Money_ A Suicide Note - Martin Amis [71]
'All right,' he said. 'Smoke. Since the word got out on Prehistoric I've seen a whole bunch of scripts. Road movies, good-ole-boy stuff, get the girl, happy ending.' He shook his head. 'Now I'm interested. I'm interested in Good Money. But let's get some things straight. What's your attitude to this Doug character?'
'Uh, largely sympathetic.'
'He's a degenerate.'
'He's got problems you wouldn't believe.'
'Listen. I won't smoke and I won't drink and I won't have sex.'
'In the film.'
'In the film.'
Well that's that, I thought. But then I thought on a while and raised my finger. 'Will you have hangovers?'
'Certainly,' he said. 'I am an actor.'
'Wait a minute. You had sex in Prehistoric.'
'That was a primitive man, Self. Something else worries me. The fight. Tell me something, all right? Why would I want to fight with an old man?'
I noticed that Fielding was also staring expectantly at me. This will be over soon. Like everything else, this is getting nearer to being over.
'It's kind of the climax,' I said. 'You and Lorne, you're fighting over the girl. Also the money. It —'
'Yeah yeah. But you don't fight with old men. Not like that. Not with fists.'
'How about if you lost the fight? How about that? Or what if you hit him on the head with a car-tool?'
He looked at me pityingly, a full flat mouth on a chunky chin. 'It wouldn't ever happen,' he said. 'I'd take him out some other way. There are other techniques ... hypnosis, mindpower. Anyhow this we can fix. Herrick tells me you have a first draft two weeks away from completion. You'll come here and we'll talk again. My mother will see you out.'
Half way to the door I swivelled and, as if simply following the script of this particular hangover, strolled back to the table and came to a halt with my hands in my pockets a few feet from Davis's chair. He looked up at me. Yes, even his face was muscular, as though he pumped iron with his ears. I said, 'We'll meet one day.'
'Uh?'
'Room 101.'
'Pardon me?'
'Forget it. You know, I really liked your film. It said something to me. I'll be seeing you, Spunk.'
——————
We stood in the hot sandy bucket of the street, watching First Avenue's wall of death. The road rises sharply here as the tunnel fans out and climbs back into the air. Now the cars thumped and bucked on the ramp, the uptown stampede from the traps of the underpass. Fielding had waved away the Autocrat, and we idled, considering, the producer in his dove-grey suit, the director in boxy charcoal and troubled flesh. You know, the minute we got in there, the studs in my back had started to tickle, to rustle hatefully. Maybe it would be smart to let a medic in on this — there might be dirt in those wounds. Or maybe I could guts it out with penicillin, from my personal supply. In California, how much are backs? A night spent gummed to the plane's polyester would give me the full story either way. Home. Go home.
'So,' I said, 'another nutter. Just what we need. What's all this "saved" stuff? What does saved mean?'
'Born again. Fundamentalism, Slick, the most coarse and proletarian of all American creeds. Nicodemus, John 3. Unless a man is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'
'Uh?'
The Bible, Slick. You ever read it?'
'Yeah, I read that.'
'Spunk's very religious. The kid's a saint, you know that? He works in the hospitals, he goes down to the projects in the Bronx. All the money his dad doesn't blow on the women and the ponies, Spunk gives to charity.'
'Like I said. Another nutter.'
'We need him. We do need him. With him the mix is just right. He's perfect for us. That kid is going to be very, very big. Spunk's hot, Slick. Hey,' he said, and laughed briefly, 'you think he has a permit for those muscles? Now I know what's worrying you and you can relax. He's controllable. Doris will account for all that in the script and he'll fall into line the second