Pimp

Eleven

Back in the glory days when Stallone was a star — yeah, that long ago — Larry had a partner named Jerry Yarmolowitz, Jewish guy. That’s how Larry would introduce him to people, go, “Meet Jerry Yarmolowitz, Jewish guy,” and smirk, getting a kick out of it every time, a Jew so jew-y he didn’t even bother covering it up, while Larry had quietly Ellis Islanded Horowitz into Reed.

He and Larry were the new kids on the block and some early successes had critics comparing them to great double acts:

Plus, these guys were tight. Not just professionally but buddies outside the job too. They’d fly to New York, hang at the Mansfield, drink until dawn, hit on hot waitresses, and score on the ponies. And through it all they worked on their projects nonstop. Larry was all about character but if you wanted the plot to jell, then Jerry was the go-to guy.

A true study in contrasts, Larry was all mouth — fuck this, fuck that — and on speed to get everything done. His mantra might have been, “Yeah, that’s great, what’s next?”

Jerry put the M in mellow, laid-back, no fuss, his mantra seemed to be: “Let it slide.”

And they were fun to be around, got people caught up in their shared energy. Weirdest thing was they looked alike — same graying hair, same pot belly, same bald spot. An exec once cracked, “Who are you guys, the Glimmer Twins?” and the name stuck. They even called their company Glimmer Productions.

Then came two pivotal moments. The first was the arrival of a movie script, The Wallace Tapes. This seemed to be a surefire hit but turned out to be a Heaven’s Gate clusterfuck of bad management, worse timing and budgets that went ballistic. Larry, always the savvy dude, cashed in his shares, got out before the shit really hit the fan, but neglected to tell Jerry. Neglecting to tell — that was the second pivotal moment.

Jerry, believing that their friendship could turn anything around, stayed until the bitter end, a premiere in Boise. He lost everything. Things were so bad he even contemplated writing a mystery novel for quick cash. But some shred of dignity still remained and he took a job as a dishwasher at a diner, and at last disappeared in to the great anonymity of Manhattan.

Worse, in interviews, Larry dissed him, going, “Thing is, ol’ Jerry lost control. Instead of writing the plot, he became the plot. He never understood the basic principle of cut and run.”

Even Michael Cimino referred to Jerry as the guy “who made Ishtar look profitable.”

Larry’s wife, in rare moments would ask him, “You ever think about Jerry?”

Larry, on his B-movie uppers, would snort, “Jerry, Jerry is history.”

But now, in traffic, on his way to a lunch thing at Musso & Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard, Larry wondered, Could Jerry have kidnapped Bev? Jerry was a Sam Adams drinker, used to drink the shit like water, so there was that. And he had boatloads of motive for revenge.

So Larry did a little research. Well, called a neighbor who had a twelve-year-old kid who knew how to use the Internet, was some kind of genius with Google.

Larry went, “Hey, can you have Kyle do me a solid?” Larry had just heard this phrase used by some kid at his chiropractor’s office and felt hip using it himself. “Can he research Jerry Yarmolowitz, the ex-movie producer, and see what he finds out?” His neighbor wrote back a few minutes later, informing Larry that Jerry had invested in a start-up during the tech boom, cashed out, and was currently living in a villa in Greece.

This news established two important things for Larry:

One, the idea of Jerry’s involvement in Bev’s kidnapping was probably what the mystery writers call a red herring.

Two, he had to be some kind of idiot, wasting his time fartsing around in the fucking movie business.