Steven Bochco

by Death by Hollywood

  Bobby stares at him, dumbstruck.

  Dennis grins. “What do you think?”

  “Shit,” Bobby says. “That is better.”

  “Plus which,” Dennis says, “I’d change the title.”

  “What’s wrong with the title?”

  “It’s not specific enough. If it were my script, I’d call it Death by Hollywood so people would know it’s a murder mystery.”

  Bobby shakes his head. “Too obvious. But you’re right about the ending. I’m gonna rewrite it and give you shared story credit.”

  “Fuck shared story credit,” Dennis says, and pulls the cold .22 out of his jacket pocket he’s always kept handy just in case.

  CHAPTER 31

  You read the newspaper every day, right? All the really horrible local stuff is in the Metro section. In the L.A. Times, the section is called, simply, “California.” What they ought to call it, simply, is “Murder.” It seems like 75 percent of the California section every day is devoted to murder. Here’s a typical sampling: DOUBLE MURDER IN LONG BEACH … ACTOR ALLEGEDLY OFFERED TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS TO STUNTMAN TO KILL WIFE … STALKER KILLS EX-GIRLFRIEND AND PARENTS … TWENTY PEOPLE KILLED IN THREE-WEEK PERIOD IN SOUTH CENTRAL L.A.; SLAYINGS IN L.A. COUNTY REACH 329.

  I hate to admit it, but who gives a shit? Let’s be honest. It’s not about us. It’s not about anybody we know. It’s not even in our neighborhood. It’s just numbers. You browse the murders like you browse the obits, scanning the names on the off chance you’ll recognize one. What really gets your blood up is the fucking stock market.

  IRATE AOL TIME WARNER SHAREHOLDER MURDERS BROKER.

  Now, there’s one you’d read with more than passing interest. But four Mexicans killed by the niece’s lunatic estranged husband? As they say in New York, fuggedabowdit.

  Okay. Now ask yourself this. What would it be like if you opened the paper and read about a murder committed half a block from your house? Different story, right? And what if the victim was someone you knew? Suddenly it’s not just newspaper blah blah blah. It’s in your kitchen, so to speak. It’s still not you, but it’s close enough to get your attention. You can identify. Half a block away—shit, it could’ve been me. Or my kids. Or my neighbor’s kids.

  I remember years ago how deeply disturbed my whole street was when one of our neighbors died in a commercial-aviation disaster. That’s when it gets too close. It penetrates your space. It’s not just a bunch of illiterate illegals butchering each other in southeast L.A.

  I raise the subject to put into some context for you a set of events you couldn’t honestly imagine yourself going through, let alone contemplate the real-world emotional consequences of.

  Have you ever killed anyone? Do you have any idea what it’s like to physically kill another human being? Think about it. Soldiers do it in wars. Cops do it on the streets. They’re trained for it, society by and large gives them permission to do it, and it still fucks them up unless they’re psychotic, in which case they don’t understand what all the fuss is about. But you’re not psychotic, and neither am I (though my kids like to call me Psycho Dad when I yell at them to get off their cell phones before they get brain cancer).

  Imagine—really try to imagine—killing someone. What would it do to you psychologically? How many nights’ sleep would you lose, obsessively thinking about it? How much therapy would you need before the sheer fact of taking another human being’s life stopped haunting you every day of your life?

  Now, consider what it would be like if your luck was such that you not only experienced the trauma of killing someone (a lover, let’s say) but then, not long after, experienced the compounding trauma of discovering someone else murdered (another lover, for instance). You may as well book a room at Bellevue right now.

  Anyway, that’s what happens to Linda Paulson when she shows up at Bobby’s house later that night, expecting a glass of wine and a cozy hour or two of lovemaking and instead finds a horribly grim crime scene being supervised by homicide detective Dennis Farentino, who tells her that by all appearances, it looks like it was a home-invasion-type robbery, probably junkies. The house was pretty well ransacked, cash and valuables are missing, including the telescope that was out on the deck, as well as Bobby’s computer. Dennis tells Linda they found a cheap .22 semi-automatic in the bushes outside the house that will probably turn out to be the murder weapon.

  Dennis doesn’t let Linda see the body—“You don’t need that picture in your head,” he tells her.

  Dennis says he’s got to ask about her whereabouts this evening, even though he doesn’t believe for a minute, based on the evidence, that she had anything to do with Bobby’s death.

  Slumping into a chair in Bobby’s living room, still in shock, Linda says she was at a charity auction at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “What do I do now?” she asks, suddenly welling up, and Dennis can’t help but feel sorry for her, seeing the terrible lost look in her eyes.

  There’s not much Dennis can say to comfort her, but he does his best, telling her that over the last couple of months, as he and Bobby had gotten friendly, Bobby had told him how much he loved Linda.

  “When that tape of me and Ramon was making the rounds,” she says, “I told Bobby I thought maybe you’d leaked it, and Bobby said no way.”

  “He was right,” Dennis says.

  “You were always straight with me,” she tells him. “I should’ve known better. Bobby did.”

  “I appreciate your telling me,” Dennis says.

  “He talked about you all the time,” Linda says. “He felt like the two of you were becoming really close friends.” And now she starts to cry, and Dennis takes her in his arms and soothes her.

  “We were close,” Dennis admits. “I loved the guy. I’m going to miss him a lot.”

  Finally, Linda says she’d better get going, and Dennis walks her out, past the uniforms and the crime-scene folks, to her Mercedes.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Dennis asks. “I can have someone drive you.”

  “No, I’m all right,” she says. “I’m a tough broad. I’ll be okay.” Then she kisses Dennis on the cheek and thanks him for taking care of her. “Will you stay in touch, let me know how the investigation’s going?”

  Dennis promises he will.

  “When all this settles down,” Linda says, “maybe we can spend a little time together. I’m not big on shrinks, and I think I’ll have a lot I’ll want to talk about with someone I can trust.”

  “I’d like that,” Dennis says, and watches her pull away from the curb, past the black-and-whites with their blazing bright light bars, heading down toward Sunset Boulevard. Dennis figures she won’t be back up this way again till hell freezes over.

  CHAPTER 32

  I don’t mean to sound cynical, but in Hollywood a funeral is often like a premiere. You may not have any compelling reason to be there, but you want to show up anyway, just so everyone knows you have the clout to get in. Plus, let’s face it—any big Hollywood event is a networking opportunity. So even though in the course of twenty-odd years in the business Bobby had met and worked with and for a lot of people, there’s no way he even remotely knew all of the five hundred or so people who showed up for his memorial at Hillside Jewish Cemetery off the 405 South. And you know why I’m not cynical about it, even though I know most of them didn’t give a shit about Bobby? Because of his mother, Esthelle.

  It’s a terrible thing for a mother to outlive her child, particularly an only child, and Bobby’s death left Esthelle without family. No husband, no son, alone in New York City. At least, for this one day, she could take solace in the illusion that her son had all these close friends—that he was somebody, that he’d made it, he’d had success, and he was loved and would be missed by all these people, who were in the most glamorous business in the world, show business.

  And if that wasn’t exactly the truth, so what? It was certainly a version of the truth, and in this life some version of the truth is a hell of a lot better than
no truth at all, especially if you’re a mother who’s lost her only son. Would she be better off knowing her son was a boozed-out hack whose wife was cheating on him and who wound up being murdered by a cop for his intellectual property (you should pardon the expression)? I think not.

  Anyway, after Rabbi Baumgarten (who I assure you never met Bobby Newman in his life) gives an appropriately solemn and totally generic eulogy, offering all the appropriate prayers for the occasion, he turns over the microphone, to those of us so moved, to make a few remarks in memory of Bobby.

  I go first, and I keep it short. I basically say I loved Bobby in spite of himself. I say the entertainment business is a lousy, dysfunctional family, but it’s the only one we’ve got. I offer my thanks to God that at least Bobby died happy, doing what he loved, which was writing. I reflect on the irony of Bobby, who spent his whole career writing about crime, dying by it, and the further irony that somewhere out there a junkie too stupid and fucked-up to know it has Bobby’s computer full of great stories and wonderful ideas.

  Under the category Best Performance by a Hypocrite, the next person to speak about Bobby—hold on to your hats—is none other than Jared Axelrod. He must have been a frustrated actor at some point in his career, because this asshole gets up, starts to speak, and busts out crying. For the next five minutes, he sobs his way through an incoherent eulogy about what a great writer Bobby was, what a great friend he was, how much he’ll be missed, and how it’ll be a snowy day in July before Axelrod forgets everything that Bobby meant to him. This from the guy who’d been fucking Bobby’s wife cross-eyed in suite 512 at the Peninsula Hotel two or three times a week for almost a year.

  Next up is Vee, who won’t make eye contact with Axelrod as she passes him on her way up to the podium. She speaks truthfully (more or less), albeit lovingly, about Bobby. She admits they’d had their ups and downs and that at the time of Bobby’s death they were estranged. But she also acknowledges how much they’d loved each other, how they’d forged a life together, and—most important—how her life will forever be enriched for having had Bobby in it. Which is, to say the least, an understatement, given that because he died prior to their divorce she inherited his entire estate (though, in all fairness, money never was what the marriage was all about).

  That said, the house is worth around a million-six and Bobby’s various and sundry other assets (including his Writers Guild life insurance policy, plus his pension) are good for an additional 3 million bucks or so, giving Vee a grand total of well over 4 million. Maybe not a fortune by lottery standards, but she’s not throwing it back.

  There’s an old joke about the Jewish guy who’s dying at home, surrounded by his three loving sons. As the end nears, the old guy says, “Call the rabbi. I want him to bless you before I die.”

  The sons call the rabbi, who hurries to the dying man’s side. “Please, Rabbi,” the old man says. “Bless my sons.”

  The rabbi asks the first son what his name is, and the son says it’s Bernie. “What do you do for a living, Bernie?”

  “I’m a furrier,” Bernie says, and the rabbi confers the appropriate blessing on his family, his kids, and his business.

  Then the rabbi says to the second son, “What’s your name and what do you do?”

  The second son says his name is Milton and he’s an attorney. The rabbi blesses his family, his kids, and his practice.

  Finally, the rabbi says to the third son, “And what’s your name?”

  The third son says, “My name is Sol.”

  “And what do you do for a living, Sol?” asks the Rabbi.

  “I’m a Broadway talent scout,” Sol says, and the rabbi belts out the first sixteen bars to “Some Enchanted Evening.”

  I tell you this joke by way of what I hope is some partial explanation for what Bobby’s mother did when she got up to the podium to eulogize her son after Vee was finished speaking.

  Esthelle is a little, silver-haired, belligerent woman with a biting wit who did battle all her life with anyone who’d stand still long enough to take the beating.

  At the podium, her head barely poking up over the top, she takes a moment to look out over the SRO crowd.

  “My son Bobby’s death reminds me of an old joke,” she finally says. “The great Jewish actor Moscowitz collapses onstage in the middle of a performance of King Lear. After about twenty minutes, the stage manager comes out and says to the audience, ‘I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Moscowitz has died.’ From the second balcony, a voice calls out, ‘Give him an enema!’ The stage manager looks up, annoyed, and says, ‘You don’t understand. The Yiddish Theater has lost one of its greatest artists.’ Again, from the second balcony, ‘Give him an enema!’ ‘Sir,’ the stage manager says, ‘Moscowitz is dead. It won’t help.’ And from the second balcony, the voice calls back, ‘It couldn’t hurt.’ “

  Silence. People are stunned. Then there are a few titters here and there as Bobby’s mom just stands there gazing out at the audience. And finally, as the titters give way to laughter and the laughter becomes a rolling, unstoppable avalanche, the place is up for grabs.

  If you ever wondered why those idiots go on the Ricki Lake or the Jerry Springer shows to spill their worst, pathetic secrets to a predatory, contemptuous viewing public, there’s your answer: just like everybody else, it seems, Bobby’s mom wanted her fifteen minutes of fame.

  And you wonder how come Bobby wound up in show business.

  You’d think that would be the end right there. But you’d be wrong. When the laughter finally begins to subside, Linda Paulson gets up and approaches the podium. If you don’t think that quiets the room in a hurry, guess again.

  Eyes wet with emotion but voice strong, Linda says, “In case most of you don’t recognize me with my clothes on, my name is Linda Paulson.” If you thought it was quiet before, now you can hear the proverbial pin drop. “You all think you’ve seen me naked. You haven’t. You may have seen my body, and shame on you if you did, but Bobby Newman is the only man who ever truly saw me naked. He was the only man I ever really trusted or loved. He made me feel wanted, he made me feel smart, he made me feel like there really was something worth living for, and when he made love to me, I understood what it meant to be happy. I’m sorry he’s gone. I’ll miss him for the rest of my life. But I’ll always be grateful for having had him in my life the short time I did, because he gave me back something I thought I’d lost forever—my self-respect. God bless you, Bobby.”

  And that, finally, was the funeral.

  CHAPTER 33

  I’m sitting in my office one morning a few days after the funeral, leafing through the day’s editions of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. In the middle pages of each publication is a simple memorial ad dedicated to Bobby that reads IN LOVING MEMORY OF BOBBY NEWMAN. I’LL MISS YOU ALWAYS under a picture of him.

  I’ve never understood those ads. First of all, the guy’s dead, so he isn’t going to see the ad or appreciate the sentiments of its author. Second, it seems to me that the ad is really more about the person buying it than it is about memorializing the deceased. It’s as if the person is saying that his love is so fucking special, so entirely more important than your love, that he has to buy an ad in the trades to let you know about it. Plus, it’s like pissing five thousand bucks down a sinkhole. Why not donate the money to charity instead, in the dearly departed’s name?

  Anyway, I’m sitting there curdling into a complete cynic right before my very own eyes when Dennis Farentino calls. We’d sat next to each other at the funeral, and when it was over, he’d said he’d like to call me in a few days if that was all right, and I’d said of course. Over the phone, he asks if we can get together for lunch sometime, so I suggest the Grill. He says when, I say today if you’d like, and that’s how my relationship with Dennis gets started.

  I’ve met, and known, a lot of famous people over the years, and I’m pretty used to it. It takes a lot for me to be starstruck, though I must admit I can get a little tongue-ti
ed around famous athletes. I love sports, and it’s not my end of the business, so on the rare occasions when I do meet a sports star, I begin to get a sense of how the average person must feel when he or she sees Brad Pitt in a restaurant and just has to ask him for his autograph, forget about the fact he’s eating his dinner or in the middle of a business meeting. (Asking for autographs being another thing I don’t get. I remember once stepping into an elevator that Shaquille O’Neill was in. Seven feet tall, 350 pounds is big anywhere, but in an elevator, it’s absolutely huge. Plus, he’s one of my all-time sports idols, I had him captive, and it still didn’t occur to me to bug him for an autograph. I sort of nodded, he sort of grunted, and the ten-second elevator ride was one of the longest of my life.)

  Anyway, the point being that while meeting celebrities is, by and large, run of the mill for me, there’s something about meeting cops that I think most people (myself included) are very impressed by. Maybe it’s the simple fact that they’re wearing a gun as casually as you’re wearing a necktie. Or maybe it’s how safe being with a cop makes you feel, which is always a surprise, because you’re never really conscious of how unsafe you feel most of the time. Or maybe it’s just that they know stuff—secrets—that most of us don’t know and your personal relationship puts you privy to it. Like, for instance, what Dennis told me about Daniel Deveaux.

  Daniel Deveaux is two things, and you might remember him for both: he’s an actor and he’s an asshole. He was also a pretty big television star for about twenty minutes, and I represented him (for about that same twenty minutes).

  Daniel (God forbid you called him Dan or Danny; that would buy you a five-minute harangue) had been knocking around for years, getting small parts here and there, but never really breaking through. He was in his mid-thirties, not particularly good-looking in any traditional sense, but he had a certain quality that was appealing nevertheless. Plus, it didn’t hurt that he was talented; I’ll give him that.