More Than the Usual Suspects

David Thomson's celebrated 1985 novel Suspects imagined what happened to various movie characters before and after the events of the movies in which we met them. Movieline now presents the first four chapters of a sequel-in-the-works, with more to come later this year.

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Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever

In the fate '70s, Tony was a big attraction in Brooklyn discos, and people would come over from Manhattan to see him. He had never believed he could have a career in dancing--he was too shy, he didn't really enjoy being up there in front of people. The thing about dancing that he liked was the precision, the order, the control. The way you could count on it, and count yourself through it, and feel good about yourself. He studied it. He did floor plans for dances--the placing of the feet. He liked to work them out on paper first and then do them. But he always had trouble finding girls who would study. They said they liked to dance the way they felt it at the moment. But Tony knew it could be an art and a science; that you could dance in your head.

Still, he was noticed, and he went along with the offers: he was passive about it in a funny way so that people liked him, but took him for granted. He didn't have a lot of personality. He had a featured spot in Shirley MacLaine's one-woman show that got good notices. Shirley took an interest in him. She'd talk to him, give him notes and lend him books--she was very generous and eager for him, and he felt a little daunted.

"Tony, you have a talent. You really do. But you make it look easy--as if you weren't working."

"Oh. yeah?" he said. He liked that; that was what he wanted.

"Show them it's difficult. Sweat a little. They want to see you trying."

He nodded. It was funny: he liked Shirley, but she was consumed in her own effort, and he found that a touch oppressive, or unhealthy even.

'"Well, you know." he said. " I'll try." And he giggled in that soft way he had.

He got his own show, Satan's Alley, but it was a terrible piece of shit. "Tony," Shirley warned him, " you have to protect yourself with the right people. You're too polite. You yield. You're grateful to these deadbeats. You should fire them. Tony, you're judged by the company you keep."

He agreed with her. but then he went straight back to the theater and agreed with the deadbeats. He didn't like to make himself difficult; he'd just as soon not get into conversations.

The show closed after 11 performances, and Tony was at a loose end. He took the first offer, from a Las Vegas hotel. He had never been to Vegas, never really been out of New York state. He wanted to travel a bit. But in Las Vegas, the stage for the floor show was the wrong dimension for the routines he'd worked out. He needed another seven feet in width, which he explained to the management.

"Tony," said the foreman of the maintenance crew, " that's a hell of a lot of work."

" But, you see. I need the room," said Tony.

" What is it, it's just a few feet-- am I right?"

" Yeah. It's not a lot. You put one more section in, over there--that'll do it."

" Tony. I gotta get that made. I don't know about the lumber--this is Japanese maple. Then we got to let it settle, and the varnishing! Tony, do you--"

"Well, OK," said Tony, and he let it go, and the second night he did his knee. The cruciate ligament, they said in the hospital. His leg was never the same again. Not that he minded so ultra much. After all, dancing had never been the most important thing to him. But, as he rested in the hospital, he wondered sometimes what was.

Travel, he supposed. He had liked just being in Vegas seeing the desert, Hoover Dam, the lights on the Strip. He liked the way the city had been put there. The world was amazing. So when he was able to, he took a flight to Europe. And he liked it, a lot. There was something very tidy about being in a foreign country. Tony didn't know foreign languages, so that kept what he said very simple. And what he thought. Which was pleasant. He got confused and unhappy a lot less.

In Paris, he met this couple, a girl and her lover, an older man. Her name was Anna, and she acted like someone on smack, but Tony found she was clean--it was just her nature. They could be together for hours at a time and hardly say a word, and it felt very nice. The only thing she liked him to do was give her a foot rub. Tony knew feet, and she had the coldest, cold enough to chill his hands. But he liked the look of bliss in her eyes as much as any-thing he'd ever liked. Anna's lover never had a name; she called him " Minister," which was like a joke, yet she never laughed. The man was something in the Thatcher government, and insane over Anna. But she took it all very calmly, and Tony wasn't sure that she didn't want his foot rubs most of all.

"Tony," she said one day.

"Yeah." He was always ready to serve her.

"When he comes tomorrow."

"Yeah?"

"When we're in the bedroom, you know?"

"Yeah."

"He'll have a briefcase. There will be a file in it--brown color. Take it out. Go down to the copy shop, OK?"

"Yeah."

"Copy it. Put it back."

He did as he was told, and she intimated that she had passed the file on to others. She gave him five thou-sand francs. Which was all right, because his money from Broadway and Vegas was running out. And it had been very simple, in and out, copy the pages, put them back. He was a deft worker.

Things developed from that. He got an apartment in Paris, and Anna had other jobs for him.

"It's like being a detective?" he said. " Right?"

One day, she introduced him to an Italian, though he talked American. And the man was looking to explore other opportunities. Things with cars, for instance, and then carrying packages to Amsterdam or Rome, or even Casablanca.

"Wow! Casablanca," said Tony.

"You get your passport looking like a stamp album," said the man.

"It's drugs, isn't it?" said Tony.

"As a matter of fact, Tony, yeah. Carrying Camembert to Casablanca does not pay in the same way."

"Drugs are bad, right?" Tony had heard that always.

The man studied him and reflected for a while. " Try some," he suggested, and he gave Tony--who didn't like to say no--some cocaine, and it was sensational. He felt very, very clean and together with it.

"Why'd they say it's so bad?" he asked the man.

"Killjoys."

One day, they wondered out loud if he'd ever killed anyone. Just asking. Turned out he had a knack for it, a way of expressing himself artistically--so long as he could plan it. He drew diagrams and time charts. Then he did it--in and out. Then he destroyed the plans. Tony's passivity made him a very good killer.

"Tony, my man." said the man, about a year later, " They are asking for you."

"Yeah?"

"You have a very solid rep."

"Who's asking?"

"People in Los Angeles."

"I was only ever there at the airport once."

"The airport is nothing. It's your sort of place. Behave yourself, you could be in a lot of demand."

"That'd be cool."

"It's where the action is, Tony. A hit man essentially, if he's for real, he has to do it in America. Change your name."

"Yeah?"

"Sure. I mean, you had a career there once. Not a lot, maybe. But I'd change your name. It's cleaner."

He liked that idea. It made him feel good to be someone quite new and different. Like starting again. It took him five months to think of the right new name. Vincent Vega. He said it fast so that it sounded like one word, the name of a car.

But, back in America, it wasn't quite what he expected. Europe had been very efficient, very smooth. America was a riot now, as if it had forgotten what America meant. There were absurd fuck-ups that made him ashamed. The boss was a big black guy, and the boss's wife was this white chick with evil eyes who said she was sure she remembered him from somewhere.

He had to take her out one night while the boss was out of town. And she insisted they go dancing. What did she know? He hadn't danced in a long time, and his knee was shot so he could only go through the motions. But she was a wild one, with a lot of funny moves and Egyptian arms. She told him. and she sort of sneered at him, that she had grown up in Las Vegas where her dad worked for one of the big hotels.

"So there," she said, and then lowering her voice, making the name sound like a mockery, " Vincent Vega."

If he hadn't fallen straight in love with her. he'd have known the safest thing to do, then and there, in and out, was to make a plan for offing her.

Susie Diamond from The Fabulous Baker Boys

It was about six months after she gave up on Seattle, when Susie was singing in a bar in the Valley. The job was four nights a week, Thursday through Sunday, two sets a night, a hundred a night and dinner--if you could eat what they served there. Nothing was right about the job. The manager evidently supposed that in hiring her he had rights, including advice on what she should wear. The trio they had there were only kids and didn't know the songs she wanted to sing. So first she had to teach them the songs, because only one of them could read, and they made a lot of kids' fun about the lyrics. Plus, it was a dive, and all of L.A. then was having hard times. The manager used to do simple sums for her on how many drinks it took to cover a hundred a night. And she had to listen to him, and stop herself from talking back. "Be a sweet kid," he told her. That's all he thought he wanted.

Then one night, after her set, a kid came up to her, a child even. He didn't seem more than 17, and he was as clean and sparkly as '50s TV.

"Miss Diamond," he said, "that's a terrific act." She had done "Night and Day," " I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan" and " Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye." and she had felt especiaily right on the last one.

"Why, thanks." she muttered. She just wanted to get off.

"Here's what I want to suggest," the kid said.

"What you want to suggest?"

" Right. Monday morning I want you to call my boss--Griffin Mill. Here's his card. Say Stanley told you to call--"

"Stanley?" She never could help herself with the tough skeptic altitude.

"Right." Stanley was blushing. She was sure it was all a joke. " What the fuck is this?" she asked him.

He was grinning and nodding, as if, yes, he heard this a lot. " It's authentic," he said. " Griffin Mill is CAA. You have heard of that."

She didn't say shit. He really couldn't have been more than 20 and he was hardly shaving.

"Just call him. No promises. But I will speak to him and give him my thoughts. I'll tell him you're a hell of a singer and a pain in the ass. Right?" And then the kid just turned and went away, leaving her without a finish.

She waited till Tuesday to call, and Mill was in conference then. But he called her back Thursday. " You didn't call Monday," he said right off, after his secretary placed the call.

"I was busy."

"Yeah? What were you doing?"

"I forget. Maybe I was doing my nails."

"That's neat. So, you want to come in?"

"I guess so."

"No one's forcing you. I don't as a rule have to beg for business."

"That's my job," she said.

"Hey, you're funny. I like that. I'm going to give you to Denise. Make a time with her." And, again, she was left without an answer line.

It was 11 days before she got her appointment. She had felt challenged by Mill, so she made a tape one night after work--on a good machine, giving the musicians $20 each to stay late. She did " Ev'rytime We Say Goodbye" and " More Than You Know," which had been her lucky song since the Baker audition. If you could call it luck.

Mill wasn't there at first. He was "in with Mike," Denise told her. So she waited, and at last he got there. He acted as if he couldn't recollect her name.

"Stanley saw me," she said, clutching at straws.

"Stanley's at Paramount now," he told her.

"Yeah? By the way, how old is he?"

"Twenty-six."

"He looks a lot younger."

"That's his charm. Whereas, yours is you look older. How old are you?"

"Thirty-one," she lied.

"You look 35." She didn't have to ask whether that had any charm.

"So, I'm outta here?" she said, getting up.

"You're something." he said. " Old-fashioned, is it? Don't you know where you are?" He waved his hand to indicate not just the room but the building, the enterprise and vision of CAA.

"I'm talking to an agent who tells me I look old."

"There are people out there who would die, who would kill, to be in here for two minutes to ... show themselves."

"You mean you want to see my tits?"

"I think I can imagine them, Miss Diamond. Your tits are not a lot."

"And they're 35." she added.

"And you," he said, "expect to sell your weary, unimpressive tits to America?"

"Why am I here?" she asked.

"Why do you think?"

"I'm a singer. I have a tape. You want to hear it?" She was ready to unpack the recorder from the extra large--but elegant--bag she had bought specially, "Sure," he said.

She put the recorder on his desk and turned it on. Now she heard only the noise and the amateurishness of it all. He listened to 24 bars and then indicated to her to turn it off. "You're a terrific singer," he said.

"So?"

"So, when did you last see a picture where someone sang well?"

Susie thought a while. She hadn't thought about it before, but it was a good question.

"Yentl," she said.

"My point exactly." Then he waited.

"So?"

"So pictures don't sing songs. That's not why you're here, I could get you maybe eight bars singing something torchy in the bar in a Jeff Bridges picture. You don't want that."

"I don't?"

"Know what you haven't done since you came in here?"

"No."

"The one thing?"

"I haven't sucked your cock." She made a little girl thing of saying it, as if realizing she hadn't tied her shoes.

"You'd bite it off. I wouldn't let you near it. No, the one thing is you haven't smiled."

"There hasn't been anything to smile at."

"There never is."

"So why smile?"

"To be nice, be pretty, be available."

"Uh-huh," she shrugged. She had heard this before. Baker had always told her she didn't know how to milk applause, make it build. She hadn't made people want her.

"So, I'm out of here," she said. And this time she stood.

"I'm serious, Miss Diamond, and as a matter of fact I am brilliant. You can read about it. You not smiling is why you are here."

"A novelty act?"

"It's different. That's what Stanley said. He said you are a great singer, that you are terrific-looking--"

"And 35."

"That's the point! You look that old because you don't smile. Thirty-seven," he added.

"That's different?"

"It might be interesting. There's a part in the new De Palma film, Gangster's Wife. You want to go read for it?"

"She doesn't sing?"

"No, and she doesn't smile."

"Fuck off," she said and left him there. She got the last line.

When she got back "home," to the room in Culver City, there was Baker on the machine, in L.A., at a motel. She called him back. "What are you doing?" she said.

"I'm drinking again," he said. "And I'm doing piano next week on a commercial."

"I thought you weren't going to drink."

"I knew I wasn't going to drink. What are you doing?"

"I'm practicing not smiling. Being a pain in the ass."

"You don't need practice," said Baker. "You're a natural."

"So?" she said.

"Why don't I come over there, wherever it is, and we get smashed together?"

"Why not?" she said, and she saw the grimace on her own face as the golden stuff went down.

Elliott from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

"I would just like for Elliott to be normal again," said his mother.

"Again!" scoffed Gertie, and she chuckled proudly. " He has always been weird." That thought made her feel better about life.

But the government, and especially Keys, were very sincere about wanting the best for the boy. So this is how it worked out. Elliott and his family agreed not to talk to anyone about the whole matter. In return, they were paid an amount of money that would take care of the kids' education--and then some, so the mother didn't feel left out.

Of course, a lot of people in Orange County had heard the story. You couldn't stop the rumors. But Keys had this idea that, he said, might " deflect the flow."

"I always thought," he told Elliott's mother, " that this was Steven Spielberg stuff."

So a deal was done, three-way, the family, the government and Universal (which was Spielberg), to make a movie out of the incident, " And you should feel free," Keys told Spielberg, " to do it your way. Build the story as much as you like."

"I feel I've always known the story," said Spielberg.

You don't need to be told about the movie, or what happened with it. Of course, they altered a few things: after all, there was no way a family entertainment could do the real alien, so they created this little guy that everyone loved. They couldn't handle the real creature's foul mouth-- and Steven decided that his interest in magic tricks just wouldn't play. " He is magic," said Spielberg, " He shouldn't do tricks."

The picture was so big that Keys proved right. In a few years, everyone regarded E.T. as just a story, a modern myth. There were people who would tease Elliott, in a good-natured way, about his having made up the whole thing for the movie. And he knew he wasn't to argue. It was easier, too, because with all the residuals they moved out of Orange County and went up to San Francisco where Elliott's mother bought a mansion in the three thousands on Pacific. And no one in San Francisco believes any-thing out of Los Angeles anyway. So the whole climate shifted in just a few years. And even Elliott, sometimes, would wonder if it had happened--or if it hadn't been as sweet as the movie.

There were therapists who wrote in out of the blue to say that Elliott was surely going to need professional care sooner or later. Mr. Spielberg and Keys offered to be helpful. But then Elliott's father returned from Mexico. He had only been away on a spiritual inquiry, he said; he'd never meant to end his marriage. So Elliott's mother had to move for divorce, and the custody settlement became a complicated thing because of the sums of money floating around.

"It's absolutely clear," said Elliott's father, The boy needs a father. Making imaginary friends is the proof of that. He just wants his dad."

"Who needs the money," said Elliott's mother.

"But if Elliott gets him back," said Gertie, " don't I, too?"

"Naturally," said Elliott's father. " That too."

Mr. Spielberg, entirely of his own volition, offered a large cash payment to the father to quit all claims. But the rentals on E.T. never faltered, and there was the video to come. So the father said the offer was a shocking and cynical mockery of the nature of parenthood.

Elliott went to a lot of different schools. The family moved several times--to Santa Cruz, to Aspen and back to San Francisco again. There were court battles all the time, which were expensive, and Elliott had seven different therapists over the years. His files grew large and he got into the habit of saying less and less, for fear of causing trouble.

By 1989, he, his mother and Gertie were in San Francisco. He had finished high school, but showed no urge to go to college. In fact, he spent most of his time trying to look after Gertie. She had gotten into a drug habit in school, and she spent a lot of time with their father in Las Vegas, where he owned a large video outlet--Elliott Video.

On October 5, 1989, Elliott woke up, knowing there was going be an earthquake. Now, nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He hadn't had " visions" or anything like that. Some of his many teachers had known him long enough to see that he wasn't actually a very imaginative kid--it was as if he'd grown to mistrust his own thoughts. But his dream was very clear. He saw fires in the Marina, he saw the Cypress freeway collapse, and he saw a section of the Bay Bridge give way.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't believe in dreams--not even his own. But this had been so direct, so pointed. It was as if someone was warning him. He felt the responsibility. So he told his mother.

"Elliott," she said. " Honey. How would that be?"

"Well," he said, " there are earthquakes in San Francisco."

"That's why you dreamed it. You had it in your mind. Don't you think?"

So he told Gertie, and she said they would have a party in Alta Plaza Park so they could have great all-around views. " What day is it?" she asked.

"I don't know," he realized.

"You don't know!"

"I know it's a beautiful, still day."

"That's something," she said.

So when October 17th came along, with the World Series at Candlestick, and the weather so perfect everyone was talking about it they went out to Aha Plaza Park with a picnic. Gertie was high, despite her promises to him. They had just finished their picnic when at 5:04 p.m. the earthquake happened. Gertie said, " Fucking A, Elliott, you are a trip!"

Of course, Elliott wasn't surprised. Bui he was horrified when he heard the number of people who had been killed. It wasn't just live action-cam material. That was when Gertie first got him on marijuana. She said it would help him relax. And before long, she was helping him as much as he was helping her. They became like Hansel and Gretel lost in the dark woods.

In the early '90s, they decided to move to Los Angeles to get back to their roots. They bought a house together on Westgate in Brentwood. Elliott was not in good shape and he stayed home a lot. But he didn't like television, and he didn't like sleeping. He was fearful of any experience that was close to dreaming. Just to fill his time he got into drugs and health simultaneously. He was doing a lot of cocaine, and he spent two or three hours a day at the gym. And, in the way of things, he spent time with the young set in Brentwood, working up a sweat and then having arugula salad and watching the cars slip by. It was an aimless life, but there was so much money, and Gertie was with him. They used to sleep together, literally, not that anything ever happened between them. It was just a way of masking the lack of anyone else in their lives.

One day in the summer of 1994, Elliott came home late at night after jogging. Gertie was watching the tape of E.T.--she loved it, but she turned it off when Elliott came in.

"Where d'you go?" she asked.

"Did my circuit," he said.

"See anything?"

"Why d'you ask?"

"I don't know. Elliott. Just to talk."

"I saw this guy."

"Which guy?"

"He came running past me. And he was taking off his sweat top as he ran, bundling it up."

"Why was he doing that?"

"I don't know."

"So what's so special about it?"

"I didn't say special." He warmed down, " But it felt bad."

"How was that?"

Elliott paused. " Know what he said? He said, he was saying it under his breath as he ran."

"What?"

"'O.J.. phone home.'"

The next day, Gertie woke him up. ''Did you dream?" she asked.

"I don't recall anything."

She told him what had happened

on the TV and just a few blocks away, and she asked him what he was going to do.

"I'm not saying fucking nothing," he told her, and he never has.

Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit

"You know, I bet you could make it as a crossover," he told her one day. This was after he'd just sat there for must-have-been 20 minutes, taking her in, studying her. He had a way of looking at her that she could never resist. The longer he looked, the more she knew she was his. Nothing had to be said or done about it. What could be done?

"It's true," he said, reading her doubts. "I could go downtown with you on my arm, go to all the good places--no one would notice. No one would close the door on you."

She didn't know what to say, or how to handle it, so she laughed that rough throaty laugh which she knew he enjoyed." Excuse me, sir. I happen to be a happily married woman."

He nodded, without bitterness. There was something about it that simply intrigued him, in the way a chess puzzle might hold your thoughts all day. "That's true," he said. "And he's a nice guy, a lot of fun."

"He makes me laugh," she said.

"And you've got a great laugh. All your own," he grinned.

So that was that, but she thought about what he said. After all, no one like her had ever crossed over before--even if Jerry had gone to the dance once with the Irishman. The truth was, she loved her husband, always had, whatever anyone had thought--no matter that he was, well, on the homely side, while she was--she didn't bother with false modesty--a knockout. No matter that everyone thought her husband was a great guy, kind of foolish, hut good-hearted, while she was... well, she had a bad reputation. " But if you've got my lines," she said to herself, looking in the mirror, " a lot of people are going to think the worst of you."

No, it had nothing to do with her husband. She'd always love him--that was written, in the stars and in the script. But crossing over was something else. That was more than love or money. That was no-questions-asked magic. And it was irresistible. There was also the fact that the other guy, the one who'd said she could do it, him with the way of looking at her... Well, a woman knows when she's admired, and she's bound to respect it. When a man's like a blunt pencil for you, sometimes you dream of sharpening him a little. So she couldn't get the possibility out of her head. It doesn't really matter which side of the line you're on. possibility is like that--it's the thing you never forget.

Maybe she could go downtown, and get in at the best clubs. But if she could fool him, too, so that not even he knew she was crossing over... because he couldn't tell the difference. Because he thought she was just the most adorable, ripe-bodied creature he'd ever held.

Oh sure, he looked at her for 20 minutes, knew every inch and curve, knew she was his--even if he'd never touched her. But men get cocky. They think they know it all, and then they stop noticing.

Suppose he was hers, too. She'd seen it coming for months. He was pie-eyed in love with her, even if she was the wrong type of woman for him, and married to a swell guy that she loved. He was just dreaming, " What if?" She could see his sad eyes full of it. He'd slopped seeing her. It was possibility again--people go blind from it, even people whose business is looking. So she made herself a plan, and she called him up on the telephone.

"Oh, hi," she says, doing things with her voice a little in the way of disguise.

"Who's that?" he asks. She can tell the voice has got to him.

"You wouldn't know me," she says, " My name's Aimée Lapine."

"French?" he asks.

"Only in a manner of speaking," she says.

So they small talk it a while and she's getting quite a thrill and she says, " Look, I'm here for just a day. Day and a night, actually. And I heard that you could take a girl downtown. Go to the hot places."

"Who told you that?"

"I swore I wouldn't say, but the review was four stars."

"Really?" he said. He was tickled pink, just as if she had a hand in his pants.

Well, they made a date and she got herself up in her best Aimée Lapine style. She did her hair differently. And the clothes were much more sophisticated. She went for the Edith Head look, as opposed to good old Frederick's Of Hollywood, the way her husband liked her--and the way he'd always seen her before. It was a terrific new look, sort of a cross between Grace Kelly and Anouk Aimee.

But he told her in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, " I'd have known you anywhere."

"You would?'' She was ready to be crushed, pancaked. But he rallied her spirits. " I mean I was trying to imagine the woman--the body-- that went with the voice on the phone."

"And?"

"Just what I pictured."

"Don't get too satisfied," she told him.

But he'd been right. She passed. She crossed over. They went to Spago. and they got a great table. Tom Cruise came over during dessert to beg an introduction, and she could tell Torn was bitten. Then they went to a club and they danced, and when she felt his arms around her that's when she knew it had worked. He could feel her, all right. And she could feel the feeling.

They went down to the beach in the moonlight, and then he took her back to his place. It was a mess. There were drawings on every flat surface, and most of them were of women like her. The guy was obsessed.

"I wonder," he said, " would you be averse to my taking off your clothes?"

She could hardly breathe. The clothes felt like paint on her, stifling her. " How're you going to do that?" she asked.

"Eraser," he said, with a smile. And she knew he knew. The trick hadn't fooled him.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"Jessie." he said. " I drew you. Remember, I drew you bad."

"So it's hopeless," she said. And she was so homy.

"Nobody's perfect." he said. " But nothing's impossible." He was smiling at her in the nicest way, even if it was wicked, with her a married woman. And he had an airbrush in his hand.

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David Thomson wrote " Beyond Hara-Kiri" for the May Movieline.