“He never heard of the novel before I did the script.”
“He thinks he did.”
“This time last year,” Walker said, “he thought The Awakening was a mummy movie. Now he thinks he wrote the book.”
“That’s how he is, Gordo. And if you go down there and act like a rummy and mess with his actress you’ll play right into his hands. He thinks he can swallow you with a glass of water.”
“Did he say that?” Walker asked, smiling.
“Words to that effect. And they’re all running scared because Dongan Lowndes is down there doing a big magazine piece on the filming. They’re afraid he’ll make assholes out of them and screw the project.”
“Well,” Walker said, “how about that?”
Dongan Lowndes was a novelist whose single book, published eight years before, Walker much admired. In the intervening years, Lowndes had turned to nonfiction writing for quality magazines. Most recently he had been writing on such subjects as Las Vegas crooners, self-publicizing tycoons, fatuous politicians and the film industry. He wrote well and bitterly and they feared him.
“Does he think he can swallow Lowndes too?”
“They’re hoping to charm him.”
“Maybe with Lee, huh?”
“This is a Charlie Freitag production, Gordon. You know Charlie. He figures …” Keochakian raised his eyes heavenward. “Christ, who knows what he figures? He’s a culture vulture. He thinks it’s a class picture and he thinks Lowndes is a classy guy. He thinks he’ll get a friendly piece and it’ll be good for the picture.”
“Whereas in fact Lowndes can’t get it on to write and he hates to see people work. He’ll nail them to a tree.”
“Tell Charlie,” Al said. He watched Walker sip his wine. “Hey, you’re a little bitter too, huh?”
“Lowndes is a fine writer,” Walker said. “I hope he never writes another novel in his fucking life.”
“Terrific, Gordo. You’re just what they need down there. You can hassle Lee and piss on the press. Get drunk, start fights. Just like old times, right?” He leaned across the table and fixed his Vieux Port stare on Walker. “You’ll hurt people. You’ll hurt yourself. I’m telling you to stay away.”
“I’ll think about it,” Walker said.
“Please,” Al said. “Please think.”
He took a file folder full of press clippings from his attaché case and handed them to Walker.
“Enjoy yourself. Sober up. Call me in a couple of days and we’ll talk about what you should do.” He called for the check and signed it as the waiter stood by. “I mean, what if Connie comes back or calls and you’re off fucking up somewhere? Don’t do anything. Don’t go anywhere until you’re sober.”
They went out. It had turned into a Santa Ana day with a dry comfortless breeze, a hot hazy sky. At the corner of Bronson, Keochakian took hold of Walker’s lapel.
“People are watching you,” he said. “Always. Evil people who wish you bad things are watching. You’re not among friends.” He turned away, walked a few steps and spun round. “Trust no one. Except me. I’m different. You can trust me. You believe that?”
“More or less,” Walker said.
On the way back to West Hollywood, he stopped at his health club, had a swim and read his reviews in the sauna. The reviews were, in the main, good. One of them was good enough to drive him out of the heat with angina pains. It called his performance a revelation. “Walker’s anguished king, descending from impotent frenzy to an almost fey, childlike madness, comes as a revelation to those familiar only with his street-smart movie turns.”
He thought it cheering, although the pains rather worried him.
Back at the Chateau, he packed up, left a wake-up call and took a short nap. His dreams were stormy. An hour later he was south of Long Beach in rush-hour traffic.
Deep into Orange County, he pulled off the San Diego Freeway and cut over toward the coast road. On his left, the future of southern California was unfolding; he passed mile upon mile of development divided into units by redwood fencing and bougainvillea, mock villages centered on a supermarket and a Bob’s Big Boy. Every half mile or so a patch of stripped, empty acreage awaited the builders and better times.
On his right, through some realtor’s stratagem, the land was unimproved. Herefords grazed in fields of yellow grass; wildflowers and manzanita flourished. From somewhere came the smell of orange trees, as though it were spring and twenty years before. The nearest groves were miles away now.
He drove into fog among the dry hills, the warm wind died away and on the coast it was gray and cool. He felt better suited.
On the coast road, he turned south. For a few miles it was all suburban maritime; there were condominiums with marinas, dive shops, seafood restaurants. Further down the Herefords wandered among undulating oil-well pumps, a landscape of tax deductions.
At seven-fifteen, half an hour before sunset, he was pulling into San Epifanio Beach, the last repair of untranslated seediness in the county. The beach had oil rigs offshore and an enormous German Expressionist power plant on the city line. There was a fishing pier borne seaward on spindly pilings in defiance of the Pacific rollers, the far end of which vanished into enshrouding fog. At right angles to the coast road, garnished with a rank of rat-infested royal palms, ran the lineup of tackle stores, taco stands and murky cocktail lounges that was the beach’s principal thoroughfare.
Walker braked at the intersection to let a party of surf punks cross. The slashes of green or orange in their close-cropped hair reminded him suddenly of the patch of white that had appeared in his brother’s hair following rheumatic fever. The four youths glared at him with impersonal menace as they went by.
Three blocks beyond the main drag rose the San Epifanio Beach Hotel, a nine-story riot of exoticism that dominated the downtown area. It was a shameless building from another age, silent-movie Spanish. With its peeling stucco walls, its rows of slimy windows and soiled shades, it was a structure so outsized and crummy that the sight of it could taint the nicest day. Walker was fond of it because he had been happy there. He had lived in the hotel years before in a room beside an atelier where a blind masseur cohabited with Ramon Novarro’s putative cousin. He had been married there, in the dingy ballroom, amid cannabis fumes.
Walker pulled over into the guest parking lot. A tough-looking little Chicana with a ponytail, a baseball cap and bib overalls handed him a claim ticket.
He went past the theater-style marquee over the main entrance and walked round to the beach side of the building. Several empty tables were arranged on a veranda overlooking a nearly deserted park. At the far end of the park four black teenagers, stripped to the waist, were playing basketball. Nearer the hotel, some Hare Krishnas from Laguna were chanting for the entertainment of two elderly couples in pastel clothes.
Walker ambled across the park to the beach. The wind was sharp, it had grown chilly with the approach of sunset. The declining sun itself was obscured in dark banks of cloud. Walker watched the waves break against the dark purple sand. Once he had seen porpoises there, seven together, playing just outside the break line of the surf. He had been standing in the same place, on the edge of the park around sunset. His wife had been beside him. His children were digging in the sand and she had called to them, pointing out to sea, to the porpoises. It had been a good omen in a good year.
He walked along the sand until he felt cold, then climbed back to the park up a dozen cement steps that were littered with plastic carriers and beer cans and smelled of urine.