“What sort of people belong here?” asked Gil.
“Look around you. It’s pretty much of an inbred fraternity of WASPs, like in a Louis Auchincloss novel. I’ve never quite understood what I was doing here; my family were the rich micks in a WASP town,” said Gus. “When I was asked to join, I was put up by the then ambassador to France and seconded by someone equally swell, and then I was blackballed. It takes only one member to blackball you, and no explanations have to be given. They never tell you who blackballs you, but I’m not an investigative reporter for nothing. It didn’t take me long to discover it was Claus von Bülow, about whom I had had much to say at the time of his trial for the attempted murder of his wife.”
“Fascinating, Gus,” said Suzanne. “What happened?”
“I wrote a letter to the president of this club and said that if I had known Claus von Bülow was a member, I would never have allowed my name to be put up for membership. I also said that I continued to believe he was guilty of the crime of which he had been acquitted.”
“What happened?”
“For the first time in the history of the club, they overruled a blackball. I was in, and a short time later Claus resigned,” said Gus. “I saw him here once before he resigned. We passed on those marble stairs. I could literally feel his hatred as we passed.”
“Does that sort of thing happen often?” asked Suzanne.
“My work is constantly overlapping into my life,” said Gus. “I’m not really a club type, but it’s nice to have, like now, when I can have breakfast in peace with the district attorney of the city of Los Angeles without getting mobbed by the unruly hordes.”
Gil and Suzanne laughed. They ordered: juice, coffee, eggs, bacon. Suzanne had French toast. Before they got around to talking about O. J. Simpson, they talked about the Menendez verdict.
“The two hung juries of the first Menendez trial have to be considered a victory for Leslie Abramson,” said Garcetti.
“Don’t you think it’s odd, though, that none of the other three defense attorneys from her team is going to join her for the second trial?” asked Gus.
“There’s no Menendez money left, apparently,” said Suzanne. “Lyle is going to have a public defender this time.”
“I hear Leslie’s going to shoot a pilot to host a television series,” said Gus. “We are living in the age of the defense attorney as superstar.”
The name of David Conn came up. Garcetti had assigned him to be the new prosecutor in the second trial of the Menendez brothers.
“He’s great,” said Garcetti.
“I saw him in action at the Cotton Club trial,” said Gus. “He’s got a real sense of drama in the courtroom. Women jurors like him, and he’s not going to take any bullshit from Leslie Abramson.”
“Hear, hear,” said Suzanne.
“When I saw David Conn on TV, standing next to Marcia Clark at the podium at the press conference after the freeway chase and arrest, I thought you were going to take him off the Menendez trial and put him on the Simpson trial.”
“No,” said Garcetti. “Marcia had just separated from her husband four days before the murders, and he was a friend. I think it could turn out to be a rough divorce. There’re two little kids, four and two, both boys, or five and three, something like that.”
“It couldn’t have come along at a worse time,” said Suzanne.
“Bill Hodgman’s very strong. Hodgman and Marcia are like two halves of a whole. They’ll be a good team,” said Garcetti.
“I wish you weren’t having the trial in downtown Los Angeles, Gil. I wish you were having it in Santa Monica, where it should be,” said Gus. “I always thought that from Beverly Hills west, murder trials were usually held in Santa Monica. This is a major error.”
“No, no, no, it is not an error,” said Garcetti. “I’m beginning to hear this all the time. In the first place, you probably don’t know much about the Santa Monica courthouse, Gus.”
“Actually, I know a great deal about the Santa Monica courthouse,” replied Gus. “I once spent nine weeks there, during the trial of a man named Lefty Flynn, who strangled a young actress named Becky Bailey, who happened to be my daughter. It was held in the courtroom of a Judge Burton Katz. The trial got quite a lot of press at the time—nothing like the press Simpson’s getting, of course—but I got to know that place very well.”
“The Santa Monica courthouse is simply not equipped for a trial of the magnitude of the Simpson trial, I’m telling you,” said Garcetti firmly. “There is not enough room for the media. There is not enough room for the parking. There are security problems. And there is still earthquake damage from two years ago that hasn’t been repaired yet.”
Pouring another cup of coffee, Gus said, “I heard from someone I trust that the reason you decided against going after the death penalty for Simpson, and the reason that the trial is in downtown Los Angeles rather than in Santa Monica, is that everyone’s terrified of another riot if a white jury finds Simpson guilty.”
“That is simply not true,” said Garcetti.
“I’ve got an awfully good source,” said Gus. “The same person told me the thinking was that if a predominantly black jury found him guilty, there probably wouldn’t be a riot. Personally, I don’t believe a black jury is ever going to convict a black hero, no matter what he’s done. I keep remembering those people on the freeway cheering for him to get away.”
“Not true,” said Garcetti.
“Wouldn’t a black juror who helped to convict O. J. Simpson have a hard time returning to the old neighborhood after the trial?” asked Gus.
“If the jury takes a look at all of the evidence, and then accepts the law, as they must, there is only one conclusion they can reach,” said Garcetti.
“You have to be at the Times on West Forty-third Street in about twenty-two minutes,” said Suzanne. “We won’t have trouble getting a taxi on Park Avenue, will we, Gus?”
Before Gus left to cover the Simpson trial for Vanity Fair, he had lunch in the executive dining room at CBS in New York with several producers and executives from the news department. The subject of the luncheon was the television coverage of the upcoming Simpson trial.
“The interest in this trial is overwhelming,” said one of the producers of the evening news. “This is the longest-running news story since the Kennedy assassination. People cannot seem to get enough of it. The plan would be for you to do a segment with Dan Rather every Friday, with you in L.A. and Dan here in New York.”
“The only thing that is making me hesitate,” said Gus, “is that I am not a lawyer, and there will be specifics of the law that I won’t know.”
“Don’t worry about that. That’s not what we want from you. We have Bill Whitaker for that. From what we gather, in all probability you’re going to get a seat in the courtroom. What we want from you is the color, what’s going on in the courtroom that we aren’t seeing on-camera, your impressions of Judge Ito, the lawyers, and particularly the families.”
“I have a tendency to get too personally involved in these trials I cover, even emotionally involved at times,” said Gus. “That works in a magazine. I don’t know how it’s going to go over on television.”
“Didn’t you get friendly with one of the aunts of the Menendez brothers when you were covering that trial? I remember reading that in one of your pieces.”
“That’s right,” said Gus. “She told me the name of the book where Erik and Lyle got all the sexual-abuse stuff they said their father did to them. The father was a prick, but he never buggered those boys.”
“The personal touch. That’s what we’re looking for, Gus.”
“It sounds good to me,” said Gus. “I have to make it clear, though, so there’s no misunderstanding, that I don’t have a doubt in the world that O. J. is the killer.”
“We’d like to take you in to meet Dan Rather.”
On the night before Gus left New York, he went to a cocktail party given by fashion designer Calvin Kle
in and his wife, Kelly, at the Royalton Hotel on West Forty-fourth Street in New York, to celebrate the publication of the author Fran Lebowitz’s children’s book.
The Royalton, known to be a mecca for celebrities, was jam-packed that evening with what the columnist Richard Johnson, who covered the party for Page Six of the New York Post, called “an amalgam of the literary crowd, the magazine crowd, and the fashion crowd.” As Gus maneuvered his way through the throng, he stopped to chat with his friend Tina Brown, the editor of The New Yorker. It was she who had first brought Gus into magazine writing.
“Good luck out there in L.A., Gus,” said Tina. “It’s going to be a long haul.”
“Tell me about this guy Jeffrey Toobin you’re sending out to cover the trial for The New Yorker,” said Gus.
“You’re going to like Jeffrey, Gus. He’s very smart. Very nice,” said Tina.
“I hated the article he wrote about Detective Mark Fuhrman,” said Gus. “I thought that was irresponsible. I bet it was that publicity hound Shapiro who fed Toobin all that shit. Oops, I shouldn’t get into this.”
“Trust me, Gus, you’re going to like Jeffrey,” said Tina.
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll be going out there myself; I can’t remember exactly when,” she said. “Harry’s publishing Gore Vidal’s memoirs, and we’re going to give a party for Gore at L’Orangerie. You know Gore, don’t you?”
“Do I know Gore? When I was twenty years old, I met Anaïs Nin at Gore’s house in Guatemala, and she took me away with her to Acapulco. Top that!” said Gus.
Tina laughed. “I’ll see you out there.”
Gus moved on into the room. He shook hands with Liz Tilberis, the editor of Harper’s Bazaar. He hugged his friend Jesse Kornbluth, the writer, on whom he had based the character of Bernie Slatkin, who married and then divorced the richest girl in New York in his book People Like Us. He posed for a picture for his friend Heather Collane, who was the editor of Quest. He kissed Fran Lebowitz, the honoree, on both cheeks, complimented her on her tuxedo, and got her to sign his book.
His friend Susan Magrino, who had been the publicist on all his books, whispered in his ear, “Malachy and Edwina are here, in case you want to avoid them. They’re over on the other side of the room.”
Malachy Bailey and Edwina Calder were writers of note, as well as Gus’s brother and sister-in-law. The brothers, whose relationship had always been shaky, had not spoken since Malachy dedicated his last book to Leslie Abramson, at a time when Gus was referred to in the media as her archnemesis. Gus interpreted the dedication as a slap at him rather than as an homage to Leslie Abramson.
“I’m only staying for a second. I’m in and out,” replied Gus. “I’m leaving for Los Angeles tomorrow.”
“Gus, I hear you’re going to L.A. for the Simpson trial,” called out Paul Morrissey, the avant-garde film director, who had let it be known to one and all of his group that he was obsessed with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. He moved away from Jed Johnson, Bob Colacello, and Brigid Berlin, with whom he had been discussing the lawsuit brought by Ed Hayes against the trustees of the Andy Warhol estate, and made a beeline for Gus.
“I am,” said Gus. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“The guy’s guilty as hell. You know that, don’t you?” said Morrissey excitedly. In the mid-seventies, Paul had directed a movie for Andy Warhol in Italy at the same time Gus was producing a movie there with Elizabeth Taylor and Henry Fonda called Ash Wednesday. They became friends. Years later, when they met at parties in New York, they usually talked about those days. Gus loved to talk about old times. “Do you remember that night in Rome when Elizabeth got so furious at Andy when she discovered he had a tape recorder hidden under her mink coat on the banquette and was recording every word she said?” Or, “Do you remember that lunch that Franco Zeffirelli gave at his house on the Via Appia Antica, and Hiram Keller shocked all the titles when he jumped in the pool nude?” But these days, the O. J. Simpson case superseded all else in conversation.
“I certainly believe that he’s guilty,” replied Gus. “But, as they say in my business, we must keep an open mind, ha ha ha. That’s like innocent until proven guilty. The other night at dinner, F. Lee Bailey tried to convince me that Nicole and Ron were killed by Colombian drug dealers. I felt like he was trying out his argument on me.”
“F. Lee Bailey!” screamed Paul, so loudly that people turned to look. Gus smiled. He liked it when Paul got wound up on a subject. “Have you ever gotten Patty Hearst going on the subject of Mr. F. Lee Bailey? One of the richest girls in the country, right? She’s kidnapped. She’s raped. She’s locked in a closet, and she goes to prison, for God sake. So she picked up a machine gun and robbed a bank. So what? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anybody? It’s called self-preservation. A public defender could have gotten Patty off, and F. Lee Bailey lost the case. Get Randy Hearst going on the subject of F. Lee Bailey. And now he’s saying it’s Colombian drug dealers who killed Nicole and Ron? Yeah, sure, F. Lee.”
“The thing is, Paul, I believe that Lee Bailey believes it,” said Gus. “He looked me right in the eye when he told me Nicole was killed by a Colombian drug gang, and I could see that he was daring me to disbelieve him. I think he creates the plot, and that becomes his reality. That becomes the way it happened, and nothing ever will deter him from that version of events.”
“The defense doesn’t have a chance in this case,” said Paul.
“Hold it a minute. F. Lee’s got this guy who works for him, a private investigator named Pat McKenna. I met Pat in Palm Beach. The Kennedys hired him for Roy Black’s team at Willie Smith’s trial. The odd thing is, Pat McKenna’s a nice guy—you can have a good time with him, a lot of laughs—but he’s the kind of private investigator who could dig up dirt on Mother Teresa. Give Pat two weeks, and he’s going to know about every drug, every dick, and every nude photograph that Nicole Brown Simpson ever came into contact with. Don’t think for a minute that this trial is going to be a cakewalk for the prosecution, no matter how much overwhelming evidence they have.”
“O. J. used to beat the shit out of Nicole. You know that, don’t you?” said Morrissey.
“I heard the 911 tape,” said Gus. “She sure sounded scared of him to me, and he sure sounded terrifying, but you’ll find that there will be a logical explanation for everything.”
“He stalked her. You know that, too, don’t you? It sounds like that guy who killed your daughter—whatwashisname?” said Paul.
Gus, stunned, did not reply.
Paul, embarrassed, hurried on. “Do you remember an actress named Jennifer Lee?”
“Of course I remember Jennifer. I haven’t seen her in years. She wrote a wonderful book about Hollywood.”
“Tarnished Angel. Call her when you get there. She lives with Richard Pryor.”
“I thought she divorced Richard Pryor.”
“She did, but they’re back together, kind of. He’s got multiple sclerosis, and she’s taking care of him. She and Richard and O. J. and Nicole used to hang out together. Two black stars and their beautiful white wives. Jennifer’s got some stories about O. J. that will knock your hat off.”
“Thanks, Paul.”
“Where are you staying out there?”
“Chateau Marmont.”
5
In his monthly “Letter from Los Angeles” in Vanity Fair, Gus wrote:
When I returned to New York last February, after seven months here covering the first Menendez trial, it never occurred to me that another cataclysmic event, another double homicide in high circles, would bring this city to a halt again so soon. But it has, and I’m back, and there’s quite a lot going on even though the trial hasn’t started yet.
The Menendez brothers, Lyle and Erik, who held the city of Los Angeles in their thrall for four years, have ceased to fascinate the town, so overwhelming is the interest in O. J. Simpson. Simpson is the most famous American to be charged with a violent crime si
nce Fatty Arbuckle was tried for manslaughter back in the twenties, amid rumors that he had inserted a Coca-Cola bottle into a young woman’s vagina during an orgy at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, thereby causing her death. Arbuckle was acquitted after four trials, but his reputation and career were ruined. In the wake of the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman last June, O. J. Simpson has superseded all others in history as the town’s top topic, a topic that will continue to captivate until the jury arrives at a verdict, if it does arrive at a verdict. The cynicism of the citizenry about the possibility of a conviction, after the two non-verdicts in the Menendez trial, makes hung jury and acquittal the most often-repeated words in the community.
When Gus Bailey was nine years old and growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, a city that he knew from the age of four would not be the city of his life, his aunt Harriet, a maiden lady who had once been a Catholic nun but quit the convent—a subject that fascinated him, although it was a subject that was never discussed in his family—took him out West on a summer trip. The first stop was Los Angeles. For Gus, it was a breathtaking experience. He loved every second that he was there. On the tour bus that took them to look at movie stars’ homes, he sat next to the tour guide so that he wouldn’t miss anything. For years afterward, he remembered that Shirley Temple had lived on Rockingham Drive in Brentwood, the same street that O. J. Simpson lived on years later, and Deanna Durbin had lived on Amalfi Drive, in the same house that the television mogul Steve Bochco now inhabited, and Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had lived in a house in the flats in Beverly Hills, where Gus had lived when he was married to Peach and where they raised their three children.
On that trip, he and his aunt went to the Coconut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel to hear Eddy Duchin and his orchestra and the next day to Schwab’s drugstore on the Sunset Strip. The tour guide pointed out the soda fountain and told Gus that was where Mervyn LeRoy had discovered Lana Turner. “And now she’s one of the biggest stars at MGM,” the guide said.
Another City Not My Own Page 4