“I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”
It was a ton of money for a porno flick. And you’d get some, said the bad Elmer Fudd who suddenly appeared on Finn’s left shoulder. He pictured his father and mother’s reaction. How would they ever know?
Because some teamster or grip would talk.
Finn hunched his shoulders, trying to dislodge his baser self. “Sorry, Harry, can’t do it.” He unlocked the door of his apartment.
“You’ve got to. You know how hard it is to train a real pony?” came the disconsolate cry as Finn closed the door.
“The frightening thing is that a woman would probably rather fuck a pony than a joker,” Goathead said the next morning when Finn finished telling them about his meeting with Gold. They were in the extras’ make-up area. Clops flushed to his eyebrow at the use of the profanity, and cocked his head significantly toward the joker woman seated near-by.
“What?” Goathead demanded. Clops cocked his head further this time and waggled his eyebrow. “Them? Hell, they don’t want to fuck a joker either,” Goathead said, upping the volume even further.
Finn sighed and looked up at the rafters. Goathead’s attitude was definitely starting to wear thin. On the other hand, Goathead had grown up poor in Detroit while Finn had grown up in Bel Aire, a child of privilege blessed with parents who had never treated him as different. He had had playmates and girlfriends…
And how many of them were with you because your daddy is a famous director? came the hateful little voice. They did always end up wanting to be “friends” and only one had ever put out, and Finn later heard she’d been busted in one of L.A. ’s more notorious sex clubs.
Clops looked pained. “I don’t think that’s true. There are whole magazines about us.” He held up a copy of Aces to prove his point.
Goathead stuck a nicotine stained finger under the title. “A. C. E. S.,” he spelled. “Aces. You see a magazine called Joker?!, you dumb shit? No.”
“Would you sit still?” the make-up man grumbled, trying to glue on Goathead’s horns. Despite the legs and hooves of a goat, the joker lacked horns, and Corman wanted big horns on his satyr.
Clops shook his head. “I think women pick men because of what’s on the inside, not on the outside.”
“Oh, God you are such a goober,” Goathead said. “And like how often are you getting any?” Clops flushed again and ducked his head. “Never? Right?”
The make-up man made a moue of distaste. “You’re done. Go away.” He made shooing motions with both hands, and Goathead went clattering away on his cloven hooves. Finn reflected that they were going to have to refinish the ancient wood floors after eight weeks of his and Goathead’s hooves.
The terribly sweet boy who was doing Finn’s make-up smoothed the foundation over his nose, and reached for the powder. “Did you hear about the commotion over on the Lieutenant set?” He punctuated every word with a little gusting breath.
Finn knew it was stupid. It was just a movie. But it was his dad’s movie, so he felt his stomach clench down into a small tight ball. “What?”
“Somebody broke into the production offices last night.”
Finn blinked. He had been prepared for a dead star, a fire on the set, lost film. “Was anything taken?”
“They don’t think so. The files drawers were all open, and they found the petty cash box by the open window, but all the money was there.”
It was an odd enough occurrence that Bradley decided to talk to his dad when the Argonauts broke for lunch.
There was a cafeteria on the Warner’s lot where extras, day players and the below-the-line people went to eat. The food was plentiful and cheap. You would often see writers in there, which said something about the self-image of Hollywood writers.
Then there was The Warner’s Restaurant. Table clothes, linen napkins, wines and gourmet food. This was where the powerful “did lunch.” Finn swung on down the street to the entrance to that restaurant. Steps led up to the etched glass doors. The doors opened out, and he had to lower his hindquarters down a step to make room for the swing of the door. Eventually he was inside. They had just repainted the place in azure blue and cream with pale blue upholstery on the furniture. Beneath the scent of fresh cut gardenias in a vase on the maitre d’s desk there was the tang of newly dried paint.
Tony, the maitre d’, grinned. “Hear you been slumming over at the cafeteria.”
Finn slapped his gut beneath the Hawaiian shirt. “I couldn’t take too many more gourmet meals and keep my boyish figure. Dad here?”
Tony indicated the direction with a cock of his head. “Corner right.”
“Thanks.”
Finn minced his way between the tables, exchanging hellos with various actors, directors, producers and studio heads. He had practically grown up on this lot, and in fact been the focus of a law suit between Disney and Warner’s in the late fifties. Warner’s had used Finn in some of their promotional material, and Disney had screamed infringement of trademark, citing Fantasia. Since Finn had been two at the time, he wasn’t sure how it had all been resolved. He just knew it was a favorite dinner tale of his father’s.
His dad was eating with Ester Flannigan, the most perfect of personal assistants. There was a slight frown on his long, lantern jawed face, and he seemed to be talking more than he was eating. Which meant Ester was taking shorthand instead of eating. Finn came up behind her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and gave her a kiss one wrinkled cheek. “Doesn’t the union have something to say about working through lunch?”
Benton Finn looked down at their virtually untouched plates and gave Ester an apologetic smiles. “Sorry, we’ll finish this after lunch.”
“What’s got your shorts in a twist?” Finn asked as he swiped a cherry tomato off his dad’s salad plate. He bit down and savored the tart/sweet explosion. He swallowed and added, “The break in?”
“So it’s all over the lot, is it?” Finn asked.
“I don’t know. It’s at Corman’s.”
“It’s all over the lot,” Ester broke in. “Jenny called to ask about it, and she’s over in the bungalows.”
“Why is this a deal?” Finn asked. “Nothing was stolen.”
“Because everything on Lieutenant has to go smoothly and if you look close enough at any production you’ll find problems, and Coppola will use it,” Ester said in sing song voice while Benton glared at her.
Finn gave his dad a look. “Wow, you are being paranoid.”
“Coppola wanted this movie, and Bernie told me Coppola told the Chairman I didn’t know how to pull something new and fresh out of Kelly. Kelly doesn’t need to be new and fresh. She just needs to be Kelly.”