“I got him into my car and turned the accident scene over to another sergeant who showed up and who knew the score with movie stars. I got Barrow to the studio, to his bungalow, where a doctor was waiting to examine him, and Harris showed up a few minutes later. The doctor pronounced Barrow well, except for a black eye, and he asked Eddie if he wanted a blood sample taken. Eddie said sure and told me to roll up my sleeve.”
Stone and Dino burst out laughing.
“One thing led to another, and I found myself head of security for the studio, and everything grew from there.”
“That’s a hell of a story,” Dino said.
“Nothing is stranger than real life,” Rick said.
“And then you found yourself in the navy?” Stone asked.
“I didn’t find myself there; I fled to the navy after murdering a man.”
Stone and Dino were stunned into silence.
“His name was Chick Stompano, a mobster connected to Bugsy Siegel who liked to hurt women. He made the mistake of beating up Glenna. I had already talked to a naval recruiting officer, knowing that I’d have to go, and I’d had my physical. I went to Stompano’s house, rang the bell, and when he came out I shot him in the head. I was at the door of the recruiting office when it opened that morning, and before noon I had been sworn in and was on a bus for Officer Candidate School in San Diego, thence to Pensacola, Florida, for flight training.”
“There’s nothing stranger than real life,” Dino said.
“By the time I was invalided out, in ’44, with a shot-up knee, the whole business had blown over.”
“No repercussions?” Stone asked.
“Just one. When Glenna and I got married, a huge floral arrangement was delivered with a card from Ben Siegel, which I took as an overt threat. I don’t know all the details, but I know that Eddie Harris made a call to a guy named Al, who owned a gun store and who was said to do contract killings on the side.
A day or two later, Siegel was shot dead with a Browning Automatic Rifle, and the mob got the blame, because Siegel’s girl had been stealing from them, and they held him responsible.”
“Wow,” Dino said softly.
Rick stood up. “Let’s get some lunch,” he said, leading the way out of his office and down to the parking lot, where they got into a golf cart. Rick drove them down studio streets, past the huge soundstages. People in the streets wearing odd costumes-cowboys, policemen, showgirls-made way for Rick’s cart.
“This is what Prince wants to destroy, so that he can build a hotel,” Rick said, waving an arm. “It took me and others more than half a century to build this, and if Prince wins, it will be gone in a month, and so will the movies that would have been made here.”
He parked the cart outside the Studio Commissary and led them inside. The place was packed with producers and actors, some of them in costume. Stone, Dino, and Rick were seated at Rick’s reserved corner table, and a waitress brought menus.
“I had heard of this fellow Prince,” Rick said, “but I had never met him, until he came to see me one day. He didn’t bother with the CEO, he came straight to me, and he told me he was going to buy this studio. He was brazen; he didn’t ask me if we wanted to sell, he just told me, as if it were a fait accompli. I’m afraid I didn’t react very well. I told him to get out of my office, or I’d have security throw him out.”
“That’s one way to begin a negotiation,” Stone said.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” Rick replied.
“Everything is a negotiation,” Stone said. “You and Prince were just staking out your opening positions.”
“I suppose you could look at it that way,” Rick said. “Maybe I’m getting too old to deal with something like this.”
“It seems to me you’re doing a pretty good job of dealing with it,” Stone said. “You haven’t folded yet, and you may not have to.”
“On the other hand…” Rick said.
“Let’s not look at the other hand, until we have to,” Stone said.
8
After lunch they got into Rick’s electric cart, and he took them back via a different route, to show them more standing sets.
They passed down a tree-lined, small-town street, lined with comfortable houses.
“They’re just facades,” Rick said, “nothing behind them. If we did a shot of someone walking through a front door we then cut to a shot on a soundstage of him entering the living room.”