Sliding down in the seat, he peered over the opposite car door at the merry group, hoping Parson didn’t recognize him, and angling to see if he recognized any of the others. Two of the other men were strangers to him, but not Joe Sommer. A sharp intake of breath startled him and he realized it was his own. The hell is that pig doing here?
It was rapidly becoming evident that his tall tales of Frank the Mule were soon to crack apart.
“As a veteran imbiber,” Joseph March said in lieu of a toast, “I happen to love the Volstead Act. We pickled purveyors of spirits and such have never had it better.”
With that he downed his glass of brandy in one go and, groaning with satisfaction, snapped his fingers at the colored servant lingering nearby, who trotted over to refill the director’s glass.
“The picture,” Rivers said, sipping his in a considerably more gentlemanly fashion.
“Of course,” said March. “The business at hand. Never give a producer a second to think you’re having a good time, boys.”
Rivers shook his head, but smiled.
“Now Lasky runs things different than Veritek, you understand,” March began. “Saul’s a grand old son, he truly is, but the independents are floundering. It’s the majors where you want to be — both of you.” He pointed first at Jack, then at Grace. “To an outfit like Saul’s, it’s about the business, like Ford and his automobiles. That’s fine. We think that’s about right, too. But as Jack here can tell us, it’s about the art of the thing, too. Why, you’ve got to have something to say, and the right way to say it. To film it. And Christ knows, here in the next year or two, to say it out loud, am I right?”
“And there’s a third thing,” said Joe Sommer.
“Yes,” March went on. “And Joe here brought this to our attention. We want to help change the way people see the pictures. What they’re all about. Some of them are all for a laugh, or the wonder of something big. That’s entertainment, you understand. Or you take Jack’s picture, Angel of the Abyss, and that’s a little something more, which is jake. It’s like looking at a complex painting instead of the Sunday funny papers. Both have their place, and both are fine.”
“Let me get to the point,” Joe Sommer said, edging forward on his chair. “Before the majors started incorporating out here, this business was spread out all over the country. New York mostly, but there were folks making pictures everyplace from Dubuque to Mobile, and a great many of them were doing it in a dangerous sort of way.”
“Dangerous?” Grace said. “In what way?”
“Let me put it this way,” Sommer said. “Another great reason the movies set up so well out here is the weakness of the labor unions. They’re disorganized here in Los Angeles, and the state simply hasn’t got their back. Other places, the Midwest in particular, that’s just not so. Out there, especially in the teens, there were — and still are — a lot of dangerous types churning out little pictures seeking to undermine the way we do business in this country. Red types, if you catch my meaning.”
“Like Jack’s favorite ar-teest in Russia,” Rivers jeered.
“There’s a socialist fire spreading in a lot of quarters of industry,” Sommer said gravely. “Rabble-rousers like Debs and Darrow are fanning the flames, and some of the pictures that got a little attention in the last decade and picking up steam in this one. One way to combat that is to control distribution.”
“That’s where the majors come in,” said Rivers.
“Right,” Sommer agreed. “They’re stringing their own theaters across the country, theaters that show their own productions. But as any good distributor knows, that doesn’t quite edge out the smaller outfits, some of which get cajoled into showing these socialist movies, garbage like A Martyr To His Cause and What Is To Be Done. Pictures that rile people up. Pictures that don’t do us here in sunny California any favors when we’re trying to build a goddamn empire here, pardon my French.”
“We want to make a picture that helps put the old kibosh on that nonsense, Ms. Baron,” said March. “A tragicomedy, if you like. A picture that takes the Sinclair Lewis type, the Clarence Darrow, and exposes them for the frauds they are. A capitalist picture.”
“An American picture,” Rivers said.
Grace finished her drink, sighed, and then let loose a raucous laugh.
“Gentlemen, you’re not talking to Elizabeth Stanton here. I’m an actress, always have been, and nothing besides. Politics are swell and all, but I’m only here to make pictures.”
“And pictures you shall make, my dear,” Joe Sommer said, touching her knee. “This one in particular, we hope. It’ll pay you plenty—”
“—get you out of that lousy bungalow for certain,” Jack muttered.
“—and boy will it be a sensation,” Sommer finished.
Grace held up her glass and March’s servant filled it from a decanter before slinking off again. “As we used to say back on the old homestead, let’s talk turkey, gents.”
“There’s just one thing,” Rivers announced.
“Spill it.”
Rivers looked to Jack, who sucked in a deep breath and sat up straight.
“It’s about Frank Faehnrich,” said Jack.
“Who?” Grace lied.
Alan Rivers arched an eyebrow at her.
“Why don’t you ask your driver to come out of that car and join us, Ms. Baron.”
“My driver? Why, I don’t—”
“Now Grace,” Jack said, leaning close. “You’re not in any sort of trouble. Neither of you are. But I know you made nice friends with Frank, and I also know he’s gotten himself into a terrible spot with those old pals of his…”
“We want to offer him an opportunity,” Joe Sommer said.
“He’ll help us, and in return we’ll help him right back,” said Rivers.
“But…he’s an electrician, and only an apprentice one at that. What help could he possibly be?”
“Electrician,” Sommer scoffed.
“Weren’t you there when that Red stooge plugged him?” Rivers said bluntly.
“Hey, what is this?” Grace set down her drink, splashing some on the table, and stood up from her chair. “I came here to talk about my career, about making a movie, not Frank Faehnrich.”
“We are talking about your next picture,” Joseph March said. “Please, sit down, Ms. Baron. Let me be more clear.”
“You had better. This is much too odd, Mr. March. I don’t like where this has gone in the least.”
Jack Parson eased her, forcefully, back down to her chair. She furrowed her brow and waited for an explanation.
“Ms. Baron,” Rivers started off, “do you know why your friend Frank was shot at that night?”
She shot a look at Joe Sommer, who said, “It’s all right, Gracie. These gentlemen and I want to help Frank. I promise we do.”
“Why can’t you just leave him alone? He’s reformed. He doesn’t want anything to do with those gangsters anymore.”
“Gangsters!” Rivers shouted.
Sommer said, “Is that what he told you?”
“I met them myself. I paid them off to let Frank alone.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rivers lamented.
“To be fair,” Sommer said, “they’re gangsters of a kind, just not the underworld sort. Grace, Frank was a sort of spy, for the labor people. Now we don’t know whether or not he intended to sabotage your picture, but he helped set fire to a set last year after the crew tried to organize and hold the studio hostage for higher wages.”