Steven Bochco (12 page)

CHAPTER 21

The difference between a great athlete and a merely average one is, the great athlete
sees
better than the average athlete. For the athlete so gifted, the game slows down. The ball looks bigger. And while everyone else is rushing, lunging, or overreacting, the great ones are lying back, seeing the whole field, letting the game come to them.

A great detective essentially does the same thing. And because Dennis is a great detective, he instinctively knows several things. He knows, for instance, that whoever killed Ramon isn't a flight risk. He also knows that whoever killed Ramon isn't likely to kill anyone else. And finally, he knows that Bobby Newman is the key to unraveling the mystery and that if he's patient—if he lets the game come to him, in other words—the pieces of the puzzle will come together and the big picture will reveal itself. It's sort of like painting by numbers, except you have to figure out which numbers go where before you can apply the colors.

Which is why Dennis, off Bobby's inadvertent slip regarding specific knowledge of the murder weapon, has been staked out across the street from Bobby's house for the last couple of hours, and before that at the Ivy as well, watching and waiting. And when the front door opens to reveal Linda and Bobby, he watches them embrace and kiss, without question lovers.

Linda hurries to her car and drives off, Bobby closes the door, and Dennis counts to ten slowly before driving off too, pleased the game is finally beginning to come his way.

CHAPTER 22

Bobby spends the remainder of the day writing, takes a dinner break, then goes back to writing until well past midnight before turning in for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, a welcome change from the nights he'd sleep two or three hours, wake up with a pounding headache, then doze fitfully on and off until daylight.

The next morning, Bobby showers, shaves, puts on a fresh pair of jeans with a clean white shirt, and checks himself out in the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door, liking what he sees. He realizes that for a guy heading out to meet his wife and her divorce attorney for a preliminary settlement conference, he's happier than he's been in a very long time. He's working again, his relationship with Dennis—which he initiated under, let's face it, false pretenses—has become something more like a genuine friendship (which may become unexpectedly profitable for both of them),
and
he's having an affair with a gorgeous woman, who makes him feel sexy and attractive again.

This is not to suggest that Bobby doesn't miss Vee. In point of fact Bobby misses her a lot, and the reason he's not showing up at this meeting with his own attorney is not just that he doesn't want to give Vee half of everything he's earned since they got married. He also continues to hold out some hope that given his rejuvenated state, Vee will want to give the marriage another chance. But you know how just when you start thinking you're really on a roll life suddenly kicks you right in the ass, just to let your Secret Self know that you really
are
the worthless piece of shit you've always tried to talk yourself out of believing you are?

Well, that's what happens to Bobby when he goes to meet with Vee and her lawyer, Howard Bornstein, a loathsome, smug little weasel with a bad hairpiece—redundant, I realize. (What is it with these guys anyway? Do they think people can't tell that the thing slapped on top of their head isn't real? Do they think it somehow makes them more attractive to women? More successful in business? Jesus Christ, they'd be ugly if they had
real
hair. Then again, who knows? Maybe they look in the mirror and say to themselves, “Goddamn, you look great.”)

In any event, the first thing out of Vee is “Where's your lawyer?”

“How about, ‘Hello, Bobby, nice to see you, Bobby, how are you, Bobby,'
then
‘Where's your lawyer?' “ Bobby says, trying not to sound too pissed off too soon.

Fat chance of that.

Now Howard the weasel says, “Mr. Newman, it's my experience that usually, when one of the parties to a divorce shows up without their attorney, there's a reluctance to deal forthrightly with the reality of the situation.”

To which Bobby says, “The reality of the situation, at least for me, is that I'd like a chance to get my wife back.”

“Howard, I'm not going to sit here and put up with this,” says Vee. “Would you please tell him that he's not going to get his wife back, his wife has left the building and wants a divorce, and nothing he says or does is going to change that?”

“Goddamnit, Vee, don't talk to him like I'm not in the fucking room! We were married for six years. We
loved
each other. I
still
love you. Look at me!”

“Mr. Newman,” the weasel says, trying to regain control of the room. “Your wife has made it very clear she has no interest in a reconciliation. So if you really do love her, you'll leave now, retain counsel for yourself, and reschedule this meeting at a later date.”

“Mr. Bornstein,” Bobby says very politely, “shut up and kiss my ass.” Then, to Vee: “I'm writing again. I've cleaned up my act drinking-wise. I sold a pitch to New Line. I'm working on an original screenplay that's really good. I have an HBO project in the works. I admit I was a pain in the balls there for a while, but that's over with, I swear. All I'm asking for is a chance. I'll even go to therapy.”

“No,” says Vee. “How many languages do I have to say ‘it's over' in?”

“How many languages do I have to say ‘I love you' in?” Bobby asks. “Even if you have fucked around on me and treated me like a piece of shit, which maybe I deserved, the point is, things have changed.
I've
changed.”

“That's good. I'm glad for you. But I've changed, too. I don't love you anymore. I just want to get a divorce now and move on with my life.”

“Just like that.”

Now Vee starts to get emotional. “Not
just like that.
After six years. After trying, after
begging
you to get therapy. After the drinking, after the mood swings, after the belittling, after waiting patiently, hoping you'd snap out of it, hoping you'd start treating me like a woman again instead of a
thing
walking around in your house—you'd have treated a stranger better than you treated me! I want my life back, Bobby. I want to be with someone who cares about me, supports me, encourages me! Someone who wants to share a life with me!”

“Does Jared fucking Axelrod want to share a life with you? Is he dumping his wife for you? Now that you're out there on your own, not having to sneak around behind your husband's back, is he still returning your calls? Is he still throwing a hump into you every day at the Peninsula Hotel?”

“You're
such
a loser,” Vee spits at him. “You'll always be a loser!”

“Hey, I'm not the one living in some shitty Hollywood apartment waiting for my married boyfriend to call.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Vee shouts, and storms out of the conference room, leaving Bobby for the second (and, you better believe it, last) time.

The door slams like a rifle shot, but Bornstein is unfazed. “Get an attorney, Mr. Newman. Have him call me.” And he gathers up his papers and exits, leaving Bobby alone in the conference room.

Bobby chases him out into the reception area. “I wouldn't be surprised if you're throwing a hump into her too, you rat-headed little prick!” he shouts at the guy's back, and the receptionist at the front desk has to duck her head under the desk so that no one will see her laughing her ass off.

So much for the settlement conference.

Back home, and for the first time since the night of Ramon's murder, Bobby slips the tape of Vee and Ramon into the VCR and watches it obsessively, over and over. Jealous rage consumes him like a grease fire, helping to cook an idea that has taken hold in his mind like a fast-spreading cancer, until the idea finally hatches, giving birth to a full-fledged plan.

What Bobby does next you can probably chalk up to a desire for revenge against a woman he believes has humiliated and belittled him. You can also chalk it up to having about five scotches and getting shit-faced, because if he's anywhere
near
sober, he never pulls this kind of stunt to begin with. But hey.

CHAPTER 23

I'm probably on shaky ground trying to identify the human condition based on my own less than extensive observations over the course of my time on the planet. That said, my guess is that secrets and their attendant shame tend to determine the basic formation of our character and are, by and large, why shrinks make such a good living. Some people feel powerful holding on to secrets, but I think most of us are ashamed of them.

In the privacy of your own mind, think about your trunk full of secrets, dating back as far as earliest childhood, when you wet the bed. Or later, when you stole money from your folks. Or locked yourself in the can to spank your monkey. Or took the family car without permission.

How about the first time you had sex? If you're looking for a petri dish of secrets in which to breed a little shame and guilt, look no further.

By the time we reach adulthood, we're freighted with so many secrets we can barely keep track of them, or the lies that surround them like so many sentries. You're gay. You're impotent. You have herpes. You're screwing your trainer. Or your husband's boss. Or your wife's best friend. You're a drunk. A degenerate gambler. You've stolen from the company you work for.

A lot of people think it takes courage to confess one's secrets. Personally, I've always felt it takes more courage
not
to confess. People usually confess stuff because their secrets weigh too heavily, and rather than do the hard work of changing, so they'll never behave that way again, they spill their guts, hoping to be forgiven so they can fill up their tank with more guilty secrets.

Where's the courage, for instance, in telling your wife you got your cock sucked by two whores at a business convention? Or telling her you're fucking your secretary? (It's not like telling your priest, who, from what I read of late, has his own issues with secrecy.)

Your wife, if you're lucky, may not beat your brains out forever, but I promise she'll never let you up (or trust you ever again) completely. Which doesn't mean she may not have secrets of her own (she probably does). It just means she has the courage to keep them to herself.

My first marriage was like a training bra. Not very sexy, but it held us up until we grew out of it. Along the way, my ex-wife screwed around a little, I screwed around a little, and we both made the mistake of confessing our affairs to each other, as if that would wipe the slate clean. A couple of miserable years later, we threw in the towel.

My current wife, of sixteen years (two great kids, so far so good, knock on wood and spit three times), and I have no particular secrets (at least none that I know of), but you know what? I don't want to hear what she did or whom she did it with before we were married, and vice versa. Who needs the snapshots?

I think I said earlier that my wife and I always tried to teach our kids not to lie, the reward for which being, among other things, that you never have to remember what you said. But it's naÏve to think that by the time you teach it to them they don't already have more secrets than they know what to do with, or that they don't think you're a hypocrite for lecturing them on something you're not capable of yourself.

In my experience, what takes the most courage of all is to genuinely forgive, particularly someone you love, and find it in your heart to reinvest the trust that's been embezzled from your account.

I say all this because every rare once in a while, these are issues that resonate on a first date. Most first dates are sparring sessions. A man and a woman feel each other out, tell each other their well-practiced lies, and generally decide whether it's worth it to go somewhere and fuck. People do it all the time. They do it because they're lonely, bored, full of self-loathing, or sometimes just too insecure to say no. But rarely do they do it because they're mutually, genuinely attracted to each other. On those rare occasions, when there's real potential for alchemy, the magic of chemistry and compatibility between a man and a woman, things usually slow down. The couple knows instinctively that there's more at stake, hence more to lose, by going too quickly.

With all this in mind, consciously or unconsciously, Dennis and Vee are on their first date, having dinner at a restaurant called Chianti, on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. And almost from the start there's a little magic between them (chalk it up to those pesky pheromones), and a feeling on both their parts that they want to treat each other with a little extra care. Which means that while Vee sanitizes her life story for Dennis's benefit, she doesn't try to pretend she's a virgin. At thirty-two, even accounting for her six years with Bobby, she's had a life she's more or less unashamed of.

But she does have her secrets. She can live with her stupid one-nighter with Ramon, partly because it was just about sex, but mostly because he's dead and it won't come back to bite her. Her affair with Axelrod is another matter. It's not about love or the sex, which pretty much is what it is, but more about his power and her need to access it; also, he's married (as was she), which makes it a guilty pleasure and a shameful secret. And she'll admit, if only to herself, that the reason she went off on Bobby this afternoon in her lawyer's office is that he was right. Axelrod
is
a prick. He was using her, and now that she's left her husband, suddenly her phone calls aren't being returned and those afternoons at the Peninsula are a thing of the past.

What she does tell Dennis about is her childhood growing up in Pittsburgh, her two years at Carnegie-Mellon in the theater department, her career ups and downs, and her marriage ups and downs with Bobby, which, for the last couple of years, were mainly downs. She says she hasn't lost a moment's sleep over her decision to leave the marriage, and as much as she'll always care for Bobby, that part of her life is behind her. This by way of letting Dennis know that she's not some miserable, rebounding broad looking to get distracted by a fling with a good-looking homicide detective.

As for Dennis, he's a professional custodian of secrets, his own and others'. (You wouldn't believe the things people have confessed to him: rapes, murders, torture killings, beheadings. One man calmly told Dennis how he'd cut off the hands, the feet, and the head of his homosexual lover, then sat the naked torso in a chair with its head facedown in its lap, its hands and feet neatly displayed on the floor below. Then, so relieved to have unburdened himself of his secret, he fell asleep right there at the interrogation table.)

That said, he's probably more candid with Vee than he's been with any woman he can remember. Of course, he doesn't tell her about his relationship with Bobby. Nor does he tell her about Bobby's affair with Linda Paulson. And you better believe he doesn't say anything regarding the fact that her (soon to be ex-) husband is the key to puzzling out Ramon's murder, he's just not sure how yet.

What he
does
tell her (honestly) is that from the moment he saw her picture, he wanted to meet her, and from the moment he met her he wanted to be with her, not as a euphemism for sex, but literally, as in
be
with her: sit with her, talk to her, get to know her, share stuff with her, watch her laugh, enjoy looking at her. He tells her about his two failed marriages, admitting that their failure was pretty much his fault. He was just no good at it, he says, any more than he was at a subsequent series of casual romances that went nowhere because, among other reasons, the women always seemed to think Dennis needed a little changing here and there. “In fact,” he tells Vee, “listening to myself talk, you might want to change your phone number after tonight.”

Vee laughs, then tells Dennis not to worry. “I like you just the way you are. I was disappointed when you didn't call and excited when you did. I like your eyes, I like that you're a cop—don't ask me why, I don't know yet—and I'm not going to try to change anything about you. I'm also not going to sleep with you tonight, because I like you enough that I want to go slow.”

“Sort of let the game come to us,” Dennis says, hoping Vee knows what the hell he's talking about.

“Exactly,” she says, giving him that smile that puts a little ache in him he never thought he'd feel again.

The rest of dinner is a happy mix of good wine, good food, and the discovery that you're with someone you feel you've known forever, even though this is your first time together.

In the car, on the way back to Vee's apartment, Dennis pulls over to the curb suddenly and puts the car in park. “Listen, can I say something to you?”

Vee turns and looks at him.

“I want to see you again. Tomorrow, if I can. And the day after that. And I'm okay with the no-sex-right-away thing. We'll get to that when we get to it. But I want to kiss you, if it's all right, and I figured I'd do it now so we wouldn't have to dance around it when we get back to your place.”

Vee slides into his arms, and they kiss. We've all experienced that kiss, so I don't need to describe it, except to say it seems to last forever, it's over too soon, and you know the moment your lips meet that you've set sail on a great adventure, with a warm, sweet-scented, intoxicating wind at your back.