by Stuart Woods
“A little longer. I had it cut nearly a month ago and not since.”
“I’ll put in a few extensions and trim them, then I’ll give you a new haircut before I leave.”
“Okay.”
She took a fulsome beard from her case and painted some adhesive on his face.
“My beard wasn’t nearly this long.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll mow it back until you like it.”
“Is all this going to look real?”
“It will when I’m done. You could do movie close-ups and nobody would know.” She glued the beard firmly in place, then she spread a barber’s cloth over him and inserted the hair extensions, combed and trimmed them. Most of the beard ended up in Laurence’s lap.
“Now,” Betty said, “I’m going to make you look older and dissolute. We want a lot of contrast between old Laurence and new Laurence.” She painted a liquid under his eyes and on the end of his nose. “Scrunch up your eyes.” He did so, and she dried it with a hair dryer. When she was done, she brushed off the excess hair and took the cloth outside to shake it out.
Faith came and had a close look. “Betty,” she said, “this is fucking wonderful. I imagine something, and you make it happen!”
Laurence had a close look at himself in the dining room mirror. “I look ten years older,” he said.
“Then tell them that’s so,” Faith replied, looking at her watch. “Five minutes to go.” She walked around the living room, moving a lamp here or a pot there. “Betty, you’d better wait in the kitchen. Anybody asks, you’re a friend of Theresa’s and you don’t have anything to say. Hide your cases.” Betty packed up and moved to the kitchen, while Faith flicked a few hairs off the dining room table. “Okay, Laurence, you’re on the piano, until I call you over. Anybody asks, you don’t take requests.”
“What would you like to hear?”
“Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, like that. It will bore these people rigid. Nothing up-tempo.”
Laurence sat down and began playing “Blue Skies.”
“Perfect!” Faith sang out as the doorbell rang, and she went to answer it.
—
LAURENCE WATCHED FROM THE PIANO, only occasionally glancing at his hands. They were a motley lot; quite young to sixtyish. He spotted the one from two nights ago instantly; no more than nineteen, dressed like the adolescent he was, unkempt hair, a camera with a long lens slung around his neck.
—
“ALL RIGHT, ladies and gentlemen, gather ’round,” Faith called out, beckoning them toward her. Theresa came in with a tray. “I’m Faith Mackey, you all know who I am. That’s my daughter, Theresa, from a much earlier, very brief marriage. This is my house. Theresa and her boyfriend picked it out for me, and I bought it sight unseen a few days ago. Her boyfriend left this morning for New Jersey. Laurence Hayward will join us shortly, and he will answer your questions, within reason. He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, so don’t make a fool of yourself. For your information, we are all at this moment somewhere in the state of California, and that is where you are reporting from, though you won’t be specific. Got that?” The crowd responded with a murmur. “NO MAKING STUFF UP! You’ll get honest answers to respectful questions, and you’ll stick with them and our location story for your reporting. If you stray, you won’t be invited to another of these, ever, on either coast or in between. The fact that I bought this house is on deep background—not even the real estate agent knows I’m the buyer, and I want to keep it that way. I’m a publicist for others, not myself, so my vacation home will be our little secret. Blow it at your peril.
“Now, the bar is open, so help yourselves, but first sign the agreement forms stacked there, and with your real names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, plus the name of the medium you represent and the name of the person you report to. If you do not complete those forms, our little soiree will, for you, be a lot shorter than planned.”
The group went to the bar, made themselves drinks, then filled out and signed the agreements, which Faith collected and scrutinized.
“Musician, give us a little fanfare!” Faith commanded, and Laurence did so. “May I present Laurence Hayward!”
Laurence got up and walked toward the group, grinning inanely.
29
LAURENCE TOOK A DEEP BREATH and remembered to be British. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Have you any questions for me?”
“Yeah,” a sixty-year-old woman said, “what’s this horseshit about your being a schoolmaster at some upper-crust school in the U.K.?”
“Assistant schoolmaster, at Eton College, and the crust doesn’t get any more upper than that. I resigned yesterday, when your British counterparts made it impossible for me to return to a quiet academic life.”
“You blame the press?”
“Oh, yes, for everything. Always.” That got a laugh.
“What did you teach?”
“English literature and art history.”
“Why?”
“Because those are my subjects, just as maths and sciences might be another master’s.”
Someone else took over. “Where’d you go to college?”
“Magdalen College, Oxford.”
“Which one, Maudlin or Oxford University?”
“They are collocated.”
“What does that mean?”
“In the same place, one inside the other.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Google it. Next question?”
“Why did you buy this house?” She motioned at her surroundings.
“What? This house?”
“Yes.”
“I think Faith told you whose house this is. My only residence is in New York. I sold my Palm Beach house yesterday.”
“I thought that was your father’s place.”
“Until his death, four months ago.”
“Did he leave you any money?”
“He left me his house.”
“Now that you’re a billionaire, what are you going to do with it?”
“I’m a great deal less than a billionaire. Do your homework.”
“How are you going to spend it?”
“I think I’ll put about half of it into charitable trusts and piss away the rest.”
“Piss it away on what?”
“Anything I like.”
“Don’t you have a house in England?”
“My family does.”
“Who are your family?”
“People who don’t like to read about themselves in newspapers.”
The kid intruder spoke up. “Don’t you have an elaborate security system around this house?”
“You’ll have to ask Faith, it’s her house.”
“I have no idea!” Faith shouted. “I haven’t read the instructions yet.”
“Do you own a gun?” the kid asked.
“I’m an Englishman. We don’t own guns, except to kill birds and game.”
“How about a handgun?”
“We don’t own handguns. They’re for shooting people—our police frown on that.”
“Aren’t you an American, not a Brit?”
“I was born here, raised there.”
“So you’re a half-breed?”
“Sounds about right.”
“What’s your middle initial, B, stand for?”
“Bastard.” Another laugh.
“Are you related to Laurence Olivier?”
“No, not even when he was alive.”
“Then why is your name spelled like his?”
“It’s a mystery. Perhaps my mother was frightened by his Hamlet.”
“What Hamlet was that?”
“Stage or film, take your pick. Anybody got a real question?”
“What
do you think of American women?”
“They terrify me.”
“Why?”
“Look at Faith—isn’t she terrifying?” Faith howled.
“Where are you going from here?”
“I’m already in California, so it’s an easy choice.”
“What do you like about California?”
“More places to get lost.”
“Why do you want to get lost?”
“So I won’t have to answer questions like this.”
“Where will home be?”
“Like the song says, ‘Any place I hang my hat.’ Except I don’t own a hat.”
“Oh, come on, you’ve got to go somewhere.”
“No, I plan to just dematerialize, as if I were on Star Trek. No one will ever see or hear from me again. I mean, what’s money for, if not to buy complete isolation.”
“How can a person live in complete isolation?”
“I’ll send out for pizza and Chinese.”
“Come on, pick a town or city.”
“Wherever they deliver pizza and Chinese.”
“Why pizza and Chinese?”
“My needs are simple—pizza, Chinese, and a bottle of Chateau Lafite, ’29, and I’m happy anywhere.”
“What was that wine again?”
“It’s a jug wine—I never buy wine that doesn’t have a screw top.”
“What are your hobbies?”
“Playing bad piano and killing salmon.”
“Where do you kill salmon?”
“Waist-deep in an icy Scottish river.”
“Is that fun?”
“I don’t know, I can’t feel a thing when I’m waist-deep in an icy Scottish river.”
“What’s so great about that?”
“The media won’t follow me there. They don’t enjoy being wet and freezing. I may take up yachting for the same reason.”
“Do you have a yacht?”
“Not yet.”
“If you buy one, will it be a super yacht?”
“Why would I buy a yacht, if it weren’t super?”
“What’s something you can’t buy with all your money?”
“My own country—at least, not one I’d want to live in.”
“Do you have a girl?”
“Whenever possible.”
“Do you prefer blondes or brunettes?”
“It hardly matters, they can change in an hour.”
From a young woman: “Do you like a Brazilian?”
“I’ve never met one, but I’m told they’re charming people.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Faith stepped in. “Thank you, folks, now for pictures. Right over here, Laurence.” She stood him against a wall, as if for a firing squad, and the group gathered around, most with cell phones. Laurence gave them both profiles and dead ahead, as if in a mug shot. He smiled, laughed, and frowned, but resisted one cross-eyed, because he knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Faith said. “This way out, don’t forget to leave your bar glasses.” She stood next to the bar and collected every one as they passed.
The kid reporter stopped to ask Laurence another question, but Faith got him by the collar and moved him toward the door on his tiptoes. “You’d better watch your ass, Chip Arnold,” she said. “One of my security guys nearly plugged you last night.” She closed the door firmly behind him and followed Laurence into the living room. “Great job, kiddo. I wish all my clients could handle them that way. That should get them off your back for a while.”
“Do I have to go to California,” Laurence asked, “or can I stay here in your house?”
“Sweetie, you’re welcome in this house anytime. Make yourself at home. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“What’s my next move?”
“Get a haircut and a shave from Betty and be returned to your former glory. I’ve got an eight o’clock flight to New York, and my car’s waiting.”
“Did you come all the way out here for this?” he asked.
“Of course. Stone called me last night, and I was on a plane at daybreak.” She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“And you do it very well,” Laurence said, giving her a hug, then he went and submitted himself to the tender ministrations of the estimable Betty.
And shortly, he was himself again.
30
BUTCH HAD JUST taken Theresa’s boxes to the Fairleigh and left them with the concierge, when the doorbell rang.
Curly stood there, his bulk filling the door frame. “Hi, Butch. You moved and didn’t mention it to me.”
“Theresa is out of town for a few days and offered me the place. I’d ask you in, but I promised her I wouldn’t have visitors.”
Curly brushed him aside, as if he were a pesky insect, and entered the apartment. “I see she took a lot of her stuff with her. Where’d she go for a few days?”
“Out of town. What do you want, Curly?”
“I need some money, not much—a few grand.”
“You got a hundred and fifty grand out of our caper, just like me. In fact, I paid our expenses, so you did better.”
“Well, I had a little run-in with some ponies.”
“You’ve been going to the track? You don’t know anything about the horses.”
“You don’t have to go to the track—there’s a telephone service available, called a bookie.”
“Oh, shit. How much did you lose?”
“How much did I have?”
“Not the whole hundred and fifty grand!”
“A little more than that. That’s why I need the twenty-five grand.”
“You lost . . .” Butch’s mind boggled.
“The bookie also has a pickup service, where he sends a couple of guys over for the money you owe him. That’s why I can’t go to my apartment, and I have to bunk with you until I pay him.”
“Another twenty-five grand, from me?”
“Actually, better make it thirty-five grand, what with the vigorish, and all.”
“You expect me to give you thirty-five thousand dollars?” Butch asked incredulously.
“Not give, loan. I’m good for it.”
“And just how are you good for it?”
Curly shrugged. “You know, I get ideas.”
“You must be out of your fucking mind.”
Curly took him by the lapels and lifted him to his tiptoes. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to a person, Butch. Now, apologize.”
“I’m sorry, I apologize.”
Curly lowered him onto his heels. He went to the liquor cabinet and found it bare. “Where’s that great scotch?”
“She took it with her. I can’t afford to stock up.”
Curly found a Yellow Pages and flipped through. “There you are—a liquor store that delivers, and it’s just around the corner. Order some of that Talisker, the single malt.”
“I don’t have enough cash to do that.”
“Butch, I know you well enough to know that you have a credit card. I mean, you’re a career guy, now, aren’t you?”
Curly made himself comfortable in an armchair. “Tell you what, give me forty grand right now, and you’ll never hear from me again.”
“Now it’s forty grand?”
“I think that’s a bargain, considering how much trouble I can be when I don’t get what I want.”
“Look, I spent a lot of mine, too. I had to fill out my wardrobe, for a start. I have to look good in my work.”
“Okay with me, but I know you’ve squirreled away at least the fifty grand I need. Get it up.”
“What I’ve got left is invested. You think I keep it in a shoe box ar
ound the house?”
“I don’t care if it’s in a shoe box or, more likely, in a safe-deposit box, which is where I’d keep it. Let’s go to your bank right now.”
“The bank closed at five o’clock.”
“But that’s where the cash is, right?”
“Curly, I’m not giving you any money. Now get out right now.”
“Or what? You’re going to kill me? You don’t have the guts. Beat me up? You don’t have the muscle. Call the cops? You’d go to jail, too. Are you beginning to get the picture?”
Butch was beginning to get the picture. “Listen, I can give you ten grand—that’s all I’ve got, I swear. I’ll give you a check right now, and you can take it to the bank tomorrow morning.”
“Give me the check.”
Butch found his checkbook and wrote it out.
Curly looked at it. “If this bounces, I’m going to come back here and beat the shit out of you. You won’t be able to work for a few weeks, you understand me?”
“It’s not necessary to threaten me, Curly.”
“I think maybe it is. I think you know I’ll do what I say, too.”
Butch knew he’d do it; he’d seen him do it under the bleachers in the prison yard. Curly had forty pounds on him, all muscle, and nothing short of a shotgun to the head would stop him when he was mad. And he was looking mad.
Butch walked him to the door. “And I want the key to the Fairleigh apartment,” he said.
“I’ll mail it to you,” Curly said, “and I’ll see you tomorrow at the store, if the check bounces. I think your coworkers might enjoy seeing what I do to you.”
Curly walked away, and Butch locked the door behind him. He was sweating profusely, something that always happened when he was scared.
—
LATER, he was putting his things into a dresser drawer when he came across something of Theresa’s. It was a very small .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, the proverbial “ladies’ gun.” And, on closer examination, he found it loaded, four in the magazine, one in the chamber. He remembered it vaguely as having belonged to their father. He shoved it to the back of the drawer and stacked underwear in front of it. He’d give it back to her later.
31
