Philip Nutman - Cities of Night

Fortunately, the incident coincided with one of her frequent migraines, and I was excused duty, the binge escaping her attention. It did not, however, slip past the hawkish eyes of John. He said nothing in his usually discrete manner. Why use words when your body can speak for you? His stiffness left me no doubt he disapproved.

Days became hours; weeks became days. Time accelerated in a haze of champagne and coke, sex, and fantasy. Lana’s obsessions had woven a cocoon of silk-lined comfort. I’d always wanted a big house with a pool. Now I had one. I’d always wanted to make love to two women at once, now Sunny and Paris had worn that desire away. Every sexual fantasy had been fulfilled. As for the book, well, it wasn’t art, and at the pace we were working we’d be lucky if it was finished by 1999. I didn’t really care anymore and had come to consider it a game. Even the questions concerning Lana’s mysterious past had stopped nagging me. She was a sweet generous hostess with tenuous grip on reality. What right did I have to destroy her world?

I had Sunny, who gave me anything I wanted and asked little in return. She was flakey as tree bark but as loving and as loyal as a dog, although the constant sex was making me sore.

As for my career as a writer, who was I trying to kid? My two attempts at serious novels had failed miserably. Working on Lana’s pot-boiler was about my level. Who cared about fame when you had an endless supply of comfort? After all the years of struggling, I felt I deserved what Lana was giving me. But even though I now had everything I’d aspired to, it didn’t make me happy. Neither did the coke or champagne, both of which I continued to consume on a daily basis. At least it dulled the sense of failure.

Around the middle of June, John came to my room while I tried to nap, champagne-induced drowsiness battling coke buzz. At least this time he adopted a softly-softly approach instead of proctology.

“Stop faking,” he said when I pretended to be asleep. “The amount of that shit you’ve snorted, you’ll be awake all week.”

I opened my eyes.

“It’s not what you’re getting paid for.”

“I haven’t been paid yet.” Which was true.

After the second week came and went with no check, I’d delicately mentioned the subject to Lana, who asked what I wanted it for. Didn’t I have everything I needed? She cut the conversation short with a kiss on the cheek and the promise I’d receive the full amount due when the work was complete.

“You’ll get paid,” John said.

“I’ve read some of the latest material. It’s good,” he continued, an unusual warmth to his tone.

I snorted sarcastically at his obvious flattery.

“Really, I like it. Needs work but—”

“But what? All of a sudden, everyone’s a critic around here. Mickey tells me he thinks scenes I’ve written are ‘out of character’ for Clive as if he’s an actor. I’ve got Sunny suggesting a secondary subplot involving a lesbian couple and God knows what else.”

“He was an actor.”

“Who? Mickey? As what, stand-in for the Incredible Hulk?”

“That’s unfair.”

Hmm. Touched a nerve there. I bit my tongue, but John let it go.

“He might not be too bright, but he means well. And he’s very loyal.

“Anyway, Sunny’s not going to be a problem anymore.”

I sat up.

“I found this in her bedroom,” he continued, producing a syringe from his immaculately-tailored jacket pocket. “Know anything about it?

“Heroin?’

He nodded.

“I had no idea she was using.”

“The coke was bad enough, but I can’t allow smack. I’ve already made arrangements with Mr. Monteleone.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I got up and donned my robe. “And who the fuck is this mysterious Mr. Monteleone whom no one will talk about anyway?”

John ran a hand over his mouth, uncomfortable with the question.

“You might have heard of him. Lawrence Montel was the name he used when he was an actor.”

I mentally kicked myself for not having made the connection. Larry “Montel” had co-starred with Lana in Days of Our Lives . Like Paul Newman, Monteleone’s passion was racing cars, but a near-fatal crash had shattered his spine, his career, and his dreams of competing in the Indy 500. He was one of those faces who had appeared on a “Where Are They Now?” segment of Geraldo. Lawrence Antonio Monteleone controlled lucrative New York real estate, which was owned, it was rumoured, by a very powerful Italian family. It was the Sinatra syndrome. You didn’t dig into Monteleone’s affairs.

John removed a baggie of white powder from his pocket. “I don’t know where she’s getting this shit from. You see any of this around the house, you will tell me. Yes?”

I was surprised by his sudden candour and obvious concern. Weeks of him being my head jailer hadn’t exactly endeared me to the slick son-of-a-bitch.

“It took us over a year to get Lana clean after last time she relapsed,” he said.

“She’d been doing it the night Eddy O.D’d, hadn’t she?”

He nodded.

“Were they lovers?”

“Who? Yeah, Larry and Lana were a hot item during the four years they did the show. But Larry was married.”

“No, I mean Lana and Eddy?”

John shook his head.

“The only thing Eddy was in love with was his needle and spoon — and Sasha.”

“His sister? He was fucking his sister?”

“It was a sick, unhealthy little threesome. I told Lana not to get involved, but she’s seldom listened to my advice.”

His broad shoulders slumped.

“Where do you fit into all this?”

He looked sad, weary.

“I’m her brother.”

John began his confessional. The Hall family saga made the plots of Lana’s former soap opera sound simple.

A brother and sister from the wrong side of the tracks escaped small-town Georgia and an alcoholic, incestuous father and headed to Hollywood like thousands before them. But if fate had dealt them a bad hand at the start, luck and Lana’s looks turned their fortunes into a royal flush. Within a month she landed a cameo on Bonanza . Other TV shows followed rapidly, and six months after they arrived in Tinseltown, Lana was starring in Days . When 1967 exploded and Lana’s salary doubled, she ate it up. Hippie chicks, acid, every temptation, her appetite for indulgence went wild. Then Larry Monteleone entered the picture, and love blossomed. With Monteleone’s support, she cleaned up her bad habits enough to keep working. The soap’s rating went through the roof, ignited by the onscreen romance between the young girl from Georgia the trades were calling the next Vivien Leigh and the older, suave heartthrob from New York, and the off-screen reality which gave their scenes added heat.

“When Larry nearly died in that stupid accident, she lost it,” John said. “Started drinking heavily, doing coke, which was the new deal, the big thing. Screwed anything she could get into bed. Even winning an Emmy didn’t make a difference. She loved Larry, wanted him to divorce his wife — but the family was from, well, you don’t get a divorce… cheat all you want, but no divorce. When Larry ended up in that wheelchair, Carmen, his wife, gave him payback for all the years he’d been fooling around. Wouldn’t let him out of her sight. Lana made a half-hearted attempt at suicide. It took a lot of bullshit to sweep that under the rug.”

“What happened?” I inquired after he had been silent for a moment. “I don’t know much about Lana’s early career, didn’t really take an interest until she worked with Bertolucci.”

John lit a cigarette and resumed the biography.

With Larry’s help, he managed to straighten her out again. No drink, no drugs, just plain hard work and focus. By then, John was both her manager and her agent, and his careful choices were what broke her out of TV and into movies.