She lifted the cello-wrapped apple pie for him to see, opened it, began eating. He handed her usual--coffee with milk, no sugar. They talked about movies for five minutes, while he made tall sandwiches out of roast beef and turkey and tongue. Rickie knew a lot of heavy-duty stuff about movies and even though he always said "film" or "cinema," never "movies," he didn't get obnoxious about it. She finished the pie and he refilled her coffee.
"Rickie," Rune asked, "you know anything about a film called Manhattan Is My Beat?"
"Never heard of it."
"Came out in the late forties."
He shook his head. Then she asked, "Is there like an old film museum at your school?"
"We've got a library. Not a museum. The public library's got that arts branch up at Lincoln Center. MOMA's probably got an archive but I don't think they let just anybody in."
"Thanks, love," she said.
"Hey, I don't make the rules. Start working on a grant proposal or get a letter from your grad school adviser and they'll let you in. But that's pretty heady stuff. Experimental films. Indies. What do you need to know?"
"I need to find the screenwriter."
"What studio made it?"
"Metropolitan."
He nodded. "Good old Metro. Why don't you just call 'em up and ask?"
"They're still around?"
"Oh, they're like everybody else nowadays, owned by some big entertainment conglomerate. But, yeah, they're still around."
"And somebody there'd know where the writer is now?"
"Be your best bet. Screen Writers Guild probably won't give out any information about members. Hell, I were you, I wouldn't even call; I'd just go pay 'em a visit."
Rune paid. He charged her a nickel for the pie. She winked her thanks. Then said, "Can't afford to fly out to L.A."
"Take a subway, it's cheaper."
"You need a hell of a lot of transfers," Rune said.
"The Manhattan office, darling."
"Metro has an office here?"
"Sure. All the studios do. Oh, the East Coast office wants to rip the throat out of the West Coast office and vice versa but they're still part of the same company. They're that big building on Central Park West. You must've seen it."
"Oh, like I ever go uptown."
Awesome.
The corporate office building of the Entertainment Corporation of America, proud owner of Metropolitan Pictures.
Forty stories overlooking Central Park. A single company. Rune couldn't imagine having twenty stories of fellow workers above you and twenty stories below. (She tried to imagine forty stories of Washington Square Video, filled with Tonys and Eddies and Frankie Greeks. It was scary.) She wondered if all the Metro employees ate together in a single cafeteria? Did they all go on a company picnic, taking over Central Park for the day?
Waiting for the guard to get off the phone, she also wondered if someone would see her and think she was an actress and maybe pull her onto a soundstage and throw a script into her hand....
Though as she flipped through the company's annual report she realized that that probably wouldn't be happening because this wasn't the filmmaking part of the studio. The New York office of Metro did only financing, licensing, advertising, promotion, and public relations. No casting or filming. But that was all right; her life was a little too busy just then for a career change that'd take her to Hollywood.
The guard handed her a pass and told her to take the express elevator to thirty-two.
"Express?" Rune said. Grinning. Excellent!