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  “But do you like it?”

  “Yablans thinks it’s amateur night.”

  “Frank’s the son of a chicken plucker. He got his education on the street, so no offense, but his literary credentials are suspect.”

  “I don’t know why I still like you.”

  “Because I make you money.”

  “Death Wish is shit.”

  “A big hit, you’ll see this summer. Trust me.”

  “I do.” His answer abbreviated their banter. “I don’t want you to leave. Evans isn’t going to stay around Paramount forever. When he quits—”

  “I’ll be on Social Security.”

  “When he quits, I name you head of production.”

  Finally, confirmation of the rumors. “I’m not looking to leave,” AJ said sincerely. “I can produce my script and continue as an executive, like Bob did on Chinatown. If and when he departs, we’ll discuss my next move.”

  “I can’t do it. Letting Evans produce Chinatown was a huge mistake. The other producers and directors on the lot bitch that he’s favoring his film. I do it with you, it’s a revolution. You got to choose.”

  “Will Paramount make my film?”

  Bluhdorn shook his head. “Evans likes it but doesn’t think it works commercial. I agree.”

  “So I either forget it and stay an exec or quit and shop the script?”

  “That’s it. We can’t have you out there selling to another studio while we’re paying your salary. Don’t be a schmuck. There are hundreds of producers and writers but only seven heads of production. The whole town will be sucking your toes.”

  Charlie had a point. In Hollywood, the power to green-light movies meant control over people’s lives, as well as the creative right to tell the stories he wanted to tell. “Let me think about it.”

  “Executive vice president in charge of worldwide production. With that title even you could probably get a date.” Bluhdorn enveloped AJ in a corporate security hug. “You’re my boy. You’re family.”

  CHAPTER 30

  CASE CLOSED. miss mayhem CALLS IT QUITS AFTER SIX SEASONS.

  The headline atop the Calendar section of the Los Angeles Times served as a fitting tombstone for a series that had consistently ranked in the top ten and had catapulted Maggie Jastrow to number two, behind Mary Tyler Moore, among favorite female TV personalities. America mourned the May 20 final episode, but AJ breathed a sigh of relief. Complete strangers had besieged his mother with requests to help with their real-life mysteries, and she’d responded by establishing an institute to investigate unsolved crimes.

  To celebrate, Leon Ginsberg hosted a gala wrap party at his Holmby Hills palace, inspired by the châteaux of the Loire Valley. He’d paid the construction bill out of pocket change; his estimated syndication profits from Miss Mayhem topped fifty million dollars—ten of which funneled to Maggie. Jessica craned her head past a nineteenth-century Baccarat crystal chandelier hanging three flights above the Carrara marble entry. “I don’t understand why Uncle Leon needs fourteen bedrooms.”

  “Because Aaron Spelling has thirteen,” her brother replied. “Residuals are a very good thing.”

  “What are you going to do with yours?”

  Ricky’s proudest possession was his SAG card, earned with appearances in four episodes of Miss Mayhem. “I’m buying a Harley.”

  AJ had overheard. “Be my guest.” He’d refused his son’s request a dozen times, but static was their normal communication. “Just wait till you’re twenty-one and living too far away for me to visit you in the hospital.”

  “ ‘Physical space and time are the absolute stupidity of the universe.’ ”

  “In your humble opinion?”

  “No, José Ortega y Gasset’s.”

  “Then ask Señor Ortega to pay your insurance premiums.”

  “Hello there.” Leon interrupted with a smile as wide as he could muster in the aftermath of a too ambitious face-lift. “The Jastrows must be very proud.”

  “We are, but you should take credit,” AJ reminded. “I know how many times my mother said no to the part.”

  On cue Maggie swept down the spiral staircase, modestly acknowledging the applause even as she was milking it. Then she beelined to the only people who interested her—her grandchildren. After hugs and kisses, she asked about Ricky’s acting classes and Jess’s election as president of the Laurie Partridge fan club. Maggie doted on them until Leon shepherded everyone into the living room, where four television sets provided the crowd a perfect view of his leading lady. At the first note of Burt Bacharach’s jazzy theme, AJ slipped away. He’d seen a cut of tonight’s finale, in which Miss Mayhem sold her agency to her deputy and married Detective Halloran, her longtime suitor. If he couldn’t win in real life, Leon was determined to fulfill his fantasy on the tube.

  His mother paced in the foyer, ripping the cellophane off a package of Tareytons. “Mom—”

  “I know, they’ll kill me.” She took a deep drag and offered him one.

  “Don’t you want to watch the final moments?”

  “I could never watch my work. That’s how I met your father. I was hanging out in the lobby at a premiere of that awful sailor movie.”

  “He’d be proud.”

  “Ha. Harry hated the idea of me acting, which was why I quit.”

  “It was a different time for women. I’m sure he only wanted the best for you.”

  “He wanted his dinner on time.”

  This wasn’t the place to debate history. “Are you sad the show’s over?”

  “Sad that I’m through with killer schedules? Mediocre scripts? Hack directors? A producer who can’t keep his hands off me between takes? I’m miserable. But I won’t be for long, not with him behind me.” She motioned for a young man, who emerged from the living room to join them. Maggie kissed Mike Ovitz on the cheek, then introduced him as her new agent.

  The guy packaged television variety shows for William Morris, but Bill Haber had bragged to AJ that his twenty-eight-year-old colleague possessed a genius vision of the entertainment business. Mike’s eyes—the only distinguishing feature in a tapioca face—darted from one Jastrow to the other. He wrested AJ by the arm, drew him close, and spoke sotto voce—although no one was within earshot. “Your mother’s going to revolutionize daytime television.”

  AJ waited, but Ovitz provided no follow-up.

  “Mike’s negotiating for me to host a talk show,” Maggie added, “like Johnny Carson’s, for broadcast in the afternoon.”

  The notion was inspired. Phil Donahue and Mike Douglas dominated daytime talk, even though their audiences were heavily female. With Maggie’s TVQ and uncensored mouth, those doughboys faced trouble. “Would you start production right away?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Which network?”

  Mike grimaced, as if AJ’s question had put them in harm’s way. “Serious players, you wouldn’t even recognize their names. It’s levels beyond the networks.”

  AJ stiffened as the agent cast a knowing glance to his client. She’s my mother, asshole. Who needs this high-school shit? He excused himself to watch the last act of the show. On-screen the detectives were saying farewell, and Miss Mayhem shared a personal connection with each. So where was his?

  AJ used the excuse that it was a school night to make an early exit. When they arrived at Steph’s shortly after eleven, Jess bolted from the car to describe the menu to her mom, but Ricky remained—probably to talk about the damn motorcycle. “I read your screenplay.”

  AJ accidentally hit the horn. “When?”

  “Last week at the beach, while you were at Joe’s. Are you doing it? I mean, are you going to produce it?”

  “I’m not sure. Should I?”

  Ricky shrugged. “Why not? It was okay. You know, not faggy.”

  His first quote. “Thanks.”

  “Russ Matovich should direct it.”

  “Buried Alive?”

  “He’ll make it real.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Right.” Ricky cracked open the car door. “Yeah, Dad, I think you should do it.”

  Julia Phillips was searing some poor soul’s flesh when AJ arrived at her home one beach below his in Malibu. As best he could tell, the victim was a publisher who’d slipped the galleys of his hot novel to a rival producer. Julia twirled the phone cord like a bullwhip. “You know what I’ve got on my mantel? . . . That’s right, a fucking Oscar! You know what’s on the table—the script of my next movie, Taxi Driver. And beside it, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it’s going to be the biggest film of all time. I own Hollywood, Eberhart, but you hand your book to a guy whose last credit was in black and white? He’s a dead man, you moron. . . . Who cares if you’ve known him twenty years . . . ? I’m warning every writer I know that you’re a limp-dick weasel! Only fucking illiterates will publish with you. . . . Yeah, sue me for slander. The truth’s a defense!” She smashed the phone into its cradle.

  “Dick Eberhart in New York?” AJ ventured.

  “He betrayed me.”

  “It’s four A.M. there. You couldn’t have waited till morning?”

  Julia breathed heavily, aroused from combat and itching for more. “You don’t understand how hard it is to be a woman in this business.”

  She was hell on wheels, but a lost soul at the same time. “Poor baby.” Playing doctor, he touched her heart. “It’s beating a mile a minute.”

  “Fuck you, Jastrow.”

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “No, I’d like to fuck you—more than you can imagine.”

  She stripped off her threadbare T-shirt as if to say “What have you been waiting for?” After months of flirtation—bam! The ensuing sex was definitely a “Julia Phillips Production”—forget the intros, get to it, and don’t relent until the audience is spent. She straddled him with her legs, guided him inside, and settled into her own jolting rhythm. He didn’t consider coming until she’d climaxed twice.

  Afterward, they cooed and touched and savored skin on skin long enough for his arm to fall asleep under her body—long enough for AJ to fantasize a side of her he could hang with. Then sadly but inexorably, the business refueled a mind that couldn’t idle in neutral.

  “What are you doing about Paramount and the script?”

  “Until a couple of hours ago I wasn’t sure. On one hand, Evans’s job looks like the ‘come true’ of a dream I’ve had for a decade. Head of production—the guy who calls the shots.”

  “Don’t forget Yablans. He’ll make your dream a nightmare.”

  “I know that. Guys like him, Paul Herzog, Barney Balaban—they’re in the walls at Paramount. I’d spend half my time making movies and the rest watching my back.”

  “And eventually wind up with a shiv in it.”

  “But until then it could be sweet. Wherever Bob travels, a guy unpacks his luggage, another makes sure the hotel’s got soft enough toilet paper.”

  “Screw that. I don’t want anyone knowing what I use to wipe my ass.”

  AJ laughed out loud, then sat up and pushed back his covers. “I envied you at the Awards. You’d done your own thing, and your accomplishment would live forever. But in spite of all your assurances, I wasn’t convinced my script was worth doing. Then tonight I found out my son had read it. Nothing I do ever pleases him, but I could tell he loved Don’t Tread on Me. It spoke to him. That means that it could speak to millions of young people. I can create something of value, and feel like you do about The Sting. I’m going for it.”

  “Thank God. I’d have looked like an asshole otherwise.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I gave your screenplay to Begelman, confidentially. It ‘spoke’ to him too—big time. He wants to meet immediately.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I know I shouldn’t have, but your Hamlet impersonation was making me antsy.”

  How irritated could he get in the face of good news? When he pressed for details, Julia nibbled on his earlobe, whispering that he needed to get his priorities in order.

  Like her sisters in the sorority of secretary-guardians, Constance Danielson was adept at welcoming the favored while barring the hordes. “Mr. Begelman will be with you in a few minutes,” she told AJ. “Would you like some coffee? A soft drink? How about an apple juice?”

  How about a Valium? “No, I’m fine.”

  AJ gazed out the windows of the chrome-and-glass Columbia Pictures headquarters to a row of squat, nondescript brown buildings just across the lot. They housed the offices of Rastar. Begelman might be the studio’s king, but Ray Stark was the power behind the throne. Hell—without him, there wouldn’t be a kingdom.

  In 1973, when Columbia was verging on bankruptcy, Ray’s movies with Barbra Streisand, especially Funny Girl and The Way We Were, had kept the place afloat. Seizing the opportunity he had blown at Paramount, he’d convinced Herb Allen Jr., who’d come of age at his family’s firm, to buy the studio in a fire sale. Stark had negotiated the richest production deal in Hollywood and the right to anoint Columbia’s new chief. It still rankled AJ that his old friend had never discussed the job with him. Maybe it was a case of “knew you when.” How could you give the top slot to a kid you’d once used as a beard? And Begelman was certainly qualified. To Wall Street, an Überagent was the best choice to run a studio.

  David emerged, as affable and elegant as ever. In response to AJ’s compliment about his cashmere sport jacket, Begelman explained that he’d commissioned an English tailor to custom-make a dozen in all the classic patterns. “If you give me your size, I’ll have him make up a houndstooth for you.” AJ trailed David inside, now fixated on the man’s loafers, as glove soft as the seats in a Lamborghini.

  “Our world is full of surprises. Who could have predicted that beyond his other talents, AJ Jastrow would be an immensely talented writer?”

  “My English teachers.” He jettisoned the persona of humble writer to make sure he didn’t get screwed on the deal.

  “Your script is unique, it’s emotional, it’s provocative. It’s also a gamble.”

  “Then it’s perfect for you.” Begelman was one of the heaviest sports bettors in Hollywood, risking twenty thousand dollars on NFL action on any given Sunday.

  “I like a smart bet. So if we were to make Don’t Tread on Me, the budget should protect the downside.”

  AJ was way ahead. “We can do it below the line in Thailand for four million.”

  “John Veitch, our head of physical production, thinks three and a half is possible.”

  “Anything is possible, depending on who directs and whether we try to cast a name as Farber.” AJ fished to find out if Columbia felt comfortable only with high-end talent, which was notoriously difficult to attract.

  “A name isn’t a prerequisite, but the script’s a natural for your old friend.”

  AJ and McQueen had remained friendly by not working together after AJ left William Morris. “Steve feels a decade too old for the part. Farber’s in his twenties.”

  “It’s the movies. The audience will imagine Steve younger. Do you think you can get a quick read?”

  “I can try.”

  “Who do you see directing this?”

  “Friedkin before The French Connection. If we want to do this at a price, David, we can’t afford Billy or Rafelson or Nichols. Let’s find a young director with style and energy. Lucas?”

  Begelman shook his head. “George is writing a Vietnam project for Francis.”

  “Russ Matovich.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure he’s experienced enough. Draw up a list of candidates. We’ll find the right man.”

  As always, it came down to money. Begelman proposed optioning the script for fifty thousand dollars, with a bonus of an additional fifty when the movie was made, plus a producer’s fee of two hundred thousand dollars. The total package of three hundred thousand seemed fair to AJ, since his annual Paramount salary was only a hundred thousand. But what wo
uld happen if he resigned and then Columbia didn’t make Don’t Tread on Me? He had family obligations. “I need you to go pay or play with me before I quit my job.” That meant Columbia owed him his producer’s fee, in addition to the option money, whether or not the studio ultimately made the movie.

  “I’m not prepared to reach that far.”

  His fantasies—casting, supervising the set, screening dailies—dimmed. He rose, hoping he’d be told to sit. “David, I understand, but I can’t go forward for fifty thousand.”

  He had his hand on the doorknob when Begelman weakened. “We’ll option the script for fifty thousand and guarantee you another hundred thousand dollars as an advance against your producing fees, regardless of our decision to go forward.”

  It wasn’t the security AJ sought, but . . . “I can live with that.”

  He was pumped by the time he reached his car but detoured across the lot to tell Ray the news.

  “Good for you.” Stark sulked away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  Did anybody simply say what was bothering him without being begged? “You’re upset, and I don’t know why.”

  “It’s personally insulting that as my protégé you didn’t give me your script to read or ask my opinion on becoming a producer.”

  AJ was almost forty—he could make up his own mind about what to do with his life. But because he was almost forty, he was smart enough not to bait Stark or remind him that he hadn’t considered his “protégé” a worthy candidate for production chief. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel about producing—it’s your life.”

  That should have defused the situation, but Stark simmered. “How could you let that bitch bring it here . . . I won’t forget that.”

  Vintage Ray: despise anyone who might topple you. At least Stark remained consistent. “That’s not my fault,” AJ explained. “Julia acted totally without my knowledge. She’s not making a penny on my film.”

  “Forget it, Mr. Big Shot. You want the credit, get ready for the headaches!”

  “I’m so fucking proud of you, AJ.” McQueen riffled through the pages of the script. The two men were knocking back beers in Steve’s trailer on the set of The Towering Inferno. Through the screen door the assistant director announced that director Irwin Allen was ready, then skulked off when the actor bellowed to be left alone.