Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

“We will be meeting with the proprietor himself, a Mr. Hugo Schick. Research says he’s a grand egotist, Hermann. If you find yourself wanting the deal, you may have to tolerate a good amount of preening.”

“I’ve dealt with narcissists before,” Hermann laughs and Weltsch thinks, every morning, my friend, in the shaving mirror.

“Schick is a nationalized citizen out of Austria. There was a good deal of family money in the early part of the century, but it’s been bled away over generations. They seemed to have a knack for backing the losers in all the major conflicts.”

“Nazi bastard,” Felix pipes in, imitating a favorite, tough-guy comedian.

“Jump ahead,” Hermann snaps. “How is the operation structured?”

Felix swings the Caddy onto Brodine and just misses a collision with an oncoming Harley. No one comments. He rights the car and Gustav continues.

“Schick arrived here in Quinsigamond almost twenty years ago,” Weltsch says. “He had a good deal of money with him, though no one knows where it came from. Essentially, he’s an enormously talented con man. When he took title to the Herzog Theatre it was in total disrepair, on the verge of being condemned by the city. We know he’s burned through a half-dozen investors in his attempt at restoration. Some old Windsor Hills money. Some shadow banks with cash to hide.”

“He makes the movies himself?” Hermann asks.

“He has what he calls a family of players, a cast and crew that he uses from film to film. He has two studios above the theatre itself. He makes and edits the films, then tries to run his own distribution. A suicidal plan, but he insists. What is the saying, too many irons in the fire? That will be one of the first things we will want to change, Hermann.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Gustav. How do you see the specifics of the deal?”

“Schick is starving for revenue. Some of my sources say he could be on the street in a matter of months. He’s had to halt the finishing touches on the theatre. He’s attempting to wrap up what he thinks of as his masterpiece. A film he’s been trying to make for the past seven years. This is a crucial moment for him.”

“Every moment is crucial, Gustav.”

“If you choose to go forward, we advance the money immediately. Reasonable terms. We let things appear to be within the parameters of normalcy. We suggest the building and the stock as collateral. If my data remains relevant, he should begin to default in eight weeks. You would own the property and the businesses by the first of the year.”

Hermann reaches over the seat, squeezes Weltsch’s shoulder. “Fine work, my friend. You pick the restaurant tonight.”

Behind the wheel, Felix rolls his eyes, knowing they’ll be dining on roast tongue in juniper sauce at Boz Lustig’s ratty Jidelna.

“Here’s what I wish to do,” Kinsky says. “We listen to the man. Let him present his case. Whether I’ve decided yes or no, I will play undecided. No commitment one way or another. We say we call tomorrow. We will call the day after tomorrow. Gustav, you are the voice of reason. You are anxious to leave this sinful place,” Hermann pauses to chuckle at himself, “Felix, you are the threat. You are interested, but only on your terms. You leer. You come to the edge of insulting, yes? If there is a woman present, you give her a bit of uncalled-for attention.”

Felix smiles, pleased with his lot, wholly confident of his ability to deliver.

“And son,” turning finally to Jakob, “if things progress as I suspect they will, you are to be our inside man. This is a fine opportunity for you, Jakob. This is the one we have been waiting for, no,” squeezing the boy’s thin arm through his top coat. “This is perfect for us. Perfect for you, Jakob. You know this business from birth. Your mother would be so happy tonight.”

Jakob stares straight ahead into the rear of Felix’s neck and makes himself nod as the car pulls to a stop in front of Herzog’s Erotic Palace. All noise ceases and everyone stares out and up at the building. It’s as if, in driving a few miles west from their home, they’ve been transported to some kind of haunting and ethereal landscape where the senses are made doubtful by ridiculous amounts of colored light, strange angles, a hint of engulfing fog.

“I’ve seen it,” Hermann whispers, “during the day, but it never looked this, this—”

“Beautiful,” Jakob finishes for him.

The doors of the Caddy are pulled open by steroid-enhanced men all dressed in identical uniforms — black spandex jackets with a breast-pocket logo that tries to replicate the splendor of the theatre in a line drawing.

The foursome reassembles on the sidewalk, Felix forgetting to tip the valet, who drives away too fast in the Fleetwood. But nobody notices. They all have their heads tilted back, their eyes furiously trying to take in the architectural dream rising up before them. Suddenly, their stark bachelor quarters back on Belvedere seems unsuitable and, in Hermann’s case, degrading. He leans to the side and begins to whisper into Weltsch’s ear.

Jakob doesn’t notice the transaction. He’s too busy playing Moses, looking out on the expanse of an ever prophesied Promised Land and hearing a voice in his head, the voice of the woman who sometimes comes in his dreams. Maybe Felice Fabri. Maybe his long-dead mother. It’s a voice of revelation, a voice of piercing truth and instant epiphany. It’s a sound that’s coasting through his nervous system at a greater and greater speed, making his body vibrate, making his heart take on a rhythm it’s never known before. It’s a noise that says, This is it, Jakob. The time has come.

Herzog’s Erotic Palace is a textbook example of form following function, if the text’s author was a visionary egomaniac living on hallucinogens and gothic novels. It’s theatrical to the point of self-parody, but it never quite crosses that line. It’s too impressive, and in some ways foreboding, to mock its own harsh angles. The theatre is five stories high, divided into three platform levels, an eccentric, dramatic mix of French château and Bohemian Sondergotik styles which somehow yields a baroque and, at the same time, fortress-like aura to the structure. The granite walls are covered with intricate etchings that depict the likeness of forgotten actors all the way up to the slightly smaller second level that features a series of vaulting archways and rounded, turret-like corners that rise into spires. The crown of the building is an extra-wide steeple rimmed by an open-air balcony.

But what the eye is immediately drawn to is the marquee, the lone signifier that this is, in fact, a movie theatre and not the headquarters of some occult inquisitor or hemophiliac prince. Out of place with the severity of the rest of the building, this winged canopy hangs out as far as the curb and runs close to a hundred feet down the length of Watson Street. Its neon garishness suggests a kind of cheap humor at the heart of the structure’s stone earnestness. And the green neon that spells out HERZOG’S EROTIC PALACE in an elaborate, cursive script looks like a monumental practical joke that the structure itself doesn’t yet know about.

They sit in the darkness, in the front row of the theatre proper. There’s a faint undercurrent of music that only Jakob recognizes as a wildly overblown rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening.” Slowly the immense and heavy-looking maroon curtains begin to pull back. The procedure takes quite a while and when they’re finally fully receded, the clan stares up at the enormity of a stark white screen, the largest movie screen any of them have laid eyes on. The screen is illuminated by a single narrow white spotlight that impacts at a low, center point and spreads onto the lip of the stage. The overwhelming whiteness, and maybe his proximity to it, gives Felix a slightly queasy feeling.