After a moment’s
pause he said, “Oh, King’s Road. There’s a bar just east of Fairfax called the
Hawk. South side of the boulevard. I could meet you there.”
“All right. In
about an hour.”
“Mr. Rios?” he
began, awkwardly.
“Yes, Josh?”
“It’s a gay bar.”
Larry came up and
tapped on the phone booth.
“I’ve got to go
now,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I hung the phone up
and stepped out of the booth.
“Josh Mandel is
gay,” I told Larry as we resumed walking down the street.
“The guy who
testified against Jim?”
“The star witness,”
I replied.
*****
Monet’s was a squat
windowless building painted charcoal gray next to a porn shop. Marble steps led
up from the filthy sidewalk to double wooden doors presided over by a man in a
red jacket. He opened the door for us. Inside, at a plexiglass lectern, stood
another red jacket. A huge Motherwell hung on the wall behind him. Two halls
led off from the small foyer. The familiar sounds of a restaurant were absent.
Instead, expensive silence reigned.
“Gentlemen?” the
red jacket inquired.
“Zane party,” Larry
said.
“Very good,” he
said, just like in the movies, and summoned a third red jacket. “The Morgan
Room.”
We were led down
one of the halls. In the coppery light I saw that the walls were marble.
“What is this
place?” I asked Larry.
“A membership
restaurant,” he replied, lighting a cigarette and flicking the match to the
carpeted floor. “You come in and you’re assigned a private dining room.”
“Is the point
privacy?”
“No,” Larry said. “The
point is status.”
We came to a door.
The red jacket opened it and stepped aside to let us pass. The room looked like
the conference room of a particularly stodgy law firm; all dark paneling and
copper fixtures, Winslow Homer paintings on the walls and even brass spittoons.
There were a lot of people inside, including some of the cast members, milling
around with the provisional air of people waiting for a party to begin.
“This is going to
be business for me,” Larry said. “You mind being on your own?”
“No. I’m leaving in
about an hour anyway.”
“Come and find me
on your way out.”
I went over to one
of two tables set with food. A dark-haired waiter asked me what I’d like. All
that the various dishes had in common was that they were fashionable. There was
sushi, crepes, antipasto, pasta salads, rolled sandwiches in pita bread, crudités,
ham and smoked turkey, cheeses, and breads. I ate a bit of sushi. It wasn’t
fresh.
Beside me a woman
said, “Stick to the raw vegetables.”
I looked around. “Hello,”
I said.
The woman who had
spoken to me smiled. She had a round, pretty face. Her dark hair was streaked
with two colors, burgundy and red. She was not, perhaps, as young as she
looked. “You were in the play,” I said. “You played Edward’s wife.” “You came
in with Larry Ross,” she replied, helping herself to a radish.
“You know him?”
“Only by
reputation. He’s out of my league. Are you a lawyer, too?”
“Yes, but not that
kind.”
“Expensive?” She
bit into the radish with preternaturally white teeth.
“No, entertainment.
I practice criminal defense.”
She drew in her
cheeks a bit. “Who’s in trouble?”
“I’m not here on
business,” I replied.
“Don’t be absurd.
Everyone here’s on business. My name is Sarah.”
“Henry,” I replied.
“You were very good as Anne.”
“I hope you’re a
better lawyer than a critic,” she said, examining a piece of cauliflower.
Suddenly there was applause around the door. The Zanes entered with Sandy
Blenheim hard on their heels. As they swept past me, Irene Gentry and I caught
each other’s eyes. She seemed to smile.
“The Macbeths,”
Sarah said, dryly. She dropped the unfinished radish back on the tray and
joined the Zanes’ entourage.
I turned my
attention to Irene Gentry. In a black cocktail dress she moved across the room
like an exclamation mark. Her long hair was swept over a bare shoulder. There
were diamonds at her neck. Blenheim directed her and Tom Zane to a little group
dominated by a white-haired man in a tweed jacket who was making a big show of
lighting a meerschaum pipe. I moved closer to watch her. She laid a hand
lightly on the man’s wrist as he spoke and his shoulders seemed to inflate. Her
husband, meanwhile, had backed himself against the wall with a pretty girl.
Blenheim watched them for a moment, then broke them up and brought Zane back
into the group.
I was standing
behind the man to whom Irene Gentry was speaking. She looked past his shoulder
at me. Our eyes met and her face formed a question. A moment later she excused
herself and came over.
“I know you, don’t
I?” she asked in her famous voice.
“I wish I could say
you did, Miss Gentry.”
“My friends call me
Rennie.” She gazed at me intently and without embarrassment.
“Weren’t you the
lawyer for Jim Pears?” she asked.
“Yes. Henry Rios.
How did you know that?”
She smiled. “Sandy
was very interested in buying the rights to the story as a property for Tom.
Didn’t he approach you?”
“Yes,” I replied, “but
he didn’t say who he was working for.”
“Tom’s his biggest
client,” she said, absently.
“Well,” I replied, “I
don’t know anything about acting but your husband seems a bit old to play Jim
Pears.”
She seemed puzzled
for a moment, then laughed. “I think the idea was for Tom to play you.”
“Me?”
“The boy’s lawyer,”
she replied. “Of course, we didn’t know it was going to be you until we saw it
on the news.” She glanced around the room. “It’s odd to find you here.”
I explained that I
had come with Larry Ross.
“Oh, Larry,” she
said. “He’s our—” She looked at me, as if for help. “Who was the Greek who
carried the lamp looking for an honest man?”
“Diogenes,” I
replied, guessing that she’d known that all along.
She said, “I’m not
making fun of him, Henry. I admire him. More now than ever.”
I felt the heat
rising to my face from my neck. “I don’t understand.”
She looked at me,
tenderly. “Of course I know he’s ill,” she said. “We all know.” Her glance
swept across the room.
“He doesn’t know that.”
She laid her hand
across my wrist. “He won’t find out from me.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you enjoy the
play?” she asked, dropping her hand, her voice light.
“Toward the end,
especially.”
“Not because you
thought it was ending, I hope.” She moved a bit closer. She smelled of roses.
“Your husband
seemed to get his bearings in the second half.”
“Tom’s not a stage
actor,” she replied. “But on the whole I don’t think he did too bad a job of
it.”
“You would have
been perfect to play Anne.”
Her smile was
charming and wise. “Discretion is often the better part of marriage.”
Her skin glistened,
faintly, as if moistened by dew. I felt an overwhelming desire to touch her. I
took her hand. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not,”
she replied, but then I suppose she was used to men wanting to touch her. “Tell
me about Jim Pears. What will happen to him now?”
“The charges
against him were dismissed,” I said. “He’ll never regain consciousness.
Eventually, he’ll die.”
She studied me
silently, then said, “You have the face of a man who feels too much.”
As there was
nothing to say to this, I said nothing.
She tugged at my
hand. “Come and meet Tom.”
Tom Zane stepped
forward from the people he had been talking to and said to his wife, “You’re
trying to make me jealous. “
This close, he looked
to be in his mid-thirties. Small lines puckered the edges of his eyes and lips.
His skin, still tanned, was faintly freckled. Clusters of broken veins had
begun to surface around the edges of his nostrils, the sure sign of a drinker.
He gave off the scent of an expensive cologne. His eyes were a deep, serene
blue. Though he cast a blond’s golden glow it was diluted by his hard, false
cheerfulness.
Irene said, “Tom,
this is Henry Rios. Jim Pears’s lawyer.’’
Zane looked at me
blankly for a moment, then said, “Oh, the gay kid. Sandy talked to you.”
“Briefly.”
Zane smiled. “You’re
too good-looking to be a lawyer. You look more like a wetback gigolo.”
“I was at the play,”
I said, ignoring the comment. “Your last scenes were very moving.”
“Or maybe a
diplomat. Come on, Rennie,” he said, and took her from me.
“Join us, Henry,”
she said, as her hand slipped from my fingers.
A circle of
well-wishers formed around us and I stood at the edge of conversation as the
Zanes received them. Irene — Rennie — handled them as skillfully as a
politician and it appeared that she truly did not forget faces. Or names, or
names of spouses, children, or dogs. She told funny stories on herself and
listened to less funny stories which she made comic by her superbly timed
reactions. Now and then, she’d lift her eyes and smile at me as if we shared a
secret.
Tom Zane, on the
other hand, seemed talented only at being admired. When he wasn’t being praised
he looked off with a vague smile to the other side of the room. He drank three
glasses of champagne and was about to take a fourth when Sandy Blenheim
intercepted it. Tom surrendered the glass with a shrug. He nibbled at a plate
of food that Blenheim brought him. He seemed both bored and bewildered. I
excused myself to look for Larry.
“Don’t leave
without saying goodbye,” Rennie said.
“I won’t.”
Larry was talking
to Tony Good, the actor who had played Gaveston. Tony Good was drunk. I
complimented him on his performance.
“It’s not easy
playing against T. Z.,” he said. “He’s lousy. Who are you anyway?”
“Henry Rios,” I
said.
“Oh, yeah. Another
gay lawyer? You’re kinda cute, Henry. You gotta lover?” He reached for a glass
of champagne from a passing waiter and tipped the tray, spilling the drinks on
himself. The room was momentarily still.
“Shit,” he said. A
red jacket rushed over with a napkin and tried to dry Good’s shirt. “Never mind
the shirt,” he said. “How about another drink.”
Larry said, “You’re
drunk enough, Tony.” To me he said, “I’m going to drive him home.”
“Fine.”
“Come on, Tony,” Larry
said. “It’s time to go.”
Tony Good smiled. “Will
you tuck me in?”
“Not if you’re
still charging by the hour,” Larry replied.
“Bitch,” Tony said.
To me he said, “You come, too. We’ll make it a threesome.”
“Another time,” I
said.
“Lemme give you my
number,” Tony said.
“I’m sure Larry has
it,” I said.
“No,” Tony said. “Just
take a minute.” He scribbled a number on the back of a card that he fished out
of his pocket and shoved it at me.
“Thanks,” I said,
accepting it.
“Call me,” he
shouted as Larry hustled him out the door.
Remembering the
hangovers I got from champagne, I felt very sorry for Tony Good. I checked my
watch; I had already overstayed the hour I had allowed myself. I looked around
for Rennie to say goodbye, but neither she nor Zane were in the room. Sandy
Blenheim was standing at the bar talking to the bartender. I approached them.