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  “Absolutely not.”

  “Sid Victor wouldn’t print that story without confirmation.” Victor, Variety’s editor, took pains not to embarrass the majors, since their advertising kept the paper profitable.

  “I didn’t take his call,” Barney reported precisely.

  “And I didn’t even get a call. That only leaves Herzog.”

  “It wasn’t him. I know you dislike Paul, which is too bad because he feels you two could be friends if—”

  “Please! So if it’s not him?”

  “Maybe this Gordon Stern?”

  “It wouldn’t have made the trades without a Paramount source giving it credence.”

  “You underestimate the chutzpah of reporters these days. But I’ll phone Sid and let him know we’re furious.”

  “And make him print an immediate retraction?”

  “That would just dignify the whole thing.” Like any studio chief worth his perks, Barney danced out of a dilemma with spins, dips, and jitterbugs.

  “Is the story true?”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Yes or no?”

  Balaban took off his glasses and wiped them meticulously. “If you’re going to cross-examine me, maybe I should hire a lawyer.”

  “How about Gordon Stern? I hear he’s available.” Harry’s frustration made him dizzy. “Barney, within an hour everyone in this town is going to think my middle name is ‘Loser.’ So spare the strokes and jokes. I’m upset.”

  “You’re upset? Well, so am I!” In an unexpected counter, Balaban tangoed from behind his desk. “I’ve got stockholders on my ass asking why their dividend is shrinking. The bankers are bellowing to cut costs. The government’s stolen our theaters, no thanks to you. The agents rob us blind. And yesterday Zukor accused me of ruining his colossus. If that weren’t enough, the men I depend on are trying to cut each other’s balls off! It’s killing me!”

  Harry let the tantrum subside. “I’m sorry if I’m a pain in the ass. But I’ve got a mortgage and a boy who outgrows his clothes on an hourly basis. So I need to know if I should be looking for another job.”

  Barney’s shoulders slumped. “I had dinner with Stern. Paul knows him from some boxing gym downtown and thought Gordon could be an asset to Paramount.” He paused. “I felt Stern was impressive. But nothing—I repeat, nothing—is decided.”

  Harry strode down the hall. He might as well keep walking—because he was out on his ass. Balaban was probably waiting until after AJ’s bar mitzvah before announcing the reorganization. He’d reacted too slowly. Maybe his wife’s “take no prisoners” philosophy was right. But then one line from Barney’s tirade echoed in his brain—the line about Zukor. Maybe that was his wedge. Hell, he had nothing to lose.

  The ripples of her husband’s troubles reached Maggie at the Hotel Bel-Air, where she was conferring with Monsieur DeLoach, the catering manager. Ten in the morning was early to sample baked Alaska, but Maggie insisted on tasting every item on next Saturday’s menu. “Perhaps a trifle less sugar in the meringue.” He bristled. “Otherwise everything’s fine.” She gathered her belongings.

  “Pardonnez-moi, Madame Jastrow, but I was wondering . . . if you wouldn’t mind writing the hotel a check for the balance of two thousand dollars.” His eyes shifted to a copy of Variety on the desk.

  Maggie read about her husband’s fate with horror. Then the implication of DeLoach’s request struck her. “You’re worried we’ll stiff you?”

  The manager looked smug. “No, no, not worried . . . perhaps a trifle concerned.”

  “Monsieur DeLoach, if I could find another hall for this bar mitzvah on short notice, I would.” Her tone rechilled the melting ice cream. “But since I can’t, let me make it clear you’ll be paid in full so long as every item is perfect. You are a smarmy little man to whom I will never speak again.”

  His apology was still ringing as Maggie made a right on Stone Canyon. She only managed the corner of Chalon before yanking the car to the curb to let her rage subside. Harry must be so miserable. She fought an urge to drive to the studio because it would only embarrass him. Calling Uncle Adolph was inappropriate, so she was stuck doing nothing. Then she remembered there was one person she could help.

  Half of AJ’s classmates were industry kids who knew whose father was who, whose mother was having an affair, even which actors were losing their hair and needed toupees. There was a pecking order by parental status—and the resentment to go with it—so when AJ found a copy of the Variety article taped to his desk, there were too many suspects to interrogate. He forced himself to remain calm through English and social studies, but then his mom arrived to take him to lunch. Although she assured him that the story was malicious gossip, she wasn’t as good an actress as she claimed.

  When he came to bat that afternoon against Roosevelt Middle School, the opposing catcher, Joey Battaglia, regarded him with a nasty grin. “Hey, it’s Son of the Loser.”

  Sensing trouble, the umpire shouted, “Play ball!”

  AJ had seen old newsreel footage of Ty Cobb, so he knew exactly how to answer the insult. But he needed a pitch he could hit. Sure enough, with the count three and one a lame curve floated toward the plate. AJ drove it deep to left. He never considered stopping, despite the third-base coach frantically waving him off. The relay throw beat him to the plate by ten feet, so AJ began his slide up the base path. He raised his spikes high in the direction of Joey’s thighs. As they collided, AJ dug in. The catcher’s scream meant he’d struck soft flesh. When the dust settled, the ball was rolling on the ground and Battaglia was crying like a stuck pig. “Get a tetanus shot, Joey, because I keep my spikes rusty on purpose.”

  “You’re out of here, Jastrow,” the ump shouted.

  “Fine, but the run scores.” In the dugout his teammates stared at the blood on his uniform. “What? What?” The fury in his eyes backed them off. He picked up his glove and stormed away.

  CHAPTER 7

  Dear Adolph,

  Barney has apparently decided that my continued presence at the studio is detrimental. Although he’s my direct supervisor, you hired me and I treasure our long relationship. Paramount is your creation—and it is in dire straits. I have a specific vision of how to rescue it that I want to articulate only to you. If you find my ideas compelling, I stand ready to help implement them. Otherwise, I’ll tender my resignation next weekend at the bar mitzvah and relieve the studio of any further contractual commitment to me.

  Sincerely,

  HEJ

  Grand gestures were popular in studio boardrooms, where executives welcomed the same kind of unexpected plot turns that made their movies so popular. Knowing that there was tension between Adolph and Barney, Harry sensed his note would grab the chairman’s attention. Whether it would save his job was another matter, since people whispered that Zukor was too old and out of the loop to take on Balaban.

  Two weeks of body blows had unleashed an aggression that fueled Harry’s manifesto on how he would run the company. It was unvarnished and lacked the collegial tone of his life.

  1.Paramount is in the storytelling business—not the movie business. All the talent on our lot, from writers and directors to grips and makeup artists, combine to weave tales on film. But whether we project those tales on screen or broadcast them over the airwaves is irrelevant. The studio must embrace the medium of television by aggressively selling our old movies to the networks.

  2. I propose a new unit be created under Frank Freeman dedicated to creating programming for TV. The shows would borrow the radio format of continuing characters in a weekly series and could utilize marginal actors still under contract to the studio.

  3. During the past three decades “going to the movies” has become a habit for Americans. The very phrase indicates that the audience pursues the activity rather than focusing on specific films. In the past we could depend on people filling our theaters, week in and week out, regardless of what Hollywood offered. Those days are gone forev
er. In the next decade every film will have to stand on its own. Production on all B movies should cease at once—those are the first films TV will emulate. We should produce half the number but lavish more value on each.

  4. Star casting will continue to be vital, but we need to sort the wheat from the chaff—a category that includes overpriced legends such as Clark Gable, Jimmy Cagney, and Joan Crawford.

  Harry supported his vision of the future with forty pages of arguments, graphs, organization charts, and financials. He previewed it only for Maggie. She applauded his ideas—her only objection was to his offer to resign. Since his contract had thirteen months to run, she argued, why risk a year’s salary over a matter of principle? But he insisted and dispatched the memo so it would reach Zukor before he boarded the train to Los Angeles for meetings at the studio in advance of the bar mitzvah.

  Waiting drove Harry into a funk. He was in his office when he spotted a manila envelope on his desk marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. The absence of a postmark indicated that it had originated on the lot. He sliced it open and flipped through a set of eight-by-ten glossies. His face betrayed nothing, but it took him three tries to hit the button on the intercom.

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Find Ray Stark—pronto.”

  The Rabbit surgically cut the chocolate swirls out of a marble cake in the Jastrow kitchen while Maggie studied photographs of Paul Herzog, captured candidly screwing another man in the butt. Her face was a mask of clinical detachment. “To get into that position, you’d have to be pretty limber. I wonder if his partner’s a dancer.”

  Harry marveled at his wife’s shrewdness. “His name is Billy Sanchez. He appeared in three Busby Berkeley musicals till he ripped his Achilles tendon. According to a carbon of a lease agreement, included in the package, he lives in a pied-à-terre paid for by Herzog. I had no inkling Paul was a homosexual, but clearly the word was out in some circles.”

  “Whoever the Weegee was did a hell of a job,” Stark said admiringly. “It’s a nice artistic touch the way he framed the can of Crisco in the lower left corner of the butt-fucking shot.”

  “And I thought it was only for frying chicken.” Maggie guffawed, and Ray joined in.

  Harry didn’t—he found the pictures deeply distressing.

  “They were sent by this security guy on the lot, this Mike Inman?” Stark asked.

  “I had a hunch, so I checked the handwriting on the envelope with the handwriting on his job application. You don’t need an expert to tell they match.”

  “Why’d he play Good Samaritan?” Ray firmly believed there were only trace amounts of nobility in the average Angeleno.

  “Mike’s a sot. A year ago a cleaning lady discovered him dead drunk in the stateroom set of Road to Rio with his face buried in the crotch of Gale Sondergaard’s stand-in. I saved his job by getting him enrolled in one of those new Alcoholics Anonymous chapters. He’s been on good behavior ever since.”

  “And extremely appreciative,” Stark noted dryly. “There’s one tricky problem. How do we get the pictures into the right hands without being traced? You don’t need Balaban thinking sweet Harry Jastrow is a vindictive son of a bitch.”

  “I disagree.” Maggie downed a shot of Scotch. “Meanness is the only quality he responds to. Dump them in his lap.”

  “Hold on,” Harry cautioned. “Nobody’s dumping anything. If Zukor and Balaban see these photos, they’re going to explode. Your uncle Adolph hates fags, and Barney’s paranoid that the code people are in the wings.”

  “So?”

  “So Herzog will be fired on the spot.”

  “Exactly.” Maggie checked with Stark, who seemed equally mystified. “The only bad news is he’ll probably land a job at MGM.”

  Harry shook his head. “The talent can screw each other sideways if the public doesn’t find out. But this is terminal for an executive. Herzog will be blackballed in this town.”

  His wife threw up her hands. “By your own admission, the son of a bitch is trying to ruin you. You’ve got a family to support.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of my responsibilities.”

  “Apparently I do. You’ve devoted the best years of your life to Paramount. What kind of job do you think is waiting out there?”

  “I still intend to win this fight. When Zukor gets my memo—”

  “Your memo—your ‘vision of the future’? Give me a break. Uncle Adolph probably never read it. Oh yeah, and how responsible was it to kiss off forty thousand dollars with that asinine offer to resign.” She grabbed the marble cake to keep Ray Stark from picking. “Now I know where my son gets his disgusting habits.”

  The phone rang. “Mom, it’s Grandma Rita,” AJ shouted from the top of the stairs. Maggie left to take the call.

  Stark took a swipe at the icing. “This memo of yours, I hope it’s a real page-turner.”

  They sat in silence until Maggie returned. “Uncle Adolph’s not coming. My mom spoke to Aunt Lottie, who says he got off the train in Chicago with the flu and is going to stay there for the weekend.”

  Harry called it as they all saw it. “Barney made the decision to axe me and Zukor doesn’t have the stomach to attend the execution.”

  Ray cracked his knuckles with the vigor of a fighter with his gloves off. “But the good news is they’re going to change their minds when they find out that Herzog’s a pillow-biter. I’ll have copies of the photos made first thing in the morning.”

  His offer was a call to arms. Harry locked and loaded his rifle, switched off the safety, and sighted the enemy in the crosshairs. All it would take was the slightest pressure of a single finger . . . and more hate than he possessed. His voice filled with resolve. “I detest Paul. But I will not ruin his reputation because he’s a fairy.”

  His friend protested. “If the positions were reversed . . .”

  “Save your breath, Ray.” Maggie was acid. “I married a fucking moron.”

  Harry saw the anger coming—but those words carried utter contempt. “Because I’m not willing to stoop to his gutter level—that makes me a moron?”

  “Okay, how about a coward?” Maggie stalked past him.

  AJ remained hidden behind the sofa while his father and Ray said good night. The only kid he knew whose parents were divorced was Johnny Offerman, who was shy and weird, probably because he was ashamed. That’s how AJ felt after sneaking downstairs and overhearing the fight from the living room. It made him tremble. His parents argued, but never like this.

  He couldn’t believe the things his mom had said. You didn’t talk like that to someone you loved. And Dad wasn’t a moron. Maybe she was drunk . . . or temporarily insane? If so, they wouldn’t get divorced, because his father forgave. AJ struggled to comprehend the issues. Without seeing the pictures, he knew that a fairy was a disgusting person. But his father felt that wasn’t reason enough to hurt this Mr. Herzog. It was Dad’s job at stake, so he got to make the decision. But suppose Mom was right and Dad couldn’t support them. . . . Of course he could. AJ was doubly shamed at doubting him. If he made less money, the family would spend less. He could give up golf lessons. The idea of helping made him feel better.

  But then he heard a chilling sound. Peeking between the cushions, AJ saw what he hoped not to see. His father was seated at the kitchen table. Tears streamed down his face. His body shook. The only time AJ had seen him sob like that was at The Best Years of Our Lives. Dad had won the Purple Heart, so Mom’s other accusation couldn’t be true. But why didn’t he stop? AJ’s cheeks were wet.

  He sneaked upstairs and buried his head in a pillow, which didn’t help. Nor did counting the knots in the knotty pine paneling. He went to his closet and opened up the box with his baseball cards. Near the bottom, underneath Joe DiMaggio, he found what he was looking for. AJ had harbored a crush on Elizabeth Taylor since seeing her twice in National Velvet. He’d gotten her autograph once at a party, and though she was three years older and famous, she wasn’t the least bit stuck-up. So s
taring at pictures of Liz in a scanty bathing suit made him feel guilty. He’d paid a kid in the ninth grade two weeks’ allowance for the shots. The one he preferred showed her looking over her shoulder with a playful smile.

  At first AJ wondered if there was something wrong with him because he loved looking at her bottom. Now he was sure he was sick because all he could think about was squeezing it. Maybe he was as sick as Paul Herzog. God—suppose someone took pictures of him now? But then it happened—like it always did. AJ carefully flushed the tissues into the toilet. Minutes later, he was asleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  Harry slogged through the days preceding his son’s bar mitzvah. Passivity masqueraded as civility in the movie business, but the way his Paramount colleagues ducked contact because of his fall from favor proved more hostile than a punch in the nose. The costs of the party flowed in at double his estimates. Five hundred dollars for the band was mad, but so was another knock-down-drag-out brawl with his wife. Harry asked old law school friends to scout job openings back East. They responded positively, but did he really want to be general counsel for a grocery chain or a savings bank?

  AJ came into his parents’ bedroom sticking out his neck. “Dad, can I get a little help with my tie?”

  “Is please in your vocabulary?”

  “Please.”

  “Only in California can a boy become a man and still not be able to knot his own tie.”

  “Hey, hey . . . it’s not a noose,” AJ complained as Harry yanked on his collar.

  The boy was an hour from his big performance—give him a break, Harry. “You’re right. Let’s try it together.” Hand in hand they pulled over, under, then through. The simple contact soothed both of them.

  “Do I have time to practice my speech again?”

  Harry removed his treasured timepiece. “No. We need to get going, but you’ll be fine.” AJ nodded solemnly. “Today is the last day I’ll be wearing this, son. Tomorrow, it’s yours.”

  “Dad, no . . . you love that watch.”