Authors: Joe Keenan
We settled into the car’s luxurious interior, noting the bar, flat-screen TV, and buttery soft black leather.
“Isn’t this fun?!” laughed Gilbert, bouncing in his seat like a toddler.
“Oodles,” deadpanned Claire. “So, what’s the job?”
Gilbert put a warning finger to his lips and jerked his head back to where Dimitri stood loading our luggage into the trunk.
“We can’t talk in the car,” he said. “Dimitri has big ears and he’s very loyal to Max. We can’t risk him ratting us out.”
“What don’t you want Max to know?” I asked.
He smiled impishly. “Let’s just say it wasn’t easy getting you two in on this. I had to fudge a few things.”
“We’ll contain our astonishment,” said Claire.
“Chateau Marmont!” exclaimed Gilbert once Dimitri had taken the wheel.
“And lay on the speed. My guests need to change for dinner.”
It was maddening that the one topic we burned to discuss was off-limits, but the luxury had a certain lulling effect and we
contented ourselves to sit back and watch the palm trees glide by while listening to Gilbert rhapsodize about the joys of
LA. Knowing that Dimitri was listening, he reserved his highest praise for the man who was subsidizing his stay and who might,
if properly buttered, refresh the linens indefinitely.
“You’re going to
adore
Max. He’s an absolute prince. Charming, generous—and talk about smart!”
This last at least I had no trouble believing. I knew from what little I’d read of Max Mandelbaum that he was, if not quite
the town’s richest mogul, widely considered its shrewdest. He’d managed to turn a small record company into a media behemoth,
comprising TV and radio stations, magazines, theme parks, and, most famously, Hollywood’s second-oldest studio, Pinnacle.
His zest for acquisition had caused him to be so often caricatured as an octopus that people’s first response on meeting him
was to marvel at how well his tailor had concealed the extra arms.
When we reached the hotel, Dimitri saw to our luggage while Claire and I followed Gilbert into a small elevator that brought
us up to the reception desk. The clerk apologetically informed us that our rooms were not ready, as the previous occupants
had been a rock band and untidy even by the standards of their profession. Gilbert ordered champagne, then asked the bellman
to have Dimitri wait while he discussed key creative matters with his colleagues. He then led us across the lobby to a cozy
corner far from prying ears.
Like most people who only knew the Chateau Marmont as the place where John Belushi’s demons yelled, “Checkmate!” I half expected
to see a chalk outline on the carpet. What I saw instead was a large, lovely time warp of a room, decorated in the grand Hollywood
Spanish style of the twenties. It had a high-beamed ceiling and soaring arched windows giving onto a lovely vaulted portico
and garden. So completely did it evoke the silent era’s languid glamour that it would not have surprised me to turn and spot
a young Gloria Swanson sipping bootleg hooch from Joe Kennedy’s hip flask before retiring to walk her ocelot.
We settled onto a plump sofa next to an arched alcove hung with richly brocaded drapes. Gilbert plopped his feet on the coffee
table and spread his arms like a genie taking a bow after delivering on a particularly tall order.
“Not too shabby, huh?”
“Not too,” I agreed.
“First-class travel, limos, legendary hotels! Stick with me, kids!”
“From what I gather,” said Claire, “we’re pretty well stuck. You’ve told people we’re writing partners?”
“And so we will be!” he said cheerfully. “I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am. I’ve often wondered what the
result might be if you two pooled your talents with mine.”
I sensed that Claire did not consider “pooled” quite the mot juste and would probably have chosen the more straightforward
“diluted,” but she just smiled dryly and asked how our happy union had come to pass.
“Well, it all started when—oh, good, just in time!”
A darkly handsome tray bearer was approaching with a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Gilbert beamed at the sight and I wasn’t sure
if this was just his usual delight in champagne or if he felt that now would be an excellent time to start addling our brains.
“Cheers!” he said, raising his glass. “To the Oscar we’ll win for this!”
We offered our dubious toasts, then Gilbert said, “So! This restaurant we’re going to tonight’s
the
most exclusive in town, but thanks to good old Max —”
“The project?” Claire said firmly.
“Oh, right.”
His eyes swept the lobby as though to make sure Dimitri wasn’t skulking behind a potted palm. Then, satisfied that our privacy
was sufficient, he leaned toward us with a conspiratorial smile and unfolded his improbable tale.
T
TRUTH TO TELL,” HE BEGAN, “I’VE
been planning this ever since Mom let drop ever so casually that the old fart she’d met at a party and who’d sent her roses
the next day was none other than Max Mandelbaum. I mean, talk about your lucky breaks! I think, Philip, that I may have said
something to you at the time about how perfect it would be if they really clicked.”
I said that yes, he’d mentioned the blossoming romance frequently over the last months and had seldom failed, when requesting
a loan, to cite it as proof of his future solvency.
“Well, I was right, wasn’t I? Anyway, I did my best to help things along, you know, encouraging her to go for it. She liked
him well enough, but she found his weight a bit off-putting. I mean, her last husband was an absolute hunk, but Max—you could
tear him down and build a stadium. But I kept pointing out what a romantic he was, which, thank God, he really was. Between
the daily flower deliveries and the packages from Tiffany’s, the old blimp finally wore her down. I mean, Mom’s no gold digger
but if you keep the bracelets coming, well, c’mon, she’s only
human.
“Once they got engaged I played things pretty carefully, y’know, not wanting to seem too eager. I waited two whole months
to come visit and even then I didn’t mention my work to Max or ask him to introduce me to his big-shot friends. No, I went
completely through Mom. I encouraged her to throw dinner parties—she
loves
entertaining— and helped her draw up all these ‘fun’ guest lists. I knew if she threw enough A-list dinners with me there
piling on the charm that lightning
had
to strike eventually. And it did!
“It was last week and there were just twelve of us at table. I’d fiddled with the place cards and snagged myself a seat next
to Bobby Spellman. You know, the producer?”
“Lucky you,” Claire said sardonically, and I snorted in agreement.
“I can’t stand that asshole.”
“You might try to be a little nicer,” chided Gilbert. “He paid for your plane fare and hotel.”
“Bobby
Spellman?
” said Claire, stunned.
“
That’s
who we’re working for?”
“He’s the man! So you can see we’re not talking low budget here!”
Bobby Spellman, I should explain for those rarefied souls whose nights out are confined to opera and stimulating lectures,
is Hollywood’s leading purveyor of those noisy, extravagantly budgeted action films that the press cannot seem to describe
without recourse to the phrase “high-octane.” I’ve seen three of them and found each more unstomachable than the last. I’ve
nothing against the genre, mind you, having passed many a happy hour watching attractive stars outrun fireballs. It’s just
that Spellman’s films are, like the man himself, filled to bursting with snide machismo. His heroes are all cocksure bad boys
whom we’re invited to admire not for their courage or heroism but for their unfailing flippancy under pressure. Their response
to mortal danger is sarcasm and they’re never more snarky than when they’ve just been shot, which is always in the shoulder
or thigh, no villain in these films ever possessing the good sense to aim for their hearts or, better still, mouths.
“Bobby
Spellman?
” I repeated, aghast.
“Wants
us
to write a movie?”
“Isn’t it great?! Of course, this won’t be his usual sort of picture.”
“Let’s hope so!” said Claire.
“What sort is it?”
“I’m getting to that. So anyway, we’re at dinner and he starts talking about this book his aunt sent him. It was written back
in the fifties and he put off reading it forever, but he finally did and was blown away by it. It’s called
A Song for Greta
and you’re going to love it.”
Claire asked if it was a comedy.
“In parts. And there’s room for lots more. But it’s got everything! Great plot, amazing characters, romance, intrigue. It’s
a lost classic, which is why Bobby’s dying to make it —it’s his bid for respectability. He wants to show people he can do
something besides make money and maim stuntmen.
“So anyway, I asked who was writing it and he said no one yet. And that’s when Mom, bless her, piped up about me — how talented
I was, what wonderful scripts I wrote. And I knew then and there the job was mine!”
Claire and I exchanged a baffled glance. We couldn’t imagine anyone, even Bobby Spellman, putting much stock in the literary
judgments of Gilbert’s mother. Maddie Cellini is a warm, thoroughly delightful woman, but even her fondest admirers will concede
that her brain is 90 percent meringue.
“He took her
seriously?
” marveled Claire, adding hastily, “I mean, she is your mom.”
“Hell, no,” smirked Gilbert. “But what could he do? He can’t blow Mom off without insulting Max, and he’s the last guy anyone
in this town wants to offend. So he said, ‘Great, send me a writing sample and I’ll send you the book.’ I said, ‘Fine,’ then
I sent him
Imbroglio.
And that’s how we got hired!”
“Imbroglio?”
I asked, confused.
“Oh, right, I haven’t mentioned that. I just wrote a new spec script.”
Claire and I exchanged a second goggle-eyed glance as I mopped up the champagne spill from the flute I’d just knocked over.
“You wrote a spec script?”
“Yes.”
“And
finished
it?” asked Claire, whose astonishment could not have been greater had he claimed to have licked cold fusion.
“Yes. Just last week.”
We exchanged a third and still more mystified glance.
“And Bobby
liked
it?”
“Yes!” he said, getting peevish. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“No!” I said, flabbergasted.
You might have assumed from Gilbert’s references to his “work” that there exists somewhere a set of actual completed texts
of which Gilbert is the author. There does not. There are many things Gilbert likes about being a writer. He enjoys the drinking,
the convivial shoptalk with fellow scribes, the sense of superiority to less creative beings. The one thing he does not like
about being a writer is writing. Every project he embarks on soon falls prey to his fatal lack of perseverance, and his longest
completed work to date is a haiku. For him to claim now that he’d dashed off a spec script brilliant enough to win him a fat
Hollywood contract did not merely strain Credulity; it beat the crap out of Credulity and sent Credulity’s next of kin scurrying
to its bedside.
“When did you write this?” I asked.
“I started it, oh, about a month ago, and I was done by—stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“Every time I say something you two look at each other. It’s very annoying.”
Claire replied diplomatically that we were merely wondering how we ft into all this. Gilbert assured us he was getting there
and ordered more champagne. He then explained that Bobby had sent a messenger to deliver
A Song for Greta
and pick up Gilbert’s spec. He paused here and his tone strained for poignancy.
“I saw him, the messenger, standing on the doorstep — this morose, badly dressed fellow. Naturally I thought of you, Philip.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. It broke my heart to think that’s what you’d been reduced to—a genius like you, schlepping packages around midtown.
And you, Claire, scraping by as a rehearsal pianist, flogging your songs in grimy little cabarets. The more I thought about
it the more unfair it seemed. Why should I be out here getting rich and famous while my two most gifted friends were back
east, toiling fruitlessly away in their squalid apartments? So I decided if Bobby wanted me he’d have to hire you guys too.”
“And how’d you manage that?” asked Claire a bit coolly, as her apartment was not remotely squalid.
“Easy. I just typed up a new title page and put your names below mine. As far as Bobby knows we wrote it together, which is
good news for you because he
loved
it! Called it the best spec he’s ever—what did I say about not looking at each other?”
The impulse had been impossible to resist. Credulity-wise we were now at the memorial with Credulity’s best friend belting
out “Time Heals Everything.”
“So,” said Claire evenly, “you just decided to cut us in out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Now please! I know what you’re going to say—you feel funny about riding my coattails. Well, don’t. I can’t think of two people
who deserve a break more than you guys and it thrills me to be the one who can give it to you.”
He raised his glass in a toast.
“To partnership!”
We toasted limply, then Claire said, “So, your script...?”
He wagged a cheerful finger. “
Our
script! Don’t forget that— especially when we meet Bobby. That’s tomorrow at two by the way.”
“As we’re supposed to have cowritten it, perhaps you might tell us a bit about it?”
“Happy to!” said Gilbert, refilling my glass. “It’s basically a good old-fashioned love story, but funny, with strong suspense
elements and — oh look! I think your room’s ready!”
I turned and saw the desk clerk crossing the lobby toward us. Gilbert rose then, glancing at his watch, bugged his eyes like
the bad high school actor he once was.