Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (17 page)

“No. We're an executive recruitment firm. Headhunters. We work very quietly, but we place about 45% of all executives in the motion picture business.”

“Oh.” His interest had been piqued.

“Now, I know you're very happy right now at Olympic, but—”

“I could be happier,” he said with all the drooling-tongue eagerness of a neophyte canine when the Puppy Chow is opened.

“Well, then I really would like a few minutes of your time. If we could just move over to those chairs.” I pointed to two unoccupied chairs on the far end of the lobby that faced the floor-to-ceiling glass window that looked out to Washington Boulevard and the Sony lot across the street. Lapham had been instructed to place the two chairs there, and to keep the flow of the party focused on the opposite end. He had done a good job. No one was in that area. I walked Gulden over, offering him the closest chair, which he sat at. I naturally crossed behind him to get to the other chair. As I did I casually and slowly brushed his hair with my right hand, twirling a lock of it around my forefinger. He felt something and started to react, but I placed my left hand down hard on his left shoulder and pinched with force while quickly tightening the twirl around my finger, pulling hard as I leaned down and whispered, resonant and raspy, into his ear, “Don't even say, ‘Ouch,' or you'll be dead in flash.”

“What the—?”

I yanked on the lock of hair, pulling his head back. “Look! Over there, across the street, what do you see? What do you see on top of the Sony billboards?”

Gulden looked, but said nothing at first. I pulled harder. “Ah—ah—a man.”

“That's right, there's a man up there. Good friend of mine. He's got something in his hands. Do you see that? Can you see what it is?”

Between sweat and tears he managed to make it out. “A—a rifle?” He was reluctant to admit it.

“It's a Galil Sniping Rifle with a telescopic scope. His father gave it to him. He loves that rifle. He's very good with it. You might notice he's aiming it this way. If you could look through the scope—you would see your sweating self. Now let me tell you what's going to happen if you make any sudden moves; if you make any noise I don't like, or if you refuse to answer my questions. My friend, who, by the way, can hear everything we're saying, my friend will pull the trigger on his beloved Galil Sniping Rifle, and a round—known to you amateurs as a bullet—a round will leave its nineteen brothers in the magazine, spin through the rifled barrel, leave the muzzle at a velocity of 2,674 feet per second, shatter this wonderful plate glass window in front of us and slam into your chest, bursting your heart.”

“Why—why are you doing this?” The fear was intense; pungent.

“Why do any of us do what we do for amusement? I mean, why do people watch reruns of Gilligan's Island? There's a modicum of pleasure in it, I suppose.” I tugged on his lock again. “Now keep your eye on my friend across the street and answer my questions. What's it called?”

“Wh—wh—what's what called?”

“It! It! The most important ‘It' in your life right now, right? What's it called, Gulden? Is it the Order of the Golden Arse? The Union of the Golden Arse? The Golden Arse Association? Maybe the Society of the Golden Arse? The League of the Golden Arse? The Fellowship of the Golden Arse? The Federation of the Golden Arse? The Golden Arse Guild? The Benevolent And Protective Order of the Golden Arse? What the fuck is it called?”

“H—h—how did you know...?”

“I know a lot. What I don't know you're going to fill in the gaps! Now what is it called?!”

“Th—the Communion—the Communion of the Golden Arse.”

“The Communion of the Golden Arse,” I repeated. “Sounds inviting. By the look of your lips, I take it you've just been initiated into this communion of—like thinkers.”

“Yes.”

“So you've kissed the Golden Arse?”

“Yes.”

“When did Sara Hutton start this little club?”

“I—I—”

“My guess is at Yale. Good guess?”

“Yeah.”

“So how big is it now? Lots of industry people, not just Olympic employees?”

There was a hint of reluctance. I tightened the twirl. Something close to a whimper came out.

“I almost heard that,” I said. “I hope the microphone didn't pick it up. How many?”

“About—about twenty.”

“Any heads of other studios?”

“No, just some VPs, and some other development and production executives. Some agents, and readers. There's about five or six readers.”

“Up-and-comers with futures?”

“Yeah?”

“How does Max figure into the Communion of the Golden Arse?”

There was just that one-second beat before he answered. That one-second of a flash thought, silent, yet so loud. “Who?”

“Max!” I whispered a scream in Gulden's ear while I yanked the twirl.

“Ow!” Gulden said, cutting it short.

“Are you still looking at my friend? He heard that. It upset him. Hell, I can feel his finger itch from here! Maxwellton James!”

“He—he pays for—he pays—”

“Finances the group?”

“Yeah, and—and—”

“Helps shape the philosophy? Because you do, don't you, you're little communion has a philosophy?”

“Yeah. Philosophy.”

“This industry retreat Sara Hutton hosted a while back. It was a meeting of the Communion of the Golden Arse, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

“That's when you were initiated, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

“And is that where Bea Cherbourg died?”

Silence.

“Are you looking at my friend?” I pulled down on his hair, raising his eyes again.

“Ye—yes.”

“He's not hearing you. Is that where Bea Cherbourg died?”

Silence. A stream of sweat.

“You are an accessory to murder.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“She died there, but she....”

“She what?”

“She wasn't murdered.”

“Do you really think Sara will reward you if you cover up—”

“Sara didn't kill her!”

It was stated too emphatically to be a lie. “Max?”

“No.”

“Gulden, we keep talking about death in the past tense. It's going to be present tense momentarily if you don't tell me who killed Bea Cherbourg.”

“No one killed her. She killed herself!”

This was shocking, I must admit. It was a shocking thing to have heard. “She killed herself?”

“She—she—she wouldn't let go. I mean she couldn't let go of the Golden Arse. She couldn't stop kissing it!”

What an image was coming to mind, a confused and horrible image. “Electricity, was it?”

“Yeah, yeah, but normally not, you know, I mean, I did it just before her but—but, she must — she grabbed the button away from Sara and wouldn't stop pushing. Weird bitch!”

I yanked hard on the plug of hair with a grit of my teeth and through that grit said, “Where did this retreat take place?”

“San Simeon.”

“Where in San Simeon?”

“The castle.”

“The castle?”

“Hearst's Castle! They're always at Hearst's Castle!”

Hearst Castle? A state run public attraction? It didn't make sense, but it made less sense that he could make this up on the spot. In my consternation I must have increased the force of my pull on Gulden's hair, for he suddenly whispered between clenched teeth:

“Stop! Please stop! You're going to pull my hair out!”

“Yes, you're right, Gulden. I am going to pull your hair out, and it's going to hurt, but the conditions are the same. Any noise at all, any indication you are in pain, and my friend will pull the trigger. Do you understand?”

“Ye—yes.”

“Good. Then prepare yourself.”

The twirl of hair was now very tight around my finger. I pulled it with concentrated force; pulled against the resistance of the roots; pulled until my arm shook from the effort; pulled hard until the blessed relief of release came when the lock of hair separated from Gulden's scalp with a jerk, leaving behind a small patch of slightly bleeding scalp. True to the deal, Gulden made no vocalization of pain. He had only added to it by biting clean through his lower lip, right through the middle of the old sore, his badge of induction into the Communion of the Golden Arse.

“You did very good,” I said as Gulden swallowed blood and blinked away sweat and tears. “Now don't worry about infection. I have something for it.” I took out of my pocket a little plastic tube of clear liquid and unscrewed the lid. “Of course, it will also put you into a coma for quite a while. My friend who invented it, not the same friend who still has you in his sights, by the way, I have many friends with various talents—anyway, this friend amusingly calls this stuff Winkle Water, as in Van Winkle. I'm going to assume you get the literary allusion. Don't worry, you won't sleep for twenty years, only for about four weeks, or so. When you awakethe Communion of the Golden Arse will be no more, and you will be under arrest.” I squeezed the contents of the little tube into the bloody patch on his head, then leaned down and quietly said, “And by the way, Ulysses's travels were recounted in
The Odyssey
not
The Iliad
.” He looked at me with wide-eye wonder. Then the eyes began to droop. “I would wish you sweet dreams, but that would be dishonest of me.” His eyes shut. His breathing became slow but steady. I felt his pulse. It was steady as well. I positioned him on the chair so that he would not slump.

As I was leaving the party, not wanting to over stay my welcome, and as I passed the caterer's well laid out table of popular delicacies, I deposited the lock of Gulden's hair with the thin slice of scalp hanging from it, right in the middle of a plate of precisely arranged long chunks of fried zucchini.

I hate zucchini.

The next day Roee and I took the Virgin Atlantic flight 008 to London. It's a good airline, attentive to customer service, and with an uncommon sense of humor. At least I assume calling its best seats, “Upper Class,” instead of “First Class” was done with a sly wink, even if with an understanding of the obvious snob appeal, and the nose art icon painted on each plane, a sort of flying cousin to Rita Hayworth in her heyday, speaks of many things, but none of them are virginal.

We were traveling as Elsworth Henderson (me) and Charles W. Pinsker (Roee) of the law firm of Humbolt, Henderson & Pinsker. If you had done any research on this law firm you would have discovered that they are a very small, New York based firm that dealt exclusively with corporate mergers and buyouts. They were old fashioned and unassuming. They never sought publicity and, indeed, discouraged it. Yet everybody in Wall Street knew about them. Not one person could claim an actual association with this firm, but everyone seemed to know someone who knew someone who could. It's the power of the rumor.

We sat comfortably in our matching Brooks Brothers suits, shirts and ties, with our matching leather briefcases under the seats ahead of us, and we talked in matching low, serious tones about some arcane particulars of Security and Exchange Commission regulations—or so the surrounding passengers might have assumed.

“You really don't think he either urinated or defecated?” Roee asked.

“I didn't notice anything.”

“He was scared enough to. You should have seen the beads of sweat form and roll down his face.”

“He's a man of admirable control.”

“Or just anal retentive by nature.”

“You know what's going to happen now, of course?”

“What?”

“The doctors won't be able to explain it, so rumors will start of a mysterious new disease. They won't last long, of course, because they'll be no second occurrence, but as long as they do, Lapham's guests will be pretty nervous.”

“They'll wonder if it was the wine or the food.”

“No. They'll wonder if it is sexually transmitted.”

“Ah, yes. Would have been amusing to stay and watch it all.”

“Sorry, Roee. Duty calls.”

“Duty to what, exactly?”

I took a moment to think, and a quick breath to fuel the process. “I don't know. I'll get back to you,” I said, quoting our sleeping beauty.

“Do you really believe the suicide story?” Roee suddenly asked, in his irritating way of finding the flesh.

“It's hard to imagine Gulden being able to make that up while under that pressure.”