Passing Through the Flame (34 page)

Cyrano’s, on the Sunset Strip only a few blocks from the Eden Tower, reminded him of the Cafe Figaro in New York, an old mellow Village coffeehouse which had been torn down to make room for a Blimpy Base. The California resurrection of the Cafe Figaro on Melrose, on the other hand, reminded him of the transplanted
Queen Mary
in Long Beach or the bones of London Bridge bleaching in the desert sun at Lake Havasu City.

More to the point, Cyrano’s was an acceptable industry lunch place, as well as a place you might take a lady to dinner, so it left the situation properly ambiguous. Which was how Paul felt, parked in a loading zone in the still-heavy six thirty traffic, waiting for Sandra Bayne to emerge from the Eden Tower.

Am I out to go to bed with her or to pump her about Beck? Or is that the trade? Am I selling my ass for a little inside dope? If that’s what I’m really doing, why does the idea turn me on so much?

Maybe I’d better not examine that too closely, he thought as Sandra waved to him from the steps of the building. She was wearing the same blue sheath and black sleeveless vest that she had worn in the office, but now her hair was down around her shoulders. It bounced and swirled, and she had to brush it out of her eyes as she climbed into the top-down MG. In that moment of spontaneous motion, she looked very sexy. Again, he found himself wondering about her age, her past, who and what she was.

“Hi. I didn’t know you’d have the top down,” she said as he put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, throwing her hair in her eyes again. It looked really good there.

“Don’t worry about your hair, I thought we’d just go down the Strip to Cyrano’s.” He said it just so, maintaining the tension between date and sub rosa business meeting. For some reason, it seemed a nice little game to play, and they were both obviously enjoying it. He was starting to think as much about her body at the end of the evening as about getting some line on what Jango was doing during dinner.

She didn’t say anything, just settled back on the car seat, looking at him with open lust in her eyes.

Cyrano’s wasn’t very crowded at this early dinner hour; the place seemed cozy and quiet, quite a difference from the bedlam of the lunch and dinner rushes which made it a place to avoid. Sandra Bayne admired the choice or at least respected what it represented. Paul was new at this level of the game, and had chosen a place in which he wouldn’t feel intimidated, a restaurant that—with its fireplace, round table, silver espresso machine, and coffeehouse lighting—had New York overtones, emphasizing an aspect of who he was that enhanced him. If it was natural, it said that he was a natural winner, and if it wasn’t, it meant he was probably a pretty good director.

Sandra sipped at her martini, looked at Paul playing with his drink, and said, “Now that you’ve cleverly gotten me here, Mr. Conrad, you can ask me anything you want. But for every question I answer, you’ve got to answer one of mine.”

He smiled invitingly at her. “Fair enough,” he said. “Why is Jango Beck so happy to run up a big budget on
Carnival of Life,
which, by the way, has now apparently been rechristened
Sunset
City
?”

“The rock festival or the movie?”

“The rock festival.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then, the movie.”

Sandra ran her tongue lightly around her lips. “I don’t know either,” she said.

The waiter arrived with Beef Bordelaise for her, Veal Oscar for Paul, and a half-bottle of St.-Emilion. Paul glowered at her in mock anger as the waiter served the food and did his number with the wine. Meanwhile, she brought her ankle into contact with his under the table and with a little rub made it clear that it was not an accident.

“Now I get to ask you three questions,” she said, when the waiter had gone.

“Three? I asked you three, you asked me one and you answered one, that gives you only one question.”

“I’ll settle for two,” she said, moving her foot so that their calves were now pressed against each other. Paul smiled, shrugged, nodded.

“One,” she said, holding up a finger, “are you living with anyone now? Two, are you seeing anyone you’re serious about?”

She was treated to a slight blushing below his cheekbones; she subtly increased the pressure of her calf against his.

“No and no,” he said.

“What about Velva Leecock?”

Paul gave her a sly little grin, put a mouthful of food into his mouth, chewed it slowly, and swallowed it. “You’ve used up your two questions,” he said.

“Try me again.”

“Why does Jango trust me so far when he’s never seen anything I’ve done?”

Sandra cut herself a piece of beef, chewed it slowly, using it as an excuse to pause and ponder. Do I tell him the truth? Do I tell him that Jango just threw him in as a random factor to make things interesting for himself? If I do, how do I explain what that means, when I haven’t the foggiest myself?

“Jango goes by instinct,” she said. “He just likes your face.”

“I find that pretty hard to believe.”

“Why?
I
go by instinct, too, and I like your face even more than he does.” By way of proof, she rubbed the full length of her calf against his, all the while looking into his deep gray eyes. “Now tell me about you and Velva Leecock.”

Paul took a sip of wine while keeping his eyes locked on hers, making her quiver a little inside. “We’ve slept together on and off for a little while,” he said. “Nothing serious.” A tremor traveled up her leg to her loins as he actively rubbed his leg against hers and said, “I’m free as a bird.”

She sipped her wine, stared into his eyes, ran her tongue lightly around the rim of her glass. “We’re even,” she said. “Your turn.”

“Are you living with anyone now? Are you seeing anyone you’re serious about?” He said this while looking down at his plate, masking his eyes. It was said in a teasing tone of voice, but it was definitely the right tone of teasing.

“I’m living alone in a house I acquired in my second divorce, and the only person you could say I was seriously involved with is Jango. Can you call Jango serious?” Dropping the two divorce bad news on him, then distracting him with Jango. Pretty good, Sandy, the Great Man would be proud of you. Does that mean you should be proud of yourself?

He looked up at her with unreadable eyes, not cold, but perhaps guarded now. Or was that just paranoia? “Is that an official question?” he said.

“If you care to give an official answer.”

“I don’t have an answer, official or otherwise,” Paul said. “We seem to have switched sides. I’m asking you about your love life, and you’re asking
me
to explain Jango Beck.”

“Which will give you an idea of how much insight I have into Jango,” Sandra said.

He smiled, his leg still pressed against hers, and said, “Or how much I know about your love life?”

Impulsively, Sandra leaned across the table and planted a quick, wet kiss on his lips. He didn’t seem surprised. “Shall we go somewhere and exchange experiences?” she said. “Do you have a spare toothbrush at your place?”

“No.”

“Well, I do, so we’ll go to mine.”

At Sandra’s direction, Paul drove along the Strip to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, through the canyon, and over into North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley, which was about as much like the Hollywood on the other side of the hills as Paris, Texas was like Paris, France. Here was mostly Valley ticky-tacky: rows of tract homes and motellike apartment houses, shopping centers, and long main drags emphasizing freeway entrances, giant drugstores, and car lots. This, Paul thought, is what New Yorkers visualize as Southern California, the pit of American nonculture. It reminded him of the porn industry, of the hopelessness of permanently out-ofwork actors, of used car salesmen who “once were in show business”: a place people sink to after they’ve given up.

What kind of scene am I letting myself in for? he wondered. A trip to the heartland of the American soul? Why am I doing this? She’s at least three years older than I am, she’s been divorced twice, and she’s got a house in the San Fernando Valley. I’m beginning to think she really doesn’t know that much about Beck’s business even if she is sleeping with him. So I must be doing this because she turns me on. Or because I obviously turn her on and that turns me on...?

Sandra guided him off Ventura Boulevard onto Lankershim, and then off into one of those San Fernando Valley rectilinear mazes—block after block of identical residential streets—and finally into an area where the houses were older, somewhat more individualistic, and the streets ran under a thick canopy of large, full-crowned old trees. It didn’t seem like the San Fernando Valley anymore; these plots gave the feeling of being carefully laid out in a wood, there was a sense of connection to the land. The breeze rustled the crowns of the trees, and he could hear crickets in the night.

They drove up to a plain-looking well-aged brick house overgrown with ivy and bushes, all rather formally kept, but not barbered and manicured in the sterile Valley style.

“Rod, my second husband, was in the PR business,” she said, opening the heavy wooden front door. “I met him because we worked in the same agency. He really was something after my first husband. Harvey and I met at Valley State College, got married while we were still in school. He’s now teaching junior high school in Fullerton and happy at it. So Rod was the real Hollywood thing, after I emerged from my Valley upbringing. I was born and brought up in Encino, you know, chief claim to fame of which is the giant Ralph Williams car lot.”

She continued talking rapidly as she led him down a dark wood-paneled hall and into a living room with a large brick fireplace, a rich burgundy rug, moderately interesting paintings on the walls, odds and ends of African wooden furniture and sculpture, and plush modern furniture in mustards, browns, and greens.

“Rod was into the show business scene, which is where any young divorcee from the San Fernando Valley wants to be, and he was a different order of lover, lover, from guys like Harv.”

She went to the fireplace, turned on the gas tap, and lit the gas jets under the andirons with a long wooden match. A reasonable imitation of firelight glowed in the fireplace. She turned off the white overhead light, so that the room was lit only by the dancing orange flames; deep shadows and firelight flickering over ebony, burgundy, earthy greens and browns. Paul began to feel more at ease. This room said something about her that belied all his logical reservations. This, somehow, was what was inside of her, and it felt good.

“We bounced around together, getting married along the way, and finding ourselves in this cozy little house, where some satisfactorily bizarre scenes sometimes took place, and then one bounce landed Rod in a deal with Jango Beck.” She tossed two small logs onto the gas fire, and in a few moments they caught, incensing the air with a smoky tang.

She turned, took off her vest, kicked her shoes off, smiled slyly at him, and said, “But you didn’t come here to hear a lot of gossip about ex-husbands.”

He smiled back just as slyly. “I don’t mind listening. You were just getting to the good part.”

They laughed together. And walked across the room to each other. “You really want to hear what kind of threesome Rod and Jango and I had?” she said, looking up into his eyes. Something sparkled down there in the green depths, and he could smell the musky sweetness of her closeness. He could smell her smelling his closeness. She was turned on, and it was turning him on.

“I’d be fascinated,” he said.

She put her right hand around the back of his neck and drew him to her, kissing him with an open mouth, a slow gentle tongue, and a delicious irony in the way she arched her body away from the kiss.

“Shall we make love or talk about Jango Beck?” she said. “Any order you please, but let’s keep them separate. Let’s stop playing the reverse of Mata Hari. Doesn’t it turn you on, bargaining your young bod for information from a jaded sophisticate?”

A surge of lust went through Paul. That was exactly what was turning him on. That subtle role reversal, that wild freedom from previous sexual pattern. At the same time, he felt a pang of guilt for involving a real human being as a pawn in such a convoluted sexual fantasy.

“It’s not exactly like that,” he said. “I’m not using—”

She sealed his lips with a finger. “We’re using each other, lover,” she said. “Neither of us minds it, and we’re both enjoying it. What I’d enjoy now is collecting my end of the bargain.”

She slid her body against him, covered his mouth with her own, and let her hands trail down his back to his waist. Paul hugged her to him and threw himself into the kiss, felt his flesh filling his fantasy, and suddenly wanted this older woman, this source of information, this sly and understanding soul, this jaded sophisticate, with an honest lust.

They sank to the rug together, lips and bodies still entwined. The kiss broke as they dropped from their knees to their sides.

“Here?” he said.

“Why not?”

Sandra kept her eyes on Paul’s face as she undid the zipper of her dress and slid out of it, feeling the caress of the fabric as it moved across her skin. He’s watching my body, she thought as her bare skin emerged into the firelight like a butterfly from a cocoon. He’s not thinking about Jango; he’s thinking about balling me. He’s giving himself to me, but he’s digging it, he’s digging that I know that’s the way it is and that I’m liking it.

She pulled the dress over her head, cursing herself for wearing an ugly white bra, tossed the dress aside, unhooked the bra, and snaked out of it. He touched a finger lightly to her nipple, and undid his pants, a sequence of gestures that went through her like electricity. He got out of his clothes quickly and unceremoniously, and they lay naked together, side by side on the soft burgundy rug.

“Vill you giff me der information?” he said in a gross Erich von Stroheim accent.

“I won’t talk Willingly,” Sandra said, rolling onto her back like a cat. “You’ll have to fuck it out of me.”

He gaped, his eyes popped; and he laughed and he grabbed her, and they rolled all over the floor, he atop her, then she atop him. Somewhere in the middle of the tumble, she managed to find his mouth with hers, and the roughhouse rolling ended up in a slow, slow up, over and under, up, over and under as they made love on the rollercoaster of their own slowly tumbling bodies. He took her one, two trips through the top, and when he came himself, they were side by side.