The Devil's Mirror Read online

  It would not be a bad life, he told himself, as he showered and prepared for the cocktail party.

  His guests began to arrive at about six, and everything went as he’d wished. The mirror was a great success, and so was he. He saw the hot glitter in their eyes, heard their voices coarsen with a kind of lust, filled his grateful lungs with the acrid perfume of glamour (didn’t ‘glamour’ have a dazzling original meaning?—he’d have to look it up in the Unabridged in the morning).

  All but a few of his guests were remarkably ugly, but it was a fashionable ugliness that passed for beauty in certain strata of society, and most of them were no longer young, although they strove to present the appearance of youth, aided by dyes, diets, corsets, injections, surgery, dentistry. One person of indeterminate age—Alan was fairly sure it was a woman—had hair bleached white as the well-known sepulchre and skin the texture of cold gravy. Several of the men wore hair not their own. Costly gems, throbbing with inner fire, pulsated on many a turkey neck and talon.

  They cavorted before the glass like performing apes. They grinned, frowned, rolled their eyes, stuck out their tongues. Some made obscene gestures.

  When the guests reluctantly left, one of them was persuaded to stay a little longer. She was beautiful, haughty, confident; her face was on the cover of every fashion magazine; she had starred in a chic movie—and yet Alan possessed her mere minutes after the last of the others had departed. It happened on the soft carpet in front of his marvellous, his glamorous’ mirror (an interesting experience, that: he told himself he might try placing the glass on the ceiling over his bed some time, just as an experiment).

  He dismissed her somewhat later, after a cosy tête-à-tête supper, and only after solemnly promising he would call her the next day.

  Alone, Alan stood in front of the mirror, intensely pleased with himself. His reflection appeared to be pleased, too. Why not? The Alan of five seconds from now would be just as content as the Alan of now. He had won. In stories, the Devil always wins by cleverly wording the contract and then sticking literally and precisely to that wording—observing the letter of it, but violating the spirit, for the Devil has a brilliant legal mind, and is The Father of Lawyers. By such a device he had triumphed over Alan—temporarily. But Alan had turned the tables on him by making those five useless seconds useful. He had traded on human curiosity, cashed in on human gullibility, much in the manner of the Devil himself. He had beaten the Devil at his own game. He had bested him. Alan’s image smiled broadly, and five seconds later, Alan did likewise.

  A few moments after that, however, there were two figures in the mirror. The Devil’s image appeared behind Alan’s, and tapped Alan’s reflection on the shoulder.

  The real Alan, though he’d felt nothing, quickly whirled around—but it was all right, there was no one behind him, he was alone.

  He immediately turned back to the mirror. The images of both the Devil and Alan had vanished from the glass. It reflected an empty room.

  Icy sweat covered him in an instant as he recalled a condition of the contract: the mirror was ‘for his private use’. But Alan had put it on display, shown it to many others. He had violated the contract. The Devil was therefore entitled to... foreclose.

  Alan smelled a goat-stink. He felt somebody tap him on the shoulder.

  A Whole New Ball Game

  Tonite me & Hank got ourselfs another job to do for old Maggie. Some how i dont have the heart for it but there is $5000 for the 2 of us. Pretty good bread even tho $2500 dont go very far these days. Still it all adds up, 7 jobs last month, but only 3 of them for Maggie. Maggie pays best but what the hell it is some one elses money & i bet there is a lot more in it for Maggie than 5 gees.

  We ought to charge more from now on i think. The job is getting tougher. When we first started out it was a snap. But now we got an awful lot of compatition. A lot of amatures are getting in on the act, doing an odd job here & there for peanuts, $200 or $300, to support there habit. Punks. They do a messy job too, some times they screw it up so bad it is no good at all. They give the rest of us a bad name.

  A few years ago we had a real scare. There was some talk in the papers & on the t.v. about how they was going to start up this farm in Florida or some place and breed gorrilas or apes just for this purpose. That would have put us out of business. But the whole thing fell threw for some reason. Hank says the gorrilas did not like the idea but he is all ways making with the jokes. I think maybe they found out gorrilas are no good for it of maybe the S.P.C.A. give them some static. What ever it was it sure worked out great for us but we did have a narrow squeek.

  Then there is the fuzz. O they dont bother us too much, they know we are doing usefull work, why this job tonite Maggie says is for the police comisioner, but the fuzz half to make a few arrests just to look kosher so we got to be careful & watch our step.

  Like last month. We was on a job, not for Maggie, for another one, and there we were in the alley just finishing up and we see these lights and it is a god dam squad car all most on top of us. Boy did we split. We had to leave the stiff where he was, just laying there & we could not deliver so we lost the fee. That is bad because word gets out that you are not dependable & the next thing you know you are threw.

  One time it was funny. It was the time when Hank took sick & we had this job to do for Maggie so i had to do it myself. Well you better believe it was no picnic. There i was on the prowl for 2 hours & no luck when i see this square coming down the pike, young, in the pink, & no one else in sight. So I circle around behind him but he must have heard me & he turned around & who do you think it is but Red’s kid brother Jack & it turns out that HE has been tailing ME for a hit. So we laugh & say good luck & split, but i duck threw the alley & catch up with him around the corner & before he knows what is happening i cool him. It is too bad it was Red’s brother but hell i was out 2 hours & it was getting close to deadline.

  Some times i think i am getting too old for this kind of work. It is not like the old days when you did a contract & that was that. Like falling off a log. Nothing to it. Now you half to treat them like they was a crate of eggs or some thing & you half to dump them into the car & get them to the client in just a few minutes while they is still warm or it is no good. If the delivery is too late, like if you run into trouble, you dont get paid & there you are with a stiff on your hands & Maggie gets sore.

  Of course his name is not really Maggie, me & Hank just call him that behind his back. His name is Maguire, Dr Quentin Maguire M.D. He dont call us by our names either, he calls us Burke & Hare. One time i ask him what the hell does he mean Burke & Hare. So he kind of laughs & says that a long time ago in England or some place it was against the law to cut up stiffs to study them so the medics hired guys to dig them up from the cemetary, & when there was not enough burials these guys used to knock off live ones to collect there fee & the best of these guys was a team name of Burke & Hare. So Hank says well thats us all right, best in the west.

  Nowadays naturly it is no good to dig up the ones that are planted in the boneyard, they got to be fresh. One time i ask old Maggie why we half to bring the whole stiff to him, why cant we just bring him the heart, that is all he wants anyhow. But he says he has to do it himself, it is a delacate operation he says.

  I bet those delacate operations net him 20 gees a piece. At; least. Maybe 25, & tax free. He is not dum enough to declair the loot he takes in for these special jobs he handles for the rich customers. It is strictly a cash business. Some fat cat is fixing to croak from a bum ticker & so he sends for old Maggie & he is home free. Gets himself a nice new young heart & is good for 20 more years. He is happy, Maggie is happy, & me & Hank is happy. Of course it is not so hot for the stiff.

  Maggie dont like it when we call them stiffs. He likes to call them doners’ That dont make them any less stiff Hank says. But old Maggie he is kind of stuck up & says he is a benafacter of mankind & all that. He talks about his proffesional pride. He is even got a picture on the wall
of another dr., name of Bernard or some thing, he says did the first of these delacate operations way back in 67. Well maybe you are a benafacter but i wonder what the doners would say about that. Hank tells him. It is only one of his jokes but Maggie dont laugh.

  The bad part of the whole thing is on Sundays when i got to get into that box & tell every thing to Billy. O its not really a box any more, i just call it that, its a booth in Tony’s bar near the back & of course Billy dont wear the coller like they used to when i was a k a & he dont like to be called father but its hard for me to get used to the way it is now.

  When i say it is bad, its not that i mind for myself but i can see it bothers Billy, it just tares him up inside i can tell. When i say father forgive me for i have sinned & tell him about the stiffs i have cooled that week he says my son—he forgets himself & calls me my son—you must stop this way of life & give yourself up. But i say father if i don’t do it some one else will. You know i am not the only one father, i say, i bet most of the guys you see in this box make a living the same way & then when you think of the guys you dont see at all because there not of the faith, why it is a hell of a lot, excuse me father. This is the modern world i tell him, you half to get used to it just like i had to get used to not calling you father & all that. Its a whole new ball game Billy, i tell him. Its what Maggie calls the law of supply & demand. But Billy he dont say anything & i can tell he feels awful. Some times i feel sorry for that young fella, he is just eating his heart out, he cant tell no body not even his wife & kids, Well i guess its about time i went out & met Hank & did this job. The thing of it is i all most hate to go. Hank has been acting funny lately. Saying i should take a smaller cut because he does all the heavy work, but that is a lot of bull. He is younger & stronger but i have all the brains & know how. What i think is that he is fixing to cool me & deliver me to Maggie tonite & collect the whole fee & take over the business. If he does he will be sorry & so will Maggie & a whole lot of other drs. we work for.

  Because i am putting this in an envelope & giving it to Billy & telling him to mail it to the feds if he dont hear from me by midnight. You know, it might not be a bad idea for me to beat Hank to the punch & deliver HIM to Maggie. After all Hank is young & in a lot better shape than i am, in fact he is just what the dr. ordered for the police comisioner. Yes Maggie would like it better that way & hell i got my proffesional pride the same as him.

  The Freedom Fighter

  I knew I was in trouble again when Maurie’s secretary, Joan, called to ask if I could see Maurie this afternoon, and would two o’clock be convenient. Maurie usually calls me himself. But when it’s bad news, he communicates through Joan. And she didn’t even call me Helen—she called me Miss Lansing.

  I told her sure, two would be fine. The click, as she hung up, had the finality of a guillotine blade striking home, and I could see my blonde head plopping into the basket.

  Of course, it isn’t the first time my head has been on the block. As one of the few really big female film directors, I’ve been a dartboard for every running-scared male megaphoner in Hollywood. Ever since I broke out of Sarah Lawrence, with my hand-held camera slung over one shoulder and my purse over the other, the male-supremacy boys have been afraid of me. I was a threat to them, they thought, Peck’s Bad Girl, a smarty-pants chick from a classy school, who’d doubled in brass (and they did mean brass!) as a fashion model and a shooter of some of the liveliest cinema vérité footage ever to surface from the underground.

  I guess they’d expected me to be a tough bull dyke, and I was tough all right, but I was never the other. Maurie had found that out soon enough. He was my agent when I first came to Hollywood way back in 1977, and in the ten years since then he’d been the producer of all my films. He’d also been my lover—not quite exclusively—right from the start. And my protector, I’ll have to admit it. I wouldn’t have needed a protector if I’d have been a failure—but things can get pretty rough in this town for a successful Girl Director.

  And now, Maurie was sharpening the axe and taking a good long look at my haute couture neck. Maybe I have it coming. You can buck the Establishment just so long, but they get you in the end. They always do. They always have. They always will. I’ve been on borrowed time for a long, long while, and now the handwriting is on the wall. But I can’t complain—I’ve had quite a run for my money.

  (Funny, isn’t it, how the clichés bunch up in moments of crisis.)

  I put on my sheerest see-through, got in the car, and took the long w?y to the studio—Sunset to La Cienega, then straight down to Venice Boulevard. The scenic route, full of quaint relics of the old days, the golden era, before my time. Schwab’s. Dino’s. The Playboy Club. The Losers. Ollie Hammond’s, where you can still get that steak-and-baked-spaghetti platter of theirs twenty-four hours a day. All the antiques. I may never see them again.

  Reactionary. That’s what some of them have been calling me. To others, I’m a dangerous rebel, a threat to The American Way Of Life. I feel like neither of those extremes. I just want to make good pictures. But when you fight City Hall, as I’ve been doing, I guess that does make you a rebel of a kind. And when you react to the status quo, maybe that makes you a reactionary. Well, I’ve certainly been reacting.

  Joan was brisk, courteous, and distant—just as she had been on the phone. I sailed past her with a wave.

  Maurie’s office was the same (the Oscars on the sideboard, the plaques on the wall, the Chagall that stamped him a man of taste), but Maurie was not the same. Maurie was nervous. Even so, he got straight to the point, not even bothering to rise from behind his desk. He’s always been a direct person.

  ‘I guess you know why you’re here,’ he said.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘I can’t cover for you anymore, honey. This time you’ve really torn it.’

  With some ceremony, I sat down, and flicked an imaginary mote of lint from my skirt before I quietly said, ‘You’ve been looking at my rough cut.’

  ‘I have. Thereby violating the non-interference clause in your contract.’

  ‘I forgive you.’

  ‘Don’t get cute, darling. I’ve been looking at your rough cut, yes. And I must say—’ He broke off and started again. ‘Damn it, what is it with you? Have you got a martyr complex? Why can’t you toe the mark like every other director? Just because you’re a girl, with those big blue eyes and that great shape, you think you can—’

  ‘Hold it right there, sugar,’ I cut in. ‘I’m not having any of that. You know damn well I’ve never traded on my femininity that way.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Maurie darling, I know you’re having a difficult time trying to say what you’re trying to say. Why not cool the ritual dance and give it to me the hard way? I’m a big girl now. I can take it.’

  Maurie got very tight-lipped. ‘You want it the hard way, you’ll get it the hard way. You’re off the picture. As of right now. I’m putting Bill Gahagan in charge.’

  ‘Best lap dog in town.’

  ‘Lap dog, maybe. But he’ll give me a picture I can release!’

  ‘You’ve released quite a few of mine, lover.’

  ‘Sure. And fronted for you, and made apologies for you, and took your lumps for you. But I can’t do it anymore, baby. I can’t cop a plea with Freedom of Speech anymore, or Artistic Liberty, or Creative Prerogative. No. It’s gone way beyond that. It’s not just the front office I have to fight now. Them I can handle. The civic groups are on my neck. The parents’ associations. The government! Your last picture was picketed in all the big cities. They’re calling you a degenerate, a corrupter of children, God knows what else. And as for this new picture...’

  ‘Yes?’ All innocence, I was. Couldn’t imagine what he was getting at. Like hell I couldn’t.

  Maurie’s voice took on an elegiac throb. ‘I sat down there,’ he said in Hammond organ tones. ‘I sat down there,’ he repeated, ‘in the projection room, and watched every foot of film yo
u shot, every frame. And frankly, Helen, I was shocked. I honestly don’t see how it can be salvaged. Unless...’

  I saved him the trouble. ‘Unless I see the light. Play ball. Make... “certain changes”...’

  His tone now became soft, conciliatory. ‘A scene here, a shot there, a slightly different camera angle somewhere else I’m not asking for much, dear. Really I’m not.’

  ‘Sorry, Maurie. Let the lap dog do it.’

  ‘All right! I will!’ Then he softened again. ‘But I don’t want to. I want you on the film, not a lap dog.’

  I smiled a sad little smile and shook my head and very gently said, ‘You don’t want me. You want a revised and edited version of me.’

  ‘I want a realistic version of you. I want a You that is not bound and determined to commit career suicide. No, sit down. Don’t go. Listen to me for a minute. Please. You owe me. Like the politicians say, let’s look at the record.’

  ‘All right. Let’s.’

  ‘Want a Scotch-and-water? Good. I could use one myself.’ He got up and walked over to the bar, and I noticed he was wearing one of those new padded codpieces, lemon yellow, trimmed in red. But no sequins or clever mottos—Maurie’s always been a conservative.

  While he poured, he talked. ‘It’s the love scenes, of course. That’s all. Everything else is fine. It’s really a very beautiful picture. But those love scenes! Wow!’ He shook his head in disbelief as he handed me the glass.