Close-Up by Len Deighton

Author:Len Deighton [Deighton, Len]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Fiction - General, Short Stories (Anthologies)
ISBN: 9780061005053
Publisher: Harpercollins (Mm)
Published: 1972-01-15T04:00:00+00:00

14

Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing. Michelangelo Antonioni

Christmas Day 1948, Bookbinder remembered it only too clearly. He wondered why Edgar Nicolson pretended it had happened in that notorious hot-pillow motel on the far side of San Jorge. God knows, Stone had never been fastidious about-where he'd taken his girls for a quickie, but the Sunnyside was not Stone's scene. His hunting grounds were more stylish than that. One of the first things he'd demanded after getting the role was membership of all the clubs.

Even on Christmas Day Stone had invented some excuse to leave Mary, and dragged Bookbinder off to The Planter's Club for lunch. Between 11.30 AM and sitting down at lunch, Stone had chatted up a nineteen-year-old blonde from Denver and shared thirty memorable minutes with her in one of the club's private conference rooms. The Planter's Club was described as a meeting place for producers, directors and stars, but the management was smart enough to let kids in if their shape was right. They wrote actress on their applications, but you'd see those same faces on The Strip, serving sodas and movie tickets. They came, here to be discovered.

The Planter's Club was crowded on Christmas Day. Even the gym and the steam-room were full. The restaurant had put on a special lunch for which the waiters had worn red cloaks and white beards. Now they had discarded the costume and were picking their way through the tanned bodies bearing trays full of drinks. Some of the drinks were more like vases of flowers, stuck with garnishes of cucumber and cress, pineapple slices and cherries. Each time a waiter came through the swing doors there were a few bars of 'Nature Boy' or 'Too Darn Hot', played on an electric organ. Sometimes the music was 'Silent Night', but that was the only reminder that this was Christmas Day. The sunbathers took their task seriously. Seldom speaking, the girls writhed this way and that, shielding an arm or a nose and oiling themselves systematically. Their swimsuits were tiny and their desire to be tanned all over provided a reason for their lewdly spread thighs and unfastened bras. Provocatively, they met male eyes with a blank face as they stroked their breasts with oil and caressed their legs in performances that on film would not have survived the censor.

Bookbinder put The Hollywood Reporter upon Kinsey and Jo Palooka, using his highball to prevent the pages flapping in the breeze. He looked around and for a few moments listened to the Pacific Ocean taking a grip upon the shingle and heaving itself up on to the shore like an expiring swimmer. A gust of wind brought a few giggles and a smell of baked crab from a party having a late lunch right at the water's edge. Bookbinder knew the men: his publicist Weinberger, two of Koolman's distribution people and Edgar Nicholson. He heard Stone stir and heard him gently slap the girl beside him. She wriggled sleepily.

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