Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [289]
So Moody told Susskind that maybe he ought to think about coming out. Schiller was making a better and better impression with Vern Damico, Moody explained, and it was Vern who had the input to Gary.
Susskind got real critical of Larry Schiller then. "Gentlemen," he said, "I don't want to brag, but the difference between Susskind and Schiller, producer to producer, is like the gap between the Dallas Cowboys and a high-school football team." Moody repeated that to Schiller, who smiled inside his black beard, a grin so big you could make it out through all that hair, and he said, "Susskind's right. He is the Dallas Cowboys, and I'm just a high-school football team. But here I am, all suited up, and ready to play. Where are the Dallas Cowboys? They're not even in the stadium."
Moreover, Moody was finding Susskind all too firm on one point.
Nobody would get any money from him until they'd sewn up the rights to Nicole, Bessie, and a number of other people. Susskind wanted the lawyers to deliver the package. Take on the headaches.
He was making them, in essence, a Larry Schiller. Since Larry virtually had Nicole signed up, and Phil was handling that, Moody didn't look forward to a situation where he and his old partner might have to represent different people with highly conflicting interests.
In the middle of these calls, Schiller invited Ron and Phil and Bob to a suite at the Hotel Utah. They had a quiet party, no drinks, but lots of Mormon-type whipped-cream-and-pastry desserts, and were introduced to Stephanie. Most impressed with her. She was so beautiful. She was slim and had finely chiseled features and a look of being absolutely sensitive to what she felt, but ready to offer the resistance of stone to what she did not care to feel. "Lord Almighty," said Stanger afterward, "that girl's as fetching as Nefertiti." He began to kid Larry. "What's a beautiful girl like Stephanie doing in the company of a fat guy with a beard?" and added, "Say, Schiller, any guy who has a girl like that can't be all bad." Still, you had to be impressed. A real dog-and-pony show, thought Stanger.
Then Universal Pictures appeared on the scene. The same attorneys who were representing Melvin Dumar in the Howard Hughes will contestation, came down to Provo and chatted in Bob's office for a couple of hours. One of them was even a tax attorney who had been in law school with Bob. He offered his considerable expertise in working out powerfully advantageous contracts for Gilmore and Vern Moody was tempted. Along with everything else, these fellows were good Mormons. It looked all right. At the end of the day, however, they said, "We're embarrassed to tell you this, but the contract is only effective if the execution is carried out."
When Moody and Stanger told Gary, he laughed from his side of the window, and said through the phone, "You guys don't think that's a good contract, huh?" He took a sip of coffee-allowed himself coffee with sugar on his fast-and said, "Goddammit, the execution is going to take place." Moody replied, "Well, Gary, maybe that's beyond your control." At this point, Gary blew up, "Those sons of bitches, those sons of bitches," he kept saying. He looked awfully bleak.
Meanwhile, Larry Schiller was on the phone telling Stanley Greenberg that he had tied up Damico, and Nicole's mother, and the only element missing was the writer that Schiller wanted: Stanley Greenberg.
Then David Susskind called Stanley, and said, Schiller doesn't have it tied up. There are new Mormon lawyers in his place. Stanley got this picture of fourteen fire engines racing around Salt Lake and Provo. It looked like everybody was trying to make a buck off poor Gary Gilmore. Very distasteful. Stanley wasn't about to get into a competition for picking the bones. He wanted to do something about the effect