Close up, p.36
Close-Up, page 36
‘Eddie, most of the money that Continuum have to repay is owed to an investment company. That means that the money our stock issue raises to get Continuum out of trouble will go to that investment company. How will that look to the average investor? How will it look to Wall Street and the City?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t be naïve, Eddie. It will look as though the big investment companies are sticking together. It will look as if we are prepared to soak the public in order to help each other recoup money.’
‘Jesus, you’ve got a mind like Weinberger’s.’
‘A lot of people have, Eddie. That’s why we have to be so careful.’
‘But Continuum have cinemas and real estate. They own land, like your test tracks. What can be safer as an investment than real estate?’
‘Nothing could be safer. But most of those cinemas are in run-down slum neighbourhoods. If they owned drive-ins which could be sold as suburban developments or supermarkets, it might be different, but these are ordinary urban cinemas.’
‘Hard tops.’
‘Yes, hard tops. In ten years they might become valuable sites. Might! But in ten years the same money could multiply many times faster in growing industries.’
‘Like what?’
‘We are doing a deal now with a company making pollution control equipment.’
‘Pollution control equipment,’ said Stone disgustedly.
‘People want investments that they can move into and out of quickly. They don’t want broken-down real estate. Continuum will never get their money from the stock market. That’s not just my opinion, it’s a fact. They will have to break up all those bits and pieces: sell what they can, borrow on what they can’t. Otherwise they won’t survive.’
Stone hesitated before betraying a confidence, but this was a matter of life and death – for the company and for the film. He got to his feet and walked across to the fireplace as if to see if the fire needed another log. Then he turned to Mary. ‘Suppose I told you that you might be on the verge of making an awful fool of yourself, Mary? Suppose I told you, in confidence, that Kagan has been working on a plan to expand to the tune of ten million after the debt is repaid?’
‘It’s gone beyond all that nonsense,’ said Mary. ‘You’re talking about models of their cassette factory, architects’ drawings, surveys and all that pezazz they were putting on a couple of months ago to drum up a bit of confidence. It did no good. It just makes the market suspicious, that sort of show-business.’
‘I’ve promised Kagan to keep them going with my own money,’ said Stone.
Mary Anson lit her cigarette with exaggerated care. Stone did not offer to light it for her. She said, ‘Why, Eddie?’ Without waiting for him to answer she took off her beautiful gold shoes and put them up on the sofa beside her. They were magnificent, but they pinched. If she had them stretched the gold might crack.
Stone watched her caress the shoes. She was more concerned with them than with Stone’s problems. Why, Eddie? She treated him like a stupid child. She’d always done that.
‘Kagan has a thirty-seventy split. I’ll buy a piece of that.’
‘Of the profit. Act your age, Eddie, there will be no profit. Continuum will make sure of that. Anyway, he’s sold that share to keep going.’
‘Sold his shares to keep turning over – the wonderful lunatic. That’s Russian roulette.’
‘More like the charge of the Light Brigade. Only a fool would provide his own completion guarantee. Now he’s broke. The best he can hope for is that one of the majors will pick up the pieces so that he can avoid the bankruptcy court. If that picture ever gets a release Kagan won’t see a penny and it probably won’t even have his name on it.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you this, Mary. When the chips are down I’ll be lining up with the Kagan Bookbinders, not with the investment companies and their dime-a-dozen specialists.’
‘Somebody called?’ She laughed. She hadn’t meant to be unkind, and yet as soon as she laughed she knew that Stone saw the laugh as a taunt, as a terrible gloat over Stone and Bookbinder and everyone who was worried in the whole troubled industry.
‘Yes, you’re one of them,’ said Stone. ‘But these guys at Continuum are as bright as you are, Mary. Youngsters, but as sharp as knives. Two of them are from the Harvard Business School.’
‘Well, this isn’t the Harvard Business School, Eddie. This isn’t the movies, either. This is what we call real life.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Stone with heavy irony.
‘A sort of documentary.’
‘You stupid bitch!’
The muddle of contradictory feelings that she’d known since arriving, ended. Eddie’s affection was just a mask that had now slipped askew. What had once been ingenuous charm had long since become an act; an act for which he was far too old. Her voice was steady and kind, but there was no longer the same tenderness in it. ‘Let’s not quarrel, Eddie. I’ve explained my reasons for turning Continuum down. I’ve said too much, in fact. My directors all agreed with my report. So will any other company they go to. Anyway, Eddie, do you really think I liked turning it down? Do you think I wouldn’t sooner have you fawning over me in gratitude than spitting with disappointment?’
‘Screw you, you bitch.’
‘Doubtless that was the idea, but I’ve been inoculated against show-biz charm.’
‘Yes, you were always disloyal to me. That showed what a clever, fully liberated woman you were.’
‘Is “loyalty” still your favourite word of praise, Eddie? I know what you mean now. Loyalty means holding your hand at any time of night or day. It means sympathy about a blackhead on your bum while my foot is bleeding in a beartrap. It’s thanking you lavishly for any gift or compliment and forgetting all the slights and arguments and humiliations. I don’t remember you showing any loyalty to me.’
‘Perhaps you’ve got a bad memory.’
‘And perhaps it’s not half as bad as I’d like it to be.’
‘You are so proud of yourself.’
‘I am, Eddie, but not sinfully so. I don’t gobble praise from sycophants, or employ people to garland me with compliments. I’ve won a place for myself in a man’s world, and it’s not been easy. I’m proud of all that, Eddie. Yes, I am.’
‘Making a bit of money has turned your head.’
‘I’ve made no money, in your terms, Eddie. I have the same as my partners take: a chauffeur-driven Rover and a small London house with a broken-down cottage in Spain that Peter and I see once a year. If money has changed me, it’s not my earnings that have done it. I’ve seen a world I never knew about. I’ve been close to men and watched them become millionaires within a week or two, when we’ve helped them go public. I’ve seen some of them corrupted by money, others aged and demoralized when they realize they have exchanged it for control of their companies. I’ve learned what money is. I don’t worship it.’
‘Well, I do. I told Kagan that I’d keep the movie going and I’ll do it in spite of you.’
She exhaled the smoke from her cigarette in a rather theatrical way. ‘Are you serious, Eddie?’
‘You’re damn right I am, sweetheart.’
‘Not just trying to impress me? I’ll fix that if it’s what you want.’ She smiled.
‘You fix it.’
She reached for the telephone and dialled a number. She stared insolently at Stone as she waited for the telephone to be answered. There was a voice at the other end. ‘Hello, Florian. Mary Anson here. I’m with Mr Stone now, and we’ve been talking about the film – your film – Man From the Palace.’ She listened for a while. Florian Backhouse, chairman of Continuum, made a joke and Mary laughed briefly. She continued. ‘Marshall Stone has already arranged to find you the end money you were worried about.’ She reached for an ashtray and Stone moved it nearer to her. She flicked ash into it and nodded her thanks. ‘I thought it would remove one of your problems.’ Again she listened. ‘Certainly, tell Mr Bookbinder. Tell any of your people, but I imagine Mr Stone will want to arrange the Press release through his Press agent, so tell your end to keep it to themselves.’ She laughed again, ‘He’s right here with me so you can tell him yourself. Here he is.’
He put his hand over the microphone. ‘You clever little cow.’
She smiled: round two went to Mary.
For a full minute Stone stood looking at his hand. ‘Hello, Mr Backhouse, Marshall Stone here. I thought you’d like to know. It’s going to be a great film, you see, a really great film. I’m not doing this as a charity, I’ll make a killing out of it. If you listen to my advice you won’t let any of it go.’
Backhouse said, ‘About that Press release, Mr Stone. This is an awfully delicate…’
‘That’s just Mary’s fun, Mr Backhouse.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Stone listened while Backhouse repeated his thanks and the complimentary things about Mary and then hurried on to the farewells.
He replaced the phone with great care, as if he was trying to avoid the small tinkle it made as it disconnected.
‘Thanks.’ Stone was angry. He was even more angry when she picked up one of her gold shoes to look at it. She was seeking a reason not to look into his eyes, but Stone didn’t know her well enough to recognize the guilt she felt. He snatched the shoe away from her and tore it in half across the instep. At first she could hardly believe what he had done, and then she saw the violence within him and was frightened by it. The torn shoe in his hand made her feel sullied and despoiled.
‘You are a disgusting man, Eddie.’
He allowed her to take the shoe from him. She looked at it for a moment or two and then she took the other shoe from the sofa. Her first inclination was to throw them both into the waste-basket but she did not want to leave them anywhere where Stone might handle them again.
She did not wait for her coat – he could send it on. Had she suspected that the evening would end like this when she’d told her driver to wait? She slammed the door hurriedly so that the courtesy light would switch off. She wanted the darkness. ‘Home,’ she said. There was no catch in her voice, and only when the driver was occupied with the evening traffic did she blow her nose. In that respect, at least, round three was Mary’s too.
‘Don’t cry, Mary! Mary, please don’t cry.’ He called twice, but he didn’t expect her to return. He heard the car start up, and saw the headlights flash on the curtains as it turned. They did that as a lighting effect in the Army production of Murder for Love in 1945.
Stone walked around the sitting-room. There was a moon, and he drew back the curtains to look at it. He could think of so many good lines about the moon. If Mary was still here he could tell her the things he had prepared. He grieved that they could never spend more than five minutes together without such scenes. It wasn’t his need that made him sorrowful. Nor was it hers, although that was more nearly it. He was sad at the division between them when once they’d been so close: the waste of so many years. It didn’t need much to make him ache with melancholy, and sometimes he admitted that such feelings produced a shiver of excitement. He gazed at the moon for a long time. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said.
Weinberger had finished supper and was sitting with Lucy listening to a jazz record. Weinberger had nearly seven hundred jazz records. He removed the pick-up arm from the record before answering the phone. Here in his study the phone was a private line. When it rang it was inevitably a client.
‘Hello,’ said Weinberger.
‘Don’t mention names,’ said Stone.
‘Very well,’ said Weinberger. It was not an uncommon request.
‘You know who it is?’
‘Of course.’
‘How much money have I got?’
Even Weinberger was surprised by that question. He reached into his pocket and found a silk handkerchief to wipe his face. He finally said, ‘You should ask your business manager that one.’
‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ said Stone. ‘He preached at me like a bloody shop steward last time.’
‘That was April: the money you lost at the tables in Vegas. He’s going to have trouble persuading the Inland Revenue that that wasn’t a put-up job. It was dollars, too; that may not be legal.’
‘He was angry about the shares.’
‘Well, you are not good at playing the market. I’d hate to think what your hunches cost you last year.’
‘The tin shares were a good tip, it was the market that went wrong.’
‘That’s like Oscar Wilde saying his play was a success, but the audience was a failure.’
‘I don’t pay you for witty quotations,’ said Stone.
‘But you pay your business manager to help you hang on to a bit of money. So why not listen to him.’
‘Just answer the question. How much can I lay my hands on?’
‘Depends what you mean, lay your hands on. In cash we couldn’t throw together more than fifty grand without a loan.’ Hurriedly he added. ‘A loan is easy to arrange. I have guys at the office every day… any of them would loan you cash.’
‘I’m talking about my money.’
‘The house at Beverly Hills and the house in Grasse. The staff… and the upkeep is enormous. Sell both those places later on – say, in spring – and we might do something very nice.’
‘Selling the Beverly Hills place would really start the tongues wagging. People would be saying the skids were under me, Viney. And Grasse… well, I was there last year.’
‘For a long weekend. Shall I tell you what that works out at per hour?’
‘I don’t want to hear.’
There was a muffled sigh and Stone could imagine Weinberger rubbing his face in a characteristic gesture of melancholy. ‘We’re just getting into a tax battle…’ Again Weinberger paused as his mind went through years and years of accounts and ten thousand extravagant cheques… the car for the girl… lots of clothes and trips for her. ‘…Did you think about selling some of the horses?’
‘This is not the right time, and anyway there’s nothing there that’s going to win the Derby.’
‘That’s not the way I heard it when you were buying them.’
‘What about that bloody aeroplane, and that ratfink who calls himself a pilot?’
‘Now don’t let’s start all that again. I explained about the financing: it’s the same as the Fifth Avenue duplex you never use. It’s never a good idea to share these kind of things. You want the plane; they want it! They want to buy a new motor; you want to refurbish the old one! It never works. Anyway, we can’t get out of that deal for at least two more years. That damned pilot’s contract is for five years, and you know how I opposed that.’
‘He seemed like a really good egg, at the time. You know, I get so fed up with these sort of discussions. Sometimes I feel I don’t make any decisions at all. I just conform to a lot of laws about tax and real estate and companies and domicile and all that crap. I mean, it makes me wonder if it’s worth earning the stuff.’
‘You haven’t mentioned the boat. Everyone would vote for that going. Did you see the last bill? The accountant asked them if they’d fitted Polaris.’
‘Very funny,’ said Stone. ‘Very, very funny.’
‘No one’s laughing. Your accountant was just trying to protect your money. That refit cost nearly half of what the boat cost. Look, why don’t we get everyone concerned to the office for a real session about this. A sort of policy…’
‘No,’ said Stone. The mere thought of such a meeting filled him with dread. It would be like doctors trying to guess what he’d die of. ‘All I want is a simple answer.’
‘Immediately: fifty grand, another forty in stocks, another fifty of odds and sods that we could borrow on. After that you’ve got the houses, and the boat. Sell that lot in a hurry and we’d be lucky to get out with a million dollars which might – just might – be what the US Internal Revenue will settle for. And, incidentally, you’d have nowhere to live.’
‘Thanks a lot!’
Weinberger paused long enough to be certain that there was no trace of anger in his voice. ‘Your earning power has never been better, but you must listen to reason. Do a couple of productions in some location where gambling is illegal and the phone so bad you’re not tempted, and you’d have a lot of cash under your belt. Did you ever think of that?’
‘And do you know, if I went to the location in a Mini every day I’d save the price of three gallons of gas.’
‘Now you’re being silly.’
‘Yes, I’m being silly.’ Stone hung up. Everyone treated actors like children, and that angered him. If he’d made his money in any other business from surgery to extortion they would have respected his opinions. ‘Silly!’
20
I want to be taken seriously.
Errol Flynn
This whole episode was as artificial as a bad film. Real people were involved, but the words they spoke were the words of other men in other places. As always, Stone was miscast. He smiled to himself and wiped his brow. The heat always made him irritable, but today he must not show it.
He stumbled against a chair that was heavy enough to bruise him. It did not topple. He cursed automatically. There was a good view from the window. In one direction there were rolling hills that became bleached scrub, and then, in the hazy distance, grey cliff chewed breakers from a light blue sea. The other way a dirt road meandered through rock-strewn land, descending through groves of stunted olive trees until it got to the village of Santa Sovora. The track was a little better after that. Eight miles on, it joined the super highway that connects Reggio to Naples.
He looked at his watch and waited. Exactly as planned, the explosions sounded, like beats on a bass drum. Two columns of oily smoke climbed into the sky. The breeze bent them like dandelion stalks and blew their heads into grey puffs. It had not been difficult to persuade the owners of the olive plantation to let them fight their way through the groves, for the olives were puny, mottled fruit whose flesh only thinly covered their large stones.
