Run With the Hunted (59 page)

“Francine needs a drink,” she said, “it will loosen her up.”

“Hyans doesn't need a drink.”

“I know. And Jack will be able to say his line when Francine loosens up.”

“Maybe.”

Just then Francine walked into the room. She looked totally lost, completely out of it. She was in a bathrobe, had a towel around her head.

“I'm going to tell her,” Sarah said.

She walked over to Francine and spoke quietly to her. Francine listened. She gave a little nod, then walked into the bedroom off to the left. In a moment Sarah came out of the kitchen with a coffeecup. Well, there was scotch, vodka, whiskey, gin in that kitchen. Sarah had mixed something. The door opened, closed and the coffeecup was gone.

Sarah came over. “She'll be all right now …”

Two or three minutes passed, then the bedroom door flung open. Francine came out, headed for the bathroom and the camera. As she went past, her eyes found Sarah: “Thank you!”

Well, there was nothing to do but sit about and indulge in more small talk.

I couldn't help but look back into the past. This was the very building I had been thrown out of for having 3 women in my room one night. In those days there was no such thing as Tenants' Rights.

“Mr. Chinaski,” the landlady had said, “we have religious people living here, working people, people with children. Never have I heard such complaints from the other tenants. And I heard you too—all that singing, all that cursing … things breaking … coarse language and laughter … In all my days, never have I heard anything like what went on in your room last night!”

“All right, I'll leave …”

“Thank you.”

I must have been mad. Unshaven. Undershirt full of cigarette holes. My only desire was to have more than one bottle on the dresser. I was not fit for the world and the world was not fit for me and I had found some others like myself, and most of them were women, women most men would never want to be in the same room with, but I adored them, they inspired me, I play-acted, swore, pranced about in my underwear telling them how great I was, but only
I
believed that. They just hollered, “Fuck off! Pour some more booze!” Those ladies from hell, those ladies in hell with me.

Jon Pinchot walked briskly into the room.

“It worked!” he told me. “Everything worked! What a day! Now, tomorrow we start again!”

“Give Sarah the credit,” I said. “She knows how to mix a magic drink.”

“What?”

“She loosened up Francine with something in a coffeecup.”

Jon turned to Sarah.

“Thank you very much …”

“Any time,” Sarah answered.

“God,” said Jon, “I've been in this business a long time and never
nineteen
takes!”

“I've heard,” I answered, “that Chaplin sometimes took a hundred takes before he got it right.”

“That was Chaplin,” said Jon. “A hundred takes and our whole budget would be used up.”

And that was about all for that day. Except Sarah said, “Hell, let's go to Musso's.”

Which we did. And we got a table in the Old Room and ordered a couple of drinks while we looked at the menu.

“Remember?” I asked, “remember in the old days when we used to come here to look at the people at the tables and try to spot the types, the actor types, the producer or director types, the porno types, the agents, the pretenders? And we used to think, ‘Look at them, talking about their half-assed movie deals or their contracts or their last films.' What moles, what misfits … better to look away when the swordfish and the sand dabs arrive.”

“We thought they were shit,” said Sarah, “and now we are.”

“What goes around comes around …”

“Right! I think I'll have the sand dabs …”

The waiter stood above us, shuffling his feet, scowling, the hairs of his eyebrows falling down into his eyes. Musso's had been there since 1919 and everything was a pain in the ass to him: us, and everybody else in the place. I agreed. Decided on the swordfish. With french fries.

—
H
OLLYWOOD

this man sometimes forgets who

he is.

sometimes he thinks he's the

Pope.

other times he thinks he's a

hunted rabbit

and hides under the

bed.

then

all at once

he'll recapture total

clarity

and begin creating

works of

art.

then he'll be all right

for some

time.

then, say,

he'll be sitting with his

wife

and 3 or 4 other

people

discussing various

matters

he will be charming,

incisive,

original.

then he'll do

something

strange.

like once

he stood up

unzipped

and began

pissing

on the

rug.

another time

he ate a paper

napkin.

and there was

the time

he got into his

car

and drove it

backwards

all the way to

the

grocery store

and back

again

backwards

the other motorists

screaming at

him

but he

made it

there and

back

without

incident

and without

being

stopped

by a patrol

car.

but he's best

as the

Pope

and his

Latin

is very

good.

his works of

art

aren't that

exceptional

but they allow him

to

survive

and to live with

a series of

19-year-old

wives

who

cut his hair

his toenails

bib

tuck and

feed

him.

he wears everybody

out

but

himself.

 

It was 10 a.m. when the phone rang. It was Jon Pinchot.

“The film has been cancelled …”

“Jon, I no longer believe such stories. It's just their way of getting more leverage.”

“No, it's true, the film has been cancelled.”

“How can they? They've invested too much, they'd take a huge loss on die project …”

“Hank, Firepower just doesn't have any more money. Not only has our film been cancelled,
all
films have been cancelled. I went to their office building this morning. There are only the security guards. There is NOBODY in the building! I walked all through it, screaming, ‘Hello! Hello! Is anybody here?' There was no answer. The whole building is empty.”

“But, Jon, how about Jack Bledsoe's ‘Play or Pay' clause?”

“They can't pay
or
play him. All the people at Firepower, including us, are without any more income. Some of them have been working for two weeks now without pay. Now there's no more money for anybody …”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know, Hank, this looks like the end …”

“Don't make any hasty moves, Jon. Maybe some other company will take over the film?”

“They won't. Nobody likes the screenplay.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right …”

“What are you going to do?”

“Me? I'm going to the track. But if you want to come over for some drinks this evening, I'd be glad to see you.”

“Thanks, Hank, but I've got a date with a couple of lesbians.”

“Good luck.”

“Good luck to you too …”

I drove north up the Harbor Freeway toward Hollywood Park. I'd been playing the horses over 30 years. It started after my near fatal hemorrhage at the L.A. County Hospital. They told me that if I took another drink that I was dead.

“What'll I do?” I had asked Jane.

“About what?”

“What'll I use as a substitute for drink?”

“Well, there are the horses.”

“Horses? What do you do?”

“Bet on them.”

“Bet on them? Sounds stupid.”

We went and I won handsomely. I began to go on a daily basis. Then, slowly, I began to drink a little again. Then I drank more. And I didn't die. So then I had both drinking
and
the horses. I was hooked all around. In those days there was no Sunday racing, so I would nurse the old car all the way to Agua Caliente and back on Sunday, a few times staying for the dog races after the horses were through, and men hitting the Caliente bars. I was never robbed or rolled and was treated rather kindly by both the Mexican bartenders and the patrons even though sometimes I was the only gringo. The late night drive back was nice and when I got home I didn't care whether Jane was there or not. I had told her that Mexico was simply too dangerous for a lady. She usually wasn't home when I got in. She was in a much more dangerous place: Alvarado Street. But as long as there were 3 or 4 beers waiting for me, it was all right. If she drank those and left the refrigerator empty, then she was in
real
trouble.

As for horses, I became a real student of the game. I had about 2 dozen systems. They all worked only you couldn't apply them all at one time because they were based on varying factors. My systems had only one common factor: that the Public must always lose. You had to determine what the Public play was and then try to do the opposite.

One of my systems was based on index numbers and post positions. There are certain numbers that the public is reluctant to call. When these numbers get a certain amount of play on the board in relation to their post position you have a high percentage winner. By studying many years of result charts from tracks in Canada, the USA and Mexico I came up with a winning play based solely upon these index numbers. (The index number indicates the track and race where the horse made its last appearance.) The
Racing Form
used to put out big, fat, red result books for $10.1 read them over for hours, for weeks. All results have a pattern. If you can find the pattern, you're in. And you can tell your boss to jam it up his ass. I had told this to several bosses, only to have to find new ones. Mostly because I altered or cheated on my own systems. The weakness of human nature is one more thing you must defeat at the track.

I pulled into Hollywood Park and drove through the “Sticker Lane.” A horse trainer I knew had given me an “Owner/Trainer” parking sticker and also a pass to the clubhouse. He was a good man and the best thing about him was that he wasn't a writer or an actor.

I walked into the clubhouse, found a table and worked at my figures. I always did that first, then paid a buck to go over to the Cary Grant Pavilion. There weren't many people there and you could think better. About Cary Grant, they have a huge photo of him hanging in the pavilion. He's got on old-fashioned glasses and that smile. Cool. But what a horseplayer he was. He was a $2 bettor. And when he lost he would run out toward the track screaming, waving his arms and yelling, “YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!” If you're only going to bet $2 you might as well stay home and take your money and move it from one pocket to the other.

On the other hand,
my
biggest bet was $20 win. Excessive greed can create errors because very heavy outlays affect your dunking processes. Two more things. Never bet the horse with die highest speed rating off his last race and never bet a big closer.

My day out there was pleasant enough but as always I resented that 30 minute wait between races. It was too long. You can feel your life being pounded to a pulp by the useless waste of time. I mean, you just sit in your chair and hear all the voices talking about who should win and why. It's really sickening. Sometimes you think that you're in a madhouse. And in a way, you are. Each of those jerk-offs thinks he knows more than the other jerk-offs and there they were all together in one place. And there I was, sitting there with them.