Created By by Richard Matheson

mode. The stream of ideas got faster, annoyingly ridden with incomplete references Jordan had picked up from reading too many film magazines; glittering fragments.
    “But he doesn’t bring that mescaline bullshit look. It’s more Coppola. Bertolucci. Very rich, very textured. And he plays billiards with the camera. His shots always have something on their mind. His stuff makes Ken Russell look like Opie directing
Splash.
”
    “… if this guy had directed
Splash
, he’d have cut off the fucking mermaid’s head and boned her on camera.” Alan was dabbing at mouth corners.
    Something caught Jordan’s eye and he excused himself to visit a corner table where Meryl Streep was having soup with a twenty-one-year-old microtwat director.
    As Alan watched Jordan cross the room, his mind paced in a distressed circle. He remembered reading a
Vanity Fair
article about Hector in which he was described as being “The Nervous Breakdown King of British Film”: a heroin addict who always wore black and spent time in and out of psychiatric facilities for years. He’d counted among his friends, the Stones, the Beatles, various Pythons, and several royals, one of whom had a cousin Hector had dated and was rumored to have had bizarre sexual parties with.
    The
Vanity Fair
piece said, at one point, years back, Hector had made the front page of the Brit rags, getting caught in Madame Tussaud’s, after hours, where he, all his friends, and royal gal-pal had broken in and were Polaroiding themselves fucking famous wax figures.
    The article went on to describe midnight boar hunts, in the nude, which Hector organized on his five-hundred-acre estate outside London. Sometimes, groupies were dressed as pigs and Hector’s many guests would hunt them down, tie them to fallen logs, and … they didn’t elaborate.
    Among the stranger allegations in the piece was that Hector was a cannibal, and indeed the accompanying photos in the article showed an intense smile, complete with teeth that seemed almost sharpened. It was too fucking strange.
    Further inglorious acts, the article implied, included Hector stabbing his wife, causing her death by massive infection days later. Ultimately, it was ruled involuntary manslaughter with extenuating circumstances and commonly viewed as a miscarriage of justice owing to his links to the palace. From there, Hector had directed a rumored snuff film for a royal to enjoy.
    In the video, an oriental girl had been murdered after being tied up and brutally raped by a group of men wearing masks. In the finale of the maniac gem, a bottle had been broken over her soft, young forehead, then used to cut her up, inside and out. The article went to pains to say it was unconfirmed Hector had directed it. But many of the angles and camera moves bore striking resemblance to his idiosyncratic style: the entire video screamed Hector. It was allegedly titled “Broken Bottle,” and a popular underground classic. The article’s version of Hector’s filmic evolution opted to refer to earlier films as profitable “misjudgments.”
    As Alan let the waiter take his plate away, a large man with a Vandyke and shoulder-length hair lumbered acrossthe dining room, led by the maitre d’. He was dressed in black and extended a multiringed hand.
    “Alan,” said the man, in a breathless Ringo growl, “my god, I’m so sorry. Hector Lee. I feel absolutely awful. Got tied up coming down from Montecito. Big car accident, terrible traffic.” He gestured embarrassment. “Were you waiting long? Please say you just got here, I don’t think my heart could take it. It’s a huge pleasure to meet you …”
    He lifted a warm smile and sat, rolling his sleeves up, then down; a nervous mannerism. Alan quickly noticed a nose softened to a red ottoman by Dewar’s and battery dust. Hector dabbed his forehead with a cloth napkin and grinned; a corroded survivor. He ordered a tomato juice and looked Alan in the eye, happily. His hair was tangled