Jawohl.
Anyhow, she's at the center of the explosion, so she's safe. That's part of the deal. Imagine the special effects on this one, Ivan. Anyhow, by now the bad guys know all about this hoop.
Who are the bad guys?
A Swiss banking consortium just before WWII. The guys who were about to rake gold fillings out of the death camps.
Go on.
These banking guys want it. All of the governments want it, but she keeps both herself and her hoop hidden until 1939 and the war. She's sent to a death camp and the Nazis get the hoop. Then the Americans steal it from the Germans, and the Americans use it to nuke Japan. And after that the hoop moves to Nevada, where they suck in the gambling energy and the desperation energy from Las Vegas to do their nuclear tests. But then the woman's son, a ballistics scientist working there at the Nevada test site, makes these connections and realizes what the hoop is really about and also that it belongs to him.
So he manages to swipe it that's when the nuclear testing stops in the eighties and he smuggles himself and the hoop down to Galveston. But he has a stroke. His daughter, played by the same actress, puts the hoop into a luggage closet. It's when she's cleaning out the closet that she has the accident with the hoop up against the TV set. The tornado alerts the bad guys, and so there's this chase and it ends with a hurricane of blood. Fish turn inside out. Roses bloom at midnight. It's Revelations. At the end the woman takes the hoop to Hawaii and throws it into one of the live volcanoes on Oahu. Whaddya think?
Ivan was measuring his breath as his treadmill kicked into a hill simulation. Sounds to me like there's lots of debris flying around in it.
Debris? What? Yeah I guess so.
I was meeting with these nerds at ILM and SGI up in San Francisco before I went to Scotland. Their computers can do perfect flying debris and litter now. They're looking for a showcase for their new techniques and this sounds like just the thing. Story needs some work, though. Who's the writer?
One of these young turks Ryan Something. He's boiling hot right now.
I haven't heard his name. Is there an auction on it?
We have the option to make a preemptive bid.
How much you think?
Five hundred.
Make it three. You feel good about this?
First script in years to give my brain a hard-on.
It's the first script you've read in years.
A bell rang, announcing somebody at the front gate. Ivan switched off the treadmill. Come on, John-O, let's see who's here. They walked around the patio, which was dripping with flowers and lush branches. Out front a police car was at the gate, one officer standing beside the car manning the intercom, another in the passenger seat. Ivan buzzed them in with a remote. The four of them formed a congress on the front steps.
Officers? Ivan said.
Hello, Mr. McClintock, the tall one said. And you, too, Mr. Johnson. Do you have a moment, Mr. McClintock?
Call me Ivan. Of course. What's this regarding?
Doing a check. Do you own a white Chrysler sedan, license number 2LM 3496T?
Yes.
Were you driving the car last night around twoA.M . in Benedict Canyon?
That was me, John said.
Could you tell us where you were last night, Mr. Johnson?
Easy. I was getting tapes at West West West Side Video on Santa Monica.
What tapes?
About ten of them. Susan Colgate stuff Meet the Blooms, and some cheesy B flick.
The policeman shared a flickering meaningful glance. What time would that have been, Mr. Johnson?
The guy was just closing the shop. Around oneA.M ., I guess.
What then?
Then I went and parked in front of Susan Colgate's house. For about an hour.
Why was that, Mr. Johnson?
Is something wrong? What's going on here? John was getting edgy.
It's a routine check, sir. Why were you parked outside her house?
John-O, said Ivan. Just talk, okay? We're not cutting a distribution deal here.
She didn't answer my phone message. Susan Colgate. I thought she might be coming home late.
You live here, Mr. Johnson? asked the shorter officer.
In the house down there. With my mother. The police looked down at the guesthouse, almost unchanged since the day John first saw it. I lost my old Bel-Air tree-fort last year. You probably read about that in People.
You didn't lose it, John, said Ivan, you gave it away.
To the IRS. That's not me giving. That's them taking.
Is that the Chrysler down there? asked the tall cop.
That's it, John said, his stomach turning to slime as he remembered the shrine still in the back seat. There's a oh fuck. You'll see.
The four walked down the hill, the police clicking into almost paramilitary action as they discovered the shrine in the back. One called HQ requesting something technical immediately. The other blocked John from the car.
Am I under arrest? Do you have a warrant? John asked.
No. And we don't have to go through that if you agree.
John, it's my property, said Ivan. Go right ahead, guys. He looked in the back seat. The white towel around his neck dropped onto the gravel driveway and he didn't pick it up. John-O, there's a goddam Susan Colgate parade float in the back seat of the car you made this?
Did you make the shrine in the back seat? the cop asked.
No. I bought it from the kid at West Side Video. I think it's one of those campy queer things.
At this point Doris came out of the house, cloaked in shawls, her bunned gray hair a porcupine of flyaway hairs. Oh Christ it's my mother.
Morning, darlings. Oh my the fuzz.
The fuzz ? said John.
I'm merely trying to be contemporary, darling. Officers has there been a crime?
There was mild confusion. A police photographer and forensics expert went over to the car. Ivan went back up to his treadmill and John phoned Adam Norwitz. What the fuck is going on, Adam?
Susan's gone AWOL. She had a sixA .M. makeup call for a Showtime Channel kiddy movie and she didn't show up. So the producer phones and screams at me, and I go racing from my gym straight to her house and the doors are all open. There's nobody there, but her car's still out front. The coffeepot was still on, but the coffee was like tar, like it'd been on for twenty-four hours. So I called the cops.You tell me what's going on. I nearly had to donate my left nut to science to get her that stupid part on Showtime, and she fucks it up.
Compassion, Adam.
Yeah, right. Is she doing a project with you? Is she jumping into a bigger pond now no more time for the little fish?
How can you make this woman's disappearance about you, Adam?
Spare me the melodrama.
Did you call the hospitals or anything?
That's the cops' job.
Adam knew nothing. The police knew next to nothing. John refused to panic. Susan could be out on a tequila jag or maybe she was whipping one of those creepy Brit directors with birch fronds.She's not that type, he thought. He sucked in a breath, then phoned Ryan to buy the script.
Chapter Sixteen
Their first flop was a love story:The Other Side of Hate. Nothing about it came easily. To begin with, Angus, in the final depressing stretch of prostate cancer, told him the title was wrong. John, hate is a downer word, and it doesn't matter if you make Citizen Kane, a title like The Other Side of Hate is box office poison from the word go.