The fire marshal and the studio comptroller were in Sam’s office.
“How bad was last night’s fire?” Sam asked.
The comptroller said, “The sets are a total loss, Mr. Winters. We’re going to have to rebuild Stage Fifteen completely. Sixteen is fixable, but it will take us three months.”
“We haven’t got three months,” Sam snapped. “Get on the phone and rent some space at Goldwyn. Use this weekend to start building new sets. Get everybody moving.”
He turned to the fire marshal, a man named Reilly, who reminded Sam of George Bancroft, the actor.
“Somebody sure as hell don’t like you, Mr. Winters,” Reilly said. “Each fire has been a clear case of arson. Have you checked on grunts?”
Grunts were disgruntled employees who had been recently fired or who felt they had a grievance against their employer.
“We’ve gone through all the personnel files twice,” Sam replied. “We haven’t come up with a thing.”
“Whoever is setting these babies knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s using a timing device attached to a homemade incendiary. He could be an electrician or a mechanic.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. “I’ll pass that on.”
“Roger Tapp is calling from Tahiti.”
“Put him on,” Sam said. Tapp was the producer of “My Man Friday,” the television series being shot in Tahiti, starring Tony Fletcher.
“What’s the problem?” Sam asked.
“You won’t fucking believe this, Sam. Philip Heller, the chairman of the board of the company that’s sponsoring the show, is visiting here with his family. They walked on the set yesterday afternoon, and Tony Fletcher was in the middle of a scene. He turned to them and insulted them.”
“What did he say?”
“He told them to get off his island.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“That’s who he thinks he is. Heller’s so mad he wants to cancel the series.”
“Get over to Heller and apologize. Do it right now. Tell him Tony Fletcher’s having a nervous breakdown. Send Mrs. Heller flowers, take them to dinner. I’ll talk to Tony Fletcher myself.”
The conversation lasted thirty minutes. It began with Sam saying, “Hear this, you stupid cocksucker…” and ended with, “I love you, too, baby. I’ll fly over there to see you as soon as I can get away. And for God’s sake, Tony, don’t lay Mrs. Heller!”
The next problem was Bert Firestone, the boy-genius director who was breaking Pan-Pacific Studios. Firestone’s picture, There’s Always Tomorrow, had been shooting for a hundred and ten days, and was more than a million dollars over budget. Now Bert Firestone had shut the production down, which meant that, besides the stars, there were a hundred and fifty extras sitting around on their asses doing nothing. Bert Firestone. A thirty-year-old whiz kid who came from directing prize-winning television shows at a Chicago station to directing movies in Hollywood. Firestone’s first three motion pictures had been mild successes, but his fourth one had been a box-office smash. On the basis of that money-maker, he had become a hot property. Sam remembered his first meeting with him. Firestone looked a not-yet-ready-to-shave fifteen. He was a pale, shy man with black horn-rimmed glasses that concealed tiny, myopic pink eyes. Sam had felt sorry for the kid. Firestone had not known anyone in Hollywood, so Sam had gone out of his way to have him to dinner and to see that he was invited to parties. When they had first discussed There’s Always Tomorrow, Firestone was very respectful. He told Sam that he was eager to learn. He hung on every word that Sam said. He could not have agreed more with Sam. If he were signed for this picture, he told Sam, he would certainly lean heavily on Mr. Winters’s expertise.
That was before Firestone signed the contract. After he signed it, he made Adolf Hitler look like Albert Schweitzer. The little apple-cheeked kid turned into a killer overnight. He cut off all communication. He completely ignored Sam’s casting suggestions, insisted on totally rewriting a fine script that Sam had approved, and he changed most of the shooting locales that had already been agreed upon. Sam had wanted to throw him off the picture, but the New York office had told Sam to be patient. Rudolph Hergershorn, the president of the company, was hypnotized by the enormous grosses on Firestone’s last movie. So Sam had been forced to sit tight and do nothing. It seemed to him that Firestone’s arrogance grew day by day. He would sit quietly through a production meeting, and when all the experienced department heads had finished speaking, Firestone would begin chopping down everyone. Sam gritted his teeth and bore it. In no time at all, Firestone acquired the nickname of Emperor, and when his coworkers were not calling him that, they referred to him as Kid Prick from Chicago. Somebody said about him, “He’s a hermaphrodite. He could probably fuck himself and give birth to a two-headed monster.”
Now, in the middle of shooting, Firestone had closed down the company.
Sam went over to see Devlin Kelly, the head of the art department. “Give it to me fast,” Sam said.
“Right. Kid Prick ordered—”
“Cut that out. It’s Mr. Firestone.”
“Sorry. Mr. Firestone asked me to build a castle set for him. He drew the sketches himself. You okayed them.”
“They were good. What happened?”
“What happened was that we built him exactly what the little—what he wanted, and when he took a look at it yesterday, he decided he didn’t want it anymore. A half-million bucks down the—”