Julius Hampton recognized Nigel Wickland before the Beverly Hills art dealer recognized him. “Nigel!” he said as the art dealer was passing their table on his way back from the restroom.
At first Raleigh thought that Nigel Wickland was about sixty years old, but up close, he looked more like sixty-five. He was tall and fashionably thin, with a prominent chin, heavy dark eyebrows, and a full head of hair so white that it looked mauve under the mood lighting. He wore a tailor-made, double-breasted navy blazer, a pale blue Oxford cotton shirt, and an honest-to-god blue ascot impeccably folded against his throat. Raleigh wondered if the blazer was Hugo Boss or maybe Valentino, or was it a Men’s Wearhouse copy? And how about the shoes? Were they O.J. Simpson Bruno Maglis or knockoffs? Nigel Wickland wore his clothes so well that you couldn’t tell if they were the real things.
Then Raleigh’s attention was drawn to the man’s exquisite hands. The fingers were long and tapered, the nails beautifully manicured, and there were no prominent veins to be seen, which there should have been on a man his age. Raleigh wondered if guys even had cosmetic surgeons do their hands around here, and if so, whether they called it a hand job.
The art dealer stroked his chin and seemed nonplussed for a moment, probably thinking that Julius was just another dotty old queen who frequented the west Hollywood clubs, until the octogenarian said, “It’s me, Julius Hampton. Remember? We played bridge at the Bruegers’ a couple of times before Sammy passed away.”
“Julius!” Nigel Wickland said. “Of course I remember. How are you?”
As they shook hands, Julius Hampton said, “Still upright, more or less, with the help of my man here. I’d like you to meet Raleigh Dibble. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Sit down and join us.”
The art dealer extended his graceful hand to Raleigh and said, “Nigel Wickland. Pleased to meet you.”
“Same here, Mr. Wickland,” Raleigh said.
“Nigel, please,” the art dealer said to him. “And may I call you Raleigh?”
“Of course,” Raleigh said.
Raleigh wondered if the toffee-nosed accent was legit or something the art dealer affected for L.A.’s west-side nouveau. Raleigh had spent nearly six months bumming around Europe as a young man and had lived in London for a summer, waiting tables at a bistro. He’d even considered affecting an Oxbridge accent like Nigel Wickland’s when he’d been in the catering business but decided that it could backfire if his customers found him out. They liked their phonies to be less obvious phonies around these parts.
“What’ll you have?” Julius Hampton said to the art dealer, and Raleigh noticed that the old man’s bony hands were trembling most of the time. It was hard for him to hold a martini glass anymore without spilling it.
Nigel Wickland ordered a banana daiquiri and chatted with Julius Hampton about the bargains now available at the Wickland Gallery. Raleigh Dibble figured he knew the Nigel Wickland type well enough. The west side of L.A. was full of them. Given the art dealer’s obvious ego, the gallery would of course bear his name. And even though a man as old as Julius Hampton would be an unlikely prospect for a sale, Nigel Wickland seemed compelled to chat him up about the treasures to be had just a few blocks away on Wilshire Boulevard. Raleigh figured that the art dealer was constantly chumming the waters in case any of Julius Hampton’s less grizzled friends or neighbors was ever tempted to take the bait.
“The bloody recession is forcing people to sell for indecently low prices,” Nigel told them, and signaled to the waiter for another round when his glass was still half full.
Boozer, Raleigh thought, but then reminded himself that in the gay bars everyone seemed to drink more to bolster their courage for encounters that were often risky.
It was then that Nigel Wickland said, “Have you been to the Brueger house since Sammy passed? I sometimes wonder how Leona is really holding up.”
Old Julius Hampton cackled and said, “The merriest of widows is dear Leona. I understand she sometimes dates a filmmaker named Rudy Ressler when he’s not molesting children at UCLA, where he lectures at the film school. He’s one of those people who make cheap indie films that probably go straight to DVD.”
Raleigh had been impressed many times by his employer’s knowledge of the movie business as well as any other business that was peculiarly relevant to Angelenos. Like his father before him, Julius Hampton had made his fortune as a real-estate developer, and the Hampton brokers bought and sold to real Hollywood names on a regular basis, not to second-raters like Rudy Ressler. As Julius Hampton and Nigel Wickland chatted about people they knew in common, Raleigh excused himself and went to the restroom.
While Raleigh was gone, Nigel Wickland said, “Nice chap. Seems competent.”
“Very,” Julius Hampton said, with just enough drink in him to gossip. “His catering business failed some time ago and he’s eking out a living now. He’s basically very honest but he got in some tax trouble with Uncle Sam back then. Had to spend some time locked up in federal prison. I have a PI do a background on everyone I hire. I’ve never questioned Raleigh about his past even though I know a lot about it. I can tell you that he cooks like Julia Child.”
“The poor fellow,” Nigel Wickland said. “That is certainly a spot of bother to live down, isn’t it? Still, many people around here have had similar problems with the IRS. That doesn’t make him a criminal.”
When Raleigh returned from the restroom, Nigel Wickland started paying more attention to him than to Julius Hampton. Raleigh didn’t sense that it was a gay thing. It just seemed that Nigel Wickland wanted to learn about his work history. Nigel asked if this was his first job as a butler/chef. And he seemed very interested in Raleigh’s former catering business, saying he thought he remembered Raleigh’s employees catering some soirees at the Wickland Gallery. Raleigh thought that was just bullshit until he remembered that Nellie had catered a fancy gig at a Beverly Hills art gallery. They’d lost money on it when she’d failed to anticipate the amount of champagne needed, and she’d had to quickly run to the nearest liquor store and buy cases at retail. Was that the Wickland Gallery? He couldn’t remember.
Then Nigel Wickland started to wheeze. He took a few short deep breaths that didn’t seem to help him. He muttered, “Please forgive me,” and took an inhaler from his trousers pocket, turning away from Raleigh and Julius Hampton. He put the inhaler in his mouth and pressed the canister, simultaneously inhaling deeply, holding the steroid in his lungs as long as possible.
When he exhaled, he turned back to them and said, “I’m sorry. Adult-onset asthma. It started three years ago. Part of the indignities of advancing age.”
Julius Hampton said, “You think you’re old? Like Willie Nelson said, I’ve outlived my dick. I wouldn’t want to outlive my liver. Without a decent martini, what’s the point in any of it?”
Nigel Wickland then said to Raleigh, “Did you ever think about starting up your catering business again? I don’t mean in the middle of this recession but later.”
“It takes starter money to get a business like that going,” Raleigh said. “I’d have to win the lottery or something.”
“Still, there’s nothing like the feeling of independence that being one’s own boss can give. Especially with men of a certain age, like you and me.”
Julius Hampton said, “What it all boils down to is relevancy. All the elderly understand that. You will, too, sooner than you think. Marty Brueger always talks about it. He says when he started feeling irrelevant, he knew he was through with living. That’s what he’s doing in Leona’s guesthouse-waiting to die.”
“Well, you’re not irrelevant, Mr. Hampton,” Raleigh said quickly.
Nigel Wickland said, “Hear me, god. Save us all from irrelevance.”