Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 11

  “You mean like scrambled eggs and carnitas?” George asks.

  “No,” Squeaky smiles. “I was thinking more like do you want scrambled or sunny-side up.”

  The old man thinks a moment and says, “Sunny-side up.”

  She kisses him on the top of his head and goes about fixing his breakfast.

  On KZLA, a Sav-on drugstore radio commercial plays out of the speaker:

  “Join the Sav-on hit parade, on all these items you can save, Sav-on drugstore, Sav-on drugstore, BOOM BOOM! SAV-ON!”

  The redhead takes a jar of Postum (a cheap coffee-flavored substitute that old people like) down from the kitchen cabinet. The powder in the jar has dried as solid as a rock. She has to stab it with the handle of the spoon to break off a chunk.

  She drops the rock of Postum into George’s coffee cup and pours hot water on it. She puts the cup down in front of George and places his hands on the handle, warning him, “Be careful, it’s hot.”

  “You say that every morning,” says George.

  “It’s hot every morning,” says Squeaky.

  She drops two new eggs into a piping-hot skillet coated with melted bubbling butter. She cuts off three pieces of Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage from the cookie dough–like plastic container into another frying pan. They sizzle. With a spatula, Squeaky moves the two sunny-side up eggs onto a breakfast plate. After adding the sausages, Squeaky places the plate in front of George.

  “Would you like me to cut up your sausage and bust your yolk for you?” George makes an affirmative grunt. Squatting down, with a knife and fork, Squeaky cuts up the round sausage patties into bite-size pieces. Then takes George’s fork and busts one yellow yolk, then the other.

  “Okay, you’re ready to go,” she informs him. Then throws her arms around his neck from behind and whispers into his ear, “Enjoy, darling. It was made with love.” She kisses him on the side of his head and pads out of the room to let George eat his breakfast in peace.

  On KZLA, Sonny James sings the folkloric love story of Running Bear.

  Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love big as the sky

  Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love that couldn’t die

  7:30 A.M.

  Jay Sebring, the man responsible for creating a revolution in men’s hair design, and whose preeminence in Hollywood hairstyling is undisputed, lies in his bed in his black silk pajamas, watching the Hanna-Barbera cartoon adventure show Jonny Quest. On the television screen, Jonny’s turban-wearing sidekick, Hadji, is casting one of his mystic spells, using his magic word, “Sim-sim-salabim!”

  A slight tap on Jay’s closed bedroom door gets his attention.

  “Yes, Raymond,” Jay calls to the knocker.

  A voice with a proper British accent calls from behind the boudoir barrier, “Ready for your morning coffee, sir?”

  Scooching up to a sitting position, Jay calls back, “Yes, I am. Come in.”

  The bedroom door opens and Raymond, Jay’s British gentleman’s gentleman, dressed in classic butler attire and carrying in both hands a silver-service breakfast-in-bed tray, enters the room with a cheerful “Good morning, Master Sebring.”

  “Good morning, Raymond,” Jay replies.

  Crossing the room toward the man in bed, Raymond inquires, “Did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, sir?”

  “Yes, I did,” Jay answers. “Thank you for asking.”

  The butler places the tray in front of his master, and Jay examines the service set before him. It contains a chic silver coffeepot, a china teacup on a saucer, a bowl of sugar cubes, a miniature silver pitcher of heavy cream, a warm croissant on a plate, a dish with a pat of butter, a collection of different-flavored jams in tiny jars, and one long-stem red rose in a skinny silver vase.

  “Everything looks delish,” says the young man. “What’s for breakfast this morning?”

  As Raymond walks to the big picture window and throws open the blackout curtains, flooding the dark room with sudden sunlight, he says, “I was thinking of a nice savory salmon scramble with a side of cottage cheese and half a grapefruit.”

  Jay makes a face and says, “That might be too much for me this morning. We had late-night chili burgers at Tommy’s last night.”

  Now it’s Raymond’s turn to make a face. The butler has the same regard for Jay ending his night with Tommy’s chili burgers as he does when his master starts his day with a big bowl of Cap’n Crunch, and he responds to this new information with droll sarcasm. “Well, in that case, with a chili burger still digesting in your belly, I can’t imagine you want to have a savory anything.”

  Raymond leaves the picture window and returns to his master’s bedside and asks, “Shall I pour the coffee, sir?”

  Jay nods his head and says, “That would be nice, Raymond.”

  Raymond lifts up the silver coffeepot and pours the java into the china teacup, as he says, “Very well, sir. Why don’t we change that half a grapefruit into a small glass of grapefruit juice.” The butler lifts the small pitcher of half-and-half and pours it into the teacup, and asks, “And shall we continue with coffee, or possibly move on to hot chocolate?”

  As Jay ponders this decision, Raymond lifts a tiny spoon off the tray and stirs the cream into the java until it turns the color that Master Sebring prefers.

  “I think hot chocolate,” Jay pronounces with aplomb.

  Then, with equal theatricality, Raymond says, “Then hot chocolate it is. Would you care to remain in bed watching cartoons, or should the hot chocolate precipitate a change in venue?”

  Jay puts on his thinking face and ponders. “Well, I was watching Jonny Quest. But we could?” Looking up at his valet, he inquires, “What do you think, Raymond?”

  “Well,” Raymond says, gesturing toward the bright morning sunshine outside his window, “as you can see for yourself, it’s a very sunny, pleasant California morning. If one lived in London and was fortunate enough to wake up on a day like this, one wouldn’t stay in bed and watch cartoons. A day this nice, you wouldn’t even go into work. So may I suggest hot chocolate in your garden so you can thoroughly enjoy it?” Then adding, “You know how you do love your morning beverage with the ghost of Jean Harlow in the garden.”

  The house that Jay bought three years ago was once owned by Jean Harlow and her director husband, Paul Bern, in the thirties, and they both died there. And Jay insists that the ghosts of Jean and Paul haunt the house. Even his ex-fiancée, Sharon Tate, believes she witnessed something mysterious and spooky one night.

  “Raymond,” Jay grandly proclaims, “you’ve convinced me. I’ll have hot chocolate, under the sun, in the garden.”

  To which Raymond replies, “Splendid.”

  7:45 A.M.

  Roman Polanski steps out into his Hollywood Hills home backyard and the vivid view of Downtown L.A. it offers its successful residents. The diminutive Polanski sports bed head on his cranium, a silk robe across his shoulders, and in one hand an empty coffee cup and in the other a French-press coffeepot. As he putters across the wet grass of his backyard, his hard-plastic slippers make pop-pop sounds against his bare heels.

  He’s followed eagerly by Dr. Sapirstein, his wife’s little Yorkshire terrier, named after the sinister pediatrician that Ralph Bellamy played in Roman’s film Rosemary’s Baby. Later that year, when Sharon was away in Montreal making a movie, Roman’s old friend and houseguest Voytek Frykowski would accidentally kill Dr. Sapirstein by running over the little dog while backing his car out of the driveway. Roman was in his office working on the script for his next movie, The Day of the Dolphin, when Voytek appeared in his doorway.

  “Roman,” Voytek sheepishly said. Polanski turned around in his chair to face his old friend. Voytek admitted, “I think I just accidentally killed Sharon’s dog.” Roman’s face exploded like a bad actor in a silent movie. “You killed Dr. Sapirstein!”

  Roman was out of his chair and rushed by his friend, lamenting with panic anxiety, “Oh my god, what have
you done?” When the director reached the open front door, he saw the little hairy body lying dead in the car park in front of their house. His hands went to his head and he began pacing in circles, saying to Voytek in Polish, “Oh my god, what have you done? What have you done?”

  Voytek felt a little bad, but he didn’t expect Roman to react like this. In Polish, he said, “I’m sorry, Roman, it was an accident.”

  Roman spun around to face him, screaming in Polish, “You know what you’ve done? You’ve ruined my fucking life! She loves this dog!”

  “Don’t worry,” Voytek assured him, “I’ll tell her it was my fault.”

  Roman yelled in response, “No, you won’t tell her! She’ll never forgive you!” Roman tried to explain Americans to his Polish friend: “Don’t you understand, she’s an American! Americans love their fucking dogs more than they love their children! You might as well have dropped her fucking baby down the stairs!”

  Sharon never did learn what really happened to Dr. Sapirstein. In order to save his friend the wrath and scorn of the Texas-born Army brat, Roman told Sharon that Dr. Sapirstein ran away and must have either gotten lost or run afoul of a coyote. Alone in her hotel room on location in Montreal, Sharon cried all night long.

  But today Dr. Sapirstein is still alive, and when the little dog comes running up to Roman with a little red ball in his mouth, he wants the little man to play with him. Roman presses down on the French-press plunger and ignores the dog.

  Roman’s a little grumpy this morning; like his next-door neighbor Rick Dalton (who he’s never met), he’s a little hungover as well. But, unlike Rick, it is not due to a night of heavy drinking by himself. Last night Roman and Sharon, along with friends Jay Sebring and Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot, went to a party at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. Then afterward they went someplace else around three in the morning to eat disgusting chili hamburgers amongst sketchy L.A. types (Mexicans in their uniform street clothes and outrageously painted cars alongside white biker hoodlums on their noisy motorcycles). In Europe, they’d end the night with fine cognac and Cuban cigars or a late-night wine cellar and finish off the evening with a twenty-year-old Bordeaux. But these childish Americans think it’s cool to end the night with oily chili burgers and Coca-Cola. Not only that, but Roman was also pretty sure nobody liked those fat, greasy burgers. He’s positive Sharon didn’t, though she’d never admit it. But, naturally, everybody acted like they were having the best time in the world. Sharon tried to even order a hamburger without chili, and Jay wouldn’t hear of it. So Sharon gave in to the peer pressure, saying, “Fine, fine, fine,” telling the man behind the counter wearing the paper hat, “I’ll have a chili burger.” Which sat in her stomach like a cannonball, making her feel ill the whole ride back to Cielo Drive. Roman loved his American friends but was always a little surprised at the juvenile things they took delight in, or in this case, pretended to take delight in.

  Not only that, but he also had to make nice with that asshole Steve McQueen most of the night. Roman and McQueen don’t like each other, but since Steve is one of Sharon’s oldest friends in Los Angeles, they tolerate each other.

  It’s obvious Sharon and McQueen fucked before. He’s never confirmed this with Sharon, but he knows McQueen’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t still be Sharon’s friend if he hadn’t fucked her a few times in the past. Normally that wouldn’t bother Roman. Jay was engaged to Sharon—they fucked all the time. And Roman has some sexual past with more than half the women in his orbit. But McQueen makes a point of it by the way he smirks at Roman. Every glance of those blue eyes and grin of that little mouth seems to say, I fucked your wife.

  Also, Roman doesn’t like the way McQueen manhandles Sharon, like picking the big blonde up off her feet and spinning her around till she goes, “Whee!” like a little girl. Activities that Roman is physically too small to do. And McQueen knows that, and that’s why McQueen does it.

  The guy’s just an asshole, Roman thinks.

  After being purposely ignored for the last twenty seconds, the little dog barks to get the little man’s attention. This fucking dog, Roman thinks, I can’t even enjoy a cup of coffee in peace without this little tyrant spoiling it. He throws the ball and the little dog runs after it. Roman doesn’t hate Dr. Sapirstein like he hates Steve McQueen. He’s just grouchy this morning. One, because he’s hungover, and two, because Sharon woke him up.

  You see, Sharon snores.

  Chapter Eight

  Lancer

  Pulled by six horses, the Butterfield Wells Fargo passenger stagecoach rounded the corner where the adobe-walled mission stood and thundered down the dusty dirt main drag of the Spanish-style town of Royo del Oro, sixty miles on the north side of the Mexican border in California. The hard hooves of the sweaty beasts tore at the dirt main street, creating a cloud of brown powder in their wake.

  Monty Armbruster, the white-haired forty-year veteran of the Butterfield line, pulled on the leather reins in his gloved hands, yanking the horses’ heads back from the bits embedded in their mouths, making the six powerful equines come to a gentle stop directly in front of the Hotel Lancaster. With his light Texas twang, Monty sang out, “Royo del Oro, last stop!” The backlit sunshine rays filtered through the gauze-like brown dust in the way, a hundred years from now, all cinematographers of western movies would hope to duplicate.

  Eight-year-old Mirabella Lancer, the short in stature but wise for her years daughter of Murdock Lancer, the owner and operator of the biggest cattle ranch in the territory, leaped off the wooden barrel she had been perched on. In excited anticipation, she turned to the Mexican vaquero who was only a few inches taller than her but sported a comically large sombrero on top of his head and chirped, “Come on, Ernesto!”

  Taking the child’s hand, the vaquero Ernesto led the young girl down the main street of the town toward the Butterfield stagecoach. Since her father was the richest man in the territory, Mirabella had known every business owner in Royo del Oro since she was old enough to say anything more meaningful than “goo-goo,” resulting in a series of smiles and waves as she made her way down the business district of the town. A horse-drawn wagon piled high with wooden barrels of beer passed in front of her and the little vaquero. They stopped on the wooden walkway till the beer wagon cleared their path. Crossing the dirt street, approaching the stagecoach from behind, Mirabella prepared herself for her first glimpse of either of the two brothers she’d never known. Her father’s long-lost sons had both sent word they would soon be traveling to Lancer Ranch. However, exactly which brother was going to step off the Butterfield stagecoach was a mystery to both her and Murdock Lancer’s ranch hand Ernesto. The ranch had received a wire indicating that the son of Murdock Lancer had climbed aboard a Butterfield stagecoach leaving Tucson, Arizona, two days ago and, minus any hardships, should be arriving in Royo del Oro around twelve this afternoon. Not included in the wire was which son exactly was arriving.

  Unlike a train, a stagecoach arriving three hours later than scheduled was practically on time. So it was three o’clock in the afternoon when the Butterfield stagecoach stopped in front of the Hotel Lancaster. Mirabella and Ernesto stood in the street, waiting for the stagecoach door to open and see which of her brothers would emerge.

  Both brothers were born on the Lancer Ranch, but neither had met the other. And neither had seen their cattle-ranching father since they were small children. Like Mirabella, both of Murdock Lancer’s sons were the product of different deceased mothers.

  Scott Foster Lancer, who was raised by his mother’s (Diane Foster Lancer Axelrod) wealthy family in Boston, was a Harvard graduate and an ex-military man, having ridden with the British Cavalry in India (the Bengal Lancers).

  Murdock’s other son, Johnny Lancer, was raised in Mexico by his mother, Marta Conchita Louisa Galvadon Lancer. Marta had no family in Mexico, wealthy or otherwise. The only money Marta made was made dancing and fucking and playing castanets in a series of cantinas throughout half the
cutthroat hamlets south of the border. Johnny’s whole childhood, he thought sex was something men paid women to do, like dance and sing, cook food, or wash their clothes.

  Scott’s mother, Diane, retreated to her Beacon Hill family back east when it became apparent that life on a cattle ranch surrounded by horseshit, cowshit, cowboys, and Mexicans was not for her or her baby boy. Scott was three years old when he boarded the Royo del Oro stage out of town.

  Johnny was younger than Scott, but older when he left the Lancer Ranch. He lived with his father and his mother at the ranch until he was ten. Then one dark rainy night, with her ten-year-old son in tow, Marta climbed aboard a fancy buggy that Murdock had purchased her for her birthday and rode it sixty miles across the border into Mexico. And that was the last time little John ever saw Murdock Lancer, the sprawling Lancer Ranch, the opulent Lancer Ranch house, and the town of Royo del Oro. Johnny went from being the son of the wealthiest man in the valley, being taught his school learning by a private tutor, eating the best Black Angus on china plates prepared by a French chef, and sleeping on a feather bed, to being the son of a Mexican whore, who existed on beans and hardtack served on clay plates, who drank cactus juice the way he used to drink milk, who ate jerky the way he used to eat peppermint sticks, who was taught dirty jokes by motherfuckers, slept on sacks of coffee beans in the back of cantinas, and learned how to defend himself against both rat attacks and molestation-minded prairie scum in the middle of the night. Until, in one of those cutthroat hamlets, a wealthy dissatisfied customer from Mexico City cut Marta’s throat. Johnny was twelve years old when he dug the hole in the hard-packed dirt that he buried his mother in. The rich man stood trial for the murder of his mother and was acquitted by a biased jury. Two years later, Johnny killed the man who murdered his mother. And even though it took him a decade, he eventually killed every member of that crooked jury as well.