Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [253]
The bottle of champagne was not a problem, of course, but the check was. Normally, once a movie contract has been signed by both parties, the check request is made out and circulates through the accounting department for ages. In many cases, the documents are sent from New York to Los Angeles for multiple signatures of people who are either too busy to sign or on vacation, then back to New York, until, finally, the check is issued by some bank in Des Moines or Oklahoma City and sent on from there by the slowest possible form of mail—yak mail, if it existed—the object being to keep the money earning interest in the movie company’s account for as long as possible. The idea of actually handing a six-figure check to anybody struck at the very heart of motion-picture economics.
Still, under the monotonous drip-by-drip pressure of Max Becker, Paramount eventually caved in. Mountains were moved, miracles performed, as a gesture of faith and friendship the impossible was arranged. The check was to be handed to Farago as he signed the contract. Farago, Becker reported, had tears in his eyes when he heard the news, so moved was he.
On the appointed day, early in the afternoon, everybody involved in Aftermath gathered in a conference room at Paramount. Champagne was served, while Farago, dewy-eyed, made a small speech. He was a deeply sentimental soul, he emphasized, personal loyalties were what mattered to him more than anything. This was a vote of confidence that he would never, never forget. Even the hard-bitten film executives were moved as Farago went on about the Holocaust, his own experiences, the heavy weight of history. Finally, at about a quarter to three, he sat down and signed the contracts with a flourish. The envelope containing the check was handed to him.
Becker, it was noticed, had not taken a seat or drunk his champagne. He was, in fact, poised, like an Olympic runner in the blocks for the start of a sprint, overcoat on, hat wedged firmly on his head. Although he was the least athletic man imaginable—with the possible exception of Farago himself—he looked like a man determined to break some record, nostrils flared, hand outstretched, every muscle tense. No sooner had Farago received his check than he handed it to Becker, who ran, not walked, to the door, as if a starter’s pistol had been fired, and left, so quickly in fact that it was impossible to ignore his hasty departure.
Farago gave a shy shrug and smiled, like the good confidence man he was, then, his voice dropping low, he apologized for Becker’s haste. “You understand,” he said, “we wanted to get the check deposited before three o’clock, when the bank closes.”
He gave a gentle wink. “Just in case you should change your mind,” he added, man to man.
* Bonanno’s garbage produced enough evidence to persuade a judge to issue a search warrant and eventually led to Bonanno’s conviction on a charge of conspiring to obstruct justice—a charge that Bonanno denied vehemently, pointing out with the pained air of a man whose professionalism is being attacked that if the papers in his garbage were really incriminating, he would have burned them.
CHAPTER 30
Very few events in my life as a writer have had more personal significance than writing Charmed Lives, the story of my father and his two brothers, and of the film empire they built. In the first place, it was the book I was born to write, as if I had been observing and storing up memories with just that purpose in mind for years. But it was also, in a way, a farewell