Pipsqueak (18 page)

Chapter 27

T
he Savoy Revue Theater, like the Empire State Building, is a New York City art-deco landmark. It is the very antithesis of today’s multiplex monastic cells. Savoy Revue seats almost six thousand. More stadium than movie theater, and more Carnegie Hall than stadium, the accouterments include plush red velvet seats, jazzy purple carpets, and gold-painted ceiling. You’d think that as a cinema, Savoy Revue would be echoey and remote, like watching a TV way down at the bottom of a well. Not so: The seating layout and acoustics are ingeniously designed. Angie and I once had orchestra seats to see a director’s cut of
Blade Runner
, and the venue for that epic pic was finally simpatico with the grandness of the art.

Going north on the avenue, backups started forming in the left lanes where the detour signs were directing commoners. Actually, the traffic wasn’t so bad, because all the cabs and commercial drivers knew better than to use the avenue on a Savoy Revue gala night. Straight ahead, two blocks from our target, the avenue was closed to the public. We motored toward a wall of blue police sawhorses and were eyed suspiciously by a phalanx of waiting cops, their arms folded. On the nearby sidewalk, a knot of dime-store paparazzi strained to see if we were someone recognizable. I think they were particularly excited by the lack of any barrier to their prying lenses. It had been a balmy fall day, so we decided to arrive in the Lincoln top down. Nobody popped a bulb at us.

A cop approached the driver’s door, and Otto produced our ticket and proof of passage from under his chauffeur’s cap. Our Russki was looking spiffy in the chauffeur’s uniform I’d rented, even if it was a tad on the large side. Rubbing his mustache, the patrolman eyed the ticket, then Angie and me in the backseat. Not being recognizable celebs, the officer kindly asked to see identification. We complied, he checked our invite with the lists, and he acknowledged our passing grade with a shrug and a numbered ticket tucked under the wiper. Otto was instructed to drive into line behind the limos backed up all the way across the nearest cross street. Once he dropped us off, he’d hang a right onto a street closed for the occasion. That’s where he’d wait for the end of the event, after which all the drivers would come around the block to pick up their charges in the order they had dropped them off.

As we waited in line behind the other big, black cars, I think all three of us were a little nervous.

Me? At the ramparts of Castle Who’s Who, I would be attacked by a platoon of reporters and blasted by flashbulbs. Without glamour as my armor, I would surely be shot down by searching squints, derisive intermedia shrugs, and tiptoe searches for whoever was pulling up behind us. I already hated them for their disappointment. Aside from that, I was perhaps a smidgen concerned that I might pull some mortifying stunt like spill wine on Peter Jennings or elbow Dr. Ruth in the eye.

Otto? He had strict instructions not to smoke, whistle, or hum until he had dropped us off.

Angie? She was hoping that neither Garth nor Otto would bungle and embarrass her and that we wouldn’t be the brunt of some mordacious Page Six gossip column for arriving in an old car. The tension didn’t keep her from trying to siphon off the jitters with distracting small talk.

“Put that thing in the trunk, Garth.”

I had Stuart Sharp’s bug in my lap.

Several last-minute details had made our departure particularly tense. Stuart showed up just as we were leaving, and his bug turned out to be a rare bird mount that I couldn’t pass up. The bone, however, turned out to be a porcelain laboratory fixture, and I declined ownership.

“Not a bad bug, huh?” I smiled at the slouching kiwi in my lap. For the uninitiated, these drab, flightless, and virtually wingless birds look like hairy gourds. If you squint, and you’ve been exposed to high concentrations of cleaning fluid, kiwis
might
resemble giant weevils. “A steal for fifty bucks. And with its own provenance on the bottom of the plaque detailing that it was mounted pre-’72. I have to remember to get the paperwork to Stuart. And then there’s—”

“Don’t touch that box,” Angie growled, and my hand jumped back to my side. “Why couldn’t you have left the kiwi and the box at home?”

“We were already running late. Besides, I wanted to enjoy the bird and wanted to find out what was in the box.”

The box was the other last-minute detail. No sooner did we get rid of Stuart than a FedEx truck squeaked to a halt at our door. I was just holding the door for Angie to board her carriage and shouted to the FedEx guy if he had anything for me. He did, I signed, we zoomed off. Wending up the avenue, I opened the box and found that it was cold inside. Among some slivers of dry ice, wrapped in bubble plastic, I saw red, yellow, and black stripes. So I gasped and exclaimed, “Snakes!”

Angie’s not squeamish as a rule, but almost everybody has an animal that makes him or her physically uncomfortable. Right: Angie doesn’t exactly take to legless reptiles like they were puppies. However, I was excited. As a letter contained in the package explained, my snake woman Lorna Ellison in Phoenix had come through with a dead
Micrurus euryxanthus
—an Arizona coral snake. She’d also found a dead scarlet king snake for me. A double whammy. I just had to get them stuffed.

“Sorry.” I closed the box and slid it onto the floor, away from her. My heart was still all pitty-patter over my good luck. I just worried that the ice was almost gone and that the snakes seemed in the process of defrosting.

“Aren’t you worried about Nicholas?”

Such sudden changes of subject are usually the start of a tiff, this one not entirely unpredictable based on a hindsight view of the cumulative minor episodes of stress. For some reason I never see them coming.

“Not really. He knows what he’s doing. Always has,” I sighed.

“I wonder if he saw a doctor about his head. He should see a doctor, don’t you think?”

“He doesn’t go to doctors. He prefers pharmacists, nurses, and technicians.”

“What? Why?”

“He sees it as cutting out the middleman.”

“That’s silly. And the police are after him too. I’m worried. I hope he’s okay.”

“Nicholas? He’s indestructible.”

“I’m not so sure. You should be worried too.”

“He’ll save his own thieving hide.”

“Garth?” I heard icicles forming. “Wasn’t it your thieving brother who saved your hide from the retros? A pretty darn charitable thing for a thief to do.”

I shouldn’t have said anything else, but I did. “You don’t know him the way I do.”

“I know you, Garth, and in some ways you’re more like him than I think you realize.”

Now I was getting pissed off, but I clammed up as she continued.

“You’re pretty cynical, you know, and it’s not like you don’t share his love of angles. He’s got an angle on making money, figuring out how people value things, right? Selling stolen goods back to the victim is wrong? Well, if you ask me, there are shades of that in you renting out a bear for a week for what it would cost you to buy three bears. And not too different from picking up a kiwi from Stuart for fifty dollars and selling it for a thousand.”

“That’s just business.” I was shocked at how hollow that sounded, and jumped to bulkhead the flood of feelings. “Look, I understand what you’re saying, but—”

“The big difference, Garth, is that Nicholas has a shred of charity for his brother.”

“Not lookink, Garv,” Otto said, his eyes twinkling in the rearview mirror.

I kept my trap shut and glowered like a man. But the ice jam between Angie and me broke soon enough when we reached the head of the line and were waved on into the bowl of red light at the Savoy Revue entrance.

Much to my surprise, our arrival was a moment of glory, like so much slow-motion 16mm newsreel footage from a Grauman’s Chinese gala. The Lincoln had been spiffed up at the detailer’s, and the barrage of flashbulbs lit up the deep black lacquer of her paint and glittered off the chrome bumper and trim. Even on the inside, the cracked red leather upholstery was lustrous, and a pigmented wax had made the dashboard look like new. Nobody seemed to notice the scraped taillight, the touch-up spots on the fenders, and the steering-wheel divots. Ebony, sleek, and stylish, we rolled up to the red carpet, the towering neon marquee fluorescing the red interior like black light. Media strained the velvet ropes flanking the entrance, microphones waving in the air like cattails. Heads turned, murmurs rippled, and a round of applause broke out in the crowd of haggard photogs and frazzled reporters. And it wasn’t for the slinky Broadway monologist whose red-carpet chat with a
Showbiz!
interviewer was interrupted by our arrival. The applause certainly wasn’t for me and Angie. I think the enthusiasm was for our retro chariot, the Lincoln.

A lobby jockey in a red tunic approached and was quickly stymied by the Lincoln’s suicide doors (they swing away from each other, so the handles are side by side) until I tapped the right one. We stepped out and got one of the monologist’s famous sardonic sneers, though I don’t think this was part of an act.

A chuckle rippled through the crowd next as Angie took the kiwi from my hands and put it back in the rear seat of the Lincoln. Oops. She took my arm (rather abruptly, I thought) and we walked up the red carpet toward the Savoy Revue entrance. Neither
Showbiz!
nor any other TV types—though poised—made a lunge for us, for which I was grateful. I glanced back at Otto. Chin high, he motored away down the block, a cigarette already in his lips.

Angie looked smashing, she really did, and my clumsy male vocabulary can’t adequately describe the ensemble. The dress was gun-metal blue, strapless, and therefore calculated to give ample canvas for Peter’s art baubles, the dark metal and gems of which were more than done justice by Angie’s creamy skin tone.

Of all the various used furs I’ve given Angie over the years, this would have been the night of nights to don one. If the year had been, say, pre-1985. Now? Nix on the critters-as-clothes. I understand some repentant rich are giving their fur coats to the homeless. So Angie had on a blue-gray mouton wrap. To be precise, that’s a brushed, dyed, and satin-lined sheepskin that has both the buttery feel of a nutria fur and a uniform quality that makes it look synthetic to the untrained eye. Nobody will throw paint on you for wearing mouton, and if they do, they should pelt everybody with woolly seat covers and a hankering for lamb chops too.

Past the gauntlet of press, where ushers reached to open the theater doors for us, I imagined the worst of the self-consciousness was over.

Then the main doors opened, and camera flashes went off. Now I understand why Jack Nicholson is always photographed in shades. I guessed this was a volley of publicity photos, though among the blue blobs swimming across my retina I saw a few press tags. I further deduced that the event organizers had layered the media so that only the crème de la crème from the big magazines qualified for a spot inside.

A woman sidled up to us.

“Hi, so glad you could come. Can I check your seat numbers?” This was her polite way of saying “Who the heck are you?”

I pulled the invite from my pocket, which with nervous fumbling I’d managed to roll into a tube. I heard the woman clear her voice, caught a glimpse of a clipboard, and heard her say, “Here are your seat numbers, and you can go right down those stairs to the reception area. Okay?” I felt her hand on one elbow turn me in the right direction.

“Angie, can you see?”

“Enough.” Her arm hooked in mine, she heaved a nervous sigh. “Let’s go.”

My vision returned enough for me to see clumps of people backslapping earnestly on either side as we made for the stairs. That and the crazy purple pattern of the carpet underfoot. The ceiling was way up there someplace.

A wide staircase spiraled us gently to the lower level, a room painted a black shade of navy with mirrored pillars. The lounge was already fairly full, and we made our way to the bar for a glass of Fumé Blanc.

“I don’t see Peter. Late, like always,” Angie muttered through her teeth.

“Relax, Angie, relax,” I said through a clenched smile. To survive, we’d need to cooperate.

“Relax?” she said, turning to me in an artificially conversational way. “They’re all looking at us.”

She was right, though it wasn’t like they were staring. Calculated, second-too-long glances were being shot our way from all over. But also elsewhere. Everybody was checking out everybody else, identifying, categorizing, and generally making mental bug collections of the throng.

“Not to worry. If nothing else, they must at least think we’re rich. Right? So what’s to be nervous about? We’ll just stand here and look rich, right? Anyway, we’re looking at them too.”

“That’s because they’re famous.” Angie poked at my bow tie, and I could feel her fingers trembling. “Do you know who that guy leaning on the mirror over there is? That’s—”

“Yup, that’s him, all right. Relax, Angie, relax. Breathe slowly, evenly.” The most striking thing about celebrities is both how much they do and how much they don’t resemble themselves on- screen. Surrounded by so many, I quickly discerned that while their faces are by and large recognizable, it’s the rest of them that can be surprising. The proportions, or disproportions, can be quite startling. With some notable exceptions, the men are all much shorter, the women much taller. And, simply put, the bigger the star, the bigger the head. Literally. Mucho jumbo skulls. There’s an osteological thesis in there for some lucky doctoral candidate with oversize calipers.