“Do you know where she’s been living?”
“Some motor inn downtown. There was a party I never got to.”
“Tucker says you know Frankie Capp.”
“I know of him.” She blew out her breath, like a horse smelling something unpleasant. “He’s not around much anymore. He owns a piece of the company, I think. Anyway I told the committee guy that and he just about had kittens.”
There were footsteps on the treads of the spiral staircase. Lib sucked in her breath and rolled quickly on top of Shayne. The water inside its tight plastic sheath attempted to make waves, and for a moment they rocked and plunged.
“Pretend,” she whispered fiercely, her fingernails digging in.
Her heart was banging, and there was an equally strong pulse in her stomach. She was moving rhythmically. Shayne fell into the pattern, breaking off as the footsteps entered one of the other bedrooms. She remained above him. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned Capp. He kills people.”
“He’s never spent a night in jail.”
“That’s what I mean,” she said with a slight shiver.
“Lib, what happens to a Warehouse film after it’s finished, ready to go out to the theaters?”
She resumed her slight fore-and-aft motion. Shayne didn’t cooperate, but the bed seemed to be cooperating for him.
“What was the question?” she said vaguely.
He repeated it.
“There’s a vault,” she said. “First they make a work print and it goes to the negative matcher. One print from the matched negative plus the optical sound track…” She didn’t have her mind completely on what she was saying. “That’s the married print, the answer print. Then they wait as long as they can to see how many dupes they’ll need…”
“Have you ever heard about any of these films being used for blackmail? The Foxes from Passaic. If they aren’t really married—”
“Oh, honey, that’s out of the nineteenth century. Who cares any more?”
It was warm in the room, and she was as slippery as a trout. The water bed was giving them a giddy ride.
Someone else came into the room. Baruch’s voice said, “Turning on the light, O.K.?”
The light flashed on. Lib’s eyes closed, and she gripped Shayne convulsively.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?” the pleasant voice continued. “I want to talk to you about a part we’ve been trying to cast, Mike.”
The bed went on moving for a moment after Lib stopped. Her face relaxed slowly.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I bother,” she said, giving the moviemaker an evil look. “You blew this one, Armand. I told him about the picture, but he’s got this privacy hangup. I was trying to persuade him.”
“Privacy?” Baruch said in the same amiable voice, as though he had never heard the word. “What we look for in our men, Mike, what we pay money for, is physique and staying power. An ordinary four-minute episode — you know we can’t film that in four minutes, it’s more like four hours. Our audiences won’t let us get away with simulation or inserts. They want to see. So we can’t use young kids.”
“He’d be great,” Lib said, coming up on an elbow. “The problem is, will he?”
“The picture’s about pro football, Mike, a football team and a girl. We’ve cast everything but the coach. Most of the scenes take place in the locker room.” He was in a squatting position and he had clearly settled down to stay. “The girl’s a tremendous inspiration to the team. They get to the Super Bowl. I managed to steal some footage from the Dolphins, and we’ll cut that in.”
“Who’s playing the girl?”
Shayne was beginning to get the hang of the bed. Baruch passed him a joint. Apparently it was going to be that kind of conversation.
“The girl,” Baruch said. “She has to be small enough to fit inside a locker. I want Lib to do it, but she’s been giving me maybes.”
“Armand, I’m tired of taking my pay in IOUs. I had another call from my father last week. He keeps asking how I can live like this and I tell him I’ve stopped making moral judgments, I do it for money. He’s in advertising, Madison Avenue time, and his big account is deodorants. The commercials are pretty disgusting, but he does it for the money, damn good money, incidentally. But if they only promised to pay him—”
“My dear small child, if you knew how much I have tied up in finished product! Four feature-lengths and five two-reelers.”
“Tied up is it. I have to eat. The restaurants don’t take IOUs.”
“You could stand to lose a few pounds.”
“I disagree with you,” Shayne said. “I think she’s just right as she is.”
“Thank you, lover.”
Baruch took the joint back after it had made the rounds. “A firm offer, Mike. Five hundred, and we can do your scenes in three days. I run a relaxed thing. You’ll have fun.”
“Five hundred in cash?” Lib demanded. “Where did that come from?”
“I’ve got a check in my pocket for six hundred and fifty, drawn on the First National Bank of Passaic, New Jersey, a wonderful, friendly bank. And I’ve got to remember to put it in night deposit in case he stops payment. It was lovely, Mike, the minute they let themselves go. You’d never suspect it from looking at him, but he played that broad like a xylophone.”
“Five hundred for Mike,” Lib said, sticking to the subject. “A hundred and fifty for me? That’s sexist.”
Baruch smiled and waved his hands, making a shape in the air. “Five hundred for you. Money’s on the way. We’ve hit bottom, and now we bounce. I’ll wrap up the football thing first. I’ve shot it in my head already, and I just have to put it on film.” He put a thumb in his mouth and blew a fanfare. “Quiet, everybody. Then The Ways People Love goes into production. I know you’re surprised.”
Lib sat up. “Not that we haven’t heard that announcement before.”
“No, this time it’s really happening. A budget of eight hundred thou, and eight hundred to me is like four million to those Hollywood hacks.”
Lib’s earrings glittered. “Do you mean it?”
“I think so,” he said after considering the question. “Ask me again in the morning. Right now I mean it. It looks very good.”
“And I suppose with that kind of budget you’ll protect yourself by using name people?”
“Unknowns,” Baruch said firmly. “This flick’s going to make it in the art houses, knock wood, and win a few modest prizes, knock wood, and I want to do it with the stock company.”
“You aren’t planning to bring in any overage chicks from Los Angeles? That sort of rubbed some of us the wrong way.”
“There was a reason for that. I forget what it was now.”
He puzzled about it briefly, then gave up and produced another joint.
“Mike, before I space out here. The coach.”
“How many episodes would I have to be in?”
“I don’t lay it out and run set plays,” Baruch told him. “I work from a situation, and see what kind of vibes I get.”
Shayne smiled slowly. “I’d like to ask a few people to dinner when I get back and talk them into going down to Forty-Second to catch a movie. There’s one chick in particular, I’d like to see the look on her face when she sees me up there on the screen. How many lines would I have to memorize?”
Baruch answered after a pause. “I never use a script. As the spirit moves you. Do we have a deal?”
“Let me talk to you in the morning. I want to get an idea what kind of sex you expect me to do.”
“Nothing homo, if that’s bothering you. You’re the craggy old coach. Meat and potatoes.”