Winning is Everything (52 page)

“There are a lot of new changes, Dale,” said Ron. “Really. We’ve been working our asses off.”

“Yeah,” said Kirkland. “Let’s remember, Zinello, all you are right now is
my
assistant, get it, not some latter-day Samuel Goldwyn. Who knows how far behind we’ve gotten in our work since you’ve been living at the Burbank studio? Well, get this ridiculous preview over with and let’s get on with the business of working for Kirkland Enterprises. Remember, buster, I’m the one pays your sometimes-I-wonder-if-it’s-worth-it salary! What was it, I now wonder, that made me want to hire you in the first place?”

“As I recall”—Ron sneered—”you said my brain could be classified as a dangerous weapon!”

“Yeah,” said Kirkland. “But that was before I saw you sinking with this project.”

“Listen to me, Dale. Will you just come to San Diego? I promise to line up a dozen of the city’s most expensive and stunning hustlers for you, before
and
after the sneak. Okay?”

“Well … okay.” Kirkland rubbed his hands together. “Talked me into it. But try to remember one thing, Zinello …”

“What is it, Dale?”

“As we used to say in Aukland, ‘It’s practically impossible to turn horse shit into caviar.’”

Although he never showed up in San Diego—choosing to attend a round of Beverly Hills parties instead—Kirkland was wrong.

The sneak preview was beluga caviar.

In fact, compared to the reaction of the audience in Denver, the people in San Diego may as well have been watching another movie. The chase scene, now earlier on, proved such a hair-raising, nail-biting, welledited sequence, the audience applauded when it ended. The Tim Hayes character was warmly received by the audience. Many of them wrote in their reaction cards that they thought the studio had found another Dustin Hoffman.

When the movie ended the audience applauded enthusiastically. Ron, standing in the back of the theater, was so moved by this reception that he found himself crying.

Three days after the sneak in San Diego, the door to Ron’s office opened.

“Congratulations!” said Kirkland, offering his hand to shake Ron’s.

Ron shook his boss’ hand, asked him to have a seat. “I take it you heard about the sneak?”

“Better than that,” said Kirkland, choosing not to sit. “I just returned from the studio in Burbank where I saw the film.”

“And?”

“And, like I said, I think you and Bill O’Donald are to be congratulated. You’ve done a hell of a job. Better than even I would ever have guessed possible.”

“Well …” Ron opted for a lack of modesty. “We did work our butts off.”

“It shows,” said Kirkland. “And I want you to know, not only am I amazed, I’m also quite proud of you.”

Ron was left momentarily speechless by his boss’s very rare words of praise. “Thanks, Dale … thanks a million.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Dale with a wink and a firm pat to the side of Ron’s shoulder. “You keep up the good work,” Kirkland continued as he turned and headed for the door.

“I will, Dale. I will.”

“Oh … and one other thing.” Kirkland stood in the doorway to Ron’s office and smiled magnanimously. “I’ve decided to put my name back on the movie.”

99 

Ron was impressed. He could tell from the moment he drove up to the elegant house in Holmby Hills it was going to be an A-list cocktail party and he was immediately overwhelmed by an attack of anxiety.

As he inched his way into the circular driveway, he reached inside his safari jacket and pulled out his small eighteenth-century snuffbox filled with pills. Opting for a small robin’s-egg-blue Valium, ten milligrams, he popped the drug into his mouth and drove closer to the front entrance.

“Good evening, sir,” said the energetic parking attendant as he opened the door to Ron’s Mercedes.

“’Evening …” said Ron, stepping out of the car.

“Nice car,” said the parking attendant as he hopped inside behind the wheel.

“Right,” said Ron, turning to walk into the house. “It only looks like the eighty-nine other brown-and-tan Mercedeses that pulled up before me.”

The party was buzzing as Ron walked in. Quickly he scanned the room, checking out the Celebrity Power. Not bad, he realized as he spotted Jane Fonda and Estelle Parsons and Peter Finch and George Segal. He could tell from the way the crudités were arranged around the hollowed red cabbage that the caterers were Calories Delighted, and he was sure from the arrangement of the centerpiece that the florists were doubtlessly DeCordova’s; and since he spotted two studio heads dipping into the duck pâté; he decided the affair had passed its two-minute early-warning test.

He would stay. Now, if only the butterflies in his stomach would leave …

A waiter walked up to Ron carrying a small round tray. “Can I get you something from the bar?”

“Champagne will be fine,” he told the waiter while casing the room. A deal, thought Ron, was what he wanted right now. Realizing that the time to strike was when hot, Ron had taken the opportunity to break away from Kirkland Enterprises, to strike out on his own. He had used the hefty finder’s fee Kirkland had given him for
Nowhere Road
to make a down payment on an attractive home in Laurel Canyon. Once the picture opened and started bringing in money, Ron was looking forward to a small income, since, as executive producer of the film, he’d be receiving two percent of the net.

He had also found a police story which he’d optioned and was now busy developing for a feature. So as he looked around the party, he paid less attention to starlets than to studio heads.

“Hi!” said a voice behind him. “You’re Ron Zinelli, aren’t you?”

Ron turned and found a tall, thin fellow, all smiles, standing there. “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the kid. “Ken Thompson.”

“Hi,” said Ron. “How’d you know my name?”

“You came to USC last year with Dale Kirkland when he spoke to our cinema class.”

“Oh?” asked Ron. “Were you in that program?”

“Just graduated,” said Ken Thompson. “Hey, I read that you sneaked
Nowhere Road
in San Diego and it was a wow. At least that’s what Army Archerd said in his column.”

“Variety
wouldn’t lie,” said Ron.

“I know. I can hardly wait to see it. I’ve been hearing conflicting reports, though. Some people say Scot Alexander looks great but can’t act too well, others say he’s going to be the biggest sensation since Hoffman and Redford. What do you think?”

“I think I’d like to wait and see what America decides,” said Ron. “I’m a little too close to the project right now to be objective. Got my fingers crossed, though.”

“Me too,” said the kid.

“What are you going to do now that you’re out of school?”

“Oh, I already got a job,” said Ken proudly. “I’m working at the William Morris office.”

“Really?” asked Ron. “Which department?”

“Mail room,” said Ken so quietly that Ron didn’t hear him.

“Where?” asked Ron.

“Mail room,” said Thompson, louder. “They say it’s the best way to learn about the business from the bottom up.”

“Listen,” said Ron. “They’re probably right. How’d a kid from the Morris mail room get invited to a party like this?”

“Oh …” Thompson shrugged. “I was in the office and got a call from Stan Kamen. He’s a real important agent; standing over there talking to Elizabeth Ashley.”

“I know who he is,” said Ron.

“Well, he needed some contracts brought over. So I delivered the goods and he thanked me and said I could hang around awhile if I wished, get to know some of the people in the biz.”

“You want some party advice?” asked Ron.

“You guessed it!” Ken Thompson smiled.

“Okay,” said Ron. “It matters with whom you chat. Don’t waste time with losers or nobodys. Keep moving up, and always dress down. Hang around the people you admire, those who can help you out. Birds of a feather, that sort of thing. Circulate. Work the goddamn room. All my deals and most of my contacts came from friendships established at affairs like this, and that’s the truth!”

Ken Thompson looked at Ron in awe. “That’s great advice,” he said. “And I must be on the right road. I already introduced myself to Barry Diller and Charles Bronson and Dick Van Dyke and—”

“I get the picture,” Ron interrupted the roll call. “What is it you want to do?”

“You mean when I grow up?” Ken winked at Ron. “I’m going to be a producer, just like you!”

“Really?”

“Really!” said Ken. “I hear you optioned the Dick Canter novel,
Son of a Gun”

“My, you do have your sources, don’t you?” said Ron, impressed the kid knew what he was talking about. “That deal hasn’t even been announced yet.”

“Oh, I know,” said Ken. “I read the agreements at the agency. You can’t imagine how much you can learn about the business just by reading those small-printed contracts. Fascinating!”

“I bet,” said Ron. “I got a good friend, an actor who’s a client of the Morris office. Kip Bramer. Heard anything about him?”

“You kidding?” asked Ken. “There’s so much correspondence coming in on him, he’s going to need his own filing cabinet. Word is Phyliss Dodge is real high on the guy. He just finished up a film in Istanbul and London. People are starting to talk him up a lot. You ought to hire him to play the detective in
Son of a Gun
now, before his price goes through the roof.”

The waiter arrived with Ron’s champagne.

“Care for a drink?” the waiter asked the mail boy.

“Sure!” Ken didn’t skip a beat. “I’ll have some champagne too!”

The waiter retreated to the bar, and Ron decided to be cool. This kid was bright and well-placed. The files in the Morris office housed much of the kind of information he needed to know. Ron elected to turn on the charm, and several glasses of champagne later asked Ken to join him for dinner at the Bistro.

As they stood outside waiting for their cars, Ron wondered if the combo-punch of Valium and Moet had been enough. Ken turned to Ron, and finalizing his future, said, “Uhm … I don’t know if you’d care to or not, but I’ve got some really strong Hawaiian grass in my car. We could, if you like, get stoned before dinner.”

Ken could tell from the eager look on Ron’s face that sometime after the Dover sole and before the chocolate soufflé, he’d have to start negotiating for himself a job working as the assistant to the producer at Zinelli Films.

100

The view from their future living room was spectacular. Rolling green hills, fields of wildflowers, apple orchards, stables, barns, towering elms, the perfect pastoral setting.

Kip and Ellenor took most of the thirty-five thousand dollars he had been paid for
Istanbul Run
and made a down payment on a small early-colonial house on seven acres just outside New Milford, Connecticut.

Ellenor sold her interest in the Village quilt shop to Audrey and rented a small shop of her own, right in the heart of New Milford. She hired a van to transfer her old quilts into the new store.

When Kip wasn’t busy repainting, resanding, stripping paint, he was decked out on his limestone terrace reading the many scripts coming his way. Otto Preminger wanted him for his next film. Universal wanted him under contract. Mike Nichols had asked to meet with him regarding a part in an upcoming play.

One Saturday in September, on a perfectly golden Indian-summer day, Kip was falling asleep on a freshly acquired chaise out on the patio, holding still another screenplay.

“Mr. Bramer, may I have your autograph?”

Kip opened his eyes and saw Ellenor standing before him, juggling an armload of bulging grocery bags. Her body was shadowed by the sun, low behind her.

“You’re supposed to be reading these screenplays,” said Ellenor. “Not using them as sleeping pills.”

“Can’t help it.” Kip stretched his arms. “This one’s a real bedtime story. If it ever gets made into a movie, they’re going to have to give out cups of coffee as you enter the theater.”

“Well don’t finish that one, then,” said Ellenor. “I stopped off at the post office, found three more screenplays waiting for you there.”

“What does Phyliss want from me?” asked Kip.

“What’s the difference?” asked Ellenor. “You know she’s going to sign you for that Peter Yates thriller. She’s just stalling until
Istanbul Run
opens, so she can get you a quarter of a million dollars.”

“And to think I could be making a hearty thirty-five thousand a year by now if I were a senior partner in my father’s law firm.”

Ellenor leaned over and kissed Kip on the lips. “I’m going to put these things away.” She headed for the door.

“We’re only spending the weekend here, you know!” he called after her. “Looks like you bought enough groceries for an army. We don’t officially move in for another three weeks.”

“Just picked up some staples in town,” Ellenor called back to him. “Sugar and salt, steaks and vodka … stuff like that.”

“Hey!” Kip called after her. “What happened at the doctor’s?”

“Nothing much,” Ellenor answered from the kitchen. “His nurse is out with the flu.”

“And what’d he say about you?”

“Oh …” Ellenor placed her packages on the counter and called out, “Just that the rabbit died.”

Kip dropped his script, jumped up, and dashed into the kitchen. “You mean you’re … pregnant?”

Ellenor looked down at her stomach and patted the flat surface. “That’s what I mean.”

Kip didn’t know how to react. He walked over to Ellenor, lifted her up in his arms, and then began whirling her around in circles.

“Hey, put me down, will you?” Ellenor laughed. “I’d like to have a baby, not a miscarriage!”

Kip immediately put her down. “You’re right. You should sit down. Put your feet up in the air.”

“I was just joking. I’m fine.”

“No. It’s good for the circulation.” Kip reached for one of the kitchen-table chairs. “Feet up in the air!”

“I have to put the groceries away!” Ellenor insisted.

“I’ll put them away. You and the baby go to sleep! Here!” Kip thrust a chair at her.

“You sit!” said Ellenor. “You’re the one suddenly looking pale, like you might faint.”

“You’re right!” Kip pulled the chair out for himself and plopped down in it. “All this excitement. You put the groceries away. I’ll sit here and watch you and the baby grow.”

“You are crazy!” Ellenor smiled and threw her arms around him. They kissed for a long time.

“Hey, we can still fool around a few more months, can’t we?” asked Kip, starting to feel romantic.

“Of course,” said Ellenor.

“Well, then, a baby!” Kip stood up, walked around the kitchen. “I suppose we can turn the guest room into a kid’s room, huh?”