Breach of Promise (20 page)

I went home and decided to get a little more acquainted with my friend, Antonio Troncatti. Having no idea what Hallard was getting on him, I thought I’d better do my own research project.

Starting with Google, I did a search for anything with his name in it. I got over a thousand hits. So I added the words “career” and “biography.” That narrowed it down some, but I still had a ton of material.

After a couple of hours, I’d cut and pasted a nice dossier on Troncatti. What I had made me hate him all the more.
He’d been the protégé of Bertolucci and Lina Wertmuller, working on several of their films. His first film, as a twenty-sixyear-old wunderkind, featured Giancarlo Giannini as an aging hit man who has an encounter with a small child that changes his life. I never saw it, but it captured an award at the Cannes Film Festival, and Troncatti’s career was launched.
His next film was the one that set him up as an international directing star. It was a remake of
The Count of Monte Cristo
, only this time done as a modern tale of corporate greed. It starred, of all people, John Hoyt, and really reactivated his career.
What got the attention of the critical set was the fact that Italian cinema is not generally known for its action. Most of the time, in fact, it’s like watching paint dry. But Troncatti became the “Italian John Woo” and soon moved to the U.S. for his directing chores.
Three major hits followed in succession. The guy was a movie god.
Also, from what I read between the lines, quite the ladies’ man. Have to admit, from the pictures of the guy, that he was good looking. A Roman nose above thin lips and a jaw that might have been chiseled marble; olive skin that grew naturally darker in the Southern California sun; long black hair of shoulder length. I mean, he could have been the cover boy on some romance novel.
Which didn’t do a lot for the old self-esteem.
He’d had affairs with three actresses, all of whom you’d know. One, who was somewhat older than Troncatti but still considered a queen of glamour, almost got him to the altar.
What kept them all away, apparently, was Troncatti’s volcanic temper.
There were stories of Troncatti tearing up hotel rooms, wrecking cars, beating up people in bars, and generally carrying on like a large, petulant child. (I was thinking all this time how I’d love to be the one to give him a whipping with the thing they used in
Mutiny on the Bounty.
What did they call that? The cat-o’-nine-tails? Perfect.)
I found one item of particular interest. Back in the nineties, around the time of the O. J. Simpson murder trial, there had been a domestic violence incident. One of the actresses whom he’d been living with had summoned the cops. The case went to the D.A.’s office, which was particularly sensitive to these things in the wake of Simpson, and was close to being filed.
But the actress withdrew her complaint. She said it had all been a mistake, that she’d just been mad at him for making eyes at some other woman.
It was all swept under the rug. I thought it would be a good thing to whip that rug away at the custody hearing.
I felt a new wave of disgust. And fear. This was the man who was around Maddie. What might happen to her sometime if he lost it? What sort of example of adult behavior would he be? (I admit I was not thinking of my own anger. It was all focused on Troncatti.)
Then I decided to do a search for pages with both Troncatti’s name and Paula’s. That brought up thirty-one hits. Most of them were references to the movie they’d shot. But one item was from a gossip page in an online entertainment site:

That was the last thing I read. I couldn’t take any more after that. Funny thing was, I didn’t mind the part about being a “sometime actor.” Maybe a year ago that would have been the hard part.

Now, I was somewhat surprised to learn, that didn’t matter a bit. What mattered was that Maddie was apparently bonding with the jerk who had stolen my wife.

Why was Paula with him, if he was such a jerk? Well, he was major league powerful for sure, and such Hollywood power was a turn on. No doubt the guy was charming and magnetic and all of that. And maybe there was a part of Paula that was drawn to the wild thing in order to tame him.

And I was powerless to stop her from trying.
I said that was the last thing I read. I meant about Troncatti and Paula. Feeling like I was about to rip my computer out of the socket and throw it out the window, I went back into Google and searched for a Bible.
Jesus said something about asking and getting, I remembered. A couple of search terms later, I found what I was looking for in the New International Version, Matthew,
chapter 7
:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

My tongue twistethed as I read it out loud, but the effect was the same. Jesus really did say it, and I was being taught to trust the Bible.

I went to church on Sunday, hoping to see Nikki there. She wasn’t.
Which made the service a little lonely to me. I tried to do my

duty though and mouthed the songs along with the words on the screen. I even tried to believe all of what they said—about the glory of God and the love of Jesus being all we need.

The pastor, Scott Stephens, was in his forties and gave a good sermon. Only today I found myself answering him in my mind. I kept saying,
No way, José.

Pastor Scott—as he insisted on being called—was preaching on the subject “The Heart’s Radical Makeover.” Basically, he said, living the Christian life begins with a surrender of the heart, the will, to God.

“When Jesus said you must be born again,” Pastor Scott explained, “he did not mean that you become some sort of baby, although in a spiritual sense that is true. Rather, what he means is that your heart must be changed, cleansed of all the muck that’s grown around it over the years. Muck that this society keeps throwing on it.”

Muck is right,
I thought.
Try the family law system sometime!
“The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’ This is a radical makeover. It is a complete change in our nature. But the strange thing, the unfortunate thing is this—many Christians don’t live any differently in their day-to-day lives than they did before they were saved.

“You remember that bumper sticker many years ago? It said,
I’m not perfect, just forgiven.
Well, the theology may be correct, but the message to the world is lost when the car carrying that bumper sticker cuts somebody off in traffic. Or honks in anger. Or when the driver bends the truth, or acts out of self-interest only.”

The image of the kid in the truck—and my road-rage reaction—came charging into my mind.
He deserved worse than I gave him,
I thought. And realized I was arguing with the preacher.

“To become a Christian who walks the way Jesus did requires more than good intentions. It requires a decision, followed by action. Listen to the words of Paul from Romans,
chapter twelve.
‘I
urge
you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.’ Do you hear that? Unless you are willing to offer all of your life to God, you are not worshiping him.

“And further, ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world . . .’ We live by habits, and most of us have grown up with the habits of the world pounded into us: Do your own thing. Get all you can. Look out for number one. Do it to him
before
he does it to you.”

“But the Bible tells us to cultivate habits different from the world and only then will we begin to actually be salt and light.”
Salt? Light? What’s up with that?
“Where do you start? May I suggest one place that hits very close to home in all of us. If you will do this one thing, I believe it will do more to cleanse your heart of the muck we’ve been talking about than just about anything else.”
Okay, doctor, give it to me.
“We find it in Ephesians,
chapter four,
beginning at verse thirty-one. ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’”
In the morning
LA Times
they had a picture of a possum on a residential wall with an arrow sticking through it. The homeowner was tired of the creatures around his house and shot him with a crossbow.
I felt like that possum. The arrow was this stuff about anger and forgiveness and there was no way I was going to be able—
“Friends, if you have anything against anyone, you must learn to forgive, or a root of bitterness will take hold in you and block your fellowship, not just with each other, but with the Father. The Bible is very clear about this. You have been forgiven in Christ, therefore you must forgive . . .”
Forgive Paula? Troncatti? No, Jos , there is no way. They don’t deserve it. You don’t go around forgiving people unless they deserve it.
“ . . . even if you don’t think they deserve it.”
I almost slid off the pew. But not before remembering that Nikki had said something to me about forgiveness, too. It was getting to feel like a conspiracy around here.
“Because you did not deserve the mercy of God. I say, forgive, and you will feel a burden lifted from your spirit. And you will feel what it is like to become new.”

I waited around after the service to see if I could catch Nikki. Maybe she was coming to the next service.
But I didn’t see her.
I did, however, see Mrs. Hancock.
“How is that little girl of yours?” she asked.
“As far as I know, fine.”
She looked confused.
“It’s a bad situation right now,” I explained. “My wife wants a divorce.”
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“And Maddie. She wants full custody of Maddie.”
Mrs. Hancock put her hand on my arm. “If there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks, but . . . You know, maybe there is. Would you be willing to write a letter? I need every friend I can get.”
She said she would.
I hung around a little while longer. Still no Nikki. So I went to Tommy’s for a burger and thought about what Pastor Scott had said. I thought about trying to forgive Paula and Troncatti, but it didn’t make sense.
They were in the wrong, not me. They were up in Brentwood, laughing it up, with Maddie around.
No, I couldn’t let go of my anger and hatred. It was about the only thing I had going for me.

I couldn’t just take a little peck on the cheek from her. She’d kiss me and then say, “Rub it in.”
The first time I sort of laughed and said, “What?” Then she put her hand on my cheek and rubbed it, hard.
“It has to stick,” she said.
And when Paula or I kissed her, Maddie would rub that in herself.
I started wondering if Maddie remembered when I kissed her, and how she rubbed it in.
I wondered about that for the next two weeks of my life, which came and went with numbing routine.
I worked Josephina’s.
I went home.
I went to church on Sunday. Saw Nikki and waved, said hello, but that was about it. At least Ron Reid wasn’t coming around.
The person I saw the most, in fact, was Sutton Hallard. Two more follow-up visits went just like dentist appointments, only less fun. Hallard was as easy to read as the Washington Monument. I had no idea what his report was going to be like.
Then came the day Alex called me and said I should come in. She had the report.
“Better for you to see it with me,” she said.

Alex was subdued. I was like a terrier puppy hearing the dinner bowl sound.
Tell me tell me tell me!
“
Sit down,” Alex said.
“What did he say?”
“Please sit down, Mark.” She went behind her desk and waited until I parked myself in a chair.
“I’m going to give you a copy to read along with me,” Alex said. “I want to go through this with you.”
You know what this sounded like to me? A doctor about to discuss the various options for treatment of brain cancer.
That’s why my hands were shaking as I took the thick report from her. I guessed it to be about sixty pages. I looked down at the cover page.