Paul Kolsby - Ear to the Ground

Henny grabbed the pages, pulled a pair of John Lennon glasses from his pocket, and wound them dramatically over his ears. Then he began to read.

When word got around that Henny Rarlin had arrived, at least ten actresses found a reason to draw near. But Henny, ever the leerer, interrupted his reading for only a second before he returned to the script. Turning a page, he smiled; he chuckled. In a gesture symbolizing his deepest concentration, he flung his arm over his head and grasped his opposite ear. A moment later, he smiled broadly to Ian.

“This sucks much less,” Henny said.

At Warner’s, marketing usually met on Mondays, but this Friday, they were having a special session to figure out how they would ever be able to cover costs on Ear to the Ground. What had been publicized, even paraded, as a hundred-million-dollar movie was now their problem. Or, depending on how you looked at it, their challenge.

First, they condemned the costliness of special effects in general; then they discussed whether anybody really believed the Big One was coming. Most of them did. “Nobody’s leaving, I hope,” somebody said, in an attempt at a joke.

This much they knew: The film had to open at least two weeks before December 29. If it was a stinker, and the quake came, they’d probably be rescued. If it was a hit, and the quake came, it’d be a fucking bonanza.

But what if the quake didn’t come? What if it was early, or late? What would happen to the hype ? What they needed was a way to link the actual facts about the earthquake with the marketing campaign for Ear to the Ground. That was when Meyer Stern, worldwide president of marketing, had the idea of calling Sterling Caruthers.

STERLING CARUTHERS HUNG UP THE PHONE AND SAT for a long time without moving any part of his body. This temporary paralysis, caused by a jolting stimulus to his pineal gland, was actually the result of a five-minute conversation that had netted him seven million dollars. Having not yet let go of the cradled receiver, and sitting still as a fly the instant before you take a swat at it, Caruthers realized that his schemes to capitalize on the coming earthquake had been merely the uncreative ideas of a desperate man. He had pushed when he should have relaxed. The Simpson trial had temporarily stolen his limelight. Now, he knew, the opportunities would come.

Caruthers suddenly remembered a “SALE” sign by that chateau on Mulholland; then he recalled a BMW commercial he’d seen on television that morning. Victoria M., the agent he’d met weeks ago at William Morris, was hopeful he could become the premier earthquake spokesman — that is, should the disaster strike. Already, there was money swirling around this quake, and the young agent had been particularly shocked to find how badly she wanted it. Nothing comparable had happened to her since coming to Hollywood, and Caruthers had been impressed at the way she’d adapted herself to the idea of cashing in on future pain and suffering. In the closing chapter of the second millennium, he thought, the smart money was squarely on doom.

The call from Warner Brothers had come out of the blue, but by the end of the week there would be dozens of calls. Perhaps hundreds. Turning down million-dollar offers suddenly seemed the most delightful of pursuits.

His brother had made scads of money in telecommunications, and his sister’s husband’s real-estate portfolio grew larger every Christmas. But this year, Sterling Caruthers would surpass them both. He’d stuff their stockings with hate, and with expensive little nuggets from Caldwell or Tiffany’s. It’d be the worst Christmas of their lives.

Caruthers began to play a game people sometimes play when they’re immobilized by their own thoughts: pretending for a moment the paralysis is real and that they’ll never move again.

Then the phone rang, and Caruthers picked it up. “Victoria M. from William Morris,” his secretary told him. Probably wants a commission from the Warner thing, he thought. Tough luck, sweetie.

Caruthers wondered if what he was doing was legal, making a deal to sell information to a movie studio twenty-four hours before it went to the media. Then again, if William Morris didn’t seem bothered by it, how bad could it be? He let Victoria M. dangle on hold for several minutes, then proceeded to beat her up over the commission. The little bitch wouldn’t yield. “At the William Morris Agency,” she told him, “we’re not in the practice of representing half-clients.” By the time they hung up, he’d made a verbal agreement for across-the-board representation. Then Caruthers called Charlie Richter to see if there was any information on which he could trade.

Charlie sat across from Ian in the dining room of Chaya Brasserie, eating a bowl of spicy shrimp soup. Ian had called him, hoping to pick his brain on a point of science. Ear to the Ground, whose script was now on its ninth draft, was scheduled to go before the cameras in two weeks, at a Current Estimated Cost (CEC) of $135 million. Industrywide chants of “Quake Gate” increased in volume and fervor whenever the studio announced a budget increase. Sour grapes, Ian knew. But now Ian knew a lot of things. He knew enough about fault lines and plate tectonics and soil samples, but he still did not know the simple scientific principle by which earthquakes could be predicted.

“That can’t really be easily explained,” Charlie told him.

“Try me.”

Charlie felt a twinge of discomfort ripple through him, and he put his soup spoon down. In a certain way, he felt guilty for having been the catalyst in Grace and Ian’s breakup. It was funny how things worked, he thought: A rift in a relationship could go undetected for months, just something between two people that they both ignored, like a dormant seismic fault. Then, all of a sudden, it was like there was too much alkaline in the soil.

Charlie wasn’t proud of it, but he knew Grace had placed Ian and him side-by-side like suspects in a police lineup. She had released Ian on his own recognizance but had held Charlie for further questioning.

Perhaps that was why he’d agreed to come to lunch, to talk about Grace. But soon he felt guilty and realized how inappropriate that would be. Besides, the earth was moving underneath them right now ; it would move differently in sixty-three days. Nauseated, he pushed his bowl away. Then he took out a mechanical pencil and proceeded to give Ian his first lesson in the logic of numbers.

WHEN GRACE GONGLEWSKI GOT HOME FROM WORK ON Thursday, it was already Friday morning: two-twenty-three, according to her Honda’s dashboard digital clock, its little colon blinking on and off like a pair of knowing eyes. Upstairs, her answering machine also flickered, but Grace ignored it. What she wanted most was to take off her cowboy boots and fall into a deep sleep.

Not that such a thing was likely. Not at all. Grace realized this when she went into the bedroom and fiddled with the alarm. She would be back at work in five hours. She hated her life just then, and kicked her right boot into the corner, where it ricocheted like a stray bullet before coming to rest, right side up, at the foot of her bed. Her left boot, however, went straight in the air and landed on her dresser, scattering coins and keys and assorted odds and ends.

The perfect cap to the perfect day, she thought. One endless stream of disappointments, from the moment Ethan told her she wouldn’t be picking up Bridge Bridges from the airport.

“Why?” Grace said.

“I need you to collate scripts.”

“How many scripts?” Grace’s heart clenched.