"Okay. If you say you're okay, you're okay."
"I'm okay."
Marco proffered the bandages. "What do you want me to do with these?"
"What do you think?" Todd said, getting back into the normal rhythm of their exchanges now. The door was closed. The woman and the path and the nodding shrubs were out of sight. Whatever she'd said, he could forget, at least for tonight. "Burn them. Where's that drink? I'm going to celebrate."
"What are you celebrating?"
"Me losing those damn bandages. I looked like God knows what."
"Burrows might want you to keep 'em on."
"Fuck Burrows. If I want to take the bandages off, it's my choice."
"It's your face."
"Yeah," Todd said, staring again at the ground where the crazy woman had claimed she'd lain, imagining her there. "It's my face."
TWO
Maxine came up to the house the following afternoon to tell Todd about the Oscar festivities, reporting it all—the ceremony itself, then the par-ties—with a fine disregard for his tenderness. Several times he almost stopped her and told her he didn't want to hear any more, but the dregs of curiosity silenced him. He still wanted to know who'd won and who'd lost.
There'd been the usual upsets, of course, the usual grateful tears from the usual surprised ingénues, all but swooning away with gratitude. This year, there'd even been fisticuffs: an argument had developed in the parking lot at Spago's between Quincy Martinaro, a young, fast-talking filmmaker who'd made two movies, been lionized, and turned into a legendary ego all in the space of fifteen months, and Vincent Dinny, a vicious writer for Vanity Fair who'd recently profiled Martinaro most unflatteringly. Not that Dinny was a paragon himself. He was a waspish, embittered man in his late sixties, who—having failed in his ascent of the Hollywood aristocracy—had turned to writing about the town's underbelly. Nobody could have given a toss for his pieces had they not carried a certain sting of truth. The piece on Martinaro, for instance, had mentioned a certain taste for heroin; which was indeed the man's vice of choice.
"So who won?" Todd wanted to know.
"Quincy broke two fingers when he fell against his car, and Dinny got a bloody nose. So I don't know who won. It's all so ridiculous. Acting like children."
"Did you actually see them fighting?"
"No, but I saw Dinny afterward. Blood all over his shirt." There was a pause. "I think he knows something."
"What?"
"He was quite civilized about it. You know how he is. Shriveled-up little prick. He just said to me: I hear Todd's had some medical problems, and now you've got him under lock and key. And I just looked at him. Said nothing. But he knows."
"This is so fucked."
"I don't know how we deal with it, frankly. Sooner or later, he's going to suggest a piece to Vanity Fair, and they're going to jump on it."
"So fucked," Todd said, more quietly. "What the hell did I do to deserve this?"
Maxine let the question go. Then she said, "Oh, by the way, do you remember Tammy Lauper?"
"No."
"She runs the Fan Club."
"Oh yeah."
"Fat."
"Is she fat?"
"She's practically obese."
"Did she come to the office?"
"No; I got a call from the police in Sacramento, asking if we'd seen her. She's gone missing."
"And they think I might have absconded with her?"
"I don't know what they think. The point is, you haven't seen her up here?"
"Nope."
"Maybe over in Bel Air?"
"I haven't been over in Bel Air. Ask Marco."
"Yeah, well I said I'd ask you and I asked."
Todd went to the living-room window, and gazed out at the Bird of Paradise trees that grew close to the house. They hadn't been trimmed in many years, and were top-heavy with flowers and rotted foliage, their immensity blocking his view of the opposite hill. But it didn't take much of an effort of imagination to bring the Canyon into his mind's eye. The palm-trees that lined the opposite ridge; the pathways and the secret groves; the empty swimming pool, the empty koi-pond; the statues, standing in the long grass. He was suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to be out there in the warm sunshine, away from Maxine and her brittle gossip.
"I gotta go," he said to Maxine.
"Go where?"
"I just gotta go," he said, heading for the door.
"Wait," Maxine said. "We haven't finished business."
"Can't it wait?"
"No, I'm afraid this part can't."
Todd made an impatient sigh, and turned back to her. "What is it?"
"I've been doing some thinking over the last few days. About our working relationship."
"What about it?"
"Well, to put it bluntly, I think it's time we parted company."
Todd didn't say anything. He just looked at Maxine with an expression of utter incomprehension on his face, as though she'd just spoken to him in a foreign language. Then, after perhaps ten seconds, he returned his gaze to the Birds of Paradise.
"You don't know how wearying it gets," Maxine went on. "Waking up thinking about whether everything's okay with Todd, and going to sleep thinking the same damn thing. Not having a minute in a day when I'm not worrying about you. I just can't do it anymore. It's as simple as that. It's making me ill. I've got high blood pressure, high cholesterol—"
"I've made you a lot of money over the years," Todd broke in to observe.
"And I've taken care of you. It's been a very successful partnership. You made me rich. I made you famous."
"You didn't make me famous."
"Well, if I didn't I'd like to know who the hell did."
"Me," Todd replied, raising the volume of his voice just a fraction. "It's me people came to see. It's me they loved. I made myself famous."
"Don't kid yourself," Maxine said, her voice a stone.
There was a long silence. The wind brushed the leaves of the Bird of Paradise trees together, like the blades of plastic swords being brushed together.
"Wait," Todd said. "I know what this is about. You've got a new boy. That's it, isn't it? You're fucking some kid, and—"
"I'm not fucking anybody, Todd."
"You fucked me."
"Twice. A long time ago. I wouldn't do it today."
"Well just for the record neither would I."
Maxine looked at him coldly. "That's it. I've said what I needed to say."
She went to the door. Todd called after her. "Why do it to me now? Why wait till I'm so fucking tired I can hardly think straight!" His voice continued to get louder, creeping up word on word, syllable on syllable. "And then screw me up like this?"
"Don't worry, I'll find somebody else to look after you. I'll train them. You'll be taken good care of. It's not like I'm walking out on you."
"Yes you are."
He turned to look at her, finally. The blood had rushed to the surface of his half-mended face. It was grotesquely red.
"You think I'm finished, so you're leaving me to be crucified by every piece of shit journalist in the fucking country."
Maxine ignored the outburst, and picked up what she was saying. "I'll find somebody to take over, who'll protect you better than I can. Because I'm just as tired as you are, Todd. Then I'm going to have one last party down at the beach-house, and get the hell out of this city before it kills me."
"Well I'm not going to let you go."
"Oh, now don't start threatening—"
"I'm not starting anything. I'm just reminding you. We've got a contract. I'm not going to allow you to make a fortune out of me and then just walk away when things get difficult. You owe me."
"I what?"
"Whatever's on the contract. Another two years."