The Boy Who Never Grew Up

by David Handler

  “Zorch seemed to take a special delight in it. He told me he’d hated you for a long, long time. Why is that?”

  Trace thumbed his chin ruefully. “How much you know about the movie business?”

  “More than I care to.”

  “I’m just a dumb ol’ football player,” he drawled, “but it’s been my experience that this whole crazy fucking business can be reduced to one simple little word. One word explains it all. I’m gonna give you the benefit of my experience and share that word with you, Buck. It’s revenge.”

  “Revenge?”

  “There was a time at SC, long ago, when I was what they called a big man on campus. I was the golden boy. The quarterback, the campus hero. I got the girls. I got the glory. I got it all. Abel Zorch, he was an unpopular little weasel. A twerp.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Never so much as met him. But he knew me. And envied me. And hated me—for being everything he wasn’t. That hate is what drove him to the top. Gave him his greatest ambition in life, which was to someday, somehow, own me. Me and every other golden boy and girl like me. This business, Buck, is run by dozens of little Abel Zorchs. Them studio execs, agents, producers—they’re all sweaty, unpopular, bitter little fucks. And now it’s their turn. They get to make all of us golden boys and girls jump through hoops. They decide who’s popular and who isn’t. Who’s pretty and who isn’t. Who gets their phone calls returned and who doesn’t. They make us grovel, submit, suck up to ’em. … They’re getting back at us, man. It means more to them than the money, the fame, the glamour. Having power over guys like me, girls like Penny, it’s what they live for. Penny, she’s trying to fight it. But it’ll never happen. Norb’s just telling her what she wants to hear so she’ll hand over her half of Bedford Falls. You don’t really think he’s gonna let her have any clout, do you? No way, man. She’s fooling herself big time, you ask me. But that’s part of this business, too. Big part.”

  “Who do you think killed Abel?”

  He yawned. “Shelley Selden.”

  “Mister or Missus?”

  “Mister. He’s Matthew’s protector, keeper, stooge. He’s devoted his whole life to the guy. If somebody got in that boy’s way, he wouldn’t hesitate to take him out—especially if Bedford Falls was at stake.”

  “He hardly seems the type,” I observed.

  “Don’t be fooled. That there teddy bear can turn into a real grizzly. He beat the shit out of some guy Johnny’s mom was living with one time when the guy got outta line. I seen him coldcock a caterer on the Badger set with my own eyes. Guy got lippy and, pow, Shelley punched his lights out. He can definitely blow.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I said, thinking about the bandage Shelley had been wearing around his wrist. Had he tripped, like he said? “Let’s talk about Matthew. You’ve made more movies with him than anyone.”

  “Seven, if you can believe that. First time I met him he was a pimply kid fetching coffee. Next time I saw him he was a pimply kid directing his own sci-fi film, and I was starring in it. If you’re looking for me to dump on him, I won’t. I got nothing but respect for Matthew. And gratitude. He made me star of five of the top grossing movies in history. Pretty amazing, when you think about it. I mean, shit, Bob De Niro I ain’t. Matthew’s the most single-minded man I’ve ever met. And that includes head football coaches. The man lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps his movies. I can’t honestly say I know him well. It ain’t like we ever raised hell together. He doesn’t do that sort of thing. And he likes to keep his distance from his actors.”

  “He and Johnny seem close.”

  “That’s really more of a father-daughter thing,” he said. “Any actor needs hand-holding on the set is dead meat with Matthew. He doesn’t like to rehearse, doesn’t like actors offering their input. I think that’s one of the reasons he always liked me—I did what he told me to. Actors, we’re props to him. I’ll give you an example: When we was looping To the Moon he added all kinds of sound effects to my big fight scene with the mutant—when I pull the dude’s arm out at the socket—so it’s real gruesome sounding. We’re sitting there watching it one morning and there’s this look of childlike bliss on his face. ‘No one’s ever done that before, Trace,’ he says to me. ‘Done what, Boss?’ I says, thinking he’s making an observation about my performance. ‘The bones,’ he says. ‘You can hear them break.’ Action stuffs what he lives for, and he’s a master. Storyboards everything. Has it all laid out in advance, like a big, live-action cartoon. Yeti was his greatest achievement, in my opinion. Shit, that picture was Operation Desert Storm. Planes flew us from Katmandu to a dirt airstrip at Lukla, this Sherpa village about nine thousand feet up. From there it was three whole days by trail up to our location. All the cameras, equipment, people, supplies, everything had to be taken up by these animals they call dzoms, which are half yak, half cow. We’re up there eight weeks at nineteen thousand feet, living in tents. It’s fifty below, wind’s howling, Olivier’s half dead. Me, I got frostbite in half my toes. Finally, I says, ‘Hey, Boss, why can’t we just shoot this fucker on a nice warm soundstage somewhere!?’ He says to me ‘No, Trace, that’s what was wrong with the original movie. You knew they weren’t really in the Himalayas.’ I says, ‘How?’ He says, ‘You couldn’t see their breath.’ My attitude was, hey, who gives a fuck? It’s just a movie. But to him, it’s more than that. He spent millions on the avalanche. He was obsessed with making it look authentic. Drove the Sherpas crazy. Kept telling ’em he wanted to bring all of this snow down on top of their village. They kept telling him hey, you can’t—you’ll bring down the whole mountain. And he’s like, hey, so what? I’ve seen it done in a million movies. But in those movies it was fake. In a studio. This was a real mountain. Real snow. Real village. He almost didn’t seem to realize that. Never was satisfied with that avalanche. He wanted to bring the mountain down, and they wouldn’t let him.” He laughed. “Whatever he’s doing, it’s always in his own head. Nobody else knows what he’s thinking. Even the Badger movies, which had very little action, it was strictly his spin on things that made ’em work.” He cleared his throat. “I hear there’s no part for me in the new one.”

  “You hear right.” I drained my beer. The sky was purple now. Lights were twinkling down the coast in Malibu. “Will you be sorry if he loses Bedford Falls?”

  “I don’t concern myself with that stuff,” he responded. “I’m just an old surf bum, Buck. I ride the waves. Climb on my board, ride the big ones in, hope that there board don’t conk me in the head when I wipe out. That’s about as far as I take it.” He breathed heavily a few times in the darkness. “Maybe I’m down right now. But I’ll get back up. I’m a star. A fucking star. They can’t keep me down. They never have and they never will.” He struggled up out of his lounge chair, bones creaking. “How’s your stomach?”

  “Compared to what?”

  “Want to try some of my chili?”

  “I would.”

  “Then let’s do it. Got me some major bug killer we can wash it down with.”

  “Bug killer?”

  “Tequila, Buck. Only we’d better get one thing straight—Big Steve always gets the worm.”

  “And who am I to stand in his way?”

  It was past ten by the time I left Trancas, comfortably lit by Trace Washburn’s chili and bug killer. Trace downed three shots for every one of mine. Even pulled out a guitar and serenaded me with a somewhat diseased rendition of “I’m an Old Cowhand.” His phone rang constantly—women wanting him. At some point a pair of aging brown surfers named Rip and Corky came by with news of a party. The three of them went staggering off down the beach together. I headed back to Bedford Falls. I had business. I drove the Vette hard, enjoying the open road. I thought about Merilee and how much I wished she were riding next to me with Lulu in her lap, the wind blowing her golden hair. I wondered if she missed me. I wondered if we were through. I wondered. Bug killer does that to me.

  The reporters were
still on the gate. So was Shadow, sweating before the fan in his guard’s booth as he browsed through Beyond Good and Evil by Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche.

  “I have it on good authority that the heat wave will break by morning,” I informed him solemnly.

  He showed me his gold tooth. “You been out enjoying yourself some fine mash, haven’t you, sir?”

  “The finest. Matthew at home?”

  “Yessir. He and Shelley and Sarge be working on some preproduction details up in the main building.”

  “And Bunny?” It was Bunny who was my business.

  “No, sir. She still be out.”

  I glanced at Grandfather’s Rolex. It was nearly midnight. “She often stay out this late?”

  “She’s got her friends,” he replied, swiping at his brow with his handkerchief. “You know how it is with them widows. They play their cards, drink their coffee, gossip till all hours.”

  “Does she ever stay out all night?”

  He peered at me, amused. “Little bit old for you, isn’t she?”

  “Idle curiosity.”

  “Ain’t nothing about you that’s idle.” He folded the hanky carefully and set it aside. “She always makes it back. The Shadow’ll tell her you was asking for her.”

  “Thank you, Shadow. About that coke you planted in Matthew’s bungalow at Panorama …”

  His face dropped. “Yessir?”

  “Who gave it to you?”

  He frowned. “Gave it to me?”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “I bought it, sir,” he said uncomfortably. “Mr. Schlom give me the money, some five thousand dollars it was. And the name of a certain individual known to be a reliable and discreet supplier. You seem inordinately interested in that sad episode, if the Shadow may say so.”

  “What was the dealer’s name?”

  He took off his cap and scratched his head. “Tyrone Johnson. African-American gentleman. Preferred to call himself—”

  “Shambazza.”

  His eyes flickered. “Yessir.”

  “He died.”

  Shadow shrugged. “Happens to the best of us. And the worst.”

  “Someone shot him. Not long after you bought that coke from him, actually. Did you know that?”

  “No, sir, I didn’t,” he said coldly. “But I’d let that particular sleeping dog lie if I was you. Might bite your hand clean off.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Shadow.”

  “You’re most welcome, sir. Good night.”

  I drove on in, glancing at him in my rearview mirror. He was watching me. And he wasn’t showing me any gold tooth.

  There were two phone messages under my door, both from Lamp. There were no messages from Merilee Nash. My bungalow was hot and stuffy. I put on the air and took a shower and slipped into my silk dressing gown. Then I padded out to the phone to call Lamp.

  Only the bungalow had changed. The desk light was off, a candle flickering in its place. A leather tote bag lay on the desk, two bottles of Dom Pérignon inside, chilled. Our drink. I heard the toaster pop in the outer office. Toast meant caviar. Our favorite bedtime snack. She was here. She was really here. Heart pounding, I dashed into the other room.

  She wasn’t here. It was America’s sweetie pie who stood there bribing Lulu with a wedge of Beluga-laden toast. The little mercenary won’t growl at other women when they do that.

  I stood there staring at her. Because this was Pennyroyal Brim like I’d never seen her before. She had on the tiniest of black leather minidresses, strapless and skin tight. Cut very low in front, cut even lower in back. She wore black spiked heels with no stockings. Her golden hair was up. There were diamonds in her ears, some red on her lips. She looked nothing like Debbie Dale, girl next door. She looked glamorous and radiant and outrageously seductive.

  “Ah, there you are,” she said, voice low and throaty, her eyes blue and innocent. “I was just getting out the ice. Care to help?”

  Chapter 9

  “ONE DOESN’T GENERALLY SERVE Dom Pérignon on the rocks.”

  “It’s not for the champagne, you silly-willy,” she said, favoring me with her sunniest smile. “It’s for me—I worked up quite some sweat getting here.”

  “Shadow glad to see you?”

  “I didn’t use the gate. Think I want everyone in the world to know I’m here?”

  “I don’t think.”

  “I parked around the corner and came through the fence like a burglar,” she revealed proudly. “There’s a break in it behind a bunch of overgrown bamboo out by the prop warehouse. It’s been there for years. Johnny showed it to me when we were making Badger One. He used it to slip out on his mom.”

  There were two ice trays in my little freezer. I cracked the cubes into a bowl. She carried it into the other room with the caviar and toast, swaying slightly on her high heels. It was a nice kind of sway. She knew it. I knew it. She knew I knew it, and I knew she knew I knew it. Lulu followed her. All she was interested in was the caviar.

  She came back with the champagne and two long-stemmed glasses. She put one bottle in the fridge. The other she handed to me. “Will you do the honors?”

  “All right.”

  I removed the foil and slowly worked the cork out. She drifted back into the other room. After I’d filled our glasses I joined her. She was seated on the edge of the sofa bed in front of the air conditioner, slooooowly rubbing an ice cube up and down her bare legs. They were lovely legs. Tanned, smooth, gently swelled at the calf, finely tapered at the ankle. The beads of moisture glistened on them in the candlelight.

  “Shall I get you a towel?” I asked. “Or do you just want me to wipe you off with my tongue?”

  “You really should do screenplays. Your dialogue’s outrageous.”

  “The problem is finding someone who can say it as well as I can.”

  I handed her a glass. We drank.

  “Say something else witty,” she commanded airily.

  “Sorry. I’ve punched out for the night.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Haven’t I?”

  “No.”

  She helped herself to caviar and gave some more to Lulu. Then she kicked off her shoes and sat back on the bed, pillows propped behind her, wiggling her little pink toes. She drank, watching me over her glass. I watched her watching me. Everyone, Grandfather once told me, is selling something. What was Pretty Penny selling?

  “Where’s Georgie?” I asked, sampling the caviar. I wasn’t disappointed.

  “He almost always sleeps through the night,” she replied. “Maria has your direct number here if he needs me. Cassie gave it to me.”

  “Does Cassie know you’re here?”

  “No one knows I’m here.” She cleared her throat. She seemed nervous now. Extremely so. “See, there was something more that I …” She trailed off, lit a cigarette, and pulled deeply on it. “Something I wanted to tell you this morning that I didn’t want to say in front of Cassie.”

  I pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sat. “She’s your collaborator. You shouldn’t keep secrets from her.”

  “Screw Cassie. Screw the book. What matters is that I lied to you.” She leveled her porcelain blue eyes at me. “I don’t ever want us to do that to each other.”

  Outside, I heard footsteps in the courtyard. A door opened and closed. Bunny was home.

  I sipped my champagne. “Go on.”

  “I told you I never took Toy up on any of her invitations. You know, to meet those men?”

  “And you did?”

  “Once,” she said, her voice quavering. “Once was … plenty. She invited me to a party up at this movie big shot’s house in Trousdale. She said I’d meet a lot of important people there. Like I told you, Hoagy, I was naive.”

  “You believed her.”

  Her glass was empty. She held it out to me. Our fingers touched. Hers were cold. I filled her glass and handed it back to her. She was trembling.

  “I expected there�
��d be all these cars there,” she said, gulping at her champagne. “But there weren’t—no people at all. Just Toy and this guy. She said everybody was at a screening that had run long, but they were on their way. He gave me some wine to drink and showed me around. He told me he and his wife had just separated. He seemed nice enough. I—I thought the wine tasted a little funny, but it wasn’t like I knew a whole lot about wine.”

  “They drugged you?”

  “I was the party, Hoagy. Me. Nobody else. W-When I came to I was lying spread-eagled on this bed, naked, my wrists and ankles tied by stockings to the bedposts. There was a plastic sheet under me. I’ve always remembered that. I don’t know why. Toy and this guy … they were naked, too.”

  “How does Norb look with his clothes off?”

  She stared at me. “How did you know it was him?”