The Last Don - Mario Puzo [68]
“Sure,” Deere said. “But we didn’t know Athena when she was twenty.”
“Fuck you too,” Claudia said. “I’m going to fly to Vegas and see my brother Cross. He has more brains and more balls than any of you guys. He’ll straighten this out.”
“I don’t think he can scare Boz Skannet,” Deere said. “We already gave it a good try.” But now he saw another opportunity.
He knew certain things about Cross. Cross was looking to get into the movie business. He had invested in six of Deere’s pictures and lost money overall, so Cross wasn’t that smart. It was rumored Cross was “connected,” that he had some influence in the Mafia. But everybody was connected with the Mafia, Deere thought. That didn’t make them dangerous. He doubted that Cross could help them with Boz Skannet. But a producer always listened, a producer specialized in long shots. And besides he could always pitch Cross to invest in another picture. It was always a great help to have minor partners who had no control over the making of the picture and the finances.
Skippy Deere paused, then said to Claudia, “I’ll go with you.”
Claudia De Lena loved Skippy Deere despite the fact that Deere had once screwed her out of a half-million dollars. She loved Deere for his faults and the diversity of his corruption and because Skippy was always good company, all admirable qualities in a producer.
Years ago they had worked on a picture together and had been buddies. Even then, Deere had been one of the most successful and colorful producers in Hollywood. One time on a set, the star of the movie had boasted of fucking Deere’s wife and Deere, listening off a ledge on the set three stories above him, had jumped and landed on the star’s head and broken his shoulder in addition to then smashing his nose with a good right-hand punch.
Claudia had another memory. The two of them had been walking down Rodeo Drive and Claudia had seen a blouse in the window. It was the most beautiful blouse Claudia had ever seen. It was white with almost invisible stripes of green, so lovely it could have been painted by Monet. The store was one of those that required an appointment before you could even go in and shop, as if the owner were some great physician. No problem. Skippy Deere was a personal friend of the owner as he was a great friend of studio chiefs, the great corporate heads, the rulers of countries throughout the Western world.
When they were in the store, the clerk told them the blouse was five hundred dollars. Claudia staggered back, held her hands on her chest. “Five hundred dollars for one blouse?” she asked. “Don’t make me laugh.”
The clerk was staggered in his turn by Claudia’s impudence. “It’s of the finest fabric,” he said, “handmade. . . . And the green stripe is a green like no other fabric in the entire world. The price is very reasonable.”
Deere was smiling. “Don’t buy it, Claudia,” he said. “Do you know how much it costs to get it laundered? At least thirty bucks. Every time you wear it, thirty bucks. And you have to take care of it like a baby. No food stains, and definitely you can’t smoke. If you burn a hole, bang, there goes your five hundred.”
Claudia smiled at the clerk. “Tell me,” she said, “do I get a free gift if I buy the blouse?”
The clerk, a beautifully dressed man, had tears in his eyes and said, “Please leave.”
They walked out of the store.
“Since when can a store clerk throw a customer out?” Claudia asked, laughing.
“This is Rodeo Drive,” Skippy said. “You’re lucky you even got in.”
The next day when Claudia arrived for work at the studio, there was a gift box on her desk. In it were a dozen of the blouses and a note from Skippy Deere: “Not to be worn except at the Oscars.”
Claudia knew that the clerk at the store and Skippy Deere were both full of shit. She had later seen that same beautiful green stripe on a woman’s dress and on a special hundred-dollar tennis bandanna.
And the picture she was working on with Deere was a schlock love-action film that would never come closer to