Bunny dipped his head to Pilcer, self-deprecating, like a courtier in one of his boy prince films.
Sol smiled, touching Bunny’s shoulder. “Who else could squeeze another nickel out of Rex? Christ.”
“All right, shall we start?” Bunny said, pulling out some papers with time graphs. “We’re looking at a two-week overrun on River House and that’s before the retakes, so we’re going to have to move things around. Abilene we’re still okay.”
“Nobody ever lost money on a Western,” Lasner said, about to take a seat. “What the hell’s that?”
They all looked toward the window. Lasner went over, following the shouting coming from below. On Gower Street, the pickets had swarmed around a car trying to go through the gate, yelling, a few of them banging on the fender.
“What the hell-?”
“Why so many today?” Pilcer said, joining him, everyone else following.
“Change of tactics,” one of the producers said. “What I heard,” he said when they all looked at him. “Pick one or two studios to make a point. Instead of spreading themselves thin.”
“So they pick us?” Lasner said.
“And Warners. They’ve got a whole army out on Olive. I heard,” he said when they looked again. “We’re the pick in town. One gate. Paramount, you’d need three times the people.”
Below, the studio police had rushed out and were now pushing people away from the car with clubs. Just night watchmen, Bunny had said.
“I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Lasner said to Bunny.
“With our people, no. You can’t pay off two sides, Sol.”
The car had begun to move, but now the strikers were squaring off against the studio cops, shouting in their faces, still a ritual, not an actual fight.
“There’s that fuck Stein,” a producer said.
Ben followed the pointing finger. Howard was near the edge of the crowd, apparently trying to quiet things down as he made his way through. A technician heading for the gate was stopped by picketers, then surrounded by studio police, pushing the strikers away. One shoved back, grabbing the cop, who raised his stick. Two other pickets rushed over and the cop, alarmed, stuck the club into the striker’s chest to hold him off. The striker, taking it as an attack, swung at the cop and then, in an instant, like a fire catching, everyone seemed to be shoving, pushing chests, the line breaking up, people spilling into each other.
Bunny picked up the phone and dialed an extension. “Carl, get the police. Ask for Healy. Tell him we’ve got a street fight here. And tell Charlie to keep his men out of there. Away from the gate.”
The shouting was now a roar, and Ben felt his neck stiffen, a startled animal’s reaction. Violence was always sudden. A fistfight in a cellar bar, drunk GIs smashing bottles, jeeps pulling up, white helmets and billy clubs. Combat. The same adrenaline fear, your whole body flushed with it, everything happening fast. It was nothing like the movies, no sound-effect punches, choreographed swings. Clumsy, pulling at shirts, gouging, falling down, like the studio cop below, covering his face to ward off a kick. Ben saw Howard Stein, still trying to pull people away, putting out a brush fire.
“Jesus Christ,” Lasner said, but quietly, his face pale, eyes fixed on Gower Street.
Then Ben saw Hal trying to skirt around the crowd to reach the gate. Strikers swerved around to block his way, the crowd now moving by instinct. More shouts, grabbing him as he tried to rush in, the studio police shrinking back. Someone landed a punch, maybe unintentional, and Hal swung back, drawing the others on him. A lucky hit to the face, suddenly a spurt of blood, so startling that everything stopped for a second, a freeze before crossing the line, then a blur of rushing hands. Ben looked down the street. A siren wailing, squad cars. Not one, a stream of them. Like MPs with clubs. Now there wouldn’t be any sides. Just bodies in the way.
He ran out of the conference room, clumping down the stairs and tearing through the gate. A small group of studio workers had clustered behind it, watching.
“Help me get Hal,” he shouted at one of them, but didn’t wait, pushing his way into the crowd.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“The cops are coming. Get out of here. Everybody.”
“Yeah? Friends of yours?”
He kept going. Hal and the striker were now in a kind of wrestling lock, too close to get any punches in, pounding each other’s back.
“Get the fuck out,” the striker said as Ben tried to separate them.
“Let go. The cops are coming. Want to get your head cracked?”
Hal stepped away, the opening the picket had been waiting for. A quick jab to the face, Hal’s nose running blood, then another punch as Hal held his hand to his nose, stunned and reeling now.
“You stupid fuck!” Ben yelled, jumping on the picket, hitting him hard enough to knock him down, then dropping to his chest, another hard punch, so that the striker turned on his side, cowering, trying to cover his head.
Ben pushed himself up and grabbed Hal by the shoulders, herding him toward the gate, his hand throbbing. A studio cop stopped Hal with his stick, anyone bleeding now suspect, and Hal swung back at him. The cop weaved, clutching Hal’s shirt until Hal managed to pry him loose, flinging his arms away. A flashbulb went off somewhere to the side. The cop fell, taking one of the strikers down with him. But people had begun pulling away, looking toward the sirens, the street jumping with sound. Ben got Hal through the gate.
“Call the infirmary,” he said to Carl. “He’s not going to be the only one.”
He pulled Hal over to a low wall, sitting him down, and handed him a handkerchief to wipe the blood. “How’s the nose? Broken?”
“I don’t know. What’s that feel like?”
“Squishy.”
“My head,” Hal said, touching it. “Son of a bitch actually kicked me.”
A studio cop staggered in, blood streaming down the side of his head. One of the infirmary nurses, rushing to the gate, intercepted him, making him sit.
“You know the good part?” Hal said. “I’m on their side.” He looked at the clotted handkerchief. “We never get blood right. It processes too red.”
“You dizzy, anything like that?”
“No, the posse got there in time.” He looked over at Ben. “Thanks. Where’d that come from?”
The police were wading in with clubs, swinging indiscriminately at everyone. Bodies in the way. Even the studio cops were shrinking back, out of range. Some press had arrived, trailing after the squad cars, and more flashbulbs went off around the edges of the fight. Tomorrow the picture would be a mob out of control, a breakdown, not a confused, spontaneous fight, overwhelmed by police clubs. People were falling down, crawling away before they could be trampled. One of the cops bent over to hit a striker again, not finished, drawing some blood before they began the arrests.
“Jesus Christ. Hal,” Lasner said, his voice shaking. Most of the other producers had followed, drawn like gawkers at a highway wreck.
“I’m okay.”
“What the hell is happening?” Lasner said, not really a question, looking out through the gate, his face bewildered.
Some press photographers raced past. Out to the left, two cops had zeroed in on Howard Stein, who had begun with his hands outstretched in a stop signal but now had thrown them on top of his head, trying to wrench himself away as the cops grabbed his shirt, dragging him. A flashbulb. A club whacked his arm. Another striker came to help but the police ignored him, interested only in Stein, pummeling him now.
“Do you need help to the infirmary?” Bunny was saying to Hal.
“Our own people,” Lasner said to himself, still looking out.
They hit Stein again, this time in the head, and he staggered, falling as a second blow got him on the neck, and Ben saw that they weren’t going to stop, a storm trooper kind of frenzy. Another club, raised high, then swung hard. He glanced quickly at Hal, now being swabbed by a nurse, and rushed through the gate again, grabbing some of the others.