Hollywood Gothic

by Thomas Gifford

  “Cost? How much does happiness cost? Joy? The life force … can you put a price tag on it? I don’t think so.”

  “Try Lena …” Roth said. “Put a price tag on it for me.”

  Roth’s fingers were drumming on the tub’s rim.

  “Now, remember our key words, Aaron.” Lena was ignoring the price, babbling on. “Nonviolent. Cheery. Feeling good behavior mode. Life-giver. Life-enhancer. Repeat them …”

  “I’ve read the book, Lena.” Roth looked markedly more tired than he had when the clowns arrived.

  “You’re okay. The next step, you wear your clown suit to a meeting—all your executives should wear the clown suits. It’s the synthesis of all we know, the symbol of everything we’ve ever learned.”

  Hacker stepped out of the shadows. Unheard, he’d come back, a kind of protective specter.

  “It’s time to go now,” he said quietly, moving toward the Berkowitzes.

  “Thank you, Lena, Bernie,” Roth said. “Thank you for coming. I feel much better.” He didn’t look it.

  “Remember how we helped you after Goldie …” Lena began to shuffle backward, away from the cloud of steam, away from Tully Hacker. “We’ll always be here when you need us.”

  “Thank you,” Roth said. His head floated on the water.

  “Mr. Roth thanks you,” Hacker said calmly. “I’ll see you out. So very nice of you to come like this. Mr. Roth is tired …”

  “You see that he wears his clown suit.”

  “Of course, of course.” Somehow, as if he’d ensnared them in a vast net, Hacker was herding them away toward the cable car. Soon they were enveloped in the fog, the machinery was clanking.

  Roth’s eyes blinked like a clockwork doll’s behind his steamy round spectacles. His arms floated before him, pale, with black tendrils of hair waving in the water. He seemed suddenly vulnerable, smaller and thinner than he’d been a few minutes before. The steel and irony had gone out of him. Rather than helping him, pumping him up with their idiotic bullshit, Lena and Bernie had drained him like a couple of vampires. The clown attire lay in a clump on a bench.

  “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’d become a real wimp. What in the name of God was that all about?”

  “Clown therapy. You saw it …” Aaron cleared his throat.

  “Seeing is not necessarily believing. Why doesn’t someone murder them? The wrong people always—”

  “I’m rather surprised someone hasn’t. They know all the secrets.”

  “Don’t be despondent. You look terrible.”

  “I haven’t been well. You wouldn’t understand, Toby—”

  “Donovan and Laggiardi would make anyone sick. I don’t see why you can’t ease your conscience with me, get it off your chest.”

  “Just drop that line entirely.” His voice came weakly from the pale face. “Why don’t you just escape—that’s what I can’t see.”

  “I want to know about Goldie before I go … hell, if I do it right, Aaron, I won’t have to go. I’ll clear myself … and you don’t care enough to help me out. I come to you, I expose myself to capture and God knows what else, I trust you, and you won’t get me off square one.” Challis had moved all the way back to the sunken tub and was looking down at Roth, who seemed particularly fragile at just that moment.

  “You sound crazy to me,” Aaron said. “Do you realize you’ve practically accused me of killing my own daughter?”

  “Well, why not? Why else would you be so intent on covering up? I like the blackmailing theory, it makes a weird kind of sense to me … Goldie would have appreciated it as a technique, blackmailing her father, with Donovan and Laggiardi playing the enforcers.” Aaron was waving his hand at Challis, trying to make him stop. “But what could she have had on you? That’s what confuses me—what would you ever have let her get on you?”

  “For God’s sake”—Roth’s voice came in a strangled monotone—“be quiet. We’re not alone … we’re not alone. …” His small bulbous eyes wavered across the deck toward a fog bank. He was right. Something was coming, and it was on all fours.

  17

  THE HUGE DOG STRAINED FORWARD, sniffing: a Doberman the size of a Subaru, tongue askew, big paws slipping on the wet grass. He gurgled a trifle ominously when he saw Challis, let a bark roll about in his throat and cavernous chest before producing it as a silly Yorkshire-terrier yap. He looked a little silly, suddenly demure as he approached the hot tub like a professional wrestler afraid of smashing the china in an English tearoom. Standing stolidly in front of Challis, he began to lick the hand which reached out to pet his magnificent bony head.

  “Towser,” Challis said, feeling the slippery tongue on his skin. “Good boy, Towser, good boy. …”

  Behind the dog, emerging from the fog, was Solomon Roth, his wide mouth with its jagged coastline of old teeth drawn back in the familiar crocodile smile. His eyes were long and slightly slanted; his dark dyed hair was combed straight back from his forehead and hung loosely at the end of its journey, curling over the shawl collar of his white, initialed bathrobe. His eyebrows were black and bushy, like caterpillars, and there was a thicket of bristles in each ear. He padded along, bare feet pink and babylike, legs hairless from age. And always the predator’s grin which was anything but that: Solomon Roth was a great man.

  “Why, Toby, it is you, isn’t it? It is Toby, Towser … you see, Towser knew you right off. It’s the smell, you can’t get rid of that like a beard, can you? You can’t fool Towser … Graydon told me you were here and I thought to myself, has old Graydon finally gone gaga? But he’s not the type, our Graydon, I’ll be gaga long before Graydon. Toby, I can’t believe it … let me look at you. Amazing. I would have passed you by on the street.”

  He took Challis’ wet hand and gave it a firm, congratulatory shake, steered himself into a redwood deck chair, and seated himself slowly a few feet away. He saw the clown things and looked at his son. “Aaron, I’ve told you about those people. I don’t want them coming here …”

  “It was all a mistake, Father,” Aaron said. He poured more Perrier into his goblet.

  “That has been apparent for quite some time,” Solomon Roth said. Towser lowered himself in sections, got settled at his master’s feet. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived, Toby.” He took a Dunhill cigarette from the pocket of his robe, fitted it into a plain black holder, and lit it with a kitchen match he scraped on his thumbnail. It was a neat trick. “I’m going to have to ask you to tell your story all over again. I’m sure something can be done … absolutely sure.”

  While he ran through it again, Challis tried to take Solomon Roth’s measure, tried to figure out what his position was likely to be. He’d never been quite sure of where Sol stood on certain kinds of issues—personal issues primarily, since his public attitudes were well documented. Solomon Roth was one of the pillars which had kept the film industry from falling to pieces during its various crises. When Sol arrived, you always had the feeling he was accompanied by the shades of D. W. Griffith and De Mille and Lasky and Goldwyn, all the great ones. But there was a difference, too. Sol Roth wasn’t going to wind up living out the years pinching floozies and starlets in a rundown hotel room like everybody says Griffith did. Sol Roth seemed not to carry the seeds of his own diminution, nor was he the brigand or killer that seemed to inhabit Hollywood’s Hall of Fame. He wasn’t a great moviemaker, either. What he was best at, better than anyone else had ever been, was keeping the idea of the movie business—his idea of the movie business—from disappearing altogether into the crud and crap the schlock merchants were always, always shilling. He had spent a lifetime playing fair and keeping his word. He made responsible pictures and funny pictures and American pictures. They may not always have reflected what America was like at a given moment, but they did reflect what Solomon Roth wanted America to be. And when television just about put paid to the movie business, Solomon Roth had refused to give up on Hollywood. He didn’t get into runaway productions,
he didn’t piss and moan about the unions, and somehow he made both movies that were profitable and peace with television. The Maximus television wing was instantaneously profitable and the movie operation never left the black ink.

  He had fought scandal and corruption in the movie business. He had kept Maximus clean. He had a Presidential Medal of Freedom and if he ever actually died, the Academy was sure to inaugurate a Solomon Roth Memorial Ward for something or other. He played a lot of golf with presidents, ex-presidents, and Arnold Palmer; he raised money for Israel and spastics and waifs. Solomon Roth was a moral imperative and his effect had never been accurately measured, except by the fact that the three interlocked Roman columns in the gladiator’s shield which had been the studio’s symbol from the very first day of its existence were as creamy white and spotless now as ever they had been. But Solomon Roth was seventy-nine years old, and as John Garfield used to say, “Everybody dies.”

  Aaron Roth kept his mouth tightly shut while Toby told Solomon Roth the story of the past few days, beginning with the plane crash. His eyes flickered behind his spectacles. He was thinking. His fingertips tapped on the edge of the tub.

  Solomon Roth sat staring at Toby when the story was over. Finally he shook his head, stroked Towser’s jowls. “Never heard such a story, never! What a picture it would make. Thank God you’re alive, thank him for what a man must never expect—a second chance. But now, what is your plan? Indeed, do you have a plan?” He pulled the robe closer around his neck, where a tuft of gray hair showed on his chest.

  “Just what I said, Sol. I want to find out what Goldie was doing at the end … with Donovan. I just can’t see heading off into the bush without ever knowing what was going on. And don’t tell me I’m being stupid, don’t ask me who cares, what difference does any of it make—”

  “You know me better than that, Toby. You know I am the man who will understand your situation.” He fit another cigarette into the holder and did the match trick again. “Who knows you’re alive and well?” Toby told him, and Roth’s eyebrows pulled together, the long eyes narrowing. “That seems like a lot of people … the more people who know—well, you see my point. What about the clown people, Aaron? Do they know?”

  “Certainly not,” Aaron said without looking at his father. “Do you think I just introduced them all?”

  “Aaron, if those crazy people are invited here again, I’ll have Mr. Hacker and Towser here run them out of town. Do you understand me?”

  “Isn’t that a little harsh, Father? All they preach is happiness.”

  “There is no room for charlatan’s fakery and japery and what-not here. They give our community and our work a bad name.”

  “I won’t ask them here again, Father. It was my mistake—”

  “You should develop a hobby, Aaron.” The old man had developed a tendency to cling to an idea, to keep refining it until it had been reduced to a nameless silt and everybody else was climbing the walls. “You should develop a hobby like my Stainforths … the paintings of horses are more expensive than maintaining a stable, perhaps, but the upkeep is so much less—Toby, there you are! Forgive me, late at night my mind sometimes wanders, I forget what I should be attending to—now, why is it you’re here? What exactly is going on?” Towser unexpectedly let out a yelp and Aaron threw the shark at him. Towser gave him a hurt look and pulled the shark’s head off, spit it out.

  “I came here to pick on Aaron … about Donovan and Laggiardi. I was doing a pretty damned good job of it, too.” Toby smiled at the old man. The mist was lowering upon them. Los Angeles was only a faint yellow blur of light behind the fog. There were no sounds anymore. It was always strange, listening to Sol flicker in and out of a conversation.

  “You know, I’ve never thought you killed my granddaughter,” Sol said. “You’re aware of that …” For a moment he was conducting a conversation all his own.

  Toby went on. “I asked Aaron what the hell Goldie was doing to him. I ran into a stone wall … your son won’t be candid with me, Sol. So what can I do?”

  “I’ve never thought you were guilty. It was a circumstantial case … I got you the very best lawyers I could find. You must believe that.”

  “I know that, Sol, and I appreciate it. But it didn’t do me any good in the end, so here I am. I’ve got to dig it all out myself, and the digging isn’t easy. My guess is that Goldie was blackmailing poor Aaron here … real hard-edged blackmail could drive anybody to the clowns.”

  “For God’s sake, Toby,” Aaron said softly, almost imploring him, “shut it off, you’re on the wrong track entirely.”

  “What do you say, Sol? Am I on the wrong track? Aaron says you’ve just taken to investing in magazines as a hardheaded business venture. With a little shared grief thrown in … and I say that particular piece of hamburger has been in the sun too long, smells like shit.”

  Solomon Roth held up his big soft hand, his mouth set in the crocodile grin. It was an involuntary configuration, the way his mouth worked. It didn’t mean he saw anything funny in the situation. “Please, please,” he said. “Much too graphic, but as usual, you’re very close to the bone, very acute. You’re a sly one, clever. … Aaron, I think you owe our Tobias an apology. I think we’d better tell Tobias the truth.”

  “No apology from me,” Aaron said. His shark was in ribbons.

  Solomon Roth stared at Toby.

  “What did she have on him, Sol? It comes down to that.” It crossed Challis’ mind at just that instant: have I gone too far? Do I really want to know? But the questions were gone as quickly as they’d come.

  Aaron said, “You amaze me, Toby. You really amaze me.”

  Solomon Roth said, “Be still! We’re talking to a member of the family now. We owe him the truth … then we can see what comes next.”

  “I won’t be a party to this,” Aaron said. He hoisted himself up out of the steaming water, looking frail in the dim light, the black hair matted on his white body. He grabbed a robe and crawled quickly inside its folds. “Tell him whatever you like … I’m tempted to call the cops. No, no, I won’t.” He was polishing his glasses on the robe’s belt. “But you’re making a mistake. That’s my opinion, and I will stick to it. Good-bye, Toby. You’re on your own, as far as I’m concerned.” His voice was shaking. He clutched his robe, and struck off into the fog.

  Challis said, “The truth …” A wave of tiredness swept across him. “I wouldn’t recognize the truth if I found it in my underpants.” He sighed.

  Solomon Roth laughed, his lower jaw jutting out beyond the upper, and a big jagged incisor drooping over his lip.

  “The truth is frequently a letdown, Toby. But it’s always better to stick to it. It keeps thing simple. You must be selfless to cope with it, though. Suppress the ego. Which is why truth is such a rare commodity in our business. Too much ego, and the truth can always be shaped to our ends.”

  “So what is the truth, Sol? What did Goldie have on Aaron? How did Donovan get into it?”

  “You amaze me with your reluctance to ask the one logical question—and you a writer!” His eyes were the narrowest of slits, as if he were peering out from inside a cage. “You should keep asking about the identity of the murderer. You’re trying to clear yourself, am I right? Then act the part, Toby, or people will think you already know.”

  “Sometimes I think I do know,” Challis said softly.

  “The killer?”

  “Yes, I think I know it, the name, but then it’s not there. I feel like I actually saw him, saw it happen. … I don’t know how to explain it, but maybe it frightened me, maybe I don’t want to accept the identity of the murderer—maybe I’m just punchy, who knows?” He stared at the flat surface of turquoise water, glowing. “I heard a noise that night. I see Goldie lying there, and I hear a noise outside … someone watching me as I stand there holding the bloody Oscar. I get that far, and my memory gets wiped away—fear, I suppose, I remember I was dripping with cold sweat when the cops got there. I dream about it,
and the same thing happens, I get just so far, knowing there’s somebody outside watching me, then I wake up shaking and wet.” He shrugged, turned back to Sol. “Who the hell was outside watching me? Maybe I actually saw him and can’t handle the knowledge. Anyway, I can’t seem to force it.” He shook his head, getting straight again. “So what’s the story about Goldie and Aaron?”

  “It’s a cheap story,” Solomon Roth said. “You’ll see why it couldn’t come out at the trial. There was no way it could have affected the trial, anyway.” He rubbed his pulpy white foot along Towser’s spine, and the dog yawned. There was a piece of shark stuck between two long, sharp teeth. “It all comes down to the unhappy part women have played in Aaron’s life, first Kay, then Goldie. Digging into the psychopathology of their lives is hardly my place. Aaron is the one with the education in the family, but for all his education, he came into Maximus a complete innocent, fresh-faced idealist, eager to learn, willing to work his way up. But for all his willingness and determination, he had a terrible blind spot. Women … can you believe, little Aaron was a virgin when he left New Haven and came home to go to work! And here he was, Solomon Roth’s son, surrounded by some of the most beautiful, alluring women in the world, women who saw him not simply as a young man trying to make his way in an incredibly complex and sophisticated business, but as my son … a quick ticket to the top. Not exactly a new story … no, not exactly.”

  “The last tycoon,” Challis muttered. “What has this got to do with—”

  “Kay Flanders was a star at this point, twenty years old in 1941. She’d been a star for Maximus since she was, what? Fourteen? Her first big picture was that Civil War musical … 1935, it was. She too big too young. An unspoiled girl at fourteen when I saw the potential in her …” The old man drifted for a moment in a reverie of swaying magnolias and smiling black folks on the old plantation and cotton fields and dashing fellows with mustaches and gray uniforms with braid. And the little girl with long soft curls and puffy sleeves and the bell of a voice and the sloe eyes with the heavy dark fringe of lashes. “She grew up fast. She was sexually mature very early, and I’ll go to my grave believing that Terry Downes—sixty if he was a day—who directed her in that first big one, was her first man. I’m positive, but I could never prove it, it’s neither here nor there, I suppose. But she liked it … you know, Toby, the way some women really like it? It’s fun, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just fun?”