Sex and Violence in Hollywood (48 page)

Adam gently pushed her off him and sat up, got serious. “You know what’s going to happen after tonight, don’t you?”

“I get to move in here with you?” Alyssa asked with a grin. “This bed is heaven.”

“No, I mean, you’re going to be a celebrity, for one thing. As soon as you step outside of the building with me. You’re already a celebrity on the Internet, they just don’t know who you are. As soon as they find out, some of those reporters down there are going to camp outside your front door, follow you around, look into your life. And your parents’ lives.”

Alyssa sat up, too. “I’m going to be linked to my parents in the press? Shit.”

Horowitz already knew about Sunny’s and Mitch’s drug activity. Introducing Alyssa to the media would leave them vulnerable to discovery. Adam thought, Rona knows that. Why would she do this if it’s going to be a problem?

“Didn’t anyone tell you I was coming today?” Alyssa asked.

“Believe me, I’d remember that. Nobody even hinted.”

“You think they’re trying to keep it from you?”

Adam laughed. “That’s all they do here. I only know what Rona wants me to know.”

The first two fingers of Alyssa’s hand walked sneakily across Adam’s thigh. “You’re not as glad as you were a few minutes ago,” she said, a pout in her voice.

“Stick around.” He smiled as he lay back. “I feel some gladness coming on.”

* * *

Horowitz lit one of her beige cigarettes and inhaled deeply. The pleasure of it relaxed her whole face, as if it were her first smoke in a long while. She sat in a chair in Adam’s suite facing the open doorway of the bedroom, where he was dressing for dinner. Alyssa was doing the same thing in the suite next door.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to concern yourself with these things?” she asked.

“I’m thinking of Alyssa. I don’t want to do anything that’ll screw up her life.”

“I spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Huffman this morning and explained the situation to them. They are quite willing to curb their illegal activities until the trial is over.”

“You just called them up and said, ‘Hi, this is Rona, and look, I know you’re potheads, but could you knock it off until this thing blows over?’”

“All you need to know is that the problem has been taken care of. When will you learn to trust me?”

“It’s not that. I just don’t want to make trouble for her. Or humiliate her in front of the entire planet.” He was quiet for a moment, then muttered, “She’s all I’ve got left.”

“Alyssa will be fine. I discussed it with her, she knows what she is getting into.”

“Does she know you talked to her mom?”

“No, and you will not tell her. Just forget we discussed it and enjoy yourself tonight. Look, Adam, I do not have time to explain each and every detail of this case to you as we go along. If you have questions, talk to Lamont. Or Max.”

“But you’re the only one who doesn’t say, ‘Talk to Rona.’”

“I am not keeping anything from you. Anything important, anyway. If something comes up that I need to discuss with you, I assure you I will. Meanwhile, you need to work on improving your health, healing your wounds. You need to save your energy for when you really need it. And you will need it Adam, I assure you. I hope you will see that tonight.”

By the time Alyssa entered the room, Adam was finished dressing. She looked beautiful.

“It’s a Chanel,” she said, showing off the black-and-white dress provided by Horowitz. She stepped close to him, put her hands on his chest and stroked his lapels. “And don’t you look all handsome and studly. Like a movie star.”

“Take that back!” Adam said with mock indignation.

Horowitz stood and said, “I need to change for dinner. Please exercise self-control after I leave. There will be no sex before dinner. We do not want your clothes and hair mussed, and besides, Lamont will be here soon to get you. I will see you downstairs in a few minutes. Remain calm, do not panic. And remember everything I told you this evening, both of you. All right?”

Adam nodded and Horowitz left.

“I can’t believe she just told us not to have sex,” Alyssa said, shocked.

“Stick around long enough, you’ll hear her tell me how to fold the paper when I wipe.”

Lamont knocked on the door later and the three of them went downstairs. Horowitz waited in a corner of the lobby.

Adam did a double take when he saw her. She never wore anything but business suits, which he had come to think of as her uniform. But tonight, she wore a lovely peach dress. It was conservative, but displayed a hint of cleavage and gave her a shape he had not known she possessed.

“You both look wonderful,” Horowitz said with a quick twitch of a smile. “Our car just drove up. The reporters outside have thinned out quite a bit. They will be so disappointed to hear they missed us.”

Just outside the doors, the late-summer heat and thick, damp air immediately began their assault on Adam. After spending most of the last eight weeks inside the air-conditioned, pleasant-smelling hotel, he almost had forgotten what the air outside was like.

As Horowitz had said, there were not many reporters waiting outside with their cameras and microphones and tiny cassette recorders. Maybe a dozen. They looked so bored, so lost. Standing there with nothing to do. Nothing to report.

They were halfway across the sidewalk and the driver was opening the rear door of the limousine when the reporters noticed them. They sprang to life and rushed toward them in a flurry of footsteps and voices. Adam caught fragments of their shouted questions.

“Mr. Julian, are you—”

“Who’s the girl with—”

“Are you Nick and Nora?”

“—that you murdered your father and—”

“Who do you think blew up the—”

“In you go,” Horowitz said.

Alyssa and Adam got into the limousine first, followed by Lamont. The reporters immediately aimed their questions at Horowitz, who spoke as she slowly eased into the car.

“Excuse me, I am sorry, but we are not—no, really, I am sorry, we are not answering any questions right now,” she said pleasantly, smiling. “We would like to have a quiet dinner out this evening, and we hope you will respect that. Thank you. See you tomorrow at the press conference.” The driver closed the door solidly. She sat facing Adam and Alyssa.

“A quiet dinner out?” Adam asked. “Were you going for a laugh, there?”

“They like it when their targets are civil, or even friendly with them,” she replied. “So few are these days. They are such a sad lot, reporters. They have fallen so far out of touch with the people they originally were supposed to represent that they have forgotten what it is they are supposed to be doing. They are grateful to those who show them a little respect. Whether they deserve it or not. Always remember, Adam, you get more flies with honey.”

“I hate honey.” He leaned forward and looked out the window to his right. In the last gray light of day, the reporters and cameramen scattered, most of them talking on cellphones.

“Will they follow us?” Alyssa asked.

“They will try,” Horowitz said. “But they are already putting the word out. Tonight, the city of Los Angeles will undergo a tabloid dragnet. Those phone calls will lead to other phone calls, which will lead to more phone calls. Alerts will be sounded. Everyone from doormen to busboys will be looking for you two, hoping to be the first with the news, worth a handsome bonus from whatever paper or columnist or infotainment show keeps them on a retainer. There are always some photographers and press types outside Chinois, but by the time we arrive, their number will have doubled at least. And there will be many more by the time we come out.”

“Can’t we go out the back way and avoid them, or something?” Adam asked.

Horowitz gave him a quick, harsh look of distaste. “We did not come out tonight to avoid them. I thought you were paying attention, Adam. This entire evening is for their benefit.”

“Well, I hope they enjoy themselves,” Adam said.

It was common to see photographers and entertainment reporters loitering in and around restaurants frequented by celebrities. Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois on Main was such a place. Its small, simple, white-and-turquoise storefront in Santa Monica was so unobtrusive, it was easy to miss on the first pass. But not tonight.

“Let me guess,” Adam said, looking forward through the open divider and the limousine’s windshield. “That’s our welcoming committee.”

The limousine slowed as it neared a shifting clot of people on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. Stopped just before it reached the crowd.

“I took the precaution of assigning two of my security men to the restaurant,” Horowitz said. “I anticipate no trouble, but I believe in being prepared. You will recognize them when you see them.”

Leo got out of the limousine and walked around to the door, opened it for them.

“Follow me,” Horowitz said. She got out first.

Adam squeezed Alyssa’s thigh. Put his right foot out of the car. Rose as he leaned out.

Hands holding microphones consumed his field of vision in an instant. Faces with rapidly working mouths surged toward him. “Mr. Julian” was repeated so many times in the space of a second, it ceased to mean anything, became gibberish. Their questions fell in on him like the walls of a collapsing mine shaft, the rubble of words piling up around him, on him. They pressed in, swallowed up his air like swirling, lung-blackening coal dust.

Adam quickly lost all self-consciousness, unaware of the slack in his jaw, the panic in his oversized eyes. Cameras whirred and flashed, urgent voices yammered on. Question after question. But he could hear none of them. His body shrank inward and he tried to press his shoulders together to keep from touching the photographers and reporters as they moved in closer, closer. He frantically looked for Horowitz, but it was as if she had disappeared. He spun around, prepared to throw himself back through the car’s open door.

The limousine was gone. He was separated from it by more microphones and cameras and jabbering mouths. They surrounded him. Kept moving in, microphones stabbing at him.

Look at their faces, Horowitz had said.

Pale beneath the restaurant’s outdoor lights. Eyesockets scooped empty by black shadows.

At their mouths. Pay attention to the way they behave.

They were a staggering, groping band of black-and-white George Romero zombies. Filthy teeth with bloody bits of flesh stuck between them, lips moving in a frenzy over them. Their voices groaned, darkened lips formed words garbled by swollen tongues: What have you done, Adam Julian? What have you done?

Then, Horowitz had said, remember everything I have told you. And do it.

What had she told him? What was he supposed to do? He could not remember, could not think. His breath came faster and faster as they moved in on him even more, leaving him no space, no room to move, no way out. He turned his head in bird-like jerks, looking for Rona, Alyssa, Lamont, Leo, anyone familiar. All he saw were the cameras, the greedy faces of babbling strangers with hungry mouths eager to take bloody, jagged bites out of his life.

A large hand gripped Adam’s right elbow. A male voice said, “This way, Mr. Julian.”

Adam turned to the large man in a black suit who had appeared beside him and said, “Thank you, oh, Jesus Christ, thank you so much.”

Smiling, Horowitz sang out, “If you would just let us have a peaceful dinner, I will answer all your questions tomorrow.”

The crowd quieted down and seemed to back off a step. Cameras continued to snicker and whisper.

The man clutching Adam’s arm said, with no warmth, “Excuse us, excuse us, please.” Pulled him past the staring faces and jackhammering jaws.

They were inside the restaurant and the crowd was gone. Like stepping indoors out of a terrible storm. He leaned against a wall, breathless, as Alyssa took his trembling hand, stood beside him. Horowitz appeared in front of him, looked him over curiously.

“Well?” she said. “Do you understand now why I have worked so hard to prepare you for this?”

“I...I...” Adam gave up. He could not speak. His legs were so weak and shaky, he could barely stand. He simply nodded.

Beside him, Alyssa hugged his arm to her. Her brow furrowed above wide eyes. “Are they always like that?”

“Oh, no,” Horowitz replied. “In cases like this, they are typically much worse. When we leave, there will be at least three times as many, and they might not be so civilized.”

Adam had eaten at Chinois a few times. Always at his dad’s insistence and against his own will. Not because he disliked the food, but because he disliked eating with his dad. It was always busy, lunch or dinner. Tonight was no different.

The restaurant had been decorated by Puck’s wife, Barbara Lazaroff, in fuchsia, green, and black. Tile and brick walls, stone floors, and the oddest tables Adam had ever seen in a restaurant—turquoise and serpentine-shaped, they looked like giant squiggles of confetti.

Adam recognized a lot of faces in the crowd. Some looked familiar but he could not give them names. Most were faces he had been seeing around all his life. Charlton Heston and his wife dining with another couple. Jerry Bruckheimer with a boisterous group. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. A producer here, a director there, an actor from some prime time hospital soap opera. There were others, but Adam’s eyes skipped over them, a flat rock on glassy water. All of them laughing and talking and drinking.