The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald (11 page)

Lulu was delighted to see him again. The feeling was mutual. He got down on his knees to say hello and rub her ears with his big football-scarred mitts. She rolled over on her back, her tail thumping, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

“Whew,” said Vic, making a face. “Still eating that fish of hers, huh?”

“That she is.”

“Got in a little after midnight,” he informed me in his droning monotone. “Found an all-night appliance store over on Broadway and Fourteenth. That’s one of the great things about New York. Picked up some things I thought we’d need. Receipts are on the fridge.”

“Say hello to Charleston Chu, your hostess.”

“Quite a place, miss,” he observed, gently taking her tiny hand. “I assumed the guest room is for me.”

“It is,” said Charlie, looking up warily at the hugeness of him. “And welcome.”

“Thank you. That art up there yours?” It is.

“Keep at it. With some training you could get somewhere. Who knows, maybe even sell some of it.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Your illustrious host,” I advised him, “is in the car.”

Vic nodded grimly. “Right.” Then he hitched up his slacks and lumbered out the front door.

He returned a moment later dragging Cam Noyes facedown along the floor by one ankle. When he got him into the kitchen, Vic flopped him over onto his back, coughing and gasping. He was wet and muddy head to toe, and he didn’t smell too hot.

“My God!” exclaimed Charlie. “What happened to him?”

“I brought him in by way of the gutter, miss.”

“The
what?
” she demanded. “Why?”

“He’s a drunk,” Vic replied simply. “That’s where drunks belong.”

Charlie crinkled her small nose. “But he smells like —”

“That unpleasant odor is dog dooty, which is what the gutter smells like — no offense, Miss Lulu. Great set of wheels, by the way.”

“Wait just one second here,” ordered Charlie, glaring up at him, hands on her hips, eyes hard. “Who are you? What are you? I demand an explanation.”

Vic ducked his head and scuffed at the floor with a big foot.

“Vic Early,” I explained, “is the world’s largest nanny.”

“Someone please tell me,” mumbled Cam from the floor, “why I smell so overwhelmingly like shit?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, you bum,” Vic said coldly.

Cam squinted up at him. “Who’re you?”

“He seems to be your new nanny,” said Charlie.

“You say nanny?”

“I did,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose.

Cam giggled. “Stupendous — always wanted a nanny.”

“Naturally,” said Vic, his big square jaw stuck out. “Because you’re a big baby.”

He went down the steep stairs into the basement. By the time he came back up carrying a painter’s drop cloth, Cam was out cold again. Vic rolled him up in the drop cloth, then threw all two hundred pounds of him over one shoulder as if he were a lap rug.

“You’ll be wanting to use the guest room yourself tonight, miss,” he told Charlie. “I’ll sleep down here.”

“How come?” she wondered.

“I want him to wake up tomorrow in these clothes,” he replied. “I want him to know just what a drunken bum smells like in the morning.”

She thought this over for a moment. Then her face broke into a dimply smile. “Whatever you say, Mr. Early. I’ll strip the bed — no sense ruining a good quilt.” She started up the stairs.

“Good thinking, miss,” Vic agreed, following with Cam over his shoulder. “But you’d best step lively. I think he’s about to upchuck.”

Vic came down alone a few minutes later and poured us coffee. We sat in two of the shell-backed metal chairs in the living room. He fit into his like an elephant in a teacup.

“I didn’t know there was a girl,” he said unhappily.

“There may not be for long — it’s stormy.”

“She’s a real doll,” he observed, sipping his coffee.

“She is. And made of solid steel.”

“Really? Wouldn’t think so to look at her.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” I agreed, trying to remember the last time a woman had fought for me like she had for Cam that evening. Actually, no woman ever had, unless you count the time Merilee poured that brandy alexander down the back of Sigourney Weaver’s dress when she caught the two of us flirting at the
Hurly Burly
opening-night bash. But that was kidding around. Charlie wasn’t kidding.

“I’ve always liked the Asian women,” Vic said. “They have a strong sense of loyalty. Clean personal habits, too. Though I can’t say much for this one’s housekeeping. Place is my idea of a shambles.”

“It’s called Found Minimalism, I’m told.”

“It’s minimal, all right.” He shifted gingerly in his chair, which shifted with him. “You want him totally clean?”

“As clean as possible. A few more months like this and he’ll end up a casualty.”

“You can count on that. How far can I go?”

“Try not to disfigure him beyond recognition. His face is his livelihood until he starts writing again. Assuming he ever does.”

“He will,” Vic said firmly. “I’ll get him on a regular schedule starting tomorrow. Up at eight. Run him around the park a few times. Rub him down. Start him on a proper diet.”

“Fine. He and I will work here in his study, ten to six. That’s when I’d like you to watch Merilee. During the day is when she’s most vulnerable.”

“Your ex-wife?” asked Vic, frowning. “To what?”

I told him about the threat I’d received. “Probably just hot air,” I admitted. “But … ”

“Can’t afford to take a chance,” he agreed gravely.

“Don’t crowd her. It would be better if she didn’t know you were guarding her.”

“Not to worry,” he assured me. “She’ll never know I’m there.”

I got wearily to my feet and handed him an envelope.

“For your first week. Glad you’re here, Vic.”

“This isn’t coming out of your end, is it?”

“No chance. I don’t like you that much.”

He grinned and pocketed it without opening it. “You won’t be sorry, Hoag.”

“Sorry never entered my mind.”

My apartment door was half open.

The lock was untouched. Instead, they’d sledgehammered a fist-sized hole clean through the plaster wall next to the door, reached in, and unlocked it from the inside. A burglary gang had worked its way through the neighborhood a few years before doing just that. The cops called them the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. I hadn’t known they were back.

I stood there on the landing and stared at the hole and the plaster dust heaped there on the floor, my heart pounding. There were no lights on inside the apartment. I looked down at Lulu. Lulu, keen huntress, was looking up at me and sniffling and showing no interest in going in. I really was going to have to get a bigger dog, preferably a meat eater with good sinuses.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I pushed the door open all the way and went inside.

The stereo and television were still there.

The leather-and-fur greatcoat that I got in Milan was hanging in the narrow hall closet. My silver cuff links were in their jewelry box in the bedroom.

Nothing of value had been taken. Nothing had even been touched.

Only my Olympia, my beloved late-fifties vintage manual portable, the heavy steel one that is the Mercedes 300 SL Gull Wing of typewriters, and is much, much more than that to me. It is my gallant steed. It was with me in the Périgord Valley when the first draft of
Our Family Enterprise
came. It was with me in Skye and San Miguel de Allende when nothing came. And it was with me in that little stone cottage in the Tuscan hills when I ate pasta drenched in native extra-virgin olive oil and drank Brunello di Montalcino, and
Such Sweet Sorrow
came. It had been through heaven and hell with me, and now it sat there pounded into utter submission — its body smashed, its keys crushed, its workings ruined. You can do a lot of damage to a typewriter with a sledge — even the toughest typewriter in creation. Another magazine picture of Merilee had been left in its dented roller. So had another message written in those press-on letters.
Her face is next
.

I stood there staring down at it and thinking about something someone had said earlier that evening:
This man should no longer be allowed to own or operate a typewriting machine.
…

It was Tanner Marsh who had said that. Tanner Marsh, the man who’d said both Cam Noyes and Boyd Samuels would be sorry. Very sorry.

I picked up the phone and dialed Boyd Samuels and woke him up.

“Whuh … wha … ?” he mumbled.

“I’m not quitting. Put the word out.” Then I hung up and went to bed.

Lulu snored on my head the whole night.

(T
APE #3 WITH CAM
Noyes recorded May 8 in his study. Sits at his writing table, one eye swollen shut, lower lip fat and oozing blood. Holds ice bag against lip. Hand shakes.)

Hoag
: Small shaving accident this morning, Cameron?

Noyes:
That giant oaf made me get out of bed at dawn this morning and go
running
with him. Then he tried to get me to eat a large bowl of
oatmeal
. I was telling him what he could do with his
oatmeal
when suddenly his face got all red and he started rubbing his forehead real hard and breathing in these shallow gasps …

Hoag:
I told you not to make him mad.

Noyes:
Who is this crazy man, coach?

Hoag:
Your bodyguard. He’s here to guard your body from anyone who might do it harm — including you.

Noyes:
He also threw my coke down the drain. Why would he do something so stupid? I’m just going to buy more.

Hoag:
I wouldn’t if I were you.

Noyes:
I thought you weren’t going to hassle me about the way I live.

Hoag:
I’m not. He is.

Noyes:
But you hired him.

Hoag:
Actually, you’re the one who’s paying him.

Noyes:
In that case, I want him out of here. He’s fired.

Hoag:
If you insist. But if he goes, I go.

Noyes:
What?

Hoag:
You heard me.

Noyes: (silence)
What are you trying to do?

Hoag:
My job, Cameron. You agreed to put yourself in my hands. This is part of the deal. See the newspapers this morning?
(sound of rustling)
Nice little item about you in Billy Norwich’s column: “Observers say the association between acid-penned critic Tanner Marsh and his sizzling protégé, Cameron Sheffield Noyes, went out with a ‘bang’ last night at Elaine’s. It seems Marsh was none too thrilled about the eye-opening experience Noyes had treated guests to earlier at the celebrity-studded pub party for Delilah Moscowitz’s
Tell Delilah!
” … Why did you do it, Cameron? Why did you undress him like that?

Noyes:
He was attacking you. You’re my friend.

Hoag:
That the only reason?

Noyes:
What other reason would there be?

Hoag:
Your reputation. Living up to it.

Noyes:
Believe me, I’m not that calculating.

Hoag:
Perhaps you’re not. But Boyd is.

Noyes:
You don’t like him, do you?

Hoag:
Tell me about the two of you coming to New York, about Columbia.

Noyes:
I had no expectations, no plan. I was vague and roofless. Deep down inside, I’d gotten this feeling of wanting to write, this powerful feeling that I would in some way become a writer and make something beautiful and perfect out of what had happened to me. I didn’t really know why I had it, or how to go about doing it, but being in a place that was
alive
seemed important to me. … Columbia, well, Morningside Heights is just a polite way of saying Harlem. A student got knifed on our street by a crack dealer the day we arrived. They stashed a bunch of us in a dorm over next to the river on a Hundred and fourteenth, Hudson Hall they called it. An utter hole. Walls were crumbling. My room was so small I had to close the door if I wanted to sit down at my desk. Overlooked the air shaft, which always smelled of garbage. Boyd started moving coke right away. Actually, one of his biggest customers was Todd, who lived in the suite upstairs from us. Shadowy, weird sort of kid. No friends. Used to sit alone in his room and get quietly bombed. Ended up having to leave school. Owed Boyd a lot of money.

Hoag:
I guess that’s what he meant by “personal problems.”

Noyes:
The advisers at Deerfield had warned us that college would be so hard.
(laughs)
They were dead wrong. We were stoned free — didn’t have to go to class, didn’t have to do the reading, didn’t have some dickhead corridor master watching over us. We spent most of our time getting a real New York education. Riding the subways through Spanish Harlem at 4 a.m. Hanging out at the Mudd Club and CBGBs. Going to the Museum of Natural History on acid and watching the dinosaurs move. New York is the greatest place in the world for hanging out and collecting experiences. If you want to write, you have to come through here.

Hoag:
And had you started?

Noyes:
I was keeping a diary of sorts, sketches of our days and nights out that eventually formed itself into a collection of short stories. I submitted them second semester to Tanner to see if I could get into his creative writing class, which is world renowned. The man’s a god on that campus. I hoped to learn at his feet. But he turned me down.

Hoag:
Were you disappointed?

Noyes:
Briefly, but then the modeling thing clicked for me, and that took care of any bruised feelings I might have had. I happened to be balling this, black Barnard girl named Stacy who was a model with the Wilhelmina Agency. Lovely girl. She’s in a soap now, plays a Rastafarian neurosurgeon. Anyway, one time when I picked her up at her shoot, the photographer asked me if I modeled. When I said I didn’t, he said I should, because I had “a very American heterosexual look.” Stacy took me up to the agency with her, and they looked me over and shot some tests and signed me up. And that’s how I became a model. I started going around town with my portfolio and sitting in a waiting room with two dozen guys who looked exactly like I did. I honestly can’t tell you why I got picked over them, but I did. I started doing catalog work, and making righteous bucks. And then Ralph spotted me, and I became a member of his Lauren family, and what a strange, surreal trip that is. It’s not just fashion to Ralph. He sees all of it — the clothes, the image, the presentation — as a story. The models are characters in that story. The photographer, Bruce Weber, would take us on location to some estate and we’d frolic about all day in Ralphs clothes before he’d ever start shooting. The idea was to capture the casual spontaneity of family life. Or Ralph’s image of family life, which is not, strictly speaking, real. I mean, that whole pseudo-English gentry thing — the models aren’t those people. Buying the clothes won’t make anyone into those people. It’s make-believe.
Ralph
is make-believe — he’s really little Ralph Lifschitz of the Bronx. Fashion is a stupendous scam, coach. Maybe the ultimate scam. Boyd quickly got fascinated by it.