Temptation (35 page)

Pause.

‘When did you visit Fleck’s island?’ she asked me.

‘Seven months ago.’

‘Didn’t you tell me he’s something of a film buff?’

‘The ultimate film collector.’

‘Who is the only person you know named Lubitsch?’

‘Ernst Lubitsch – the great film comedy director of the thirties.’

‘And only a real film buff would find it amusing to name a Cayman Island holding company after a legendary Hollywood director.’

Long silence. I said, ‘Fleck paid McCall to find something with which to destroy me?’

Alison shrugged. ‘We don’t have hard-and-fast evidence, because Fleck has covered his tracks so damn well. But the PI and I both agree: that seems to be the story.’

I sat back in the chair, thinking, thinking, thinking. The pieces of this skewed jigsaw were suddenly assembling in my head. For the past six months, I had believed that the entire appalling scenario I’d been living could be put down to the random workings of fate; the domino theory of disaster, in which one calamity triggered the next calamity which, in turn . . .

But now the realization hit: it had all been completely orchestrated, completely manipulated,
completely instigated.
To Fleck I was nothing more than a cheap-assed marionette, to be toyed with at will. He’d decided to ruin me. Like some spurious supreme being, he felt he could pull all the strings.

‘Do you know what baffles me about this whole thing?’ Alison said. ‘It’s the fact that he needed to flatten you. Like if he just wanted to buy the script with his name only on it . . . hell, I’m sure we could have come to an accommodation. Especially if the price was right. But instead, he went for your jugular, your aorta and every other major artery. Did you really make him hate you or something?’

I shrugged, thinking:
no, but his wife and I got awfully friendly
. And yet, what the hell really happened between Martha and myself? A boozy embrace, nothing more . . . and one which took place far out of view of the staff. I mean, unless there were nighttime surveillance cameras hidden in the palms . . .

Stop!
That’s a completely paranoid fantasy. Anyway, Fleck and Martha were virtually separated, weren’t they
?
So why would he even care if we got a little too affectionate down by the beach.

But he obviously
did
care – because why else do this to me?

Unless . . .
unless
 . . .

Remember the movie he insisted on showing you?
Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom
. Remember how you kept wondering, long afterwards, why he subjected you to this gruesome little experience. Remember as well his defence of the film:

‘. . .
what Pasolini was showing was fascism in its purest pre-technological form: the belief that you have the right, the
privilege to exert complete control over another being to the point of completely denying them their dignity and essential human rights; to strip them of all individuality and treat them like functional objects, to be discarded when they have out-served their capability . . .
’

Was that the point of this entire malevolent exercise
?
Did he want to act out his belief that he had ‘
the right, the privilege to exert complete control over another being
’?Did Martha factor into this equation as well – convincing him that her passing affection for me made me the obvious target for his manipulations? Or was it envy – a need to destroy someone else’s career in order to assuage his own evident lack of talent? He had such deranged amounts of money, such deranged amounts of
totality
. Surely, boredom must set in after a while. The boredom of one Rothko too many; of always drinking Cristal, and always knowing that the Gulfstream or the 767 was awaiting your next move. Did he feel it was time to see if he could transcend all those billions by doing something truly original, audacious, existentially pure? By assuming a role that only a man who had more than
everything
could assume. The ultimate creative act: Playing God.

I didn’t know the answer to this question. I didn’t care. His motivation was his motivation. All I did know was: Fleck was behind all this. He strategized my downfall like a general laying siege to a castle: attack the basic foundation, then watch the entire edifice crumble. His hand controlled all . . . and, in turn, me.

Alison spoke, snapping me out of my reverie.

‘David, are you all right?’

‘Just thinking.’

‘I know this is a lot to take in. It is pretty damn shocking.’

‘Can I ask a favor?’

‘Anything.’

‘Could you get Suzy to make Xeroxes of all the documents the PI dug up?’

‘What are you planning to do?’

‘I just need the documents . . . and that original copy of my script.’

‘This is making me nervous.’

‘You have to trust me.’

‘Give me a clue . . . ’

‘No.’

‘David, if you fuck this up . . . ’

‘Then I’ll be even more fucked than I am now. Which simply means: I have nothing to lose.’

She reached for the phone and buzzed Suzy.

‘Honey, I want you to copy everything in this file, please.’

Half an hour later, I collected the file and the script. I also made a fast smoked salmon and
schmeer
sandwich, and shoved it in my jacket pocket. Then I gave Alison a peck on the cheek and thanked her for everything.

‘Please don’t do anything stupid,’ she said.

‘If I do, you’ll be the first to know.’

I left the office. I got into my car, putting the bulging file on the seat next to me. Then I slapped the pockets of my jacket to make certain that I had my address book. I drove into West Hollywood, stopped by a bookshop, found the volume I was looking for, and continued on to a cyber café I knew from driving down Doheny too many times. I parked out front. I went inside. I sat down at a terminal and went online. I opened my address book and typed out
Martha Fleck’s e-mail address. In the space marked
From
, I typed the bookstore’s address, but deliberately failed to include my own name. Then I copied out the following lines from the book I’d just bought:

. . . and, by the way, it would be wonderful to hear from you.

Your friend,

Emily D.

I hit the send button, hoping that it was her own private e-mail address. If it wasn’t – if Fleck was watching her every move – then I was banking on the possibility that he might consider this an innocent missive from a bookshop . . . or, at the very worst, that she’d get in touch with me before he intercepted it.

I lingered for a little while in West Hollywood, drinking a latte at an outdoor café, cruising by the apartment house where Sally and I lived, thinking how quickly I had stopped longing for her . . . if, that is, I had ever longed for her at all. Since our split, she’d never once made
contact. No doubt she had put a message on our voice mail, stating: ‘David Armitage doesn’t live here anymore.’ But passing by our building, once again that fresh scab was torn away. Once again, I silently repeated that oft-heard rumination of many a middle-aged man:
what was I thinking?

And once again, I had no answers.

I accelerated out of West Hollywood, out of the city limits, and back up the coast. I reached Meredith by six. Les was behind the till. He seemed surprised to see me.

‘Don’t you like days off?’ he asked me.

‘I’m just expecting an e-mail. You didn’t notice if . . . ?’

‘Haven’t checked the damn thing all day. Go on ahead.’

So I went into the little office, and powered up the Apple Mac, and held my breath, and . . .

There it was.

An Epistle for Emily D
 . . . .

I opened it. The message read:

. . . and I think you know the poet. Just as I think you also know that this correspondent would be delighted to make your acquaintance again. But what’s with the bookshop address? I’m most intrigued. Call me on my cellphone: (917) 555.3739. Only I answer it, which makes it the best channel of communication, if you catch my drift.

Call soon.

Bestest,

The Belle of Amherst.

I shouted out to Les: ‘Mind if I use the phone?’

‘Work away,’ he said.

I shut the door and dialled the cellphone number. Martha answered. And curiously, my pulse jumped a beat or two at the sound of her voice.

‘Hi there,’ I said.

‘David? Where are you?’

‘At Books and Company in Meredith. You know Meredith?’

‘Up along the Pacific Coast Highway?’

‘The very place.’

‘You’ve bought a bookshop?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘I can imagine. Listen, I should have called you a couple of months ago, when all that crap was breaking around you. But let me say this now: what you did . . . what you were accused of . . . was such small beer. As I told Philip myself: if I had a dime for every script I’d read with a line borrowed from somewhere else . . . ’

‘. . . you’d be as rich as he is?’

‘Nobody’s that rich – bar five other people on the planet. Anyway, all I wanted to say was: I am so sorry for what you went through . . . especially all the vilification from that shit, McCall. But, at least, Philip was able to give you a nice cushion with the price he paid for the script.’

‘Right,’ I said tonelessly.

‘By the way, I love the script. It’s so smart, so
street
, and
so truly subversive. But when we meet, I want to try to talk you out of giving Philip sole writing credit . . . ’

‘Well, you know how it is . . . ’ I said.

‘I know. Philip explained your fear about the bad publicity that the film would attract if your name was attached to it. But I do want to convince him to leak the fact that you were the original author after the film’s release . . . ’

‘Only as long as the reviews are terrific.’

‘They will be – because, this time, Philip’s starting from a fantastically strong script. And you heard about Fonda and Hopper and Nicholson.’

‘It’s my dream cast.’

‘And it is so nice to hear from you, Mr Armitage. Especially as I wondered afterwards . . . ’

‘We did nothing particularly illegal.’

‘Sadly,’ she said. ‘How’s your lady friend?’

‘I have no idea. It was one of the many big things that went south when . . . ’

‘I’m sorry. And your daughter?’

‘Great,’ I said, ‘except that, since my photographed run-in with McCall, her mother has had me legally barred from seeing her . . . on the grounds that I am an unstable misfit.’

‘Oh Jesus, David, that is horrible.’

‘That it is.’

‘Well, it sounds like you need a good lunch.’

‘That would be nice. Anytime you’re ever in the Meredith area . . . ’

‘Well, I’m at our place in Malibu for a week or so.’

‘Where’s Philip?’

‘Scouting locations in Chicago. The first day of principal photography is just eight weeks away.’

‘Everything okay with you guys?’ I asked, trying to maintain the same casual, nonchalant tone.

‘For a little while, there was a pleasant interlude. But that ended rather recently. And now . . . same as it ever was, I guess.’

‘Sorry.’

‘
Comme d’habitude
 . . . ’

‘. . . as they say in Chicago.’

She laughed. ‘Listen, if you happened to be free for lunch tomorrow . . . ?’

And we agreed to meet at the bookshop at one.

As soon as I got off the phone, I came out of the office and asked Les if I could find someone to cover for me for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon.

‘Hell, it’s a Wednesday, and the town’s dead. Take the afternoon off.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

It took three Tylenol PM to knock me out that night. Before I finally succumbed to sleep, I kept hearing her say: ‘
I want to try to talk you out of giving Philip sole writing credit . . . Philip explained your fear about the bad publicity that the film would attract if your name was attached to it.
’

I now understood the ruthless logic Fleck applied to making his billions. When it came to war, he was a true artist. It was his one great talent.

She showed up promptly at one. And I have to say that she looked radiant. She was dressed simply in black jeans and a black tee shirt and a blue denim jacket. Yet despite the Lou Reed clothes, there was something so resolutely East Coast patrician about her. Maybe it was her long brown hair tied up in a bun – and the long slender neck and high
cheekbones – that put me in mind of one of those John Singer Sargent portraits of a Boston society woman, circa 1870. Or maybe it was the traditional horn-rimmed glasses she insisted on wearing. They were an ironic counterpoint to the biker chick clothes, not to mention all the money she now represented. Especially as they were the sort of frames which probably cost less than fifty bucks, and which currently had a small piece of Scotch tape holding their left side together. I understood what that wad of Scotch tape exemplified: an insistence on her own personal autonomy, and a wily intelligence which, all these months later, I still found so deeply attractive.

As she entered the shop, she looked right through me – as if I was the Dead Head clerk whom the owner employed.

‘Hi there,’ she said. ‘Is David Arm . . . ’

Then, in mid-sentence, the penny dropped.

‘David?’ she said, sounding genuinely shocked.

‘Hello, Martha.’

I was about to kiss her on the cheek, but I thought better of it and simply proffered my hand. She took it, staring at me with a mixture of bemusement and amusement.

‘That’s really you behind all that . . . ?’