Part 29 (1/2)
”We can offer you a great deal of money, Mr. Hurn.”
Hurn gestured, as though to indicate the Oriental rugs on the floor, the rare books in the shelves on the wall, the sculptures and the paintings, the several-million-dollar Beverly Hills home that contained all this.
”I don't need money, Mr.a”what did you say your name was?”
”Smith.”
”Mr. Smith, I have all the money I could ever want. I have done well in this business, Mr. Smith. Quite well. I am no longer the struggling writer who conceived Stranger in Town. These days I choose my projects on the basis of quality.”
”You disparage yourself unnecessarily, Mr. Hurn. We believe that Stranger in Town was a series of the highest quality. In some ways, in fact, it represented the very peak of televisual art. The existential dilemma of the protagonist, the picaresque nature of his journeyings, the obsessive fascination with the nature of memory . . . That scene . . .” The young man's eyes came alive. ”That scene when Cooper bites into a watermelon like this. I remember summer days, summer nights, a cool breeze on the porch, the river rus.h.i.+ng by. I remember a woman's lips, her eyes, her deep blue eyes. But where, d.a.m.n it?
Where?”
Hurn stared, openmouthed. ”You remember that? Word for word? Oh, my G.o.d.”
”Art, Mr. Hurn. Unabashed art.”
”Adolescent pretension. Fakery. Bulls.h.i.+t,” Hurn said. ”Embarra.s.sing.
Oh, my G.o.d, how embarra.s.sing.”
”In some ways trite,” the young man conceded. ”Brash. Even clumsy sometimes. But burning with an inner conviction. Mr. Hurn, you must help us. You must help us bring back Stranger in Town.”
”You can't,” Hurn said. ”You can't bring it back. Even if I agreed it was worth bringing backa”and I'll admit to you that I've thought about it on occasion, though not in many years. I've always had a sense of it as a piece of unfinished business . . . But even if I wanted to help you, it couldn't be done. Not now.
It's too late, much too late. You can't repeat the past. We have absolutely no doubt on that question.”
”Boats against the current,” Hurn said. ”But no, no, I can't agree.
It's like when those promoters wanted to reunite the Beatles.”
”Beetles?” Smith asked. ”What beetles?”
”The Beatles,” Hurn said, astonished. ”'She Loves You.” I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Like that.”
”Oh, yes,” Smith said vaguely.
Where is this guy from? Hurn wondered. Mongolia?
”What exactly is your proposition, Mr. Smith?”
The young man became businesslike. He pulled a sheaf of notes from his briefcase. ”One episode of Stranger was completed but not edited when the cancellation notice came from the network. We have acquired that footage, and it would be a simple matter to put it together. We have also acquired five scripts for the second season, commissioned prior to the cancellation. And we have an outline of your proposal for subsequent episodes, including a concluding episode in which the ident.i.ty of Cooper is finally revealed. We would like you to supervise the preparation of these unwritten scripts and to write the final episode yourself. We are looking at season of twenty-six fifty minute episodes. For these services we are prepared to pay you the equivalent of two million dollars.”
”The equivalent, Mr. Smith?”
”In gold, Mrs. Hurn.” The young man picked up the large suitcase he had brought with him into the writer's house. He opened it up. It was packed with yellowish metallic bars.
”My G.o.d,” Hurn said. ”That suitcase must weigh a hundred pounds.”
”About one hundred and twenty-five pounds,” said Mr. Smith. ”Or the equivalent of about one million dollars at this morning's London gold fixing.”
The young man, Hurn recalled, had carried in this suitcase without the slightest sign of exertion. He hefted it now as though it were full of feathers. Obviously he was not as frail as he looked.
”Tell me, Mr. Smith. Who is going to star in this show?”
”Oh, Vance Maccoby. Of course.”
”Vance Maccoby, if he is even still alive, is a hopeless alcoholic, Mr. Smith. He hasn't worked in this town in twenty years. I don't even know where he is. Have you signed up Vance Maccoby, Mr. Smith?”
”Not yet,” the young man said. ”But we will. We will.”
”My name's Loomis,” said the tall man with the limp as he stood beside Cooper at the bar. He picked up the shot gla.s.s and stared into it thoughtfully.
”First or last?” Cooper asked.
”Just Loomis,” said the man.
”I'm Cooper,” said the other. ”Or at least that's what I call myself.
One name's as good as another. There was a book in my saddlebag by a man named Cooper . . .”
”You forgot your name?”
”I forgot everything,” he said. ”Except to speak and ride and shoot.”
Loomis drained his drink. ”Some things a mon don't forget,” he said.
Cooper stared at him intently, ”Have I seen you in here before? There's something familiar. . .”
”I don't think so,” Loomis said. ”I'm a stranger here myself.”
The edges of the TV screen grew misty, then blurred. The picture dissolved. Another took shape. A bright, almost hallucinatorily bright summer day. A farmhouse. Chickens in a coop. The door of the house open, banging in the wind.
The camera moved through the door, into a parlor. Signs of struggle, furniture upended, a broken dish on the floor. A man stooped to pick up the fragments.
”Aimee?” he called. ”Aimee?”
The camera moved on, into a bedroom. A woman's body sprawled brokenly across the bed. The window open, the curtain blowing. And then a face, a man's face, staring into the room. His arm, holding a gun. A gunshot.
Darkness closed in. Outside, the shadow of a man running away. A shadow with a kind of limp.
And back, suddenly, to the bar.
”You all right, Cooper?”
”I'm all right,” he said, gripping the bar tightly. ”I'm all right.”
Yehh,” said the fat, bald man in the armchair. ”Let's hear it for the strong silent ones.”
He picked up his gla.s.s from the TV table in front of him, made a mocking toast to the blank screen, then winked to his old agent, Feldman, sitting on the couch next to the young man. There was something a little odd about the young man, but the fat man was too drunk to put his finger on it. Maybe it was the Desi Arnaz haircut. . .