The Player (7 page)

“Whatever gets you to the theater,” said Levison.

“I like the crowd,” said Drew. “I like other people.”

COMMUNITY.

Griffin pressed back into the green couch. He thought about excuses. First he would have to say something to the people in the room. Once the body was discovered, and it was already in a morgue, he knew that someone would say, “This writer was killed outside that theater you went to last night, Griffin, did you know that?” And he would answer, “That's the last time I go out in public.” Some kind of light remark to get away from the specific murder into the territory of a world gone mad.

“Sometimes,” said Drew Posner, “I have to admit I go to the movies not so much for escape—well, I guess it's a kind of escape,
but it's more—it's for comfort. It's sort of everything, it doesn't matter what kind of film, just as long as it's a movie.”

COMFORT.

“I know they're not popular now,” said Mary, “but I've always liked big costume epics.”

PERIOD.

“Fair enough,” said Levison. “The point of this exercise is to think about what we like, not what we think we should like, or what we think the public will like or what we think the public already likes. And that's fifteen. Let's get sixteen. Who's going for it?”

Griffin raised his hand. “Usually I go to the movies to see what everyone else is seeing, so I can talk about it, so I don't feel left out. When I was in the fourth grade, all the cool kids in my class had seen
The Great Escape,
I hadn't. But I acted like I had.”

Levison held the chalk to the board, trying to find the one word.

“Try lemmings,” said Drew.

PEER PRESSURE.

“Now that we know why we go to the movies, the next step will be to look for projects that engage us on these basic levels. Class dismissed.”

Griffin wanted the day to stop until the afternoon edition of the
Herald
came out. He returned to his office and closed the door. He called the studio store and asked if the afternoon papers were in. They were.

Jan looked up from her script as he left. He marched to the store, picked up the paper, dropped his quarter, and marched back to his office. He was gone for five minutes. He passed Jan and closed the door. He put the paper on the desk. He felt the same anticipation for the news as he did when the first reviews of one of the company's films came out. It was on the ninth page.

MAN FOUND DEAD IN THEATER PARKING LOT

A theater projectionist leaving his job after midnight discovered the body of David Kahane, 29, in the parking lot of the Rialto Theater in Pasadena. A spokesman for the Pasadena Police said that Kahane had been dead at least two hours before the body was discovered. The cause of death has not been identified. Kahane, a part-time writer, was a resident of Hollywood.

Would the Writer read this and get the message? Griffin wasn't sure. Why did they call him a part-time writer? Griffin felt sorry for Kahane. Probably the reporter had a screenplay in his desk, or ideas for a script, and a friend or two in the entertainment department of the paper, so he had a mean sense of the fringes of the business. Poor June Mercator, who probably loved Kahane, would she stay with him if she hadn't loved his writing? That was too hard a question. Blinded by love, she might have thought he was Melville. Would she spend the next few days reading Kahane's unpublished stories and un-produced scripts? Here was a sentence Griffin wished he could say: I have killed exactly the right man.

Griffin looked at his messages. A call from an agent. A call from the Marketing department. A call from Business Affairs. A call from a writer. A call from an agent. A call from an agent. A call from Levison. A call from his lawyer. A call from London. Had Kahane ever been this busy? Was the Writer ever this busy?

Jan called him on the intercom. Walter Stuckel was in the outer office. Griffin told Jan to tell him to wait a minute. He got off the phone. He counted to ten, then to twenty, then to twenty-seven. He went to the door, better to meet Stuckel more than halfway.

“Hello, Walter.” Stuckel was on his feet, reading memos faced away from him on Jan's desk. When Griffin extended his hand, Stuckel looked up slowly, and this refusal to play along, which in anyone else would have provoked annoyance, scared Griffin.

Stuckel took his hand. He was about fifty-five, with thick white hair brushed forcefully away from a severe part; anyone in a corporation would recognize that he was not an administrative executive. He wore a turquoise blazer and black pants and brown Florsheim loafers. He had mottled pink-and-white skin. He squinted, just a little, not to avoid the sun but to focus his examination. “We should talk,” he said.

Griffin brought him into his office. Instead of taking a seat by the couch, he sat behind his desk, forcing Stuckel to take a hard-backed chair. He offered coffee. Stuckel refused it, politely.

“Okay, Walter,” said Griffin, “don't tell me you've come to pitch a story.”

“I've got a few.”

“I bet you do, Walter.”

“But I'm not a writer.”

“If the stories are good, we can always hire someone to make them work.” Griffin didn't like the subject. His heart was pounding.

“Did you ever have a meeting with David Kahane?”

“Yes. Quite a while ago.”

“Did you know he's dead?”

“Good Lord, he was younger than me, what happened?”

“Why don't you tell me?”

Griffin wanted to stop time. “Walter, tell me everything you're thinking about, right now.”

“Did you know I used to be a cop?”

“FBI, right?”

“That, too. I got a call from Pasadena homicide today. David Kahane was murdered last night.”

“No.”

“And you called his house around seven o'clock. His girlfriend told you he was going to see a movie in Pasadena.”

“I don't even remember the name of the movie.”

“The Bicycle Thief.
You went.”

“No, I didn't.”

“You went. You met Kahane at the theater, you got drunk with him in a Japanese restaurant, and he left before you did. Then he went to a McDonald's. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. Griffin, why do you deny it?”

“What do the police think happened?” It was a Burger King, not a McDonald's. Already the story was getting lost. This cheered Griffin and gave him hope.

“They think he was murdered for his wallet and his watch. It happens every day. I can tell the police you're acting like you've got something to hide, and they'll haul you into the station for questioning. Or I can let you speak to them over the phone. Or they can come here. Or they can drop this altogether. I don't think they'll do that.”

“Of course, I'd want to cooperate any way I can.”

“There was a party in Malibu a few years back, music people. A lot of drugs. A lot of rum.”

Griffin supposed this was Stuckel's way of saying that this story was about black people.

“And there was a security guard, to keep gate-crashers away. He had a gun. One of the guests wanted to play with it. The guard gave him the gun. A few minutes later the guard was dead. The police were the second call. And the matter was taken care of.”

“Who did they call first?”

“I wouldn't tell you if I knew. I have to say, though, that I admire your tactics. Stonewall. Deny everything, it's your word against theirs. As long as nobody saw you actually kill the man, and as long as you have nothing to connect you, except for, well, how many meetings did you have?”

“I only met him once.”

“Not counting last night.”

“Okay,” said Griffin, “you're right. I saw him last night. And I did know he's dead, I saw the paper.”

“Then why didn't you say so?”

“Good God, Walter, I don't want to get involved.”

“Very good. I'll tell that to the police.”

“I'll call them myself. I'll say I met him at the theater, we got drunk together at a Japanese bar, he had to go home, I didn't feel sober enough to drive, he left, that was the end of it. I'll tell them, when they ask, that I went to see him because he'd pitched me an idea. I loved it so much, I wanted to buy it, and I didn't want to wait until he was home to tell him. I was that happy for him, and for me. That's the truth. That's what I'll tell them. I'll go there right now.” How could anyone, how could Walter Stuckel, not believe this? It was so simple. And if they didn't believe it, Griffin would stick to this line, because it was easy to tell and easy to remember. It made sense.

“No. We'll have them come here.”

“I don't want to inconvenience them.”

“You're talking like someone who's guilty. You're not guilty, are you?”

“The usual neurotic guilt.”

“That's a joke. This is murder. I was a cop. You're behaving like you killed him. If you act this way with the police, they'll be suspicious.”

“How should I act?”

“You tell them everything. They're trying to solve a murder.”

“I haven't killed anyone.”

“I'll let you know when they're coming.”

Stuckel left. Griffin wasn't sure what had happened. Was he under suspicion for murder? Or was there only the routine questioning of everyone who might have information about the last hours of a victim? There was no reason for him to have killed Kahane; rather, there was no discoverable reason for the murder. Griffin considered that this might have been the most private event of his life. He could go on a witness stand and describe the hour he'd spent with Kahane, then describe their parting in the restaurant. Why did they leave separately? Griffin wanted to hear more music. Kahane was feeling sick. Kahane wanted to get back to his girlfriend. No one would doubt him.

Levison called. A director under contract was looking for a romantic comedy. Would Griffin check around for a few scripts? Griffin would. He pushed Kahane and Stuckel from his mind as he dialed the phone himself. He was working.

Griffin was shocked by how little guilt he felt. It almost made him want to see a therapist. This is probably why I'm not married, why I don't have a family, he thought. He couldn't imagine how he could go to someone with this problem. Did the seal of confession apply? What would a therapist say? I can't help you; your remorse is misplaced.

When he took Bonnie Sherow to Cabo San Lucas, she had annoyed him by saying how grown-up it was to take that kind of vacation. “I feel like such a grown-up,” she had said when they were alone in the room after the bellboy left.

“What do you mean, ‘grown-up'?” he'd snapped. “You think we're just kids and we're playacting. This is real. I don't feel like I haven't earned the right to do what I do.” He didn't know then what
he was really saying, he was just tired of Bonnie, probably, and looking for a fight. Bonnie knew then, when she covered herself and wouldn't make love to him until later that night, after a lot of tequila, that his little outburst marked the end of it for them. He knew his anger at her was wrong. Bonnie had looked at him with disappointment and sadness. Was he a grown-up now that he had killed a man? Bonnie had meant responsible, contained, independent, capable of decision, capable of spending money. There was also a sense of gravity, the feeling of being centered. He knew twenty-five-year-olds who were given charge of millions of dollars for film budgets. Were they grown-ups? He was thirty-one and sometimes felt exhausted. Was he a grown-up? David Kahane had spent years reaching for a brass ring. What had he learned? Was he a grown-up?

Griffin wondered if he would have to kill again. He supposed a therapist would tell him that he was waiting to be caught, and if he were caught, then yes, he must have been waiting, but what if he weren't caught? Let's suppose I live a long time and die with a smile, thought Griffin, and only I know that I killed. Am I the tree falling silently in the forest because no one hears it? If you get away with murder, is it murder?

And if he went to an analyst, and he trusted the analyst enough to confess the murder, and the analyst asked him why he killed David Kahane, what would he answer? Because I had to. Because he was there. Because I had hit bottom and there was nowhere left to go. Because I've never been to war, and I needed to kill a man.

Why did you need to kill a man?

Because he was there.

What if I take out an ad in
Variety,
he thought, a small ad, anonymous, telling the postcard writer that I want to meet him? What if I don't show up, what if I hide, watch him, see him, and then, later, kill him. No witnesses. An alibi. Go to San Francisco for the weekend
and fly down under another name on another airline. Kill him, go back to San Francisco, and come home as Griffin Mill.

Jan was in the room. “Griffin?” She looked at him with doubt. “Are you okay?”

“Why?” How long had this reverie lasted? Had he missed a ringing phone?

“Walter Stuckel, what did he want? Was this about the postcards?”

It was time to take charge. He looked at Jan with an equal blend of impatience, condescension, and affection. “Jan.” It was all he had to say. When she left the room and closed the door, he raised a triumphant fist in the air.

He wrote, “I said I'd get back to you” on a piece of notepaper. Then he wrote, “It's time we talked.” He paused. Now what? He crossed out that last line about naming the time and place. The line was weak, a kind of appeasement. It was too familiar. “No more cards. It's my move now, but I'm giving it to you. Let's do it soon.” He called
Variety
and got a price for a small ad. They preferred a check but accepted cash. Cashier's check? they asked. No, said Griffin, cash.

On his way home that night he stopped at a bank machine and took out two hundred dollars. When he got home, he put the money and the message in an envelope and addressed it to
Variety.
He didn't have any stamps, because he never mailed anything from home. He bought stamps from a post-office machine in the morning.