I explained that I was going to a party. “If you still want to get together,” I added, “I could meet you in about an hour.” I wanted him to say yes.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s fine.”
“Your place?”
“Where are you now?” he asked.
I stuck my head out of the booth and looked in vain for a street sign. “On Santa Monica,” I replied. “There’s a Mayfair market across the street.”
After a moment’s pause he said, “Oh, King’s Road. There’s a bar just east of Fairfax called the Hawk. South side of the boulevard. I could meet you there.”
“All right. In about an hour.”
“Mr. Rios?” he began, awkwardly.
“Yes, Josh?”
“It’s a gay bar.”
Larry came up and tapped on the phone booth.
“I’ve got to go now,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
I hung the phone up and stepped out of the booth.
“Josh Mandel is gay,” I told Larry as we resumed walking down the street.
“The guy who testified against Jim?”
“The star witness,” I replied.
Monet’s was a squat windowless building painted charcoal gray next to a porn shop. Marble steps led up from the filthy sidewalk to double wooden doors presided over by a man in a red jacket. He opened the door for us. Inside, at a plexiglass lectern, stood another red jacket. A huge Motherwell hung on the wall behind him. Two halls led off from the small foyer. The familiar sounds of a restaurant were absent. Instead, expensive silence reigned.
“Gentlemen?” the red jacket inquired.
“Zane party,” Larry said.
“Very good,” he said, just like in the movies, and summoned a third red jacket. “The Morgan Room.”
We were led down one of the halls. In the coppery light I saw that the walls were marble.
“What is this place?” I asked Larry.
“A membership restaurant,” he replied, lighting a cigarette and flicking the match to the carpeted floor. “You come in and you’re assigned a private dining room.”
“Is the point privacy?”
“No,” Larry said. “The point is status.”
We came to a door. The red jacket opened it and stepped aside to let us pass. The room looked like the conference room of a particularly stodgy law firm; all dark paneling and copper fixtures, Winslow Homer paintings on the walls and even brass spittoons. There were a lot of people inside, including some of the cast members, milling around with the provisional air of people waiting for a party to begin.
“This is going to be business for me,” Larry said. “You mind being on your own?”
“No. I’m leaving in about an hour anyway.”
“Come and find me on your way out.”
I went over to one of two tables set with food. A dark-haired waiter asked me what I’d like. All that the various dishes had in common was that they were fashionable. There was sushi, crepes, antipasto, pasta salads, rolled sandwiches in pita bread, crudites, ham and smoked turkey, cheeses, and breads. I ate a bit of sushi. It wasn’t fresh.
Beside me a woman said, “Stick to the raw vegetables.”
I looked around. “Hello,” I said.
The woman who had spoken to me smiled. She had a round, pretty face. Her dark hair was streaked with two colors, burgundy and red. She was not, perhaps, as young as she looked. “You were in the play,” I said. “You played Edward’s wife.” “You came in with Larry Ross,” she replied, helping herself to a radish.
“You know him?”
“Only by reputation. He’s out of my league. Are you a lawyer, too?”
“Yes, but not that kind.”
“Expensive?” She bit into the radish with preternaturally white teeth.
“No, entertainment. I practice criminal defense.”
She drew in her cheeks a bit. “Who’s in trouble?”
“I’m not here on business,” I replied.
“Don’t be absurd. Everyone here’s on business. My name is Sarah.”
“Henry,” I replied. “You were very good as Anne.”
“I hope you’re a better lawyer than a critic,” she said, examining a piece of cauliflower. Suddenly there was applause around the door. The Zanes entered with Sandy Blenheim hard on their heels. As they swept past me, Irene Gentry and I caught each other’s eyes. She seemed to smile.
“The Macbeths,” Sarah said, dryly. She dropped the unfinished radish back on the tray and joined the Zanes’ entourage.
I turned my attention to Irene Gentry. In a black cocktail dress she moved across the room like an exclamation mark. Her long hair was swept over a bare shoulder. There were diamonds at her neck. Blenheim directed her and Tom Zane to a little group dominated by a white-haired man in a tweed jacket who was making a big show of lighting a meerschaum pipe. I moved closer to watch her. She laid a hand lightly on the man’s wrist as he spoke and his shoulders seemed to inflate. Her husband, meanwhile, had backed himself against the wall with a pretty girl. Blenheim watched them for a moment, then broke them up and brought Zane back into the group.
I was standing behind the man to whom Irene Gentry was speaking. She looked past his shoulder at me. Our eyes met and her face formed a question. A moment later she excused herself and came over.
“I know you, don’t I?” she asked in her famous voice.
“I wish I could say you did, Miss Gentry.”
“My friends call me Rennie.” She gazed at me intently and without embarrassment.
“Weren’t you the lawyer for Jim Pears?” she asked.
“Yes. Henry Rios. How did you know that?”
She smiled. “Sandy was very interested in buying the rights to the story as a property for Tom. Didn’t he approach you?”
“Yes,” I replied, “but he didn’t say who he was working for.”
“Tom’s his biggest client,” she said, absently.
“Well,” I replied, “I don’t know anything about acting but your husband seems a bit old to play Jim Pears.”
She seemed puzzled for a moment, then laughed. “I think the idea was for Tom to play you.”
“Me?”
“The boy’s lawyer,” she replied. “Of course, we didn’t know it was going to be you until we saw it on the news.” She glanced around the room. “It’s odd to find you here.”
I explained that I had come with Larry Ross.
“Oh, Larry,” she said. “He’s our-” She looked at me, as if for help. “Who was the Greek who carried the lamp looking for an honest man?”
“Diogenes,” I replied, guessing that she’d known that all along.
She said, “I’m not making fun of him, Henry. I admire him. More now than ever.”
I felt the heat rising to my face from my neck. “I don’t understand.”
She looked at me, tenderly. “Of course I know he’s ill,” she said. “We all know.” Her glance swept across the room.
“He doesn’t know that.”
She laid her hand across my wrist. “He won’t find out from me.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you enjoy the play?” she asked, dropping her hand, her voice light.
“Toward the end, especially.”
“Not because you thought it was ending, I hope.” She moved a bit closer. She smelled of roses.
“Your husband seemed to get his bearings in the second half.”
“Tom’s not a stage actor,” she replied. “But on the whole I don’t think he did too bad a job of it.”
“You would have been perfect to play Anne.”
Her smile was charming and wise. “Discretion is often the better part of marriage.”
Her skin glistened, faintly, as if moistened by dew. I felt an overwhelming desire to touch her. I took her hand. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” she replied, but then I suppose she was used to men wanting to touch her. “Tell me about Jim Pears. What will happen to him now?”
“The charges against him were dismissed,” I said. “He’ll never regain consciousness. Eventually, he’ll die.”
She studied me silently, then said, “You have the face of a man who feels too much.”
As there was nothing to say to this, I said nothing.