“What are you doing here?” I asked as Lulu whooped and licked her fingers.
The waiter brought her a glass and poured her some champagne. She heaped some caviar on a wedge of toast, ate half of it, and fed Lulu the rest, almost losing a finger in the process. Lulu has mighty expensive taste for someone who eats canned mackerel.
“I’m taking in the rest of this show and this caviar with you, darling,” she said, sipping her champagne. “Then I’m taking you to the Cat Club on East Thirteenth, where they have a dance floor and a seventeen-piece swing band that’s as loud and hot as they come. If you’re still on your feet after that, and if you’re good to me, I’ll take you down to Ratner’s and buy you a large plate of lox and onions and eggs before I deposit you at your door.” She poured herself some more champagne. “But first I’d switch to single malt if I were you. I understand the barman has a fine old Glenmorangie.”
“Merilee … ?”
“Yes, darling?”
I got lost in her green eyes for a moment. “You’re not the worst person I’ve ever known.”
She smiled and took my hand. “That’s positively the second-nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Hoagy.”
“What’s the nicest?”
“ ‘I felt that one all the way down to my toenails.’ ”
“Why, Merilee, you’re getting awfully frisky in your gender years.”
“It’s true, I am. Isn’t it odd?”
I got the waiter over and ordered a double Glenmorangie. I downed it in one gulp when it came, and ordered another.
Lulu didn’t growl at me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
(TAPE #1 WITH DELILAH Moscowitz recorded May 16 in her apartment on Twelfth St. Decor is modem, expensive, impersonal. Wears black sleeveless jumpsuit, sweat socks, no makeup. Hair is tied in a tight ponytail.)
Moscowitz: You look like you were out all night drinking.
Hoag: Only because I was, Red.
Moscowitz: I didn’t sleep a wink either, thinking about Cam. The police were here asking me all sorts of questions, like they think I know where he went or something.
Hoag: Was it Very?
Moscowitz: Very what?
Hoag: Lt. Romaine Very.
Moscowitz: Is he gorgeous? (no response) Has an ulcer?
Hoag. Yes.
Moscowitz: It was Very. They know it was Cam’s knife now. They dug up a Rolling Stone photo of him cleaning his fingernails with it. Same markings and everything. Can I get you more cranberry juice?
Hoag: This will be fine.
Moscowitz: Sorry I don’t keep anything else in the house. I’m a compulsive eater — whatever’s here I go through. Where’s your little dog?
Hoag: My ex-wife gets her on Sundays.
Moscowitz: Just like child custody. How cute.
Hoag: Do you?
Moscowitz: Do I what?
Hoag: Know where Cam went.
Moscowitz: How would I know?
Hoag: Look, I’m not the police. I’m on his side. If you want to help him, tell me what you know. Have you heard from him?
Moscowitz: No, damn it. All I know is he’s gone and they’re after him and … promise you won’t tell the police this?
Hoag: We don’t pool information.
Moscowitz: I’m pissed as hell that he didn’t take me with him.
Hoag: You’d have gone?
Moscowitz: Are you shitting me, jack? The man I love is a hunted desperado. He’s front page news.
Hoag: He’s a murderer.
Moscowitz: I don’t care. I’d give anything to be on the run with him.
Hoag: Just like Bonnie and Clyde?
Moscowitz: Better. My parents wouldn’t shit bricks over Bonnie and Clyde.
Hoag: I guess you got to know him pretty well.
Moscowitz: I guess.
Hoag: Did he ever talk to you about his childhood?
Moscowitz: Never. He’s peculiar that way. Most men I’ve known like to unload after they unload. Not him.
Hoag: Does the name Ferris Rush mean anything to you?
Moscowitz: Ferris Rush? Is that a man or a woman?
Hoag: A man.
Moscowitz: No. Never heard it before. Look, I don’t mean to rush you, but I have to finish packing.
Hoag: Going out on tour, I understand.
Moscowitz: Yes, I’m doing the Carson show on Tuesday. Local L.A. TV and radio. Then San Francisco. Then I work my way back across the country. Twenty-one cities in eighteen days. A major grind.
Hoag: Any chance you’re meeting up with Cam somewhere along the line?
Moscowitz: Only if he gets hold of me and says come.
Hoag: And you will?
Moscowitz: I will.
Hoag: Even if it hurts your career?
Moscowitz: I couldn’t care less about my career.
Hoag: He told me the two of you went to Ozone Park the night Skitsy was killed. Got to the Galaxy Motel at about eight. That part checks out. What doesn’t is where he was an hour earlier when she was thrown off her terrace.
Moscowitz: We were eating at a White Castle.
Hoag: So he said.
Moscowitz: It’s the truth.
Hoag: You’re claiming he didn’t kill Skitsy?
Moscowitz: Look, maybe he killed Charlie. It sure looks like he did. But he was with me when Skitsy died. I swear it.
Hoag: I see. You know, it’s funny how alibis work. You’re his for the time of her death. But you can also turn that equation around — he’s yours.
Moscowitz: What’s that supposed to mean?
Hoag: Pretty strong, aren’t you?
Moscowitz: My coach at the club said I bench press more weight than half the men he has.
Hoag: You’d do anything for Cam, wouldn’t you?
Moscowitz: Yes, I would.
Hoag: Would you kill for him?
Moscowitz: (silence) I didn’t throw Skitsy off of that terrace.
Hoag: Were you happy with her as your editor?
Moscowitz: Of course.
Hoag: No creative differences?
Moscowitz: Skitsy Held put this reporter on the best-seller list. That has a way of smoothing over all sorts of creative differences — not that I’m saying we had any.
Hoag: You would have if she’d found out about you and Cam.
Moscowitz: That’s true.
Hoag: Had she?
Moscowitz: Not that I know of.
Hoag: What did Cam tell you about the two of them?
Moscowitz: Very little, except that she liked to be tied up.
Hoag: Nothing about why he continued to see her?
Moscowitz: I guess he liked doing the tieing. I wasn’t thrilled about her, but I didn’t consider her any sort of rival. It was Charlie who was his main squeeze. You already know how she and I got along.
Hoag: I guess you were pretty happy when Charlie gave up on him.
Moscowitz: Sure I was.
Hoag: Any idea how Skitsy felt about her?
Moscowitz: Cam said she never found her particularly threatening.
Hoag: You she would have found?
Moscowitz: Me she’d have freaked over. But what’s the point in going on about it? It never happened.
Hoag: Just thinking out loud. It’s kind of interesting how the three of you were all involved with the same man, and how the two of them are dead, and you’re not.
Moscowitz: You don’t actually think I did away with them, do you?
Hoag: I think you were at Rat’s Nest yesterday. I think you were there right around the time Charlie was murdered.
Moscowitz: I-I wasn’t. I’ve never even been near the place.
Hoag: Don’t kid a kidder, Red.
Moscowitz: What makes you so sure I was there?
Hoag: I have my methods.
Moscowitz: (silence) Do the police know?
Hoag: Not from me they don’t.
Moscowitz: All right … Cam trusted you. I’ll trust you. (pause) I went to see h
er.
Hoag: What for?
Moscowitz: So there’d be no hard feelings. She and Cam still had to work together on their book, and I wanted it to go well. I did it for his sake.
Hoag: It had nothing to do with her threatening to cut you if she ever caught you near him again?
Moscowitz: She didn’t scare me.
Hoag: How did your visit go?
Moscowitz: Shockingly well, though I must admit it was a little weird having this serious conversation with a blue mannequin. I told her how sorry I was it had happened, and how I’d never meant to hurt her. She said she understood and that she was fine. That she’d already met someone else who she really liked. She thanked me for coming by, and apologized for what happened in Sammy’s. And then I left.
Hoag: What time?
Moscowitz: I don’t remember exactly. I got there about one. She was alive when I left. The clerk saw me go. Ask her. Go ahead.
Hoag: That’s for the police to do. Not my concern.
Moscowitz: What is your concern?
Hoag: Cam Noyes.
Moscowitz: Why?
Hoag: I work for him.
Moscowitz: That’s all?
Hoag: He’s a friend. He’s in trouble.
Moscowitz: I think I’d like to have you as a friend myself.
Hoag: We wouldn’t stay friends for long.
Moscowitz: Meaning we’d become enemies or meaning we’d become lovers?
Hoag: One of the above.
Moscowitz: Agreed. … Charlie didn’t seem at all upset when I left. I really don’t know what happened between them to set him off. I guess she made him mad about something and he lost control.
Hoag: I don’t buy that. He took the knife there with him from home.
Moscowitz: So?
Hoag: So that’s what they call premeditation — he went there planning to kill Charlie. What I can’t figure out is why.
(end tape)
(Tape #1 with Boyd Samuels recorded May 17 in his office in the Flatiron Building.)
Samuels: This place has been a frigging madhouse. Cops, reporters, TV. Everybody wants to know where he is. How the fuck should I know? He’s gone. Wigged out, the poor fucker — don’t say it. I know you warned me. And I didn’t listen to you, and I feel like shit about it, okay? (pause) Think he did in Skitsy, too?
Hoag: So it would appear.
Samuels: Man, when he breaks it off with a chick he makes it permanent, huh?
Hoag: Possibly he did it to keep her from talking to me about how he’d hit that busload of kids. That makes some sense. But then he went ahead and told me about it himself the next morning. That doesn’t.
Samuels: You know about the bus?
Hoag: I encouraged him to put it in the book.
Samuels: You what?
Hoag: He couldn’t stand holding it in anymore. He was prepared to go to jail for it if he had to.
Samuels: Why the fuck didn’t he mention any of this to me?
Hoag: Doubtless because he thought you’d talk him out of it. I don’t suppose you did Skitsy in. To protect him, I mean.
Samuels: Me? (laughs) I’m an agent, amigo. The telephone is my bayonet. I’d swear the law was following me though. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Hoag: You’re not.
Samuels: You, too?
Hoag: Yes.
Samuels: Well, they can forget it. I’m not making it easy for them to catch him. They’re getting zilch from me.
Hoag: Meaning you know something?
Samuels: (silence) Turn off that recorder a second.
Hoag: (rustling noise) Okay, it’s off.
Samuels: Okay … We have heard from him.
Hoag: Where is he? What did he say?
Samuels: Todd talked to him. I was talking to Ovitz on the coast. By the time I got off the line, he’d split. He was at a gas station somewhere in Mount Vernon.
Hoag: What’s he doing there?
Samuels: How should I know? He’s on the run. He called to say he was sorry to bring all of this down on me. And on you, too. He mentioned you.
Hoag: He’s doing himself no good. He should turn himself in.
Samuels: You and I know that, amigo. But it’s his life. His decision. I’m not turning him in. They keep asking me if I know where his financial records are, since they turned up zilch at the house. I told them no. I didn’t tell them that everything — tax records, bank statements — is kept right here. Let ’em search the place. Nail me for obstructing justice. I don’t care. I owe him that much.
Hoag: Mind if I turn the recorder back on now?
Samuels: Sure. Go ahead.
Hoag: (rustling noise) I want to talk about Ferris Rush.
Samuels: (silence) Shit. You know about that, too, huh?
Hoag: I know very little about anything. All I know is that Cam Noyes doesn’t exist. Nor does his family tree.
Samuels: Okay … Ferris Rush is his real name. I guess you figured out that much already. The two of us made up the name Cameron Sheffield Noyes in college when he started modeling. We thought it suited his look better. Give him the right sort of image, you know? And gradually, he’s sort of invented a past to go with the name.
Hoag: All of it?
Samuels: The Farmington part, for sure.
Hoag: That explains why he doesn’t have any family photographs.
Samuels: My favorite part is the bit about the father hanging himself. That weird suicide note and everything. He’s a born storyteller.
Hoag: He certainly is. And to think he told me he was suffering from writer’s block. Hell, he and I have been writing his second novel all along, haven’t we?
Samuels: Hey, look, it’s not such a big deal. He’s no different than a million other performers with stage names and made-up backgrounds, is he?
Hoag: I suppose not. Only, I don’t do windows or heavy cleaning or bogus memoirs.
Samuels: I know. That’s why we didn’t take you into our confidence. We knew you wouldn’t do it, and we wanted you. No hard feelings, huh?
Hoag: What did you guys think, that I wouldn’t check any of his stories out? That I’d accept it all at face value?
Samuels: You would have if the shit hadn’t hit the fan.
Hoag: And if somebody hadn’t tipped me off. Sent me to Farmington.
Samuels: No shit? Who did that?
Hoag: The same person who’s been trying to get me off of this project from the beginning. I wish I knew who it was, and how it fits in with him killing Skitsy and Charlie.
Samuels: I don’t know anything about that, Hoag.
Hoag: You wouldn’t be scamming me now, would you, amigo?
Samuels: I’m not, I swear. Listen, Cam’s publisher called me first thing this morning, salivating. They want to get the book into print fast. Are you in?
Hoag: Only if you give me the whole story — his real background, how you made him up and marketed him. I can put it together with the tapes I already have, and with Charlie’s illustrations. It should make for interesting reading.
Samuels: Interesting? Shit, we’ll nuke the best-seller list! You want the real story, crank up your recorder. I’ll give it to you. No point in hiding it now. It’s all going to come out at his trial — assuming he’s caught, and he will be.
Hoag: Good point. And this way you get fifteen percent of the action, fight?
Samuels: You’re wrong about me. I’m his friend. Always have been. … Ferris Rush is poor white trash. Grew up an only child in a run-down shack on the outskirts of Port Arthur, Texas. His dad, Ferris senior, is an itinerant oil rigger, sign painter, carpenter, drunk, and full-time douchebag. Killed a guy once in a bar fight. Spent some time in jail for it when Ferris was a baby. Grandpa Rush did some time, too, for robbery. That bowie knife was his. Probably stole it off some rich guy … His mom is a beautician. She and his dad got married when they were sixteen, for the usual reason.
Hoag: That would be Ina Duke Rush?
Samuels: Yeah. He sort
of likes his mom. Stayed in touch with her after he ran away from home. Not anymore, I don’t think. But for a while there she remained his legal guardian. He ran away when he was twelve. Headed north with cowshit between his toes and an accent you could cut with a knife — sorry, poor choice of words. He ran because his father beat him. He ran because all he could see down the road was him ending up no different. His dad’s brother, Jack, had been in the Navy a long time, working on submarines at the Groton sub base. When he got out, he took a job repairing pleasure boats at an Essex boatyard. Jack wasn’t much more of a bargain than his brother — he drank, too, and didn’t have any money. But he could put Ferris in touch with people who did. So Ferris moved in with him and set about finding his future. That’s something he’s never had much trouble doing. Even when he was barely into his teens he was six feet tall and well built, with the wavy blond hair and blue eyes. Older women have always taken a hands-on interest in him. Two, in particular, have had a major impact on his life. The second, Skitsy, you already know about. The first was a woman named Maude Champion. Thanks to Uncle Jack, who had contacts around the Essex Yacht Club, Ferris landed himself a summer job crewing on a sixty-footer owned by a wealthy Farmington banker named Harrison Champion. Champion was in his early sixties. His second wife, Maude, was forty and a very proper Yankee lady — the kind who think their shit tastes like Häagen-Dazs. Former deb with lots of free time and no children of her own. The model for Jane Abbott Knott. She immediately took a quasi-maternal interest in Ferris, who was so bright and handsome and eager to improve himself. She tutored him. Helped him lose his accent. Taught him how to dress and act like a young gentleman.
Hoag: So that explains it — that self-conscious, mannered way he has. His gestures, his speech.
Samuels: Right. It’s all acquired, from Maude. She taught him everything. Gave him spending money. Bought him clothes. And on or around his thirteenth birthday, she also started fucking him. … Now, less than a year after Ferris moved in with him, his Uncle Jack died. Liver failure. The last thing Ferris wanted was to go back to Texas. That was the last thing Maude wanted, too. She had some family money of her own that her husband didn’t know about. She used it to send Ferris to Deerfield for a proper education.
Hoag: Which is where you met him.
Samuels: Yes. He was the only member of the freshman class who was already a professional gigolo. (laughs) Actually, Ferris was a truly amazing guy to me at age fourteen. I mean, I had some wild instincts, but I still came from a conventional suburban environment. Not Ferris. He lived strictly by his own wits and his own standards. He was like some kind of modern-day adventurer. Not that he ever bragged about it. I was his best friend. I knew he was fucking Maude, and that she, not his parents, was putting him through school. But none of the other guys knew.
The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald Page 17