Scruples Two (48 page)

“I still think it’s indecent!”

“No way. It’s a good idea, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“But, Spider!—”

“Billy, I don’t remember how many times I’ve heard you say, ‘but Spider,’ whenever I wanted to change your arrangements. Don’t ‘but Spider’ me—as I think my mother used to say, it makes no never-mind.”

“Well, I never won an argument with you in my life,” Billy said, taking a deep breath and trying to cool down. She was too jet-lagged to stay angry. “So let’s talk about something else.”

“Let’s talk about the catalog.”

“I’m not going to do one,” she said flatly.

“I accept that. You don’t and you won’t. Why should you do anything you don’t choose to do? But I might be interested. I’d certainly like to know more about it. I wrote you that I was looking for something to get into—maybe this could be it, who knows? I have a pisspot of money to invest, a background in retailing, and, in case you don’t remember, before we met I made a living with one hell of a good eye for graphics. The thing is, if it came to anything, we’d have to have your permission to use the name of the store. Without the Scruples association it would be an uphill battle.”

“Great! Just great. You and Gigi and Sasha and Scruples.
My Scruples!
Why should I stand still for that?”

“Hey, don’t have a shit-fit right here at the table. And don’t be a dog in the manger, Billy. If you don’t want to do it, butt out, but at least give it a chance. Don’t kill this idea because you don’t like it. Unlike Scruples,
it doesn’t belong
to you
. Maybe it can’t be done, maybe it won’t work under any circumstances, but sitting there on the sacred name of Scruples like a great, big, beautiful, broody bird, guarding it like the crown jewels of England or some enormous egg you’re hatching, you’re gonna look pretty damn silly.”

“That’s a mixed metaphor, or a mixed simile, or a mixed analogy,” Billy said grumpily, after a long, sulky, thoughtful pause.

“I knew you’d listen to reason! You haven’t changed all that much, after all, Billy,” Spider said joyously. “It still takes me to explain it to you better. Waiter, bring this female another drink.”

“Josie? Yes, Josie, it’s me, I’m back. What? I know, I can hear you, come on, stop crying, there’s nothing to cry about. Josie, not only can I hear you, but I’m sure everyone in your neighborhood can hear you. That’s better.… no, I’m not in New York, I’m at the Bel Air. Look, I’ll explain why tomorrow, I’ll be home in the morning. Do you have a pencil? Oh my God, Josie, I just realized it’s almost midnight! I’m sorry, did I wake you up? Good, I’m relieved. It’s just that when I make up my mind I get kind of carried away … You’ve noticed? I guess you have. Anyway, please send Burgo over to get me around ten, maybe nine, never mind, I’ll call when I’m ready. First thing in the morning, when you wake up, call Gigi at her place and tell her to quit her terrible job and get on out here on the double with Sasha. Oh, and the catalog collection, be sure to say they should bring it with them. Send the plane for them. What do you mean, we sold it? I told you to? Damn! Well, make whatever flight arrangements are necessary, Gigi’s leg is broken—no, she’s fine, don’t worry—but be sure to send limos and look into buying another jet, we’ll need it. Maybe two. Get some prices for me. Got that? Okay. Tomorrow, start calling agencies and interviewing a staff. Yep, like before, same number of people, unless you think we need more. I’ll leave it up to you. How are the gardens? Wonderful. Now, Josie, I need to set up an office, in an office building, Century City, as close to Josh Hillman as possible. Room enough for, oh, say ten people to start with. A good-sized office for me, and you’ll be there, next to me, and another good-sized office for Spider. Well, of course, Spider Elliott, how many Spiders are there? I wouldn’t be doing it without him, would I? Doing what? I’ll tell you that tomorrow, too. Paris? I’m definitely not going back to Paris, Josie, you can count on that. No, I don’t know what I’ll do with the house, but it can’t pick itself up and run away, can it? Fax the Ritz to pack all my clothes, everything I left there, and send it all on here, air freight, and tell them they’ve finally got the Windsor Suite back and send my love and thanks to them all. Tell them they were wonderful. What else? That’s about all I can think of now. I’m so jet-lagged it’s pathetic, my mind doesn’t seem to be working right. Good night, Josie. Oh, I’m sorry you’re too excited to get a wink of sleep tonight, it’s all my fault … but you don’t think I’ll be able to sleep either, do you? We can sleep next week or something. Next month. Next year. ’Night, Josie.”

“Breaking even” were two of the most miserable words in the language, Vito Orsini thought as he prowled around his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, but he would gladly have settled for them to describe his last picture. When a picture broke even, no one made a profit, but at least they didn’t end up with a loss. His last picture had died at the box office after two weeks, and the loss would be in the millions. Thank God it hadn’t been his own money … that was a major consolation. He’d been paid two hundred thousand as his producer’s fee for a year and a half’s intensive work, lasting from preproduction through postproduction. He’d lived high on his per diems, the daily allowance everyone received during the actual production, but what little remained of his two hundred thousand wouldn’t pay for this exorbitantly expensive obligatory bungalow at this moth-eaten yet still obligatory hotel where he had to stay in order to keep up the obligatory tap dance of the unemployed, just-on-the-verge-of-the-obligatory-big-deal, about-to-ride-high-again, Oscar-winning producer, back in town to peddle another obligatorily desirable book to Curt Arvey.

“My money’s tied up in Switzerland.” That had a nice ring to it, if you weren’t worrying about the interest you were building up on every credit card you had. It would sound even better if some hard-nosed fucker—God knows who—in the business affairs department at Arvey’s studio hadn’t forced him to cross-collateralize
Mirrors
and
The WASP
so that if
Mirrors
continued to make money for his lifetime and beyond, he’d never see a penny’s profit from it.

But what the hell, Dominick’s and the hotel would still carry him for a long time. The two hundred thousand grand had almost entirely gone, vanished, disappeared, not to Zurich but for good, to pay his necessarily high-living entertainment and travel expenses—he had to keep up a successful front or retire from show business entirely—and to option a new property, a British bestseller. He’d only just managed to get the book by trading on his Oscar until he was ready to strangle the author’s agent, a canny Brit who’d held out for fifty thousand dollars up front. If the author hadn’t been in love with
Mirrors
and subtle enough to see the inspiration in
The WASP
, it would never have happened, but
Fair Play
was his, a brilliant comedy of contemporary English society that had been a huge literary success and had sold well commercially.

Curt Arvey was his first best bet for backing, Vito thought, no matter how many of the other studios in town could be interested. Always go back first to the guy who lost money on you most recently, he’s your best customer because he has the biggest interest in getting that money back. Every independent producer knew this truth that might seem odd in the real world where you’d look to find backing from a fresh sucker, not someone you still owed. Arvey would be the most anxious man in town to have Vito in his power again. More pictures had been financed out of revenge than out of love, and Arvey,
WASP
or no
WASP
, wouldn’t be immune to the opportunity for revenge combined with the profit motive.

Vito gave himself a close but unself-conscious inspection in the mirror. A piece of talent, an actor or a director, could afford to dress any way he chose, but the money man, the producer, the “suit,” had to look immaculately and expensively well tailored and impeccably groomed. He’d do, he decided, and left his room for the Polo Lounge, where Fifi Hill had invited him for lunch. Fifi had never forgotten that he owed his Best Director Oscar to Vito, and gratitude in Hollywood, with lunch thrown in, was as rare as a whore who gave green stamps.

“Good Lord, Vito’s back,” Susan Arvey said to Lynn Stockman, an occasional lunchtime companion. The two women were sitting indoors in the Polo Lounge’s main room, for only tourists were eating outside in the sunshine of a December day, underneath the flower-filled baskets that hung from every branch of an ancient tree. It was so unseasonably warm that they both wore the jackets of their suits over their shoulders. Susan, in a starkly elegant dark green suit and a simple, pale green silk blouse, looked as compellingly pretty as ever, with her hair, caught up in its smooth chignon, making all the teased and fluffed hairdos of other women look overdone. She possessed a finished, polished perfection that Lynn Stockman, for all her good looks, could only marvel at.

“Where?” Lynn asked.

“Just over there,” she said, nodding to her right at a table fifteen feet away. “Don’t catch his eye, whatever you do.”

“Susan, in this town you can’t not say hello to people because of two flops,” Lynn said, surprised. “Eli and I spend at least three nights a week eating dinner with people we’d slam the door on in any sane, civilized city, but you never know when you’ll need them again. Anyway I’ve always had a soft spot for Vito.”

Susan raised her eyebrows indifferently. Lynn was married to the head of another studio and was one of the few women in Hollywood who dared to consider herself Susan’s equal and get away with it. The lively young widow of a multimillionaire East Coast industrialist, Lynn had grown up in a world of steady, serious money that didn’t acknowledge the existence of such a local social phenomenon as Hollywood Royalty. When she’d married Eli Stockman she’d blown into Beverly Hills on a wave of natural self-confidence, assuming that she was just as good as anyone she could possibly meet, and probably better. Film society, the world’s most notoriously easy nut to crack, provided that you have the right husband, had instantly accepted her at the value she’d placed on herself.

“A soft spot for Vito?” Susan asked. “Why on earth?”

“On the whole I admire his work—forgetting the last two—Vito’s not afraid to do something different, even if it doesn’t work. He takes chances. How many people can you say that about here?”

“Why don’t you write about it for
Interview?”

“Don’t be stuffy, sweetie.
The WASP
didn’t send you over the hill to the poorhouse. What’s more, he’s terribly attractive. I always knew why Billy Ikehorn married him—pure lust. She’s back too, did you know?”

“Of course. Lying very low, however. When I called, she said she wasn’t accepting invitations for a while—too many Paris parties. Billy just wants to vegetate for a while and get over jet lag. Jet lag! She’s been back at least a week.”

“Two weeks and counting, Susan. Do you think that she and Vito might get back together?”

“Oh, please. How long do you think pure lust lasts, Lynn?”

“With Vito I’d give it three, maybe four years, and that’s against a score of six months for the average gent. There’s something so dark and alluring about him, something … hmmm.… something …”

“Flashy?” Susan Arvey snapped.

“Possibly that
is
the explanation. It’s so simple that it just never occurred to me,” Lynn said mischievously. “If I weren’t a happily married woman …”

“Good God, Lynn, why don’t you just go on over to Vito’s table and send Fifi Hill over to me? Don’t let me stand in your way.”

“I might at that, but unfortunately I have a hair appointment with Mario after lunch. I’ll bet you that Vito could … last.… longer than any shampoo and set.”

“And you might lose your bet. You’re just assuming, I trust.”

“But of course, sweetie, that goes without saying. Caesar’s wife had nothing on me. Interesting, isn’t it, that you never heard of Vito being linked to anyone except Maggie MacGregor and that was out in the open, nothing they were trying to keep secret. He’s entirely discreet about whatever he does or doesn’t do, but then men who have the greatest successes with women don’t talk about them, as a rule, do they? Just look at Warren … and wouldn’t we all like to! Billy wouldn’t have married Vito if he hadn’t been incredible in bed. He has such an intensely physical quality … but of course, a young Vittorio de Sica!”

“Lynn, honestly!”

“Oh, Susan, where’s your imagination?” Lynn teased. “Lighten up, sweetie. Just because Curt has been having dental surgery for the last three months and demanding your sympathy and constant attention, doesn’t mean you have to come all over scandalized at a spot of harmless speculation.” She laughed at Susan’s exasperated expression. “Waiter, we’re ready to order, please.”

As the two women were finishing their lunch, Fifi and Vito walked by their table and stopped to say hello.

“Sit down, both of you,” Lynn suggested. “Join us for coffee?”

“I can’t, Lynn,” Fifi said, “I’m due in a meeting in Burbank. But I wish I could.”

“I’d like that,” Vito said. The Polo Lounge was still full of people, and an invitation to join the wives of the heads of two studios was not to be declined. He sat down next to Susan, although Lynn was the one who had invited him. Susan moved away slightly, as he had expected. What an utter bitch she was. A condescending bitch who had snubbed him time and time again, a woman who hadn’t thought he’d been good enough for Billy, a woman who had actually enjoyed the flop of
The WASP
, although she thought he didn’t realize it, a woman who was going to get hers one day, whether she knew it or not.

“What’s new in your life, Vito?” Lynn asked curiously.

“I’ve bought a terrific book called
Fair Play.”

“Aha! I loved it. Eli’s English people sent it over in galleys. It isn’t out here yet.”

“If I’d waited till it was, forget it.”

“You really think there’s a film in it?”