The Burning Plain (39 page)

“Mr. Asuras would like to talk to you,” he said, in the voice I remembered from the desert instructing me to get on my knees.

“You work for him,” I said, “not Gaitan.”

“He’s waiting in the car.”

“Your partner, too? Which one of you killed Joanne Schilling?”

He turned away, walked back to the limo, and opened the back door. I followed him and stood outside the car, looking in. A flood of frigid air drifted from the vehicle into the end-of-summer evening.

“Henry,” I heard Asuras say from within. “Are you free for dinner?”

“With you?” I asked, peering in. “I’d rather dine with John Wayne Gacy.”

From out of the darkness, he laughed. “I’m better company,” he said. “Come on, Henry. You have questions, I have answers. I promise you safe passage.”

“You promise, huh? That’s a great comfort.”

“The Asian man who lives next door to you came outside a half-hour ago and very conspicuously wrote down the license-plate number. Your security service questioned my driver. What else do you want, my fingerprints? A blood sample? Either get in or close the door.”

I got in.

“You’re very paranoid, Henry,” he said.

“Can’t imagine why,” I replied.

The car soundlessly negotiated the curving streets of my hillside neighborhood and descended into Hollywood. A thick glass partition divided the front compartment from the back. The seats, upholstered in soft, burgundy calfskin, smelled like old money. Asuras was dressed in tweeds and leather. The car was freezing.

“A drink?” Asuras asked, indicating the small bar built into the seat between us.

“No, I don’t drink.”

“AA?”

“I don’t drink.”

“A man who doesn’t drink is a man who doesn’t trust himself,” Asuras said, filling his glass from a decanter marked
SCOTCH
. “Ergo, not trustworthy.” He raised his glass to me. “Skoal.”

“Nick Donati must have your complete confidence,” I replied.

He shrugged. “Nick’s not untrustworthy, he’s just weak. There are things he can’t face without a little help.”

“Which he pours out of a bottle.” When Asuras didn’t reply, I asked, “Have you been parked outside of my house all day?”

He set his drink down. “You left the valley at five-thirty,” he said. “With traffic, I thought eight was a safe bet. How did your business go up there? Find the boy?”

There was the faintest trace of a sneer on the big, Roman emperor face.

“You know I didn’t.”

“For obvious reasons, I prefer not to be seen with you too publicly,” he replied. “I reserved a table at a quiet place in Brentwood. Italian. That all right with you?”

“As long as it’s not Mezzaluna.”

At the restaurant, the host greeted Asuras with murmured obsequiousness and led us unobtrusively through the main dining room to a private one where a waiter, the wine steward and a busboy were lined up at soldierly attention. The room, like the rest of the place, was paneled in dark wood, dimly lit, hushed; as much a bubble of luxury and privilege as Asuras’s car. And just as cold.

After we were seated, the waiter approached. “Mr. Asuras, may I suggest …”

“No,” Asuras said, “you may not suggest. This is what I want. A salad of hearts of romaine, the inner leaves only and they must be torn, not cut, into bite-sized pieces, with a vinaigrette of extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, which you will bring to the table so I can dress the salad myself. After that, a veal chop, seared on the outside, pink on the inside, no more than a half-inch in thickness. If it’s a millimeter thicker, I will throw it in your face. I also want you to bring me a plate of sautéed spinach and a plate of roasted red potatoes. When we are finished with our meals, you may offer dessert and coffee only after the tablecloth, our napkins and our settings have been completely replaced. I hope you got that, because I do not repeat myself.”

The waiter’s hands were trembling. “Yes, sir,” he said, “and for the other gentleman?”

Asuras turned his most charming smile on me. “What will the other gentleman have?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “A green salad and whatever your special is tonight.”

“Sir,” the waiter said, gulping, “we have several specials.” He rattled them off.

“The first one,” I said, “the seafood pasta. Thanks.”

Asuras was consulting with the wine steward. “Yes, a half-bottle of this.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have half-bottles of this particular wine.”

Asuras said to me, “It’s too bad you don’t drink, Henry. This wine is spectacularly good.”

The wine steward said, softly, “Sir …”

Asuras gazed at him. “You’re still here?”

“The wine, sir. Do you want the full bottle or …”

“You appalling asshole,” Asuras said quietly. “Did I not say I would have a half-bottle? Didn’t you hear me?”

The wine steward bristled and opened his mouth to speak.

“Don’t you dare,” Asuras said. “Not if you want to keep your job. Now go bring the wine and a decanter and I’ll teach you how to pour a half-bottle from a full one.”

“Yes, sir,” the steward said, turned on his heel and marched, stiffly, out of the room.

“Do you make movies the same way you order dinner?” I asked when we were alone.

“With the same attention to detail? Yes?”

“No, I meant, are you as abusive to the people who work for you?”

“Abusive?” he repeated. “Am I abusive?” He smiled. “No, I’ll admit to impatience from time to time, but I’m not abusive, because abusiveness is cruelty that serves no purpose but to degrade another person. I don’t do that, ever.”

“Your cruelty always serves a purpose?”

“We’re not in court, Henry,” he said. “Don’t cross-examine me.”

The wine steward returned with the wine and a decanter. Asuras excused himself and they went to a sideboard where the wine was opened and poured. Their backs were to me, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, until Asuras threw his arm around the man’s shoulders, massaged his neck and murmured, “Relax, you’re doing fine. Really great.” The steward visibly relaxed. They returned to the table. The steward poured the wine.

“Don’t forget to taste it,” Asuras said.

“No, sir, I won’t,” the steward said. “Thank you, Mr. Asuras.”

“What were you talking about?” Asuras asked, when we were alone. “Oh, yes, abuse.”

“What do you want from me?”

He sipped his wine. “Astonishing,” he said approvingly. “Just a sip, Henry? No, I suppose that would ruin your program, wouldn’t it? You’d have to go into one of your AA meetings and raise your hand as a newcomer again just because you had a sip of the finest wine on earth. What a terrifying little life you lead, Henry.” His smile was openly mocking. “‘I’ll have the special. No, you don’t need to tell me what it is. All food tastes the same to me.’ Tell me something, Henry, are you even alive?”

“I’m more alive than Alex Amerian is.”

His dark eyes gleamed. “The question isn’t what I want from you, it’s what do you want from me. How have I injured you, Henry? What have I done to you to explain your harassment of my associates and the terrible things you’re telling people about me?”

“Five people are dead,” I answered, “You’re responsible.”

“Six people, actually,” he replied. “Since you’re keeping score.”

“Bob Travis.”

We were interrupted by the arrival of our food. Asuras was as solicitous of the waiter now as he had been peremptory before. I remembered Alex’s description of Mr. King, the initial charm followed by belligerence, and Serena’s story about the boy Asuras had made into his assistant, then raped. Was Asuras simply a man to whom people had said yes for such a long time, he could no longer conceive of any other answer? Or was he something else, darker and more frightening? In our last conversation, he’d asked me if I believed in evil and taunted me with, “You think it’s all the result of bad parenting?” when I denied that evil was the result of innate depravity. I watched our waiter plump himself up on Asuras’s praise, almost against his will. “Since you’re keeping score …” I was ready to reconsider my position. Asuras emanated cruelty and seduction, but they were so twisted together it was hard to say which attracted and which repelled. It was like looking down into a cavern and seeing something glitter at the bottom that could either be precious or lethal.

“I’m a warrior, Henry,” he said, when the waiter departed. “I do what needs to be done, but I take nothing personally. Nothing. Vendettas are not my style, they interfere with business. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m not in the rape and pillage business,” I said.

“When you try a case,” he said, ignoring me, “you don’t hate the lawyer on the other side, or the judge who rules against you, or the jury that convicts your client. No, you submit to the system and fight like hell within it, but if you lose, you shake it off and walk away.”

“Alex was blackmailing you. You had to stop him.”

“As I was saying, Henry, we submit ourselves to a system from the minute we take our first breath. In this system, there are various ways to get what you want. Say you want someone sexually. How do you go about it? You can try to charm them into bed, or you can buy the use of their bodies, or you can take what you want from them by force. As far as getting what you want, any of those methods works. Are you following me?”

“Rape and seduction are not the same thing.”

“I didn’t say they were,” he replied, impatiently. “The means are not the same, but the end is. That’s all I’m saying. There are means people and there are ends people. The means people create distinctions among means and call it morality. The ends people understand that in this world, in this system we’re born into, anything that gets you what you want is a good thing.”

“Is that the Buddhist perspective?”

“The Buddha taught there is no right and wrong, only action and consequence. There are certain esoteric teachings that go one step farther and prove that karma itself is an illusion. Once you understand that, you can do anything without fear or guilt.”

He cut into his veal, the juice ran red and pooled in the white plate.

“You personally killed Amerian, didn’t you? You raped him and butchered him and then you raped and butchered those other two men.”

Through a mouthful of meat, he asked, “What do you want? And don’t tell me money. I’m not Nick Donati. You can’t take me in with childish threats of blackmail.”

“You don’t have anything I want.”

“But you have some things you’d like to keep. Your reputation, for instance. Your friends. I can take them away from you, the same way I took that boy away from you this morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your friend Richie is wrong when he says the studio system is dead,” Asuras replied. “It’s true we don’t have actors and technicians on staff the way they did in the thirties and forties, but I have access to incredible talent. Actors, detonation experts, wiretap experts, computer hacks. The bigger and more complicated the movies, the more sophisticated the talent, and all of them need me if they want to work. It’s amazing what people in this town will do to stay on my good side. There’s really nothing I can’t do, Henry.”

I got up. “The more people you bring into this, the likelier it is one of them will talk. All I have to do is find that person.”

“Please, Henry, what can you offer them? The rosy glow of self-righteousness?” he said. “Sit down. Finish your meal. We’ll talk afterwards. I’m promoting Nick to head of the TV division. We’re launching a Parnassus channel. You want his job?”

“You’re crazy.”

“You disappoint me,” he said, frowning. “But all right, have it your way. My driver will take you home.”

“No, thanks. The last time he took me for a ride, I barely survived it.”

“Then next time,” he said, and resumed eating.

I called Serena from a pay phone on Sunset and asked her to come pick me up. Twenty minutes later, she pulled up in front of the 7-Eleven where I was waiting for her. I had told her a little about the day’s events on the phone, but when I explained them in detail, she abruptly made a U-turn on Sunset and drove in the opposite direction of my house.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” she said. “You’re sleeping on my couch tonight.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“This guy breaks into your house, listens in on your calls, has you followed and buys you dinner so he can threaten you,” she said. “Humor me. Stay at my place tonight.”

“Actually, he offered me a job,” I said. “Legal counsel to the studio.”

She glanced at me. “He really is psycho.”

“If he had wanted to hurt me, he would have done it already. I’ve provoked him enough. I think what he wants from me is an audience.”

“Why choose you?”

“Because I know what he’s done, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“That’s unfortunately true.”

Donna Wynn, Serena’s partner, was a tall, slender woman, her pleasant face framed by straight, fair hair. She listened dubiously to Serena’s heavily edited explanation of why I needed to crash on their couch.

“This is a first,” she said to me. “She’s never brought a man home before.”

“I promise I’ll remember to put the toilet seat down.”

“Honey,” she said to Serena, “Jesse wants you to tuck him in.”

“Make yourself at home,” Serena told me, as she ascended the stairs from the foyer where we were all standing.

They lived in a townhouse, a duplex. In the car, Serena had said they owned both units and rented out the other to two gay men. I followed Donna into the living room, where a fluffy white dog was asleep in front of the fireplace. The room was a controlled mess, the furniture comfortable but plain, a child’s toys strewn on the floor. I felt something beneath me when I sat down, a chewed-up tennis ball. I rolled it toward the dog, who perked up for a second, then buried its head in its paws. Meanwhile, a black cat about the size of a bowling ball appeared in the doorway and stared at me, its whiskers twitching.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Hekate,” Donna said.

The cat leapt heavily into my lap.

“What should I do?”

“Pet her,” Donna said. “You’re not much of an animal person are you?”