Way Down on the High Lonely (2 page)

You bet, Richard, if it means that much to you. “Please,” Neal said.

Richard took out a heavy, cream-colored cup and saucer and carefully poured the coffee.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“All right,” Richard announced, “you have the Beverly Breakfast—coffee, grapefruit juice, scrambled eggs with bacon, and the basket with a selection of wheat toast, muffins, croissants, and Danish. I’ll keep it in here over the heater, so be very careful when you take it out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Richard placed two folded newspapers on the foot of the bed.
“LA Times, New York Times
…”

God bless you, Richard.

“… and if there’s anything else, you will please call and let me know. Now, sir, if you wouldn’t mind just signing here …”

Richard approached his bedside and handed him the check and a pen. Neal signed, added a tip to the already substantial service charge, and handed it back.

“May I ask you a question, Richard?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Where am I?”

Richard didn’t even blink. He was used to serving breakfasts on many mornings after the night before.

“The Beverly Hilton, sir.”

“Keep going.”

“Beverly Hills … Los Angeles …”

“Yeah?”

“California.”

“I just want to hear the words, Richard.”

“The United States …”

“Of…”

“America, sir.”

“Beautiful, Richard.”

“Far out, sir.”

Far out, indeed, Neal thought as he took his first sip of coffee. Black coffee, strong coffee. His caffeine addiction came back like an annoying old friend.

Richard left and Neal took his coffee into the bathroom, which was larger than his cell back in China. He looked at the telephone on the wall, within easy reach of the toilet, and decided that the people who stayed in this place must be busy people. He turned the shower on and reveled in the smell of clean, hot water. He opened the little cardboard box of designer soap, took the little bottle of designer shampoo, and stepped into the shower.

He scoured himself with the soap, scrubbed his hair with the shampoo, and then stood under the steaming jet for a good five minutes longer than necessary. In China he had been treated to a weekly bath in a shallow tub full of lukewarm water that had been used by at least three other men before him, so this shower was a treat.

He stepped out reluctantly, lured by the scent of coffee, the image of scrambled eggs and bacon, and the thought of a newspaper. He found a white terrycloth robe in the closet, slipped it on, and went back into the main room to investigate breakfast.

Joe Graham was munching on his toast.

“How did you get in?” Neal asked.

“I could get used to this,” Graham mumbled. “A very clean place. I got an extra key from the front desk. Can I warm that up for you?”

Neal held his cup out and Graham filled it.

“You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” Neal asked.

“Careful with the plates, they’re hot. And you have a fine selection of croissants, Danish, and muffins.”

Neal took the hot plate out of the tray’s warmer, set it on the table, and lifted the cover. The smell alone brought him close to tears, but then again, he’d breakfasted on rice gruel for the past few years, except on holidays, when he’d been allowed to add peanuts to the gruel.

“Is your bacon nice and crisp?” Graham asked. “Mine was.”

Neal slipped a slice of bacon into his mouth. It crunched between his teeth. “I’ve dreamed about this,” he said.

“You’re a sick puppy.”

Neal selected a plain croissant, spread a sliver of unsalted butter on it, took a mouthful, and then dug into the rest of his breakfast. He didn’t even look up until all that was left on the plate was a shiny residue of grease.

Joe Graham watched in awe.

“You eat like you’re condemned,” he said.

“Let me see those Danish.”

Neal picked out an apricot pastry and devoured it in three bites.

“Now for the newspapers,” he said. “I don’t even know who’s president.

“Ronald Reagan.

“No, seriously …”

Neal tore into the papers while Graham wandered out onto the terrace and checked out the early morning swimmers in the pool below.

“Exercise is a wonderful thing,” he observed as the two young lady swimmers stretched limbs and torsos.

The doorbell rang.

“It’s for you!” Neal yelled, absorbed in
The New York Times.
He was on serious sensory overload.

Graham tore himself away from the view and answered the door. Richard was standing in the hallway beside a luggage cart.

“It’s your clothes!” Graham shouted to Neal.

“I don’t have any clothes,” Neal answered as he tried to figure out the changes in the Yankees’ roster from the box score.

“You do now,” Graham said. “Bring them in, kid.”

Richard rolled in the cart and started to hang up the clothes bags and put the boxes of shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes into a bureau.

“I don’t need any clothes,” Neal said. “I’m going to stay in this robe, in this room, for the next couple of months, eating and reading newspapers.”

“You got about an hour,” Graham said. “We have an eleven o’clock meeting.”

“Let’s meet on the terrace. I’ll bring the iced tea.”

“I don’t think so,” Graham answered. “We’re going to Hollywood.”

“They’re remaking Rumpelstiltskin and you got the part?”

“We’re going to meet Mommy.”

Neal looked up long enough to grab a blueberry muffin.

“What happened to Thurman Munson?” he asked, pointing at the Yankees’ batting order.

“Will you hurry up and get dressed?” Graham said. “The limo will be here in less than an hour.”

“The limo?”

“Short for limousine,” Graham explained.

“We
are
going to Hollywood, aren’t we?”

Neal felt a little stiff in his new clothes—khaki slacks, blue shirt, olive jacket, and cordovan loafers. He also felt a little stiff sitting in the backseat of the stretch limo, Joe Graham beside him and a fully stocked bar, a television, and the back of the uniformed driver in the front seat.

Neal found a club soda, filled a glass with ice, and sipped at it as he watched the scenery on Sunset Boulevard. “I’m into consumption these days,” he explained.

“I can see that.”

“You look good, Dad,” Neal said.

Graham glared at him.

Graham did look good, though, Neal thought, although somewhat awkward in a blue blazer, white shirt, gray slacks, and those black leather shoes with the little pinholes in them. A big change from his usual plaid jacket, chartreuse trousers, and striped tie.

“Levine made me go shopping with him at Barneys,” Graham explained grumpily.

“I like the look,” Neal said.

“You also like English poets,” Graham accused. True.

The limo pulled onto a side street and up to the gate of a film studio. Neal looked at the crazy quilt combination of nineteenth-century building facades, Quonset huts, and enormous movie billboards on the other side of the gate.

“I’ve seen movies about this,” he said.

The security guard at the gate approached the driver’s window.

“They have a meeting at Wishbone with Anne Kelley,” the driver said with no discernible effort at courtesy.

The guard gave him a placard for the windshield and opened the gate.

“Building Twenty-eight,” he said.

“No kidding,” the driver snapped, then steered the limo through the narrow streets of the studio, edging past a group of young men dressed as 1920s gangsters and a small platoon of harried production assistants carrying clipboards. He eased the big car into a slot marked guests-limo across from a big Quonset hut and opened the back door.

“Wishbone Studios, right through that door.”

“Oh boy,” Neal said.

The driver rewarded him with a wry smile. He had delivered any number of cocky screenwriters to this door and picked them up half an hour later when they weren’t so cocky, when that Oscar-winning screenplay in the briefcase had turned to just another pile of paper. If they didn’t hit the limo bar on the way in, they’d sure enough hit it on the way out.

Neal saw the big Hollywood sign on a hill behind the studio. It seemed less real than it did on television or in the movies, but maybe that was the idea. He followed Joe Graham into Building 28.

He’d expected the polished, plush setting of the stereotypical Hollywood mogul, but he didn’t get it. Wishbone Studios was stripped for speed. A utilitarian metal desk defined the edge of a small reception area. Posters of Wishbone’s latest films decorated the walls, which were colored in cheap blue industrial paint. The yellow carpet was worn with frenzied foot traffic. A small couch, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table littered with trade papers were set across from the desk to form a waiting area. On the other side of the reception room an open door revealed a small kitchen, where a Braun coffee maker struggled to meet the energy needs of the chronically undercaffeinated.

Graham went up to the desk.

“Joseph Graham and Neal Carey to see Anne Kelley.”

The receptionist looked like she belonged in a suntan oil commercial but was remarkably cheerful about sitting behind her desk. She checked her log book.

“Right, you’re her eleven. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

She got on the phone. Never releasing the dazzling smile she had fixed on Graham, she said, “Jim, Anne’s eleven is here.”

“Please have a seat. Someone will be here in just a moment,” she said to Graham. Graham sat down across from Neal, who already had plopped himself down on the sofa and was looking over a copy of
Film Weekly.

“Joseph?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, Joseph.”

A tall, thin young man came hustling down the corridor into the reception room. Open white shirt, jeans, immaculate tennis shoes. California blond hair, big smile.

“I’m Jim Collier, Anne’s assistant.”

He offered his hand to Graham, blinking for only a second at the sight of his artificial arm.

“I’m Joe Graham, this is Neal Carey.”

“Neal, hi, welcome. Come on down the hall. Anne is ready for you.”

Terrific, Neal thought. But am I ready for her?

They walked down to the end of the narrow hallway and into a room labeled simply kelley.

Anne Kelley sat behind a big desk that was stacked high with scripts and books. The office floor was likewise covered with piles of papers, books, magazines, and film reels. The ubiquitous coffee table was covered with papers, as were the chairs and the sofa. Ashtrays seemed to be everywhere, and they were all overflowing. Neal wasn’t at all sure that a good search of this room would not turn up the missing Cody McCall.

Anne Kelley was on the phone, and she didn’t look happy. Her long face was drawn further down in a frown. Her short hair was not quite blond, not quite silver, not quite brown, not quite combed or brushed. She wore a silk shirt under a denim jacket. A cigarette in the comer of her mouth puffed like a smokestack from a factory.

“I don’t care,” she was saying into the phone. “I don’t care. . . . So let her. . . . Fine. We’ll get somebody else.”

She hung up the phone, took a drag on the cigarette, and then snuffed it out.

“Could you be a real lifesaver and get me a Diet Pepsi?” she said to Collier. “You guys want anything?”

An oxygen tank, thought Neal.

A vacuum cleaner, thought Graham.

They shook their heads.

Jim Collier sprang up to get the soda. Anne came around from the desk and shook hands with Neal and Graham.

“I’m Anne Kelley, head of Creative.”

Nice work if you can get it, thought Neal.

Anne dropped into a chair across the coffee table from them. “You don’t mind if we don’t start until the Diet Pepsi comes, do you?”

Lady, I don’t mind if we don’t start at all, Neal thought.

“Take your time,” Graham said.

Jim came back with the soda, opened it, handed it to Anne, and took a chair in the corner. He flipped open a pad and had his pencil poised, ready to take notes.

In case Anne said something creative? Neal wondered.

Anne took a long gulp out of the can, sighed with relief, then turned her attention to Neal and Graham.

“So pitch,” she said.

Graham looked at Neal and shrugged.

“So give me the ball,” Neal said to Anne.

Jim coughed rhetorically. “Anne, these are the detectives.”

Anne Kelley blushed. “Oh, shit. Shit! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I thought you were writers, pitching a project!”

Something the cat dragged in.

“I’m Anne Kelley,” she repeated. “Cody’s mother.”

“And head of Creative,” Neal said.

“You’re the guys that Ethan Kitteredge sent,” she continued. “You’re going to find Cody.”

“We’re going to try,” Graham said.

“Ethan said that you’re very, very good.”

“Probably just very good,” Neal said as Graham gave him a dirty look, “but maybe not very, very good.”

“I’m really sorry,” Anne said. “I didn’t mean to mistake you for writers.”

“That’s all right,” Graham said charitably.

“So where do we start?” Anne asked.

Jim started to write.

“Hold on, Boswell,” Neal said. “No notes.”

“Jim memorializes all my meetings.”

Memorializes?
Neal thought. “That’s nice,” he said, “but notes have a funny way of showing up in funny places, like newspapers.”

Anne stiffened. “I trust Jim implicitly.”

Neal looked over at Jim. “No offense. I’m sure you’d never deliberately betray the queen here—”

“Neal, shut up,” Graham said.

“—but unless you have a shredder, or unless you take your notes on single pages on a hard surface, it’s better not to take them. I can’t tell you how many cases I’ve made—unfortunately—going through someone’s trash, or sneaking into someone’s office to look at the impressions left on a notepad or a desk blotter—”

“Neal …” Graham warned.

“Well, you taught me all this stuff, Graham,” Neal answered. He turned back to Jim. “Besides,
you
don’t need notes. I need the notes, and I keep them in my head. You want anything ‘memorialized,’ give me a call and I’ll recite it to you, okay?”