“Change seats with me, mate,” Des O’Day ordered Fitz, who leapt to comply. Unfortunately, in his zeal, he’d neglected to unsnap his seatbelt and it nearly cut him in two.
“Uh, oh, Jesus! Sorry, Des,” he said, freeing himself this time and hopping into the aisle.
“Save the low comedy for the show, boyo,” Des said as he eased past the bearded man and slid onto the vacated seat.
“Man’s as thick as two short planks.”
I said nothing, merely gave him a questioning look.
“Billy, suppose you tell me what ball of shite’s awatin’ me in lotus land?”
“Could you be a little more specific?” I asked.
“What’s the city like? I know the jokes. It’s a great place to live if you’re an orange. In Malibu, you can lie on the sand and stare at the stars, or vice versa. I’ve heard ’em all. But what’s it really like?”
“Your guess would be better than mine,” I said. “I haven’t been out there in years.”
“’Twixt you and me, mate,” he said, lowering his voice, “the longest I’ve spent in the so-called Angel City has been forty-eight hours, and most of that was in the airport.”
“You’ve been there preparing for the show, right?”
“I’ve taken some quick runs in and out, mainly to meet with this producer, Slaughter.”
“What about publicity?”
He considered the question, then replied, “There’s this thing about the theater we’re gonna use. It’s near the WBC lot in Hollywood. For the last thirty or forty years it was a playhouse where they put on live dramas. There’s been some of that ‘Don’t throw away our history’ bullshite goin’ on. I didn’t see the point of gettin’ involved in any of that before I had to. So I’ve been puttin’ off the big move, and the publicity, ’til the last bloody minute.”
“Last, indeed,” I said, wondering why I hadn’t heard about a problem with the theater. Wondering, too, if the excuse made any sense. “You’re cutting it pretty close.”
“They don’t need me to cobble the bloody set,” he said angrily. “All I’m expected to do is move kit and caboodle to a strange and, from all reports, loony land, get me fixed up in a proper house, keep my pale Irish flesh from the incessant, cancerous sun, find a whole new stable o’ slappers, and, finally, hobble in front of a camera and try not to look like bloody Fecky the Ninth.”
Not having an Irish slang dictionary handy, I was pleased with myself for making sense of at least two-thirds of everything Des had said. “You’re a funny man,” I said. “You’ll do fine.”
“C’mon now, boyo,” he said. “I haven’t got a baldy and I know it. I tried like hell to convince Gretchen to do the show from New York. It’s my bad cess she didn’t see the logic of it. I mean, Christ, look at the crowd of shows out here every night. Leno, Kimmel, George Lopez. And the bloody Scot. Not to mention that bad-tempered but, I gotta admit, feckin’ hilarious Wanda Sykes on Saturday nights. All hustlin’ for A-list wankers an’ makin’ the same bloody jokes about smog, agents, and the stupid culchies.
“Meanwhile Dave and Fallon, bein’ the only players in Big Town, they can afford to do hardball comedy, pick ’n’ choose from the top name caffers and still get the ratings. I mean, what’s Gretchen thinking?”
At this point I should confess to a failure of character. I was romantically involved with Gretchen until she suffered a lapse in taste and dumped me. There’s more to that story, of course, and, if Wally has his way, you may be reading about it someday or seeing it in some exaggerated context on a movie screen. For the now, I mention it only to explain why I was secretly amused at the thought of Gretchen reacting to the carping and complaints of a sometime incomprehensible brash comic she was about to transform from sitcom sidekick into headliner.
I could imagine her biting her tongue, secretly cursing Des. Possibly even cursing her father, Commander Di Voss, too, for deciding that the network (of which he was president and chairman of the board) needed a late-night talk show presence. Was it wrong of me to take some delight in an ex-paramour’s distress? An unfaithful ex-paramour? I think not.
“The problem as I see it, Billy,” Des was saying, “is that I need the edginess of a real city, like New York or Dublin, to keep the noggin noodles crisp. I’m afraid of what the feckin’ sun and the smog does to your wit. Look at what happened to Conan, for Christ’s sake.
“Not to mention everything being all spread out like bloody cheese on a cracker. Hell, I don’t even know how to drive a car. I’m gonna have to depend on a bloody chauffeur.”
“Life is tough in the tropics,” I said.
“If it was like Vegas, maybe I could work around the sun and the rest of the shite. You know, just hang in the hotel, do your work, and order up the food, drink, and scrubbers. But Gretchen says I’ve got to use the feckin’ city in my stand-up. And to use it, you gotta know it.”
“Then it’s a good thing I won’t have to use it,” I said.
“As much as you’ve bounced about? I can’t believe you never spent serious time in L.A.?”
“Nothing worth mentioning,” I said.
“Then why am I wastin’ my scintilatin’ personality on you?” he asked, giving me a half-smile to show he was only half-kidding. “Might as well go check the talent on the flight.”
I wasn’t unhappy to see him wandering off to treat the hostesses to his dubious charm. Aside from his being pretty much the antithesis of a good traveling companion, I really didn’t need anybody to quiz me about L.A.
I pressed the button that lowered my seat as far as it would go, leaned back, and closed my eyes. I was hoping for sleep. Instead, I was visited again by the memory of Tiffany’s murder, the events leading up to it and the aftermath.
Especially the aftermath.