Lunch (24 page)

“Give it to me,” she says, slurring her words together. “I want to hold it.” She tugs at him, then collapses in giggles.

“You want me to give it to you,” he says.

“Come on, lover boy, give it to me,” she pants, pulling off her dress, the perfect globes of her breasts beckoning as she lies back down. “I want to fuck the best actor in the world.”

“I'll give it to you,” Nick says. “I've got just what you want. An Oscar-­worthy performance for Belinda Beverley, best actress in a supporting role.”

He crawls onto the bed, the Oscar clenched in one hand, the other moving between her legs, her undulating hips, she is ready and willing, she is always ready. I see him pause, the turbulence of malicious loathing dimming his drunken blue eyes to black pools, darkness inescapable. “I'll give it to you,” he says, “since you asked for it.”

“Yes,” she says, “now. I want it I want it I want it.”

“Touch it,” he says, the Oscar nuzzling her cheek. “It's cold, isn't it? Cold and shiny.”

“Mmm, yes. Cold.” Her fingers linger lovingly on it. “Sweet. Cold and sweet.”

“Kiss it,” Nick says. “Go on, give Oscar a kiss.”

He places it gently to her lips, and she kisses it reverently.

“Kiss it again,” he says.

“No.” She is pouting. “I want to kiss you.”

“I said, kiss it again.”

Something in his voice penetrates her drunken stupor. “Oh, all right,” she says and reaches for it. She kisses it deeply, her tongue caressing, licking it like a cat, then stops. “There, are you happy? Now, c'mere.”

Nick looks at her again, sprawling on the bed, her eyes glistening with ready anticipation. He kicks off the Noconas he's worn even with his tuxedo, unhooks his cummerbund, unzips his trousers, and looms over her, a threatening shadow.

“Go on,” he says, yanking her up by both arms till she is sitting on the edge of the bed. “Kiss it.”

I cannot watch this. I open the sliding door, letting in some of the soft morning breeze to cool their heated bodies, and sit by the pool, shimmering calmly in the hazy early light, the city at my feet, the world at Nick's.

Belinda eagerly takes him in her mouth, he pushes into her roughly, she is gagging, trying to pull away, but this is how she wants it, this is Nick, and they have played this way many times before. Suddenly, he pulls away, tilts her head back farther with one hand, and brings the statue again to her lips with the other. “Kiss it,” he says. He pushes it between her lips. It hurts, the metal against her teeth, his hand buried in her hair, ruthlessly entangled, keeping her head tilted back till her eyes swim, not letting her go, the metal cracking against her teeth, she is struggling, her hands reaching for his hips, it hurts, my God, make him stop.

With a vicious twist he shoves her down onto her back, she tries to get up, screaming, to scurry away from his nastiness, but he is too quick for her addled reflexes. He pulls her under him, pinning her down, forcing his way into her hard, harder than he's ever done before, so that even she is beginning to be frightened.

When I hear her scream I come running, and then I see what they are doing. They disgust me. I shove my hands deep in my pockets and walk around the pool to the garage, to the Harleys parked outside, and sit on Nick's for a long time. It would be so simple to do what I am thinking, what I have not stopped thinking about since London, or, if I stop deluding myself, for more years than I can count. So easy, a few minutes' work, and so painless for Nick. All I need is a wrench and a pair of pliers and the will to do it.

Only you know what to do.

“You want me to give it to you,” Nick is shouting.

Belinda's mouth is on fire, she cannot speak, she is arching away, but Nick is glued to her, ruthlessly fucking, wanting to fuck her till she bleeds, wipe the smirk from those collagen-­enhanced crimson lips, fuck her, fuck them all, fuck Hollywood, fuck the world and everyone in it.

He pulls her legs up around his waist, and she responds, she can't help it, this will always be what she wants, Nick, she is moaning softly, yes, it is so easy, she is thinking, it hurts how she likes it, the sharp aching so quickly replaced with an ecstatic rush, all other pain forgotten, she is his, he can do what he will, no other woman in the world can have him now, he is mine, Nick, mine, she is gloating enraptured, mine all mine.

“Don't stop,” she says, her head lolling from side to side, her tongue thick with blood she does not feel, “don't. I want you I want you.”

“You want me?” he asks, slowing down his frenzied movement.

“You. More.”

“You want it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Give it to me,” she is panting, dizzy with longing. “Don't stop. Don't ever stop.”

“I won't,” he says. “I promise. I won't ever stop.” He pulls out, slowly, teasing her.

“Come back,” she says, her eyes closed, her cheeks rosy, her delectable body suffused with anticipation. Nick's fingers caress her, delicately, one finger probing deep inside her, she is so wet, she is dripping, more, do it again, when something hard and round, colder than Nick's finger, touches her, sliding up and down, lovely, cold and hard. It makes her laugh, at first. Cold and insistent, pushing, pushing Nick's finger away, pushing in, deep, deeper, it will not stop pushing.

“What—­?” she says, her eyes flickering open, panicked. “Stop.”

“I thought you didn't want me to stop,” Nick says, pausing briefly.

“It hurts, it's too big.” She pouts.

“You like it big.”

“Only you—­no, not this, what are you—­”

He is pushing it deeper again, she cannot make it go away, please oh please. “Stop,” she says. “Nick.”

“Shut up,” he says, slapping her face, her cracked lips, making them bleed again. “You said you wanted it, and now you can have it.”

There is nothing in her but blind panic, the weight of Nick on top of her, crushing her chest, she is screaming for real with the hideous pain of it, screaming for her life, there is blood seeping through the sheets, he is tearing her apart, breaking her body in two, he will not stop, he wants her dead, her beautiful body still, her pouting lips silenced, her struggles are more feeble, there is blood soaking through the sheets, puddling on the floor, he wants to feel her die.

Somehow I manage to pull him off, the adrenaline fueling his rage lending superhuman strength to his body, but I have the advantage of surprise, disentangling him from the murderous melody thrumming through his veins.

“You're going to kill her,” I yell, my arms around his neck in a choke hold. “Let go.”

“Good,” he yells back. “Get off me, you fuck.”

I sling him down to the carpet, blood dripping down on us from the side of the bed, blood on his fingers, wrestling, he gladly fighting to the death. I keep him pinned, bang his head once, twice on the floor, but he hardly feels it.

“Get off me,” he is still yelling. “Get off and get out, and don't ever show your fucking face to me again. Ever.”

I say nothing but remain stretched on top of him, unyielding, until, soon, his ragged breathing slows. I do not doubt his sincerity, but finally I can tell myself that what he says to me no longer matters.

“You have no idea how much I hate you,” he says, turning his head to the side just enough to spit the words at me.

I have never seen him closer, sweat dripping from my face to his, drops like tears, I have never seen such venom, sheer unadulterated malevolence shining with the true zeal of the deranged. It is not just Olivia, or Belinda, or the Oscar, or even me.

“Take care of him, M. Only you know what to do.”

Only a few hours before those eyes had shone with the unimaginable bright sheen of loving despair. Now their glow is muted, the color of the sea down deep where warm-­blooded creatures cannot dwell, only twisted blind crawling things.

I get up and lean over to Belinda to see if she is still alive. Barely. I wad up the sheets and place them between her legs to stanch the bleeding, wrap her in the blanket, and go to the phone.

Nick slowly stands, rearranging his tuxedo as if nothing has happened, his eyes glazed, oblivious. He wipes his bloody fingers on the trousers ogled by so many millions in the incomparable moment of his triumph.

“The ambulance is on its way,” I say dully, hanging up. I don't know why I'm warning him. Habit, I suppose.

We look at each other, brothers in blood, locked together, sharing the same nightmare.

His eyes clear, for only an instant, another frozen moment.

“I didn't mean it,” he says, grabbing his motorcycle jacket from the sofa and walking out, past the pool, past the blue room of stored fantasies, out to the garage. I follow him halfway, until I hear the Harley rev up, and the crunch of its tires.

I know where he is going. I know how he will get there.

There is nothing to do now but wait.

I carefully wash off the Oscar and place it on the living-­room table. I fancy I can still hear the roar of the Harley, a vibrant echo.

I hear it still, roaring as if a shell were fastened to my ear, when the paramedics, their faces ashen, take Belinda away. I hear it, so loud and merciless, when the phone rings an hour later that I cannot quite understand the shaky voice of the cop on the other end, but it doesn't matter, because I already knew what he was going to say.

 

Epilogue

H
e died instantly, the cop told me. He was speeding, a tire blew, or maybe the engine stalled, or it could have been a coyote, maybe he swerved for a coyote, a helmet would've saved him, he should have worn a helmet, the poor cop kept saying, over and over, an early-­morning mantra forged by the shocking horror of finding Nick's bloody body, limp and newly dead, the warmth receding slowly, it couldn't be him, maybe it was someone who looked just like him, yes, it was only his body double, maybe, please, it can't be true, what was Nick Muncie doing here on the dew-­slicked back roads of the hills, riding his Harley, when he'd just been on the TV, everyone saw him, winning the Oscar, everyone in the world, he should have been home in bed, celebrating, he was the best actor in the world, he should have worn his helmet, it's such a tragedy, it's unbelievable, what a waste, what a waste.

What a waste.

There were so many reporters and television crews camping outside our compound, thwarted by security, that the police had to escort me, my face hidden, inside and out, to deal with the formalities.

Only I knew the real reason Nick would never want to be buried. He left instructions for me to scatter his ashes to the wind, wherever I wanted, so I climbed up to the roof above the blue room of the pool house, the only place he'd found comfort in the last few months, and let them fly, disappearing into the hazy sunshine, little specks of gray dust dancing in the air before falling back to earth. With no grave, no crypt, no final resting place, the site of the crash became a shrine, the Père Lachaise of the back canyons, bitterly crying fans gingerly placing vivid bouquets tied with black satin ribbons near tire skid marks which remained engraved on the asphalt, dark oily scars, until the rains came.

I had never seen Nick's will, which he'd clearly revised after our return to Los Angeles, and the contents of it hit me with a stinging pang of terrible sorrow. He left the bulk of his estate to fund an organization for abused children and runaways and another large sum to set up the Porchester Square Foundation for young artists, and asked me to oversee their management and the proper dispensation of the money. A sealed envelope went to a recuperated and newly subdued Belinda, whose injuries had been overlooked in the feeding frenzy after Nick's shocking death. An enormous check and dozens of compromising photographs of her with many men besides Nick were neatly arranged inside. I was certain that the look on my face when I handed it to her and the zeroes on the check would buy her silence forever. The residuals from
Faust,
his other properties, the house, and all the possessions inside it were left to me, to be disposed of as I saw fit. Nick made a pointed note of that, his intentions perfectly clear.

The portrait went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, along with a rather large donation, and I was grateful he'd thought of that bequest. I'd handed a few king-­sized sheets to one of the cops and asked him to cover the painting as soon as we got back to the house after I identified the body, and he gladly obliged me, grateful for one tidbit of gossip he could pass along to his buddies when they sat drinking later that day, shaken and disbelieving. I couldn't look at it. Nick had thought of the bequest, I suppose, for Olivia's sake, her stature as a painter. At first the trustees balked, not being altogether familiar with Olivia's work, or perhaps thinking the painted image of such a popular star too trashy for their collections, but once the record crowds of art lovers, who wouldn't know Bronzino from Batman, came thronging to see it, snapping up the poster and the postcards and the specially printed brochure in vast quantities, they quickly changed their tune.

That would have made Nick laugh.

The house needed some minor work before I could put it on the market. I plugged the hole behind the tapestry, trying not to think of the other hole I'd erased in the flat in London. I sent all the video equipment to Jamie and the cinematographer, and took Nick's assorted toys and leather goods to the dump in a nonbiodegradable plastic bag. I methodically destroyed the neatly stacked and labeled rows of black videotapes, prying off their tops, pouring acid on the tapes, then hauling the entire load to the huge crusher in the auto graveyard in Compton, watching impassively as they were pulverized into sparkling black dust.

I never looked at any of them before they were crushed into nothingness, I couldn't bear it. I saved only one. Olivia, dressing for their last and only weekend. Olivia, an apparition in black and white with ruby lips and pale staring eyes, that provocative creature, alluring and expectantly vulnerable, terrified, stretching out her hand to the gilded mirror by the fireplace, while I stood watching, trembling, just on the other side of the wall.

T
HE HOUSE
is sold and empty, the vague senseless pattern of our days, the ties that bound us all severed, all gone, snapped clean in an instant like Nick's neck, with a sound no louder than a twig breaking under a squirrel's foot scuttling through the piney underbrush, muffled by the angry whine of gears suddenly useless, upended, wheels of his Harley spinning frantically with nowhere to go.

For the benefit of the children's foundation I organized an auction of nearly all of his things. I didn't want them near me, the specter of his clothes, neatly folded and arranged, starched and hanging mementos, their silence a heavy mocking. The auction was a media circus, a delirium of passionate bidding not only for the serious collectors astonished at the quality of his art and photographs and furniture, especially the immense Gobelin tapestry and the gleaming vase of Murano glass, but for the fans who'd flown in from all over the world, desperate for a pair of black jeans he'd worn, a poet's shirt or a white cotton T-­shirt, sixty-­five thousand dollars for a black leather motorcycle jacket similar to the one he was wearing when he died.

I kept the belt with the intricate buckle of hammered silver and the thick gold cufflinks with the odd insignia he'd had made to match his ring, the one he called the family heirloom. A ring he stole soon after our arrival in Los Angeles, the only item he was ever able to redeem from a pawnshop, buying it back because he finally had work, a real job in the business. He never took it off his finger, a weighted reminder of what he'd rather forget. His Rolex had been smashed as completely as the Harley, but the ring remained unscathed, and when a policeman at the morgue gave it to me, his face solemn and drawn, almost reverent, I got in my car and drove up the coast, a route I had taken so many times before, parked on a lonely stretch of beach, waded in the frigid surf, and threw it in, as far as I could, a golden speck disappearing into foam and rushing waves.

I kept Olivia's sketch of the flat she'd given to Nick, and the drawing of me as the Sphinx, watching the shifting sands in ageless sorrow.

I kept the earring I had found that day. I wear it on a thin silver chain around my neck, a talisman, something to hold on to.

The house is empty, the new owners impatient to move in, eager to tell the world where they are living, but I stay on, waiting for one last thing.

I
AM
sitting by the pool, a shimmering blue lagoon, when the phone rings.

“M,” she says, “is that you?”

My heart skips a beat. Olivia.

“Yes,” I say. “It's me.”

“I've been meaning to call you, but . . .”

“I understand.” I do, really.

“I keep telling myself that I should have known, that I should have felt something when he died, a shiver maybe, or
something,
but I didn't. We were already on the ship, and no one listened to the radio, and I didn't even know for weeks, and—­”

“That's as it should be,” I interrupt. “There was no connection between you anymore. It was gone. Over.”

I hear her sigh. “Do you really believe that?” she asks.

“Yes.”

There is a long pause.

“Are you okay, M?”

“Yes.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. Are you?”

“Yes, I am,” she says, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. “Time helps, and lots of work, and traveling, and a little bit of the shrink-­speak.” Her voice quavers, remembering the last time she'd used that word. I am burdened with the memory of that day as well, and keeping the silence of it. “Well, a lot of the shrink-­speak,” she adds, drawing a deep breath to steady her nerves. “But we're okay, we both are.”

“I'm glad,” I say, because I am.

There is a heavy silence.

“What are you going to do?” she asks me, finally.

“Travel.” I'm ready to go, I have been ready for ages, but I've been waiting for this, I want to tell her, waiting to hear the sound of your voice one last time before I leave this place, go far away, and disappear from the world.

Another long pause.

“Well,” she says finally, her voice shaky, “will you call me if you're ever in London?”

“Of course,” I tell her. “I'll call you. We'll have lunch.”