“You sound far away,” Vikar says. There’s a delay in the voices back and forth.
“Of course I sound far away,” Viking Man says, “I’m in the fucking depths of Spain, not far from Gibraltar. Some grand surfing, though.”
“How’s the movie?”
“I’m going to be David Lean while I’m waiting to become the next John Ford.”
“What about the other David Lean?”
“There you go getting wry on me, vicar.”
“They made Dotty vice president.”
Sometimes the lag in transatlantic response is longer. “I just talked to her,” Viking Man finally says. “Listen, vicar, this call’s expensive and I don’t know how long the connection will last, so here’s the thing. While you’re busy getting wry on me, I need you in Spain for a couple of months.”
“What?”
“Dot’s going to get you out of that W. C. Fields nonsense and I’ve set it up with the MGM front office, they’re making the arrangements. Someone will pick you up — probably day after tomorrow at the soonest — put you on an Iberia jet out of LAX, and someone will be waiting for you on the other end in Madrid.”
“I’ve been reading this book.”
“While we’re still shooting, we need to sync and assemble as much of a rough as we can if we’re going to stay on schedule. We’ll do the fine cut back in L.A. Seville is the nearest city but they don’t have the facilities so we’ll set you up in Madrid and get dailies to you there, fly them in or send them by truck over five hundred kilometers of bad Spanish roads if need be.”
“God I love this book.”
“We’ve found a cutting room we can use in the Chueca section of town. We’ll put you up in a hotel somewhere around the Gran Villa.”
“I can’t come …”
“We’re losing this connection, vicar.”
“… I’ve read this book five times and need to read it again …”
There’s a particularly long pause and Vikar wonders if the connection has broken. “What are you talking about, vicar,” Viking Man’s voice finally comes through, “is this book of yours chained to the Hollywood Sign? You’re going to be on an airplane thirteen fucking hours, you’ll be able to read it another five times.”
“I want to stay in Hollywood.”
“God love you, vicar, but you’re being a pussy. Don’t you understand? This is Hollywood.”
“What do you mean?”
“This godforsaken stretch of Gibraltar. The cutting room in Madrid. Paris, Bombay, Tokyo, fucking Norway, wherever — it’s all Hollywood, everywhere is Hollywood, the only place on the planet that’s not Hollywood anymore is Hollywood. You got a passport?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t. Well, that’s just going to add another day or two. I’ll get Stacey or Kate or one of the girls in the Culver City office to expedite things but of course you’ll need to apply yourself, can’t do that for you. They’ll also get you a copy of the script so you can be looking at that. I wish there was a way to get you shooting boards but that will have to wait until you get to Spain. Now there’s one more thing. You still there, vicar?”
132.
“Yes,” Vikar says.
“The Generalissimo over here,” Viking Man says, “is dying and taking his sweet time about it. There are more troops than usual in the streets and things are a bit tense and may get more so. So I’m having the girls in the front office pick you up one of those woolen ski caps nobody wears in L.A., and before you get off that plane and go through customs, I want you to pull that cap down over your head. Do you understand?”
“The General who?”
“Pull that cap down over your head, because one look at you and the officials might get irritable. The Generalissimo may not be a George Stevens man.”
133.
Four days later, a limo is parked outside the Paramount Gate with the back door open. Sitting on the black leather backseat is a plane ticket, passport and shooting script, the MGM lion roaring in the upper left hand corner of the envelope. From the radio comes a song—What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? — by an old Los Angeles band whose singer died in Paris; perhaps he lived in a bell tower, in pursuit of the world’s greatest satanist, the right-hand man of Joan of Arc. Between the limo and the gate, Soledad Palladin sits on the edge of the fountain, arms folded, as though Vikar conjured her.
134.
Four years have passed since she left him on Sunset Boulevard, but she looks at him as if they’ve seen each other every day since.
Her auburn hair is sun-bleached and she wears a simple black dress, slightly low cut, that seems more like a slip. Perhaps she’s more beautiful than when he last saw her, the small cleft in her chin more perfect and irresistible. She nods hello to him more than she says it; across the street, not far from where it was that day in the rain when he last saw Zazi, is the black Mustang. Vikar leans into the limo and says to the driver, “Just a minute.”
“This is for you?” Soledad says. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Spain.”
She looks at the car. “Right now?”
“Viking Man is making a movie there.”
“Oh yes,” she smiles, “pirates or something. A boy’s adventure.”
“They’re shooting outside Seville.”
“My hometown.”
“I’ll be in Madrid. I’m cutting a rough from dailies. Do you still see the people at the beach?”
“Everyone is busy now,” she says. “I get a small role now and then.”
“I saw you in The Long Goodbye,” Vikar says. He looks across Melrose at the Mustang and the girl in the backseat. “She’s gotten big,” he says.
“They do that.” Soledad says, “I have been wanting to talk to you for a while, but …” She’s lost a bit more of her accent. “About that night.”
“It’s all right.”
“What?”
“I vex people.”
Her eyes look away and she tilts her head slightly. She takes hold of her hair and wraps it around her fist distractedly. “I wonder if I know what you mean.”
“But I would never hurt her.”
“Who?”
“Your little girl. Or … do anything bad.”
She looks back at him. “I wonder if I know what you mean,” she says again, except this time she sounds like she really does.
“That night.”
“Which night?”
“In the car. When you drove me home from the beach house.” She stares at him blankly; he believes she may be most beautiful when she’s blank. “When she was in the front and I said you should put her in the back.” He adds, “You left me on Sunset.”
“Oh,” she says. “I had forgotten that. I know you wouldn’t hurt her. It had more …” She stops. “It had more to do with … other things … experiences of my own … than with you. I was not speaking of that night. I was speaking of the other night.”
“The other night?”
“The night,” she says, “in the cemetery.”
135.
The limo driver says, “Mr. Jerome?”
Stunned, Vikar nods at the driver and turns back to the woman. “Did they hurt you?” he says finally.
She chooses her words carefully. “What matters,” she says, “is that you tried to help me. So I have been wanting to thank you …
Vikar says in a low voice, “Did I kill that man?”
She draws herself up when she says, “I never saw them before and have not seen them since.”
“I waited for the police to come to my apartment. I’m not one of the singing family that killed those people.” He gazes at the Mustang across the street. “Was Zazi all right?”