Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

about being in the business. Deep down, he can’t even believe he made it out of East Harlem. And here’s Lindsay, with her classical-theater background and her Commie Chic reputation and her half-naked Vanity Fair.

Supremo nympho. The only guys who get into her are major lefties—or very heavy hitters with a net worth of at least fifty mil. So Victor thinks: If the same woman who screws the world’s most interesting men—that Latvian novelist, Fidel Castro’s minister of defense, Sy Spencer—well, if she wants to screw me, I must be in their league.”

“How did she get Sy? What was his weakness?”

“Oh, easy. Sy was the ultissimo intellectual snob. And even though she manages to take off most of her clothes in every movie she makes, Lindsay is still considered a very serious actor; she’s convinced everybody she’s getting naked as an hommage to the First Amendment. She gets brilliant reviews in all the right little magazines—the ones with French names and cheapo paper—and the big ones too. And she was politically correct on Nicaragua before anyone else knew you were even supposed to think about a Nicaragua. Also, she’s a genuine beauty. No plastic surgery. And that for-real blond hair.”

“No shit. The hair’s real?”

“I’ve been told by highly placed sources that the bottom…it’s a match.”

“Wow.” Then I said: “Okay, we’d better get back to the dailies business. Did Sy see them all the time?”

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“He had to. First of all, he genuinely cared. And also, they were the only way to monitor his investment.”

“Did he ever say anything about being dissatisfied?”

“No. I mean, it depends on the director, but usually it’s not just the inner circle at dailies. There’s the director of photography, the writer, cameramen, sound men, assistant directors, production assistants, hair and makeup, set designer. The whole cast and crew, if they feel like it. Usually about fifteen people show up, sit around, stuff their faces with trail mix and watch. So Sy—who prided himself on his classi-ness—wouldn’t sit and bitch about Lindsay in front of an audience.” The skin around Nicholas’s eyes glistened, almost raccoonlike, in the fluorescence. At first I’d thought it was some weird trick of the light. Then I realized it was face cream.

“So how did you know he wasn’t happy with her?”

“Well, one day about a week ago, we’d been shooting very late. Hardly anyone came to dailies. Most people, Santana included, were wiped; they got the hell out the second after the lights came on. I was kind of hanging around, wanting to get a minute with Sy to talk about something—”

“What?”

“I forget. I’m sure it was nothing important. In any case, Sy starts letting loose to a few of his people. Not loud, and not even angry, which shows you how under control he was, because when you looked at Lindsay up on that screen it was like looking at Big-Tit Barbie. I mean, not one single spark of life. Anyway, Sy was supercool, just kidding about the scene and what a fortune it was going to cost to have an effects man add lightning, and did we really need lightning.

Everybody started talking about lightning. All of a sudden, Sy laughs and says how the best thing that 108 / SUSAN ISAACS

could happen to this movie would be if lightning struck Lindsay. Then he said, ‘Just kidding.’ But naturally, everybody knew what he meant.”

“What did he mean?”

“If anything really happened to her? It’s what the moneymen always say when one performer is crapping up a movie; if lightning struck, the completion guarantors—the in-surers—would have to pay so they could begin production again with another actress. Sy was being lighthearted, but the subtext was: Forget the two-hearts-that-beat-as-one shit; he wished to hell he could be rid of her.” Nicholas paused.

He was working up to something big. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Finally, he got it out: “Can I call you Steve?”

I wasn’t any actor, but I flashed my most engaging cop-friend smile. “Yeah, sure.”

He smiled back. “And you call me Nick. Now, Steve, just between us. About Sy’s wanting to get rid of Lindsay. This last week, I think Sy might have been taking meetings off the set.” Nick had heavy eyebrows. He lifted them significantly.

“Do you get my drift?”

“He had someone else?”

“I’m not sure. But you could see Lindsay trying too hard to please him, and him not interested in getting pleased. I mean, she’d put an arm around him, and he’d put his arm around her. The movements were right, but hell, I’m an actor. Why do I get the big bucks? Because I’m intuitive. I know body language, and his was saying, ‘I have a headache tonight, dear.’”

“Maybe he was just upset about her performance.”

“Maybe. But the first two weeks, he’d always be sniffing around her, hanging around the set most of the day. He knew then that she wasn’t doing her best work, but he was so goddamn hot for her he couldn’t be angry. I mean, you should have seen him: canned

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heat. But suddenly he’s looking at his watch. He’s leaving by eleven.”

“Did you hear any talk—vague rumors, even—about this from anyone?”

“No. It’s just my theory.” Nicholas the Graceful stood up, stretching his arms, and—whammo—slammed his hand against the wall. He sat down again and pretended his knuckles weren’t throbbing. “Listen, can I really trust you, Steve?”

“You bet.” I leaned forward and gave him a light, male-bonding arm punch. “You know you can.”

“You know Katherine Pourelle?”

“The actress? Yeah, sure.”

“This is not for public consumption, but I used to have a thing with her, when we were both starting out. She was living with this guy from ICM. Her agent, in fact. Well, she was more than living with him. She was married to him.

Anyhow, we had this big love, big breakup, big hate. But last winter we met in Vail. New husband—real estate developer. New agent. But you know what goes down. We stopped being silly and became…I