At 8:45 that morning, Michael Lipman called Ian’s Silver Lake apartment and screamed into his ear. “Seven calls I’ve had in a half-an-hour, buddy boy. Seven calls. You better get fucking ready to be rich.”
“What?”
“Earthquake, baby, earthquake! Got the newspaper?”
“Hold on.” Ian pulled his blanket around him, opened the front door, checked to his left and his right, and stole the Los Angeles Times from the lady across the hall. “EARTHQUAKE COMING, SOURCES SAY” read the headline. Ian ran back to the phone. “Jesus.”
“Is that fucking awesome?”
Ian experienced the nausea of happiness as he scanned the article.
“Charlie Richter …” he mumbled.
“Is that fucking incredible? That fucking script’ll be sold by the end of the day.”
All Ian could muster was, “My God.”
“Don’t answer the phone, and I want you to get the fuck out of your house. Do you understand me? …”
“But … why?”
“Because if Jeffrey Katzenberg comes to your doorstep and offers you a hundred grand in cash and says, “Welcome to Dreamworks,” you’re gonna take his money. And you shouldn’t. That’s why.”
When Grace and Charlie had recovered their senses, Grace began to plan. “Stay here till you’re ready,” she told him. “Stay all day if you like.” Charlie seemed thoroughly upset, and phenomenally hungover. Still, he smiled his thanks to Grace, and, for an instant, he seemed to forget the tremendous pounding in his head.
Ian stood for a long time in his room, looking at the tattered Van Gogh print on his wall. His heart pounded so quickly that at first he thought it would seize. He was without a thought in his head, but never had he felt so alive. When his vital signs approached normal, he made coffee from yesterday’s grounds and spread some peanut butter over stale bread. Sometime later he called Philadelphia, to McClintock & Marcus, attorneys, and told his father’s secretary to pass along word that he wouldn’t be going to law school after all.
EYES OF THE WORLD
THE EYES OF THE WORLD WERE UPON LOS ANGELES, AND no longer did it have anything to do with O. J. After the CES prediction — and after Caltech agreed “a major seismic event” seemed likely for the end of the year — Orenthal James Simpson was yesterday’s news. The skittish were moving out of Southern California at a rate of twelve families a day, packing their station wagons and minivans and heading north to Portland or east to Phoenix and Tucson. AM radio was abuzz with the subject and wouldn’t leave Charlie Richter alone. He’d stopped reading the papers and watching television, tired of seeing his face staring back at him.
The mayor, too, was feeling the heat. Publicly, he proclaimed Los Angeles “a safe and beautiful place to live.” Privately, though, he watched the exodus with a mixture of desolation and fear. Eventually, he began making calls, looking for the kind of help only the federal government could give. And so it came to pass, on the morning of August 9, that the president’s motorcade stopped traffic on Highland Avenue, creating a nightmare for anyone trying to hop into Burbank on the 101.
The president was in a peculiar mood. He had been shaken by the news that morning of Jerry Garcia’s death. Because he had inhaled. The Grateful Dead’s concert at the Avalon Ballroom in 1968 had made an impression on him he would always have to repudiate for political reasons. Riding in his limousine, he remembered that night’s second set, when he had peaked during the drums and had been frightened by Mickey Hart’s primal pounding of the tom-toms. But “Morning Dew” came and calmed the future president’s heart. He’d abandoned his shoes and made his way toward the stage, where a freckle-faced girl with flowers in her hair danced next to him. Seized with presidential confidence, he had grabbed her by the waist and spent the following week with her.
As the president’s limousine moved down Highland and he sat listening to “China Cat Sunflower,” he decided to cancel his dinner with the mayor and stop by the candlelight vigil in Griffith Park.
The president had lunch at the Center for Earthquake Studies with Charlie Richter, but their seismological discussion lasted only three minutes. Preoccupied, the president asked quietly if Charlie had ever seen the Grateful Dead. Charlie perked up. “I took a leave of absence my junior year of college to follow them.”
“No kidding?” The president put down his fork.
“How ‘bout you?”
“About thirty shows,” the president said. “I have like a hundred tapes. Most aren’t soundboards. Twentieth generation or something. But I like the crackle.”
“I can’t believe it’s over.”
“When was your first show?” the president asked.
“Telluride, ′78.”
“Friday night or Saturday?”
“Saturday, I think.”
“Saturday.” The president leaned back and concentrated. “‘Franklin’s Tower,’ ‘Tennessee Jed,’ ‘Scarlet/Fire’ …?”
“That’s the one …”
Ian Marcus was a millionaire. Just after the prediction, with every studio in town bidding on Ear to the Ground, pressure mounted for Grace to track Ian down. Ethan jumped down her throat the minute she arrived at the office. “It’s your fucking boyfriend’s script,” he’d told her. “Why haven’t I seen it?”
You can’t buy luck in this town, she thought. Like William Goldman says: “Nobody knows anything …”
The deal had closed a few minutes before midnight, in a booth at Jones. What a nightmare. Michael Lipman, one of the world’s great assholes, was having the time of his life. And, Grace knew, there’s nothing worse than an ecstatic asshole. Ian didn’t say a single word, just sipped champagne and performed calculations on a legal pad. Once, he leaned over and French-kissed her. How could she refuse?
Grace made one last call to business affairs, asking if they’d go as high as seven figures. She was told the president of the studio was reading the script, or skimming it anyway, and it was almost an hour before he consented to spend a million dollars to buy Ear to the Ground for Ethan Carson.
By midday on August 9, several FM stations were playing nothing but Grateful Dead, but the AM talk shows continued to feature earthquake commentary. At CES, the mayor and the president made a joint statement, separated by a beaming Caruthers. Then the president disappeared into the Prediction Lab, where he sat telling Charlie funny stories about the Europe ′72 tour. Soon they were nearly friends, and Charlie was invited to accompany him to Griffith Park.
As the president’s motorcade cut through traffic and turned left into the park, Deadheads gawked at the sleek black limos, wondering what industry bigwigs had decided to make the scene. Around the carousel, thousands of people had gathered: gauze-draped girls whirring among bare-chested boy-men who wailed and beat bongo drums.
The president watched quietly for a few minutes, and signaled to his driver that it was time to move on. Charlie laid a hand on his arm.