Passing Through the Flame (5 page)

“But how can Beck help us anyway?” Taub asked lamely.

“He’s a resourceful individual,” Williams said.

“Besides, let’s face it, Mr. Taub, as things currently stand, John Horst has this deal stymied. You’re hardly in a position to refuse help from
any
quarter.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Taub said. “Horst presents a problem, but there are ways around him.” If only I could figure out what they are, he thought. If only there were some way of putting a wedge between him and the board or between the board and the stockholders... show him up for the old has-been he is....

“You mean you have a plan?” Williams said.

“In broad outline, yes,” Taub lied, as George arrived with the desert: chocolate souffle flavored with just a hint of Grand Marnier. While George cleared the table, served the dessert, and poured the coffee, Taub’s head churned double time. Horst is losing the corporation heavy bread, trick is to make it glaringly apparent that the studio is a giant rathole for throwing money down, if only Horst were stupid enough to make some big turkey, some
Cleopatra
....

Taub took a nibble of the souffle, sipped at his coffee, and smiled across the table. “What if Eden Pictures were to make a high-budget film that turned out to be a monumental disaster?” he said. “A four- or five-million-dollar budget, and out the other end comes a piece of dreck Horst is lucky to get run in drive-ins, something he can’t even sell to TV....”

“That gives him three or four million dollars’ worth of egg on his face,” Carbo said thoughtfully. “An easily identifiable loss that can’t be fuzzed over with fancy accounting....”

“I like it,” Williams said. “We win both ways. Horst cuts his own throat, the deal goes through,
and
we can buy a three or four million additional loss for three hundred thousand or so. Very nice, Mr. Taub.”

Taub took a big mouthful of chocolate souffle now, able to enjoy the subtle interplay of chocolate and orange liqueur. They loved the idea—they would forget all about screwing around with Jango Beck. Now I can concentrate on the real problem, without having to worry about—

“Just how do you plan to get Horst to make such a stupid mistake?” Carbo said, eyeing Taub dubiously over his coffee cup.

“Well... ah... perhaps some kind of co-production deal with... ah... well, I haven’t quite nailed down the details.” The feather-light chocolate souffle hit his stomach like molten lead.

Carbo spoke in a shockingly harsh tone of voice. “Look, Taub, we’ve got a great deal sitting on the fire here. We make out well, and you liquidate your parent company and maybe come up as president of EPI. We all want this deal to go through. But all
you’ve
got is a wishful fantasy you don’t know how to bring off. Can you deny that?”

Taub could only glare over his coffee cup as he sipped, feeling the acid liquid burn a trail down his esophagus into his stomach. He yearned for a Bromo.

“We’re back to Jango Beck,” Williams said.

“Damn it,” Taub almost shouted, “what makes you think Beck can do us any good?”

“Call it instinct,” Carbo said blandly.

“You can’t trust Jango. He’ll screw you six ways from Sunday.”

“Only if it’s in his interest to do so.”

“You really think you can figure out what Jango Beck’s interests are?” Taub said sardonically. “Listen,
I’ve
done business with him—
once
.”

“So have associates of mine,” Carbo said. “More than once.”

“Then for crissakes, you must
know
what dealing with Beck is like!”

“For the last time, Mr. Taub,” Carbo said, “Beck is involved in certain areas in which certain associates of ours are also involved, and we believe that a
quid pro quo
can be worked out with him. A deal which it will be in his interest to honor.”

Taub finally lost his temper. “It seems to me you’re being a lot more vague than I am,” he said. “What associates and what kind of
quid pro quo art
you talking about?” Who do these snotty bastards think they’re dealing with, a goddamn office boy?

“There’s no reason for you to know that,” Carbo said “Shit!”

“There’s no need for vulgarity,” Carbo said coldly. “Perhaps you’d care to give us the details of your dealings with Jango Beck?” A bubble of acid burst at the back of Taub’s throat, filling his mouth with a horrible sour taste. That son of a bitch Carbo had his ass nailed right in place.

“You’ve made your point,” Taub said quietly.

“Good,” Carbo said. “Now let me make a further point. This deal and everything it means for you—which, Mr. Taub, is more than it means for us—is in danger of going sour. Eighty million dollars’ worth of financing isn’t going to sit there forever while you screw around trying to figure out how to pull this deal off without Jango Beck because you’re afraid of the man.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Carbo?” Taub asked.

“I’m telling you to talk this deal over with Jango Beck. Seek his advice and cooperation. I believe you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

“And if I don’t?”

“There are other properties we can purchase,” Williams said. Carbo and Williams turned their attention to the chocolate souffle; the last word had apparently been said. Taub toyed with his dessert as his two guests polished theirs off with gusto. Who are these third-party associates? he wondered. Do I really want to know? This deal is beginning to smell. But it’s the only deal I’ve got. So it’s Russian roulette with Jango.

Carbo finished his souffle, took a final sip of coffee, and looked at Williams. Williams nodded, and the two men rose.

“We must be going,” Carbo said. Taub nodded and walked the two men to the door.

“Have you decided what you’ll do?” Williams asked, as George opened the door.

“I’ll talk to Beck.”

Williams nodded.

“By the way, thank you for a delightful meal,” Carbo said, just before George closed the door behind them.

Fuckin’
delightful! Taub thought. “George, get me a Bromo!”

Like a ghostly far-off whisper, Bill Horvath heard the special sound of Susan’s Porsche down the canyon, keening around the bends, that ragged way she shifted—quick on the ups, haltingly on the downs—a gargling metal cat padding up the main canyon road in the dead lonely hours before the dawn. Susan’s Porsche, and no other.

For two hours now, he had stood on the big deck which jutted out from their little mountain, staring out over the tumbling wooded shoulders of the hills at nighttime Los Angeles, spread like an acid-vision Persian rug of lights between their eagle’s nest and the sea. Stood there smoking joints, not so much looking as listening: sifting the night sounds of dog barkings, crickets, night-bird calls, for that ghost of a sound that now drummed against his ears.

Soon the sound of Susan’s car was plainly audible. She would soon come down from fourth through third into second to make the sharp right into their private drive. How many times have I listened to the song of Susan’s car returning in the witching hours? Horvath thought bitterly. Enough, maybe, to make a song out of it....

Melody following the pattern of the gear changes, guitar whining through the tone changes of the engine in each gear, building the volume, adding a second guitar as the car comes up the hill, then a crescendo and a whole different final third of the cut as she arrives, wailing organ, slower tempo, pain counterpoint to triumphal entrance chords.... Call it “Song of Susan’s Pain Returning.”

Jango’d suck it up, he thought sardonically. Another piece of the pain becoming another piece of the legend.

Yeeow,
rap!
Yeeow,
rap!D
own through the gears she went, and now he could hear the howl of the engine as she roared up the long driveway. She always sprinted the last stretch home up the curving hill road. Did she know that he waited for her out here on the deck sifting the night sounds like a bat, so that 1,000 rpm one way or the other was a message to his love or a massage to his fear of finally losing her? They never talked about that, but then there were a lot of things that never became words between them. One thing was sure: if she knew what the sound of the engine taking the hill at high rpm meant to him, she’d take it to the ragged edge just to produce that chord. That was Susan.

But maybe it was also Star.

Susan
had left the house with him tonight for Duke’s party. They didn’t go to many parties anymore, but this was a small private thing, a few old friends, good dope, good food, and a little swimming at a very private beach house, fenced off from groupies and hangers-on. A party where they could be just Bill and Susan.

But still, when the time came, they went to the party in the twin Porsches, another piece of the legend.

Jango had laid the cars on them, two Porsche Targas: his midnight-black with silver pinstriping, hers done in a metallic rainbow sheen, both with the same red velvet upholstery. And immediately, there were items on them in
Rolling Stone
, eighty million bubblegum fan magazines,
Life
, even
Road and Track.
The two Porsches were a message—from Jango to them, from Star and the Velvet Cloud to the world. And the message was: Star rode on her own wheels, she was a free creature, open to destiny, love to the world.

But she dressed like Susan in a simple embroidered peasant dress. Did that really matter? The shoulder-length black hair subtly tinted with red dye, the potentially chubby body that Horvath sweet-talked and Jango browbeat her into maintaining within five pounds of perfection, the way she moved, the soft throaty voice with the edge of a powerful musical instrument inside it—that was Star, and it would’ve been Star in a potato sack.

Her face was where Susan melted into Star melted into Susan. To the world, her bright-green eyes were Star’s jewels of light; Horvath saw Susan’s pain in their depths. To the world, the wan smile that hovered perpetually on her lips was a Buddha sign of Star’s love for the world; Horvath saw Susan’s fear of the thing that was devouring her by inches.

“Our night tonight, babes,” she whispered in his ear, squeezing his hand as they walked up the steps to the beach house. He hoped, but he wondered.

Inside, Duke and Marlene, Tanya, Tim Gray and two of his backup men, Joe Dugan and his latest old lady, three guys from Fog, and four high-class groupies were lying around on pillows on the big Persian rug in the center of Duke’s living room. They were smoking grass in four big brass hookahs, eating fried chicken, and passing around cold bottles of white wine. A good fire was going in the big black stone fireplace: Fog’s latest album was playing softly, and the sea whooshed and roared beyond the big glass doors that opened out onto the sun deck. Everything seemed peaceful and mellow.

“Where you two been hiding yourself?” Marlene said, welcoming them with an easy smile as they sat down on the rug. Duke and Marlene were quietly into each other, and Horvath found himself envying their scene.

He took a long drag off the nearest hookah, handed the hose to Susan, and said, “High on the hill.”

Marlene passed him a platter of chicken. He grabbed a leg and bit into it. He took a sip of wine. Susan leaned against him and took a bite from his chicken leg. The Fog dudes and Tim’s backup men were trying to figure out how to divvy up four groupies. Joe and his old lady were lying back, zonked. Tim and Tanya looked as if they were back together again.

And Bill and Susan were just sitting here smoking dope, drinking wine, rapping with friends, and sharing a chicken leg. Just an ordinary couple hanging out with their ordinary friends. Horvath felt groovy.

“Don’t know why you guys stay up there in the hills so far from the sea,” Duke said. “Nothing like dropping a little acid and walking along the beach at night...”

“And running out into the surf after you’ve stopped peaking,” Marlene added.

“It’s not so bad dropping up there on our mountain at night,” Susan said, hollowness in her voice that only Horvath heard. Truth was, they hadn’t dared drop acid in over a year. “The night breeze rocking the trees, the owls hooting, coyotes freaking each other out, everything alive and clear and real....”

The sadness in her voice, Horvath thought. All that we’re missing, because if we dropped, it’d be a memory lane trip again, nights I spent alone, nights she came home freaking.... Who am I? Who am I? Tearing off her clothes, singing in the night, screaming in the night, let’s go to Africa, let’s go to India, where nobody can find us and we can be just lovers again, just Bill and Susan balling in some little pad, who needs all this shit, the money, the fame, the pain. Ah, but they need me! You feed the need. I need to feed the need. I can’t live with all that unanswered pain. Too much pain to dare dropping acid again. Expand our awareness and expand the pain, because that’s what’s there, Duke, that’s all that’s there.

“Sounds like a real Boris Karloff trip to me,” Duke said. “Ah, you’re just a beach bum at heart!”

The door opened, and he came in out of the night.

He was tall and thin, wore black pants, brown boots, and an embroidered denim shirt. His hair was long and stringy, and his face was sallow and drawn. His lips were tight lines, and his bloodshot eyes seemed a mile back in their darkened sockets. A strictly utilitarian copper coke spoon hung from a thong around his neck. Black vibes surrounding him.

His eyes fell on Susan, and Horvath could feel her wincing from his pain, from the slobbering need he brought with him, from the flash of hope that played across his face. Horvath flashed on the coming bummer; he was there looking for salvation; he had come for Star.

“This is Rory,” Duke said. “My man. Purveyor of righteous weed, ups, downs, sideways, and pretty fair coke.”

Rory crossed the room and sat down beside them, hardly taking his eyes off Susan as he fished a medicine bottle filled with white powder out of a pocket. “How about some coke?” He slipped the coke spoon from around his neck, filled it, and handed it to Duke.

Duke took it up in two snorts. “Sure beats Blue Chip Stamps,” he said.