The Man Who Cancelled Himself

by David Handler

  Marjorie and the writers filed out, Muck and Meyer grousing at each other under their breath like two old-timers on a shuffleboard court. Katrina remained behind with Lyle and me.

  “I said in private, Katrina,” he said stiffly.

  “But—”

  “Beat it, you stupid cunt!”

  She ootsie-fooed angrily out the door, Lyle’s guard eyeballing her every curve. And there were many. The white leather halter dress she was wearing was very tight and very short.

  “You’re all class, Lyle,” I observed quietly.

  Lyle ran a gloved hand over his face. “Geez, you’d think people would be more sensitive,” he moaned.

  “To what, Lyle?”

  “Me. My needs. Support is what I need from them right now. Not some stupid argument over Act Two. Christ, somebody’s trying to fucking kill me!”

  “That’s true, Lyle. Somebody fucking is. And you were lucky—this time.”

  He shot me a worried look. “What, you think they’ll try again?”

  “I do.”

  Lyle glanced across the room at his guard, then back to me. “This detective,” he said, lowering his voice. “This Very person …”

  “What about him?”

  “He got any leads yet?”

  “That takes time, Lyle.”

  He began to pace. “Who’s doing this to me, Hoagy? Who wants me gone?!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have no idea?”

  “I have plenty of ideas.”

  “Share ’em with me.”

  “Not now.”

  He gave me The Scowl. “When?”

  “When they’ve started to take shape. Right now they’re just a big blob of ooze. Kind of like our book.”

  He paced some more, his lips making those crisp, flatulent noises I’d come to know and not love. “Naomi says you know about the two of us. Who told you?”

  “No one had to. Discreet you’re not.”

  Lyle didn’t disagree. “She says you were pissed about—”

  “Being used as a cover so you could screw her behind Katrina’s back? I was.”

  He shrugged his big shoulders. “You were just handy is all. Seemed like a nice, tight fit.”

  “So to speak.”

  “She’s a bright kid. I’m just trying to give her a leg up in the business.”

  “So to speak.”

  “I won’t do it again if it bugs you.”

  “It bugs me.”

  He smirked at me. “What, you don’t approve of me giving her some?”

  “Your sex life is your business.”

  “You got that right,” he said defiantly. Then he slumped into a chair. “Can’t help myself, Hoagy. Women are like a compulsion with me. A need. I hope you can understand that. I hope you’re not gonna stay mad at me.”

  “What do you want me to do, Lyle? Slap your hand? Tell you that you’re a baaad boy? What do you want?”

  “I want you to like me,” he replied meekly.

  “We’re collaborators, not friends.”

  “I want us to be.”

  “Not possible—not unless you make some big changes.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like stop shitting all over people.”

  “You mean Katrina?”

  “I mean everyone, Lyle.”

  He shrugged. “It’s like I told you—I’m just honest, that’s all.”

  “You’re just a schmuck, is what you are. Why do you think somebody’s trying to kill you?”

  His face darkened. “Geez, you don’t think it’s Katrina, do you?”

  “Could you blame her?”

  He thought about that a moment, visibly distraught. “No, I guess not,” he admitted. “Maybe … maybe you’ve got a point. Maybe I’m not the easiest person to be around. But I’m gonna change, Hoagy. I’m gonna take something positive out of this. I swear I am.” He looked up at me beseechingly, a big, unruly kid starving for approval. “Okay?”

  “Okay, Lyle,” I said, not sure if he meant it or not. Possibly he was just shaken by Chad’s death. Or telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. Who knew? I didn’t. The man was a riddle. Always.

  His blue eyes twinkled at me now. “Gonna pitch in on the script with us?”

  “Can’t today, Lyle. Things to do.”

  He frowned at me. “What things?”

  “The book, of course.”

  “What if I need you? Where will you be?”

  “I’ll be working at home.”

  “What’s wrong with your office here?” he demanded.

  “I’ll be working at home,” I repeated.

  He peered at me suspiciously, sensing I wasn’t being totally straight with him. Dumb he wasn’t. “Okay, if you say so.” He struggled to his feet. “Only, it runs both ways, Hoagy.”

  “What does, Lyle?”

  “The shit. You ever lie to me and you’ll be sorry. I’ll find out, and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Watch your step, Lyle,” I said cheerfully.

  “You, too, Hoagy,” he said, not the least bit cheerfully. There was nothing but menace in Lyle Hudnut’s voice. “You, too.” Then he barged out the door, his police guard tagging along two steps behind him.

  Vic came downstairs to meet us. I waited for him outside under the awning with Lulu cowering between my legs, swathed in bandages. Passersby glared at me angrily. They assumed I’d been abusing her. So did Mario, the daytime doorman, who kept curling his lip at me. He’d never liked me. Which was okay. I’d never liked him either. Three paparazzi were camped out by the curb in the hot sun, waiting for Merilee to show herself. Me they didn’t bother with. “Wow, get a load of her,” droned Vic as he came out the front door. He still had his apron on over his polo shirt and slacks. Rather frilly one, too. A smaller man couldn’t have pulled it off. “Must have been some tussle.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a fair one. He was much bigger and he bit below the belt.” I picked her up gently and said a few things to her I won’t bother to repeat here. Then I handed her over to Vic, along with her collapsible Il Bisonte travel bag. “Some things she’ll need—salve, pills, change of bandages, her various sinus medications, her Flipper chew toy … Also a jar of anchovies. She prefers them chilled.”

  “I remember,” he assured me, cradling her in his big arms. She pawed feebly at his hairy wrist. “Nice gesture on your part, Hoag. Merilee’s elated.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” I said gruffly. “Lulu just got herself banned from the studio, that’s all.”

  “Sure, sure,” Vic agreed gently. “Mother’s touch is what she needs. Works out well for everybody. Except for you, I guess.”

  “You kidding? First good night’s sleep I’ll get in years.”

  Lulu let out a low, pained moan. I scratched her under her right ear, the good one, to let her know I didn’t mean it. She licked my hand to let me know she knew it.

  “You’re welcome to visit her, Hoag,” Vic offered. “Any time, day or night.”

  I thanked him. Then I mumbled something about having to run and I headed off quickly down Central Park West. No sense dragging it out. I don’t know if she tried to tear herself out of Vic’s arms and come limping after me. I like to think she did, but I didn’t look back. It was best not to.

  I was halfway down the block when I heard Merilee calling to me, her stage-trained voice booming out over the din of cars and busses. Of course, if she were appearing onstage right about now they’d have to clear out the orchestra pit and the first seven rows of seats just to accommodate her stomach. I wasn’t prepared for just how huge she’d become. Not just her stomach either. Her hips were as wide across as the avenue. Her tush, which had once resembled a ripe, firm peach, was now riding like the back end of an old Buick—an old Buick toting two tons of sandbags. She made her way down the sidewalk toward me in slo-mo, as if she were moving through Jell-O, so bloated she could barely waddle, the photographers circling her like angry flies as they snapped her
picture and shouted questions at her. Merilee Nash is not a petite woman. She’s six feet tall in her size-ten bare feet, big-boned and broad-shouldered. But she’s also one of the two or three great natural beauties in the entire film world. And that was pretty hard to imagine right about now. Her long, shimmering golden hair was unkempt and greasy, her fine patrician face puffy and flushed, her skin broken out all over. Her glasses had slid down to the end of her nose, which was running. The jumbo-size, somewhat damp, gray sweatsuit she was wearing gave her an unappetizingly larval appearance. On her swollen feet she wore sneakers without laces.

  I didn’t recognize this person. This person was not Merilee Nash. I stared. Couldn’t help it.

  She caught me. “I look just like a Queens housewife named Gert, don’t I?” she panted, swiping at the dirty hair that was smeared across her sweaty forehead. “All I need is a hair net, fuzzy slippers, and a cigarette stuck in my lip.”

  “You’ve never looked lovelier, Merilee.” I gave her my linen handkerchief.

  “You, mister, are full of baked beans,” she sniffed, mopping her face with it.

  “I’ve missed your quaint little expressions.”

  “I’ve missed you,” she said shyly.

  The photographers were snapping both of us now, and yelling at me.

  “HEY, STEW, WHO’S THE DADDY?!”

  “PUT YOUR ARM AROUND HER!”

  “YOU TWO GETTING BACK TOGETHER?!”

  “SAY DA-DA!”

  Vic left Lulu in the arms of Mario and came after them. He meant business, too. He’d thrown down his apron. He stepped in front of them, his tree-trunk arms spread wide, and began herding them toward the gutter, their curses and protests bouncing off of him. This was Vic doing his job. The man is a human snowplow. He pushed them right out into Central Park West in front of oncoming traffic. They had to cross over to the park to avoid being hit. He stayed where he was, standing guard over us at a discreet distance.

  “When are you due?” I asked her.

  “Two more weeks,” she replied wearily. “Personally I think I’m going to explode before then.” She glanced back at her building, where Mario stood under the awning with Lulu. “I wanted to thank you for her. It’s awfully damned decent of you, considering what I’ve put you through.”

  I shrugged. “The truth is I had no choice.”

  “Horseradish. You could have boarded her.”

  “She got worms the last time I did. She still hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “I promise you I’ll take good care of her.”

  “I know you will, Merilee.”

  “I’ll make her a big plate of asparagus with hollandaise sauce first thing.”

  “She doesn’t eat asparagus.”

  “I do—all the time. Hot, cold, pureed. Morning, noon, and night. Can’t get enough of it.”

  We stared at each other a moment.

  Until she looked away and said, “God bless Alex Trebek. Jeopardy! is all that’s left between me and total mental meltdown.”

  “Now there’s a horrifying thought.”

  “It gets worse. I’m even … promise me you won’t laugh …”

  “I won’t laugh, Merilee.”

  “I’m seriously considering getting into soap operas. I keep hearing they’re actually better than prime time.”

  “Can’t be any worse.”

  Her brow creased fretfully. “Poor Mister Hoagy. You’re not having much fun these days.”

  “Or nights.”

  Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Sorry, I cry all the time,” she blurted out. “Doesn’t mean anything.” She dabbed at her eyes with my handkerchief. “Is that a new suit? I don’t remember it.”

  It was the pure white linen I’d had made for me in Milan. “It is. Like it?”

  “Oh, God, Hoagy,” she blubbered. “You’re such a sight for sore eyes I’m going to start sobbing uncontrollably. Please go before I made a huge fool of myself in public.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  She laughed through her tears. We stared at each other some more. Until she broke it once again. “It’s all gone, Hoagy. Isn’t it?”

  “What’s all gone, Merilee?”

  “The love.” She swallowed. “You don’t love me anymore, do you?”

  I leaned over and kissed her damp, flushed forehead. “Take good care of yourself, Merilee,” I said. Then I walked on down the block with a lump in my throat and that same ache in my chest. The rest of me was just plain numb.

  Eight

  WHEN’S LYLE GETTING HERE, young fella?”

  They were older than I expected. Closer to eighty than seventy. Not far from feeble. And they were by no means ogres. Of course, that was easy for me to say. They were Lyle Hudnut’s parents, not my own.

  Herb Hudnut was a scrawny, defeated little man with a chicken neck, big ears that stuck straight out, and a full head of white hair that was combed flat, except for a schoolboy cowlick. He smelled of Vitalis. He had a striped knit shirt on over a white T-shirt—not a look I recommend—blue polyester slacks, and heavy black Florsheim wing-tips with white support hose. He was very fidgety. Kept moistening his lips and reaching nervously for the pocket of his shirt, as if he had something valuable in there and he wanted to make sure it was still there. Near as I could tell he had nothing in there. He had an old, faded tattoo on the back of his left forearm. His hands shook.

  It was Aileen who Lyle took after the most. She was big. and she was hefty. Must have outweighed Herb by fifty pounds. She had the same jack-o’-lantern face as Lyle, the same chin half submerged in a puddle of jowls, the same pug nose, the same shrewd, twinkling blue eyes. There were still a few streaks of rust in her curly, steel gray hair. She wore a lime green pantsuit, ventilated white nurse’s oxfords, and crimson polish on her nails. Her hands were big and meaty like Lyle’s. They clutched stubbornly at the white vinyl handbag on the sofa beside her, as if she were afraid to let it go. Kind of like Herb and his shirt pocket. She was smoking a cigarette and watching me carefully. She seemed much sharper and more alert than Herb. Tougher, too. My guess was she always had been.

  Both of them were anxious. They thought they were about to see their son for the first time in a long, long time. I had let them think this. On behalf of Lyle I had booked them a suite for the night at the Mayfair Regent Hotel on Park Avenue, which I think is the nicest of the smaller luxury hotels. I thought it best not to put them in the Essex House. There was no telling who they might run into there. The Mayfair also happens to do a superior high tea. I’d told them I’d be there for tea—with Lyle. The cart sat there beside us heaped with china pots and eight different teas and plates of sandwiches and cakes.

  “When’s Lyle getting here, young fella?” Herb repeated, his voice whiny and apologetic, and tinged with working-class Queens.

  “Are you folks happy with your suite?” I had to speak up. Both were slightly deaf.

  “Everything’s just fine,” Herb replied, looking around at the sunny, elegant sitting room. The sofa and club chairs were grouped before an ornamental fireplace. On the coffee table between us sat the baskets of fruit and flowers I’d had sent up. “All seems kinda on the grand side for just us two. Single room woulda been hokey-dokey. How much is this costing Lyle, anyways?”

  “Not to worry. He can afford it.”

  “Bet he can.” Herb chuckled proudly.

  “We was just so excited when you called us, Mr. Hoag,” said Aileen, stubbing out her cigarette. “Lyle hasn’t contacted us in so long.” Her voice was fluttery and high-pitched for such a big woman, and had a peculiar singsong quality to it, as if she were reading a nursery rhyme. If you listened hard you could hear Uncle Chubby’s bedtime story voice in it. “Y’see, he still has a whole lot of childhood anger toward us. My, my, we know we made mistakes. All parents do. Mine sure did. But there comes a time when you have to let go of whatever grudge you hold.”

  “And Lyle just plain hasn’t,” said Herb, moistening his lips an
xiously. “Up till now.”

  “It’s been years since he spoke to us,” confessed Aileen.

  “We always watch him on TV, of course,” Herb said.

  “My, my, he’s gotten so heavy,” said Aileen. “Just like Daddy did. Daddy weighed just over three hundred pounds when he passed away. Poor thing had to have a custom-made casket.”

  “So when’s he getting here?” Herb asked, yet again.

  I poured us Irish breakfast tea through a silver strainer and offered them sandwiches. Herb declined. Aileen tried the salmon. Then I sat and crossed my legs and said, “He’s not coming.”

  They exchanged a look. “Change of plans?” asked Herb hopefully.

  “I’m afraid I’ve lured you folks here under false pretenses. The truth is that Lyle doesn’t know anything about this.”

  She shot me a sidelong scowl. The Scowl. It sent prickles up my neck. “What the heck is this? You said on the phone you was some kind of associate of his.”

  “I am. And I need your help. Desperately.”

  Aileen shook her head at her husband. “I knew it was too good to be true. I knew it.” She bit into her sandwich.

  “I needed to speak to you two in private,” I explained. “And I didn’t think I could get away to Bay Shore without arousing Lyle’s suspicion. I’m sorry if I got your hopes up.”

  “That’s just what you did, young fella,” said a crestfallen Herb, his hands shaking so badly his teacup rattled in its saucer. In another couple of years he’d be ready to be a waiter at Ratner’s. He set it down on the coffee table. “What kind of help you mean?”

  “Lyle’s in serious trouble. Somebody’s trying to kill him.”

  Aileen’s eyes widened. “Kill him? What the heck for?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “What are you?” asked Herb. “Some kind of detective?”

  “I’m his collaborator. I’m helping him write his life story.”

  Aileen pointed a pudgy finger at me. “Sure. You’re the fella who used to be married to what’s-her-name. The one who got herself pregnant.”

  “That’s me.”

  “It’s disgraceful what she did.” Aileen’s sandwich was gone. She reached for another. “And I used to like her movies, too. Especially that outer-space one where they shaved her head. She looked so cute without her—”