Read Online The Deer Park by Norman Mailer - Free Book Online Page A

and after he hung up, I could feel his excitement. “How would you like to meet a pirate?” he said with a laugh.
    “Who is it?”
    “The producer, Collie Munshin.”
    “Why do you call him a pirate?” I asked.
    “Just wait until you meet him.”
    But Eitel could not keep himself from saying more. I think he was irritated at how much pleasure the invitation gave him.
    Munshin was the son-in-law of Herman Teppis, Eitel explained, and Teppis was the head of Supreme Pictures. Munshin had married Teppis’ daughter, and it had helped to make him one of the most important producers in the capital. “Not that he wouldn’t have made it anyway,” Eitel said. “Nothing could stop Collie.” He had been, I learned, a little bit of many things, a salesman, a newspaperman, a radio announcer for a small station, a press-relations consultant, an actor’s agent, an assistant producer, and finally a producer. “Once upon a time,” Eitel went on, “he was practically an office boy for me. I know the key to Collie. He’s shameless. You can’t stop a man who’s never been embarrassed by himself.”
    Eitel began to change his shirt. By the way he picked his tie, I knew he did not feel nearly as casual as he was hoping to feel. “Wonder why he wants to see me?” he said aloud. “I suppose he wants to steal an idea.”
    “Why bother?” I asked. “Nothing is cheaper than ideas.”
    “It’s his technique. Collie gets a feeling about a story. Not anything you can really name. Some cloud of an idea. Then he invites a writer who’s out of work to come to lunch. He listens to the writer’s suggestions, and they talk the thing up. The next day he invites another man to lunch. By the time he’s talked to half a dozen writers he has a story and then he uses one of the peons he keeps locked in a hole to write the thing.When Collie is done, he can sell the story to the studio as his own creation. Oh, he’s clever, he’s tenacious, he’s scheming …” Eitel ran out of words.
    “What’s to keep him from running the studio?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” said Eitel, putting on a jacket, “he’ll run the world someday.” Then Eitel smiled. “Only first he has to learn how to handle me. Sometimes I can set him back.”
    As he closed the door behind us, Eitel added, “There’s another thing which might hold him up. He’s having woman trouble.”
    “Does he run around with so many?”
    Eitel looked at me as if I had a lot to learn about the psychology of prominent men in the capital. “Why, no,” he said, “Collie has too many decisions to juggle, and that slows a man up, don’t you know? Besides, it’s not so easy to keep a harem when your wife is Herman Teppis’ daughter. You don’t even keep a fancy girl. Just a child in a cubbyhole and she’s caused him trouble enough with H.T. It’s some poor dancer. She’s been his girl for several years. I’ve never met her, but Collie will be the first to tell you the trouble she gives him. It’s a conventional relationship. She wants him to divorce his wife and marry her, and Collie lets her believe that he will. Poor boy, he can’t bear to let go of anything.” Eitel chuckled. “Of course, the girl friend makes him pay. When Collie’s not around, his little kitten will go for a romp. A couple of actors who’ve worked for me have been with her. They tell me she’s extraordinary in bed.”
    “Isn’t that rough on him?”
    “I don’t know,” Eitel said, “there are parts and parts to Collie. He enjoys being a martyr.”
    “Sounds like a sad character to me.”
    “Oh, everybody’s sad if you want to look at them that way. Collie’s not so bad off. Just remember there’s nobody like him in the whole world.”
    We came to Munshin’s bungalow, and Eitel tapped theknocker on the pink-colored door. After a wait I could hear somebody running toward us, and then it flew open, and I had no more than the sight of the back of a fat man in a dressing gown who went