I'm watching you.
I text back: Is this the same person?
I'm staring at a wall, at one of Cindy Sherman's untitled film stills, when I feel the phone vibrate in my hand and the question is answered.
No, this is someone different.
A group of guys booked a table at a new lounge on La Cienega and I allow myself to be invited as I'm waiting for a cab and they're waiting for their cars in front of Bar Marmont and I'm staring up at the parapets of the Chateau and thinking about the year I lived there, after I left the El Royale and before I moved into the Doheny Plaza - the AA meetings on Robertson and Melrose, the twenty-dollar margaritas from room service, the teenager I f**ked on the couch in #44 - when I see Rip Millar pull up in a convertible Porsche. I hide back in the shadows as Rip shambles toward the hotel clutching a girl in a baby-doll dress by the wrist, and one of the guys calls out something to him and Rip turns his head and makes a sound that passes for laughter and then says in a singsong voice, "Enjoy yourselves." I started with champagne tonight so the lucidity hasn't worn off and the dead zone isn't bleeding forward yet and I'm in someone's Aston Martin and he's bragging about a whore he keeps in his Abbot Kinney condo just east of the Venice canals and another one in a suite at the Huntley. I murmur the hotel's ad line ("Sea and be seen") as we're passing the limousines and gangs of paparazzi outside of Koi and STK, and standing at the curb in front of Reveal I'm staring at the cypress trees looming against the night sky until the two other guys from the party at the Chateau pull up to the valet and I don't really know anyone so everything is comfortable - Wayne's a producer with a deal at Lionsgate that's going nowhere and Kit is an entertainment lawyer at a firm in Beverly Hills. Banks, who drove me, is a creator of reality shows. When I ask Banks why he chose this place, Reveal, he says, "Rip Millar recommended it to me. Rip got us in."
Inside, the place is packed, vaguely Peruvian, voices bouncing off the high ceiling, the amplified sounds of a waterfall splashing somewhere compete with the Beck song booming throughout the lounge. As the owner leads us to our table, two paper-thin girls stop me at the entrance to the dining room and remind me about a night at the Mercer in New York last October. I didn't sleep with either one of them - we were just doing coke and watching The Hills - but the guys become enticed. Someone mentions Meghan Reynolds and I tense up.
"It's interesting how much play you get out of this," Kit says, once we're seated at a table in the center of the room. "Isn't it exhausting?"
"That's a question that contains a lot of other questions," I say.
"Have you ever heard the joke about the Polish actress?" Banks asks. "She came to Hollywood and f**ked the writer." He pauses, glances at me. "I guess it's not so funny."
"Be in my screenplay and I'll make you a star," Kit says in a baby voice.
"Clay obviously doesn't underestimate the desperation factor in this town," Wayne says.
"In a place where there's so much bitterness," Banks says with a light touch, "anything is possible, right?"
"Possible? Hey, I just think it's kind of unbelievable." Kit shrugs.
"I think Clay is very pragmatic," Banks says. "What's unbelievable is clinging to a fading belief in love, Kit." He pauses. "But that's just me."
"I mean, you're a nice-looking guy for your age," Kit says to me, "but you don't really have the clout."
Banks considers this. "I guess people find this out sooner or later, right?"
"Yeah, but they're always replaced, Banks," Wayne says. "On a daily basis there's a whole new army of the retarded eager to be defiled."
Chapter 4
"You guys don't need to remind me that I'm not really a player ... but I can be useful, I guess." I'm sighing, staying loose. "Just always make sure you have some kind of producer credit. Stay friendly with the director. Get to know casting agents. It all helps the cause." I pause for effect before adding, "I'm very patient."
"It's a plan," Kit says. "It's very, um, subtle."
"It's a philosophy," someone else says.
"It's just how I roll."
Wayne looks up, taking note of my uninflected voice.
"I guess it kind of makes sense. You've been involved in some high-profile hits," Wayne mutters, "for what it's worth."
Kit leans forward. "It's just not a very good way to make friends."
