Smoke and Mirrors

“Did you love her?”

He shook his head. “Not like you would love a woman . . .” he said.

There was a pause. He reached down and turned the pages.

“And my wife would have killed me if she’d heard me say this . . .”

Another pause.

“But yeah. Skinny dead white woman. I suppose I loved her.” He closed the book.

“But she’s not dead to you, is she?”

He shook his head. Then he went away. But he left me the book to look at.

The secret of the illusion of “The Artist’s Dream” was this: It was done by carrying the girl in, holding tight on to the back of the canvas. The canvas was supported by hidden wires, so, while the artist casually, easily, carried in the canvas and placed it on the easel, he was also carrying in the girl. The painting of the girl on the easel was arranged like a roller blind, and it rolled up or down.

“The Enchanted Casement,” on the other hand, was, literally, done with mirrors: an angled mirror which reflected the faces of people standing out of sight in the wings.

Even today many magicians use mirrors in their acts to make you think you are seeing something you are not.

It was easy, when you knew how it was done.

“Before we start,” he said, “I should tell you I don’t read treatments. I tend to feel it inhibits my creativity. Don’t worry, I had a secretary do a précis, so I’m up to speed.”

He had a beard and long hair and looked a little like Jesus, although I doubted that Jesus had such perfect teeth. He was, it appeared, the most important person I’d spoken to so far. His name was John Ray, and even I had heard of him, although I was not entirely sure what he did: his name tended to appear at the beginning of films, next to words like EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. The voice from the studio that had set up the meeting told me that they, the studio, were most excited about the fact that he had ‘ attached himself to the project.’

“Doesn’t the précis inhibit your creativity, too?”

He grinned. “Now, we all think you’ve done an amazing job. Quite stunning. There are just a few things that we have a problem with.”

“Such as?”

“Well, the Manson thing. And the idea about these kids growing up. So we’ve been tossing around a few scenarios in the office: try this for size. There’s a guy called, say, Jack Badd—two d’s, that was Donna’s idea—” Donna bowed her head modestly.

“They put him away for satanic abuse, fried him in the chair, and as he dies he swears he’ll come back and destroy them all.

“Now, it’s today, and we see these young boys getting hooked on a video arcade game called Be Badd. His face on it. And as they play the game he like, starts to possess them. Maybe there could be something strange about his face, a Jason or Freddy thing.” He stopped, as if he were seeking approval.

So I said, “So who’s making these video games?”

He pointed a finger at me and said, “You’re the writer, sweetheart. You want us to do all your work for you?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

Think movies, I thought. They understand movies. I said, “But surely, what you’re proposing is like doing The Boys from Brazil without Hitler.” He looked puzzled.

“It was a film by Ira Levin,” I said. No flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Rosemary’s Baby.” He continued to look blank. “Sliver.”

He nodded; somewhere a penny had dropped. “Point taken,” he said. “You write the Sharon Stone part, we’ll move heaven and earth to get her for you. I have an in to her people.”

So I went out.

That night it was cold, and it shouldn’t have been cold in L.A., and the air smelled more of cough drops than ever.

An old girlfriend lived in the L.A. area and I resolved to get hold of her. I phoned the number I had for her and began a quest that took most of the rest of the evening. People gave me numbers, and I rang them, and other people gave me numbers, and I rang them, too.

Eventually I phoned a number, and I recognized her voice.

“Do you know where I am?” she said.

“No,” I said. “I was given this number.”

“This is a hospital room,” she said. “My mother’s. She had a brain hemorrhage.”

“I’m sorry. Is she all right?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was an awkward silence.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Pretty bad,” I said.

I told her everything that had happened to me so far. I told her how I felt.

“Why is it like this?” I asked her.

“Because they’re scared.”

“Why are they scared? What are they scared of?”

“Because you’re only as good as the last hits you can attach your name to.”

“Huh?”

“If you say yes to something, the studio may make a film, and it will cost twenty or thirty million dollars, and if it’s a failure, you will have your name attached to it and will lose status. If you say no, you don’t risk losing status.”

“Really?”

“Kind of.”

“How do you know so much about all this? You’re a musician, you’re not in films.”

She laughed wearily: “I live out here. Everybody who lives out here knows this stuff. Have you tried asking people about their screenplays?”

“No.”

“Try it sometime. Ask anyone. The guy in the gas station. Anyone. They’ve all got them.” Then someone said something to her, and she said something back, and she said, “Look, I’ve got to go,” and she put down the phone.

I couldn’t find the heater, if the room had a heater, and I was freezing in my little chalet room, like the one Belushi died in, same uninspired framed print on the wall, I had no doubt, same chilly dampness in the air.

I ran a hot bath to warm myself up, but I was even chillier when I got out.

White goldfish sliding to and fro in the water, dodging and darting through the lily pads. One of the goldfish had a crimson mark on its back that might, conceivably, have been perfectly lip-shaped: the miraculous stigmata of an almost-forgotten goddess. The gray early-morning sky was reflected in the pool.

I stared at it gloomily.

“You okay?”

I turned. Pious Dundas was standing next to me.

“You’re up early.”

“I slept badly. Too cold.”