retorted. On the rare occasion that he lost his velvety patience, his English turned thick Irish. RustyWells: if there was anyone who wanted to obscure his background but couldn’t, it was Rusty. He was raised in Belfast in a moderate Catholic family that spent the whole of the 1980s scared to death of the IRA; not because the terror in any way touched the family itself, but because the terror appeared to be carried out in their name. He once mentioned the nervous loathing and misplaced guilt that had colored his youth. From then on I thought I had that incessant smile of his figured out. At rest, his face betrayed subtle wrinkles that encircled his lipless mouth, folded around the corners of his mouse-gray eyes—wrinkles that, strangely enough, vanished when he laughed, which he did effortlessly and at random, so often that the smile was in fact his face’s default mode.
“I can’t do it,” he said with the pinched voice of some B actor trying to emote. He let his spine slide down the wall until his little Irish tush hit the floor, the back of his head resting against the whitewashed cement under the red stripe.
“Rusty, am I hearing you right?”
“I. Can’t. Do. It.”
“What can’t you do?”
“Take such a big risk.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “And what about your real estate larks?” For years he’d been playing the big shot with his gangster house in Bel Air, alongside a handful of other properties he’d picked up on spec, all of them in Beverly Hills or on Sunset. Thanks to a sweet bonus deal I was able to buy a fabulous house from him at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard—a Frank Lloyd Wright clone sticking halfway out of the cliff and supported by tall pillars—that Rusty wanted to “keep in the family.” “And your pet Rembrandt?” He like poking around art auctions. In the Dutch Masters section of the Getty there is a tiny painting, a bathroom tile, no more than that, but it
was
a Rembrandt, a
gen-u-ine
Rembrandt, and thatgenuine Rembrandt was the property of Rusty Wells. A risk-taker? Rusty
burned
dollars.
“That’s different,” he said. “It’s private.”
Around 2000 he got rich overnight by selling off a dating site just before the dot-com crash. He likes to tell the story of how, right after signing the papers, he walked out of his poky two-bedroom apartment in Redondo Beach, got into a taxi and told the driver to take him to Mulholland Drive, and step on it, man, let’s see some trees, but slow down at For Sale signs. When he saw the villa he wanted, he got out and offered the owners fifty percent above their asking price—you’ll have your money tonight—on the condition that they clear out on the spot. He never set foot in that dump in Redondo Beach again, hadn’t even taken the trouble to sell it, the sink was probably still full of dirty dishes. Probably all bullshit, just like what he was telling me now.
I squatted down in front of him and looked hard into his pale irises. “Where’s the daredevil who only needed five minutes to wheedle me away from McKinsey?” I whispered seductively. “What happened to Wells the go-getter?”
He blinked nervously. His blond eyelashes made his eyelids look too short.
“How do you think they got so big at eBay? At Amazon? By shitting in their pants?”
Instead of chewing me out, which maybe I deserved, he fed me that story about his father. “If you must bring up Belfast,” he said, “my old man …”
I remember thinking: if there’s one thing I do not need to hear, Rusty Wells, it is some sob story about your father. In San Fernando Valley people don’t have parents. Forget them, I wanted to say, that’s what I did—but I restrained myself.
“My pa,” he mumbled, and I still thought it was all an act,“worked on the payroll for twenty years, he was a traveling linoleum salesman. Iceland. New Zealand. Indonesia. Linoleum roller-skating rinks—it’s what he said to anybody who would listen. When he was
“I can’t do it,” he said with the pinched voice of some B actor trying to emote. He let his spine slide down the wall until his little Irish tush hit the floor, the back of his head resting against the whitewashed cement under the red stripe.
“Rusty, am I hearing you right?”
“I. Can’t. Do. It.”
“What can’t you do?”
“Take such a big risk.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “And what about your real estate larks?” For years he’d been playing the big shot with his gangster house in Bel Air, alongside a handful of other properties he’d picked up on spec, all of them in Beverly Hills or on Sunset. Thanks to a sweet bonus deal I was able to buy a fabulous house from him at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard—a Frank Lloyd Wright clone sticking halfway out of the cliff and supported by tall pillars—that Rusty wanted to “keep in the family.” “And your pet Rembrandt?” He like poking around art auctions. In the Dutch Masters section of the Getty there is a tiny painting, a bathroom tile, no more than that, but it
was
a Rembrandt, a
gen-u-ine
Rembrandt, and thatgenuine Rembrandt was the property of Rusty Wells. A risk-taker? Rusty
burned
dollars.
“That’s different,” he said. “It’s private.”
Around 2000 he got rich overnight by selling off a dating site just before the dot-com crash. He likes to tell the story of how, right after signing the papers, he walked out of his poky two-bedroom apartment in Redondo Beach, got into a taxi and told the driver to take him to Mulholland Drive, and step on it, man, let’s see some trees, but slow down at For Sale signs. When he saw the villa he wanted, he got out and offered the owners fifty percent above their asking price—you’ll have your money tonight—on the condition that they clear out on the spot. He never set foot in that dump in Redondo Beach again, hadn’t even taken the trouble to sell it, the sink was probably still full of dirty dishes. Probably all bullshit, just like what he was telling me now.
I squatted down in front of him and looked hard into his pale irises. “Where’s the daredevil who only needed five minutes to wheedle me away from McKinsey?” I whispered seductively. “What happened to Wells the go-getter?”
He blinked nervously. His blond eyelashes made his eyelids look too short.
“How do you think they got so big at eBay? At Amazon? By shitting in their pants?”
Instead of chewing me out, which maybe I deserved, he fed me that story about his father. “If you must bring up Belfast,” he said, “my old man …”
I remember thinking: if there’s one thing I do not need to hear, Rusty Wells, it is some sob story about your father. In San Fernando Valley people don’t have parents. Forget them, I wanted to say, that’s what I did—but I restrained myself.
“My pa,” he mumbled, and I still thought it was all an act,“worked on the payroll for twenty years, he was a traveling linoleum salesman. Iceland. New Zealand. Indonesia. Linoleum roller-skating rinks—it’s what he said to anybody who would listen. When he was
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