In front of all that agrarian bliss sat a naked woman in a deck chair- fat, middle-aged, gray-haired, lumpy legs. She held a pencil in one hand, a crossword puzzle book in the other, didn’t acknowledge our entry.
The maid saw us staring, rapped her knuckles on the gray head.
Hollow.
Sculpture.
“An original Lombardo,” she said. “Very expensive. Like that.” She pointed upward. Dangling from the ceiling was what appeared to be a Calder mobile. Christmas bulbs had been laced around it- a do-it-yourself chandelier.
“Lots of money,” said the maid.
Directly in front of us was an emerald-carpeted staircase that spiraled to the left. The space under the stairs terminated at a high Chinese screen. The other rooms were also blocked by screens.
“Come,” said the maid. She turned. Her uniform was backless and cut low, past the gluteal cleft. Lots of naked brown skin. Larry and I looked at each other. He shrugged.
She unfolded part of the Chinese screen, led us through twenty feet and yet another partition. Her walk took on a sashay and we followed her midway down the hall to a green metal door. On the wall was a keyhole and a key pad. She cupped one hand with the other, punched in a five-digit code, inserted a key, turned it, and the door slid open. We entered a small elevator with padded, quilted walls of gold brocade hung with ivory miniatures- scenes from the Kama Sutra. A button-press and we descended. The three of us stood shoulder to shoulder. The maid smelled of baby powder. She looked bored.
We stepped out into a small, dark anteroom and trailed her through japanned double doors.
On the other side was a huge, high-walled, windowless room- at least three thousand square feet paneled in black lacquered wood, silent and cool and barely lit.
As my eyes accommodated to the darkness, I was able to make out details: brass-grilled bookcases, reading tables, card catalogues, display cases, and library ladders, all in the same ebonized finish. Above us, a flat ceiling of black cork. Below, dark, carpeted floors. The only light came from green-shaded banker’s lamps on the tables. I heard the hum of air conditioning. Saw ceiling sprinklers, smoke alarms. A large barometer on one wall.
A room designed to house treasures.
“Thank you, Rosa,” said a nasal male voice from across the room. I squinted and saw human outlines: a man and woman sitting side by side at one of the far tables.
The maid bowed, turned, and wiggled away. When she was gone, the same voice said, “Little Rosie Ramos- she was a real talent in the sixties. PX Mamas. Ginza Girls. Choose One From Column X.”
“Good help’s so hard to find,” Larry whispered. Out loud he said, “Hello, people.”
The couple stood and walked toward us. At ten feet away, their faces took on clarity, like cinema characters emerging from a dissolve.
The man was older than I’d expected- seventy or close to it, short and portly, with thick, straight white hair combed back and a jowly Xavier Cugat face. He wore black-framed eyeglasses, a white guayabera shirt over brown slacks, and tan loafers.
Even shoeless, the woman was half a foot taller. Late fifties, slender and fine-featured, with an elegant carriage, poodle-cut red hair with a curl that looked natural, and the kind of fair, freckled skin that bruises easily. Her dress was lime-colored Thai silk with a dragon print and mandarin collar. She wore apple jade jewelry, gauzy black stockings, and black ballet slippers.
“Thanks for seeing us,” said Larry.
“Our pleasure, Larry,” said the man. “Been a long time. Excuse me, it’s Doctor Daschoff now, isn’t it?”
“Ph.D.,” said Larry. “Piled higher and deeper.”
“No, no,” said the man, wagging his finger. “You earned it- be proud.” He shook Larry’s hand. “Lots of therapists staking out L.A. You doing okay?”
“Oh, Gordie, don’t be so direct,” said the woman.
“I’m doing fine, Gordon,” said Larry. Turning to her: “Hello, Chantal. Long time.”
She curtsied and extended her hand. “Lawrence.”
“This is Dr. Alex Delaware, an old friend and colleague. Alex, Chantal and Gordon Fontaine.”
“Alex,” said Chantal, curtsying again. “Charmed.” She took my hand in both of hers. Her skin was hot and soft and moist. She had large hazel eyes and a jawline that had been tucked tight. Her makeup was thick, almost chalky, but couldn’t conceal the wrinkles. And there was pain in the eyes- she’d been a knockout once, and was still getting used to thinking of herself in the past tense.
“Pleased to meet you, Chantal.”
She squeezed my hand and released it. Her husband looked me over and said, “You’ve got a photogenic face, Doctor. Ever act?”
“No.”
“I only ask because it seems everyone in L.A. has acted at one time or another.” To his wife: “A good-looking boy, honey.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Your type, wouldn’t you say?”
Chantal gave a cold smile.
Gordon told me: “She has a thing for men with curly hair.” Running one hand over his own straight coiffure, he lifted it and revealed a bare scalp. “The way mine used to be. Right, honey?”
He put the hairpiece down and patted it into place. “So, did Larry tell you about our little collection?”
“Only in general terms.”
He nodded. “You know what they say about the acquisition of art being an art itself? Now, that’s pure bunkum, but it does take a certain determination and… panache to acquire meaningfully, and we’ve worked like the dickens to do just that.” He spread his arms as if blessing the room. “What you see here took two decades and I-won’t-tell-you-how-many dollars to put together.”
I knew my line: “I’d love to see it.”
The next half hour was spent on a tour of the black room.
Every genre of pornography was represented, in astounding quantity and variety, catalogued and labeled with Smithsonian precision. Gordon Fontaine jounced along, guiding with fervor, using a hand-held remote-control module to switch lights on and off, lock and unlock cabinets. His wife hung back, insinuating herself between Larry and me, smiling a lot.
“Observe.” Gordon rolled open a print drawer and untied several portfolios of erotic lithographs, recognizable without reading the signatures: Dali, Beardsley, Grosz, Picasso.
We moved on to an alarm-equipped glass case housing an old English manuscript handwritten on parchment and illuminated with copulating peasants and cavorting farm animals.
“Pre-Guttenberg,” said Gordon. “Chaucerian apocrypha. Chaucer was a highly sexual writer. They never teach you that in high school.”
Other drawers were filled with erotic sketches from Renaissance Italy, and Japanese art- watercolors of kimonoed courtesans entwined with stoic, top-knotted men lugging exaggerated sexual equipment.
“Overcompensation,” said Chantal. She nudged my arm.
We were shown displays of fertility talismans, erotic woodblocks, marital aids, antique lingerie. After a while my eyes began to blur.
“Those were used by Brenda Allen’s girls,” said Gordon, pointing to a set of yellowed silk undergarments. “And those red ones are from the bordello in New Orleans where Scott Joplin played piano.” He stroked the glass. “If only they could talk, eh?”
“We have edible ones, too,” said Chantal. “Over there, in a refrigerated case.”
We swept past still more sexual devices, collections of obscene party gags and novelties, raunchy record albums, and what Gordon proclaimed to be “the world’s finest collection of dildoes. Six hundred and fifty-three pieces, gentlemen, from all over the world. Every medium imaginable, from monkeypod wood to scrimshawed ivory.”
A hand brushed my rear. I did a quarter turn, saw Chantal smile.
“Our bibliothèque,” said Gordon, pointing to a wall of bookshelves.
Oversized, gilt-edged treatises bound in leather; hard-and soft-cover contemporary books; thousands of magazines, some of them still shrink-wrapped and sealed, with covers that left nothing to the imagination- grandly tumescent men, semen-bathed, wide-eyed women. Titles like Double-Fucked Stewardess and Orifice Supplies.