I knew he lived in the Hollywood Hills, whatever those were, and we had every reason to believe he’d be at home that afternoon. Somebody in the production office had intercepted some faxes from Josh Martin’s lawyer. These weren’t absolutely explicit but they referred to some vital and complex financial, legal proceedings that required him to be at his house at four o’ clock that day. It all sounded extremely serious, a matter that even Josh Martin in his current state couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore.
♦
I don’t know if you’ve ever driven on the roads around the Hollywood Hills. I haven’t — I’ve only been a passenger — but I imagine that if you had a small, fast, nippy, European sports car with fantastic acceleration, braking and road holding, then you could really enjoy yourself going up and down the fantastically steep gradients, around the tight hairpin bends and terrifying blind corners. You’d flash by hedges in full flower and by palm tress and banks of escapee cactuses, and every now and then you’d find yourself on a crest and get a view right over the city, not that you’d be able to stop and appreciate the view because you’d be concentrating too hard on your driving.
If you weren’t in a small, fast, nippy European sports car, but rather in a convoy of Volkswagen Beetles or, say, in a car on the back of a flatbed truck, the ride would be a lot less fun, but that wouldn’t stop you seeing the possibilities.
Fortunately Angelo knew his way around these parts — we certainly would have got lost otherwise — and we found our way to Josh Martin’s house with only a few hairy moments, when we encountered oncoming pick-up trucks or postal vans, the drivers of which, understandably, weren’t expecting to encounter the likes of us.
Josh Martin’s home was a perfect little Spanish-style house, with a series of red-tiled roofs, arches and rustic shutters. It was, no doubt, a pricey house, but it wasn’t a mansion by any means. It wasn’t opulent or showy. Unlike the man himself it was restrained, modest, discreet. There were a couple of expensive cars parked outside, but unless Josh Martin had mysteriously acquired these on his way home, they had to belong to visitors. There was no sign whatsoever of Leezza’s Beetle.
Our arrival was loud and hardly unnoticeable but nobody came out of the house to see what the hell was going on. We would have to make the first move. There would undoubtedly have been some satisfaction in seeing all the Beetle freaks marauding through Josh Martin’s house, casually destroying things as they passed, and there was every possibility that it might come to that, but initially the majority of the horde stayed outside, forming a guard of honour, while Motorhead Phil, Angelo, Leezza and I made our less grand entrance.
The front gate was unlocked and as we went inside we could hear voices coming from around the side of the house. We followed the sound and stepped on to a green, shady, screened patio. There was a gaudily tiled fountain burbling at its centre, and next to it a stone table at which Josh Martin sat, alongside a man and a woman, each wearing a severe black suit, and together the three of them were perusing a pile of legal documents, and Josh Martin was signing his way through them.
He looked rather better than when I’d last seen him. He had his clothes on for one thing, and he’d managed to wash off most of the engine oil, at least from the areas that showed. I couldn’t have sworn that he was stone-cold sober but he appeared more composed and in control of himself than he had been in a long time.
He looked up at us without surprise, and said insultingly, “Ah, the help has arrived.”
“Any trouble from you,” said Motorhead Phil, “and we’ll turn your house into an architectural junk yard.”
Josh Martin looked casually at the document currently in front of him and signed it with a quiet flourish.
“Not now you won’t,” he said. “It’s not my house. Not any more.”
There was a set of keys on the stone table, and Josh Martin now pushed them across to the black suited woman, who took them sadly, earnestly and handed over a legal document in return.
Josh Martin said, “These good people from the mortgage company are now the owners of this property. They’ve very kindly offered to let me lease back the place at a very reasonable rate, but since I don’t have any money whatsoever I can’t do that, which leaves me homeless. I guess there’s a trailer park in Fonti-nella where I could stay for a while, but you know what, pretty soon the owners of that place are going to find out that I’m broke too. They haven’t been paid, and they’re not going to be paid, and then it’ll be truly over and all I’ll be left with is part of a movie that I can’t afford to shoot or finish or edit or anything else. Welcome to Hollywood, guys.”
This was not what we’d come to hear, and Motor-head Phil and Leezza weren’t even interested, but as far as Angelo and I were concerned it was quite the revelation, far more than the discovery that Josh Martin was Mexican.
All too guilelessly I asked, “But what about the movie’s backers?”
“There are no fucking backers, Ian. There were potential backers once, for a while, but in the end they didn’t back me. They backed out. They were wise, much wiser than me. They saw it wasn’t going to work. But I thought hell, fuck it, live the dream, remortgage your house, make the damned movie, will it into being and then everything else will fall into place and everything’ll turn out just fine. Big mistake.”
Angelo and I were left quite speechless. My stomach descended to knee level. I felt giddy with confusion and disappointment, though not quite disbelief. But Motorhead Phil still had plenty to say.
“Where’s the car you stole, Josh?” he yelled. “Where’s the fucking Beetle?”
“The car, yes,” Josh Martin said. “El vocho volante,” and he laughed, and the laugh was too theatrical for my tastes, or do I mean too filmic, trying to be a little sinister, a little insane, a little superior. Trying too hard. It was certainly a laugh you couldn’t trust. It was a laugh that could very easily get you beaten up.
“I’d had a couple of drinks last night,” Josh Martin said.
“That much we know,” said Leezza.
“Mistakes were made.”
“You crashed the car, didn’t you?” said Motorhead Phil with disgust.
“Not crashed it, not really, no.”
“You’d better tell me what the fuck you’re talking about,” said Motorhead Phil.
“I will, Phil, I will. You see there’s an old Mexican saying that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. And that’s supposed to apply to all kinds of history: personal history, movie history, whatever. But I don’t believe it. I think the opposite is true. I think all too often those who know their history want to repeat it.”
“This better start making sense soon,” Motorhead Phil said.
“It does. It will. It makes perfect sense, Phil. You see, everybody who’s ever seen Bullitt wants to race a Ford Mustang through the streets of San Francisco. Everybody who’s ever seen Pulp Fiction wants accidentally to blow somebody’s head off in the back of a car.”
I thought he might have a point there.
“Now I’m not gay, Phil, and I know this sounds a little weird, but the truth is I really like a good Doris Day movie. My favourite? The Thrill of It All. 1963, Universal, directed by Norman Jewison; Carl Reiner wrote the screenplay. You know why I like it? Because James Garner drives his car into a swimming pool, and you see…”
He was going to tell us more, but there really wasn’t any need, and he was interrupted as Motor-head Phil got a thrill of his own by decking Josh Martin with a simple, single, strongman’s knock-out blow to the side of his head. I had a feeling it was what Josh Martin wanted.