Star Island

  She said, "I'm not wild about this look."

  "Shit, I almost forgot." He went to the bedroom and got her Jackie O. shades, to hide the brown color of her eyes. Cherry's fans would definitely have noticed.

  From behind the glasses, Ann asked, "Are you done?" Sitting on the hard tile was uncomfortable; her neck and joints were still sore from the car crash.

  "Let's see some sloppy cleavage," Bang Abbott said.

  "Claude, I know where you're heading."

  "You want me to undo the buttons? Because I will."

  "No thanks." Ann was good at disheveling herself; it was an important part of her role as Cherry's double.

  "More," said the photographer.

  "I don't think so."

  "One loose boob. Come on."

  "No!"

  "You wanna get out of this alive?"

  "Hurry up and take your stupid picture." By now she was fairly certain he wouldn't shoot her, at least not intentionally.

  "Don't move." He knelt beside her and removed the belt from his trousers and cinched it around her handcuffed arm, above the elbow joint, causing her veins to bulge.

  "Nice touch," Ann remarked, although she was feeling anxious.

  "Just you wait."

  Bang Abbott went to get the plastic bag. Ann turned white when he took out the dirty syringe that he'd found next to the Dumpster behind the nightclub.

  As she watched him draw it a quarter-full with water, all she could say was, "Please don't."

  "Here. Hold it just like this." He placed the barrel of the hypodermic in her left hand, between the forefinger and middle finger, and moved her thumb to the plunger. "Jesus, what happened to your knuckles?"

  "Nothing," Ann said. While locked in the trunk, she'd banged both fists against the lid, trying to get somebody's attention. "Where'd you find the harpoon?"

  "Behind Pubes."

  "Lovely." She was thinking meth, or possibly heroin.

  The photographer stood back and studied her pose. "Turn your head sideways and stare at your arm, like you're about to shoot up."

  "I get it, okay?" Her hand was trembling because she was terrified of accidentally sticking herself with the used needle. She could see a bead of somebody's dried blood on the tip.

  Bang Abbott stepped closer and mussed Ann's wet hair in a way that obscured her swollen nose while exposing the absurd but distinctive neck tattoo. "That'll work," he said.

  Through the second-rate lens of his secondhand cell phone, the girl was a ringer for Cherry Pye. The paparazzo snapped several shots--grainy, voyeuristic, amateurish. It was purely the look he wanted.

  "Now they'll know I'm fucking serious!" he crowed.

  Ann threw the syringe into the bathtub and quickly loosened the belt from her other arm. She said, "Where's the damn key to these handcuffs?"

  "All we need is her e-mail," said Bang Abbott.

  "Cherry's?"

  "No, her mother's. That's your job--call back and get her private e-mail."

  "Then unhook me from the commode, all right?"

  "First I gotta take a major whiz."

  "That's so not funny," she said.

  "What--like I'm gonna trust you not to run?"

  He pocketed the phone and from his waistband removed the bulky pistol, which he wedged in his right armpit.

  "Claude, are you seriously going to unzip?" Ann asked.

  Bang Abbott pressed his pudgy knees together as he fumbled with his pants. "Just look the other way and be quiet, okay? I got prostate issues."

  With her unshackled hand, Ann shielded her eyes.

  "I love show business," she said.

  16

  The former Cheryl Bunterman was in a toxic mood because she was confined to her suite on a Saturday night with an unsavory bodyguard, watching TV instead of hitting the clubs on South Beach. When she whined about being treated like a prisoner, the goon named Chemo switched channels from a Seth Rogan flick to a cage fight, and cranked up the volume.

  Cherry Pye was dead sober and miserable. Lev would have been boning her brains out with his platinum-studded wand and then escorting her to Opium or the Cameo. This new guy, he was a total ice monster--his expression never changed when she told him to hold the mirror while she took a razor and touched up her wax job. He looked no more aroused than if he were watching a poodle being groomed.

  "What the hell's your problem?" she snapped at him finally.

  "You missed a spot," he said, pointing with his unusual prosthesis.

  Adding to Cherry's gloom was the fact that she'd run out of drugs. Tanner Dane Keefe was once again ducking her calls, and Cherry was nearly levitating with self-pity by the time her mother showed up to give Chemo a break.

  "Mom, you gotta fire that maniac!" Cherry demanded. "I caught him peeping up my robe."

  Janet Bunterman told her to settle down and listen. "Your father thinks it would be helpful to have a splash of publicity before you go on tour."

  "I'm sick of interviews. They always ask about Boston."

  "This would be something different, honey. It's a very tough market this year, ticket-wise. We need to raise your profile a little bit." Although Janet Bunterman didn't wish to worry her daughter, she felt it was helpful for Cherry to possess at least a vague awareness that the global economy was in the shitter, and that music fans were being selective about how they spent their concert dollars.

  Cherry said, "Okay, I'll adopt a kid--that would be huge. No, three kids! Tell Maury to get all over it."

  "Honey, no," Janet Bunterman said. She endeavored to squelch the idea without stating the obvious--that her daughter was unfit to care for a goldfish, much less a child. "The whole adoption thing, it's been overcooked. Angelina and Madge, they ruined it for everybody."

  Cherry frowned and crossed her legs. "Fine. How about we could say I was knocked up with Tanner's baby?"

  "Are you?"

  "I don't think so," Cherry said, "but Tanny's megahot right now."

  "We had something better in mind," Janet Bunterman said. "Something bigger."

  Cherry twirled the sash of her robe. "Like what--another sex tape?"

  It would have been understandable for a mother at that moment to stare at her spoiled, hapless offspring and doubt herself, or at least feel hobbled with remorse. Yet, long ago, Janet Bunterman had willingly accepted the role of her daughter's primary enabler, exploiter and apologist, reasoning that such duties were better handled within the family. The fact that the whole pathetic clan was financially reliant on Cherry was the galvanizing force behind her mother's devotion, although Janet Bunterman preferred a more noble rationalization. Even though Cherry didn't write her own lyrics and the vocals were shamelessly overdubbed, her music still brought happiness to millions of loyal young fans. It was them for whom Janet Bunterman imagined herself sacrificing so tirelessly.

  "First, I have a question," she said to Cherry. "When you flew back here from L.A., you brought a tabloid photographer with you?"

  "Yeah. Some round dude that gave me a ride to the airport in his Mercedes."

  "Did anything happen on the plane?"

  "No!" Cherry said. Then: "I dunno. Maybe."

  "For heaven's sake."

  "I felt sorry for him, Mom."

  "You felt sorry," Janet Bunterman said, "for a paparazzo."

  "Plus, he had the hottest orange BlackBerry. Which now I can't even find!"

  Cherry's mother got up and went to the minibar, only to see that Chemo, as ordered, had removed all the liquor products. "Shit," she said, and reached for a Schweppes.

  "Jesus, it's no biggie," Cherry was saying. "Haven't you ever done a mercy fuck?"

  "That's enough, young lady."

  Janet Bunterman sat down across from her daughter and considered reminding her what had happened to her previous comeback album, Down and Dirty, which had been savagely reviewed and nearly extinguished her career. That was the tour that had been canceled after the messy incident at the Boston Garden, now immortalized
on YouTube. At that point, Cherry could have easily faded from the scene, but her celebrity was kept afloat mainly by her mother's drive and determination. It helped that Janet Bunterman was blessed with a boundless capacity for denial--Cherry's still so young, she'd say. Don't they all act out?

  "This photographer who was on the jet--did he seem dangerous?"

  Cherry threw back her head and laughed. "Only if you're a box of doughnuts. I told you, the guy's a load and a half."

  "So, if you were to meet him again, you wouldn't be afraid?" Janet Bunterman asked. "You could stay in control?"

  Cherry shrugged. "Sure, I could stay in control. What's there to be scared of?"

  "I'm just saying."

  "But why in the world would I ever want to see that loser again?"

  "We'll talk about that," Janet Bunterman said.

  "Is that you beeping, or me?"

  "Me. Just a second, honey." Her hand shook slightly as she removed the phone from her handbag and clicked on the e-mail she'd been expecting. She was careful to cup the device close so that her daughter wouldn't catch a glimpse of the display screen.

  "Oh boy," murmured Janet Bunterman when she saw the photographs of Ann DeLusia manacled to a toilet.

  "What is it, Mom?"

  "Nothing."

  "Aw, come on."

  Janet Bunterman was forced to improvise. "We just sold out the Staples Center."

  "Awesome," Cherry said, and gave herself a high five.

  The governor, seeking quiet on a raucous Saturday night, hunkered beneath an empty lifeguard tower, not far from the stretch where he'd beached the speedboat. Along the dim shore a few couples could be seen, some strolling at the water's edge, some lying entwined on the sand. They didn't notice the man called Skink, who'd dug himself a sleeping pit and was speaking low into his phone.

  On the other end of the line was Jim Tile, who was alarmed to learn that his volatile friend was roaming South Beach.

  "Nothing good can come of this," he warned.

  "What have you got for me?" Skink asked.

  During his years with the state Highway Patrol, Jim Tile had made many useful contacts in local law enforcement. As a favor, one of them had agreed to call American Express and say that he was working on a possible missing-persons case, and that he needed a printout of recent activity on the account of one Claude Abbott. The name and card number had been provided to Jim Tile by Skink after his productive chat with the day clerk at the Comfort Inn.

  "Your boy spent twenty-six and change at some adult novelty shop," Jim Tile said, reading from his notes.

  The governor belched.

  "Then there's forty-two dollars at a place called Oldies But Goldies. Apparel, it says. Next there's a charge at a Marriott."

  "Here on the beach?" Skink asked.

  "1530 Washington. Looks like a room deposit."

  "When?"

  "Today. This stuff is all from today."

  "Good work, my brother. We'll talk later."

  "Don't hang up. Tell me what's going on," Jim Tile said. "This is all about that girl, right?"

  "I need to see her again. She enriched my outlook on humanity."

  Jim Tile pointed out that Ann DeLusia was young enough to be his daughter. "Or even granddaughter," he added archly.

  Skink said, "You dirty old goat. Don't you believe in platonic enchantment?"

  "Actually, I do." Jim Tile had observed his friend behaving like this before, after he'd been touched by some unlikely encounter with what he termed "a pure true soul." Clearly the woman was important to him or he wouldn't have traveled all that way to find her; almost nothing could make him leave his encampment in the Keys, not even a hurricane.

  "Governor, where's the shotgun?" Jim Tile asked.

  "Relax, gramps. I stashed it."

  Being retired, there were limits to how much assistance Jim Tile could provide if Clinton Tyree got himself arrested for shooting up a city. The man was psychologically unsuited for a setting as loud and preposterous as South Beach; he might snap at any moment.

  "Please go home," Jim Tile urged.

  "When Annie is safe. I fear she's in a fix."

  "But nobody's reported her missing. I checked with the Beach cops."

  Skink said, "She called me for help. You think I dreamed that?"

  "It wouldn't be the first time."

  "Jim, you've become quite a grump in your old age. For your information, I fished her cell phone from a toilet at the Comfort Inn."

  "Oh."

  "Apology accepted. I'll be in touch."

  Skink hung up and directed his attention to two men with dishonorable intent who had brought a drunken young woman down to the beach. She was now protesting and struggling to get free, but the men, emboldened by the darkness and seclusion, pushed her backward to the sand. They didn't know someone was watching from beneath the lifeguard stand, and they never saw him coming. Later, one of the attending paramedics would comment that he'd never seen so many compound fractures per victim, one for every limb.

  During the hunt for the bus hijacker, a helicopter spotter had located what appeared to be an abandoned vehicle deep in a hardwood hammock near the boundary of the crocodile preserve. Searchers who were directed by radio to the site were surprised to see the husk of a stock car, number 77, still covered with decals from Purolator, Firestone, Autolite, Delco and Kellogg's Rice Krispies. The rusting NASCAR relic sat near an ash-filled fire pit at the edge of a sparse campsite, where the searchers also found two blankets, several water bottles, a coffeepot, three fresh raccoon hides, a collection of polished buzzard skulls, an eighties-era boom box, a bag of eight-track cassettes, a moleskin satchel containing several glass eyes and a warped steamer trunk packed with books, mostly hardback novels.

  Detective Reilly had hiked out to the camp that afternoon. It looked like a place where a crazed homeless marauder could be comfortable, if he didn't mind scorpions, snakes and poisonwood. The personal items stashed at the site offered no clues to the identity of the person who owned them but clear insight into his tastes. From the tape collection Reilly noted that the camp's inhabitant was a fan of hard rock going back to the sixties; among his treasures was a bootleg import of Jimi Hendrix performing at the Albert Hall. Inside the old trunk of books, the detective found pristine editions of Kurt Vonnegut, Jack London, Ken Kesey, Jim Harrison and John D. MacDonald, each wrapped protectively in clear plastic. The only perplexing find was the vagrant's stash of glass eyes, which appeared to have been pried from taxidermied animals.

  Reilly left everything undisturbed except for one empty water bottle, which he confiscated in the hope of isolating a fingerprint or salivary DNA. Yet later, upon returning to headquarters, the detective sensed among his superiors a lack of enthusiasm for the strange case in North Key Largo. He was told instead to concentrate on a string of trailer-park burglaries down in Marathon, where a group of brazen teenagers had been making off with iPods, custom bongs and fishing tackle. One of the lieutenant's nephews had apparently lost three Penn deep-sea rigs and an antique kill gaff, and the lieutenant articulated a strong interest in catching the perpetrators and retrieving the valuable property through whatever means necessary, such as tazing the little shitbirds in the nads.

  Reilly had no choice except to set the Sebago file aside, but he kept it on a corner of his small metal desk and thought about the suspect constantly.

  While awaiting a response from Cherry Pye's handlers to the junkie-in-the-john photographs, Bang Abbott remembered he was running low on money. Without the tangerine BlackBerry, which contained his encyclopedic source list, the paparazzo was forced to rely on his memory for phone numbers of South Beach tipsters. Eventually he connected with a bouncer at Ortho, who for a promised fee of fifty bucks laconically reported that one of the new Idols was getting ripped on Cuervo at the pool bar.

  "You mean from American Idol?" Ann DeLusia asked Bang Abbott.

  "No, from Bulgarian Idol. Jesus."

  While prepari
ng his camera bag, he texted Peter Cartwill at the Eye. Cartwill wouldn't be in the office on a Saturday night but he might have his phone on. The man was a sucker for anything Idol, and Bang Abbott figured a sloppy-drunk shot could sell for five to seven grand, depending on which contestant it was and the degree to which he or she was hammered.

  Ann said, "Can I come with you?"

  "Ha!"

  "Have a heart, Claude."

  Bang Abbott reconsidered, and changed his mind. He didn't trust Ann alone in the hotel room; even attached to the toilet pipes, she could make plenty of noise. Somebody was bound to call security.

  So he led her out to the rental car and sat her on the passenger side and handcuffed one of her very lovely ankles to the underframe of the front seat. She didn't complain. It was better than being locked in the trunk. Moreover, she was curious about her captor's occupation. Watching him in action might be instructive.

  On the way to the club, she said, "It's like you're hunting big game."

  "I guess," Bang Abbott said.

  "Except they can't hurt you."

  "The hell they can't. Queen Latifah? She gave me a concussion."

  Ann was delighted. "How'd she do that?"

  "Hit me with her fucking Ferragamo. You know, one of those big mothers."

  "Yeah, it's like a bowling bag."

  "Exactly!" said Bang Abbott. "I sued her gi-mongous ass, too."

  "What a wimp move."

  Ann's reaction surprised him. "What? I spent two days at Cedars-Sinai!"

  "How much money did you get from her?"

  "Don't you worry," he said with an inflated smirk.

  Exactly zero is what he'd gotten from the lawsuit. In Century City he had found an oily stump of a lawyer who specialized in representing aggrieved paparazzi. The dirtbag had guaranteed Bang Abbott that Queen Latifah would settle out of court for six figures to avoid a trial, but he was wrong. A judge tossed out the whole case, saying the actress had been legitimately in fear for her safety when Bang Abbott accosted her outside a Beverly Hills yoga studio and she'd left him cross-eyed and groaning on the sidewalk.

  Ann DeLusia said, "Tell me some more war stories."

  "Woody Harrelson spit on me."