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  “Your advisers are old farts.” His son giggled, then blew his nose in a napkin.

  Seiji ignored him. “I have brought you a gift from my homeland.”

  Tearing open an elegantly wrapped package, AJ discovered the sharpened head of an ornamental harpoon etched with Japanese characters.

  “Thank you so much. The words say . . .”

  “ ‘Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of men of old. Instead, seek the essence of what they sought.’ ”

  At the J2 table everyone applauded as their boss joined them for Vietnamese chicken calzone. “Damn, now I have to return the harpoon I got you,” Andy Faddiman quipped. AJ patted the receding hairline of his marketing chief, hugged Pete and Paula Leventhal, and Shelly Nelton. The former Grambling University homecoming queen was the company’s vice president of physical production. This was the joy of owning his own company—picking the people with whom he had dinner.

  “How are you doing?” Jess asked.

  “I’m surviving.” He looked adoringly at his daughter. Her hair was upswept, and she wore her mom’s string of pearls. “Did I mention that you remind me of Leslie Caron in Gigi?” AJ turned to her escort. “Doesn’t she, Gary?” Or was it Larry? Jessie’s guys melded into one overly eager prom date.

  Barry nodded agreement.

  “Thanks for the reprieve,” she whispered, indicating a table diagonally across the room. AJ had placed his daughter with her colleagues rather than her family, where she would have run interference all night.

  He left the J2 crew talking shop to share papaya sorbet with old friends and golf buddies. Jerry Roblin had flown in from Chicago on his father-in-law’s private jet and Oscar de la Cuadre had arrived—legally, he reminded everyone—from Mexico, where he now ran his own clinic. Among people without Hollywood agendas, he felt free, but civilians were an intermezzo in his life. The waiters entered with the main course in flaming pots, and AJ crossed the makeshift dance floor to the head table.

  The peppers in the Laotian crispy beef weren’t hot enough to stifle Ambassador Maggie Jastrow Ginsberg. At seventy-two she was more monument than mom. As a reward for her hefty campaign contributions, President Reagan had posted her to Mexico, whose government she denounced for its collusion with South American drug lords. “The local police supplement their salaries with monthly bribes from the Medellín cartel. They’ll never curtail the cocaine smuggling because they are the smugglers.”

  “Maggie, calm down.” Leon was still spry at seventy-seven—and still failing to rein in his wife.

  “Don’t complain to us,” Steph baited. “Tell your bosses at the State Department.”

  “I’m sure she has,” Megan interjected. “They’re afraid to spoil our relationship with the PRI.”

  “A smart girl—finally.”

  His mother’s pointed insult, his ex-wife’s scarlet anger—for AJ it was a rerun of home movies of a disastrous family vacation. “All the women in my life are smart.”

  “Jesus. You should be the diplomat,” Maggie groaned.

  He noticed that Ricky didn’t look up, picking away at his food while his bored girlfriend beat out “Material Girl” with her chopsticks. “You’ve lost weight, haven’t you, Rick?”

  “I’m working out.”

  “Looks great. And, Rix, you’re an actress?”

  “When I get a part I will be.”

  “I know it’s difficult to get your career started.”

  “And to keep it going.” His mother transformed a declarative sentence into an accusation. “But I understand that there are more parts in Hollywood these days for actors under thirty.”

  “That’s right, Mom. You made a good decision to get out of the business.”

  “That trend should be perfect for your son’s career.” Her words rang like a klaxon on a submarine, but he didn’t have time to dive. “I understand you’ve got a part for Ricky in one of your upcoming films.”

  Depth charge. He shot a look across the room, where Jess was laughing at one of Andy’s stories—so much for her bonus.

  “I read Water, Water Everywhere,” Ricky noted casually. “It’s a decent script. Maybe I should do it.”

  “Wouldn’t that be wonderful!” Maggie beamed like an overeager yenta. “The last time you two worked together you both got nominations. And God knows, AJ, you need to produce another good movie. Don’t Tread on Me is the only film of yours anyone will remember.”

  “Let’s dance,” Megan interjected.

  The small combo covered some plaintive melody—Foreigner or Journey? These eighties bands sounded too manufactured to distinguish. She lifted her head off his shoulder. “Your mom’s comment bummed you out?”

  “I’m used to it. The last time she complimented me was after my bar mitzvah. But this pincer movement to cast Ricky could be a nightmare.”

  “He’s a good actor.”

  “It’s not his talent that troubles me.”

  She bit his lip slyly. “After we’ve finished celebrating, you might want to look next to your pillow.”

  AJ ran his hand down the small of her back till it rested just above her jutting bottom. He could feel that she was naked under her raw-silk dress. Why couldn’t this be a fraternity party? “Another present?”

  “The Coney Island Maniac. I finished my first draft this afternoon.”

  They danced until the toasts and roasts began. The video guy covered the action so AJ could savor the one-liners of his gifted guests for years to come. As people spoke, he half-listened, his attention drawn to an empty table shoved into the corner. Maybe it was there for those who could attend only in spirit.

  Mike Todd would award his assistant a passing grade on showmanship, with extra credit for the chutzpah of starting J2. No one had championed the producer more passionately. Charlie Bluhdorn outshouted Mike. “I don’t get heart attacks, I give them,” he’d once shouted at AJ. Charlie had been right about most things, but not that. Seated next to the Mad Austrian was the woman he could never have—now no one could. Romy had committed suicide following two bad marriages, the death of her child, and a faltering career. Steve McQueen had also died alone, in a quack clinic in Mexico. But tonight he looked as good as he had at AJ’s wedding. It would be more fun with his best man here.

  All of them had passed from his life without warning, without closure. There was so much left to say—especially to the man at the head of the table. AJ remembered how fine a figure his father had cut, how resonant his voice and how deeply satisfying and contagious his laugh. This was his kind of evening. AJ was poised to go over to hug him when the strains of “Happy Birthday” cut through his reverie. It was a good thing he’d made notes; otherwise he wouldn’t have anything to say.

  CHAPTER 40

  There was a dark but telling paradox in Hollywood: the only thing worse than not making a movie was the heartache of making one. Yesterday Sam Kinison had charged onto the set of General Assembly carrying a chain saw, with the avowed intent to cut the balls off Ted Barkley. Unwilling to risk his manhood for art, the film’s director had fled back to his suite at the Regency. When AJ learned that production had shut down for the third time in as many weeks, he canceled his plans for the Fourth of July weekend and boarded the next flight for New York.

  He’d first concocted the idea of General Assembly in 1978, as a vehicle for Richard Pryor, with whom he’d become reacquainted during the filming of Rastar’s California Suite. After Pryor nearly self-immolated while freebasing cocaine, he’d signed John Belushi, but four months prior to production, Bernie Brillstein, John’s manager, had called to say Belushi was dead from a drug overdose. AJ had hunted for a comedian with their scathing intensity and inventiveness, refusing to compromise by casting an ordinary actor in a tour de force role.

  Then, at midnight in some forgettable comedy club in Van Nuys, he’d watched a short, fat man with stringy unwashed hair convulsing the Valley crowd. “I like Ethiopians as much as the next guy,” Sam Kinison bellowed. “But I’m
sick of sending them money. Sure they’re starving, but what the hell do they expect—they keep trying to grow crops in the desert. Hello! You don’t see us farming in Palm Springs, do you? My idea is that they pack up all their shit—after all, how much shit do Ethiopians have—and hike someplace where there’s a lot less sand.”

  AJ had instructed Leventhal to make the deal, but in the process Pete discovered that Kinison had a history of drug and alcohol abuse to rival the deadest of comics. AJ reacted to the news like a frustrated four-year-old, warning his lawyer “to mind his goddamn business,” which was exactly what Pete was trying to do.

  Over dinner at the Hamburger Hamlet, Kinison disarmed AJ by acknowledging the rumors. His parents were revivalist preachers in the Midwest, but when the Kinisons passed the hat, they rarely collected more than four dollars in change. Growing up among failures had made him insecure, but he had put his fears behind him. Sam’s excitement about General Assembly was palpable, and as far as AJ could tell, chocolate was the man’s only current addiction. He inhaled two malts and a slice of seven-layer cake that slopped over a dinner plate. Five fans—all under twenty-five and terminally hip—asked Kinison for his autograph. The upside of breaking a unique talent was too massive for AJ to pass up.

  He assigned Shelly Nelton to monitor the production. She reported that during rehearsals Kinison made valuable contributions, arrived punctually, and accepted direction from Barkley. Koji, in New York dating rejects from the Ford modeling agency, adopted Sam as his new buddy. He phoned to read AJ an item in the Post describing how Kinison had won over the crew by wiping his ass with a slice of bologna. The game changed, however, the morning the cameras rolled.

  As Prime Minister Slobo Boboggian of Kamackastan, Sam negotiated peace between two warring countries by getting their foreign ministers too drunk to realize they’d signed a treaty. In L.A. the J2 team laughed out loud at the first day of dailies. Perversely, Kinison hated his work. Although Barkley reshot the scene, Sam’s improvs made it worse. The next day the actor was three hours late, which pushed the movie two days behind schedule after a week. Then Kinison told his costar, Marcello Mastroianni, to ram a salami up his ass and stormed off, leaving two hundred extras at the United Nations Plaza with stories for the tabloids. Upon his return to work, he wore earmuffs to block Barkley’s direction—proving he hadn’t bent to authority. Ted accused the actor of behaving unprofessionally, which prompted Kinison’s chain-saw threat.

  In the lobby of the Lowell Hotel, Shelly and Ted pounced on AJ with their recommendation: fire Kinison and recast the picture. God, how he wanted to oblige, but the part required a crazy personality and all the Bill Murrays and Rodney Dangerfields had already turned down the project. The options were to stick with Kinison or close down the movie—at a cost of three million dollars.

  “You know what we’re fighting?” Barkley asked cynically.

  The answer was the bane of the eighties—pure Colombian gold. “No way to keep it from him?”

  “The guy cruises Synanon to pick up addicts when he wants to get laid,” Shelly replied. “He’s got an entourage with gram bags stashed in every pocket. Can’t CAA do something about this?”

  The days when AJ had flown to the set of The Great Escape and convinced McQueen to stop acting like a baby were history. Today’s young actors responded only to pistol-whippings. “In the morning I’ll inform Kinison that his career’s on the line. If he doesn’t get his act together, we’ll sue his ass for every penny he’s made or ever will make. What’s his call?”

  “Seven A.M.,” Barkley grunted. “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

  “Believe me, Ted, he’ll be there on time.” AJ’s bravado disappeared as soon as his visitors left.

  Armed and dangerous with two hours of fitful sleep, he arrived at Kinison’s loft in the East Village at six A.M. A mammoth, tattooed bodyguard was passed out by the front door. With a set of keys provided by Sam’s teamster driver, AJ impatiently unlocked four dead bolts but met resistance as he pushed against the door. What he saw and smelled inside made him gag. The least of it was the detritus of a bizarre party that must have ended shortly before dawn, because cigarette butts still smoked and vomit soaked the rug. AJ counted fifteen empty bottles of gin and vodka. The glass coffee table had five lines of unsnorted cocaine, but every other table, lamp, and chair was smashed to bits.

  The object blocking the door turned out to be a naked woman. A muddy brown substance covered her broad buttocks. To his surprise, the overpowering scent was cheap chocolate. Then he noticed a nearby cache of Hostess cupcakes. From the tooth marks up and down her crack, he deduced that a chocoholic had smeared the snack on the girl and eaten it off her ass. Flipping her over, AJ discovered a Devil Dog in her vagina. Fortunately, Cupcake was alive and none the worse for wear. A staccato bleating emanated from the bedroom. AJ couldn’t exclude bestiality.

  The sound was Kinison’s ripsaw snore. Sprawled across a king-sized bed, Sam swamped two young women with his blubber. One of them had garish henna hair and looked like a witch. The bad dye job reminded him of the time Jess had poured a bottle of peroxide on her head and let the sun bleach her hair white. Anger and disgust overwhelmed any thought he had harbored about salvaging the situation. “Get the fuck up!” His bellow got no response, so he pushed Kinison off the side of the bed. The floor shook when he landed.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Sam stood up unsteadily. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the guy paying your salary. The guy paying for your fuck pad, your blow, your liquor, and your girls.” The witch chanted a spell to make him disappear. AJ didn’t budge. “Aren’t you due on the set?” he asked Kinison facetiously.

  “I’m not doing your fucking movie. I got script approval and I don’t approve anymore.” He struggled toward his dresser to ingest a line of cocaine AJ had mistaken for a piece of chalk.

  “You don’t have script approval. You don’t have jack shit!” AJ tripped him. “Put some clothes on and get to work!”

  Gasping for air, Kinison rolled like a beached whale toward a canister of oxygen and drew huge gulps. AJ observed the pathetic performance in desolate silence. The comic was too far gone to answer the bell. How the hell was AJ going to explain to Seiji Keiku that he was in the red before a single movie had appeared on-screen?

  Sam mumbled a piteous plea for water, so AJ slammed into the bathroom looking for a glass and found—shit!—Koji Keiku asleep in the Jacuzzi bathtub, dirty water bubbling over his chin. It was a miracle he hadn’t drowned. AJ had no sympathy for poor little rich kids and pushed his head underwater to wake him up. That was when he spotted a hypodermic needle and heroin on the ledge of the tub.

  He moved swiftly into damage control, and within an hour doctors had treated everyone. Sam was more belligerent than ever, screaming long-distance that CAA should pay him in full. The agent hung up in his ear. After Koji promised to seek immediate help for his drug habit, AJ agreed not to report the incident. An industrial cleaning crew fumigated the apartment, while the transportation captain drove Sam’s groupies home. That afternoon Shelly announced to the crew that production on General Assembly was officially terminated.

  The Kinison debacle increased the pressure to cast Water, Water Everywhere properly. AJ enticed Richard Dreyfuss with the novelty of playing a villain, but no one wanted the role of hero. Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn both turned it down, as did Tim Hutton, even though AJ offered to double his last quote. The director, Donnie Kornberg, was excited about a newcomer named D. B. Sweeney who’d auditioned brilliantly. AJ liked the kid, but he wouldn’t do squat for the marquee. The only viable alternative, his family reminded him, was his son.

  Personal animus aside, the professional question that plagued AJ was why Ricky had failed to become a movie star. After his debut in Don’t Tread on Me he’d appeared in a half dozen art-house films, and critics had raved about his ability to embody the soul of assorted losers and psychos. Among his mainstream movies, howev
er, he was unrecognizable in his only success—as the creature Igloid in Catch a Falling Star, the sci-fi hit that catapulted Russ Matovich to Spielbergian status. A year ago he’d lost out to Emilio Estevez for a part in The Breakfast Club and director Joel Schumacher had passed him over for the coveted role of the preppy leader in St. Elmo’s Fire. The result was that Ricky’s name disappeared from A-lists as if written in invisible ink.

  His response to rejection was to get zoned and stoned one night, high and wired the next, until he ran his Porsche 911 over the edge of Mulholland Drive at three A.M. The first person the LAPD notified was AJ. He made bail and, after dodging reporters, bundled Ricky into his Jag. They barely spoke during the two hours it took to reach the Betty Ford Center near Palm Springs. After drying out and joining AA, Ricky refocused on acting, not acting out. The only offers, however, were for TV movies, which he refused to read.

  “Roll film.”

  AJ had decided to test both Sweeney and his son. As the lights dimmed in the screening room, both actors played a four-minute scene in which their young doctor-detective character accused Dreyfuss of being the madman poisoning the water supply. After the lights came up, AJ studied the silent, poker faces of Andy, Jessica, and Kornberg. Film rarely lied, but it always required interpretation. “You first, Donnie.”

  “D.B.’s not your classic leading man, but he’s got rough charm and integrity. Ricky clearly looks like a star and I found his performance . . . edgy.”

  “Thanks for not mincing words.”

  Kornberg looked sheepish. After his years of making millions of dollars cutting trailers, Water, Water Everywhere was his directorial debut, and he was reluctant to offend the man who’d given him his big chance. “This is too weird, knowing Ricky’s your son. But honestly, I can go either way.”

  AJ turned to Faddiman. “What’s your sense?”

  “Neither one of them is Tom Cruise. Nobody knows this B.D.”

  “D.B.”

  “Exactly. And nobody cares about Ricky. We’ll have to sell Dreyfuss and the concept. From a marketing perspective, it’s a wash.”