Fifty Grand (30 page)

“I know how old you are,” I told him.

“You looked me up in Wikipedia?”

“I don’t know what that is. At that party you had I heard you say that you tell producers you’re twenty-nine, but your older résumés say you’re thirty and really you’re thirty-one.”

“Goddammit,
in vino veritas,
eh? Shit.”

“I don’t think it was vino.”

“No it wasn’t. A-rated, two-fifty-a-spliff Vancouver hemp—that’s what it was. We got it in for Pitt, except he didn’t stay. His loss—supremo shit. Course I don’t need to tell you, you’re from Mexico.”

I gave him another look that he missed. “If that acting career doesn’t work out, I’m sure they’ll hire you in the diplomatic corps, Señor Jack.”

He burst out laughing. “Yeah, I guess that was a bit crass.”

I smiled to show I wasn’t in the least offended and for some reason this made him grin like an idiot. He touched me on the leg. The Bentley had barely been going thirty but as the undulating road flattened out he gunned it up to seventy. It accelerated so smoothly it was as if we were in a studio and the landscape was a back projection.

“Beaut, isn’t she? Valet parkers fucking kill themselves for the keys. Like it?”

Like it? Nothing in Cuba moved like this. The fifties Yankee cars with Russian engines and jerry-rigged suspensions, the cheap Chinese imports, the Mexican Beetles. I thought all cars rattled and roared until I rode in the back of Sheriff Briggs’s Escalade.

“It’s ok,” I told him.

“Yeah, it’ll do,” he agreed.

It was a break to actually be in this car with him. I couldn’t let it go by.

Men loved to talk about their cars. “Is it from this year?” I asked prepping the ground so I could slip in an important question.

“Oh yeah, 2007, I’ll keep it for a couple of years and then I’m thinking of getting a DB9. Course it won’t be a DB9 in a few years, but it’ll still be an Aston Martin. The valets will love that, too.”

“I noticed a little repair on the hood.”

“Oh God, yeah. My dad told me once, never lend a friend money and never let anyone drive your car. Never.”

“What happened?”

“Few months back, I was in L.A., something wrong’s with Paul’s Beemer. Borrowed the Bentley to drive downtown. Couldn’t handle it. The Bentley needs care and attention. You treat it like a lady. Jesus, he’s a fucking idiot. I love him, of course, but he’s still an idiot.”

“He was in an accident?”

“Oh yeah, but he was fine. Dent and a ding. No big deal.”

“He crashed your car?”

“No, no, well, yes, but it wasn’t a biggie. The garage fucked up the repair, if you want to know. You shouldn’t even be able to see it. Nearest dealership is in Texas and I’m not driving it to Texas. So anyway, what about you? What are you doing out here?”

“I wanted to see some of the country.”

“Should have been here a few weeks ago, the leaves were at their peak.”

When we hit the outskirts of Fairview, Jack turned to me. His face had assumed a rigid intensity. He was either about to lie to me or he was going to try some of his acting.

“Listen, uh, M . . .”

“María.”

“I remembered! Come on. María, of course, listen, I’ve been invited to this dinner party and they said bring a date and I called Paul and he couldn’t come up with anybody this late and I know this is kind of short notice, but, hell, do you wanna come?”

“Paul won’t be there?”

“No.”

“I’ll come.”

“What’s the matter, you don’t like Paul?”

“No.”

“Lot of women don’t like him. He’s a good guy, you know, comes across as a bit of an ass. But basically a good chap, a really good egg.”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell that that was an English accent?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never drunk tea or met an Englishman in my life.”

“Lucky old you. L.A. is plagued by them. They’re all very insecure. I know a couple of writers. They’re the worst. Chain-smoking Marlboro reds, ridiculous.”

“You know English writers? Have you read the poet Philip Larkin?” I asked him.

“The what? The who?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Anyway, where were we? Oh yes. So you’ll come?”

“To a party, yes,” and wordlessly I added
It’s been a trying day
.

“You’ll come? You’ll be my date?” he asked insecurely.

“I said yes.”

“Ok, well, don’t freak, but I’m kind of on my way over there right now.”

I wasn’t following him. “Why would I
freak
?”

“It’s a party. Don’t you need, like, three hours to get ready?”

“No, but I’ll bet you do.”

He laughed. “Low blow, yet strangely accurate. We’re all fags now, although I’m not as vain as some, believe me, I could tell you stories,” he says, fluffing his gelled hair in the rearview.

“But I do want some time. Look at me.”

“You look great.”

“Pull in there.”

Gas station. He spent a small fortune filling the Bentley while I washed my face and attempted to make my hair slightly interesting with the hot-air hand dryer.

I pinched some color into my cheeks and applied red lipstick.

I looked ok and if anyone said I didn’t I had a sledgehammer and a Smith & Wesson to change their mind.

“Whose house is it?” I asked when we’re back in the car.

“Oh, no one you would know, unless you read the trades, which you probably don’t. Not someone conventionally famous, but very A-list, a producer, big enchilada in a behind-the-scenes kind of way.”

“What’s his name?”

“Alan Watson. Look him up on IMDB, more movies this year than Judd fucking Apatow. Producing or coproducing credit on half a dozen flicks. Playa with a capital P. Total wacko, of course. All the big ones are. The house is only two doors away from the Cruise estate at the top of the mountain. And with Cruise shooting pickups for that Nazi movie, this week Watson is the big bear on Malibu Mountain.”

The house was indeed only two doors from the Cruise estate at the top of the mountain, but those doors were at least half a kilometer apart. The homes up here were all huge
poronga
affairs, faux Swiss chalets or supersized mountain ski lodges with ample grounds, guesthouses, outdoor Jacuzzis, pools, stables. Esteban said that Cruise and a few others had their own private ski runs to the valley and even chairlifts that ran back up to the house.

Watson’s house did not have a private ski run that I could see but it did have three floors and was the size of a small Havana apartment building. The style was Spanish hacienda with ultramodern features: radio antennae, quadruple garage, satellite dishes, swimming pool, solar panels, and a wind turbine that probably massacred local birds by the score. Even without Esteban’s
and Jack’s prep it would have been obvious to me that Watson was in the upper echelons of the power elite.

Judging from the cars outside, the party appeared to be a small but upscale affair. Two Mercs, a Rolls-Royce, a Ferrari, and Jack’s Bentley.

We rang the bell and I admired the paintwork on the cars. In Havana all vehicles except for the very newest are finished in glossy outdoor house paint, but these were in subtle attractive shades: racing green, midnight blue, morning gray. As you got wealthier, I speculated, your tastes rebelled against the primary colors of the common herd.

Jack had yet to learn that lesson with his white Bentley.

We rang the bell again and someone said, “It’s open!”

We walked through a bare marble foyer into an equally spartan dining room that looked west upon a sunset and eight or nine layers of mountains. We were the last to arrive, and a fortysomething redheaded woman in a beautiful emerald couture dress hastily introduced us to the four other guests. Jack knew only one of them personally—a shaven-headed man wearing a black polo-neck sweater, black sweat pants, and diamond earrings.

“Mr. Cunningham, this is my friend María,” he said.

Cunningham took my hand and kissed it.

“Delighted to meet you, miss,” Cunningham said with such a warm smile and wonderful manners that I knew he was homosexual. Actually, it turned out that all the men were gay except for Watson, who, as Jack had predicted, proved to be a bit of a wacko.

I was seated next to the redheaded woman, who called herself Miss Raven, and a young man in a plaid shirt, jeans, and glasses who said he was “Mickey, just Mickey,” in a throwback New York accent straight from the Yuma movies of the fifties.

Miss Raven opened two bottles of sparkling wine and the chat flowed between the men. They talked fast and I found myself dipping in and out of their conversation.

“Jack, I loved you in that thing you were in. Your acting is an homage to a bygone age.”

“What about those writers?”

“What about them? Jack Warner said they were ‘scum with Underwoods.’ ”

“No shop talk. Did any of you see that Richard Serra show? It was appalling. What a confidence man that character is—all those pseudoscientific
names for his pieces. That’s how you spot a bad artist—the pseudoscientific name. ‘Trajectory Number Five.’ ‘Tangent on Circle.’ Of course, the
New Yorker
review and Charlie Rose were positively supine.”

“I hardly read
The New Yorker,
not since they got a pop music critic called Sasha Frere-Jones. Frere-Jones indeed. I imagine some twenty-three-year-old Barnard girl whose parents are influential condo board members in the East Seventies. I occasionally glance at the odd movie review. Such poor grammar. Lane’s sentences have more clauses than a fucking Kris Kringle convention.”

“I saw him once in Vail.”

“Vail? Good God, I wouldn’t be seen dead in Vail.”

“Clooney loves it.”

“He’s a bullshit artist like all the others. I mean, do you really believe Clooney when he tells us that Budweiser is the King of Beers?”

Miss Raven didn’t speak but smiled at me from time to time, as if to apologize for my exclusion from the shop talk and gossip. I appreciated her concern but I wasn’t getting annoyed. The wine was delightful and the view excellent and from the kitchen came the smell of good things. I could see that Jack was frustrated, though, itching to jump in, but he lacked pluck. Why they’d invited him was a mystery—perhaps he was a last-minute replacement for someone else.

When we were halfway through the second bottle of sparkling wine, Watson appeared with hors d’oeuvres on a silver tray. He was wearing a leather bondage suit, a leather mask, handcuffs, and leg irons. When he served us he kneeled on the floor next to Miss Raven until she clicked her fingers and he removed the empty tray.

I had been in Havana’s many brothels dozens of times and had seen a lot worse. Jack, too, appeared unruffled, always acting, this time giving us the fixed smile of someone dancing with a little girl at a wedding.

More bottles. More food.

And gradually he and I were brought into the talk. I was passed off as an old friend who worked in the hotel business. I went along with the lie and let Jack build the cathedral—I was looking at land here in Fairview for the Mandalay Bay group. Vail was over and Aspen hopelessly passé—Fairview, with its easy access to Denver and a back road to Boulder, was the place to invest. I was pushed on the veracity of these claims and my unwillingness to confirm any of the details impressed everyone with my discretion. Miss Raven seemed pleased that I was there. Watson’s antics had long since ceased
to amuse her and when the conversation became drearily shoppy she talked to me about the weather and clothes.

Jack found his niche and as he relaxed he allowed himself to speak more freely. He drank and began to enjoy himself. I suppose this was the kind of slightly risqué high-powered party he’d been expecting to find in L.A. and hadn’t ever gotten invited to. It wasn’t exactly the dinner feast of the Satyricon but it wasn’t bad. Oysters and shrimp were followed by duck, all three flown in from some picturesque spot in Alaska that very morning, and the excellent wine was from Watson’s own vineyard in Sonoma.

Time and food and conversation flowed, and when Watson went into the kitchen to load the dishwasher, Miss Raven produced a 150-year-old vintage Madeira and preembargo Monte Cristo cubanos.

With a bottle under his belt Jack was waxing on his favorite topic: the up-and-down career of Jack Tyrone. “Yeah, the Independent Spirit nomination was a real boost, I’m getting leads now. I’m doing this movie called
Gunmetal
, medium budget, I play a British Victoria Cross winner in the Crimean War. You wouldn’t believe the script changes. It’s based on the video game but it’s gone in a totally different direction. We’re throwing this Brit guy into the future, steam punk, all that.”

“You’re playing a Brit?” Mickey asked skeptically.

“But of course, my dear sir,” Jack said in his faux English diphthongs.

“Don’t like the title. Don’t see the connection,” another of the other producers said. He was a svelte, tanned man in a tailored polo shirt and an expensive toupee.

“But that’s the whole thing, you see,” Jack said. “All the Victoria Cross medals are made from gunmetal from cannons that the Brits captured in the Crimea. So the title sneakily refers to the medals but it’s also about the first-person shooter.”