"You make me sound dead," Bronzini challenged.
"You've peaked. Variety said so last week."
"I'm sick of Ringo," Bronzini retorted. "And Grundy and Viper and all these other action-film characters. I spent fifteen years doing action films. Now I want to do something different. I want to do a Christmas film. I want to do the next It's a Wonderful Life."
"I never heard of that one," Kornflake said doubtfully. "Did it hit?"
"It was filmed back in the forties," Bronzini told him. "It's a classic. They show it every Christmas week. You could turn on your TV right now, and somewhere, on some channel, they're showing it."
"Back in the forties?" one of the others asked. "Did they have movies then?"
"Yeah. But they were no good. All in black and white. "
"That's not true," a third man said. "I saw a film like that once. Copablanca, or something. It had some gray in it. A couple of different shades of it, too."
"Gray isn't a color. It's a ... What is gray, anyway. A tone?"
"Never mind," Kornflake snapped. "Look Bart, tell you what. I have a better idea. We can do your Christmas story here. What's it called?" He flipped to the cover. It was blank. "No title?" he asked.
"You have it upside down," Bronzini told him. Kornflake flipped it over. "Oh, so I did. Let's see . . . Johnny's Christmas Spirit. Stunning title." Bronzini leaped forward.
"It's about a little autistic kid. He gets lost in a blizzard. He can't speak or tell anyone where he lives. The whole town is looking for him, but because it's Christmas Eve, they give up too soon. But the Spirit of Christmas saves him."
"The Spirit of Christmas?"
"Santa Claus."
Kornflake turned to his secretary. "Find out who owns the rights to Santa Claus, Fred. There may be something in this."
Bronzini exploded. "What's the matter with you people? Nobody owns Santa Claus. He's public domain."
"Somebody probably got fired for letting that property go public domain, huh?" a sandy-haired executive co-producer said.
"Santa Claus is universal. Nobody created him."
"I think that's true, Bernie," a co-executive producer said. "Right now, back east there's a guy running around in a Santa suit chopping off the heads of little kids with an ax. It's on all the talk shows. I think it's in Providence. Yeah, Providence, Massachusetts."
"Providence is in Rhode Island," Bronzini said.
"No, no, Bart," the co-executive producer said. "I beg to differ. This is happening in an American city, not some nothing foreign island. I read it in People."
Bartholomew Bronzini said nothing. These were the very people who laughed at him behind his back at cocktail parties. The ones who dismissed him as a lucky musclehead. Five best-picture Oscars and they were still calling him lucky....
"I read about it too," Bernie Kornflake said. "You know, maybe we could bring that in. What do you say, Bart? Do you think you could change your script a little? Make this Christmas Spirit an evil demon. He kills the kid. No, better, he kills and eats a bunch of kids. It could be the next major trend. Maniacs killing teenagers is getting stale. But preteens, even infants . . When was the last time anybody did a movie where babies were being devoured?"
Everyone took a minute out to think. One man reached for a leather-bound book containing the synopses of every movie plot ever filmed, cross-referenced to theme and plot. He looked in the index under "Babies, devoured."
"Hey, Bart may have something here, Bernie. There isn't even a listing."
At that, everyone sat up straight.
"No listing?" Kornflake blurted. "How about reversing it? Any killer-baby movies?"
"No, there's nothing under 'Babies, Killer.' "
"How about 'Babies, Cannibal'?"
There were no cannibal babies listed in the index. Every man was out of his chair at that point. They crowded around the book, their eyes feverish.
"You mean we got something entirely new here?" Kornflake demanded. His eyes were as wide as if he'd found a tarantula on his shell-pink lapel.
"It's not based on anything I can find."
Twelve heads turned with a single silent motion. Twelve pairs of eyes looked at Bartholomew Bronzini with a mixture of newfound respect and even awe.
"Bart, baby," Bernie Kornflake croaked. "This idea of yours, this killer-baby thing. I'm sorry, babe, but we can't do it. It's too new. We can't do something this original. How would we market it? 'In the tradition of nothing anybody's ever seen before'? Never hit in a million years."
"That's not my idea," Bronzini grated. "It's yours. I want to do a fucking Christmas movie. A simple, warm story with no guns and a happy fucking ending."
"But, Bart, baby," Kornflake protested, noticing that Bronzini's street upbringing was creeping into his manner, "we can't take a chance. Look at your track record lately."
"Thirty films. Thirty box-office successes. Three of those are among the top money-makers of all fucking time. I'm a superstar. I'm Bartholomew Bronzini. I was making movies while you assholes were counting the first hairs in your crotches and wondering if you'd seen too many werewolf flicks!"
Kornflake's voice became stern. "Bart, Grundy III bombed. Domestically. You should never have used that Iran-Iraq story line. The war was over by the time you got into the theaters. It was yesterday's news. Who needed it?"
"It still made eighty million worldwide. They can't keep it in the video stores!"
"Tell you what," Kornflake said, sliding the script back across the polished table. "Put Grundy or Ringo into this script and we'll read it. If, after we kick it around, we don't think it will fly theatrically, we'll talk about turning it into a sitcom. We're going to need a gang of sitcoms for our new TV venture. Normally we only offer a thirteen-week guarantee, but for you, Bart, because we love you, we'll commit to a full season."
"Listen to me. I can act. I can write. I can direct. I've made millions for this industry. All I am asking is to do one lousy Christmas movie, and the best you can offer me is a sitcom!"
"Don't sneer at sitcoms. Do you know that Gilligan's Island has grossed over a billion dollars in syndication? A billion. That's a million with a B. None of your films ever did that, did they?"
"I'm not in Bob Denver's league. So sue me. You're talking to a superstar, not some comedy reject. My films kept this industry afloat during the seventies."
"And we're about to turn the corner into the nineties," Kornflake said flatly. "The parade is marching on. You gotta get on the train or walk the tracks."
Bronzini jumped onto the table. "Look at these muscles!" he shouted, tearing off his jacket and shirt to expose the lean tigerish muscles that had sold fifty million posters. "Nobody has muscles like these! Nobody!"
The men in the room looked at Bartholomew Bronzini's physique, then at one another.
"Think about redoing the script, Bart," Bernie Kornflake said, flashing a good-riddance smile.
"Go piss down your leg and drink from your sneaker," Bronzini snarled, scooping up his script.
As he stormed down the corridor, Bartholomew Bronzini heard Kornflake call after him. He half-turned, his dark eyes smoldering.
Kornflake approached Bronzini fawningly and flashed him a capped-tooth smile. "Before you go, Bart, baby, could I get your autograph? It's for my mother."
When Bartholomew Bronzini kicked the stand down on his Harley again, he was in his ten-car Malibu garage. He walked into his living room. It looked like an art-deco church. One entire wall was covered with custom-made hunting knives. Three of them he had used as props in the Grundy movies. The others were for display. The opposite wall was covered in authentic Chagalls and Magrittes, purchased as tax shelters.
Nobody believed that Bartholomew Bronzini had selected them because he appreciated them too, but he did. Today, he didn't even notice them.