Close-Up. Len Deighton

doubts and fears that racked any actor and he knew that an agent must be a scapegoat as well as confessor, friend and father.

      In human terms Stone might have benefited from a few home truths. He might have become more of a human being, but such tactics could cripple him as an actor.

      And for Weinberger, Stone was by no means ‘any actor’, he was a giant. His Hamlet had been compared with Gielgud’s, and his Othello bettered only by Olivier. On the screen he’d tackled everything from Westerns to light comedy. Not even his agent could claim that they all had been successful but some of his performances remained definitive ones. Few young actors would attempt a cowboy role without having Last Vaquero screened for them, and yet that was Stone’s first major role in films. Weinberger smiled at his client. ‘Forget it, Marshall.’

      Stone patted his arm again and walked to the fireplace. ‘Thanks for sending that Man From the Palace script, Viney. You have a fantastic talent for choosing scripts. You should have become a producer. Perhaps I did you no favour in asking you to be an agent.’ Again Stone smiled.

      ‘I’m glad you like it.’ Weinberger knew that he was being subjected to Stone’s calculated charm but that did not protect him from its effects. Just as confidence tricksters and scheming women do nothing to conceal their artifice, so Stone used his charm with the abrupt, ruthless and complacent skill with which a mercenary might wield a flame-thrower.

      ‘Do you know something, Viney: it might be great. There’s one scene where I come in from the balcony after the fleet have mutinied. The girl is waiting. I talk to her about the great things I’ve wanted to do for the country… It’s got a lot of social awareness. I’m the man in the middle. I can see the logic of the computer party and the trap awaiting the protestors. It’s got a lot to say to the kids, that film, Viney. Who’s going to play the girl?’

      ‘Nellie Jones can’t do it, they won’t give her a stop-date on Wild Men, Wild Women and they are four weeks over. Now I hear they’re testing some American girl.’

      ‘American! Haven’t we got any untalented inexperienced stupid actresses here in England, that they have to go to America to find one.’ Stone laughed grimly; he had to play opposite these girls.

      Weinberger smiled as if he’d not heard Stone say the same thing before. ‘I told them how you would feel. You’ll only consider it if the rest of the package is right. But I didn’t say that a new kid wouldn’t be OK. If the billing was right.’

      ‘Only me above title?’

      ‘That’s what I had in mind,’ admitted Weinberger.

      ‘Perhaps it would be better like that.’

      ‘No rush, Marshall. Let’s see what they come up with: we have the final say.’

      ‘It’s a good story, Viney.’

      ‘It was a lousy book,’ warned Weinberger.

      ‘Eighteen weeks on the best-seller list.’

      Weinberger pulled a face.

      ‘You miserable bastard, please have a drink.’ Stone held up the stopper of a cut-glass decanter.

      ‘It makes me careless and you fat.’

      ‘A tiny one?’

      ‘OK, Marshall, if you need the reassurance, pour me a pint of your best scotch. But I won’t drink it.’

      ‘You’re an obstinate old sod.’ Stone put the stopper back into the decanter.

      ‘That’s why you need me to represent you. I really don’t mind being disliked.’

      ‘And I do?’

      ‘Yes, you do.’

      Stone chased a block of ice with a swizzle stick. ‘It’s good, the deal we made for The Executioner?’

      ‘It’s the most anyone ever got from Leo Koolman for that kind of package.’

      ‘I’ll send Leo a little present. Perhaps a first edition, or cufflinks.’

      ‘No.’

      Stone looked up in surprise. Weinberger said, ‘It will make him wonder if we’ve put one over on him.’

      ‘You’re a devious bastard, Viney.’ Stone toasted him before drinking.

      Weinberger smiled. ‘In Perrier water?’

      Stone nodded, and sipped at the water. Then he put the glass down and tightened the knot of his neckerchief before consulting his gold Rolex. Once such a watch had been the prime ambition of every film actor. Now kids like Somerset flaunted Micky Mouse timepieces that anyone could afford. ‘Let’s go to dinner, Viney.’

      Weinberger recognized it as Stone’s way of taking his leave. He said, ‘I’ve got a wife and dinner waiting. Another hour and both will go cold on me.’

      ‘Yes, phone Lucy. She must come too. My God, how long since I last saw Lucy.’

      Weinberger smiled.

      ‘No, seriously.’

      ‘Off you go, Marshall. I’ll just use the phone and be off. I’ll let myself out.’

      ‘Ring for anything you want.’ Stone touched some of the tiny roses that he’d brought up from his country garden that morning. He missed the garden when work forced him to stay in his London flat. ‘Will you take the roses with you; for Lucy with my love.’ Weinberger nodded. Stone was reluctant to leave without being quite sure that his agent did not bear a grudge for his peevish outburst. It was one of his most awful – and most unfounded – fears that Weinberger would refuse to work with him any more. Or, worse, that Weinberger might deliberately go slow on Stone’s representation while pushing some other client.

      ‘It was good to see you, Viney, it really was.’ He paused long enough in front of a mirror to be sure his hair looked right. Then, still smiling to Weinberger, he let himself out through the carved double-doors that had once been part of a Mexican church.

      Weinberger heard Stone greet someone outside in the hallway. A girl’s voice replied. Then he heard the front door of the apartment close and soon after that the sound of the doors of the Rolls and then its motor as it accelerated along Mount Street.

      Weinberger looked around the room. It had hardly changed since a fashionable decorator had designed it almost ten years before. The colour scheme was pink and blue-grey and even the collection of snuff-boxes had been selected so that those colours predominated. An appearance of spontaneity had been achieved by the big bowls of cut flowers and the casual placing of the footstools and the cushions, and yet these had been ordained by the designer. The three silk-covered sofas were still arranged around the fire-place in the same way. Even the expensive illustrated books and the silver cigarette-box and lighter were the same ones in the same positions.

      Weinberger helped himself to a cigarette and lit it before dialling the president of Koolman International Pictures Inc. It was some time before the agent was given a chance to talk, but finally he was able to say, ‘Well, I agree, Leo, but an actor must make his own decision about a thing like this. You don’t want him blaming you after, and I don’t want him blaming me.’

      Again there was a speech by Koolman, then Weinberger said, ‘All actors are frightened of TV, they think it means they are on the decline. Especially a series – Marshall would certainly do a one-shot for you, or a spectacular, but an option for twenty shows is too many. Let me tell Marshall it’s ten. After the first few it will either be such a success that he’ll go along, or be such a failure that you won’t want more than five.’

      Again Weinberger listened. Then he said, ‘OK, Leo, and I’d like to show you some girls to play the wife…’ silence, then, ‘Well, yes, and I wouldn’t mind that either,’ he laughed. ‘Goodbye, Leo, and thanks.’

      Jasper switched off the tape-recorder and looked at Marshall Stone. The actor got to his feet and smoothed his tight