West of Paradise (29 page)

“It's a travesty. To create a monument to the personification of what's foul in the film business.”

“Maybe he wasn't all that bad.”

“There's this young woman who's Fitzgerald's granddaughter, and she wants to write a book about Drayco, find his inherent humanity. Unearth what was noble about him.”

“You see?”

“I'm trying to get her to write a screenplay instead,” Victor said, letting her hands move over him, having calmed himself sufficiently to want her again.

“You're just such a mover and shaker,” Alexa said, her head moving down to where it, too, could move and shake.

*   *   *

Now that Norman Jessup had a real detective on the track of Tyler, he was free to resume what had brought him to New York. Not free, really. Fettered. Unable to breathe easily, he could hear the air roiling in his lungs every time he thought about Sarah Nash. He had a flunky posted down the hall from her room between her and the elevator. Before she could leave the hotel, Norman would be alerted.

He'd slept in his clothes, the clothes he'd gotten especially for shadowing her: a dark sweatsuit with a hood, in case she went out in the middle of the night. But apparently she was more relaxed about her bird-dogging than Norman was, not even leaving her room until after eleven in the morning.

His limo followed her cab. To his kind of sentimental horror, he found she was heading for his old neighborhood, the place where he had once lived in a brownstone with Paulo.

There was something nostalgic about it, heading into Turtle Bay, remembering how young he had been. It was a beautiful street, even with the third world city that much of New York had become, the garbage that littered the sidewalks in front of the best addresses happily absent here. Slender little trees in a line down to Second Avenue marshaled the pavement, standing erect, growing from well-tended patches of earth, curled iron gates protecting the bases. Even as early in the spring as it was, small buds of green pimpled their branches, not quite at the point of bursting into leaves. Paulo on the brink of his blossoming.

Nostalgia gave way to anxiety as Sarah's cab stopped. She got out and looked at a piece of paper in her hand, checked it against the number of the house in front of her. What was she up to? The place he had lived with Paulo was almost down to the far corner, twenty or maybe thirty brownstones away. But she was starting with the first house on the block. Clearly she was checking out their old environs. Maybe she wasn't sure exactly which building it was.

As though in confirmation of his suspicions, Sarah rang first the bell on the house in front of her, and then, after talking to a man who seemed to be the super, moved to the next. But how had she even found out the street where Paulo and Norman had lived? He'd never bought the apartment, only rented, and then under Paulo's name. Not that many people had been invited to visit them, Norman having gone through a period of seclusion while in New York. Passion for and housekeeping with Paulo had been his main recreation while in Manhattan. He had saved all his bonhomie for California. Always he'd been a little fearful that someone might try and steal Paulo from him as he had done with Winsett. Over the boy's assurances of loyalty and equal—even greater—love, Norman had still thought it circumspect to keep their household closely sealed.

Reaching for the car phone, he dialed Bunyan Reis. Bunyan was the one in town who knew more gossip than anybody, including Liz Smith.

“My lines of communication must be down,” Bunyan said. “I never even heard you were in town. You must have Draculaed your way in. Wearing a cape. Under cover of darkness. What brings you to our still in many ways fair city?”

“I've bought
Pilgrims!
” Norman said, as though success in the entertainment business were his primary motivation, which it no longer was. His principal goal had become revenge. But revenge flooded the head and the heart with heat, and he felt slightly chilled. Fear. What did she know? What was she finding out?

“Well, that's very upbeat,” said Bunyan. “I was a little concerned that the wind might be out of your sails.”

“Why?”

“The lovely Sarah Nash, I'm afraid, knows what happened to Paulo.”

Panic gripped Jessup's throat. “How could she possibly?”

“I can't imagine. But she does.”

“Nobody knows but the ones who actually did it.” Norman could hardly breathe. “And you.”

“May I be hanged by the testicles if I breathed so much as a word. You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather when she told me.”

“Told you?”

“She
knows,
” Bunyan said, darkly.

“
What
does she know, you silly queen?”

“My, my,” Bunyan said. “The pot calling the kettle African-American.”

“Cut the wit shit! What did she say?”

“She said…” And here Bunyan paused. “I'm trying to remember the exact words. Yes. I think this is they. Most people would say ‘this is
them.
'”

“Will you goddamn get to it?”

“She said, and I quote…” He waited.

“I don't know how you've lived this long,” Norman fumed. “Why somebody hasn't killed you.”

“She asked me if I wasn't disturbed by what was done to Paulo.”

Norman listened to the pounding of his own blood in his ears. “When did she say that?”

“A few days ago. When we had lunch.”

“You had lunch with Sarah?”

“I did it for you,” Bunyan said. “I thought I could find out what exactly she was up to. It wasn't as if I gave her any information.”

Norman slammed down the phone. It was a little hard to do with a car phone. The instrument fell from its holding niche on the side of the window to the floor.

“Norman?” Bunyan's squeaky voice cried from the carpet. “Norman?”

Norman pressed the button that opened the soundproof window between himself and the driver. “How do I shut him up?” he asked.

“Press end,” the driver said.

“What a good idea,” Norman said. “Take me back to the hotel.”

*   *   *

He waited until he was in his room and the doors were closed and nobody could hear to call Perry Zemmis. It was only nine on the coast, but Zemmis was still hungry, pushy, after twenty-five years of success, so he was already in his office. He took Norman's call immediately, like he'd been waiting for it, as he probably had for most of those twenty-five years.

“Well, I knew the day would come when you'd want to do business,” Zemmis said. “You want to partner with me on the Fitzgerald book?”

“No,” Norman said.

“You got my invitation to the garden party? I think he's a shoo-in, but we could certainly use your support, and if I make ambassador—”

“That's not why I'm calling,” said Norman.

“Oh,” Perry said.

“I know you're a guy who can be trusted to take care of business,” Norman said.

“Well, considering the source, I am truly honored by that statement,” Perry said fatuously. “I only wondered why it was taking so long for you to come around.”

Norman waited a moment. “I want a contract.”

“I'll have my lawyer write it up the minute we're off the phone. What's the contract for?”

“Not for. On.”

“On?” asked Zemmis.

“I want a contract on Sarah Nash.”

“Now just a minute. What makes you think I'm involved with anything like—”

“Don't fuck with me, Perry. I already have someone fucking with me. You handle this, and I'll get you whatever you need.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

“We don't want anything in writing,” Norman said. “You have my word. Whatever you want. The minute Sarah Nash is out of the picture.
Any
picture.”

“Consider her on the cutting-room floor,” said Perry.

People Who Live in Glass Houses

The truth, of course, was that Sarah Nash knew little or nothing of what it was Norman Jessup was trying to conceal. But as the truth set some people free, fear of it enchained others. And a hunger for scandal, even treachery on a criminal scale, kept some going.

As she canvased Jessup's old neighborhood for the thread of information to weave into a rope to hang him, Sarah felt revitalized. Being feted or hated for what she had written, depending which coast she'd been on, had taken a great deal out of her. Once she had been a very attractive woman, fetching even, a British beau had said of her. But being disliked had toughened her expression, disliking had tightened her mouth, giving her a tendency to purse her lips as antipathy had pursed her spirit. Cocaine had coarsened her features, while the restoration of her nasal passages had left her nose slightly flattened. Champagne from celebrations in her honor when the book had been a hit broke blood vessels across her once-unblemished face. Now, there was a skeptical double line between her brows, a frown that was built in. Her dermatologist used collagen to fill it, but the pain of the needle, skilled as he was, had been so severe she thought it better to leave it alone.

Besides, other problems she had with her skin were more pressing than vanity. Vanity was for those whose lives and livelihoods depended on their looks. She had no conscious wish anymore to attract anyone who might consider her fetching. She was a writer now, contemptuous of those who felt imperiled by aging, even as she fretted and occasionally agonized over the eczema that had sprouted on her skin. No place that it really showed, like her face, but on her upper arms beside her breasts, and occasionally on them. No sooner would one small eruption be calmed by the salve that the doctor prescribed for her than another would come out someplace else.

Her masseuse, who was one of those New Age people, had given her a book called
You Can Heal Your Life,
by Louise Hay. Sarah didn't know which of the two women was battier, although she would never breathe a word to her masseuse, as the woman was sensitive and had a great touch. Even as she disdained the book, she couldn't help looking through its small encyclopedic listing of ailments and what caused them. Eczema, it read, was “breathtaking antagonisms.” No shit.

Well, she would not go so far as to murmur any of the mantras that were supposed to counter the affliction. Her skin would clear up as soon as she put Norman Jessup away.

She rang the superintendent's bell on the next-to-the-last house on the north side of the street. Nobody so far on the block had known of the once-happy couple, though she had had the discretion to leave Katharine Hepburn's bell unrung.

The superintendent/janitor answered the door. “Can I help you?” he said. He was a wizened man with a fringe of gray and brown hair, wearing a dirty blue T-shirt, stretched-out jeans, and soiled sneakers. But his hands looked clean, so she offered hers, introducing herself.

“I'm trying to find an old friend,” she said. “Did a Paulo Nerys ever live here?”

“The dancer kid?” the janitor said.

Excitement and relief washed over her at the same time; even as she felt one tiny mound near her elbow recede, another bloomed. “That's right,” she said.

“Yeah. They had the back apartment, terrace and garden, him and his friend.”

“Norman Jessup?”

“Yeah. Some kind of Hollywood producer, right?”

The worst kind, she didn't say. They could put all the rap they wanted on Larry Drayco, but at least he'd been straight. No matter how devious a man had been, he was still one up on a deviant. “Right.”

“They lived here for around six, close to seven years.”

“When did they move out?” Sarah asked.

“Winter, last year. I kept the apartment vacant for a while, in case they changed their minds and came back. They seemed pretty nervous about leaving, not sure what they were going to do. They were good tenants. I wasn't really in a hurry to get anyone else.”

“Where were they moving to?”

“I don't know. Told me to deep-six the mail. If it was something looked urgent for Mr. Jessup, to send it to his lawyer. Some guy named McCallum. I have his address.”

“No. I know how to get in touch with him,” Sarah said, stopping him. “What about if somebody wanted to reach Paulo?”

“They didn't mention it. Paulo didn't tell me to forward his mail. He didn't say nothing. It was like that with those two. Jessup was a take-charge guy, so he always did the talking. They kept pretty much to themselves. Didn't make trouble, or have
those
kind of parties, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” said Sarah.

“The kid was really quiet.” The janitor half smiled. “I call him a kid. He was maybe a kid when he first came here, but I guess you could say he was a man when they left. He still looked like a kid, though. One of those tiny guys with a face you could never tell how old he was, you know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean,” said Sarah.

“But neither of them ever made any trouble. Paulo, he was like … what's that big thing in Egypt that sits in the desert?”

“The sphinx,” Sarah said.

“Yeah, right, the sphinx. Jessup called him that once in front of me. Told me that meant he was silent, but there was a lot going on underneath.”

“I'll bet,” said Sarah.

“But the day they moved…” He hesitated.

“Yes?” Sarah urged him.

“He was quieter than usual. He seemed sort of … I don't know. Scared.”

“Was there ever any violence between them?”

“No. Nothing like that. They was the perfect couple, if that kind of thing don't bother you. It don't bother me. They didn't bother anybody. They really cared about each other. Like they say, whatever gets you through the night.”

“Right,” Sarah said. “But you have
no
idea where Paulo went?”