Earl let it die down.
'Okay,' he said. 'That's fine and good, but understand where you're going. You're going into the fire. Sometimes you can't control what happens in there. Blood will be shed, blood in this room. Know that going in. If it's more than you bargained for, it's okay. But I want a vote, and I want it secret, so nobody feels pressure. I want it written down. A simple no or yes. Because we can't make this work if we don't believe in it.'
It was unanimous.
Chapter 21
'He's finished,' said the Countess.
'But suppose he isn't?' Ben said.
'He's finished. I know he's finished.'
'But suppose he isn't? He's a tricky bastard, slippery and smart. He gets out of it somehow. And he hears I been talking against him. And he gets to thinking about it. And he hears about the desert and the building I'm doing and the plans I got. And he reads the writing on the wall. He knows that even though I'm in a different state two fucking thousand miles away, he and I are at cross purposes.'
'Don't get paranoid, darling.'
'What's paranoid?'
'The idea that everyone is out to get you.'
'Everyone is out to get me.'
'But not yet. Because you are smarter and quicker and you see these things so much sooner.'
They lounged by the pool of the Beverly Hills Country Club, beside a diamond of emerald-blue water patrolled by the legends of the movie business, their wives, their children, their managers, their assistants, their bodyguards. The Countess wore a white latex suit a la Esther Williams; her legs were tan, her bust was full, her toenails were red.
Bugsy wore a tight red suit that showed off his extremely athletic body, his ripply muscles, his big hands, his larger-than-life penis. He too was tan, and his hair gleamed with oil, the sun picking it up and glinting off it fabulously. He looked like a movie star, he wore movie star sunglasses and he sipped a movie star's drink, a pina colada, from a tall glass.
Virginia was on one of her trips back east, to visit certain aging relatives or so it was said. He actually wasn't too clear on where she was, but it helped to have her gone, as she could be a pain in the ass. She'd been really annoying of late.
The Countess, by contrast, was a more comforting person. Her name was Dorothy Dendice Taylor DiFassio, the last moniker making her an authentic countess, though the count had long since been abandoned. She was one of Ben's earliest Southern California lovers and she had connections to Italy through her title, and the two of them had some crazed adventures together.
'That is why I need a backup plan and I need it now.'
'You'll come up with something.'
'I have to be ready. He's now involved with this goddamn crusader. Everybody's talking about it. He got two Cleveland boys clipped on him and right now his name is mud in every syndicate spot in the country. He is so weak now he can hardly keep it going. But I know him. He'll come up with something, he'll get out of it, you'll see.'
'You give him too much credit, darling. Look, there's a cute one!'
She pointed at a pool boy. These creatures came from all over America to become movie stars. Most failed but some actually got as far as pool boy. They modeled their bodies and their blond locks around the club, hoping to catch a producer's eye. The one she noticed, though, was beefier than most and not blond at all, but rather dark- haired.
'You, boy,' she called.
'Christ, Dorothy,' said Bugsy, 'are you going to fuck him right here?'
'Possibly. But it would hurt my chances for a table at El Morocco. Boy, come here.'
The lad obliged.
'What's your name?' she asked.
'Roy, ma'am,' he responded.
'Roy, eh? How wonderful. Roy, I think I'd like a whiskey sour with a lemon twist. Do you think you can remember that?'
'Yes ma'am.'
He lumbered off.
'That one's going to be a big star someday,' she said. 'He's got a certain je ne sats quoi.'
'I'll say,' Bugsy said. 'The way he was staring at my dick shows what a future he's got in this fruit town!'
'Ben, you are so crude. I don't think he's homo.'
'The handsome ones are all homo. Anyhow, back to my problems.'
'Oh, that's right, darling,' said Dorothy, 'I forgot. Yours are the real problems. The rest of us are simply bedeviled by petty annoyances.'
'Well, Dorothy, I do not think Roy the Pool Boy is going to pull out a chopper and clip you right here. I am at risk and I've got to deal with this problem.'
'Do you want him killed?'
'Ah?difficult. I'd have to get permission. It'd have to go through channels. And everything's so spread out these days. It used to be a few blocks of Brooklyn, now it's everywhere, from coast to coast. Getting things okayed can be tough and time-consuming.'
'So what you really want is him eliminated, but not necessarily killed.'
'That would be right, yeah. If I could get him sent up for five years or so, he'd have nothing when he got out.'
'Hmmm. What are his weaknesses? His vanities?'
Ben thought hard. He remembered the beautifiil art deco apartment overlooking the city, the phony English accent, the liveried staff, the sense of elegance.
'He wants to be a British gendeman. He wants to be cultivated. He wants to be like the real Gary Cooper, not the real Cary Grant. He likes furniture, art, food. He wants to be a king. He's tryin' to be bigger than who he is. He's tryin' to forget where he came from and what made him.'
'I see,' said the Countess. 'Quite common, actually. And exactly why I treasure you so dearly: you are what you are to the maximum. There's no hypocrisy in you. Not a lick of it.'
'I guess that's a compliment.'
'It is. Oh, hello, what's this?'
It was Roy the tall Pool Boy. He held a whiskey sour on a silver platter and he offered it to madame.
She opened her alligator purse and removed a $50 bill.
'For you, darling,' she said.
'Thank you, ma'am,' he said, bowing a little so that he could get a better look at Bugsy's dick stuffed in his tight bathing suit.
Then he went away.
'A look like that could get him killed in a lotta places on the East Side,' said Ben.
'And he is what he is,' she said. 'Anyway, art? Art? You said art? He collects art.'
'Yes.'
'Hmmmm,' she said. 'You know, collecting is a disease. And even the most rational and intelligent of men can lose their way when they see something they must have. This should be looked into, darling. This has possibilities.'
