The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald (8 page)

Pub parties are still dreary affairs, but they’re no longer small. To celebrate the publication of
Tell Delilah
, Skitsy Held had rented a triple-decker cruise yacht, the
Gotham Princess
, for the entire evening. It was waiting there at Pier 63 festooned with
Tell Delilah
banners when Cam and I left his Olds in the parking lot at Twenty-third and Twelfth and made our way up the long, narrow ramp.

Two hundred glittering celebrity guests were on deck enjoying the free champagne, the late-day sun on the Hudson, and the complimentary
Tell Delilah
balloons, T-shirts, hankies, and panties. It was the usual crowd of smiling, chattering celebrities who turn out at Broadway openings and museum benefits and other such photo opportunities, people who had nothing in common with each other except that they were all celebrities, and no reason for being there except that the photographers were. Lensmen from the
Daily News
and
Post
,
Women’s Wear Daily
, and the supermarket tabloids were busily snapping shots of Sugar Ray Leonard, of Paulina Porizkova, the Polish model with the $6 million Estée Lauder contract, of John John Kennedy and Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, of Ashford and Simpson, Jackie Mason, Bianca Jagger, Bill Blass, and Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. Phil Esposito, the former hockey great, was there. So was City Council president Andy Stein and Ron Darling of the Mets and a former child star who had just written a scandalous book accusing Darryl Zanuck of waving his dick at her when she was nine years old. All of these people and more were there to celebrate Delilah Moscowitz’s new book.

We lingered at the rail for a moment, Lulu sniffing hungrily at the air wafting up from the kitchens down below. Cam swaying slightly. He’d put away a great deal of José Cuervo that afternoon, and also taken a major toot in the Loveboat on the way over. He still wore his rumpled seersucker suit and torn black T-shirt, and no shoes or socks. I had on a glen-plaid suit of Irish linen and a straw trilby. I looked better than he did, but you’ll have to take my word for it.

Skitsy Held hurried over to us almost immediately, her high heels clacking on the deck. She was a brusque, gristly little woman in her early forties with shoulder-length black hair, heavy black brows, nervous brown eyes, and the unlikeliest pair of breasts in all of publishing, if not the Empire State. They positively strained against her lavender knit dress, jutting so outrageously far forward that it was a miracle the woman didn’t topple over. Those who worked for her swore that Skitsy’s oversized mammeries would slowly deflate through the course of the year and that every winter she would disappear alone for a holiday — returning two weeks later tanned, rested, and uplifted.

“Well, well, you made it, young Master Noyes.” She spoke in rushed, officious bursts and didn’t move her mouth when she did. “Not that I ever doubted you, of course.”

“Hey, sure,” Cam said good-naturedly, bending forward so she could give him a maternal peck on the cheek. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

She gestured to a crew member. A moment later the ship lurched and began to pull away from the pier. She’d been waiting for us. She turned to me now and extended a small, bony claw. Her nails were painted red, as was her rather wide mouth. “And I know this gentleman.”

“Using the term loosely,” I said, taking her hand.

“We met at the Anne Beattie party, remember?” Her eyes darted over to Cameron, then back to me.

“As if I could forget,” I said, trying to keep my own eyes off her breasts, and failing.

“There seems to be a bar,” observed Cam, glancing across the deck.

“Yes, go have fun, dear,” she said. “And
please
say hello to Delilah. She’s
so
insecure.”

We watched him shoulder his way through the crowd, a big disheveled blond kid at a party of sleek grown-ups.

“He can be a very bad boy,” said Skitsy, shivering slightly from the breeze that had picked up as we began to chug up the Hudson. “Be firm with him. He needs that. You see, he’s always felt this need to act out his view of the world.”

“Which is … ?”

“That all people, himself included, are trash.”

A white-jacketed waiter passed by with a tray of champagne. She took a glass. We both did.

“I’d like to talk to you about him for the book,” I said, sipping mine. “Get your side of his story.”

She raised an eyebrow, on guard now. “The rumor I hear is it’s some kind of publishing exposé.”

“Not really. Just his story, honesty told.”

“Still, I’d be careful,” she warned.

“I’m almost always careful.”

“Publishing is a very small, very social business.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

She eyed me over her champagne glass. “Friends look out for each other. Lend a hand. They don’t screw each other. Not without paying the consequences. Am I making myself clear?”

I tugged at my ear. “Yes. You have something to hide.”

Skitsy’s eyes flashed at me hotly. “I was wrong about you. You’re no gentleman.”

“I tried to warn you.”

“So I’m in it?” she demanded. “I’m in this book?”

“Of course. You discovered him. He was your biggest star.”

“He’s
still
my biggest star!” she snapped angrily. “And he always will be!”

With that, Skitsky Held turned on her heel and stormed off. Well, it certainly wasn’t hard to locate her little hot-button. Actually, given that Cam had so ungratefully left her for another house, it was a wonder she still spoke to him at all. Loyalty means a lot in publishing. It’s rarely practiced anymore, but it’s still one of the two grand delusions book people cling to. The other is that they’re smarter than movie people.

Had she been the one who slid that threat under my door? True, those footsteps on my roof had sounded as if they belonged to Andre the Giant, but the sound had been magnified by the darkness and my imagination. It could have been a woman up there with that crowbar. It could have been Skitsy.

Boyd Samuels was out there in the middle of the crowded deck, his greetings hearty, his laughter forced. He had on a white linen jacket and had tied a red bandanna over his head, Hell’s Angel style. I saw no sign of Delilah. I did see Boyd’s burr-headed assistant, Todd Lesser, who was standing by himself at the rail, nursing a beer and ignoring the views. He wasn’t watching the sun drop over the Jersey Palisades, or the lights of the Manhattan skyline beginning to twinkle in the dusk. He had eyes only for the woman photographer who was across the deck from him snapping shots of the guests. She was a trim woman, light on her feet and graceful in an oversized men’s white oxford button-down shirt, faded jeans, and black penny loafers. Todd was gazing at her the way a guy looks at the one and only woman he wants, and whom he knows he can never have.

I headed over to her with Lulu and said, “Blue Monday, isn’t it?”

Charlie Chu lowered her Nikon and exclaimed, “You guys made it.” Her dimples were even nicer flesh-toned, especially since that flesh was the color of honey and the texture of silk. Her black hair was glossy and parted neatly on one side. She wore horn-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down her nose in a way I knew I could easily find adorable. Her mouth was like a rosebud. There was no lipstick on it. She wore no makeup or jewelry of any kind. She needed none. There was an alive, eager beauty to her, a freshness you seldom find in New York women.

“How’s the tree pollen?” I asked.

“Better, thanks,” she replied. “Hi, cutie,” she said brightly to Lulu, who glowered up at her disapprovingly. Charlie frowned. “She still doesn’t like me.”

“She’s peeved because there’s no clam dip.”

“There’s shad roe downstairs on the buffet tables.” Lulu promptly waddled off in that direction.

“I waited at the house for you guys to pick me up,” Charlie said gaily. “No show. Todd was nice enough to bring me.”

“How chivalrous of him.”

He was still over by the railing, conversing now with Boyd. Actually, Boyd was talking and Todd was nodding.

“Yes, he’s very sweet,” she said. “A little tongue-tied though.”

“I’m sorry we stood you up. I only just found out about this little gathering. Standing up beautiful women isn’t my style, believe me.”

“Oh, I know,” she assured me. “It’s Cam’s.” She spotted him now across the deck, where he was gulping tequila and conversing with Sean Landeta, the punter of the New York Giants. The glow in her eyes was unmistakable: utter adoration.

“Getting any good shots?” I asked her.

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “A couple. Stuff I might be able to work off of for portraits. Skitsy. Tanner … ”

I looked around for Tanner Marsh. I didn’t see him. Possibly the illustrious critic had fallen overboard and drowned in the Hudson, untreated sewage spilling out of his mouth. There was always hope.

“And you?” she asked. “Have you and Cam been having good talks?”

“I believe so,” I replied. “It’s still early, of course, but so far he’s been candid and cooperative. An excellent subject.”

She looked up at me with a quizzical expression. “I hope he doesn’t disappoint you.”

“Not to worry. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

She cocked her head slightly to one side now. “I’ve decided you’re going to be a positive influence on him.”

I grinned at her. “I’ve been called many things in my time, but never that.”

She giggled. It really was a delicious giggle. Then she went off to say hello to the man she loved.

I worked my way over to the bar and found myself next to Todd, who was getting a Wild Turkey for Boyd.

“He invited most of these people here,” Todd volunteered. “Has me check out the gossip pages every morning to see who’s in town. If they’re hot, Boyd makes it a point to invite them out. Then he tips off the photographers.”

“Does he have a publicist?” I asked.

“Doesn’t need one. This sort of thing,” Todd explained, taking in the yachtful of celebrities with a wave of his hand, “is one of the things he’s best at.”

Todd seemed much more expansive than he had before. He was, I realized, somewhat drunk.

“And what are you best at?” I asked him.

“Me?” The bartender returned with Boyd’s whiskey. Todd reached for it, downed it somewhat defiantly, and ordered another. “Writing is what I really want to do. I’ve had some short stories going around for a while. Just finished a novel … ” He trailed off, shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s been years.”

“Sometimes it takes years.”

He gazed enviously over at McInerney, Ellis, and Janowitz — the Athos, Porthos, and Artemis of Lit Lite — who were yucking it up for Liz Smith. “Not for some people,” he said softly.

“Doesn’t pay to dwell on that. In the real world there’s no such thing as a fairness doctrine. You said you knew Boyd in school.”

“I did. Dropped out in my junior year. Some personal problems. Bummed around upstate for a while. Tended bar. Cleared brush. Worked construction. Then I found myself back in the city knocking on his door.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “And here, for better or worse, I am.”

The bartender returned with another Wild Turkey. This time Todd hurried off with it.

We had reached the George Washington Bridge and turned around and started back down the river. The night air was clear and the skyline ablaze now in its fullest glory. I was standing at the rail admiring it, and marveling at how it could inspire such awe and wonder in me even when the city itself no longer could, when a young woman grabbed my arm and told me how much she’d admired the second novel. It was the guest of honor, Delilah Moscowitz, and her cardboard cutout didn’t do her justice.

She was a tall, flamboyant peacock of a woman with a wild mane of frizzy red hair, creamy white skin, amused deep-blue eyes, and an upturned petulant upper lip. Her body was sculpted and sinewy, and she was showing it off. She was done up like a Place Pigalle hellcat in a lavender silk blouse unbuttoned to the navel, tight black leather miniskirt, and pink spiked heels worn without stockings. The vibes she gave off were humid enough to peel wallpaper out in Bend, Oregon.

“Glad you liked it,” I said. “That makes you, my mother, and that lanky kid over next to Boyd — and him I’m not so sure about.”

She swept her windblown hair back over her head. “You’re very brave.” She had a throaty, challenging voice. “Most men can’t deal with their own impotence.”

“Who says I can deal with it? I enjoyed your column in today’s paper on those ten sexy summer getaways — the elevator to the top of the World Trade Center, the Maurice Villency furniture showroom, air-conditioned cabs … ”

“I always test them myself personally,” she assured me with a mischievous grin.

“I expected nothing less.” I grinned back, getting the impression that Delilah Moscowitz, sex therapist, was something of a vampy, good-humored put-on.

Someone began to sneeze like crazy at our feet — Lulu, back from trolling the buffet tables. I looked down at her, then back up at Delilah. Well, well.

“Why is she doing that?” Delilah asked.

“Your perfume Calvin Klein’s Obsession, isn’t it?”

“Why, yes,” she replied.

“She’s terribly allergic.”

Delilah pouted. “What a shame if you and I ever have an affair, I’ll have to change scents.”

“It would be easier than me changing dogs.”

“It’d be worth it, you’d find.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second.”

Skitsy Held broke in on us, Cam and Charlie in tow.

“You remember Cameron, don’t you, Delilah?” said Skitsy.

“Of course,” Delilah said with cordial stiffness. “Nice to see you again.” Most discreet. No hint that the two of them enjoyed the odd matinee together.

“Nice to see you, too,” Cam agreed, grinning at her with easy, inflamed familiarity. He was a little less discreet. He was a lot less discreet. Still, neither Skitsy nor Charlie seemed to notice. Often, people won’t see something right under their nose unless they’re expecting to.

Boyd Samuels didn’t miss it though. He stood nearby, beaming like the proud breeder of thoroughbred stablemates. I went over to him.