The Man Who Cancelled Himself (7 page)

“Okay, wait,” she jabbered on. “So, like, are you?”

“Are I what?”

“Gay. They begged me to find out.”

“Not in any known sense of the word. I’m divorced, actually.”

“I
know
all about that. Hurt?”

“Only when I laugh, which hasn’t been a big problem lately.”

“No, no. I meant, is Bill Hurt the baby’s father?”

I sighed inwardly. “I only know what I read in the papers.”

“No way! Merilee won’t even tell
you?”

“Merilee especially won’t tell me.

“So, like, are you in play? There are a lot of women here who would—”

“No, I’m afraid I’ve been kicked clear out of bounds. You’ll find me out in the parking lot under the team bus, covered with cleat marks.”

She nodded animatedly, her big hair nodding right along with her. Forget about mousse. This girl used epoxy cement. “Cool. I’ll pass it along. See, there aren’t many eligible men around this place. They’ve all been after Bobby for years. He’s a major bunny, even if he is full of blah-blah-blah.”

“Blah-blah-blah?”

“Anger. Plus he’s kind of wocka-wocka in the commitment area.” Her glance fell under my desk on Lulu. “No way! You have a dog!”

“I understand you’re the staff pet specialist.” Annabelle fell to her knees and began to stroke Lulu.

“Pets and kids. And I’m, like, desperate for new material. Mind if I follow her around and take notes?”

“That’s really up to her.”

Lulu yawned in Annabelle’s face. Possibly her most definitive response. Certainly her most noxious.

Annabelle jumped back from her. “Shit, her breath!”

“She has rather strange eating habits.”

“Okay, wait. What about Rusty?”

“I’m not familiar with his eating habits.” She shook her head at me. “No, no. I mean does she get along with other dogs?”

“They’ve never complained before. Why?”

“Because Rusty’s built like a truck and I’m, like, he’s
vicious.”

“I assumed that was just his character in the show.” Annabelle let out a playful shriek, the sort you’d hear coming from a thirteen-year-old’s slumber party. “No way! Haven’t you noticed he never does any scenes with The Munchkins? Just Lyle? That’s because their mom, Amber, is scared shitless he’ll eat them. For, like, real. That dog’s
mean.
Also superterritorial. Rusty may not be cool about another dog being around the studio. That’s why I asked.”

“Well, we’ll just have to play it by ears.”

Under the desk, Lulu snuffled at me indignantly.

Annabelle frowned at her. “Now why’s she doing that?”

“She’s a bit sensitive about her appearance.”

“Oh. Well, Rusty won’t be around anyway until we do blocking on Thursday. Lyle doesn’t like having him here because of ticks and—” She stopped. “Whoa! I’m, like, wait a minute. She
understands
you?”

“She likes to think so. I prefer to think she misses my subtler nuances. And there are many.”

She shook her head at me in disbelief. “I love this!”

“You won’t after a while, believe me.”

“But I can
use
this!” She stuck her purple lower lip out. “If Rusty can play it. He has his limits—his forte is chasing Lyle into the laundry room and barking at him menacingly.”

“How are The Munchkins to write for?”

“A snap. They just play themselves, which is all any munchkin can do. You like kids?”

“In very small portions. Shish kabob is ideal.”

“Well, Casey and Caitlin are real sweet. Real normal. Not like stage kids at all. Amber won’t let them get swelled heads. She’s a totally gifted director herself. She did that biker
Hamlet
with Luke Perry for Shakespeare in the Park.”

“I understand Amber was Lyle’s assistant director for a while.”

“Second season,” Annabelle confirmed. “So she could learn the technical side of sitcoms. And be around her kids. Plus Lyle promised her he’d eventually let her direct some episodes for him. I’m, like, fer shure. They were getting it on, was what that was about. Amber was nuts for Lyle. Even wanted to marry him after she and her husband split. Only Lyle dumped her cold. Fired her, too. A classic double boning. But that’s nothing unusual. Lyle’s exes are all over this place. His ex-wife, Fiona, is his costar. And then every season he picks out a new babe to doink.” She counted them off on her tiny fingers. “First season was Marjorie Daw from the network. She’s real sweet and an unlikelier pair you never saw. Second season was Amber. Last season was Katrina, who’s already, like, history. Count on it. New season, new babe. My money’s on Naomi Leight. She’s ready, willing and doable. Major snoop, too, which he gets off on, being that he’s so paranoid.” She glanced at her wristwatch, one of those with the cat chasing the mouse around the dial that they sell on late-night TV. “I don’t know what it is about the man, but for six months he’s a total goner. He’s found the greatest woman in the world. She’s perfect. He loves her. They move in together, start talking about doing a family together. And then, wham, he breaks it right off. And starts all over again with someone else.”

“He seems to have no shortage of takers,” I observed.

“Hey, most men are dull,” she explained. “If there’s one thing Lyle isn’t it’s dull. Plus he’s a star. And you do get a house.”

I tugged at my ear. “A house?”

“Yeah. When he breaks it off I’m, like, he feels so guilty he moves out and lets you stay. Other guys give jewelry or a car, maybe a mink. Lyle gives a house. The man must be broke. He’s given away millions in property. Fiona got their duplex on West Tenth Street. Worth over a mil. Marjorie got the penthouse on Riverside. Another mil, easy. Amber got the loft in Tribeca. Katrina’ll get that humongous dump out in East Hampton, guaranteed. She knows it, too. That’s why she doinked him in the first place. Not a bad gig, considering. But I’m, like, no way. He’s too terrible a person.”

“In what way?”

There was a rustling noise out in the hall. Annabelle shot a glance that way, instantly on alert. No relaxed place this. “So you do feelings, huh?”

“Feelings,” I affirmed. “Nothing more than feelings.”

“I’ve always admired feelings specialists,” she confessed. “Wouldn’t mind being one myself when I’m older. How’d you get there? By doing a lot of living? Having your heart stepped on a few dozen times?”

“Something like that.”

“And you’re doing Lyle’s book, too.”

“I am.”

She lowered her voice. “We’ll have to do lunch today while The Boys are in rewrites. I’ll give you the straight dope on everybody. I can’t keep my mouth shut, in case you didn’t notice. Bobby’ll join us, too, if he gets here. He’s usually late on Mondays. You’ll like Bobby. He’s real perceptive.” She glanced down the hall again. “Ah, good. The Boys are here. Let’s go say hello. “C’mon, Lulu. Come meet The Boys.” Lulu stirred under the desk. “God, she’s so
great!”

“Careful,” I cautioned. “Her head swells easily.”

“But, I mean, she looks so profound.”

“Just a profound case of gas. Trust me, I know about these things.”

“Because you’re a feelings specialist?”

“Because she sleeps on my head.”

The Boys’ office was a lot bigger than mine. Big enough for a pair of desks set back to back, a sofa, two chairs, a TV monitor, and a human skeleton, which hung from the ceiling with a gorilla mask over its head. The Boys were going over the script at their desks. Both of them were short. Both of them were clad in Ralph Lauren polo shirts, pleated khakis, and moccasins. Preppy-casual is the standard sitcom uniform. Has been since the heyday of Grant Tinker, who was half-hour television’s answer to Babe Paley. Muck and Meyer were not boys. They were in their forties. But comedy writing teams are always called The Boys. Have been since the first caveman delivered the first spit take. Just as young writers like Annabelle and the absent Bobby would always be The Kids, though I’d heard that that one was currently being edged out by the New Yids on the Block.

“Say hello to Stewart Hoag,” Annabelle commanded them. “And be nice!”

Marty Muck jumped to his feet and shook my hand, all smiles and geniality. He was tanned and fit and robust, with wiry black hair and even white teeth and a prosperous, contented air about him. Marty seemed very West Coast to me, possibly because he reminded me of a Beverly Hills dentist who once had both of his hands in my mouth. That guy never stopped smiling either. “Glad to have you, Stewy.”

“Make it Hoagy,” I said.

“As in Carmichael?” he asked.

“As in the cheese steak.”

“Cheese is a funny word,” he declared, veteran shticktician to novice. “You can always get a laugh with the word cheese. Also goulash, guacamole, spackle, argyle, and Rosemary Clooney. Say hello to my partner Tommy.”

“Hello to my partner Tommy,” I said.

“Now
that
particular gag,” Marty advised, “got a laugh
all
the time for Burns and Allen. But then
Laugh-In
used it a hundred times in three months and killed it stone dead.” He paused, pondering it. “Of course, that was twenty-five years ago. Maybe it’s coming back and you’re ahead of the curve.”

“I generally am.”

He turned to his partner. “What do you say, Tommy?”

Tommy Meyer didn’t say anything. Or crack a smile. Or get up. Just slumped there in his chair, sizing me up with a suspicion that bordered on outright hostility. Tommy was a sour, cadaverous, dead fish of a fellow, his skin translucent and faintly bluish, as if he’d been left dead out in the snow for several days. He had chalky lips and limp gray hair with a vivid patch of white at the forelock, like a tuft of cotton. He looked uncommonly frail and brittle and ill-nourished next to his partner. It was as if one were feeding off of the flesh of the other—the writing partner of Dorian Gray. He gave me a brief nod, then turned stiffly back to his script, his joints creaking arthritically. “You’re helping Lyle with his book,” he said. More an accusation than a question.

“That’s correct,” I said. “An examination of his life and career. His arrest, too, of course.” I tugged at my ear. “Lyle contends he was set up.”

Tommy’s eyes flickered at me.

Marty motioned for Annabelle to shut the door. She did. He said, “Set up how?”

I sat on the sofa. Lulu explored. The skeleton she steered clear of. “He says someone called the police on him.”

“I’m, like, who?” wondered Annabelle.

“Someone who wanted to ruin him,” I replied. “Someone from the show, to be exact. Possibly even one of you.”

The Boys exchanged a look. Marty shook his head sadly. “He’s lost it. The man has totally lost it.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Hoagy, no one purposely sets out to get their own show thrown off the air,” he reasoned. “No one
wants
to be unemployed. Christ, he can’t really think that’s what happened.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

“I think,” Tommy replied, “the man went to a dirty, disgusting movie that had a lot of dirty, disgusting people doing dirty, disgusting things to each other. I think that he got horny and pulled out his chicken so as to choke it and he got caught. Face it, he’s your basic skeegee guy. I ought to know—I’m your basic skeegee guy.” And drier than dry. The man was the Gobi Desert. He positively exuded bleakness. It was an odor not unlike stale beer.

“He says he’s living clean now,” I mentioned.

“When a comic says he’s living clean,” said Tommy, “he means he’s no longer injecting directly into the vein.”

“He says he’s off coke.”

“Hey, you’re not actually
buying
him, are you?” asked Marty, brow furrowing with concern.

“No, he’s buying me. Though I prefer to think he’s renting me, month to month.”

“Well, you jump in when you feel comfortable,” said Marty with a reassuring grin. “We’re all friends here.”

“A common enemy will do that to an otherwise diverse group of people,” Tommy explained.

“Tommy’s overselling a bit,” Marty apologized. “We’re actually kind of divided in our feelings about Lyle. Some of us dislike him—”

“And the rest of us can’t stand him,” Tommy cracked. “A lot of writers just plain hate him on sight.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Saves time,” Tommy fired back bluntly.

“One time,” recalled Annabelle, “I’m, like, he actually stuck a table draft down his pants and farted on it in front of the whole cast and crew.”

“I still haven’t decided if that improved it or not,” muttered Tommy.

“I suppose you feel sorry for him, Hoagy,” Marty suggested tactfully.

“I don’t feel anything,” I said. Though I was starting to feel Marty overplaying the nice guy bit. “I’m here so I can get to know him.”

“I wish you luck,” said Marty. “I don’t think anyone’s ever been able to
know
Lyle. Not really. You reach a point with him and he pushes you away. Christ, I’ve known him, it must be twenty-two years, and he’s never been to my house. Never given me a birthday present. He doesn’t even know when my birthday is.”

“Because he doesn’t care.” Tommy shifted in his chair, joints creaking. He sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies when he moved. He pointed a crooked finger at me. “You worry me.”

“I worry myself.”

“We tell you what we really think about Lyle and he’ll just use it against us. The man’s been known to pull some major vindictive shit on people.”

“We can make it off the record.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Tommy demanded.

“You don’t,” I replied. “But you can.”

“Of course you can,” echoed Annabelle. “Would those eyes lie to you?”

She was referring to Lulu’s eyes, not mine. But I’ll take support wherever I can get it.

Tommy Meyer peered at me skeptically. I had expected this. Because I was one of them, but I wasn’t. An awkward role, no question.

“Okay, wait, do we dish or don’t we?” Annabelle wondered.

The partners made silent eye contact with each other. Before Tommy turned back to me and said, “Main thing you should know about our grand-high-exalted mystic ruler is that he’s big, he’s fat, and he turns everything into a major battle.”

We do dish. I had expected this, too. Because when it comes to dishing I’ve found most people can’t help themselves.