The Boy Who Never Grew Up (32 page)

“You hear right.” I drained my beer. The sky was purple now. Lights were twinkling down the coast in Malibu. “Will you be sorry if he loses Bedford Falls?”

“I don’t concern myself with that stuff,” he responded. “I’m just an old surf bum, Buck. I ride the waves. Climb on my board, ride the big ones in, hope that there board don’t conk me in the head when I wipe out. That’s about as far as I take it.” He breathed heavily a few times in the darkness. “Maybe I’m down right now. But I’ll get back up. I’m a star. A fucking star. They can’t keep me down. They never have and they never will.” He struggled up out of his lounge chair, bones creaking. “How’s your stomach?”

“Compared to what?”

“Want to try some of my chili?”

“I would.”

“Then let’s do it. Got me some major bug killer we can wash it down with.”

“Bug killer?”

“Tequila, Buck. Only we’d better get one thing straight—Big Steve always gets the worm.”

“And who am I to stand in his way?”

It was past ten by the time I left Trancas, comfortably lit by Trace Washburn’s chili and bug killer. Trace downed three shots for every one of mine. Even pulled out a guitar and serenaded me with a somewhat diseased rendition of “I’m an Old Cowhand.” His phone rang constantly—women wanting him. At some point a pair of aging brown surfers named Rip and Corky came by with news of a party. The three of them went staggering off down the beach together. I headed back to Bedford Falls. I had business. I drove the Vette hard, enjoying the open road. I thought about Merilee and how much I wished she were riding next to me with Lulu in her lap, the wind blowing her golden hair. I wondered if she missed me. I wondered if we were through. I wondered. Bug killer does that to me.

The reporters were still on the gate. So was Shadow, sweating before the fan in his guard’s booth as he browsed through
Beyond Good and Evil
by Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche.

“I have it on good authority that the heat wave will break by morning,” I informed him solemnly.

He showed me his gold tooth. “You been out enjoying yourself some fine mash, haven’t you, sir?”

“The finest. Matthew at home?”

“Yessir. He and Shelley and Sarge be working on some preproduction details up in the main building.”

“And Bunny?” It was Bunny who was my business.

“No, sir. She still be out.”

I glanced at Grandfather’s Rolex. It was nearly midnight. “She often stay out this late?”

“She’s got her friends,” he replied, swiping at his brow with his handkerchief. “You know how it is with them widows. They play their cards, drink their coffee, gossip till all hours.”

“Does she ever stay out all night?”

He peered at me, amused. “Little bit old for you, isn’t she?”

“Idle curiosity.”

“Ain’t nothing about you that’s idle.” He folded the hanky carefully and set it aside. “She always makes it back. The Shadow’ll tell her you was asking for her.”

“Thank you, Shadow. About that coke you planted in Matthew’s bungalow at Panorama …”

His face dropped. “Yessir?”

“Who gave it to you?”

He frowned. “Gave it to me?”

“Where did it come from?”

“I bought it, sir,” he said uncomfortably. “Mr. Schlom give me the money, some five thousand dollars it was. And the name of a certain individual known to be a reliable and discreet supplier. You seem inordinately interested in that sad episode, if the Shadow may say so.”

“What was the dealer’s name?”

He took off his cap and scratched his head. “Tyrone Johnson. African-American gentleman. Preferred to call himself—”

“Shambazza.”

His eyes flickered. “Yessir.”

“He died.”

Shadow shrugged. “Happens to the best of us. And the worst.”

“Someone shot him. Not long after you bought that coke from him, actually. Did you know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t,” he said coldly. “But I’d let that particular sleeping dog lie if I was you. Might bite your hand clean off.”

“Thanks for the warning, Shadow.”

“You’re most welcome, sir. Good night.”

I drove on in, glancing at him in my rearview mirror. He was watching me. And he wasn’t showing me any gold tooth.

There were two phone messages under my door, both from Lamp. There were no messages from Merilee Nash. My bungalow was hot and stuffy. I put on the air and took a shower and slipped into my silk dressing gown. Then I padded out to the phone to call Lamp.

Only the bungalow had changed. The desk light was off, a candle flickering in its place. A leather tote bag lay on the desk, two bottles of Dom Pérignon inside, chilled. Our drink. I heard the toaster pop in the outer office. Toast meant caviar. Our favorite bedtime snack. She was here. She was really here. Heart pounding, I dashed into the other room.

She wasn’t here. It was America’s sweetie pie who stood there bribing Lulu with a wedge of Beluga-laden toast. The little mercenary won’t growl at other women when they do that.

I stood there staring at her. Because this was Pennyroyal Brim like I’d never seen her before. She had on the tiniest of black leather minidresses, strapless and skin tight. Cut very low in front, cut even lower in back. She wore black spiked heels with no stockings. Her golden hair was up. There were diamonds in her ears, some red on her lips. She looked nothing like Debbie Dale, girl next door. She looked glamorous and radiant and outrageously seductive.

“Ah, there you are,” she said, voice low and throaty, her eyes blue and innocent. “I was just getting out the ice. Care to help?”

“O
NE DOESN’T GENERALLY SERVE
Dom Pérignon on the rocks.”

“It’s not for the champagne, you silly-willy,” she said, favoring me with her sunniest smile. “It’s for me—I worked up quite some sweat getting here.”

“Shadow glad to see you?”

“I didn’t use the gate. Think I want everyone in the world to know I’m here?”

“I don’t think.”

“I parked around the corner and came through the fence like a burglar,” she revealed proudly. “There’s a break in it behind a bunch of overgrown bamboo out by the prop warehouse. It’s been there for years. Johnny showed it to me when we were making
Badger One.
He used it to slip out on his mom.”

There were two ice trays in my little freezer. I cracked the cubes into a bowl. She carried it into the other room with the caviar and toast, swaying slightly on her high heels. It was a nice kind of sway. She knew it. I knew it. She knew I knew it, and I knew she knew I knew it. Lulu followed her. All she was interested in was the caviar.

She came back with the champagne and two long-stemmed glasses. She put one bottle in the fridge. The other she handed to me. “Will you do the honors?”

“All right.”

I removed the foil and slowly worked the cork out. She drifted back into the other room. After I’d filled our glasses I joined her. She was seated on the edge of the sofa bed in front of the air conditioner, slooooowly rubbing an ice cube up and down her bare legs. They were lovely legs. Tanned, smooth, gently swelled at the calf, finely tapered at the ankle. The beads of moisture glistened on them in the candlelight.

“Shall I get you a towel?” I asked. “Or do you just want me to wipe you off with my tongue?”

“You really should do screenplays. Your dialogue’s outrageous.”

“The problem is finding someone who can say it as well as I can.”

I handed her a glass. We drank.

“Say something else witty,” she commanded airily.

“Sorry. I’ve punched out for the night.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Haven’t I?”

“No.”

She helped herself to caviar and gave some more to Lulu. Then she kicked off her shoes and sat back on the bed, pillows propped behind her, wiggling her little pink toes. She drank, watching me over her glass. I watched her watching me. Everyone, Grandfather once told me, is selling something. What was Pretty Penny selling?

“Where’s Georgie?” I asked, sampling the caviar. I wasn’t disappointed.

“He almost always sleeps through the night,” she replied. “Maria has your direct number here if he needs me. Cassie gave it to me.”

“Does Cassie know you’re here?”

“No one knows I’m here.” She cleared her throat. She seemed nervous now. Extremely so. “See, there was something more that I …” She trailed off, lit a cigarette, and pulled deeply on it. “Something I wanted to tell you this morning that I didn’t want to say in front of Cassie.”

I pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sat. “She’s your collaborator. You shouldn’t keep secrets from her.”

“Screw Cassie. Screw the book. What matters is that I lied to
you
.” She leveled her porcelain blue eyes at me. “I don’t ever want us to do that to each other.”

Outside, I heard footsteps in the courtyard. A door opened and closed. Bunny was home.

I sipped my champagne. “Go on.”

“I told you I never took Toy up on any of her invitations. You know, to meet those men?”

“And you did?”

“Once,” she said, her voice quavering. “Once was …
plenty
. She invited me to a party up at this movie big shot’s house in Trousdale. She said I’d meet a lot of important people there. Like I told you, Hoagy, I was naive.”

“You believed her.”

Her glass was empty. She held it out to me. Our fingers touched. Hers were cold. I filled her glass and handed it back to her. She was trembling.

“I expected there’d be all these cars there,” she said, gulping at her champagne. “But there weren’t—no people at all. Just Toy and this guy. She said everybody was at a screening that had run long, but they were on their way. He gave me some wine to drink and showed me around. He told me he and his wife had just separated. He seemed nice enough. I—I thought the wine tasted a little funny, but it wasn’t like I knew a whole lot about wine.”

“They drugged you?”

“I
was
the party, Hoagy. Me. Nobody else. W-When I came to I was lying spread-eagled on this bed, naked, my wrists and ankles tied by stockings to the bedposts. There was a plastic sheet under me. I’ve always remembered that. I don’t know why. Toy and this guy … they were naked, too.”

“How does Norb look with his clothes off?”

She stared at me. “How did you know it was him?”

“Wild guess.”

“She hurt me, Hoagy. She burned me. She stuck sharp things inside me. When I started to scream she stuffed my panties in my mouth. He sat there watching her do it to me and growing more and more aroused. And then … and when he was good and ready, h-he raped me. My insides … I thought they were going to burst open. It went on for hours. Just for fun, he gave it to her while he watched her use a soldering iron on me. I passed out from the pain. When I came to he was all over me again, like an animal. When he’d had his fill he p-peed all over me. Then they untied me and left me there. I-I couldn’t even move a muscle for a while. Finally, I crawled into the bathroom, bleeding, sobbing, vomiting. I washed myself as best I could, put my clothes back on. I thought about calling the police, only—”

“It would be your word against theirs,” I said. “You were there willingly. You accepted the drink.”

She nodded. “Exactly. They were sitting out there in the living room in bathrobes, friendly as can be. They even invited me to join them for a snack. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been tortured, violated, debased … and they were offering me a sandwich. He also offered me money—five hundred dollars.”

“Did you take it?”

“I earned it, didn’t I?” She said this defiantly. “Toy called me a few times after that. I just hung up on her soon as I heard her voice. Pretty soon she stopped calling. Next time I saw her, she and Norb were husband and wife. And I was Debbie Dale. She was happy to see me again. They both were. Like we were old friends. I suppose they thought we were, since the three of us had so much fun together … I’m probably one of a hundred little girls that he’s peed on. Just a coincidence that I ended up being discovered by Matthew, his former protégé …” She bit down on her lower lip. She was fighting back tears. “Anyway, now y-you know the truth, Hoagy. The whole ugly truth.” Timidly, she watched for my reaction.

“That abortion you had—Schlom wasn’t the father, was he?”

“God, no. That was all true about Craig.”

“One thing I don’t get—how can you even consider going into business with the man?”

“Better the devil you know,” she replied simply. “Face it, there’s nothing he can do to me that he hasn’t already done.”

“That’s true,” I admitted.

“You don’t think I should?”

“It’s not too late to back out.”

She shook her head. “We have a deal.”

“Which Norb would bust in a second if it suited him.”

“Maybe. But I’m not like that.”

I had some more caviar, as did Lulu. “Does Matthew know about this?” I asked, munching.

“No one knows about it. Except for Norbert and Toy, of course.”

“Why tell me?”

Her eyes shone at me in the candlelight. “I thought that was kind of obvious,” she said huskily.

I opened the other bottle of Dom Pérignon. When I returned with it she was back up on her feet, shoes on. Lulu was busy with the rest of the caviar.

“Do me a small favor?” she asked shyly, gazing up at me.

“What is it?”

“Dance with me?”

“I don’t hear any music.”

She’d brought her own. The cassette was in her tote bag. She popped it into my player. I could tell after one note what it was—Ray Charles’s version of
Georgia on My Mind
. Our song, the one we danced to over and over again that first night, when we drank up peppery vodka—and each other—at the Polish Seaman’s Club on First Avenue and Ninth Street. When we knew.

“This song belongs to Merilee,” I said, my chest aching.

“I know. I read about it in
People
. Also about the champagne and caviar.”

“There are no secrets anymore, are there?”

“Not for people like us.” She held her arms out wide. “Shall we?”

“I’m afraid not. Sacrilegious.”

“But I thought she … I mean, aren’t the two of you—?”

“We’re not through. And it’s still our song.”