smiled briefly. “Harlan was …” She sighed. “He was a slacker … a loser with a good backhand. And that’s about it, bub.”
“A wannabe tennis pro.” Decker waited a beat. “So he had tennis ambitions?”
“Maybe. Guy had some talent but not good enough to be pro. He used to teach tennis at a country club—”
“What?”
“No joke. The big one about two miles up the road.”
“Greenvale?”
“That’s the one. Greenvale Country Club.”
“This wasn’t one of Harlan’s delusions? You know this for a fact?”
“Check it out yourself.” She grinned. “Bet they’ll welcome your inquiries with open arms.”
Decker wrote furiously. “How long did he teach at Greenvale?”
“Off and on for about three years.”
“Off and on?”
“Yeah, Harlan couldn’t hold anything steady. Greenvale took him in for summer work. He taught tennis in the day, tended bar at night. Harlan could maintain in short spurts. I mean the guy was good-looking, had a certain amount of charm. And he was well endowed. Used it, too. He made more than a few lonely women very happy.”
“Married women?”
“I said lonely women. ’Course they were married.”
“Lucky he didn’t wind up with a gun to his head.”
“Nah, he wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Greenvale has lots of married women whose husbands are fuckin’ sweet young things. I know because I’ve been there. Not the old, lonely, married woman, but the sweet young thing. Lots of rich geezers in this city. Am I shocking you?”
“Not at all.”
“Yeah, you look pretty worldly. You mess around on your wife?”
“No. So Harlan taught tennis to lonely women?”
“No, he taught tennis to anyone who was assigned to him. Women, girls, men, boys.” Rhonda paused. “Occasionally, he’d give a lesson to some hot shit producer or director. Harlan was big on name-dropping. He’d brag to me that this time, he really made an impression. Jerk … he just didn’t get it. What that poor schmuck wouldn’t have given for the life of a big shot … partying … tennis … doing beautiful, rich women …”
She stared at her empty glass.
“Will you excuse me?”
She left, then came back with a fresh glass. The liquid looked pale, lots of vodka, not too much juice. This time, she nursed her drink.
“I tried to tell him that just because you teach some jack how to ace a serve doesn’t mean he’s going to star you in his next movie. But Harlan …”
“But he must have been a good tennis player to teach.”
“Good enough to teach those yahoos.”
“Good enough to make the circuit?”
“He told me he was actually seeded in the top two hundred or something like that. Maybe it was true. But probably not. Harlan lived in fantasies.”
“But he was a member of SAG.”
“Sure, he got a few parts … just enough to feed his delusional brain. Lieutenant, Harlan was a hanger-on. A walking-around guy.”
“Pardon?”
“A walking-around guy. There’s lots of egomaniacal people out there. No offense to Barbra, but people who need people are not the luckiest people. In fact, they’re cursed. They need people to create their identity, to feel important, to look busy, and to be wanted. And they’re rich enough to buy these little trained spider monkeys like Kato and his ilk to walk around with. So the hot dogs never look unattended. That’s what Harlan was. He was a walking-around guy.”
Tears ran down her cheek. She turned her head, fiercely swiped her eyes.
“I still have feelings for him. That shock you?”
“Not at all.” Decker waited a beat. “Can we talk a minute about Harlan’s termination at Estelle’s?”
“Nothing to say. He broke their cardinal rule. Customer is always right.”
“But he was upset—”
“Of course he was upset. He was furious. Some drunken A-hole gets abusive and Harlan’s canned. I was so angry, I almost came down and made a scene.”
She seemed to wilt.
“Then … I don’t know. I guess I thought it was par for the course. Harlan getting axed.”
“Did Harlan continue to talk about it?”
“At first, he talked about getting even. I thought it was just talk … venting.” With watery eyes, she looked at Decker, pointedly. “God, I need to fuck.”
“Why’d you kick him out of your life, Rhonda?”
She sighed. “I found someone else. Also a loser, but at least he’s gainfully employed. A porno actor. Ernie Beldheim aka King Whopper. Can you believe that name?”
“It shows a certain amount of creativity. How did Harlan take the breakup?”
Rhonda sat on a bentwood rocker, legs pushing against the floor, her body moving back and forth. She gazed upward, eyes on her sky ceiling. “I wasn’t real tactful. I told him I was dumping him because he wasn’t big enough.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“I wanted to hurt him. Because he’d been messing around on me for so damn long. If I had known he was so unstable, I wouldn’t have …”
“You couldn’t have known, Rhonda.”
She looked down into her orange juice glass as if reading tea leaves. “After we broke up, he did things. Weird things. I guess I knew he was flipping out. But I didn’t know it would lead to this.”
“Of course not. What did he do?”
Rhonda returned her eyes to Decker. “Tried to scare me. Made calls in the middle of the night, ranted on about how he was going to get me. But I never took him seriously.” She looked up. “Thinking it over, I have a feeling I was one of the lucky ones.”
True enough. Decker pointed to her duffel bag. “Where are you planning to go?”
Rhonda stopped rocking, blew out air. “I got an offer to do a gig in Hawaii. Some honcho wants me to paint Playboy playmates on his walls. No accounting for tastes.”
