Authors: Joe Keenan
On reaching home we’d found our machine predictably crowded with messages. Peppered among the expected eruptions from Stephen,
Moira, and Sonia were several calls from high-powered attorneys, household names all, cursing our names and demanding we come
to Diana’s the next morning to debrief them on our disastrous dealings with Rex and Rusty.
The sole welcome call that night came from Monty, who informed us that the police had failed to find the DVD. They had, however,
seized a sizable stash of male erotica and an address book containing a three-page addendum embarrassingly headed “Monty’s
Joy Boys.” They’d also taken Lily’s memoirs and our script for
Amelia,
which meant that in addition to pandering and extortion I could now be charged with impersonating a screenwriter.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
G
ILBERT,
Monty, and I traveled to Diana’s to meet with her, Stephen, Moira, Sonia, and the august array of legal piranhas they’d retained
for their defense. I’ll spare you a lengthy account of that heated conclave. You know the aggrieved parties well by now. You’ve
seen them in similar circumstances and observed their grace and good humor under pressure. You can readily imagine their response
to our trio’s story, especially Monty’s confession that he’d screened his prize disk for a petulant gossip with a lifelong
hatred of Stephen and his own talk show.
I’d presumed going in that my many previous excoriations had inured me to their invective, but the severity of this latest
crisis was such that even their most vicious past reprimands seemed by comparison like coy rebukes delivered in baby talk.
They rabidly demanded that Monty surrender his disk to them, as the police knew he had it and he’d proved himself too blithering
a dolt to be entrusted with its safekeeping. Monty refused, prompting such frenzied vituperation that I was relieved when
we were interrupted by a call from the DA.
Stephen’s lawyer took the call. Grimes informed him that he wanted all of us who’d been at the spa that fateful day to report
to his office tomorrow at noon. The lawyer naturally protested. Stephen and his family had been charged with no crime and
would only answer questions in the privacy of their homes. Grimes said he understood the family’s shyness but would be most
grateful if they’d attend anyway. He would show his thanks by keeping the meeting strictly “hushhush” and by doing all within
his power to ensure that no one in his office leaked the contents of Rex’s tape to the media. The threat could not have been
plainer; either Stephen would acquiesce or news of his tryst with Oscar would be broadcast from here to Micronesia.
This ploy prompted several thousand dollars’ worth of bluster from the attorneys, and Moira, with staggering chutzpah, decried
it as “nothing short of blackmail!” There was much talk about strategy and gag orders, but judging from Stephen’s thousand-yard
stare the only gag orders he was thinking of were the ones Leno and Jon Stewart would shortly be issuing to their writing
staffs. His voice cracking, he said he’d do as Grimes asked, then fled before his humiliating tears could commence flowing.
We were dismissed shortly thereafter, the assembled agreeing that there were no names left to call us.
There’s no more joyless way to spend a morning than to sit contemplating jail while being energetically reviled by men who’d
had no trouble finding nice things to say about O. J. Simpson. By the time Gilbert and I reached home we felt like two hydrants
in unfortunate proximity to a kennel, and the messages waiting on our machine did little to cheer us. The first was from Hank,
offering directions to his brother’s office and advising promptness. The second was from Billy.
“If you’re there, pick up! Please, please pick up! How come Rex showed an old rerun last night? Who the hell’s Tippi Hedren?
And what happened with you guys and my dad at Vici? He won’t tell me a thing! Please call me! I really want to know what’s
going on.”
“Don’t we all?” came a voice behind us.
We turned, startled, and there in the doorway stood Claire, bathed in radiant sunlight, her simple white blouse perfectly
setting off her newly acquired coat of bronze. Gilbert and I, like that fellow in
Angels in America,
were caught completely off guard by this unscheduled manifestation and could only stand dumbstruck, gaping at her effulgence.
She repeated the question, raising her voice slightly so as to be heard over the heavenly trumpets.
“What on earth is going on?”
“Claire!”
“Thank God you’re here!”
“We need you!”
“We’re in terrible terrible trouble!”
She said she’d gathered as much from the message on her machine ordering her to appear at the DA’s office tomorrow.
“He wants you too?” I said, elated. “That’s fantastic!”
“Oh, yes! Just peachy!”
I explained I was merely glad she’d be there, batting for the home team. I assured her she had nothing personally to fear
and had only been summoned because she was on the sex tape.
“Yikes! Don’t tell me the DA’s gotten hold of
that?!
”
“No,” said Gilbert, “but it’s almost as bad. He got an audio copy from Rex Bajour.”
“Rex Bajour?”
“Tiny fellow? Talk show host?”
“You’re losing me.”
Wearily seating herself, she called for strong tea and a comprehensive summary of all that had occurred in her absence, plus
anything prior that we’d kept from her. She stressed that we were to omit no detail, however insignificant we deemed it.
“Right-o!” I said, thrilled to think that peerless brain would soon be exerting itself in service to our salvation. As I hastened
to the kitchen to put the kettle on, I could just barely hear Gilbert’s low confidential murmur as he started in without me.
“It was all going along just fine... then Philip had this
asinine
idea that I dress up as a cop!”
W
E TOLD HER EVERYTHING.
It took a while but when we’d finished there was no detail recorded in these pages of which Claire was not now cognizant.
She tried at first to listen with a calm nonjudgmental expression but this soon gave way to a wince of pained astonishment
such as an unworldly village priest might wear while hearing Mick Jagger’s confession.
“So?” I asked meekly when I’d reached the shaming conclusion.
“So
what?
”
“What do you think?” said Gilbert.
“What does it matter what I think? The only person whose opinion counts now is the DA and he thinks you’re guilty as sin.
Not that you’ve given him much cause to doubt it.”
“I know,” I groveled. “We just thought that, y’know, seeing as you’ve helped us out of jams before, you might —”
“Jams?!” she repeated incredulously. “
Jams?
I have news for you, me boyo — this is not a JAM! Nor is it a scrape, a spot, or a pickle! This is doom, you idiot! This
is game over! This is orange fucking jumpsuits! How could you possibly have been so stupid as to take money for the
Amelia
script when you knew Stephen was blackmailed into buying it?! And YOU!” she roared at Gilbert. “It wasn’t witless enough
to go impersonating an officer? You had to use the DA’s brother’s actual name?!”
“It was my whole way into the character!”
“Look, we fucked up. We
know
that. We’re just looking for a little advice ’cause we thought—”
“I know what you thought,” snapped Claire. “You thought I was going to waltz in, wave my wand, and make everything right—and
after all you’ve put me through! Well, I’m sorry —I haven’t the tiniest idea how to help you out of this mess! I’d advise
you to hire the best lawyers in town but they’ve already been hired by Moira and Stephen to save their asses while no doubt
selling yours up the river. I’ll vouch for you in court, though God knows what my word will be worth once the
Casablanca
business comes out. And thank you, by the way, for ensuring that the word ‘plagiarist’ will be manacled to my name for the
rest of my miserable life! Thank you for that!”
“I’m sorry,” I sniveled and my lower lip began to tremble, a sign that a full-blown Cowardly Lion blubberfest was mere seconds
away. Seeing this, Claire rolled her eyes but softened her tone.
“Calm down, you big baby. You’re not the ones Moira and Stephen’s attack dogs will be ripping apart tomorrow.”
“We’re not?” Gilbert said hopefully.
“I doubt it. They’ll be too busy demolishing Rex. They’ll claim his tape’s a forgery. They’ll say there was no prostitution,
no Oscar, and no extortion—Rex made it all up because he hates Stephen. Or for publicity. If I know Moira she’ll claim Rex
tried to blackmail
them
with his ‘fake’ tape, then when they refused to pay he ran to the police out of spite.”
“But what if Grimes doesn’t buy it?” I asked. “What if he knows they’re lying and goes public with the tape?”
“Well,” said Claire, sighing mightily, “then all bets are off. When this thing breaks there’ll be a media circus like none
you’ve ever seen. People crawling out of the woodwork to cop pleas or make a quick buck on their stories. I mean, God, think
how Oscar will clean up if he can avoid jail while doing it. Do you know who he is?”
I said that according to Moira he was a young beauty named Kurt who was now, thank God, residing in Paris, having met a French
banker and traded his gilded costume in for an even more impressively gilded cage.
“And you think they won’t hear about this in France?” She finished her tea and rose. “Well, isn’t this the perfect end to
a lovely vacation?”
We followed her to the door like anxious toddlers fretful over Mother’s departure.
“Any thoughts?” pleaded Gilbert.
“Yes, but they all involve return flights to San Francisco.”
“But you’ll think about it?” I asked plaintively.
“Do you imagine I’ll be able to think of anything else? Just don’t, please, count on me to get your necks out of the noose
this time, because at the moment I don’t even know where to start.”
“But you’ll think about it?” I bleated.
“Yes! And for God’s sake, get some lawyers!”
“Right,” said Gilbert.
“And you’ll think about it?”
“Goodbye!”
She left and the fragile glow of hope she’d brought with her vanished as well. At this point our rescue did seem a tall order
even for a girl of Claire’s prodigious intellect. And did we even deserve her help after the grief we’d caused her? I realized
with a stab of shame that we hadn’t even thought to ask how things had gone with her new beau. I bemoaned this lapse to Gilbert,
who couldn’t hear me over the blender.
The afternoon yawned unpleasantly ahead and I couldn’t imagine how to fill it. Gilbert, as is his custom in times of great
turmoil, suggested we go shopping, and this was how we came to find ourselves at the bar at Neiman Marcus, sipping martinis
while wistfully ogling the neckwear salesman. We each bought two pairs of Italian loafers that we agreed would make us the
envy of the cell block. Then we drove home, Gilbert’s silence en route that of a man realizing for the first time that there
are some problems in life even Prada can’t solve.
N
OT ALL OF US SUMMONED
to face the DA passed the wait as Gilbert and I did, paralyzed with dread. Stephen surely did, as well as his family, and
even Moira, I’m sure, passed the time chain-smoking while rereading her copy of
Absconding Made Simple.
Lily, by contrast, felt only the highest dudgeon that Grimes had forced her to fly home in the middle of her East Coast press
tour, canceling three talk show appearances.
“The nerve of the man!” she fumed, sweeping grandly in as Monty, Gilbert, and I were finishing a last supper of Chinese takeout.
“Who does he think he is?! Ordering people about with no regard whatsoever for Regis or Kelly, not to mention their poor disappointed
audience! And what’s all this nonsense about criminal charges!”
“Well,” Monty said gingerly, “the police seem to think that the time we all collided at the spa—here, have some wine, love
—that Stephen got a bit frisky with a masseur and Moira got it on tape and that’s why they’re partners.”
“
No!
” said Lily, agog. Her fascination gave way to a puzzled frown. “But what on earth has that to do with us?!”
Monty outlined the DA’s curious theory that he and Lily had somehow obtained this compromising footage and used it to compel
Stephen to make
Amelia.
Lily stared a moment, aghast, then threw back her head and howled with mirth.
“Dear lord! I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life! As if we’d need to
force
anyone to buy a script that brilliant! It’s just too ridiculous! Though offensive too, when you think of it. Mrs. Clinton
will hear about this! We met in the
Today
show greenroom and we’re very close now.”
Lily, exhausted from her flight, retired. The rest of us were less eager for sleep, which would only hasten the arrival of
morning. We stayed up till past three watching old movies, drinking far too much wine, and wondering how we’d come to so desolate
a pass.
“Funny thing,” sighed Monty. “You try to do a good turn for your big sister and look what it gets you.”
“Your heart was inna right place,” consoled Gilbert.
“It generally is,” said Monty. “It was nice to want to give her something. Where I went wrong was trying to make it a career.”
“Zackly.”
“I should have stayed more in the scarf area.”
“There’s still Claire,” I said, though when I’d last spoken to her at ten she’d declared herself still stymied.
“This Claire,” inquired Monty, “she has a hat, you say, and is skilled at the timely production of rabbits?”
“Not this time,” prophesied Gilbert. “We’re doomed.”
I declared my staunch faith in Claire, and Monty suggested we drink to her, which we concurred was an excellent idea.
“To Claire,” said Monty, reaching for the wine bottle.
“To Claire!”
“Oops. Sorry, lads, I’ll open another.”