Steven Bochco (8 page)

CHAPTER 15

Personally, I'm not a big fan of movie premieres, or for that matter the gigantic parties that follow. For one thing, they can cost anywhere up to a million dollars, which is an insane amount of money to add to the already horribly bloated bottom line of most big-budget movies. Also, you can't even really justify the cost as part of your publicity-and-promotion campaign. The premiere itself, with all the fans, the TV cameras, the klieg lights, the paparazzi, provides the media bounce. The party after is nothing more than a self-congratulatory jerkoff. And finally, there's the simple stupidity of it. Let's face it—paying a million dollars for a party is like paying a thousand bucks for a bottle of wine in a restaurant. It may be a showy gesture, but no matter how good it is, six hours later it's still piss.

Or maybe I'm just cynical. The fact is, people in and aspiring to
be
in the industry love these parties. It's an opportunity to network on someone else's dime. It's an opportunity to hook up. It's a chance to amortize the cost of your new tits. And of course, like all industry functions, it's a chance to aggrandize yourself—i.e., to lie. I mean, how else are you supposed to get good at something if you can't practice?

I'm telling you this because I happened to attend, albeit reluctantly, the premiere of the latest Tom Hanks movie, as well as the party immediately following, in a giant tent set up a block away from the movie theater in Westwood. I was there because I represent one of the six credited writers on the movie, Bobby Newman, which is how I can tell you the next part of the story with the certainty that it's true.

But before I get to that, you're probably wondering what Bobby and I were doing together after I fired him. What happened was, a couple of days after Ramon was murdered, Bobby called me to apologize. He said he realized what a terrible pain in the ass he'd become, how he'd taken Vee's love and my friendship and support for granted, and how his drinking had pretty much killed his marriage, not to mention shut off his creative faucet. He went on to say that maybe Vee leaving and me firing him back to back was just the wake-up call he needed to get his shit together and that, finally, he was back on track. He said he was going to do everything possible to show Vee he was a changed man and that he was hoping she'd be willing to give him another chance. He also told me he'd have the Brian Grazer draft finished by the end of the week. He'd literally been working on it night and day, plus—for the first time in years—he'd gotten an idea for an original screenplay, which he thought was absolute dynamite.

When I asked him what it was about, he told me he wasn't talking; that when he talked, he didn't write, and he wasn't going to dissipate his creative focus by discussing it, even with me.

Say what you want. I've known this guy a long time, and one thing I know for sure is when he's bullshitting me and when he's not, and I heard in his voice that he's not. So I unfired him, and to tell you the truth, I'm glad. I was having second thoughts about what I'd done anyway. Not so much because I thought I was wrong, but because my timing was lousy. Here was a guy whose career was going down the tube, his wife had dumped him, and I fired him the same day.

In retrospect, I've come to believe I was piling on, so when Bobby called me sounding so genuinely optimistic about himself, I was more than happy to let us both off the hook, which is how I came to be his date at the party after the premiere of the Tom Hanks movie, which Bobby really had done some first-rate work on.

So Bobby and I are standing in line waiting to get a drink at one of the bars when he spots Linda Paulson in the company of her husband, Marv. “Linda,” Bobby shouts over the din.

She sees Bobby and smiles, not because she recognizes him—she doesn't—and not necessarily because Bobby's a good-looking guy, though he is. She smiles because when you're wandering around a two-acre tent filled with a thousand milling people (the stars, producers, director, and studio executives all have reserved seating; the rest of us basically suck hind tit) and you look like Linda Paulson (spectacular) and you're holding the fat, sweaty hand of a guy who looks like Marv (porcine), any potential distraction is worth an exploratory smile.

Dragging Marv over, she gives Bobby a big “Hi” and a kiss on the cheek, and Bobby—no stranger to the intricacies of introducing yourself to someone you don't know or who doesn't know you—says, “You look great,” and immediately sticks his hand out to Marv.

“Hi, Marv, Bobby Newman. I wrote this movie. Our wives took an acting class together.”

Brilliant. Think about it. For openers, he's telling her his name without acknowledging she didn't know it in the first place (“Hi, Marv, Bobby Newman”). But he's also identifying himself as someone with legitimate credentials, with enough stature to warrant talking to (“I wrote this movie”). Then he disarms her husband's natural suspicion of any man his wife smiles at by identifying himself as a married man whose only claim to a casual acquaintance with Linda is through his own wife (“Our wives took an acting class together”). The particular brilliance of that gambit is that Marv instantly loses interest in Bobby, and by the time he's introduced me to both of them, old Marv's looking around for someone more interesting to talk to.

Spotting a poker crony in the company of two prostitutes, Marv tells Linda to stay in line and get him a drink. “Nice to meet ya, fellas,” and he's gone, a fat, white predator heading into deeper waters, with no natural enemies in sight.

“How's your wife?” Linda asks, having no idea who she's asking about.

“Vee? She's great,” Bobby says, and now Linda has a name with which to recollect a face.

“Is she here?”

Bobby says, “I haven't seen her, but if she is, it's not with me.” Which is the last piece of the puzzle artfully presented, letting Linda know that Bobby's a player.

Within two minutes, I've become about as useful to this conversation as tits on a bull.

“I really liked the movie,” Linda says by way of complimenting Bobby on his work. “I know I should know, but what other movies have you written?”

Bobby scrolls his credits, which are numerous and impressive, and Linda knows they're legit as well, because if they weren't, Bobby wouldn't be running them for her in front of his agent.

Next thing, Bobby says, “Isn't it tragic about Ramon?” and Linda manages to get a little wet-eyed, telling Bobby how stunned and saddened she was when she heard the news. Bobby asks if she's spoken to the cops yet, and she allows as she has, given they're interviewing anyone who ever took his class.

“They've probably talked to your wife, too.”

“If they have, I wouldn't know it,” Bobby says. “In fact, Vee left me the day Ramon was murdered.” In other words, telling her he's alone but he didn't dump Vee; she dumped him.

“What a grim coincidence,” Linda says, and by now we're at the bar, Bobby's ordering Chardonnay for both of them, and I'm getting a light beer to go with the cold shoulder.

“What about Marv?” Bobby asks, referencing the drinks, and Linda says Marv'll take care of himself. And with both of them now in orbit around the twin stars of Ramon's murder and Bobby's busted marriage, Bobby needs only to take care of one more piece of business before docking maneuvers can commence. “I know a lot of the homicide detectives from Hollywood Division. Who's in charge of the case?”

“I don't know if he's in charge,” Linda says, “but I was interviewed by a Detective Farentino.”

“How's it going, did he say?” Bobby asks. “Anybody they're looking at?”

“I don't think so. At least I didn't get that impression.”

“Did you know most homicides solve within forty-eight hours or they don't solve at all?”

“Really?” And now Bobby's telling her about all the cop movies he's written and the project he's currently working on, which he'd actually love to talk to Linda about sometime, being as there's a role in it she'd be perfect for. Docking is now imminent, and actual coupling can't be far off.

“Maybe we could meet for coffee or something. I'll tell you all about it,” Bobby offers.

“I usually have lunch at the Ivy on Robertson,” Linda says, “if you'd like to get together tomorrow.”

Bobby says that'd be great, he's been craving their chicken tostada.

“It's a done deal then,” she says, shaking both our hands. And with a disarming smile she tells us she'd better go find Marv before he dumps her for a younger broad.

We watch her depart in search of Marv, looking every bit as good from the rear as from the front. “For a guy who desperately misses his wife, that was awesome,” I tell Bobby, and I mean it.

CHAPTER 16

My wife and I have always tried to teach our kids that if they don't lie, they'll never have to remember what they said. The problem is, every kid's a natural-born liar. Excluding the occasional child who turns out to be a sociopath, I guess the good news is that most of them lie because they know the difference between right and wrong, and they're so frightened of being punished that when they inevitably do wrong things, it's easier to lie than face the consequence of their misdeeds. The irony, of course, is that the consequence of lying is almost always worse than the consequence of the original sin, and the ability (or inability) of parents to teach that lesson to their children is the difference, finally, between happy and unhappy kids. And if you think there's a tougher job for parents than that, either you don't have children or you don't think lying is that big a deal. Unfortunately, in Hollywood the latter is probably truer than the former, which is why raising kids in this town is such a bitch.

I tell you this only to provide some context for Bobby's lunch with Linda at the Ivy on Robertson, a meeting freighted with lies—and their first cousin, secrets.

Linda's secret is she killed Ramon. Bobby's secret is he knows it. And almost always, at some point, secrets mutate into lies, and lies kill.

The Ivy on Robertson is a bright, crowded room with lots of tables, lots of linen, uncomfortable, quaint wooden chairs, and too many fat, cushy pillows, which slide all over the place when you try to settle into them. That said, it's an enormously popular eatery and a particular lunchtime favorite of women like Linda Paulson, who have a ton of money and an abundance of time, all cooing and clucking and air-kissing one another.

Just as you'll see the alpha-male elite powering up at the Grill, you'll see their wives and girlfriends in their parallel universe at the Ivy. And if you think there's any less power or influence on display there than at the Grill, think again. In this crowd, with the notable exception of Linda Paulson, the murder weapon of choice is the cell phone, and you can hear them ringing, chiming, and buzzing all over the room.

Linda is sitting at one of the best tables, all the way back in the left-hand corner, and when she sees Bobby enter, she smiles and waves him over.

It's one thing to look great and sexy at night in a dimly lit party tent where everyone's half-bagged. It's another thing to pull it off at high noon in the brightness of the Ivy on Robertson, and Linda Paulson does it effortlessly.

Notwithstanding Bobby's secret agenda in wanting to get to know her, she's the first woman Bobby's met since Vee left that he finds himself sexually attracted to. In part because there's good chemistry between them, but more important, because of the videotape—the one sitting in the back of his desk drawer—showing her, like a female predator, fucking her prey, then killing him. It's not the sex or even the violence so much as his secret knowledge of it, and secret knowledge is the intoxicating essence of voyeurism.

Over iced tea and salad for Linda and a chicken tostada for Bobby, the two of them sniff around each other, bullshitting and flattering each other. Obviously, Bobby's trying to get into her head, because if you're writing a movie about a woman with the balls to kill her shitbird lover, you want to have a pretty good idea of who she is and what drives her.

Bobby would love to ask her why she married a slob like Marv Paulson. He'd love to ask her why, with her looks and her money, if she's going to fuck around on Marv (and who wouldn't), why it would be with a scummer like Ramon. Maybe her taste just runs to men who treat her like shit.

For her part, Linda finds Bobby more interesting than most men she meets, because he seems to be more interested in what's on her mind than under her shirt.

Bobby grills her about her background as an actress, telling her he remembers her work. He also tells her that time has blessed her, that what was pretty a dozen years ago has matured into genuine beauty. Linda figures Bobby's blowing smoke up her ass, but she likes it. The irony is, among all the other lies, Bobby's telling her the truth on this one. Plastic surgery aside, Linda's got one of those faces that really do mature beautifully, and she's taken good enough care of herself that, at forty, she looks better than she did at thirty, and thirty was pretty goddamn good to begin with.

Finally, Bobby works his way around to asking Linda if she's heard anything more about Ramon's murder case.

“Not really,” she says, “but I got the impression from the detective who interviewed me that they don't really have a whole lot to go on, kind of like a fishing expedition, and the fish aren't biting.”

Which gives Bobby, who's written so many cop-themed scripts, a chance to trot out his writer's expertise, suggesting that in a case like this, the cops might have a lot more than they're letting on.

“Like what?” Linda asks.

“This is pure speculation on my part,” Bobby says, “but you've got your good-looking, semi–well known Latin-lover type, single, an actor, a teacher, a stud, plus I read in the paper he's done time for rape assault, which probably none of the women in his present life knew about. So if I'm a cop, I want to look at who he's sleeping with. Maybe there's a jealous husband or boyfriend, or maybe, based on his past, he's got a violent streak in him and when he gets too rough with whoever he was having sex with, she kills him in fear for her life.”

“Is that your theory of the crime?”

“I don't have one,” Bobby says. “But if I'm writing the movie, it's a better story if he's killed by a jealous husband or boyfriend than it is if it's just, say, some junkie break-in, Ramon struggles with the guy, the guy kills him, and the girl Ramon was in bed with flees.”

“If that's the case, why doesn't the girl come forward?”

Bobby shrugs. “Maybe she's married, she's got too much to lose.” And then, unable to resist the opportunity, he asks, “If it was you, for instance, would you go to the cops?”

“I see your point,” Linda says, and then, with a wicked smile, adds, “How about this? Ramon's having a three-way—which, believe me, if you knew Ramon, isn't that far-fetched—things get a little out of hand, and one or both of them kill him.”

“That's good,” Bobby says. “I didn't think of that. You oughta call the detective and run it by him.”

“I don't think the detective needs a bunch of amateur sleuths pestering him with their theories of the crime.”

“I guess not,” Bobby says, “but it's fun to speculate.”

By now, they've graduated to a nice bottle of Ferrari Carano Chardonnay, and Bobby changes the subject to how long she's been married, does she miss acting, what are her hobbies, that kind of shit.

Linda gives him the Classics Illustrated version of her life, the PG edition, if you will, and in turn, Bobby tells her the story of his breakup with Vee. He confesses how self-absorbed he was, how he drank too much, wasn't sensitive enough to his wife's career needs, with the result being he was a lousy husband who screwed up his marriage—a mistake that, if he ever gets another chance, he'll never make again.

No shrinking violet when it comes to letting men know how she feels about them, and emboldened by their newfound emotional intimacy, Linda reaches across the table and puts her hand on Bobby's wrist. “You know what I find very sexy?”

“What?”

“Honesty. I can't remember the last time I met a man as honest about himself as you are,” she says.

And if Bobby weren't thinking he's on the verge of getting laid, he would probably laugh out loud. Instead, he just drops his eyes and goes with a simple, heartfelt “Thank you.”

Another reason Linda's attracted to Bobby is that he's not sexually aggressive. He's letting her lead, she senses, because he instinctively understands she's a destination resort and that even if the journey takes a while, it'll have been worth the trip.

“I don't want to embarrass you,” she says quietly, “and I'll understand if you think I'm going too fast, but is there someplace we can go?”

Which is how they find themselves, twenty minutes later, on the deck of Bobby's house, barefoot, overlooking the canyon, with her looking through Bobby's telescope and Bobby telling her he'd love her to come up some night and watch the stars with him.

Turning away from the telescope, Linda slides into his embrace, and they kiss for the first time, tenderly, patiently, as if she has no idea that Ramon's house is a thousand yards below them in the canyon. “You have soft lips,” she says, and kisses him again.

Bobby takes her hand and leads her to his bedroom, and they make love. Having had the benefit of watching her bang Ramon as if they were both going to the chair at midnight, Bobby goes the other way, slow and gentle, in no particular rush to get them there but enjoying the rush when they do . . .