Further Tales of the City Page 8

  Michael sprang to his feet, feverish with guilt. Guido stood in the doorway, eyeing them.

  “Thanks,” said Ned, apparently unruffled. “I’m just giving Michael the house tour.”

  Guido grunted. “Don’t trip any alarms,” he said as he left the room.

  Michael listened until his footsteps had died out, then gave a nervous little whistle.

  “He’s just doing his job,” Ned explained.

  “Yeah,” said Michael, “like Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca.”

  Halcyon Hill

  MEMORIAL DAY DAWNED BRIGHT AND CLEAR. MARY Ann left for Hillsborough just before noon, only to get caught in a traffic snarl at the intersection of DuBoce and Market. She puzzled over this turn of events until she saw the throng gathered on the pavement at the 76 station.

  About five hundred people were cheering hysterically while a statuesque man in nurse drag—boobies, bouffant, the works—thrashed about violently on the back of a mechanical bull. In other words, thought Mary Ann, just another Memorial Day.

  A battered Volvo pulled alongside the Le Car. “What the fuck is this?” asked a frizzy-haired woman with an infant child and a back seat full of No Nukes posters.

  “The Great Tricycle Race,” said Mary Ann. She had learned that much from Michael.

  “What’s that?” asked the woman.

  “Uh, well … gay guys on tricycles. It’s a benefit for the SPCA.”

  The woman beamed. “Wonderful!” she shouted, as the cars began to move again. “How goddamn wonderful!”

  Curiously enough, Mary Ann knew exactly what she meant. How could anyone feel threatened by this kind of whimsy? If she ever had a child, she would want him to grow up in San Francisco, where Mardi Gras was celebrated at least five times a year.

  She hadn’t always felt that way, of course. Once she had harbored deep resentment at the sight of dozens of near-naked men gamboling in the streets, their cute little butts winking unavailably in the sunshine.

  But some straight men, thank God, took care of their bodies as well as gay men did.

  Besides, a cute butt was a cute butt, so what-the-hell?

  She almost jumped the curb looking at one.

  She was sorry that Brian wasn’t with her. He had been such a sport about it when she told him of Mrs. Halcyon’s luncheon invitation. “Go ahead,” he had said. “She might do you some good. I’ll catch some rays in the courtyard. We’ll do a flick or something when you get back.”

  God, she did love him. He was so easy, so uncomplicated, so willing to understand, whatever the circumstances. They were friends now, she and Brian. Friends who had terrific sex together. If that wasn’t love, what was?

  By the time she hit the freeway, she was buzzing along merrily on one of Mrs. Madrigal’s Barbara Stanwyck joints. She turned on the radio and sang along as Terri Gibbs sang “Somebody’s Knockin’.”

  Once more, she couldn’t help wondering about this summons to Hillsborough. She knew that some society people liked to court celebrities, but surely her own limited fame was far removed from Frannie Halcyon’s league.

  Was she just being nice, then?

  Maybe.

  But why, after all these years? As a secretary, Mary Ann had worked for the Halcyon family for almost two years—first for Edgar Halcyon, the founder of Halcyon Communications; later, for Beauchamp Day, Mr. Halcyon’s slimy son-in-law.

  ***

  Today, however, was the first time she had ever laid eyes on the family estate.

  Halcyon Hill was a mammoth mock-Tudor mansion, probably built in the twenties, set back from the road in a grove of towering oaks. A black Mercedes, with a license plate reading FRANNI, was parked in the circular driveway.

  An old black woman, very thin, opened the door.

  “You must be Emma,” said the visitor. “I’m Mary Ann.”

  “Yes’m, I feel like I …” Before the maid could finish the sentence, Frannie Halcyon came scurrying into the foyer. “Mary Ann, I am delighted, just delighted you could come. Now, you brought your bathing suit, I hope?”

  “Uh … in the car. I wasn’t sure if …”

  “Emma, get it for her, will you?”

  “Really, I can …” Mary Ann abandoned the protest; the maid was already tottering towards the car.

  “Now,” said Mrs. Halcyon, “we’ll have a nice lunch on the terrace … I hope you like salmon?”

  “Yum,” replied Mary Ann.

  “And then we can chat.”

  “Fine.”

  The matriarch took her arm protectively. “You know, young lady, Edgar would be so proud of you.”

  Dames

  HIGH ATOP BEVERLY HILLS, MICHAEL AND NED WERE lolling by______ ______’s pool, breakfasting on the eggs Benedict that Guido had brought them.

  “He’s O.K.,” Michael commented, after the houseman had left. “He had me sorta spooked last night.”

  Ned popped a triangle of toast into his mouth. “He didn’t know you last night. It’s his job to be careful. The National Enquirer tries to scale the wall here about once a week._______’s lucky to have Guido.”

  The three-legged mongrel named Ned hobbled up to Michael’s chaise lounge and presented his muzzle for scratching. Michael obliged him. “These old dogs,” he said. “You expect something sleek, like greyhounds or something. Or ferocious, maybe. It makes me feel so much better about him to know that he keeps these mangy mutts.”

  “That one’s fourteen,” said Ned. “We found him when he was a puppy, scrounging in a garbage can behind Tiny Naylor’s._____adores him. He got hit by a car about five years ago, so the leg had to go.” Ned smiled lovingly at his name-sake. “He’s the one who should write the book.”

  Guido appeared on the terrace with a tray of bullshots. “I thought you gentlemen could use a little refreshment before the twinkies invade.”

  “Thanks,” said Ned, taking a drink. “What twinkies?”

  Guido’s pupils ascended. “______called a little while ago, still in P.S. Won’t get here till two. Meanwhile, God help us, one of his buddies from West Hollywood decides to throw a little spur-of-the-moment Welcome Home. Here, thank you very much.”

  Michael looked at Ned, suddenly feeling anxious again. “Should we be getting dressed or something?”

  “Forget it,” Guido reassured him. “The last time this happened the party lasted two days. There were so many Speedos hung out to dry that the Danny Thomases called to ask why we were flying signal flags.”

  Guido’s forecast proved uncannily accurate. One by one, the young men began arriving, long-limbed and Lacosted to near perfection.

  “What is this?” asked Michael, hovering near the kitchen. “The summer spread of GQ?”

  “They wish,” said Guido, frantically fluffing the parsley on a tray of deviled eggs. “They’re anybody’s spread, at this point … and honey, when you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you see them come and you see them go. Mostly come … ya know?”

  “They’re so gorgeous,” said Michael. “Are they actors or what?”

  “What, mostly. Starlets. Harry Cohn knew all about it, only he did it with girls. Same difference. Same dumb dames standing around the pool.” The houseman wolfed down a deviled egg and scurried out the door with the tray.

  Michael found Ned by the swimming pool.

  “I need a joint,” Michael whispered, surveying the crowd. “If I’m going to be paranoid, I want there to be a good reason for it.”

  “I wouldn’t do it here,” Ned warned him.

  “Huh?”

  “________’s kind of old-fashioned.”

  “Right,” said Michael, looking around him. “Gotcha.”

  The movie star’s arrival was heralded by joyful barking at the front gate. The dogs, in fact, provided the only official greeting that Michael could observe. While most of the men around the pool exuded airs of easy familiarity with their surroundings, none stepped forward to welcome the host.

  They don’t know him either,
Michael realized.

  The idol was grayer than he had expected—a little paunchy, too—but he was truly magnificent, a lumbering titan in this garden of younger, prettier men. When he knelt and scooped the three-legged dog into his arms, he won Michael’s heart completely.

  “C’mon,” said Ned. “I’ll introduce you.”

  “Couldn’t we save it?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, won’t he be swamped for a while?”

  Ned smiled at him indulgently, rising from his chaise. “Come on over when you feel like it, O.K.?”

  Michael stayed by the pool, watching silently as the chatter resumed.

  “He must be on great drugs,” said a voice behind him.

  “Who?” said another.

  “The Pope.”

  “Huh?”

  “Well, they’ve had him on painkillers since the shooting, right? And he’s the Pope, right? He must be getting great stuff.”

  “Yeah, I never thought of that. Did I tell you that Allan Carr wants me for Grease II?”

  Michael rose and headed for the buffet table, where Guido was emptying ashtrays and grumbling. He was no longer Mrs. Danvers at Manderley; he was Mammy at Tara, entertaining the resident Yankees against her better instincts.

  “Where’s Ned?” asked Michael.

  “In the screening room,” said Guido, “with_______.”

  So Michael took a deep breath and went in to join them.

  Buying Silence

  AS PROMISED, MARY ANN ENJOYED A LUNCH OF COLD salmon and Grey Riesling on the flagstone terrace overlooking the swimming pool at Halcyon Hill.

  Mrs. Halcyon was extraordinarily solicitous, oohing and aahing melodramatically over Mary Ann’s brief, but snappy, repertoire of true-life TV horror stories.

  “It certainly is,” she agreed, when Mary Ann had finished. “It’s just like the Mary Tyler Moore Show. They didn’t exaggerate one bit, did they?”

  “I love it, though,” Mary Ann hastened to add. “I’ll just love it more when they let me do some nighttime work.” She smiled a little ruefully. “They will, sooner or later. They just don’t know it yet.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Mrs. Halcyon clamped her plump, bejeweled hands together, then appraised her guest, smiling. “Edgar always said you were ambitious. He told me that many times.”

  “He was a great boss,” Mary Ann replied, returning a dead man’s compliment. She felt increasingly uncomfortable under the matriarch’s steady gaze.

  “He also said you were tactful,” continued Mrs. Halcyon, “and extremely discreet.”

  “Well, I always tried to be.” What the hell was going on here?

  “He trusted you, Mary Ann. And I trust you. You’re a young woman with character.” A kindly twinkle came into her eyes. “I wasn’t trained for much in this life—outside of opera guilds and museum boards—but I’m a pretty good judge of character, Mary Ann, and I don’t think you’ll let me down.”

  Mary Ann hesitated. “Is there something … uh, specific you had …”

  “I need a PR person. The Halcyon family needs a PR person. On a short-term basis, of course.”

  “Oh … I see.” She didn’t, of course.

  “It shouldn’t interfere with your job at the station. I need you as a consultant, more or less. I’m prepared to pay you a thousand dollars a week for a period of roughly four weeks.”

  Mary Ann made no attempt at playing it cool. “That’s wonderfully generous, but I don’t … well, I’m not trained at PR, Mrs. Halcyon. My duties at Halcyon Communications were strictly …”

  “There’s a story in this, Mary Ann. A big one. And it’s yours when the right time comes. This will get you on nighttime television, young lady—I can promise you that.”

  Mary Ann shrugged helplessly. “Then … what do you want me to do?”

  The matriarch rose and began pacing the terrace. When she clasped her hands behind her back, the pose was so suggestive of Patton briefing the troops that Mary Ann was forced to suppress a giggle.

  “I want you to give me your utter allegiance for a month,” said Frannie Halcyon. “After that, you are free to act as you see fit. The Halcyon family has a story to tell, but I want it told on our own terms.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks; her tiny fist clenched determinedly. “I will not … I will not be chewed up and spit out by the press the way the Hearsts were!”

  She was obviously rolling now, so Mary Ann waited, reinforcing her hostess with sympathetic little nods. Mrs. Halcyon continued, shaking her head somberly as she stared at the light dancing on the surface of the swimming pool.

  “Poor Catherine,” she intoned softly. “Her family knew everything about journalism, but nothing about PR.”

  Mary Ann smiled in agreement. This dowager was no dummy.

  Mrs. Halcyon continued: “The really good PR people, as my husband must have taught you, are the ones who keep people’s names out of the newspapers. That’s what I want from you, Mary Ann—for a month, anyway.”

  “Why a month?”

  “That will be explained later. The point is this: if you take this job, I don’t want Barbara Walters crawling through my shrubbery a week from now. I’m too old to take on the networks alone, Mary Ann.”

  “I can understand that,” said Mary Ann. “It’s just that I can’t guarantee …”

  “You don’t have to guarantee anything … except your silence for a month.”

  “I see.”

  “That’s four thousand dollars for your ability to keep a secret for a month. After that, we’ll give you … an exclusive. That’s the word, isn’t it?”

  Mary Ann smiled. “That’s the word.”

  “It’s agreed, then?”

  Mary Ann didn’t hesitate. “Agreed.”

  Mrs. Halcyon beamed.

  “So what’s the story?” asked Mary Ann.

  The matriarch signaled Emma, who was standing just inside the double doors on the edge of the terrace. The maid scurried away, returning moments later with a young blond woman, very lean and tanned.

  “That’s the story,” said Frannie Halcyon. “Mary Ann, may I present my daughter DeDe. I believe you two have already met.”

  The Bermuda Triangle

  THE BARS WHERE MICHAEL HUNG OUT, WHEN HE DID that sort of thing, often featured a big black Harley-Davidson bike, reverentially pinspotted and suspended from the ceiling on shiny chrome chains.

  Mary Ann, on the other hand, haunted a place called Ciao, a white-tile, toilet-tech bistro on Jackson Street where a pristine wall-mounted moped—a Vespa Ciao, of course—reigned supreme as the house icon.

  Today, Memorial Day, while Mary Ann was poolside in Hillsborough and Michael was poolside in Hollywood, Brian was worshiping the motorcycle of his choice, a glossy wine-red Indian Warrior from the fifties, dangling overhead at the Dartmouth Social Club, a watering hole on Fillmore Street for the terminally collegiate.

  Jennifer Rabinowitz had appeared out of nowhere.

  “God, what are you doing back in The Bermuda Triangle?” Brian smiled. Regulars to the Cow Hollow singles scene often referred to the intersection of Fillmore and Greenwich as The Bermuda Triangle. Nubile computer programmers and other innocents had been known to pass through this mystical nexus and never be heard from again.

  It was stretching it, however, to regard Jennifer as nubile. Brian had been freshening her coffee at Perry’s for over half a decade now. They were veterans of the bar wars, he and Jennifer, and Jennifer, like her incredible breasts, was still hanging in there.

  “Gotta eat somewhere,” grinned Brian, holding up his hot roast beef sandwich. “Grab a seat. Sit down.”

  She did just that, smiling ferociously. “You look great, Brian. Really.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You went to Dartmouth, didn’t you? This must be like old home week or something.” She pointed to a plate glass window emblazoned with a gold leaf Dartmouth Indian. Once upon a time, Brian realized with a twinge of nostalgia
, he would have insisted on calling it the Dartmouth Native American.

  “Yeah,” he admitted, “but that’s not it. I just like the sandwiches.” He was damned if he’d let her peg him as an old preppie finding his roots.

  “Yeah,” she said, “they are primo.” Her smile was relentless. This is a pick-up, he told himself. Why did the peaches always fall when you weren’t shaking the tree?

  “Look,” she added, “do you have plans for the day or what?”

  He shrugged. “Just this.”

  “I’ve got some great weed,” she said. “My new place is just around the corner. What say? Old time’s sake?”

  He was already suffering for her. He liked this cheerful, good-hearted woman. He’d felt a curious kinship with her for five or six years now, ever since she’d barfed on him at the Tarr & Feathers sing-along. He knew what drove her, he thought—the same thing that had driven him before Mary Ann came into his life.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “How ‘bout I buy you a drink?”

  The smile wavered for a moment, then she salvaged it. “Sure. Whatever. No big deal.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “You look great yourself. Better than ever.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled at him quite genuinely for a moment, then fumbled in her purse for a cigaret, lighting it herself. “I’ve watched your friend all week,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The afternoon movie girl. Isn’t she your girlfriend now?”

  Brian flushed. “Sort of,” he said. “Not exactly.”

  “She’s very good, I think. Natural. It’s hard to find that on television.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  “You do that.” Jennifer took a long drag on her cigaret, appraising him with an air of faint amusement. “You’ve been domesticated, haven’t you?”

  “Jennifer, I …”

  “It’s all right if you have, Brian. It happens to the best of us. I’m still relentlessly single myself.”

  “Oh?”

  Jennifer nodded very slowly. “Relentlessly.”