“No, the woodchuck in the corner.”
At first Jules didn’t get this, sarcasm being inappropriate for a Frenchman in such a setting, and his English vocabulary not including the word woodchuck. Then he did. “No. I was never … never even vaguely.”
“You should have been. Can you email me a demo?”
“I haven’t yet learned to do that kind of thing. I can make a tape ….”
“No no, you gotta email it. We have a board meeting in October. If we get a theme, it has to be orchestrated, recorded, copyrighted. You’d have to go to L.A. to conduct the orchestra.”
“Which orchestra would it be?”
“I don’t know, the Los Angeles Philharmonic or some movie orchestra or something. Music consultants said that in L.A. you can knock out something like this quicker and better than in New York. I think everything’s ready to go. All we need is the music. Even if you FedEx a tape it might take too long … Look, we’ve got to bounce this thing all over the world. Can’t you get someone to help you with email? This is how things are done now.”
“Maybe my daughter can do it for me. She mocks me because I have no interest in that sort of thing. Now she can say, I told you.”
“I told you so.”
“I told you so,” Jules repeated.
“No. No stress: ‘I told you so.’”
“I told you so.”
“Perfect. I have to warn you, though. There’s no guarantee. If you wanted to talk about terms, we could put some money out front. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you won’t have done it on spec. Okay, it’s true that if you come up with something we really want, you’re in a much better position – in theory.”
“Not in reality?”
Jack snorted. “You’re talking about Rich Panda. I’m his second. I’ve got enough money put away to buy a few countries and I’m way past retirement age, but Rich Panda can still make me shake in my boots.”
“I don’t think anyone can make me shake in my boots, anymore,” Jules said.
“Maybe so, but don’t count on getting on the other side of Rich Panda in a negotiation. And don’t assume he’ll like what you come up with. He’s extremely sensitive, like a bomb on a hair trigger. And he does what he wants.”
“I see. So do I.”
“Oooh! This could be very interesting. But let me give you just a little, minor example, not by any means the most revelatory. I shouldn’t tell you this. I’m only telling you because I’ve had a bit to drink. Sometimes I overdo it, you know. And so does Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne?”
“She’s Rich’s third wife, a Pilates instructress thirty-five years his junior, with a body like the fucking Statue of Liberty. If she shows up at a garden party in a sun dress, there isn’t a man within a mile who doesn’t go into drugged heat. You should see her. It’s unbelievable.
“She and I were riding in the helicopter out to their place in East Hampton. When Rich was a boy there were no Jews in Southampton. He went there once when he was sixteen and was ill-treated, so he vowed never to set foot in the place again, and built his estate in East Hampton instead, on Further Lane. I have a house nearby. Rich was going to follow us later. Cheyenne, who was already drinking in the helicopter, was talking about leaving him.
“We’re not dealing with Isaac Newton here. She likes what she calls ‘romance.’ To her that means candles, rose petals, and a bathtub. I don’t understand what this thing is that women have about candles. All I can say is that there must’ve been a hell of a lot of sex in the eighteenth century. But Rich, on the other hand, is not a candle-type guy. She told me, and she was quite upset about it, that when he wants to have sex he starts ripping off her clothes and says, ‘Rig for torpedo impact.’”
“I suppose some women might like that, maybe,” Jules said.
“Yeah, but she says his hands are like monkeys.”
“Like monkey’s hands?”
“No, like monkeys. Two monkeys, running up and down her alabaster body.”
“I suppose some women, in the heat of the moment, might like even that.”
“Maybe in France.”
“Not to my knowledge. Did she leave him?”
“She’s still with him. I don’t know why. Maybe the prenup.” Jack clutched his stomach. “Shouldn’t have drunk so much. You think you can have something by ten a.m. the day after tomorrow?”
Jules moved his head slowly from side to side. “I don’t think so. What you want is extraordinary, and I’m not Mozart.”
“According to Ehrenshtamm you are.”
“He’s very kind.”
“Because if you do, you can hitch a ride with us. Wheels up at ten.”
“From Le Bourget?”
“Charles de Gaulle.”
“I thought business jets used Le Bourget.”
“We have a seven-fifty-seven. It’s treated like a commercial charter.”
Jules thought about this. “Then why only one stewardess?”
“Sharp. You sure you don’t want to be in business? We came over light. She’s on staff. We’re going back for the fall conference, with a bunch of people from our European subsidiaries. The plane will be about half full. So we’ll ferry Air France stewards and stewardesses to New York, and Air France will cater the flight. They get paid and ferried, so they make out well, and so do we.”
“The plane is yours?”
“It is, with an acorn on it in gold and brown. But you’d have to go to Los Angeles anyway, so it’s probably better to fly direct. If it works out, go to L.A. Fly business class. Stay at the Four Seasons there and in New York, eat anywhere you want, rent a nice car in L.A. because you’ll need it, and save your receipts.”
“Okay, but aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”
“I always do. It’s one way of getting ahead of everyone else.” Jack looked around at the room, which was so gorgeous and unmarred that it created a strong sense of benevolence. “Nice, huh,” he said, and fumbled in his left inside jacket pocket for the cigar he had left in his room.
JULES DROVE HOME without anxiety in rain that was no longer heavy. He could see a kilometer ahead, and yet the windshield was wet enough so that the wipers didn’t drag across it. The lights of Paris – headlights, red taillights, street lamps, the muted glow from restaurants and apartments, lights on barges moving through a gauze of fog on the Seine – sparkled on the glass like sequins, with sharp edges unlike the out-of-focus raindrops on car windshields in films, that enlarge to the size of watermelons. He had always sighed in the theater when they swelled on screen, a trick so common that all it said was, ‘This is a film in which you are now looking at an artful cinematographic technique.’