151.
In the Hollywood tradition as well, for about a week and a half Soledad Palladin becomes more famous dead than she was alive, if not for the right reasons; but in Hollywood there are no right or wrong reasons for being famous. A small cult is born, flourishes, dies out. Accompanying Soledad’s resurgent lesbian-vampire oeuvre are the tabloid tales — the snorted H, the nocturnal collection of anonymous lovers two, three, four at a time in episodes that often went violently wrong — as well as the grisly rumors about the accident itself: what was dismembered, decapitated, impaled. Had the heroin gotten out of hand? Was she fleeing a heated argument with Rondell when he returned unexpectedly to find her in bed with another woman? There’s also speculation as to whether she was Buñuel’s daughter; the consensus concludes against it, even as it wants to believe it.
150.
If there’s an actual interment, it’s private as far as Vikar knows. As in his suite in New York following their affair and the discovery of Zazi in the Mustang, Vikar doesn’t move from his couch. The telephone rings but he doesn’t answer, gazing at the sky out his living room windows until, a couple of afternoons later, there’s a knock on the door.
149.
Letting himself in, Viking Man says, “Vicar?”
“Yes,” Vikar says from the couch.
“You O.K.?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem O.K.”
Vikar stares at the sky.
“Hell, vicar. She was a fuck-up.”
“Stop.”
“You going to the service?”
“What service?”
148.
Viking Man says, “There’s a memorial service at Rondell’s house.”
“What about Zazi?”
“What about her?”
“Is she all right?”
“As all right as she can be, so far as I know. I think she and Sol had a complicated fucking relationship, to say the least, but you would know better than I …”
“I don’t …”
“… the kid was raising the mother when she wasn’t raising herself … now half the time she runs wild in the city, nobody knows where she is or what she’s doing, twelve years old or …”
“Fourteen,” Vikar says, “almost fifteen …”
“No one can keep up with her.”
“Me neither.”
“Nothing reminds you of time’s passage like a kid.”
“No.”
“Would hate to see her get so fucked up too, forgive me for saying it. But she’s always been smarter than her mom, even if,” Viking Man snorts, “she does wear a ring in her nose now.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve started calling her Zulu.” Viking Man sighs. “You want to go with me to this service or not?”
“No.”
147.
But after Viking Man leaves, Vikar stirs from the couch and dresses and starts up the labyrinthine path that leads to Sunset Drive, which he then follows to the canyon top. Mitch Rondell’s house on Lookout Mountain is all glass and pylon and tension cable, its decks and patios dropping off into Laurel Canyon; by the time Vikar gets there, the memorial is nearly over. The crowd is a mix of Eurotrash, unfamiliar faces, former UA associates of Rondell’s whom Vikar recognizes. Molly Fairbanks stands alongside the room and waves sympathetically to Vikar but doesn’t come over; there are remnants of the old Nichols Beach gang. Margie Ruth in black, whom he hasn’t seen in years, embraces him. “Hey, superman,” she smiles sadly, “the ‘crazy one with the tits,’ huh?”
The white carpet of Rondell’s house reminds Vikar of his suite at the Carlton in Cannes, where Maria’s white coat dropped to the floor. At the back, Rondell wears black and a sense of oppression, distractedly mumbling to the stream of condolences. Vikar catches his eye and then goes out onto the deck.
146.
He circles around the back of the house and finds her leaning against a post, gazing out at the sea that hides ten miles behind the haze. She’s wearing black jeans and a man’s black shirt, her hair dyed black, and from a distance she might appear unmoved by the occasion, until he gets closer; her eyeliner is smeared. He says nothing about her cigarette.
She turns and looks at him, drops the cigarette and steps on it. “Figured you weren’t coming,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” Vikar says.
Zazi shrugs. “She was running out the clock as a scumball’s accessory.”
“Stop.”
“I know,” she says, “it’s a cliché, the damaged Hollywood thing. The precociously bitter teenager thing.”
“When did you get the ring?”
She touches her nose. “Couple months ago. I’m working up to the tattooed head,” she nods at him, “maybe now that I won’t have to fight with Mom about it — that would have been the deal breaker, though I’m not sure what my end of the deal was supposed to be or what deal was getting broken … maybe,” she pulls back her dyed black hair with her hands, “well, all along I’ve been thinking Lora Logic,” Vikar doesn’t know who that is or what movie she’s in, “but I guess it’s one of those things you should be sure about if you’re going to tattoo it to your head, though if it’s a mistake I suppose you can just grow your hair back, anyway I haven’t seen you around, how’s your movie coming, don’t you start shooting next week or something—?” and suddenly the outburst drops off into space like the house drops off into the city.
“Are you all right?” Vikar says, and Zazi throws herself into his chest crying.
145.
She composes herself and says, “Can I stay at your place, Vikar? I’ll sleep on the couch or the floor. But please don’t leave me here.”
“There’s an extra room,” he says, “you don’t have to sleep on the floor.”
“Can we leave now? None of this,” says Zazi, waving at the people in the house behind her, “is really about Mom anyway.”
“All right.”
Vikar and Zazi walk through the house and reach the front door before Rondell, at the other end of the room, says, “Isadora?”
It’s been so long since Vikar heard her called this that at first he isn’t sure who Rondell means.
“Isadora?” Rondell crosses the room and the talking around them fades. “What are you doing?”
“She’s coming with me,” says Vikar.
“Vikar?” says Rondell, inches from the other man. “I’m speaking to Zazi. Isadora, where do you think you’re going?”
“That’s not my name,” Zazi says.
“She’s coming with me,” Vikar says.
“Vikar, don’t say that again. Zazi?” and Rondell grabs the girl by the arm.
144.
Later there will be some discussion between De Palma and Schrader as to the cinematic nature of the moment, and as to the exact sound, perhaps for the purpose of how to replicate it in a sound edit; there’s agreement about the crunching. No one disputes the sound of crunching. With the same hand that once smashed a car window with an eleven-year-old behind it, Vikar shatters one profile of Rondell or another — lately he’s become confused about the profiles — and in any case, what’s also indisputable is the bloody streak across the white carpet. No one argues about the cinematic nature of that, either. Rondell sprawls across the floor in the center of the room with blood running from his nose, everyone watching passively except Molly, who looks at Vikar ashen, as if two years of some determined and focused effort have just disappeared in an instant. Vikar walks over to deliver a swift kick to Rondell’s other profile. “Whoa there, Shane,” someone pulls Vikar back, and Vikar turns to land another blow but sees it’s Viking Man. He turns back to Rondell on the floor. “She’s coming with me,” he says.