Old iron gates opened. We hadn’t announced ourselves, but tiny video cameras blinked red in the eyes of the stone lions.
The steep, narrow driveway ended at a cobblestone motor court with an ornate fountain depicting sea nymphs at play. Prehistoric-looking foliage surrounded an old stone Spanish-style mansion. The cacti were ten feet tall and blue lights illuminated trees with spiky leaves and exotic flowers.
I tapped the front door’s heavy knocker. I heard the clackety-clack of heels on a tile floor and the door opened. A house cat with spots like a leopard sprinted across the foyer.
The woman was in her late thirties and dressed for a rococo costume party, not an intimate dinner. Her outfit featured a tortoise-and-feather headpiece, white fur shawl, snakeskin pants so tight they might have been painted on and six-inch ostrich heels. I thought of Lily’s ivory necklace. I wondered if wearing endangered species was a status symbol in all of Los Angeles’s social stratosphere or just this specific circle of it.
“You must be Thomas. Come in. You’re pale. It looks like you could use a drink. And a trip to Tahiti. But we can take care of that later.”
We stood in a two-story entry the size of a ballroom. Red wax candles served as wall sconces and the only man-made light came from an overhead chandelier adorned with dragons and crystals. Juliet balconies above us were empty, but I got the sense that during grander parties violinists played there and during more intimate ones men and women did.
“Everyone, this is Thomas, Lily’s friend,” the woman who answered the door said, leading me from the foyer to a smaller room.
She did not bother introducing herself, but her manner was as theatrical as her attire and her words echoed on the stone. The four other people in the room hushed on cue, and I was embarrassed by their silence, their undeserved stares. In order to divert my eyes, I took in the room’s zebra chairs, antlered sconces and mirrored ceilings, wondering if I had fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Thomas, darling, what are you drinking?” the oddly dressed woman asked.
I scanned the group with the corners of my eyes. There was no Lily. My heart quickened, and I was so nervous I briefly and irrationally thought that I had shown up to the wrong party.
“Sweetheart. Is everything okay?” the woman pressed me, after her question had gone unanswered.
She stood beside the type of formal mirrored bar you would’ve found in a 1920s Art Deco speakeasy in Manhattan. There were no off-the-shelf bottles; liquor was kept in heavy crystal decanters. Sterling silver–framed snapshots surrounded the crystal on all sides. It was then that I realized Lily Goldman had invited me to a dinner party at someone else’s house.
I paused for a moment. I needed to choose a drink that was both elegant and available in one of those anonymous bottles. I thought of my ex-girlfriend—she had been a girl who would have known what to order in a scene like this. A gimlet. That had been her drink of choice.
“Yes. Sorry. A gimlet, please. On the rocks.”
“A gimlet—how old-fashioned and moneyed of you. I’ll have to remember that,” she said. “I love anything old-fashioned. Right, George?”
“And moneyed, which is the only reason you fell in love with me,” George said with a glint in his eye, as if he knew it was true but was also flattered by it.
“Fell in love maybe, but stayed in love no. California’s a community property state. Even half your money would’ve kept me in couture and a G5,” she said as she squeezed three slices of lime into the drink she had prepared.
George walked over and preemptively sandwiched my hand in both of his. His squeeze was more appropriate for a long-lost high school chum than a random dinner-party crasher, and I immediately liked him for it.
“George Bloom. My wife, Emma, has many wonderful traits—I love her dearly—but introductions aren’t one of them. Welcome to our humble abode.”
So this was why Rubenstein had so easily moved my deadline.
Everyone knew George Bloom as the most powerful man in the music business. He grinned, and his large-toothed smile was as wide as his jaw was formidable. It was easy to imagine him bestowing that same charming grin on musicians he wanted to sign to his record label—with great success. Unlike his wife, whose outfit must have been the result of vintage binge shopping and weeks of planning, George wore a golf shirt and khakis more appropriate for a round of links than a dinner party. I was sure his casual attire was neither picked nor approved by Emma, so George’s message was clear: he was boss of this castle.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Thanks for having me.”
“It’s our pleasure, truly. Lily’s on her way. In the meantime, come in. Meet the rest of the group.”
George placed his hand on my back, nudging me deeper into the drawing room.
A gimlet magically appeared in my hand, and I studied it, not knowing if I was supposed to wait for a toast. George saw my hesitation. His eyes said, “Go ahead, drink, young man.”
I took a hurried sip of my drink. In the corner, I caught a glimpse of David Duplaine, undisputedly Hollywood’s most powerful man. He leaned back in his chair, tips of his fingers together so his hands formed a pyramid, his legs crossed. I diverted my eyes from his and focused on the sofa.
“Carole, Charles, David...everyone, this is Thomas. Thomas is a close friend of Lily’s.”
Carole Partridge was one of the most famous actresses in the world, and here she was, within ten feet of me, lounging on a purple velvet sofa, stroking the leopard cat. She balanced herself on a bony elbow and a curvy hip, and her pale bare feet were the equivalent of George’s golf shirt—proof she was important enough to do whatever she damn well pleased.
Reality and fantasy briefly merged and I felt as if I was looking at Carole on-screen from the first row in a movie theater. Her retro-hourglass figure was the stuff of Playboy. Her arms and legs were lean and muscular. Her hazel eyes were sleepy in a seductive way, and her flawless, milky-white skin seemed as if it belonged in a black-and-white film—Technicolor, or real life, made it appear almost fake.
“Would you like me to get up?” Carole asked in a bored manner, as if after three minutes in the room my presence was already growing old.
“Not necessary,” I declared.
Carole’s husband, Charles, stood up in her stead.
“Thomas, nice to meet you,” Charles said. “Sit down, join us. We were thrilled when Lily said she invited you. We need some new blood around here.”
Charles had the general aura of someone for whom work had always been optional. His speech was tinted with a rarified East Coast accent that was most likely cultivated with lacrosse buddies at Choate or a place like it. At Harvard I knew plenty of guys who were born into a lifetime of financial security, and they, like Charles, always seemed to have a general calm about them, as if their money was a superpower.
“Thanks,” I said, settling into a chair and taking a long sip of my gimlet.
“Lily tells us you’re a reporter,” George