On a movie, most people are suppliers, and only a couple of people are hirers. The suppliers have to stay on the good side of the hirers.
Let’s say you’re a producer and you’re going to make a movie. Over the next six months, you’re going to spend a couple of million dollars of studio money. All kinds of people would like some of that money. For example, you’re going to need a propman—but there are lots of propmen in Hollywood, and lots of competent ones. Which propman do you hire? You hire the one you like. Which one do you like?
The one who does little favors for you. And it’s the same all down the line: makeup, wardrobe, stunts, everything.
On a movie company, there are only four people who are hirers: the producer, the director, the unit production manager or first assistant director, and the stars. The stars can make hiring demands for a certain stunt double, or a certain makeup person.
Each hirer gets catered to in large and small ways. For instance, the propman on a movie company keeps a large chest of extra props—eyeglasses, costume jewelry, wristwatches—which he holds in addition to those props the script specifically calls for. He keeps that chest in case somebody says at the last minute, “Hey, let’s have this guy wearing glasses.” Well, in that same chest, the propman also stocks cigarettes and liquor, and he will stock the brand of cigarettes or booze that the director or star prefers. If the star runs out of cigarettes in the middle of the day, he can tell the propman to “get me some cigarettes,” and the propman comes back with his brand. That’s just understood.
Well, if anybody important wants drugs, there are people who cater to that need too. It’s all a system of little favors. The star’s wife wants a new fur coat—the wardrobe man will buy it for her at company expense or, if the producer is keeping an eye on that, at wholesale price. The star needs his laundry done. It’s done at company expense. Maybe you need a couple of tickets to a concert or a sporting event. Maybe you need a car or a girl for tonight. There’s somebody there with an angle, a way to do it.
Drugs are the same way. You can get anything—and I meananything—in a movie company.
“Who’s got coke?” Perkins asked.
Now this was particularly tough, because the chief cokehead on the production was the producer, Charles Mann. You watched Mann during the course of a shooting day, and he always had a runny nose. He talked about his head cold, but he wasn’t fooling anybody.
The way to tell, if you want to know, is that somebody with a cold blows his nose. Somebody on coke never blows his nose—he snucks it back. Mann was always gurgling with snot in his throat because he’d just snorted. Gross, I know, but there it is.
Another way to tell is when somebody makes little trips to his trailer every ten minutes because “I forgot something.” Mann did that too. At first we all assumed it was because of Sally, but half the time he didn’t take Sally with him. So we all realized he was snorting up.
The final way to tell is when somebody is so speedy they’re zinging over the ground at a thousand miles an hour. Mann was usually so speedy you couldn’t listen to him talk; the words just shot out of him.
So there I was with the producer, a prime cokehead, but at the same time, I knew at least six other people who had coke, or could get it in a couple of hours. So what did I say? I said, “I can’t help you there.”
“Did McDougall have coke?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know a lot of other things about him.”
“Well, I don’t know that.”
Perkins sighed. He seemed disappointed with me. “I think,” he said, “that I will go to bed now. When is the call for tomorrow?”
I glanced at my call sheet. “Six thirty.”
“When does the dining room open for breakfast?”
“Five thirty.”
“Then I will be at breakfast at five thirty,” he said.
It was a clear signal to me—if I was to do my job and stick close to his heels, I’d better be up at five thirty.
“I’ll see you then,” I said, and went back to my room.
In my room, the message light on the telephone was blinking. I called the desk, and they told me that Mr. Greenblatt had called from Los Angeles. But by now it was eleven local time, which meant midnight in LA.
I decided not to return the call and went to bed. If he needed me badly enough, God knows he’d find me.
CHAPTERSEVEN
“Jason,” Greenblatt said. “Are you awake?”
I cradled the phone against my shoulder and flicked on the bedside lamp. It was five a.m. I yawned. “Yes, I’m awake.”
“Jason, you damned well better be awake.”
