‘Great,’ I said. ‘Back to square one.’
‘Don’t be so easily discouraged, Slick. You know, Nub and Spunk are both with Herrick Shnexnayder. I’m going to give Herrick a call. You fix the drinks. It’s your turn.’
Fielding called Herrick Shnexnayder. He said he loved Nub’s work and wanted to know what his availability looked like. Sums of money, low down in the six figures, were cautiously mentioned.
‘Nub’s availability looks good,’ said Fielding, as he replaced the telephone and turned to the intercom.
‘Yeah, I bet.’
‘Ah come on, he might do for a heavy — the arm-breaker. Now will you take a look at that. Celly Unamuno. Mexican. Nineteen.
Word is she’s really hot.’
‘Christ,’ I said, ‘I hope Butch Beausoleil doesn’t find out about all this.’
‘Relax. Hey, what do you make of Butch? Personally.’
‘Don’t tell me. You’ve checked her out.’
‘I’m too young for her, Slick. She likes mature men. It’s you she goes for.’
‘The big thing about Butch — well, as she says herself, you know, just because you’re young and talented and beautiful doesn’t mean you can’t be intelligent too. The big thing about Butch is that she’s not just .. .’ I paused.
‘You guessed, huh?’
‘What?’
‘She’s a moron,’ said Fielding. ‘The big thing about Butch is her ass. Hi there, Celly. Now you just sit down and make yourself at home. John? Where are those drinks.’
Twenty minutes later, as Celly was getting dressed again (she looked like a pornographic cartoon, a comic strip, except for the eyes, which weren’t even twenty yet and could hardly be expected to hide their fear or helplessness), I stood up and moved like a ghost to the white window. I held the cold steel of the cocktail-shaker, and, watching the way my shoulders worked, you might have thought that I was shaking it. But I wasn’t. I was just wondering, I’m in hell somehow, and yet why is it hell? Covered by heaven, with its girls and deceptions and mad-acts, what is the meaning of this white tent? I keep looking at the sky and saying, Yeah, I’m like that, so blue, so deeply blue. How come? I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. There are no police to stop you doing it. I know that people are watching me, and you aren’t exempt or innocent, I think, but now someone else is watching me too. Another woman. It’s the damnedest thing. Martina Twain. She’s in my head. How did she get in there? She’s in my head, along with all the crackle and traffic. She is watching me. There is her face, right there, watching. The watcher watched, the watched watcher — and this second pathos, where I am watched by her and yet she watches me unknowingly. Does she like what she is seeing? Dah! Oh, I must fight that, I must resist it, whatever it is. I’m in no kind of shape for the love police. Money, I must put money round me, more money, soon. I must be safe.
‘Fielding,’ I said, ‘what are you doing to me? What? It’s been twelve days. God damn it, where is that script?’
‘Tomorrow morning, John. I guarantee it.’
The telephone rang, and I swore brutally — but it was the call that Fielding had been waiting for. Spunk Davis. I returned to the window as Fielding soothed and coaxed.
‘Just like I figured. Shnexnayder was straight on to him. You see, Spunk hates Nub with a passion. A long story.’ Fielding shrugged limply. ‘Yeah, he’s in. And Herrick’s out.’
That’s good,’ I said, and meant it.
‘On one condition. Get this. He wants it to be a vegetarian restaurant.’
‘In the film.’
‘In the film. These guys …’
I laughed, and Fielding laughed too, his lovable, his loving laugh. As he showed me his clean back teeth (plump, kiddish, uninjured), I thought numbly, Christ, what a goodlooking guy. When I wing out to Cal for my refit, when I stroll nude into the lab with my cheque, I think I know what I’ll say. I’ll say, ‘Lose the blueprints. Scrap those mock-ups. I’ll take a Fielding. Yeah, give me a Goodney. Do me one just like him.’