by Gwen Davis
He went back inside and lay beside her. Her skin had a luminous sheen. It looked pale gold in the moonlight, the glow from the mermaid in the atrium. His hand rested on the silk surface of it, while he lay back and tried to sleep.
Outside, the wind whistled, howled, and whispered by turns. And what it whispered, he could make out distinctly, he was almost sure, was “Fool. Fool. Fool.”
But maybe it wasn’t really the wind. Maybe it wasn’t even his imagination. Maybe it was Algernon.
And the Winner Is …
“So this is what I’ve decided,” Lila said. “I’d like you to build a statue.”
“I see,” said Victor Lippton.
He had come to the Park Sunrise out of deference to her still physically compromised condition. She was now in the care of his personal physician, as he wanted to help her get better as quickly as possible so she could get back to New York and resume her normal life and he could resume his. The doctors had taken off her cast, but she was still using crutches. Besides deferring to her incapacity, Victor had been raised well, and she was old. In addition, he imagined his secretary was starting to wonder why he was getting so many calls from Lila Darshowitz and, more importantly, why he was taking them. Nobody in the town, the industry, had more power than Victor Lippton, with the possible exception of Norman Jessup, two men who instantly picked up the phone on hearing each other’s names. But those were the exceptional calls that they responded to at once, along with those coming from the women they loved: Chen, in Victor’s case, Carina in Norman’s. Victor had told Alexa not to call him anymore, even on his cell phone. “Don’t call me,” he’d actually said, “I’ll call you.”
“I have here a list of sculptors who would be acceptable.” Lila handed him the index of names Kate had helped her draw up. This included a few suggestions of her own, culled from all the years of reading her au courant (an expression she knew from W) magazines. “But I’d like to interview them before making a decision.”
“Naturally,” Victor Lippton said.
“I have some ideas what I’d like the statue to be. Concepts, I guess you’d call them. I have pictures of him from when he was young. I like to remember him like that.”
“I’m sure.”
“Terra-cotta would be nice. Or bronze. He looked better with a tan.”
“And where—” Victor’s coffee went down the wrong pipe, and he sputtered a little, trying not to choke. They were in her boxlike room. He’d brought a picnic basket, prepared by the personal chef who made lunches for him in his private dining room at the studio. Lila had called and said she’d made her decision, was ready to talk, and wanted to “do” lunch. She had been in the city long enough to understand that nobody ate it. There was cold chicken, finger sandwiches, jellied madrilene in little crystal bowls with plastic covers, a bottle of wine which Lila said she’d love to try once she’d finished her presentation. “And where,” he began again, “would you like this statue to be?”
“On the lot of Cosmos,” she said. “Your studio.”
This time he could not control the choking.
“He was the president there once,” she continued, leaning over to pound him on the back, “so it would be, like you say, fitting.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t try to talk,” she said. “Don’t you hate that, when something goes down the wrong way? But I want a really nice spot for him. I wouldn’t be happy with the parking lot. Maybe that lovely patch of grass just below your window, so people could see it from high-line executive meetings.” She looked concerned at his struggle for air. “Maybe if you took a piece of bread…”
“I’ll be alright,” Victor said, and waved her offer away. He took an audible gulp of air, swallowed, and got the choking under control.
“You were very kind to go to all this trouble,” she said, looking in the plaid-lined Nieman Marcus basket. “What’s this?” She held up one of the little crystal bowls.
“Chilled consommé madrilene.”
“Really? I’ve heard about that, but I’ve never tasted it. I’d like to try it.”
He took off the lid, and handed it to her with a silver spoon. She tasted.
“Beef Jell-O,” she said, making a face.
“Maybe you’d enjoy the chicken.” He held out a piece on a customized plastic plate.
“Thank you,” she said. “So is it agreed?”
“Very well,” he said.
“I think I’d like some wine now,” said Lila. “So how’s your windpipe?” she asked him as he poured.
“Fine, fine.”
“And another thing … thank you,” she said taking her glass, and sipped. “Like everybody else, I watch the Academy Awards. Larry felt bad that he never got one. You know, the year his really good picture was up, there was that little trouble…”
“The forgery and embezzlement,” Victor said.
Lila nodded. “So they didn’t give it to him. They have that one they sometimes give posthumously?” She pronounced it “post,” like the office, and “hum,” as though it were a song, with emphasis. “That one after what’s-his-name, who played Doctor Christian? God, I loved that show.”
“The Jean Hersholt Award?” he managed.
“Did you ever hear that show? No, of course not. That was before you were born. Radio was probably before you were born. What do you think?”
“That’s the humanitarian award.” He was barely able to speak. “Let’s not make this a complete travesty.”
“What’s that?”
“When you laugh at what deserves honor.”
“Well, laughing was what Larry did best.”
“I will not be a party to it,” Victor said. “You can go ahead and expose me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Lila said. “Or anybody else. I just want Larry to have the recognition he deserves. How about that Irving Thalberg one?”
“For Lifetime Achievement?”
“You’re not eating,” Lila said.
“They would throw me out of the academy for daring to suggest it. Larry Drayco, for God’s sake. To even mention him in the same breath as Irving Thalberg…”
“Then maybe he should have his own name,” Lila said, holding out her glass for a refill. “His own award. Maybe you could introduce a new one.”
“The Larry Drayco Award,” he said, pouring a glass of wine for himself, drinking it very quickly. “For spitting in the face of an entire industry.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have to put it like that, exactly,” Lila said. “He was an original.”
“It’s true,” Victor said, and poured himself another wine, and drank it like it was medicine. “He had chutzpah.”
“That he did,” said Lila, and clinked her glass against his.
“And he was indefatigable.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means when you never give up. I will say that about him. He never gave up.”
Lila took a deep breath. “That’s two of us,” she said.
* * *
The day of the Norman Jessup–Carina nuptials dawned bright, if not exactly clear. That came as a great relief to the catering staff of the Hotel Bel-Air. They had been up since the early hours of the morning preparing, the Latinos among them running out periodically to light candles so it wouldn’t rain. There was a storm front off the coast that they had been listening to reports of with more than trepidation. Though they were prepared to tent the garden by Swan Lake for the ceremony and the vast lawn next to the giant sycamore for the reception, a wedding was never the same when it was soggy. Rain is considered a blessing by Hindus and Jews, but nobody was exactly sure what religion Carina was. They did, however, know that Christian Lacroix was in the hotel, having been flown in from Paris for the final fittings, and he was as close as many of the brides in the area could come to having a pope.
There was a suite set aside just to hang the bridesmaid’s dresses. The fashion press had written in advance about the
designs. For the bridesmaids, it was mixes of fondant pink, pearl gray, and silver fox. For the matron of honor, Mrs. Victor Lippton, it would quicken to rose pink sashed in mauve and green. The ring bearer, a four-year-old descendent of one of the founders of Paramount, would wear quicksilver velvet, short pants and jacket, and carry a pillow of gray satin, matching his ruffled shirt. The flower girl’s dress would be a six-year-old, full-skirted version of the bridesmaids’. She would strew mauve rose petals on the silver carpeted aisle. That would tie it all together esthetically, according to the art director Norman had brought in to orchestrate the affair. The wrought-iron lamps siding the garden, like the stairs leading down to it, would be strung with wide, mauve satin ribbon. Each bow was to hold an arrangement of mauve roses, lilies of the valley, and cymbidium orchids, matching the bride’s bouquet, which would trail to the ground, not quite as long as her train, to be held by two boys from a nursery school reputed to be funded by Michael Jackson.
The bride’s dress was the very one that Claudia Schiffer had worn at the climax of the St. Laurent collection in Paris, a slightly less glittering occasion. It would be a swirl of white and gray and pale pastels. Everything was so well planned, it would doubtless go without a hitch, except for the happy couple, wrote a local wag who hadn’t been invited.
But as coolly organized as the catering staff was, having handled any number of important and splendid weddings, there was a specialness about this one that had everybody slightly on edge. The overflow, anticipated to be close to a hundred, was to observe the ceremony from the balcony of the terrace, where they would also dine. A microphone with a special amplification system had been set up by one of Jessup’s production technicians so no one would miss what was said by the man officiating, or the “I do’s” uttered by groom and bride. Still, with everything taken care of, there remained some clouds in the sky.
Brides were usually nervous. What the hotel offered for weddings, besides excellent service, an exquisite setting, and first-rate cuisine, was a unique air of tranquility that calmed the most jittery. This morning, however, even the caterer felt a need to pull herself together. She retreated to the herb garden while the bus-boys went to relight their candles, praying that the weather would hold. “Happy the bride the sun shines on,” the caterer repeated, eyes closed, like a mantra. “Happy the bride the sun shines on. Pretty please.”
* * *
Sarah Nash had lit no candles, not even black ones. Instead, she sat all night at her computer, ready to cast her own personal dark spell. For the perfect wedding gift, the coup de grace. She had almost everything she needed now to ruin him. On the pages she was ready to print out was the punch line she intended to release to the press, the tale of Paulo’s tail. Rewritten in her own inimitable, venomous style was the heading: “Penis into Venus.” She would staple it to the Xerox of the letter from the urologist/plastic surgeon from Johns Hopkins. She had not yet even hinted at this perfect piece of evidence to her agent Lori. Sarah had given her only enough ammunition to enable her to make the deal.
“It’s set,” Lori had said, in their last conversation. “Two million with the paperback.”
“That may not be enough,” Sarah had said.
“It’s high in this market. And of course everything’s contingent on your having what you said was proof of what happened to Paulo. We’re all dying to hear, especially me. Tell, tell. Did Jessup kill him?”
“I’ll fax it to you the morning of the wedding,” Sarah said. “Just before I meet with the press. I have a breakfast date with a reporter from the L.A. Times and the entertainment editor of CNN.”
“Entertainment?”
“Some people find the odious entertaining. ‘Foul deeds will rise,’ taking the people who do them to the top, especially in Hollywood.”
“Put that in the book.”
“I already have.”
“If he’s such a villain, aren’t you afraid? If he did away with Paulo, what’s to stop him from doing something to you?”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Sarah said. “If anything happened to me, everyone would know who was responsible.”
“Then write away, baby.”
She had, and was. She looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty. An hour and a half till the breakfast revelation. So caught was she in her rage that she saw none of her surroundings, except for the keyboard on her computer and the searing words on the screen. Just across from where she sat were sliding glass doors that led to her patio, flush with purple morning glories opening to the day. In the center was the pool, dark blue in the early remaining shadows cast by the huge leaves of the giant philodendron as it stretched up, entangling itself with the palms.
Driven by time and the acid juice of her vendetta, Sarah experienced nothing but her sense of urgency. If only her hands had the speed of her brain. Well, maybe she could accelerate the creative process.
She went to the closet to get her freebasing paraphernalia.
* * *
“Good morning,” Norman said, carrying a breakfast tray, setting it on the bed.
“You think of everything,” Carina said, stretching.
“Yes, I do.” He went to the glassene curtains softening the ocean view and pulled the string to open them. “I even ordered the perfect day.”
“It’s cloudy.”
“The better to photograph you by.” He sat by Carina on the bed. “By the end of this morning, all our cares will have vanished.”
“I didn’t know we had any cares.”
“Well, just one. Sarah Nash. For the ultimate wedding gift, I’m giving you her head on a tray.”
“You aren’t serious.”
“A friend of Perry Zemmis’s is taking care of it. Tonight Sarah Nash sleeps with the fishes. Or Jimmy Hoffa.”
“Are you crazy?” Carina said. “If anything happens to her, they’ll know it was you.”
“Not if they never find her.”
“You must cancel. You’ll bring a curse on our marriage.”
“This isn’t Brazil.”
“Call him now,” she said, and picked up the phone. “Call him this minute and call it off, or I’ll call off the wedding.”
“The world is coming. It’s the event of the decade.”
“Except the bride won’t be there.”
“Paulo—”
“Now,” Carina said, holding the phone out to him. “Do it!”
Reluctantly, he took the phone.
* * *
Arthur Finster had ordered a new tuxedo. That he wasn’t invited to the wedding was beside the point. There would undoubtedly be security, but he’d already found a place up the road from the Bel-Air, on Tortuoso Way, where he could park unobserved by the attendants. From there he could skip through the camellia garden that bordered the hotel grounds to the north, make his way under the bridge, and come out slam, bang, right at the edge of the whole affair. As unruffled as the swans.
Many had been the places he didn’t really belong. He found a poignancy to that thought, a kind of middle-of-the-road seventies folk song, John Denverish, as the tailor fitted him for the last time. The wedding wasn’t until five, eight and a half hours away. There was plenty of time for the last-minute touches that might be needed, although it seemed a perfect fit, especially for one who had never fit in.
For all his intrusiveness, Arthur had not yet been quite this intrusive. But today he was taking on the giants. Today he was David vs. Goliath & Co. All of them, or certainly most of them, were due to be present at the wedding—most importantly, Fletcher McCallum.
“You look like a million dollars,” said his tailor, putting pins in the sleeve of the one arm that was shorter than the other.
“Fifty million, to be exact,” said Arthur, checking himself out in the full-length mirror, naming the sum that had been in the subpoena, the class action libel suit the celebrities had brought against him. Represented by Fletcher McCallum, whom he intended to serve with a subpoena for a lawsuit of twice that sum. It would b
e quite a scene as he crashed the wedding, serving as his own process server. The mystery bag would be over the shoulder of his customized tuxedo. Fortunately, the bag was black, so he wouldn’t look too schleppy. He owed that doff of the hat to O.J., anyway. Whatever else he might be guilty of, he at least showed good taste.
It was Arthur’s plan to make his way to wherever McCallum sat and kneel behind or beside and whisper an urgent suggestion that they meet in the men’s room. Once there, and without further ado, he would tell McCallum what he had on Harnoun, an associate in his own firm. He would tell him that the goods had been provided by Harnoun’s own son, Richie, along with testimony that the bag was the one his father had come home with the night of the murder and dumped in the closet. And then Arthur would say aloud what he had already rehearsed to himself countless times: “Why, in the wrong hands, Fletcher, this bag could bring down an entire firm.”
“You going to take the tuxedo in that bag?” the tailor asked.
“No, thanks. I’ll just eat it here.” He laughed aloud at the antique joke. “Humor was never my strong suit.”
“Or your tuxedo,” the tailor said.
Arthur froze him with an icy stare. “Just fix the sleeve,” he said.
* * *
Victor Lippton drove Lila to the airport himself. His wife had asked him where he was going that was so important, when it was a weekend and they should both be relaxing before the wedding. “I have to take somebody to the airport,” he’d told her, as he dressed.