The morning sun was over the San Fernando Valley, and Duke sat in the corner booth of a diner, a coffee cup cradled in his large hand.
He was wearing sunglasses, not for style, but because the flashbulbs from the previous night were still in his vision and also hangover.
Gary Kurtz sat across from him, looking significantly more ragged.
He was nursing a Bloody Mary and reading the trade papers with wide-eyed disbelief.
"Variety is calling you the 'New Mogul,'" Kurtz muttered, tapping the headline. "They say Ithaca is the first studio built on the counter-culture."
"Let them call us whatever they want, Gary," Duke said, checking his watch. "Is he here?"
"He's parking," Kurtz said, straightening his tie. "He drives a truck by the way."
A moment later, the door opened, and Clint Eastwood walked in.
In April 1970, Eastwood was a star, but he wasn't yet a big one.
He was the "Man with No Name" from the Italian westerns, a squinting, cigarillo-chewing enigma who had just started to break into American productions.
He walked with a loose, lanky walk, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans.
Duke stood up. At six-five, he was one of the few men in Hollywood who could look Eastwood in the eye without tilting his head.(Clint is aparently 6'4-6'6)
"Clint," Duke said, extending a hand.
"Duke," Eastwood replied. His voice was raspy, "Congratulations on last night. That cowboy movie of yours... it had passion. I liked it."
"High praise coming from the Man with No Name," Duke said, gesturing to the booth. "Sit down. Coffee?"
"Black," Clint said.
They spent the first twenty minutes not talking about business, but talking about Western. Clint was wary of producers.
He had been mistreated by Universal in the 50s.
"I saw Where Eagles Dare," Duke said. "You held your own against Burton."
Clint smirked, a small crinkling around the eyes. "Burton talks too much. I like to get on with the shoot. It was a lot of standing around waiting for things to continue."
"That's why I want to talk about Harry Callahan," Duke said, cutting to the chase.
He signaled the waitress for a refill and leaned forward.
"We picked up the script. Dead Right. We're calling it Dirty Harry now. I know Sinatra passed. I know Newman passed. They think it's too violent and the politics are messy."
"The politics are honest," Eastwood said. "The world right now is messy. The law doesn't always work."
"Exactly," Duke said. "But I don't want to just hire you for a movie, Clint. I'm not interested in a one time thing."
Duke slid a single sheet of paper across the table.
THE MALPASO - ITHACA PARTNERSHIP
Term: 5 Pictures
Guaranteed Budget: $4 Million per picture
Creative Control: Joint (Malpaso/Ithaca)
Distribution: Ithaca Distribution (First Priority)
Clint looked at the paper. He paused at the budget figure.
"Four million," Clint murmured. "That's a lot of hope to put on someone you had never meet, Duke. Specially since, most studios are trying to cut budgets right now."
"Most studios are scared," Duke countered. "Meanwhile, I want you to have the money to shoot on location, to hire the best DP, and to wreck the cars if you have to."
"And what do you want in return?"
"I want the franchise," Duke said. "I think Harry Callahan is the urban cowboy. The horse is a Ford, the Colt Peacemaker is a .44 Magnum, and the frontier is San Francisco. I want five movies, Clint and I want Malpaso to grow alongside Ithaca."
Clint studied Duke. He was looking for the catch. In Hollywood, there was always a catch.
"You're talking about a marriage," Clint said.
"I'm talking about an alliance," Duke corrected. "The studios are dying, Clint. The audience wants to see a man take control of a world that's too much of a mess and that's you."
Clint took a sip of his black coffee. He set the cup down slowly.
"I've been wanting to direct," Clint said. "Something small. A thriller or even maybe a romance."
"I used to speak about it with the co-founder of Malpaso, Irving Leonard but he died but we had a script, Play Misty for Me"
"Play Misty for Me," Duke repeated, "Do it. We'll fund it. It will not be part of the five."
Clint raised an eyebrow. "You'd fund a movie where I play a DJ getting stalked?"
"I'd fund a movie where you read the phone book, Clint. As long as you make me money in the other four," Duke grinned.
Clint picked up the term sheet. He folded it and put it in his shirt pocket.
"I'll have my lawyer call you," Clint said. He stood up and offered his hand again. "But between us? You've got a deal."
"Welcome to the family, Clint."
As Eastwood walked out of the diner, Gary Kurtz let out a long exhale.
"Did we just sign Clint Eastwood for five movies?"
"We just signed him for the 1970s," Duke said. "Now finish your drink. We have work to do."
The drive back to the Ithaca lot was quiet, but Duke's mind was noisy.
As he stopped at a red light, he noticed a car in his rearview mirror. A blue sedan. It had been behind him for three blocks.
Duke watched it. He made a right turn. The sedan kept going straight.
He exhaled. Just paranoia.
He parked his Corvette in the executive spot at the Ithaca office, a spot that was now monitored by a camera, a rare luxury in those days. He walked straight to Jeffrey's office.
Jeffrey, his agent and now Manager and the closest thing Duke had to a consigliere, was buried under papers.
"The Allied transition is messy," Jeffrey said without looking up. "Their pension fund is a disaster. We're going to have to top it up."
"Pay it," Duke said, closing the door and locking it.
Jeffrey looked up, sensing the shift in tone. "What's wrong? The Eastwood meet go south?"
"Eastwood is in," Duke said, pacing the room. "That's not the problem. The problem is my image. We just won Best Picture. I just bought a studio. People are going to start sniffing around the net worth."
"We've hidden most of it in the land deals," Jeffrey reminded him. "You look 'comfortable' on paper, not 'tycoon' rich."
"People talk, Jeffrey. And there are crazy people out there."
Duke stopped pacing and leaned on Jeffrey's desk.
"Frank Sinatra Jr.," Duke said. "Kidnapped in 1963. Took them days to get him back."
"Duke, that was seven years ago."
"And then there's Tate-LaBianca murders," Duke cut in. "That was six months ago. Those weren't professionals, Jeffrey. They were hippies with knives."
"They didn't want money, they want to kill the 'pigs.' to launch a race war or something. You think I don't look like a 'pig' to them? I drive a Corvette. I wear custom suits. I'm practically the establishment now."
He wasn't genuinely terrified, but he was prudent.
He knew that in the timeline he came from, the 70s were the "Golden Age of Kidnapping." From Patty Hearst to J. Paul Getty III, rich people were about to become currency.
"I want a team," Duke said. "Not a night watchman. Not a retired cop. I want trained people."
"Like... bodyguards?"
"I want veterans," Duke corrected.
Jeffrey put his pen down. "This is going to cost you some money. And it's going to look aggressive. People may even think you're paranoid."
"I don't care what they think," Duke said. "I'm worth a hundred million dollars, Jeffrey. I'm not going to die because some junkie bum decides to make a statement."
"Okay," Jeffrey said, writing it down. "I'll make some calls. I know a guy who ran security for Nixon's campaign stops in California. He'll know where to find the talent."
"Good. And Jeffrey?"
"Yeah?"
"Get them nice suits. I don't want them looking like soldiers."
___
The afternoon took Duke away from the glitz of Hollywood and into the fluorescent-lit world of Atari.
The Atari R&D facility was a subsidiary of Ithaca, housed in a rented industrial park in Santa Clara.
Nolan Bushnell was standing over a workbench, arguing with an engineer about the refresh rate of a monitor.
"Duke!" Nolan shouted over the whir of cooling fans. "You're just in time!"
Duke walked over, examining the circuit board.
"It's seems good, Nolan," Duke said with exactly zero knowledge of what he needed to look for.
They walked into Nolan's office, which was a glass-walled corner of the warehouse filled with schematic drawings.
"So i wanted to speak to you." Nolan said, collapsing into a chair. "I know we're bleeding cash and the chips are expensive. And technically we haven't made a profit yet-."
"We're a tax shelter," Duke interrupted to remind him. "Ithaca writes off the losses. It saves me from giving the money to the IRS. I don't mind the burn, Nolan. As long as we own the patents."
Nolan rubbed his face. He looked guilty.
"That's the thing, Duke. The patents... they're valuable and some people are starting to notice."
Duke went still. "Who?"
"Steve Ross," Nolan said. "Kinney National. They own Warner Bros now. Ross sent a guy down here last week, a headhunter who mentioned his name."
Duke knew Steve Ross. Ross was the legendary dealmaker who turned a funeral home business into a media empire.
He was charming, ruthless, and had a gigantic checkbook. In the original timeline, Ross would even eventually buy Atari.
"What did they offer?" Duke asked.
"A job," Nolan said. "They want to start a 'Electronic Games Division' inside Kinney. They offered me a salary that... well, it's triple what I'm making here. And they offered huge amounts funding as long as I find a way to bypass the patents."
Nolan looked at Duke, his eyes earnest.
"Duke, I want to stay. I love what we're doing. But I've got a family. And Ross... he's talking about buying a hotel chain and putting these machines in each one of the hotel lobbies in America."
Duke nodded slowly. He understood the temptation, Ross was selling security and resources to a scale he couldn't compete with.
"Steve Ross is a parking lot attendant who got lucky," Duke lied smoothly.
"He's a corporate shark, Nolan. He'll give you a budget, sure. But then he'll give you a manager. And then he'll give you a committee to have an excuse to take away the budget."
Duke leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"You're an innovator, Nolan. That's why I hired you. You don't belong at Kinney. You belong here, in the factory-."
"I know," Nolan sighed. "But the money..."
"I'm not going to match his salary," Duke said.
Nolan's face fell.
"Because a salary is for employees," Duke continued. "And I don't want you to be an employee anymore, you should be a capitalist."
Duke pulled a document from his briefcase. It wasn't a contract, it was a stock transfer form.
"This is ten percent," Duke said. "Ten percent of Atarie quity. Vesting at the end of next year and i'll give you a big bonus too."
Nolan stared at the paper. "Ten percent? Duke, the company is worthless right now. Ten percent of zero is zero."
"Today, with the amount of patents, and the factory, this company could be valued easily at 10-20 million," Duke said.
"Nolan, we own the patents for the arcade cabinet. We own the logic board. In the long term... what do you think this company will be worth? The Japanese, Kinney and everyone who enters the industry will have to pay us."
Duke paused, letting the vision take hold.
"I'm not building some small toy company, Nolan. In ten years, i'm sure Atari will be worth at least 100 million or even a billion."
He saw the number hit Nolan like a physical blow.
"A hundred million?" Nolan whispered.
"Ten percent of hundred million is ten million dollars," Duke said. "Steve Ross is offering you a paycheck. I'm offering you a part of the business."
Duke stood up, buttoning his jacket. He knew he had him. After all, Nolan was a gambler at heart.
"But here's the deal," Duke added, his voice hardening slightly. "You take the equity, you stay. You run the shop. And you never, ever take a meeting with Kinney again."
"If they call again, you tell them to call me."
Nolan looked at the stock transfer.
"I'll tell him to go to hell," Nolan grinned.
"Great idea."
___
Sort of Writers block but I tried to write as best as i could