Griffin did not want to have lunch with Larry Levy. At eleven he might have been able to cancel, and then Levy would have had to eat alone, or call someone and admit he was suddenly free, and all during that meal Levy would have worried about with whom Griffin's important meeting was, but the crack about Clint Eastwood had cost him the advantage.
He forced himself to believe that he was as much of a threat to Levy as Levy was to him, that Levy knew he was being hired as a wild card, not as a king. The restaurant Levy had chosen, a shiny Italian kitchen on Melrose, was not an obvious choice, like Le Dome or The Grill, one of those student dining halls in the campus of Hollywood. This suggested to Griffin a purpose to the lunch, since eating at one of the usual places would have made a public statement. Everyone would know by now that Levy was going to the studio, and they would have been interrupted. So Levy wanted to talk. It hadn't occurred to Griffin until now that Levy was scared about coming to the studio. Griffin wouldn't plan a strategy for the lunch, something Levy's intimidating energy could upset; no, with faith in Levy's self-doubts he could have fun.
Levy was already at the restaurant when Griffin arrived. The hostess, a thin woman in black, led Griffin to the table in the restaurant's second room. Griffin knew her from a restaurant in Beverly Hills where she had also worked the door; on the way to Levy she told Griffin she shared ownership with the chef of this one. Griffin said, "Congratulations," but recognized a touch of jealousy for the woman. Why? he wondered, and silently answered himself, Because she created this out of nothing.
Levy started from his chair, and Griffin waved him down. He wore a dark blue suit, too heavy for the day, but it had been cool in the morning. He was almost tall and had the packed look of someone with a personal trainer. Griffin, twenty pounds too heavy, was jealous of that, but somewhere along the way Levy had met a clumsy plastic surgeon, and his nose, though reasonably well shaped, was a size too small for his face, and in combination with his heavy, dark eyebrows and thin hair, his look alternated between sinister and silly.
"You know you won't have to wear a suit when you come to the studio. Levison likes sport jackets." A fair beginning.
"I'll keep them in storage until an oil company takes over and asks for a new executive image."
"Is that the latest? Is Mobil buying us out?"
"Who knows? Sometimes I think about going back to business affairs. Production is always doomed after a takeover, but business affairs hang on."
"That's right, you come from business affairs." Griffin said this with mild surprise, with the implication now floating in the current between them that good production people never came from business affairs, or that business affairs might have spawned a few good production people, but they were always tainted. "Well," he said, "you weren't there for very long." This was certainly obnoxious. Griffin took the lead.
"For about an hour," said Levy. "When I was at Warner Brothers, I kept making deals for scripts that I'd never read, and it just got to me after a while, because there were all these writers making seventy grand against three hundred, and I'd never heard of ninety percent of them, they'd never had movies made, and then the scripts would get delivered, and I'd get a notice to release a check, and then I'd get an order to make a deal for a rewrite with a new writer for another ungodly piece of change, and then, when the studio finally did make a movie, it was a script they bought in turnaround from somebody else because Sydney Pollack or Chevy Chase was attached. So after a year of this I started to read the scripts, every script we made a deal on, every rewrite, every draft, and after I'd read three hundred of them, literally three hundred scripts, I told them to bring me into production or I'd quit. And they didn't, so I quit and went to work at United Artists, and they liked me and I liked them and I made friends and I got a good reputation, and I was lucky and three scripts I developed got made into movies and one of them cost nine and did a hundred and thirty-five million, and Levison made me an offer I couldn't refuse. That's my story."
"And now you're here to run the studio."
"I hear that Levison put out feelers to two studios saying he was available for the right price. If he goes …" Levy spread his hands. The gesture meant, "I'm ready."
The waiter came and took their orders. Levy asked for a salad, and Griffin, buttering a roll, asked for a small pizza. He was glad he hadn't come to the table with a strategy, because he would have chosen the same tactics, and the same measly lunch as Levy, and now he was calm, while Levy looked forlorn that he was having only a salad and couldn't break down for a roll or pasta. Somewhere Levy had read a book about power lunching, but he must have skipped the lesson on keeping eye contact with the person across the table, and to avoid staring at his carbohydrates. Griffin knew he showed extreme confidence to order more food than Levy. It was a small battle, but he had won it.
"Are you ever tempted to leave?" asked Levy, watching Griffin butter another roll.
"I'm happy where I am."
For the rest of the lunch they talked about movie stars and directors. Levy liked to gossip, and Griffin let him. He finished his salad quickly and refused an offer of a slice of Griffin's small pizza.
When the waiter asked, Griffin even ordered dessert. It was chocolate cake. He offered a taste to Levy.
"No thanks."
"You sure?"
Levy waved his hand, brushing aside his tactics, and accepted. Griffin fed him the cake off his fork.
When Griffin got back to the studio, Jan left her desk and followed him inside his office.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"You got a phone call from the Pasadena Police, and Walter Stuckel came back, and Celia told me that they called Levison, too." Jan had recommended Celia for the job, and she always told her as much as she could.
"Do you think she told everyone else?" Griffin wished he had said something like, "Do you know what this is about?" He tried to cover. "It looks like I was one of the last people to see someone before he got murdered. A writer. Someone who pitched to me once."
"How awful. Did you know him well?"
"No, not at all."
"Don't worry about Celia. And don't be silly, there's no shame in being a witness."
"I wasn't a witness. I didn't see anything."
"I mean, there's no shame in being the last person to see someone alive."
"The problem is that any special attention is bad. I get enough attention. And I told Walter, all I did was see the guy after a movie, that's it. Get me Levison. I'd better speak to him before I call back the police."
Jan picked up the phone on his desk and used the intercom to get Celia. "Hi, is he in? It's Griffin." She waited a beat, then handed the phone to him. Levison wanted to see him immediately.
He left his office and walked down the hall, getting angrier with every step at the Pasadena Police and at Stuckel. He wanted to yell at them, find out why they just didn't call his mother and his homeroom teacher, for God's sake. Celia told him to go right in.
Levison left his desk, shut the door behind Griffin, and indicated the couch. There was a crudely drawn graph on the poster paper, a curve divided by three slashes. Underneath the third was written THE MONSTER DIES TWICE. It was an act breakdown for a story. Levison ripped it down when he saw Griffin's attention drift to the board.
"So what's all this?" said Levison. "Did you know this guy? Did we ever hire him for anything?"
"I was thinking about it."
"I never heard of him."
"Sometimes I like to give a kid his shot."
"Somebody beat you to it."
"Why is everybody in on this?"
"Why didn't you tell us, as soon as you heard he was dead, that you'd seen him?"
"Because all I did was see him. Because I have more important things to do than rock the goddamn boat right now."
"Meaning you need to cover your flanks while Levy is approaching?"
"Meaning this job is hard enough without making a spectacle of myself. If I'd thought about it a little more, I would have realized that there was no avoiding it, and I should have just told you as soon as I heard he was dead."
"I mean, I'm your friend. Forget boss. Friend. When you're in trouble, you're supposed to call me."
"Am I in trouble?"
"Of course not, no. You didn't kill him."
"So what should I do now?"
"Let Walter Stuckel take care of this for you. We want to keep your name out of the papers, and he knows how to handle that kind of thing. After the cops see you, Walter'll give them passes to a screening where they can sit two rows behind Michelle Pfeiffer, and this will all go away."
Griffin liked the turn of the conversation, from exasperation to action. Levison stood up, since the meeting was over.
Leaving him, Griffin felt a kinship with Levison. He wanted to invite Levison and his wife to dinner, he pictured himself washing a head of lettuce and Levison knocking on the door, with a bottle of good wine in his hand. Just the three of them, he wouldn't even have a date, they could all relax. And if they drank too much and didn't want to drive home, he would give the Levisons his guest room. It would be nice to make breakfast for them, or better yet, come downstairs and find them already scrambling the eggs. How much trouble am I really in? he wondered.
Walter Stuckel called to set up a meeting with two detectives from the Pasadena Police, at five.
"Don't talk too much," he said. "They go on these interviews all the time, and they don't usually visit young bucks at movie studios. They might try to trip you up, but if they suspect anything, it's only that you really did see something, and you think you're too much of a big shot to help out. They might also think that this is a gay thing, some kind of gay murder, you know, maybe he came on to some guy, maybe some guy came on to him, and they'll probably throw a couple of questions in along that line. Did you know anything about his private life? And they wouldn't be at all suspicious of you except that you saw him, and you didn't call them as soon as you knew he was murdered."
"How should I answer that?"
"The truth. You are a big shot. You don't have time to get involved in something you can't change. Don't try to be their friend, Griffin, that's my job."
"So what'll you do, meet them at your office and come up here?"
"Right, and I'll take them the good way, through the back lot. See you later." End of call.
Griffin went to the bathroom, washed his face, and looked at himself in the mirror. He practiced a few insincere smiles, then washed his face again, this time with water so hot, it left his hands pink. He thought about Larry Levy, and feeding him the chocolate dessert, and wasn't so scared of the police anymore. He unknotted his tie and put it together close to the throat. He made a gun with his thumb and index finger and, with a wink, shot the Griffin in the mirror.
At a quarter to five he told Jan to hold his calls. The lights on his phone blinked a few times, briefly, while he changed his seat in the room, first behind his desk, then on the sofa, then in both of the big easy chairs. If he sat behind his desk with a script open, would he look too busy to lie? If he sat on the sofa and offered the police the easy chairs, would he look like an arrogant man trying to take advantage of these objects of his contempt? And if he took one of the easy chairs, then Stuckel and one of the cops could take the sofa, but the second cop, in the other easy chair, would be too close. He wanted a barrier, either a desk or the coffee table, in the way of the police. He wanted them together, low, surrounded by fabric.
Jan called him when they arrived, and followed them into the room. Walter Stuckel introduced Detectives Paul DeLongpre and Susan Avery. Griffin realized he'd expected blue uniforms. DeLongpre was a young forty, with a mustache and shaggy hair. He looked like a baseball player. Avery was a little younger; she wore a light gray suit, and a gun underneath her jacket. She had blond hair, cut like a tight helmet over her ears. Griffin was impressed by the way she let the job dictate her presence. She was a cop. Griffin shook hands with both while Jan asked what they wanted to drink. No one wanted anything. Jan closed the door and gave Griffin a thumbs-up.
Stuckel took one of the chairs, Avery took the next, and Griffin sat beside DeLongpre on the sofa. He felt weak in this position, the police on either side of him. He decided not to wait.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you as soon as I heard that Kahane was dead."
Avery began. "Why didn't you?"
"Walter asked me the same question. I wish I had a better answer this time, but all I can say is, it was like running into anyone, nothing special happened. I didn't see anybody following him, he didn't act like anything was going to happen to him, and it was as casual as it could have been."
Now it was DeLongpre's turn. "You went out there just to see him, didn't you?"
"His wife told me he was seeing The Bicycle Thief, and I was feeling sort of itchy, so I thought I'd go see the movie, and if he was there, I'd talk to him about a job I was considering him for." Griffin knew June Mercator was not Kahane's wife, but the police didn't correct the slip, and Griffin thought he'd made the story perfect, like a Navajo rug with an intentional error to defeat the symmetry which is only permitted the gods. If he knew so little about the man, why would he kill him?
"You met him inside the theater," said Avery, "and then you went to a Japanese bar, you had a few drinks together, and then he left before you did. Why didn't you leave together?"
"He said he had to go home."
"Why did you stay in the bar?"
"Didn't they tell you about the song? He sang 'Goldfinger' in Japanese, at the piano bar. It was an amazing place and I wanted to check it out. I mean, it would make a great backdrop in a movie."
"Is that what you discussed with him?" DeLongpre.
"Not really, it was incidental."
Avery. "If the scene was so important to you, why did you leave so quickly?"
"They closed up the piano. After that it was just a bar. And I don't drink."
"You drank with Kahane." DeLongpre.
"When in Rome."
Avery. "You didn't know Kahane at all socially, did you?"
"No."
"Were you ever in his house?"
"No."
"Did you know anything about him personally?"
"No."
"Do you think he might have been a homosexual?"
"We didn't get that friendly. Why do you ask?"
Avery looked up from her notes. "Some homosexuals in the neighborhood have complained of attacks."
"Any murders?"
"We thought this might be related," she said, and now the interrogation had devolved into conversation. He was safe.
Walter Stuckel shot his cuffs and slapped the arms of the chair. He was putting on a show, too, thought Griffin. "Maybe we can let you get back to work now."
Avery wasn't so quick to get out of her chair. Griffin wanted to charm her. "Something's bothering you. What is it?" he asked.
"Did you follow David Kahane to the parking lot after he left you? Did you see him in the parking lot?"
"No," said Griffin, "I parked on the street. And I hate to say it, but after this I'm never parking off the street, and if that means getting a cheaper car, maybe I will." He tried to sound lightly shocked, as though he didn't really understand the question. She got up. As Stuckel herded the two detectives to the door, Griffin said, "It was a normal night. That's why this is so horrible. And that's why I didn't call you, I guess. It's scary, it was easier to deal with it by just throwing the newspaper away. I wish there was more I could tell you. I guess if you do arrest someone and you have a lineup, maybe you should bring me in, maybe I'll recognize someone I saw in the theater or on the street. I don't know whether I could connect him to Kahane, but maybe I can help put a puzzle together."
They thanked him and left. On their way down the hall they stopped at a photograph of Glenn Ford, and Griffin closed the door as Walter Stuckel began an anecdote.
Immediately Jan knocked. He let her in.
"This hasn't been your week," she said.
"It was worse for David Kahane."
"I mean this, the postcards, Larry Levy."
"Maybe I've been lucky too long."
"Don't say that."
"In the old days, after the police had been to your office, you'd have a shot of whiskey."
"And now?"
"Now you get back to work." She wanted more from him; he didn't want to give it. Maybe she'll quit, he thought. What would I have to do to make her leave me?
"Well, it's six o'clock," she said, "and I'm going home."
Griffin returned to his desk. He looked out his window and watched the office workers, all on their way home. Some of them were busy all day long, their bosses had ten film posters on the walls, their names on every one, tangible credits, they owned television shows, took calls from millionaire directors looking for good scripts, while others sat by quiet phones and read the trades because their bosses just weren't in the game deep enough, nursing one or two small projects along, encouraged to death by people like himself, Griffin knew, producers or writers making a hundred thousand dollars a year, the salary of a big-city mayor, worrying over an idea that no one really loved, supported, anyway, because the game demanded players. Eventually a script would be finished, submitted, read, rejected, and put into turnaround. Usually the studio demanded a full return on the money it had already spent to let another studio try the story; sometimes it gave the script away for a percentage. Whatever the terms, the script was for sale. George Butler, in the studio's Operations Department, would call the producer who now owned the turnaround and tell him the office was no longer his. The secretary went back into the general pool, or left for a new office with the producer, or was out of a job.
