Dan Wakefield - Selling Out - A Novel

Warm air enveloped them, seeming to reach beneath layers of clothing and touch the skin all over, like a soft, lascivious kiss. Blinking, their eyes readjusted from the steely cold blues and slate grays of New England to the citrus glow of Southern California, the orange and lemony light of a constant sun. Bright-colored, lightweight clothing hung loose on the natives, and Perry had an immediate impulse to strip off his tie.

Jane nudged him and giggled.

“Look! That says how I feel,” she said, pointing to a large sign. Its three block letters simply spelled LAX.

It was, appropriately, the symbol of the Los Angeles International Airport.

Welcome to LAX.

Loosen your tie, strip off your coat, tilt your face up to the sun.

“Hang it up early tonight, hit the sack—it’s the only way to beat the lag, for sure.”

Margo, the Paragon transportation person dispatched by Archer Mellis to meet Perry and Jane at the airport, piloted the beat-up studio station wagon through the freeways with such dramatic flair the newcomers felt they were in some TV adventure series.

“Check in, take a dip, go out for some Mex, maybe Thai—there’s both in the neighborhood,” Margo advised, craning her neck back as she poured forth her helpful information, while Perry and Jane squeezed hands and wished their driver would establish eye contact with the freeway traffic instead of with them.

“Or order out from Greenblatt’s—pastrami’s kind of heavy on the fat but the smoked salmon’s something else, even the New York deli freaks say it’s outasight.”

“Thanks,” Perry said. “We’ll remember.”

“And remember you gotta take a network meeting in the morning. Dawnish. Archer should swing by at seven. Probably hit the Polo Lounge for breakfast before the Valley. Whatever fresh berries they got you can’t go wrong, but you don’t want to do any omelettes, not before you take your first network meeting. Believe me, I know you writers and your stomachs. Queaseville.”

Safe in their suite after a shower and swim, the smart thing seemed simply to take the beautiful basket of fruit Archer had sent, picnic from it in bed, and go to sleep. Except they were too keyed up.

The Château Marmont was a residence hotel that looked like a Moorish castle stuck in the side of a hill overlooking Sunset Boulevard. From their living room window they could see the lights of the city flung out below. It was pulsing, bright, enormous, alive.

Who could sleep?

They went out for Mex, complete with Margaritas and the house sangria, topping it all off with Fundador because Perry said that’s the brandy Hemingway mentioned in his famous book on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon .

“They came back from somewhere ‘washing the dust out with Fundador!’” Perry quoted. “Gave me a chill when I read it first, back in college. Still does.”

“Hemingway,” Jane said, smiling and taking a sip of the brandy. “We’re a long way from Hemingway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Perry asked.

“Nothing bad. Finish your brandy.”

Perry smiled.

“I bet he’d like it.”

“Fundador?”

“Television.”

“Tell me.”

Perry leaned across the table, trying to focus.

“Hemingway young man now might have written for it. Set new standard. Simple, understandable. His own prose. Show can be quality and popular, ’peal to all.”

Jane hiccupped.

“ Sun Also Rises a series?”

“Sure. Can see it. Loni Anderson as Lady Brett.

“Who’s she?”

“English girl they all fall for.”

“I know Lady Brett, dummy. Who’s Lottie?”

“ Loni . Beautiful blonde on sitcom. WKP-something-or-other. Saw on reruns. Clever.”

“You too. My genius.”

She blew him a kiss.

Perry grinned and raised his glass.

“Sun also riseth in West! The best!”

They clasped hands; somehow careened back to hotel home, to bed.

“The sun already rises, sweetheart.”

Jane gently prodded him at six the next morning.

“Hemingway,” he groaned.

He felt as if he’d been trampled by all the bulls of Pamplona.

“How in the name of God did we get on to Hemingway?”

“He was going to write for TV. Just like you. If you make it to your meeting this morning.”

“Thank God this one’s just a formality.”

“Still, you have to appear.”

“Mmmm.”

With all the will he could muster, Perry made his legs move, feet touch floor. Wobbling, he took his first step toward making his mark on American television.

Even in his pained and disoriented condition, Perry had no fears about recognizing Archer Mellis when he appeared, though the two men had only met once, a month before. Waiting then at the bar of the Four Seasons in New York City, Perry had been on the lookout for some young Hollywood type, a flamingo-garbed sport with a beard and lots of gold chains. His preconception only proved how wrong the cliches about Hollywood were. Mellis had turned out to be an immaculate, clean-shaven fellow impeccably garbed in a three-piece suit of a hue so dark and a weave so heavy as to seem downright gloomy. He looked so reassuringly conservative and Eastern that his image went beyond even the establishment aura of New York and actually seemed more old-school English. His suit was reminiscent of the sort worn by the stuffy Brideshead himself.

There was no one resembling the elegant Mellis, however, among the few stray oddballs hanging out in the Marmont lobby at this excruciating hour. A stunning black woman wearing a silver cape was perched on the grand piano, while a bearded man in a velvet tux picked out a vaguely familiar show tune. A blond in a string bikini and an old felt fedora was draped on a couch reading Variety , and a fellow who was dressed like a Castro-trained insurgent guerrilla was pacing back and forth, evidently planning the next raid. Perry figured the whole group was left over from an all-night party, or perhaps was the cast of a small musical revue, gathered for an early morning rehearsal. He started to walk out the door and wait on the porch when he noticed the Castro guerrilla type was waving at him, and now striding purposefully toward him.

Mellis had no doubt sent another of his minions to pick up the visiting writer. Perry was a little peeved and was mentally searching for some sharp comment when he realized the man wearing the camouflage shirt and trousers and the combat boots, as well as a black beret and silver wraparound glasses, was not one of Mellis’s subordinates after all. It was Archer Mellis himself.

“Welcome to L.A.,” the young executive said, giving Perry a brisk cuff on the arm, then leading him toward the door.

“Thanks. I didn’t recognize you. Without your suit.”

“That’s right, we’ve only met in New York. Out here I wear my working clothes.”

“Ah,” said Perry, wondering apprehensively if they were on their way to overthrow the network or just have a meeting there. He would not have been surprised if Mellis had led him to a waiting Russian tank, or at least a World War II armored halftrack, but his host opened the door for him to a sleek, low-slung vehicle that reminded him of the Batmobile.

Perry squeezed himself into it as well as he could, feeling as relaxed and comfortable as if he were about to be shot out of a cannon. Mellis, though taller than Perry, seemed to have trained his long limbs to slip easily into the seemingly awkward if not impossible position, and his arms and legs moved effortlessly into the proper places, as if they were the appendages of a praying mantis. He shifted the car into gear, sped from the driveway with a screech of rubber, and slammed a tape into the deck.