“That is undeniably true,” Perkins said. And then he announced he was tired and was going to take a nap, adding that he would be waking about five or six.
Now here is a strange thing. Perkins suddenly seemed very different; it was as if all the tension had gone out of him. Or as if he thought his job was finished, or the challenge was ended. That’s the exact moment I got the distinct feeling he had finally figured it all out.
He waved goodbye to Alice and wandered off to his room. And I just stood there, with the magnifying glass in my hand and the still book in front of me, wondering how the hell he had done it.
CHAPTERELEVEN
The next thing that happened was me sitting at the Tucson airport again, but this time I was anxiously waiting for the two most important men in the world to get off the plane from LA. I recognized Greenblatt coming down the ramp. I figured it was Robinson behind him, looking very tall and lean and handsome.
Not that Greenblatt was exactly a slouch. In the old days, studio executives used to be fat and smoke cigars and speak vulgarly and demand nasty little favors of young ladies. Well, now studio executives are lean and well groomed and college educated, and they politely ask for little favors of young ladies. Times have changed. Movies are a big business now, a little slicker than most, but basically still a business.
Greenblatt, I knew, got all his suits from London and his accessories from Paris. Greenblatt was a tennis and physical fitness nut, and he didn’t smoke or drink. Greenblatt went to Yale and made a very good appearance until he opened his mouth, at which point he sounded like a Seventh Avenue operator.
I didn’t know what Robinson would sound like, but it turned out he came across as very mild-mannered and casual. Greenblatt said, “This’s Jason, publicity,” in an offhand manner, but Robinson shook my hand nicely and said hello nicely.
They got their bags, and we made small talk about the weather and the flight. I waited for Greenblatt to bring up the death of McDougall, but he never did. And there wasn’t a feeling of avoiding the subject. It was as if it didn’t matter at all.
When we all walked out to the curb to the limousine, standing there by the curb were two big blonds with doe eyes and a pleading manner, waiting for a taxi.
Robinson spotted them and said, “You girls need a ride?”
“Oh,” Cindy said, “we’re trying to get a taxi, but it’s impossible.”
“We’ll take you wherever you want to go,” Robinson said, smiling.
The girls squealed and got into the limousine. Greenblatt and Robinson got into the limousine. I sat in front with the driver, Max. We all went into town. Robinson and Greenblatt struck up a conversation with the girls. They were laying over one night in Tucson on their way to Vegas, they said. They didn’t have any plans for the night. Neither did Greenblatt and Robinson, as it turned out. The coincidence was remarkable, everybody agreed.
Now you understand what I meant about the art of my job. Nobody was kidding anybody else, but it makes things a little smoother when it works this way. And I had to admit, Herbie was right—the girls had class, and they did their little act smoothly, just the way I told them to.
By the time we got downtown, Robinson was patting one girl’s knee in a genteel and fatherly way. Everything was working just fine.
* * *
Robinson had a drink with the girls while Greenblatt met with Perkins. I wasn’t invited to that meeting, but it ran exactly one hour, and then Perkins emerged looking as unruffled as usual, and he suggested we go back to the Holiday Inn.
Driving back, I said, “How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
“Greenblatt is settled down?”
“Everything is fine.”
Obviously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with him, so I gave up trying. We returned to the Holiday Inn around seven thirty. The company was just arriving from the location, climbing wearily out of the bus. Perkins strode past them all and went directly to the banquet hall, where the projector was set up. For the next half hour, we watched the film he’d ordered from the lab: scene 290, takes one through three, including three hundred feet of extra footage run off because there were problems with the camera governor.
It started with the slate: “Scene two-ninety, take one,” and the clapper. The slate was removed to show another version of the scene of Clete and Brenda kissing that we’d seen the day before. It was the scene where Clete promises Brenda he’ll return after he kills Black Jed and avenges the loss of their homestead. One look at the shot and I knew why Tom Franklin had scrubbed the setup. It was clearly inferior to the later shot he’d made. In this one, the camera was too far away from the principals—the composition didn’t have impact.
“I’ll be back, ma’am,” Clete said, on-screen. “I swear to you.”
“I worry,” Brenda said, staring into his eyes.
Clete considered this. “There’s no use your worrying, ma’am. Things’ll work out fine. I promise.” And he kissed her.
We heard Franklin off camera say, “Cut!” and there was a blip and the film went white. A moment later, there was another slate. “Scene two-ninety, take two.”
“Nothing much in the first one,” Perkins said.
The clapper struck for the second take. Clete said to Brenda, “I’ll be back, ma’am. I swear to you.”
