Hot Shot (17 page)

It might sell a lot more books.

I pressed my face into the clean pillow. A line from James Baldwin ran through my head:

There's always further to fall, always, always.

*   *   *

Someone as scummy as myself should have had more trouble sleeping. I was a log. By the time I woke up, I'd overslept by half an hour. By the time I got out to Venice and managed to find a parking spot, I was nearly an hour late. There wasn't a spot to be found within four blocks of Café Canem.

Walking up Abbot Kinney Boulevard, I could see the joint was packed; the front doors were open and zydeco music was blasting into the street. People were standing in clumps on the sidewalk, smoking, chatting, drinking lattes and macchiatos.

Claudia's friend Dagny Weiss was checking invitations at the door, joking with the crowds and fending off the street people. Tonight Dagny was in Marlene Dietrich dominatrix mode, with a leather cap, vinyl bustier, black fishnets, and a pair of boots that laced all the way up to her hips. Ilsa, She-Wolf of West L.A.

She kissed my cheek. “Where've you been, stranger?”

“Working.”

“Hear you got a book deal.”

“I'll fill you in later,” I mumbled. “I need to get in there and press the flesh.”

“There's a lot of flesh to press.”

It was unreal how many people were crammed into that small space. All the Hollywood parties in the world hadn't relieved my claustrophobia. I scooted toward the back, squeezing through neighbors, guests, and people I'd never seen before. Jeff Brenner and Karen Trujillo were perched on top of one of the washing machines. Jeff caught my eye and pantomimed strangulation. I nodded miserably.

Despite all the labor pains, Canem was a beautiful creation, a Tennessee Williams opium dream. Claudia had gotten rid of all her beloved kitsch and gone back to her New Orleans roots for inspiration. Subdued blue-green light shone from recessed fixtures, and candles flickered shadows on the brickwork. A bank of computer stations against the south wall made a blue glow. The trompe l'oeil window behind the service counter looked lush and mysterious, with silhouettes of banana trees and a gibbous moon hanging fat in the night sky.
Hush
 …
Hush, Sweet Charlotte
was playing silently on the video monitors. Claudia's favorite, Zachary Richard, provided a tinny, cheerful soundtrack.

A vague pang hit somewhere around my breastbone. Once this would have been a joint project between the two of us, Claudia bouncing every obsessive detail off me until I gave in and got obsessed with the project myself. How had she managed to get so much done without me?

Obviously she'd managed just fine.

I wasn't sure what bothered me more: the fact that Claudia had managed so well on her own, or that I seemed to be flailing without her.

12

E
VERYTHING WAS FREE TONIGHT
, and the pastry case had been looted. I grabbed a cup and pumped the French roast carafe on the counter. Empty. Well, making coffee—that I could do. Not totally useless after all.

I stepped behind the counter and was grinding beans just as Claudia's parents walked up, arm in arm.

Chessy Soniat Dubuisson was a New Orleans Brahmin from an old Uptown family. Claudia told me she had been queen of one of the old-time Carnival krewes in her youth. Now she was a psychologist, and her husband was a pediatrician with a couple of offices around the city. I liked both Dr. Dubuissons and they were always exquisitely nice to me, but something about them made me feel vaguely disreputable and inadequate. Maybe it was their happy, well-fed, well-paid perfection. Or maybe I just can't handle shrinks.

“Hello, dear,” her mother said.

“Hi, Dr. Dubuisson. Hi, Dr. Dubuisson. Can I get you anything?”

“Call me Chessy, dear.” She was decked out in a smart business suit and her signature gold Mignon Faget jewelry. As always, her hair was neatly coiffed, soft and feminine, and her makeup was understated and perfect. She had all the poise of a beauty queen with none of the vulgarity.

“Claudia tells us you've been working on a book,” said the other Dr. Dubuisson, the one with the walrus mustache and the pigeon-gray three-piece.

“Well, that I have. That I have,” I chirped, feeling ridiculous. I rummaged under the counter and came up with a square white box. “Hey, look what I found. Croissants. Looks like chocolate and raspberry and—”

“What's it about?” Claudia's mother leaned forward with genuine interest.

“About?”

“The book, dear.”

“Oh, it's a Hollywood thing.” Where was this light voice coming from? “Didn't Claudia tell you anything about it?”

Dr. Dubuisson snorted. “We've barely seen her since we got here.”

“Poor thing, she's been swamped,” soothed Chessy.

“Somebody ought to tell that friend of hers he looks ridiculous.”

“That's just Pedro.”

Pedro was Claudia's best friend and the manager of Café Canem. He was half-Samoan, half-Mexican, one hundred percent gay, and two hundred percent exhibitionist. Claudia said he had been considered outrageous even in New Orleans, which was saying something. God only knew what he would wear to something as important as the opening night of Canem. He liked to dress for shock value, even though he was about as swishy as Mike Ditka.

“Where is Claudia?” I asked.

“She's out on the back patio talking to a crew from the local news.”

Scratch the patio as an escape. “And where's Lydia?”

“Sitting on the back stairs with the little ones,” said Chessy. “We brought them in as a surprise. I just came to get another cup of that wonderful Irish coffee for her.”

“I'll take it to her.”

“Relax, son, it's a party.” Dr. Dubuisson grinned a grin that made me suspect there was more than just cream and sugar in his coffee.

“Yes, sir. I'm trying.” I pumped a couple cups of Irish mocha and started to make my way to the back hallway.

Maneuvering through a packed crowd with two cups of scalding coffee takes some skill. I got stuck behind some jamoke with a ponytail who was trying to pick up a woman in a vintage strapless. Who were these people?

Wriggling through another conversational clot, I noticed Brenner and Karen sitting on the washing machine, and the sight stopped me dead.

I saw Jeff—really
saw
Jeff—for the first time in years.

He'd always been the good-looking one in our pack of friends. Brenner's face was still unwrinkled, his hair thick and wheaty, but there was something different there: a solidness about his features, like clay that had begun to harden. I stared, amazed at my perception. It was like putting on a new pair of glasses. Karen was different, too. I knew both Karens: the respected seismologist and the
real
Karen, the one who wore leather minis, got polluted on Jagermeister, and laughed at
Ren and Stimpy
reruns. But the grown-up woman sitting on the washing machine, splitting a plate of food with her husband, was the Earthquake Lady and no one else.

A pride of tattooed and pierced teenagers sulked its way past, jostling my coffee, and it hit me: Jeff and Karen looked more like the Doctors Dubuisson than they did the teenagers.

Did I? No.

Did Claudia?

*   *   *

Lydia was perched on the back stairs, watching her kids try to catch chocolate-covered espresso beans in their mouths. The number of beans rolling around on the floor testified to their bad aim. “Kieran! Thank God,” Lydia said, taking the coffee. “Melinda, Teddy, go in the front room and show your grandmother how well you catch.”

“Grandma told us not to do it,” said Teddy, shooting me a sour look. Obviously I was the death of the party.

“Well, there's got to be a hundred people out there. Go find someone to show. I want to talk to Kieran.” She clapped her hands.
“Allons-y.”

Melinda and Teddy were polite enough to scoot away, and impolite enough to stick out their tongues at me as they left. Lydia pulled her dress away from her bodice and fanned herself. “Lord. That vasectomy we got Charlie three years ago was the best money we ever spent.”

Lydia was wearing one of her usual dressed-to-thrill outfits, a neon-orange tunic with silk scarves in shades of yellow and magenta. The outfit was topped off with a pair of red alligator boots. God only knew what she wore to the grocery store.

“These people are a pack of bores. Except Pedro, of course. I've been waiting for you all night. What's up with the Felina book?”

“Just interviews. I met with Betty Bradford Mann today.”

Her eyes gleamed. “What was that like?”

“Oh, I was a whipping boy. A stand-in for all the tabloid reporters of the world.” I didn't want to think about Betty Bradford Mann. “Where's Claudia?”

“Now, don't go looking for her just yet. I've got a few more questions for you.”

We were interrupted by the crew from Channel 9, who walked in off the back patio. They were led by a man in a long white dress.

“Pedro, you and Dagny are the only ones here with any style,” Lydia said. “Besides myself, of course.”

Pedro did a supermodel spin, showing off his outfit. It looked like a Mexican girl's confirmation dress, if they made confirmation dresses that fit the Green Bay Packers. A foot-long crucifix hung around his neck by a bike chain. Years of exposure to Pedro Espinosa had rendered me unshockable. He would have to wear a polo shirt and a pair of Dockers to floor me.

“Claudia's wondering where you are,” he informed me.

“I'll go get her.”

Pedro hoisted his sails and steamed toward the main party. I started to stand, but Lydia pulled me back down again. “I said I'm not done with you yet.”

“Lyd, I'm tired of talking about that damn book—”

“I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about you and Miss Claudia Marie.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kieran, what the heck is up with you two? You having problems?”

Other than the fact that we're barely speaking, going out of our way to avoid each other, and haven't had sex in months, everything's fine.

I didn't know what to say, so I stared at the floor. Claudia's new hexagonal black-and-white tile was littered with espresso beans, along with Hot Wheels and weensy haute couture outfits from some doll. Slut Barbie, by the looks of them. I decided to use an ancient trick favored by psychologists and reporters: turn the question around.

“Why would you say we're having problems?”

“Boo, I've been here almost a week, and Claudia has mentioned you exactly twice. Not only haven't you been down here helping, you haven't even been calling. Something must be going on if even self-centered old me has noticed it.”

“We're
busy,
Lydia.” I was getting irritated. “What do you want me to say?”

“You can tell me,
me cher.
I'm practically your sister-in-law. Are the two of you having problems? Do I need to intervene? Slap baby sister around a little bit? You're still wearing your ring, so what's the scoop?”

I stared at the claddagh on my finger.

Our rings had brought us nothing but trouble since I'd bought them on impulse six months before. At the time, Claudia and I had decided to wear matching claddagh rings—Irish wedding bands—and figure out the symbolism later. It seemed like a good idea then. They weren't wedding rings, obviously, and they certainly weren't friendship rings, but they weren't engagement rings, either. Neither one of us was quite clear exactly
what
they were.

“We're fine, Lydia, really. I mean, we're not heading for the altar or anything, but—”

“Well, for crying out loud, when are the two of you going to bite the bullet and do it? When you're collecting Social Security and still engaged?”

“Engaged? We're not engaged!”

Lydia stopped in mid-sip of her coffee, eyes aglitter. I started to stammer an explanation, but she clamped her hand over my mouth and shouted, “Claudia!”

Claudia came in from the patio, carrying a tray of cappuccino bowls with foamy edges. “Oh. You're finally here.”

“Hey, Claude. You need any help?”

“No, everything's going fine, believe it or…”

She glanced at the mess of coffee beans on the floor, and then up at me. Her head pulled back a fraction of an inch. I felt it, too; the air was charged with emotional ozone.

What the hell is going on here?
asked her eyebrows.

Don't ask me … she's your sister,
my eyebrows replied.

Lydia was oblivious. “Claudia Marie, what is going on with you and Kieran?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you or are you not engaged?”

Claudia looked at me again. “Lydia,” she said slowly, “what made you think we were engaged? Am I missing something here? Kieran, did you tell her that—”

“No.”

“Where did you get that idea, Lydia?”

“Well,
pardonnez
the fuck outta
moi,
” said Lydia, “but when a man and a woman wear matching…”

Her voice dribbled away.

We both saw it at the same moment: Claudia's hand, holding the cappuccino tray, and the bare ring finger that curled around the top.

The hand dropped the tray.

Over the noise and the music, I heard something very big shatter, and then I was on my feet and heading for the front door.

I smashed into someone's back, getting a shirtful of luke-warm latte for my trouble, and flashing past my vision like a billboard on the highway was the face of Chessy Dubuisson, mouth in an O as big as Texas.

*   *   *

As I hit Beverly Hills, I made a California stop at a red and picked up a BHPD cruiser for my carelessness. It followed me down Gregory and up El Camino, cruising my tail like a patient shark, finally giving up when I turned into the porte cochere at the Beverly Hillshire. There was a mini traffic jam; a banquet was getting out and the porte cochere was clogged with cars. I put the car in park and exhaled. My shirt was ruined. I smelled like Juan Valdez and looked like the
Exxon Valdez.