Cheat and Charmer (82 page)

Five days later, Dinah, Jake, Dorshka, Claire, Clifford Boatwright, Vernon Ashby, Byron Cole, Saul Landau, Felicity Crandell—who had flown in from Paris—Nelly and Manny Steiner and Irv and Anya Engel stood gathered around a rectangular plot of rosebushes in a cemetery in Westwood Village, California. Dressed in a dark gray suit, the cemetery official pulled open the drawstring on a blue velvet bag and matter-of-factly drew out a small polished wooden box with a shiny brass clasp. He opened the box and took out a plastic bag, tightly closed by another drawstring, which he unloosened. Holding out the bag, he invited each of the mourners to approach and receive a handful of ashes and scatter them inside the shallow hole that had been dug in the black earth, speckled with flecks of white, around a sturdy, thickly blooming rosebush that Dinah and Claire had chosen together.

Dinah held out both of her hands to receive her portion. A wave of nausea rose up and receded, as she felt what seemed to be dry gravel and grit against the skin of her palms. Like the born gardener that she was, however, she opened her fingers slowly, letting the stuff fall gently, and then she crouched and reached in to knead it into the soil, while a cloud of minuscule particles rose like powder into the air.

When she finished, she saw how Claire’s eyes had opened in horror at the realization that the ashes weren’t really ashes but coarse pieces of bone—human bone—imperfectly pulverized as yellowish-gray grains and chips and pea-size pebbles, with traces of black where they had been seared by the crematorium flame. So it was neither dust-to-dust, Dinah reflected, nor ashes-to-ashes. It was wet, gooey sperm-and-egg turned flesh-and-blood-and-bone that burned in fire until it cooled as scorched gravel that you could pave a driveway with, scooped up into a plastic bag. You didn’t go back to your beginnings, and nothing could be reversed.

About two hours later, a smaller collection of people sat together in the den of the Laskers’ house. Boatwright hadn’t stayed but had taken a waiting taxi to the airport after a cordial and warm farewell; the Steiners had come over for coffee but had retreated, and so had the Engels, who had hugged Dinah at the door. So it was basically just the nearest and dearest, as it were, who were there. Vernon Ashby, with his lean Appalachian features, had his arm around Claire, who wept; Dorshka, at the opposite end of the sofa, was eyeing Claire watchfully, tears slowly running from her eyes. Jake occupied one of the deep-red armchairs, and Dinah sat in front
of him on its ottoman—near him but not touching. It was just as well, because he couldn’t take his eyes off Felicity Crandell, dressed in a chic black suit and sitting very straight-backed in a Windsor chair, well-bred as usual, companionable, and unembarrassed by the silence. God, he was fond of her. She could go anywhere, and she would know what to do and say on any occasion. Not for one moment had she said or implied anything about their time together in London. She was, in fact, serious and sober. She had been sent to Los Angeles by Mike to pack up Coco and Dorshka and bring them back to Paris to begin a new life with him and Odile, and she behaved with perfect tact. As always, though, she was her irrepressible self, and Jake saw her catch Dinah’s eye, indicating that she, too, was aware of the man who sat on the love seat, sobbing—a particularly histrionic kind of sobbing, with his jaw hanging open and his grotesque pink tongue visible.

At the cemetery, when it was his turn to toss his handful of burnt bone into the ground, he had wailed, “Oh God, Veevi, how I loved you!” And now he gasped, “She was everything to me. To you she was only a sister”—he nodded in Dinah’s direction—“and to you a mother”—this nod was for Claire—“and to you a—” He glanced at Jake and then turned away with a wrenching sob. It was then that Jake felt a kind of electric twitch in his legs. How much did Byron know? Had Veevi told him?

“I assure you,” said Saul, “that she meant a great deal to everyone in this room, and that—”

But Dinah’s hatred of Byron exploded before Landau could finish. “How d-d-d-dare you put yourself at the head of the line. How d-d-d-dare you!” she broke in. “You slept with her for what? Three months? And you sit here telling her daughter and her friends that she means more to you than she does to them? What kind of a h-h-h-horse’s ass are you?”

He cast an injured look at her. “I didn’t mean … Oh God, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling a soggy handkerchief out of his pocket.

“Honey, not now,” Jake said.

“Yes, N-N-NOW,” retorted Dinah. She stood up in her dark blue dress and went over to him. “Listen to me. I’m not going to say this again,” she began. “I want you to take your freeloading and unsavory self back to Veevi’s and get your things and leave. I will drive Dorshka and Coco and Felicity home by eight. If you haven’t cleared out by then, I will call Vernon, who is sitting across from you, and knows I mean b-b-business, and tell him to get some of his pals from the LAPD to personally esc-c-c-cort you from that house. And no monkey business, mister; don’t take anything
that doesn’t belong to you. You preyed on my sister and pandered to her misery, and dragged her down, and I never want to s-s-s-s-set eyes on you again.”

Byron’s heavy, dark eyes dropped, and he shrugged, “Okay.” She saw Jake scowling at her but ignored him and stood tall, with her arms folded. Byron looked at Claire, who had buried her face in Vernon’s shoulder, and then at Dorshka, who gave him one of her worldly smiles, with the corner of her mouth turned downward, but then she, too, looked away.

And then, as if asking “How about you, Jake?” Byron turned to him, and again Jake thought he saw an intelligent, mocking look come into the bulging blue eyes. “Do what the lady says,” Jake said softly.

Byron made no effort to get up, and again fixed Jake with a look that he could have sworn was a smirk. Jake jerked his head toward the door. Byron smiled at him again, an obscene, leering smile, and Jake knew for sure that he had something on him.

At the door that evening, Dinah told Saul that he had loved Veevi more faithfully than any man in her sister’s life, and had helped keep her alive, and that she was very grateful to him; he was always welcome in her house. Then she held out her arms to give him a hug. But without a word he cut her, turning himself, his tweed jacket, his pipe, his brown loafers, and his inviolable principles briskly away. Like the process server five years earlier, he disappeared down the brick path along the rose garden and toward his parked car in the driveway.

On his first night back in New York, as they talked in bed at his flat, Jake told Grace about the funeral and lavishly praised his wife. “She’s one hell of a dame,” he said, and explained how she had ordered Veevi’s boyfriend out of the house. “I was a little worried about it,” he confessed.

Why? Grace wanted to know. What was there to worry about?

“Look,” he said, “I’ve got to be able to trust you with this.”

“Oh, come on, love, you keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours. Mum’s the word.”

Well, he said, there had been a kind of an—an interlude, he would have to say. Of course, he had learned so much from it—it was invaluable, priceless, really, from a creative standpoint. He knew now that he could write a story about his wife’s sister—a novel, a screenplay, he wasn’t sure which.

“An interlude? What do you mean?” said Grace, her big eyes open wide.

It was snowing outside. As thick flakes piled up against the windows, throwing pale light into the dark bedroom where Jake lay with his young mistress snuggled up beside him, he began to tell her the story of his affair with Veevi, but also the story of Veevi’s life, in which, he modestly explained, he had actually played a very small role. And as he spoke he realized that what was coming out was really a first draft, and that telling this story one day would be the greatest challenge of his career—telling it right, finding the right form. So he listened to himself and answered Grace’s questions, and instructed her to remember his answers, and wondered how, and when, he would get around to actually doing it. He knew only that one day he would, when he was good and ready. In the meantime, he was awfully glad that Grace was there, to get him started. She was such a good listener.

C
hico Burke, the assistant director, held up his megaphone and boomed, “Places, people!” throughout the hangarlike soundstage. The dancers filed quickly and obediently into the Maxwell Street set, an exact replica of the stage version in New York. Jake took a deep breath, willing in himself the patience he did not and could not feel, reminding himself that he must fight against the urge to rush through the final shots of the picture. Take your time, he told himself. God forbid you should have to go back and do something over because you were sloppy. But he felt like a kid on the last day of school before summer vacation. Ahead lay freedom from what had been a very tough directing job, and four years of the same project, if you counted both the stage and the movie versions. It was the last day of ensemble work, the last day he would need the dancers. After that, two days for covering shots—reactions, close-ups—and that was it. Time was very tight, but he thought he could get a rough cut of the picture ready in six weeks; that is, if he spent sixteen hours a day at the studio, which would make him ready by the end of July to hand over the picture for scoring. It was killing but doable.

He searched the faces as the dancers converged in front of the camera in their 1919 costumes. “Chico, where the hell is Grace?”

“That guy Cole’s off taking her picture. Jeez, boss, I swore I’d keep my mouth shut, but I wish you’da used my cousin Diego for the stills. This guy you got wanders around all the time, you can never find him when you need him, he gets in the way of the grips, and he’s always moving in on the girls.”

“Guess he’d better not ask
you
for a reference. Get everything set up while I find her myself.”

“Okay, boss,” said Chico, letting his eyes linger understandingly on
Jake’s annoyed face. He was a stocky, mustached, superbly competent man from New Mexico who had been the assistant director on every picture Jake had made at Marathon. Jake loved him and was going to miss him very much. Yet, like everyone on the set, Chico knew too much, which was one reason Jake wanted the picture over and done with.