Hells Kitchen

business.”
    Somebody told somebody about something.
    The Word in Hollywood was as quick as the Word on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.
    “Naw, naw, I’m just on vacation.”
    “Oh. Sure. Got it. And you need a good editor to clean up that footage you took of Mickey and Goofy when you were at Epcot. Sure.”
    “Something like that.”
    “Come on, John. I always had faith in you.”
    A safe way of saying that whatever had gone down, however bad it looked for Pellam (and it’d looked pretty bad at one time), Lefkowitz hadn’t abandoned him. Which was, with some creative recasting, slightly true.
    “It’s always warmed my heart knowing that.”
    “So? You’re trying to get something on, aren’t you?”
    “It’s a little thing, Lefty. A small project. You wouldn’t be interested. All I need at this point is domestic distribution.”
    “You got financing ? And I didn’t hear about it?” He whispered this.
    “It’s a very small project.”
    “Your Palm D’or and your L.A. Film Critics award were for small projects too, you’ll recall.”
    “Distribution, I was saying.”
    Producers love distribution-only deals because if the film bombs they don’t lose millions. It’s a percentage arrangement. The execs don’t get the Academy awards and they don’t get as rich but they don’t get as poor either and hence don’t get fired as soon.
    “My ears’re turned your way, Pellam. Talk to me.”
    “I’m in a meeting now—”
    “Yeah, with who?”
    “A lawyer. Can’t really go into it.” Pellam winked at Bailey.
    “Wall Street? Which firm?”
    “Hush, hush,” Pellam whispered.
    “What’s going on, John? This could be big. A new Pellam feature.”
    If Lefkowitz found out he was slavering over a documentary he’d hang up the phone in an instant and the Pellam he had always been behind one hundred per cent would cease to exist. Distribution for the art-house circuit meant selling the film to a total of about one hundred screens around the country, like the Film Forum in New York and the Biograph in Chicago. Feature films went to thousands of multiplexes.
    Pellam, deciding he didn’t feel guilty, said, “You get me in to see McKennah and I’ll have my lawyer here give you a call.” There was a pause that screenwriters call a beat. “I may have to burn some bridges but I’d do it. For you.”
    “Love you, Johnny. I mean that. Sincerely. Oh, about McKennah, you know he’s an unchained shit, don’t you?”
    “I just want to crash his party, Lefty. I don’t want to sleep with him.”
    “You have that lawyer call me.”
    They hung up.
    “Was that,” Bailey asked, “a Hollywood person?”
    “To the core.”
    “Do you really want me to call him?”
    “I wouldn’t do that to you, Louis. But I do have a legal question.”
    Bailey tipped the jug of wine into his cup once more.
    Pellam asked, “What’s the sentence for carrying an unlicensed pistol in New York City?”
    There were probably some questions that gave the lawyer pause and some that surprised him. This wasn’t in either of those categories. He answered as if Pellam had asked him about the weather. “Not good here. It’stechnically a mandatory sentence but the judge has some discretion. Unless of course you’re a felon. Then it’s a year mandatory. Riker’s Island. And the sentence comes with several large boyfriends, whether you want them or not. You’re not talking about yourself, are you?”
    “I’m just asking theoretically.”
    The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. “Is there something about you I should know?”
    “No. There’s nothing you should know.”
    Bailey nodded to the window. “What do you need a gun for anyway? Look outside, young man. You see tumbleweeds? You see cowpokes? Indians? This isn’t the streets of Laredo.”
    “I don’t think that’s a lock, Louis.”

EIGHT
    From somewhere in his apartment building Pellam heard that song again, strident and loud. It must’ve been number one on the rap charts.
    “. . . now don’t be blind . . . Open your eyes and whatta you find?”
    A large stack of videocassettes sat at his feet, representing several months’ worth of taping. They weren’t edited yet or even organized beyond subject and date written in his sloppy handwriting on first-aid tape stuck to each cassette. He found one and slipped it into a cheap VCR that rested precariously on a cheaper TV.
    Through the wall came the steady bass thud of the song.
    “It’s a white man’s world.