— Just take some coffee if it's not that much trouble.
— And the driveway of course, you saw that. He usually takes care of these things but the shape he's in now, I thought I'd better come out and get the work started before the weather turns and the, yes here she is. Ilse? Will you bring Mister Basic some coffee? And an ashtray, it seemed like a good opportunity while Harry's away. I will thank God when this case of his is over with.
— Episcopals been around for maybe five hundred years, probably good for five hundred more.
— Well Harry's not God knows, neither am I at this rate I hardly see him at all. Something always comes up like this conference where you just met him, the first time in ages I'd thought we might have a few days to ourselves.
— Should have come along Mrs Lutz, plenty of wives down there, golf courses and all the amenities you could have had a nice…
— The state things are in here? No, no we did it once but that was Japan, it was when we'd first met and of course that's why I went, because it was Japan, Sapporo, up in the north. Harry had these endless meetings and I simply wandered around their museum, I learned more about the Ainu than I know what to do with.
— About you knew, what?
— No, the Ainu, the earliest inhabitants, they were a Neolithic people, short, dark, thick and hairy, heavy beards and hair all over their bodies I suppose for the terrible cold. It's on Hokkaido, one of those brand new utterly primitive cities, there were little pictographs posted over the toilet showing how to use it, little stick figures sitting and standing they'd thrown up these hotels overnight for a winter Olympics, God knows what they expected in the way of contestants. Women tattooed around the mouth and bear baiting, apparently that was the big event, slaughtering a bear.
— That's some Olympics.
— My God no, no I mean the Ainu, a ritual sacrifice of bears I suppose they believed they were some kind of totem ancestors with all that hair, more than any other human race if you call that a race of course, even their language something utterly outlandish they're known as the hairy Ainu. We still joke about it, we, I mean Harry has to shave twice a day when we're going out I'm awfully glad you met him. He's talked to you about all this hasn't he.
— Tell you the truth I don't recall he ever talked about your hairy Ainu there but…
— No of, of course not no… clearing her throat sharply — I meant the, this lawsuit Mister Basic you see frankly what I'm concerned about is the money. I mean if I'm not who will be, the state Oscar's in with these medications he's on it's all bursting out in some sort of folie de grandeur, I'm sure you had a taste of it when you were out here last week and I'm really quite surprised to see you back. Harry thought you both agreed it's all little more than a nuisance.
— Before that story in the paper, see that gives us kind of a handle on this Kiester if Oscar's dug up that rejection letter, that rejection letter for his play maybe's something to go on, he tell you about that?
— Tell me, my God he called in the middle of the night I'd just come in from taking Harry to the airport I thought he was having a seizure, I mean he's never been someone who drinks but I think he's been getting overfond of this Pinot Grigio he's discovered here waving the newspaper at me yesterday morning the minute I walked in the door shouting read it! Read it! Of course the first thing I asked him was whether he'd called you. I assumed you'd convince him it was all hopeless nonsense but I had to read it just to calm him down.
Hollywood, September 30. In response to allegations made by a second year film student regarding the notorious sledge hammer scene in the recent African film sensation Uruburu, the office of producer director Constantine Kiester brushed off inquiries with a brief statement conceding the possibility that the sequence might have depicted an actual occurrence but stating that they had been approached by an itinerant documentary maker, who was not named, offering the sequence at three hundred dollars a foot. The offer, according to the statement, came as the rough cut of the film was being assembled, and under production schedule pressures no effort was made regarding its source or veracity. 'It brought out the spirit of the picture and there was a perfect slot for it so we bought it and cut it in,' the statement said. The eight minute scene largely accounted for Uruburu's billing as 'not for the squeamish' and its overnight success as a box office favourite, heralding Mr Kiester's meteoric rise in the film industry. Before coming to Hollywood, he had earned a reputation in the east for quality television productions of American theatre classics ranging from Elmer Rice to Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams under his own name, Jonathan Livingston, adding the surname Siegal when he turned to motion pictures and adopting a unique new identity as Constantine Kiester when he came to the West Coast, where he is known as the 'king of special effects' on the strength of the sensational Uruburu and his current Civil War extravaganza, The Blood in the Red White and Blue, which has already garnered $59 million in its first week at the box office and a further $74 million in cassette and foreign distribution rights. He lives in Bel Air in the rental property of a former radio evangelist which he 'picked up for a song' following the sordid and far reaching scandal which…
— All right Oscar, now I've read it. What's the point, have you called that lawyer? the one you saw last week who…
— Basic, Mister Basic of course I've called him!
— Well you needn't be so snappish, he convinced you it was all hopeless nonsense didn't he? I told you Harry met him at that outing down at the Greenbrier didn't I? and they agreed you don't have a case with the remotest chance of winning? Harry thinks he's brilliant.
— Brilliant! I had to do all the work myself Christina, lead him along step by step pointing things out trying to get a straight answer from him, trying to get him to take the whole thing seriously while he rambled on about his acting career in some thimble theatre sitting there blowing smoke rings as though we were having a chat about baseball with the evidence right there in front of us that they'd taken this whole based on a true story idea from these sleazy attacks on Father down there in the Szyrk case they reversed it, did you know that? that Father's decision in the Szyrk case was overturned? Telling me how he would have handled it he sounded about as professional as a delivery boy, got a lot on their plates I won't repeat the rest of his language but you can imagine what a legal brief he'd write would sound like he thinks Harry's my cousin. He calls me Oscar.
— Well that's your name isn't it? If you want to throw your money away on…
— Yes and that's another thing, trying to pin him down on their fees and how much it can cost these same vague evasive…
— Well my God Oscar if you feel this way, why on earth did you call him?
— Who else can I call! Harry wouldn't help me would he? Telling Basic that I don't have a case that was before this piece in the paper here about Kiester that his real name's Livingston, that's who signed that rejection letter before he changed it to Jonathan Livingston Siegal covering his tracks and then to Constantine Kiester, Basic told me to call him when I found it and he said then we can get someplace. I said once if anybody had a name like that they'd change it didn't I?
— And you've found it? this letter? That's what all these boxes are doing stacked in the hall?
— Well not exactly but…
— What do you mean not exactly. Have you found it or not. — This letter? One letter, one piece of paper do you expect me to find one piece of paper overnight in all this material that I've had to save for the, that I've saved? I told Ilse to bring down all those boxes from my closet and the upstairs storeroom I can't go up there to go through them myself can I?