Getting Garbo (22 page)

If he hadn't told me, I would have guessed. Judging just by the body language as I make my way down the center aisle with Nate and his wife. Behind us, the studio flacks are guarding the front doors. Admitting only the A-list mourners. The chapel is packed. Standing room only. But somehow as I move toward the front pew, a wide path opens up. Then closes behind me. There are nods, occasional glancing instants of eye contact. But basically I'm a leper. No one comes forward to hug me. Or even touch me. Until we're almost at the front row. David Niven emerges from the crowd. Claps me on both shoulders. “Chin up,” he says. Niven lost a wife a few years ago in a tragic accident. He knows what it feels like.

And what do I feel like?

Whipsawed. To the throng outside, I'm the tragic hero. To the guests inside, I'm the villain of the piece. A pariah. They may not believe Braxton's snively dig that I had Addie killed. But they're certainly ready to hold me accountable in some way for her death. At the very least for making her desperately unhappy. In Hollywood, placing blame is a favorite indoor sport.

Once we're seated, the organ music subsides. The robed rabbi enters from a side door. He goes to the lectern. Next to the closed coffin. He's a smallish man with a prematurely gray, wavy pompadour and a mellifluous voice that could have made him a fortune in radio. He soothes. He consoles. He laments. His words are amplified by the microphone in the lectern, carried by speakers to the overflow crowd outside. Before we know it, he's guiding us all through the shadow of the valley of death. The only thing he doesn't do is give any real sense of who Addie was or what she was like. Not his fault. He never knew her.

We bow our heads for a moment of prayer. Then he introduces me.

It comes as something of a shock. I have to talk to these people now. I walk toward the lectern. Behind me I can hear the gossipy buzz. The rabbi shakes my hand, offers deepest sympathy. Then I'm alone. Looking out at those faces. I've dined and laughed and drank and worked with so many of them. Why do they look so skeptical? So hostile. I never did anything to them (well, maybe I cuckolded a few husbands in the crowd, but still…). One crappy story in a tawdry scandal sheet and they think they know the real me. They think they know the real Addie. But they don't. I spot Arzy Marshak leaning against a pillar way to the back. What's a cop doing here? This isn't a Mafia funeral.

So I'm up here. Facing them all. I've got to give a eulogy now. And I haven't prepared. Guess I thought I'd just get up and wing it. Say some pleasant things and the sympathy of the mourners would carry me through. But now I'm confronting the kind of crowd that used to gather around the guillotine in Robespierre's Paris for a morning of family fun. I can't look at them. My gaze goes over to the casket. Addie's in there. In that shiny, gilt-handled, plush-lined box. My Addie. I can hear people coughing in the audience. Whispering. Fuck 'em. I keep staring at the casket. Uptown word for coffin. Sanitized.

“I'm a liar,” I finally mumble. The microphone amplifies my words. “A liar. Guess all actors are. That's how I met Addie.” Looking at the coffin. “I lied to you…” Now I have to look away. I stare out over the crowd. Past them. Forget them. Remember her. Remember how it was. In the beginning. When it was good.

“I was a hungry young actor. Very hungry. Working on a kid's show for CBS Radio. And playing Laertes in a makeshift production of
Hamlet.
Doing Shakespeare in a church with a leaky roof. We needed publicity. So I phoned this woman who worked for one of the New York trade papers. Pretended I was a CBS publicist and pitched her on interviewing The Man of a Thousand Voices—that was me. She swallowed my lie and we made an appointment to meet at Sardi's for the interview.” I can remember what the weather was like that day. How the air tasted.

“Before she got there, I slipped the maitre d' five bucks to give us a good table and pretend I was a big shot. I didn't know what Adrienne Ballard looked like so I stood at the bar and approached every likely looking Rosalind Russell
His Girl Friday–
type woman who walked in. But she turned out to be this Columbia University law school student, moonlighting as a reporter. In harlequin glasses and a pullover sweater and saddle shoes. Long chestnut hair, tucked behind her ears. Hair kept getting loose. She'd shake her head then, like a frisky colt.”

Remember? Remember how you felt.

“I guess I fell in love with her even before we ordered drinks—and she told me she knew I'd lied. Knew the real CBS publicist I'd pretended to be. ‘Then why'd you agree to meet me?' I asked her. She smiled and said, ‘Curious, I guess. Don't lie to me anymore, okay?' I promised I wouldn't. It wasn't a promise I kept.”

I pause. Swallow. Keep focused, kid. Keep looking at the back wall. Gazing way into the past. “She was very independent. First time we went to see a movie, I bought the tickets and she ran ahead inside the theater to pay for the popcorn and drinks. So we negotiated some terms that night. She didn't want me opening car doors for her, that seemed old-fashioned. But when she was all dressed up and wearing heels, then it was okay to open her car doors. I agreed. I had to. I was completely captivated by her.”

What else do you remember? Come on. The good stuff. Getting caught in a summer downpour in Central Park, dancing through the puddles like Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Yeah. Tell 'em that. And how she made me absolutely crazy when she was cramming for the New York bar exam and how proud I was that she passed on her first try—and how when I told her I had a job in L.A. she said, without even a blink of hesitation, “Okay, then we're moving out there.” After all her hard work, dropping it all for me…

I tell 'em that.

“Addie got a job in business affairs out here at Columbia, negotiating contracts. Did a good job, but she got fired—by Harry Cohn himself. He grabbed her ass, which is something he didn't do to the male negotiators. She stomped a four-inch stiletto heel down on his big toe. And she was out on the pavement on Gower Street before King Cohn stopped yelling. She came home and told me, ‘Guess I'm not supposed to be in show business after all.' That's when she opened the boutique. And it became her life.”

I come back to the here and now. The chapel. The crowd. I don't know what they're thinking. But they're listening.

“There was an article today in a rag that claims to be a trade paper. Lot of lies in there. I ought to know. Takes one to know one.” I think about that for a second. “But the worst lie was that the writer questioned something I'd said on TV. Which is that Addie was my best friend. So let me tell you about one of the bad times we had—back when we were still living in New York. She was struggling through her last year of law school and my career suddenly dried up. I mean, Gobi Desert dry. I couldn't get a day's work anywhere. Sometimes it happens. I've learned that since, everything just stops for a while. But back then I thought it was the end of my world. I was in deep depression. Grim. Ready to quit show biz and take a job selling men's suits at Macy's. Or just jump in the East River. I couldn't decide which.

“Addie didn't waste time trying to pep me up. She said, ‘C'mon, we're going out to dinner at the Deli.' I said ‘I'm not hungry.' She said, ‘Well, I am—and besides, I've called ahead and Sollie's making this special appetizer just for me.' So we went. And when we got there she had them bring out this special thing and the waiters made a ceremony about it because it was an Academy Award, a golden Oscar, on a platter, and the inscription was ‘With love to Roy Darnell, the Best Actor in the World, from Your Addie.' Turns out the gold covering was just tin foil and Oscar was made of pumpernickel underneath—” I hear a few laughs “—and we ate him with chopped liver and he was delicious, and if that's as close as I ever come to winning a real Oscar, that's fine, because the pumpernickel Oscar gave me back the courage to keep on trying.” I swallow again. “So don't anybody tell me that Addie wasn't my best friend.”

I walk away from the lectern. As I pass some of Addie's friends in the first row, I'm amazed to see that they're smiling empathetic smiles. A couple of them have tears running down their cheeks.

And I realize I do, too.

• • •

I'm not an un-person any more. Standing out under a tree. Casket being lowered. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Only the triple-A mourners out here with us at the grave site. The rest are roped off down below, watching from a distance. As the ceremony ends, I'm patted, touched, embraced, kissed. I hug and kiss back. Then I move with Nate and Laraine Scanlon to our waiting limo. Climb into the back. Slump into my seat. Exhausted. Nate looks at me approvingly.

“You pulled that one out of the fire, laddie.”

We're rolling, heading for the street. Mourners lining the driveway, strolling slowly toward their cars. As we go by them, many wave. I wave back. That's when I see her. Reva. In the crowd, several people in front of her. She sees me, too. Eye contact. A sad smile. She raises her hand, I think she's going to wave—but instead she points at her neck. And I see the locket. She's wearing the locket. My gift to Addie. Reva did swipe it! The lynchpin of my survival is hanging around her neck.

Then she's gone from view. I want to yell at the driver to stop the limo. I want to jump out and run back and grab her and snatch the locket, without that locket it's just my word against hers, and—and—I do nothing. I can't. Not without making a spectacle of myself. Calling attention to what I must conceal. So I sit there. Paralyzed. And then, as we drive farther and farther away, I smile at the irony. You'd think that the shock of seeing her like that would at least jog my memory loose. But I still can't remember her last name.

• • •

In Hollywood, the choice you make about who's going to cater those very special at-home events is viewed as quite important. You could go with Chasen's, featuring their legendary chili. Or with the Brown Derby, creators of the original Cobb salad. I had Romanoff's do Addie's wake. She would have approved. Prince Mike's buckwheat blinis with sour cream and caviar, washed down with White Russians, were her favorites. So how's that for blending sentiment and snootiness?

The point is that the food is plentiful. The booze is flowing. And everybody at my house is getting ripped. Including the host. I wasn't sure how many mourners would come back here for the wake. Turns out quite a few. My friends, her friends, our friends. Just goes to prove what the man said: you can fool some of the people some of the time. Maybe even enough of 'em
all
of the time?

Only if you do something,
Jack Havoc says.

I keep ducking him, losing him in the crowd, but I know he's there. What's he want from me? I can't walk out on my own party.

It's not a rowdy party. Nobody getting pushed into the lap pool. But it gets to be kind of a warm occasion. A celebration of Addie. Her waspish tongue. I start the ball rolling. “Once we were dining at this piss-elegant Mexican restaurant down on Olvera Street,” I recall, “and these loud mariachi players came over, and the leader asks, ‘What would you like us to play, señora?' Addie points to the far side of the restaurant and says, ‘Over there.'” Soon lots of people are adding their own Addie-isms. Some nasty, some bawdy, all funny. The lady did have her moments. If you were into take-'em-off-at-the-knees sarcasm.

I slip into the bedroom, lock the door and try phoning Kim again. Haven't had a call back and the service says, “Yes, she did pick up your message.” I leave another message, “Please call.” Then I try the Hamlet. She's not on duty. In fact, the cashier says, she's taken some time off. “I think she's got an aunt in Idaho.” I hang up. There's no aunt in Idaho. She took off. Guess she knows about Addie. Probably heard about the article in
The Tattler.
Can't blame her for hiding from me. Wish I could talk to her.

At last the crowd is thinning. Going home time. It's dark outside, caterers loading their gear. I stand in the doorway and bid farewell to the last of my guests. Well, almost. When I come back inside, there's still one left. Slouching in the leather club chair he always slouched in. Belting my best single-malt Scotch like he always did. The prodigal returned. And damned if I'm not pleased to see him. We hardly got to say more than hello when he arrived. So I pour myself another drink and sprawl on the couch opposite him. “Glad you came, Kenny,” I say.

Killer Lomax lifts his glass with my booze in salute. “Thought you might need some old friends around at a time like this.”

We clink glasses and sip. The Corsican Brothers. Reunited. For a few minutes anyway. “So you said you flew in from Vegas? You win or lose?”

“Won at blackjack. Lost it all back plus interest at the craps table.”

“The dice never loved you. Even when we were kids.”

“Except that one time, remember, in the front hallway of Marty Ganzer's house? I made six straight passes, cleaned everybody out—”

“—and then the cops busted up the game and confiscated all the money as evidence—”

“Hell, they put
my
dough in
their
pockets! Story of my fuckin' life!”

And we're laughing together. Like we're still punks in South Philly.

“Anything else goin' on in Vegas?” I ask him. Not really giving a shit.

“Viola did a standup for two nights at El Rancho. Filling in for Joe E. Lewis, he's got the flu.”

“Bet our Davey was a million laughs. How's it goin' with you and him?”

Killer makes a
comme-si-comme-ca
gesture. “He likes bobbysoxers, as close to jailbait as you can come. Still acts like an idiot on his own time. Can't hold his liquor.”

“Not like us,” I say. Taking another pull on my drink.