5

Alan Lefkowitz sat in his huge, completely immaculate office, rocking back and forth in a leather desk chair, and looked out the windows, which were also huge and completely immaculate. Beneath him the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard flowed past Century City. His eyes were on this wide road, full of nice cars, but his thoughts were solely focused on Upstate New York.

President and principal shareholder of Big Mountain Studios, Lefkowitz, 52, put in at least ten sweaty hours a day working on his film projects. A law school graduate, a successful former agent, he took continuing education classes at UCLA and USC in accounting and finance-at an age when many of his friends (well, this was Hollywood; call them colleagues), also producers, were delegating the hard work to underlings and spending mucho time engaged in the "Development" work (that is: thinking in Palm Springs and drinking at the Beverly Hills Hotel).

Also on the asset side of the balance sheet: Lefkowitz had integrity. He'd pretty much resisted Hollywood's strongest gravity, which pulled producers toward teenage comedies, buddy cop movies, special effects-fat science fiction and horror films. His own orbit wasn't as lofty as his favorite directors, Bergman, Fassbinder, Kurosawa and Truffaut, but in his heart he wanted to make quality films.

With film schools pumping out students who learned cinema (not, no, never movies), there was no lack of independent directors in the U.S. making wonderful, small, serious flicks. But Lefkowitz's particular talent was that he worked within the system. His films were mostly financed, and wholly distributed, by major studios, one of which he presently had a five-movie housekeeping deal with (this being one of the better gold rings in contemporary movieland). Balls, a temper and an ability to convince people that he had vision had managed to get him into bed with this huge entertainment conglomerate, which was putting up 80 percent of the money for any five pictures he wished to produce.

Good muscle tone, a beach permit for his Mercedes, and a housekeeping deal for five flicks. It didn't get much better than this. But, although he could legitimately be spending this lunch hour reflecting on his good fortune, what Lefkowitz was in fact obsessing about was New York, the Empire State, while he swung back and forth in a three-thousand-dollar leather chair.

The reason for this meditation sat in front of him on his desk (which was huge but not at all immaculate): a battered, red-covered script, marred with doodles and numbers and words. It was the first flick in the five-movie deal. A dark and lyrical film called To Sleep in a Shallow Grave. A picture that had no buddies, no car chases, no wisecracking teenagers, no karate fights, and not a single actor magically turned into a dog, baby or person of the opposite sex.

The property had had a strange history. The film was in turnaround-another studio had bought the script and started production. A month later, though, it had been canceled. Lefkowitz, who'd lusted to do the film ever since he'd read the book it was based on years before, immediately snatched up the rights. But buying a turn-around property meant paying a premium; he had not only to pay for the script itself but he also had to reimburse the first studio for its production expenses. So what should have been a small art film became overnight a big-budget monster.

Then a famous rule in Hollywood proved true: If anybody wants it, everybody wants it. Last week, two other studios started bidding for the film.

Loyalty in Hollywood is a moving target and Lefkowitz's studio would have sold the property out from underneath him in a minute, except that under his contract he had an absolute right to make the movie.

Absolute, that is, provided the film met a complicated series of production deadlines. It now seemed there was a serious possibility that these deadlines might be missed. Already the company was two weeks behind schedule and Lefkowitz knew that the studio lawyers had notified the production execs that if principal photography didn't begin in three weeks, all bets were off. Lefkowitz would be in breach, and Shallow Grave would disappear from his company faster than a gold chain on the streets of New York.

Lefkowitz was reflecting on this when the assistant producer, a handsome, intense thirty-year-old, walked through the door.

Since he'd been working for Lefkowitz, the young man, who'd been so eager and talked so flippantly about ball-busting when he'd accepted the job, didn't look so young anymore. He definitely wasn't as eager. And the only balls he thought about regularly were his own.

"He's calling at three," the AP announced.

Lefkowitz examined his Oyster Perpetual. Five minutes. "Tell me what happened."

The assistant producer began, "Marty-"

"Who's Marty?"

"Jacobs. Pellam's assistant."

"Okay."

"He was killed, and-"

"Jesus."

"Pellam ended up in the hospital. I'm not sure but the way the sheriff explained it they seem to be separate accidents."

"What happened to Marty?"

"The car blew up."

"Jesus. What about his family?"

"The sheriff called and he told them. I made a call for your office. You don't have to do anything, but-"

Lefkowitz said, "We'll send flowers. You know that florist, the one I mean?"

"Will do."

"I'll write a note too. How's Pellam?"

"I'm not sure. All I know is I got a message saying that he was going to be calling in at three."

"We should get mobiles in all the honey wagons. It's crazy we don't. Look into that, okay?"

"Youwant, yougot."

"Any chance we'll get sued?"

"By who?"

"Marty's family?"

"I don't know… But there's something I've got to tell you, Alan. It gets kind of worse."

"How could it get worse?"

"The mayor of the town where it happened? Cleary? He called. Crazy man. I'm talking PMS. They won't issue permits."

"Oh, Christ in a tree. Oh, Christ."

"It's like a real small town. They found the stuff-"

"What stuff?"

"Aw, Marty had a little grass on him. They said some crack too, but I don't think-"

"Brother," Lefkowitz whispered. He looked out at the huge, immaculate highway. He closed his eyes. "Why, why, why?…" He spun around and faced the AP. "Any chance we can buy our way in?"

"I tried. Thousands. I practically gave him head."

"And?"

The AP swallowed. "He called me a ghoul. Then he called me a prick. Then he hung up on me. It's cratered, Alan. The whole's project's cratered."

Lefkowitz felt numb. A moment passed. Finally he asked, "Pellam's okay, though?"

The phone rang. Both men looked at their watches. It was three. The AP said, "Why don't you ask him?"

Pellam leaned his head against the glass of the phone booth. Cleary still had booths with squeaky, two-panel doors. He looked at two initials carved into the aluminum; otherwise there was no graffiti. One set of initials looked like JP. He listened to the buzz of the phone ringing. He felt the vibration of the healing skin under the bandage on his temple.

Alan Lefkowitz came on the phone himself, something he had never done. No secretary. No AP. Just the soft voice of a tanned, fit, eccentric, multimillionaire producer.

"John, how are you? What happened?"

He sensed some real sympathy.

"Fine, Lefty. I'm okay." Pellam then told him in general terms about the accidents-Meg's running into him, Marty's death.

Lefkowitz said, "The permits. What happened?"

"Permits? What about them?" Pellam was squinting. No, it wasn't JP written on the phone booth wall. It was JD. Below that, in marker: Tigers, they're number one!!! One thing about the country: teenagers were literate. In Manhattan he'd seen a similar sign. Debbo and Ki there the best!