Free Walking Dead Man by Hugh Pentecost Page B

and I couldn’t do it. Battle is something else again.”
    “In what way?” Jerry asked.
    “In every way you can imagine,” Cleaves said.
    “I hate him,” Angela Adams said. “Why does he insist on that girl being in David’s picture?”
    “Good question,” Cleaves said, “because it isn’t for any of the reasons that come instantly to mind. That’s the key to George Battle. None of the motives he appears to have for anything he does are the real ones.”
    “His money is real,” David Loring said. “That’s what’s important to us.”
    “Only we haven’t got it yet, so it isn’t real,” Cleaves said.
    “You shouldn’t have any trouble getting financing for your book,” I said. “It’s a best seller.”
    “If I told you that ordinary money sources have, without explanation, dried up, would you be surprised? Battle hasn’t said yes to financing the film, but he hasn’t said no. Would you believe that in the complex financial world in which he lives, in which he has such enormous power and influence, that the word is out that A Man’s World is not to be considered until he says so?”
    “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Could he make that much profit out of it?”
    “In his terms the profit will be chicken feed,” Cleaves said, “Have you read my book, Haskell?”
    “Sorry, but I haven’t gotten to it.”
    “I wrote it, so I must know it pretty well,” Cleaves said.
    “It’s so wonderfully sexy,” Angela Adams said. “The woman’s part is just perfect for me. Why he wants that blonde tootsie who has never acted in her life is beyond me.”
    Cleaves allowed himself that tight smile. “Wasn’t it Lord Chesterfield who said about sex that the pleasure was momentary, the price exorbitant, and the position ridiculous? What you have to sell, darling, is not so wildly extraordinary.”
    “Louse!” she said.
    David Loring laughed and put his hand on the lady’s thigh. “You are obviously speaking without experience, Richard. Let me assure you all cats are not alike in the dark.”
    “Angel,” Angela said, and stroked his hand.
    “My book isn’t a sex manual,” Cleaves said. “It’s the story of a political assassination; someone like Robert Kennedy, killed by some juvenile crackpot at a political rally. The hero, the part we hope David will play, is the victim’s brother. He doesn’t believe the killer is just a psychotic kid who killed his brother for kicks. He believes it was planned by someone high up in the political power structure and that the kid was just the unbalanced instrument. People thought that about Robert Kennedy’s killer, about President Kennedy’s killer, about Martin Luther King’s killer. It’s not a new idea. In my book the hero sets out to expose the truth and finds himself suddenly the hunted and not the hunter. It’s a good suspense story, it makes what I hope are some fairly shrewd comments about the power structure in our society, but there is no reason why George Battle should either like it or want to stop its being made into a film. There’s no one remotely like him in the story.” Cleaves laughed. “There is no one remotely like George Battle. What I have invented must seem like kindergarten stuff to him.” Cleaves suddenly hit the drink table with his fist, so hard that glasses and bottles jumped. “Why has he gotten into the act? He’s never financed a film before. Maxie Zorn didn’t go to him for money; he came to Maxie. I said to hell with it. I didn’t want him connected with my book. I didn’t want him contributing to my success. I didn’t want to owe the sonofabitch anything. So I went to other sources and, believe it or not as I told you, the doors were all suddenly closed.”
    “Battle’s trying to make it up to you,” Jerry suggested. “What he helped do to your father back there.”
    Cleaves’ laugh was bitter. “He never tried to make anything up to anyone in his whole life. Nobody in the whole world matters