Crowned Heads (46 page)

“Who’s Gino?”

“Gino?
Arco
!”

“They’re the same person?”

“His name’s Michael Gino Archangelo—you know, like archangel?”

Michael the archangel. He sounded impressive, Willie concluded. The girl seemed less shy now; traces of a smile had crept into her dour expression. She had a gay, elfin sort of humor that struck a responsive chord in Willie, and she was plainly awed both by her surroundings and by Willie himself.

Bill came out just then, carrying his glass, the wine jug hooked on his thumb over his shoulder.

“He’s on his way,” he announced, striding over. “He’s gonna make that little stop f’r ya, Jude—don’t worry. I brought the wine along, Willie—thought it’d save a trip inside.”

“Very considerate. Please be careful with those glasses, though.” Usually he used the plastic ones for poolside purposes.

“Well, Jude, we finally got to see William Marsh’s house.” Bill had dragged up a chaise and plunked down on its foot, leaning to give Willie a friendly pat on the knee. “It’s a swell spread, pardner,” he repeated. “Is this Beverly Hills?”

“Actually, no, we’re West Hollywood. Beverly starts just on the other side of Doheny. We’re BBH, here.” He chuckled at his little joke. “Barely Beverly Hills. Look,” he said, pointing in still another direction. “You can see the Mode O’Day sign.”

“Mode O’Day?”

“Brassieres.”

“Oh. Brassieres.”

Judee giggled. “They must be close to going out of business these days.” Everyone enjoyed a laugh at her sally. Bill had filled her glass, then his own, recapped the jug, and set it aside.

Willie raised his drink and they all clinked together. “Here’s to crime,” he toasted. Judee giggled.

Bill spoke up quickly. “Hey, Jude, Willie’s glass’s almost empty. Whyn’t you hop in an’ fix it up?”

“Want me to?” she asked Willie.

“That’d be fine, Judee, thank you.”

Bill watched her as she bore Willie’s glass away. “She’s really nifty, a nifty gal, the Wimp.”

“Wimp?”

“Nickname. It’s what Arco calls her—you know, wimpy? Sort of—well—just girlie. Judee’s really girlie.”

“How did she hurt herself?”

“Hurt herself?”

“Those marks on her back.”

“Naw, she didn’t hurt herself. She just gets banged up sometimes.” He winked. “Sometimes she just gets banged.” He stretched, then looked around, clearly pleased to be there. For all his impressive size, he seemed diffident, engagingly awkward, and Willie suspected that his hearty manner hid an innate shyness. Though he flashed it too often, his smile was winning and he seemed to embody characteristics that Willie admired: simplicity, naturalness, and a disinclination to talk about himself, which Willie found an admirable trait, especially among would-be actors.

Judee came back with Willie’s drink. “Thank you, m’dear,” he said, tasting. “Mm—you’ve made it awfully strong.”

“I just did it half and half,” she explained. “Isn’t that the way?”

“Drink up,” Bill said. “Y’only live once.” Judee took her glass and sat beside Bill on the chaise, and they remained quiet for a time, touching each other, listening to the water splashing in the fountain. It was calming and pleasant, and Willie felt satisfied, relaxed; could he say happy even? In some indecipherable way the pain had been momentarily assuaged, he realized he wasn’t thinking of Bee so much. Maybe it was just having young people around him, even if they weren’t particularly bright or stimulating.

Bill turned to him, smiled, drew his imaginary guns with cocked thumbs and said
choo
…
choo.
His smile faded; he grew serious. “You know somethin’, Willie? I’m really glad I came tonight.”

“I’m glad, too, Bill.” He eyed him for a moment, then: “Why did you?”

“Huh?”

“I say, why
did
you come tonight instead of tomorrow?”

Bill’s grin grew sheepish. “I told you—”

“I know what you told me, but it’s not
quite
the truth, is it?”

“Well, by golly—” He slid onto the chaise again and sat facing Willie. “By golly, I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve been wantin’ to get it off my chest. I plum lied to you,” he said emphatically, rolling another cigarette from his Bull Durham sack.

“That a fact?”

Bill’s expression and tone grew solemn. “Yes, sir, plum lied. Y’see, I used to park cars at Chasen’s, and once I saw you go in, and I thought, He’s stuck-up. Just another movie star. Don’t get me wrong, Willie, you’re really a very human guy, but that’s just the point.”

“What is?”

“Well, see, I mean, after all, William Marsh doesn’t invite a guy like me over every day of the week. But when you did, I thought, I’m just goin’ to catch that fella with his pants down.”

“To coin a phrase.”

“I wanted to see you like you really are, y’know? Look, you didn’t have to go up and put your Western duds on, and your toupee, just for us—I mean that was really terrific, takin’ a little trouble, puttin’ yourself out. Most people wouldn’t of bothered, right, Jude?”

“Right.”

“That’s the trouble with bein’ a star, Willie. Nobody that goes to your pictures ever gets to see the real you, because you’re always playin’ a part. But tonight me ’n’ Jude, we got to see the real you, and that’s why it’ll be an experience I’ll never forget.”

Willie was touched. The young man’s evident sincerity, his ingenuousness as he confessed his little plot, was most ingratiating. “Bill, that’s one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me.”

“It’s true.” He reached over and gave Willie a locker-room punch to the shoulder.

There was the glint of moisture in Willie’s eyes. “I’m very glad you came the wrong night. I’m glad you’re here, both of you. I was prepared to spend a pretty lonely evening.” He paused, giving consideration to some private matter, then said, “As I mentioned, I’m on television later.
The Player Queen
is a particular favorite of mine—Fedora, you know—and I was thinking, perhaps you and Judee would like to stay and watch it with me. You might enjoy it—it’s a fun picture.”

“Do you have color?” Judee asked.

“I do, but it’s in black and white.”

“Hey, I think that’d be terrific,” Bill put in. “I really do, but we’d have to ask Arco, see? Arco’s sort of the boss. Tell ya what—when he gets here, if he says we can watch, then we’ll watch; how’d that be?”

“Well … Yes, certainly; Arco, too, if you think he’d enjoy it.”

“Aw, he’ll love it,” Bill said. “He’s really artistic. You’ll like him. He’s the most terrific guy. He’s a big person, y’know? Bi-i-i-g-g-g. He’s really got a lot of heart, Arco. And a brain, too. He knows more stuff.”

“You make him sound like a paragon.”

“Para—Huh?” Bill didn’t know the word.

“A model of excellence and virtue.”

“Yeah, sure; see—that’s Arco, right, Jude?”

“Right.”

“And, Willie, there’s somethin’ I want.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“I want cher t’give me a real genuine autographed picture, signed by you pers’nal. I’m gonna start a collection, just like you got.”

“I’d be happy to, Bill.”

“And there’s somethin’ else, too.”

“What is that?”

“Well, you showed us all your things, the whole room, but there’s one thing we didn’t get to see.”

Willie’s face lighted up. “That’s true, I didn’t. It’s not something I generally show, unless particularly asked.”

“Well, sir, we’re askin’,” Bill said brightly, “me and Judee are a-askin’. We’d like to see that there l’il ol’ trinket.”

Trinket?
Had he heard wrongly? Willie was puzzled. “Which trinket?”

“That mirror Fedora gave t’you, like it said in the magazine.”

Oh.

Willie hid his disappointment; the mirror wasn’t what he had meant at all; there was something else he’d decided he wanted to show them. “Ah, you read about the mirror, did you? Yes—belonged to Catherine de’ Medici.” He pronounced it in the English manner: “Deemedeesee.” “Incredible piece of workmanship. Cellini himself did the goldwork.” He rose. “Come along, then…. Uh, Judee? Bill?” They were still sitting opposite each other, a fixed look passing between them. At the sound of their names they came suddenly aware, and both jumped up.

“I can see you two are really—shall I say?—in love.” Willie chuckled, leading the way; neither replied. Willie staggered slightly as he crossed toward the lanai, and Judee giggled. “I told you that drink was strong,” he said, coming again into the game room. He raised his glass to the portrait over the mantel, in another toast. “We’ve got comp’ny, dearest Bee.” He stopped them at a table, where they set down their glasses. As he guided them to the mysterious pair of carved wooden doors, Bill gave Judee a surreptitious nod behind Willie’s back.

“I don’t show this to just anybody,” the older man continued, “but since I can see that you’re both—well—sensitive, I think you’ll appreciate it. Would you just slip your shoes off, please?” Judee looked questioningly at Bill, who shrugged, and they slid out of their footgear, which Willie ranged against the baseboard to the left of the closed doors. Then Willie laid his hands on the brass knobs and drew the doors open wide.

“Holy—”

“Precisely.” Willie weaved as he stood aside to expose the room. “As you can see, this is our very own chapel.”

It was indeed a chapel, apparently perfect in every detail: the walls covered in scarlet damask, a red, luxuriously piled wall-to-wall carpeting, the moldings and ornate carvings enameled and gold-leafed. Beyond a gilded railing, an altar, draped with an embroidered linen cloth; on it a thick leather-bound Bible and a cofferlike box. Behind the altar, cemented into the floor, rose a tall free-standing wooden cross. Above and behind this, canted away from the wall at an angle, gazing down on the cross, was a life-size portrait of the Virgin, holding the infant Christ in one arm, the other hand raised in the traditional annunciatory gesture. High up on the adjoining wall was a large round window of stained glass. In a corner stood an electric organ.

Bill stared in amazement. “What is it?” he whispered.

“It’s a Wurlitzer,” Willie whispered back.

“No—I mean the chapel. What’s it for?”

“For the worship of God, Bill.” Willie turned unsteadily to a panel on the rear wall and began to flick rheostat switches. Immediately the room was theatrically illuminated. A spotlight hit the cross, another the stained-glass window from outside, casting shards of broken color everywhere; a third fell on the altar, a fourth on the painting of the Virgin. He adjusted this beam until it satisfied his esthetic sense, then drew his guests onto one of the two padded seats flanking the doorway. “Lovely, isn’t She?” he asked ardently.

The Mary painting was softly sentimental, a fuzzy nimbus around the head, the expression one of benign mawkishness, the eyes seemingly looking in different directions.

“Rather tender, we thought,” Willie continued in a hushed voice. “It’s Quattrocento, too. How do you like the cross?”

“Terrific,” Bill returned in the constrained whisper the nature of the place seemed to dictate.

“It was made from one of the cedars of Lebanon. Brought from the Holy Land by a Knight of Malta during the Crusades. Notice the wormholes. Bee had the altar cloth embroidered by nuns in the Lowlands. They do such fine needlework in Bruges. You might care to see the work closer.” He admitted Bill and Judee through a small wooden gate in the gilded railing, and lifted a corner of the altar cloth. “You see,
ev
ery
sin
gle stitch placed
just
so.” He dropped the cloth and smoothed it, then his hand passed on to the cover of the Bible. “This is an interesting item—thirteenth century; it once belonged to Cardinal Richelieu.” Bill nodded soberly, but the cardinal seemed to make no impact on him; his eye was on the wooden coffer. Fashioned of ornately carved wood, it was heavily bound with brass and iron bands, secured by a trio of small gold locks. “That,” Willie pointed out, “came from the monastery of Mont Saint Michel. It’s reputed to be over eight hundred years old—we’ve had it carbon-tested at UCLA. It once contained the gold hoarded by the monks, and was kept in a secret hole in a stone wall. All the brasswork, as you can see, is repoussé.”

Repoussé held no interest for Bill, but its present contents seemed to. “What’s in it now?” he asked.

“Aha—what indeed?” Willie said with an enigmatic smile. He made no immediate explanation, but beckoned them to a small picture hanging on the rear wall. It might have been an illustration from a ladies’ magazine, showing a conventionally prettified figure of Christ, sitting on a garden bench, garbed in pristine white, surrounded by hollyhocks and other storybook posies, while a little girl in a pink dress and Mary Jane shoes looks innocently up at his neatly bearded, benevolent face. The child’s question formed the caption:
“How did you hurt your hand?”

“How
did
he?” Judee asked, peering closer. “Was he gardening?”

“Uh—no, m’dear; the wound in his hand is one of the Stigmata, from the Cross, you see. They nailed him and he died and now he’s come back into this lovely garden, you see, and here’s this little girl and—”

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“Hey, that’s pretty funny,” Bill said.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s supposed to be,” Willie replied. Bee had unearthed the picture in a secondhand shop in Glendale; they had liked the sentiment. “Let’s pray, shall we?” Willie suggested suddenly. He brought them to the gilded railing, where four small benches faced the altar. The embroidered pads gave spongily as, under Willie’s gentle urging, they knelt. Placing himself between them, he crossed himself, clasped his hands, and bowed his head in prayer. The other two glanced at one another, shrugged, then did the same. While Willie’s eyes were thus lowered, Bill allowed his gaze to return to the wooden box. Willie’s breath came in dry bursts through his open mouth until at last he lifted his head. Relieved that his praying business was concluded, Bill made a move, followed by Judee, only to have their arms firmly grasped as they were held in place.

“Holy Mother, hear us, these your sinners,” Willie began intoning, clasping his hands again and gazing reverently up at the painting behind the cross. “Accept our grateful thanks for Thy blessings and forever keep us in the paths of righteousness.” He stopped, and Bill felt obliged to say “Amen.” “Amen,” Judee repeated.