The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 page)

Boyd Samuels phoned me one evening while I was working, sounding immensely pleased with himself. “I did a beautiful thing today, amigo.”

“Quit the business?”

He laughed. “Sold Toddy’s book,
Boy Wonder
. It’s brilliant, and it’s going to be a major success. Maybe even bigger than
Bang
.”

“Too bad he wont be around to enjoy it.”

“I’m not keeping my commission though. Tanner’s helping me set up a scholarship fund at Columbia with it in Toddy’s name.”

“You’re all heart.”

“Can’t just keep taking, you know? Sometimes you have to give a little something back. That’s what’s wrong with this world — not enough people do.” He shifted gears — into grave. “Hear about Delilah?”

“What about her?”

“Bitch tried to kill herself. Slit her wrists just before she was gonna appear on a local talk show in Seattle. They had to rush her to the hospital. They said she’ll be okay. Why would she do something crazy like that?”

“She loved him. Or the man she thought was him. Sorry to hear about it.”

“Not as sorry as I am, amigo. It means her tour is off, and so are her sales. Fuck it, that’s the business for you — win one, lose one. So listen, what are your plans after you finish up?”

“Why?”

“Got an anorexic prima ballerina I’m dying to put you together with. Seven-figure advance.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How about the college basketball coach of the year? It’ll sell two hundred thousand copies hardcover in the Southern states alone.”

“Not interested.”

“Okay, I hear you. We’ll talk again after you’ve had a chance to chill out. I want us to cook up some more scams together. You’re family now, understand?”

“You could do me one favor, amigo,” I said. “It’s not a big one.”

“Anything. Name it.”

“Disown me.”

After I hung up, I called the hospital out in Seattle. Miss Moscowitz wasn’t taking any calls. I left my name and number. I never heard from her.

Merilee wore a bare-shouldered black silk chiffon dress to the Tony Awards with her pearls and a heavy white silk shawl that had belonged to her great-grandmother. Her face was made up and her golden hair was up in a bun. She looked utterly gorgeous as I let her into the limo that was to whisk us off to the Minskoff Theatre for the show — gorgeous and nervous. She was nibbling on her lower lip, and she started wringing her hands the second she settled into the backseat, Lulu whooping and snuffling hello.

As our driver pulled away from the curb, I noticed Merilee staring at me with her big green eyes.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing, darling,” she said, reddening. “I just never get tired of looking at you in a tux.”

“I never get tired of looking at you, period.”

“Bless you, darling,” she said, wringing her hands some more. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “Why are we doing this? I hate these things.”

“Nonsense. It’ll be fun.”

“That, mister, is easy for you to say.”

I stirred the iced pitcher of martinis I’d brought, filled two glasses, and held one out to her.

She shook her head. “I’d better not — I’ll forget my acceptance speech.” Then she lunged for the glass. “Oh, what the hay, I’m not going to win anyway.”

“That’s the spirit.” I held up my glass. “To the woman of everyone’s dreams, particularly my own.”

Her eyes got all soft for a second. She took my hand and squeezed it. Then we drank, and she stole my olive. She’s always claimed mine tastes better than hers. I wouldn’t know. She’s never let me near hers.

“Ask me what I did today,” I commanded.

“Okay — what did you do today?”

“Resigned from the Racquet Club.”

“Really?” She tilted her head at me. “How come?”

“Dinosaurs belong there. I don’t.”

“Good for you, darling,” she said approvingly. “That place always struck me as some kind of eerie throwback to the days of Chester Arthur and cigars and port. I’ve always hated it.”

“I never knew that.”

“Sometimes it’s best to keep one’s opinions to oneself.” She sipped her martini. “And now what? Is there another novel?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” she said, pleased. “Yes, there’s nothing quite like a good strong dose of reality to send you running, screaming, back to the comforting world of fiction.” I refilled our glasses. “Vic will be ready to take over for you out there tomorrow, if you like.”

“I like. He seems so sweet and loyal, almost like a big St. Bernard.”

“Just don’t let anyone ever get him mad.”

“Why, what happens?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Limos were backed up all the way down the block from the theater. We had to wait our turn for our grand arrival, which was fine by me. Gave us enough time to finish our pitcher of martinis. When we finally did inch up to the front of the theater, blinding TV lights and plenty of commotion were waiting there for us. Cameras were rolling. Flashbulbs were popping. Hundreds of onlookers were shouting and crowding the police barricades.

Our chauffeur hopped out and opened the door. Merilee groaned and squeezed my hand again. Then she took a deep breath, gathered her shawl and her star presence around her, and stepped out onto the curb, smiling radiantly at the crowd, which gasped and applauded at the sight of her. I took her arm and we strode inside, blinking from the lights, Lulu waddling along behind us.

The theater had been converted into a television studio for the night. A giant teleprompter was set up in front of the stage. Cameras and monitors were everywhere. Most of the seats down front were already filled with nominees and producers and angels. We said hello to Meryl Streep and Don Gummer as we passed by them. David Mamet and Lindsay Crouse. Joe Papp.

We were just about to take our seats when Merilee suddenly stopped and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Say yes, Hoagy.”

“Say yes to what?”

“Just say it,” she commanded urgently.

I shrugged. “Okay … yes.”

“Good.”

With that she took my hand, turned, and dragged me back up the crowded aisle, politely elbowing people aside to make way for us.

“Merilee, where are we going?” I called after her. We were going out the front doors to the street again, and back to our limo, which was double-parked halfway down the block.

“Merilee, where are we — ?”

“To JFK, please,” she told our driver as she jumped in, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

Lulu and I got in after her.

“What did I just say yes to?” I asked her, mystified, as we pulled away from the theater.

She threw her arms around me and kissed me. It was some kiss. We were halfway to Queens before she pulled away, gasping, reached inside her evening bag and produced our passports. “The question, mister, was will you run away to Paris with me.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“Uh-huh. No luggage. No reservations. No mackerel. No nothing. We’re just hopping on the Concorde and going. What’s to stop us?”

“Only sanity, and we’ve never let that stand in our way before. But what about the Tonys?”

“
Fuck
the Tonys.”

“Merilee Gilbert Nash!”

“I’ve asked you never to use my middle —”

“I’m going to tell your mother you invoked the F-word!”

“She’d never believe you,” she huffed.

“You’re right, she wouldn’t.” I stroked her face, got lost in her green eyes for a moment. “Maybe we’ll be able to find that same little hotel in the seventeenth arrondissement, the one with the bed that sloped in toward the middle.”

“Where, I seem to recall, we spent most of our time,” she added, giving me her up-from-under look.

“Merilee, you really are getting awfully frisky.”

“You mind, darling?”

“Nope. I just hope I can keep up with you, so to speak.”

“I’ll make sure you do,” she whispered, her lips brushing mine.

“And what happens afterward?”

“Usually you fall asleep with your mouth open.”

“I meant —”

“We’re not going to think about afterward,” she declared. “Afterward is the sort of thing that middle-aged people worry about, not people like us. Now shut up and kiss me.”

I took her in my arms and did just that.

Lulu wriggled around between us, tail thumping. She’d always wanted to go to France. The tricky part would be finding a beret that fit her.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Stewart Hoag Mysteries

I
WAS STANDING IN
the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel seeing double. Two utterly distinguished, utterly identical elderly gentlemen sat there before me sipping on martinis at one of the small, round lounge tables. They had the same handsome, patrician face — eyes blue, brows arched, nose long and rather sharp, chin cleft, hair silver and wavy. They wore the same double-breasted navy blazer, white cotton broadcloth shirt, yellow-and-burgundy-striped silk tie. They looked up at me at the same time. They smiled at me at the same time. Same smile. Same teeth. White.

I had to blink several times to make sure I wasn’t having an acid flashback from the summer of ’70, the one I can’t remember too much about, except that I wanted to move to Oregon and raise peaches. I even shot a glance down at Lulu, my basset hound, who was looking uncommonly pert that season in the beret Merilee had bought her in Paris. Lulu was blinking, too.

“Frederick, Mr. Hoag,” said one, as I dumbly shook his long, slender hand.

“Edward, Mr. Hoag,” said the other, as I shook his. “Won’t you please join us, sir?” they said in perfect harmony.

Harmony because their voices were different. Each spoke with the gentle, courtly accent of the Southern aristocrat. But while Frederick’s voice was husky, Edward’s was softer, higher pitched. A small distinction, but I had to grab on to something, anything, to keep from hooting. I joined them. Lulu turned around three times at my feet and curled up with a contented grunt. She likes the Algonquin. Always has.

It was after five and the place was filling up with the pasty-faced English tourists and assorted New York literary fossils and bottom feeders who usually hang around there. Peter Ustinov was giving a radio reporter an interview on the sofa next to us, and a whole new meaning to the words
couch potato
. Rog Angell was busy demonstrating the hitch in the Straw Man’s swing to two other owlish
New Yorker
editors. Pretty much everybody else in the hotel was staring at Eddie and Freddie, who might have been retired diplomats or rear admirals or a new set of Doublemint Twins for the Depend-undergarment set, but who were actually the Glaze brothers of Staunton, Virginia, the exceptionally shrewd keepers of the
Oh
,
Shenandoah
flame. It was the Glaze brothers who had just engineered the record-shattering $6.2-million auction for the most eagerly awaited literary sequel of all time, the sequel to
Oh
,
Shenandoah
, the epic romance novel of the American Revolution penned in 1940 by their mother, Alma Glaze.
Oh
,
Shenandoah
wasn’t the greatest novel in the history of publishing, but it certainly was the most popular. More than 30 million readers in twenty-seven different languages had gobbled up the thousand-page saga through the years. Ten times that many had seen the Oscar-winning movie, which in the opinion of most critics ranked as the greatest Hollywood blockbuster of all time, greater than
Gone With the Wind
, than
Citizen Kane
, than
Yes
,
Georgio
. For decades, fans had been clamoring for a sequel. Now they were going to get one.

“So glad you could make it, Mr. Hoag,” Frederick rasped as he rang the bell on our table for our waiter.

“My pleasure. And make it Hoagy.”

“As in Carmichael?” asked Edward softly.

“As in the cheese steak.”

“Would that be the one they serve in Buffalo?” Frederick inquired.

“Philadelphia. It’s chicken wings they do in Buffalo.”

“And I’m sure they do them exceedingly well,” said Edward graciously.

Our waiter, Frank, hurried over and said how nice it was to see me again. The Glaze brothers ordered another round of martinis. I tagged along, heavy on the olives. Lulu had her usual. After Frank went off, Edward leaned over and scratched her belly roughly, as if she were a hunting dog. She’s more the champagne-and-caviar type. She snuffled in protest.

He immediately made a face. “My goodness. Her breath is somewhat … ”

“She has rather strange eating habits.”

Frank returned with our drinks and a plate of pickled herring and raw onion for Lulu. She attacked it at once. The brothers watched her. They sipped their drinks. They glanced at each other. I watched them, beginning to detect the subtle differences. Frederick had a more relaxed set to his jaw and shoulders, an easier manner. Edward appeared more formal and reserved. The shy one.

It was Frederick who began. “Exactly how much do you know about this project of ours, Hoagy?”

“Very little. I’ve been away.”

He leaned forward eagerly. “With Merilee Nash?”

“Frederick, please,” scolded Edward. “You’re being nosy.”

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’m used to being a public laughingstock. It’s kind of a nice feeling, after a while.”