The Cutting Room (24 page)

I smiled at this. Though the boy and I had never exchanged a word, he and I were now linked forever. But only I knew how securely.

“Tell him I said hi,” I said, not biting.

“Finished now?” Claude asked his wife, with comical impatience.

“I guess,” she said. “You know, Roy, you make Webby Slicone look malleable.”

“It’s funny, you’d think Webby believed in preservation,” I said evasively. “Look at his face.”

We all chuckled.

“Ten points up in the poll today,” Claude added with a sigh.

With the conversation becoming general, Alice gathered up her yarn.

“Well, if you change your mind . . .”

“I’ll let you know.” I smiled.

The Kripps moved away, arms about each other, as the elderly driver took a shaky turn into the mall.

“Well, why didn’t you tell anyone?” Jeanine asked. “I mean, don’t you trust them? Isn’t that the whole point of this?”

I didn’t answer, but I was pricked by the question. Given everyone’s competitiveness and self-interest, perhaps I
had
been a Pollyanna.

“I’m just trying to build suspense,” I said, and I sounded unsure, even to myself.

Jeanine squeezed my hand tightly. Was she telling me to be careful? She didn’t take her hand away until the ride came to an end.

All of these feelings became irrevelant when we entered the sixplex. We walked past theaters showing the latest science-fiction sequels, animated musicals with singing furniture, and Ben Williams’s next-to-last action epic,
Make Hurt,
a transparent
Cause Pain
imitation even his fans had avoided. Then we crowded into the smallest theater with the most minuscule screen.

Inside were more trivial people, who had been brought in earlier busloads. I waved to some I knew and liked; I avoided those I knew and hated. I couldn’t help but notice that our ranks had grown from the year before. There were even some fans in costume, dressed as Scarlett and Rhett, Elvis, and Dumbo.

Did more technology just mean more access to movies? Or was the accumulation of power in fewer hands in America making more people grow, as it were, smaller? I didn’t know; I only knew that I had liked our world the way it was.

Then
Citizen Kane
began.

There had been some derision that this was the opening-night choice. New print or no, it was so obvious. But I for one felt it would position
Ambersons
beautifully for the following evening. And besides, once the picture began, the carping ended.

Everyone sat, transfixed, as soon as the opening shot, the closeup of the “K” in Kane, was revealed. And they stayed silent, mesmerized, as the film—now in scrubbed, almost shining black-and-white—unfolded.

It didn’t matter that many people in the audience held more than one job, lived alone, or had deeply disappointed their parents. They saw themselves in the story of a multimillionaire, propelled to power, driven to destroy himself, because of the little sled, the childhood love, he had lost. After all, trivial people were looking for things lost in the past, as well.

When the flames devouring Rosebud faded, when the lights came up, there was a general, uneasy silence. Then the place erupted in applause and cheers, loud enough to be heard in the theater next door, the one whose chase music had been seeping through the walls of our own, during
Citizen Kane
.

“Let’s party!”

Someone actually yelled that as we filed into the reception at The Cutting Room. It was a run-down hotel bar that had been repaneled in imitation redwood. Befitting its new, opportunistic name, there were now stills of movie stars on the wall. Most of them had been clipped from recent magazines, so there was no actor older or younger than Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts.

Still, tonight there were balloons and crepe-paper banners and an open bar. And consequently, someone—I never learned who—started yelling, “Let’s party!”

Banquet tables had been laid with cold cuts, a dangerous sight for trivial people. Within seconds, a swarm of them descended upon the free food and consumed it, to the obvious dismay of the waitpeople, who couldn’t replenish it fast enough. Soon the bar’s employees just stood off to the side and watched the attack, in surprise and horror. I noticed Ron Gaylord sneaking in, late, and expressing loud annoyance at the mere scraps of meat that were left.

Most guilty of gluttony was a man able to pay, Abner Cooley. His plate piled high, looking very Henry VIII, he walked off to a table, where he held court. People crowded around him, eager for tips on how to turn trivia into gold, without leaving your parents’ house.

Finally, our self-appointed host for the evening, Abner, tapped on a water glass with a knife. It took so long to divert the crowd from chewing and swallowing that his glass cracked and sent water flowing onto his food.

“Hey, hey!” Abner yelled, annoyed. “Let’s all listen up now, okay?!”

Abner did not deign to stand, so all of us had to crane our necks to see him still sitting at his place.

“I think it’s time to acknowledge how much we’ve gained since last year,” he said philosophically.

Ron whispered, “How much
you’ve
gained,” and there were a few titters.

“Also,” Abner went on, oblivious, “it’s time to acknowledge what we’ve lost. I’d like to have a moment of silence for Brian Grayman”—an elderly critic who succumbed to a heart attack—“and Louis Romais”—who wrote questions for a movie trivia CD-ROM and was hit by a bicyclist in Central Park—“and, perhaps most tragically, Alan Gilbert.”

Even those who did not know the first two names recognized the last one. At the mention of Alan, there was a murmuring of sympathy or anger or maybe just relief. Then, before the respectful silence could begin, someone called out, “How about Gus Ziegler?”

There was an uneasy pause. Then a few other voices seconded it: “Yes! Gus! Gus, also!”

Even from my bad seat, I could see Abner’s face contort irritatedly. He muttered, “Her-Man” beneath his breath. But then he rose to the occasion, if not from his chair.

“How could I forget?” he said, with imitation sorrow. “Gus, as well, left us this year. And now, a moment of
silence
.” His tone on the last word prevented any more additions to the necrology.

We bowed our heads and, for this moment, there truly was no sound. I noticed the Kripps coming in late, chatting innocently with each other, then being shushed.

Music ended our mourning. From two large speakers a specially made tape featured a disco version of the theme from
Psycho
. A surprising amount of trivial people, well fed and happily drunk, got up to dance.

There were, of course, more men than women. I saw the Kelman twins, middle-aged women who worked in the Lincoln Center Library, cutting a rug together . . . Hiram Leigh, an ancient Britisher who ran a public-radio film show,
Hat’s Off to Hollywood!
shaking by himself, as if electrocuted . . . and the Kripps, boogying unselfconsciously, as if having returned to Woodstock. I also saw Taylor Weinrod, fleeing from the room, discreetly, mortified. A minute later, Abner followed him, seeming to desperately seek a urinal.

I extended my hand to Jeanine.

Never much for dancing, I remembered that Marlon Brando had not been the first choice for the movie of
Guys and Dolls
. Gene Kelly had originally been sought, in order to reunite him with his
On the Town
pal, Frank Sinatra. In the end, Brando had had to fix his singing in the editing room.

“Don’t worry,” Jeanine said, “you’ll be fine. It’s an inexact science.”

It was our first time together on any floor. Jeanine couldn’t really dance, either, but she made fists and shook them above her head, as if flinging loose her chains. As in bed, it was her avidity that made her erotic, not her physical perfection. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Suddenly, the
Psycho
music stopped, and a romantic arrangement of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from
2001
began. Jeanine and I ended up in each other’s arms, rocking back and forth, only shuffling our feet occasionally.

“On the slow stuff, you really have to know what you’re doing,” she said, subdued.

“I know what you mean,” I replied.

Still, pressed against each other, we felt, to put it mildly, stirred. Jeanine whispered in my ear, “Let’s go up to the room.”

“Okay.”

When we disengaged, I saw what seemed a thousand envious eyes drilling into us from the dance floor. As before, only the Kripps smiled, with encouragement.

“You go first,” I said. “I’ll follow.”

Why be too brazen and engender more hostility? I thought. I would need as much goodwill as possible for the following night.

Reluctant but understanding, Jeanine agreed.

On my way up, I shared the elevator with the Kelman sisters, one twin more tipsy than the other.

“What did the monolith mean?” the first groggily badgered the second.

“Rosebud,” the second answered, faintly.

They got off on my floor, and I heard them fumbling, cursing at their lock as I approached my door.

I had expected to find Jeanine already nude or lounging in a nightgown or wearing just her
Seven Year Itch
T-shirt. Instead, she was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, her graying hair down, her face white.

The nylon bag—which had gone from Gus to Ben to Little Bobby to Webby to me—was in the middle of the floor. It was wide open.

Jeanine kept looking at it, and then she looked at me.

“The Magnificent Ambersons,”
she said, “is gone.”

There was a second before I could respond. Then, suddenly sober after two glasses of wine, I stammered out, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the bag is empty.”

“I can see that. But, well—was the door open?”

Jeanine shook her head. “Maybe one of the cleaning people let somebody—”

“Except who would have enough money here to pay anyone off?”

Jeanine and I looked at each other, and the number of suspects immediately dwindled.

“That’s just a supposition,” she said. “We shouldn’t put too much stock in it.”

“You’re right.”

I was pacing now, as if by walking furiously, I might bump into the answer.

“Jesus Christ! Who the hell would
want
to do this?” I said, at last.

“Who wouldn’t? It’s like
Murder on the Orient Express
.”

I gave a small grunt of concurrence. What a fool I had been to trust the trivial community! A few hours away from unveiling the Everest of film finds, and I was back where I began, all those days ago.

Maybe someone felt I would lord it over them, when I had only meant to bring us all closer. I should have known that group hugs would not go over at the Rhinebeck Film Fair.

“It’s too bad.” Jeanine sighed. “Agatha Christie films haven’t been big since the early Eighties.”

“Tell me about it!”

I remembered that in 1980’s
The Mirror Crack’d
, Natalie Wood had been replaced by Elizabeth Taylor, garnering the latter her best reviews in years.

“But either way, it’s Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, and now you,” she said.

“Don’t forget Tony Randall. He played Poirot in
The Alphabet Murders
.”

“Actually, I see you more as Margaret Rutherford, Miss Marple.”

Jeanine had meant this as a joke, and I smiled, momentarily relieved.

“The weird thing is,” I said, stopping my march, “they all disappeared for a few minutes from the party. Or came in late. Abner, Ron, Taylor Weinrod, the Kripps . . .”

I was trying to trust myself again, as I had in trumping Webby. But it took so much effort to recapture the energy, after I had believed that I was through. How had Peter Ustinov done it, case after case?

“So any one of them could have come in and taken it.”

“Yes,” I said. “And—besides resentment of us—they all had a motive. Taylor would want the movie for his station, to impress Ed Landers. Ron to jump-start his career. And Abner as a coup for his column.”

“What about Claude and Alice?”

“I don’t have a motive for them,” I admitted. “Maybe they found out about me and Webby?”

Jeanine made a face. “That’s reaching.”

“You’re right, but still.”

I sat on the bed, beside Jeanine. Exhausted and dispirited, I leaned against her. Then, slowly, I began to nuzzle at her neck, the need for comfort now paramount.

But Jeanine was a practical woman when she wished to be, and a hard-nosed one, too.

“I don’t think you want to stay here too long,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’ve only got until tomorrow night. If you want to keep any credibility as a person.”

“You’re right.” With a deep sigh, I stood up.

She kissed me deeply, and that had to suffice. There was only one advantage this time. At least I didn’t have to cross a country or travel to another continent.

“This time,
Ambersons,
” I said, “is somewhere in this hotel.”

The party was winding down.

Only a few stragglers remained, swaying slowly on the dance floor or slumped, unconscious, in their seats. The music was now just a tinny broadcast from a local radio station.

Ron Gaylord was among those left. He stood at the banquet table, rolling the last pieces of meat into a napkin and placing it into his pants. Then, folding up scraps of lettuce that were left, he inserted these into his front shirt pocket and tapped it flat. Then he made for the exit.

Peeking in through The Cutting Room’s door, I backed away and hid in a hall as he came out. Ron walked, unsteadily, his pants and shirt stuffed with food. When he pressed for the elevator, I shot around the corner and went up the stairs.

A few minutes earlier, I had asked innocently at the desk for the room numbers of all of my suspects. Now I was grateful that Ron was on four, and not thirty-five.

Panting, I emerged from the stairwell just as the elevator opened. Ron wiggled out, moving at his constipated gait. I waited until he had fumbled out his card key and inserted it into the slot in his door. Then I whispered heatedly, “Ron?”