Flicker (13 page)

“Classic.”

“But, you know, I think my
very
favorite is her big number in
Till the Clouds Roll By.”

“Oh well, that's
really
classic. That water-ski pyramid with all the guys…“

“That's the one I want. Do you think Chipsey has that?”

“Of course he does. But just in thirty-five-millimeter. He'll never sell that.”

“You're sure?”

“Are you kidding? It's classic.”

“Well, he sold you
Neptune's Daughter
and that's classic.”

“Only the sixteen-millimeter. He'd never let the thirty-five-millimeter go. Besides, he wants to do a remake of the water-ski bit.”

“Does
he?”

“Uh-hm. To bring out all the erotic connotations.”

Clare could hold back no longer. She crossed to the swing and asked, “Excuse me, but did I hear you say you bought a film—from Chipsey?”

I could tell by the long, frigid silence that her intrusion wasn't welcomed. I joined Clare and, squinting into the darkness, could make out two middle-aged men, one wearing a flowing silk gown, the other a T-shirt.

“I'm a friend of Chipsey's,” Clare went on. “I came to look at the films.”

Smugly, one of the men said, “Chipsey's been selling all evening. But just to his really
close
friends.”

“I'm a really close friend, believe me,” Clare insisted. “He invited me just for the films. Where are they being sold?”

“If Chipsey wanted you to know, you'd know without me telling you,” was the snotty reply.

“Look, you can tell me,” Clare snapped. “I'm not really a woman. Look at those deltoids.” She held out one of her arms, flexing muscles.

The silk-gowned man sniffed and turned away. “Typical,” he said.

“Okay, forget it, Peter Pan,” Clare growled and spun away sharply, motioning me to follow. Then, turning at the entrance to the house,
she called back. “She wasn't a man. She was a salmon. And the only movie she made that wasn't a cringe-fest was
Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
”

Clare had just passed from irritated to incensed. With me at her heels, she went tearing through the villa, asking after Chipsey, who seemed to have abandoned his guests. Passing a dark pantry off the kitchen, she picked up a familiar laugh. She found a light switch and flipped it. Inside she found Sharkey. Positioned precariously on his lap with both legs on his shoulders was a pretty young thing wearing a filmy dress. They were in the middle of something, Clare didn't bother to ask what.

“Where the hell have you been?” she shouted.

“Clare … ” Sharkey answered, as if he weren't sure it was Clare. His pupils were dilated to the size of dimes. “Hey, I've been looking all over for … ”

“Where's Chipsey? Is he selling movies or what?”

“Oh yeah, about that … ” Sharkey began. The pretty young thing was sliding liquidly down his legs into an inebriated puddle on the floor. “Listen, don't worry. I told Chipsey to set something aside for me.”

“For
you?
What about
me?”

“For
us, I
mean.”

“
Us
isn't
me.
Where're the films?”

“Uh … uh … uh … ” Sharkey was trying to focus. He pulled himself to a standing position wobbling and naked, rubbing his brows. “The vault … there's a vault. But don't worry, it's taken care of.”

“So what do I do—go through the house asking the way to the vault?”

Before Sharkey could answer, Clare had torn off to do just that. Along the way, those sober enough to be asked had no idea where the vault was. Clare and I made our way generally back and downward to a lower floor and then into the basement of the house. At the foot of a flight of stairs, we encountered one of Chipsey's bodybuilders struggling along a corridor, wheeling a hand dolly toward a rear exit. On the dolly was a heavy load of thirty-five-millimeter film cartons.

“I'm looking for Chipsey … in the vault,” Clare informed the muscular lad, then followed where his chin inarticulately pointed. We turned a corner and heard a voice. Chipsey's.

“No, no, I really can't let it go that cheap. It's a classic.” When he caught sight of Clare, he gave a whoop of delight. “Clarissa! Where
have you been? My God, I was about ready to close the store.” There was an anxious little man in a riotous Hawaiian shirt at his side, apparently a customer.

Chipsey had changed out of his boxer's robe. He was wearing something fluorescent and flowing and vaguely Arabian. A long, crooked stogie was fixed between his teeth. He was standing near the doorway of a good-sized storeroom that was caged in by floor-to-ceiling steel mesh. The storeroom was lined with enough racks to hold scores of films. Trouble was: there weren't scores of films. There weren't more than a scattered dozen. The place was stripped.

“Jesus!” Clare gasped. “Where's the collection?”

“Oh, most of it was sold off last week,” Chipsey answered. “The big-ticket items, you know. The major collectors took the bulk of it.”

Quickly Clare said, “I want their names … and what they bought.”

“I can give you some of their names,” he answered. “Oh, you'd know most of them. Roddy McDowall took a lot. People like that. Joshua Sloan from Chicago wanted to buy the whole works—and for a
very
good price, I can tell you. He and my father were old rivals at collecting. But I said, no, I have friends who deserve to share the wealth. But I really can't remember who bought what, it all went so fast. And actually it was quite informal. I'm not a great one for keeping accounts, you know. Frankly, these were private transactions. We wouldn't want the IRS knowing about it.”

The Hawaiian shirt with whom Chipsey had been bargaining piped up to ask, “How about five hundred and fifty?”

“Oh, come now!” Chipsey replied. “This is vintage Sonja Henie. The Glenn Miller sound track alone is worth that much.”

“Wasn't there an inventory for the collection?” Clare asked.

“Oh, I'm sure my parent kept one somewhere. He was positively psychotic about things like that. Very anal-retentive. I have no idea where it might be. I've been throwing out barrels of papers. Out, out, out. A clean sweep.”

“Chipsey, that's so irresponsible,” Clare protested. “You're running this like a goddam garage sale.”

“Right you are, Clarissa. Out with all the Oedipal residues. But never fear. I've put something aside for you.”

“Yes? What?”

Chipsey's disgruntled customer interrupted again. “Is the sound track in good condition? I mean if I'm paying for Glenn Miller … ”

Impatiently, Chipsey informed his pesky customer, “The way my compulsively acquisitive parent looked after his possessions, it's probably a virgin film. He didn't collect these things to enjoy them. They were bloody investments. Most of them never came out of the can.”

“Okay,” the customer said, “how about six hundred and fifty?”

“Not even close,” Chipsey sniffed and left the man to stew while he escorted Clare and me to a small row of sixteen-millimeter cartons high up on a rear rack. “I let Sharkey put these aside. Mind you, I could have sold them off days ago, but I agreed to hold them until you had a chance to make your choice.”

Clare eagerly swept her eyes over the film cartons. For a moment she froze in astonishment, then turned back to Chipsey with a savage glare.
“That's
what you saved for me?
Jerry Lewis?”

“It's what Sharkey picked out.”

“Sharkey's a pinhead. This isn't even quality junk.”

“Now, Clarissa, I can let you have those at a very good price.”

“Don't call me Clarissa. From now on you don't know me well enough to call me Clarissa.”

“Do you realize, Miss Swann, how much I could get for these movies? Jerry Lewis is going to be a cult phenomenon. He already is in Paris, you know.”

“They like hot dogs in Paris too. So what? It's called intellectual slumming. You're a louse, Chipsey. You know I can't afford to buy anything, least of all
dreck
like this.”

“I
was
going to let you choose one of these films as a
gift.
Just for friendship's sake. Well, not
The Stooge
or
The Bellhop
. I mean, those are classic. But any of the others … ”

Chipsey's would-be customer came wandering into view around the end of one of the racks, still trying to clinch the deal on Sonja Henie. He stood by testily while Chipsey spoke.

Defeated, Clare sank down on a stack of film cartons, her head in her hands. “Christ, Chipsey, I would have been content just to know where the films were going. If you could have done that much, just to help keep track of the heritage.”

“Do forgive me, Clare dear,” Chipsey soothed, “but to be honest that just doesn't speak to me as an issue. These are old movies. Old,
old
movies. Of course, a scholar like yourself has to care about the past. But art is
now.
Art is the future, the prophetic impulse. For the artist, true art is the destroyer of the past and its defunct values. It's … ”

“How about seven hundred bucks?” the Hawaiian shirt asked.

“Sold American!”
Chipsey yipped, and the man started to write out a check. “I'll want to see a driver's license with that,” he warned.

While Chipsey and his buyer were busy with their transaction, the oversized blond Apollo Clare and I had met on our way to the vault lumbered in with his hand dolly. “And that bunch,” Chipsey said, pointing him toward the stack of cartons Clare was sitting on, “which the lady is warming for us with her pretty tush.”

“Same car?” Apollo asked.

“Same car.”

Clare moved out of the boy's way as he started loading the cartons, then suddenly let out a wrenching gasp. She leapt forward to take hold of his ample biceps. “My God, I can't believe it,” she said.

Chipsey gave a proud, possessive snicker. “Yes, he
is
something to look at, isn't he? Clare, I'd like you to meet Jerome. Jerome is simply going to steal my next production. I don't blame you for your response. But I warn you, he's already spoken for.”

But Clare was paying no attention whatever to Jerome. Her eyes were riveted to the cartons he was loading on the dolly.

“This!
I want
this,”
she announced.

Chipsey glanced at the cartons. “No, no. That's sold, Clare. Sorry.”

“I'll pay you … a thousand dollars,” she declared.

I wondered as she made the offer where Clare would get a thousand dollars. But she was already fumbling to find her poor, starving checkbook.

“No, no, please!” Chipsey protested. “It's sold. And for a great deal more than a thousand dollars, I can tell you.”

But Clare persisted. “I'll give you … fifteen hundred.”

“Clare, dear, you don't have fifteen hundred. You've already told me you don't have enough to buy Jerry Lewis. Besides fifteen hundred wouldn't come close.”

Improvising frantically, Clare made a desperate proposition. “All right, I'll offer you sex. Sex means a lot to you, Chipsey, I know it does.”

“Now, Clare.” Chipsey gave a deep, throaty chuckle. “That's very, very sweet. But I don't think we're quite compatible.”

“Not with
me,
you creep!” Clare snapped. “Don't be disgusting.”

“Oh?”

“With … Jonny. I'll fix you up with Jonny.” She grabbed me and pulled me over, too much like an item of merchandise.

“That's very generous of you, Clare,” Chipsey said, giving me what I believe he intended as a seductive assessment. “And I'm sure Jonny would be worth every penny. But I doubt he'd come across.”

Jolted, I stared at Clare. Then at Chipsey. I gave a little laugh to pick up on the joke. It was a joke … wasn't it?

“Shut up!” Clare growled at me, digging her nails into my arm. “He'll come across if I tell him to. Won't you, Jonny?”

It wasn't a joke.

Embarrassed and wounded, I decided to find out what my virtue was being traded for. I turned one of the cartons to see the label. And I understood.
Les Enfants du Paradis.
Clare's favorite film. In thirty-five-millimeter yet. I'd once heard her say she would kill to have her own print of it.

Chipsey continued to wave her off. “I'm sorry, Clarissa, but
Les Enfants
has been promised. It's a special favor. I can't go back on it—even for twice what you're offering.”

“Promised to whom?”

“Jürgen Von Schachter.” He offered the name with a smart-ass grin.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“You mean you
don't?
I'm frankly amazed. He's Germany's most talked-about experimental director. I'd love to introduce you. He's somewhere on the premises. Gorgeous boy. Real aristocracy. Right down to the dueling scars. Except that
his
scars don't all show in public. I'm sure he'd be a count or a baron, if it weren't for whatever it is that seems to have deprived us of counts and barons. We'll be showing some of his films at the next festival. Exquisite work. Very Nietzschean, if you know what I mean. Cinema of Anguish he calls it. Deep, very deep.”

“I can't wait to see it,” Clare muttered. Clearly her mind was racing to find some way to lay hands on the film. But Jerome had started loading the cartons on his dolly. “Stop that!” Clare howled, taking a swipe at him with her open checkbook. “Leave that alone, you muscle-bound cocksucker!” Jerome, taken by surprise, backed off in slackjawed amazement. Clare sank down beside the stack of cartons and passed her hand over it protectively as if she were comforting a dying child. More to herself than anyone else she said, “My mother took me to see
Les Enfants du Paradis.
It was my first great film experience.”