Where the Truth Lies (2 page)

“Good choice,” nodded Vince.

“Yum,” I concurred.

He took a small pull at his bourbon on the rocks. I could detect its aroma from across the table, caramel and chocolate and grown-up. Vince was a grown-up. A lot of guys my age sported hair twice the length of mine, wore chokers of faux jade and faux teak, and favored bracelets carved from rhinoceros bone. Vince wore a watch. A thick, heavy, expensive watch. If he were ever kidnapped, he could turn that watch over to his captors and walk free, and they’d probably give him twenty dollars for cab fare home.

“So my manager sent me over some of your work,” he said. “You have a pretty interesting angle on things.” A slight frown. “What you said about the Rolling Stones wasn’t very nice.”

I searched my memory. “The only reference I’ve ever made to the Rolling Stones was to compare them to Orpheus, Liszt, and Frank Sinatra.”

“I know. That wasn’t very nice. I don’t care what you say about the other two guys, but Frank is a friend of mine.” He turned his drink clockwise as if he were fine-tuning a radio station. “The thing about Ben Gazzara was pretty good, what I read of it.”

“Thank you.”

“And the one about Godfrey Cambridge.” He stopped rotating his drink and eyed me. “Funny, you were reallyin them a lot.”

I hoped I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Into the people I was interviewing?”

He took the most infinitesimal sip of his bourbon, as if it were merely a reminder to himself to have a drink sometime in the future. “No, I mean you werein the interviews a lot. All over the place, almost every sentence. They were as much about you as about them.”

I winced and fumbled, “Well, that’s a new journalistic style and sort of what magazine editors currently seem to want—”

“I mean, Godfrey Cambridge does a great stand-up and Oskar Werner’s a nice enough actor, so I understand why someone would want to read about them, but whenever I read one of these interviews where the interviewer says,‘This is how I felt the morning I woke up to meet the Pope and this is how I felt when the Pope greeted me and, you know, the Pope reminded me so much of my very best friend Mike,’ I always think, ‘Who the fuck is Mike? Who are you? You don’t do a stand-up, you’ve never been in a movie, why am I supposed to be interested in you? I’m interested in the Pope, tell me abouthim. ’”

Add me to the list of today’s specials, I thought, skewered and flambéed. He must have seen me withering and wilting because he rushed to add, rather kindly, “But fortunately for you, you come off as interesting. So you can kind of get away with it.”

Joy. He seemed to be liking me. He took a normal sip on his bourbon, which my research said was Jack Daniel’s.

Vince continued, “Okay, so: a million dollars is a lot of money. I can get that for acting in a picture or two, but for a book that you would writefor me? Who do I have to sleep with?”

I started to reply but he added, “Incidentally, if the answer is you, I might do this deal for nine hundred thousand.”

I loved it.(I know, I know, but Vince Collins had just told me he found me desirable to the tune of a hundred grand. I loved it. Leave me alone.) Filing the compliment under “Mornings When I Hate Myself: Remedies,” I tried to get us back to business. “You’ve heard of Neuman and Newberry?”

“Your publisher.”

“Yourpublisher, if you go along with this. They’re launching a new men’s magazine, it’s going to be calledMaster *—likePlayboy, Penthouse, but with a heavier emphasis on journalism. For men who used to read the original version of theL.A. Free Press orRolling Stone but have grown to enjoy the feel of slick paper. The photo layouts will be slicker, too. Mock Scavullo with a tinge of S and M. The whole image of the magazine will be very hip, very trendy.”

As I pitched this, Vince reached for a straw that stood in a glass of neat club soda next to his bourbon. He put his finger atop the straw, sealing off one end, and lifted the straw over to his drink. The straw remained full of club soda; none spilled out as he lifted it. I remembered seeing an experiment like this in seventh-grade science, something to do with air pressure or water tension. Vince’s hand and straw poised over his bourbon on the rocks like a casual bombardier. He lifted his fingertip away from the top of the straw, and the club soda flumed down into his drink. Vince was to repeat this action throughout our conversation, topping off his bourbon with little dashes of club soda. That and his extremely small sips might account for why Vince was never seen not drinking in public but was never seen publicly drunk.

“Okay. Put me down for a year’s subscription,” said Vince.

“What Neuman and Newberry want from me is a book about you. Not a puff piece—but let me rush to add,” I rushed to add, “that it would also not be a hatchet job. If you look through my work, you’ll see I try to present a balanced view of my subjects. I leave all conclusions to the reader.”

Vince took a sip on his drink and chewed a piece of ice he’d found within it. “But … I don’t think welike ‘balanced,’” he smiled in all seriousness. “Welike puff pieces. We don’t really want the reader arriving at their own conclusion, do we? I’m not running for public office. I don’t

*The magazine was ultimately namedPulse and lasted only five issues.

affect your taxes or a housing project in Schenectady or decide whether or not we go to war. I’m a goddamn Guinea crooner doing the occasional impersonation of a movie actor. I get publicized, not analyzed.”

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected this response. I’d come prepared with a Plan A through Plan H. I wanted this deal. I wanted the check attached to this deal. They would put the book in the window, and wherever the cover photo and the name Vince Collins were displayed, my name would be right beneath them. I jumped to Plan G. “It would be only your words,” I offered.

Another minuscule sip. “How would that work?” he asked.

“I will only quote you. We’d publish the book as a transcript. I won’t twist your words around, paraphrase you, or quote you out of context. It would be up to me to get what I need out of you. You’d be responsible, however, for anything you said. We’d tape the interviews—I’ll need several weeks of your time, maybe months, although I can work around your schedule. If you say it, I can use it. If you don’t, I can’t.”

He looked around the room for the first time since I’d sat down. A man with distinguished silver hair was sporting distinguished silver muttonchops, a gleaming silver choker, and a blue tank top that allowed all of us to see that his underarm hair was similarly distinguished. I’d have estimated that his breasts, nicely outlined behind his tank top, were at least a B-cup. The man saw Vince, hoisted his drink in asalut. Vince did nothing and looked back at me. “What if I were just to talk about the weather?”

“No, you’d have to answer all my questions. There would be no‘no comment’ —we’d put that in the contract. You’ll have to trust that you can answer in the way that you want, and I’ll have to trust that I can get from you what I need. My publishers are confident that I can.” This last part may not have been true, but Vince didn’t need to know that. I think I was feeling the vermouth a little.

Another plop of club soda from the straw, like a police lab technician examining a bloodstain under a microscope and adding a drop of some chemical reagent from a long pipette. “So I don’t understand how this book connects up with this magazine they’re starting.”

“They want to amortize their investment in you. They’re looking for some very strong stories for the magazine’s debut. A prepublication excerpt from your book would be a great addition to the premiere issue.”

He knew where this was leading. “Any thoughts on what the excerpt would be about?”

There was no way to finesse it. “Sure. It’ll be about the Girl in New Jersey. I’ll want you to tell as much as I can get out of you on the subject. That would be the focus of the magazine piece. The book will cover your entire life.”

Vince thought about this. He reached for a cigarette from a pack of Viceroys. I liked that he didn’t have an expensive case for them, although he could well have afforded it. He offered me one.

“I have my own,” I said, reaching for my pocketbook. “I’ll join you.”

He did have an expensive lighter, a stick, as solid as gold can get. As he lit my Virginia Slims menthol, he asked, “And would Lanny be putting his two cents into this as well?”

I thought of the folded-up letter from Lanny’s attorney that was resting deep within my bag. “Lanny says he’s writing his own book about it.”

Vince laughed one laugh. “That’s rich.” He downed his bourbon in something more than a sip. “We like that,” he said, meaning he didn’t like that.

TWO

Dear Miss O’Connor:

I am a partner in the law firm of Weisner, Hillman and Dumont, which currently represents Mr. Lanny Morris on a wide range of business affairs. We are in receipt of your letter of July 19, which was in response to a letter from my senior partner Mr. John Hillman dated July 11, which was in turn a reply to your initial letter of June 28 regarding a proposed book about our client, to be written by you for Neuman and Newberry Publishing, Inc.

Mr. Hillman has asked me to relay to you that he has indeed spoken again personally with Mr. Morris regarding both of your letters, and can reconfirm for you that our client hasno interest at this time in assisting any biographical efforts regarding his life or career, or the life or career of his former partner, Mr. Vince Collins. The monetary terms and royalties you proposed on Neuman and Newberry’s behalf, while both considerable and appropriate for an artist of Mr. Morris’s stature in the entertainment industry, do not enter into this decision. Money is not an issue here. With all due respect, our client is simply not interested in the project you propose.

We are not, as your second letter seems to suggest, unaware of your own credentials, which are quite impressive for someone to have accrued in only, as you state, “the five years since [your] first published article.” Actually, Mr. Hillman informs me he read and enjoyed a piece you wrote about the jazz musician Miles Davis for Esquire Magazine last year. Our client’s decision is not a personal or professional rejection of either you or the generous offer proposed by you on behalf of Neuman and Newberry.

In point of fact, it is my understanding that Mr. Morris is well under way with the writing of his memoirs, and therefore would clearly not wish to undercut his own autobiographical efforts by lending support or assistance to a third-party effort, since his own recollections will provide the public with the most accurate and personal account of his memorable career.

Please be advised that we are prepared to exercise all our client’s rights and options to prevent any unauthorized or unlicensed works trading upon the life, name, or likeness of Mr. Morris, and will pursue all legal remedies at our disposal to discourage same.

Very truly yours,

Warren Richter, Esq.

WR:ah

cc: Mr. John Hillman, Esq.

Mr. Lanny Morris

THREE

Like all single women transplanted to L.A., almost immediately upon arrival I became the ecstatically proud owner of a clunker of a used convertible. Mine was canary yellow. A nice thing about being a woman in southern California was that you felt no shame claiming a deadbeat car from a parking valet. For a woman, a beat-up convertible was thought to be a personality trait, and in L.A., a little personality went a long, long way—so much so that Hollywood imported people like me from the East who still had one (a personality, not a convertible). On the other hand, a man in L.A. shrank from acknowledging ownership of a rusted Chevy Caprice like a rock-star father of a groupie’s baby in a paternity suit.

I believe there was a regulation that such cars had to have either one door that wouldn’t open (or if it could, it could not then be closed again) or one window that wouldn’t roll down (or if it could, it could not then be rolled up again). I had selected the more exclusive “nonfunctional doorand window” option package from Cal Worthington at Worthington Ford, along with a fully functional AM radio.

At the moment, a recent oldie was playing on said radio in the full glory of monophonic sound, a breezy rendering of “Fool on the Hill”—not the Beatles version but a 1968 remake by Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66. Continued success had caught the group totally by surprise and they’d recently had to scramble and rename themselves Brasil ‘77. In only a few more years they’d have to raise their integers again, and logically this process would continue into the new millennium, when they’d become Brasil ‘11, which struck me as sounding like a partial volleyball score. To its light-headed arpeggiation, I wheeled my sassy way into the Hollywood Way gate of what was now being billed as the Burbank Studios.

It had once been the private property of Warner Bros., but the studios were coping with harder times, and back lots were being converted into profitable tract housing. MGM’s acreage was now supplying middle-class shelter for those who had once sought shelter in an MGM picture.Sic transit Gloria Swanson. Paramount was down to nothing. Whenever theirMission: Impossible TV series needed a generic Iron Curtain city street, they’d hang a generically foreign sign such asFUMEN NET outside the studio cafeteria, whose exterior had been cunningly designed decades ago in a Bavarian Tudor style to serve just such a purpose. This was pretty much the extent of their back lot. Twentieth Century–Fox still had the elevated train set fromHello, Dolly! but little else. Universal was a theme park where, from your tram, you might catch a glimpse of Darren McGavin and Jo Ann Pflug lensing a Tuesday Night Movie of the Week.

Only Warners’ Burbank Studio still had those gloriously overlapping structures that could one morning be a hotel courtyard on the Île de la Cité with a curlicued Métro entrance just beyond its wrought-iron gates and the next day be the Russian embassy in midtown Manhattan. Not to mention a slew of western streets from the days when Warners cranked outCheyenne, Bronco, Sugarfoot, Maverick,
et al.

Vince had been given office space in one of the two-story structures recently assembled not far from the ersatz New York streets that demarcated the northern fringe of the lot, a no doubt intentional distance from the main administration building. These structures looked like nothing more than a respectable motel, which was appropriate, as the rooms had a fast checkin and checkout rate. They generally served as cubbyholes for new talent, who were being rewarded with their own little production office to match their own little production deal, or as a morgue for stale talent, this final relocation the equivalent of being asked to vacate the premises.