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

But Rudi lies to Charlie when he tells him, “Yeah, sorry, Charlie, I can’t help you with that. I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s a drag,” Charlie says.

Changing his tone, Charlie asks the man behind the screen a question he already knows the answer to. “What do you do for a livin’, Rudi?”

“I’m a manager, Charlie,” adding, “you know that.”

As Vic Morrow, Rick Jason, and Jack Hogan blast Nazis in the background, Charlie goes right into his rap, before Rudi Altobelli can give him the brush-off.

“Well, the reason I gotta get in touch with Terry is, Terry was arranging an audition for me with Columbia Records and Tapes. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t have representation, so if all goes well with this audition and they want to sign me to a contract, I’m all by my lonesome. And you know that ain’t the best situation for an artist. Especially against some commercial giant like Columbia Records and Tapes.

“So maybe I could come back, play you some tapes of my songs. Maybe play for you a little on my guitar.

“You like what you hear, you sign me up and I start my relationship with Columbia Records and Tapes on the right foot.”

Charlie sees Rudi isn’t interested, so it’s time to bring out the catnip.

“I hang out with a bunch of girls. Maybe bring them around, they sing background. Everybody always has a good time with my girls. You ask Terry. You ask Terry—he’s had himself a goddamn good time with my girls.”

Rudi starts to open his mouth, but before anything can come out, Charlie shoots him a question. “Have you heard the new Beach Boys album, 20/20 ? ”

“No.”

“Well, I got a song on it,” Charlie informs him. “I wrote the song,” he qualifies, “and Dennis Wilson tinkered with it, fucked it up, and the Beach Boys fucked it up even more.”

“Look—” Rudi tries to cut in, but Charlie doesn’t let him.

“In fact, they fucked it up so much I’d rather you not listen to it. I’d rather play my version of it. Maybe come back, play my tapes for you. Play a little on my guitar. You know, just make up some songs. I’m real good at that,” Charlie says sincerely.

Finally, Rudi gets out, “Well, I’d like to talk to you longer, Charlie, but I’m leaving for Europe tomorrow and I gotta pack.”

A big smile spreads across Charlie’s face, and he says with a giggle in his voice, “Well, I guess this is just my shit-luck day, ain’t it?”

Now it’s Rudi’s turn to change the subject. “How did you know to come back here?”

Charlie jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Dude at the main house sent me back here.”

“Look,” Rudi Altobelli sternly instructs, “I don’t like my tenants to be disturbed. So from here on in, you don’t bother them again, you got it, Charlie?”

Charlie grins wide and waves his hand in compliance. “I get it, I got it, and I’m good,” Charlie assures him. “I don’t want to be no bother.” Trying to wrap up this whole exchange with a little dignity, Charlie says, “So I’m gonna go track down Terry—or he’ll track me down. And maybe at another time I can play you some of my songs?”

Finally! Rudi thinks.

“Yeah,” Rudi says, “sure thing, Charlie.”

Charlie gives the man behind the screen a big wave and an even bigger smile and says, “Happy trails!”

Up on top of Rick’s roof, Cliff has got Rick’s TV antenna back up again. He’s twisting some wire around the base with a pair of pliers to keep it in place when he spots the little hippie dude he saw drive up in the Twinkie truck leaving the Polanski residence, walking back down the driveway in the direction of the automobile. As Cliff continues to twist the pliers, he follows this sketchy dude with his eyes.

Charlie’s just about to climb aboard the Twinkie truck when he feels eyeballs on his shoulders. He pauses. Then turns around. He sees staring down at him from the roof of the house on the opposite side of the street a blond guy with his shirt off, working behind a TV antenna.

The men are too far away to get a good glimpse of each other.

Charlie smiles one of his big face-covering smiles and gives the shirtless blond bloke a big wave.

Cliff doesn’t smile or wave back. He just stares holes through the dark little hippie while he twists the wire around the antenna with a pair of pliers.

The smile disappears from Charlie’s face.

Then suddenly Charlie breaks into one of his “ooga-booga” dances, complete with yelled Manson gibberish. When Mr. Manson finishes his spastic dance performance for Cliff, he flips off the asshole on the roof. “Fuck you, Jack!”

Mr. Manson climbs back in the Twinkie truck, starts it up, shoves the broom-like stick shift into gear, and pops and coughs down the hill of Cielo Drive.

Cliff watches him leave.

Then says to himself, out loud, “What the fuck was that?”

Chapter Twelve

“You Can Call Me Mirabella”

The door of the makeup trailer on the set of Lancer flies open, and out steps Rick Dalton. Except he doesn’t look much like Rick Dalton anymore. Sonya put a brown Indian wig on his head, which she cut into shoulder-length locks, and spirit-gummed a “big droopy Zapata-like mustache” around his mouth. And Rebekkah put him in a groovy brown rawhide jacket with a Custer-like fringe dangling off the arms that wouldn’t be out of place if Rick was performing onstage at Woodstock with Country Joe and the Fish . In other words, Caleb DeCoteau, à la Sam Wanamaker.

Sam, Sonya, and Rebekkah couldn’t be happier. Rick ain’t so convinced.

But Sam is so enthusiastic about both Rick as an actor and his conception of a counterculture Caleb that the actor thought it best not to rock the boat. So he decided the best plan of action was to be as good an actor as Sam thinks he is by acting as if he’s as enthusiastic as the other three about the development of Caleb’s look. In reality, Rick thinks, I look like a cross between a goddamn hippie faggot and the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz . And he’s not quite sure which of the two he dislikes most.

Sonya pops her head out of the makeup trailer door and warns him, “Rick I know it’s lunch, but you need to wait at least an hour before you eat. Give that glue holding your mustache on your lip a chance to dry.”

Nice-guy Rick gives her a no sweat, baby , look, pulls a western paperback out of his back pocket, and waves it at her in demonstration. “No worries, honey, I got my book.”

Great , Rick thinks, I’m fucking starving and now I gotta miss lunch.

One of the things Rick likes about working on a set is they have to feed you. Rick thinks any meal not paid for or prepared by him is a good meal. A lot of actors he crosses paths with on a set are ingrate sons-a-bitches. What’s not to love? They pay you a lot of money for pretending, they feed you, they fly you places, they put you up, give you spending cash, and do their best to make you look good? And still some actors complain. Aww, what, chicken again today? Rick has never understood it.

So during his lunch half hour, when he can’t eat, he might as well get himself familiar with the saloon set, where the gang of rustlers his character leads hangs out. Rick, in his full Caleb DeCoteau regalia, walks the Twentieth Century Fox western back lot, which on this show is called Royo del Oro. When lunch is over, this place will be teeming with crew members, cowboys, filming equipment, and horses. But during lunch it turns into a ghost town. It’s not completely deserted—random crew members cut through the western set as a shortcut on their way to somewhere else. But by and large it’s deserted.