“Listen, I can’t think about that crap now, I have to go meet these guys soon. I have to plan out how I’m going to frame this thing.”
It was Alan’s job to keep Howard Kessler, as a business entity, in healthy condition. He wasn’t convinced Howard was making the best choices for his career. The least Alan could do was to stop the bleeding. Alan also wasn’t convinced that Howard could write a screenplay—if there was even a story to write about. He held out hope that the rendez-vous wouldn’t go well and that he would scrap the idea and come back to L.A.
“You’re one stubborn bastard, Howie,” Alan said.
“You should come out.”
“Huh?”
“No, I mean it. You should come out. You gotta see these guys to believe them. I know you’re not behind this movie, but once you meet them, I promise you’ll understand where I’m trying to go with this. These guys, they’re—they’re actually pathetic.”
“You gotta be careful. I mean, from what you’ve told me, these guys aren’t exactly pussycats.”
Alan thought about Howard’s invitation. It may just be the best way to reign him in, to go to New York.
“When do you want me? I have meetings, you know,” Alan said sheepishly.
“Tomorrow. Get out here tomorrow.”
** *
They were already running a bit late for the 7pm reservation. It was pouring rain; out of place weather in the mid-autumn, so Alan’s plane was inevitably late coming into JFK Airport. It had been years since Alan had been in New York.
Howie Kessler walked in the restaurant and shook off the rain, handing his umbrella and jacket to the first waiter who walked by. He had hoped to come earlier so he could grab a drink or two at the bar before going to the table. Then he figured he was late already, he could still grab that drink.
Chapter 18
Alan
I don’t like this at all. I’ve seen people try to reinvent their careers by doing really stupid things. Facelifts, haircuts, younger girlfriends, stupid PR stunts. But Howard Kessler writing a screenplay just didn’t sit right with me. I listened to him when he said I should see these characters in order to believe them, so I kept an open mind and hoped that he was right. The other half of the equation lay in the question: is there a story there and if so, could he write it? I’m trying to contain any disasters. This is my career. I still have a few years left in me. If Howard goes down, I go down. Skipping town like he did is just not done—it leaves the door open to speculation. And with Howard’s past, the speculation wasn’t good. I’ve worked too hard to build up what I have to see it come to an end because some Hollywood schmuck gets old and wants to revisit the fame and adulation he had years before.
Not that Howie is a schmuck. We are loyal friends and partners in his career. But it’s time I get an insurance policy.
Howie sent a car to pick me up at the airport and since I was so late, I had to go straight to the restaurant and not the hotel first. I am sticky and tired so this food had better be good. I get out of the car and it’s pouring, cold, and crowded on the street. Horns are honking because there was nowhere for the driver to pull over and Mott is a one-way street. I had to schlep my bag into the restaurant and give the guy $20 to put it in the back and make sure no one walks away with it. I knew I wasn’t in L.A. anymore.
The guy was showing me to the table, but I noticed Howie in the bar first. I’m glad I did, because I don’t know what kind of introduction Howie had intended on making to the guys or if they even knew I was going to be here.
“What’s the matter, you can’t face your past?” I said, slapping him on the back and only half-joking.
“Ah, thanks a lot for coming out here. I know it’s a long trip, but it really means a lot.”
“I’m starving. You say this is the best Chinese joint in New York?”
“Yeah, it sure is,” he said, looking straight ahead and seeming a little dazed.
“You ok?” I asked.
He seemed to snap out of it, though I could tell he was distracted.
“These things aren’t always easy, even if you have an agenda planned or an exit strategy,” I said, sensing that a reunion was what was bothering him.
“Nah, it’s not that, I—”
The headwaiter tapped me on the shoulder to show us to the table.
“I guess everyone is here already, we should go,” I said, not wanting to cut him off, but at the same time I knew that once he starts thinking too hard about things, he could get a little destructive. Especially at the bar.
As we walked to the large , round table in a secluded corner of the restaurant, Howie picked up his pace and I could see his grin.
“Holy Christ, look at you guys! Look at you! You old bastards!” Howie said and embraced and shook hands all around. “Punch I see you every day now, but all together I can’t get over this! The whole mishpucha’s here!”
One guy started to tear up. He was a big guy and seated on the other side of the table and had a stunned look on his face and tears started streaming down his face.
“Buddy, I—I’m, this is what I’ve been waiting for for so many years, so many years,” he stood up and reached across to give Howie a hug. He held on for that awkward extended moment that you see in movies.
“I hope you guys haven’t been here too long—you could catch up without me! Hey listen, this is Alan Shiner, he’s my agent and just happened to be in New York tonight for a client, so I hope you don’t mind if he joins us,” Howard slipped in.
“No, of course not, great to have you, Alan,” said a gracious man in a wheelchair, who I learned was Punch, the guy Howie had been staying with for the past couple of weeks.
“We were just getting used to the gimp, here. He certainly hasn’t lost his piss and vinegar, though!” said a man with the largest hands I’ve ever seen for someone who isn’t a professional athlete, I later learned was Mo.
“Yeah, jesus, what a surprise, huh? I mean, you look great, otherwise, buddy!”
“And that’s Frank, Alan, the guy with the least tact—” Howie joked.
They all talked as if they hadn’t spent a day apart. They joked about the games they used to play as kids and how they used to have the run of the neighborhood. Then about how they used to shoot pool and hustle at the pool hall; their club room; mischief.
“You know, I never knew how bad I had it as a kid until I got to high school,” Punch said, “we had such a good time and I have such warm memories.”
“Yeah, you pretty much turned into an asshole when we got to high school,” Howie joked, “I’m serious, you really hardened in high school.”
“I think you did, too, Howie, later on, I mean,” Punch retorted, but non-confrontationally.
“May have been when he set his sights on Hollywood,” I added.
“Oh Howie had been a showman in one form or another for years,” Art said. I couldn’t tell, though, if there was a subtext, though I suspected there was.
“You know, Punch, you’re right. I think I felt the same way. I mean, we used to run around and have a great time together when we were young kids. I remember realizing when we got to high school that we really had nothing. We grew up with nothing. I didn’t even have a toy, between me, my brother and sister, and my eight cousins I grew up with in the apartment, we didn’t have one toy,” Howard recollected.
Howard seemed sincerely touched and excited about the whole evening.
Until a certain point.
I don’t know if it was because they were all putting away the booze (and who drinks for Chinese food?), but the ease of the conversation in the beginning—as if they were picking up where they left off 50 years ago—didn’t continue seamlessly. I thought it would. Everyone was getting along so well. I sat silently enjoying the conversation and the recollections of the old days—much of it mirrored my own experience and I was delighted to revel in some very similar memories.
“I wonder what ever happened to tha
t fat and loud girl you dated, Frankie, I forgot her name—” Howie asked, “What a pig,” with a guffaw I hadn’t heard come out of him in years.
They all seemed to go silent for a moment that felt much longer than it was. Before anyone had a chance to make eye contact with Howie, Frankie answered back, with a look on his face of utter anguish.
“I married her. She’s my wife. She gave me 4 kids. Four fucked up kids, but my kids, still. Dierdre is her name,” Frank said, looking down.
Now I didn’t know this guy before tonight. But I have to say, I’ve never seen anyone so deferential to Howie before. And he’s a tough guy, I can just tell. But around Howie, he’s like a puppy.
“Aw, Frankie, I knew that! I was just kidding you.”
Everyone knew Howie wasn’t kidding. Though I don’t know if he really didn’t know her name and if Frank had married her.
I felt at that moment that Frank could have flipped the table over and strangled Howie with his bare hands. I think he actually felt compromised. The other guys were visibly uncomfortable, too. And needless to say, I wanted to make myself invisible, so I feigned coughing uncontrollably to deflect. I blamed it on the hot mustard.
Art had the good sense to try to change the subject.
“So I’m the second-most famous one at the table tonight and no one’s even asked me about baseball, you sons of bitches!”
“Jesus, Art, you’re right—I heard about that. I meant to ask you earlier when you told the story about the first time you left New York when the Yankees sent you out to Kansas City in 1960—what was that for again?” Mo asked.
Mo can’t seem to keep any thoughts straight. He has a memory like a trap, but he doesn’t seem to keep it together.
“It was where the Yankees farm team was located before Findlay bought the Athletics—then a KC team. He was pissy about the trades that made KC look like the farm team after he bought them in ’54, so the Yankees sent me and a couple other guys higher than me to negotiate with Findlay to get one more round of young players. It’s where Maris came from.”
These guys were all baseball fanatics. Me? Dodgers. Before they even moved out to the coast. I hated the Yankees and I still do. But it was a successful divergence away from what I had hoped was Howard’s last flub in conversation. I was humbled by Art’s position in major league baseball, so I hung on to every word he said. The guy was a veritable encyclopedia of statistics, history and strategy. He was fascinating to listen to. It’s all he seemed to talk about. Conversation in any other area didn’t engage him, until Howie brought it home.
“So too many baseball trips for your wife to handle, huh, Art?” Howie said, with that same glimmer in his eye instigating a confrontation.
“Yes, probably—”
“Among other things?”
“Sure. I don’t really have all the answers—”
“Oh you probably do, Art—”
I leaned over to Howie, “What are you doing?”
“What about you, Howie? Where’s your wife?” Mo said. Mo was surprisingly affable. My first impression of him was that he’s a gorilla and a hustler, but his knack for nuanced conversation struck me as a pleasant surprise. He was quite a character. He was like a lawyer—he would ask questions and lead conversations in a direction you didn’t think it was supposed to go, and then make you think about what you said. I don’t know if he did it intentionally but it was clearly a style of his lexicon.
“I mean, we heard all about your run-ins with dangerous women in Hollywood! So any of ‘em worth more than one fuck?” Mo continued.
“Yeah, do you actually follow the gossip? Is there any truth to that stuff ever?” Punch inquired.
“I, uh, lived with one for a long time. She left right before I came out here. She was alright—”
“Until she started sleeping around!” I said, hoping to lighten the tone. I didn’t anticipate Mo’s response.
“So you never settled down, huh? A career man through-and-through” he said.
“Whaddya mean by that?” Howie said, unjustifiably defensive.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve eaten enough Chinese tonight to last me to next year—” Frank said.
“Remember that Chop Suey joint in Coney Island we used to hang out at?” Punch said, relieving all the tension in just one sentence. It seemed that bringing everyone back to the old days was the common denominator, because they just had nothing to talk about of current.
“Oh that old lady in the front who yelled at us each time we came in?” Mo recalled.
“She was a witch, just a witch,” Howie said.
“She made great Mai Tai’s though—” Punch said.
“Did they even call them Mai Tai’s?” asked Frank.
“You know I used to meet my guys there, it was a dropoff joint. You know, when I was working at the courts downtown,” Mo said.
“Really? I thought it was here in Chinatown—” Frank said.
“Nah, we always met out in the boroughs. It was a pain to get out there, you know, courthouse at Foley Square—” Mo said, but then hesitated and looked at Frank. “How did you know about Chinatown?”
Frank then hesitated.
“You just said it—it’s right here, by the courthouse.”
“Yeah, because that’s what the Feds thought, too, so they bugged every place around here,” Mo responded, with a little too much irony in his tone.
Frank shrugged and took a drink. Everyone seemed to know what Mo was getting at. Howie told me about Frank and Mo, so at least I had a little background on them, though I played dumb.
Art continued talking about baseball, and the 1961 Yankees, but Mo wouldn’t drop it.
“I gotta ask you, Frank, after all these years—who the fuck did you tip off? I mean, you had to be playing both sides or else you’d be dead or in Ossining. I’ve always wondered—”
“Jesus, Mo, it’s been 30 some-odd years and you’re still stuck on this?” was Frank’s only answer.
“He did time, Frank,” Howie said matter of factly, “He did time for you—”
Frank looked at Howie with a stunned expression, worse than the one before.
“It’s not like he was exactly innocent in this deal, you know,” he said to Howie, then turned to Mo, “I mean, you were stealing information and selling it to the Mob—” Frank said.
“Yeah and you were telling them and the Feds I was doing it, you sonofabitch—” Mo growled as he stood up.
“Hey, hey, let’s take it easy, eh? We’ve been having such a good night—” Punch said in vain.
“I don’t need this, I really don’t need this shit anymore,” Howie said quietly and got up from the table.
He stepped around Mo, and patted Punch on the shoulder as he walked out of the restaurant.
“Mo, you can’t believe I was talking to the Feds about you. I didn’t know it was you. I had no idea you were involved,” Frank said apologetically. He was defensive no more, but Mo had already turned away. He shook hands with Art and leaned down to hug Punch.
“Gentlemen, it’s really been a wonderful evening, I--uh, goodbye” I said feebly, having no idea how to make an exit without the painful awkwardness of the situation.
I stepped out of the restaurant and thankfully it had stopped raining, but the air was cold. I looked up and down the street for Howard but couldn’t locate him. I figured he’d headed to a bar. If it wasn’t so late, I could imagine him heading straight for the airport to get back to L.A., the way things went tonight. Though they were all interesting characters, there was no story there, at least from what I thought Howard’s perspective was on the night.
Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of Howie sitting at a bar in a restaurant down a few stairs. The place looked like it was there 100 years and it smelled like whiskey and spare ribs.
“What the fuck just happened in there?” I asked.
“Didn’t take you long to find me.”
“Listen don’t pla
y games with me, you old shit. You drag me out here for this tonight? What the fuck are you thinking? I have a roster of clients who actually need me to do what I’m paid to do—I’m not your fucking sidekick.”
“Oh yeah? You seemed to enjoy yourself with those clowns. I’m pinning a lot on this, you know, and I can make it happen, but not if you’re working against me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no story there. Unless these guys are inspiring fictional characters for you and all of a sudden you know how to write a coherent story with an arc, you’ll be pushing a boulder up a mountain if you try to write something—not to mention they’ll probably have you killed if you piss any one of them off.”
“They’re harmless. They’re old, has-been tough guys who haven’t done anything with their lives since high school. They were from the gutter then, and they are from the gutter now.”
“Really? Because I don’t know where the fuck you were for the past four hours, but I was sitting in a restaurant with the next commissioner of baseball and three other guys who scare the hell out of me.”
I ordered a drink and we sat together silently for several minutes at this awful, stinking bar that I wouldn’t be caught dead at if it was in L.A.
“Do we need to talk about this right now? I just need to know you’re with me.”
“I’m with you. I’m always with you. But I have to say, if you go through with this screenplay thing, you’ll have to convince me much better than you did tonight that this is a decision that will benefit you, other than going through a futile and painful exercise.”
Howard looked into his drink. I could see his walls were going up. I hadn’t seen that look in him since before the last time he went into rehab years ago.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, not specifying for a reason.
“I don’t know. I may lease a place down here. May go back to L.A. I don’t know.”
“Ok, but I meant tonight,” which I really didn’t, but I was hoping to get through to him somehow. “You going back to Jersey? That a little weird now?”
He didn’t answer.