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

The highest-paid movie star in the world is congratulating me on making a living as an actor. Thanks a lot.

“By the way,” Dalton says, “I was rootin’ for you for that Oscar nomination,” referring again to The Sand Pebbles.

McQueen doesn’t say anything to that; he just smiles.

Rick knows what that means. This little conversation is over.

But before that gate opens and McQueen and his Porsche zoom out of his life, Rick would like to connect with him. Not on the two separate realities they now exist in. But, back when the two men shared the same real estate, there was one incident that they shared that Rick could bring up without sounding too pathetic.

“Hey, Steve, I was wondering,” Rick said, “do you remember that time—it was during the first season of my show and the second season of your show—that we played pool at Barney’s Beanery?”

Actually, McQueen does remember that. “Yeah,” he says, “I remember that.” Going back in time: “We played three games, right?”

“Yeah,” Rick says, happy Steve remembers it. “It was kind of a big deal at the time. You know, Josh and Jake playing pool.”

McQueen gives it to him. “Well, it was a big deal. Josh and Jake playing pool? We coulda sold tickets.”

Rick laughs at Steve’s joke.

Thinking about it, McQueen says, “In fact, I seem to remember the whole bar watched us play the first game.” McQueen points at him. “You won. And only half the bar watched the second game”—then he jerks his thumb toward himself—“which I won.” And then he laughs when he remembers, “And nobody cared about the third game.”

A very moved Rick nods his head yes. He remembers.

“But I don’t remember who won the third game?” McQueen asks.

“Nobody,” Rick answers. “We never finished it. You had to leave.”

McQueen knows that probably means he was losing.

Then another car en route to Sharon’s party pulls up behind McQueen’s Porsche, bringing the reunion to an end. Both men look back at the other car, then back to each other.

“So you live there?” McQueen says, pointing at Rick’s house.

“Yep,” Rick says.

“Well, maybe one day I’ll knock on your door and we can go down to Barney’s and finish that game.”

Rick knows that will never happen, but it’s a nice thing to say. “That would be great.” Really meaning it, Rick says, “Good to see you again, Steve.”

“You too. Take care of yourself.” Then Steve turns toward the call box out in front of the Polanski house and hits the button.

Sharon’s voice comes out of the speaker. “Hello?”

Steve says into the box, “It’s me, baby, open up.”

The Polanskis’ front gate opens. Steve’s car, and the car behind him, drive up the driveway and disappear from view.

Rick stands there holding his beer stein, the tape recorder, and the garden hose, watching the gate in front of the Polanski residence close itself. He takes a swig of whiskey sour. Then he hears the phone inside the house ring.

Who the fuck’s calling at midnight?

He trots inside the house and answers the phone attached to the wall in the kitchen.

“Hello?” he says.

The female voice on the other end of the line says, “Rick?”

“Yes?” he answers.

“Are you learning your lines?” the voice asks.

What the fuck?

He asks, “Who is this?”

“It’s Trudi. You know, Mirabella from work.”

A genuinely surprised Rick says, “Trudi? Trudi, do you know what time it is?”

She groans on the other end of the line. “That’s a silly question. Of course I know what time it is. I don’t go to bed till I know my lines cold. I don’t believe in this learning-your-lines-during-the-day malarkey. Especially not on television. You don’t sound like I woke you up.” She asks, “Did I?”

“No, you didn’t,” he confesses.

“So,” she challenges, “what’s the problem?”

“You know the problem,” he says with irritation creeping into his voice. “Does your mother know you’re calling?”

Trudi guffaws on the other end of the line and tells Rick, “By ten forty-five, my mother has put away three to four glasses of chardonnay and is usually sleeping openmouthed on the couch with the TV on, waiting for the National Anthem sign-off to happen to wake her up and send her to the bedroom.”

“Trudi, you can’t call me at this hour,” Rick insists.

“Are you suggesting it’s not appropriate?”

“It’s not appropriate.”

“Stop trying to change the subject and answer the question.”

“What question?”

“Are you learning your lines?”

“Oh. Well—as a matter of fact, Little Miss Smartass—I am.”

“Yeah, right,” she says sarcastically.

“I am!” he insists.

“You’re watching Johnny Carson ,” she says dismissively.

“I am not. I’m learnin’ my fuckin’ lines, you little bitch!”

After losing his cool and calling her a bitch, he hears her little voice giggle on the other end of the receiver. The sound of her giggling makes him giggle.

Then in mid-giggle she asks, “Are you learning our scene?”

“Yes, I am,” he tells her.

“Me too,” she says, and then asks, “Wanna run lines together?”

Okay , he thinks, this has gone way too far. He’s got to shut this little troublemaker down.

“Look, Trudi, I really don’t think it’s okay to be talking on the phone at midnight with your mom not knowin’,” he says honestly.

With infinite patience, Trudi answers Rick, “You act like tomorrow morning I’m waking up and going to a little red schoolhouse. I’m going to work with you. And we’re doing this scene. You’re up, I’m up. You’re working on the scene, I’m working on the scene. So,” she suggests, “let’s work on it together. Then tomorrow we show up to work, nobody knows we worked on it, and we knock ’em dead!” Then—almost like a dig—she adds, “You know, Rick, they don’t just pay us to do it. They pay us to do it great.”

The little squirt’s making sense. I mean, she is just a acting colleague. And after the way Sam reacted to that last scene we did together, if me and her come out of the gate tomorrow loaded for bear, we would knock ’em dead.

“You off book?” he asks the little girl.

“I think I am,” was her reply.

“Yeah, me too. Okay, kiddo, you start.”

On the other end of the receiver, Trudi suddenly changes her voice to duplicate traumatized-kidnap-victim Mirabella’s overdramatic intensity. “What do you intend to do with me?”

As he paces around his kitchen, dressed in his red silk kimono, Rick takes a swig of a whiskey sour from his beer stein and adopts his Caleb DeCoteau cowboy dialect. “You know, little lady, I ain’t rightly figured that out yet. I could do a lotta things wit’ ya. I could do a lotta things to ya. But I could also let ya go, your pa sees the right side of things.”

Trudi, as Mirabella, asks, “What’s he gotta do for you to let me go?”

Rick, as Caleb, spits out maniacally, “He can make me a rich man, that’s what he can do! He can give me a basket full of money and then he can forget me. Or I’ll give him a basket full of dead daughter, and he’ll never forget me.”

The innocent child asks the corrupt criminal, “So you’d murder me? Not because you’re angry with me, or even angry with my father,” Trudi takes a dramatic pause, then says, “but simply for greed?”

Caleb answers flippantly, “Greed’s what makes the world go ’round, little lady.”

The little lady says her name out loud: “Mirabella.”