He sat there, Dirk Bikkembergs pants at mid-thigh, hand around dick, wondering what they were up to. Probably in Joshua Tree, fisting each other between hits of ecstasy, laughing over his stubby, herpes-ridden shlong.
Taj let him know Phylliss Wolfe was on the phone.
“Hi, Donny. It’s Eric.”
“Hi, Eric.”
“I met you at Sweets. I brought Phylliss the script.”
“I know that, Eric. You’re very memorable.”
“She’s just getting off this other call. I thought I had her but—”
“Old gal’s slippery.”
“Would you like me to call you back? Or would you mind holding a second longer?”
“I don’t mind holding.” Donny looked down at his lap. “Do you?”
“Do I—?”
“Do you mind.”
“Holding?”
He was actually flirting with Phylliss’s assistant. She jumped on, interrupting the volley.
“Donny dearest, is that you?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I want to thank you again for the lunch. I thought it went very well.”
“It was a stone groove, Mother.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“Don’t be desperate, Phyll.”
“Does she hate me?”
“She thinks you’re the best.”
“Well, I think she’s wonderful. So we’ll see. And if she doesn’t do it, she doesn’t do it. Fuck her and fuck you.”
“That’s my girl.” A message flashed on the Amteclass="underline" YOUR FATHER ON 4. Donny hiked up his trousers. “Phyll, I gotta jump.”
Twenty-five years ago, Bernie Ribkin produced a string of low-budget horror films that made a fortune. An over-tan Mike Todd wannabe, he disappeared in the mid-seventies, after the divorce. The story was he’d been living in Europe, producing films, but Donny didn’t buy it. He resurfaced a few years ago and was living in a stuccoplex on Burton Way. On occasion, the agent ran into associates after Bernie introduced himself at Eclipse or Drai’s the night before (“I didn’t know you had a father!”). The Veepee always cringed. He called him “my crazy stepdad.”
They exchanged guarded hellos. Donny promised himself he wouldn’t blow up. That would be his meditation exercise.
“How’s your mother?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’d like to be able to. I put several calls in but she won’t answer.”
“Serena’s not doing too well.”
“Somehow I don’t think she’s too eager to see me.”
“Guess you’ll never know.”
“She wasn’t all that eager to see me when she was tip-top!”
The agent could smell the cigar and the lox, eggs and onions. “Listen — Dad.” He hated himself for calling him that. Mistake, mistake. “I got five people waiting for me on a conference.”
“I’ll let you go. Do you think we could have lunch?”
“Talk to Taj.”
“What’s his last name, Mahal?” laughed the old man. “Looks like I’ve finally got my fucking sequel in place.”
“Great.”
“Can you believe it took me thirty years?”
“That’s Hollywood. Gotta jump.”
“I could use some of your casting ideas.”
“Talk to Taj and he’ll make a time.”
He found himself on the freeway, heading downtown. He got off on San Pedro and there was a woman with a sign: GOd BLeSS. She had a little girl with her. Donny pulled over and gave her a twenty. The woman was pretty and had all her teeth. He asked what had happened and she said she was working for an insurance company. Her employers were hit hard by the quake and had to let her go; people were still dining out on the fucking earthquake. Donny wondered what the real story was, as if a simpler truth lay hidden behind the insipid lie — as if being jobless and alone with a kid wasn’t enough to make you destitute.
Her name was Ursula, and Tiffany was her daughter. He asked if they wanted to get something to eat. She thanked him but declined. He could probably get her to say yes, but what was the get-off? What would he do with them? They probably had the virus — she’d cozily left that one off the verbal résumé. So big deal. Donny figured he wouldn’t have to touch her. For thirty dollars cash money she’d suck him off with the kid watching, gratis. Or do the God thing. That could be fun — rent her a place in Toluca Lake right now, stock it with cutlery, soaps, mops, candles, all that Smart & Final Iris crap, Trader Joe’s cheese, thrift-store bean bags, fifties dinette set, water bed, aquarium for the kid, wardrobe and lingerie, give her the old Bernie-bought Impala, the whole schmear. Do the impossible in just a few hours. Ensconce them in a super-clean utility apartment on Barrington somewhere and pay the rent a fucking year in advance. How much for the whole package? Ten grand? Twelve? That was shit. When it’s done, lay five K on her and disappear, like some saint. Let six months go by, then drop in to see what’s what. What else could he do with her? More immediate. Clean her up. Get her to the doc for a little Private Door dusting, douching and delousing. Have her tested. If she’s negative, go the whole Pygmalion hog: Dr. Les’s magical mystery collagen tonic, creams and unguents and Retin A, plucking and waxing — shave the pussy and storm the blackheads. Shopping at Trashy Lingerie, gallery-hopping at Bergamot Station, Planet Hollywood with the kid. Get Tiffany into a private school. A fourth grader’s tuition at Crossroads was only eleven thou. Be fun having a kid out there in the world, one you never needed to see, who worshiped and was terrified of you, like some miniature Manchurian Candidate.
Donny passed her a business card. He said he could find her work cleaning houses. She plucked a book from her knapsack, a two-thousand-page tome called The Book of Urantia. “Urantia means Earth,” she said. “Our planet’s only one among many, you know.” Donny said he would hereby call her Ursula Major. She smiled and gave him the book, as a gift. He took it, forcing on her a hundred-dollar bill. The homeless woman got weepy and kissed his cheek. Tonight, they’d stay in a Best Western instead of God knew where.
He read Katherine’s draft of Teorema in bed then scanned The Book of Urantia. He flipped through its elegant, tissue-thin pages until he found a passage to read aloud:
For almost one hundred and fifty million years after the Melchizedek bestowal of Michael, all went well in the universe of Nebadon, when trouble began to brew in system II of constellation 37. This trouble involved a misunderstanding by a Lanonandek Son, a System Sovereign, which had been adjudicated by the Constellation Fathers and approved by the Faithful of Days, the Paradise counselor to that constellation, but the protesting System Sovereign was not fully reconciled to the verdict….
The agent drifted off, rising like a kite toward interplanetary zones.
It was easy getting onto the Sony lot. At the Thalberg Building gate, security was focused on cars, not pedestrians. There was only one guard on duty. Just to be safe, the Dead Animal Guy waited for him to become embroiled in the usual drive-on snafu, then strode right in. Wasn’t this the same studio someone drove a flaming truck into a few years back? Simon remembered that in the news; happened around the same time those guards were shot over at Universal. Bad week for showbiz. But maybe trespassing wasn’t so easy — maybe his furry netherworld shenanigans, veteran wayfarer that he was, had imbued him with a debonair invisibility. He imagined himself in a tux, the Dead Pet Society’s mystic Double-Oh Seven.