The Wisdom of Perversity (28 page)

Meanwhile a waiter pulled out a chair for Jeff. The director tossed the black suede doughnut on the seat and lowered himself gingerly.

Brian's unpleasant smile broadened into a malicious grin. He asked loudly, “Painful hemorrhoids, Jeff?”

Jeff nodded as he settled onto his cushion. “Yeah. Test previews. For a week before you can't stop shitting, and the week after you can't take a shit.”

“Lovely talk,” Grace commented as her eyes widened at the plate of blueberry and walnut pancakes arriving for Julie. She told Julie, “I envy you.”

“You . . . envy me?” Julie stammered.

“You can eat that and keep your cute figure? Just watching you eat one I'm going to have to do another hour on the Stair Beast.” Julie laughed. Brian and Jeff reacted with the stern expressions of schoolmasters. Grace focused on Brian without a preliminary. “It's
The Ice Pond.
We're going to make a movie of
The Ice Pond.
Can you believe we managed to convince Tony Winters to give us the rights? I'm so excited. Everyone's been trying to seduce him for ages and he's finally agreed—”

“Yeah,” Jeff interrupted, “he's generously allowed us to make a film out of his book for a mere one million bucks.”

“Well,” Grace said, “let's face it. None of us are exactly not for profit.” She lowered her voice. “Although with the deal we've made with the studio, we won't make a dime. We'll win twelve Oscars, but I'll have to pick up mine wearing a potato sack.”

“Now you are being a full-of-shit Hollywood producer,” Jeff said.

Brian turned to him, “And you're beginning to sound a little bowel-obsessed.”

“Don't get me wrong.” Grace took hold of Brian's wrist, fingers encircling and caressing his skin. Brian returned his attention to her. “It's a dream project. For everyone. For Jeff and me and for the writer.” She patted Brian's hand twice and then rubbed it vigorously, as if he were a magic lantern. “Which we desperately hope and pray and want to be
you.
” As Grace massaged Brian's hand, Julie noted a strange reaction in herself: she was irritated by this beautiful and successful woman claiming Brian.
I'm jealous?
she wondered.

The seduction seemed to be a failure: Brian yanked his hand free and snubbed her. “You're going to direct
The Ice Pond?
” he asked Jeff in an insulting tone of disbelief.

“Fuck you,” Jeff said mildly.

“Touché,” Brian smiled. “The only reason I'm surprised you want to direct
The Ice Pond
is that it doesn't have any special effects. No cute furry monsters, no amusingly hideous aliens, no multifanged amphibians, no Nazis!” Brian added to his list with an emphatic exclamation that provoked a laugh from Grace who immediately covered her mouth. Brian wasn't done. “No witches, no cartoon characters, no zombies—”

“All right—” Jeff tried to stop him.

Brian's energy for his itemization seemed boundless. “No chase scenes! No hydrogen bombs, no Ebola virus—”

“All right! You've made the joke. It was funny the first twelve times. Now you're overplaying it. Don't beat the laugh to death.”

“Thank you, maestro.” Brian bowed his head. “Thank you for the note.”

“I do know a thing or two about movies,” Jeff said, whining like when he was a boy, his voice rising an octave.

“
A
thing,” Brian responded with an eight-year-old's malice. “Not two.”

“Now, boys,” Grace said, wagging a scolding finger. She adjusted quickly from femme fatale to tolerant mother. The deft transition increased Julie's awe of the woman. “Stop squabbling. Everyone in Hollywood knows it's time you two work together. If you'll quit being babies about admitting you're both brilliant at what you do, you'll make a great film together. Everyone knows that.”

At last she had Brian's complete attention. He mocked: “Everyone? Every single soul in Hollywood?”

Grace wasn't fazed. “Yes. It's going to be the greatest achievement of my career. I'll be the producer who brings the world's most inventive and humane director together with the world's most perceptive writer about the human psyche. Both genius artists, who would be working together, who would have worked together years ago, if it weren't for the amazing accident that they knew each other as boys and are still a teensy”—Grace screwed up her face, tasting a sour lemon—“bit jealous of what the other one doesn't have.”

Jeff and Brian looked at Grace as if she were raving mad. They answered her in a chorus. Jeff said, “You think I'm jealous of Brian?” at the same moment that Brian exclaimed, “You think he's jealous of me?” Jeff then shut up, but Brian added for good measure, “You're out of your mind. Jeff wouldn't trade places with me for all the tea in China. For chrissakes, he already has all the tea in China!”

“You're wrong,” Grace said. Again, much to Julie's irritation, she encompassed one of Brian's hands with both of her own.
I need a manicure,
Julie thought, admiring how Grace's long fingers captured and stroked the writer while the producer leaned in, close enough to kiss him. She cooed, “If Jeff could write beautiful, deep, complicated characters like yours, he'd give all the tea in China
and
all the Botox in Beverly Hills.” Julie's admiration for Grace's flattery grew exponentially. At first she had been awed by its shamelessness; now she was delighted by its self-conscious irony, a gentle self-parody that made swallowing the implausible praise easier and clarified that the brewer was no fool.

“Is that true?” Julie asked of Jeff, genuinely curious.

Jeff seemed startled that Julie had spoken, as if he had just been alerted to her presence.

“Of course not,” Brian said, not an argument, supplying information. “But it's a lovely thought, Grace,” he conceded, and much to Julie's irritation, although he had seemed repelled by Grace's presumptuous acts of physical contact until then, he covered her two hands with his free one. Thus encouraged, Grace captured this one too, fingers interlocking with Brian's and squeezing affectionately.

“It
is
true,” Grace insisted. “Will you do it, Brian? Will you adapt
The Ice Pond
and make me the happiest and luckiest producer in the world?” She gave his hands another, harder squeeze for good measure.

Brian squeezed back. “Absolutely not,” he said. “And now, if you'll forgive us, we really need to be alone with Jeff.” He brought her hands to his lips, kissed the air above them, and let go, casting her off.

Grace's eyes immediately fastened on the director, waiting on him to instruct her.

Jeff said, “Go. We'll talk him into it later.”

Grace obeyed without further ado. She stood, saying to Brian, “I won't take no for an answer.”

“Then take never for an answer,” Brian said. Julie winced at the spitefulness in his tone.

“Great line,” Grace commented. She turned to Julie, “Nice to meet you. Enjoy breakfast!” she said, her long cashmere sweater billowing in the wake of her departure.

At last the trio were together and alone. Jeff shook his head slowly and sadly at Brian as if he had made the gravest mistake of his life. Brian returned the disapproving look with a predator's grin. Julie was acutely aware that, at this moment, she hardly existed for them.

The silence became intensely uncomfortable. When Brian broke it, he added more discomfort by saying in a threatening tone, “You know why we're here.”

“I was going to call you,” Jeff said to Julie, turning away from Brian. “The test is tonight. Until then, I'm useless. So I was going to call after that.”

“What is this test you keep talking about?” Julie asked.

“Test screening of
Helper II.
” Jeff sighed. “In a New Jersey mall,” he added with disgust and doom in his voice.

Brian turned to Julie. “Before a movie is released, the studios test them with audiences they select to represent key market groups.” He asked Jeff, “This a suburban-mall test?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said gloomily.

“So it'll be skewed middle class, white, and young?”

“Supposedly.” He focused on Julie. “Speaking of the young, I'll be shooting a picture on the East Coast this summer. I think there's a two-liner for a fifteen-year-old.”

Brian snorted. Jeff reacted by turning his attention to him. “Speaking of actors, how's your dad? He's still working right? You know there's the grandfather in
The Ice Pond,
a small but decent part for a man his age. He's welcome to it. Okay!” Jeff announced as if that was settled. “Let's get down to business.”

“I thought you were already doing business,” Brian mumbled.

“Cousin Richard is senile,” Jeff said, briskly, frowning regretfully. “He's gaga. Totally out of it. Doesn't recognize anybody. He'd be in an institution except Sam Rydel is paying for round-the-clock nurses. And you've heard the news about Sam Rydel, right? That he's getting off. So there's nothing we can do. It's terrible, it's disgusting, but at least the cops are hip to Rydel. He wouldn't dare bother any kids again, and if he does, he's sure to get nailed. Anyway, here are copies of the medical reports on Cousin Richard.” Jeff maneuvered gingerly on his pillow as he reached for something in his right pocket. He was in the dressed-down uniform of a successful director: stressed tailored jeans, retro Converse sneakers, brushed white cotton T under a black V-neck cashmere sweater. It took some squirming before Jeff produced a letter that had been folded in half. He placed it on the Four Seasons' linen and pushed it in their direction, skimming on the arch of its folds. “That's just a summary. I have the full eighteen-page report in the room. I didn't want to schlep it out in front of Grace—I had promised I would have breakfast with her, and when I tried to cancel and she heard it was you, Brian, she insisted she come by. Anyway, we can go upstairs to my room and I'll show you the whole report.”

Brian angled the letter for Julie to read along with him.
IS
was embossed in huge gold print at the top. Just below, in normal size, the initials were spelled out:
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
. Julie skipped the opening paragraph of self-congratulation on how much information they had gathered to read an itemized summary of confidential medical tests they had somehow copied, including a photocopy of a brain scan of Klein, a doctor's chart with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and affidavits from three nurses who had taken care of Klein in the last year.

“Cousin Richard doesn't even know who Sam is. He wouldn't know us from Adam,” Jeff said as Julie's eyes reached the last lines. “In the reports from the nurses, they say he masturbates, or tries to, compulsively. But he had prostate surgery eight years ago and is impotent and incontinent.” Jeff took a long swallow of coffee and added, “So I guess in some cosmic way, he's being punished.”

Julie felt as if the building was shifting beneath her. She put both hands on the table to steady herself. There had been such a terrific struggle to become willing to tell the world about Klein. And it had been wonderful convincing Brian to help. She had felt more than mere relief, true joy that at long last she was going to be brave and do something tangible. Once she had heard Klein was alive, that she could at least shame him, maybe see him die in disgrace in prison, she had been thrilled to have a second chance to do right and to be right. But Klein was beyond her reach, as good as dead.

In the background, she vaguely heard Brian ask questions about IS. They sounded off topic. One wasn't even a question. He commented he didn't realize they did this sort of investigative work. “I thought they only supplied bodyguards to pitiful helpless giants like Arnold Schwarzenegger.” She was dismayed to hear Brian make showbiz jokes as if nothing had changed the situation. What an idiot she was, demolishing or possibly demolishing her marriage for nothing.

Brian shifted from meandering questions about IS to comment, “You know, Jeff, I think you should have stuck with the bribes. Was this really the best you could come up with? A bogus medical file.”

She was still catching up to Brian's meaning as Jeff said confidently, “I'll go up right now and get you the complete file. It's in my suite. It's got everything. Even the MRI of his brain. I'm telling you, he's gaga.”

“The bribes were a much better choice,” Brian insisted. “Although I have to say it was idiotic to try both the bribes
and
a cover-up. Just like you to be over the top
and
indecisive in your storytelling. Either you're paying us off, or you're conning us. Pick one or the other.”

“Look, wise guy, come upstairs, I'll show you the originals—”

Brian talked over him. “Seriously, the bribes were a much better choice. This cover-up is pathetically transparent. Makes me think your bribes aren't big enough. What's it really worth to you to shut us up?”

Jeff, trying to contain anger, addressed the center of the table in a growl: “Come on up and look at the evidence.”

“Please, stop bluffing,” Brian said in a pained voice while he dug in his pants pocket. He produced his iPhone. “I don't know if it'll load here, but thanks to Julie's tip about your speech on the broadcasting academy website, I found a lovely clip of Klein's reminiscing about his exciting career at NBC radio. In the clip, Sam Rydel is interviewing him and Sam conveniently introduces it by telling us they're filming on the occasion of Klein's eighty-third birthday. Just last year.” He paused. When Jeff said nothing, frowning at the tablecloth as if it had insulted him, Brian continued, “You were much better off with the bribes, Mr. Jeff. A big fat paycheck for me and prestige too, adapting a National Book Award – winning novel, while Zack gets a huge step up for his acting ambitions. By the way, just so that Julie can make an informed decision whether to accept your bribe, would part of Zack's job be that if the studio is hassling you he has to let the president of production play with his dick so they won't cut your budget?”