Another City Not My Own Page 6

  “Listen, Wendy, I’ve been thinking. I just decided to cancel my spy from the jailhouse for the second time. ‘Sorry, fella. A better offer came along,’ I’ll tell him,” joked Gus.

  Wendy laughed with delight. “I knew I’d get you,” she said. “I know my old friend Gussie. Besides, you can always see your spy some other time.”

  “Tell Ray I’d love to come. I have been dying to meet Marcia Clark before the trial begins.”

  “There’s a catch,” said Wendy.

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t ask her anything about the case. No one can. Suzanne told Ray Marcia’s not going to know anyone there, she doesn’t want to be the center of attention, and she can’t talk about the case anyway. Ray’s going to tell everyone that before she comes.”

  “I still want to meet her before the trial starts,” said Gus.

  For the occasion at hand, a small dinner to meet Marcia Clark, the gates of Ray Stark’s estate in Holmby Hills were open as Gus drove through. There were green hedges, white flowers, and the occasional piece of sculpture on either side of the long drive. He had been there before, many times, in years gone by. He’d been there even before the Starks bought the house, when the previous owners, the film stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacali, had lived there with their two small children. “That was a long time ago,” Gus said to himself. He drove up to the guest parking area in front of the beautiful white brick mansion. There, parked in place, was the police car that Stark always kept in the driveway, on view from the street outside the gates, as a message to the unsavory that they were unwelcome in these environs. The police car was a prop from a television cop series, given to Ray as a Christmas gift by Aaron Spelling, the television mogul and friend, who lived nearby in an even larger mansion, “You can’t be too safe these days,” said Spelling, who had two bodyguards.

  Ever since the riots three years earlier in the area of Los Angeles known as South Central—during which much of that part of the city burned—after the acquittal of the police officers who were caught on videotape beating Rodney King with clubs, people who lived in the fashionable areas on the other side of town were in a state of constant apprehension. Security was a prime topic of conversation. At the grandest houses and the residences of the celebrated, gates and guards had become necessities. Marlene Schlessinger, the wife of Irv Schlessinger, the television producer, said to Gus at Drai’s one evening at dinner, “I never drive my Rolls anymore, except from the house in Beverly Hills to the house in Malibu and from Malibu back to Beverly Hills. I’m afraid to. The less attention you draw to yourself these days, the better. Let me give you some advice, Gus. If someone hits you from behind when you’re driving, just keep moving. Don’t stop, whatever you do. That’s when they get you. You heard what happened to Craig Johnson, didn’t you?”

  The apprehension in the area increased tenfold after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. They had, after all, taken place in Brentwood, so nearby, where so many people lived whom everyone knew. At dinner parties in the area, people said things like “Next time, they’re not going to burn down their own part of town again. They’re going to come here.” No one had to be told who the “they” of the sentence were, as they looked at one another nervously across the table. Invariably, to ease the tension, someone told the joke about the Beverly Hills matron who said to her maid, Bertha, who had been with her for many years, “Bertha, if a riot comes, you wouldn’t kill me, would you?” To which Bertha answered, “Oh, no, ma’am. I wouldn’t kill you, but the maid next door might.” There was always laughter, and then they returned to other matters of less immediate interest, like the unpleasant situation between Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner of Disney. “That’s going to be a dirty fight,” people said.

  “Is it okay to park here?” Gus called out the window of his rented car to Ray Stark’s uniformed guard, who was holding a rottweiler on a leash.

  “That’s saved for the guest of honor,” said the guard. “Pull up behind Mr. Geffen’s car. Now, you are?” He had a list of the guests on a clipboard.

  “Bailey. Gus Bailey.”

  “Yes, go right in, Mr. Bailey.”

  Gus got out of his car and began to walk to the black-lacquered front door, but the rottweiler, still on a leash, pushed against his legs.

  “Listen, can you pull your rottweiler back a little bit, please? I don’t like him smelling me like this,” said Gus, who had always had problems with dogs.

  “You got nothing to worry about, Mr. Bailey. Frenchy there wouldn’t hurt a guy like you,” said the guard.

  “But Frenchy might give a guy like me a heart attack,” said Gus. “Pull him back.”

  As he walked up the steps to the front door, it was opened by Wilbur, the Starks’ butler, who had been with the family for years.

  “Hi, Wilbur,” said Gus, holding out his hand.

  “It’s been a long time, Mr. Bailey,” said Wilbur. “Wendy tells me you’re doing real good these days in New York.”

  “A lot better than I was when I left this town,” answered Gus with a smile.

  “I’m happy for you. Are you still drinking Diet Cokes, Mr. Bailey?” asked Wilbur.

  “Cut the Mr. Bailey crap, Wilbur. It’s Gus, the way it’s always been, and I’ve been drinking Diet Cokes for fourteen years now.”

  “Good for you, Gus. They’re all in the living room or the library. You know where to go. They’re all talking about O. J. Simpson. That’s all anyone talks about these days. At least they’re talking about O. J. Simpson until Ms. Marcia Clark arrives. You want to know something, Gus? They all stop talking when I come in to pass a drink. That’s what it’s like now. Everyone still says ‘Hello, Wilbur’ or ‘Good to see you, Wilbur’ when they come in, but when I walk into the room and they’re talking about O. J. Simpson, somebody nudges somebody, and they all stop. Sometimes, like a week ago or so, when Mr. Stark was running the new Schwarzenegger movie—I forget the name—David Begelman, who’s been coming to this house for thirty years, says to me at the dinner table when I’m passing around a tray of lamb chops, ‘What do you think, Wilbur? Do you think O. J. is guilty? Do you think he killed Nicole?’ Everyone at the table stopped talking and looked at me. They all really wanted to know what I thought, because I’m the closest most of them ever came to knowing a black man.”

  “What did you answer?” asked Gus.

  “I said, lighthearted-like, ‘Oh, I’m not getting into this one,’ or something like that, and walked off into the kitchen. Mae heard it. She took the tray from me and passed around the rest of the lamb chops.”

  “Any repercussions?”

  “Just from myself, for myself. I hated it that I copped out. You see, Gus, I don’t think the Juice did it, but I keep my mouth shut. I’ve been with the family a long time, and I don’t want to cause any problems.”

  “Wilbur, I can’t give you any crap. I do think he did it,” said Gus. “I think he’s guilty as sin. That’s what I’ve come out here to write about.”

  “But you don’t know, Gus.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know, but he’s never for a second acted like an innocent man since it happened. Look at the videotape when the cop put the handcuffs on him, after he got back from Chicago. An innocent man would be screaming, ‘How fucking dare you put these on me? Why aren’t you out looking for the real killer?’ But he didn’t. An innocent man wouldn’t have tried to run away in the white Bronco.”

  “He wasn’t running away, Gus. He was on his way to the cemetery to visit Nicole’s grave,” said Wilbur.

  “He had long passed the exit for the cemetery, Wilbur. He was heading for Mexico.”

  Wendy Stark raced into the hallway from the living room, adjusting an earring and heading for the dining room. “Hi, darling,” she said, kissing Gus on both cheeks. “I have to put the place cards on the table for Ray.” As she went into the dining room, her father entered the hall.

  “Gus, what are you doing o
ut here in the hall for so long? Come on in,” said Ray Stark.

  “Good to see you, Ray,” replied Gus. “Wilbur and I were just catching up.” He put out his hand.

  “So, the writer has returned,” said Ray while shaking hands. He spoke to Gus in a slightly teasing tone. “Wendy tells me you’re here for the trial.”

  “I am. Staying at the Chateau Marmont for the duration. Is this new?” asked Gus, pointing to a black marble sculpture of a reclining female nude with upturned breasts. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Mr. Stark’s always buying some new piece of sculpture,” said Wilbur as he headed for the bar.

  “Maillol,” said Ray. For a moment, Ray and Gus stared at the exquisite object with pleasure.

  “Really beautiful,” repeated Gus as he ran his hand across the smooth surface of her stomach. Gus had portrayed Ray Stark as a studio head named Marty Lesky in The Winners, which he had written in rage in a cabin in Oregon after his failure and retreat from Hollywood fifteen years earlier. The plot was partially based on the forgery scandal involving studio head David Begelman, the Academy Award-winning actor Cliff Robertson, and Columbia Pictures, which had been the main topic of gossip and conversation at every dinner table in Hollywood. The scandal had rocked the town. Gus, who was on his uppers at the time, knew every person involved in the case—and their wives—and he helped two reporters from the Washington Post break the story, which the Los Angeles Times wouldn’t touch. It was Gus’s first foray into investigative reporting, and he felt a thrill that he had long since failed to feel in the film business. Neither Ray nor his late wife, Fran, had ever acknowledged that they were the characters in Gus’s book, but their daughter, Wendy, recognized herself as Cecilia Lesky, the Hollywood heiress, and didn’t care.

  “Did Wendy tell you no questions to Marcia Clark about the case when she comes?” asked Ray.

  “She did, and I won’t ask any,” said Gus.

  “She doesn’t want to be the center of attention,” said Ray.

  “Even though she will be,” replied Gus. “I wouldn’t by any chance be sitting next to her at dinner, would I?”

  “Will you listen to this guy?” asked Ray, pointing his thumb at Gus. “Now he wants the seat next to the guest of honor.”

  Gus was one of those people who could survey a room in an instant. He was interested in seeing what sort of group Ray had put together to meet Marcia Clark, who was the name on every lip in Los Angeles, and the trial hadn’t even started. There were fourteen for dinner. An eclectic mixture, Gus thought. A little of the new power of the industry—David Geffen and Ron Meyer. A little of the old-time Hollywood glamour—Kirk Douglas. A little Los Angeles society—Betsy Bloomingdale. Gus knew everyone except a young man who was staring intently at Monet’s painting of the water lilies at Giverny, one of the treasures of the Stark collection.

  “Who’s the Latino staring at your father’s Monet?” asked Gus.

  “Some trick Skip Hartley brought,” replied Wendy. “Wouldn’t you know my father would seat me next to him at dinner? I wanted to sit next to you.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “He told me about three times, and I forgot it three times,” said Wendy. “He said he went to Bishop’s School in La Jolla.”

  “That’s where Peach went,” said Gus. “He doesn’t look like the Bishop’s type. What did his place card say?”

  “The calligrapher only used first names. Andrew. Andrew somebody. Cooney. Cunihan. Cunanan. Something like that.”

  “He certainly likes your father’s pictures,” said Gus. “He’s moved on to a Picasso.”

  “The kid’s got taste,” replied Ray, walking up. “Gus, you know Betsy Bloomingdale, don’t you?”

  Betsy and Gus looked at each other. “I was a character in one of his books,” said Betsy. “Not to mention his miniseries of the same name, which, thank heavens, I never saw.”

  “God, I forgot,” said Ray. “What do you mean, you were a character in his book? You were the plot.”

  “This is my least favorite conversation,” said Gus, blushing. “It’s time for you to appear, Marcia Clark, and get me out of this.”

  Kirk and Anne Douglas joined them. “This is going to be some trial, Gus. Did you ever see anything like this guy Shapiro? He thinks he’s a movie star, for God sakes. My son Michael—you know Michael, of course you know Michael—saw him at the fights in Vegas last week, and he got a standing ovation.”

  “What is this telling us?” replied Gus.

  “Anne and I were at the same party O. J. was at the night before the murders, a charity thing at some guy’s house in Bel Air,” said Kirk Douglas. “I had a talk with him. What can I tell you? The guy was charming.”

  “When we read about the murders two days later, we couldn’t believe it,” said Anne Douglas.

  “He was with Paula Barbieri,” said Kirk. “She’s gorgeous.”

  “Paula used to go out with Bob Evans,” said Wendy. “Remember, Ray? Evans brought her here one night to see a picture.”

  Ron Meyer joined the group to get into the conversation about O. J. Simpson before Marcia Clark arrived. As Gus moved around the room saying hello, everyone told him something about O. J. Simpson, or something that related to him.

  “Has anyone ever told you the story about O. J. being at the Daisy on the night his daughter drowned in the pool?” … “Paula Barbieri was with Michael Bolton at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas on the night of the murders.” … “Gus, did you ever hear what Bill Bixby said about Al Cowlings before he died?” … “Bob Shapiro was Tina Sinatra’s lawyer in her stalking case against Jimmy Farentino.” … “Rosa Lopez used to work for some close friends of mine before she worked in the house next door to O. J., and I know for a fact they’d be happy to talk to you about Rosa.” … “Shapiro got Marlon Brando’s kid a plea bargain when he killed his sister’s boyfriend.”

  “Marcia Clark just arrived, Ray,” said Wendy.

  “Remember, no questions about the trial,” said Ray to the room.

  Everyone turned to the entrance of the living room, where Marcia Clark was standing, to look at her as she stared back at them. Her face had become instantly recognizable, with the kind of fame usually reserved for film stars. Ray and Wendy hurried forward to greet her. Everyone had watched her on television at the preliminary hearings, and the consensus was that she had acquitted herself magnificently. They believed in her. They felt confidence in her. They wanted her to convict O. J. Simpson, whom they all felt was guilty of the murders with which he was charged. Stark’s guests, all famous themselves, moved in to meet her, in the way they do at the great houses of Hollywood when stars like Barbra Streisand come to dinner. They crowded around her, eager to talk to her, eager to listen to her, biting their tongues to keep them from uttering the questions they longed to ask her.

  Gus waited before he went up to speak to her. He wanted to be alone.

  “Marcia, I’m Gus Bailey,” he said.

  She turned to him, smiled, and gave him her full attention. “So you’re Gus Bailey. I read all your coverage of the Menendez brothers’ trial,” said Marcia. “Is Leslie Abramson giving you a big welcome to L.A. party?”

  They both laughed.

  “David Conn told me you were coming out for the trial. He’s going to be the prosecutor in the second Menendez trial.”

  “Sure, I know David,” said Gus. “I saw him in action at the Cotton Club trial. He’s great. I hope he can take on Leslie Abramson.”

  “Oh, he can, believe me,” said Marcia.

  “I know we’re not supposed to talk about the case tonight, and I won’t—I don’t want to get on Ray’s bad side, or yours, either—but I’m sure it’s okay to tell you you’ve been great in the hearings.”

  “Thanks, Gus.”

  Then he added quickly, “And I wish the trial wasn’t being held in downtown Los Angeles instead of Santa Monica. Gil Garcetti’s going to rue the day he made that decision.”

  “No comment
,” she replied, smiling.

  “Do you like being so famous?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said with a shudder. “This has never happened to me before. I can’t go to the supermarket anymore. People crowd around me, and it’s bewildering for my little boys.”

  “We’re going into dinner, Ms. Clark and Gus,” said Wilbur.

  “I hope I’m sitting next to you, Gus,” said Marcia.

  “You’re not. I already checked. You’ve got the big guns on either side of you. Not what anyone in his right mind in this town would call a bad seat.”

  “Oh my,” said Marcia.

  “But remember this, you’re the power in this house tonight. They’re more interested in you than you are in them, and that doesn’t happen very often in this crowd.”

  Ray Stark was a stickler for time. There was never lingering over drinks at the Starks’. Ray liked the movie to start promptly at nine o’clock. Movie people got to the studios early, he often said. Immediately following the crème brûlée, he led his guests from the dining room into the library, which had been transformed during dinner so that all the seats faced toward a cinema screen that had been lowered from the ceiling. There were plates of candy and chocolate pretzels on every table. Wilbur was serving coffee and drinks at the bar. The Picasso paintings on the wall opposite the screen rose at the push of a button, revealing the windows of the projection room behind.

  “Now, everybody, keep quiet about seeing this picture,” said Ray as a warning to his guests. “The studio hasn’t seen it yet, and even the producer doesn’t know I have it.”