I flew first class. HWA was picking up the tab, and Lulu has been known to get truculent if she has to fly coach.
I never trust my Olympia to baggage crews. I carried it on board along with the antique doctor’s bag that I use for toting around Lulu’s bowls and supply of 9Lives and anchovies. I’d dressed casually in a blue chambray shirt, khakis, kid leather ankle boots and my battered old Werber flight jacket, which is an ideal weight for December in Los Angeles, where the forecast called for a high of seventy-three going down into the fifties that night.
The stargazing in first class was exceptional that morning. I was privileged, privileged to witness Pauly Shore, the slow-talking MTV stoner comic, logging face time with Richard Simmons, the screechy, hyperkinetic TV exercise guru. The two of them bore such an eerie yin-yang physical resemblance to each other that I began to wonder what might happen if we encountered air turbulence and they accidentally bumped into each other. Would they fuse into one giant, jiggling, protozoan blob? Happily, Richard went bounding off to yammer with one-half of the sizzling hot hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa. I think it was Salt, but I can’t swear that it wasn’t Pepa.
I took a pass on our in-flight movie, a smarmy $65 million Bruce Willis flop called Hudson Hawk, and contented myself with that morning’s New York Daily News, which carried a page-one banner headline that read “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?” above a photo of Kat Zachry and her noticeable tummy strolling down a West Hollywood street in a loose-fitting camisole and sweatpants. The New York Post, not to be outdone, went with “KAT IN THE HAT” and a photo of her in an L.A. Dodgers cap as she and her tum-tum were getting out of a BMW convertible in a coffee shop parking lot. The Daily News, citing “sources close to the production of Malibu High,” disclosed that it was becoming “increasingly difficult” to shoot around Kat’s “increasingly obvious” pregnant state, which was “an obvious taboo” for a character who was a high school senior. According to the Post, several evangelical Christian and family values organizations were calling for a nationwide boycott of the top-rated show unless the network fired the young actress for her “immoral” behavior.
The Gray Lady of American journalism, the New York Times, went with the breathtaking news that bestselling lifestyle author and TV talk show personality Monette Aintree, elder daughter of legendary novelist Richard Aintree, had just signed a seven-figure book contract that would team her with “former literary wunderkind” Stewart Hoag on a project that would, according to her publisher, “surely rank as one of the major literary events of our time.” No details about the book’s subject were disclosed. Monette Aintree’s literary agent, Boyd Samuels, vice president of Literary Synergy at the Harmon Wright Agency, would neither confirm nor deny that it would concern itself with her famous missing father.
I set the newspapers aside, vowing that I was not going to obsess about those smug shitheads at the Times calling me a “former literary wunderkind.” One of these days I would write another novel, an even better one than my first, and they would fall all over themselves raving about how great I was. Until then, I wasn’t going to let them ruin my morning. Instead, I spent the flight reading a collection of short stories by John O’Hara, which is something I do every few years just to remind myself what good writing is.
A uniformed driver was waiting for me by the baggage carousel at LAX to take me to Monette’s home on Rockingham Avenue in Brentwood. He collected my bags and led Lulu and me to a black Cadillac Brougham that was parked outside in the loading zone, where the warm Southern California air was scented with a rich mix of jet engine exhaust and morning smog. I instructed him to drive me instead to a converted prop warehouse on La Brea, one block south of Olympic. Dirk Weir, the brother of an old college classmate, owned a garage there that supplied movie producers with specialty vehicles for period shoots. I would need my own wheels while I was in town, and what you drive when you’re in L.A. is as vital as the air that you breathe. Or can’t breathe, as the case may be.
The limo driver dropped us there before he continued on to Monette’s house with my luggage. I moseyed through the bustling garage in search of my wheels. Strolled past a white 1956 T-Bird that was a dead ringer for the one Suzanne Somers drove in American Graffiti, then an immense, mouthwatering 1930 Duesenberg dual-cowl phaeton before I found the ride that I’d reserved—a truly classic 1947 Indian Chief Roadmaster, complete with sidecar. The bike was in beautiful condition. Brilliant red enamel body and fenders. Gleaming chrome everywhere else. A sport windshield, leather saddlebags.
Lulu jumped into the sidecar and let out a whoop of delight.
“She’s got good taste, I’ll give her that,” said Dirk, who had a ponytail and was missing several teeth. He was grinning as he handed me the key.
I climbed on. Worked the choke, gave the throttle a quarter turn and stepped down hard on the kick start. The 1,212 cc side-valve air-cooled engine roared to life unlike any engine before or since.
“It’s got new points and plugs,” Dirk assured me after I was done revving it like a gleeful kid. “Shouldn’t give you any trouble.”
“Can I take it on the freeway?”
He nodded. “It’ll cruise smooth as silk at sixty-five. Helmet?”
“Never use them.”
After I’d signed the paperwork, I eased on out of the driveway and headed north on La Brea, getting used to the feel of it and drawing wide-eyed stares from the other drivers on the road. Lulu, who, let us not forget, has an actress for a mother, rode with her nose high in the air, loving the attention. I don’t believe I’d ever seen her happier.
When I got to Melrose I stopped off at Pink’s for two chili dogs and a root beer because I can’t go to L.A. and not stop at Pink’s. Then I continued north on La Brea to Sunset Boulevard and hung a left, making my way past Laurel Canyon and Crescent Heights toward the Sunset Strip, the glitzy, fabled onetime home of Ciro’s and Dino’s and the Pink Pussycat. These days the Strip was home to Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s A-list Hollywood restaurant, Tower Records and a smattering of rock and comedy clubs that were meant to be seen after dark. They looked tacky and tired in the midday sunlight. But, mostly, the Strip was famous for its gigantic billboards. If you wanted to find out who was hot all you had to do was cruise the Strip. Calvin was hot. You couldn’t miss the strikingly naughty black-and-white Herb Ritts photo for Calvin Klein jeans that featured a semi-naked waif model named Kate Moss straddling a semi-naked white rapper who went by the goo-goo handle Marky Mark. But nobody was as hot that season as Whitney. There was Whitney on one huge billboard promoting her smash hit film, The Bodyguard, a treacly interracial romance that starred her opposite a semi-catatonic Kevin Costner. And there was Whitney on another huge billboard promoting her smash hit soundtrack album for The Bodyguard. It was a mighty impressive feat considering that Whitney had no acting chops and possessed a singing voice that was of no value whatsoever unless you wished to shatter bulletproof glass from a half mile away. Loud. Whitney could sing really loud.
When Sunset crossed over into Beverly Hills at Doheny, the billboards gave way to palm trees and the color palette switched over to lush green. There was a center divider that was lavishly planted and immaculately shorn. And, on my right, there was the elegant Beverly Hills Hotel. Just past the hotel, at North Whittier Drive, Sunset made an extremely sharp right bend that was famous to anyone who remembers the music of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence. I took it good and slow, still getting used to the Roadmaster and its sidecar. It handled well as I took it through the curves into Holmby Hills. When I hit a red light at Beverly Glen a young, caramel-tanned blonde on a Vespa who was wearing a bikini, a windbreaker and no shoes pulled up next to me and blew Lulu a kiss.
We had officially arrived in L.A.
Sunset skirted along the northern edge of UCLA before it dipped under the San Diego Freeway into Brentwood. I rode past Bundy Drive and Kenter Avenue before I found North Rockingham, where I made a right and started my way north of Sunset into a canyon of ultra-high-end estates surrounded by manicured carpets of green lawn. Not so much as a blade of grass or a leaf was out of place. They were the usual L.A. mash-up of Spanish, Mediterranean, Tudor, Gothic, Cape Cod and Greek revival, along with a smattering of modern architectural non-masterpieces. Monette’s house was set so far back on a corner lot behind a six-foot-high stone wall that I couldn’t see it from the street. There was a wide wrought iron front gate and, around the corner, a narrow service gate for tradespeople and other lowly serfs. An LAPD black-and-white was parked outside the front gate with two uniformed officers sitting in it. Four other cars were parked there that belonged to four tabloid photographers who were standing around smoking four cigarettes and chatting aimlessly.
My arrival at the front gate on the Indian Chief with Lulu riding shotgun caused a bit of a stir. The paparazzi snapped my picture and shouted at me, demanding to know who I was. I didn’t respond. It’s not my job to do their job for them. A cop got out of the cruiser and asked me if I was expected. When I told him that I was, he buzzed the house on an intercom that was built into the wall next to the security code keypad. A voice responded. I said my name into the intercom, the gate swung open and with that I entered what I would quickly come to think of as Aintree Manor.
It was quite some spread. Five, maybe six acres, which is the Ponderosa by Southern California standards. It was also a Merry Olde England theme park. The long, curving driveway was made of aged cobbles that had thatches of weeds growing between them in an artfully haphazard way. After the cobbled driveway had made its way past a formal rose garden, topiary garden and tennis court, it crossed over what appeared to be an old stone bridge spanning what appeared to be an actual babbling brook, before it finally arrived at a massive Georgian manor house of weathered brick with periwinkle blue shutters and ivy and honeysuckle growing up its walls. The house had a conservatory appointed in gleaming copper. Everyone should have one of those. A matched pair of crouching marble lions flanked the front door. Everyone should have two of those. The driveway changed over to pea gravel as it neared the house and widened out enough to accommodate a dozen or more cars, though there were none there now. I pulled to a halt, shut off the bike and climbed off. Lulu hopped out of her sidecar. I climbed the bluestone front steps and rang the doorbell, half-expecting Bertie Wooster to come flying out of the door with a red-faced Honoria Glossup in hot pursuit, waving a mashie niblick at him.
But it was the housekeeper who greeted me. Unless, that is, she was the live-in dental hygienist. She was dressed like one in her short-sleeved yellow smock, matching yellow pants and spotless white Nikes. She was a Latina in her early twenties, about five foot seven, slim and quite lovely with gleaming dark eyes, flawless skin and shiny black hair that was tied back in a ponytail.
“Welcome, Senor Hoag. I am Maritza. I shall make you settled,” she said, slowly and carefully. Her English was fair. She was working hard at making it more than that.
“Nice to meet you, Maritza. Make it Hoagy, okay?”
“As you wish, Senor Hoagy.”
“And the short one with four legs is Lulu.”
Maritza’s face lit up. “Such a pretty, pretty girl.” She knelt down to pet Lulu, then drew back, her eyes widening. “Dios mio, her breath . . .”
“She has rather strange eating habits.”
“When I unpacked her food I expected she would be a cat. I mean no offense.”
“None taken, I assure you. Are those photographers always camped outside?”
She nodded. “Day and night. You are seeing only the small crew because they know the senora is not here. When she returns from work, there are many more. She will be home from taping today’s show by six o’clock. Senor Joey and Senorita Danielle ride the bus home from Brentwood School and shall be here by four o’clock. I can show you around now, if you would like.”
“I would like. How long have you been working here, Maritza?”
“I arrived from Guatemala City six month ago. I am very happy here. Senora Monette is so kind to me. I wish to take classes soon at Santa Monica City College. I should like to be a schoolteacher someday.”
I nodded, wondering if she were here illegally. Many of the live-ins on Park Avenue in New York were. The same was true here in sunny Southern California. It was a mixed blessing. It got them away from a bad situation at home, but it also turned them into modern-day indentured servants.
The two-story entry hall featured a marble bust of a bygone nobleman who wore six, seven, eight vintage straw hats stacked high atop his head in a manner that I suppose was meant to be whimsical. Next to him there was a blue porcelain urn filled with walking sticks and umbrellas. The floor was made of wide oak planks. Old ones by the look of them. There was a tall clock, an ornate gold mirror, a long bench that looked a lot like a repurposed church pew. A grand, winding staircase led up to the second floor. The stairway walls were lined from floor to ceiling with framed covers of TV Guide, People, Parade and other magazines featuring the famous lady of the house as well as her famous husband, who was currently residing elsewhere. It was the sort of display that you’d expect to find in someone’s workplace, not home. I found it a bit odd. I would have opted for formal oil portraits of dead English gentry. Or possibly Jimi Hendrix posters.
“If you will follow me, please,” Maritza said.
We followed her, Lulu’s nails clacking on the oak floor as Maritza led us into an immense, sun-drenched living room where the walls were painted red, the curtains were white lace and the rugs were Persian and stylishly worn. There was a great deal of decorative molding and wainscoting. A chintz-covered sofa and two armchairs faced the marble fireplace. There was a glass coffee table piled with copies of magazines such as Town & Country and Architectural Digest. Fresh flowers were displayed in vases here, there, everywhere.
“Nice little place. How old is it?”
“It was built three years ago, I believe,” Maritza replied.
The conservatory, which was off the living room, had a Steinway grand piano. The walnut-paneled library had two walls of bookcases lined with leather-bound tomes and an eighteenth-century mahogany writing table set before tall windows framed by purple velvet drapery. Matching leather sofas and a pair of armchairs faced a marble fireplace. In the billiard room I discovered yet another marble fireplace. They sure had a lot of fireplaces considering that it’s seldom cold enough in Los Angeles to curl up in front of one. Hanging over this fireplace was a framed photograph of Patrick Van Pelt yukking it up with Burt Reynolds on the set of a 1970s action comedy that they’d made together. The billiard room, I gathered, was his room. There was an antique pool table with leather pockets. A ten-foot-long carved mahogany bar with an ornate mirror behind it and glass shelving that was stocked with leaded glass decanters filled with a generous assortment of what I imagined to be good liquor. Unless it was just colored water. You never know about these things when you’re in L.A. It felt a whole lot like the bar of a proper gentlemen’s club in there. Except, that is, for a low-slung sofa from the 1950s over against one wall that had arms and legs of tubular chrome and leopard-skin upholstery. It didn’t go with the rest of the décor at all. Looked like something you once might have romped around on with Eartha Kitt.
Maritza noticed me studying it. “Is Senor Patrick’s. The senora does not like it, but he insists.”
I nodded, wondering why it hadn’t departed the premises with Patrick. Or ended up in pieces out in the street. Possibly he had every intention of moving back in. Possibly Monette had every intention of letting him. There’s just no telling with married couples. I happen to know more than I want to about these things.
The dining room was suitably huge and formal with stenciled walls, more lace curtains and more decorative molding. The dining table, which could seat two dozen healthy eaters, was covered with a spotless white linen tablecloth. For a centerpiece there was a pitcher of heavy cut glass filled with fresh-cut pale pink camellias. The kitchen was open, airy and decidedly more country casual than the rest of the place, or at least Monette Aintree’s idea of country casual, which is to say that the floor was slabs of slate and the exposed beams in the cathedral ceiling were rough and hand-hewn. Old chestnut by the look of them. Assorted baskets and bunches of dried herbs were hanging from the beams in a manner that was way too artsy and self-conscious to come across as casual. The rustic table that anchored the kitchen was of scrubbed pine. The kitchen cupboards were of scrubbed pine as well. The counters were butcher block. The stove was a mammoth AGA. The stainless-steel refrigerator and freezer looked adequate enough to supply the needs of a modest-sized hotel.
French doors led from the kitchen to an outdoor dining area that was set under a grape arbor. We were making our way out there when a buzzer went off somewhere.
“Please, one moment. It is the dryer.” Maritza darted through a doorway off the kitchen into the laundry room. A door next to the laundry room led to a bedroom. Hers, I imagined.
She returned quickly and outside we went. Beyond the patio dining area there were some lemon trees, very pretty, and the babbling brook that I’d crossed on the old stone bridge went babbling on by.
“Is that brook real or fake?”
“It has a generator and pump to move the water around. But it is real.”
“Spoken like a true Los Angeleno, Maritza. You talk the talk.”
She flashed a cautious smile at me. “Thank you. I pick up much from watching Regis and Kathie Lee.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
“Also Kermit the Frog and the Cookie Monster.”
“Okay, that was a much better answer.”
A bluestone path lined with rose bushes led to the swimming pool, which was quite large and inviting. Teak lounge chairs with spotless white canvas cushions were lined alongside the pool in a manner that you would associate with a four-star resort hotel. On the other side of the pool was the pool house, which was built of old brick just like the main house.
As we approached it, I heard the rusty creak of a gate being opened. It was the narrow service gate that I’d noticed when I arrived, located adjacent to a fenced enclosure where the trash barrels were kept. A squatly built Latino, maybe thirty, came in toting a bag of peat moss over one shoulder. He wore a sweat-stained short-sleeved khaki shirt, jeans and work boots. In a leather holster on his belt he carried a pair of pruners.
“Hola, bonita!” he called out to Maritza, grinning broadly. “Hola, Senor! I am Hector. I make everything look nice here. And you are . . . ?”
“He is called Hoagy,” Maritza informed him coldly. “Here to help the senora.”
“Glad to know you, Hector.” I shook his hand. He had a grip of iron. On his left wrist he wore a Rolex Submariner with a steel-linked band. Nice timepiece for a gardener. “The short one’s Lulu.”
“She won’t leave messes in my flowerbeds, will she?”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
He turned back to Maritza and said, “Tell me, how is it possible that you look even more beautiful today than yesterday?”
“The senora told you not to speak to me, remember?”
“But the heart wants what it wants,” he protested, winking at me.
She turned her back on him and marched toward the pool house.
Hector let out a huge laugh, heading off with the bag of peat moss.
“Is Hector your man friend?” I asked when I caught up with her.
“No, he is not. He is a married man. And I do not trust him. You see that fancy watch he has on? He told me Senor Patrick gave it to him as a present.”
“Why would Patrick give Hector a Rolex?”
“So Hector will keep his eye on the senora for him is why.”
Maritza used a key to unlock the pool house. She opened the shutters to reveal a décor that was Early Nothing, which made for a welcome change after all of the high-octane fauxness of the main house. There was a seating area with a loveseat and an armchair covered in blue canvas. A kitchenette with a bar sink, mini fridge, microwave and coffeemaker. A tiny kitchen table. A manila envelope lay on the table.
She handed me the key. “For you.”
“Do I need to keep my door locked?”
“The senora likes for her guests to know they have privacy.” Maritza also handed me a business card that had numbers scrawled on it. “The security code,” she explained. “So you may come in the gate without buzzing.”
She’d already stowed Lulu’s provisions in a kitchen cupboard. I opened the fresh jar of anchovies and gave Lulu one so she’d feel at home, then put the jar in the mini fridge, which was stocked with milk, orange juice, Perrier, Dos Equis and a bag of freshly ground French roast coffee beans.
I filled Lulu’s water bowl and set it on the floor, then followed Maritza through a doorway into a small bedroom that was thoroughly crammed with a queen-sized brass bed, two nightstands, dresser and desk. She’d unpacked my suitcases and garment bags for me. My suits, jackets and slacks were hanging in the closet along with my silk target-dot dressing gown. My dove gray trilby and handmade straw Panama fedora awaited me on the top shelf, my shoes in a neat row on the floor down below. My shirts, ties, socks and underwear were neatly folded in the dresser drawers. The items from my toilet kit were laid out in the adjoining bathroom. Grandfather’s straight-edge razor and strop, my Floris No. 89 talc, toothbrush and so on. The bathroom was considerably nicer than the one in my apartment, but you come to expect that in Los Angeles. If having a nice bathroom is important to you, then L.A. is the place for you, not New York.
“Thank you for doing all of this, Maritza. It really wasn’t necessary.”
“You have such nice things,” she said as she kept moving around the bedroom, careful to make sure that I was never between her and the door. I wondered if someone had given her a reason to be so careful. I wondered who that someone might be. “And the senora wishes you should feel at home.”
“In that case you’ll have to do something about that,” I said, meaning the cat-puke-colored plastic Macintosh word processor that was parked on the desk.
“You will need it for your work, no?”
“No, I will not. And I won’t be able to sleep a wink with it staring at me. Please remove the printer and fax machine as well. All I need is my Olympia,” I said, rescuing it from the closet floor where she’d stowed it. “Is that princess phone on the nightstand a private line or an extension?”
“It is private. Yours alone. Senorita Danielle and Senor Joey have their own lines also. Danielle is on the phone constantly. She has many friends.”
“How about Joey?”
“He does not believe in friends. Spends all of the time alone. He wishes to be a writer someday.”
“Poor kid. We’ll see what we can do about that.”
“I shall let you get settled.” Maritza returned to the living room. “This came for you by messenger an hour ago.” She handed me the manila envelope from the kitchen table, then bent down and patted Lulu on the head again before she left us.
It was addressed to me care of Monette Aintree at this address on Rockingham Avenue. The return address was the Malibu High production office on the Radford lot in Studio City. Inside the manila envelope was a letter-sized envelope with my name written across it with a black marking pen. I opened it and removed a business letter that had been typed on Malibu High stationery with an IBM Selectric:
Dear Hoagy—
Real anxious to talk at you as soon as possible, dude. If you have time please meet me this afternoon at our location shoot. We’re at the Devonshire Grand Prix in Pacoima. Get off the San Diego Freeway at Devonshire and hang a right. It’s about a mile from there. Just ask a production assistant to point you to my trailer. Does 3:00 work for you? I should be available around then. Be a dude and please don’t say anything to Queenie about this, okay?
See you soon,
Patrick Van Pelt
He’d signed it with that same black marking pen.
I glanced at my grandfather’s gold Benrus. It was 1:45.
I took off my flight jacket and opened some windows. Sat down on the brass bed and used my calling card to check my messages at home in New York. I was well within my contractual rights to stick Monette with the cost of any and all long-distance calls that I made, but if I did that then she’d have a record of them. I didn’t want her or anyone else to know with whom I was in contact. Just one of those little things I’ve picked up along the way as a ghost.
I had messages galore thanks to the Times story that morning. Calls from not only three different Times reporters but reporters from Time, Newsweek, USA TODAY and the Washington Post as well as segment producers from all three of the network evening news shows. Everyone wanted me to call them back, which I had no intention of doing. Boyd Samuels had left a message, too: “Just wanted to make sure you got out there okay, amigo. Call me if you need anything, understand? You are my top priority right now!”
Comforted. I felt incredibly comforted.
There was no message from Merilee in Budapest yet.
I changed from my khakis into a well-worn pair of jeans. Put my jacket back on, tucking Patrick’s letter into my pocket. Then I let Lulu out and took off, locking the pool house door behind me.
Back in the postwar boom years, the San Fernando Valley had been the pot of gold at the end of America’s rainbow, a sun-kissed dreamland of orange groves and crystal-clear blue skies. As I crested at Mulholland on the San Diego Freeway, what was laid out before me on this December afternoon was a wasteland of tract houses and shopping centers as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far due to the thick, peach-colored smog that hung low and heavy over the valley floor. I could taste it on my lips as I made my way out into the sun-baked flats of Van Nuys and Panorama City, the Indian Chief cruising steady and smooth at sixty-five. Lulu sat happily in her sidecar, enjoying the wind and the admiring looks of the drivers who sped by us. Many of them waved at us, as if we were day sailors at sea. I waved back. Kids made funny faces. I made funny faces back.
I got off at Devonshire, as instructed, and rode past a wider array of fast food franchises than I’d ever known existed before I spotted a huge sign for the Devonshire Grand Prix, which turned out to be a go-kart raceway. Or make that former go-kart raceway, because it was no longer in business. Boarded up. Padlocked. Gone. There was a vast trash-strewn parking lot where weeds grew in cracks in the pavement in a decidedly non-artful manner. But there was no Malibu High location shoot. No lights. No cameras. No action.
I pulled into the empty lot, shut off my engine and climbed off, pulling Patrick’s letter from my pocket to give it another look. Yes, I had come to the right place. Yes, I’d arrived at the correct time. Patrick hadn’t included his phone number on the letter. I decided I’d call Maritza to see if she had it. There was a payphone in front of the car wash next door. I started my way toward it on foot, Lulu ambling along next to me.
That was when a black Trans Am pulled into the raceway’s parking lot. I came to a halt, thinking that Patrick had sent someone to deliver me to a different location. Last-minute changes happen all of the time. I waited there for the Trans Am’s driver to pull up alongside of me and roll down his window. Except he didn’t do that.
He sped up.
And headed right for me.
My first response was to freeze in disbelief. But then my paternal instincts took over. Lulu. Bassets are scent hounds that were bred to hunt rabbits. Lulu’s sense of smell is second only to that of a bloodhound. Her first step is second only to that of a potted philodendron—which explains why I reached down, scooped her into my arms and dove all in one swift motion. I came down hard on my right shoulder and cheekbone just as the Trans Am sped past us, missing us by inches. My cheek burned instantly from smacking against the rough tar. So did my right knee. I lay there with Lulu squirming indignantly in my arms as the driver hit the brakes and turned around, gunning his engine. I couldn’t get a good look at him. The Trans Am’s windshield was tinted. And its California license plate was conveniently splattered with mud. I scrambled back up onto my feet with Lulu and readied myself as he started back at us, burning rubber . . . Only this time he swerved around us and kept right on going to the driveway, where he made a screeching left on two wheels, took off down Devonshire and was gone.
There was no mistake. I’d come to the right place. And I’d been given a message. Scram. And don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
Message received.
“What happened to your cheek?” Monette Aintree wanted to know.
“Lulu and I had a small disagreement. She can get a bit fierce.”
Elliot Schein let out a nervous chuckle, which was something I was about to discover he did a lot. Monette Aintree stared at me with chilly disapproval, which was something I was about to discover she did a lot.
It was nearly 6:00. Darkness had fallen. They were seated under the grape arbor at Monette’s glass and wrought iron dining table, sipping white wine. Maritza was in the kitchen making dinner. It was peaceful out there on the patio. So quiet I could hear Elliot’s breath wheeze in and out. Monette’s pudgy producer/manager was not in the greatest cardiovascular health.
“I love that kooky motorcycle you rode in on,” he said to me.
“It handles well. And style points for your use of the word kooky. Very Maynard G. Krebs.”
“It so happens that I used to represent Bob Denver.”
“Lucky you.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it, my friend. I had to fight off three other managers with my bare hands. One of them needed a neck brace and a tetanus shot by the time I was done with her.”
I’d been back at Aintree Manor for nearly an hour. When I returned I’d encountered four times as many photographers as when I’d left. Translation: The lady of the house was in the house. Her white Toyota Land Cruiser was parked out front near the crouching lions. I’d gone directly to my pool house, stripped and showered. My cheek stung a bit. My knee stung a lot. I dabbed at both wounds with a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide that I found in the fully stocked medicine chest. My right shoulder ached. I washed down a couple of aspirin with a cold Dos Equis from my mini fridge and gave Lulu her supper. She was hungry and super pumped. Danger is her middle name. Mine, as you may recall, is Stafford. Not that we’d been in serious danger. The driver of that Trans Am hadn’t been sent to kill me. If he had I’d be dead right now.
My jeans had a three-inch tear in the right knee. I hung them from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. Stropped Grandfather’s razor and shaved. Dressed in my navy blue blazer, vanilla gabardine slacks, a white shirt, blue-and-yellow polka-dot bow tie and my spectator balmorals. I pulled the brim of my trilby low over my right eye, but it didn’t help. Monette had spotted that fresh scrape on my cheek right away when I’d found her there under the grape arbor with Elliot.
She stood up as I approached, as did Elliot. Monette was a tall woman. Not as tall as I am but nearly six feet tall in her low-heeled pumps, which made her a good eight inches taller than Elliot. She stuck out her hand, which was quite large, and gave me a firm handshake.
“What were you and Lulu disagreeing about?” she wanted to know.
“The usual. She likes Richard Gere.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think he has the emotional range of a napa cabbage.”
Monette studied me curiously. “You’re not exactly the sort of person I was expecting.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t intended as a compliment,” she said, raising her chin at me. Monette Aintree was a regal presence, no question about that. She was self-possessed, strong-willed and accustomed to getting her way. She held herself very erect in her cream-colored silk blouse and charcoal pleated slacks. Her back was straight, shoulders squared. She had long, shiny blond hair and the same aristocratic features as Reggie, albeit a bit more pronounced, as in almost but not quite masculine. Like Reggie, she had blue eyes. Unlike Reggie, hers were an unusually pale shade of blue. And when they grabbed hold of mine they didn’t waver or blink. They held on, assessing me, challenging me.
Elliot Schein, who was in his late fifties, resembled two extremely large green marshmallows as he stood there stuffed inside his matching lime green Nike warm-up jacket and pants. Elliot was freckle-faced and had a shock of red hair that was so toweringly frizzy that I couldn’t decide whether it was a perm or a rug. I didn’t want to think about it long enough to decide. He was a nervous little guy who blinked a lot and, as I mentioned, chuckled a lot. In his pudgy left hand he was clutching a mobile phone with a built-in antenna.
“We’re drinking Sancerre,” Monette informed me. “Will that do?”
“Always has.”
“I’ll get you a glass. I want to see how Maritza is doing with dinner.”
As soon as she’d gone inside Elliot hurriedly called someone on his mobile phone. “Can you hear me . . . ? No . . . ?” He struggled to his feet and hurried over in the direction of the pool. “How about now . . . ? Good, did you take care of that little problem? Good, good. Righto, bye.” He rang off and returned to the table, plopping himself down in his chair. “Small hiccough in today’s taping,” he explained. “Monette was interviewing a diet doctor who happened to use the phrase pregnant pause in passing—meaning nothing untoward—but the studio audience jumped on it and went ‘Oooh . . .’ on account of this Pat ’n’ Kat bullshit. I just made sure our sound editor took it out. We do not need to be feeding the beast.”
“No, you do not.”
Elliot Schein was a showbiz legend. He’d been a small-time manager of stand-up comics in New York back in the early seventies when one of his clients had come up with the idea for Coming Soon, an ingenious low-budget film comedy that was nothing more than a dozen hilarious ten-minute previews for major Hollywood motion pictures that didn’t actually exist. They were equal-opportunity spoofs of big-budget sci-fi spectaculars, low-budget slasher fests, hard-boiled cop films, romantic comedies, disaster epics, you name it—complete with soaring music, basso profundo narration and a campy B-list of has-been performers like Mr. T, Erik Estrada and Charo. Elliot scrounged up the financing for Coming Soon and served as its executive producer. It was such a huge box-office smash that it spawned two hit sequels and prompted Elliot to move to L.A. to launch his own production company. He was currently producing three successful prime-time sitcoms as well as Monette’s syndicated daytime show, which he and Monette jointly owned. Elliot was a multimillionaire power player, yet he still came across like a small-timer. He also came across like someone who cared about Monette. There was concern on his face as he gazed at her through the kitchen window.
“I’m glad that you’re here,” he confided to me. “Monette really, really needs for this project to happen.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she’s in trouble. Her last two books lost so much money that her publisher just flat out rejected her newest proposal. She wanted to do a gardening book. Had a photographer all lined up and everything.” He shot a worried glance at me. “You didn’t know?”
“Somehow, Boyd Samuels neglected to tell me that part.”
“I don’t like that guy.”
“No one likes that guy. And you?”
“What about me?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Elliot swallowed uneasily. “Our show’s bleeding stations from coast to coast. Twenty good-sized markets have bailed on us in the past two weeks. This mess with Patrick is killing her image. Who wants to take lifestyle advice from a woman whose husband just ditched her for a nineteen-year-old tramp? Monette is in real trouble, my friend. She needs a game changer in the worst way. This business with her father could be it, am I right?”
“It could be.”
He folded his hands across his belly, studying me. “Everybody I talk to tells me you’re the best. Top of the list. King of the hill. A-number-one.”
“You’re not going to break into ‘New York, New York,’ are you?”
“You’d better be.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’m going to be very upset. And you do not want to be around me when I’m upset.”
At my feet, Lulu let out a low, protective growl. Me, I had nothing to say. It never occurred to me that Elliot Schein had gotten to where he was by being a cuddly teddy bear. He’d felt it necessary to make absolutely sure I knew it. I’m accustomed to such threats by members of a celebrity’s inner circle. They wash right over me.
Monette returned with my wineglass, poured me some Sancerre and said, “Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes.” She was sitting back down with us when Elliot’s mobile phone rang.
“This’ll just take a second,” he said, answering the call. “Hello . . . ? Wait, I can’t hear you.” He got up and waddled off in the direction of the pool again. “Can you hear me . . . ?” And waddled still farther. “How about now . . . ?”
“All of the movers and shakers must talk on those silly things,” she said drily. “They remind me of little boys playing with walkie-talkies.”
“Hang on, I’ll try the other side of the pool . . . !”
Monette gazed at me in that direct, unblinking way of hers. “How long are you prepared to stay?”
“As long as it takes. But if that letter’s genuine, and I have every reason to believe it is, then your dad will reach out to you again very soon. You’re absolutely sure that no one other than you, he and Reggie know that he used to call you Olive Oyl?”
“No one else knows about that.”
“Not even Patrick?”
“No one,” she repeated, her gaze hardening. “I understand that you’re to be well compensated no matter what happens.”
“Your plumber doesn’t give away his time for free. Neither do I.”
“No, of course not.” She softened slightly. “I didn’t mean for that to sound . . . I’m just not sure I understand what sort of a book will come out of this.”
“You don’t have to be sure. That’s where I come in.”
“Perhaps you can explain something to me . . .”
I sipped my wine, which was dry and quite good. “I can try.”
Elliot returned to us, mobile phone in hand, and said, “That young comic of mine from Iowa? The one with the cowlick? He’s having an anxiety attack over the network’s notes on his pilot script. I gotta go hold his head while he vomits. Will you kids be okay without me?”
“We’ll be fine, Elliot,” she assured him.
He handed me his business card. “Holler if you need anything. There’s nothing I won’t do for this lady. I’ll call you later, hon,” he promised, wheezing as he padded off in the direction of the driveway.
I heard his car start, followed by the sound of tires on gravel. A moment later the front gate opened and there was a great deal of shouting from the paparazzi camped out on the street. Then he drove off and all was quiet again.
“I feel so bad for our neighbors,” Monette reflected. “This is normally such a quiet neighborhood.”
“What did you want me to explain to you?”
Monette reached for her wineglass, staring down into it. “I came home late last evening from Burbank. Our postproduction meeting went on until practically ten o’clock. I didn’t feel like taking the freeway. I was tired and people drive too damned fast. So I came over the hill on Coldwater. It takes a bit longer but it’s a more relaxing drive. Or it usually is . . .” She sipped her wine. “I was up near Mulholland by Coldwater Canyon Park, starting my way down the hill, when I realized that someone was right up on my tail. There are a lot of steep twists and turns up there, and very little traffic at that time of night. He flicked his brights on and started honking at me, forcing me to go faster than I wanted to. And then I swear he tried to shove me over the edge of a cliff. He would have, too, if I hadn’t hit the brakes when I did.”
“What happened when you hit the brakes?”
“He veered around me, stopped and started to back up—until I made him think twice about it.”
“How did you do that?”
“I got out and pointed my loaded Beretta at him.”
“I’m sorry, you did what?”
“This city isn’t safe anymore. We have to protect ourselves. Carjackers, they tap your bumper on a deserted street and when you get out they steal your car out from under you. It’s happened to three of my co-workers. But it’s not going to happen to me. I own two Berettas. I keep one in my glove compartment and the other in my nightstand. Why are you looking at me that way? Surely you keep a gun in your apartment in New York City for your personal protection.”
“No, I don’t. Lulu’s all the personal protection I need. So you pointed your Beretta at him and . . . ?”
“He floored it and took off.”
“Did you call the police?”
Monette shook her head.
“Why not?”
“The media would have gotten wind of it. I do not need that kind of publicity right now.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t just a cowboy with too many beers in him?”
“Positive. He tried to run me off the road. I just don’t understand why.”
“What was he driving?”
“A Trans Am.”
“Was it black?”
“Might have been. I’m not positive. Why do you . . . ?”
“Because I had an encounter with a black Trans Am myself this afternoon,” I said, fingering my cheek. “A letter from Patrick was waiting here for me when I arrived. He wanted me to meet him at a location shoot in Pacoima. The letter was on Malibu High stationery, arrived by studio messenger. It looked authentic enough. But when I got there nobody was around—until a black Trans Am pulled into the parking lot and tried to take me out.” Lulu snuffled indignantly at my feet. “Us out.”
Monette’s eyes had widened with alarm. “I won’t blame you one bit if you catch the next flight home.”
“Not to worry, I don’t scare that easily. Any idea who was behind the wheel?”
“None,” she said with a shake of her head. “What I do know is that Patrick wants me spooked. He loves it that those paparazzi are lurking outside my gate. Loves the idea of me feeling trapped and desperate. I have a great deal more money than he has, you see, and he thinks he can stampede me into a divorce settlement that isn’t in my own best financial interest. He’s wrong. I’ll never cave just because of a few nasty headlines. Never.” She stared across the table at me with her steely pale blue eyes. “I’m going through a painful time, Hoagy. It hurts, morning, noon and night. But I’ll get through this. I have to. My children are counting on me.”
I thought about what Elliot had just confided to me about Monette’s faltering multimedia career, wondering yet again whether it was possible that this proud, ambitious woman had concocted the letter from Richard Aintree herself. “How did you feel when that letter from your father showed up?”
“May I be honest?”
“It would be nice.”
“I was frightened. I’m being forced to confront some very deep feelings that I’ve kept safely bottled up for most of my adult life.” She gave me her unblinking stare again. It was a bit disconcerting, though I was starting to get used to it. “How does Reggie feel about it? You’ve spoken with her, surely.”
“I have. She told me she felt nothing at all.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I did and I didn’t. I don’t know her very well anymore. In fact, I don’t know her at all. May I speak frankly?”
“It would be nice,” Monette answered tartly.
“I was always under the impression that you two detested each other.”
“Not really.” Monette brushed her hair back from her face with her fingers, which were long and slender. “I’ll admit that I used to resent her a tiny bit, but mostly I admired her. Reggie was genuinely gifted, in the same way that Mom and Dad were. Me, I’ve had to work incredibly hard to carve out a place for myself. Reggie was a pretty little girl, too, and this world of ours loves pretty little girls. It doesn’t love gigantic, strong-willed women. Mind you, Reggie’s plenty strong-willed herself, but she comes across as frail and helpless. I come across as a great big bitch.” Monette studied me over the rim of her wineglass. “I was always under the impression that you were the great love of her life.”
“That was a long time ago. We were kids.”
“You and Merilee Nash used to be married, didn’t you?”
“Right up until she divorced me.”
“Are you two still involved?”
“We’ll always be involved.”
“But not you and Reggie?”
“No, it’s good and over between us.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“You’re not alone. Merilee doesn’t either. How about you? Are you still in love with Patrick?”
“I don’t see how I was ever in love with him. He’s a no-good lying prick. But he can also be very charming. He’s incredibly good at that.”
“There’s a reason why they call them actors.”
We fell into silence for a moment. It was so quiet there on her patio in the early evening darkness that I could barely hear the chirping of the paparazzi out on Rockingham.
“Reggie and I got along fine when we were girls,” Monette recalled. “We looked out for each other. We had to, because Mom and Dad weren’t Mom and Dad anymore. They’d become different people. Stoned people. Would you like to hear something crazy? I’m now the same age that Mom was when she threw herself off that roof. My own children are nearly as old as Reggie and I were when it happened. Being a mother, I still can’t accept what she did to us. I can’t imagine abandoning my children that way. I’d do anything for my children, Hoagy. Anything except leave them.”
“She had a lot of LSD in her system. That drug can do nasty things to people.”
“You’ve taken it?” She studied me curiously. “What is it like?”
“Sometimes it’s fabulous. Other times you get trapped inside of a loop and you can’t get out.”
“Do you mean like a panic attack?”
“Yes.”
She nodded to herself. “I know what those are like. My life has been all about one frightening experience after another. And, I hope, imparting what I’ve learned so that other women will know they’re not alone. I should never have written Father Didn’t Know Best. But I was a desperate mess and my therapist—a complete fraud who ended up losing his license to practice—told me that I showed every sign of being someone who was repressing memories of sexual abuse. He urged me to embrace whatever fragments of memories, dreams or fantasies popped into my head. To stop fighting and believe them. And so I did. I kept a journal, also at his urging. The rest is history. Reggie never forgave me. But when I published Father Didn’t Know Best I genuinely believed that Dad had sexually abused me. And then, after working with a new therapist who wasn’t a quack, I genuinely believed that he hadn’t. So I wrote about that, too, which made Reggie even more furious. She called me a ‘soulless parasite.’ She never understood that I was simply trying to figure out who I was, and that I had a lot to learn. I still do. I’m always discovering new things about myself. It just so happens that I do my discovering in public. And now . . .” Monette let out a long sigh. “Thanks to Patrick and his pregnant teenager, I’m a national joke. Johnny Carson makes fun of me every night in his monologue. Not Patrick, not Kat, me. Why am I the one who’s being ridiculed?”
“Because you’re rich, famous and beautiful. You’re Monette Aintree. Tell me, how are Joey and Danielle holding up?”
Monette’s eyes flickered. “Danielle’s an absolute dynamo. A straight-A student, gifted pianist and an exceptional middle-distance runner. Last month she organized a food drive for a homeless shelter in Venice. She’s a special girl.”
“But . . . ?”
“She’s so determined that she scares me sometimes. Danielle has a Rolodex, can you imagine? What fifteen-year-old girl keeps a Rolodex? Whenever she meets someone at school who has a parent in the movie business she writes down their contact information. She’s planning to intern in Elliot’s office next summer. Always planning. I can’t remember the last time I saw her smile.”
“And how about Joey?”
“Joey’s exceptionally bright, but he’s flunking half of his classes and I practically need a crowbar to pry him out of his room. All he ever wants to do is sit in there with his nose buried in a book listening to that depressing music group, Nirvana. He’s turning seventeen on Saturday. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said he didn’t care. What boy who is Joey’s age doesn’t care about his birthday?”
“Is he seeing someone?”
“If by that you mean is he seeing a therapist, the answer is yes. A woman in Beverly Hills who came highly recommended. But he’s been very resistant. Hates going.” She tilted her head at me slightly. “I’m glad that you’re here, actually. It’ll be good for him to spend some time around a mature man.”
At my feet, Lulu started coughing.
Monette frowned. “Why is she doing that?”
“Because she doesn’t know how to laugh. You may not be by the time this is over.”
“I may not be what?”
“Glad that I’m here.”
“I’ll take my chances. You see, Hoagy, I already know something about you that you don’t.” That unblinking gaze of Monette’s grabbed hold of mine. In an ice-cold voice she said, “You’re not going to disappoint me. You wouldn’t dare.”
The four of us ate at the big scrubbed-pine kitchen table under the exposed, hand-hewn chestnut beams with those bunches of herbs and dried flowers suspended artfully over our heads. Dinner was a Provençal-style beef stew served over buttered noodles with asparagus and a salad of romaine lettuce and red onion. We passed around the brightly colored serving dishes that Maritza had set on the table before she made herself scarce. Monette stayed with the Sancerre. I switched to the Côtes du Rhône that was offered. Joey and Danielle drank mineral water.
“Those are impressive beams,” I observed, gazing up at them. “Where did they come from?”
“A carriage barn in North Stonington, Connecticut,” Monette informed me. “My builder keeps an eye out for such things. Most of the paneling and molding came over from Cornwall, England. And those aged cobbles out in the driveway are from Philadelphia.”
“How about the weeds in between them?”
Joey snorted quietly, which constituted the first reaction I’d gotten from him since he’d come downstairs from his room and refused to shake my hand.
“I don’t do that,” he’d said scornfully.
“Because you’re making a statement or because you’re afraid of germs?”
“I don’t believe in societal conventions.”
“Good. We’ll get along fine.”
“Dream on,” he’d said, before retreating into silence.
Mostly, he kept his eyes fastened on his plate. After Maritza left the kitchen, that is. He couldn’t take his eyes off the pretty young housekeeper when she was moving around the table depositing the serving dishes. Given that he was about to turn seventeen I ranked his fixation as somewhere in between a schoolboy crush and raging hormonal lust. Maritza did nothing to encourage his stares. But she had to know. Women always do.
Joey was a gangly, splayfooted kid with a melon-sized Adam’s apple, a generous assortment of pimples and a wispy see-through moustache. Pale by L.A. standards. He wore his stringy blond hair down to his shoulders and didn’t appear to wash it very often, which was a Kurt Cobain thing. So was his stoop-shouldered posture, rumpled flannel shirt, fraying T-shirt and baggy old jeans. He also wore a studied air of tragic disillusionment mixed with burning artistic purity and anger. Whole lot of anger.
Unlike Joey, Danielle was extremely poised and polite, not to mention pretty in a tall, leggy, sun-kissed California-girl way, complete with long, shiny blond hair and big blue eyes. Grunge was absolutely not, repeat not, Danielle’s thing. She was done up all Ralph Lauren preppy casual in her blue oxford-cloth button-down, argyle vest, stonewashed jeans and suede loafers. Her short, upturned top lip gave her young face a slightly rabbity look. But it was the determined set of her jaw that I really noticed. That and her analytical gaze as she studied me from across the table. Monette hadn’t been exaggerating. There was a complete absence of girlish playfulness in those fifteen-year-old eyes.
“Joey wants to be a writer someday,” Monette said to me as we ate. “Mr. Hoag is a famous novelist, Joey.”
“If you’re so famous how come I haven’t heard of you?” he demanded.
“Actually, that says more about you than it does me.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“That you aren’t as well read as you think you are.”
“Wow, what a witty put-down. Not.”
“Mind your manners, Joey,” Monette scolded him.
“Manners are for assholes.”
“Have you decided what you’d like to do for your birthday?” she asked him, forcing a bit of good cheer into her voice.
He heaved a suffering sigh. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? Birthdays are an outmoded ritual.”
“We could have a pool party. You could invite some people.”
“Like who?”
“Your dad, if you’d like.”
“You’d let him come?”
“I would if it’s important to you.”
“Dad can go to hell. I don’t ever want to see him again.”
“Well, what are you going to do?” Monette pressed him. “Just sit in your room all day reading?”
“Sounds good to me,” he said, shoveling stew into his mouth. His table manners tended toward slurpy.
“Who are you reading these days?” I asked him. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me. You’ve transitioned out of your Asimov-Clarke-Bradbury phase, made a brief stopover at Vonnegut, whom you consider overrated, and now you’ve arrived at . . . Ayn Rand.”
He blinked at me in surprise. “How’d you know that? I just finished Atlas Shrugged.”
“What did you think of it?”
“Simplistic, whiny crap. I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s brilliant.”
“Hardly. You’re talking to the man who labeled her work ‘intellectual porn for bed wetters’ in the New York Review of Books. I still get hate mail from Alan Greenspan. That man never forgets. Have you read Kerouac yet?”
“Jack Kerouac?”
“No, Steve Kerouac. You need to read On the Road. How about Stop-Time by Frank Conroy?” On his blank stare I said, “He’s someone who’ll speak to you. So is Dorothy Parker. You need Mrs. Parker in your life, same as you need Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon. And you need to read poetry. Have you read your aunt Reggie?”
He shook his head.
“How about your grandmother?”
Again he shook his head.
“Your grandmother was a great American poet. And Reggie’s a stone-cold genius. How can you not be reading them? What about your grandfather’s novel? Please tell me you’ve read Not Far from Here.”
“Well, yeah, in English class,” he said defensively. “Everyone does.”
“And . . . ?”
Joey shrugged his shoulders. “It was okay.”
“Try again. Something a bit less lame this time.”
“I thought it was corny crap.”
“I thought it was sweet,” Danielle said. “The ending made me cry.”
“That’s because you’re a sap,” he said to her. “You still get weepy over Shirley Temple movies.”
“I’d rather watch Shirley Temple than those stupid monster movies of yours,” she shot back. “How many times have you seen The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms?”
Joey ignored her, considering me from across the big table. “So what’s your deal? Are you banging our mom?”
Monette let out a horrified gasp. “Joey, that was totally inappropriate! I’ve told you why Mr. Hoag is here.”
“How do you feel about that?” I asked the two of them. “The possibility of your grandfather coming into your lives after all of these years. Are you looking forward to meeting him?”
“Not really,” Joey said. “Why would I be?”
“Well, I am,” Danielle said. “He’s a really famous literary figure. Almost mythical. And he’s my grandfather. So, yeah, I’d love to meet him.”
“You’re just hoping he’ll write you a letter of recommendation to Yale,” Joey jeered at her.
“What’s so wrong with that? He used to be a professor there. A recommendation from him would mean a lot.” To me Danielle said, “I intend to go to Yale when I graduate from Brentwood. It’s vital that I get into Yale. Sometimes I lie awake at night wondering what will happen to me if I don’t.”
“You’ll go somewhere else and you’ll be fine.”
She shook her blond head at me. “No, I won’t. I have to get in.”
I studied her more closely. This was one tightly wound girl. “Your mom said you’re a middle-distance runner.”
“Last spring Danielle ran the second-fastest four-hundred-meter time of any high school girl in the entire city,” Monette said proudly. “She’s running cross-country this semester. Wins every meet by hundreds of yards. The second-place finisher is so far behind you can’t even see her.”
“That’s very impressive, Danielle. But all of that slogging over hill and dale can take the turbocharge out of your kick when you switch back to four hundred meters. Keep doing some sprints so your legs remember how to.”
Danielle eyed me curiously. “You ran track in high school?”
“And college. I was the first alternate on our mile relay team.”
“What does ‘first alternate’ mean?” Joey asked.
“It means I was our fifth-best quarter-miler.”
“That’s not saying much,” he scoffed.
“You’re right, it’s not. But it wasn’t my main event. I was a spear chucker. Third best in the Ivy League.”
“Really?” Danielle’s eyes widened with newfound interest. “Where did you go to school?”
“Cambridge.”
“You went to Harvard? No way! Harvard’s a huge part of my career plan.”
“You have a career plan?”
“Totally. Yale for undergrad followed by an MBA from Harvard. After that I’ll go to work for a film studio to gain development and production experience, and then I’ll go out on my own. I intend to be producing my own movies by the time I’m thirty.”
I set my fork down, dabbing at my mouth with my napkin. “Forgive me, but that doesn’t sound like a career plan. It sounds more like a sickness.”
Danielle blinked at me in shock. “Why would you say that?”
“These movies that you plan to produce—what are they going to be about?”
“How should I know?”
“That’s my point. You don’t know. You’ve left that part out.”
“What part?”
“The part where you figure out what really matters in life. You need to hang out at a sidewalk café in Paris drinking wine and thinking deep thoughts for at least a year. You need to see the cloud formations over the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Hebrides. You need to stroll arm in arm in Venice at midnight in the rain with some guy who you’re crazy in love with.”
Danielle wrinkled her nose at me. “You’re weird.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in weeks.”
“Actually, I’m starting to tolerate him,” Joey said grudgingly. “Mr. Hoag, would you like to bang our mom?”
The lights were on in the pool house. I didn’t recall leaving them on. When I unlocked the door I discovered that Maritza had let herself in to tidy up. She’d washed out the fragrant remains in Lulu’s mackerel bowl. Brought me fresh, thirsty towels. Also absconded with my torn jeans, which were no longer hanging from the hook on the bathroom door. I hadn’t expected her to do any of this. Wondered why she had. Was she spoiling me or spying on me?
I sat down on the edge of the bed and called my answering machine in New York. Nine more reporters had called me. So had Boyd Samuels—just to make absolutely, positively sure I was settling in okay.
There was no message from Merilee in Budapest.
I took two more aspirin for the dull ache in my shoulder, got undressed and climbed into bed with Lulu and John O’Hara.
That was when my phone rang.
“Stewart Hoag? This here’s Patrick Van Pelt,” said the voice on the other end of the line. Not that he needed to identify himself. His folksy, regular-guy voice was instantly recognizable. “Did I get you at a bad time?”
“Not at all. And I got your message this afternoon.”
“What message?”
“The one that you gave me at the Devonshire Grand Prix.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.”
“You didn’t send me a letter asking me to meet you there?”
“Nope. Sure didn’t.”
“It was on Malibu High stationery. A studio messenger delivered it.”
“I don’t know anything about it. Wasn’t me who sent it.”
“Well, then who was it?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“Do you know anyone who drives a black Trans Am?”
He fell silent for a moment before he said, “It’s a popular ride.”
“Does that mean yes or no?”
“I was wondering if you and me could get together. I figure we should meet each other.”
“Really, why is that?”
“You’re working on a project with Queenie. You’re sleeping under my roof. I have an interest in what goes on there.”
“Personal or financial?”
“Exactly. We should talk about that. Dudes talk to each other. I’m a dude, you’re a dude. You are a dude, aren’t you?”
“Was the last time I checked. Fine, let’s get together. How about someplace other than the Devonshire Grand Prix this time?”
“That wasn’t me. I just told you.”
“That’s right, you did.”
“We’re shooting interiors tomorrow morning. Come to the Radford lot at, say, ten o’clock. Just give your name to the guard at the front gate. He’ll know where I am. Later, dude.” And with that he hung up.
I turned out the nightstand light and dozed right off. I didn’t stay asleep for long though. Shortly before midnight Lulu woke me by climbing up onto my head, trembling with fear. It was the coyotes howling. I’d forgotten about the coyotes and how they howled up in the hills in the night. I stroked her and assured her that I would never, ever let them hurt her. She curled up on my hip and promptly went to sleep, snoring contentedly. Me, I lay awake for a good long while, listening to the coyotes and wondering just exactly what I was getting myself into.