Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

(Dear Pop. I’m stopping here for a beat. The stench of too much exposition, for one thing. But that phone call is similar to the one we had when I called you from Benares. Do you remember? You were shooting that feeble comedy in the south of France. I hung up when you started screaming at me to come home, that as far as you were concerned it was okay if you never saw Clem again. She had made her decision to disappear and you had made your decision to let her. I have many of those same feelings about you these days, Pop. . As for now, I’m sitting in room 703 in Caesar’s Palace planning to drive to Albany and see Lama Yeshe, who, if he is there, will most likely know if Clem is still on the planet. Room 703 reminds me of Bustin’ Out , which you started in Vegas in September of ’73 and didn’t finish until March of ’74. You fired me twice on that one before I quit altogether. But as one of three associate producers, I managed to scam twenty-five grand off the top with the help of the prop man and the production manager. Old Teddy Penders and Benson. Part of your family. Over fifteen pictures together. They stole you blind, and not only that, they didn’t have much respect for you. Benson said you hadn’t done any good work since the late fifties. Certainly Bustin’ Out proves that theory. Your moves on that one were so off the wall that it gave me the courage to try and separate myself from you altogether. But it wasn’t until I went off to India that I made any headway on that score. What a drag it was then and still is to talk to you, as if you swallowed whole all that public relations baloney about being one of the few people in the business who have any real compassion or moral code. All that hype about you being a frontier man, aligned in the pantheon with Ford, Raoul Walsh, and Hawks, just crafting your entertainments for the general populace. Maybe so. But I’m aware of how numb and antagonistic you are to everything outside of your immediate desires, except, of course, your “work,” which you pull around you like a slimy second skin so that you won’t have to live or be responsible for the other layers of your life.)

Back to the script, which brings us to the phone call and Jim picking up the phone in Charles’s study with its huge portrait of Kipling staring down from over the mantel. “Hello, hello,” he yells into the receiver. “Pop?”. .“Yes, yes,” thunders old Pete. “I received a letter from your sister last week that has me just about buffaloed. I’m calling off the hunt. I think she’s gone over the edge. Some kind of one-year meditation retreat in Nepal or some godforsaken place. Going on about a guru or a teacher and how happy she is and how good and accepting she feels about me. I don’t trust any of it. In fact I find it embarrassing. I immediately sent her a telegram informing her that when she got her head clear I’d be glad to see her but not before. Do you hear me? I’m fed up with the whole goddamned performance and I don’t want you dealing with it any more. Are they treating you well over there? They sound like rank amateurs to me. Especially what’s his name? Charles. In fact, I don’t think the corporation should continue dealing with that part of the world. They’re falling behind too fast. It’s not practical to rescue those parts of the third world that are threatening to become the fourth and even the fifth world.”. .“I want to find her,” Jim says. “She’s been sick.”. .“That’s up to you,” roars Pete. “But I would prefer that you and Lacey take a two-week vacation in Bali or Australia or wherever you want and then come home by way of Hong Kong. There’s a firm I’m thinking of absorbing and I’d like you to check it out.”. .“Pop. Perhaps you didn’t hear. I’m not going to do any of that right now.”. .“I assume you’re coming back to work. You have a lot of responsibilities back here.”. .“I’m not coming back until I find Clem,” Jim says, surprised at what he is saying. “In fact, as of now I’m quitting.”. . There is a long silence before old Pete says in a flat, controlled voice: “So be it,” and hangs up. . Jim puts the phone softly back on its cradle and says to Lacey, who has come into the room: “I’m going to have to look for a job.”. . Lacey puts her arms around him, kisses him. “Good. I’ll look for one too.”. .

EXTERIOR — NIGHT. . Charles drives them to the edge of old Delhi, where they leave him sitting behind the wheel. They walk into the smoky evening light, past wandering sacred cows, fried pancake stands, tinkling rickshas and bicycles, beggars mumbling for annas in front of cloth merchants hawking cheap paisley spreads. They stop outside a four-story wooden building with a rickety staircase winding up the outside. Jim asks a toothless hag if she knows where the Tibetan lives. She shakes her head, not understanding. “Lama! Lama!” Jim shouts and finally she nods, laughing and pointing to the roof. They climb the stairs to the roof where Lama Yeshe sits on a simple cane chair, a dozen or more people seated cross-legged in front of him. They are in the middle of a puja and Lama Yeshe’s eyes are half closed, his right hand slowly moving a dorje in loose circular motions while his left hand rings a bell. He is a thin brown man of indeterminate age with an enormous shaved head and sad liquid eyes. His young wife sits in front of him in a black chuba, playing with their two small children as the puja proceeds. The others are all Tibetans except for a blond bearded man sitting off to one side, slowly shifting the wooden beads of his mala between thumb and forefinger as he intones the solemn requests and prayers dedicated to the wrathful deity, Dorje Phourba.

Walker stopped writing and laid his head over his folded arms, sleeping for a few moments before he moved to the bed and curled up beside Rosie. Several hours later, when A.D. came back to the room, Walker was huddled in the same position. A.D. read the pages on the table and, in a move that was becoming automatic, went down to the casino’s office to have them Xeroxed. When he returned, Rosie was in the shower and Walker was sitting up in bed, drinking coffee and eating a sweet roll.

“I’m going to Albany,” Walker said.

“Say what?” A.D. sat on the edge of the bed and drank some of Walker’s coffee.

“I’ve come to that point in the script where I have to find out about Clementine.”

“You mean if she’s dead or not?”

“Something like that.”

“Why? The script can take off on its own. If you need her to be dead, make her dead.”

“I’m ready to go outside the script,” Walker said simply.

Rosie came out of the shower wrapped in a towel. Abruptly she took the coffee cup out of A.D.’s hands and went over to sit on the other bed, as if protecting her right to food and privacy.

“I’ll head for New York,” A.D. said. “It’s time to ram a deal through the money people.”

“What money people?”

“Whoever’s hanging around.”

“There won’t be anyone hanging around. The old man’s recent actions don’t exactly inspire that kind of attention.”

“Fuck your old man,” A.D. said. “We agreed on that, didn’t we? I’m just worried about the product. If you find out too much about your sister, you might not want to continue. You might not have the need.”

“That’s possible,” Walker said.

Rosie slowly finished her coffee and let the towel covering her waist slide to the floor. “If someone wants to take a turn with me, that’s okay. If not I’m going to mingle with the high rollers.”

“I’ll take you on,” A.D. said with a sigh.

An hour later he was still negotiating when Walker, suitcase in hand, waved good-bye and left.