Chapter Text
Judd Banks sat behind his enormous desk in his enormous office at Monumental Pictures chomping an enormous cigar. Across from him sat his number two.
“Yes, Anders. I’m gone after the first of the year. It’s all yours.”
Thomas G. Anders, executive producer of Monumental Pictures—one of the biggest and most glamorous movie studios in Hollywood, and therefore, in the world—after a childhood spent herding sheep in hardscrabble West Texas, would, in two months’ time, become one of the most powerful men on earth: he would take the place of Judson Banks as the head of the studio. He sat across from Banks feeling light-headed.
“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary, boy. You can’t be surprised much.”
“It’s just sooner than I thought, JB,” said Anders, his head swimming.
Banks leaned forward in his enormous leather chair. “Well get a hold of yourself, Tom. I have some conditions.”
A dark wisp of dread blew across Anders’ bright future.
“First, George Wallis has got to go.”
“That’s easy,” said Anders. “Fire him.”
“I can’t fire my own son-in-law, Tom. My wife and daughter would disown me.”
I happen to know that your daughter would take it very well, thought Anders; but he said, “I have a history with Wallis, JB. If I fire him it’s likely to get ugly, and not just for me.”
Banks looked at him with disgust. “When you’re head of the studio you are going to fire a lot of people, Tom, and you’re going to have a history with every one of them, and every one of them is going to threaten to set fire to the studio.” Banks re-lit his cigar. “No, you’ve got to do it, and soon. It’s got to be done before I announce my retirement.”
Anders couldn’t fire Wallis, but he knew he’d never convince Banks of it without telling him why, and he couldn’t tell him why. “When will you announce?”
“The first week in November. The accountants tell me I’ll save myself a fortune if I announce that I’m leaving by November third.”
“Taxes?” said Anders.
“I guess,” said Banks, waving his hand dismissively. “The end of the fiscal something or other.”
“What’s the second condition?” said Anders.
“That you get married.”
“Get what?”
“There are rumors about you, Tom. Rumors that would be squelched if you got married. To a woman. Do you understand me?”
Anders understood him. “Oh what’s the difference, JB? Can’t I just keep squiring starlets around? Or say I’m married to my job? Like… like…”
Banks puffed his cigar like a steam engine. “Can’t think of anybody who’s made that work, can you, Tom?” he said. “Billy Haines is being forced out right now, as we sit here. Haines! The biggest star at Goldwyn! Out on his ass. It won’t happen here, I tell you. I won’t have my handpicked studio head stepping down in scandal in six months. I mean to pull the strings at my studio until I’m too old to care. You need to be married by Christmas, boy, lavishly and publicly.”
“Yes sir.”
“A couple of years ago, I thought that you and my daughter…” Banks pulled the fat cigar out of his mouth and smashed the lit end into the enormous ash tray in front of him. “What the hell, Tom? Why did Carol dump you and marry that jerk, Wallis? You know, don’t you?”
Anders cursed under his breath.
“You think I’m a bad father. You and a lot of sanctimonious old grandmothers. You think paying tuition at those European schools was cheap? You think that leaving her a half-billion dollar business is neglect?”
“The first time you saw Carol she was graduating from high school. You didn’t meet your only child until she was seventeen,” said Anders. “You’re never going to understand why she does anything.”
“Then enlighten me, Tom. Why did she dump you for Wallis? Tell me why it’s my fault.”
Anders felt his face get hot.
“God damn it! Tell me!”
“She liked his chances better than mine,” Anders said. “You called him a creative genius, remember?”
Banks stood, walked behind his desk chair, and pulled the heavy curtains open. The California sun streamed in through the mogul’s second-story picture window. His soundstages splayed out before him on the golden meadow below.
“Well she shot herself in the foot. He hasn’t made the studio a dime since The Soldier. He’s out.”
“I’ll talk to him, JB.” Anders rose. “But he’s gonna hand me my ass and come after yours.” He hesitated a few seconds. He hoped Banks would re-think; change his mind about firing Wallis and let him off the hook, but he didn’t. Anders turned to leave.
“There’s a third condition,” Banks said, turning away from the view. Anders reluctantly came back and plopped down hard in the chair to display his impatience.
“You’ve got to rein in your temper,” said Banks, leaning over his desk.
“My temper has made you millions,” said Anders, sliding forward to the edge of his seat, his face flushed.
“You’re proving my point, Tom,” said Banks. “Right now.” He pointed in Anders’ face. “You’re about to let your anger do you out of the job you’ve wanted all your life.”
Anders struggled to control himself. “Yes sir,” he said, evenly, backing down. “Yes sir.”
Banks looked at Anders for a long while. “Ok,” he said finally. He thumbed through his desk calendar. “The Examiner will print the announcement on the third.”
“Parsons’ column?” said Anders.
“Who else?” said Banks, straightening up and looking intently at Anders. “That’s a week from today. We’ve got a week to iron things out. Are you on board, Tom?”
“I am.”
“With everything?”
“Yes.”
“You have somebody in mind to marry?”
“Yes, actually. I do. I have had for a while,” Anders said. And it’s your Queen-of-the-May daughter, you ham-handed jerk.
“Glad to hear it. We’ll talk again after you’ve axed Wallis.” Banks picked up a new five-dollar cigar and turned his attention to clipping it with a silver cutter. Once the tip was snipped, he looked up at Anders.
“You’re excused.”
“Yes sir.” Anders stood, resisted the urge to genuflect, and walked out through the lavish office’s enormous double doors.
——-
George Wallis rubbed oil into his hair and then watched himself brush it smooth and sleek against his scalp. In the mirror behind him he could see his wife sitting up in bed, leaning against a silk-covered pillow, her breakfast, which included a rose in a bud vase, because that’s how Jean Harlow was served her breakfast in her latest movie, lay on a tray in front of her. The maid finished pouring her coffee.
“Thank you, Nancy,” said Carol Wallis, stubbing out her third cigarette of the morning. “That’s all I need.”
The maid curtseyed just slightly, this was America, after all, and turned and left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. George set his brushes on the marble sink and turned his attention to straightening his tie.
“Do you want the car tonight, George?” said Carol, after sipping her hot coffee.
“Of course I do,” said George, curtly. He did not reciprocate his wife’s interest in their plans for the evening.
Carol sighed. “It’s Halloween,” she said.
“That’s why I want the car,” said George. He turned and came into the bedroom and walked to his dresser. Without taking any trouble saying so, he was making clear to his wife that he didn’t care what she did on Halloween and wasn’t going to tell her what he was doing. He pulled his accessories off the dressing table: wallet, comb, cigarette case, handkerchief, and populated his pockets with them.
“The Stewarts are having a party,” said Carol.
“Uh huh,” said George. The phone rang on the desk by the window. George went over and picked it up.
“Wallis,” he said, then listened for a minute. “Ok. Tell him I’ll be there in half an hour.” George put the phone down.
“Who was that?” asked Carol.
“Your next husband,” said George, “If you can figure out how to get rid of me.”
“Tom?” said Carol.
“His secretary. I’d have offered to let you talk to him, but you two had quite a conversation late last night, didn’t you? What can be left to say?”
Carol meticulously dunked the tip of a small triangle of toast into her egg yolk. “Have you a new paramour, George?”
“Nope,” said George, walking to the full-length mirror to check the shine on his shoes. “Same girl all summer. My longest relationship yet, not counting you.”
“For you, that’s obsession.” Carol put the egged toast point between her teeth and bit it off.
George’s mood changed suddenly. He left off admiring himself and strode to the bed and loomed over his wife. He glowered at her. She froze holding the toast in mid air. George looked at her hand and swatted it. The bread flew across the room.
Calmly, Carol picked the breakfast tray up off her lap and set it aside, then she pulled the covers off of herself, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stood, nose-to-nose, with her husband. She was every bit as tall as he, and much fitter. George had let himself enjoy his wealth unstintingly, and it showed in his flabby body; Carol had spent a lot of their money keeping herself up, as was mandatory for women in Hollywood.
“You know I can beat the shit out of you George,” Carol said in a surprisingly deep, menacing voice.
George blanched. It was for that very reason that he’d only tossed Carol’s toast across the room. If he’d socked her in the jaw, as he’d have liked to do, he knew Carol would pummel him.
George took two steps back, patted his pockets, then glanced at his dresser. His car key lay on it. He needed the key to his Bentley. He walked back across the room to get it.
“So this one is different, eh George?” Carol said, needling. She put on her peignoir. “Christ, George, I don’t care. I just need to know. If we’re going to make things final, I need to know.”
“Daddy needs to know,” said George. “Tom needs to know. Monumental needs to know.” George retrieved his car key and headed for the bedroom door. He stopped to talk to Carol, but stayed a safe distance from her. “I am obsessed with no one, certainly no little tramp who thinks she’s getting a screen test out of me,” George said, hissing, making it clear that the truth was the opposite of what he was saying. He showed Carol the key to the Bentley. “Here’s more information for you: I’m taking the car. Your chauffeur may have the other key, but it’s no good without the car, is it?”
George turned the knob on the bedroom door but stopped before he opened it. “I’m on my way to see Tom. I expect he wants me gone. It wouldn’t surprise me at all; I haven’t done fuck-all at that studio in years.” George stopped and reconsidered. “No, I expect it’s your father who wants me gone and has given Tom the job of getting rid of me.” George was really talking to himself. He was beyond caring what Carol wanted or needed to hear from him, but next he addressed her directly.
“What I think of Enid Johnson—my ‘paramour’—is none of your business, but it doesn’t change our arrangement. Nothing will keep me out of your bank accounts, if that’s what you’re hoping.” George pulled the door open violently and it slammed against the nightstand. He strode out of the room. Carol looked after him for a second or two, then went to the desk and picked up the phone.
“Helen, get Tom for me,” she said to her assistant on the other end of the line.
________
Tom Anders sat at his desk in his office, which was only slightly less lavish than JB’s, and watched George Wallis laugh until his eyes watered.
“Oh wait, Tom, this is too good. You’re firing me, and you want me to divorce my wife?”
Anders glowered across his desk at Wallis, who sat insouciantly, one leg thrown over the arm of the chair. Anders affected as calm an air as he could manage, unaware that he was mangling a bit of paper in his hands.
“It’s not what I want,” said Anders. “It’s what JB wants, George.”
“Well then JB should have fired me, Tom, because you can’t.”
“What do you mean, I can’t? I’m second in command here.”
“Oh Tom. Don’t be coy.” Wallis chuckled some more. “You know why you can’t. You know what I’ll tell people.”
“That was a long time ago, George. There’s no proving it.”
“I don’t need to prove it. I just need to say it.”
“It wouldn’t get you your job back.”
“No, but it would console me to know that I had cost you yours.”
Wallis sat up, pulled an 18-karat gold cigarette case from his breast pocket, took a cigarette from it, and tamped the end of it on the engraving on the top, which said, “To George on our wedding day. Love, Carol.”
He squinted and sniggered as he lit up, “But that would be just the start of the damage I could do. I think I could bring down this studio, Tom. I really do. I think I have the ammunition.” Wallis took a slow drag, took the cigarette out of his mouth, looked long and hard at Anders, and then said, “And so do you.” He flicked an ash into the tray. “What do you want with my wife?”
“She doesn’t love you, George.”
“Oh I know that,” Wallis said, picking a bit of stray tobacco off the tip of his tongue. “I don’t think Carol loves anybody, do you, Tom?”
“She and I could be happy,” said Anders.
“How?” said Wallis, laughing. “By continuing the Monumental dynasty? Adopting the grandchildren JB longs for? You and Carol, father and mother.” Wallis shook his head. “The poor kids.”
“You don’t love her. How many doxies are you seeing at the moment?”
Wallis slid back in his chair and grinned. “Carol insists I limit myself to three. She says when I have more than three, I haven’t time to take out the garbage!” He laughed. “But you know that, don’t you, Tom? You and Carol talked just last night.”
Anders sat very still.
“I believe I see steam coming out of your ears.” Wallis chuckled and shook his head. “Tom, listen, you’re not going to achieve the Monumental Alliance. You may get the job and the office and JB’s seal of approval, but I’m married to the boss’s daughter, not you. I have Carol, and because I know what I know, I always will.”
“You make each other miserable.”
“It’s not misery she feels, Tom; it’s inconvenience. She’s incapable of misery. And I’m certainly not miserable. I have everything: the wife, the money, the doxies. You’re offering me nothing in exchange for what? A divorce that rearranges the bank accounts at my expense. Happiness? There’s no happiness. I have no illusions about what kind of people we are.”
Wallis got up from the chair and crushed out his smoke. “You should have tried harder to convince JB to fire me, Tom. This has been a disaster for you, and a little embarrassing for me.” He hitched up his pants and settled into his suit coat. “Baby, I don’t know what happens next,” he said, straightening his tie. “When you figure it out, I’ll be in my office. Now and for the foreseeable future.”