he'd drag me to one of those young West Hollywood plays by a nouveau-West Hollywood playwright featuring a troubled gay English-major protagonist where all the straight characters especially the football players wound up being gay after all, harboring secret, shameful crushes on our fragile yet intrepid hero.
'Whatever tendencies he's got, Herr Brokeback, they don't tend in your direction,' I pressed. 'I understand that your parents' naming you Preston Ashley Mills pretty much sealed your deal in one fell swoop, but, nature or nurture aside, the guy is named Cal Unger. I'd say that cuts the odds considerably that he smokes pole. Not to mention the fact that I need to wait for a more graceful reestablishment of diplomatic ties. I'll invite Chic instead.'
'The ballplayer?' This last word he lent an intonation generally reserved for 'chlamydia.'
Preston had also met Chic at the book-launch party for my third Chainer novel.
Despite his objections, he headed for the phone. 'I'll tell them we'll be running late. And I'll have them install a salt lick at the booth.' He picked up the cordless. Stared at it.
'They're too busy providing excellent service to hook up my phone. Which apparently certain editors responsible for my mail didn't bother paying '
Disrupting the late-morning air, sailing over my fence, came sounds of the young trumpeter at practice.
I've got a CRUSH on YOU, sweetie-PIE.
Preston's eyebrows met. 'The hell is that?'
'Gershwin, I think.'
All the DAY and NIGHTtime, hear me SIGH.
Preston despaired. 'We'll call from the car.'
The woman with the custom license-plate frame in the Jag ahead of us had one thing to tell the world, and that was that she went zero to bitch in 2.7 seconds. We cruised down Canon, passing several hundred thousand dollars' worth of Bavarian engineering, long-legged women with boxy shopping bags, palm trees studded with rope lights. The rope lights served two purposes at once: They were pretty at night, and they were slick, slick being significant in that if squirrels tried to scale the trunks to nest in the fronds, they'd slip and crack their little squirrel skulls on the pavement below. That union of aesthetics and ferocity, if nothing else, defines Beverly Hills. The five- hundred-dollar porcelain curios, the reservation-only boutiques, the bejeweled cat collars.
As we coasted along, Preston pointed to a prominent window display of my books at Dutton's. At least when a bookstore cashed in on my infamy, I got a cut.
L.A., for the most part, is in on the joke that is itself. It's superficial as hell, sure, but it also knows how to enjoy it, unlike those Des Moines moms who read celebrity rags on their way to church so they can tut-tut and shake their heads, or those Ivy Leaguers who'd never admit they enjoy People more than Proust but who, while waiting for the dentist to mend a scrape in their enamel, will sneak a peek at the glossies to check out this singer's weight gain or where this royal couple honeymooned. Here, superficiality is our business, and we all all believe we're in on the show.
Some visitors find L.A. an insider's city. The contrary is in fact true. Anyone can get access. The only catch is that you have to bring something interesting to the table. That's the ticket of entry. It doesn't have to be depth, or conversational skills, or even necessarily talent. You can be the best hairdresser and sit down at a mogul's table between a Hollywood madam and an opera director. If you're the best hedge-fund manager on your Bel-Air block but a bore, fuck off with a smile, pal. Go back to Manhattan and complain about how shallow L.A. is.
Shallow it is, but also captivating, if you can just hold on to your sense of humor. Every now and then, an earthquake will crack the city open, just to ensure that things stay interesting, or someone will threaten to blow up LAX, or raging fires will sweep through the West Valley and everyone will lionize firemen for a week. Santa Monica waters will turn toxic. A mercury scare will put everyone off sushi. Carbs will be vilified, or Pilates, or the caloric content of Jamba Juice.
Four cars backed up on the side of the parking ramp by the restaurant, wringing out a last few seconds of cell-phone reception. We valeted. Threading through the tables, we found Chic in the rear, arms spread across the back of the booth. 'I just love me some smoked-salmon pizza.'
Preston scowled at Chic's sarcasm, and we slid in on either side. I dropped the documents I'd assembled onto the tabletop.
Preston craned his neck toward the wall of etched glass that set off the kitchen. 'I wonder if that Latin guy is our waiter.'
'He's got a wedding ring,' I said.
'Puh-lease.'
'He's eyeing the tits at eleven o'clock.'
'Overcompensating.'
'Before you start making the love that dare not speak its name, how 'bout we order?'
Chic glanced up uncomfortably from his menu. 'Just so you know, I'm not gay or anything.'
Preston aimed a withering look at him. 'Honey, we wouldn't have you.'
When it came time to order, Preston did his best with eye contact and inquiring about house favorites, but the waiter just gathered our menus uneasily and left.
Still unaccustomed to being in public after my media searing, I carefully glanced about. One table over, two guys in suits and another in sweatpants babbled about German financing and festival circuits. Beside them, women either too old or too rich to care if they were overheard discussed estrogen supplements. A harried woman dined with kids who, because of their scowls and designer jeans, were apparently more worldly than she was. Directly across from us, a well-dressed guy hunched over his plate, and then his entire party peeked over at me not as inconspicuously as their manner suggested they'd intended. I shifted uncomfortably.
Chic clued in to the situation first, of course, and smiled at me gently. 'This, too, shall pass.'
Preston said, 'Let's get down to story.'
While we ate our upmarket appetizers, I recapped the latest advancements. As usual, I'd stored a Bic pen behind my ear for taking notes, but I mostly doodled.
When I was done, Preston cleared his throat. 'Get off the serial-killer kick. They're not so compelling.'
'Just because they don't pique your interest doesn't mean we're not dealing with one. We have two bodies with a similar MO.'
'As you pointed out to Detective Point-in-Time, there are noteworthy differences.'
'Or' sometimes, with Preston, one did best to forge ahead 'I could've become the poster boy for a copycat killer, who then elected to frame me.'
'Which would mean that you did murder Genevieve.'
The baldness of Preston's remark caught me off guard. I felt an almost gravitational pull toward defensiveness, toward denial of both kinds. The shrewdly decorated shrimp plate suddenly looked meaty and unappetizing.
'You can't know,' Preston offered. 'Not yet.'
'Maybe I should take sevoflurane again and find out.'
Preston stirred his drink lazily with a straw. 'We don't even know for sure that you've taken sevoflurane once, Drew. I don't think we need to be breaking in to medical offices on the slim chance that if you inhale it again, it'll put you back into the September twenty-third part of your brain.'
Chic said, 'Frame or no frame, fastest way to get to the bottom of this is to figure out the connection between the victims, or between them and you. The boring, unobvious shit you won't be able to uncover.'
'Do I hire a private detective?'
Chic shook his head, disappointed as usual, at my inability to get things done correctly. 'I know a hacker, database guy. Phone bills, gas bills, airline tickets all that shit. Half of it's online for a price, and the half that ain't… well, let's just say that won't stop him. He tracks down people who skip on alimony.'
'Deadbeat dads?'
'Don't be sexist, Drew-Drew. I used him last to find a woman who moved up and out on one of my nephews. He can cross-reference like a muthafucker comin' up with an alibi. Also, we need a list of all the people you've pissed off.'
I removed the list I'd been working on, and we batted around a few more names, but I couldn't find any that seemed believable murderers, or even break-in artists. My neurologist, driven mad by the fallout from my noncompliance? Katherine Harriman's old man, disgraced on kielbasa-and-Bulls night, back to administer Chi-town
