Chapter 17

Harrison thought the elevator was conspiring like everything else in the last twenty-four hours.  Why else was there no movement?  He had pushed the button.  The big “12” had lit up.  So why was he not moving?

“Maybe it’s broke,” said the delivery boy standing next to him.

Harrison glanced over the top of his glasses at the six-foot six lanky boy squinting at the control board.  “Yeah… anything is possible, right.”

The boy reached over and slapped the control panel.  The elevator took a sudden lurch, then settled in for the ride to the twelfth floor.  “Right.”

The door was barely open when Harrison jumped out and fired his first order of the day to the receptionist.  “God damn elevator needed a smack to run.  Get maintenance on it.’

“Yes, Mr. James,” answered the petrified receptionist.

As Harrison had said, the elevator was just another plot to keep him off balance.  It had started at five the night before when Ari called requesting an expense account increase to cover his next few days.  Since then, he had experienced one problem after another.  No sooner had he reluctantly agreed to let Ari take up residence in a castle, than another of his staff photographers requested helicopter assistance for the Pasolini party.  Reprint of July’s first fifteen pages made his evening.  Now as he entered his office after a sleepless night, he was besieged by the art director, ad director and his wife on line four.  He dropped his briefcase and slumped into his chair.  Taking a deep breath, he looked at the art and ad director.  “This call has to be another problem.  Get a cup and give me five.”

The two exited quickly, quietly pulling the door shut.

“Yes, dear, what is it?  Uh, huh.  Uh, huh.  So, what do you want me to do about it?  It is precisely 9:15 and I haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet, and you want me to solve a lost dog problem.  How many times have I told you not to let the little bastard out on garbage day, huh?  How many times?  He could be all the way to New Jersey by now.  Oh, come on, Lenora.  You call the God damn pound.  He’s your fucking hairless.  Okay.  Okay.  My apologies.  You’re right.  I’m being rude, disrespectful and what else?  Yeah, that to.  So, accept my apologies and get the maid to call…  Not my problem, dear.  Give her the Spanish/English dictionary.  Okay, then drive around…  What if he’s been run over?”  Harrison opened his drawer and took out a bottle of Tylenol, unscrewed the cap and downed three of the small capsules.  “You’ve got me there, sweetheart.  If he’s eatin’ it, I’m at a loss… really at a loss.  Got to go, sweetheart.  Got to go.”  Harrison hung up and stared at the wall.

His door opened and in stepped, Susan, his secretary, carrying a stack of papers to sign and a schedule for his day.  “Harrison, you’ve got a hell of a morning coming up.  We better get started.”

“Get started?  You think we should ‘get started?’”

“I think we should get started, yes,” she repeated.

“Could I get a cup of very black coffee first, maybe?”

Eddie Ryan had been Harrison’s Art Director for three years.  He had all the women he wanted and all the bow ties in the world, Harrison thought.   His bow tie collection had always been a major fascination to the publisher.  There had been times when a staff meeting would come to a complete halt; people asked to take breaks; even clients made to wait in the reception area… all to accommodate the time needed for Harrison to sit and get the history of Eddie’s bow-tie-of-the-day.  Ties from around the world; mail order; vacations; business trips, wherever Eddie traveled so did the small leather zipper bag reserved for the sole purpose of collecting bow ties.  Eddie flaunted his eccentricities even further with one, sometimes, two tie changes a day to compliment his mood.  Yes, it was safe to say Eddie wore his mood not on his lapel, but on his “tie.”  Today was no exception.  Drooping loosely at both ends of the knot was the wide three-inch bowed picture for the day… a small repeating pattern of two insects copulating on a leaf.  From a safe distance, the design could pass for an odd abstraction, but closer scrutiny…

“That’s a couple of bugs fucking, right?” smiled Lorenzo Morris, Eddie’s close friend and Ad Director.

Eddie looked up from the ads that Lorenzo had just laid out for Eddie’s opinion.  “Yeah… got it in New Guinea last year.  You never noticed it before?”   

Lorenzo shook his head.  “Doing’ some scoring today, are you?”

Eddie hunched over and took an even closer look at the ad sheets.  He smiled and said, “Maybe, tonight.  You know me like a book, don’t you?”

Two years is plenty of time to figure you out.  Tonight, huh?  Anybody I know?”

“Melinda.”  He turned the ad sheet for Fuji film around and pointed at the picture of a 4-wheel drive Cherokee speeding past a setting portraying a movie premier.  In the foreground, a starlet steps out into a barrage of flash bulbs.  From the Cherokee, a telephoto lens protruding from the back-window flashes as well.  “How much you think Jeep paid Fuji to use their 4-wheeler?”

“Probably less than you’re gonna pay for Melinda.  I don’t believe you.  Melinda Donavan?”

“I’d say they paid forty, maybe fifty grand, yes?”

“What the hell do I know.  How’d you get her to say yes to a tightwad who hates dancing?  She never spends less than “all night” at the clubs.  Tony took her out last month and had to ask for a raise to pay off his credit card for the night.”

“He’s not too bright.  She doesn’t tell me where we’re going.  I’m taking her on the Starlight around the island.  Dinner and show, seventy-five bucks... for the both of us.”

“Then back to your place,” Lorenzo grinned.

“Back to my place.  I told her I’d show her my collection.”

Lorenzo laughed, “And today you’re wearing an ‘invitation’ preview, right?”

Eddie stood up, looked at his watch and started walking to the door. “You know me better than that.  This is just a little fun.  For the afternoon, I’ll get my usual serious self with the Sistine Chapel number I picked up in Rome.  You know the finger meeting finger, hand of God?”

Lorenzo picked up his ad sheets and followed, shaking his head, “Bugs, fingers and God.  You should have my job, Eddie.  You know how to get the message across subtly.”

Eddie opened the door and gestured Lorenzo to step ahead of him.  “What message?  After you.” 

“And these are the best I can expect from him?” shouted Harrison as he looked at the 8 x 10 photos laid out on his conference table.  Most were void of any life; just aerials of the San Miguel floating idle.  “It’s a pretty ship, folks, but where’s any indication of ‘the biggest intimate party in history’ as NBC is calling it.

“There,” said Tony.

Harrison gave Tony a look.  “For a print man, I’m finding it hard to understand your vision.”  He looked back at the photo.  “You say ‘there,’ I say ‘where.’  This picture shows the boat, the harbor…”

Tony leaned in and pointed.  “And the grotto entrance.”

“Grotto’s don’t strike me as party locations for three hundred some odd.”

Tony picked up the photo and shuffled through some of the others, finding his target.  “There.”

“Don’t start the game again, Tony.”  Harrison leaned over and took a closer look.   There before him was a cavernous room, fronted by a pool of ocean water.  The walls were covered with ancient carvings of people wielding tools as if toiling the fields.  Other images showed animals in carnivorous acts on other animals.  Even the ceilings appeared to have flying figures traveling across a clouded sky. “Is this what I think it is?”

Tony shuffled the photos again.  “Part of it.  It goes back in there a few hundred feet.  Leonard took about three rolls once he got inside, which wasn’t an easy task with the tide up.  It’s actually accessed from a castle tunnel, but he didn’t have an invitation, so… two hours of snorkeling from off shore, dodging those devilish rocks and a little patience…”

Harrison looked closer.  “You telling me this is the infamous cave they say is worth more than his castle?”

Tony nodded.  “Think of it as the East Wing of the castle. If he wanted to share the history with the public… but, well, you know him.  He keeps things to himself and his ‘friends.’”

“Which would have a hell of lot more magazine value if some of those friends were in the picture.  Possible?”

Tony smiled.  “Sure, once Umberto’s sightseeing group is in there, Leonard can get you anything you want.”

“From the water… the pool?

Tony nodded and sat down, opening a roll of LifeSavers. “Sure.  Want one?”

Harrison took one of the candies.  “He’s going to get all his pictures from the pool?”

“Well, it probably wouldn’t go over too big if he stood up like the ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ now would it?  You hired him because he’s the best underwater cameraman in the business.”

“And the most expensive,” answered Harrison.

“Once Umberto brings the party down there, those custom snorkel lens he had made can get you anything you want… from underwater.”

Harrison got up and walked to the window overlooking the East River.  He stood for a moment.  “Everything but the mystery.”  He turned around and walked back to the table, idly gazing at the dozens of other reconnaissance photos. “We’re spending a small fortune infiltrating this shindig with choppers, the fish… you’re sure Maggie’s got the job?”

Tony patted Harrison’s hand.  “She’s a one-of-a-kind actress.  They bought it all… Spanish accent, references, wig and garlic breath.  She’ll be the only South Bronx waitress stealthing that affair… guaranteed. “

Harrison sat down, letting his eyes roam the pictures.  “Everything but the mystery.”

“You said that,” Tony reminded him.

“What do you think if I pull Ari off the Turner gig and get him inside and focused on Pasolini himself?”

“Not his style.”

“What, getting into the guts of one of the richest men in the world?”

“He doesn’t care about the banner head.  Ari’s going to shoot and manipulate who and what turns him on.  That’s what you pay him for.  Right now, he’s wrapped up with the spook Samantha.”

Harrison reached for the phone and dialed the operator.  “That’s what I meant… mystery.  If anyone can create it, it’s Ari, and without it, we’ve got just another eccentric, bizarre happening.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the operator.

“Get me Ari, Nadine.”  He turned back to Tony.  “Pasolini is rare in the scientific world.  Everybody knows that.  He has political clout all around the globe.  Everybody knows that too.  He’s also known as a celebration freak… a very private celebration freak, so we’ve been told.  Every time he finds and salvages something everybody else has labeled impossible, he bubbles it up with his friends, spending tons of money to bring them to him when he wants them.  He picks the press he wants and spends other tons of money keeping out the press he doesn’t want.

“Like the Profile,” quipped Tony. 

Harrison nodded and starred out the window.  “Like the Profile.  That’s why we too have to spend tons of money to sneak our way in, but… what if after this event, he invited us for the next one, huh? 

Unexpectedly, Lorenzo and Eddie walked in.  Harrison continued, “That would make even Hurito take notice.”

Eddie joked, “Hurito… take notice?”

“That would even make God take notice,” laughed Tony.

Harrison’s face lit up.  He was convinced he was on to something special. “Yes, even God.”  He pressed the phone to his ear.  “Ari… how’s everything?”

Lorenzo and Eddie eyed one another, then Tony.  “What’s going on?” whispered Eddie.

Tony smiled and whispered back, “And Harrison James said, ‘Let there be light.  And there was.  And it was good’… for the Profile.”