Arbuthnot after the Sloanes at eighty miles an hour. Rear-ended them at Gower, rammed them into a pole. The news hit the party! Doc Phillips, Manny, and Groc rushed out. They carried the victims into the Catholic church nearby. Arbuthnots church. Where he put money as his fire escape, his escape from hell, he said. But it was too late. They died and were taken across the street to the mortuary. I was long since gone. At the studio the next day Doc and Groc looked like pallbearers at their own funerals. I finished the last scene of the last film I ever made by noon.
The studio shut down for a week. They hung crepe on every sound stage and sprayed fake clouds of fog and mist in every street, or is that true? The headlines said the three of them were all happy drunk, going home. No. It was vengeance running to kill love. The poor male bastards and the poor lovesick bitch were buried across the wall where the hooch once ran, two days later. The graveyard tunnel was bricked up andhell, she sighed, I thought it was all over. But tonight, with the tunnel open, and Arbuthnots fake body on that wall, and that terrible man with the sad, mad eyes in your film, its started again. Whats it all mean?
Her clock ran down, her voice faded, she was going to sleep. Her mouth twitched. Ghosts of words came out, in bits and pieces.
Poor holy man. Sap
What holy man sap? I asked.
Crumley leaned forward in the doorway. Constance, deep under, drowning, gave answer:
priest. Poor crock. Dumped on. Studio barging in. Blood in the baptistry. Bodies, my God, bodies everywhere. Poor sap
St. Sebastians? That poor sap?
Sure, sure. Poor him. Poor everyone, murmured Constance. Poor Arby, that sad stupid genius. Poor Sloane. Poor wife. Emily Sloane. What was it she said that night? Going to live forever. Boy! What a surprise to wake up nowhere. Poor Emily. Poor Hollyhock House. Poor me.
Poor what was that again?
Hoi Constances voice slurred ly ock House And she slept.
Hollyhock House? No film by that name, I murmured.
No, said Crumley, moving into the room. Not a film. Here.
He reached under the night table and pulled the telephone directory out and turned the pages. He ran his finger down and read aloud:
Hollyhock House Sanitarium. Thats half a block over and hah0 a block north of St. Sebastians Catholic church, yes?
Crumley leaned close to her ear.
Constance, he said. Hollyhock House. Whos there?
Constance moaned, covered her eyes, and turned away. To the wall she addressed some few final words about a night a long time ago.
going to live forever little did she know poor everyone poor Arby poor priest poor sap
Crumley arose, muttering. Hell. Damn. Sure. Hollyhock House. A stones throw from
St. Sebastians, I finished. Why, I added, do I have this feeling youll be taking me there?
You, Crumley said to me at breakfast, look like death warmed over. You, he pointed his buttered toast at Constance, look like Justice without Mercy.
What do I look like? asked Henry. Cant see you.
Figures, said the blind man.
Clothes off, said Constance, dazed, like someone reading from an idiot board. Time for a swim. My place!
We drove to Constances place. Fritz telephoned.
Have you got the middle for my film, he cried, or was it the beginning? Now we need a redo of the Sermon on the Mount!
Does it need redoing? I almost yelled.
Have you looked at it lately? Fritz, over the phone, did his imitation of Crumley pulling out his last strands of hair. Do it! Then write a narration for the whole damn film to cover the ten thousand other pits, pimples, and rump-sprung behinds of our epic. Have you read the whole Bible, lately?
Not exactly.
Fritz tore some more hair. Go skim! Skim!?
Skip pages. Be at the studio at five oclock with a sermon to knock my socks off and a narration to make Orson Welles spoil his shoes! Your Unterseeboot Kapitan says: Dive!
He submerged, and was gone.
Clothes off, said Constance, still half asleep. Everyone in!
We swam. I followed Constance as far out in the surf as I could go, then the seals welcomed and swam her away.
Lord, said Henry, sitting hip deep in water. First bath I had in years! We finished five bottles of champagne before two oclock and were
suddenly almost happy.
Then somehow I sat down, wrote my Sermon on the Mount, and read it aloud to the sound of the waves.
When I finished Constance said, quietly, Where do I sign up for Sunday school?
Jesus, said blind Henry, would have been proud.
I dub thee, Crumley poured champagne in my ear, genius. Hell, I said modestly.
I went back in and for good measure rode Joseph and Mary into Bethlehem, lined up the wise men, positioned the Babe on a pallet of hay while the animals watched with incredulous eyes, and in the midst of midnight camel trains, strange stars, and miraculous births, I heard Crumley behind me say:
Poor holy man sap. He dialed information.
Hollywood? he said. St. Sebastians church?
At three-thirty Crumley dropped me St. Sebastians.
He examined my face and saw not only my skull but what rattled inside. Stop it! he ordered. You got that dumb smug-ass look pasted on your
mouth like a circus flier. Which means you trip, but I fall downstairs! Crumley!
Well, Christ almighty, what about that mill race under the bones and through the wall last night, and Roy in permanent hiding, and Blind Henry cane-whipping the air, fighting off spooks, and Constance who might scare again tonight and show up to yank off my Band-aids. This was my idea to bring you here! but now you stand there like a high I.Q. clown about to jump off a cliff!
Poor holy man. Poor sap. Poor priest, I replied. Oh, no you dont!
And Crumley drove off.
I wandered through a church that was small in dimension but burning bright with accoutrements. I stood looking at an altar that must have used up five million dollars worth of gold and silver. The Christ figure up front, if melted down, could have bought half of the U.S. Mint. It was while I was standing there stunned by the light coming off that cross that I heard Father Kelly behind me.
Is that the screenwriter who telephoned with the problem? he called quietly from across the pews.
I studied the incredibly bright altar. You must have had many rich worshipers, father, I said.
Arbuthnot, I thought.
No, its an empty church in an empty time. Father Kelly plowed down the aisle and stuck out a big paw. He was tall, six feet five and with the muscularity of an athlete. We are lucky to have a few parishioners whose consciences make constant problems. They force their money on the church.
You tell the truth, father.
Id damn well better or God will get me. He laughed. Its rough taking money from ulcerating sinners, but its better than having them throw it at the horses. Theyve a better chance of winning here, for I do scare the Jesus into them. While the psychiatrists are busy talking, I give one hell of a yell, which knocks the pants off half my parish and makes the rest put theirs back on. Come sit. Do you like scotch? I often think, if Christ lived now, would he serve that and would we mind? Thats Irish logic. Come along.
In his office, he poured two snifters.
I can see by your eyes you hate the stuff, observed the priest. Leave it.
Have you come about that fools film theyre just finishing at the studio over there? Is Fritz Wong as mad as some say?
And as fine.
Its good to hear a writer praise his boss. I rarely did. You!? I exclaimed.
Father Kelly laughed. As a young man I wrote nine screenplays, none ever shot, or should have been shot, at sunrise. Until age thirty-five I did my damnedest to sell, sell-out, get-in, get-on. Then I said to hell with it and joined the priesthood, late. It was hard. The church does not take such as me off the streets frivolously. But I sprinted through seminary in style, for I had worked on a mob of Christian documentary films. Now what of you?
I sat laughing.
Whats funny? asked Father Kelly.
I have this notion that half the writers at the studio, knowing about your years of writing, might just sneak over here not for confession but answers! How do you write this scene, how end that, how edit, how
Youve rammed the boat and sunk the crew! The priest downed his whiskey and refilled, chortling, and then he and I rambled, like two old screen toughs, over movie-script country. I told him my Messiah, he told me his Christ.
Then he said: Sounds like youve done well, patching the script. But then the old boys, two thousand years back, did patchwork too, if you remark the difference between Matthew and John.
I stirred in my chair with a furious need to babble, but dared not throw boiling oil on a priest while he dispensed cool holy
