The Cutting Room (14 page)

The informality of Beth’s voice, her use of my first name, had a plaintiveness that, in my haze, merely confused me.

“Roy?” she said. “Come home. The job’s over. Ben’s dead.”

PART 4

LOS ANGELES

It was the breakfast rush at Swingers. Annie Chin sat in her usual booth, finishing granola and reading over a stack of papers. Though Ben’s ex-assistant sported a hip new haircut, streaked with a bit of blond, her attractiveness was still more lifelike than the—admittedly amazing—female mannequins who surrounded her.

The mole on her cheek had now been surgically removed. And the scars on her wrists had all but healed.

“So, it wasn’t you?” I said.

I slid over a printout of Abner Cooley’s latest posting, about the shocking death of one of Hollywood’s richest and most mocked movie stars.

PRINT IT!

I guess we all have different definitions for what’s “natural,” but those close to the source tell me that Ben Williams’s death was hardly from the “natural causes” that authorities—and most media outlets—claimed. (What
is
a natural death for a forty-something-year-old, anyway?) My people tell me it was definitely something
un
natural in his system that caused Ben
mortal
pain.

Speaking of unnatural, studio spies allege that Ben’s unfinished film,
Terra Nova,
will be completed as planned, with a little script rewrite here and a little digital replacement of Ben’s face there. Jeez, if they’re going to replace Ben’s face, why not do it right and replace Ben completely with . . . oh, I don’t know, Orson Welles?

Abner’s struggle to control his irreverence was apparent. That he could still be so cheeky proved he had not yet caved in
completely
to the demands of studio bosses.

With a brief smirk, Annie slid it back.

“I haven’t contacted Abner in months.” She shrugged. “His source must have been someone else.”

“Who? Beth Brenner?”

Annie smiled now. “Oh, I think she’s been a little too busy for that.”

With the last payment that Beth had cabled me in Spain, I had probably been meant to return to New York, and never to be heard from again. But I was in too deep to pull out now. I had flown to L.A. and taken a low-budget room at the funky motel above Swingers itself, determined to stretch out the money for as long as possible.

The first thing I did was phone Jeanine, who did not return my calls. Perhaps she had been burned by my lovesick conversation from Spain, but Jeanine’s feelings were always hard to understand, even by herself. Annie Chin, however, wore her feelings on her sleeve, pardon the cruel pun.

My harsh break from Erendira still fresh in my mind—and on my face—I felt strangely allied with Annie now. She had also loved not wisely and, probably, from the brevity of her affair, not too well, either. We were both veterans of unforgettable one-night stands.

Still, Annie was bearing up better than I was, and her lover’s fate was more final than mine was. The pages on her table were students’ papers, not a screenplay.

“I figured,” she said, “that now I’d work with people who have good reason to act like children.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” She seemed genuinely pleased with herself.

“Well,
I’m
still looking for that thing,” I said, acting sheepish about not being able to “let go.” “And I was about to go back to Ben about it.”

“Bad luck.”

“I’ll say.”

Annie was either glad that Ben was dead or was just hiding deep feelings behind flippancy. I suspected the latter. Or maybe I just hoped it wasn’t all she was hiding. I decided to be blunt.

“Do you know anything more than what Abner printed?”

She did not hesitate. “Only what Ben was taking. I guess he didn’t have the heart for crack cocaine. Or at least for ‘C.C. Ryder,’ the new kind of crack that’s around. That’s all I know, and all I need to know.”

As she spoke, Annie cursorily graded a paper, circling some grammar with a red pen. Maybe she really
didn’t
give a damn anymore, or the death had added closure for her.

“Crack,” I said, genuinely surprised. “Who’d he get it from?”

“Probably his favorite dealer, Stu Drayton.”

“Oh, right.”

There was silence as Annie moved onto the next paper. She even hummed a little, instinctively touching the place where her mole had been.

“So, what happened to
your
face?” she said, not looking up.

My smile accentuated my bruises. “I had a love affair.”

She took this in. “And what’s next? Back to New York? What do you do there, anyway?”

We were getting to know each other. “I put out a little newsletter about the movies,
Trivial Man.
”

Annie stifled a laugh. “Well, that’s a contribution to mankind.”

Now I was annoyed. As were many recovering alcoholics, Annie was being a zealot about sobriety or, in her case, abstinence from show business. I had not yet kicked my addictions—to Erendira or to
Ambersons.
So I used the pitiless wiles of the junkie to lure Annie back to her old habit for my own purposes.

“I was hoping to go to the service today,” I said, to tease her. “But I need to know where it is.”

She looked up slowly. “You want to go to Ben’s memorial service?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Well, that’s an easy one. It’s at Rosie Bryant’s mother’s house in Bel Air. The house that Rosie bought for her. A little bigger than the trailer the old lady was used to.”

I smiled. “You seem pretty familiar with the place.”

“Sometimes I picked the kids up from there.”

“It’s too bad I don’t drive.” I was shameless now.

“Yes,” she said, fighting me. “That is too bad.”

It was up to me to make it irresistible. “What time is your class?”

Annie was amused by my single—or absent—mindedness. “It’s Sunday, for God’s sake.”

“That’s right, I forgot. Well, surely,” I said, “you’d want to pay your respects?”

She took it as a test of her new resilience. Annie’s eyes stayed dry. Slowly, she began to bunch up her papers. “Why not?”

“Great.”

She waited a second. Then she started to signal for the waitress, defiantly. I glanced at the clock: ten of eleven. The newspaper said the service started at noon.

Suddenly feeling worried, I decided to reassure her of her own strength.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It won’t take long.”

Annie’s waving hand dropped down, the small scars still suddenly visible.

“It’s okay,” she said coolly. “Believe me.”

Annie stopped off at her place to put on something somber. She loaned me a black jacket that I suspected, from its high quality, had once been worn by Ben. Weirdly enough, it fit me perfectly.

Annie lived in a one-room apartment below Sunset Plaza, near the Viper Room and other hip haunts. There was a tall pile of cassettes stacked near her TV. Though they were turned away, I knew that every one of them starred Ben.

I thought about children taught by a woman so affected by a lousy actor who had seduced her once. Then I thought about a man who would manipulate her to avenge an actress who had once seduced
him
. Was I more ruthless now that I was seeking the
Ambersons
for Erendira? Things had gotten complicated.

Annie had a simpler question.

“How does this look?” she said, emerging from the bathroom.

The elegant black dress showed off her grown-up, real-world beauty. It was so flattering, in fact, that I didn’t wonder about her motive for wearing it. She wanted to put her indifference on display for Ben’s survivors.

She also wanted me to button up the back of it.

“Your fingers are so cold,” she said, with pleasure, as I did.

I felt a flicker of arousal as I blended Annie’s buttons with their holes, and she knew it. Annie was trying to prove to me definitively that she had moved on. I decided to let her.

Annie turned around, at the same time that I turned her. Her mouth met mine. And the dress, just fastened, began to come undone.

As we started to make love, maybe we were only playing roles. I was Ben Williams for her; she was Erendira for me. We were stand-ins for stars, and it was one more one-night stand.

But by the end, we had emerged as ourselves again, bit players, perhaps, but in more dignified roles. Annie even called me by my own name.

These were heady times for a trivial man.

“Here we are,” Annie said.

The big house was hidden behind hedges in a private road in Bel Air. By the entrance was an old guard in a gatehouse, who proudly kept a slew of paparazzi at bay. Apparently, he thought Annie was still in good standing with the Williamses. Happily, he waved her car through.

“Good old Frank,” Annie said, smiling, and shook her head.

A phalanx of fancy vehicles overflowed from the driveway into the exclusive street. As we pulled up, a few well-known actors dressed in black were streaming out of a limo, some holding on to others for strength. Annie kept up a narration of their real deficits and desires.

“Oh, look at that hypocrite,” she said. “He hated Ben.” Or, “I can’t believe she showed up, after what she said about him.” Or, “That dress really shows off your implants, babe.” Or, “Nice hair weave.”

Looking in her mirror, Annie checked the dark red lipstick that added the final chic touch to her ensemble.

“Let’s just leave it here,” she said, and stopped in a no-parking zone.

Without consulting the other, we each put on an attitude of having a right to be there. This meant walking quickly and casually, beside the stars, into the backyard.

There, in the piercing sun, fold-up chairs had been placed in rows before a microphone on a stand. Huge horse race–like flower arrangements stood everywhere. One wreath actually said,
HE CAUSED PLEASURE ON EARTH.

“I bet Webby Slicone sent that, to thank Ben for all the campaign donations,” Annie whispered, about the congressman. “
And
for introducing him to Stu.”

I cocked an eyebrow at this last piece of information. Then, turning to the left, Annie quieted down. There, sitting on chairs near the front, in party dresses and bows, their kicking feet stuck straight out and not reaching the ground, were Ben’s adopted daughters, ages three, five, and seven. A Latina nanny kept them company.

The children’s touching display of best behavior made Annie turn away immediately. Real suffering took the fun out of crashing the funeral and making catty remarks. Or maybe it just reminded Annie of her own loss, and for a second slowed her recovery. But just for a second.

“Look who’s over there,” she then said. “I bet this is the biggest audience
she’s
seen in decades.”

Indeed, it was the largest collection of celebrities I had ever witnessed. I felt digitally placed among them, as Ben would be in his final picture. I thought of Jean Harlow in
Saratoga
, Robert Walker in
My Son John
, and other stars whose deaths during production had caused sleight-of-hand to replace them in the completed film. Bruce Lee. Peter Sellers in the last Pink Panther.

We took seats. Then I saw another familiar face. Dick Burke’s.

Dressed as elegantly as ever, the bodyguard was staring right at me, leaning over my chair from the seat behind. His mouth was very close to Annie’s and my ears.

“Don’t make a fuss,” he said, smiling for the benefit of others. “Just get up and come with me. Now.”

Annie and I stood, very slowly. With Dick Burke’s big hands on our shoulders—and squeezing, none too gently, our necks—he guided us past the other guests. Through the backyard, he directed us around the edges of a pool, toward a poolhouse.

“How have you been?” I said, in a friendly way.

Dick Burke only grunted in response. “I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

When I flew back from Barcelona—in coach, cut off from Ben’s credit—I had returned to my original status of outsider, nerd, trivial man. Now, getting the boot from Dick Burke had reduced me even further to gatecrasher, nutcase, and scum.

I tried to restore what little credibility I had.

“Look,” I said, “I’m still just after the film.”

“
The Magnificent
—whatever the hell it was?” Dick Burke asked innocently, though I think he knew.

“Yes.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Dick Burke said wearily. “When this funeral’s over, I’m out of here.”

I turned to him. “Is that right?”

Dick Burke nodded. “As soon as that sleazy bastard’s in the ground.” He chuckled. “He don’t even breathe, baby.”

Annie looked at him, surprised. Dick Burke’s total disgust obviously made her suspect something about the man who was pulling us both along.

“You know, Dick,” Annie said, “the people outside the gate pay. Abner Cooley doesn’t.”

A glint of something shone in Dick Burke’s eyes, and I feared for both our lives. Then I saw that it was guilt, not rage.

“Hey, I would have been his source, too,” Annie said, to further impress him. “In fact, I used to be.”

Now Dick Burke looked at Annie with a deep sigh. He saw this for what it was: blackmail. Still holding me, his grip on her relaxed.

“Go on,” he sighed. “I won’t stop you.”

Annie waited a second, to see if I would be allowed to follow. That was not going to happen. So she flashed me a look of regret, and I flashed back one of gratitude. She kissed me, quickly, on the cheek. Then, her surprising survival skills giving me hope for her future, Annie walked back to her car, and all of those papers she had to grade.