West of Paradise (31 page)

Peer pressure among the young to wear all the right clothes and use designer drugs had been present in the district for decades, along with the reputation for having the finest public schools in the country. Parents had long gone to great trouble and expense, sacrificing and often spending almost everything they had, to be able to live in a neighborhood that would allow their children to go to those schools for free.

With the fall of the Shah of Iran, real estate values peaked in the area, as well-behaved hordes of the Shah's friends, allies, ministers, retinue, and relatives, fleeing the Ayatollah, moved there and bought houses at inflated prices. As such a large percentage of the children spoke only Farsi, the language was introduced into the Beverly Hills school system, classes taught in it, and teachers engaged to bridge the two tongues and cultures.

By the time Richie Harnoun reached high school age, almost everybody had become assimilated, the first language of the children, in school at least, being English. In fact, the two cultures had overlapped so completely that the anguishes of Iranian adolescents had become exactly the same as those of native Angeleans. So Richie dressed as his buddies dressed, had felt bad as a little kid when his shoes weren't from Harry Harris, and felt bad now as a teenager when he couldn't shop on Rodeo Drive. His father, who'd been the young minister of law in Ishfahan, had studied for and passed the California bar, become a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, and tried to teach Richie real values when he had time.

But along with the cultural habits of the locals, the foreigners had adopted their priorities, and success in business always came first. So Richie's father was very busy, his mother had become quite social, his brothers and sisters were all going about their own affairs. Nobody but the maid went into Richie's room, and her job was only to clean. Her job became easier as the clutter of TV, CD players, amps, and speakers, complex electronic and computer equipment his parents had given him to keep up with schoolwork, disappeared. The maid never spoke of the equipment vanishing, the loss meaning nothing to her. The only meaningful loss was some of the mother's jewelry, for which the maid was blamed. In spite of her pleas of innocence, she was fired.

The little E tabs, the Ecstasy passed around in clubs, cost three hundred a pop; everyone knew the price of good cocaine. The problem for Richie, now that the maid was gone and there was no one to take the rap, was where the money would come from. It was in such a quandary that his eye had fallen on the article about Arthur Finster in
Beverly Hills 213,
which his mother read as though it held the truth of the Koran, even though the name alone misrepresented, the area code having changed to 310.

There had been a picture of Arthur along with the piece on him. He had not made the glossy status of the shining couple on the cover, usually people in their sixties who looked thirty-five. But Richie recognized him as soon as he came to the field, waited till his side was at bat to approach him.

“Mr. Finster?”

The whitish gray eyes looked absolutely firelit, they were so filled with excitement. “You Richie?”

“Uh-huh. I'm next at bat. Anyway, we better not try to talk while everyone's here.”

They waited until practice was over to meet, sitting in the bleachers. “You got a great throwing arm,” Arthur said.

“You really think so?” asked Richie. It had been a long time since his father came to a game. Although his mother usually attended and sat with the other women cheering, it wasn't the same as a man's recognizing what you had.

“A great arm. I would've liked to be an athlete myself, but I chose the life of the mind.”

“I've read your books,” said Richie.

“Yeah, well oftentimes you can't put your money where your mind is.”

“I really liked them. Especially the one that the whores wrote. My mother hid it in the maid's toilet, but I found it.”

“Good for you,” Arthur said. “Now about your idea…”

“I know them all. All the kids whose parents are buddies with O.J. Or used to be. And they all have stories.”

“When can we get together?” Arthur said eagerly.

“Well, first we have to hammer out a deal,” said Richie.

“I need to be sure you really have something to sell.”

“The bag with the knife and the clothes. I know where it went.”

“Yes?” asked Arthur, barely able to breathe.

“It's in my father's closet.”

*   *   *

It was almost in Lila's pocket: a monument to Larry. The Widow Darshowitz had no sense of irony, didn't even really know the word. But she understood she had a bigwig by the short hairs, and that was the way you made an impression in this town. That notion pleased her so much her depression started to lift, even though she was in a wheelchair.

It was hard sitting in the antiseptic beige and chrome hotel room. In her own apartment there were print patterns everywhere, different prints on the pillows that angled on a print of another kind of couch, and little pots of flowers on the windowsills. So even in the harsh, gray winters of Queens there was plenty of color. Plus there were the magazines, the subscriptions Larry bought her that kept on arriving:
W,
like she was a fashion plate;
Mirabella,
like she was a today woman;
Vanity Fair,
like the thing that kept her alive was inside info about the death of Doris Duke.

Everywhere in her Queens apartment magazines were heaped up like she was a regular Collier brother. Somehow she had been unable to throw any away. They were reminders of Larry, piles of proof that he'd still really cared about her, thought about her, went to the trouble of mailing in the subscription blanks and wanted her to keep up with things. Perhaps at some point she might reenter what he'd called his sphere, a word he'd picked up about the same time he found the Phi Beta Kappa key. It was this fantasy of their getting back together that had kept her going—maybe him, too. Because in spite of how much she'd let herself go, nobody loved him like she did. Nobody loved him for himself, since nobody besides Lila knew who himself really was.

The screaming tantrums he'd thrown at his employees, the falling-outs he'd had with almost every major star, there'd never been a hint of that in their relationship. Only once in all the time they'd been together, at the very start of their dating when she'd laughed at something he took very seriously, had he shown the slightest resentment. With Lila he had always been gentle, spoken with such a soft voice, that even when he left her, she never heard him say good-bye. Maybe that was because he'd never said it. He just went to the corner for a newspaper once and never came home.

She wished now that she had the clutter of her magazines to warm up the sterile box of a room she was in. She thought of buying some, but that would have been greedy, since they were mounting up on her welcome mat at home in her absence. She hoped the super would have the sense to put them inside her apartment when he watered her plants, which she'd tipped him to do.

It was lonely in the hotel in the daytime. There was nothing to divert her from the dull ache in her leg and the one in her heart except television. She didn't really care for soap operas, and despised the way whole families were parading their messed-up sex lives on talk shows. It disgusted her that that was what the country had come to. Evenings were easier, because she had her wine, but never before six o'clock. People who drank in the day were alcoholics, and Lila wasn't one of those. The worst she ever was was a drunk.

Her days stretched long. She ordered her meals, brought by the bellman from the coffee shop, and ate without appetite, except dinner, when food was accompanied by wine. That writer girl Kate had brought her a case of Merlot from someplace called Trader Joe's. It was not a bad vintage, and had a slightly oaky taste. At least it did once she allowed it to breathe, as Larry had taught her, which she always did with the first bottle.

She saw there was only one bottle left in the case and picked up the phone, dialed. “Kate? It's Lila Darshowitz.”

“How are you feeling?” the girl asked.

“A little thirsty,” said Lila. “I wonder if I could trouble you to buy me another case of that nice Merlot. I'm sort of stuck here, and I'll pay you back.”

“Don't worry about it,” Kate said.

“Well, I do. I worry about being a drain on people. That's how it stayed so good with me and Larry. I never asked him for anything he couldn't give. Like loyalty.” She snickered. “So what do you think? You think I could impose on you to get it for me? I'd ask my chauffeur to pick it up, but he's driving Anthony Hopkins to the airport.”

Kate laughed. “I'll get it right away.”

*   *   *

She arrived about forty minutes later. The bellboy, who looked older than Lila, his neck scrawny and thin above the traditional bellboy collar, wheeled a trolley to Lila's room, set the case of wine on the floor, and thanked Kate for the tip.

“I'll pay you back,” said Lila.

“Don't worry about it,” said Kate.

“Will you join me in a glass? Of course, there wouldn't be room for the both of us.” She laughed, a coarse but warm laugh, appreciating herself. She looked at her watch, and saw that in seven minutes it would be okay. The rules could be stretched when you had company. Expertly uncorking the wine, she poured.

“Here's looking at you, kid,” she said, and clinked glasses.
“Casablanca.”

“I know.”

“That wasn't Larry's favorite Bogart. He liked
The Maltese Falcon
better. You remember how crazy Sydney Greenstreet goes when he's scraping the bird trying to uncover the jewels? ‘It's a fake, it's lead!'”

“I remember.”

“Larry used to say that was the movie business. ‘The stuff dreams are made of.' But it's a fake, it's lead.”

“It isn't all a fake,” said Kate. “There are a lot of really nice people here.”

“They haven't asked me to dine,” said Lila, “so I wouldn't know. How much do I owe you for the wine?”

“It's my treat.”

Lila narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“I intend to exploit you.”

“That means you want to use me, right?”

“Right.”

“What for?” Lila said, and finished the glass, poured another.

“The book.”

“You really going to write it?”

“I'm going to try.”

“Larry always said nobody ever tries. You either do it or you don't. Give me a pencil.” She pointed to the console.

Kate reached for the pencil there and handed it to Lila.

“Okay,” Lila said, and dropped it on the floor. “Try to pick it up.”

Kate got to her feet, reached down, and retrieved it.

“You see?” Lila said.

“Well, that's just an easy physical instance. The argument wouldn't hold with a difficult internal struggle.”

Lila studied her. “You better have another drink,” she said. “Or I better, so I can understand what the fuck you're talking about.”

*   *   *

They finished the bottle.

“You said…” Lila noted, a little sloppily, “you said you didn't know him. So what were you doing at his funeral?”

“I wanted to brush shoulders with celebrity,” she said.

“What exactly does that mean?”

“I wanted to get to know the glittering people.” The wine had made her a little mawkish. She could hear how superficial it sounded, and disliked herself.

“But instead, you got saddled with me.”

“Larry was right,” Kate said kindly. “You're worth all of them.”

“How do you know? Have you met all of them?”

“Not yet,” Kate said.

“You will. You're young and pretty with a little round ass, and you know how to talk. Some people like that in a woman.”

*   *   *

By the time she left Lila's, Kate was caught. Without having heard Drayco's whole story, Kate had a strong sense F. Scott Fitzgerald would have made a fictionalized Larry touching and weakly heroic, for all his faults. Gatsbying to the last, or past the last, if there had been time after
The Last Tycoon.
The fabric a literary poseur could use to create the “sequin,” if they were low enough to attempt such a thing, gifted enough to offer up a convincing counterfeit. Of course it would have to be flawed, as Fitzgerald's writing had certainly been towards the end of his life, what with the boozing, the surrender of what little spine was left, wallowing into his coddled relationship with Sheilah Graham. Grandma. Even as Kate's mouth curled up into a smile, she managed to be slightly appalled at herself, that she could not only conceive of such a thing, but, in the back of her mind, was already structuring the novel.

It was still pretty early, but already dark. Sunset Boulevard was lit with a strangely melancholy glow. James Dean stretched dungareed legs across the side of a building, cowboy hat tipped back at a slightly insolent angle, profile amused, defiant, like he already knew he would last forever, never growing old. Facing him, painted on the concrete side of another high-rise, Elizabeth Taylor rode Velvet to victory in the Grand National, her face childishly perfect, open, pre-sexual, none of the coming excesses or withdrawals, indulgences or denials, feasts or famines, loves or losses even hinted at. On a billboard across the boulevard, moving panels flashed: “You're an Actor?” The slats moved like venetian blinds. “What restaurant?” Slatted again. “Life is harsh,” it said. “Your tequila shouldn't be.” The L.A. version of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, the eerie sign overlooking Gatsby's West Egg.

The stuff that dreams were made of. Except life was too short as it had been for James Dean, or life was too long as it seemed for Elizabeth, or life was too disappointing as it was for those who needed the tequila. A lure, a business, that had become as dark as the theaters where movies were shown. That had shadowed Kate's own mind so she could view as a clever joke what the newly-arrived-in-Hollywood Kate would have fled in horror.