Herbie's Diner Page 7

  Levine let fly with a stream of obscenities peppered with Yiddish curses. I’d been floored by Peters’ brass, myself, so I could sympathize.

  “Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to back the money out of a project, especially if it’s in bed with one of our competitors?” Levine asked me.

  “I would imagine that was his plan. It was a win for him if he could pull it off, and he could make a nightmare for you if he got caught. Either way, I feel like he had the whole thing sewed up pretty tight.”

  “You sound like you liked the guy.”

  “Impressed is more like it. By the way, when you find the money you’re going to want to earmark a million of it and cut a cashier’s check made out to Glenda Peters. You’ll call me when that happens.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Peters’ real wife. She’s in a bad way, financially. She could really use a payday to get her on her feet again. I’d like to see to that personally.”

  “I’ll see that it’s done.”

  “Good.”

  “And I guess we should start talking about your paycheck as well.”

  “Nothing to talk about,” I replied. “The amount we agreed on stands. I want nothing more and expect you to honor your end of the deal, regardless of how this turns out. You’ll get a bill from me by the end of the week along with a copy of my expense report.”

  “That’s fine. Listen, I want you to know we appreciate what you’ve done for us, Hardwood. No one’s going to forget it, either. In fact, if you were to send us a head shot we could see about getting you signed on to a contract. How does that sound?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Levine chuckled an oily chuckle. “So much for not wanting more, hey?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Keep the contract.”

  “What?” That was not the reaction Levine had expected. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Completely. If I came in, I’d want to pick my project, and I know that’s not going to happen. Besides, I’m pushing forty now. I’m getting past my prime, and anyway, it could be I’m only good to play private eyes and heavies anymore. I’m not sure I want to go back to that.”

  We talked it over a while longer, mostly because Levine couldn’t give it up, me turning down the offer to come and work for one of the biggest studios in town. I did want it, but like a film from a while back said, I wanted it on my terms. I didn’t want favors, and I didn’t want to bump some kid who might be better suited to a role just because I suddenly had an in. That had happened to me, and I didn’t want that kind of misery visited upon anyone else, just for my benefit.

  After I hung up with Levine I slept three more hours. I woke groggy and with a headache. I took a powder for my head and made a pot of coffee to wash it down. A curious thought struck me as I finished my third cup. I went to the hall closet by the front door and dug through the junk inside until I found the dusty Clark Nova typewriter I’d bought for seventy-five cents at a resale shop in San Diego. I took it into my living room and set the machine heavily upon the coffee table in front of me, blew the dust off it, and made sure it was in proper working order. The P key stuck and had to be manually released when struck, but other than that, it was in fair shape. The ribbon was still fresh. I grabbed a piece of paper and ran it through the feed. I typed a cover page with my real name on it, and gave it a title: MURDER BY THE ROADSIDE.

  I pulled the page and fed a fresh sheet in. In the war I’d spent some time at regimental HQ as assistant quartermaster, not in a mortar squad as I’d told Hands. There, I’d learned to type pretty well, writing reports. When I’d got home, and the acting jobs had started to dry up, I’d bought the typewriter with the idea of becoming a screenwriter instead, just to stay in the business and maybe make a few bucks turning out melodramas. Nothing had ever come of it, and when the Hardwood, Smoller, and Tate job came along, I’d put the typewriter in storage, making my literary ambitions a distant memory. But talking with Levine had given me an idea of maybe giving it another try. This could be my way of making it, I thought, of making it on my own terms. Detective films were big news, had been for some time. That well wasn’t likely to dry up anytime soon, and I had a wealth of knowledge I could draw on. I’d start with my most recent job and the incident at Herbie’s Diner. Get it all together while the impressions were still fresh, and I wouldn’t have to fabricate ideas later that might sound false to the ear. The past two days had certainly been outlandish enough without requiring the audience to suspend too much of their disbelief. Tough-as-nails waitresses, giant short-order cooks, and boyish psychopaths dressed as biker hoodlums were already pushing things quite a bit.

  I typed “FADE IN” and stared at the page until my vision got blurry. Where to begin?—, that was the question. Did I start it with my initial phone call with Levine, only leave out the weeks of legwork that had gone into my finally locating Peters, or did I jump straight to the diner itself? In media res, it was called. I had a book on writing around somewhere, written by some gee who’d been in the pulps for years and wanted to go legitimate with a how-to guide. I’d found the term there. It meant “in the middle of the action.” That’s where you were supposed to start your work, if possible. That made sense. Don’t give the audience any time to calm down, just start hitting them with scene upon scene as fast as I could manage it, make the dialogue snappy, and give it a good bare knuckle brawl at the end. No knives or the like. That was too messy. And there had to be a girl in it, a love interest. Maybe my character could get the girl, the faux Mrs. Peters, Deborah McGonickle. That didn’t seem like such a long shot, not in the movies.

  I sat there for an hour, just like that. My hands never touched the keys, just sat folded in my lap, with me perched on the edge of the couch, like I was ready for action the moment the muse struck me full in the face with inspiration. It should be easy, I said, more to comfort myself than anything. It just happened to you. Just write what happened, and it’s practically a blank check from a studio to run with it. Come on, Hardwood. It’s never going to get any easier than this.

  My hands still didn’t move. I stared at them, and suddenly, up from my chest came a chuckle. The chuckle became a guffaw, the guffaw became a barking laugh, and the bark became waves of hysterical laughter. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I held my sides as they began to ache. I lay down and continued to yuk it up, not knowing where it came from or how I could stop it. Finally I rolled over onto my back and managed to catch my breath between bouts of breaking down again. Finally, with my eyes watery and my vision blurred I stared up at my ceiling. The laughter died away, replaced by a simple smile, the first real one I’d had in a long, long time.

  “Who’m I kidding?” I whispered, then went out for a pack of cigarettes.