Mirror by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

redemption, no explanation, just an abrupt and brutal ending – even if you
don’t
depict it on the screen.’
    Martin wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘So what’s the verdict?’
    ‘Well, Martin, I haven’t read your screenplay yet and it may be brilliant. I mean I’ve heard Morris talking about you and he’s
very
complimentary about your work. But I have to tell you that Boofuls is the kiss of death. The only person who might conceivably touch it is Ken Russell; and you know what kind of a reputation
he’s
got;
enfant terrible
, even at his age. Even if he’d agree to do it, you’d still have the devil’s own job raising the money for it.’
    Martin sat back. ‘I don’t know. It seems like such a natural. The music, the dancing, and if you could find the right kid to play Boofuls …’
    June shook her head. ‘My advice to you is to file it and forget it. Maybe one day you’ll be wealthy enough and influential enough to develop it yourself.’
    They spent the rest of their lunch talking gossip: who was making which picture, and who was making whom. When they were leaving, June stood in the empty parking space marked G Wilder and said, ‘Get your name painted here first, Martin. Then make your musical.’
    Martin gave her what he hoped was a laconic wave and walked back to his car, with his screenplay under his arm. As he went, he whistled ‘Heartstrings’.
     
You play … such sweet music
How can … I resist
Every song … from your heartstrings
Makes me feel I’ve … just been kissed
     
    But he drove back along Santa Monica Boulevard with the wind whirring in the pages of the screenplay as it lay on the seat beside him, and he felt like tossing it out of the car. He was beginning to believe that Morris was right, that he was carrying this screenplay around like a sackful of stinking meat.
    Hollywood’s golden boy of the 1930s had died more than one kind of death.
    He returned to his apartment shortly before three o’clock. Emilio was playing in the sunshine on the front steps. Emilio had obviously finished his lunch, because his T-shirt was stained with catsup. The steps were proving an almost insurmountable obstacle to a deadpan plastic Rambo; and the afternoon was thick with the sound of machine-gun fire.
    ‘Full-scale war, hey?’ asked Martin. Emilio didn’t look up. Martin sat down on the steps and watched him for a while. ‘It beats me, you know, how
Rambo
can gross seventy-five million dollars, with all its shooting and killing and phony philosophy … and here,
here
’ – slapping his screenplay in the palm of his hand – ‘is the most entertaining and enchanting musical ever made, and everybody sniffs at me as if I’ve trodden in something.’
    Emilio continued his war; this time with heavy shelling, which involved extra saliva.
    ‘You should come up and watch some of my Boofuls movies,’ Martin told him. ‘Then you’d believe, you little Philistine.’
    Emilio shaded his eyes with his grubby hand and looked at him. ‘Who’s Boofuls? Is he a cartoon?’
    ‘Is he a cartoon? My God, doesn’t that grandfather of yours teach you anything? Boofuls was a boy, just like you, except that he could sing and dance and make people happy. In other words he didn’t sit in the dirt all day with some grotesque reproduction of Sylvester Stallone, pretending to zap Asiatics. Who’s Boofuls, for God’s sake.’
    Emilio picked up a green plastic helicopter and waved it around for a while. ‘That boy in your room can dance,’ he remarked.
    ‘Well, that’s Boofuls,’ said Martin. ‘The boy in the poster, just above my bed.’
    ‘No,’ Emilio contradicted, shaking his head. ‘The boy in your other room. The real boy.’
    Martin frowned; and then reached out and took hold of Emilio’s wrist, so that the helicopter was stopped in midattack. ‘What real boy? What are you talking about?’
    Emilio pouted and wouldn’t answer.
    ‘You went into my room?’ Martin asked him. ‘Today,