“They’re all crazy down there,” she said.
“Yup. He wants me to have breakie with him tomorrow morning.”
“Breakfast? Are you going to?”
“Probably not. In the first place, he’s a lunatic. And in the second place, I don’t want him or anybody else making a movie about what happened last winter.”
“Didn’t he say it would be your life story?”
“Yeah, sure. But my life story is dull. What happened up at Deer Run isn’t dull.”
“Well, you’d have the final say about what goes into it, wouldn’t you?”
“Supposedly. You think I should see him?”
“Not if you don’t want to. I know how you feel about what happened.”
No, you don’t, babe, I thought. But I smiled at her and said jokingly, because I did not want things to turn serious between us tonight, “The last time I saw Brucie he drank five shots of Wild Turkey for lunch. I wonder what he drinks for breakie.”
“Booze is better than cocaine or heroin,” she said.
“Marginally. But that’s about the only positive thing you can say about him.”
“He’s produced a couple of movies, hasn’t he? He can’t be a complete idiot.”
“His big hit was called Shoplifter: A Mother’s Tragedy . You think it takes a Rhodes scholar to make a TV movie about shoplifting?”
“I never saw it. Maybe it was good. Who’s to say he couldn’t make a good, honest movie about you ?”
“Nobody’d watch it.”
“Sure they would. You’d be immortalized on TV.”
“Immortalized on TV is a contradiction in terms.”
“Says you. Who do you suppose the ‘biggie’ is?”
“The guy with the melted chocolate bar? No idea. You know how much prime-time TV I watch.”
We were outside now, climbing uphill into the teeth of the wind. Halfway to where my car was parked, Kerry said, “I wonder if it’s Brian Keith.”
“Who?”
“Brian Keith. The ‘biggie.’ You look a little like him, except that he’s fair and you’re dark.”
“And he’s Irish, with a name like Brian Keith, and I’m Italian. How about they get an Italian to impersonate me?”
“Ben Gazzara,” she said.
“Dom DeLuise,” I said.
She was horrified. “My God, what a thought!”
“It’s all nonsense, that’s the point. Bruce Littlejohn isn’t going to get financing to make a TV movie about me, with Brian Keith or Dom DeLuise or Rin Tin Tin or Howdy Doody. Any day now somebody will realize what an airhead he is and put him away for observation.”
“Don’t bet on it. If they put away all the crazies in Hollywood, there wouldn’t be anybody left to make movies.”
Now we were at the car. I unlocked the passenger side, went around and got in under the wheel. “I just figured it out,” I said.
“Figured what out?”
“Why you want me to see Brucie tomorrow. Why you want him to make a movie about me. You’re a closet groupie.”
“I’m what!”
“A closet Hollywood groupie. You think Bruce Littlejohn is your ticket to La-La Land and audiences with the stars.”
She glared at me. “Shut up and drive,” she said.
I shut up and drove, smiling a little, enjoying myself. This was one of my good days. Even Allyn Burnett’s dead brother hadn’t changed that.
Chapter 2
I TRULY DID NOT WANT to go downtown on Saturday morning to meet Bruce Littlejohn for “breakie.” Unfortunately I spent Friday night at Kerry’s. She was awake at seven, had me awake not long afterward, went and fixed me coffee, and made sure I was aware of the time. At a quarter to eight she said, gently, that I ought to get ready if I was going to make it down to the Stanford Court by nine.
I said, “But I don’t want to have breakfast with an asshole from Hollywood.”
“He might actually have good news for you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Aren’t you just a little curious?”
“No.”
“I am,” she said, and she gave me one of her wistful looks.
I would rather do battle with a slobbering, attack-trained Doberman than a woman’s wistful looks; I’d have