Hollywood and Levine by Andrew Bergman Read Free Book Online

blew white smoke into the night air, huge sheltering trees brushed their limbs against the roof. All the lights were on and I didn’t want to be there.
    As I walked up the front steps, two cops emerged from a side door and got into their squad car. The car backed slowly out of the driveway, its red light flashing in a gesture that seemed more ceremonial than official. It went up the street, turned right, and vanished.
    I rang the bell. It chimed loudly, over the mortuary-pitched conversation of what sounded like close to a dozen people gathered inside. A pale, stocky man with a bulbous nose and curly hair came to the door and stared at me. He was wearing glasses with lenses so thick that his eyes seemed to float hugely behind them, like dark stones on the floor of a fish tank.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œMy name is Jack LeVine, a friend …”
    â€œOf course,” the man said softly, opening the door and stepping to one side, “the private detective who found Walter.” He held out his hand as I entered. “I am Milton Wohl, a screenwriter and a dear friend of Walter’s.”
    I shook Milton Wohl’s small, damp hand—imagine squeezing a pork kidney—and stepped into a foyer. The house was dense with hushed and urgent conversation, rich with the odors of liquor and perfume.
    â€œDo you know Helen?” Wohl asked solicitously.
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œFine,” he said, for no reason at all. The writer was clearly shaken by the events of the evening. “I’ll introduce you.”
    Wohl led me into the living room and I got an inkling of the kind of life Walter had lived in Hollywood. The room was at least forty feet long, with polished wooden beams lining the low ceiling. A fireplace took up the far wall, flanked on either side by full suits of armor blindly guarding the blaze, the iron plate glowing a dull, Dark Ages orange. Bookshelves lined the paneled walls, jammed to overflowing with leather-bound classics and popular fiction, pre-Columbian figurines, and somebody’s favorite collection of little glass elephants.
    Small spotlights were affixed to the ceiling, shining on a series of brilliant medieval illuminations depicting the progress of an autumnal battle for someone’s honor. Horses reared, their curiously human eyes staring at the heavens, bearing faceless warriors on their backs. A golden-haired woman, clutching a red arrow and a torch, hovered in the air. She looked bemused.
    The woman on the couch by the fireplace was neither golden-haired nor bemused. Her hair was long and red, and she was as beautiful as any woman I have ever seen. She rose and walked toward me.
    â€œHelen,” said Wohl, “this is Jack LeVine.”
    â€œI am so terribly sorry,” I told her.
    Unexpectedly, and to the evident surprise and faint displeasure of the men and women standing and sitting about the room, Helen Adrian embraced me. I tentatively hugged her in return. She looked up at me, her jade-green eyes touched with red.
    â€œIt must have been horrible for you, Jack.”
    â€œPretty rough.”
    â€œYou’ll have a drink?”
    â€œPlease. Bourbon and water.”
    â€œOf course.” She turned to Wohl. “Milt, could you get Jack a bourbon and water?”
    Wohl examined me curiously, his eyes submerged in still water behind the bullet-proof specs. Then he slipped away, less than delighted to be handling the butler duties.
    â€œSit beside me, Jack,” said Mrs. Adrian, lightly touching my lapel. “Let’s talk for a while.”
    She led me across the room, all eyes following our progress. I felt like the proverbial bare-assed gentleman in Macy’s window. We sat down on a long yellow couch, directly in front of the fire. Mrs. Adrian moved close to me and all I could do was stare. It was not any particular feature that so astonished me, not the delicately arched nose or the perfect teeth or the remarkably large and