It was ten-fifteen, and Michael Fallon was already a quarter of an hour late. Shane and Nicky were sitting at one of the power tables in the Polo Lounge. Nicky said it was one of five power tables located in the back of the restaurant, on a slightly raised platform, next to the wall, affording them a great view of the room. The table had cost Nicky an extra hundred bucks.
'Seating is important,' the little grifter was saying to Shane. 'Where they seat you in a power restaurant like the Polo Lounge speaks volumes. Like, see that guy over there, at that little postage stamp table by the window? Murray Streeterman. His last picture, Alaskan Ice, tanked. Look where they got him… gonifsville.'
'What bullshit.' Shane glanced at his watch and began to wonder if this movie star was going to stand them up.
'You think so?' Nicky continued. 'At Universal, back in the nineties, they had this big executive dining room where the tables were lined up in rows. The head of the studio, the late, great Lew Wasserman, had his permanent booth next to the east wall. So naturally, the closer you were to the king, the more important you were. Guys under contract on that lot would fight to get their permanent tables a row closer to that wall. It was like World War Two in there-the invasion of Italy. Producers were taking tables like fucking hedge rows. If you moved one row closer to the east wall, it was like a huge career victory. Friendships were lost over it.'
Just then, Michael Fallon appeared in the doorway and started talking to the maitre d'.
'There he is,' Shane said as Nicky let out a groan. 'What's wrong?' Shane whispered.
'He brought the fucking writer, Rajindi Singh. Nobody brings the writer to an important meeting. The writer is useless as an appendix.'
'Doesn't the writer supply the material?' Shane asked. 'Isn't he sort of important?'
'Writers are creative furniture. You don't like one, you get another… and they got no loyalty to one another either, the pricks. Don't ever share a foxhole with a fucking writer, 'cause they'll give you up in a heartbeat. Hand one a these hacks some brother writer's script, and the first thing they say is, 'Who wrote this piece a crap?' Writers are the worst.'
Michael Fallon and Rajindi Singh were now headed to the table. Fallon was turning heads all over the restaurant. He was dark complexioned and implausibly handsome in a very unique way. Nothing on his face looked like it went together. His mouth was too big, his nose too long, his forehead too short. But like Sylvester Stallone, once you added it all up, it spelled movie star.
Trailing Michael like a pale orbiting moon was Rajindi Singh. Shane had been expecting an East Indian, but Singh looked more like an albino. He was so slender and washed out that Shane was surprised a team of paramedics wasn't trailing him dragging a stretcher and oxygen. He was bald, but had a few wisps of spidery white hair growing out of the top of his head.
Then they were at the table. Nicky didn't speak, so Shane stood and took the lead again.
'Hi, I'm Shane Scully. This is my partner, Nicky Marcella. We're the co-owners of Cine-Roma.' He had his hand stretched out but Michael refused to shake.
'I don't shake hands,' the star said. 'I have a germ transfer phobia.'
Is everybody in Hollywood afraid of bacteria? Shane wondered. If they're all so scared of one-celled amoebas, what's gonna happen when they run into something that's got real teeth? Shane turned and shook hands with Rajindi, who had a grip like a glove full of ice water.
'Rajindi Singh,' the man said in an unaccented voice as he released Shane's hand.
They all sat at the power table, looking for the right way to get started.
'Anybody left-handed?' Michael Fallon suddenly asked.
'Huh?' Nicky said. Shane was beginning to realize that Nicky wasn't much good at meetings. This surprised him, because on the street, the little con man was so full of shit, he needed constant flushing. Maybe it was the high-profile nature of these power players that froze him.
'We're not left-handed,' Shane answered.
'Good,' Michael said. 'If you'd been left-handed, it would have changed things.'
'Really?' Shane was hoping he'd explain, but the star didn't seem inclined to elaborate.
'Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I'd like to hear how you loved my script,' Rajindi said, a strand of his huge ego suddenly escaping.
'Nicky, you want to handle that one?' Shane asked, but Nicky was vapor-locked, sputtering like a jalopy with sand in the tank. Reluctantly Shane turned back to Rajindi. 'We love it.' He hadn't read it yet. Nobody, including Wireman, seemed to have a copy, so an in-depth discussion was going to be impossible.
'I'd like some specifics, please. There's a clause in the contract you signed that gives me approval over the producers. I need to know you grasp the global significance of the work, its Nostradamus-like projections and far- reaching social consequences.'
'Oh,' Shane said. 'Well, Jerry Wireman didn't mention that we had to be approved.'
'You sign documents you don't read?' Singh asked. One white, plucked eyebrow shot up into the middle of his forehead and arched there precariously.
Shane marveled at how he'd gotten locked up with these assholes, but he brushed the thought away and smiled. 'Okay, well, I think starting at the end and ending at the beginning is brilliant.'
'How so? State your rationale,' Rajindi challenged.
'Time is like a man-made convenience and not too important in a conceptual sense,' Shane mumbled, trying to fill dead air, but he must have guessed right because they both nodded.
'And?…' Rajindi said.
'The, uh… the whatta ya call-its?… The neural storms and dragons and things. Really, really inventive.' 'And?…' Rajindi prodded.
'And… look, Mr. Singh, we love the script, okay? We both think you're a writer of indescribable talent. This is major stuff. We're talking neo-impress… neo…'
'Neo-impressionistic heroism,' Rajindi completed.
'Exactly.' Shane was beginning to sweat, himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dennis Valentine walk into the restaurant accompanied by a heavyset man with extremely long arms and huge shoulders. Standard-issue mob muscle. Valentine had the Hollywood trade papers, Variety and the Reporter, in hand. He was already looking around, trying to spot his favorite actor. Then he saw Shane and Nicky at the table with Michael Fallon. Dennis Valentine and his knuckle-dragger were led to one of the postage stamp tables by the window and were seated. Valentine opened the trades, but never stopped looking over at them.
'Okay, okay, so you love the script, and you think I'm talented. So far, so good,' Rajindi Singh was saying, 'and I assume you know about and agree with the no-rewrite clause. I want to make sure we're not going to argue about script changes after the director is aboard.'
'Absolutely. No changes,' Shane said firmly.
'It'd be like stepping on a fucking Rembrandt.' Nicky had regained his voice and everyone turned to look at him.
'Okay then,' Fallon said, 'I'm sure my agent told you that my acting price is the standard twenty mil a picture, but on Neural Surfer, because it's my passion project, I'll work for ten up-front and ten on the back, against twenty points from first-dollar gross.'
Shane nodded.
'And of course my agent has told you about my dietary and personal needs…'
'We haven't talked to him about that in detail yet,' Shane said. 'But I'm sure we can deal with them, whatever they are.'
'I am strictly Singh Herbal Kosher. I can't eat anything that isn't prepared by the Singh Church of Herbal Healing and blessed by Rajindi personally.'
'I will supply you with my catering costs,' Rajindi said. 'They're a bit pricey, but keeping Michael healthy and spiritually pure ought to be everybody's main goal.'
'I have to eat every forty-two minutes, exactly,' Fallon chimed in. 'Forty-two is my genetic holistic number, perfect in its cubic dimension. Also, my personal trainer and massage therapist have to be hired at their hourly rate and housed in trailers equal to the director's accommodations. I'd be lost without them. They help me combat my panthophobia..'
'Your what?' Shane interjected.
'Fear of disease. We'll supply you with a complete list of my phobias,' the movie star said.
