Rudolph Wurlitzer - Slow Fade

He paused, staring off across the room, then back again to A.D. “Where’s Walker?” he asked, with sudden alarm.

“He’s driving from Vegas to Albany. He said it was time to find out if Clementine was still alive. I guess there’s somebody there who knows.”

“She’s alive,” Wesley said flatly. “The script demands it.”

A.D. took the new pages out of his briefcase and handed them to Wesley.

“And how is Walker?” Wesley asked, uneasily flipping through the pages. “Has he managed to find any kind of reality for himself?”

“I don’t know about reality,” A.D. said. “But he’s nailed to the script, and that keeps him straight. He doesn’t say much and he hangs out by himself. Of course I’ve been watching out for him, seeing that he doesn’t graze off or get into trouble, and that’s been a full-time job. I’m here to tell you that. He’s more sideways than streetwise, you understand, so I’ve had to keep him on a short leash. I busted his ass a few times to make sure the pages got squeezed out and I fixed up a few scenes, gave them a wash and a rinse. I guess you know that he’s not a natural-born writer, but when the mood is on him he can burn. Other than that, my main problem is living with the one eye.”

A.D. paused and went over to the other couch and sat down next to Sidney, who had made himself a tall brandy and soda and wasn’t listening to any of it. “It hasn’t been easy,” A.D. said slowly. “Some actions won’t never be the same.”

“The patch works real well,” Wesley said, bragging on him. “I’d cast you as a heavy anytime.”

“You already did,” A.D. said. “Which reminds me, I’ll need some scratch for those new pages and for those times I helped Walker out in Vegas.”

“Was it roulette?” Wesley asked.

“Mostly blackjack. One bad run.”

“Drugs?”

“Just maintenance and travel aids.”

“Women?”

“I set him up a time or two.”

“I’m grateful,” Wesley said, with what looked like tears in his eyes. “Would a few grand do you?”

“For now. Of course the game has changed a little and I’m sure you’ll appreciate that. I’m one of the producers now. Walker and I signed a paper to that effect, and if you sign that’ll make it official.”

“I don’t care who the producer is,” Wesley said, signing the paper A.D. offered him. “We’ll need more than one producer before we’re through. But this is the core group. This is it. After all these years this is the gang I finish up with.”

Sidney drained his brandy and soda. “What about me? I don’t want to finish up with you but I wouldn’t mind making a deal.”

“You’re my trigger man,” Wesley said impatiently. “Without you I don’t see.”

Evelyn uncurled herself from the couch, looking bored and weary. “I’m going to get some air, if there is any out there.”

Wesley sprang to his feet. “We’ll go over to the Russian Tea Room for borscht and a few drinks.”

They took the elevator down to the lobby and entered into the dense August night. In his pale blue pajama pants and karate jacket Wesley looked like an old martial arts freak who had wandered in from the park.

Wesley had trouble breathing and they sat down on a bench, their backs to the park, watching the street and the soft parade of people floating in and out of the Plaza and the movie house next door.

“I can’t believe Clementine has really disappeared,” Wesley said abruptly, his lungs struggling for air. “I can’t grasp that. I was angry. Sure. She gives you no warning. But I certainly wasn’t totally rejecting.”

Evelyn looked at him with alarm and started to rub the back of his neck but he shook her off.

“Okay. I know,” he said. “I won’t get stuck back there. What’s important is that we all get into the same room again.”

He paused, staring back into the dark and silent park.

Sidney chose that moment to stand up and state his case to Wesley, something he had never done before. His pants and short-sleeved shirt were matted with sweat, and as he talked he pulled nervously at the tired flesh around his neck. “One minute you tell me I’m working for you and it’s good steady work and don’t worry, just pull the trigger. Then you don’t pay me and when I say, okay, it’s my film, you say, hey, we’ll find the form, don’t get attached. And now you pull me into an Indian project with your looney-tunes son and say, ‘Just stay in the moment, baby.’ I need form , Wesley. I’m an A to B man. Always have been, always will be. I don’t mind playing and picking up spontaneous stuff, but pay me and give me an overall plan. And don’t keep telling me it’s my film or our film or your film or it’s not a film but a ‘probe into the unknown.’ You’re messing with my mind. And then to top it all off, A.D. starts pitching me about joining forces with him and making an end run on you. It’s no good, Wesley. You’ve got to give me a real target and you’ve got to be straight with me.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Wesley said.

This agreement took Sidney by surprise, and he stepped into and out of the park before he spoke to Wesley again. “Call me when you know what you want,” he said. Then he crossed the street and walked across the square in front of the Plaza and disappeared down Fifth Avenue.

“Don’t worry about Sidney,” Wesley said. “He gets this way. Everyone does in this business. I’ll make a deal with him and he’ll quiet down. The truth is, he has a great pair of eyes and can enter into a space better than anyone I know. And it’s my pleasure to exploit myself right now. I need to do that.”

“Why?” Evelyn asked. “Why do you need to do that?”

Wesley looked at her a long time before he answered. “I have to hold on. If I don’t hold on, I’ll fall off. If I fall off, I’m lost forever.”

“Lost and gone forever,” Evelyn sang, leaning over and kissing him. “Dreadful sorry, Clementine.”

WESLEY stood up and, with Evelyn and A.D. flanking him, walked alongside the park to Seventh Avenue and then south to Fifty-seventh Street. The Russian Tea Room was crowded, and Wesley pushed his way past the bar to the dining room. The maître d’ failed to recognize him and bluntly refused him a table. As Wesley started to protest, his hand pulling vaguely at the maître d’s lapel, a youthful figure in starched jeans and custom-made white Jamaica leisure shirt bounded toward him from a rear table.

“Oh, Christ,” Evelyn muttered, unable to make an exit because of the steady crush of people pushing up behind her.

“Mr. Hardin. My God!” The youthful figure brushed past the maitre d’ and claimed Wesley’s arm. “How propitious. We were just talking about you. The way you’ve handled the press the past few weeks has been extraordinary.”

“Do I know you?”

“Of course. It’s just that all of us young moguls look alike these days. Bud Serkin.”

“Warners?”

“Universal.”

“On the way in or on the way out?”

“Hopefully sliding into the middle. Please, Mr. Hardin, you must join us. There’s an old admirer of yours back there who will absolutely kill me if I let you slip away.”

They followed Bud Serkin to his table, squeezing in around a handsome gray-haired woman and a delicately featured young man in lightly tinted dark glasses and a blue business suit whose thick blond hair was swept back from his forehead in a Rod Stewart brush.

“Long time no see,” the woman said to Wesley.

“Hello, Sheila,” Wesley said. “I thought you were dead.”

“Just buried alive.”

“It was always hard to tell with you.”

“Indeed.” She turned her hard gray eyes on Evelyn. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new wife? Or is this your daughter?”