Antonietta, page 24
Soft MUSIC comes up: reprise of the passage from the Schoenberg concerto, played however so faintly that we also hear the smooth strokes of the cylinders of a powerful automobile engine, during FADE INTO:
6. POV of the driver of a big car, whose headlights (we see a silvery Mercedes logo at the front of the hood) sweep up toward a gate with a guardhouse beside it. There is no guard on duty—security here is presumably state-of-the-art electronic. The driveway swings to the left, and, with the MUSIC suddenly swelling, the massive crown of the Hat Hut looms into view. MUSIC fades as the car pulls up by steps that rise onto the hat brim and stops. The camera swings out alongside to watch Flora Lombard, in flowing pale blue chiffon slacks, and Spink Farley, wearing a red blazer and white sailcloth trousers, alight from the car. An attendant takes the car off to park it. The couple sweeps in through the open doorway.
7. We now see what the two take in as they enter a breathtaking oval room, big enough for an indoor tennis court and two stories high. The ceiling is lined with zebrawood. Well-fed sofas are scattered about like a dozing pride of lions. The paintings on the walls are recognizable. We get glimpses of Chinese jade figures and recent books by Vineyard authors on polyurethaned tabletops. A Steinway concert grand lurks to one side, serving as an ideal platform for three world-famous jade pieces: “Eight Immortals Crossing Sea,” “Heng O Flies to the Moon,” and “Monkey God with Magic Fan.” The piano has no bench for a performer to sit on. A soft suffusive light, which seems to have no source at all, flatters every face.
About thirty people are standing around having drinks; their chatter floats up over their heads like mesquite smoke from a grill. The women wear long dresses or slacks, and most of the men have jackets on, though a few, no doubt writers, are in open-necked unironed shirts; one fellow, a documentary filmmaker from L. A., is in a T-shirt with TRUTH IS A WHORE printed on it.
Spenser Ham greets the Willsworths. He is wearing a hair-raising linen jacket in the flaming red and dark green tartan of the Scots clan Bruce—to which, whenever people ask him about the startling plaid, he offhandedly claims a distant kinship—over melon-yellow duck slacks. He looks as if his legs might walk off in one direction and his torso float off in another.
SPENSER
Hello, you two. Let’s not waste any time. Come on over and meet Andy and Jenny. [To Farley, with a wink:] She’s something else. Ever see a living Barbie Doll?
Spenser elbows his way through the chatting guests. The camera lens (Spenser’s POV) glimpses faces and the mike picks up snatches of talk: a wife has left her husband for “a certified eunuch”; a film is “Guinness-world-record boring”; a writer (says a gloating writer friend of his) has had a “six-month block, hasn’t written an effing word”; etc. Partway through the crowd, the camera backs away and catches Spenser’s right hand, as he passes, patting the full curve of the left buttock, enveloped in pale blue silk, of Gert Millson, wife of the fabled anchorman. No, it is not a pat, it is a sweet little rubdown. We see Ms. Millson’s face turn in a reflex of annoyance, but the eyes melt as soon as they recognize Mr. Ham; she is honored.
Spenser, reaching the Willsworths, introduces Flora Lombard and Spink Farley to them. Andrew Willsworth is a tall, slender, good-looking man who has taken the measure of Martha’s Vineyard and dressed himself, sans jacket, in a winner of a dark green short-sleeved shirt and sleek black jeans. His tall, thin wife, Jenny, has frizzed hair, a rubberized-plastic face, sharp breasts, and arms that apparently don’t bend easily. Spenser leaves the couples together.
FADE TO:
8. Round dining tables, set like polka dots out on a lit area of the hat brim. Dinner is being served. Camera zooms down on Flora Lombard at one of the tables, on Spenser’s right. The camera lens takes the liberty of peeking under the tablecloth, where it sees Mr. Ham’s adventurous right hand is on Ms. Lombard’s left thigh. She appears not to be noticing this. She is improving her dinner partner.
FLORA
You’re such a sweetie, Spense darling, but you’re vulgar. I was trying to figure out why, I was talking with Spinky about you, and I finally doped it out. You know what it is? There’s no music in your soul.
SPENSER
What are you saying? I should hire an orchestra for a dinner like this?
FLORA
Ah, darling, that’s just what I mean!
9. Farley and Willsworth have lingered after the meal out on the brim. They are standing in shadows. Beyond them in the light, the help can be seen clearing the tables. For a moment the camera brings into focus at a distance the face of one of the caterer’s assistants: a young fellow with a bright red beard and a corona of red hair gathered behind in a ponytail; then his image fuzzes out and the two men come back into focus. Farley is smoking; the cigarette looks stark as it sticks out of his naked head.
WILLSWORTH
Look, this has to be in confidence like you wouldn’t believe. I’m putting my life on a platter for you to carve up.
FARLEY [with evident distaste:]
You can trust me.
WILLSWORTH
I haven’t much choice. Those bastards I was talking about have put together a mountain of security—not junk bonds, they have a zillion acres of virgin Sequoia forests, and some bank help, solid stuff—and Filcher is muttering about offering fifty-four to buy us out. That’s eight points above the market. The bottom line is, is that these guys don’t have the first glimmer of what goes on in broadcasting; they just want to sell off our affiliates, dismantle us, and run off with the fucking money. This Ham character made sense getting you and me together. Because the truth is I need a white knight to come in here and rescue us from those killers. We have lots to offer you, and if you moved in on us, we could keep some integrity in our outfit. Ham must have understood that. So what I’m asking you, Spink, would you guys want to consider a friendly buy-out? We’re not a bad bargain.
FARLEY [He talks with the cigarette drooping out of the corner of his mouth.]
Well, I’d have to see the numbers, and I’d have to go back to my officers and board. We’ll look at it. Let’s say, in theory it’s not impossible.
WILLSWORTH
Jesus, I hope you’ll give it a try….What beats me, how’d this Ham fella know we should get together?
FARLEY
Flora tells me he’s a genius.
Brief reprise of the Schoenberg music during FADE TO:
10. Next morning. Now there is just one table out on the hat brim. Spenser, Willsworth, and Willsworth’s wife are having breakfast. Two maids are serving it. Spenser is giving Ms. Willsworth a deep look which seems intended to strip her of her salmon-pink blouse and her bra, presumably so he can see whether the dollmakers supplied this imitation woman with realistic nipples.
SPENSER [to Willsworth:]
How was it? Was Farley as bad as you thought?
WILLSWORTH
Remains to be seen. He holds his cards right up against his chest. But—
SPENSER
But you’re glad you came up?
WILLSWORTH
I appreciate the gesture. It was kind of you.
JENNY WILLSWORTH
Yum! This sea air! I slept like a fossil. Oh, Spense, I’m so glad we came.
SPENSER
Then maybe you two would do something for me. I need your advice. I want to get a little music into my image. I feel a lack there. I’m like tone-deaf. I just don’t know where to start.
WILLSWORTH
Hey, there are some wonderful collectibles in the music world—you could start that way. I was noticing your jades, you know, and of course the pictures! The Gauguin, the Renoir, and is that a what? A Utrillo? That one of the gray Riviera-looking house? You’ve got a lot of appreciation going there, those things’ll always bring a killing. But in music you can get some wonderful buys: original autograph scores—and, even better, old instruments! I happen to know a guy, by the way, Ducket Jones, he buys for the music schools and museums. I’ll give you his number, he’d be your man. Definitely.
CUT TO:
11. Spenser Ham in a telephone booth in Edgartown. It is a cloudy, threatening afternoon. Smart shops across the street. Tourists strolling—among them some yachting types wearing yellow rain gear. Girls eating ice-cream cones. Spenser drops in a coin and dials for an operator.
CUT TO:
12. An office filled with a dazzling glare. Through big windows palm trees can be seen, automobiles sparkling in the sunlight. A phone rings. A man behind a desk in a pleated white short-sleeved shirt picks up the receiver:
MAILLON
Allô! Maillon ici…. Collect—you say Monsieur Bifteck? Yes, yes, I accept.
BACK TO:
13.
SPENSER [into the pay phone:]
Pierre! Hello. This is Beefsteak….Okay, listen carefully. I want you to buy me twelve thousand shares of Consolidated Broadcasting. Move with deliberate speed—know what I mean? Spread it out over a couple weeks….Yeah, there’s a blockbuster of a buy-out in the works, but it’ll take a while. I don’t want to make waves. In the bank’s name, as usual, of course and then into the code account. And I want you to use half a dozen different brokers. And even with them, you know, buy a few hundred at a time….Understand me?…No, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get down….Be prudent, huh? This is a firecracker. The SEC’d be on my case in a minute if they knew how I…Sew up those Swiss lips of yours, okay, Maillon?…Good man.
CUT TO:
14. A crowded room in the “Large Galleries” of Sotheby’s in London. The people here are circulating among a number of glass display cases in which are shown rows of supine violins and a few cellos. The camera finds, at the center of the room, a featured case, in which a single violin is suspended upright by its scroll. The instrument glistens, bathed in bright yet misty light. The lens zooms in and seems to move right through the glass into the temperature-controlled space within as it brings the viewer close to the violin’s exquisite back, its waves of maple grain flecked with patterns of chipped varnish. The camera then slips sideways, pauses for a long stare at rippling maple ribs, and continues on around for a frank look at the violin’s belly. After a few moments the focus tightens and, starting with the scroll, which has the beauty of the uncurling head of a new fern, slides down the strings to the bridge and then, enlarging the detail even more, stares at a fat, licentious Cupid inlaid in the tailpiece. A ten-second hold. Now the frame moves to the left, across the tight pine grain, pauses on an oblong stain where a splotch of the varnish appears to have been burnt away, and glides to and follows upward the graceful triple line of the purfling, swoops in with it at the C-curve, and finally, on the upper curve of the belly, arrives at the only ugly place on the whole instrument—a little wound in the wood.
All through this close inspection, and during what follows, we hear soft, thoughtful passages of music from a Hindemith sonata for unaccompanied violin.*2
The lens now draws back to search the many faces of those who are trooping past the display case at this pre-auction viewing. This is a polyglot crowd. They are here from all over the world, but we can see from the expressions on their faces that they have a single mind: they all covet this glorious object. One need not be a violinist to yearn to own the Antonietta Strad. These people all know about the law of supply and demand. They are obviously well aware that there is by now a finite (and diminishing) number of Strads on this earth—about six hundred and fifty, according to the catalogue most of them hold in their hands—and that any one of the nearly five billion human beings on the planet would be very lucky if they possessed one, especially one so handsome and storied as this. The faces wear a look, above all, of computation, of rapid appraisal of the value of this fiddle in units of currency. The viewer can see, glittering in their eyes, dream symbols of pounds, dollars, francs, marks, yen, and various sorts of Arabic tender. There is a palpable sense, as well, that these people have been quite aware of the TV camera staring lustfully at Antonietta’s naked back, at her belly with its tiny scar. As the lens swung back, just now, to look at them, they became self-conscious and put on their best behavior, betraying their awareness that life in the modern world no longer imitates art; it imitates TV. The lens therefore looks at them, they know, searching for the raw essence of the life of the era in which they find themselves. Will they measure up?
CUT TO:
15. The ferry Islander warping into the docks in Vineyard Haven harbor. As passengers disembark, the camera closes in on a short man, descending the gangway, who is ably disguised as a day-tripper. He gets in a taxi. The taxi is seen rolling up State Road…on the straight stretch of Old County Road, with its proud parade of tall pines…under the light-flecked canopy of oak trees arching over Middle Road. The taxi stops at the mouth of a dirt driveway; the pseudo day-tripper gets out, tells the driver to wait, and walks up the driveway. Around a turn he comes on Spenser Ham, standing in the road kicking at the dust. Ham is wearing his Bahamian hat and mirroring sunglasses.
SPENSER
Did anyone on the ferry recognize you?
BOLEN
How would I know? Don’t be so paranoid. No one spoke to me.
SPENSER
We’re going to have to change the routine. Anyway, what are these hot items you have?
BOLEN
I have two. Samson Pitts and his United Lymphomilloid are putting Comary Limited into play. It’s hostile as hell.
SPENSER
My God, David and Goliath.
BOLEN
Yeah, it’ll be leveraged up to the teeth. I’m told Comary is toying with a couple of possible defenses, to try to ward off the buy-out. Maybe a PacMan.
SPENSER
Where the eater is eaten by the very one the eater planned to eat?
BOLEN
Exactly: they’re considering a fat counter-tender. Either that or they may try a poison pill. They talk about issuing preferreds as a dividend to shareholders, each share convertible to forty shares of U Lympho if Pitts is successful with his takeover. This would dilute the hell out of Pitts’s control. But my source tells me that Pitts has some dynamite countermoves up his sleeve and that it’s an absolute shoo-in that he’ll succeed, no matter what Comary tries. You can move on this one, and if you move now, you’ll get in way ahead of the arbs. And it’ll be so early it won’t look fishy to the SEC. Comary stock is bound to go up twenty points, maybe as much as thirty. Here’s a printout with all the numbers.
He hands Spenser an envelope.
SPENSER
Good, Bolen, good. And the other one?
BOLEN
It’s a lollapalooza of a telecommunications takeover. Northwest Sempervirens is moving in on Consolidated Broadca—
SPENSER
Hell, Bolen, I know all about that one.
BOLEN
Yes, sir.
THEN:
The “day-tripper” is seen getting back into the taxi.
CUT TO:
16. Takeoff of a British Airways Concorde from JFK. Its nose cone is in drooped position, like the beak of a predatory bird; the tripled wheels on their long struts look like talons which the great hunter slowly tucks up under its wings as it climbs into the air. It swoops out over the calm sea.
Loud MUSIC OVER the takeoff: passage from the second part of Alban Berg’s violin concerto, “To the Memory of an Angel.” Listeners will pick up from this music the whiff of peril that many people get in the first moments when a huge metal machine so unnaturally pretends it has feathers.*3
17. As the craft splits the sky at twice the speed of sound, soaring ten and a quarter miles above the ocean, the camera rides inboard, its lens moving (a flight attendant’s POV) along the tight tube of the passenger cabin. We see on the faces of the passengers that any sense of danger they may have felt on takeoff has been left [with the music] far behind, replaced now in their minds by a feeling of velvet pride—the complacency of knowing that this is not only the swiftest but also the most expensive of all the ways of crossing the sea. Spenser comes into range in a red leather seat to the right of the aisle, alongside Ducket Jones in the adjacent blue window seat. Jones looks the part of a museum mole: wan, thin, waxy, with rimless glasses and a hopelessly lopsided mustache, which looks like a swift dismissive stroke by a Chinese calligrapher’s brush. He is leafing through a glossy publication.
The camera swings around and kibitzes over Jones’s shoulder. He turns a page of the big booklet—a Sotheby’s catalogue—and on the new page the viewer can read a bold heading:
A Highly Important Violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1699
On the page opposite the text that follows there is a color picture of the back of this violin.
Jones reads to himself for a few moments. Then:
JONES
Listen to this, Mr. Ham. “There is a legend, which we have not been able to confirm, that the Antonietta Stradivari was, on one or perhaps two occasions, played by W. A. Mozart.” Imagine that!
SPENSER
So I suppose that jacks up the price?
JONES
Sir, at an auction you can’t think about ways to shave the price. The bidders are the ones who jack the price up—and you’re one of them.
SPENSER
This whole thing goes against my nature.
Jones reads silently again. Then:
