The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [42]
A producer from Warner Brothers who is in Tokyo to meet with Japanese representative from Sony is thirty and balding and has a face like a death mask and is wearing a kimono with tennis shoes, pacing languidly around his suite, smoking a joint, and it’s all really fab and to die over and Roger is flipping through Billboard, sitting on a giant unmade bed, and the producer has been on the phone forever and whenever he is put on hold he points at Roger and says, basically, “That minipony is really nifty,” and Roger, pleased that the producer has noticed the small tuft of hair, nods, turns around, shows the thing off.
“Like Adam Ant?” the producer asks.
“You bet.” Roger, who should be mortified, turns back to Billboard.
“Help yourself to sake.”
Roger leads me by the hand out to the balcony, where two Oriental girls, maybe fifteen, fourteen, sit at a table piled with plates of sushi and what looks like waffles.
“Wow,” I say. “Waffles.”
“Please don’t feel like you’re saying too much,” Roger says.
“Why don’t you just ignore me?” I plead.
“On second thought,” Roger says, making a terrible face, “why don’t you just sit this one out?”
One of the Oriental girls is wearing pink satin underwear and no top and she’s the one I was with last night and the other girl, wearing a POLICE T-shirt, has a Walkman on and glazed eyes. The producer moves over to the balcony doors and is now talking to Manuel about having some deli but no pickles and it’s really fab. He clicks off, snaps his fingers as he sits down with a pained expression, motioning for the girl with pink satin underwear to cover herself. The girl, who has a heart of ice, stands up, walks slowly back into the room, turns the television on and falls to the floor with a thump.
The producer sits next to the Oriental girl with the Walkman, sighs, takes a hit off the joint. He offers it to Roger, who shakes his head, then to me. Roger shakes his head for me too.
“Sake?” the producer asks. “It’s chilled.”
“Great,” Roger says.
“Bryan?” the producer asks.
Roger shakes his head again.
“Anybody feel the earthquake?” the producer asks, pouring the sake straight from the bottle into champagne glasses.
“Yeah, I did,” Roger says, lighting a cigarette. “Really terrifying,” and then, after glancing over at me, “Well, not so scary.”
“Don’t trust these fucking Japs,” the producer says. “I hope it got some of them.”
“Who does, man?” Roger sighs, nodding tiredly in agreement.
“They’re building an artificial ocean,” the producer says. “Several, in fact.”
I adjust my sunglasses, look at my hands. Roger readjusts my sunglasses. This moves the producer to get down to business.
He begins gravely. “An idea for a movie. It’s actually an idea that has been halfway realized. It is, as we speak, sitting in a vault being guarded by some of the most dangerous men at Warners.” Pause. “You’re sensing it’s a really hot property.” Pause. “The reason we came to you, Bryan, is because there are people who remember how intense that movie turned out about the life of the band.” His voice gets high and trails off and he studies my face for a reaction, a tough job.
“I mean, holy Jesus, the four of you guys—Sam, Matt and …” The producer stops, snaps his fingers, looks at Roger for help.
“Ed,” Roger says. “His name was Ed.” Pause. “Actually, at the time the band formed it was Tabasco.” Pause. “We changed it.”
“Ed, gosh,” the producer says, pausing awkwardly with such a false reverence that it almost moves me to tears. “What is known as a ‘real tragedy.’ A real shame. Real upsetting too, I bet, no?”
Roger sighs, nods. “They were already broken up by then.”
The producer takes a huge toke off the joint and while inhaling manages to say the following: “You guys were probably one of the pioneering forces in rock during the last decade and it’s a shame you broke up—can I interest you in some waffles?”
Roger delicately sips sake, says, “It is a shame,” and then looks at me. “Right?”
I sigh. “Sí, señor.”
“Since the flick turned out to be so cool and profitable without exploiting anyone,