West of Paradise (6 page)

So he couldn't help being a shit, even when pretending to take one. Still, there had been something stylish about him, like a highwayman. And Mort always admired style.

He'd come to the funeral because that's what a nice guy did when he'd known a guy. Besides,
she
might be there. He longed, more than getting out of the rag business, to be in a place where he could look at her, and just watch her move, and not be under pressure to talk. He knew he had nothing to say to her really. She was a blueblood. His own blood was Jewish, and he was nervous about that, as he would have been even if there hadn't been a Pat Buchanan. But to be in a room with a genuine duchess, this particular duchess, even if she was divorced from the title, all the while he hungered to be near her, was almost more than Mort could bear.

“Duchess Wendy,” he said, bowing as she passed him.

“Morty,” she said gently. “I told you. I'm not allowed to use the title anymore except on our clothes.”

“It's not good enough for you anyway. It should be Princess. Queen, maybe. Goddess.” His face and neck shone bright red.

“Why, Morty. I've never heard you talk so.” Her hair was dark and softly waved, close to her skull, marcelled as it would have been in the era she better belonged in. “I thought you only spoke cuts and fabrics and prices.”

“I've had a little champagne. Can I get you some?”

“Yes, please.”

He hesitated for a moment. “I should give it to you in a glass slipper.”

She looked away. “Glass slippers aren't all they're cracked up to be.”

*   *   *

It had been noted that because of their fashion model washboard slimness, Carina, Norman Jessup's fiancée, and Chen Lippton, Victor's wife, looked strangely alike, in spite of facial dissimilarities. Chen was markedly Chinese, round-faced and black-eyed, while Carina, whose origins were South American, had a pointed chin, and almond-shaped, brilliantly sea-green eyes. But they both had thick, dark hair, blunt cut to the jaw, and incredibly slender bodies. And of course they both dressed in the highest of high-fashion clothes.

The Lipptons, newly come to the scene as they were, set an example of elegance and fidelity, which Norman Jessup and Carina voiced every intention of following. So it pleased Norman that the women not only complemented each other physically, but genuinely seemed to like each other. He encouraged Carina to take Chen shopping and whatever else it was that women did when they were not joining their mates for dinner. And the four dined together at least once a week, two of the town's great power couples, which they were now considered, since the women, in their way, had as much potency as the men, as one could see clearly from how often they appeared in
W.

The Jessup-Carina nuptials were planned for October, to be held at the Hotel Bel-Air. Carina had already asked Chen to be her matron of honor. Norman had as best man lawyer Fletcher McCallum, who had stood up for him under all the important circumstances of his life, including the odious lawsuit. So he couldn't have Victor Lippton as his best man. But he
would
be among the groom's men, knowledge of which had sent everybody in town clamoring for invitations, trying to politick their way in. The guest list was already fuller than the cemetery in Westwood, presenting some problems for the hotel, which could accommodate only a hundred and fifty guests. Norman had suggested he could perhaps build an annex for the occasion, as Larry Drayco had redecorated three meeting rooms of a Vegas hotel for one of his weddings.

The Lipptons, Jessup, and Carina, or as they were known now, the Beautiful Four, were so affable they usually did everything at a similar pace, including leave parties, or a funeral like this one, at the same time. But because Norman, like many others at the event, wanted to show his affection for Darcy, who'd organized it, he stayed longer than the Lipptons.

So he was there when Lila Darshowitz threw up all over herself and had to be carried to the ladies' room. And he was there when the E reporter and crew, having run out of stars, trained their camera on Carina and asked to interview her.

“You'll have to call my office,” he said, “and speak to our publicity director.”

“But we were hoping for a spontaneous…” said the tiny blonde who'd majored in communications, holding her microphone in his freckled face.

“You'll have to call my office,” he said. And that was that.

There was an authoritative but innocent nobility in his carriage, as though Tom Sawyer had grown up to be Abe Lincoln. He looked very much the country boy he wasn't, with his great thatch of strawberry hair, cowlick, and freckles, an image added to and made more convincing by a kind of “down home” accent. That had been developed since the trial, where he'd spoken much too quickly, and said far more than had benefited him. Panic had stripped him of his customary confidence, and he'd turned into a blunderer, spilling over as he hadn't since he was a boy. So he'd slowed himself down with a deliberate drawl. Too late to save him from the jury verdict, but maybe in time to save him from ever making the same mistake again, including trusting a woman like Sarah Nash.

It was his fault for ever believing her, that she'd leave him out of the book. It was his fault for telling her who was screwing whom, who was taking what drugs, who embezzled, who covered up, really believing they had an understanding she would not involve him. She had been his buddy. The last bitch he'd ever buddy up to. She had proven once again, too late, that women were the enemy. He would never let one close into his life again. Except of course Carina. But she was another story.

“Well, well, well,” Sarah Nash said, coming over to them at the buffet table. “If it isn't the pseudocouple.”

“You've got brass balls talking to me,” Norman raged. Carina pulled at his elbow.

“Better brass than none at all.”

“Let's go,” Carina said, softly.

“She's not chasing me out of anyplace,” he said proudly. “She's the one who had to leave the country. She's the one who had to hide. Who still has to hide from all the people who despise her.”

“But you're the one who lost the lawsuit.”

He drew himself up to his full, Lincolnesque height. “In the long run you failed to damage me,” he proclaimed, as his lawyer had tried to tell him ever since the trial. “Homosexuality is openly accepted in the civilized world—”

“And its own little Mafia in Hollywood,” Sarah said.

“I wonder if a woman can be found with her cunt in her mouth,” murmured Linus from the sidelines.

Norman inhaled deeply, as his meditation teacher had taught him. “All of that is beside the point now.” He put his arm possessively around Carina. “I have fallen deeply in love with this exceptional woman, and she is soon to be my bride. You'll understand if you're not invited.”

“Oh, I understand all of it,” Sarah said. “Really I do. I've been studying Kraft-Ebbing, which still sets a good standard for sexual deviation.”

“Deviant only to you, who has to hire beach boys to make love to you.”

“Like you've never paid anybody.”

“Not ever in my life. Anyone who was with me was with me because they wanted to be, and never got a cent from me.”

“Which is why some of them are now parking attendants.”

Darcy Linette came forward, looking as soft as her job was hard, tall and honey-haired, with the same long hairdo that had served her since college, when she learned that appearing girlish made a bright woman less threatening to men. “Please, people. This is a solemn occasion. Don't turn it into a brawl.”

“Why don't they just step outside,” goaded Linus. “Gunfight at the Wolfgang Puck Corral!”

“In the long run you have failed to damage me,” Norman recited again to Sarah. “My life is fuller than yours will ever be.” He hugged Carina close. “I have turned myself around through therapy.”

“Well, I wish you every happiness,” Sarah said icily. “But I think it's Carina who'll have to turn herself around, so you can pretend she's a boy.”

He reached over with his long-fingered, freckled hand, took Sarah by the back of her neck, and shoved her, facedown, into the guacamole. “All
right!
” cried Linus, right fist shooting into the air, a victory salute.

Sarah came up sputtering. Waiters ran over with napkins. She wiped the bilious clumps from her face, pulled them from her spikey hair.

“That color is really becoming,” Norman drawled. “Now you look like you do on the inside.”

“You won't get away with this,” Sarah muttered. “I'll get even with you, you pervert creep.”

“Miss Nash,” Carina said very softly. “You've already done your worst to Norman. There's nothing more you can do.”

“That's what you think,” Sarah said, and headed for the ladies' room.

*   *   *

On the pink satin chaise near the makeup console, Lila Darshowitz lay on her back, a wet towel against her mouth. “Are you all right?” Kate asked, bringing another towel.

“Why should you care?” Lila said.

“I just do.” Not the moment for the genuine reason to this woman either, sick as she was, still half retching, Kate assured herself. Compassion was in her act, and as Fitzgerald had said, action was character, so if the act was compassionate, so was she. She wasn't just being self-serving, she was positive.

“I'm sick,” Lila said, and turning on her side, retched again, this time into the towel.

“Do you have a way of getting home?”

The reddened, heavily lidded brown eyes tried to take Kate in, as they filled with tears. “I don't have a way of getting anywhere.” She shook with self-pity, her great, obese body heaving with sobs. “Oh, Larry. Larry. Why'd you ever come to this shitty place?”

“You want me to call you a cab?”

“Okay, I'm a cab.” Lila tried to laugh. “That was one of his jokes.”

“I'm really very sorry for your loss,” Kate said, wondering what some of his other jokes were. Maybe that had been Drayco's saving grace, humor. Maybe he had once done something really funny, something healing. Laughter was the best medicine, went the old homily, and it was true. Kate wasn't just a fan of Fitzgerald's, but of movies as well. She loved Preston Sturges's work, got the message he'd proclaimed quite clearly in
Sullivan's Travels,
that comedy was man's salvation. Larry Drayco hadn't made any comedies as far as Kate knew. But maybe he'd done something genuinely loving once, making someone laugh.

She knew she was reaching. Nobody at the funeral seemed to feel a sense of genuine loss, except this poor jellyfish of a woman.

Sarah Nash burst through the doors, talking to herself, murmuring obscenities, uttering future programs of revenge, carom-shooting threats. She put her head under the faucet, started to wash the guacamole away, filling the sink with shades of putrescent green.

“Did I do that to you?” Lila asked, embarrassed, half sitting.

“What happened?” Kate said.

“That queen has messed with me for the last time,” Sarah said.

*   *   *

“I hate it when these occasions turn ugly,” said a columnist from
The Hollywood Reporter.
“Though it does make for better copy.”

“Well, I have something positive you can put in your column,” Perry Zemmis announced. “I've just bought the
sequin
to
The Last Tycoon.
”

*   *   *

“Where did you disappear to?” Jake Alonzo asked Kate, when she came back.

“I was with Larry Drayco's mother. I'm taking her home.”

“But I wanted to take
you
home.” He looked genuinely disappointed.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I have to go get my car.”

“Can I take you to dinner?”

“Not tonight. She really needs somebody.” It was a good excuse, a selfless one, while calming her fears of his discovering her deception. Or her discovering … what? Was she so shallow that some physical deficiency of his would impact her? Wasn't she more moved by him
because
his face was no longer too beautiful?

“May I call you?”

“Of course,” she said, and gave him her number. Wherever it was going could wait for another time.

“Are you nuts?” Wilton followed her out to the parking lot. “You blow off Jake Alonzo for that blowsy drunk?”

“We don't know that she's a drunk. She's upset. Understandably. And Jake said he'd call.”

“These people have a short attention span,” Wilton said. “You have to strike while his iron is hot.”

“It's the black Saab,” Kate said to the parking attendant, handing him her ticket, not looking at Wilton, not looking into herself, really. Not allowing herself to feel what was actually there. She was in no hurry to find out about Jake. In spite of the dangers of the era, this wasn't high school, or an age when you said “Not yet.” Not to a movie star. Not to Jake Alonzo.

“He likes me for something that isn't true,” she said to Wilton, not needing to share with him that there was something less than genuine in her. Not needing to share it with herself, really, trying to sidestep it even in her own mind.

“What does it matter, as long as he likes you?”

“I like him, too. Too much to play off a lie.” That much of the admission was completely sincere. She did like him. What was the word he had used about her?
Substance.
Yes. That was it. He had unexpected substance. But what if it turned out he didn't have it where a woman expected it? What if the truth about him was as disappointing as the lie about her?

Two attendants were helping Lila out of the restaurant. She hung between them, a multicolored disaster area, her swollen ankles draping over the edge of her tight-fitting shoes, feet not quite maneuvering the concrete.