West of Paradise (37 page)

“But I couldn't, even if I wanted to. The studio sent me a basket of flowers, with a notice my contract is up and they're not renewing.”

“I hope somebody embezzles the fucks,” Larry said.

“Who's going to give me a job? I'm damaged goods. I'm old.”

“You aren't old,” said Larry. “You're younger than I am.”

“How old are you, anyway? You got a picture in the closet?”

“I'm making a picture. It's about this silly fart who thinks he has no future. And then this ghost comes to him on Easter Eve, and gives him visions, and he sees that he is the same as Christ, and he can rise again.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“I'm kidding. But I am making a picture. And I'm making you associate producer. You're getting a hundred and twenty-five thousand.”

“You don't have to do that,” said Zack, and started to cry again.

“Don't tell me what I have to do,” said Larry. “I know what I have to do.”

The only problem was he forgot to pay him.

*   *   *

When the process server came, at first Larry thought it was a joke. He had Fletcher McCallum call the lawyer whose name was on the subpoena as representing Zack to ask him what the hell was going on. Larry was too upset to call Zack directly. He couldn't believe it.

“Apparently you had a deal and you reneged,” Fletcher McCallum said, his big jaw slightly receded, held with a carefully conscious underbite so his own clients wouldn't feel under attack.

“I didn't reneg,” Larry said. “I forgot.”

“It's three years ago,” said McCallum. “With interest, that's—”

“Interest? I saved his life! He never even came to the set! I threw the salary to him, like a mercy fuck.”

“But you didn't pay it. You had a deal.”

“I saved his fucking life!”

“Maybe that was a mistake.”

“You bet your ass it was a mistake.”

“You better pay him.”

“Over my dead body,” said Larry.

*   *   *

By the time it got to court, it was four years later. Besides the additional interest that had accrued, there were the lawyers' fees. Then there were the lawyers' fees for Zack's lawyers that he would have to pay if he lost. He'd been ousted as the head of Cosmos by the Japanese, who'd bought the studio as though it were a golf course and brought in their own man to head it, a bully recommended by a man just out of rehab. Larry had returned to independent production and made three pictures that sank without a trace. He'd had such a hard time raising money for the third one, he'd actually had to forego his production fee, throw in what little he'd saved, and borrow more. In the meantime, he had married an Israeli heiress whose family cut her off for marrying him. He was bound and determined to show them he could keep her in her customary style. As a matter of fact, he exceeded it. He owed a couple of million.

The judge found for Zack. It was not the same judge who'd tried Larry for forgery and embezzlement. But it
was
his nephew. The uncle was in the courtroom, with an angrier look on his face than Zack, and a more pugnacious set to his jaw than Fletcher McCallum.

“I'm sorry, your honor,” Larry said miserably. “But I don't have any money. I'm tapped out.”

“Empty your pockets,” the judge said.

Larry reached into them. He took out a small wad of low-currency bills, held together with his good luck money clip.

“Now turn your pockets inside out,” the judge said.

Larry did as he was told. The key to his Mercedes fell to the floor.

“Is that a car key?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Give it to Mr. Arnold,” the judge said. “With the money.”

“But how will I get home?”

“You have a home?”

“It's heavily mortgaged,” Larry said.

“Are those rings on your hands?”

“This is my wedding ring, your honor.”

“You may keep that. What's the other one?”

“My class ring from Yale.”

“Give it to him. You have a watch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me see it.”

Mournfully, he rolled up his sleeve.

“What kind of watch is that?”

“A Rolex.”

“Take it off and hand it over.”

*   *   *

He ended up with a judgment against him for what he owed Zack, with a shitload of interest, the bill from Zack's lawyers, court costs, plus a bill from Fletcher McCallum for three hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars. He got another lawyer to sue McCallum for malpractice, and that lawyer ended up suing Larry for what he owed for suing McCallum. Larry's wife died soon after; her family took her body back to Haifa. Darcy Linette let him make one more movie at Marathon, as a kindness; it was later deemed unreleasable. McCallum forgave him his debt and the insult of the lawsuit, because in spite of everything, he'd always liked the little fuck and was sorry to see him with no springs on his legs for a comeback. The lawyer also understood the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished, and saw that Larry was a victim of the one clear moment of absolute humanity he'd had. It was a story Fletcher McCallum did not pass on to his sons, whom he was raising with the credo that the paramount virtue was integrity.

Larry Drayco was last seen in public at a memorial service at Beth Israel, given by the women of ORT, the Beverly Hills chapter of the Israeli organization, in his late wife's honor. No one at the temple spoke to him, and all those attending made a circle around him so wide it was as though Charlton Heston had come again to divide the Red Sea.

*   *   *

By the time the story was finished, Lila had had enough Merlot so she told Kate about the compromising tape Larry had left her. She hadn't meant to go that far.

But Kate promised her secret was safe, just as Victor Lippton's was, because she wasn't the type who would blackmail anyone.

“Neither am I,” Lila said drunkenly. “He thinks I made a copy of the tape, but I didn't. He has the only one.”

“Well, as long as he doesn't know that, he'll probably give you what you want.”

“A monument,” Lila said. “A monument to my Larry.”

“What kind of monument?”

“That's what I'm working on,” said Lila. “Let's open another bottle.”

In the end, Kate broke down and had some. So she stayed a lot longer than she meant to. By the time she got home and found the hysterical message on her machine from Wendy, she was afraid it might be too late.

*   *   *

Well, when Norman Jessup tried to make something up to you, he really did a first-rate job. Even though Tyler was ready to make the journey in his cutoffs and a T-shirt, just carrying his backpack and the box of ashes, there was a small, beautiful leather bag with his initials embossed in gold waiting for him in the limousine that took him to the airport.

Inside were some handsome batik shirts (“These are coals to Newcastle,” read the note from Norman that was pinned to them. “You'll find much that you might want to wear in Bali itself. Although you'll probably spend most of your time naked.”) There were also a pair of bathing trunks, shorts, some new underwear, cotton briefs, the kind Tyler wore that to the best of his knowledge Norman had never seen. Tyler realized now that he had probably gone through his drawers, looking at his drawers, or the choice wouldn't have been so appropriate.

“What the hell, Algernon,” Tyler said to the box. “I can't get mad at someone for loving me.”

“Are you talking to me?” the limo driver said.

“I'm talking to my box,” said Tyler.

The driver gave him a look in the rearview mirror.

Outside the limo was the dismal architecture of the buildings alongside the expressway. Redbrick, piled-on high-rises housing existences that Tyler considered probably never became lives. His grandparents on his father's side had lived in such a place, and they'd just marked time till it was over, with no real concept of anything beyond, or probably even of anything during. He didn't like being judgmental; that was one of the things Algernon had told him he needed to work on. But to go through days with only the highlight of big-screen TV and the occasional great meal was a depressing concept. Just as the notion of measured days with a paycheck at the end of them was depressing.

He would have liked very much to be able to Walden it, hearing a different drummer. Be venerated when he was old for being a free spirit by students who sat at his feet and just listened to his words, or even to his silence. Live long after his life in the annals of thinkers who respected thinkers. Hang out with Reddy in the afterlife and have him tell Tyler he had done it exactly right. Then maybe introduce Algernon to his genetic father and have him straighten him out. But maybe his father knew now what a waste it was to struggle and have only earthly ambitions. Maybe his father had evolved on the next level to what he hadn't even attempted to be on this one. Or maybe his father was exactly where he had been, and would be pissed at Tyler for still not having a job.

“What class are you?” the driver asked, as they drove up the ramp to American Airlines.

Tyler looked at his ticket. “First,” he said. There was a layover of several hours at the airport in L.A. before he boarded the flight to Singapore and Denpasar. During that time Norman had arranged for his passport to be delivered to him. His old one, dating from the time he still traveled with his parents, had lapsed, but Norman had handled it, had his office staff organize a new one, getting around the usual procedures. Tyler remembered a maxim from when he was considering being a philosophy major: “The wheels of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.” In Hollywood, it was rewritten that they ground quickly, even when all the wrong people were gods.

But what the hell. Or what the heaven. He was getting to take Algernon to Bali. What joys there would be in that transcendent finale, the box had no idea. Or maybe it did. Maybe it even knew what joys were waiting for him.

For a moment, as he boarded the plane, he thought he could hear a laugh coming out of the box.

Paradise East

Singapore Airlines, Flight 143, arrived in Denpasar, Bali, at four-forty in the afternoon. In Tyler's head it was two o'clock in the morning the night before. Crossing the international date line meant the loss of more than just one day. He had dreamed fitfully on and off through the journey, and was totally out of synch with himself. For one of the few times since he'd studied Jung, he had no idea what his dreams meant. They had been of goddesses and dancing gods, all wearing frightening masks. He was not sure if the images came from looking at brochures of Bali or having lived in Hollywood.

He was not stopped at customs, an escape that flooded him with relief. He hadn't known if there were regulations about bringing in the foreign dead. Still wearing his backpack, he clutched the teakwood box, but let the driver from the hotel who had greeted him with his name on a chalkboard carry his leather bag outside to the van.

Relief turned to wonder. Wet, warm breezes fingered Tyler's hair. The mellow, moist air grazed the inside of his nostrils, a palpable sweetness touched his tongue. Paradise. For once, Norman Jessup had been absolutely straight with him.

*   *   *

A gold-scripted sign held by little stone gods with oversized grins, invitingly grotesque, stood at the edge of the hotel driveway. A towering shrine rose from a lotus pond on the right. In the rice paddies left of the entryway, kerchiefs on sticks waved in the heavy breeze, wind-driven wooden batons drummed against gongs to frighten away the birds. Impervious, the birds fluttered and swooped between and above and below the racket, diving for food, singing fearless songs.

Men in creamy white jackets and dark red sarongs helped Tyler from the van. They greeted him, setting his bag on the ground. Added to his joy at the beauty of the place was his clear perception that the people here, unlike so many in the place he'd come from, were happy.

Salmon and pink and gold bougainvillea clumped over thatched roofs. “Alright!” Tyler exclaimed.

“Welcome to the Oberoi,” said a smiling, tiny woman, placing a garland of white, fragrant frangipani over his head, resting it around his neck. He could feel the cool of the blossoms against the heat on his skin, the sun already having toasted the base of his yellow-gold curls, where the barber had been allowed to clean it just a little.

*   *   *

“The Presidential Villa.” The white-jacketed bellman pulled a brass ring on the heavy wooden double doors, and they opened. Walls of gray and white limestone surrounded the gateway. Hibiscus bunched between palm leaves, and lacy balls of bright red Japanese ixora bordered the spitting dragon fountain in the courtyard, brightened the dark sculpted Balinese lamps.

Beneath the main roof lay the villa itself. Tyler entered the bedroom. Alang alang poles, bamboo threaded with dried elephant grass, angled upwards on the cathedral ceiling, where it crested at a carved, floral center square. A teakwood four-poster, vines and flowers etched in its headboard, was built into the wall. A carved, cushioned step stool beside it, a freshly laundered white linen mat set on top.

Tyler handed the bellman some singles, part of the wad that Norman had stuffed in his hand when he said good-bye.

“That way bat-room,” the bellman said, indicating another wooden door. He grinned. “Enjoy yourself.”

“I think I can manage that,” said Tyler, taking a piece of fruit from the bowl on a table by the couch. It seemed less a bowl of fruit than an offering, arranged like the pyramids of flowers that blessed the entryway. There were miniature pineapples, passion fruit, a fuzzy, spiked, round red ball that, he learned from the guide to Indonesian fruits beside the bowl, was called rambutan. Broken open—not easy—it yielded a soft, tasty center like a lichee nut.