“But listen, Rick, what you could do with Dean Hardeman, you could sort of gloss over your troubles with Billy and just give him a couple of nice, noncontroversial anecdotes to use in the book. It’s a publicity gimmick, after all, not an exposé.”
“Why should I?” Girodian said. “I don’t owe you any favors.”
“I know that, Rick,” Driscoll said carefully, “but maybe I can do a favor for you.”
A hesitation as the fish sniffed at the bait.
“Like what?”
“Like a featured spot in the Forum concert.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m booking the talent.”
“You want me to talk to this writer, you say?”
“That’s it. And maybe come around to the funeral on Saturday.”
“Billy’s funeral?”
“There’ll be TV coverage with on-camera interviews.”
“Hell, I wouldn’t miss Billy’s funeral.”
Driscoll did not feel easy about the way Rick Girodian sounded. He was not sure the young musician could be handled, but he knew Hardeman would insist on talking to him sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now so there would be time to undo any damage.
“If you can make it, Rick, Dean Hardeman and I will be at Waldo’s later tonight.” No need to mention that Al Fessler would be there too. “That will be a good opportunity for you and Dean to talk.”
“I don’t know. I promised to take my sister to a flick out in Westwood.”
“There’ll be time for you to come over to Waldo’s after the movie. And bring your sister. She’s old enough, isn’t she?”
“She’s old enough, but she doesn’t really dig that scene.”
“You won’t have to stay long.”
Another short hesitation. “Okay, we’ll be there.”
So much for that. Driscoll had no idea how Al Fessler would react to the idea of giving Rick a spot in the concert, but the bait had served its purpose. You had to handle a job like this one piece at a time and hope the whole thing would come together eventually.
Idly Driscoll turned some more pages in the notebook. Then he stopped and went back to the sheet where he had written the name of Joyce Hardeman. He was not eager to contact the author’s ex-wife and maybe stir up old animosities, but he had agreed to keep Hardeman happy. He dialed Information, listened to a recorded reminder of how much these calls cost, and finally was told that there was no listing for Joyce Hardeman. It was annoying, but since he had the free time, Driscoll decided he might as well go in person to the Westwood address Hardeman had given him and get the business over with.
In half an hour Driscoll was rolling north through the light evening traffic on the San Diego Freeway. He turned off at Wilshire and drove into Westwood. The apartment where Joyce Hardeman lived was one of the new ones with underground parking and 24-hour security guards. Signs of the times.
Under the watchful eye of the guard, Driscoll used the house phone to call from the foyer.
“Yes?” The woman’s voice was low-pitched and a little husky.
“Mrs. Hardeman, my name is Conn Driscoll. Your husband — your ex-husband, that is — asked me to stop by and talk to you.”
“Dean? Is he in trouble?” Not terribly concerned.
“No trouble. He’s in town to work on a book,” Driscoll paused to glance at the guard, “and he asked me to give you a message.”
“All right. Come up, please.” No clue in the smoky voice as to the woman’s feelings. “Let me speak to the security guard.”
The guard listened at the phone for a moment, then nodded to Driscoll that he was free to pass.
On the ride up in the elevator Driscoll conjured a mental picture of what the author’s ex-wife would look like. A pinched face, glasses, lumpy figure, graying hair pulled back into a bun. Or maybe a blowsy, over-the-hill blond in ruffles and too-tight satin overdosed with strong perfume.
He found her apartment on the seventh floor and rang the bell. When the woman opened the door both his mental pictures dissolved like smoke. Her hair was auburn and thick, with the rich, true color that does not come out of a bottle. She was tall, with wide shoulders, high breasts, a long supple waist, and lean, smooth legs in suede pants.
“Mr. Driscoll?” she said in that husky voice, and abruptly he realized he had been staring.
“Excuse me, but you don’t look the way I thought you would.”
“Should I apologize?”
“No way. In person you are a definite improvement over my imagination.”
“Not knowing what you had imagined, I will go ahead and take that as a compliment. Please come in.”
The apartment was decorated in crisp straight lines, with just enough curves to soften the effect and make it pleasingly female.
“May I fix you a drink, Mr. Driscoll?”
“Thanks. A little Scotch, if you have it.”
She moved behind the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, and poured Teacher’s into a gold-rimmed goblet.
“Mix?”
“Ice and a splash of water.”
She brought the drink out and handed it to him. Her hazel eyes were remarkably clear, and looked at him with a directness that was unsettling.
“You’re not having one?” he said.
“I can’t drink. I’m an alcoholic.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding. But you go right ahead. The sight of other people drinking doesn’t affect me one way or the other any more.”
Driscoll took a sip of his Scotch and followed Joyce Hardeman into the living room. He sat on a sofa with nubby forest-green upholstery. She took a chair facing him across a blond-wood coffee table.
“Now then, what was it my ex-husband wanted you to say to me?”
Driscoll touched the glass to his lips, then set it down. “For some reason, Mrs. Hardeman, I’m feeling awkward as the devil, and that’s not my style.”
“I didn’t think it was,” she said. It might help if we drop the Mr. and Mrs. routine. How old are you, Conn?”
“Thirty.”
“Okay, that makes me eight years older than you. Think you can be comfortable using my first name?”
“Let me try. Hello, Joyce. What’s new, Joyce? That’s a good looking sweater, Joyce. Yes, I think I can handle it.”
“Good. Does it upset you that I’m an alcoholic?”
“I don’t think upset is the word. Surprised is more like it. None of the alcoholics I know personally would be willing to admit it. How long have you been off the sauce?”
“Four years now, since a year after I left Dean.” Joyce changed her tone subtly, letting him know she did not wish to pursue the topic. “How well do you know my ex-husband?”
“Hardly at all. I know him through his books and news stories about him, but we’ve only met twice. Both times were in the last couple of days.”
“And you say he is in Los Angeles now?”
“That’s right. He’s doing a book assignment on a project I’m connected with.”
“What do you do, Conn?”
“Publicity.”
“I see. And Dean is actually writing?”
“Yes, he is. At least, he’s about to start.”
“That’s not quite the same thing, is it? Still, I’m glad to hear he’s making motions toward going back to work. Now, the message?”
“Essentially, he wanted me to find out if you’ll talk to him.”
“Not a chance.”
Driscoll waited for Joyce to elaborate, but she said nothing more.
“You mean … not a chance?”
“That’s it. Conn, it wasn’t fair of him to put you in the middle this way, but Dean never did worry about playing fair. The facts are these — he still wants me, I don’t want him. I always get upset when I see him in person, and say cruel things that I don’t really mean. My love for the man is dead, but I don’t want to hurt him. That’s the last thing he needs.”
>
“You were married a long time, weren’t you?”
“Almost eleven years. Would you like to hear a quick synopsis?”
“Yes, I would.”
“It started out as a case of pure and simple author-worship. I was fresh out of Bryn Mawr, playing at being an assistant editor for Scribner’s when I met Dean Hardeman at a party. Even at that time he hadn’t written anything for years, but all three of his books were out in paperback and still selling. I’d read them in college and thought they were the most beautifully honest looks at men and women and their interactions that I had ever read. Incidentally, I still think so.
“Dean and I were married a month after we met. For the first few years I followed wherever he led in a rosy glow. Then gradually I began to realize that this man whose writing I had so admired, who was still introduced as one of America’s foremost writers, was not actually writing a word. He spent his time talking about writing and playing the part of a writer. And drinking. Since I wanted to be with him, I was drinking too. A lot. We spent the last years of our marriage playing Scott and Zelda. And the fights we had — real barroom knockdown battles that I can hardly believe now. If I hadn’t gotten out when I did, I would have wound up in an institution, like the real Zelda.”
“It was that bad?”
“Yes, that bad.”
“There were a lot of pressures on Dean, I guess, after the early success,” Driscoll said.
“Yes, there were pressures. Everything had come so easy for Dean — three books and three straight winners. When his fourth manuscript was sent back to him for massive revisions he was shocked. He had begun to believe that his name alone would sell anything he put on paper, and he simply got careless with his writing. That returned manuscript was his first failure, and he wasn’t emotionally equipped to handle it. By the time I met Dean he already had the early signs of decay, but I was too dazzled by his reputation to recognize them.”
“Aren’t you being awfully hard on him?”
“Maybe I am, but that’s the way I feel. You didn’t want a snow job from me, did you, Conn?”
Joyce Hardeman crossed her long legs, and the whisper of suede drew Driscoll’s attention.
He said, “I’m sure Dean is still in love with you.”
“He’s in love with me the way he’s in love with the image of his old self. He thinks that if he could get me back he might get his talent back too.”
“Are you so sure he’s lost his talent?” Driscoll was surprised by the sharpness in his own voice.
Joyce smiled at him. “You’ve got a tiny case of author-worship yourself, haven’t you. I’ll bet you’ve got a half-finished novel tucked away somewhere just waiting until you get the time to finish it.”
Driscoll started a quick retort, but pulled it back. “Not now, but I did have. Then one day I read the whole thing over and threw it out. Every chapter read like a parody of whatever author I was reading at the time. It was embarassing to read pseudo-Kerouac followed by pseudo-Goldman. No, I’ll never be a writer, but I do appreciate how really tough it is. And yes, I do admire Dean Hardeman. To me his books crackled with power and vitality. He’s not an old man, and I don’t want to believe he won’t write like that again. I won’t believe it. If that makes me a fan … then I’m a fan.”
Surprisingly, Joyce Hardeman reached across the low table and touched his knee. She said, “I like you, Conn Driscoll. You have a streak of honesty in you.”
Driscoll was startled by the sudden warmth of the spot on his leg where Joyce’s fingers had touched him. Making his tone light and bantering, he said, “I hope it doesn’t show too badly. A streak of honesty can put a publicity man right out of business.”
“I promise not to tell anyone.” Joyce Hardeman’s smile was slow and intimate.
“I’d better go,” he said, not moving.
“If you’re in a hurry.”
He forced himself to get up off the sofa and pull his eyes away from this disturbing woman. He said, “As a matter of fact, I’m meeting your ex-husband and my current boss at a discotheque on the Strip. I don’t suppose you’d want to come along?”
“No, but thanks for the invitation.”
On his way to the door Driscoll stopped and turned back into the room. “Joyce, won’t you reconsider? About seeing Dean? It might do him a lot of good if you talked to him. Maybe he’s changed.”
She appeared to think that over, her eyes never leaving Driscoll’s. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he has changed, at that. Let me think it over. Call me, okay?”
“I will. Goodnight.”
At the elevator Driscoll turned to see Joyce Hardeman still standing in her doorway, watching him. She acknowledged him with a fractional nod of her head. He saluted and stepped into the waiting elevator.
Not until he was in his car and a mile from Westwood did Driscoll remember that he had not asked Joyce for her unlisted telephone number. He would feel foolish going back for it now. No problem. It just meant he would have to see her again.
He snapped on the car radio and was greeted at once by a Billy Lockett record. It was, Conn Driscoll felt, a good omen.
CHAPTER 11
The action at Waldo’s started out in front on the sidewalk. Young men and women moved in ever-changing patterns. They wore velveteen and glitter, leather and suedes, tailored denims and tie-dyes. Puka shells, gold chains, medallions. Boots, klunkers, platforms. Makeup, mascara, false eyelashes. A constant high-pitched, spaced-out chatter and mindless laughter. Everybody happy as hell.
Dean Hardeman rolled down the Cadillac’s tinted side window and peered out as Al Fessler eased the car carefully along Sunset.
“Disneyland with Dexedrine,” he remarked.
“They call it free expression,” Fessler said sourly.
“Are we really going in there?”
“You want a look at the rockers, don’t you?”
Hardeman touched his necktie. “Won’t they think I’m a vice cop or something?”
“No way. On this beat vice cops dress like Sammy Davis, Jr. They may think you’re a little strange, but nobody will bug you.”
Hardeman studied the young, flushed faces. “God, I feel old. What happens to these kids when they turn thirty? Are they set adrift on an ice flow or something?”
“As far as I know, nobody on the Strip lives that long.”
Fessler parked the Cad in the lot of a liquor store, ignoring a Patrons Only sign. He and Hardeman walked back up the crowded boulevard to Waldo’s. As they drew near, the amplified drums inside thumped steadily louder like the heartbeat of the Strip.
The entrance to Waldo’s was an unmarked doorway that opened onto a flight of narrow carpeted stairs leading up one flight. Below the club was a coffee shop, brightly lit and active as an anthill.
Hardeman followed Fessler up the stairs, breasting the waves of sound like a surfer wading out against the tide. At the top, Al nodded to a bearded man at the door. The man waved them inside. As he stepped through a beaded curtain, Hardeman looked back and caught the doorman eyeing him curiously.
Inside, the sound was everywhere. It came at you from all directions without mercy. Fragments of light skittered in and out of psychedelic patterns on the walls, the ceiling, the young faces.
“It’s like the inside of a jukebox,” Hardeman said, putting his mouth close to Fessler’s ear so he could be heard.
Fessler nodded and pushed his way through the bodies to the bar. He ordered a glass of 7-Up. Hardeman asked for a bourbon and water, tall. There was no need, he thought, to carry temperance to extremes.
They found a table next to the wall where a hanging velvet drapery damped the noise somewhat. The tops of the round tables had 12-inch records encased in clear plastic. The record embedded in their table was Red Octopus by Jefferson Starship.
On a level several steps below the main room a quartet of young musicians in tight pants and bare chests provided the mind-numbing sound. On a dance floor the size of a double bed an
uncountable number of bodies jerked and writhed roughly in rhythm with the music. Hardeman wondered how many were carried out nightly with fractures and contusions. Unconsciously, he pressed himself closer to the wall.
“Is it like this every night?” he asked Al Fessler.
“Sometimes it’s livelier.”
“Jesus.”
Now and then someone would detatch himself from one of the ever-changing groups and come by the table to greet Fessler.
“What’s happenin’, baby?”
“Same old jive. What’s happenin’?”
“Not much. Stay cool.”
“Hang in there.”
Fessler made no move to introduce the author. “Damned if I know who they are,” he said. “I only come in here often enough so people will know I’m still in business.”
Hardeman swiveled on his chair to look around at the people of Waldo’s. There was a superficial similarity, if you took away the din and the kaliedoscopic lights, to a New York cocktail party. There was the same incessant talk and shrill laughter and nobody listening to anybody else. The difference was in the intensity of the fun. Everyone in Waldo’s worked full-time at enjoying himself. No introspection allowed. And as always, there was the youth. Hardeman and Fessler were easily the oldest ones there.
“Who are they all?” Hardeman asked, waving an arm at the crowd.
“Some are entertainers,” Fessler said. “There’s also the boy wonders from the record companies, groupies, gofers, pill heads, and pushers. And a few respectable kids from the Valley trying to pass for freaks. What you’ve got in here tonight is mostly the glitter trippers. That’s because Lucy Moonstone is playing up the street. Rock fans take on the look of the groups they go to hear.”
“Is Lucy Moonstone somebody new? I don’t think I’ve heard of her.”
“Lucy’s been around a couple of years, which is a long time in this business. And it’s not a her, it’s four guys.”
“I’ve got a lot to learn,” Hardeman observed. “What other categories are there besides your ‘glitter trippers’?”
Al Fessler ran a hand back over his scalp, smoothing a pompadour long since gone. “Well, there’s groups they call heavy metal. That’s for the banks of amplifiers they use. Take up an entire wall, cost a fortune. Grand Funk and Led Zeppelin are heavy metal. They attract the real uglies — the hard dopers and the bike freaks. They throw things and start fires.
Billy Lives Page 9