The Boy Who Never Grew Up (15 page)

Bam Bam returned a moment later, very pale. Bernard, the maître d’, was with him, also pale.

“It’s your Corniche, Mr. Zorch,” said Bernard, with a pained expression. “Johnny, he shot out all of the windows and headlights.”

“Ah, me,” sighed Zorch. “Anyone hurt?”

“No, sir,” the maître d’ replied. “One other car was hit. A red Porsche.”

“My baby,” moaned Bam Bam, distraught. “One day old and already it’s got bullet holes in it.”

“Shall we call the police?” Bernard asked Zorch.

“Don’t bother, Bernard,” Zorch said coolly. “Boys will be boys. Still, I suppose we should go take a look.” He and Geoffrey got up from the table. So did I. “Want to have a look, Norb?”

“I wanna eat,” growled Schlom. “I don’t know what a guy has to do to get a hot meal around here.”

“Ultrasorry about all of this, Mr. Schlom,” apologized Joey Bam Bam.

“Disappear.”

“Yessir.”

I followed Zorch and Geoffrey out through the bar. I never made it to the door. Someone stopped me with a tug at my sleeve. It was Pennyroyal.

“Will you do it?” she asked me urgently.

“Will I do what?”

“Will you tell Matthew I said hello?”

“I’ll tell him.”

She shot a nervous glance at the door, afraid of Zorch seeing us together. Then she raised her chin defiantly and took a seat at the bar. I joined her. The bartender asked her if she wanted anything. She didn’t. I had a glass of Dom Perignon to kill the taste of Abel Zorch’s wine.

“How is he really?” she asked me.

“He’s tearing his hair out.”

“I’m serious,” she said.

“So am I.” My champagne came. I took a sip. It tasted even better than usual. “He says he’s over you, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Good,” she said firmly. “I hope he is.”

“Do you?”

Her eyes searched mine. I got lost in them a moment. They were easy to get lost in. So clear and blue. So innocent. So trusting. And she was so very, very good at playing this kind of game. She was an actress, after all, a magic mirror in which you see just exactly what you want to see. Whatever you want to read in an actress’s eyes—it’s in there. That’s one of the things that makes them actresses …
“What makes them so special, Meat?”

I wondered what Merilee was doing right now. I wondered if she was thinking about me. I wondered if she missed me.

“I still care about him,” she said, her lower lip starting to quiver again. “I tried so hard to make it work. So damned hard.” She tossed her head, sweeping back her golden hair, and looked around at the people. “He refused to eat here. I could never get him to come to this place.” She pulled a cigarette out of her purse. I lit it for her. “What’s he going to say about me? Is it horrible?”

I didn’t answer her. She wasn’t expecting an answer.

“Matthew … Matthew never understood me. Never knew me. He just created someone in his own head and tried to make me into her. He refused to let me be
me.
Can you see that?”

“I’d like to.”

She drew on the cigarette, glancing at the door. “It’s like he’s turned his whole life into some old Warner Brothers movie. Shelley, the chubby, good-natured best friend. Bunny, the fiercely protective mom with the heart of gold. Sarge, his tough, loyal gal Friday. Shadow, the weird old baseball player. Trace, the football hero—”

“And you?”

“I was Debbie Dale, the mythic golden girl, radiating this bizarre, trembly sort of purity. I’m
not
her. I couldn’t take being her anymore. I was wigging out. I’m not a bad person. I’m really not. I just had to get away from all of that. Get back some control over my own life. Do you have any idea what it’s like being a figment of someone’s imagination?”

“I believe so,” I replied. “I’m a figment of my own.”

She relaxed a bit, showed me her dimples. “Cassandra told me about you.”

“That must have been good for a laugh.”

“You’re her idol.”

“I know. Don’t remind me.”

“I’m not a bad person,” she repeated, more insistently this time.

“And I’m not here to judge you,” I said, admiring her bare, lovely throat. There were no lines etched in it. She had no lines anywhere on her face either. No age lines. No laugh lines. No pain. Nothing showed. It was as if she had never lived at all.

“Are you planning to go all the way?” she asked, gazing at me steadily.

“I generally try to stick it out.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m glad you’re glad to hear it.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me the usual question?” she wondered, a bit demurely.

“Which usual question is that?”

“What it’s like to be me.”

“You get asked that a lot?”

“A lot.”

“And how do you usually reply?”

“Usually I say that it hurts—every day, all day long. Only nobody ever believes me. Do
you
believe me?” She squeezed my arm with her small, brown hand. That edge of desperation again.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

She released me. “It’s really not fair,” she complained, stubbing out her cigarette. “I don’t deserve any of this. I’m just trying to get on with my life, make a future for my child. All I want is what I’m entitled to. Not a cent more. Is that so bad? But they’re all calling me names. Making me out to be this grasping, airhead megabitch. I know why, too. Because I’m a pretty little girl. Pretty little girls aren’t supposed to own fifty percent of a movie studio. That’s why everyone’s freaking out. That’s what this whole mess is about. Power. They don’t want me to have any. I’m someone to be patted on the head and fucked and fucked over. Not somebody who’s supposed to have any clout. I’m telling you, this business hasn’t changed since the days of Louis B. Mayer. A woman has to go to extraordinary lengths to get the slightest bit of clout. A woman has to—” She stopped herself. “Sorry,” she said skittishly. “I didn’t mean to unload on you. It’s just that my life happens to be a total fucking mess.”

I drained my champagne. “Why should your life be different from anyone else’s?”

She laughed. A sad laugh. Sad lady. “I don’t even know who I can trust anymore. I mean, I trusted Abel and he told the press
everything
.”

“There’s always Trace.”

“Get real,” she scoffed.

“Tried it. Vastly overrated. Look, if you’re asking me my advice …”

“I am,” she said flatly, her eyes searching my face.

“The best rule of thumb in situations like these is to trust nobody.”

“Can I trust you?”

“I’m not nobody.”

“Can I?” she pressed, anxiously.

Zorch came back inside now. He immediately spotted us there together at the bar. He didn’t like it.

“I’m at the house,” Pennyroyal whispered to me. “I’m a prisoner there. Call me. Help me—please.”

Zorch made his way over to us. “It seems the little laddie boy took out every single bit of glass in the damned car,” he reported, trying to sound merry, and failing. “I don’t know how you survived three movies with him, Penny. He wears thin so terribly fast.”

“You’re not exactly being nice to him, Abel,” Pennyroyal said disapprovingly.

Zorch showed her a thin smile. “I made him no promises. It’s his own fault if he got carried away.”

“It’s not his fault that he cares about you,” she argued.

“I can see I’m not going to win with you tonight,” he said lightly.

“That’s right, Abel, you’re not.” She went back to her table.

Zorch turned his hooded eyes on me. He looked like he had plenty he wanted to say, none of it nice. But all he said was, “Come, let’s eat.”

“By all means,” I said. “Let’s eat.”

I got back to the Four Seasons shortly before midnight. I took the Vette straight down to the garage and the elevator straight up to twelve like I had before, only this time a half-dozen media people were waiting there for me in the twelfth-floor hallway when the elevator doors opened—mikes thrust in my face, lights flashing, videotape rolling.

“
IF YOU COULD JUST TELL US HOW MATTHEW IS DOING.
”

“
A STATEMENT—
”

“
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE HIS MOOD?
”

Happily, Lulu was too tired to be up for any pub right now. She barked ferociously at them. She has a mighty big bark for somebody with no legs. It froze them momentarily, and gave us a chance to make a dash down the hall for our room. They followed us. I hurriedly unlocked the door and we slipped inside and I slammed it shut on them. Safe and snug for the night.

Almost.

Cassandra Dee was taking a bubble bath in my tub. “I don’t think Zorch is having ya followed, honey,” she informed me, nasally, as she turned the page of the script she was reading. “Nobody tailed ya when you left for din-din. I watched. Cute car, by the way.” She took a gulp of the diet Coke that was sitting on the edge of the tub, her belch reverberating in the tiled bathroom. Then she tapped the script. “Matthew’s new one—it was waiting for ya down at the concierge’s desk.”

I opened the bathroom door wide. It was uncomfortably steamy in there. “Little warm for a hot bath, isn’t it?”

“Not for me. I adore tubs.” She set the script aside and stretched out her legs, feet propped up on the faucet. They were long, narrow feet, and she painted the nails red. “So where’d ya eat, huh? Who with? Whatcha pick up?”

The phone rang. I answered it on my bathroom phone. It was a reporter. I hung up on him, called the switchboard, and asked them to hold my calls for the night. They said they’d be happy to. I hung up and said, “I don’t mean to be inhospitable, Cassandra, but what are you—?”

“I figured it was my toin,” she explained.

“For what?”

She stood up. It’s not easy to stand up in a tub without thrashing around like a hippo. Cassandra Dee was no hippo. She was all goil, long and graceful, breasts firm, nipples pink and perky. She looked fine standing there with my complimentary bath foam sliding slowly down her slick, wet flesh. She looked plenty fine. “To get caught with my pants off,” she replied coyly.

“I’m not Trace Washburn.”

“That’s just as well, honey—I don’t think my poor little tootsie roll could take it if you was.”

I grabbed a bath towel and held it out to her. “You have sixty seconds.”

“For what?” she asked.

“To get out. Or I sic Lulu on you.”

She shrieked—her brand of laugh. “You’re twisted. I like that about ya.”

“She’ll tear you to pieces,” I threatened. “All they’ll find of you is teeth and hair. Go on, show her, Lulu.”

Lulu bared her fangs, growling menacingly.

“Wait, wait, hold it,” cried Cassandra, fully goggle-eyed now. “You’re
serious
.”

“Every once in a while.”

She frowned, perplexed. “Yeah, yeah, shewa. Okay. Call her off.” She snatched the towel from me. “I don’t stick around where I’m not wanted. A doormat I ain’t. Geez.”

I left her in there to get dressed. My phone rang again. Another reporter. I hung up on him, called the switchboard and asked them, again, to hold my calls for the night. They said they’d be happy to.

Cassandra came out a moment later, fully clothed, flushed from her bath, clutching Matthew’s script. “I wanna know what’s wrong with me,” she said, stung by my rejection. “What, I’m not good enough for ya?”

“Like I said—I’m not Trace Washburn.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, I get it. You’re faithful to Merilee, aren’t ya? You’re true blue.”

“Blue, certainly.”

“Gawd, that’s so fucking sweet. If any guy was that faithful to me, I’d swallow him whole.” She shook her head in amazement. “And it don’t even matter that she dumped ya, huh?”

“Good night, Cassandra.”

“G’night, Hoagy.” She went to the door and opened it.

“The script, Cassandra?”

She looked at me innocently. “The what?”

“The script.”

She glanced down at it in her hand, and laughed. “Yeah, yeah, shewa.” She tossed it to me like a Frisbee.

I caught it. “By the way, how is it?”

“I only got about halfway through it but so far it’s shit.”

The instant she was gone I called Sarge’s home number. Found it in the Bedford Falls directory. All I got was her machine. I tried her at the studio.

She picked up on the first ring. “Sarge talking,” she said briskly. “Go.”

“I’ve reconsidered your offer.”

“Which offer was that, Hoagy?” she asked cheerfully.

“I do need a bungalow.”

“To work in?”

“And live in.”

“When you need it?”

“Would now be too soon?”

“Come on over. I’ll tell Shadow where to send you.”

“Thanks. You ever go home, Sarge?”

“Baby, I
am
home.”

It took me ten minutes to pack, Lulu watching me in total dismay from the bed. This was her new turf, and I was already abandoning it. But it was fine with her as soon as she saw me gathering up her bowls. Together, we fled for Fort Bedford.

Robertson was quiet now, except for the occasional knot of people outside of the occasional restaurant. The wind had picked up, the hot, dry desert wind they call the Santa Ana. The air felt charged with electricity and my skin felt crackly, as if it itched on the inside. It would be blazing hot again tomorrow.

A couple of lights were still on in the big white main building. Floodlights illuminated the gate. Shadow Williams sat there in his booth browsing through Thorstein Veblen’s
The Place of Science in Modern Civilization.
Just a little light reading.

He slid the window open when I pulled in. “The Shadow do recall this particular gentleman and lady,” he said, showing me his gold tooth.

“How are you, Shadow?”

“The Shadow’s fine, sir. Just fine.”

“You work a rather long day,” I noted.

“Pulling a little overtime,” he said, nodding. “Got me my vacation coming up. Going to Phoenix to take a look at some very interesting architecture they got there by Mister Frank Lloyd Wright.”

“You’re into architecture?”

“The Shadow’s into many things.”

He directed me to the old writers’ court. I said good night and eased the Vette slowly along the silent alley between the soundstages, its pipes burbling in the quiet. Sarge was waiting for me outside my pink stucco bungalow, key in hand. I parked in the empty space by the door.