"I will take the checks," I said, reaching over and picking them up. "And don't bother telling me I'll never work in this town again. I might have to laugh, and I'm not sure I've got the energy."
I went to the door. "Don't worry," I said. "You won't hear anything about this unless you do something truly stupid, like stopping payment. You poor dumb soul, do you really think I'd talk about this? Don't you know I'm ashamed of myself for having had anything to do with it? Or with you, for that matter?"
He just glared at me. Dixie had his fists in his pockets again.
"Jesus," I said. "Producers."
I had to let more than a week go by before I could finish. Wounds take time to heal, and at least some of them had to heal by the time I could wrap things up.
The eight thousand went to the hospital. It was short, so that took care of another thousand of the bonus. I paid Kareema and Alma a thousand for their part in what I had planned, although they offered to do it for free.
A hundred and fifty went to rent a van with a ramp. It had to have a ramp. Twenty-five hundred took the form of a donation, in Toby's name, to a West Hollywood institution. Toby would get the tax break, not I, but he was welcome to it.
That left me with three hundred and fifty bucks from my bonus on Sunday morning when I stepped into ABC Discount Premiums on Beverly Boulevard. When I came out I had less than two hundred left, but I also had a paper bag in my hand.
It was a beautiful day.
I took the freeway through the Valley to avoid the beach traffic and then drove through Malibu Canyon to the coast. It was still early, but the PCH was full of cars carrying surfers and sun-crazy high school kids to the sea. Here and there was a family in a station wagon packed to the roof with coolers, towels, inflatable rafts, meals big enough for Henry the Eighth and all six of his wives. In the twentieth century families take as much to go from the Valley to the beach as their great-great-grandparents carried on the long trek across the plains toward paradise.
Toby's red Maserati was in the driveway, parked next to a car I'd never seen before. Next to that was the van. As I climbed out of Alice and trekked toward the house, the van's occupants waved at me. I lifted the bag above my head and waved it back at them. Tinny applause sounded from inside.
Heading for the house, I heard the van's ramp drop into position.
The front door was open, as it was supposed to be. I took everything out of the bag and went into the living room.
Toby had acquired a new piece of furniture. It was made of bright and shiny aluminum, and it still looked like a cross between a sawhorse and a medieval torture rack. Toby was strapped to it, as naked as the day he was born.
"Simeon!" he shouted, trying to twist free. Then he saw the expression on my face, and he stopped shouting.
"He can't get loose," Alma lisped. She was wearing a red corset with black stockings and a Victorian garter belt. Above the neck she looked like a Sunday-school teacher. "Look. His wrists and ankles are cuffed, and there's this cute little loop around his neck that tightens if he tries to turn his head. Not to mention the silk cord around his teensie little wienie. Here, watch."
She reached down and tickled Toby's ribs. Toby arched and twisted his neck, and then his face went red and he had to stop.
"Kootchy kootchy koo," Alma said sweetly.
"That's enough, Alma," Kareema said, coming out of the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. "Don't wear him out." She was wearing an outfit that could be best described as Nazi nightmare nurse: low and strapless, cut high above the thighs, all in black leather with a cute little black leather nurse's cap to match. "You're late," she said in her usual commanding voice. She handed the water to Alma.
"Sunday drivers," I said. I was exactly four minutes late. I got down on my knees and studied Toby. He avoided my eyes. "How's the face, Bobby?"
He started at the name and looked up at me briefly and then down at the floor. Most of the swelling had gone down. His lower lip was puffy-again-and one eye was partly closed, but the girls had put makeup over the worst of the bruises, and there was no question that it was Toby's face.
"I'll get you," he said in a low voice.
"No, Bobby, old boy. We'll get you. And then you'll never get anybody again."
His eyes dropped to the thing I had put on the floor, and his skin went ashen. "No," he said. "You can't."
"Can't I? Do something to him, ladies. But turn your faces away."
Alma and Kareema did something to him. I suppose to some people it would have looked like fun. I waited until the girls' faces were averted and Toby's tongue was sticking out, and then I took a Polaroid. I waited for it to develop.
"Honest to God, Bobby," I said to pass the minute. "Boy, it's hard for me to get used to calling you Bobby. Well, whatever your name is, how gullible can you be? Why would Alma run away from you for months and then call you up all hot and bothered? Didn't you suspect anything! Who said, 'Vanity, thy name is Woman'? How wrong can you be?"
I looked at the picture. "Very good, for a beginner. Look, Alma. There's old Toby, and there are all the little Tobys on the magazines. The big Toby looks okay, doesn't he? Good enough for the National Enquirer, at any rate."
"Good enough for the cover of Time, if you ask me," Alma said in her little-girl voice.
"You flatter me," I said. I heard a sound from the hallway. "Ah," I said. "The rest of our guests. Say hello, Toby."
He couldn't help but look. Then he closed his eyes and let his head droop.
Janie Gordon came in first. Her first glance was an equal mixture of surprise and concern, but then she looked at me and started to laugh. She was still laughing when Betsi, the woman from the fan magazines, came in. She was followed by Chantra Hartsfield. She hadn't let me invite Rebecca.
Toby opened his eyes just in time to see Dixie. He started to brighten, and then he saw what Dixie was pushing, a wheelchair. Nana was in it.
"Don't just mill around," I said. "That's the trouble with parties, that moment of awkwardness at the beginning. This is Alma in the red corset and Kareema in the whatever it is.. "`
"It's a dress," Kareema said. "Hi, how are you all?"
"And you already know our host. You'll understand if he doesn't get up to greet you."
"He's all tied up at the moment," Alma said, "ho, ho, ho."
I went to Nana and kissed her on the largest piece of available skin. "You're beautiful," I said.
Most of her face was bandaged, and her right arm and leg were in casts.
"I look like the Invisible Man," she said. "But I look better than Toby."
"And that's the point," I said, raising my voice. "Toby. This is a working party. We're going to shoot Toby Vane's new publicity pictures. Alma and Kareema, who have their own reasons to want to be here, have volunteered to help out. This is our set, and we've already taken care of makeup. Costume, as you can see, is going to be no problem."
Betsi came and stood behind me. "You're going to shoot from here?" she said critically.
"I thought so."
"Well, you want to catch the pictures on the wall, but you ought to move him toward the corner. No reason to get the kitchen door."
"Can we move him?" I asked.
"No sweat," Kareema said, glancing at Betsi. "Nice to know we've got a pro here." She popped four little levers at the bottom of the rack, and wheels snapped out.
"Hi-tech torture," Alma said, giggling. The two of them wheeled Toby into the corner. Toby's eyes had remained shut since he'd seen Dixie. They were still shut.