“Did I say something?”
“No, but you gave me a look that coulda melted paint.”
“I suppose I took you for a newsboy. You look like a writer.”
“No such luck,” Sam said. “I only made it to eighth grade.”
“Self-made man,” Roscoe said. “How ’bout a drink?”
“Are you kidding?” Sam asked. “That’s the toughest, meanest dry agent in the state of California out there playing with your dog.”
“She’s got a hell of a figure,” Minta said. “She with you?”
Sam felt his face heat but he managed a smile. “I suppose one drink. You wouldn’t happen to have Scotch?”
ROSCOE WAS DRUNK and two hours late for his meeting with Al Zukor. But he was clean-shaven and showered and smelling sweet as he stepped into the dimly lit room at Musso & Frank’s and straightened his tie. The bourbon had given him kind of a loose, resolved dignity, as it seemed to him-maybe he only imagined-that all voices fell silent, forks stopped scraping on plates, and the clink of glasses had all but ceased. In his standard corner was little Mr. Zukor in a high red leather booth, and the little white-headed man stood and smiled and waved Roscoe over. Roscoe knew that being seen in public with an outcast truly pained Al, but it was all show business, and being given a good handshake by Al Zukor in Musso & Frank’s was rock-solid.
He made his way through the maze of tables following the same little maître d’ that was always there but whose name Roscoe could never remember. And he’d about made it to that back booth when he spotted Broncho Billy at a side table over candlelight, guffawing it up with a couple tarts in sequins and hats that looked as if they were made with dead squirrels, and so Roscoe waved over to Mr. Zukor and stumbled up to Broncho Billy and asked him with great sincerity, as he-Roscoe-straightened his diamond cuff links, where the two broads killed that squirrel.
Broncho Billy stopped the guffawing and stood, slipped his pearl Stetson back on his head, and shifted his gunless belt on his waist. He stood toe to toe with Roscoe, and Roscoe looked at the little man with the big nose and bigger ears. Billy sucked a tooth, trying to figure out what to say.
“You have a good time in Frisco?” Roscoe asked.
“Someone has to make the picture business clean.”
“If you keep hanging out with broads like that, your pecker is gonna turn green.”
Little Mr. Zukor inserted himself between Billy and Roscoe and smiled, sweet and calming, but tough, too. Because even though Mr. Zukor was a pint-sized little bastard who used to sell furs on street corners, he was a hard-edged son of a bitch that no one in their right mind wanted to cross if they ever wanted to step foot on a picture lot again.
“Our table.”
Roscoe followed and squeezed into the booth. Every bastard and bitch in the restaurant craned their necks to get a good look at the zoo animal. Roscoe rubbed his face and straightened the cuffs of his shirt under his pressed suit jacket. He took a deep breath as a waiter laid a napkin in his lap and handed him the menu.
“How ’bout a fucking drink?” Roscoe said.
Mr. Zukor made a face, as if Roscoe had just dropped a turd on the table, and sent away the waiter with a flick of the hand.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’d like a drink.”
“Not here,” Mr. Zukor said. “Not like this.”
Roscoe shrugged. “I’m plastered anyway. So what’s the difference?” “That’s a spiffy suit you got there, Roscoe.”
“Bought it in Frisco,” Roscoe said. “Labor Day. You might’ve heard about a little party I threw. I crushed some woman while I was giving her a solid lay.”
“Please keep your voice down.”
“These people are cannibals,” Roscoe said. “They’ll eat your flesh from your bone.”
“It’s a tough business.”
Roscoe leaned back into the comfort of the leather booth and lit a cigarette with a gold tip. He removed a spot of tobacco from his tongue and met the stare of a beautiful woman across the way. When she matched eyes with him, she turned her head.
“Let’s talk about Frank Dominguez,” Zukor said.
“What’s to talk about? You fired him.”
“I didn’t fire him. I discussed your trial with him. We’ll need the best.”
“Frank is the best.”
“Frank is your drinking buddy, the guy you play poker with when you’re feeling lonesome. Not the best, Roscoe. Maybe down here, but not up there.”
“So you want this McNab fella? Who’s he?”
“The best defense attorney we can buy.”
“I didn’t do this, Al. I did not touch that girl and they got no one to say I did.”
“Sometimes men become a target for hate. When I was a kid, people used to say they were cursed. You’re a cursed fella right now. But a fella I got a lot of dough wrapped up in.”
“The checks have stopped.”
“They’ll resume after the trial. I have investors worried.”
“What if I’m guilty?”
“I don’t think it will come to that.”
“How many cities have banned my pictures? How many?”
“Let’s eat, Roscoe. Just like we used to. Let’s laugh and remember old songs. Okay, friend?”
“I’d like to walk right over to that Broncho Billy and piss in his drink.”
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“I don’t want you to fire Frank,” Roscoe said. The words sounded slurred, but he goddamn well meant them. “Okay?”
“He’s not fired,” Al said, spreading his hands wide, pleading. “He served you well during all that preliminary mumbo jumbo.”
“I need him.”
“You’ll be fine,” Al said. “McNab is just a little, um, insurance.”
Roscoe looked across the room at all the laughing and talking starting up again. The people had stopped staring. In fact they weren’t looking at Roscoe at all. Even when his eyes would meet another’s, it was as if he was invisible, or, worse, just another Joe.
Roscoe pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to breathe. His face felt hot and moist, and he just stared at the blue of the linen-covered table. Tears dropped one after another and he wiped them away before looking up again.
He felt Al’s small hand rubbing circles on his back and again sending away the waiter, telling him to just give them a minute.
“Mein Kind,” Mr. Zukor said.
“Why does everyone leave me?” Roscoe said, saying it as a question for himself. “Why do they do that?”
IT WAS MIDNIGHT, and Sam rode with Daisy way the hell out of town on Wilshire to the Ambassador Hotel and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Long after she’d killed the machine’s engine, they sat there in the front seat of the open cab and watched a long line of Kissels and Kings and Nashes and Hayneses wheeling up to those carved wooden doors where the crowd walked up the red carpet and was swallowed into the great mouth of the pulsing shell, jazz floating out on the warm wind.
“So how do we know who’s Lawrence?” Sam asked.
“I know a fella who knows a fella.”
“And that fella’s gonna give you the nod.”
“Right.”
“Shouldn’t we go inside?”
“You’re a puzzle, Pinkerton.”
“How so?”
“You’re a lunger, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Still running down dank alleys and climbing fire escapes and beating the truth out of stoolies.”
“I don’t run so much.”
“And you wear a ring.”
“I do.”
“And you have a wife.”
“She goes with the ring.”
“Children?”
“One on the way.”
Daisy nodded, both hands placed on the wooden steering wheel, watching the line of cars move in a slow, delicate dance like the mechanical turn of a carousel. There was the opening of the car door, a hand for the lady, and the slick greasing of the palm. Sam rubbed his jaw, finding himself thirsty, and balanced his hat on his knee. He looked over at Daisy, in her silk dress and soft turban, clenching that tight little jaw. She’d changed into a dress with a fur collar and the warm wind made the fur ruffle as if it were alive.