Loser's Town (23 page)

‘Yeah, sure. Okay.’

Ingrid took out a notebook, scribbled down her phone number and address, and handed him the note. ‘Seven o’clock Tuesday night. The address and phone number are there. You won’t stand me up, will you?’

‘No,’ said Potts, though he wasn’t sure.

‘Then I’ll look forward to seeing you, Mr Potts,’ she said.

‘Potts,’ said Potts. ‘Just Potts.’

Fourteen

They wrapped for the day at 6.30 p.m. and by 8.00 Bobby was out of makeup and climbing into the car. He’d been on the set for fourteen hours and, in spite of the money and the Victoria’s Secret girlfriend and the fame and the cars and the fancy house on a mountaintop, Spandau almost felt sorry for him. Truth was, he often felt this way about actors. Their lives were nothing like people thought, and whatever they got it was always in extremes. Either not enough or too much of everything, and both had clever ways of killing you in the end. It was ugly to starve and struggle to do your craft well and not have anyone notice or give a shit. On the other hand it was perhaps even uglier to be glutted by fame and money like some Strasbourg goose and isolated by the people around you to the point where you lost touch with whatever it was that made you an actor.

It had been a rough day. Not as rough as some, since things had gone well on set, but Mark was being a bastard
about getting his number of shots in. So the days were long. Some of the actors bitched about feeling rushed but everyone knew it would have been worse if they’d started to slip over schedule. It was cheaper and easier just to go into overtime a few hours a day than eat up additional days. They’d built this into the budget but Mark was still pushing it. Mark wasn’t the sort of director who’d tell the producers to go fuck themselves and he was already jumpy and looking over his shoulder at the Suits whenever they came on set. The Suits knew this and as a result spent more time irritating the hell out of Mark than they would normally. Anyway it wasn’t inspiring and now everyone was dreading Wyoming where they suspected Mark was going to have a meltdown. Directors can’t afford to be nervous and even when they are they can’t afford to show it. It’s like blood in shark-infested waters. By now it was commonly understood that there would be a face-down at some point in Wyoming when cast and crew got fed up and told Mark to kiss their asses. And Mark was going to freak because he was scared to death of the Suits and by now the Suits had his number and were happy to make him the patsy for getting this thing in well below the budget, which was actually $15 million more than they’d told Mark or admitted on paper. Hollywood films operate on a ‘need to know’ basis and Hollywood producers never think you need to know anything.

With the makeup off you could see the fresh lines in Bobby’s face and the darkness under his eyes. He was
unusually quiet and slow moving, seemed to drag himself out of the trailer and into the waiting car. Acting isn’t like digging ditches for a living and most of what you do is sitting on your ass, except whenever you’re sitting on your ass you’re aware of what’s at stake and what will happen if you can’t manage to do whatever magic it is they expect you to do. Nobody is shy about telling you you’re fucking up an $80-million picture. Conversely, you can’t believe a word they tell you if they tell you you’re good. In fact you can’t believe a word anybody tells you until it’s either a success or it collapses suddenly around your ears, and it is precisely this sort of anxiety that wears you down. Which was why at the end of the day hot new star Bobby Dye was slumping around like an old man.

Spandau himself was mind-numbingly bored and antsy from standing around with nothing to do all day. Yet Bobby wanted him there and Spandau didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone. Nobody was going to try to kill him, so the bodyguard part of it was a joke, but Richie Stella had been unnaturally quiet and things were bound to heat up the minute Stella found out Spandau was asking around about him. It was a dangerous game, but whatever Stella did would weaken his position and make him vulnerable. Stella operated by moving in the shadows, and whatever he did now would draw him into some degree of light. Bobby wasn’t in any danger but there was a very good chance that Spandau might meet with an unfortunate accident. Spandau was far safer with Bobby – Stella would
never do anything around Bobby – and this was one of the reasons he stayed close to him. That and the fact that the kid was so goddamn lonely, and Spandau liked him in spite of the dictates of common sense.

Bobby and Spandau sat in the back of the car. Duke, the driver, climbed in and looked at Bobby in the mirror. ‘Where to?’

‘Home,’ said Bobby. ‘I just want to go home.’ He sat back and closed his eyes.

‘I can do that,’ said Duke, and started the car.

Crusoe
was about to be released and showed every sign of doing far better than expected, and the studio, wide-eyed with glee, had upped their promotion to fan the flame. Bobby was locked onto the set of
Wildfire
all day and couldn’t make the rounds of the talk shows, but the studio had made him accessible between takes. Bobby was furious but contractually there was nothing he could do but go along. This meant that instead of working on his lines or just chilling in his trailer, Bobby endlessly had some hair-helmeted bozo shoving a mike and camera into his face and asking him the same goddamn stupid questions. As the studio anticipated, Bobby found himself in the position of simultaneously promoting
Crusoe
and
Wildfire
, and on his own time. Half the time he didn’t know which questions were being asked about which movie and he answered the wrong ones, which made him feel like an idiot. If there is an actor’s idea of hell, this is it. In truth it didn’t make a goddamn bit of difference what
he said as long as he didn’t say anything negative and he got the names of the films and the stars right. Except for key words, no one is actually listening, his publicist once explained to him, only watching. Imagine your audience out there trying to heat up their frozen entrees and swatting at children. As long as he could keep smiling and looking good, everything would be fine.

The lot was quiet and everything was fine until they rolled through the gates. The guard said to Duke, ‘You got some fans out there,’ and Duke took it to mean a few desperate autograph hounds, which was normal. Instead the car came off the lot and was instantly engulfed in a swarm of screaming bodies.

Nobody was prepared for this. It was 8.00 at night on a weekday. But the extra publicity had worked okay and either the studio or somebody inside had leaked when Bobby would be coming off the lot. They were waiting for him. Duke stopped the car, unable to move without running over someone. Once the car stopped it got worse, and they were all around the car, on the car, trying to get in the car. The heavy vehicle lurched from side to side as faces and hands pressed up against every inch of glass surface. The screaming itself was maddening and the contorted faces just inches away behind thin glass was like a Francis Bacon-designed nightmare. Inside the car they heard ‘We love you Bobby we love you’ but there was instead something malevolent about it, as if they’d hurt him if they could, rip him apart and devour him in their affection,
ingest him to make him part of them. Sometimes through the spaces between the bodies you could see the flash of cameras. A photo op. Crazed Fans Eat
Crusoe
Heartthrob. How many more tickets would this sell? How many more tickets do you need?

Spandau had been through this before with other actors, but usually at premieres and other planned events where it was expected and could be controlled. Even then you felt vulnerable, you always felt vulnerable, but after a very long couple of minutes it was obvious no one was coming to help them.

‘Jesus, Duke, get the fucking car going!’ said Bobby.

‘I don’t want to kill anybody. They’re hanging on the front and back.’

‘Well do something!’

‘Maybe if you went out there and signed some autographs or something.’

‘I’m not going out there, are you crazy?’ Bobby yelled at him. ‘Call security, for chrissake!’

Spandau was laughing in spite of himself, though now he was nervous as well.

‘What the hell are you laughing at?’ Bobby said to him. ‘The absurdity of this never ceases to amaze me.’

‘You’re my goddamn bodyguard, why don’t you go out there?’

‘Are you nuts?’ laughed Spandau. ‘Look at those faces. Anybody opens a door and they’re all going to be sitting in your lap.’

Bobby started laughing too. ‘This is ridiculous.’

Duke called lot security on his cellphone. ‘Hi, this is Duke Slater, I’m Bobby Dye’s driver. We got a problem out at the Pico entrance. We were just leaving and we got swarmed by fans. They’re all over the car and I can’t move it. I don’t want anybody to get hurt, can you guys send somebody out?’

Duke listened, then hung up.

‘That’s just great,’ said Duke.

‘What?’ said Bobby.

‘They’re sending some security guys to the gate but it’s not likely they’re going to do anything. We’re not on Fox property. Technically it’s a job for the Beverly Hills PD.’

‘You’re shitting me. I’m making a goddamn movie for these people!’

‘Fox has no authority, and if they try to break up the crowd and somebody gets hurt, they get sued.’

‘So what the hell are we supposed to do? I can’t fucking wait here all night and they’re going to be in the fucking car in a minute.’

‘If I move the car, I’m going to hurt somebody.’

Spandau is laughing. Bobby is laughing. Duke starts to laugh. They all just sit there.

‘What the fuck do we do?’

‘We just sit here until the cavalry comes,’ said Duke. Bobby looked out the window at the faces. Many of them, male and female, kissed the windows.

‘This is surreal,’ said Bobby.

‘Yeah,’ said Spandau, ‘but one day it won’t be there and you’ll miss it.’

‘Nah,’ Bobby said to him. ‘I mean, this is what it takes for now. But eventually I don’t want to do this. This whole star trip is bullshit. I’m going to direct my first film, did I tell you? I’ve got it all set up with Jurado. I finish
Wildfire
, I’m going to do a small film. Something like Cassavetes? You know Cassavetes? Cassavetes is the fucking shit, man. Cassavetes is my hero. Maybe I’ll stop acting altogether. You know, get into a position where I got some control. Produce, direct. Stop being a meat puppet.’

Spandau tried to stop thinking about the number of actors who’d said this to him. Big ones, little ones. In the beginning all they want to do is be loved as actors, and after a while all they want to do is get out of it and manipulate somebody else for a change.

A very pretty girl, maybe eighteen, wrote her phone number in lipstick on the window. She smiled at Bobby and kissed the window next to the number, leaving the sexy imprint of her lips.

‘She’s kind of cute,’ said Bobby.

‘She’s not bad,’ agreed Duke. ‘Too bad we can’t think of some way to get her into the car. Well, you’ve got her number.’

About that time another female fan pushed the pretty girl away. She smeared the phone number and tried to replace it with her own. This one wasn’t as hot.

‘Too bad,’ said Duke.

‘Get away, you scurvy bimbo,’ Bobby said to her quietly through the glass. ‘Bring back the other one.’

The crowd began to thin away from the car, and it became obvious that somebody was doing something. Security guards from the lot wedged themselves between the car and the crowd and pushed them back.

‘We catch you guys at a bad time or something?’ Duke said through an inch of open window.

‘We can’t just run onto the street and start shoving people around,’ said the guard. ‘We got it under control now. You can roll.’

‘We can roll,’ Duke said to Bobby as he closed the window.

‘We’re rolling,’ said Bobby. ‘Oh boy.’

The car inched forward until it was clear of the crowd and Duke pressed the gas.

‘Fucking unreal,’ said Bobby as he turned to look at the crowd.

‘You’re a star, man,’ said Duke. ‘They love you.’

‘They love me,’ repeated Bobby. ‘Right. I need to remember that.’

Fifteen