Manny Leiber talked and paced. I half whispered, “Yeah, but what do we do with Meteor Crater!”
Fritz warned me with a jerk of his head: Shut up.
“So!” Manny pretended not to hear. “Our next problem, our main problem is … we have no ending for Christ and Galilee.”
“Say that again?” asked Fritz, with deadly politeness.
“No ending!” I cried. “Have you tried the Bible??
??
“We got Bibles! But our screenwriter couldn’t read the small print on a Dixie cup. I saw that Esquire story of yours. It was like Ecclesiastes.”
“Job,” I muttered.
“Shut up. What we need is—”
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and me!”
Manny Leiber snorted. “Since when do beginning writers reject the greatest job of the century? We need it yesterday, so Fritz can start shooting again. Write good and someday you’ll own all this!”
He waved.
I looked out over the graveyard. It was a bright day, but invisible rain washed the tombstones.
“God,” I whispered. “I hope not.”
That did it. Manny Leiber paled. He was back on Stage 13, in the dark, with me, Roy, and the clay Beast.
Silently, he ran to the restroom. The door slammed.
Fritz and I traded glances. Manny was sick behind the door.
“Gott,” exhaled Fritz. “I should have listened to Goering!”
Manny Leiber staggered back out a moment later, looked around as if surprised the place was still afloat, made it to the telephone, dialed, said, “Get in here!” and headed out.
I stopped him at the door.
“About Stage 13—”
Manny had his hand over his mouth as if he might be sick again. His eyes widened.
“I know you’re going to clean it out,” I said, quickly. “But I got a lot of stuff on that stage. And I want to spend the rest of the day talking with Fritz here about Galilee and Herod. Could you leave all the junk so I can come tomorrow morning and claim my stuff? Then you can clean out.”
Manny’s eyes swiveled, thinking. Then, hand over his mouth, he jerked his head once, yes, and turned to find a tall thin pale man coming in. They whispered, then with no goodbyes, Manny left. The tall pale man was I. W. W. Hope, one of the production estimators.
He looked at me, paused, and then with some embarrassment said, “It seems, ah, we have no ending for your film.”
“Have you tried the Bible?” Fritz and I said.
22
The menagerie was gone, the curb was empty in front of the studio. Charlotte, Ma, and the rest had gone on to other studios, other restaurants. There must have been three dozen of them scattered across Hollywood. One would surely know Clarence’s last name.
Fritz drove me home.
Along the way he said, “Reach in the glove compartment. That glass case. Open.”