Beautiful Ruins

“Look,” Michael Deane said. “This is all very complicated. You only see this one girl and I’ll admit: it’s been rough business for her. But there are other people involved, other responsibilities and considerations. Marriages, careers . . . it’s not simple.”

Pasquale flinched, recalling when he’d said the same thing to Dee Moray about his relationship with Amedea: It’s not simple.

Michael Deane cleared his throat. “I didn’t come here to explain myself. I came here so you could pass on a message if you see her. Tell her I know she’s angry. But I also know exactly what she wants. You tell her that. Michael Deane knows what you want. And I’m the man who can help her get it.” He reached into his jacket and produced another envelope, which he extended to Pasquale. “There’s an Italian phrase I’ve grown fond of in the last few weeks: con molta discrezione.”

With much discretion. Pasquale waved the money off like it was a hornet.

Michael Deane set the envelope on the table. “Just tell her to contact me if she comes back here, capisce?”

Richard Burton appeared in the doorway then. “Where’d you say that wine was, cap’n?”

Pasquale told him where to find the wine and Richard Burton went back inside.

Michael Deane smiled. “Sometimes the good ones are . . . difficult.”

“And he is a good one?” Pasquale asked without looking up.

“Best I’ve ever seen.”

As if on cue, Richard Burton emerged with the unlabeled wine bottle. “Right, then. Pay the man for the vino, Deane-o.”

Michael Deane put more money on the table, twice the cost of the bottle.

Drawn by the voices, Alvis Bender came out of the hotel, but stopped suddenly in the doorway, staring dumbfounded as Richard Burton toasted him with the dark wine bottle. “Cin cin, amico,” Richard Burton said, as if Alvis were another Italian. He took a long pull from the bottle and turned to Michael Deane again. “Well, Deaner . . . I suppose we’ve worlds to conquer.” He bowed to Pasquale. “Conductor, you’ve a lovely orchestra here. Don’t change a thing.” And with that, he began making his way back to the boat.

Michael Deane reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen. “And this . . .”—with some fanfare, he signed the back of the card and put it on the table in front of Pasquale, as if he were doing a magic trick—“ . . . is for you, Mr. Tursi. Maybe someday I can do something for you, too. Con molta discrezione,” he said again. Then Michael Deane nodded solemnly and turned to follow Richard Burton down the stairs.

Pasquale picked up the signed business card, flipped it over. It read: Michael Deane, Publicity, 20th Century Fox.

In the doorway of the hotel, Alvis Bender stood stock-still, staring open-mouthed as the men made their way down toward the shore. “Pasquale?” he said finally. “Was that Richard Burton?”

“Yes,” Pasquale sighed. And that might have been the end of the whole episode with the American cinema people had not Pasquale’s Aunt Valeria chosen that very moment to reappear, staggering from behind the abandoned chapel like an apparition, mad with grief and guilt and a night spent outside, her eyes vacant, gray hair bursting from her head like blown wire, clothes dirty, her hunger-hollowed face streaked with muddy tears. “Diavolo!”

She walked past the hotel, past Alvis Bender, past her nephew, down toward the two men retreating to the water. The feral cats scattered before her. Richard Burton was too far ahead, but she hobbled down the trail toward Michael Deane, yelling at him in Italian. Devil, killer, assassin: “Omicida!” she hissed. “Assassino cruento!”

Nearly to the boat with his bottle, Richard Burton turned back. “I told you to pay for the wine, Deane!”

Michael Deane stopped and turned, put his hands up to pitch his usual charm, but the old witch kept coming. She raised a knobby finger, pointed it at him, and affixed him with an accusing lamentation, a horrible curse that echoed against the cliff walls: “Io ti maledico a morire lentamente, tormentato dalla tua anima miserabile!”

I curse you to a slow death, tormented by your miserable soul.

“Goddamn it, Deane,” yelled Richard Burton. “Would you get in the boat?”

15

The Rejected First Chapter of Michael Deane’s Memoir

2006

Los Angeles, California

ACTION.

Now where to start? Birth the man says.

Fine. I was birthed fourth of six to the bride of a savvy lawyer in the city of angels in the year 1939. But I was not truly BORN until the spring of 1962.

When I discovered what I was meant to do.

Before that life was what it must be for regular people. Family di

Was I the brightest? No. Best-looking? Not that either. I was what they called Trouble. Capital T. Envious boys routinely took swings. Girls slapped. Schools spit me out like a bad oyster.

To my father I was The Traitor. To his name and his plans for me: Study abroad. Law school. Practice at HIS firm. Follow HIS footsteps. HIS life. Instead I lived mine. Pomona College for two years. Studied broads. Dropped out in 1960 to be in pictures. A bad complexion shot pocks in my plans. So I decided to learn the biz from inside. Starting at the bottom. A job in publicity at 20th Century Fox.

We worked in the old Fox Car Barn next to the greasy Teamsters. Talked on the phone all day to reporters and gossip columnists. We tried to get good stories in the papers and keep bad ones out. At night I went to openings and parties and benefits. Did I love it? Who wouldn’t? A different lady on my arm every night. The sun and the strip and the sex? Life was electric.

My boss was a fat jug-eared Midwesterner named Dooley. He kept me close because I was fresh. Because I threatened him. But one morning Dooley wasn’t in the office. A frantic call came in. Some sharp was at the studio gate with some interesting photos. A well-known cowboy actor at a party. One of our rising stars. What wasn’t so well-known was that this fellow was also a first-class puff. And these pictures showed him blowing reveille on another fella’s bugle. Most animated performance this particular actor ever gave.

Dooley would be in the next day. But this couldn’t wait. First I reached out to a gossip columnist who owed me. Planted the rumor that the cowboy actor was engaged to a young actress. A rising B-girl. How did I know she’d go for it? She was a girl I’d beefed a few times myself. Having her name co

I got the call at noon. Had it taken care of by five. But next day Dooley was furious. Why? Because Skouros had called. And the head of the studio wanted to see ME. Not him.

Dooley prepped me for an hour. Don’t look old Skouros in the eye. Don’t use profanity. And whatever you do NEVER disagree with the man.

Fine. I waited outside Skouros’s office an hour. Then I stepped inside. He was perched on the corner of his desk. Wore a funeral director’s suit. A thick man with black glasses and slick hair. He gestured to a chair. Offered me a Coca-Cola. “Thank you.” The tight Greek bastard opened the bottle. He poured a third of it into a glass and handed me the glass. He held the rest of that Coke like I hadn’t earned it yet. He sat there on the corner of that desk and watched me drink my tiny Coke while he asked me questions. Where was I from? What did I hope to do? What was my favorite picture? He never even mentioned the cowboy star. And what does this big studio boss want from the Deane?