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

“Maybe,” he confesses.

Then, in a quiet secret voice, she says, “Do you want to know what I think happens?”

With just a touch of comic bite, he says, “Well, I know you want to tell me, so why don’t you tell me.”

She continues to talk in her quiet secret voice, but she does get caught up in the momentum of the web she’s spinning. “Well, I think you think you could kill me. And you tell the other land pirates you could kill me. And you tell yourself you could kill me. But if push came to shove, and you had to do the thing you said you’d do, kill me—you couldn’t do it.”

“Okay, smarty-pants,” he says, “why not?”

“Because,” she tells him, “you realized you’ve fallen in love with me. And you pick me up in your arms and carry me to your horse. And we ride full out—Pony Express style—to the nearest preacher. And at the barrel of a gun, you make him marry us.”

That makes Rick smile, but in a mocking way. “Oh, I do, do I?” he says skeptically.

“Yes you do,” she says assuredly.

“I’m not gonna marry you,” he says dismissively.

“ You’re not going to marry me, or Caleb’s not going to marry me?” she clarifies.

“Neither of us is marrying you,” he tells her.

“Why?” she asks.

“You know why, you’re too young,” he says.

“Well, today—yeah, I’m too young. But this is western times. People had child brides all the time back then,” she correctly explains to him. “I mean—back then—it was nothing to marry a girl thirteen years old.”

“You’re not thirteen, you’re eight,” he clarifies.

“And that means something to Caleb DeCoteau?” she asks incredulously. She reminds him, “Five minutes ago, you just talked about how you’d kill me, like that. ” She snaps her fingers to emphasize the word “that.” “You told Scott you’d throw me down a fucking well. So killing an eight-year-old’s okay, but marrying me, that’s where Caleb DeCoteau draws the line?”

Rick’s a little lost for a comeback. She sees this and smirks, telling him, “I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.”

“Of course I haven’t thought this through,” he says defensively. “This is your harebrained idea.”

“It’s not harebrained. It might be provocative ,” she admits, “but it’s not harebrained.”

Rick gets exasperated and starts to tell her how uncomfortable this whole conversation is making him. “Trudi, I’m not comfortable with—”

But she interrupts him before he can finish. “Jeez Louise, Rick, we’re not doing it! It’s just a simple character thought experiment. They do it all the time at the Actors Studio. The script is the script. And we’re doing the script. In the script, Lancer does pay the money. So you never have to make this choice. In the script, Johnny kills you, so none of this will ever happen. But at the Actors Studio they ask the question: What if the script didn’t say that? Then what would your character do? Then what choice would your character make? It’s simply about understanding who your character is when they’re not dictated by the text.”

“Well, maybe, just maybe, I don’t wanna get married,” he counters.

“Well, you see now,” she gestures with her hand, “that’s a choice.” Investigating further: “So then, it’s not about my age. And it’s not you don’t love me—”

He interrupts, “I never said I loved you.”

She completely dismisses his last statement. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course you love me. So, it’s not my age, and it’s not you don’t love me, it’s just Caleb’s not a marrying-type guy, right?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“So we’re just shackin’ up?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Well, it just stands to reason,” she states logically. “We’re together, we’re in love, we’re not married, so we’re shackin’ up. I can do that.” Then clarifies, “For a little while. But at some point I’d make you marry me.”

Skeptical, he repeats, “You’d make me ?”

“Yeah,” she explains, “that would be a huge part of our dynamic.”

“What would be a huge part?” he asks.

She explains, “That you’re the boss, you run the gang. They do whatever you say without question. However, when nobody’s around? I’m the boss! And you do whatever I tell you.”

I can’t fucking believe this little midget , Rick thinks.

“Oh, I do, do I?”

“Yes, you do.”

“And why do I do whatever you say?”

“Because of a power I have over you. If I didn’t have this power, you’d’ve thrown me down the well, like you said you would. But it’s okay, you like the power I have over you. I mean, I’m the boss , but I’m a good boss , and I would never use my power in a negative way against you. Because I love you. Not as much as you love me. But I still love you.”

“Okay,” he asks, “what if I don’t?”

“What if you don’t what?”

Challenging her theory: “What if I don’t do what you tell me to?”

“Now, remember,” she reminds him, “I would never reveal the power I have over you in front of the gang, or anybody else for that matter. To the world, you’re in charge.”

“Okay, I get that,” he tells her. “But you said, I do whatever you tell me to, right?”

“Yes,” she says. “Like a dog. It’s a command. And you must obey.”

“Really?” he says, smirking. “What if I don’t?”

She emphasizes, “But you do.”

“Now who’s a slave to the text,” he counters. “You wanna play What if? What if I don’t?”

“Well …” She thinks about it for a moment. “It stands to reason that there would be a few times—at first—you didn’t. And that’s when I had to punish you.”

“You punish me?” he asks.

She nods her head yes, then concludes, “And after I’m through punishing you, you always do what I want.”

And it is at that moment, as Rick is trying to think of something to say to that, that Sam Wanamaker yells to his actors, “Action!”

And Caleb and Mirabella act out the scene.

Chapter Twenty-One

Lady of the House

Squeaky, of all the girls at Spahn Ranch, enjoys an enviable position. The women at the ranch hold a second-class citizenship inside “The Family”; they’re definitely considered inferior to the men. But Charlie makes it a point that they are also inferior to the dogs that live on the ranch. Whenever a Family woman wants to eat a bowl of food, she has to offer it to a dog first. Almost none of the females hold any position of authority (least of all Mary Brunner, the first member and the mother of Charlie’s child, Pooh Bear).

I say “almost” because two females do hold a special place inside of the Family’s hierarchy. One is “Gypsy,” who, at thirty-four, is by far the oldest of the Family women. Gypsy’s position amounts to an officer in charge of recruitment. Whenever a young lady or man is lured to the ranch, the first stop is to introduce them to Gypsy.

But it is the pixieish Squeaky who holds the closest thing to an authority position inside of the Family’s social structure. The reason the Family can stay at Spahn Ranch is due to a deal Charlie made with the property owner, George Spahn. And it is Squeaky’s responsibility to take care of George.

George Spahn is an eighty-year-old man, who for decades used to rent his movie ranch, with its back-lot western-town main drag, to Hollywood for movie and TV productions. Back in the day, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, and Jake Cahill rode their horses down the Spahn Ranch main drag. But in recent days, Hollywood has gone elsewhere, and the former movie set has fallen into disrepair. It is still used from time to time for photo shoots for magazines and album covers (the James Gang shot an album cover there). The ranch still has horses, and they still offer follow-the-leader type horseback rides to families through the Santa Susana Canyons.