Antonietta, page 25
JONES
This is a beautifully documented instrument. There are airtight certifications from Jean Baptiste Vuillaume—he was a famous violinmaker and dealer in Paris—and actually three of them at widely differing times from W. E. Hill & Sons, the best London dealers. A thorough provenance. And all sorts of anecdotes. The fiddle was named for a mistress of Stradivarius’s, and apparently there’s a nick near one edge on the belly that was caused, while Stradivarius was making the instrument, by his hand jumping in rage when someone spilled the beans that his mistress had told a gossipy friend he had gone impotent, so it got all over town. They also say Berlioz was taught to play the violin on this one by a fiddler named Baillot. Wonderful supporting material! Sotheby’s is careful to say they can’t vouch for the absolute verifiability of any of this—but I can tell you that this is the kind of thing that will make the bidding hot.
SPENSER
I don’t want to hear about it. How deep am I in for, to get this thing?
JONES
The catalogue suggests two hundred to two hundred fifty thousand pounds. And I have to say, Sotheby’s knows the market inside out.
SPENSER
Pounds? Come on. Give me dollars.
JONES
Well, that would be…the higher figure would be…about a third of a million.
SPENSER
Christ. I could kill that Flora.
He tilts his seat back and shuts his eyes to go to sleep.
CUT TO:
18. Sotheby’s large auction room. The auctioneer, a fleshy man with thick black-rimmed glasses, is at a podium that looks rather like a pulpit. Every seat in the room is taken. The camera picks up Spenser and Jones about halfway back. Two swarthy men in burnooses sit in front of them. Also notable nearby are six Japanese men in identical blue suits; they are all wearing neckties with the same paisley pattern. Jones is whispering to Spenser:
JONES
That’s Pfinsmann, the German dealer—the fat one. Oh-oh, I see Biller—he’s bound to be here for Glover Pound; Pound’s the collector in Santa Barbara, that’s bad news for us.
SPENSER
Can it. You make me nervous. Listen, how do I bid?
JONES
You don’t. I do. You sit still, Mr. Ham. I must warn you: don’t even raise an eyebrow.
SPENSER
Look. We’ve come a long ways for this. You better not mess up. I want this goddamn violin.
JONES
You’ll have it, sir, if you’re willing to go the distance.
SPENSER
Get it.
19.
AUCTIONEER [in a BBCish voice:]
Item number twenty-three. A highly important violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1699. Bids begin at one hundred thousand pounds sterling. If you please, ladies and gentlemen.
He looks out. The bidding, seen from Spenser’s POV, is rapid. After each signal the auctioneer names a figure (“One hundred ten thousand,” etc.). One of the burnooses dips, fluttering its white drapery, price up ten thousand; one of the Japanese men stands up and bows, price up; Jones raises his left hand and twiddles a finger; Biller juts his chin out; Pfinsmann scratches his ear; Jones’s finger moves; all six of the Japanese stand and bow one after the other in a rapid succession of tens of thousands; a classy-looking woman—from Paris? Rome?—wiggles her hat; Jones waves his whole hand….
As the bidding proceeds, involving numerous other bidders, MUSIC is heard OVER, pianissimo at first, then louder and louder, until the viewer no longer hears the auctioneer but only sees his mouth move: a reprise of the passages from the Hindemith sonata for unaccompanied violin that was heard earlier, during the Sotheby viewing. Finally, as the MUSIC fades out, the auctioneer lifts a gavel, holds it up while he waits, sees no further telltale movement, gives two warnings, then:
AUCTIONEER
Sold, at two hundred forty-five thousand pounds.
And he whacks the gavel on the podium. At once he announces the number of the next item, but most of the crowd stands up and shuffles toward the doors. On the way by, several of the more knowing shake Jones’s hand and congratulate him. The viewer sees that Spenser is outraged by Jones’s obvious pride and the greeters’ misdirected envy.
CUT TO:
20. An old Douglas DC-3 landing at an airstrip near Freeport on Grand Bahama Island. [NOTE TO DIRECTOR: For God’s sake, let’s try not to have the boring cliché landing—plane’s underbelly, then pulling away to hear squeak and see puff of smoke of wheels hitting tarmac. Maybe have a truckload of Bahamian police in their wonderful white uniforms and white pith sun helmets and lots of gold braid, racing alongside the landing plane with the evident intent of arresting drug smugglers. This would hint at a subtext of positive social comment. Something, please!]
The plane comes to a stop; the propellers stall out. Among the passengers descending the ramp is Spenser, carrying a violin case. His West Indian hat, which must have looked absurd in the rain in London, is jauntily at home here.
CUT TO:
21. A room in the Lucayan Beach Hotel. Spenser tips a bellboy, who leaves. Spenser then puts the violin case on a king-size bed, opens it, takes the violin and bow out, pulls open a dresser drawer, and puts both the violin and the bow in it. He goes back to the case, closes it, picks it up, and leaves the room carrying it. He is careful to make sure the door is locked.
CUT TO:
22. Spenser, with the empty violin case, pausing in a hallway at a door, on the crinkled glass panel of which are printed the words BANQUE DE CHINE SUISSE. He opens the door and walks in. A receptionist, obviously expecting him, gets up and leads him into Maillon’s office. Maillon rises to his feet.
MAILLON [using the code name even face to face]
Monsieur Bifteck! Enchanté!
SPENSER
Have you got it?
The two men remain awkwardly standing.
MAILLON
It was not easy to find so many hundred-dollar bills—out of sequence, entendu!—in twenty-four hours. You tell me only last Tuesday you do not know when you come down. This—so unexpected. You have never withdrawn money before.
SPENSER
I took a bath on a deal in London, so I thought, This damn gravy is just laying here, I might as well skim a little off.
MAILLON
Isn’t it risky? The douane?
SPENSER
I’m told the customs guys never bother with baggage from here. And if they do, it’s beautiful—I just say the money is roulette winnings from the casinos, and I slip a bit to the guy. Happens all the time, as you well know, Pierre.
Spenser puts the violin case on Maillon’s desk and opens it. The two men begin packing bundles of money tightly in the violin-shaped cavity.
SPENSER
How you doing on the Consolidated Broadcasting stock?
MAILLON
Parfaitement, Monsieur! Little by little…
SPENSER
Now, listen carefully. I have a new tip. I want you to buy—in the same way, by easy stages—forty thousand of Comary Limited.
MAILLON
Comary. Ah, yes. We will do….May I ask…your information on these?
SPENSER
You mean you want to piggyback a bit and buy some shares for yourself? Go ahead, Pierre, these are both sure things, but just don’t overdo it, you hear? Just a tiny sip.
MAILLON
Merci, Monsieur. You are very kind.
CUT BACK TO:
23. The hotel room. Spenser places the violin case on the bed, opens it. The camera closes in to leer for a few moments at the stacks of bills. Spenser’s quick hands remove them and repack them in his suitcase, sandwiching them between two suits and several shirts and a pair of pajamas. He opens the dresser drawer, takes Antonietta out, pats its back as if to congratulate it, and puts it into the case with care. The camera holds for a time on the violin in the open case, swings to peek almost longingly at a corner of a stack of bills that shows in folds of clothing in the suitcase, then looks back at Antonietta. At this point the viewer, remembering the high price the violin commanded at the auction, and aware of all that cash, warmed by Bahamian zephyrs, that was packed into its case, may think of Antonietta as, above all, an object of value—perhaps as the centerpiece of a commercial interrupting this very program. But then the lens tightens down on the Cupid on the tailpiece. And now the thought is apt to be that the little love god may be learning to shoot ambiguous arrows at those who hear it play, which will arouse in listeners both sorts of cupidity—greed and desire.
FADE AND DISSOLVE TO:
24. The living room of the Hat Hut. Broad daylight. Spenser is supervising the construction of a glass case, against one wall, in which to display Antonietta. There are two workmen. Spenser is snappish, fussy, bad-tempered.
SPENSER
No, you idiot! You’ll have to put the humidity control out of sight. In the base. Hide it with a grille.
The workmen, island born and bred, give each other significant looks, which the viewer will easily be able to translate as follows: “It’s going to take us a good little while—like, say, three weeks, maybe a month, maybe a year?—to find the right grille, huh?” And the answering look: “Bet your ass. Could be never.”
CUT TO:
25. Spenser in his office, high in the crown of the hat. Through a window of one-way glass (specified by Saarinen so that from the outside there would be an illusion that there are no windows at all in the huge hat) Spenser looks across at the low green hills of Naushon and Woods Hole; sport-fishing boats nibble like white mice along the rip of Middle Ground shoal in the Sound. His desk, wrapped around within the curve of the crown under the window, is machine-ridden. At the center sits a big, old-fashioned Lanier No-Problem word processor, as stately and durable as a 1927 Packard touring car (don’t make ’em like that anymore), flanked by: a Quotron monitor, parading a constant flow of green stock market prices; an AT&T telephone console with fifty buttons and a recording device; a Konica fax machine; a four-color Canon copier; a Sharp Wizard organizer; a 25-inch Zenith TV set; an RCA VCR; a Sony CD player; a Radio Shack weather radio; and a Braun clock set in a piece of simulated tree trunk, at which a mechanical woodpecker repeatedly pecks in time with the clock’s jumpy second hand.
Spenser is writing checks for Vineyard causes: the struggling hospital, the Land Bank, the Mayhew Seminars, the Boys and Girls Club, the lobster hatchery, three town libraries, Community Services….He spreads a begging letter on the desk in front of him. The camera closes in, and the viewer sees that the appeal is from the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society, and it is signed by Coverly Patterson, the host of the top-rated public-TV series “Our Proud Land,” who summers on the Vineyard. Spenser writes another check. Then he looks up a phone number in the island NYNEX directory, and dials.
SPENSER
Is this Coverly Patterson? Oh, hello, this is Spenser Ham….You know about me? Thank you. I certainly know about you, sir. I’ve been watching you for years. Look, I’ve just written a check in response to your fine letter about the Historical Society. I just wanted you to know how very much I care about Vineyard history—about history altogether, as a matter of fact. I’d love to hand the check to you in person….Well, it’s for ten thousand….No, no, no, I just wish it could be more, we all have an obliga—but let’s see, I’m giving a small dinner next Wednesday night to unveil a little surprise I picked up in London day before yesterday—something with a lot of lore—speaking of history. Of all people, you’d really be— Why don’t you and Mrs. Patterson…
Hint of the Schoenberg theme, then FADE INTO:
26. The living room. Cocktails before dinner, much as at the last party. Camera swings around toward the glass case against the inner wall. Spenser is showing Antonietta to Flora Lombard and to Coverly Patterson of “Our Proud Land.” Patterson knows how to deal with cameras; he squares around to show the better side of his face, with its sculptured brindle beard and big black eyebrows. Camera closes on the display case. Antonietta, glistening in indirect lighting, is mounted on a stand which slowly revolves. In front of the stand the sumptuous Sotheby’s catalogue is open to the spread which announces the violin and shows the suggested price:
£200,000–£250,000
Camera BACK to the three:
FLORA
It’s beautiful, darling, but what’s that ghastly hole in the base for?
SPENSER
The temperature control and humidifier are down under there. No sweat, Flora. The workmen are chasing down a good-looking stainless-steel grille to cover the hole. They promised it in two or three days.
COVERLY PATTERSON [to Flora:]
Spenser has been telling me some of the background of that beauty—what a treasure!
SPENSER [to Patterson:]
I’m sure we can dig up more on the fiddle’s history. I have a fellow, Ducket Jones, a real violin scholar, I’m sure he can help a lot. [To Flora:] Cov is thinking of doing one of his programs on Antonietta—you know, about how so many priceless things wind up in America.
FLORA
How nice for you, darling.
SPENSER
Oh, no, jeepers, I wouldn’t be on it.
FLORA
Isn’t our Spense a cutie, Mr. Patterson? He really is a shrinking violet. It’s not an act, you know. But, Spense, you can’t just keep a Strad cooped up in a case. I know something about this, darling. A Stradivarius has to be played. It’s like a great Arabian stallion, darling—it has to be exercised.
CUT TO:
27. The polka-dot dinner arrangement out on the brim, as before. (Among the caterer’s help, serving guests, we see for a brief moment, almost subliminally, the face of the young man with a red beard and the shock of red hair tied in back in a ponytail.) Under the MUSIC of Bartók’s Rhapsody No. 1 for Violin and Piano, played very loud, Spenser stands and says a few words, which are drowned out by the music, whereupon Coverly Patterson rises and Spenser hands him a check. Several quick flashes of light; camera draws back to see photographers from the Vineyard Gazette and the Martha’s Vineyard Times taking pictures. Coverly Patterson has promptly presented the better side of his face. Spenser waves off the photographers, appearing to be infuriated that they have intruded on this very private evening.
CUT TO:
28. Spenser, writing a letter at his word processor. [The viewer may be surprised that this rinky-dink character doesn’t dictate letters to a secretary; of course he has a secretary. The conclusion must be that he likes to mind some of his own business—and to have others mind all of theirs and none of his.] Stock market quotations are whizzing by on the Quotron screen. As Spenser works, his voice reads what he writes, OVER:
SPENSER
Dear Ducket. You will be pleased to know that the fiddle is a smash hit with the sophisticates up here. However, I have decided to put on some recitals, so we can do more than just look at the damn thing. Now, I realize this is a bit out of your line, but I am sure you will know where to turn. I want you to hire a violinist and an accompanist for me. I want them to be really A-number-one professional level, I want them to be women, I want them to be young, I want them to be lookers. (My theory is there’s more than one way to appreciate music.) They will get $500 a week and will have free room and board in my house. They will play for guests after dinner, roughly once every two weeks. Lots of beach life, will meet celebs, chance to get ahead in the world, etc. I want them soon. Your fee will be $2,000—or $4,000 if they are real lookers. Sincerely yours.
29. Bright Sunday morning. Steps of the Whaling Church in Edgartown. Worshippers, entering, are dwarfed by the huge, fat white pillars, like upended Moby-Dicks. Spenser briskly ascends the steps, and the camera follows him up the center aisle. He takes an aisle seat in the tenth pew from the front. Parishioners lean and whisper to each other, noticing him, impressed by him. We see his face—this time without the mirroring sunglasses—which is humble, shiny as an apple, clear-eyed, as open to possibility as a check on which no figures have yet been entered. He nods discreetly to several people; those so honored raise their chins a little.
30. Later: Collection is being taken up. Spenser drops a hundred-dollar bill (camera to close in on fingers letting it go; the viewer should feel the Bahamian warmth of the money right through the TV screen) into the plate. This is noticed. Eyes turn. The collecting deacon, a native islander, ducks his head and shuts his eyes in a brief murmured prayer of thanks. A deaf person would be able to read his lips: “…and the greatest of these is charity….But, Lord, where do you suppose the little pip-squeak gets that kind of money?”
CUT TO:
31. Bolen, seen earlier as an imitation day-tripper, stepping down from a small commuter plane at the Martha’s Vineyard airport, dressed this time as a member of the Edgartown Yacht Club—navy-blue double-breasted blazer from J. Press, open-necked pale yellow L. L. Bean lisle shirt, featherweight khaki slacks, discreetly soiled white Topsiders. He gets in a taxi…which is seen on the South Road speeding toward Edgartown…aboard the On Time, the tiny car ferry to Chappaquiddick…parked at the mouth of a Chappy driveway….
32. Some distance up the driveway, out of the waiting taxi driver’s sight, Bolen and Spenser are talking.
BOLEN
…and, because Farley seems to be stalling, Willsworth’s bunch is considering a scorched-earth defense. You know, just ruin the damn company, give themselves some golden parachutes, and bail out and to hell with it. Anything to block the Sempervirens syndicate. They have win fever. It’s now more important to win than to save the lousy business; it’s only the fourth-best outfit in broadcasting, after all. Farley knows this, and he’s really getting it together now. Sir, it’s time to buy a lot more. The arbs’ll be gnawing at this in a week or so, and you can work with them—you know, everybody staying under the five-percent-disclosure limitation. The price’ll go through the ceiling. Buy, Mr. Ham!
