Last Night - James Salter [5]
YOU WILL PROBABLY RECOGNIZE the outlines of the plot. A romantic and mysterious figure, cynical and well able to take care of himself, is, beneath all that, a lost idealist. In this version he is a lawyer, first in his class at law school, who throws it all in after several years in a large firm and proceeds on his own, as much investigator as anything else and not above fixing a DUI charge for a suitable fee. In short, the dark hero of dime novels. In one memorable episode he leaves the office in evening clothes to drive to a birthday party in Palm Springs where he sees the moral rot of his rich client and ends up seducing the wife.
The fortunate thing was how well the actor fit the role. Boothman Keck was in his forties but looked younger. He had come late to acting, taking his twelve-year-old son to an open call one afternoon and being asked if he had ever done any acting himself.
— No, he said.
— None? Never?
— Well, not that I know of.
He had a quality they were seeking for a small part as an alcoholic who still had an essential manhood.
— So, what do you do for a living?
— I’m a swimming coach, Keck said.
— Personal?
— No, I coach a team. A high school team, he explained.
They liked him. Luck followed. The movie got some attention and he with it. Teddy had hired him. He was not impressed with her at first, but over time he began to see her differently and even to like her looks, the fact that she was heavy, that she was short. For some reason she called him Bud. They got along. He had had an ordinary life but was now living one that was the complete opposite. He never lost his modesty.
— It’s all a dream, he would admit.
Then Deborah Legley, who had not been in a movie for some years but whose name was still alive—the slender arrogance when she was younger, the marriage to an immortal— came from the east for a guest appearance. She was being paid a lot of money, too much, Teddy felt, and from the beginning she was difficult. She came off the plane in dark glasses and no makeup though expecting to be recognized. Teddy met her on arrival. They had to wait a little too long for the car. On the set she turned out to be a monster. She made everyone wait, snubbed the director, and barely acknowledged the presence of the crew.
Teddy had to invite her to dinner and invited Keck, too, whose wife was out of town, to make the evening bearable. She bought caviar, Beluga, in the large round tin with the sturgeon on the label. She set the caviar in crushed ice with lemon halves around it. They would have caviar, a drink, and go on to the restaurant. Keck was picking up Deborah at the hotel. Teddy looked at her watch. It was past seven. They would arrive before long.
PARKING BENEATH the tall black palms, Keck went into the hotel and up to the suite. A dog began to bark when he knocked. He waited and then knocked again. He stood looking at the carpet. Finally,
— Who is it?
— It’s Booth.
— Who?
— Booth, he said loudly.
— Just a minute.
An equally long time passed. The dog had stopped barking. There was silence. He knocked again. At last, like the sweeping aside of a great curtain, the door opened.
— Come in, she said. I’m sorry, were you waiting?
She was wearing a tan silk jacket, casual in a way, and a smooth white T-shirt beneath.
— Something spilled in the bathroom, she explained, fastening an earring and preceding him into the room. Anyway, this ghastly dinner. What are we going to do?
The dog was sniffing his leg.
— The thought of spending the evening with that boring woman, she went on, is more than I can bear. I don’t know how you put up with her. Here, sit.
She patted the couch beside her. The dog leapt onto it.
— Get down, Sammy, she said, pushing him with the back of her hand.
She patted the couch again.
— She’s an idiot. That driver at the airport had a big sign with my name on it, can you imagine? Put that down, I told him.
Her nostrils flared in annoyance