West of Paradise (33 page)

*   *   *

“I'll need some of your blood,” Richie said, when they were in his room with the bag and the knife and a big dark sweatsuit, size extra large, that he'd gotten on sale.

“What? You kidding me?” Tony said.

Richie had pierced his own palm with the tip of the knife, and was dripping on it and the clothes. “We'll need more than one type.”

In the end they got four different kids, including Richie and Tony, to bleed on the knife and the sweatsuit, one more than they needed for victims and perpetrator, unless of course it had been a South American drug gang. But Richie figured if the DNA experts had so confused the jury, it would not be any easier for Arthur Finster, should he check.

*   *   *

“I brought the bag,” Richie said, when the door was closed to Finster's office.

“I'll put it somewhere safe,” Arthur said, reaching for it. There were framed posters up on the leather brass-tacked walls, blowups of the covers of the books that had leapfrogged to popular prominence on the backs of those who could not defend themselves, including the brand new one just out about a drug-addicted, alcoholic former district attorney who'd lost a big case in San Francisco, an uncorroborated account of his ménage à trois with the homosexual city councilman who'd been murdered, and the murdered mayor, who'd been straight. It was having a brisk local sale in the Bay Area.

“Not till we get our money,” said Richie.

Before he left that day, Arthur would pay him five hundred in cash, as an advance against his advance, and put him in a room with a tape recorder to tell his story. There were a lot of likes and you knows and basicallys on the tape. But deep in its recesses were words that struck ecstasy into Arthur, in addition to information about the father's friendship with O.J. and the appearance of the black bag. And those were, “My father's an associate in the law firm of Fletcher McCallum.”

So an associate of the esteemed Mr. McCallum, Esq., was guilty of aiding and abetting in the most notorious criminal trial in memory. Why, in the wrong hands, a story like that could bring down an entire firm. The lawyer who had been his own lawyer and fired him as a client because he
disapproved
of the kind of thing he was publishing. The lawyer who had instituted and was handling the action against him. Ha ha. So much for Fletcher McCallum and the class action libel suit.

*   *   *

For the climb into the recycling bin, Sarah Nash had gotten into sneakers, an old pair of jeans, and a thin, funky sweater. She waited until twilight just so she wouldn't be
too
conspicuous. Anybody who saw her clambering up the hood of the old Buick next to the bin, gingerly leaping across the space between, jumping into the bin itself, her landing softened by the paper, might have thought her actions a little peculiar. But watching her forage carefully through the contents, those who knew New York would probably just dismiss her as a homeless person looking for soft drink cans to turn in for cash or food.

She had covered her attention-getting hairdo with a woolen ski cap that more or less did the job, although the spikes were so heavy with glue that they still sort of showed through, like five hard-ons. But freaky was pretty much run-of-the-mill now in the city. No one would bother her, out of apathy or fear she was one of the bona fide lunatics that roamed the streets since the laws had been changed so that the hospitals had to have permission from wackos to put them away.

She had brought a flashlight with her, a smart little thing she had picked up at JC Penney's in Santa Monica, someplace she only dropped into to get a parking validation when meeting with her lawyer in the building on the corner. The pocket flashlight was blue, very neat, an oval-shaped disc with a sliding top that illuminated when opened. There was a kind of slickness about it that pleased her as she went through the cast-off letters, the junk mail.

It took her a few hours to find it. The envelope was addressed to Paulo, postmarked in Baltimore a few weeks before, the return address Johns Hopkins University. She opened it.

It was a letter of inquiry from from a Dr. Aaronson. “It has been twenty months since successful completion of your surgery,” he'd written. “We are doing a long-term study on the effects of estrogen on our patients, and would greatly appreciate your cooperation.

“Along with that, we are doing a co-study with the noted psychiatrist Dr. Harold Hoddingsworth on the long-term psychological effects of the procedure. Would you be willing to complete a questionnaire? Naturally no names will be used, and the confidentiality we promised will continue to be honored.”

The questionnaire that accompanied the letter contained, among other inquiries, a request to know the frequency of intercourse, if there was any pain, and whether there was tenderness in the breasts. Sarah could hardly breathe. That she would have to wait until morning to call the doctor's office to verify her suspicions seemed truly a torture. In spite of what Jerry Falwell said, God must have loved homosexuals, or she wouldn't have had to spend such a difficult night.

*   *   *

“And what, specifically, is Dr. Aaronson's field?” she asked his nurse on the phone.

“May I ask what this is for?”

“Well, he was recommended to my husband by our doctor. So I'm just double-checking that this is the right Dr. Aaronson.”

“What is your husband's problem?”

“He's having a lot of trouble with his pee-pee,” Sarah said, chancing it.

“Then you're calling the right man,” the nurse said, pride of profession and allegiance coming through on the phone. “His field is urology.”

“I see,” said Sarah.

“Actually, he's a specialist in two fields. Urology
and
plastic surgery.”

“Well, as Bette Davis would say, how very convenient.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Thank you for your help,” Sarah said.

“Do you want to schedule an appointment?”

“I'll call you back,” Sarah said, and hung up. “How very convenient,” she said again, aloud, to herself, giving it the haughty diva's inflection. Urology
and
plastic surgery. He could change Paulo's penis and his face at the same time.

Everything but the eyes.

*   *   *

The lovely Carina. Jessup hadn't killed Paulo at all, just had him altered. Made into a fashion model. The wonders of modern medicine. It was juicier than if he'd actually murdered him. Holy shit.

So when she'd said at Drayco's wake that Norman would have to turn Carina around to pretend she was a boy, Sarah had hit the nail right on the head. No wonder he'd shoved her in the guacamole.

“Oh, have I got a follow-up book for you,” she said over lunch with her agent. They were eating at Michael's, a restaurant on East Fifty-fifth Street that had become fashionable for the book set, convenient as it was to the office of ex-publishing wives who'd gotten better jobs than the husbands who'd fired and divorced them, not necessarily in that order.

“What?” said the brightly blue-eyed brunette, who seemed a little soft, till she started talking business. “Tell, tell.”

“No, no. Write, write.”

“You're not going to let me in on it?”

“Not even you. It's so hot it could cook rock cocaine.”

“I hope you're not doing that anymore,” Lori said. She had changed the spelling of her name from Laurie, on the advice of a numerologist, and signed her letters now with a heart over the
i.

“I'm not. I'm high on—”

“If you say life, I'll puke,” said Lori. “I had to go to an AA meeting with … well, you know how you can't name who you've been to AA with, otherwise the Alcoholics are no longer Anonymous. Suffice it to say he's a well-known singer-actor and I'm selling his bio for landmark dollars. He'll confess himself in the book that he went through the entire production of … I can't tell you what musical it was or you'll know who I'm talking about … loaded. We went to an AA meeting in the Hamptons. Everyone there was so fucking positive, I needed a drink.”

“I am not high on life,” said Sarah, eyes sparkling. “I am high on revenge.”

“It has to be about Norman Jessup,” said Lori.

“Don't guess,” said Sarah. “You'll find out soon enough. I've got an exposé that will make every scandal book about the Clinton White House read like the Bobbsey Twins.”

“There's a rumor that that's who they are,” Lori said.

*   *   *

Sarah could hardly wait to get to her computer and write it. She booked her reservation back to the coast direct through the airline, not even calling her travel agent, she was so excited. Not one extra step. Just packed, took Tel Aviv taxi to the airport, buying a jewel from Carmen the driver on the way to Kennedy as a reward to herself, in advance, for the splash she would surely make with this one, and literally flew.

*   *   *

“I suppose you think I was too easy,” Wendy said, as she lay on her canopied bed.

“Easy is not exactly the word for it,” said Binky Danforth-Smythe, lighting a gold-tipped cigarette.

“You think I'm a slut.”

“I think that thinking is hardly involved here,” he said, and inhaled deeply.

“It's just been so long. And I've been so lonely. They drummed Jeremy out of the corps and sent him to Hong Kong or somewhere. I haven't a clue even where he's gone.”

“I doubt it was Hong Kong.” Binky exhaled. “We have no more hold on Hong Kong. Nobody but the so-called People's Liberation Army has a hold on Hong Kong, including the people of Hong Kong.”

“It only started with Jeremy because I was so lonely and humiliated. All those people writing books. My own parents selling the photos of me in the bath when I was two. Have you ever gotten mash notes from pedophiles?”

“I regret to say not,” said Binky.

“So please don't think I'm easy.”

“Easy? I couldn't even make you come.”

“It's just that I was so nervous.”

“Well, you have every reason to be,” said Binky.

“What?”

“You're making a damned fool of yourself.”

“With you?”

“With everyone. You seem to have forgotten how to conduct yourself in public, as well as private. The people you're seen with. It's a Disgrace.” He gave it the emphasis that a literal fall from grace required. Or a shove, as it had been in her case.

“But you told me … you said how proud you were of me. How proud everyone was.”

“I was trying to make you sound good in front of that intrusive American.”

“Kate? Kate is hardly intrusive. If anyone in that situation was intrusive, it was you.”

“What about that ponce, her friend with the reticule? You let yourself be seen in the company of just anyone. You're a dishonor to the nation.”

“Oh, don't,” Wendy said, and started to weep.

“Why don't you save it for Barbara Walters?” he said.

“Why are you being so cruel?”

“Do you have an ashtray? My ash is dripping.”

“I'll get one,” said Wendy, and got up from the bed. “My luck you'll set the bed on fire, and they'll find us here, naked, dead from smoke inhalation.”

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

“What?”

“To be dead.” He reached for the ashtray she handed him, looked at the name on it. “Bistro Gardens,” he said, flicking his ash. “Getting light-fingered in addition to everything else?”

“They were closing,” she said. “Everyone the final day got a souvenir.”

“I need to use the loo,” he said, getting up, and went into the bathroom.

He came back a few moments later, still holding the ashtray. “Only genuinely elegant restaurant in the flats of Beverly Hills. Wouldn't you know they'd go out of business, with
those
people for a clientele.”

“Those people?”

“Jews,” he said.

“It just so happens, if they'd had them for a clientele, they wouldn't have gone out of business,” Wendy said. “The reason they had to close was because a maître d' said ‘You can smell them' about some Jewish women who were lunching there. The word spread like wildfire, and none of them would go back, or any of their friends, or their friends' friends. So the place was forced to close.”

“How very unjust,” said Binky. “To be boycotted for the truth.”

“The truth?”

“They do smell.”

“You are really vile,” she said. “I wish you'd leave.”

“Have you any tea?”

“We don't have to pretend to be civilized, after what you've said.”

“Of course we do,” he answered.

“This place is really quite cozy,” he said, as they sat at the table in her breakfast nook. “At least you've done a first-rate job with the decoration.”

He had a towel around him. She saw how pale and freckled his skin was, and felt ill. His penis, too, had freckles on it. She'd seen them as it emerged from the hanging foreskin, and tried not to be repelled. But through it all she had visualized those spots inside her, rubbing away, and gone totally cold.

The security guard had been sent away when the call had come from Binky. Seeing how empty the apartment was, even—or especially—with this man in it, Wendy felt truly isolated. She also felt foolish, as she'd felt from the moment everybody found out what a sham her marriage was. Including her. A world full of eyes that had once been admiring and envious fixed on her with pity, or loathing, depending which side of the fence they were on. She could not comprehend that her universe had turned into one that was gated, with her on the outside.

“This is lovely tea,” Binky said, sipping.

“No need to chat,” she said.

“Why not? Chat is good. It helps cover up the fact that you really don't have anything to say.”