By Richard Noyes and Pamela Robertson
Billie reached to knock, and the door opened before contact. Bertrand greeted Billie, Dakota and Rae in the Madonna pose. He wore a ruffled tuxedo shirt, red bow tie, long, silk dressing gown and leather sandals. Surviving strands of died-black hair were combed over a glistening dome, affording about as much coverage as yard markers on a gridiron.
“Enchante. How charming you brought pouilly-fuisse, my favorite white burgundy. Please do come in. Susie, your guests have arrived.” No answer. “Excuse me.” Bertrand stepped down the hallway. “Susie!”
Billie quietly said, “What a getup. Let’s look for the emergency exit.”
A grinning Bertrand reentered the hallway leading Susie by the hand. She had a makeup-free face of no particular distinction, home-cut hair, thrift-shop clothes and sockless loafers that spanked the floor as she walked. In a smiling, genuine voice, she said, “Hi all, welcome.” And with that, she hauled off and viciously slapped Bertrand across the face. Bertrand whipped his head to avoid most of the blow and cracked his hands together on contact to complete the near-seamless staging.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rae whispered.
“Stage slap,” Dakota whispered back.
Bertrand reeled, hand to cheek, whining, “Did I offend you, my little wildcat?”Susie matter-of-factly said, “Your introduction lacked its usual verve.” And to the guests, “You must forgive Bertrand, he is trying so hard.” Bertrand straightened, smiled winningly, raised his right eyebrow and left forefinger and grandly announced, “I shall pour the aperitifs.”
“Come make yourselves at home,” Susie said, and led Dakota, Rae and Billie through a dangling bamboo curtain into the living room. Two low couches faced across a wide, foot-high cocktail table. Twin, low-wattage floor lamps, tassels hanging from the shades, lent a dim, mauve-colored glow. Once her guests were seated, Susie said, “I’ll give Bill a hand. You can relax. He’s harmless.”
“Bill?” Rae said.
“How’d you describe this décor?” Billie asked.
“Turkish seraglio,” Dakota said. “Despite the slap bit, Susie’s hardly the love slave you’d expect to find around this harem. I’m getting to like this. Ready for round two?”
“Da da.” Bertrand arrived carrying a tray of frosty glasses the lower halves of which hung underneath like snow cones at the ballpark. “May I offer a thimble of iced vodka?” The thimble was the size of a small wine glass, except that it had no base and had to be held and therefore drunk.
Billie swallowed, and they could see her breath as she exhaled a low “Whew.” She gave Dakota and Rae a 150-proof, what-have-we-gotten-ourselves-into take.
Shoes flapping, Susie passed a platter of crudités. Dakota asked, “We know you’ve helped Preston with his films, Bertrand, what other types of design work are you involved in?”
“Primarily interior decoration, I have influenced some of the finest homes from Newport to Naples.”
“Actually, he was a window dresser at Saks, Neiman Marcus, others,” Susie corrected, “and a good one at that.
“The mid-thirties was Bertrand’s Asian phase. His hair was somewhat thicker, but oily and worn long in the manner of many Chinese artists. During one party as our guests sat on cushions breathing incense, Bertrand bowed low while offering a refreshment to a young woman. His stringy hair fell across a face that I must say closely resembles a death’s head. The innocent victim looked up, screamed and fainted.”
During Susie’s unsolicited, let’s-set-the-record-straight retrospective, Bertrand gazed at her admiringly and patted her shoulder reassuringly. Susie continued, “Next was the German stage that ended abruptly with the occupation of Sudetenland, at which time Bertrand embraced the French.”
Bertrand said with Gallic all over it, “Free French, may I add, mon petite fille.”
Susie smiled approvingly and added, “Before the break, there was one chilling episode in the Deutsche-Kaiser Hotel in Munich. We were dining with a German couple, and the table talk, mostly in English for my benefit, was animated and hilarious. I saw a bull-necked Bavarian flush with drink enter and pause out of earshot watching us.
“Assuming we were all Germans, he walked to our table, greeted us, and, since everyone laughed, told what was clearly an amusing story. When I made a comment in my American English, he turned on me and snarled a few words. Bertrand stood and slapped him across the face, just like in a period play. The man turned on his heel and left. Werner, our companion, said, ‘Gestapo or SS.’ Bertrand expected a letter challenging him to a duel, but it never came.”
“I would have dispatched the Hun with a coup d’ éclat,” Bertrand rasped.
“Oh, Bertrand, you couldn’t even slice the pumpernickel,” Susie sighed.
“Susie, how did you and Bertrand meet?” Billie asked.
“I was practice pianist for Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. When Bertrand auditioned, you know how it goes. I . . .”
Bertrand interrupted in an indeterminate European accent, “Root was a master teacher, dear friend and partner par excellence.”
“You were hardly her partner, she barely knew your name. Bertrand then made an unfortunate career decision. He left Denishawn and joined Martha Graham’s troupe.”
“Ah, Mahta, how I adored your flow and freedom. You were my muse. I loved you more than Isadora.”
“Isadora was before Bertrand’s time; he and Martha clashed stylistically, and she fired him within a month. We crawled back to Denishawn only to learn that they had replaced both of us. The door was locked and bolted.”
“Did you ever dance ballet, Bertrand?” Dakota asked.
Bertrand rose from the couch, unsashed his robe and shrugged out of it revealing a pair of Boy Scout-type shorts, the kind with all the pockets. The guests had all they could do not to roll on the floor at the sight of Bertrand in his shorts, tuxedo shirt and bow tie. Lights came up as Bertrand moved to the center of the room flexing muscular legs. “Bally is too restrictive. The moves are along straight lines and predetermined.”
Susie had slipped to an unnoticed spinet in a previously darkened corner and expertly played a punchy classical piece. Rae said, in an aside to Dakota and Billie, “I hope he doesn’t finish the striptease.”
Susie pounded a furious tempo as Bertrand leapt about while breathlessly narrating, “You see how I interpret fire in the forest . . . and now I am wind.” And he broke wind.
The recital concluded with a series of frantic bounds loosely connected to Susie’s battering crescendo. The women applauded. Bertrand bowed, greasy strings unpeeling from his sweaty scalp, as somebody in the apartment below tattooed the ceiling and banged the radiator pipes.
“Alas, the Philistines are rattling their cages.” Susie put Bertrand’s robe over his shoulders, handed him a towel that he wrapped around his neck prizefighter style, and he stalked about the room cursing in French. “Please forgive my pacing. I must cool down slowly to avoid cramping. My public will not allow me to miss a performance.”
“For an old fossil, Bertrand can still shake a leg,” Susie said. “Oh my, we’ve kept you people too long, come, come,” as she and Bertrand beckoned their guests to leave, took their drinks, and then gently but firmly pushed them out with hands in their backs.
Billie put her foot in the door and handed Bertand her card. “Bertrand, about the sets and structure . . .”
Dakota tried to add, “And the music sug . . .”
“I will divine the solutions forthwith. Ring me in a fortnight.” Feeling pressure on a pinched toe, Billie retreated her foot and the door slammed.
In the elevator, they looked at each other and giggled. On the way back to the car, they had to dodge the bronzed, near-naked and heavily tattooed skateboarders and rollerbladers whipping along the Venice boardwalk.
Outside the car, Billie asked, “So what’s your verdict?”
“After reading all that James M. Cain, I knew Southern Californians were meshuga,” Dakota said. “Should have moved to L.A. sooner, missed too much.” She looked to Rae.
“I gotta find a way to work this bizarro scene into a script.”
NOTE: This story was adapted and excerpted from Larceny of Love, a provocative print and eBook novel that traces the interwoven careers of three men in jeopardy (one of whom is a professional pitcher who suffers from sudden, extreme, unexplained career-threatening wildness) and the unforgettable women in their lives.
“Larceny of Love is an engrossing read that starts like a gentle breeze in the small town of Cairo, Illinois, and moves westward gathering force as it goes, till it impacts with hurricane force and violence in the hills of Hollywood. It subtly sweeps the reader up in a whirlwind of action, romance, raw emotion and high passion that intricately interweaves many lives on many levels to provide spellbinding glimpses into the worlds of big league baseball, corporate takeovers, international crime cartels and the Machiavellian deals of Hollywood filmmaking. The dialogue is smart, the characters vivid, the plot full of corkscrew twists; so reader beware: Larceny of Love is a powerful story with the power to steal your heart.”
-Richard A. DeLia, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey
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