Popcorn

Chapter TwentyTwo

In the doorway to Bruce’s lounge stood Wayne and Karl Brezner, Bruce’s agent. Karl was a tough, hardbitten operator from New York. He had been in the business for thirty years, but judging by his manner it did not seem to have made him happy.

‘Here’s your man, Bruce,’ said Wayne.

Karl threw a questioning glance at Bruce. Understandably he was wondering who the lowlife might be.

‘Hi, Bruce. Sorry to call so early,’ he said. ‘Coupla real important things. So, having a party?’

Karl looked round the room. Brooke was still kneeling on the carpet in front of Scout. Wayne was also taking in the scene. Both he and Karl were surprised to see the two women in this position.

Brooke got up from the rug with what dignity she could muster and returned to her seat on the couch.

‘Yeah, a party, kind of,’ said Bruce. ‘This is Brooke Daniels.’

Karl had eyed Brooke appreciatively as she crossed the room. He would have had to have been made of stone not to. She was extremely beautiful at any time and if anything she was even more fascinating now, looking sad and vulnerable in her increasingly absurd evening gown.

‘Brooke Daniels!’ said Karl with delight. ‘Well, well, well. Miss February, I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on. Great spread, by the way. I’ll bet the nozzle of that gas pump was cold, am I right? Who’re these two, Bruce?’

Karl spoke as if Wayne and Scout did not exist. He was not actually quite as rude as he appeared. He came from a brusque culture, in which good manners were commonly interpreted as bullshit and prevarication. His style would not have gone down well in Japan or over tea at Buckingham Palace, but in New York showbusiness circles it had served him well.

Bruce struggled for a reply to his question.

‘A couple of… actors. I saw them in an improv’ night out at Malibu… thought I’d talk to them. Might be right for Killer Angels.’

Killer Angels was the project that Bruce and Karl currently had in development. It was again to be about people who killed strangers, but this time for a reason, antiabortion, the environment, wiping out a sporting rival, whatever; the idea being to show that all murder is in fact arbitrary. Or something like that, anyway. They intended it to duplicate the enormous success of Ordinary Americans.

‘Seeing actors in the early morning after Oscars night? That is dedication.’ Karl turned to Wayne and Scout. ‘No offence to you guys, but for me talking to actors is only one step up from visiting with the dentist.’

As with most agents, being rude about actors was Karl’s favourite joke. He patronized them behind their backs, calling them childish and mad. He was, of course, just jealous. No matter how rich and powerful an agent gets, he still finds it difficult to jump queues in restaurants.

Bruce pursued his hasty improvisation, in the hope that detail would make it more convincing. ‘I just thought they had, you know… maybe they had the right look.’

Karl cast a doubtful glance at Wayne and Scout. ‘Well, I’m just the schmuck who counts the money, but these kids look about as much like psychopaths as my grandmother, God save her soul.’

Bruce was pleased at this response. The less interest Karl showed in Wayne and Scout the better.

‘You want a drink, Mr Brezner?’ Wayne asked.

This gave Bruce further cause for relief. Wayne appeared to be prepared to play along with the fiction.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Karl. ‘A drink? At seven fifteen in the morning? Have you any idea how much my current liver cost me? Body parts do not come cheap, my friend, particularly those of which the donor only had one and was hence reluctant to part with it… Only kidding. Since we’re celebrating, get me a scotch, kid.’

Karl sat down on the couch beside Brooke, taking the opportunity as he sat to cast an appreciative glance down the front of her dress.

His mentioning the time reminded Bruce that Karl had no business being there at all. ‘That’s right Karl, it’s only seven fifteen. What do you want?’

‘Lemme get this drink, then maybe we can talk down in the snooker room.’

‘We’ll talk here. I’m busy.’ Bruce hadn’t meant to snap. The last thing he wanted was to raise any suspicions in Karl that something was wrong. Wayne caught the wrongness of the tone too and shot a warning look at Bruce from where he was standing at the drinks cabinet. Had there been a musical sting at this point, it would have suggested that Bruce had better be damned careful.

‘Well excuuuuse me,’ said Karl. Even tough New York agents with skin thicker than an elephant sandwich can be offended. ‘I forgot for one moment that you just won an Oscar and therefore are professionally obliged to treat with contempt those whom formerly you have loved and respected.’

Bruce knew he must remain very calm. If Karl’s suspicions were even slightly aroused he would never leave the room alive. ‘Karl, I didn’t sleep yet.’ He attempted a weary matteroffact tone. ‘Could we do this another time?’

‘Another time? Maybe you didn’t see the papers today.’

‘Of course I didn’t see the papers – it’s seven fifteen in the morning.’

Karl took his drink from Wayne without even glancing at him, let alone thanking him.

‘Well, I don’t want to be the shitdelivery boy here, Bruce, but yours is not a popular Oscar choice. Frankly, the editorials would be kinder if they’d given it retrospectively to Attack of the LargeBreasted Women.’

Bruce shrugged and he meant it. ‘Who gives a fuck what those parasites think?’

Just a few hours earlier he would have been obsessed with what they thought, but that was a few hours earlier. Things had changed. Changed for ever. Karl, of course, was still living in the old world.

Or at least he thought he was.

‘We give a fuck, Bruce,’ he said. ‘It’s the violence thing. It’s the big deal of the moment and it’s getting a little serious. These fucks are talking up Ordinary Americans like it was some kind of training manual for psychos. Newt Gingrich was on the Today Show this morning-’

‘All politicians are scum,’ Wayne interjected. ‘Ordinary Americans is a fuckin’ masterpiece.’

Again Karl ignored him. ‘He says you’re a pornographer and you shouldn’t get honoured for glamorizing murderers.’

Scout was bored. She didn’t like Karl and she didn’t care what Newt Gingrich thought. She had been having a much more interesting conversation before Karl arrived. She turned back to Brooke.

‘Brooke, will you put my hair up like you said you would?’

Rather nervously Brooke nodded and, taking her handbag, she crossed over to where Scout was sitting and started to do her hair. Karl was not a little surprised to be interrupted in this way by outofwork actors, but he let it go. That he should care if this little runt showed him disrespect. In his life she did not even exist.

‘I think the Republicans want to turn it into a midterm election issue. We need to make a plan.’

Again Scout barged in with her own agenda. ‘You know what I love? I love the way hair mousse comes out of the can. Like, how do they get it all in there?’

‘It expands, honey,’ said Wayne.

‘I know it expands, dummy. Because it’s bigger when it gets out. But I don’t know how it happens. It’s the same with cans of whipped cream. How do they do that? I mean cream is cream – you can’t crush it up.’

Karl looked at her, astonished. He hadn’t been ignored like this in twentyfive years.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘did I become invisible? I’m talking here.’

Scout seemed suitably admonished. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘You are very far from welcome,’ Karl replied with ill grace, before turning back to Bruce. ‘They’re thinking about reclassifying for overeighteens. That’s half our box office gone at a stroke, to say nothing of actual bans, particularly in the South. In retrospect, I think the crucifixion scene was a mistake.’

‘Awesome scene, man,’ said Wayne.

Again Karl ignored the interruption. ‘It’s these fucking Mall Murderers, Bruce. Those two little punks are in danger of getting our picture pulled, Oscar or no Oscar. Do you know they just shot up a 711? Christ, what kind of pointless sickos are these people?’

Brooke and Bruce froze. Karl’s conversation had suddenly taken an unimaginably dangerous turn.

‘Well, you know,’ Brooke said casually, while teasing at Scout’s hair, ‘I mean, you have to try to be a little understanding, see things from their point of view.’

Karl was not an understanding type of person. ‘What, you mean the point of view of a socially inadequate jerkoff? Please.’

‘I really don’t think you can dismiss them that easily.’ Brooke was doing her best but it was a hopeless task.

‘Pardon me, miss, for appearing rude, but that I should give a fuck what you think. Wayne Hudson and that weird, scrawny little bitch he drags around with him are screwed up trailerpark whitetrash nobodies who have mashed potato instead of brains. The sooner they get burnt, fried, decapitated, castrated, lobotomized, liquidized and generally fucked over, the better. I would gladly take a mallet to the little fucking scumbags myself.’

Bruce and Brooke braced themselves. Surely now the mayhem would begin. Wayne had moved to behind the couch where Scout was sitting. He had only to reach down into the cushions at her back to produce a machinegun, and this appallingly provocative man would be dead. Scout herself need merely brush aside the cushion on her lap. Surely it was all over for Karl?

‘You talk big, Karl, but you’d never do it.’ Bruce’s laugh was wooden as a daytime soap. ‘You always end up on the side of the underdog.’

‘Underdog? Those scum?’ Karl replied.

Bruce was now convinced that Karl had a death wish.

‘Like I would waste my tears on such syphilitic maggots? I would puke on their graves and those of their mothers, who no doubt were whores.’

Shut up! Every fibre of Bruce’s being willed this loudmouthed oaf to shut up. Brooke, too, was desperately trying to reach somehow into his mind and stop this fool from digging all their graves with his violent language.

How often had Brooke spoken in the past about auras and third eyes? While not actually holding a season ticket on the New Age Traveller bandwagon, she had always claimed to have a palpable connection with the mystic. She believed firmly that thoughttransference was possible. She was getting a painful crash course in Old Age reality.

Wayne ’s voice was cold, although in comparison to his eyes it was positively balmy. ‘You think the Mall Murders are fuckedup white trash, Mr Brezner?’

‘He does not think that!’ Bruce almost shouted.

‘You can’t just dismiss them’ was Brooke’s desperate plea.

‘Weird, scrawny little bitch?’ Scout said to herself, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘That weird scrawny little bitch he drags around with him?’

‘Karl didn’t mean that!’ Bruce forced himself to laugh again; it sounded like a razorblade cutting through a tin can. ‘You should hear the way he talks about his wife.’

Karl, oblivious of the terrible agenda swirling around him, was mystified by Bruce’s attitude.

‘Excuse me? What is this right now? Oprah? Are we having some kind of debate about these fucking filth? Of course they’re fuckedup white trash. What else would they be? I’d like to take that pair of pointless, gutless, nobrain, nodick, asshole insults to the intelligence of a wet fart and-’

‘Karl! What do you want?’ Bruce leapt to his feet. ‘I’m busy here. I have stuff to do and you are getting in my face.’

He had not wanted to confront Karl quite so bluntly. If he acted too strangely, Wayne would know that Karl’s suspicions must inevitably be aroused. On the other hand, he had to shut Karl up and get him out before he talked them all to death.

Karl studied Bruce for a moment, but decided not to rise to him. Karl was, after all, an agent and Bruce was his top client.

‘OK, Bruce, OK. You’re the artist. I just negotiate the obscene and disgusting amounts you get paid. Now, like I say, I think we have real trouble here. This is an important moral issue and we can’t be seen to duck it. We have to react to this thing responsibly. What we have to do is get out there immediately, say fuck you, and announce a sequel to Ordinary Americans.’

‘Everybody died at the end of Ordinary Americans,’ Bruce replied.

‘Bruce, yours is not a pedantic audience. Look, you have to rise above this thing. Get out there today and work the chat shows. You did great on Coffee Time yesterday. Tell the world that these killers are not your responsibility and-’

Wayne walked across the room and plucked Karl’s whisky glass from his hand. ‘OK Bruce. I’m sick of this guy now. We have things to talk about. Get rid of him.’

Bruce jumped out of his seat in his eagerness. ‘Right, good, OK. Karl, I appreciate you coming round and I’m going to think over what you said, but right now I’m busy, OK, so…’

Karl was astonished. He had known Bruce for years. They were friends. ‘You want me to go?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Because you have stuff to do with these people?’

‘Yes.’

Karl looked from Wayne to Scout and made no attempt to conceal his distaste. He was very worried. These types were clearly no good. There was trouble here. He had no idea just how much trouble there was, or indeed what kind.

‘Look, Bruce’ – Karl lowered his voice – ‘if you want something rough to mess around with, you should talk to me and I’ll get it for you. This kind of thing is dangerous. You’re going to end up blackmailed.’

‘Karl, go,’ Bruce replied. ‘Now.’

Karl turned away. He could do no more. ‘OK. See you.’

WAYNE

See you.

Wide shot, taking in the whole room. Karl is walking towards the door. Wayne reaches down behind Scout and pulls out a gun.

BRUCE

(Shouting)

No!

Almost simultaneously, before Karl even has time to realize that something is wrong, Wayne has shot him in the back. Karl begins to fall forward, dead. Two shot of Brooke standing over Scout, doing Scout’s hair. Brooke screams.

SCOUT

Ow! You pulled my hair!

BROOKE

I’m sorry.

Wide shot. Everything is happening at once. Karl is still falling to the floor. Slow motion. An expulsion of blood and guts flies out from the front of the falling body as the bullet explodes through.

Closeup. On the wall in front of Karl’s falling body, a framed print, a poster for Ordinary Americans. Karl’s lifeblood impacts upon the poster in a bloody splat. A buzzing sound is heard.

Whip pan from bloodstain on the poster, across the wall to a closeup on the wall intercom, which is buzzing again.