“‘ The Pit and the Pendulum.’ Devoured it. The coverage, I mean. Not the whole story.” Beazle picked up three-page synopsis and skimmed through it: “Condemned prisoner wakes up in a dungeon. Nearly tumbles into a deep pit. Falls asleep, wakes up strapped to a board, a pendulum above his head with a razor-sharp scythe, swinging lower and lower.” Beazle looked up from the document, sniffed the air. “I smell franchise, Eddie.”
“ I beg your pardon.”
“ Slasher flicks keep on trucking. Sequels, prequels, spinoffs.”
“ Slasher? What a macabre word.”
Beazle returned his gaze to the document. “Then you throw in some moving walls for a second act complication, and finally the guy’s rescued by the French army. A little deus ex machina, but we can fix that. Our reader — a top film student who happens to be my niece — says you’ve got a bold voice and a literary style. Don’t worry about that ‘literary’ part. We can fix that, too.”
“ I am not certain I take your meaning.”
“ Forget it. Let’s talk money, Eddie. How much you making now?”
“ The Southern Literary Review pays me fifty dollars a month. Occasionally, there is extra remuneration. I was paid ten dollars for ‘The Raven.’”
Like a fisherman with a woolly bugger, Beazle baited the hook. “Diablo Pictures wants to option your story, Eddie. A quarter million bucks for one year against a cool million pick-up price.”
“ The devil you say!”
“ I shit you not, Eddie. Plus three points of the net, which of course is zilch, seeing how ‘Gone With the Wind” still hasn’t turned a profit. But you’ll get the usual boilerplate regarding sequels and merchandising.”
“ Merchandising?”
“ If McDonald’s wants to license the ‘Pit Burger,’ you get some dough. If Gillette markets the ‘Double Bladed Pendulum,’ you get a slice of the pie. Assuming we don’t change the title.”
“ Is this really happening, Mr. Beazle, or is this some phantasm of my imagination?”
“ It’s real, pal. You’re talking to the guy who greenlit three of the top ten grossing pictures of all time. Adjusted for inflation, of course. And here’s the foam on the latte. We want you, Eddie Poe, to write the script. In fact, we insist. Half a mill for a first draft, a re-write and a polish. Whadaya say?”
“ I fear I might swoon.”
“ As long as you don’t piss yourself. Fitzgerald did, right in that chair.”
The writer’s forehead beaded with sweat. Either it was the excitement or the heavy wool coat on an August day.
“ You look a little dry, Eddie. You want something to drink?”
“ Laudanum, perchance?”
“ What a kidder! Okay, let’s do some business.” Beazle pulled out a thick sheath of papers stapled to luxurious blue backing. “All I need is your signature, and it’s a done deal. Check’s already written. A quarter mill up front.”
He brandished the check, waving it like a pennant in a breeze. Handing a pen to the writer, Beazle said, “Before you know it, Eddie, you’ll be sitting in a director’s chair with your name on it, eating craft service omelettes, and banging the script girl.”
The writer searched for an inkwell before figuring out that the pen had its own supply. His hand poised over the contract, he said, “What did you mean a moment ago? About changing the title.”
“ The jury’s still out, Eddie. But we may have to lose ‘Pendulum.’ It’s three syllables.”
“ And that presents a conundrum?”
“ Titles need punch. There. Will. Be. Blood. Get it? Too bad ‘Saw’ is already taken.”
“ But the pendulum is essential to the predicament. The scimitar swings ever closer, magnifying the horror.”
“ So who wants to see a circumcision? It’s a movie, not a bris.”
Confusion clouded the writer’s face like fog over Malibu. “But I thought you liked my story.”
“ Exactly. Liked it. Didn’t love it. That’s why we gotta make some changes.”
The dark bags under the writer’s eyes seemed to grow heavier. “Am I not free to write the script as I see fit?”
“ Sure you are. When hell freezes over.” Beazle drummed a manicured fingernail on his desktop. “Look, Eddie. Do you want the deal or not? I got Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley dying to get their projects out of turnaround.”
“ I daresay some cautious editing might be appropriate,” the writer ventured.
Like taking a biscotti from a baby, Beazle thought. “That’s the spirit, Eddie. So I gotta ask you. Where’s the girl?”
“ What girl?”
“ You got a guy strapped to a board. Talking to himself. Bor-ing! Maybe Tom Hanks can schmooze with a volleyball for two hours, but he had the beach, the ocean, the great outdoors. You got a dark hole in the ground.”
“ The solitude represents man’s existence.”
“ Deal-breaker, pal. If you’re gonna ask Leo or Cuba or Russell to spend the entire shoot in a hole, at least give ‘em Scarlett Johansson for eye candy.”
“ Scarlett…?”
“ In a torn blouse. And instead of those rats chewing off the guy’s straps, she unties him.”
“ The rats represent our primal fears.”
“ Box office poison, Eddie. A one-way ticket straight-to-video.”
“ But a woman…” The writer’s voice trailed off and he scratched at his mustache as if it had fleas. “Writing from the distaff point of view is hardly my forte.”
“ No problema, Eduardo. We’ll bring in Nora Ephron to punch up the he-said, she-said dialogue.”
“ Another writer?”
“ Read me your first sentence, Eddie.”
The writer recited by heart. “‘I was sick-sick to death with that long agony.’”
“ Downer. Maybe we get Judd Apatow to lighten the mood, toss in some fart jokes.”
“ But that would dilute the horror.”
“ Hold the phone, Eddie! Just got a brainstorm. The prisoner falls in love with Scarlett, but she’s got a fatal disease.”
“ Good heavens. What would that accomplish?
“‘ Halloween’ meets ‘Love Story.’ Boffo B.O.”
The writer’s face took on the pallor of a drowning victim. “Perhaps the theme of the story is unclear to you.”
“ Hey, you want to send a message, use e-mail. You want foreign box office, you need stars, action, sex.”
“ I assure you my work is quite popular in France.”
“ Sure, you and Jerry Lewis. The point is, we’re going after the masses, not the art-house crowd.”
The writer still held the pen in a death grip. He stared at the check. Picking up sunlight from the window, the paper seemed to be made of burnished gold. He exhaled a long sigh and said, “I suppose you know best, Mr. Beazle. So if there are no other changes…”
Beazle smiled, his double row of porcelain crowns gleaming. He loved breaking a writer. It was better than sex. Maybe not sex-on-coke, but straight sex. “One more thing, Eddie. What’s the setting? Where the hell’s this prison?”
“ Spain, of course.”
“ Fine. We’ll shoot in Vancouver. But no subtitles and we gotta update.”
“ How? It’s the Spanish Inquisition.”
“ Period piece? No can do. With all respect, Eddie, you’re no Jane Austen. And as for the ending, we gotta lose the French Army. Who’s gonna believe they win a battle? I’m picturing a SEAL team, maybe the Rock in a cameo.”
The writer’s alabaster hand trembled as he fiddled with a loose button on his heavy coat. Beazle made a
