group would fork over their cash to learn about his films, but the big audience, the bestseller audience, would buy the book only if he revealed intimate secrets.
I didn’t want him to think me petty; I wanted him to like me. I didn’t want to pry, but I needed to know. For the book, of course. It’s not like I would normally press for answers to private questions.
You would have framed the questions skillfully, tactfully. If you could do it, I could do it. I could do it and I would do it. The rhythmic mantra soothed me, but it took half an hour before I felt competent to pilot the rental Ford. If it hadn’t taken so long, I wouldn’t have seen Brooklyn Pierce come walking over the hill.
At first I wasn’t sure, but that walk, that tiger prowl, was unmistakable. The one crucial interview we’d all but given up on was a session with Brooklyn Pierce, the actor who’d starred in Malcolm’s most successful films. Remember the relentless evasions his agent spouted? Pierce was in Europe, unavailable, making a film; no, he was in a monastery in Nepal, devoting himself to meditation. And yet, there he was, coming over the hill, looking as though he belonged nowhere else but in this landscape, nowhere else but on Cape Cod.
He didn’t seem quite real, not that I could see through him or any of that Hamlet ’s Ghost nonsense. It was mainly that he was dressed for a different day, for warmer weather, a summer idyll. His khakis rode low on his hips, pant legs rolled to the knee. His shirt hung open, displaying wind-driven glimpses of torso. If not a Greek god, he was a blond Abercrombie ad, down to the flip-flops and the sand on his ankles.
Ben Justice had been his first big role, and he’d been more than a hit. He’d become an instant icon. Actor and character met and melded in the public eye the way they do once in a decade. Pierce had played other parts since, but none with that level of impact. Seventeen when filming started on the first Justice film, he would always be identified as Ben Justice.
He looked the same age now, as though time had granted him a suspended sentence. My God, maybe he was here to talk about rekindling the Justice franchise. If I could get that quote, Teddy. I had a brief vision of myself on some TV talk show, me but not me, me confident in the kind of reed-slim suit a TV anchorwoman wears, me breaking the news that Brooklyn Pierce was back as Ben Justice.
I knew what I ought to do: Leave the car, seize the moment, interview the man on the spot or, if that was impossible, make a firm appointment to interview him later in the day. My heart rate, which had slowed, took off like a late train speeding from the station. My hand made it as far as the door handle and stalled. I’d steeled myself for the session with Malcolm, but an impromptu interview? Unprepared? I couldn’t move.
Brooklyn Pierce, hero of three of Malcolm’s finest films, marched over the hill and disappeared. He seemed headed for the shore rather than the Big House, but he might have been going the long way round.
CHAPTER
eleven
Tape 038
James G. Foley
2/12/10
Teddy Blake: It’s great to talk to someone who’s known Garrett Malcolm from the beginning.
James Foley: Right, that would be me. But I’m surprised Cousin Garrett gave the okay to get in touch.
TB: I guess you’re sort of the black sheep? Mind if I open a window?
JB: Kinda thick in here, huh? I tried to quit, I do try. I do quit—about every weekend. That better? You ever see me act?
TB: I don’t think so.
JF: That’s very polite, but hey, even if you had seen me, likely you wouldn’t recall. Second grave-digger, man in the crowd, spear-holder number two. If I’d used the name Malcolm, might have been a different story from the get-go, but Foley was good enough for my dad, and it’s good enough for me.
TB: Your father married Garrett Malcolm’s aunt?
JF: Yep. His dad’s darling sister, Ella, another
I didn’t want him to think me petty; I wanted him to like me. I didn’t want to pry, but I needed to know. For the book, of course. It’s not like I would normally press for answers to private questions.
You would have framed the questions skillfully, tactfully. If you could do it, I could do it. I could do it and I would do it. The rhythmic mantra soothed me, but it took half an hour before I felt competent to pilot the rental Ford. If it hadn’t taken so long, I wouldn’t have seen Brooklyn Pierce come walking over the hill.
At first I wasn’t sure, but that walk, that tiger prowl, was unmistakable. The one crucial interview we’d all but given up on was a session with Brooklyn Pierce, the actor who’d starred in Malcolm’s most successful films. Remember the relentless evasions his agent spouted? Pierce was in Europe, unavailable, making a film; no, he was in a monastery in Nepal, devoting himself to meditation. And yet, there he was, coming over the hill, looking as though he belonged nowhere else but in this landscape, nowhere else but on Cape Cod.
He didn’t seem quite real, not that I could see through him or any of that Hamlet ’s Ghost nonsense. It was mainly that he was dressed for a different day, for warmer weather, a summer idyll. His khakis rode low on his hips, pant legs rolled to the knee. His shirt hung open, displaying wind-driven glimpses of torso. If not a Greek god, he was a blond Abercrombie ad, down to the flip-flops and the sand on his ankles.
Ben Justice had been his first big role, and he’d been more than a hit. He’d become an instant icon. Actor and character met and melded in the public eye the way they do once in a decade. Pierce had played other parts since, but none with that level of impact. Seventeen when filming started on the first Justice film, he would always be identified as Ben Justice.
He looked the same age now, as though time had granted him a suspended sentence. My God, maybe he was here to talk about rekindling the Justice franchise. If I could get that quote, Teddy. I had a brief vision of myself on some TV talk show, me but not me, me confident in the kind of reed-slim suit a TV anchorwoman wears, me breaking the news that Brooklyn Pierce was back as Ben Justice.
I knew what I ought to do: Leave the car, seize the moment, interview the man on the spot or, if that was impossible, make a firm appointment to interview him later in the day. My heart rate, which had slowed, took off like a late train speeding from the station. My hand made it as far as the door handle and stalled. I’d steeled myself for the session with Malcolm, but an impromptu interview? Unprepared? I couldn’t move.
Brooklyn Pierce, hero of three of Malcolm’s finest films, marched over the hill and disappeared. He seemed headed for the shore rather than the Big House, but he might have been going the long way round.
CHAPTER
eleven
Tape 038
James G. Foley
2/12/10
Teddy Blake: It’s great to talk to someone who’s known Garrett Malcolm from the beginning.
James Foley: Right, that would be me. But I’m surprised Cousin Garrett gave the okay to get in touch.
TB: I guess you’re sort of the black sheep? Mind if I open a window?
JB: Kinda thick in here, huh? I tried to quit, I do try. I do quit—about every weekend. That better? You ever see me act?
TB: I don’t think so.
JF: That’s very polite, but hey, even if you had seen me, likely you wouldn’t recall. Second grave-digger, man in the crowd, spear-holder number two. If I’d used the name Malcolm, might have been a different story from the get-go, but Foley was good enough for my dad, and it’s good enough for me.
TB: Your father married Garrett Malcolm’s aunt?
JF: Yep. His dad’s darling sister, Ella, another
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