“Remember the rest of them?” Victor probed. “O.T.L.?”
“That’s easy. Out To Lunch.”
“N.L.Y.?” Victor tried.
“No Longer Young.”
“Now some harder ones. U.T.K.?”
“Under The Knife—i.e., le surgery plastique!”
“What about the ever popular T.C.T.L?”
“Too Cute To Live, of course.”
“See? You’re not losing your memory. It’s just napping. And no wonder! If the only people you associate with are Jeff’s glabulous old psychiatrist buddies.”
“Some are women. Is ‘glabulous’ a real word?”
“Buddies and biddies,” Victor amended. “If it isn’t a word, it ought to be. I’m enshrining it in my next novel, titling it The Fabulous and the. . . “ dropping and over-modulating his voice, “. . . Glabulous!”
“It sounds like chronic kidney arrest,” Gilbert said.
“What say I book a flight for you? How’s Saturday morning? My treat.”
“Can’t,” Gilbert said and explained precisely what already set-in-stone-engagement meant he couldn’t fly to El Lay. They went through the entire two weeks to come, day by day, and Gilbert couldn’t, for one reason or another, change, postpone, or cancel a single thing.
This, while inutterably sad, alas confirmed Victor’s long-held theory that only famously important people could ever really do anything in life, because unfamous ones were so busy trying to make their lives seem important to themselves and others by insisting everything they did simply could not not be done.
Fiddling with a large paper clip with which he was scraping his teeth, Victor then had one of those Proustian moments recalling that evening a year ago at his dear old friend Joseph Mathewson’s apartment in the Village. Earlier in the day when they’d spoken, Mathewson, who wrote as much as Victor but who, alas, was published maybe once every nine or ten years, had asked Victor to pick up half of their dinner on the way, claiming that he would be “at his desk all day.” Later on, when Joe was in the kitchen cooking, Victor had gone to Joe’s study to look for the phone number of a mutual friend. He’d opened several desk drawers, the last of which contained what proved to be the single longest paper clip chain in human history. Joe never lied, and evidently here was the proof that he had “been at his desk all day.”
“You know, maybe I shouldn’t—ever—come there?”
“Gilberto! What ever are you talking about?”
“Since it is a longtime dream, how can the reality equal it?”
“Well, it can’t. Not actually. But the city is all so big and so chock-filled with places and people and things of interest, you really won’t notice that you’re disappointed because so much else will be so intriguing. Mulholland Drive and its enormous double views only a few feet apart, overlooking the city and the valley. The delicious scoops of perfect beaches at Santa Monica Bay. The Hollywood Hills from a hundred feet above the famous Observatory. Huntington Beach with all those sweet surfer boys out all day on their boards, as seen from the long old pier. In their black wetsuits they appear like little licorice canapés or nori wrapped sushi that you could just lift up and gulp down.
“Take regular, boring, old Rodeo Drive,” Victor continued. “It’s right around the corner from Frank’s office, so at times I walk it to where I’ve parked the car. Yesterday, I peered into the windows of Bijan, that men’s clothing store some Persian guy opened? You’ll never guess what I saw in the window?”
“Was it worse than the worst excesses of the French Revolution?” Gilbert asked his voice edged with a thrill.
“No, but it could easily lead to a revolution. A floor length white ermine coat. For a guy!
“And, Gee-Aye-El,“ Victor went on temptingly, “I noticed, behind the fortunately furred mannequin, one of those enormous Range Rover vehicles, all fitted out for hunting elephants for some Maharajah. It was painted white and gilded bronze where there should be chrome trim. And you’ll never guess what?”
“What?” Gilbert almost squealed.
“The side doors were open and the upholstery was all white ermine, exactly matching the coat!”
“Ohmigod!” Gilbert moaned.
“And get this, Guilty-by-Association, the sale sign read, ‘For him—just because you care!’ Price? Seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars for the—are you ready?—quote hunting outfit and mobile equipment unquote.”
“I think I just jizzed my Calvins!”
Despite this and other word-driven excesses, Victor could not get Gilbert to commit to any air flight date, even though Victor offered to pay for the airfare, all other travel costs, and even to fake his own imminent death to Gilbert’s employer on the phone, pretending to be Mr. Onager, senior.
His best friend changed the subject several times, most notably back to their own close friend growing up, Andy.
“So he’s rich now. Does he live in Bel-Air?” Gilbert asked.
“Here is one place you will definitely be disappointed. He lives on some cleft in Topanga Canyon like Little Abner and Stupefying Jones, among goats and in architecture of questionable provenance.”
“But he’s still a dirty old young man, right?”
“Not quite. He’s become a voyeur. A rather specialized kind of voyeur.” Victor described his two visits.
“Gosh, what’ll he do now that the show is over? Stalk Popeye?”
“Hawkeye is, I believe, the name you mean. And I have no idea.”
“So he’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another Homo who’s totally given up sex. Tell me you’re not. I mean I know you’re guy-married and all, but the way guys used to throw themselves at you out there, surely that’s not totally stopped? I know you’re being extremely circumspect and all because of my big mouth, but feed me one little crumb. Please, please, Victoria.”
“Well, okay, but this does not get repeated in person or by phone or you agree to die the death of a million tiny paper cuts!”
“Agreed.”
Victor told him about meeting Jared and it wasn’t actually sex, only flirtation, or at the most, foreplay, and so didn’t count. However, it totally satisfied Gilbert—leading Victor to wonder if Jeff was still putting out, or if theirs, like many relationships during this epidemic, had become yet another sexless marriage blanche.
When they finally hung up, Gilbert said he was much cheered and claimed he no longer had a headache. But Victor couldn’t fail to notice that they’d not selected a date for a plane trip.
Ten minutes later, Mark called—he now called twice a day, one way of making amends—and Victor found himself ending this second call by saying—“I know you have no time, but I’ve just got to know if my best friend in all the world has it. Would you go see him? And report back.”
“Won’t he think me visiting him a bit strange?” Mark asked, sensibly enough.
“Of course he will. Clever you. Why don’t I send you something for him and you bring it over? I’ve found a cinematographer’s visor-cap from a movie set Sam took me on the other day at the Fox lots. It’s got the name of some movie printed on it and is totally authentic.”
“He’ll love that,” Mark agreed. “You are a good friend. But, Victor, do you really want to know if he’s that sick?”
“Don’t I?”
“There’s no cure. There’s no treatment. It’s all downhill from the diagnosis. You’d better think about it. I’ll go, if you want, but . . . really, think about it.”
Victor was in fact thinking about all the implications of that advice when the phone rang again. He was sure it was Mark and was about to say he’d thought about it and had changed his mind when a seductive male voice came on and said, “Sweetheart hot guy! I understood from one of my darling divas that you were coming to visit lonely little moi.”
At first Victor couldn’t place the voice; then he did place it.
“Joel? Joel Edison?”
“La meme! See you at say—five? Let’s go have a friendly drink. Mischa will come on the line now and provide all the gories. Ta!”
Seconds later a Byelorussian-accented male assistant was giving him directions and Victor was scribbling them down, wondering what he could possibly say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-Two
On the way there, Victor just happened to pass a shop with a sign that read “Personal Security” and dashed to a sidewalk parking place.
“Are you sure you don’t sell Chastity Belts?” Victor pleaded a few minutes later. “What about metal underwear with locks in front?”
“For . . . .?” the sleek silver haired gentlemen asked, baffled if unfazed.
“Me.”
He looked Victor up and down and said, “Afraid not.”
“I’m meeting with a talent agent!” Victor groaned.
Instead of saying, “Aren’t you a little old for the casting couch, buddy?” he said, “I’m most sympathetic. We do have Mace.”
“By now, he probably sniffs Mace like Poppers.”
At the huge agency’s outer office, where more people by far were leaving for the day than arriving, Mischa slouched over to fetch Victor. He was about twenty and looked a lot more like Mike-From-Cleveland despite his Mark Antony ash blond bangs. His bulky, dull, multi-colored knitted sweater flattened over an umber leotard and elf boots, and even given his slightly swaying walk, his posture could easily have resulted from being flogged with a ferrule during his growing years as punishment for performing inelegant plies.
“Here he is.” The assistant lounged half across his employer’s overfilled desk, introducing Victor. “I must go now—to doctor.”
“Go! See if I care,” Joel said, from his big swivel chair where he was on the phone.
“I must go. Bad lungs.” Mischa explained. Or at least that’s what Victor finally figured out he’d said: Mischa’s pronunciation of the last word would have defied even Noam Chomsky.
“Who asked?” Joel made shooing movements. “Raus! Raus!”
The waiter-turned-maitre’d-turned-talent agent had always had a not uncute face and a nicely tight body. Seated there, alternately talking low on the phone and making apologetic faces at Victor for having to do so, he looked great. He wore a skintight pale blue Oxford shirt that clung to his far more muscled and filled out torso and arms, and when he hung up the phone and stood to shake hands, his Armani trousers were equally filled out.
“Look at you! I told everyone that the most sensational novelist in America was coming to visit and they left copies of your books to be autographed. In fact, the Financial Officer—an ancient and extremely hard-nosed snob who’s been here since, I believe, the days when they represented Ouida and Ida Tarbell—left a hardcover of your third book, which he said is the best Western-horror novel ever. Who would have dreamed that a cute kid like yourself would turn out to be so lit-a-rare-ree?”
Although it was clearly an agent’s Aitch-Wood spiel, it wasn’t exactly what Victor had expected. Where was the come-on, the dirty leers, the innuendoes? And look—there were in fact six paperbacks where he’d pointed to on the sideboard, most of them Justify My Sins, natch, but also a few newer titles, including Nights in Black Leather, and the British hardback of Heartache Canyon, all with little post-its declaring whom he should autograph the book to. Had he planned this visit for a week? Seemed like it.
“You really want me to sign them?”
“You’re a famous author.”
As Victor was doing that, he realized two things. First that the old Joel Edison appeared to no longer be present, or if present, then strictly held in abeyance and Victor’s chastity was therefore safe. And second, that was kind of too bad. He wouldn’t mind a Joel looking this good attacking him.
“Great! Perfecto! Cal, the CFO, said to me earlier, ‘You sure now how to pick the talent when it’s hot, Joel-o-boy.’”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please. We all know you’re writing a script with Frank. And everyone is talking about the collaboration of the year.”
No. Really. What was Joel talking about?
Seeing his befuddlement, Joel tossed three magazines at Victor, saying, “At least that’s what it says here. The dailies. I marked the relevant pages.”
Victor had to sit to read the tiny one-liners about him and Perry that appeared lost in thick verbiage and small typed paragraphs in Variety, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter.
“These are like . . . totally minor mentions—“ Victor began.
“Those lines, Li’l Buddy, will get you entrée into every agency in town.”
“One even has the title of the book wrong.”
“Totally unimportant! These broke a week ago, I’ll bet your film agent is fielding offers like crazy.”
“I don’t have a film agent,” Victor said, and at that second he suddenly felt the extreme squishiness of the ground beneath his feet as the abyss slowly opened up, all but making a gross, sucking noise.
“‘Shirley, you jest!’ to quote one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies,” Joel exclaimed.
“Airplane. No jest. Marcie’s lawyer, some guy named Trent in New York, looked over Black Hawk’s contracts,” Victor explained. “I actually did the deal myself. I got a house, a car, free plane trips. The first two on loan of course.”
“Not bad. Not bad. Although some writers get them, period,” Joel added with much eyebrows. “But I’m not going to pressure you. I called and said let’s go have a friendly drink so let’s go have a friendly drink.” He grabbed a jacket and opened the office door. “It’s just around the corner. We don’t even have to drive. New Yorkers!” he explained to someone’s assistant still at her desk as they passed her, “they hate to drive!”
If they’d been in Manhattan, they’d have probably ended up in an Irish bar with a half dozen booths, and maybe even a few free standing tables. Instead, two steps out, Joel had taken one look at Victor’s sport coat and said, “You’re dressed enough for The Bistro Garden.”
Only a few blocks away, it was already filling up with early bird diners—although of an older and much fancier generation than the usual breed.
The maitre’d knew Joel—Victor had to assume every maitre’d in town knew Joel by now—and seated them in a booth near an excrescence of yellow onyx that passed for a bar. Victor ordered a Dry Rob Roy, which Joel glanced askance at over his own lovely-looking huge Martini.
Victor was still trying to come to grips with a sexless, non-assaultive Joel. He couldn’t quite believe it.
“My partner, the beautiful Mark Chastain, an unofficial Living Legend of Fire Island, and myself last year decided only to imbibe cocktails ordered by Bette Davis or Joan Crawford in their movies.”
“Singapore Slings and such?” Joel asked.
“Sidecars and such,” Victor confirmed.
“Living Legend, huh? No wonder I’m dirt under your fingernails,” Joel said and sipped demurely.
Fishing for compliments, too. Why the lad appeared nearly human.
“You’ll do,” Victor said. “In fact, success looks good on you.”
“Praise from Caesar . . . “ Joel allowed.
“So tell me about your client list—especially your ‘darling divas’?” Victor said.
“Must I? So soon in the evening? We were getting along so nicely.”
That was amusing, if not quite witty. “Humor me.”
“Well, this is not to leave this table but frankly I was a bit agog when Frank called to say he was optioning, never mind buying, one of my darling diva’s scripts.”
“Because . . .” Victor said, “it what? Needed work?”
“Because—you’ve grown quite diplomatic—but yes, it needed work, work, and more work.”
“Then you must have been even more surprised when Diva Number Two was brought on board? Or was that entirely your doing?”
“I knew
Diva Numero Uno knew Diva Numero Dos. So I mentioned her to him. I scarcely thought I’d be taken up on it.”
“Because Numero Dos has no record on the big screen?”
“That’s not precisely true. After all, she supported _____ _____ two years ago in that comedy. And it grossed forty-nine mil and change, North American. Now I know you’re going to say that a Girl Scout cookie could have supported _____ _____ two years ago and it would have grossed forty-nine mil and change.”
“That was refreshingly honest and utterly unexpected,” Victor declared. And even a bit witty, he thought. “From all this, I take it, you won’t be totally unhappy should I decide to come along and sort of underpin the entire operation. That, after all, is what some people close to the project, whose names we shall not mention, are asking me to do, you understand?”
“Not totally unhappy?” Joel lowered his voice. “Victor Regina, if someone of your caliber doesn’t come along to underpin the operation, we may well lose the patient, if you catch my drift.”
So he’d bitten off more than he could chew—and admitted it. Victor wondered if this was a possible first for Joel. “That’s what my unmentionable source also thinks.”
“I mean I’ve got other clients. But having those two—any two, really—tank in one fell swoop in something that’s bound to be highly publicized? It’s not high on my desk calendar for 1986, you know what I mean?”
“We’ve met. She’s not always that nuts, right?”
“Not always. And not so much nuts as she’s given to—well, enthusiasms, shall we say. But they’re usually quite—temporary. And usually harmless.”
“Really? Well, I wouldn’t want to be any kind of rodent in the San Fernando Valley these days! What about the Diva on the east coast?”
“Well, that’s a lit-tle more com-plick-ated.” Joel polished off his Martini and caught the eye of a waiter for a second one. “Being a writer and all, she possesses wrongheaded ideas, in addition to enthusiasms.” He smiled. “A fatal combo at best.”
“The current wrongheaded idea being . . . ?”
“The current wrongheaded idea being that Frank is her soul mate! It’s partly his own fault,” Joel was quick to point out. “They’re in cahoots on it.”
Justify My Sins Page 18