I was shaking my head. “I have to have something real. You don’t need to tell me this world isn’t everything. I know that. I’ve been outside this world. It nearly killed me. And the only thing that saved me was knowing there was something back here in the real world. Not pie in the sky. Something I could see and touch, something actually there, outside of me. I just need you to help me focus on that kind of truth so I won’t go back to being crazy.”
“You say you knew there was something real. You mean you knew that while you were still lost in the delusions?”
“Yes.”
“But how did you know that? When you were still hallucinating all the time, how did you know that anything existed other than the craziness inside your head?”
“I made myself remember. There were all these constant disconnected ideas and images swirling around like things picked up in a tornado or something, but every now and then, something would fly past and I’d think, there it is; that’s real. Hang on to that.”
Tanner said, “Let me see if I understand. You’re saying in the midst of your insane hallucinations, you decided to believe that some of it was real. You sorted through months of delusions and picked out a few thoughts or memories or whatever, and based on nothing but your instincts, or your intuition, you decided those few things were real and actual. And you decided to hang on to those things, and that decision is what brought you back.”
He leaned to his right, placed his elbow on the arm of the chair, and rested his temple on his fist. He considered me that way for a few seconds, as if I was a mildly interesting specimen.
Finally he said, “In the middle of the craziness you decided to believe something was real, not because you had solid evidence but simply because you needed to, and that decision saved you, actually in fact and in reality saved you, and now you’re seriously sitting there and telling me you have no use for faith?”
I stared at a spot on the wall beyond his head. When he put it that way, my logic did seem a little out of whack. “Like I said, I’ve been mixed up.”
“There’s no shame in it, Malcolm. Grief will do that to a man.”
“I let her down, Bud. She was counting on me, and I let her down.”
“Are you talking about Haley Lane again?”
“I let her die.”
“As I understand it, you were completely incapacitated.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it matters. You do know that, don’t you?”
I found I couldn’t speak.
“Malcolm?” said Tanner. “Malcolm?”
I shook my head and covered my eyes with the palm of my right hand.
He leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “What was this woman to you?”
It took another moment before I trusted myself to speak. “What we talk about in here, it’s confidential?”
“I’m not a priest, and this isn’t a confessional, but unless I’m ordered to reveal the details of this conversation, you have my word it won’t go any further.”
“She was my wife.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “You and Haley Lane were married?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Malcolm. I’m so sorry.”
I had nothing to say.
After a few moments, he said, “You know, the press seems like it’s got nothing better to do than dig up dirt on that whole Hollywood crowd, and the Hollywood people seem to make it easy for them. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single negative thing about her.”
I said, “I wish you could have known her, Bud. She was magnificent.”
“Seems like I remember reading that she did a lot of charity work.”
“People have no idea how much she did.”
He nodded. “Okay, Malcolm, here’s what you do. A couple of things, actually. You listening?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Okay, first and absolutely nonnegotiable is this. You go on. It doesn’t matter what happens, you go on. No more of this suicide-by-bad-guy nonsense. If a hostile comes at you, then you defend yourself, all right?”
“Okay.”
“You must realize a fine woman like your wife would not be happy with anything less than that.”
Hearing him put it that way, I knew he was right. Haley would have been furious. I said, “I do know that, yes.”
“Good. So that’s number one. And here’s number two: start trusting in the big things again. Call it instinct or faith, whatever makes you comfortable, but you were put here for a reason, Malcolm. There is such a thing as right, and there is such a thing as wrong. That’s the truth, and in your heart you know the difference. Don’t let what happened make you think the main thing is which way the wind blows, or whether the rain is coming down. There’s a truth that’s bigger than all that. It saved your sanity, and it’s always there and totally available to you, so you press into that.”
“How?”
“That’s up to you. Just start with something that seems natural and see how it goes.”
On the drive back up to Newport Beach, my head throbbed and my ribs ached, but I felt strangely serene. I thought about what Bud had said. Just start with something natural and see how it goes. I thought of how few people I had known in my life who were comfortable enough with me to just sit with me in silence, and Simon and Teru did. I remembered something from the Bible, words Haley had quoted to me on the day we married: “It is not good for man to be alone.” I remembered something else, maybe it was William Blake: “The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.”
An idea drifted by. I reached out and took it. I decided it might be truth. I decided it might be excellent.
28
Rolling up the driveway at El Nido, I saw Teru coming my way in a white Porsche Carrera. It was almost dark, so he was headed home. We stopped alongside each other. He rolled down his window. I said, “New car?”
He grinned. “Just bought it this morning. It’s ten years old, but the mileage is low.”
“Sensible yet entertaining. Haley would like it.”
“Yeah, I think she would.”
“Speaking of what she would like, I have a proposition to discuss, if you’ve got a few minutes.”
Teru turned the Porsche around and followed me to the main house. We parked by the front fountain and went around the side. Simon somehow knew we were coming. He opened the door before I could ring the bell.
Sitting with the two of them at the kitchen table, I said, “So I was thinking, what if I did keep this place?”
Teru looked at Simon. Simon looked at the ceiling.
Teru said, “What about Haley’s reputation? You said people would want to know how you got the money. They’d find out about the marriage, and she’d be disgraced.”
“All true. But I was thinking about you guys, and what a shame it was that we’d have to split up, and how Haley would hate that…and all of a sudden I realized there’s a simple solution. And before that I was thinking about all the things Haley did behind the scenes, the hospitals and schools and all, and how hardly anybody knows she was the one who paid for everything. And I realized, just because I inherited a few hundred million doesn’t mean I have to act like I inherited a few hundred million.”
Teru smiled and began to nod, but Simon said, “I’m afraid I don’t quite…”
I said, “It’s so obvious I missed it. Haley and I managed to keep our marriage out of the press because I kept driving for her and living in the guesthouse and just in general behaving as if I was nothing more than her chauffeur and bodyguard. For some reason, I’ve been thinking that would have to change if I accepted the inheritance. But I could just keep doing the same thing. As long as I don’t act like I’m rich, there’s no reason anybody has to know it all belongs to me. You both want to continue doing what you do. Gardening. Buttling. I can’t imagine anything better than what I do either. So why don’t I just keep on living in the guesthouse and working, an
d you guys just keep on doing what you do, and we can kind of leave things like that, if you’re agreeable?”
Teru said, “Half the working stiffs I know have maxed out all their credit cards so they can pretend to live like a multizillionaire. You’d be an actual multizillionaire living like a working stiff. I love it.”
Simon said, “It could work.”
“You bet it could,” I said. “I’d rent the big house out to people who need our kind of special services. I’d drive for the tenants when they want a chauffeur, and you guys would do what you’ve always done for Haley. That way we could all stay here and keep working together.”
“And watching each other’s backs,” said Teru.
“Lately you two have been doing that a lot for me, but yeah, I would kind of like a chance to return the favor if either of you ever needs a hand.”
Simon said, “And if the residents of El Nido prove to be…undesirable?”
“Either of you guys ever says the word for any reason, and they’re gone. They’d never even know it was us who got them kicked them out. I’ll use that attorney in New York to hire a property manager to handle everything. And the rent on this place ought to cover our salaries.”
“That would not be necessary,” said Simon. “As I mentioned previously, Miss Haley was quite generous to me financially in her will.”
“Yeah, but this would be us doing what we’re good at, and even a rich man should be paid for the use of his skills. That applies to everyone, including me.”
Teru looked surprised. “You’d take a salary too?”
“I won’t live off of Haley. Not even when she’s gone. Especially when she’s gone.”
Simon stood, filled a pot, and put it on a burner to make tea. “I believe Miss Haley’s friend Mr. Higgins is in the estate-management business.”
I said, “By Jove, I believe he is.”
Teru laughed and said, “Haley would just love this.”
“But there’s still one thing that could queer the deal.” I looked at Simon. “You’ll have to stop calling me ‘Mr. Cutter’ or ‘sir.’ People would get suspicious.”
“That is regrettable,” said Simon with the barest hint of a smile. “One did enjoy it while it lasted.”
29
It turned out there weren’t a lot of people lined up to rent a thirty-million-dollar mansion… unless it once belonged to Haley Lane. Apparently that did make a difference. Haley’s old friend Higgins had a steady stream of lookers coming through over the next week.
Higgins was a funny-looking little guy, all knees and elbows, with pure black hair that stood up in the back like Alfalfa’s in The Little Rascals, and a way of cocking his head and staring hard at you no matter what you said, as if he found your every word amazing. Simon met all of Higgins’s prospects at the mansion’s main entrance, of course, but Teru and I also wanted a say in who rented the place, so we worked out a signal.
When Higgins thought the lookers might be serious, he would go outside to his Jaguar convertible and put the top down. Then Teru and I would wander over, and Simon would introduce us as “Mr. Fujimoto, the estate horticulturalist, and Mr. Cutter, who would be your on-site chauffeur, should that service be desired.”
We were all pretty pleased with one young couple. They had three cute children, two girls and a boy, and a Swedish nanny, a plump woman of about fifty with a sparkle in her eye. The husband ran a hedge fund, and the wife sat on the boards of several admirable philanthropic organizations. The American Cancer Society. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That kind of thing. It seemed like a good fit until Simon overheard the woman say something to the man about how good the “Oriental yard boy’s” English was.
Higgins brought another prospect over the next morning. I thought he looked familiar from a distance, so although Higgins hadn’t lowered the convertible’s top, I went over for a closer look.
Simon started to introduce us, when the man said, “Why, sure. I know you. It’s Malcolm isn’t it? Malcolm Carver?”
Up close I recognized him as Sidney Gold, one of the most successful executive producers working out of Warner Brothers. He was built like a five-and-a-half-foot-tall spark plug, round all the way up and down. His curly salt-and-pepper hair was about two inches long, and he wore horn-rimmed glasses, a plain-white dress shirt with the tail out, a pair of blue jeans starched with a knife-edged crease, and leather loafers without socks. He had a funny way of talking like Popeye through one side of his mouth. I wondered if he had suffered a small stroke.
I said, “It’s Cutter, actually. Malcolm Cutter. How are you Mr. Gold?”
He snapped his fingers as if he was a little put out with himself. “That’s right. Malcolm Cutter, sure, sorry about that. Call me Sid, okay? And to tell you the truth, I could be better. Looks like the wife wants a divorce.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, maybe I work too much like Fanny says. Say, what are you doing here?”
“I live in the guesthouse over there. I drive for people who live here.”
“No kidding? Is that sort of a value-added service, or an extra charge?”
“It depends on how often you want me. Up to a certain point, it’s what I do to pay my rent. After that we can work something out.”
“Sounds handy. Hey, what do you think of this place? I was thinking about moving in for a while, at least until the divorce is final. The wife doesn’t want me hanging around, and I need to find a house the kids will want to visit.”
“It’s a nice place to live. How are your kids, Mr. Gold?”
“Seriously, Malcolm, call me Sid. And you know how it is. They’re teenagers, so they try to play it cool. But this thing is tough on everyone.”
“Would they be living here with you, Sid?”
“Back and forth, I think. I hope. Fanny’s gonna stay on at our place in Pasadena, probably. It would actually make more sense for me to stay up there and for her to move, since the studio’s right in Burbank. But I guess it’s traditional for the guy to leave, and anyway, it’s pretty clear that logic isn’t gonna play a big part in this process.”
“I really am sorry.”
He sighed and looked around. “Yeah, well. Twenty-two years, can you believe it? I never thought she’d cheat on me. But hey, she said she was lonely, and like I say, maybe I did work too much. It takes two.”
“You sure have a positive attitude about it.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Sometimes I’d like to kill the guy she’s… you know. But Fanny? I never could stay mad at her for long. Mother of my children for crying out loud. Not to mention all those years together. We’ll get through this somehow.”
As Sid Gold rode away in the passenger seat of Higgins’s Jaguar, Teru, Simon, and I stood beside the fountain and watched them go.
“A real mensch, that one,” said Teru. “Be a pleasure to put flowers on his table.”
Looking at Simon, I raised my eyebrows. He said, “I should think it would be most satisfying to assist Mr. Gold in my small way.”
Sid Gold moved in two days later. He came in a black Maserati Quattroporte, followed by a small U-Haul panel truck driven by a young white guy with a bushy Afro. The two of them moved his few belongings into the mansion: lots of clothes, a well-worn leather club chair and ottoman, a pinball machine, a desktop-type computer, and about two-dozen cardboard boxes. I thought it was interesting that Sid moved his own stuff.
That night he called me at the guesthouse. “Hey, Malcolm? It’s Sid.”
“You get moved in okay?”
“Oh, sure. Max helped out. He’s my oldest.”
“I saw him. Good-looking kid.”
“Takes after his mother, fortunately for him. Listen, if this is an imposition just say so, but you mentioned you drive for people who live here, and I have to leave town in the morning. I hate to let those airport valets touch the Maserati. Think you could drop me at John Wayne?”
“Sure, Sid. When do you ne
ed me?”
“That’s great. I was thinking about five thirty, if that’s not too early. The flight leaves at seven. Would that be okay?”
The next morning I had the stretch Mercedes idling beside the fountain at five twenty-five. Sid came out right on the half hour. He had a coffee cup in one hand and the handle of a roll-aboard bag in the other. He pulled the roll-aboard down the front steps, banging it down one step after the other and spilling some of his coffee along the way. Then he tried to roll the thing across the gravel drive. The little wheels couldn’t turn on the stones, so he ended up dragging it like a plow. I met Sid halfway to the car, picked up the bag, and led him to the open door to the passenger compartment. Once he was inside, I stowed his bag in the trunk and off we went.
“Not a morning person, Malcolm,” he said. “Not at my best right now. Thank goodness that Simon guy knows about good coffee.”
I agreed Simon was a wizard with french roast, and we drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Sid said, “I owe you an apology.”
“Really? What for?”
“I was so focused on my troubles the other day, I didn’t even think about your situation. How are you, anyway? I heard you spent a long time in the hospital?”
“I’m better now,” I said. “Thanks for asking.”
Another minute went by, and then he said, “I’ll bet you miss working for Haley.”
“I do.”
“That Haley. I’m gonna miss seeing her around. She was really something.”
“Yes.”
“Never met a more beautiful person. Inside and out.”
“Me, either.”
“Hard to believe they haven’t caught the guy yet. It’s been what? Four months?”
“Closer to like eight.”
“No kidding? Huh. Time really flies. I guess the trail must be pretty cold by now. Do you think the killer’s gonna get away with it?”
January Justice Page 20