West of Paradise (39 page)

This morning she woke from an uncertain sleep and called Kate to ask her to take her to the cemetery. Lila had been so angry at the funeral, she'd never actually prayed over him. Now that she remembered the minister, she got even madder that it hadn't been a rabbi. For all his pretensions, the affectations of wine that breathed, hamburgers sent back in greasy spoons, keys that came from intellectual societies he was never asked to join, class rings from schools he'd never been to, the one thing Larry had never dissembled about was being a Jew.

She wondered if it was too late to have some kind of service. She herself had not been at all religious, any more than Larry was. But they both understood that when the Nazis knocked they didn't ask if you observed or believed. They just knew what you were born, and that was the end of it.

Kate didn't answer the phone. Her machine was on, but Lila didn't much like machines, so she left no message. Instead she called the lobby for a phone book with the yellow pages. When the old bellman brought it, she looked up the temples. There was one with the same prefix as her hotel in West Hollywood.

*   *   *

“This is most unusual,” the youngish rabbi said. He stood beside her at the not-yet-grassed-over grave in Westwood. The earth was neatly packed and shiny from a recent rain. Tender little tufts of green were starting to spring from the sod. “I wish I had been called for the actual service.”

“So do I,” said Lila. “That's why I asked you here now.” She was out of the wheelchair, but still on crutches. She'd called her new friend Victor Lippton for transport. He'd sent his personal limousine to take her to the cemetery. She'd picked up the rabbi on the way, part of the reason he'd agreed to come.

He was probably around forty, darkly good-looking, with pleasant lines around his mouth that indicated he laughed a lot when he wasn't taking himself so seriously. “I do many show business funerals,” he said.

“This was not a show business funeral,” said Lila. “This was a funeral that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for show business.”

“I see,” the rabbi said.

“They buried him like a goy,” said Lila. “They said words that meant shit.”

“Please,” the rabbi said.

“I'm sorry,” said Lila. “I say what I mean. And what they said didn't mean doo-doo. Can you fix it?”

“I'll do my best,” he said.

He began reciting in Hebrew, words Lila had never understood, but was always comforted by. As infrequently as she had attended temple in her life, there was something soothing about the sound of these men's voices. The low-pitched sounds coming from deep within their chests, breaking the cavernous silences with ancient prayers. Always, in spite of how little she had worshiped, she was moved. To Lila, the tone seemed to resonate not just with wisdom, laws, and long-ago kings, but with male protection.

When he finished his sing-song incantations, the rabbi put his arm around her. It was such an unexpected gesture, so achingly reminiscent of a kind of familiar touch she had almost forgotten, she started to cry.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Don't be. It's been a long time since a handsome man put his arm around me, even if you didn't mean it like that. I enjoyed the feeling.” She looked at the rain-slicked earth. “So when can we put up the stone?”

“Not for a year,” the rabbi said.

“But a monument? That can be any time?”

“What kind of monument?”

“I'm still working on it,” Lila said, blowing her nose. “But it's going to be a lulu.”

*   *   *

The travel agency run by Binky Danforth-Smythe was, according to the engraved card he'd given Kate, on the corner of Wilshire and Federal in West Los Angeles. It was an area Wilton didn't visit much, as most of his customers were in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, or Brentwood. Any further out than that, they could come to his place. They did, usually at the end of the week or on the weekend, after he'd picked up the new supply. It came from Venice, from a house just behind Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Venice was the only other neighborhood in L.A. he considered worth visiting, and then only for business.

“I'd like to see Binky Hyphenate,” Wilton said to the young brunette receptionist.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, her accent British.

“Mr. Danforth-Smythe.” Wilton dragged the name out, so she knew he didn't confuse it with Smith, or any ordinary name.

“Whom shall I say is calling?”

“Mr. Wilton Spenser the Eleventh.”

“One moment, please,” she said, getting up from behind her desk, going into the inner office.

Wilton looked around. The office was a style he characterized as Early MCA: the walls hung with paintings of The Hunt, magazines angled neatly on a Sheraton table in front of a small sofa.
Yachting,
the top one read. The
Tatler
underneath. All veddy veddy. At the bottom was a
People
magazine with Wendy on its cover. “What's a Castoff Duchess to Do?” said the heading.

“I'm sorry,” the receptionist said, sticking her head out of the inner office. “Does he know you?”

“Not in the biblical sense,” said Wilton. “Tell him I'm a friend of Wendy's friend Kate.”

The door closed. And opened again. “I'm sorry,” she said. “He's in a meeting.”

“Really?” Wilton said. “I didn't know he was in the movie business.”

“Pardon?”

“I'll wait.” He sat down. “Is there a back way out?”

“No.”

“Good.”

After a few minutes, the intercom buzzed. She picked up the phone. “No, he hasn't,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“And he isn't going to,” murmured Wilton, flipping through the magazine.

“Very well,” she said, and hung up. “Mr. Danforth-Smythe is very sorry, but he has to rush out to a luncheon.”

“I'll rush out with him,” Wilton said. “What I have to say won't take more than a moment.”

“I see,” she said, and went back inside. In a moment, the door opened. “Mr. Danforth-Smythe will see you now.”

“How gracious,” said Wilton, and went inside.

Binky stood behind his desk, his freckled skin looking slightly flushed. “Oh, yes,” he said, seeing Wilton. “I thought that's who you might be.”

“So good of you to see me.”

“What can I do for you?”

“You can allow me to make amends,” said Wilton, sitting down in the chair next to Binky's desk. “I'm afraid I behaved rather badly at our first meeting.”

“Not to worry,” said Binky, still standing. “I know how you Americans are.”

“You do,” said Wilton, indulgently. “Well, you're good to put up with our behavior. Don't you wish we could all be more like our cousins across the sea?
So
civilized.”

“You're a friend of Kate's? She was that woman with Wendy?”

“Right.”

“How is Wendy?” he asked cautiously.

“I don't think Kate has heard from her for a while. Anyway, let's not talk about out-of-fashion people. I'd like to talk about us.”

“Us?”

“I want to be friends. I don't know that many people of your caliber, and I do do a lot of travel. I would love to have a new agent, as we say at unemployment.”

“I'll be glad to do whatever I can,” Binky said.

“Whew.” Wilton exhaled noisily. “I was so afraid you might not take me on. Well, thanks.” He got up. “And cheery-bye. I'll be in touch.”

“You can give my secretary all your information. Credit card numbers. Frequent flyer, etc.”

“I'll do that,” he said, and started out the door. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He turned. “I brought you a present.”

“You did?”

“This office is so convenient to the post office. I brought you the new Marilyn Monroe stamp.”

“Most kind,” said Binky.

“Do you happen to have brochures from the QE II? I've been thinking of taking the round-the-world voyage. The one that's coming up soon?”

“My secretary will send them to you.”

“Oh, the money's burning a hole in my purse. I'd so love to see them now.”

“Miss Simpson,” Binky said into the intercom. “Could you give the gentleman the QE II brochures on his way out.”

“I'd really like to make the commitment right this minute, otherwise I might chicken out. One must travel when the impulse hits one.”

“Quite right.”

“Will you take my check?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Wilton said, and sat back down. “How much do you want?”

“Well, it's a very costly cruise, depending on what kind of accommodations you're talking about…”

“The best,” Wilton said. “Outside cabin. Posh. Port outbound, Starboard home.”

“Not many Americans would know that's what that stands for,” Binky said. “I'm impressed.”

“Will ten thousand do it?”

“More than enough for a deposit,” Binky said happily.

Wilton wrote a check. “May I have a receipt?”

“Certainly.” He started writing on his agency invoice.

“I'm
so
disorganized. I have this business manager who sorts out all my receipts and bills. Would you mind if we mail it to him?”

“Not at all,” said Binky.

“You have an envelope? I'll just make it out, and we can send it right now, and then I know it's taken care of.” He took a pen from his purse and addressed the envelope Binky gave him. “You have a stamp handy?”

“This one you just gave me.”

“I don't mean to be an Indian giver.”

“Perfectly alright,” said Binky.

“I'm sorry to impose on you, but I'm allergic to glue.”

“I thought the new stamps are self-adhesive.”

“This is the old-fashioned kind. Do you mind?”

He watched as Binky licked it.

*   *   *

“I'll just wait for him to go where he's going, and then escort him,” Wilton said into the pay phone in the underground garage. “How is Wendy?”

“She's going to be alright,” said Kate. “But it was a close call. What did you give him?”

“Three tabs of LSD,” Wilton said.

*   *   *

The police came to Roxbury Park in answer to an anxious mother's call. “There's a naked man wandering around the children's playground,” she said.

It took them a few days to determine who Binky was, as it took him a few days to determine who he was. The only thing he had with him when he was picked up was a man's purse, with a card inside he insisted wasn't his. “I don't know what it was doing there,” he sniffled, when he could put words together. A clever reporter from the
Los Angeles Times,
who happened to be at the station that day, found out they'd booked a suspected pedophile for indecent exposure. The reporter also learned that the suspect was carrying the card of Wendy's ex-husband, the duke.

*   *   *

“Maybe we could stay till there are no more kites flying in Bali,” Helen said.

“It's not going to happen,” said Tyler.

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“One of us has to be sensible.”

They were sitting in chairs by a table on a secluded part of the beach sprinkled with marigold petals, torchlit, candlelit, a heart drawn in the sand around them. The hotel had prepared a Romantic Dinner, a specialty of the Oberoi. This included an elaborate meal, and a printed menu that said, “Romantic Dinner.”

The table was draped with a red batik cloth that matched the umbrella protecting it. Red hibiscus and cut palm decorations were strung from the umbrella's yellow fringe. There was a coconut centerpiece mounded with marigolds and hibiscus. The colors of yellow and red flowers merged into the candle glow.

A waitress handed them their special menu. “Shall we have wine?” Helen said.

She was wearing green, his favorite color on her. He had said it once and would not repeat it, because she'd started wearing it all the time.

She twisted a silver ring that he had bought her on the beach with the symbol of Bali on it: earth, water, and fire.

They had cold bouillabaisse salad filled with plump jumbo shrimp, scallops, and squid, a lemon ice, followed by garoupa, a meaty white fish garnished with tiny potatoes and vegetables. “Baby carrots,” she noted, eating one. “Now they'll never grow old.”

“Give it a rest,” said Tyler.

“I can't,” she said, and looked at him, her eyes honey amber in the candlelight. “It just seems so foolish to end it.”

“We have to end it before it's over, or it'll be too late.”

“What makes you think it will be over?”

“Because it has to be. You'd never forgive me.”

“For what?”

“For not being as much as you are.”

“You're more.”

“Not in the eyes of the world.”

“I don't care about the world.”

“Of course you do. You don't care about it now. Here. But Bali is fantasy.”

“Not for the people who live here.”

“You couldn't live here.”

“I could. And would, in a minute.”

“And what would you do?” he asked.

“I'd be with you.”

“And what would I do?”

“You'd be with me.”

“It isn't enough,” Tyler said.

“I wouldn't be enough for you?”

“I didn't say that. It's just…” He put down his fork. “You can stop doing what you're doing if you want, because you've done it. I haven't found out yet what it is I'm supposed to do.”

“You're a dreamer. A seeker. A poet.”

“Who hasn't written poetry?”

“You can do that here.”

“It's a cover,” said Tyler. “‘What does he do?' ‘He's a poet.' Artists and painters all over this island. Young, pretty boys with their rich, older women.”