The problem was that it wasn’t only money that made Stewart Gordon decide to accept film roles, and the other thing—that ingrained Scottish need to work and go on working, that Calvinist charge to never be idle on pain of hellfre and eternal death—was not as easily satisfied as the need for money was. Nightmare Island, the thing was called, last time he checked, but the name had already been changed so often he might be getting it wrong, and the title was so silly it made him want to cringe. The plot had possibilities, because all plots had possibilities. What made the work was not the plot but what you did with it. Unfortunately, they were doing absolutely nothing with this one. Bunch of teenage girls going to high school on this tiny island, their big evil principal, the arrival in the middle of the night by a mysterious man, in a boat—good grief, Stewart thought, you could do an enormous amount with that setup. You could rival Edgar Allan Poe, or Henry James. Unfortunately, all anybody wanted to do with it here was the obvious: give Marcey Mandret a chance to wear very little in the way of clothes; give Arrow Normand a way to sing; film Stewart himself looking menacing for no good reason. That was the problem with the Scottish thing. It made him accept work he shouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole. It also made him stick with it. It was enough to make a sane man British.
Now he paused at the door to the dining room of the Oscartown Inn and looked around. Carl Frank was definitely there, along the wall at the back, at one of those ridiculously small tables for two. Weren’t Americans all supposed to be fat as elephants? How did they fit at those little tiny tables for two? He had to watch himself. He’d turn himself into an ass. He should have walked Anna home, even if it would have attracted the photographers, a large contingent of which were wandering through the corridors of this very hotel. They weren’t used to these people here. The hotels in Los Angeles made the paparazzi stay outside.
Somebody exploded a flashbulb in his face, and he pretended not to notice it. They weren’t really interested in him. They were just bored. Of their three prime targets, one was in jail, one was in the emergency room, and the last was hiding out in her palace fortress. Palace fortresses should have gone out with the Blitz. It really was enough to make a sane man British.
Stewart made his way to the back, stopping politely to tell the seating hostess that he was meeting someone who was already here. She seemed relieved. Stewart thought she was probably having a bad month. You had no idea how rude people like Marcey Mandret, or the press that followed them, could be, until you’d met them, and then you were often left breathless. He got to Frank’s table and pulled out a chair. It was a ridiculously small chair. Those elephantine Americans would probably fall right through it to the floor.
Carl Frank was getting up, but only halfway. It was one of those Los Angeles things, a nod in the direction of etiquette while still being entirely, offensively dismissive. Stewart sat down. A waitress rushed over, and he asked her for coffee.
“So,” he said. “There’s some reason for us to be meeting in public? I’d think you’d want to keep the papers from plastering a photograph of us in the middle of some big interior spread full of rumors about the ultimate demise of the movie.”
“I always meet in public,” Carl said, unperturbed. “I’m a lot less worried about rumors of the ultimate demise of the movie than I am about people saying I’ve been engaged in some kind of secret, underhanded scheme to—I don’t know to do what. But I do know Michael Bardman. whatever it was, he’d believe it.”
“Ah,” Stewart said. “This is about Michael Bardman. How is the old bastard? I hope he’s got ulcerative colitis.”
“If you could get ulcerative colitis by being an asshole and an idiot at the same time, he’d have it,” Carl said. “And that will tell you how he is: being an asshole and an idiot. But I got an interesting proposition today, and I don’t dare not take it to him. So I thought I’d run it by you first.”
“Run away.”
“Kendra Rhode came to see me,” Carl said. “Actually, she called, and I had her meet me here. She actually made some attempt to get here without anybody seeing her. It even mostly worked, until the end, when she wasn’t trying anymore. Do you want to know what she asked me about?”
“Do I have to know?”
“Well, Stewart, if we take her up on it, you’ll have to live with it, so you should know. She came here to suggest to me that now that Arrow Normand is out of the picture, she should take over the part. Herself. Kendra Rhode wanted the part for herself.”