Квентин Тарантино - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

Sam Wanamaker takes a beat, then answers the actor, “Well, there are those, dear boy , that call that acting .”

Chapter Ten

Misadventure

The minute Cliff shot his wife with the shark gun, he knew it was a bad idea.

The impact hit her a little below the belly button, tearing her in half, both pieces hitting the deck of the boat with a splash. Cliff Booth had despised this woman for what seemed like years, but the moment he saw her ripped in two, two separate halves lying on the deck of his boat, years of ill will and resentment evaporated in an instant. He rushed to her side, cradling her, holding the two separate pieces of her torso together, expelling frantic heartfelt statements of remorse and regret.

He held her that way, keeping her alive, for seven hours. He didn’t risk leaving her side for one minute to call the Coast Guard, for fear without his applied pressure she’d come apart. So for seven hours he held her close and tight, cradling her, calming her down, keeping her alive. If he hadn’t shot her in the first place, the effort would have been heroic.

On the bloody deck of the boat he had named after her ( Billie’s Boat), amongst the guts, blood, and intestines seeping out of Billie Booth, the husband and wife, on the brink of death, had the seven-hour conversation they could never have in life. So she wouldn’t dwell on the extremity of her dilemma, he kept her talking.

What did they talk about? Their love story.

In those seven hours, they recounted their whole life together.

As the Coast Guard ship finally approached, somewhere around hour six, the husband and wife were communicating in baby talk like two helplessly-in-love fourteen-year-olds away at summer camp. Each trying to outdo the other in a game of remembering the smallest detail of their first meeting and first date. As the Coast Guard boarded the vessel and drove her into port, Cliff continued holding Billie’s two separate halves together. All the while assuring her that she was going to be okay. “Hey, I ain’t gonna lie,” he said, “you’re gonna have the King Kong of scars. But you’re gonna be just fine.”

Cliff tried so hard to convince Billie of this that, after six hours of committed line readings, he talked himself into it too. So the pragmatic Cliff Booth was, surprisingly, surprised when in the Coast Guard’s efforts to transfer Billie from the boat to the dock and an awaiting ambulance … she fell apart.

Oh well.

Inside the stunt community of Hollywood in the sixties, Cliff Booth was greatly admired for his distinguished military career and his status as one of World War Two’s great war heroes. But there existed widespread speculation that Cliff Booth murdered his wife and got away with it. No one really knew for sure if he shot her on purpose. It could have been just a tragic mishandling of diving equipment, which is what Cliff always claimed. But anybody who had ever seen a drunken Billie Booth berate Cliff in public in front of his colleagues didn’t buy that. And since a lot of people in the Hollywood stunt community had seen that, they thought he just fucking killed her.

Cliff even admitted to the authorities his wife had been drinking at the time of the accident. Since the authorities didn’t know Billie, they didn’t know what that meant. But stuntmen and their wives did.

That probably meant Billie was being belligerent. And that probably meant she said one fucking thing too many. And that probably meant Cliff got fed up and, in a moment of weakness, he did something drastic. Something once he did, he couldn’t undo.

How did Cliff get away with it? Easy. His story was plausible and it couldn’t be disproven. Cliff felt real bad about what he did to Billie. But as much regret and remorse as he felt, it never occurred to him not to try to get away with murder.

After all, Cliff had always been a practical what’s-done-is-done type. While taking the whole matter seriously, he also observed it from a pragmatic point of view. He didn’t need to spend twenty years in jail—Cliff could do an adequate job punishing himself for his reckless moment. After all, it wasn’t like he was a criminal. It wasn’t like he plotted her murder. It was practically the accident he claimed it was. When his finger pulled the trigger, was it a conscious decision?

Not exactly.

One, it was a hair trigger. Two, it was more instinct than a decision . Three, was it a pull , or was it closer to a twitch ? Four, it wasn’t like anybody was gonna miss Billie Booth. She was a fucking cunt. Did she deserve to be ripped in two? Maybe not. But to say without Billie Booth on this earth the sweet life goes on unabated would be an understatement. Really, only her sister Natalie was upset, and she was even a bigger fucking cunt than Billie. And she was really only upset for a while. So Cliff carried the guilt, Cliff carried the remorse, and Cliff vowed to do better. What more does society want? The countless numbers of American soldiers he saved by killing Japs were definitely worth one Billie Booth.

Now, the law-enforcement agencies that investigated the case were not as aware of Cliff Booth’s violent tendencies as the Hollywood stunt community was. And Cliff’s story of a tragic mishandling of diving equipment was very plausible.

Also, as it turned out, proving exactly what happened when two people were alone, in a boat, out in the middle of the ocean, wasn’t so easy. The authorities had to prove it didn’t happen the way Cliff said it did. So, armed with a story that couldn’t be disproven, Billie Booth’s death was labeled misadventure .

And from that day forward, Cliff became the most infamous man on any Hollywood set he set foot on. Because no matter what set he set foot on, he was always the only man on that set that everybody in the know knew got away with murder .

Chapter Eleven

The Twinkie Truck

As Charles Manson negotiates the twisty roads leading up toward Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo Drive, in the beat-up Hostess Twinkies Continental Bakery truck, he knows he’s taking a chance.

When Charlie drove out from San Francisco to Los Angeles, it was with the purpose of getting his music published, his songs recorded with him singing them, landing a recording contract, and then finally becoming a rock-and-roll star. This whole being a spiritual leader to a bunch of zonked-out kids and a guru to a harem of runaway girls was just supposed to be something he did in the meantime. And at first, it worked. In fact, at first, it worked really well. His girls led him to create a relationship with the Beach Boys’ drummer, Dennis Wilson, a real honest-to-goodness rock star. Which led Manson into a relationship with Wilson’s friends Gregg Jakobson and Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher.

And that led to happenings, shindigs, toke parties, and jam sessions with other successful musicians on the L.A. rock-music scene. Before Charlie knew it, he was sharing a joint with the lead singer of the Raiders, Mark Lindsay, hobnobbing with Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Buffy Sainte-Marie , and jamming on guitar with Neil Young. Neil fucking Young!

Charlie not only jammed with him; his musical improvisation skills seriously impressed Young. (That night jamming with Neil Young was the closest to legitimacy Manson ever got.) Charlie hoped his jam session with Young would lead to a meeting with Bob Dylan, but Bobby proved elusive. The closest Charlie ever got to meeting Dylan was trading a few words with Bob’s sidekick at the time, Bobby Neuwirth, at the London Fog. No doubt about it, during the time when Charlie Manson and his “Family” were hanging out at Dennis Wilson’s pad, his musical aspirations had forward momentum. There was even a recording session where Charlie put some of his tunes down on three-quarter-inch tape. It’s doubtful that Melcher ever really entertained the idea of signing Charlie to Columbia Records. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he entertained the idea of recording some of Charlie’s songs for other artists. For all of Charlie’s jailhouse wisdom and philosophical savvy, Manson was almost charmingly naïve when it came to the music business. Charlie knew Terry Melcher was wishy-washy about his record-selling potential. But he never allowed himself to get discouraged by it. To an admirable degree, when it came to the subject of himself, Charlie was always the eternal optimist. A foot in the door was all he ever said he wanted. And a foot in the door is what he got when Terry Melcher assured him that, at some point, he would sit down and let Charlie play him some of his music on his guitar.