Simon Says

by William Poe

  Rudy took a step back and flexed his hand into a fist. “Say it, fucker. Say you’re sorry.”

  Tinker collapsed onto the floor. Rudy allowed him to drag himself to the bar.

  “What do you want me to say, Rudy—I’m sorry I called you a fat queen? Okay, I’m sorry. You’re not a queen. I mean, you’re not fat. Hell, Rudy, I didn’t mean anything!”

  Rudy took a menacing step toward Tinker Bell.

  Don stepped between them. “That’s as good as you’re going to get, Rudy. Come on. Let’s play that round of liar’s poker you promised.” He walked Rudy to the bar and folded a dollar bill. “I call three nines. Call your numbers, Rudy.”

  A compulsive gambler, Rudy couldn’t resist. He folded his bill and challenged with a bid of his own. He forgot all about his anger as he tricked Don into a round for the bar. Rudy was a master at liar’s poker.

  “That was quite a pillow fight,” I said to Rudy just before last call.

  Rudy stopped in his tracks. “Have we met?”

  “I’m Simon, and you’re Rudy the fat queen, right?”

  Rudy almost tipped over my barstool as he pressed forward. “If you weren’t rich, I’d rip you a new one.” He set down shot glasses in front of us.

  “But you are a fat queen, Rudy.”

  “Well, I am a queen,” Rudy said, managing a curtsy as he demurely touched his index finger to his chin.

  “What do you mean ‘rich’?” I said after Rudy and I had downed the shots.

  “Well, you have your own film company. You work alone. You live in a big Laurel Canyon house. I know it’s got a hot tub with ceramic tiles. And you’re about to go to Italy in a few weeks.”

  “I’m afraid to ask how you know all that.”

  Rudy smiled. “You make an impression on the boys. They tell Don everything, and he tells me.” With that, Rudy twirled around, nimble for such a heavy person, and continued on his way back to a booth where two young men were waiting for him.

  In time, I learned that Rudy was a well-known chef in Hollywood. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood hired him to cater private parties. The walls of Rudy’s home were lined with photos of him standing next to celebrities. Many of the pictures were signed, often with reference to the delicious food he had prepared.

  When I met him, Rudy was living in the servants’ quarters at the estate of a wealthy director where he was the head chef. After our introduction at the expense of poor Tinker Bell, Rudy and I spent many hours at the Spotlight, ogling the hustlers, drinking to each other’s health, and playing liar’s poker with Don and the other members of the bar’s inner circle.

  One night, out of the blue, Rudy announced that he was moving back to Miami.

  “I don’t want to see you go,” I told him. Rudy was fun, and I would miss his company.

  Rudy threw back a shot of schnapps. “I was offered my old job back, working on a yacht.”

  “Old job? What happened to it before?”

  Rudy twirled the empty shot glass on the bar. “I thought you knew why I left Miami.”

  “Someone told me you had a drug problem. But then, don’t we all?”

  “Honey, back then, I was Patti Paranoia. I smoked so much crack that I thought the police were always about to break through the door.”

  “Won’t you get back into it if you go back?”

  “I need the job.”

  “Really? I thought everyone wanted you as their chef.”

  Rudy fanned his fingers as he flipped his wrist. “I am a queen, honey. I got so mad at a cook who ruined my morning soufflé that I knocked him down and raked a cheese grater across his head.”

  “Didn’t you have enough head cheese for your scrapple?”

  Rudy tapped me playfully on the forehead. “Listen to you. Cute, and he has a sense of humor, too.” He made huge doe eyes. “Where have you been all my life?”

  “What would it take for you to stay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I have money. Maybe I could give you a loan, or hire you as my own chef.”

  Rudy put his hands on his face. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s offered to do for me in a long time.”

  “What will it take, Rudy?”

  “I have to move from the estate, and I have to get by until I find another gig, maybe in a restaurant. The celebrity circuit is off limits for a while.”

  “How much do you need?”

  “Two thousand dollars,” Rudy said.

  “I’ll have a cashier’s check drawn up tomorrow. Pay me back when you can,” I grabbed his ass, “or I’ll take it out in trade.”

  Rudy hooked his fingers through the belt loops of his huge pants. “I’ll pay you back with interest. And I’ll fix you the most incredible meal you ever tasted. Just say when.”

  “Now, stop crying,” I said, seeing that tears had begun to collect in the corners of his eyes. “The night is young, and so are they.” I nodded at a couple of cuties playing darts.

  The Spotlight had something for everyone, and no one went home alone—not even Rudy.

  CHAPTER 14

  Several days later, I was sitting in my usual seat at the bar watching Rudy play liar’s poker. It had been a slow night until a tall blond fellow walked in, stopping to say hello to Don before taking a seat at the bar. He was in the right age range, but he didn’t look like a hustler. If a hustler comes into the bar with a shirt on, it comes off in the first five minutes. Their jeans are strategically torn and the fly is nearly always unzipped at least a third of the way down.

  The fellow staring at me had neatly parted hair, faded polyester trousers, and a long-sleeve shirt. A cowboy belt, with the name Thaddeus burned into the leather, stood out like a billboard saying, I’m not from around here. He wore a puka shell necklace, the kind of attire one might expect to see on a veteran of the disco era.

  “Mind if I sit here?” the young man asked, pointing to a seat next to mine.

  “Guess not,” I said, figuring I could at least give him some advice on how to dress. “What’s your name?”

  “Thad,” the blond said.

  “Like Tad-pole.” I laughed. “Tell me, Thad, do you have a big pole?”

  He seemed genuinely embarrassed, another sign he hadn’t been in Hollywood very long.

  “What is your drink?” I asked. “Let me buy you one.”

  Thad leaned in close. “A slow comfortable screw against the wall.”

  “Twiggy,” I called out. “This boy wants a screw.”

  But the drink was already prepared. “I knew you’d buy it for him,” Twiggy said. “I’ve been telling him to say hello to you for weeks.”

  “I’m from Idaho,” Thad volunteered. “Came to Los Angeles six months ago. You know the store around the block, Cinema Collectors?”

  “Yeah, across from the Mark Twain Hotel. I know it.”

  “I do computer entry, inventory, and stuff like that.”

  “Keeping track of the drugs? I’ve heard that the Mark Twain is heroin central.”

  “No silly, for Cinema Collectors. I stay at the Mark Twain. I work at Cinema Collectors.”

  “So what tragedy brought you to Hollywood? And, by the way, it’s not ‘Los Angeles.’ We call it LA.”

  Thad looked a bit puzzled. “Oh, like the song. ‘I Love LA.’”

  “Exactly. Now you’ll remember.”

  Thad took a long sip of his sloe comfortable screw. His skin was so fair that it turned pink with the rise in his blood pressure.

  “I don’t get along with my family,” Thad said, trying to explain why he came to Hollywood. “I’m supposed to inherit a fortune when I turn thirty. They’re all jealous.”

  “That’s a new one.”

  “It’s true,” Thad insisted.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “It’s important that you believe me.”

  “I don’t believe anyone, about anything,” I said. “Life has taught me to be skeptical.”

  “That’s really
tragic,” Thad said as he ordered a second drink. As much as I enjoyed Thad’s story and was drawn by his bright blue eyes, I had to get home. MIFED was coming up. This trip would be the first time that I would be attending as an independent distributor. I planned to slip out of the bar while Thad was in the restroom, lest he tempt me to take him back to my place. I told Twiggy to let Thad know that I’d see him another time.

  But Thad was ahead of the game. He caught up with me outside. “You’re too drunk to be driving,” he said. “Let me call you a taxi. Leave your car parked where it is until tomorrow.”

  “Cabs around here cost too much,” I protested.

  “Then let me drive you home. I don’t have to work tomorrow, and I didn’t even finish that second drink.”

  Defeated, I handed him my car keys but pulled them back when he reached to grab them. “Only if we stop for a bottle of wine at Greenblatt’s Deli. It’s on the way.”

  “I know where it is, right next door to Numbers.”

  “That would be the place.” Numbers was an upscale version of the Spotlight. Same hustlers, but asking twice as much.

  While Thad waited out front, double-parked, I ran inside to get a bottle of Italian Barolo. Driving up the hill into Laurel Canyon, I kept dozing off. Thad nudged me repeatedly, asking for directions.

  “Beautiful place,” Thad said as he helped me up the stairs to the front door. When we were inside, he went straight to the patio and switched on the lights. Two raccoons scampered up the hill.

  “Turn that knob,” I said, pointing to the wall.

  The hot tub’s jets began to whoosh and gurgle as I collapsed onto a lawn chair, but I wasn’t too tired to say, “Let’s see you get naked.”

  Thad had already begun to unfasten his turquoise-decorated belt buckle. After taking off his shirt and exposing a smooth, tan torso, he unzipped his fly just enough to keep his jeans from falling off. He went into the living room and put a cassette in the tape deck, fast-forwarding to the Cars song “Shake It Up.”

  The bouncy New Wave tune blasted from the speakers, rattling the windows. Thad came back to the patio and continued his striptease. He was sexier than I thought he’d be—nipples high on his chest and close together, long torso with muscles that rippled slightly at his stomach. He raised his arms and wiggled so the heavy silver buckle would make his pants drop to the ground. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a tan line. I wondered where he was able to lie nude in the sun.

  “Com’ere, banana dick,” I slurred.

  Thad slunk toward me, veering away just as he came within reach of my grasp, then stepping into the hot tub. I shucked off my clothes and got in beside him. The rush of hot water gave me a sudden migraine. I just made it out of the tub before throwing up.

  “Sorry. I have to get to bed,” I said. “You’re sexy and all, but…” my voice trailed off as I stumbled toward the house.

  I barely comprehended the fact that Thad was at my side, helping me get into bed. He toweled me dry and pulled up the covers. Then he climbed in and wrapped me in his embrace.

  Despite the work to be done getting ready for MIFED, I met Thad at the Spotlight every night. We’d go to my house for a romp in the hot tub or a tumble in bed, and then I’d drive him to the Mark Twain. I wanted Thad to move in with me, but he thought we should date for a while. He was the first person I had met in Hollywood who used the word date.

  I complied with Thad’s wishes for two weeks, but then insisted that he move in. I hoped that I had found a genuine person who wasn’t hustling me, but no matter what, I had fallen for him and was willing to take the risk.

  Thad and I went to the Mark Twain and retrieved his meager possessions. He had a positive influence on me from the start. We stayed home most evenings, listening to music and snuggling on the couch. At most, we drank wine. Sometimes we made an appearance at the Spotlight. Thad would order his sloe screw and I’d have a glass of Boodles. We’d sing along with the jukebox and gossip with Twiggy.

  It was almost like having a real life.

  CHAPTER 15

  Before I left for MIFED, Thad quit his job at Cinema Collectors. “Those guys were taking advantage of my talents,” he complained. “And they weren’t paying me shit.”

  That sounded like something a hustler might say. I considered the possibility that Thad might have been looking for a sugar daddy all along so that he wouldn’t have to work a crummy job. Maybe I had blinded myself to his scheme. I forced such thoughts from my mind.

  “You’ll get a better job,” I said. He didn’t flinch at the implication that I expected him to continue working. I took that as a good sign.

  The next day, I showed Thad a new computer I had bought. I figured that if he had an aptitude for computer work, he could help while I was in Italy. Thad was as smart as I expected. He knew much more about computers than the simple data entry that he had performed at Cinema Collectors.

  A couple of hours before last call, we made an appearance at the Spotlight, taking a seat in a quiet booth near the entrance.

  “You know, Thad,” I said, thoughtfully. “You’re the first normal person I’ve been with since I came to Hollywood.”

  Thad threw back a shot of schnapps and grinned. “What makes you think I’m normal?”

  Just before I was to leave town, Thad came home after having stopped in West Hollywood to pick up a Spartacus Gay Guide. We sat together on the couch and looked over the section about the gay scene in Milan.

  “Since I’m not going, you have to tell me what the bars are like,” Thad said. He opened the book to a page with pictures of swarthy Italian men. “There’s even a hustler bar,” he noted. “It’s got a funny name, something like ‘you eat me’ bar.”

  “It says, Uiti Bar,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’d like to see what the gay bars are like. When I was in Milan before, I only saw heterosexual piano bars with my former boss and his friends.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  “Worse than awful.” I poked Thad in the side. “So you want me to check out a hustler bar? What if I meet a trick?”

  “Then I want to hear about it.”

  “When in Rome, I suppose.”

  Thad corrected me. “Milan.”

  The day before I was to leave, Wally telephoned with an unpleasant announcement. “Kathy wants to go with you,” he said. “And that means Gus, too.”

  Gus was a crotchety old geezer who financed Wally’s productions. Wally’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Kathy, had appeared in Bel Air Babes, sitting naked on Gus’s lap. Wally didn’t have a problem when a relationship developed between them. I’d visited Gus’s house in Bel Air. It was an inheritance from his father, who had been a chemical company magnate. The highlight of the visit was seeing one of only three copies of a rare print by M. C. Escher. At the time, I’d thought it a horrible waste for such a magnificent work to be in the hands of such a philistine. Gus had no appreciation for the art that had come down to him.

  I scrambled for a reason that Gus and Kathy couldn’t go with me, but since Wally’s library was the bulk of what I had to sell, I couldn’t protest too loudly.

  “The hotels will be booked,” I said, hoping that might put an end to it.

  Wally said something to Gus, who was in the room with him. I could hear the old man grumbling in the background. His growl reminded me of Popeye in a bad mood.

  “Make reservations at the best hotel in Milan. Surely there are suites available,” Wally said. “Gus will pay.”

  “How about the plane tickets?”

  “Gus will pay for those also. Let me know how much it will cost for the three of you.”

  I called my travel agent. She upgraded my seat on Alitalia Airlines to first class and got two more seats nearby. The Principe di Savoia was booked, but luckily, there were rooms at the Michelangelo, second only to the Principe in elegance.

  Thad chauffeured us in my Topaz, which was packed to the gills with bags, mostly Kathy’s. Gus was drunk. Security almost refused to
let us through. If it weren’t for the first-class tickets, I don’t think they would have.

  Thad gave me a peck on the cheek in sight of Gus and Kathy, not to mention the rest of the world. I was horribly self-conscious about public displays of affection.

  Fortunately, neither Gus nor Kathy cared about attending events at MIFED. The only reason Kathy wanted to visit Europe, as far as I could tell, was that she had never been. I don’t even think she realized that we had flown across the ocean and were in a different part of the world. She and Gus had been making out under a blanket the whole trip.

  Gus yawned at the idea of visiting Italy and seized every opportunity to denigrate Italians. Between the two of them, they exemplified everything Europeans hate about American tourists.

  Some days, Gus and Kathy never left their room. By the time I came back from the convention center, food trays often littered the hallway outside their door. When I knocked, they took forever to answer. Kathy usually greeted me wrapped in a sheet she had pulled off the bed. I wanted to say, you could fuck just as well in LA, so why come all the way to Milan? But I reminded myself yet again that Gus was Wally’s benefactor, and I kept quiet.

  MIFED was busy that year, and I had a well-situated office that received a great deal of foot traffic. I arrived at seven in the morning and rarely left the market before it closed down at six. Then I followed clients to their hotels for drinks and hopefully to complete negotiations. A few sales slipped away due to my limited language skills. Had I been savvier, I would have hired a translator.

  One evening, Nicolò was in the Principe bar when I showed up with a Spanish client whom I had met while working for him. Nicolò was huddled with men whom I recognized from my first trip to Italy. He made a point of gazing past me as if I wasn’t there.

  At about two o’clock in the morning, I went to the Michelangelo and was surprised to find Gus and Kathy heading toward the all-night restaurant in the lobby. They were almost sober and invited me to join them. Gus, who spoke Italian, ordered delectable dishes with names that had no English equivalents.