“Okay, okay, you’re
Meat
,” he announced.
“Am I?”
“That’s what I’m gonna call you—Meat.”
“I’ve been called worse things.”
“Can we have ’em for dinner tonight, Ma?” His fingers went up to his scalp again, worrying it like a gardener trying to pull out crabgrass.
“Have what, sweetheart?” she wondered.
Before he could answer, Lulu came out from under the table and yawned. She was feeling ignored.
Matthew wrinkled his rabbit nose at me, mystified.
“That aroma of the San Pedro docks at low tide is Lulu,” I explained.
He looked down. “Oh, wow! You have a basset hound!” He flopped to his knees and petted her, thrilled. “I love basset hounds!
Love
’em!”
“She’s very sensitive,” Bunny informed her son. “So be nice.”
“Know who she looks just like?” he said, peering at her.
I nodded. “Streisand. Everyone says so.”
“Cleo. Remember
The People’s Choice
?”
“Vaguely,” I replied, not liking where this was going.
“It was a sitcom in the fifties, with Jackie Cooper. Cleo was his dog. She used to make comments about everything that was going on. She didn’t actually
talk.
It was more like we heard her thoughts. Lulu looks just like her.”
“How nice,” I said, watching her head swell even more.
“Mary Jane Croft was the actress who did her voice,” he added quickly, as if that was going to be my next question. “She played Clara Randolph on
Ozzie and Harriet
and Joan’s friend Helen on
I Married Joan
and Chester Riley’s sister, Cissy, on
The Life of Riley.
You into trivia?”
“These days, I’m happy just to remember my own name,” I confessed.
He sat back on his haunches, chuckling with delight over Lulu. “Hey, can she do any tricks?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them tricks.”
Lulu threw back her head and started moaning loudly. She needs very little encouragement.
“Oy, yoy, what’s that?” asked Bunny, aghast.
“Her imitation of Roseanne Barr singing the
National Anthem
,” I replied. “Good girl, Lulu. You can stop now.”
She wasn’t done though. Not with a world-famous director as her captive audience. She covered her eyes with her paws now, hamming shamelessly.
Matthew frowned. “And that?”
“That would be Asta, whenever Nick and Nora started to get mushy. Okay, Lulu. You can—”
“Can she flap her ears straight up in the air like Cleo?” asked Matthew.
“Only if she’s in the process of falling from a very tall building. Which she may soon be, if she doesn’t behave herself.”
She grunted at me and went back under the table, peeved.
“What is it you wanted to have tonight, sweetheart?” Bunny asked Matthew.
“Cheese steaks,” he replied. “With lots of onions and hot peppers. Can we, Ma?”
“I’m making salmon patties,” she replied firmly. “And those Tater Tots you like. Now go eat your sandwich.”
“Sure, Ma.”
It was on the counter by the sink. She’d cut the crusts off for him. He loped over to it and began chomping, slumped there against the sink.
She watched him eat, crinkling her nose at every bite. I think she’d have chewed his food for him if she could have. “Don’t slouch,” she reminded him.
“Sure, Ma.” He stood straighter, grinning down at her fondly.
“And how many days have you been wearing that T-shirt?” she demanded, scowling up at him fiercely.
“Dunno,” he mumbled, reddening.
“I want you to take a bath, tonight,” Bunny ordered, shaking a finger at her towering manchild. “And change those jeans, too. You’ve been wearing them so long they could stand up by themselves.”
“Right, Ma.”
“Look at your nice friend here.” She glanced at me approvingly. “With his nice seersucker suit. Why, he’s fresh as a daisy.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” I said.
“All right, I’m going,” she announced abruptly. “You two boys have business to discuss.” She went over to Matthew and held her face up to him. He bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be back at six. Will you be joining us for dinner, Hoagy?” she asked, scurrying off toward the living room.
“Thanks, but I have to get settled in,” I replied. We followed her. Matthew immediately flopped onto the sofa, his big sneakered feet up on the coffee table.
Bunny whirled and barked, “Get those gunboats off the coffee table!” He obeyed. “I have to watch him like a hawk,” she clucked at me. “A hawk!” Then she gathered up his dirty clothes and went bustling off into the darkness.
The second she was gone he put his feet right back up. And grabbed the radio controls for a toy car, a Lamborghini Countach that was parked on the floor by the TV. He flicked it on and sent it speeding around the set, watching it intently. I sat, watching him. He reminded me of a kid who has just been left with his new babysitter.
“It’s a prototype,” he explained, his eyes never leaving it. “I know the guy who makes ’em. He sends ’em to me.”
He sent it under the easy chair where I sat, then over toward the fireplace, where Lulu was. She didn’t like that. She thought it was an alien chasing her. She scampered over to me and crouched between my legs, trembling.
“Don’t mind Ma, Meat,” Matthew said, his eyes still on the car. “She means well.”
“I’m sure she does.”
We both sat there watching the car zip around, its high-pitched whine the only sound in that vast, airtight building. It was odd sitting there on that set, surrounded by all of that blackness. It felt as if the cameras were rolling and our dialogue was already scripted for us. It felt as if none of this was quite real. I never lost that feeling the whole time I worked with Matthew Wax. I was always waiting for someone to yell “Cut!”
“So tell me what you need, Meat,” Matthew said.
“Your attention, for starters.”
“You’ve got it,” he assured me, as the car zipped around the sofa and toward me.
I intercepted it with my foot and picked it up, its wheels spinning in midair.
“Hey, put that back!”
I had other plans. I hurled it as high and as far as I could out into the darkness beyond the set. It clattered on the pavement, then was silent.
“What did you do that for?” he cried, outraged.
“When we work, we work,” I said quietly.
He stared at me like I was a madman. I stared right back at him like I was a madman. I’m very good at that. It isn’t much of a stretch in my case.
He backed down first. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. We work.”
“Fine.”
Matthew cleared his throat. “I guess I’m just …” He lowered his chin to his chest and tugged at a lock of hair, jittery and at a loss for words. “I’m not used to giving interviews, I guess.”
“This isn’t an interview.”
“Right,” he acknowledged quickly. “I know that. So … what can I tell you?”
“How you are.”
“I’m great.” He smiled at me easily. “Really great.”
I nodded patiently. I’m used to being lied to. People lie to me all the time in my business. Almost as often as they try to use me. “I’m glad to hear that, Matthew. And who, may I ask, does your hair?”
Startled, he dropped his hand to his lap. It flopped around there, like a live animal.
“Let’s try that one again,” I said. “How are you, Matthew?”
He took his time answering. He shrugged his narrow shoulders, sniffled. Laid his head back on the sofa, gazed up into the overhead lights. He had an unusually short neck for someone so gangly. Actually, the more I looked at him, the more he seemed to have been assembled entirely out of spare parts. “Not so great,” he finally said, softly. “I’m trying to stay up for Ma. I don’t want her to worry about me.”
“No offense, but I don’t think you’re fooling her.”
“I don’t think I am either,” he admitted. “I feel, I don’t know, like a tree that’s trying to make it through a hurricane.” He sat up, warming to the idea. “The wind is howling …” He made a whistling noise through his teeth. The wind. Howling. “My trunk is bent over. My limbs are snapping off, one by one by one …” He was turning it all into a scene, the stirring climax of
Matty, the Little Maple Tree Who Could.
Coming soon to a theater near you. “There I am, the wind is building and I’m—”
“Are you bitter?” I broke in.
He frowned. “Bitter? It’s not in my nature to be bitter. Why, were you?”
“Me?”
“Wasn’t your love life smeared all over the papers, too?”
“Still is, when I’m not looking.”
“It’s not very much fun,” he said, swallowing. His hand went back up to his scalp.
“No, it’s not.”
“Do you have any advice for me, Meat?” he wondered. “Anything you’ve learned?”
“You mean hurricane prevention tips?”
He waited for me to answer.
“About all I’ve learned,” I replied, “is that if you want a low-profile personal life, don’t fall for an actress.”
“You did.”
“Couldn’t help myself.”
“Me neither. Actresses are … I don’t know, different from other girls.”
“That they are.”
“Why is that?” he asked suddenly. “What makes them so special, Meat?”
He sounded just like Badger. Innocent. Ingenuous. Endlessly curious. Next he’d be asking me why people have to get old and die. “I’m still working on that one, Matthew,” I said.
“Will you let me know when you figure it out?”
“You will be among the first.”
“Great.” There was a package of Milky Way bars on the coffee table before him. He tore into one and took a bite. “So what do we do now?” he asked, munching.
“Tomorrow I start asking you questions.”
“About what?”
“You. Your life, your work, your attitudes. Lots of questions. A million questions. So many I’ll start getting on your nerves.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ll ask you more questions.”
“What happens if we disagree on something?”
“We fight.”
“Gee, I don’t know if that’ll work, Meat,” he said doubtfully. “I’m used to having total say on everything I do.”
“And you will,” I assured him. “This is your book. I’m only here to help you. But I have to know you’re willing to dig. And keep digging, no matter how much it hurts. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. And mine.”
He thought this over. “I am ready,” he said grimly. “I definitely am.”
“How come?”
“How come?” he repeated.
“Why do you want to do this book?”
He frowned, confused. “Didn’t Shelley tell you what—?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
He jumped to his feet and paced around the set. Lulu opened one eye briefly, stirred and went back to sleep. He loped over to the staircase, then back again.
“I think it will help to change how the public sees me,” he declared.
“And how do they see you?”
“Like I’m some kind of freak.”
“So you’re doing this because you want to be understood?”
He flopped back down on the sofa. “Sure.”
“As what?”
He shrugged. “A guy who’s trying to entertain people. Make them happy.” He stared at me for a second. “Do you go see my movies?”
“Why, is that a prerequisite for this job?”
“No, no. I just … I’m not used to being around anyone who doesn’t, that’s all. Why do
you
think I’m doing this book?”
“Because the critics have blasted you,” I replied. “And you’re shook. And you think this will somehow help you get your touch back. I think you could care less if anyone understands you.”
He thought this over. “That’s not true, Meat,” he said solemnly. “There is someone who I really wish understood me.”
“And who is that, Matthew?”
His eyes met mine. “Me.”
I nodded approvingly. “Good answer.”
We were both silent a moment. The silence made him uncomfortable. Or maybe his candor had. He wadded up his candy wrapper and tossed it on the floor, fidgeted, drummed the coffee table loudly with his fingers. It was annoying, but it still beat watching him tear out his hair.
“I met Shadow Williams at the gate,” I said. “Sarge was telling me about how you saw him hit his home run.”
“I knew it was gone the second it hit his bat,” Matthew recalled excitedly. “Man, he got
all
of it!”
“That particular story has a happy ending,” I said. “I want the ones that don’t.”
He frowned. “Like which?”
“Like Norbert Schlom.”
His face darkened. “What about him?”
“Shelley told me he cheated you out of millions.”
Matthew said nothing. His eyes shone behind his battered glasses. The child’s hurt was still there.
“What else did he do?”
“Terrible things,” he replied, his voice quavering.
“I want to know what they were.”
“You want to know what they were?” he said hotly. “Okay, let’s put it in the book. Sure. That’ll be super. He wanted me to take on this Three Stooges movie, see? And I wasn’t interested. The script was somebody else’s, and it smelled, and I wanted to make my Badger movie. Only Norbert wouldn’t green light me unless I did the Stooges movie first. So Shelley made a deal for me to do Badger for Orion. We were going to leave Panorama. Norbert, he didn’t like that idea. So he made sure I couldn’t.”
“How?”
“He planted a bunch of coke in my bungalow and called the studio cops on me, that’s how! Told them I was a major drug dealer! He gave me ten minutes to say yes to the movie or go to jail. And it was no bluff, either. Not with Norbert.”
“I take it you agreed to his terms.”
He nodded unhappily. “And he called them off. But he swore he’d do it again in a second if I ever tried to walk off the picture. It was like he was holding a loaded gun to my head. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate. Naturally, the movie was no good. Shelley got me out of there right after that. We swore we’d never do business with Norbert again, and we haven’t. That’s the whole ugly story. Shadow has a featured role in that one, too, come to think of it.”
“Oh?”
“He was the studio cop who actually planted the coke. Hid it all over the place, bags and bags of it. He felt awful about it. Still does. But, hey, I don’t blame him. He was just doing his job.”