Scruples (76 page)

“You’ve lost my flashlight. It rolled away. We can’t turn on the light. Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

The fire stairs, required by law to be unlocked, were only a few feet away. For a woman one week away from giving birth, Dolly found herself amazingly quick on her feet. Within minutes they were safely inside the car.

“Oh, Dolly, where is your lap when I need it?” Lester groaned.

Dolly looked at him for the first time since they had scampered out of the Price Waterhouse office. He bulged strangely above the waist and had his arms tightly crossed below the bulge.

“Lester! You took them! Oh, how could you? We just wanted a peek. Oh dear, oh my—” she bellowed with laughter, finally able to unleash her mirth.

“I’m sweating blood and you’re laughing,” hiccuped Lester. He looked at his chest in wonderment, afraid to unclasp his arms. “Dolly—do something! I can’t just sit here.” Still unable to speak, she fished a paper shopping bag from the floor of the car and took the envelopes from Lester’s jacket and tossed them into the bag. Released, he started the car and within five minutes they were far from the scene of the crime.

“Can’t we stop somewhere and have our peek,” Dolly suggested when they had both resumed normal breathing.

“Dolly—you’re missing a sense of occasion,” Lester said grandiosely. “We will do this in style. This is no ordinary night. Tonight we have made history.”

“What about all that strain I’m supposed to be under?”

“Patience, my angel, patience. Let us not put selfish considerations before historical imperatives.” Lester was still drunk, but now he had entered the phase in which the broad view obscures petty details. Horizons opened, vistas beckoned. And after a long drive, the Beverly Hills Hotel came into sight. Lester had never had occasion to take anyone to be interviewed to the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel, that tacky, overrated sanctuary that has, for some inexplicable reason, retained a reputation for glamour that hasn’t existed there for more than twenty years, but he had been brought up on its name.

“What we both need, Dolly, is some more framboise—it restores the mystery and gives wings to the imagination.” He turned off Sunset into the driveway of the hotel, left the car with a carhop, and escorted Dolly and her shopping bag into the Polo Lounge. It was partly empty at that late hour and they were able to get a tiny table under a window surrounded by green plastic leaves that hadn’t been dusted in ten years. “Two triple framboises and a telephone,” Lester told the waiter; he knew the form if not the substance. The phone was brought immediately. The waiter went into conference with the barman and returned with two pousse-cafés.

“Bartender says he’s out of that stuff—this OK?”

“Marvelous,” said Dolly, clutching the shopping bag under her chin and trying to read the writing on the top envelope in the dim light.

Lester toasted Dolly. “To the best actress in the world, whoever the hell wins!” They drained their pousse-cafés and Lester signaled to the waiter for two more.

“Oh, Lester,” Dolly whimpered, “I really don’t want to see my envelope after all. This is such a wonderful night—I don’t want to spoil it.”

“But the strain, the
unendurable
strain!”

“Lester, you can stand it for one more night if I can.”

“Then let me have the shopping bag.”

“Lester, Lester! What are you doing?”

“I’m not looking for supporting actress, take it easy, ah ha—right at the bottom naturally.”

“Which is it?”

“Best Picture, that’s all.”

“Oh, Lester, should we?”

“How can you ask?”

“We’ll get into trouble, I know we will,” Dolly wailed.

“We already are. So let’s enjoy it.” With ceremony, Lester carefully inched open the lightly sealed envelope without breaking the flap, and then, with almost as much ceremony as the professionals who usually do it, he peered through his glasses at the name written inside. “Hmm, they need a new typewriter rib—
Mirrors—MIRRORS!
Dolly,
Mirrors—
we did it. WE DID IT!” Dolly clapped her hand over his mouth. People were looking at them from all sides of the room.

“Shhh—Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!—I’m so happy—what do you mean,
we
did it? Vito did it.”

“It’s the studio’s picture—we did it!”

“Let’s not fight—everybody did it—oh, Lester, we have to tell Vito right away. Give me the phone,” she said, tears of joy pouring down her face. But as she reached for the phone, the shopping bag fell open and spilled the other twenty envelopes on the carpet. Lester took off his glasses so he could see at a distance. He noticed that their little table, with Dolly sobbing unrestrainedly, envelopes scattered on the floor, and the two new pousse-cafés threatened by the phone cord, was attracting more and more attention.

“Dolly, freeze! Don’t make a move. Let me get these back in the shopping bag, understand? Put down the phone. No, waiter, we don’t want to check the bag, just a little spill, all under control. No, it would
not
be more convenient. Just bring some pretzels. Dolly, do you think you could stop crying? They’ll think you’re in labor. Good, Dolly, that’s fine. Drink your nice pousse-café. That’s my baby. All right now. We’re all organized again, smooth as silk.” He stroked Dolly’s hand abstractedly. He suddenly felt sober. Not entirely sober perhaps, but opening that one envelope, actually doing it, had shocked him badly. Christ, this wasn’t a crazy caper, this was reality. Dolly’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Oh, Lester, please let me call Billy and Vito. And then we’ll sit here and open all the other envelopes and call all the other winners and put them out of their misery and then you could call the wire services, the papers, the radio stations, the television stations—Lester, you’ll be the most famous publicity man in the world.”

“Famous! I’d
never
work again! Dolly, try to understand what I’m saying. We’re in trouble. It’s all my fault. This could ruin the whole big Oscar night—don’t you see, it’s
got
to be a surprise. Oh, shit on a stick, why did I take those envelopes? I must have been temporarily insane.”

“We could burn them,” Dolly said helpfully.

“Yeah, or throw them in the garbage or flush them down the toilet—but they’d still be gone tomorrow morning and that guard and the cleaning woman can describe both of us. They might not recognize me, but they’ll never miss you.”

“Maybe we could take them—back?” she quavered.

“One break-in, yes, twice, no, we’d be caught. Anyway that office door locked behind us, I heard it.”

“Oh, Lester, I’m sorry!” Dolly’s face was so woebegone that Lester had to kiss her several times before he restored her to some tenuous equilibrium. He’d never seen her really upset before.

“Don’t worry. I’ve just had an idea.” Lester took out the little book he always carried that was filled with the precious unlisted VIP numbers that the studio’s Promotion Department had on hand, numbers he had noted down just in case someday he’d be asked to call a very important person.

Maggie answered her phone with irritation. She wanted to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s big show, and someone was calling on her private number at nearly midnight.

“Lester Weinstock! You what? You WHAT? You’re where? You’re not kidding because if you are—no, I believe you. I’ll be right over. DO NOT MAKE ANOTHER PHONE CALL UNTIL I COME! Promise? Ten minutes. No, five.”

Six minutes later, Maggie, without makeup, her hair covered by a scarf, wearing a mink coat over her nightgown and slacks, confronted the two of them.

“I still don’t believe it,” she said slowly. Lester bent down, lifted the battered shopping bag and held it open while she looked inside. She shook her head, looked again, picked up one of the envelopes, scrutinized it, put it back, and shook her head again. “I believe it.”

“Maggie,” Dolly said eagerly, “Lester wouldn’t even let me make a single phone call until you came—he says you’ll know what to do.”

Maggie was
dazzled
by the magnitude of the folly of this innocent who, daintily licking up the last of her third pousse-café, looked as divinely springlike as an apple tree in full bloom. Did she have any idea of the business implications of the Oscars? Didn’t she understand that the Awards presentation represented millions of dollars in advertising revenue to the network, incalculable millions of dollars’ worth of renewed public interest in the entire movie industry, that the sheer
suspense
of the Oscars was like having a national election every year?

“Better give me the bag, Lester,” she said, “unless you want to go into your family business.”

“Can you keep it quiet?” he asked her desperately,

“Lester, no matter how dumb you were to do this, you made up for it in being smart enough to call me. Not only will Price Waterhouse get their envelopes back, but, as a member of the press, I don’t have to answer any questions. Think of yourself as Deep Throat.”

“Maggie, I’ll be forever in your debt. There’s just one thing—could we just take a peek at the Best Supporting Actress envelope, just to put Dolly out of her strain.”

“I don’t wanna,” Dolly wailed, as Maggie spoke.

“No, absolutely not. That would make three of us who’d know the winner and when three people know a secret everybody knows it. It isn’t safe. Dolly can wait just like the rest of us. You didn’t open any of the envelopes, did you?”

“Of course not,” said Lester righteously, clasping Dolly’s foot between both his big feet and pressing hard. “I called only you.”

“You’ll go far, Lester, you heard it here first. OK, you two, this hasn’t happened.”

“Not a word to anyone,” Lester assured her.

“I’ve forgotten it already,” said Dolly.

“I always wanted to hear people talk like that in real life,” said Maggie, and before anyone could say another word, she swept out of the Polo Lounge, the bag firmly tucked under her arm.

“But you didn’t even tell her about
Mirrors,”
Dolly gasped.

“She won’t let us peek, we won’t let her know—she can wait just like everybody else. Fair is fair.”

“Oh, Lester, you’re so wise.”

A few minutes later Maggie was home in her kitchen. Driving back to her house she had calculated quickly the various difficulties she was going to encounter in returning the envelopes without giving Lester and Dolly away. All her prestige would have to be deployed and very cleverly too, but, after all, Price Waterhouse had at least as much interest as she did in keeping the public from knowing that this deepest of secrets had leaked before the big night Oh, it was a sticky business, but it could be done.

She gazed at the stiff envelopes neatly laid out on her kitchen table. The kettle on the stove was beginning to send up satisfactory quantities of steam. One by one she steamed open the envelopes, wrote down the names on a pad, and sealed them closed again. A girl had to look after her own ass in this life, thought Maggie. Oh, what fun she was going to have tomorrow. She’d probably put together a dozen deals by noon—
everybody
in town would
owe
her. And the show tomorrow night—incredible. She’d open it with her own list of projected winners—which should she get wrong? Best Achievement in Sound and Best Documentary Short Subject? Sure, nobody cared about them except for the hundreds of craftsmen involved. Maybe one other—Best Costume Design? Those were always up for grabs. But otherwise—could this little girl pick ’em! And she’d brief her camera crews so they would be exactly in the right place at the right time and she’d know just how long to interview each nominee—heaven protects the working girl, no question about it. She felt a rising sense of excitement as she got to the last five envelopes. She’d been opening them in the same order that holds during the program. Maggie always felt that professionalism was all important when engaged in white-collar crime. She opened the envelope for Best Picture last.
“Oy, gevalt!”
Her shout was so heartfelt, so fervent, so stunned, that her guard dog barked wildly outside the house.

Professionalism can go only so far, thought Maggie, as she picked up the phone.

M
aggie’s phone call had come an hour before, and Billy and Vito finally began to accept her news as real, as a part of their lives, not just as a transcendent victory after a long race. They began to assimilate the win, to incorporate it into themselves by dint of repeating certain phrases.

“You’re sure she was sure?” Billy asked for the fifth time, more for the pleasure of hearing the answer than because she doubted it.

“No question.”

“But why wouldn’t she say how she knew. Isn’t that odd?”

“That’s how Maggie operates. Believe me, she has unique methods.”

“Oh, Vito, I still can’t believe it.”

“I can.”

“Mirrors is
the Best Picture,” Billy said. It was an affirmation, a declaration, yet somehow it managed to sound like a question.