Sympathy for the Devil Read Free Page A

I know who is a terrific little actress. She’ll fill in for us.”
    Bruno pushed on the swinging door into the kitchen andheld it open. There, making a grand show of his largesse to all the kitchen staff, he yelled back, “I’ll take care of everything.”
    I was all set to turn him down when Wes said, “Thanks.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m here for, pal,” Bruno said, beaming, “to help my friends!”
    The fact that not one person laughed at the insanity of that statement was proof of just how adept in the ways of Hollywood my young staff had quickly become.

Chapter 3
    Y ou haven’t seen upscale real estate until you’ve gazed at the enormous hacienda-style mansion at 32 Winding Oaks Drive. The house, perched on forty expensive acres, is located in Los Feliz, an old L.A. neighborhood rich in film-land history. Movie idols and studio moguls from the golden age of the silver screen built their posh mansions here. The charming twisted streets of Los Feliz are studded with these residential jewels, the brick and stone rewards to Hollywood’s first superstars for inventing themselves.
    The magnificent Los Feliz estates, as befitted the giant egos that had them built, seem more the product of set designers than architects. As the building boom spread from the 1920s into the 1930s, impossible Tudor castles elbowed aside giant Mediterranean villas until they ran out of space on the Hollywood Hills.
    Los Feliz (which the natives pronounce “Fee-liss,” blissfully bludgeoning its proper Spanish pronunciation) is one of my favorite areas of the city. I cater a lot of parties here, since new Hollywood has moved in where old Hollywood moved out, and, as befitting their own egos, remodeled big time.
    I stood at the top of the driveway, in front of the ten-foot-tall arched mahogany door that was set into the main entrance of Bruno Huntley’s estate. The cars for tonight’s party would never be brought up here. The driveway was built in 1928, like the rest of the house, and it was too steepto provide safe passage for all the modern exotic cars that were expected. From where I was standing, I could look down the pitched hillside to the narrow street below where the valet action was taking place in the winding streets of Los Feliz. In the still night, a wind gusted against my white dress, and although it wasn’t cold, I shivered.
    It was 8:35, and guests were arriving in serious numbers. It’s a perverse law in Hollywood: No matter how unlikeable an important host might be, it never seems to affect his popularity. Men like Bruno can be so dangerously important to one’s prospects, so routinely ruthless, that it seems wisest not to cross them. They are the ones, after all, who get their pictures made and their series renewed. And everyone in this town needs work.
    So everyone comes to Bruno’s parties, to drink his champagne, to eat his food, to admire his latest Rookwood vase or latest wife, and maybe even do a deal with the bastard himself.
    New Ferraris and lovingly detailed Mercedes were pulling up at the foot of the drive down on the street. I watched as the owner of a mint-green BMW850csi disembarked from his hundred thousand dollars worth of imported metal and shrunk back against his car as a valet parking attendant moved towards him. With Bruno’s sense of twisted humor, he’d thought it would be tremendous fun to costume the valets as the “homeless.” They were dressed in dirty rags and carried signs that read, “Will Park for Food.” The concept was having its effect.
    â€œHomeless” Jason left his “prop” shopping cart and opened the door for Mr. 850’s leggy date and then moved around to the driver’s side and Jason tried to slide behind the wheel. Mr. 850 looked horrified. Only when he caught the startled looks on the faces of Mr. Testarossa and Mr. 600slc as their “homeless” valets took