The Cutting Room (25 page)

Gaylord turned, with a look of pure terror. I didn’t think he was afraid of having his food confiscated. I was betting that he was hiding something else.

I approached and he responded, with a quivering smile, “Hey, uh, Roy. What are you, uh, doing here?” Then he segued awkwardly into innuendo. “Isn’t somebody a little lonely in your, uh, room?”

“Don’t worry about that. I just had a thought regarding our conversation on the bus.”

“Our conversation? Which, uh, one was that?”

“You know—the one where you talked about starting your own theater. It sounded pretty exciting.”

“Ohh, right. Well, it’s gonna be. But I’ll have a clearer head in the morning. Why don’t we, uh, discuss it then?”

The door was hanging open an inch or two. I stood at Ron’s shoulder, glancing into the darkness of the room.

“I thought we should talk about it now. I want to know . . . how serious you are.”

These words made Ron flinch. Then he looked defiantly into my eyes. “I’m serious.”

“I bet you are. My question is . . . how far are you willing to go to do it?”

Ron’s defiance hardened into pure rage. “Get lost.”

With that, Ron shifted his shoulder into mine, to push me away. But, taking a step past him like an encyclopedia salesman, I pressed down on his door with the toe of my shoe.

The door swung open, with a surprising squeak. Ron was still shoving me to the side, so I slammed into the jamb. But, grappling along the wall for the light switch, I got in, regardless.

The room exploded into light and, walking swiftly around, my eyes took in every inch of it.

“I told you to get lost!” Ron exploded, following fast behind.

I saw a pile of porno magazines on the bed . . . Ron’s suitcase, flung open, as if gutted, on the floor . . . and newspapers hanging like a sun hat over the TV. Then I nearly ran toward the other room, the smallest, as they say, in the house.

“What the hell are you trying to pull?!”

“Ask yourself that question,” I said, and opened the bathroom door.

Here, it was pristine, as if Ron were meticulous in this one area of his life alone. A Dopp Kit was neatly opened on the top of the toilet, and shaving cream, deodorant, floss, and other goods were stacked like soldiers at the sink.

Then my heart began to race. Another object lay in the bathtub, hidden beneath a towel.

As I reached down to reveal it, Ron pushed me with both hands. Losing my balance, I caromed off the sink and went flailing onto the floor, my head missing the toilet by sheer luck. I pressed on the floor and tried to rise again, my shoulder aching. Ron was pulling the shower curtain closed, like a modest matron.

“You’ve got no right to come in here!”

“I’ve got a right, Ron, for God’s sake. Let me take it now, and I won’t tell anybody.”

“
Tell
anybody! You’re damn right you won’t!”

To prove it, Ron grabbed at the collection of cans upon his sink. Expertly flicking off the cap, he began spraying the deodorant wildly at my eyes. Closing my lids against the toxic mist, I slapped at him blindly until I felt the can at my fingers and made it fly from his hand. I opened my eyes in time to see the can smash into the medicine chest mirror, cracking it starburst-style, like a bullet on a bus shelter.

Ron just stood and stared at the damage, stupefied. Then “You’re paying for that!” he shouted.

Once more, I tried to move past him to the tub, but Ron was wielding another weapon. Gripping a can of Colgate Aloe for Sensitive Skin—and pulling me toward him by my shirt’s middle buttons—he pressed clouds of shaving cream into my face and hair.

After a second of shock, I sputtered the soapy billows from my mouth, then forced his wrist to the side, as if deflecting a gun, and he sprayed the cream onto the wall. With his right hand so angled, I took the opportunity to push my fist into his stomach three times.

Grunting furiously, Ron pushed me away, sending me slamming into the wall, where I splattered the sloppy cream and slid down it, again to the floor.

There I sat for a second. Ron stood above me, panting, politely recapping the can.

“Finished?” he said. “Finished now?”

Beaten, I made to nod. Then I leaped from the floor and ran right at Ron’s midsection. We flipped over the edge of the tub, Ron crying out, cold cuts flying from his pockets, his clawing fingers ripping the curtain from its rods. Then we sank together in a pile of plastic onto the towel.

As we hit bottom, I heard the unmistakable sound of crunching glass.

There was a long pause. Ron and I lay in each other’s arms, covered by the curtain, upon the—now apparently broken—object. Then he looked at me with an
another fine mess
expression.

“Well, I certainly hope you’re happy,” he said.

I began to feel a growing sense of embarrassment. Something told me that lying beneath us was not
The Magnificent Ambersons
. Ron struggled up and, with great exasperation, extended me a hand.

“Well, come on,” he said, “unless you’re planning to wash your hair.”

I let him hoist me. Then Ron began to collect the curtain, bunching it in his arms, before he dropped it on the floor. Left behind it in the tub, the towel was flattened as if the object it sheltered had vanished from the earth.

But it hadn’t. No matter what Ron told the others—or promised himself—little shards of a J&B bottle had scattered from its sides, and brown liquor was snaking away, down the drain.

More than embarrassment, I felt regret at having so exposed him.

“So I sneaked away from the party for a pop,” Ron said. “So what?”

Unable to meet Ron’s eyes, I only mumbled a halfhearted, “Well, let’s . . . let’s talk about that idea tomorrow, okay?”

Ron waved a furiously dismissive hand. As I shuffled out, I saw him bending at the tub, cupping his hands to catch the bottle’s last drops. I knew that he could not afford to buy another.

At least Gus Ziegler had had the movie.

That was what I thought as I dragged my aching bones—this time, on the elevator—to my next stakeout. The battle I had endured months before with Gus had at least resulted in a momentary possession of the film. Ron, on the other hand, had just been humiliated, and I had just been a fool.

Now I sneaked to the tenth floor, where Abner Cooley dwelled.

I had no choice in this next target: Taylor Weinrod was, of course, staying in classier digs in town. So I approached 10G, behind which I hoped Abner was letting
Ambersons
sift sensuously through his fingers, like the Midas he imagined himself to be.

My clever scheme: to knock on his door.

There was nothing else I
could
do. And what would happen? Would he fling it open, admit his wrongdoing, and hand me back the film? Who else could Abner be expecting at one-thirty on this morning but me?

I soon had my answer.

Rattling behind me in the hall, I heard the sound of wheels. Coming closer, they rounded the bend. Then I saw a room service waiter.

He was pushing a rolling table upon which sat a stainless-steel cover, preserving the heat of a late-night snack. A bottle of champagne sat chilled in a bucket beside it.

I prayed that the very thing that had caused this crisis would now resolve it: Abner’s appetite.

Fidgeting, I watched as the waiter pushed the table past one door, then another, and then another. Finally, he looked up and saw a strange man waving at him from outside Abner’s room.

“Hi,” I said pleasantly. “Is that for 10G?”

The waiter stopped. Pale and blank-faced, he stifled a yawn before nodding.

“Just can’t wait, huh?”

“Well, to be honest,” I said, “my wife’s asleep. I’d really like to bring the table in myself.”

I had betrayed some desperation, and the man eyed me, amused. “You want the uniform, too?”

He made to remove his starched white military jacket, and I smiled. “That won’t be necessary.”

We both then laughed a little, but he stopped first. “What’s in it for me?”

Apparently, I was no master at dissembling, at least not at a quarter of two
A.M.
with a throbbing shoulder and a banged-up hip. I crushed whatever bills I could retrieve from my wallet into the man’s hand. He did not move, so I gave him an extra treat: two half-price coupons for “My Favorite Beer”—Peter O’Toole caricature included—from The Cutting Room.

“Okay,” I said, “the food’s getting cold. Get lost.”

Abner did not answer right away. Standing beside the table, I had a few sweaty seconds before I heard his slow and heavy step and then a phlegm-clearing cry of, “Coming!”

When he whipped the door open, he did not seem to see me. He had eyes just for the table and for the tray upon it.

“Finally!” he said. “I’m famished! I mean, what kind of a dinner is cold cuts . . .”

His final
anyway
? was directed at my face and trailed off into a confused and unhappy gasp. I smiled at Abner, pushed the table past him, and closed the door behind me.

“Jesus Christ!” he said. “Milano!”

He was dressed in purple polka-dot shorts and a
PRINT IT!
T-shirt, which featured his own face. The picture swelled around his great gut, so that Abner’s mouth was at his navel and his eyes upon his breasts. It seemed only appropriate that he had been tattooed, as it were, with himself.

“What the
hell
are
you
doing here?”

I placed a napkin on my forearm. “It’s my new gig,” I replied. “Now, would Monsieur care to sit?”

I tried to free the champagne from its ice, but I didn’t get far. Abner stilled my hand and forced the bottle down.

“Look, Milano,” he said, “did someone put you up to this?”

“Nobody knows about this but me,” I said reassuringly. “And you can end this whole thing now, if you like.”

“End this? What are you, suddenly, my mother?”

I could not believe Abner’s moralism, especially when he had been caught redhanded with my film. He made some fuming slow-burn sounds, like an old movie clown. I had a feeling of relief, and then of terrible fatigue. Perhaps, as Agatha Christie might have said, the game was up.

Or not. Abner squeezed and raised the plate cover. Then he lifted the club sandwich sitting there and, as tomatoes fell from it, pushed it right into my face.

“Hey!” I screamed. “What the hell are you—”

“I thought you were a live-and-let-live kind of guy, Roy. Now get out!”

I was pulling bacon and mayonnaise from my face, as what Abner said sank in. “What the hell do you mean?
You’re
the one who’s gone over the line!”

This remark enraged Abner even more. Yanking up another cover on another tray, he picked up a handful of French fries and started smushing them into my face as if they were hot nails.

I slapped them away, sending several potatoes onto the rug. If Abner was angry enough to destroy his dinner, then this was a new level of indignation for him. As for myself, I had been beaten tonight with instruments of food and hygiene, and I had had enough.

“Look, goddamit,” I said, “just own up to what you’ve done and I’ll be on my way!”

“Okay, I admit it. I’m guilty.”

The comment should have satisfied, except it did not come from Abner. When I turned in the direction of the third voice in the room, I was stunned to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar pose.

Taylor Weinrod was standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing just a towel.

“So kill us, Roy,” he said wearily. “But then get out, okay?”

I looked from one man to the other and, with horror, realized my mistake.

“Jesus. I didn’t come here about
this
!” I said very faintly. “I would never . . .”

There was nothing I could say that could have justified my behavior. And I was too proud to admit that
The Magnificent Ambersons
was gone.

“So what,” Abner said, “you watched us leave the bar together? Get a life.”

I thought about the framed photo of Taylor’s family on the table in his LCM office. I also thought that now Abner was
literally
in bed with the powers-that-be. But, backing out, all I said was, “You two, you have my blessing . . . please believe me on that.”

“Great,” Taylor said drowsily. “Whatever.”

As I moved ridiculously toward the door, I saw the special way that Abner was staring at his guest. This was a much better catch than Gus Ziegler had been last year. His hand drifted toward a fry, but, wanting to look his best, he let it be.

The last thing I saw, as the door closed upon me, was Taylor Weinrod lifting champagne, in a comic toast, to their failed and foolish friend.

The fifteenth floor was my last resort.

It was ridiculous, I knew. The Kripps had no motive and were the least likely, at any rate, to be thieves. But I pressed the elevator button anyway.

I traveled up, sore and stained, smelling of fried food. I picked a final crusted piece of potato from my cheek. I tried to forget all I had learned about my trivial colleagues tonight. But, as I had asked myself early on, once you knew a thing, how
could
you forget?

I knocked, bashfully, like a little boy. I knew that I would wake them, but I didn’t care. There could be no sleep until I got the film.

To my surprise, the door swung open right away. Claude stood before me, still dressed, with only his tie undone. Behind him, a TV showed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers tapping. Their song seemed appropriate: “Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, and Start All Over Again.”

“Roy!” he said happily. “Come in, my boy, come in!” As I did, he gestured at the screen. “Aren’t they marvelous?”

“The best,” I said quietly. “The best.”

Just as ebullient, Alice came out of the bathroom, in a terry cloth robe, brushing out her hair. “Roy! What a nice surprise!” Then she, too, watched the set. “Aren’t they just wonderful?”

“The best.”

Unlike the dancing pair, I felt weak in the knees. I stumbled to the bed and sat down. Since I could not bring myself to speak, a concerned Claude broke the silence.

“Roy? Is something wrong?”