advice on the cheap, a steak and a couple of drinks.” Powell mimed indignation. Hammett laughed: “Bad joke, forgive me. Well, really there’s only one way to go with this, as I see it. Discredit the detectives. What do you know about them? Independent guys for the most part?”
“That’s what I’ve gathered.”
“Good. Means they probably hustle for cases. That helps you. Find some of their previous victims, go out and get depositions, tons of them. Pile them on. Guys like this have made a lot of enemies. Find them. And see if they’d be willing to testify, or could be made willing. At the very least you should be able to neutralize their testimony with the judge.”
“I guess I’ll have to find my own investigator, won’t I?”
“Should have already.”
Hammett judged this professional advice personally important to Powell but still peripheral to Powell’s studio business with him this afternoon; namely, giving L.B. a report on Hammett’s trustworthiness and ability to deliver on future
Thin Man
scripts. Powell brought the matter up more directly just as Hammett was about to taste a superb steak prepared perfectly. Because improvising a scenario was what the Hollywood Hammett did best, he said, “I’ve already started writing the next one.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“For now I’m calling it
The Thin Man Goes Hollywood
.”
Powell said, “Hmm.” And then again, “Hmm.”
“An important producer is murdered in his office. Scripts have been stolen.”
Powell was hooked. Hammett made him wait while he chewed his steak. “I want the entire film shot against a real studio backdrop. People love seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on at a studio. We feature M-G-M itself, we show some of their biggest stars, we show the way movies are made.”
“Interesting. Where does Nick Charles fit in?”
“Nick’s a beard.” Confusion masked Powell’s face. “A beard, someone whose real identity and function are disguised. He and Nora are brought in as a sophisticated new writing team from New York by the head of the studio …”
“Someone like L.B.?”
“Someone exactly like L.B.… to discover the murderer.”
“Who is …?”
“No idea, could be anyone, even the boss himself, but that’s the easy part.”
Powell held up two fingers to the waiter.
. 7 .
Days to Come
O CCASIONALLY , and without knowing exactly why, Hammett stopped working on a
Thin Man
idea and typed a page or two, a memory, a backwoods Maryland reflection, about his mother Anne and his sister Reba. In his most recent memory they are sitting at the rustic kitchen table his father had made years earlier. Slanting light brightens the dark kitchen only a little. It is quiet except for the woodland sounds outside. At the table they are peeling the potatoes they had just dug from the garden. Each had dug the black potatoes with a short hoe and afterward washed them off in the pails outside until the precious water was black with earth. Then they poured the water carefully into the irrigation furrows of the cabbage patch. Reba, just twelve, was a woman already. Dashiell saw the scene perfectly in his mind’s eye.
The two women sit facing one another in the kitchen. The sun illuminates their strong hands as they peel carefullyyet quickly the small potatoes, not speaking but communicating pleasantly with soft sounds. They save their parings in a blue enamel pot. At the bottom of the page he typed, “These women, who could have been Russian or Balkan or Irish peasants, shared moments that, I realize now, I’d be jealous of my entire life. They lived in a place I could never even visit, only see from an unbearable distance. Since I could never have their moments, which I knew didn’t rightfully belong to me, I did not venture back to places where I knew I would not be welcome.”
Hammett already had a nice collection of such memories. Showing his little brother Richard how to hook a worm for bait.
“That’s what I’ve gathered.”
“Good. Means they probably hustle for cases. That helps you. Find some of their previous victims, go out and get depositions, tons of them. Pile them on. Guys like this have made a lot of enemies. Find them. And see if they’d be willing to testify, or could be made willing. At the very least you should be able to neutralize their testimony with the judge.”
“I guess I’ll have to find my own investigator, won’t I?”
“Should have already.”
Hammett judged this professional advice personally important to Powell but still peripheral to Powell’s studio business with him this afternoon; namely, giving L.B. a report on Hammett’s trustworthiness and ability to deliver on future
Thin Man
scripts. Powell brought the matter up more directly just as Hammett was about to taste a superb steak prepared perfectly. Because improvising a scenario was what the Hollywood Hammett did best, he said, “I’ve already started writing the next one.”
“What can you tell me about it?”
“For now I’m calling it
The Thin Man Goes Hollywood
.”
Powell said, “Hmm.” And then again, “Hmm.”
“An important producer is murdered in his office. Scripts have been stolen.”
Powell was hooked. Hammett made him wait while he chewed his steak. “I want the entire film shot against a real studio backdrop. People love seeing all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on at a studio. We feature M-G-M itself, we show some of their biggest stars, we show the way movies are made.”
“Interesting. Where does Nick Charles fit in?”
“Nick’s a beard.” Confusion masked Powell’s face. “A beard, someone whose real identity and function are disguised. He and Nora are brought in as a sophisticated new writing team from New York by the head of the studio …”
“Someone like L.B.?”
“Someone exactly like L.B.… to discover the murderer.”
“Who is …?”
“No idea, could be anyone, even the boss himself, but that’s the easy part.”
Powell held up two fingers to the waiter.
. 7 .
Days to Come
O CCASIONALLY , and without knowing exactly why, Hammett stopped working on a
Thin Man
idea and typed a page or two, a memory, a backwoods Maryland reflection, about his mother Anne and his sister Reba. In his most recent memory they are sitting at the rustic kitchen table his father had made years earlier. Slanting light brightens the dark kitchen only a little. It is quiet except for the woodland sounds outside. At the table they are peeling the potatoes they had just dug from the garden. Each had dug the black potatoes with a short hoe and afterward washed them off in the pails outside until the precious water was black with earth. Then they poured the water carefully into the irrigation furrows of the cabbage patch. Reba, just twelve, was a woman already. Dashiell saw the scene perfectly in his mind’s eye.
The two women sit facing one another in the kitchen. The sun illuminates their strong hands as they peel carefullyyet quickly the small potatoes, not speaking but communicating pleasantly with soft sounds. They save their parings in a blue enamel pot. At the bottom of the page he typed, “These women, who could have been Russian or Balkan or Irish peasants, shared moments that, I realize now, I’d be jealous of my entire life. They lived in a place I could never even visit, only see from an unbearable distance. Since I could never have their moments, which I knew didn’t rightfully belong to me, I did not venture back to places where I knew I would not be welcome.”
Hammett already had a nice collection of such memories. Showing his little brother Richard how to hook a worm for bait.
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