the San Fernando Valley. Downtown Los Angeles held no surprises and seemed to promise that the best parts of town must lie to the west, but when they drove out to the beaches they found only sandy, weatherbeaten slums. Time and again they came home weak with hunger and the need for a drink, feeling oppressed. They had plenty of time and plenty of money, but neither was much consolation.
“Go home for a drink,” Pamela said one afternoon. “That’s all we ever do. We go home for a drink, or three or four, and then we try a new restaurant and have two or three more, and then we go to bed. If only there were someone to call; someone to go and see—just anyone.”
He might have reminded her that the whole crazy idea of coming out here with no prospects had been hers, but he didn’t want to risk a quarrel. It was bad enough being in this together; it would be unendurable if they were at each other’s throats.
“Take it easy, baby,” he said. “Something’s bound to turn up.”
A letter from Jerry came at last, with a New York postmark, and she tore it open with trembling fingers.
Glad you’re both in L.A. and hope to see you if I come out again. Cities was something of a hit, as you may have heard, and Julian and I are deep into other projects now.…
I do know a man out there who might be interested in co-producing “Bellevue.” He is very rich, a kind of gentleman producer, always on the lookout for what he calls artistic properties, and not a bad guy at all. His name is Carl Munchin and he lives in Malibu. I’ll write him today and tell him about you two; you can take it from there …
And they were still counting the days before it would be safe to call Carl Munchin when Carl Munchin called them—the nicest thing that had happened to them in Los Angeles so far.
“… Why don’t you drop a copy of your script in the mail to me, Mr. Wilder?” he said. “Then I’ll read it and get back to you.”
That meant a few more days of waiting, and of being afraid to leave the apartment because the phone might ring, but Munchin did get back to them.
“I think it has possibilities,” he said. “I knew it would be well written because Jerry Porter’s a good writer, but I didn’t expect the material to be so interesting in its own right. Listen: can you come out here this afternoon, so we can talk about it?”
He lived in a part of Malibu they could never have discovered on their hopeful visits to the shore—many miles north of the public beaches, in a big house that was well hidden from the road. The house itself was a wondrous blending of out- and indoor luxury: there was so much furniture on the broad patio that it seemed like a living room, and so much vegetation in the living room that it seemed like a patio. He was a big, tan, bald man with a small tan wife, and they wore matching safari jackets. Helen Munchin never took her eyes off her husband’s face when he was talking, and she looked wholly absorbed. Only in the intervals of his speech did she allow her gaze to stray from him, and then it met the visitors’ eyes in a way that said Isn’t Carl wonderful? Aren’t I the luckiest girl in the world?
“… The way it stands now you’ve got a nice little art-house piece,” he said. They were drinking gin and tonic on the patio while the sun set in the gleaming Pacific. “It could fill out the bill with some short foreign film. Probably get a few bookings in New York, maybe one or two in San Francisco, and forget the rest of the country. Might do better in Europe, but not much. Whereas what I have in mind would be a selling proposition as well as an art piece; I mean a commercially viable property. Let me fill you in. First of all, there’s one central weakness in your script. Your protagonist—the man all this Bellevue business happens to—is never really characterized.”
“We planned it that way,” Wilder said. “We wanted him to be a sort of nameless observer, you see, a kind of Everyman.”
“Impossible. You can’t start with an Everyman.” And Carl Munchin wagged his forefinger from side to side, smiling cannily, like a high-school English teacher about to make a trenchant point. “Only through the particular can you find the universal.” He paused to let that sink in; then he got up and began pacing the flagstones in his clean desert boots. “I mean who is this guy?” he demanded. “What’s he like when he’s not in Bellevue? How does being in Bellevue change his life? I want a revised, shortened version of this script of yours to serve as part one, you see. Then I want to see a part two and a part three. You follow me?”
“I’m not sure,” Wilder said. “What would happen in parts two and three?”
“We’ll have to get ourselves a good writer and work it out. Just as a guideline I’d say build him up for another breakdown—a real breakdown—in part two, and then in part three let him have it. Pull out all the stops. Oh, if this were Nineteen Forty-five or Forty-six I’d say play it differently; put him in the hands of a brilliant psychiatrist, let part three be his struggle to a miraculous recovery—the analyst helps him remember some childhood experience that clears up all his problems—but people aren’t buying that stuff any more. Today’s audience is more sophisticated. I say let him go crazy. Wipe him out.”
“Would he commit a crime?” Wilder said. “Like assassinating Kennedy or something?”
“That might work except everybody knows who assassinated Kennedy. Besides, I don’t think he has to commit a crime. Just let him get so he can’t live in civilized society any more. Make him a real paranoid schizophrenic. If our writer doesn’t know how to handle that we’ll send him out to Camarillo with a tape recorder.”
“Where?”
“Camarillo. The state hospital. Go out there with a tape recorder, listen to the way those people talk. Might pick up some good ideas.”
“Mm,” Wilder said. “Well. What do you think, Pamela?”
She took a neat sip of her drink before answering, and then she addressed Munchin. “I’m afraid I still don’t see why something can’t be done with the picture as it is,” she said. “I don’t know if John made this clear to you, Mr. Munchin, but it’s already been filmed. It was never finished—never cut, that is—but it was filmed and directed by Julian Feld, the man who did Burn All Your Cities. And even if it were limited to an art-house distribution, isn’t there a good chance that it might lead to other things? Bigger things?”
“Sure it might,” Munchin said. “You’d always have that hope. But just for now we’re talking about what’s of interest to me, right?” He smiled engagingly, displaying many clean, strong teeth. “The three-part version is of interest to me. The short version is not.”
She wouldn’t let him go. “Well then, do you know anyone—or know of anyone—who might be interested?”
“Honey,” he said, still smiling, “even if I did I wouldn’t tell you.”
She looked stung for a second, until Helen Munchin’s happy laugh announced that he was only teasing, and over the pouring of fresh drinks he went back to his plan.
Put a man in Bellevue, let him go back to whatever problems sent him there, let those problems work on him until he’s up to the breaking point and then watch him break—watch him go down beyond the reach of any psychiatric help—that, Carl Munchin said, was a story: the kind of material a good writer could sink his teeth into. And getting a good writer would be no problem. “This town’s crawling with writers. If we can’t get Jerry Porter we’ll go to an agent—I’m in touch with two or three of the top agencies—and we’ll have a first-rate writer working for us in no time.”
“Well, I don’t know, Mr. Munchin,” Wilder said. “We’ll have to think about it and talk it over some more.”
“Sure you will. You may not see the possibilities right away because you’re married to this short version, this Bellevue section, but keep an open mind. I think we have the makings of a very distinguished motion picture here.” And when he said “a very distinguished motion picture” his wife gave a little shudder of pleasure. Then she stood up to indicate that the cocktail hour was over.
“We’ll get together on this again soon,” Munchin said. “Meanwhile, can you leave a copy of that script with me? I’d like to show it to a few people, kind of sound them out. Well, it’s been very enjoyable. Talk to you later.”
“… And we don’t even know who the man is,” Pamela said as they rode back along the Pacific Coast Highway. “Jerry says he’s ‘a kind of gentleman producer,’ but what’s that, for heaven’s sake? Besides, I think his Big Idea is lousy, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Still thinking about it.”
“Oh, I’m so disappointed. I thought he’d want ‘Bellevue’ in its own right, and here he takes off on this whole new tangent. John, do you realize where we’d be if only Julian had finished this picture long ago? We’d have come out here with a whole finished thing to sell—we’d have been able to deal with distributors instead of groping around among the Edgar Freemans and the Carl Munchins.”
He told her to forget Edgar Freeman. He said Munchin was different. Munchin had said he’d show it to some people, and that could lead to almost anything. “I don’t think it was a bad day’s work, baby,” he concluded, and as he steered down the highway he planned other ways to cheer her up: they would go to the best restaurant they’d found and drink just enough to restore the dwindling glow of Munchins’ gin; then they’d order whatever looked best on the expensive menu, with wine, and through it all he’d make her see that Munchin’s idea wasn’t necessarily so lousy after all.…
“Yes it is,” she insisted, turning the stem of her brandy glass between her fingers. “It’s asinine. It suggests that anyone who’s spent a week in Bellevue is destined for a life of madness. What kind of nonsense is that?”
He felt as if he were trying to convince her, once again, that Gunga Din was the best boy’s movie ever made. “I don’t think it suggests that,” he said, “or at least it wouldn’t have to, if we got a good writer. Oh, I’ll agree Munchin was pretty silly today, but he was talking off the top of his head. A good writer could particularize the man, make him a flesh-and-blood character with problems uniquely his own. Then the story of his downfall would follow its own logic. Don’t you see?”
“No.”
“You’re just in the wrong mood. Look, I thought Munchin was kind of a horse’s ass too, but he could be valuable to us all the same. Let’s—you know—keep an open mind.”
“Okay,” she said. “I guess there’s not much else we can do.”
Within two weeks they were back on Carl Munchin’s patio, and this time four other men were there. One was a lawyer Pamela’s father had recommended, one was Munchin’s lawyer, and the other two—both short, dark men who seemed to look exactly alike—were introduced as Munchin’s business associates. And by the end of that afternoon, after the flourishing of several dense documents and the scribbling of several signatures, they had incorporated and formed a production company.
“Is that really how these things are done?” Pamela said. “It all seemed so easy.”
“It seemed easy because we have good lawyers,” Munchin said, tilting a martini pitcher toward her glass. “Now all we have to do is find the backing and make the picture.”
“… So we’re in business,” Wilder said as they drove home that night. “We’re producers.”
“I know; I suppose we ought to celebrate or something, but I still don’t feel right about it. I still don’t trust Munchin’s idea.”
Soon—almost too soon, it seemed—there was a conference with the writer Munchin had secured from one of the two or three top agencies, a tall, fat, nervous man named Jack Haines.
“… I see him as a married man,” he said, soundlessly treading Munchin’s patio in a pair of desert boots that must have looked just like Munchin’s when they were new. “He’s unhappily married and he’s got kids he can’t relate to and he feels trapped. He’s solidly middle class. I don’t know what he does for a living, but let’s say it’s something well paid and essentially meaningless, like advertising. When he gets out of Bellevue he’s scared and lost but he doesn’t know where to turn. Maybe he gets involved with a quack psychoanalyst, that’d give us an opportunity for some humor—black humor—and then he meets a girl. The girl—”
“Hold it right there, Jack,” Carl Munchin said. “I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought, but I can’t help feeling there’s a quality of cliché about everything you’ve said so far. Unhappy advertising man, gray flannel suit and all that. We can’t have a character who meets his downfall out of some cockamamie, two-for-a-nickel Weltschmerz. This is a dark story. We need a man who’s doomed.” And Helen Munchin said “Oh, yes.”
Jack Haines blinked and looked wounded, but not for long. “Well, Carl, I think the quality you’re looking for will be there in the writing. All I’m giving you now is the briefest kind of summary; I don’t see how you can make a judgment like that on the basis of—look, can I go on? Okay. The girl tries to help him. She offers him hope, and for a little while it’s a happy affair—that gives us the upbeat flavor we need for the ending of part two; then, zap! In part three everything falls to pieces. He can’t handle the hope the girl’s given him; he’s emotionally tied to the past. He is a ‘dark’ character, as you’ll see, and he brings on his own—”
“Does he commit suicide?”
“No; worse, in a way. He systematically destroys everything that’s still bright and promising in his life, including the girl’s love, and he sinks into a depression so deep as to be irrevocable. He winds up in an asylum that makes Bellevue look like nothing. And I think you’ll see, Carl, when the whole thing’s on paper, that there’s an inevitability to it. The seeds of self-destruction are there in the man from the start.” His performance was over, and only his trembling hands—quickly corrected by the lighting of a cigarette—betrayed his anxiety.
“I don’t know,” Munchin said. “Something’s missing. Something’s lacking. What do you people think?”
Wilder had been made so uneasy by the first part of the writer’s recital (Who the hell was this Jack Haines? How did he know so much?) that he almost welcomed the chance to reject him—then they might get another writer with a whole new set of ideas—but he didn’t want to say anything precipitate. “I see what you mean about clichés, Carl; still, it’s hard to judge something that hasn’t been written yet.”
“I think it sounds interesting,” Pamela said, and Wilder looked at her in surprise. He’d been sure she would think it sounded terrible.
“And where’s all this going to take place?” Munchin inquired. “In New York?”
“Mostly; I haven’t really worked that out. If you want a change of scene he could take off somewhere with the girl. Could be anywhere.”
When Jack Haines had been cordially dismissed (“Talk to you later, Jack,” Munchin said) he drove away in a dusty white Volkswagen that looked too small to accommodate his legs.
“What did you really think, Pamela?” Wilder said.
“I told you; I thought it sounded interesting. It’s the first time I’ve really been able to picture Carl’s idea for a three-part story.”
“Well, all right,” Munchin said, “but remember, Haines is expendable. All I know about Haines is that he published two obscure novels some years ago and he’s got a list of television credits as long as your arm. We can do better. I saw in the trades this morning that Chester Pratt’s in town. He may be tied up with other things, but I intend to find out. Get a writer of that calibre, you might really see some imaginative work.”
“No, that’s out, Carl,” Wilder said, afraid the rush of heat in his face must be visible to them all. “We don’t want Chester Pratt.”
“Why not, for God’s sake?”
“I met him once. I’ve heard he’s not reliable. He’s a drunk.”
Pamela was inspecting her fingernails.
“He stayed sober long enough to write a pretty terrific book,” Munchin said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Wilder said. “I thought it was a little overwrought.”
“Have you read it?” Pamela inquired. “I didn’t know you’d read it.”
When they were driving home she said “Why were you so funny about Pratt? It would be a break if Munchin could get him.”
“I don’t want him around, that’s all. I must say I’m surprised you want him around.”
“Oh, John, he wouldn’t be ‘around.’ He’d be holed up writing the script, and once it got into production we’d probably never see him again. Besides, whatever we think of the man personally, he happens to be an excellent—”
“Okay,” he said, gripping the wheel very tight in both hands to prove he wasn’t angry. “Okay.”
“And in any case it’s silly even to think about it. I don’t think Munchin’ll ever get him.”
Later that night, walking home from dinner, she stopped and bought copies of the two trade papers.
“What’s all this?” he said.
“I just want to check that item about Pratt. I want to see what they say about him.”
“No you don’t.” He stopped on the sidewalk. “You’re not bringing those fucking papers into the house.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
It wasn’t their first quarrel in Hollywood but it was the most abrupt, and it was the first to happen on the street.
“All right, read ’em!” he shouted. “Read ’em—they won’t have what you’re looking for; they won’t print his phone number.”
“John, this is the most utterly pointless, ridiculous—if you don’t stop this, I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Take your daddy’s money and move out? Fine! Go shack up with Chester Pratt again! Get him together with Munchin and the three of you can make a movie about me! Oh, I’m a Dark Character, all right, baby; I’m Doomed; I’ve got the fucking Seeds of Self-Destruction coming out my ears …”
She was walking quickly away from him, and several gaping adolescents in bright-colored T-shirts—two boys and a girl—had stopped to watch. There was nothing to do but turn and walk in the opposite direction, fast, in search of a bar to hide in.
He found a cheap, loud, crowded place that was evidently a hangout for young actors—it had a much-used call-board instead of a mirror behind the ranked bottles—and after fighting his way to the bar for two shots and a beer, he left quickly. The second place was better, and the third was the best—so agreeably dark and somber that he felt he could stay here forever, signaling the courteous waiter for refills and hearing of how Tony Bennett had left his heart in San Francisco.
Soon he would go home and apologize—he would wake her up, if necessary, to do so—but not right away. It was very important to think things out.
“Sir?”
“Yes, please. Another double.”
He was faltering, staggering drunk by the time he got home. He thought at first that instead of waking her to apologize he would crawl in beside her and pass out, but he couldn’t even do that. He wasn’t sleepy.
He sat on the living-room sofa, tapering off on beer, waiting for sleep. And he was still there, awake and whispering to himself, when daylight crept through the Venetian blinds.
“… Good news,” Munchin said on the phone a few days later. “It isn’t final yet, but I think we’re going to get Pratt.”
“Oh,” Wilder said.
“His agent asked for the script yesterday, and Pratt’s reading it today. So listen: assuming he likes the property, what day do you think you two could come out here? To meet him and talk it over?”
“Well, don’t count on me, Carl,” he said, and the phone trembled slightly in his grip. “I don’t want to see him at all. Hold on, I’ll ask Pamela.”
She was sitting in an armchair across the room. She had been reading Sight and Sound but she’d dropped it when the phone rang, and now as he relayed the message she drew a section of her lower lip between her teeth and bit it. Her eyes were wide. “God,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“She doesn’t know, Carl,” he said. “She’ll call you back in a few minutes when she’s made up her mind, okay?” And when he hung up the phone he said “Okay, baby. It’s up to you.”
“I won’t go at all if you don’t want me to,” she said. “You know that.”
He hadn’t known it, and it pleased him, but he didn’t want to show it. “No, you’d better go,” he said. “You’re one of the producers.”
“Well, so are you. If you go alone he might never even know I’m connected with it.”
“He already knows. Your name’s on the script.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
In the end she called Munchin and agreed to go on whatever day was most convenient.
On the appointed afternoon she took longer getting dressed than usual, trying different dresses, until he said “Anybody’d think you’re worried about how you look.”
“Oh, you’re right,” she said. “This is silly. I’ll just wear a shirt and some old slacks. You sure you don’t want to come?”
“I’m sure.”
But after she was gone he walked the floor with his fist in his mouth. Why hadn’t he gone along? Wouldn’t it have been better to let Pratt see she had another man? He had a drink—just one, he promised himself, because he wanted to be alert and keen—and settled down to wait for her.
When she came back he studied her closely, weighing her every answer and every glance for signs of duplicity, and he had to admit there were none.
“How was it?”
“Oh, it was—pleasant. At least he was sober.”
“How’d he act when he saw you?”
“He was very discreet. He just said ‘We’ve met’ when Munchin started to introduce us, and after that it was all—you know—strictly business. I thought he had some interesting ideas. I wish you’d come along.”
Chester Pratt was retained to write the screenplay, and since it would take him a few months to finish it they were left with nothing much to do. They spent time at Munchin’s, meeting several directors, and they spent time with real-estate agents in futile search of “a nice little house in the hills,” but for the most part their days were empty.
“We might as well do something with all this time,” she said. “Do you want to go up to San Francisco for a few days? Or down to Mexico?”
But they did neither.