Death of a Blue Movie Star

Danny Traub was short and thin, but muscular thin, tendony. His face was round and his hair was a cap of tight brown curls. He had jowl lines that enclosed his mouth like parentheses. He was wearing baggy black slacks, a white sweatshirt with a design like semaphores. His jewelry was heavy and gold: two chains, a bracelet, a ring with a sapphire in it and a Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

That watch cost more than my parents' first house, Rune guessed.

Traub continually looked around him as if there were a crowd of people nearby, an audience. An insincere smile kept curling into his face and he gestured constantly and arched his eyebrows. The phrasedoss clown came to mind.

They were in Traub's Greenwich Village town house. It was a duplex, done in blond wood and off-white walls and loaded with small trees and plants. "Like a jungle," she said when she'd arrived. He had her leave the Betacam and the battery packs in the front hall and walked her through the place. He showed her his collection of Indonesian fertility gods and sculpture. One, Rune loved: a four-foot-high rabbit with a mysterious smile on his face. "Hey, you're great!" she'd said, walking right up to it.

"Oh, she could have dicks and boobs butshe wants to talk to the rabbit," Traub had said to his invisible audience, glancing over his shoulder.

They'd walked past blotchy paintings, glass and metal sculpture, huge stone pots, Indian baskets, brass Bud-dhas, more plants (the smell was heavy-duty greenhouse). Upstairs, one door was partially open. As they'd walked past, Traub'd shut it quickly, but not fast enough to keep Rune from seeing an assembly of sleeping limbs. There were at least three arms and she was pretty sure she saw two blonde hairdos.

The back of the apartment opened onto a courtyard around a green bronze fountain. This is where they were sitting when Rune told him that she was doing a film about Shelly Lowe.

And Danny Traub had looked to the side-into the eyes of his portable audience-and delivered his line about really, truly, loving Shelly Lowe.

He was stationary when he offered this, but he didn't stay still for long. As he talked about Shelly he bounced up, radiating energy, and rocked on his feet, swinging his arms back and forth. He dropped into the chair again and continued to shift positions and stretch out until he was nearly horizontal, then swung his legs over the arm.

"I was, the word that comes to mind is, devastated. I mean, like, fucking devastated about what happened. She and me were best buddies on the set. I'm not saying we didn't disagree-we both have strong personalities. But we were a team, we were. An example, always better if you have examples. Now, it's cheapest and most efficient to shoot direct to video."

"Betacam or Ikegami running one-inch tape through an Ampex."

Traub grinned and pointed Rune out to the audience. "Do we have a sharp kid or what? Yessir, ladies and gentlemen." Back to Rune. "Anyway, Shelly wanted to shoot on thirty-five millimeter fuckingfilm. I mean, forget it. Your budget is ten thousand for the wholeflick. How can you spend eight on film and processing alone-and even that's Jewing down the price at one of the labs. Then forget about postproduction… Well, finally I get Shelly to agree no thirty-five millimeter. But right away she starts up on sixteen millimeter. It looks better, so can I argue?… Anyway, that was typical. Creative disputes, you know. But we respected each other."

"Who won? About the film, I mean?"

"I always win. Well, most of the time. A couple films we shot on sixteen. 'Course that was the one that got the AAAF Picture of the Year Award." He pointed to an Oscar-like statue on his mantel.

"What does a producer do exactly?"

"Hey, this kid is just like Mike Wallace-question, question, question… Okay, a producer in this business? He tries out the actresses. Hey, just kidding. I do what all producers do. I finance a film, hire the cast and crew, contract with a postpro house. The business side, you know. I happen to direct some too. I'm pretty good at it."

"Can I tape you talking about Shelly?"

The smile flickered for a moment before it returned. "Tape? Me? I don't know."

"Or maybe you could recommend somebody else. I just need to talk to somebody who's pretty high up in the business. Somebody successful. So if you know anybody…"

Rune thought this was way too obvious but Traub snagged the bait greedily.

"Okay? She wonders if I've been successful… I've done fucking astronomical. I've got a Ferrari sitting not thirty feet away from us right this moment. In my own garage. In New York. My own fucking garage."

"Wow."

" 'Wow,' she says. Yeah, wow. I own this town house and I could eat in any restaurant in Manhattan every night of the year, I wanted to. I own-not a share-Iown a house in Killington. You like to ski? No? I could teach you."

"You own Lame Duck?"

"A controlling percentage. There are some other people involved."

"The Mafia?" Rune asked.