Another City Not My Own Page 13

  That Friday, Gus said on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather:

  “The extraordinary good luck of the defense team continues. Lucky for them but sad for the prosecution, the jury did not hear Rosa Lopez get caught out in her lies during the expert cross-examination of Christopher Darden, and the defense will never bring her back. The publicity seeker has been caught out. She has left for San Salvador. She is history in this trial.”

  That Sunday, Gus continued about Rosa on his segment with Harvey Levin on KCBS:

  “Although Rosa left the courtroom in shame, it was a different story entirely outside the steps of the Criminal Courts Building, where she was worshiped by the masses. The crowds cheered for her. She was wearing one of the four new dresses bought for her by Mr. Johnnie, as she called Johnnie Cochran on the stand. An African-American male of slender build and great height appeared on the top of a stone wall adjacent to the courthouse. All eyes, including Rosa’s, shifted to him. He spread his arms wide in a crucifixion pose and unfurled an eighteen-foot-long pink banner, on which had been stitched in large yellow letters the words ‘Dear Rosa, We love you. We believe you.’ The cheers of the crowds became deafening. Rosa received her accolades, as if she were Evita being cheered by her people. Led by lawyers, she made her way through the dense throngs, past the dozens of video cameramen who walked backward to record the greatest moment of her life. When she arrived at her waiting car, where her driver held the door open for her, she turned to look back for an instant, as if to record it in her own mind, and stepped inside. The door closed behind her.”

  “I’m sorry I missed that,” said Harvey.

  “I felt like an extra in Day of the Locust,” replied Gus.

  “Do you think the defense paid her?” asked Harvey.

  “She must have gotten something more than four dresses, a room at the Bellage Hotel for a couple of nights, and a town car with a chauffeur not in uniform,” replied Gus.

  Later, driving back to the Chateau Marmont, Gus said to Harvey, “What bothers me about that pink banner the guy dropped were the words ‘We believe you.’ They don’t care that she lied. She’s a heroine to those people because she tried to help O. J. They don’t care if O. J. killed Nicole and Ron. They just want him to get off.”

  Message left on Connie Chung’s answering machine in New York:

  Connie, it’s Gus Bailey. Sorry I didn’t see you when you were in L.A. Jennifer Siebens told me if Dan Rather goes to Bosnia next week, I’m going to do the Friday segment of the CBS Evening News with you. Anyway, I’ve just heard this amazing story concerning you, and I want to verify it, as I’d like to use it for my “Letter from Los Angeles” in the next issue, due tomorrow morning, so I’m on deadline. I heard that you were doing a secret on-camera interview with O. J.’s mother, Eunice Simpson, at her condo in San Francisco last week. And that there were all sorts of ground rules agreed upon in advance between the network and Shawn Chapman, a lawyer in Johnnie Cochran’s office, of what you could and couldn’t ask the old lady. What I heard is that you made some sort of statement to the effect that women were very fond of her son O. J. And Eunice said, “Oh, yes, O. J.’s a regular Jack the Ripper.” And then Shawn Chapman stopped the interview cold and wouldn’t let you go on. I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard the Jack the Ripper line. Is this true? If so, can I use it? It’s a great story. Right up my alley. I’m at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. Two-one-three six-five-six-one-oh-one-oh. Best to Maury. And love. Gus.

  “Hi, Gus. My name is Moya Rimp. I met you yesterday in the corridor outside the courtroom. I told you I loved your monthly ‘Letter from Los Angeles.’ Do you remember? Red hair? Anyway, I know you’re busy so I’ll only be a minute. What I wanted to tell you in court yesterday is that my mother is the top real-estate woman in Brentwood. Pauline Rimp. Everybody knows my mother in Brentwood. Lou and Juditha Brown have given my mother the exclusive on Nicole’s condo in Brentwood. They’re dying to unload it. They want seven hundred thousand for it. At first they wanted a million. But not many people want to live in a house where a double murder took place. And it’s been stripped to the bone. There’s nothing in it, and it has kind of an eerie feeling about it. So, my mother and I are moving into the condo and bringing our own furniture and the dog to show how livable it is for a prospective buyer. My mother’s a big fan of yours, too, and we all know O. J.’s guilty as sin, and we were wondering if you’d like to come to dinner so that you could see the condo where the murders actually happened. It’s so much different when you’re in it than it is when you see the photographs of it at the trial. For instance, the area where O. J. slit the two throats is tiny, really tiny. You ought to see it, Gus. Nobody in the media’s been here yet.”

  “I’d love to come,” said Gus.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m a nutcase or anything. My mother’s first cousin is Robert Altman, the film director, and Bob and Kathy both said they knew you, and they’ll come, too,” said Moya.

  “I said I’d come even before I heard that extra added attraction,” said Gus.

  “You and Bob could stage the whole murder.”

  “Hi, Gus, it’s Harry Benson” was the message on Gus’s answering machine at his apartment in New York, where he had not been for months. Harry Benson was one of the great photographers, much in demand at all the top magazines. Gus had once gone on a shoot with Harry when he was photographing Leona Helmsley of the real-estate empire, at the height of her meanness, to see if he wanted to write her story for the magazine. He had declined the magazine story, but he enjoyed listening to Harry’s stories about his adventures photographing Jimmy Goldsmith, Muhammad Ali, and Gloria Vanderbilt, and they always enjoyed seeing each other when they met.

  “I’m not sure where you’re staying out there in L.A., but I figured you’d keep checking your New York machine. I was going through some old proof sheets in the files at my office the other day, and I came upon this picture of O. J. I didn’t remember I’d ever taken. It’s from when he was playing with the Buffalo Bills. He’s in the shower. He’s laughing. You can see his dick. It’s got soap on it, but you can see it. You’re welcome to it if you want to use it in your book.”

  “I hear your dance card is always filled, Gus,” said Mrs. Billy Wilder when she ran into Gus one Sunday night at Chasen’s. “All anybody in this whole damn town wants to talk about is O. J. Simpson, O. J., O. J., wherever I go, and I for one am so damn sick of Mister O. J. Simpson, I wouldn’t care if I never heard his name again.”

  Gus always thought that Audrey Wilder was one of the most stylish women in the world. Once she’d been a band singer with Tommy Dorsey. Then she went under contract to Paramount. Then she married the great film director Billy Wilder and kept him fascinated by her for forty years. Glamorous was the best word to describe her. She liked sequined dresses and diamond bracelets, and she had a lot of each. One of the chapters in Truman Capote’s unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, was titled “And Audrey Wilder Sang,” which she often did at the A-list parties in the upstairs room at the Bistro when Gus and Peach were married.

  “My dance card is not always full,” replied Gus.

  “That’s what everyone says,” said Audrey.

  “Highly exaggerated.”

  “I wanted you for dinner next Thursday, the twenty-first. Zubin and Nancy Mehta are in town and we’re having a few people for dinner at Mr. Chow’s. Do you think you can come?”

  “I’m sure I can, but I’m always late,” said Gus.

  “I promise you, on my word of honor, we will not talk about O. J. Simpson,” said Audrey. “I’m not going to allow a word to be said about him for the whole dinner. There are other things happening in the world, and in Hollywood, than O. J. Afterward, you and Billy can go in a corner and talk about it to your heart’s content, but not in front of me.”

  “Tell me about Marlene Dietrich,” said Gus, steering clear of the banned subject of O. J. Simpson when he settled in at Audrey’s left at Mr. Chow’s in Beve
rly Hills. “I saw an amazing documentary on her the other night on the Arts and Entertainment channel, and Billy was quoted quite a lot.” Dietrich was often described in biographies and gossip columns as the “great friend” of Billy Wilder. Gus knew perfectly well when he started the conversation that Audrey had always loathed Marlene.

  She inhaled on her cigarette, looked at one of her rings, and then leaned in quite close so that the conversation belonged to them, not the table.

  “Let me tell you about Marlene, Gus,” she said, as she signaled to the waiter and pointed to her glass for a refill. “I’m not one of those Hollywood dames who uses the C word at the drop of a hat, but if I ever did use the C word, it’s how I would describe Marlene, because that’s what she was. Contrary to popular opinion, she did not have an affair with my husband, although she liked people to think she had. Did you ever read that piece of trash biography her daughter wrote? Maria whatever-her-name-is? Did you read what she wrote her mother said about me in that lousy book?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I’d certainly like to hear,” said Gus. “This is the first time in months that I haven’t had to talk about O. J. at dinner.”

  “Billy and Zubin are going to bend your ear on that subject before the night’s over,” said Audrey.

  “Gus, can I talk to you in private for a minute?” asked Jerrianne Hayslett.

  “Oh, God, what have I done now?” asked Gus. They walked down the corridor away from the other reporters. “I have been a model of proper decorum for Deputy Browning.”

  Jerrianne laughed. “It’s not Deputy Browning,” she said.

  “My fax to Judge Ito must have been effective,” said Gus. “Now Browning totally ignores me, as if I don’t exist, and I hope it stays exactly that way. What’s up?”

  “Gus, you know all these famous people, so I thought you’d probably know this,” said Jerrianne, looking around to be sure they weren’t being heard. “What do you say to somebody who just got a nomination for an Academy Award?”

  He repeated her question: “What do you say to somebody who just got a nomination for an Academy Award?”

  “Yes,” said Jerrianne.

  “You’d say ‘Congratulations,’ ” said Gus.

  “Oh, no, Gus. In show business, it’s bad luck to say congratulations. Or so we’ve been told,” said Jerrianne.

  “No, that’s not right,” said Gus. “It’s bad luck to say ‘Congratulations’ to an actor on opening night. That’s why people say ‘Break a leg’ instead. But if someone has just gotten a nomination for an Academy Award, it’s absolutely appropriate to say ‘Congratulations.’ ”

  “No, I heard you never say ‘Congratulations’ to an actor,” replied Jerrianne, rejecting his solution out of hand.

  “Jerrianne, who are we talking about? If I knew that, I could tell you what to say,” said Gus.

  Jerrianne looked around them again. Then she said in a whisper, “Helen Mirren.”

  “Helen Mirren? You know Helen Mirren, Jerrianne?” asked Gus. “I’m very impressed.”

  “Shhh. No, I don’t know Helen Mirren,” said Jerrianne, smiling.

  “I’m missing a beat in this story,” said Gus.

  “Well, this is just between us, Gus,” said Jerrianne.

  “Of course.”

  “Well, Sam Goldwyn—you know, the producer—sent the video of The Madness of King George to Judge Ito for the jury to see. They can’t watch much television, in case there’s something on about O. J. or the trial, and so the studios are sending over videos of all the movies that are up for awards. Judge Ito was so impressed with Helen Mirren’s performance in that movie that he wanted to send her a note about her nomination,” said Jerrianne.

  “I see,” said Gus, finding it strange that Judge Ito would have time to send a congratulatory note to an actress nominated for an Academy Award in the midst of the madness that the trial had become. “The judge could tell Miss Mirren that her nomination was richly deserved.”

  “I knew you’d know, Gus,” said Jerrianne.

  “Chateau Marmont.”

  “Mario? This is Gus Bailey. I’m still at the courthouse. Can you read me my messages, please.”

  “You’ve got a bunch here, Gus. Someone named Mary, no last name. Message says, ‘John Gotti at the Marion Prison in Illinois has put a contract out on O. J.’ ”

  “Oh, my,” said Gus. “Go on.”

  “Sherry Lansing wants to know if you would speak about the O. J. trial for Stop Cancer at the Beverly Wilshire on the twenty-ninth. It’s her charity. Martin, the concierge from Claridges in London, has an amazing story for you that ties into the Simpson trial. Howard Weitzman wants to know if you’d speak about the trial at his wife’s surprise fortieth-birthday lunch party at the Bel Air on Saturday the nineteenth. Forty women. You’re his birthday present to Margaret, he said. Harvey Levin says they’re going to shoot your TV segment here in the lobby of the Chateau this Sunday rather than at the studio. More atmosphere, he said. Mrs. Norman Lear wants you for a dinner dance/book party on Tuesday for Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. Not black tie. Jennifer Siebens of CBS says Dan Rather’s coming out here next week and wants to have coffee with you before you shoot the segment. Mrs. Ann Gartland, the wife of police captain Frank Gartland, would like you to attend a dinner at the Police Academy in Elysian Park on the tenth in honor of her husband’s fortieth anniversary with the department. Chief Willie Williams will be there, as well as Gil Garcetti and Marcia Clark and Chris Darden. Mrs. Gartland would like you to sit at her table. Mrs. Connie Wald wants you for dinner on Saturday for Prince Rupert Loewenstein, who is arriving for a month. Your son Zander said that he was going to be at his mother’s house in Nogales for the next week. Mrs. Randolph Hearst called from New York. She saw you on television, thinks you look tired, and need a weekend off from the trial. She’d like you to spend the weekend of the nineteenth at the Hearst Ranch in northern California. Wintoon, it’s called, something like that. She said they’d send the plane for you.”

  “That’s pretty swell,” said Gus.

  “You could do a book of your phone messages, Gus,” said Mario.

  “Stick them all in my box. I’ll pick them up when I get back.”

  “One more. Call Graydon Carter. Important.” Graydon Carter was the editor of Vanity Fair magazine.

  “Gus, there’s somebody you really ought to meet,” said Faye Resnick. They were sitting in the makeup room at CNBC in Burbank, California, waiting to go on live with Geraldo Rivera in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

  “Who?” asked Gus.

  “I keep talking and talking about this guy to Chris Darden and Marcia, but nobody seems to do anything. Have you heard anything about this television pilot O. J. made just before the murders?”

  “The Frogman pilot. I’ve heard about it, but I don’t know anybody who’s seen it. Isn’t that where they taught O. J. how to use a knife?”

  “It’s called the silent kill,” said Faye. “This guy I know trained O. J. to do the silent kill.”

  “I saw Arnie Kopelson last Sunday night at a screening at Len and Wendy Goldberg’s house. We were talking about the Frogman pilot at dinner. Arnie helped finance that pilot, which I never knew before. He told me that he’d get a print of it over to me at the Chateau, but a couple of days later he said that there were no prints available,” said Gus.

  “I think they’ve been destroyed myself,” said Faye. “This friend of mine can tell you everything. Mark Lonsdale. The pilot was his idea. It was really a stuntman’s show. NBC said, we’ll take the project, but you have to use O. J. in the lead.”

  “That would have been the request of Don Ohlmeyer, the president of NBC West Coast, for O. J. to get the lead. They’re bosom friends. He visits O. J. in jail several nights a week. He’s a total advocate, very outspoken that O. J. didn’t do it. Seems strange for the president of a network.”

  “Mark didn’t mind having to use O. J. in the part,” said Faye. “He said he had name recognition, and if the
murders hadn’t come along it would probably be on the air now.”

  “What did Mark think of O. J.?” asked Gus.

  “He said he was a real prick with a sense of public image. He’d be difficult on the set and then, if he spotted a fan, he’d be charm itself.”

  “It’s a deadly combination, massive ego and a failing career,” said Gus. “I used to be in show business.”

  “You told me that at Cici’s.”

  “Does it really show him slitting a woman’s throat in the pilot? That’s what I heard the other night.”

  “He grabs a girl by the throat and puts a knife up to her throat,” said Faye. “Mark said that there were a lot of spooky similarities in the pilot to what later happened in real life, that didn’t seem spooky when the pilot was being made.”

  “Like what?” asked Gus.

  “There’s a scene where he goes to his ex-wife’s grave,” said Faye. “And listen to this, Gus. There’s a character in the pilot that O. J.’s character threatens to kill. The character’s name is Goldman. O. J. says the line ‘I’m going to kill you, Goldman.’ ”

  “I’d better call this guy,” said Gus.

  13

  In his “Letter from Los Angeles,” Gus wrote:

  Many people feel Johnnie Cochran won the case the day the jury was seated. The story made the rounds that Simpson said to Cochran after the jury was seated, “If this jury convicts me, maybe I did kill Nicole in a blackout.” Cochran’s mistress, Patricia Cochran, the Caucasian mother of his only son, revealed in an interview that Cochran had told her before jury selection, “Give me one black juror, and I’ll give you a hung jury.” And they say this case isn’t about race.