“That wasn’t me. I just told you.”
“That’s right, you did.”
“We’re shooting interiors tomorrow morning. Come to the Radford lot at, say, ten o’clock. Just give your name to the guard at the front gate. He’ll know where I am. Later, dude.” And with that he hung up.
I turned out the nightstand light and dozed right off. I didn’t stay asleep for long though. Shortly before midnight Lulu woke me by climbing up onto my head, trembling with fear. It was the coyotes howling. I’d forgotten about the coyotes and how they howled up in the hills in the night. I stroked her and assured her that I would never, ever let them hurt her. She curled up on my hip and promptly went to sleep, snoring contentedly. Me, I lay awake for a good long while, listening to the coyotes and wondering just exactly what I was getting myself into.
Chapter Four
The sound of that creaky side gate swinging open and shut woke me just before 6:30. It was the pool man, whistling tunelessly as he used a net to rid the pool of fallen leaves and dead insects. He looked like a young Tab Hunter. It has been my experience that all pool men in L.A. look like a young Tab Hunter. As I watched him through my bedroom window, feeling jet-lagged and bleary-eyed, I hated him on sight.
The morning air felt downright balmy. I found my swimming trunks and put them on. Made a pot of strong coffee in the coffeemaker and put down fresh mackerel for Lulu, who always wakes up hungry and does not know from jet lag. I checked my phone machine in New York while I drank my coffee.
There was no message from Merilee in Budapest.
By then Tab Hunter had left and Hector had arrived to prune the rose bushes that lined the bluestone path from the pool to the patio outside the kitchen.
“Hola, amigo!” he called to me cheerfully as I made my way out to the pool, blinking in the bright sunlight.
“Hola, Hector.”
“It is a beautiful day, is it not?”
“If you say so.”
I dove in, the shock of the water jolting me a bit more awake. I swam. The ache in my shoulder had subsided in the night, and it felt good to stretch out my muscles in a nice, steady crawl. Lulu ran alongside of me as I swam, barking her head off. She does that whenever I swim laps. She’s afraid that I’ll drown and she won’t be able to rescue me. She’s the only dog I’ve ever known who can’t swim. Sinks right to the bottom like a stone, glug-glug-glug.
As I swam, Maritza went bustling from the kitchen out to the pool house. Hector said something to her as she walked by him. Maritza ignored him. She wore a salmon-colored dental hygienist’s uniform today and had my purloined jeans folded over her arm. She deposited them inside the pool house, then started back toward the main house. Again, Hector spoke to her. Again, she ignored him. Or tried to. This time he grabbed her by the arm and held her so she’d listen to him. Maritza shook her arm loose and spoke to him sharply before she marched off. Hector let out a big laugh before he returned to his pruning.
I swam until Maritza returned a half-hour or so later with a loaded breakfast tray.
“Good morning, Senor Hoagy,” she called out to me, setting it down on an end table next to a lounge chair. “For you.”
I climbed out of the pool and toweled off. “You didn’t have to make me breakfast, Maritza.”
“It is not a problem.”
“You didn’t have to resort to thievery either.”
She frowned at me. “Excuse me?”
“You stole my jeans last night. Admit it.”
“They had a hole. I patched it.”
“Thank you very much. I appreciate it.”
She’d made me an omelet stuffed with sliced avocado and melted cheese. There was bacon, wheat toast, a wedge of cantaloupe, orange juice and a carafe of coffee. Also a bowl of something that I didn’t recognize.
“That is for Lulu. A cold shrimp soup with crab meat that I made last weekend. Is popular in my country. I thought she might like it. You think?”
“Oh, I think,” I said as Lulu pawed eagerly at the tray. I set the bowl down on the pavement for her and she dove in nose first. “You’re making yourself a huge fan, Maritza.”
“Is nice to have her around,” Maritza said, beaming at her.
“If you have any trouble with bunny rabbits on the property just let me know. She’s a good little worker.” I sampled my omelet, which was excellent. “Have Joey and Danielle left for school?”
“Yes. The senora is still here, though she is very upset. They spoke of her show’s poor ratings on Regis and Kathie Lee this morning. They spoke of you also.”
“What did they say about me?”
“That you are here to save her career. Are you?”
“God, I hope not.” I noticed Hector watching us as he continued to prune the rose bushes. “Are you okay with him?”
“He is no worry,” she assured me, starting back toward the house as Monette came striding out in a taupe-colored Armani pantsuit, her long blond hair gleaming in the morning sunlight.
“I’m off to an early morning production meeting,” she informed me when she was poolside, her manner quite chilly. “I have an extremely full day ahead of me, though I am always reachable by phone should another letter from Dad arrive.”
“Patrick has asked me to come see him at the studio this morning.”
“What for?” she demanded.
“I’m a dude. He’s a dude. We’re both dudes.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I was hoping you’d know. You’re the one who’s married to him.”
“He must want something. He always does.” She treated me to her steely, unblinking gaze. “I don’t want you talking to Patrick, Hoagy. You are not to speak to him. Is that clear?”
“Don’t tell me whom I can and cannot speak to, Monette. I’ll just pack up and go home. Is that clear?”
Her eyes puddled with tears instantly. She was extremely fragile underneath her tough exterior. “Of c-course . . . ,” she stammered. “You’re right, absolutely. Do . . . what you think is best.”
“Thank you, I will. By the way, don’t watch Regis and Kathie Lee anymore. In fact, don’t watch TV at all. Not until this is over.”
“This will never be over,” Monette said miserably.
She hurried off toward her Land Cruiser. I heard her start it up. Heard the paparazzi roar as she drove out the gate past them. Then it was quiet again, aside from the soft snip-snip-snip of Hector’s pruners.
I went back to the pool house to shower and shave. Maritza had expertly repaired my jeans with a piece of scrap denim that was almost exactly the same color. I wore them with a white shirt and crimson knit tie. Grabbed my flight jacket, opened the door to leave and discovered that Hector was blocking my way.
The squatly built gardener came up only to my chin, but he was as wide as the doorway. He was smiling at me. But I sensed menace behind that big smile of his.
So did Lulu. She growled at him as he stood there.
“That’s a nice girl, Maritza,” he said, paying Lulu no mind.
“Is she? I wouldn’t know.” I glanced at that Rolex Submariner on his thick, muscled wrist. “Handsome watch you’ve got there, Hector.”
“Is a Rolex. The very best.” He gazed down at it proudly, then back up at me. “Maritza is spoken for. She is private property.”
“Your private property?”
Hector didn’t say. Just smiled at me some more.
He smiled a lot, Hector did.
Today, I got off the San Diego Freeway at Ventura Boulevard and steered the Indian Chief toward Studio City. When I reached Coldwater I cruised past the Sportsmen’s Lodge, that fading neo-kitschy relic from the Rat Pack era, and Jerry’s Deli, where I once saw Gene Simmons of KISS eating lox and bagels. And, no, he was not in costume at the time. After a few blocks I passed Du-par’s coffee shop, which is noted for its buttermilk pancakes and its pies. Just past there I hung a left at Radford Avenue and turned in at the Radford lot, officially known
as CBS Studio Center, which had been the headquarters of the MTM empire the last time I’d been in town but no longer was because MTM no longer was. But it was still a happening place. Seinfeld, that sitcom starring an eerily bland New York stand-up comic named Jerry Seinfeld, was being shot there, according to a billboard on one of the giant sound stages, as was the hit series Malibu High, starring America’s favorite TV hunk, Patrick Van Pelt, and sizzling hot Kat Zachry.
The beefy guard at the entrance kiosk gave the Roadmaster an appreciative look while I told him I was there to see Mr. Van Pelt. He checked his clipboard. “He’s on stage seventeen, Mr. Hoag. Here’s your pass. Make sure you park in a designated visitor parking space. Otherwise, you’ll get towed.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. On studio lots, people take their parking spaces as seriously as they do their position in the credits.
After I’d found a visitor parking space Lulu and I moseyed past a cluster of office buildings toward the cavernous sound stages. I found an unlocked door to stage seventeen and fought my way through a pile up of cameras, lights and cables before I arrived at a horseshoe-shaped cluster of standing sets for Malibu High. There was a high school corridor complete with lockers and assorted banners. There was a classroom, a principal’s office and an office that belonged to Patrick’s character, Chip Hinton, the school’s rugged yet sensitive guidance counselor. Also sets for the kitchen, living room and bedroom of Chip’s Malibu condo. Standing sets are incredibly fake-looking when you see them in person. Partly that’s because you can see over and around them and are acutely aware that the doorways lead nowhere and there’s absolutely nothing outside the windows. But it’s also because the eye of the camera makes everything seem more real. I don’t know why that’s so. I don’t know if anyone knows why. It’s magic.
They’d been shooting a scene in the condo’s kitchen. The crew was on a break. Patrick stood at the kitchen counter in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, going over the script with the director, a weary-looking old-timer who wore a pair of reading glasses on a chain around his neck.
“Why would I say that?” Patrick demanded, stabbing at the script with his finger. “I just told her to stay away from the guy. Why would I suddenly tell her it’s okay?”
“You’re conflicted,” the director responded.
“The fuck I am. The kids are conflicted. I never am. I’m the moral compass, understand?”
“I do understand. So do the writers. A lot of thought went into this.”
“A lot of bullshit went into it.”
Lulu, who has always believed she is destined to be the next Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, decided that now would be a good time to start barking at the director. I told her to stop. She ignored me.
“Who let that dog in here?” he demanded.
“She’s with me,” I said.
“Okay, who let you in here?”
“You must be Stewart Hoag.” Patrick came toward me with his hand out and a huge gleaming smile on his face. “Glad to meet you, Stewart.”
“Make it Hoagy.”
“I am loving your sidekick. What’s his name?”
“Her name is Lulu.”
He bent down and gave her a pat before he turned back to the director and said, “Are those idiots going to rewrite it or do I have to do it myself?”
The director sighed defeatedly. “I’ll talk to them.”
“You do that. Come on, Hoagy, let’s hang in my trailer.” Patrick started for the stage door. I followed him. “These episode directors are strictly hacks for hire,” he informed me in an extremely loud, clear voice. “And our writers suck. I end up having to write most of my own dialogue, and I’ll let you in on a little secret, dude. I don’t know how to write dialogue.”
We headed outside into the bright sunshine and started walking. Patrick Van Pelt was an inch or two taller than me, six foot four I’d guess, a tanned, toned, forty-five-year-old slab of prime beef with shaggy blond hair that flopped down over his eyebrows, an impossibly square jaw, impossibly high cheekbones and eyes that were Technicolor blue. He’d been an All-American golden boy back in the days when he was catching touchdown passes in South Bend, and he still carried himself with the self-assured ease of one. The only thing a bit jarring about his appearance was that his face was fully made-up for the cameras—foundation, powder, eyeliner, lipstick, the works. You don’t think anything of it when you see a woman in full makeup. But a man looks way too much like an embalmed corpse at an open-casket wake, surrounded by the smell of flowers and sad-faced mourners murmuring, “Doesn’t he look lifelike?”
Patrick’s trailer wasn’t my idea of a trailer. More like a rock star’s tour bus. There were maybe two dozen clustered together in a parking area like a herd of bison. He unlocked his and went up two steps to go inside. Lulu and I followed him. It had all of the air-conditioned comforts of home—a seating area with sofas and a TV, a kitchen, a built-in dining banquette. An open doorway led to a bedroom and bath. Lulu checked the whole place out, nose to the rug.
“Have a seat.” Patrick gestured to the banquette, which was heaped with scripts, production schedules and videocassettes. “You hungry? Want me to order you something from Jerry’s?”
“I’m all set, thanks.”
“There’s drinks in the fridge if you’re thirsty. Oh, hey, I bet your little pal is.” Patrick dug a cereal bowl out of the kitchen cupboard, filled it with water and set it down for Lulu.
She had herself a good, long drink, then curled up under the banquette at my feet while Patrick took off his Hawaiian shirt and hung it on a wardrobe rack. He was in amazing shape for a guy in his forties, I noted resentfully. Still possessed the sculpted physique of a premier athlete. Arms, shoulders and pecs that rippled with muscle. A narrow waist, washboard abs. Not so much as a hint of a gut or love handles. He was deeply tanned. Also completely hairless. The American television audience doesn’t like hairy-chested men.
“How many hours a day do you work out?” I asked him.
“Not as many as I should. How about a brewski?”
“It’s a little early for me.”
“Really? It’s never too early for me.” He dug a Heineken out of the fridge, opened it and took a grateful gulp. Then he sat across from me shirtless, studying me. “Dude, what happened to your cheek?”
“I got your message, like I told you last night.”
“And I told you I didn’t send you any message.”
I pulled the note from my jacket pocket, unfolded it and set it before him.
He examined it carefully. “Son of a bitch,” he said, shaking his big, blond head. “Sure looks like it came from me. I’m right there with you, brother. But I didn’t write this, I swear. That’s not my signature. Here . . .” He grabbed a pen, scrawled his signature below the one on the note and turned it around for me to look at. “See?”
I saw. The two signatures looked nothing alike. “Who has access to Malibu High stationery?”
“Hell, anybody. Tons of people go in and out of the production office every day.”
There was a knock on the trailer door. “Yo, Pats!” a man’s voice called out.
“Come on in, Lou!”
The door opened and in came one of the largest humans I’d ever seen. So large he had to come in the narrow door sideways. He was at least six foot five and weighed at least three hundred pounds, and absolutely all of it was muscle. Outrageously huge body-builder muscle. The man’s biceps were bigger than his head, I swear. He resembled the Incredible Hulk, except flesh colored. He was dressed for maximum display in a tank top, gym shorts and Nikes. And he was sporting the shaved head and goatee look that I’d been seeing more and more lately. In his mouth was a Tootsie Pop, a grape-flavored one by the purplish look of it. In his left hand he clutched a blue nylon zippered gym bag.
“This is my man Lou,” Patrick said to me as the big guy loomed there, eyeing me suspiciously. “We were kids together back in the old neighborhood in Akron. Lou played defensive tackle for Troy
State. Had a tryout with the Packers. Lou, say hey to Hoagy. He’s the dude they flew in from New York to help Queenie write that book.”
Lou gave me a soul brother handshake, my own hand disappearing inside his. “Real glad to know ya, bro,” he said in a voice that was a sandpapery growl. “Hey, is that your pooch?”
“Nope. Never saw her before.”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“Her name’s Lulu.”
He knelt and patted her. “Hey, Lulu,” he said gently. “Hey, girl.” A lot of big guys are marshmallows when it comes to dogs. Somebody ought to write a book about it. Not me, but somebody.
“Did the plumber stop by to fix the shower?” Patrick asked him.
Lou stood back up, nodding his shaved head. “It needed a new mixing valve, Pats. After he replaced it I dropped the Corvette off with Lenny at the garage on Saticoy.”
“You tell him the idle was uneven?”
“I did,” Lou said, sucking on his Tootsie Pop. “He’ll take care of it personally. Should be ready by the end of the afternoon. I can go pick it up.”
Patrick glared at him. “Why the fuck would you want to do that?” he demanded angrily. I’m not talking mild peevishness here. I’m talking sudden, off-the-charts rage, as in Patrick’s eyeballs were bulging out of his face, which had turned the color purple.
Lou gulped at him fearfully. “Because he asked me to.”
“Do you work for fucking Lenny? No! You work for me!”
“And . . . you don’t want me to pick it up?”
Patrick grabbed a videocassette from the pile in front of him and hurled it at Lou. It bounced off the big man’s boulder of a bicep and fell to the floor. “Tell fucking Lenny to deliver it!”
“Right, Pats,” Lou said obediently. “Sure thing.”
“You’re the man, Lou.” Patrick drank down the last of his beer, smiling at him warmly. He seemed totally at peace again. His eyes had receded back into their sockets. The color of his face had gone from eggplant back to tan. “You bring me anything?”
The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes Page 9