Further Tales of the City (8 page)

N
ED LOCKWOOD CHECKED THE CLOCK ON THE DASHBOARD
as his pickup rattled through the corridor of palms flanking Hollywood High.

“Ten-twenty. We did O.K. Hail to thee, Alma Mater.”

“You went to Hollywood High?” asked Michael.

Ned’s jaw squared off in a grin. “Didn’t everybody?”

“Then you were
trained
to live with a movie star. It didn’t just come natural to you.”

“I suppose you could say that,” laughed Ned.

Michael shook his head in wonderment. “Hollywood High,” he murmured, as the pale building slid by in the darkness. “I always wanted to go to school with Alan Ladd’s son when I was a little boy.”

“Why?”

Michael shrugged. “The quickest way to Alan Ladd, I guess. I had the biggest crush on him.”

Ned laughed. “When you were
how
old?”

“Eight,” said Michael defensively. “But a kid can dream.”

“Horny little bugger.”

“Well,” retorted Michael, “if I remember correctly, you had some sort of a thing for Roy Rogers, didn’t you?”

“I was at least ten,” said Ned.

Michael laughed and looked out the window again. There weren’t many libidos that hadn’t been stirred, one way or another, by the kingdom which stretched out luxuriantly before him.

Like a lot of his friends, he made a ritual of bad-mouthing Los Angeles behind her back—her tacky sprawl, her clotted freeways, her wretched refuse yearning to breathe free….

But at times like this, on nights like this, when everyone in town seemed to own a convertible and the warm, thick jasmine-scented air made itself felt like a hand creeping up his thigh, Michael could abandon the obvious and believe again.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “Every time I come here I feel like Lucy and Ricky hitting town. This place must get more second chances than any place on earth.”

Suddenly, Ned swerved the truck, narrowly missing a bottle blond teenager on a skateboard. His 69 football jersey had been hacked off just below his nipples to reveal a foot of tanned midriff. Passing him, Ned exhaled with relief: “Nobody
walks
the streets anymore!”

Michael looked back to see the kid leaning into a silver Mercedes parked at the curb in front of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie headquarters. “Bingo,” he said. “He’s got one.”

“A star is born,” said Ned.

The truck turned off Sunset and climbed into Beverly Hills, a land of shadowy lawns and deathly silence.

The streets grew steeper and narrower. Most of them appeared to be named Something-crest, though it was next to impossible to tell where one left off and another began. Michael found it unimaginable that anyone who lived in this neighborhood could find his way home at night.

“Will he be there when we get there?” he asked Ned. “I must look like shit.”

Ned reached over and squeezed his knee. “There’s a roach in the ashtray. Why don’t you smoke it?”

“If you think that’ll relax me, you’re crazy. I’ll meet him and run screaming into the night.”

“He may not be back from Palm Springs yet. Don’t sweat it.”

Michael looked out the window. The lights of the city were spread out beneath them like computer circuitry. “If he’s not there,” he asked, “who’ll let us in?”

“The houseman, probably.”

“Is he the whole staff?”

Ned shook his head. “There’s a cook, most of the time. And a secretary and a gardener. Probably just the houseman tonight, though.”

Michael tried to picture such an existence, falling silent for a moment. “You know what?” he said at last.

“What?”

“My mother thought _______ _______was the hottest thing going. She’d shit a brick if she knew I was doing this.”

Ned turned and smiled at him. “Take careful notes, then.”

“Right … how big was his dick again?”

The nurseryman chuckled. “Big enough to make some people suspicious about his Oscar nomination.”

“Bigger than a breadbox?” Michael laughed nervously at his own bad joke, then leaned over and kissed Ned on the neck. “I can’t believe this is happening. Thanks, pal.”

Ned shrugged it off. “I think you’ll both enjoy each other. He’s a real nice guy.” He pulled the truck off the road, stopping in front of a huge metal gate. Then he pushed a button on a squawk box partially concealed in the bushes.

“Yes?” came a voice.

“It’s Ned.”

“Lions and tigers and bears,” said Michael.

“That was the houseman. Relax.”

There was nothing much to see from this vantage point. Just a bougainvillea-covered wall and an archway, apparently leading into a courtyard. “Ned?”

“Yeah, Bubba?”

“This isn’t like a date, is it?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Suddenly I feel like a mail-order bride or something.”

“Just take it easy, Michael. There are no expectations, if that’s what you mean.” Ned turned and grinned slyly at his friend. “Not on
his
part, at least.”

B
ACK IN THE CITY, FATHER PADDY STARR WAS DISCUSSING
the state of his flock over a late supper at L’Etoile. “Poor Bitsy,” he sighed, nibbling on an asparagus tip, “I’m afraid she needs our prayers again.”

Prue knew there was only one Bitsy: Bitsy Liggett, Society Kleptomaniac. Her infamy had been an embarrassment to the social set for almost a decade now.

“Oh, dear,” said Prue, trying to sound prayerful in spite of the fact that she herself had lost a Lalique vase, several crystal dogs and an antique tortoise shell brush set to the pathological compulsion of the woman being prayed for.

“The problem is,” the cleric lamented, “you can’t
not
invite her, can you? It wouldn’t do. The Liggetts are good stock. Bitsy’s a charming woman. You just have to be ready for her, that’s all.”

“Who wasn’t ready for her this time?”

The priest’s mouth curled slightly. “Vita.”

“No!”

“Bitsy’s on her Italian Earthquake board. When she left
Vita’s house after the meeting yesterday, a Fabergé box fell out of her pantyhose.”

“No!”

“Right there in the foyer. Could you die?”

Prue pressed both hands against her mouth and giggled.

“Could you die?” repeated Father Paddy, arching an eyebrow for maximum comic effect. Then, suddenly, the lines of his face turned down, as if he were made of wax and melting. “Really, though, it’s quite dreadful. It’s a disease, like alcoholism. She needs our prayers, Prudy Sue.”

Then he told her three more people who needed their prayers.

Prue got to
her
news over dessert.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said. “I found Vuitton.”

“Ah.” Father Paddy reached across the table and fondled her hand. “I’m so happy, my child! Where was he? The poor thing must have been famished!”

Prue shook her head. “That’s the amazing part. He was living with this man in the park.”

“A park official, you mean?”

“No. A man in a funny little shack. Up on the ridge above the tree ferns. He had a bed and a fireplace and everything. Vuitton seemed to adore him, so I couldn’t really get upset about it. Him keeping Vuitton, I mean.”

“He didn’t call you?”

“No. I found him. Or rather, I found Vuitton and Vuitton led me to him. He seemed a little sad when I took Vuitton away. He’d made a leash for him, and he had a grooming brush and everything.”

Father Paddy poured cream on his raspberries. “How endearing.”

“It was. I was truly
touched,
Father. He told me to bring Vuitton for a visit sometime. I think I may do it.”

The priest’s smile hovered, but his brow furrowed. “Well, I don’t know about
that,
Prudy Sue.”

“Why?”

“Well, you really have no way of knowing who he …”

“I’m trusting my instincts, Father. This man is a gentle spirit. Life hasn’t treated him well, but he’s still smiling back at it. He even has a quote from one of the saints on his wall.”

“Really,” smiled Father Paddy, “who?” Now they were back on
his
turf again.

Prue thought for a moment. “Santa somebody. I forget. It’s something about remembering the past. He made it out of twigs.” She took a bite of her trifle. “Besides, characters like him are a San Francisco tradition. Like Emperor Norton, and … remember Olin Cobb, that man who built the little lean-to on Telegraph Hill?”

Father Paddy grinned at her sideways. “You’re going to write about this, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” said Prue coyly.

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway, I
have
to go back at least one more time.”

“Now, Prue …”

“I left my rape whistle there.”

“Oh,
please.”

“It’s from Tiffany’s,” explained the columnist.

The priest corrected her. “Tiffany, darling. No apostrophe
s.”

“Tiffany,” repeated Prue. “Reg gave it to me. I’m sort of sentimental about it. I dropped my purse on the ridge. The whistle must’ve fallen out. Don’t look at me like that, Father.”

The priest simply shook his head, a gently chastising smile on his lips.

“You’re so sweet,” said Prue, picking up the check. “It’s nice having somebody worry about me.”

T
HE SILENCE WAS SHATTERED BY THE SOUND OF YAPPING
dogs. They seemed a motley group, judging by their barks—young and old, big and small. Michael smiled, remembering a hot summer night in Palm Springs when he and Ned had eaten mushrooms and tried to climb Liberace’s fence.

“Oh no,” he whispered, “does
he
have attack poodles, too?”

Ned chuckled, his teeth flashing like foxfire in the darkness. “These aren’t guard dogs. These are family.”

The big neo-Spanish door swung open. The houseman, a diminutive, jockey-like man in his mid sixties, held the door ajar with one arm and fended off the dogs with the other. “Hurry,” he said, “before one of these retards makes a run for it.”

Ned led the way, with Michael heavy on his heels. The dogs—an ancient, rheumy-eyed shepherd; a pair of hysterical Irish setters; a squat, three-legged mongrel—cavorted deliriously around the feet of the man who had once shared the house with them.

Ned knelt in their midst and greeted them individually.
“Honey, ol’ Honey, how ya doin’, girl? Yeah, Lance …
good
Lance! Heeey, Guinevere …”

Michael was impressed. It was one thing to know______ _____. It was quite another to be on a first name basis with his dogs.

Ned cuddled the three-legged runt in his lap. “How’s this one been doing?”

The houseman rolled his eyes. “He got out last week. The little pissant made it all the way down to Schuyler Road. Lucy found him, of all people. Called______. He was practically in mourning by then, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t take calls … well, you know.”

Still kneeling, Ned held the dog up for Michael’s inspection. “Noble beast. Named after yours truly.”

Michael didn’t get it at first. He was still wondering if it had been
the
Lucy who’d found the dog. “Uh … you mean his name is Ned?”

The mutt yipped asthmatically, confirming the claim. Ned let him down and stood up. “We go back a long ways, him and me. Guido, this is my friend, Michael Tolliver.”

Michael shook hands with the houseman, who offered a half-smile, then turned back to Ned. “He’s not back till tomorrow. You’ve got the place to yourself tonight. I left the heat on in the Jacuzzi.”

Michael breathed a secret sigh of relief. At least there would be time to collect himself.

Guido led them down a tiled walkway under an arbor that framed the courtyard. Fuchsia blossoms the color of bruises bumped against their heads as they walked. Across the courtyard, floating above the rectilinear lights of Los Angeles, a swimming pool, gigantic and glowing, provided the only illumination. It might have been a landing strip for UFO’s.

Guido opened another door—the
real
front door, Michael presumed. He caught a fleeting impression of oversized Spanish furniture, suits of armor, crimson carpets (Early Butch, Ned once had dubbed it) as they climbed the grand staircase to the second floor.

“I put you both in the trophy room tonight,” said Guido drily, “if that’s all right.”

“Fine,” said Ned.

“The red room’s a mess. Two kids from Laguna stayed over last night. Lube on the sheets, poppers on the carpet. Honestly.”

Ned and Michael exchanged grins. “We won’t be nearly as much trouble,” said Ned.

The trophy room was almost too much for Michael to absorb: a whole row of plaques from
Photoplay
magazine (mostly from the fifties); keys to a dozen cities; telegrams from Hitch-cock, Billy Wilder, DeMille; silver-framed photos of________ _________with JFK,________ _______with Marilyn Monroe, _______ _______with Ronald Reagan; a needlepoint pillow from Mary Tyler Moore.

After Guido had left, Michael just stood there, shaking his head. “Is this
his
room?”

“Across the hall,” said Ned. “Wanna see it?”

“Should we?”

Ned smiled sleepily. “It used to be my room, too, remember?”

They passed through double doors, massive and oaken, into a space that looked like a set for a movie star’s bedroom. The windows opened onto the pool and the world. The bed was enormous, exactly the sort of bed Michael expected ______ ______to sleep in.

He approached it in earnest, like a pilgrim, and sat down tentatively on the edge. Smiling sheepishly at Ned, he admitted, “I feel like such a tourist.”

“You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“The
bed?”
laughed Michael.

“There’s coffee in the morning if you want it.”

Michael sprang to his feet, feverish with guilt. Guido stood in the doorway, eyeing them.

“Thanks,” said Ned, apparently unruffled. “I’m just giving Michael the house tour.”

Guido grunted. “Don’t trip any alarms,” he said as he left the room.

Michael listened until his footsteps had died out, then gave a nervous little whistle.

“He’s just doing his job,” Ned explained.

“Yeah,” said Michael, “like Mrs. Danvers in
Rebecca.”