“Did you see that topless picture of me The Enquirer printed? Do you know how old that picture was?” asked Marcia. “That picture was taken in the south of France during my first marriage. I’d like to know who sold that to them.”
“At least they had the good taste to put a bar over your nipples,” said Gus.
All through dinner they dished the trial. Marcia Clark was sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, a glass of red wine in her hands.
“Marcia, there’s this guy who lives on Bristol Circle, about a block away from O. J.’s house on Rockingham,” said Gus. “His trash barrels were out that night for a morning pickup. This guy claims that he found bloody sheets and towels in his trash barrels. But no one had heard about the murders yet, and the barrels were picked up. The guy goes to the bar at the Bel Air practically every afternoon and tells the story to anyone who will listen.”
“Gus, do you have any idea how many cockamamy stories like that we’ve heard since the murders?” said Marcia.
“I suppose,” said Gus.
“If there was anything to the story, Lange and Vannatter would have checked it out long before now,” said Marcia. “There were dozens of bullshit stories like that.”
“Then I guess I better not tell you about the guy who told me he had a call in Marbella, Spain, from someone, not O. J., who was at the crime scene before the police arrived on the night of the murders.”
Marcia laughed. “No, Gus, don’t tell me,” she said.
“Or about the drug dealer who’s taken two lie-detector tests who says he sold crystal meth to Kato Kaelin and O. J. at Burger King at twenty minutes of eight on the night of the murders?”
“No, Gus, please.”
They all laughed.
Nate ’n Al’s deli on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills was a popular breakfast spot for people in the film-and-television industry. Gus entered on a Saturday morning to meet with Elaine Young, a well-known real-estate personality, about whom he had written in Vanity Fair during the halcyon days of the eighties, when the new wealth of the city began buying up the great mansions of Beverly Hills and Bel Air and then tearing them down in order to build larger mansions, which were out of proportion to the lots on which they stood. Even at eight in the morning on a weekend, the place was packed and there were people waiting in line for tables.
“Right this way, Gus,” called out the hostess, who was seating people. Since Gus had begun appearing on television every day and night, people he didn’t know would call him by his first name in public places. He hadn’t made a reservation that morning at Nate ’n Al’s, but his recognition factor as a participant in the O. J. Simpson trial was such that customers who did have reservations didn’t seem to mind that the hostess was seating him ahead of them.
“Is he gonna walk, Gus?” asked a man who was waiting in line for a table. No one had to say O. J.’s name anymore when they talked to Gus. They just used the pronoun he, and it was understood.
“I liked what you said on the news with Dan Rather last night,” said the hostess as she led him to his table.
“What’d I say?” asked Gus.
“About Johnnie Cochran trying to turn the trial into the Fuhrman trial instead of the Simpson trial,” said the hostess. “This is your table, Gus.”
“Thanks,” said Gus. He waved hello to the famed film figure Lew Wasserman, who was having breakfast with his grandson a few tables away.
“Coffee, Gus?” asked the waitress.
“Thanks, Addie,” said Gus. “I’m waiting for somebody, so I’m not going to order yet. I’ll have some grapefruit juice, too. I’ve stopped drinking orange juice because of the O. J. of it all.”
“You’re not going to believe who’s been coming in here, Gus,” said Addie.
“Who? Kato Kaelin?”
“Oh, not him,” she said with a dismissive shudder. “None other than A. C. Cowlings, acting like he’s as important as Mr. Wasserman over there. I said to the boss that I wouldn’t wait on him, but the boss said that I had to—he had to be treated like he was any other customer—so I said I was going to say to him if I had to wait on him that I didn’t want to wait on the man who was driving O. J. Simpson in the getaway car. And, if he gave me any lip, I’ve got the number for the National Enquirer taped to the pay phone in the kitchen.”
“You tell ’em, Addie,” said Gus.
“Hi, Gus, sorry to be late,” said Elaine. Gus rose to greet her, and they kissed on both cheeks. Years before, Elaine had been married to the actor Gig Young, who was once a great friend of Gus’s. Gig had later shot and killed his fourth wife and then himself on their honeymoon.
“I wanted to tell you about O. J.’s house on Rockingham. To give you a little background, I sold O. J. the house originally for six hundred and fifty thousand. I have to say this about him, the guy was the best client I ever had. I didn’t even know who he was at the time. I wasn’t into sports. Before he bought it, I’d rented the house to Carly Simon when she was married to James Taylor, and then to Tony Orlando. It’s a good house. He’s going to have to sell it at some point, even if he wins the case, which people are beginning to think he’s going to do. Am I right?”
“I still think it’s going to be a hung jury,” said Gus.
“I heard you say that on the news,” said Elaine. “Anyway, back to my story. If a normal person owned that house on Rockingham, it would go on the market today for two-point-eight or two-point-nine million.”
“Doesn’t all the publicity of the last year about the house decrease the value? I’d certainly never want to live there,” said Gus.
“Are you kidding? Because it’s O. J., a lot of wealthy guys want to buy it. I know for a fact they’d pay four-point-five or even five million for it,” said Elaine.
“What is this telling us, Elaine?” asked Gus.
“Listen, Gus, what I want to know, do you think I’d get death threats if I were the real-estate person of record to sell it?”
By the time Gus got from downtown Los Angeles to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, the 7:00 P.M. funeral mass of Eva Gabor had already started. When Gus had lived in Los Angeles, Good Shepherd was the church that he and Peach attended. His sons, Grafton and Zander, had gone to Sunday school there. His daughter, Becky, had been christened there as a baby and buried from there as an adult
The church was packed. There was a roped-off area toward the front where the celebrated mourners were seated. Fans and members of the public were seated behind. Just as Gus ducked into a pew at the rear of the church, he was spotted by an usher who recognized him from the trial.
“Oh, Gus, no, no, not in there. We have a seat for you up in front in the reserved section,” said the usher.
“This is okay here,” said Gus.
“Oh, no, the family would want you in the reserved section,” said the usher, as if he knew that to be true, which he did not.
As they walked side by side up the aisle, Gus was aware of the faces of people whom he hadn’t seen for years. The usher escorting him began talking about the trial, leaning in toward Gus to speak in his ear as they walked forward. He didn’t like Scheck, he told Gus. He couldn’t stand Johnnie Cochran. He told Gus not to get him going on Shapiro, which Gus had no intention of doing.
“How far up are you taking me, for God sake?” asked Gus, stopping. “This is fine right here in this pew.”
“No, no, we have a seat saved for you,” said the usher, persisting in his mission.
“We are going too far forward for the degree of my friendship with Eva,” said Gus.
“Right here,” said the usher. “With Mrs. Reagan.”
Gus, to his embarrassment, found himself being placed in the family section, in the same row with the former First Lady and Merv Griffin, the multimillionaire entertainer and real-estate tycoon, who was for years the very best friend of the deceased Eva. Gus saw that he was directly behind Eva’s sisters, Zsa Zsa and Magda Gabor, who looked like glamorous grandes dame
s in black chiffon dresses with pearls at the neck and diamonds at the ears.
“I’m mortified that guy put me in here, Nancy,” whispered Gus to the former First Lady. “He talked to me about O. J. all the way up the aisle, even when I didn’t answer him. I just hope Zsa Zsa doesn’t turn around and make a scene when she sees me in the family section.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s going to happen, Gus,” said Nancy.
“I’d forgotten how pretty this church is,” said Gus. The sunset was shining through the stained-glass windows behind the altar. “I haven’t been in here since Becky’s funeral.”
Memories of that day began pouring into his consciousness as he went through the motions of participating in the funeral Mass he was attending. He could see Peach in her wheelchair, wearing her pearls, a lavender caftan, and a large straw hat. He could see the look of numbness on her face. That same look was on the faces of Grafton and Zander, who sat on either side of their mother. He could see Becky’s casket, covered with lavender flowers, within touching distance.
“Hello!” shouted Gus into the telephone. He had already called downstairs to the garage for his car to be ready. He had collected his notes for the speech he was about to give. He was partway out the door when the telephone rang.
“Gus, it’s Chata. I can tell by your voice I got you at a bad time.” Chata was a childhood friend of Peach’s who had been a bridesmaid when she married Gus. Now she worked part-time as Peach’s secretary, paying her bills, answering her mail.
“Yes, I’m rushing,” said Gus. “I’m giving an O. J. speech for Stop Cancer, and I’m already a little late. What’s up?”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Is something the matter?” asked Gus. “Has something happened to Peach?”
“No, it’s not Peach. She’s fine. This may not be anything at all, Gus, and I know you’re so busy.”
“What? Tell me, what?”
“Zander is missing,” said Chata.
“Missing? What do you mean he’s missing? I just talked to him yesterday.”
“He went hiking yesterday, later, after you talked to him,” said Chata.
“Oh God,” said Gus. “But he’s a good hiker. He goes hiking all the time.”
“That’s right. But he didn’t come back, and he didn’t take any water or food with him.”
“Oh God. Does Peach know?”
“No. She’s not having a good day.”
“Then don’t tell her. Have you talked to Grafton?”
“Grafton’s coming from New York.”
“Listen, I have to give this speech, and I’m late. It’s too late to back out. People have paid for tickets to be there. Can you stay there at Peach’s house? I’ll call back as soon as my speech ends. If he’s still missing, I’ll fly over in the morning.”
He called down to the desk. “Mario, it’s Gus. Can you check for me and see what planes are flying to Tucson in the morning? Leave the information in my box. I’m going out to give a speech at the Beverly Wilshire, and I’ll be right back afterward.”
On his way to the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Gus decided to make a detour, even though he was already late. He drove west on Wilshire Boulevard. Just past the Avco Embassy Theater, he turned left and drove into the cemetery of the Westwood Mortuary. He drove his car around the circle and stopped. On Becky’s grave was the yellow rose he had left on Saturday morning on his weekly visit. He knelt. When he leaned down to kiss the headstone, he whispered, “Becky, help Zander, wherever he is.” In moments of stress, he often asked Becky for help.
“I’m not going to be able to stay for the dinner afterward,” Gus whispered to Sherry Lansing, the head of Paramount Pictures, just before she went to the podium to introduce him.
“I have you at my table,” said Sherry. “Next to me, as a matter of fact. Everyone wants to meet you.”
“I have a family crisis, Sherry. I said I’d be by the telephone at the hotel right after the speech,” said Gus.
“Is it Peach?” asked Sherry. Everyone knew that Peach was an invalid and had been bedridden for years.
Gus didn’t answer.
When he was at the podium talking about the trial, he felt perfectly safe in expressing his opinions of Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck, and F. Lee Bailey. He knew he was talking to a ballroom full of people who were of like mind concerning the matter of the guilt of O. J. Simpson. But he also acknowledged the flaws that he had begun to perceive in the prosecution.
“What the defense is doing so brilliantly is to keep repeating the word contamination over and over and over again, like a mantra, so that the jury becomes brainwashed by the cesspool smell of the word. They are convincing the jury that the police and the criminalists befouled the crime scene with their slipshod performance, their carelessness, their stupidity, rendering the blood at the scene of the crime virtually useless for DNA testing, so contaminated is it. This deceit is from Barry Scheck, who knows more about DNA than anyone in that courtroom, except Dr. Henry Lee, America’s foremost forensic scientist. What neither Marcia Clark nor Chris Darden has ever explained to the jury, in the low-down manner in which it would have been understood, is that if the police had urinated, defecated, and then vomited into the blood at the crime scene, it would not have changed the fact that the blood belonged to O. J. Simpson.”
“Is there any word?”
“None.”
“Have the police been called?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there on the first plane out in the morning.”
“What about the trial?”
“Fuck the trial.”
21
In his “Letter from Los Angeles,” Gus wrote:
From the very beginning, a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer named Robin Clark won his way into the hearts of all of us covering the trial with his reporting talent, his writing style, and, most of all, his wit. He could do an off-the-top-of-his-head one-liner about any of the players in this trial—from Judge Ito to Deputy Jex, and all the lawyers in between—that would rock the media room with laughter. Friday, when we were breaking for the weekend, Robin introduced me to a cousin of his who was visiting from New York with a friend of hers, and he said he was going to take them for a spin up the Pacific Coast Highway in his convertible, with the top down. It sounded so wonderful, so fresh, after the week-long claustrophobic atmosphere of the courtroom. An hour and a half later, all three were killed in a head-on collision. Andrea Ford of the Los Angeles Times was the first to get the word. She called Shirley Perlman of New York Newsday, who called me at the Chateau Marmont Hotel, as did Joseph Bosco, who is writing a book about the case. For the first time in the long months of the trial, we heard one another cry as word passed from one reporter to another, from one hotel to another. It made me realize how close we have all become, sharing this extraordinary experience that the trial has been. The following Monday in court, Judge Ito kept Robin’s seat in the courtroom empty, and Deputy Jex hung Robin’s press pass on the back of his seat. I missed Robin Clark’s memorial service, which was held at the house that author Joe McGinniss, who is also writing a book about the case, has rented for the duration of the trial. All the media attended, as did members of both legal teams, as well as the sisters of O. J. Simpson. My son Zander had been reported missing in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona, and I had left for the Nogales home of my former wife, Peach, where, with our son Grafton, we waited out the agonizing, nerve-racking days.
Years before, Gus and Peach had been married in Nogales at a posh wedding with many bridesmaids, many ushers, and many guests in attendance. Later, after their divorce, after Becky’s murder and the trial that followed, Peach left Beverly Hills and moved back to Nogales, where she had been raised. Ever since, Gus had spent every Christmas and most Thanksgivings there with Peach and their sons.
“The nurses think we shouldn’t tell Mom about Zander,” said Grafton.
“She looks very fragile,”
replied Gus.
“They don’t think she can handle it,” said Grafton.
“I have a feeling she knows something’s wrong,” said Gus. “How could she not? The house is full of people. The telephone never stops ringing. People are sending over hams and casseroles and cakes and pies and baskets of flowers. The house feels like there’s been a death in the family.”
“The police chief wants to talk to you, Gus,” said Sigrid Maitrejean. a cousin of Peach’s, who was manning the telephones and keeping track of the messages. “He wants you to go on television and give the facts of the case.”
“The search parties can’t start the search until we find out where your son parked his car to go hiking,” said Chief Lopez. “Once we locate that, the search parties can fan out in all directions. If you go on TV and talk, maybe some other hiker who saw him on one of the trails will remember him and come forth. People recognize you from the O. J. trial, and they’ll pay attention. Will you do it?”
“Of course,” said Gus.
“The Santa Cruz County Search and Rescue, the Pima County Search and Rescue, the Nogales Police Department, the Rangers, and the Air National Guard Reserve Unit are standing by,” said the chief.
“Good God,” said Gus, as if he was realizing for the first time the seriousness of his son’s plight. He looked over at Grafton. They had looked at each other the same way fifteen years earlier, in the room where Gus was then living in Greenwich Village, after Detective Harold Johnston of the Los Angeles Homicide Bureau had called at five o’clock in the morning to say that Lefty Flynn had strangled Becky and that she was near death at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Gus had said to Grafton, “He killed her,” and they had stared at each other until the words sank in.
“Three of the Tucson stations have crews outside your house,” said the chief.
“It’s Mrs. Bailey’s house, not my house,” said Gus.
“Mrs. Bailey’s house,” said the chief, correcting himself.
“Let’s do it outside,” said Gus. “There’s too much going on in the house already. Zander’s mother is not well, and she hasn’t been told yet that he’s missing.”
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