“I thought you’d want to.”

Lasner looked at him for a long minute, then sighed.

“Let me tell you something. Nobody needs a picture about killing Jews. What else have they been doing? Since forever.”

“Not like this,” Ben said quietly, so that Lasner busied himself putting the cigar out, avoiding him.

“Wonderful,” he said finally. “Cohn gets Eisenhower and I getI’ll think about it. Let Freeman call. We’ll see.” A dodge.

“I’ll be at the Signal Corps base in Culver City. A local call.”

“Fort Roach.” He caught Ben’s look. “Hal Roach’s old studio. The Army took it over. They’ve got some of my people down there. Drafted. My best cutter. Splicing film on VD. How does your prick look with crabs. Talk about a waste of a good technician.” He glanced up. “You want to make the picture there? Fort Roach?”

“No, I want to make it at Continental. With you.”

“Because we were such good pals in Germany. Looking at things.”

“Freeman said you were the first call to make. You were there for the Relief Fund. You hired refugees in ’forty. You-”

“So back to the well.”

“He said the others think they’re Republicans.”

Lasner snorted. “Since when did Frank get funny? If I heard two cracks from him my whole life it’s a lot.” He shook his head, then snorted again. “Mayer keeps a picture of Hoover in his office. Hoover. And now with the horses. A Jew with horses. So he’s fooling everybody.” He paused. “Don’t push me on this. We’ll talk. In an office. We make a picture if it makes sense to make a picture. Not just someone tells me it’s good for the Jews. Anyway, what kind of name is Collier?”

Ben smiled. “From Kohler. My father. It means the same thing.”

“So why change it? Who changes names? Actors.”