NO ONE LEFT ME any more presents that first week. Someone did sort of move around the tapes and notes piled on my desk one afternoon, but I figured that was just Maria doing her dusting. At least I did when the sun was out. When night came and the coyotes started to howl, I became convinced somebody was trying to spook me and was doing a damned good job. I took to looking under the bed at night. There was never anyone hiding down there. Except for Lulu.
I kept thinking it couldn’t be Sonny. He was being so cooperative and open. Our work was going great. I was thinking it couldn’t be Sonny until he announced after our morning workout that he’d decided he wanted to leave Gabe Knight out of the book completely.
We were eating our grapefruit by the pool. He wore his white terry robe with “Sonny” stitched in red over the left breast. I wore mine, too. A gift. Mine said “Hoagy” on it.
“You’re kidding,” I said, nearly choking on a grapefruit section.
“I’m very serious, pally.”
He was. His manner had changed from warm and expansive to guarded.
“We can talk about plenty else,” he went on. “My philosophy of comedy, my theories of directing, my recovery from—”
“Wait. You can’t do this.”
“It’s my book, ain’t it?”
“Yes, but the reason people are going to buy it is to read about the two of you. They want to know why you broke up. Certainly that’s why the publisher bought it. Face facts. Gabe is now a very big—”
“So I’ll give ’em their dough back. I changed my mind. Project’s off. You’ll be compensated for your time. Vic’ll book you a flight back to New York for this afternoon.”
As if on cue, Vic appeared. He seemed somewhat short of breath, and was chewing on a thumbnail. “I … I called them, Sonny,” he announced timidly. “I called the police.”
Sonny bared his teeth. “You what?”
“They said there really isn’t m-much they can do,” Vic plowed on, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. “What with you destroying the evidence and all. But at least it’s on the record now. It’s better this way. I’m sure of it.”
I cleared my throat. They ignored me.
“Vic, I told you I didn’t want you calling ’em!” hollered Sonny, reddening.
“I know you did,” admitted Vic. “But you pay me to protect you.”
“I pay you to do what I tell you to do!”
“So,” I broke in, “what exactly are we talking about here, gentlemen?”
Sonny and Vic exchanged a look, Vic shifting uncomfortably from one enormous foot to the other.
Sonny turned to me, brow furrowed. “May as well know, Hoagy. Not like it’s any big deal. I got a death threat in this morning’s mail.”
I swallowed. “What did it say?”
“He won’t tell me,” Vic said. “And he flushed it down the toilet.”
“Crapper is right where it belonged,” snapped Sonny. “Vic, I want you to know that I love you, but I don’t feel very good about you right now. I’m real, real upset with you for bringing the cops into this. They’re bound to leak it to the press. I’ll have ’em crawling all over me again. Just what I don’t want. Next time you get a bright idea, do me a big favor and remember something—you’re a dumb ox. Always have been. Always will be. Dig?!”
Vic blinked several times, nodded, swiped at his nose with the back of his hand. He was, I realized, struggling not to cry. “Sonny, I …”
“Get out of my sight!”
“Yes, Sonny.” The big guy skulked back inside the house, head bowed.
Sonny watched him go, shook his head. “Dumb ox.”
“He was just doing his job, Sonny.”
“Hey, you don’t even have a job, Hoag,” he snarled. “If I want you to talk, I’ll ask you to talk. Otherwise, shut your fucking mouth.”
With that he turned his attention to that morning’s Variety. I sat there for a second, stunned. Then I threw down my napkin and started around the pool to the guesthouse to pack. Then I stopped. Suddenly, Sonny’s book seemed real important to me.
“So why’d you drag me out here?!” I yelled across the pool.
He looked up, frowning. “Whattaya mean?”
“I mean, why’d you waste my time? I’ve put a lot into this. I think what we’ve done so far has been damned good. I’m ready to start writing. My mukluks are unpacked. I’m set to go. Why the fuck did you drag me out here, huh?!”
He tugged at an ear. Then he laughed.
“What’s so funny?!” I demanded.
“You are, Mister New York intellectual kosher dill. If I didn’t know you, I’d swear you’re taking this personal.”
“Maybe I just don’t like to see you back down.”
“Sonny Day never backs down.”
“Really? You said you wanted to tell this story. No, needed to tell it. You said it was part of your healing process.”
“There’s something you gotta understand about me, pally.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t ever listen to anything I say.”
I returned to the table and sat down across from him. “Why are you balking, Sonny?”
“I-I can’t help it. This thing … this thing with Gabe is too painful.”
“More painful than talking about your father?”
“Much more.”
“How so?” I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“How can I?” he asked. “You don’t trust me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You won’t let me get close to you.”
“This is work, Sonny. This isn’t personal.”
“Work is personal with me.”
Wanda came padding out from the kitchen in her caftan and sweat socks. Her eyes were puffy, her hair mussed. “What’s all the yelling about?”
“Creative differences,” Sonny replied.
“This is your idea of creative differences?” I asked.
“Just like old times,” he acknowledged. To Wanda he said, “You’re up early.”
“Who’s up?”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I have a class.” She yawned and poured herself some coffee.
He turned back to me. “Tell ya what, pally. I got that emcee job in Vegas tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me? We’ll have the whole drive out. We’ll talk, have dinner. Maybe it’ll help. If I still feel the same way when we get back, then we’ll call it off.”
“What about Lulu?”
“It’s only for one night. Wanda can take care of her.”
“Sure, Wanda can take care of her,” Wanda said.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go to Vegas.”
“We’ll go to Vegas,” Sonny agreed. “Just the two of us.”
Just the two of us, of course, included Vic.
We left well before dawn in the limo, Sonny and I riding in the back along with the smell of his toilet water. Sonny slept. Asleep, with a blanket pulled up to his chin, he almost looked like that pudgy kid from Bed-Sty again, the one who slept out on the fire escape with his big brother on hot nights. Now he slept in an air-conditioned limo.
I watched him. There’s an old saying—to really get to know a man you have to walk around in his shoes. A ghost, I was learning, has to wear his skin, too. I had no doubts now that Sonny Day was a colossal piece of work—unpredictable, confounding, maddening. Was I getting him yet? I still couldn’t tell if he was being open with me or merely showing me the Sonny he wanted me to see. I couldn’t tell if I was seeing him as he was or as I wanted him to be. Maybe I was trying to invent him, turn him into a sympathetic, vulnerable fictional creation. Maybe I never would get him. But I had to try.
At one point he shifted and the blanket fell away. He reached for it in his sleep, his manicured fingers wiggling feebly, a whimper coming from his throat. I hesitated, then covered him back up. He grunted and snuggled into it.
We cleared Pomona and Ontario in the darkness. The sky got purple as we climbed the San Bernardino Mountains and was bright blue by the time we descended to the desert floor. Sonny woke up around Victorville and announced he was hungry. We stopped at a Denny’s in Barstow for breakfast. Aside from a couple of truckers at the counter, we were the only customers. The hash browns were excellent.
Sonny bought the papers on the way out. They were filled with stories about the Oscar nominations, and that got him going.
“See this, Hoagy? The comedies got aced out again. That really fries me. Did Stan Laurel ever get nominated for Best Actor? Groucho Marx? W C. Fields? Me? No way. They think we’re just fooling around. Lemme tell you, comedy has to do the same thing drama does. It’s gotta tell a story, have believable people, make a point—and then on top of that it’s gotta be funny, too. That makes it even harder. But the snobs, the critics, they don’t see it. For them, you gotta hold up a sign. Be solemn. Dull. They act like it’s a crime to entertain people. You gotta entertain ’em. It’s like Sammy told me one time: If you can’t tap your foot to it, then it ain’t music.”
“It’s that way in my business, too,” I said. “You’re only taken seriously in literary circles if your stuff is torturous and hard to read. If you go to the extra trouble of making it clear and entertaining, then the critics call you a lightweight.”
“They like you. You ain’t dull.”
“That’s true, I wasn’t. But I also never wrote a second book. They’d have gotten me then.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that. It really bugs the hell out of me.”
“What does?”
“The way you talk about yourself in the past tense, like you’re eighty years old, or dead. You’re young, you got talent. You’ll write lots more books. Good books. You just gotta work on your attitude. Not I was. I am. Say it: I am”
I said it, I said it.
“That’s more like it.” He glanced at the newspaper story again, then bared his teeth, disgusted. “Screw ’em. We’re the ones who have the talent. We know what we’re doing.”
He reached down and opened up the little refrigerator in front of us and pulled out two small bottles of Perrier. He opened them and handed me one.
“I just have one question,” I said. “If we’re both so smart and we know what we’re doing, then how come we’re on our asses?”
His eyes widened in surprise. Then he laughed. He actually laughed at something I said.
“You’re okay, Hoagy. You’re a no-bullshit guy. Glad we decided to do this. Hey, Vic, how ya doing up there, baby?”
“Fine, Sonny,” he replied softly.
“Stop pouting already, will ya? So I blew. I take the blame. I apologize. You’re not a dumb ox. You’re my pally, and you meant well. I’m sorry, okay?”
Vic seemed to brighten. “Okay, Sonny.”
“Now how about some sounds? Get us in the groove.”
“You got it.”
Vic put on some cassettes, uptempo Sinatra and Torme from the fifties, and we bopped along, sipping our Perriers, the heat shimmering outside on the Devils Playground. It wasn’t the worst way to travel.
“Merilee used to get letters from cranks,” I said. “Guys who wanted to buy her toenail cuttings. Wear her panties. Never death threats though.”
Sonny shrugged. “After thirty years you get used to it. Part of the deal, at least it is for me.”
“What did this one say?”
He gazed out the window. “It said that I’d never live to see our book in print.”
“Oh?”
Sonny polished off his Perrier and belched. He stabbed a finger in my chest. “I know just what you’re thinking—that’s why I maybe want to pull out. Well, you’re wrong. The two things got nuttin’ to do with each other. I’m not that kind of person.”
“What kind of person is that?”
“The kind who you can scare. If I worried about the cranks out there, I’d go outta my head. Besides, I got my Vic. Right, Vic?”
“That’s right, Sonny.”
We hit the first signs for the Vegas casinos when we crossed the Nevada state line.
“What exactly are you supposed to do for this pageant?” I asked him.
“Show up. Everything’s already written for me. I just introduce the girls, eyeball their tits, wink at the audience. We walk it through this afternoon. Go on at five-thirty. You like showgirls?”
“What’s not to like?”
“Red-blood American boy, huh?” He grinned, man to man.
I grinned back. “Type O.”
He furrowed his brow. “What can I tell ya? I wish I didn’t have to be doing it. It’s cheese all the way. But I got no choice. If you’ve had personal problems like I have, you start at the bottom again. Prove you can deliver. In this business, you’re a prisoner of people’s preconceptions of you.”
“Not dissimilar to life in general,” I said.
“You can say that again.”
“Not dissimilar to life in general,” I repeated.
He gaped at me in disbelief.
“You forget something important about me,” I told him. “I grew up on you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He looked me over and scowled. “Coulda done worse.”
“You can say that again.”
After so many hundreds of miles of pure barren desert, Las Vegas rose up before us in the hot sun like a gaudy, indecent mirage, the hotels and billboards so huge, so unlikely, I was sure they’d disappear if I blinked twice. I tried it—they didn’t.
“Put in a lot of years here,” said Sonny wistfully. “A lotta shtick under the bridge.”
The third annual “Miss Las Vegas Showgirl Beauty Pageant” was being broadcast live from the MGM Grand Hotel, or so the billboard out front said. The parking lot, which must have spanned ten acres, was mostly empty except for some broadcast trucks. Inside, the vast casino was colder than a deli case and about as quiet. Most of the tables were covered. It wasn’t noon yet.
Sonny got the royal treatment. The staff bowed and scraped and whisked us up to our rooms. He and Vic had a two-bedroom high-rollers’ suite with a living room, kitchen, and complimentary fruit basket. Nice view of the purple mountains, too. I was billeted across the hall in a single room with no fruit basket. I had a view of the MGM Grand parking lot and way off in the distance, a view of the Caesars Palace parking lot.
They had, to quote Sonny, a real peach of a health club downstairs. We each pumped a round of irons, then did ten kilometers on the cycles, had a sauna and a cold plunge. Vic suggested we have our lunch sent up to their suite. Sonny insisted on eating in the coffee shop. So, bristling with health, we stormed the coffee shop and attacked man-sized platters of tuna salad.
We sat in a booth, Vic and me on either side of Sonny. A lot of guests came over to ask for his autograph and shake his hand. They were tourists, salesmen, ordinary folks—his people. He joked with them, kidded them, acted downright pleased by their attention.
Vic, on the other hand, never relaxed, never stopped scanning the room for somebody who looked like trouble. Vic was on the job now.
“You gonna spend some time in the casino?” Sonny asked me between autographs.
“Only as long as it takes to lose all my money.”
“How much you bring?” he asked, looking concerned.
“A thousand.”
He was relieved. “That’s chicken feed.”
“How about you?”
“Me? I can’t go near a casino anymore. I gamble like I drink—can’t stop. Used to drop fifty, a hundred grand in a night. You won’t find me near a table now. Or the track.”
At five minutes before two, Vic tapped his watch.
“Thanks, Vic,” said Sonny, signaling for the check. “Don’t wanna be late for rehearsal, Hoagy. That’s exactly the kind of thing I can’t afford now.”
The waitress was slow in coming over. As the seconds ticked away, Sonny tapped the table with his fork. Then yanked at Vic’s wrist to check the time. Then popped a couple of Sen-Sens in his mouth. Then yanked at Vic’s wrist again.
“Honey?!” he called out again, clearly agitated now. “Waitress?!”
“One minute!” she called back.
“Why don’t I just let you out, Sonny?” Vic offered soothingly. “I can sign for it.”
Sonny smashed the table with his fist, bouncing our silverware, our glasses, our keno holder. “No!” he roared. “She’s gonna bring it right over and she’s gonna …!” He caught himself, suddenly aware that people at neighboring tables were staring at him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Good idea, Vic,” he said quietly. “Thanks.”
Vic let him out. He rushed off alone, half-trotting, so intent that he bowled over two Japanese businessmen on his way out.
“Sonny’s upset,” Vic observed, as he signed the check.
“No kidding.”
“Oh, I don’t mean this waitress business. This was actually a step in the right direction. The new Sonny.”
“What would the old Sonny have done?”
“Gotten the girl fired. After he turned the table over and smashed some plates. He’s a lot calmer now. No, it was the way he acted toward his fans.”
“How did he act?”
“Like he liked them. Wanted them to approach him. He was performing. He only does it when he’s upset. Calms him down. Hasn’t done that in a long, long time.”
“I suppose he has a lot riding on this job.”
“It’s not the job. It’s that letter. It’s got him plenty worried. Me, too.”
“You think it’s for real?”
Vic shrugged. “Have to assume it is. You can’t afford to be wrong.”
“Think there’s any connection between it and my little housewarming gift?”
Vic shifted uncomfortably. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Then who—”
“Let’s go. I don’t want him to be alone for very long.”
A set had been erected on the stage of one of the headliner rooms, seemingly out of all of the Reynolds Wrap in the state of Nevada. A runway extended out into the seats, where it met up with the TV cameras and the monitors. Production assistants with clipboards scurried around. Pot-bellied technicians fiddled importantly with lights and mikes and eyeballed the showgirls, most of whom were seated in the first few rows, ignoring them. A few of them were up on stage learning their cues and marks from the stage manager. They wore tight jeans and halter tops. They were very tall and very well-built, but their features were coarse, their expressions stony. Sonny was up on stage shaking hands with the promoters and making them laugh. Vic and I slid into a couple of seats.
“I don’t like this,” said Vic. “So many people coming and going. Any of them could take a shot at Sonny.”
The big guy was getting jumpy. Something about him being jumpy made me jumpy. “So why don’t you call the police? Or hotel security?”
“You know why.”
“Sonny’s kind of rough on you, isn’t he?”
“He’s got to be rough on somebody. Better me than somebody he can really hurt, like Connie or Wanda.”
“What happened to the ‘big guys have big feelings’ business?”
“Nothing. It’s just that I can take it from him, Hoag. It’s my job to take it, not theirs.”
“Think he’s going to pull out of this book?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want him to?”
“I want him to do what’s best for him,” Vic replied.
The director announced a technical run-through and called for quiet. He was a kid with a beard, a Hawaiian shirt, and an impatient, uptight manner. He was insecure. An insecure director, Merilee once told me, can get to be a very bitchy one.
And this one did, within minutes.
Sonny was reading one of his introductions off the prompter. A joke: “And now, here they are, Miss Aladdin Hotel.”
It got a few snickers from the crew, but Sonny wasn’t happy with it. This he indicated by clutching his throat and making gagging noises.
“Do you have a problem with the line, Mr. Day?” the director demanded.
“Kinda stale, ain’t it? I mean, it was stale when Paar used it twenty years ago. We can do better than this.”
“The jokes are already written, Mr. Day.”
“Yeah, but I gotta say ’em. Gimme a minute. I’ll think of something.”
“We don’t have a minute,” said the director testily. “And frankly, people aren’t turning this pageant on to listen to your jokes. Half of them will have their sound off and their pizzles in their hand.”
Sonny laughed. “Pizzles? What, they teach you to talk tough like that in grammar school—last week?”
That got a lot of laughter, from both the crew and the girls.
The director reddened. “Are you going to be uncooperative and unprofessional, Mr. Day? Tell me if you are. Tell me right now. Because I want to get on the phone and see who’s in town who can pinch-hit for you. I can’t deal with this. I need a professional.”
The room got very quiet. Everyone was looking at Sonny now. Everyone was wondering what The One would do.
He bared his teeth and went for his Sen-Sens. He popped a couple in his mouth and chewed them. And kept chewing them, until the anger and hurt had all but gone from his face. And then he said quietly, “I am a professional.”
“And?” the director prodded.
“And you’re the director,” Sonny added softly, like an obedient child.
“Fine. Now let’s run through this, shall we?”
They resumed.
“I’m going to have to split,” I told Vic.
“I don’t blame you,” he said tightly, glowering at the director.
“Think he’d mind if I missed the performance, too?”
“Just tell him you loved it.”
I fled up the aisle.
“How’s my little girl?”
“Getting a little familiar, aren’t we?”
“I meant the one with the short legs.”
“Oh. She’s fine. She’s taking a nap outside.”
“I knew it. She doesn’t miss me. She doesn’t even know I’m gone.”
“I was trying to spare you. She’s actually been woeful and droopy all day.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.” I sighed into the phone. “And I do. Did I remember to tell you when to feed her?”
“You wrote it all down. Does she really eat—”
“Did I tell you she might want to sleep with you?”
“No.”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“She might want to sleep on your head.”
“And I might like it.”
“I thought you would.”
She sniffled. “You didn’t call to see how I am. You called about her?
She was hamming. That movie of ours seemed to be rolling again.
“And how was school today?” I ad-libbed.
“If you’re nice to me,” she replied, her voice a husky whisper now, “sometime I’ll tell you about … rezoning.”
“Tell me, how does a sexy, front-page kind of girl like you end up in real estate, anyway?”
“I was fucking a realtor.”
“Was?”
“He blow-dries his body hair. Do you blow-dry your body hair, Hoagy?”
“No, I pay somebody else to do it for me.”
She laughed. There was a pause, and then: “Hoagy?”
“Yes?”
“I’m starting to get a feeling about the two of us. Are you?”
I hesitated, not sure if she were playing now.
“Hello?” she said. “Silence isn’t a great answer.”
“I’m not quite sure how to answer that one.”
“You’ll do fine.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m getting the same feeling. Only …”
“Only?”
“I make it a point to never mix business with pain.”
Now it was her turn to be silent.
“Whew,” she finally said. “You’re good at this.”
“You’re in the big leagues now, kid.”
“I guess I am. Is it because I’m so old and decrepit? Is that why you’re rejecting me?”
“Let’s talk about it when I get back. Over dinner. And you’re not old and decrepit. You’re about the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I’m flattered.”
“You shouldn’t be. I have terrible taste in men, remember?”
She hung up, laughing. End of scene.
As for me, I took a deep breath and dialed Winnipeg, Manitoba. It took me several calls before I found the hotel where the cast and crew of the new movie by the new genius were staying, but I did find it and the phone in her room did ring and she did answer it. My heart began to pound when she said hello. Briefly I forgot how to talk. She said hello again, a little suspiciously now.
“Hello, Merilee,” I finally got out.
“Hoagy, darling, it’s you. I thought for a second it was going to be a breather.”
“Disappointed?”
“Never.”
For years critics have tried to describe Merilee’s voice. It is one of her strongest assets as an actress and as a woman—rich and cultivated, yet feathery and slightly dizzy sounding. To me, she has always sounded like a very proper, well-bred teenaged girl who has just gotten her first kiss. And liked it.
“Hoagy?”
“Yes, Merilee?”
“Hello.”
“Hello, yourself. Something I needed to ask you. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? I’m stranded here watching a hockey game on television. Blood is spurting.”
“Where’s Zack?”
“In New York, wrestling with his new play,” she replied. “Was that your question?”
“No. Is Lulu two or is she going to be two?”
“It’s on the back of her tag. We had her birthdate engraved there, remember? I wanted to put her sign there, too, and you wouldn’t let me.
“Dogs don’t have astrological signs.”
“They do, too.”
“I can’t check her tag. She’s in L.A. I’m in Las Vegas.”
“You didn’t stick her in some kennel, did you?”
“What land of guy do you think I am?”
“Gifted and tragic.”
“You got that half right.”
“Which half?”
“So tell me what Debbie Winger’s like.”
“I don’t know, darling. She never comes out of her trailer. I’m playing her bad side. It’s all very psychological, which I think in this particular case is another word for baked beans.”
“I’ve missed your quaint little expressions.”
“I actually have no idea what’s going on. The director can’t tell me—he’s too busy listening to people tell him how brilliant he is. We wrap in a week. Hoagy, what on earth are you doing in Las Vegas?”
“I’m working on a book with Sonny Day.”
“I saw something about that in People.”
That was another thing I always liked about Merilee—she never denied that she read People. “What did it say?”
“That Gabe Knight isn’t very pleased about their past being dredged up. And that you were doing it.”
“Think it’s sleazy of me?”
“I don’t think you could do anything sleazy if you tried.”
“Why, Merilee, that’s the second-nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“What’s the nicest?”
“‘Are you sure there aren’t any other positions you’d like to try?’”
“Mister Hoagy, you’re getting terribly frisky, hanging around with borscht belt comics. So let’s hear all about The One. Is he as greasy and awful as he seems?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
She was silent a second. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something is wrong?”
She didn’t bother to answer.
“I’m getting involved,” I said. “I’m not sure it’s a good thing. My role here is already so fuzzy. I’m not a reporter. I’m not a shrink. I’m not a friend. There’s really no word for what I am—at least not a clean one.”
“Let yourself go, Hoagy.”
“Let myself go?”
“You always have to hold on to yourself. That’s always been your problem.”
“So that’s it.”
“Give yourself over to the role. Enjoy it.”
“It’s too creepy to enjoy.” I told her what had been going on, and how Sonny had been reacting.
“He’s right not to make a big thing of the sickies,” she said calmly. “I never do. Tell me, darling, is there a novel?”
“There’s nothing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Wait, there’s somebody at the door. Hold on.” She put the phone down. I heard voices, and the sound of Merilee’s door closing. Then she returned. “It’s tomorrow’s pages … merciful heavens, I’m going to be in mud. It’s twenty-four below zero outside. How does one get mud?”
“With a lot of very hot water.”
“Lovely. I’d better hang up. I have a five-thirty call in the morning and I have to learn this.”
“Take your rose hips.”
“I promise.”
“Merilee … do you ever miss us?”
“I try to not think about us. It makes me sad. I don’t like to be sad.”
We were both silent for a moment.
“It was fabulous, wasn’t it?” she finally said.
“It was very fabulous.”
“Hoagy?”
“Yes?”
“Lulu’s going to be three. And she’s a Virgo.”
I hung up and lay there glumly on my hotel bed, staring at the smoke detector on the ceiling.
There was a knock on the door. It was a bellboy—with a bottle of Dom Perignon in a bucket of ice.
“I didn’t order that,” I said.
“Compliments of an admirer, sir.” He parked it on the dresser.
There was a note. Of course. It read: Challenge excites me—W.
“Shall I open it, sir?”
“What an excellent idea.”
I toasted Wanda in the mirror over the dresser with my first glass. To my surprise, there was almost a smile on my face. She was right. It was much more fun this way.
The bubbly gave me just enough courage to watch Sonny’s pageant on TV while I got dressed.
He had a tux, a ruffled shirt, and his mask on. He seemed at home there under the lights—tanned, relaxed, in control. He was kidding around with Miss Tropicana, a big varnished redhead who’d just won the talent category for her impression of Carol Burnett.
“Tell me the truth,” said Sonny. “Ever think you’d be up here like this tonight, honey?”
“Never, Mr. Day,” she replied earnestly.
Sonny’s face darkened for an instant. I could have sworn he was about to say “That makes two of us.” But he didn’t say it. He brightened and said, “Good luck in the overall competition, honey.” The mask had slipped, but it had stayed on. You had to know him to notice it at all.
I put on a white broadcloth shirt, burgundy silk foulard tie, cream pleated trousers, and my double-breasted navy blazer.
The orchestra slammed into “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel. After an introduction by Sonny, each showgirl strutted out to the edge of the ramp clad in bikini and high heels, stopped, smiled, placed hands on hips, swiveled, and strutted back. It was one hell of a testimonial to the wonders of silicone.
I doused myself with Floris and went down to the casino.
There were crowds at the tables now. The wheels were spinning, the dice landing. Winners yelled. Losers groaned. I slid onto a vacant stool at a blackjack table and snapped one of my crisp hundreds onto the green felt. The dealer gave me my chips. I lit the dollar cigar I’d bought at the newsstand.
I won twenty dollars on my first hand by sitting on thirteen. The dealer showed a four, drew on a fourteen, and busted. I let it ride and lost it with a seventeen to his nineteen. I upped my bet to twenty-five dollars, lost it, won it back, let it ride, lost it and three more like it. That took care of my first hundred. I laid down another one, raised my bet to fifty dollars, and lost it in two hands.
I like to gamble, but I’m lousy at it. I’m impulsive and I’m stubborn. I throw good money after bad. It’s no way to win. But then, I don’t expect to win.
I stayed even with my third hundred for a half hour, then got reckless and left it at a roulette wheel. By then it was time to put out my cigar and meet Sonny and Vic backstage.
Photographers and contestants were crowded in the corridor around the winning girl, who was sobbing. I squeezed past them and made it to Sonny’s dressing room, which was stuffed with casino executives, backers, agents, and other forms of carnivorous animal life. They all had gleaming eyes and were shouting words like “wonderful” and “beautiful” at each other. Goblets of white wine were being passed out.
Sonny was shaking hands, patting backs, still very on. He wore pancake makeup. He spotted me in the doorway. “Hey, pally! Like the show?!”
“Loved it!”
“Beautiful!”
I grabbed a wine goblet and joined Vic, who stood impassively against the wall. We stayed there together like potted plants until everybody had gone. Everybody except the director, who was now trying to be buddy-buddy.
“Sonny, it’s been a total slice of heaven,” the kid gushed. “I gave you total shit. You gave me total shit. But that’s cool. It’s only because we both care so fucking much about what we’re …” He trailed off, frowning.
There was this steady dribbling sound. It was my drink slowly being emptied on his Reeboks.
“Oops,” I said. “Sorry.”
Next to me, Vic began to shake from suppressed laughter. Sonny just stood there grinning at me like a proud parent. A feeling passed between us, and just like that I knew the book was back on, Gabe and all.
Red-faced, the director quickly shook Sonny’s hand and ducked out.
Sonny let out a short, harsh laugh and clapped me on the back. Then he turned to Vic and ordered, “Lock that damn door!”
Vic did, and Sonny immediately slumped into the chair before his dressing table, exhausted. Vic helped him off with his tuxedo jacket. The ruffled shirt underneath was soaking wet under the arms. Vic toweled Sonny’s forehead and the back of his neck for him, like a water boy on the sideline.
“God, that was awful,” Sonny moaned. “But it’s over. I did my job. That’s all that matters. I did my job.”
“You’re a pro, Sonny,” Vic assured him.
Sonny heaved a huge sigh and began to wipe the makeup off his face with a tissue. Vic helped him off with his shirt and his trousers. He took his shoes, socks, and boxers off himself and stood before us naked. “Lemme hose off and we’ll get the hell away from this place, okay?” He started past me to the stall shower, stopped, and crinkled his nose at me. “Hey, you been smoking?”
We ate at a quiet Italian restaurant on one of those dark, deserted side streets you land on when you fall off the bright lights of the Strip.
The maître d’ welcomed Sonny with an embrace and led us to a corner table.
“Food’s great here,” Sonny advised me. Then he winked and added, “Funny how there are so many good Italian restaurants in this town, huh?”
We ordered spinach fettuccine and veal chops. Vic and I got a bottle of Chianti. Vic only sipped from his glass, keeping his eyes on the other customers and the door.
“So how ya doing, pally?” Sonny asked me, cheerful now.
“I’m down three hundred.”
He patted my hand. “That’s hysterical. A real Vegas answer. Glad you made the trip. I’m feeling better about us now. Of course, working that shit pageant helps. Boy, I need this book. Let’s face it, I’m at stage four. No kidding around.”
“Stage four?”
“You don’t know the five stages?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. There’s five stages in a performer’s career.” He counted them off on his fingers. “‘Who’s Sonny Day?’ ‘You’re Sonny Day?’ ‘Get me Sonny Day.’ ‘Get me a Sonny Day’ And ‘Who’s Sonny Day?’ I’m at stage four. Gotta get back to three. Who would have thought twenty-five years ago …” He shook his head. “I need a shot in the arm. I really do.”
Vic was watching the front. He stiffened. “Trouble, Sonny.”
“Who?”
“I think he strings for the Enquirer” Vic replied.
There were two of them. The reporter was a fat slob with a scraggly goatee and shades on his head. He carried a tape recorder that looked as if it had been run over by a car. It probably had been. The photographer was an old-timer with two cameras around his neck and a cigarette in his mouth.
“Ahh,” I declared, inhaling deeply. “Nothing like a breath of stale air.”
They pushed past the maître d’ and headed urgently for our table. He trailed after them, protesting.
Vic started to get up.
Sonny stopped him. “Relax. Stay calm.”
The photographer began to snap pictures of us eating. He used a flash attachment. The other customers turned and gaped.
The reporter stuck his tape recorder mike between Sonny’s face and Sonny’s pasta. “Is it true you’re going to tell all, Sonny? You gonna talk about why you and Gabe went at it?”
“I’m sorry, Mister Day,” apologized the maître d’. “I couldn’t keep them out.”
“That’s okay, Carmine,” said Sonny. “The plague couldn’t stop em.
“Why now, Sonny?” the reporter persisted. “You looking to fuck over Gabe’s political future? Pretty vindictive, isn’t it?”
“Look, pally,” Sonny said pleasantly. “I don’t have nothing to say. We’re trying to have a quiet meal. Show a little consideration. If you want pix, take ’em and leave, okay?”
“What about the death-threat rumor? Is that true?”
“What death-threat rumor?” Sonny demanded sharply.
The reporter grinned, smelling blood. “So it’s true?”
Sonny reddened. “I got nothing to say.”
“What does Gabe say about it? He trying to stop you?”
“You’re not hearing me,” Sonny said, an edge in his voice now. “I still got nothing to say.”
The repeated explosions of the flashbulbs were becoming more than a little irritating. Sonny put a hand over his face to shield his eyes.
Vic took over. “You’re bothering us.”
“Come on, Sonny,” pressed the reporter. “I need a statement.”
“You’re bothering us,” Vic repeated, louder this time. “Leave!”
“I got a job to do,” he insisted.
Vic shoved his chair back and stood up. The reporter’s eyes flickered when he saw just how long that took.
“And you’ve done it.” Vic stepped between the reporter and our table, arms out, a human wall. “You got your pictures. Now leave!”
“You have to answer me, Sonny,” the reporter said around Vic’s bulk.
“I don’t have to do nothing, bub,” snapped Sonny.
“You can’t avoid me.”
“I’m making a real effort not to lose my temper.”
“So am I,” said Vic, sticking a large index finger in the guy’s chest. “Beat it.”
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” said the reporter. “I got my story anyway: ‘Sonny Day falls off the wagon.’”
“What?!” demanded Sonny angrily.
“There’s wine on your table. You’re drinking again. We have the pix to back it up. You even tried to cover your face. It’ll be in every supermarket in America, Sonny. But it doesn’t have to be. I’m perfectly willing to work with you. I’m on your side.”
“You’re scum,” spat Sonny. “Do everybody a favor—get AIDS.”
Vic, I noticed, had begun to breathe oddly—quick, shallow gasps, in and out, in and out.
The reporter shrugged. “Okay, Sonny. If that’s how you want it.” He nodded to the photographer. “Let’s go. We got our story.”
Vic grabbed the reporter by his shirt. The guy’s feet dangled two inches off the floor. Vic was gasping for air now. “You’re not … not gonna do this!”
“Try and stop me, dumbo.”
And then I found out what Wanda meant when she said to never, ever, let Vic get mad at you.
He blew. He just plain went into a blind rage. He wrenched the photographer’s camera from its strap, tore it open, and yanked the film out. When the reporter tried to wrestle it away from him, he punched the guy flush on the face, sending him backpedaling onto a neighboring table, where food and dishes flew. Blood splattered. A woman screamed.
“No, Vic!” cried Sonny. “Stop, Vic. Enough!”
But this wasn’t Vic. This was a wild man, an animal growl coming from his throat. He pulled the reporter off the table, slugged him again, breaking his nose, sending him up against a wall. There he grabbed him by the throat with both hands and began banging the guy’s head against the wall. The reporters limbs began to flop helplessly. His face got purple, his eyes glazed over.
It took Sonny, me, and every waiter and busboy in the place to pull Vic off him. There’s no question in my mind he would have killed him if we hadn’t.
“Vic!” screamed Sonny. “Look at me, Vic!”
But Vic was still heaving and straining to get at the reporter, who had now slumped to the floor, bleeding from his mouth and nose, dazed but conscious.
Sonny looked around, grabbed a bucket of ice that had been cooling a neighboring table’s white wine, and dumped it over Vic’s head. The big fellow sputtered, and then abruptly, he came around. He shook his head a few times to clear it, then stood there dumbly, his chest still heaving, ice water streaming down his head.
“Everything okay, Sonny?” He was gasping, looking around at the damage like someone else had done it.
“No, everything’s not okay,” sobbed the reporter, who was dabbing at his bloodied face with a napkin. He pointed it at Sonny. “I’m going to sue your ass,” he wailed.
“Get out while you still can, you piece of shit!”
The photographer helped him up. They left, the photographer clutching his ruined camera, the reporter snuffling and moaning. Everybody in the place watched them go, then turned to watch us.
“I’m sorry about this, Mr. Day,” apologized the maître d’, as he and his staff scurried to clean up our mess.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Carmine,” said Sonny, slipping him some bills. “Please give everybody another bottle of whatever they were having.”
“Yessir, Mr. Day.”
Sonny turned back to me. “C’mon, let’s eat.”
“Maybe we should go,” I said, eyeing Vic, who was still standing there in a half daze.
“Nonsense,” said Sonny. “We came here for dinner and we’re gonna have it.”
We sat back down at our table.
“Sorry, Sonny,” Vic mumbled. “Just couldn’t help myself.”
“That’s okay, Vic. He asked for it. Why don’t you go towel off and comb your hair. You look a mess.”
“Okay,” he agreed meekly.
We watched him as he headed for the men’s room. He moved slowly, like he was shell-shocked.
“He’ll be fine in a couple minutes,” Sonny assured me. “It’s that damned plate in his noggin. He almost killed a guy in a club once. Cost me plenty to get the charges dropped.”
I took a gulp of my Chianti. “Think that guy will sue?”
“He’ll try. Make more of a name for himself that way. I’ll call Heshie tonight. He knows the right people to lean on. Cash settlement ought to take care of it. Can’t stop the story though. Not with my rep. It’s news. It’ll be in tomorrow’s papers. On Entertainment Tonight. Wires’ll pick it up. By the end of the week they’ll have it that I was drunk out of my mind and I punched the jerk. I guarantee it.”
The waiter brought us our veal.
“Something a little different for you tonight, huh, pally?”
“Lot of fun eating with you guys,” I said. “We’ll have to do it again real soon.”
“Look at it this way—you’ll be famous now. You’ll be in every newspaper in America.”
“I will?”
“Sure. You’ll be the unidentified third man.”
“Terrific.”
My luck at blackjack finally turned at a little past three a.m. Maybe it was just the odds evening out. Whatever, I kept on doubling my bets and I kept on winning. I won so many hands in a row that I actually climbed all the way back up to even for the night. Then I lost five straight. I decided it was time for bed.
Somebody was sleeping in my bed. She had blond hair and a nice shape and no clothes on under the single sheet. The light woke her up. She was pretty. She stirred, then sat up and stretched, the skin tightening across her breasts. Then she lay back on the pillow and smiled at me, all warm and cuddly and inviting.
“Are you in the right room?” I said.
“Are you Hoagy?” she purred, in a slight Southern accent. “Yes. Who are you?”
“Yours. For the whole night.”
“Whose idea was this?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Put your clothes on,” I said. “You just had an easy night’s work.”
I went across the hall and pounded on the door to Sonny’s suite. After a minute Vic came to the door and wanted to know who it was. When I told him, he opened up. He wore a robe. One hand was rubbing sleep from his eyes. The other held a gun.
“Hey, Hoag.” He yawned. “What’s up?”
“Trouble?” I asked, eyeing the gun.
“All quiet. Routine precaution.”
“I have to talk to Sonny.”
“He’s asleep.”
Sonny appeared behind him in the doorway. “It’s okay, Vic. Go back to bed.”
Vic went back to his room and closed the door.
Sonny grinned at me. “Get your present?”
“Sonny, I—”
“She’s supposed to be the best in town. A graduate of Tulane University.” He winked. “Do ya some good. I mean, there ain’t a whole lot of action around my house, except for Wanda. And for her you need a butterfly net. Enjoy.”
“Sonny, I don’t want her.”
He punched me on the shoulder, cozily. “C’mon, she’ll do anything you want, and she knows what she’s doing. You’ll feel like a new man.”
“I appreciate it, but …”
“But what?”
“It’s not my thing, okay?”
“Why didn’t you say so? I’ll pick up the phone. You don’t have to be bashful. Different strokes, right? I used to dig schwartzers. Two or three of ’em at once—taller the better. Gabe went for little girls. Just tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want anything. I’m very tired and I want to go to sleep.”
He frowned. “You still carrying a torch for your ex-wife? Is that it?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what? Talk to me.”
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “There is no torch,” I said quietly. “Okay?”
He glanced south of my equator, then back up. “You mean … ?”
“Physically, there’s nothing wrong. I’m just …”
“Impotent. Say it. You’re impotent. So what? It happens to lots of guys. Come on in and we’ll talk about it. We’ll brew up a pot of tea and talk all night if you want.” He smiled warmly. He looked happier than I’d ever seen him. In fact, he looked positively thrilled.
He put an arm around me to usher me in. It sort of developed into a hug.
“Come on in, kid.”