Hollywood Dreams.
Few things held Harry's attention for long, so Daniel was intrigued when he seemed lost in his magazine for over an hour.
"Something good?" he said at last.
"Have you ever been to Hollywood?" said Harry.
"Several times." he said.
"What's it like?"
"Smoke and mirrors, tinsel and glitter. The men are frauds and the ladies are fakes and nobody means what they say."
"You liked it?" said Harry smiling.
Daniel grinned and cracked a walnut. "Loved it."
"One day, somehow, I'm going to get there." said Harry. He still hadn't grasped the possibilities of his new life.
"When you're ready, I'll pay for your flights there and back."
"I may never come back. I may find a gorgeous actress and decide to stay."
"Harry, the woman hasn't been born who could keep you interested forever." said Daniel.
"Then she'll be younger than me too." said Harry, "I can live with that."
He looked into his magazine again. His whole world was a series of wild dreams, gleaned from magazines and movies. Reality to him was hunger and pain and loneliness and he had already had enough of all that. Daniel could understand his longing to be in a town that was honest about being fake, but he didn't yet know his own weaknesses.
Harry's self-image was as much a fantasy as his view of the world. In his head, he was Rick Blaine, cynical, hard-bitten, able to play a crooked world at its own game, but to Daniel's older, wiser eyes, he was still so much a dreamer, a believer in all the things believing in which could lead right to a broken heart and shattered spirit. When he met that fake, glamorous Hollywood siren, he would see her with the eyes of a true romantic. When he saw that fake town with all the dollar store glitz, he would believe the streets were paved with gold. Los Angeles would chew him up and spit him out.
Daniel, being older and wiser, was well aware of his own folly. He was only partially afraid for Harry. A greater fear was that Los Angeles would give him all his dreams and he would have no use anymore for Daniel.
"Harry," he said, "I'll make you a promise, a proper one, not the kind we sell to those schmucks out there. I'll take you or send you anywhere in the world you want to go."
"You'd come with me?" said Harry. And that surprised Daniel, because he had never thought that Harry would care who was with him, but now he was excited by the idea of taking an aging conman with him.
"Every cynic should keep a dreamer nearby." said Daniel.
"Of course, if we meet Sofia Loren, it's every man for himself." said Harry.
Daniel smiled. "Met her once in Italy. Enchanting creature."
"You're lying." said Harry.
"Oh, almost always." said Daniel.