"Big deal."
"Twice in the same night," Bang Abbott said.
"So, wear a raincoat."
"The job ain't easy--some of these people, they're full-on psychos. One of Tiger's bimbos came after me with a manure rake."
"Tell the truth. You don't ever feel like a vampire?"
"Grow up," he said.
When they arrived at Ortho, he parked the Buick between a pair of stretch Hummers. Outside the club lurked three or four freelance video shooters.
"Slugs," Bang Abbott grunted contemptuously. "A fucking chimp could do what they do, only better." He hung the Nikons around his neck and called the bouncer's cell phone to make sure that the drunken Idol was still inside. The man said she was.
"Which one is it?" Bang Abbott asked.
"I don't know her name. Some Latin chick in white jeans."
"That's real helpful. How did you not get hired by the CIA?"
The bouncer said, "Dude, she's wearing one of them big Mexican hats. What else do you need?"
Bang Abbott put down the phone. "Now we wait," he said to Ann.
She wondered if the pistol was underneath his seat, and if she'd get another chance to grab it. The photographer hadn't slept a wink since he'd kidnapped her; surely he was running on fumes.
Ann said, "Maybe you're in love with her and you don't even know it."
"Cherry? That's the stupidest thing you've said so far."
He showed her a couple of the trampy self-portraits that the singer had left on the memory card of one of the cameras. Ann couldn't help but smile at the frame in which Cherry was sticking out her tongue.
"I believe she's teasing you, Claude."
"Just shut up."
Club Ortho was owned by a group of Colorado bone surgeons who thought it would be a cool gimmick if every patron had to wear a cast. Snap-on replicas painted in citrus hues were given out to a lucky few waiting in the long line behind the velvet rope. Those selected for admission yelped with joy or knuckle-bumped each other before squeezing a chosen limb into one of the sweaty neoprene sleeves.
"How do they dance in those things?" Ann asked.
Bang Abbott wasn't paying attention. He was observing a commotion near an unmarked doorway at the far end of the building. The video buzzards had cornered somebody.
"Don't even think about trying anything crazy," the paparazzo warned Ann before he hopped out of the car.
She watched him hustle across the street--he was spry for being such a pudge muffin. The flash unit on his camera popped several times, followed by shouting and curses. Then a flying wedge of beef delivered the fleeing entourage to one of the waiting Hummers. Ann couldn't see who it was, but she was familiar with the escape drill.
As the limo pulled out, she spotted Claude running alongside. His lens was aimed point-blank at the tinted rear window, and the white-blue strobe from his Nikon lit up the road. When he returned to the Buick, he was flush and gulping like a spent grouper.
"Demi and Ashton. That's for real," he panted.
"What happened to your nose?"
"Slyke--one of the TMZ assholes. Nailed me with an elbow, accidentally on purpose." Bang Abbott scowled at the sight of himself in the visor mirror.
Ann pointed to her own puffy nose and said, "Now we match."
The photographer bribed one of the club's valets to fetch two cups of ice, one of which he gave to his captive. They wrapped the cubes in bar napkins and placed the cold compresses on their respective wounds, with heads tilted up.
To Bang Abbott's annoyance, Ann began laughing. She said, "This is the most ridiculous kidnapping in history."
"You'll thank me someday."
"For what?"
"Making you a household word," he said. "Just wait."
"Claude, come off it already."
"This part'll be over soon."
"Not soon enough," Ann said.
She was now confident that she'd survive the abduction. The paparazzo was squirrelly but not homicidal. Either the Buntermans would pay him off with a nice chunk of change or he'd screw up the deal and get himself busted by the cops. Regardless of how it ended, Ann would be freed--and then what? She couldn't possibly continue doubling for Cherry Pye, not after this fiasco.
Bang Abbott said, "All those video dorks took off after the Kutchers."
"So, it's just you and the Idol."
"Looks that way." He removed the ice pack from his nose and tossed it out the window.
Ann said, "I wasn't always an actress. At first I wanted to write."
"With legs like yours? That's sad."
"Don't be such a dog."
Bang Abbott said that in all his years of tracking celebrities, he'd never purposely photographed a writer. By way of a disclaimer, he added, "When you're doing a red carpet, you shoot everybody in a tux, just in case. But, swear to God, name the five hottest screenwriters in L.A. and I wouldn't know those fuckers if they hanged themselves over the 405."
"I'd look pretty good in a tux," Ann said sportively. She set her ice bag on the floor.
"You don't get it, do you?"
"Don't get it. Don't want it." She found herself thinking about her puny apartment in West Hollywood, trying to recall what she'd left in the refrigerator. She hoped there was no sashimi, unlike last time. The place had stunk like a fish dock when she got home.
Bang Abbott was now studiously hunched over the camera while viewing the shaky sequence of Demi-Ashton shots. When Ann leaned over for a peek, the handcuff on her ankle rattled against the springs of the car seat.
She asked, "How much can you get for those two?"
"A lot more if they were bombed," he griped.
"They're holding hands. They look happy."
"Yeah. Just my fucking luck."
"Cheer up, Claude. Maybe your Idol will pass out in the street."
"Or at least puke in her sombrero."
"Where's the gun?" Ann said lightly. "It really isn't necessary, you know."
"Maybe not for you, but Cherry's people--that's another story."
The phone thrummed in his pocket. Bang Abbott took it out and saw a text message from Janet Bunterman. He gave a jubilant hoot and cried, "Yes! The needle shots freaked 'em out!"
Ann felt excited, too. Before long, she'd be soaking in a hot bath back at the Stefano. She couldn't wait to confront Cherry's mother about the indifferent tone of the ransom negotiations.
"How much are they gonna pay to get me back?" she asked.
The paparazzo chortled. "Not a dime, honey."
"Excuse me?"
"It's a trade, just like I wanted. You for her, straight up."
Ann could scarcely believe it. Perhaps she had underestimated the Buntermans.
"Wow," she said.
"Fucking wow is right."
17
Janet Bunterman summoned the twins to her suite for a meeting. Because it was almost 1:00 a.m., they assumed that Cherry Pye had snuck out of the hotel and done something outrageous, the usual Saturday-night crack-up.
When they got to the room, the Larks saw Maury Lykes pacing in front of the big window that overlooked the Atlantic. "Let's have the bad news," Lila said.
Janet Bunterman took out her cell phone and showed them the pictures of Ann DeLusia handcuffed to the john. "The paparazzo e-mailed me these beauties," she said.
Lucy remarked that the hypodermic looked real. "That could be a problem."
"Ya think?" Maury Lykes said acidly. "The way he's got her posed, she's a goddamn scag-shooting clone of Cherry. Especially with that god-awful tattoo."
Lila clicked her teeth. "The tatt's not a plus."
Maury Lykes said it would be disastrous for sales of the new CD if the photographs got posted on the Internet. The Larks concurred.
"The handcuffs we can deal with. The handcuffs sort of work," Lucy said. "But not the needle."
"And forget about the tour," said Maury Lykes. "Most of Cherry's fans buy their tickets with daddy and mommy's money, and I
'm guessing daddy and mommy won't want to piss away fifty-five bucks on a junkie pop tart. Any brilliant ideas?"
The Larks glanced at each other. This was a tough one.
"How much did you offer this character?" Lucy asked.
"Fifty," Janet Bunterman said.
"Only fifty? Are you shitting me?" Maury Lykes was stupefied.
"We were prepared to go to seventy-five."
"Wooo-hooo. Seventy-five grand!" The promoter threw up his hands. "Jesus Christ, this is your daughter's career we're talking about! The whole damn gravy train."
"I told you our funds are limited," Cherry's mother said tightly. "Considering your stake in all this, Maury, you could have kicked in a couple hundred to help us out."
He folded his arms. "Really. So it's not enough that I pay for the album production, the concert tours, the lawyers, the rehabs. Just out of curiosity, all those millions that Cherry made, thanks to moi--where did it go?"
Janet Bunterman reddened. "How much we offered the man didn't matter, Maury. He doesn't want money. You know what he wants."
"Which brings us to the point of this cozy gathering." The promoter motioned for the Larks to sit down. He said, "Janet and Ned are proposing that we actually give this loser a private photo shoot with Cherry."
"But why?" Lucy's distress was sufficient to corrugate her Botoxed brow.
"So he'll destroy the fake photos, that's number one," Cherry's mother said. "Reason number two is Annie--we need to get her away from him, for obvious reasons."
Maury Lykes asked how long until the henna ink faded away. Nobody seemed to know. He said, "I don't want to see any more shots like these. The next bunch could be worse."
"He promises to free Annie the minute Cherry shows up," Janet Bunterman said.
Lila shook her head. "Too risky. The guy's a nut job."
"The situation would be totally controlled. No surprises," Cherry's mother said.
"What kind of pictures does he want--straight porn?" Lucy asked.
"Hard or soft?" Lila followed up. "And who would decide how the shots were used? It would have to be us, Maury. That's a deal breaker."
Maury Lykes said the terms would be rigorously negotiated. "Nobody's looking forward to dealing with this hairball, but there's another reason to keep the idea in play. Janet and Ned believe you wizards can somehow spin this monumental goatfuck into a 'lightning bolt' of positive publicity, and by 'positive' we're talking concert sellouts and the Billboard Top Ten."
A tremor passed simultaneously through the twins.
"This is not a game," one of them said.
The promoter chuckled. "Well, it sure as shit ain't the real world."
He fixed himself a vodka tonic and sat down near the window and said, "Janet, you take it from here."
By the time Cherry Pye's mother finished laying out the plan, the Larks were on the edge of the sofa. They were thinking the same thing: It just might work.
"I'll text him now," Janet Bunterman said.
Chemo wore a weed trimmer as a prosthesis because a large barracuda had mistaken his shiny Swiss wristwatch for a pinfish and chomped off his left hand. This had occurred many years earlier, on a day when Chemo had plunged from a stilt house in Biscayne Bay to avoid being shot by a man whom he'd been recruited to kill. It was the intended victim's obnoxious ex-wife whom Chemo had drowned with an anchor on the same ill-fated assignment. The numbnuts who'd hired Chemo to murder the guy in the stilt house was a scurrilous plastic surgeon who himself had ended up messily deceased, and shortly thereafter Chemo was shipped off to prison.
The whole experience had soured him on contract killings. Working with celebrities, it turned out, wasn't much better. Presley Aaron, the country singer, was only slightly more tolerable as a TV preacher than he'd been as a gabbling meth freak. And spoiled, spacey Cherry Pye was practically unbearable. Chemo couldn't wait for the economic recovery to reach Florida, so he could go back to piping mortgage applications.
"A barracuda!" Cherry said. "That's epic."
"What?"
"Did it hurt, like, more than a shark?"
"Jesus H. Christ." Chemo decided to start keeping count of how often she used the word like. It was driving him crazy. He was thinking of imposing a punishment.
She said, "I'm super hungry, dude."
"It's two in the morning. Go to sleep."
"Nuh-uh." Sprawled on the floor, Cherry was watching a DVD of a professional choreographer performing the stage numbers from the upcoming Skantily Klad tour. Maury Lykes had sent the disc up to the suite so that Cherry would work on her moves. She couldn't sing a lick, but on a good night she could dance.
"Let's go somewhere and eat," she said to Chemo.
He advised her to call room service.
"Why are you such a dick?" she whined.
"Careful," he said. "Glug-glug-glug."
A few minutes later, Tanner Dane Keefe appeared. Chemo put him up against the wall and, over Cherry's indignant protests, frisked him thoroughly. The kid had brought Vicodins, weed, X and some lumpy white powder. Chemo flushed everything down the john as Cherry dragged the forlorn actor into her room and slammed the door.
The bodyguard turned his attention to the paparazzo's tangerine BlackBerry, which had been thrumming all night.
"This is Fremont Spores," announced a scratchy voice on the other end.
"Yo," Chemo said.
"They just nailed Larissa for a DUI on the Tuttle."
"Who?"
"Larissa, man."
"Oh. Right." Chemo didn't know who the fuck he was talking about.
"Just came over the scanner," said the man named Fremont. "The Highway Patrol stopped her on the causeway and she blew point-one-nine on the Breathalyzer. They're takin' her out to county lockup right now."
"Thanks," Chemo said.
"This time it's two hundred even. Because she's an Idol and all."
"That'll work," said the bodyguard. It wasn't his money.
"You sound different, Claudius. You sick or what?"
"Pig flu," Chemo said, and ended the call.
He dialed the photographer's new cell and asked if he was ready to accept the offer of fifty grand in exchange for the safe return of the actress. Bang Abbott let out an odd laugh.
"Then ask for seventy-five. They'll go for it," Chemo said.
"Where have you been, bro? The deal's done."
"For how much?" Chemo wondered how he'd lost his role as the middleman. He had counted on raking a juicy commission from the ransom payoff.
Bang Abbott said, "It's not a cash transaction."
"Get outta here."
"I'm serious. Straight trade--the look-alike in exchange for Cherry Pye."
"And you get to keep her?"
"For one day," the photographer said, "which is all I need."
His smug tone set poorly with Chemo.
"You want your phone back? Now it's gonna cost two grand."
"Keep it," said Bang Abbott.
"You lost me."
"I don't need the damn thing anymore. With Cherry I'm golden."
The bodyguard didn't like being cut out of the deal. He viewed it as an unforgivable shafting.
"You know some chick named Larissa?" he asked Bang Abbott.
"The Larissa? From Idol?"
"Whatever."
"You watch the show, right? She's the one wears those super-tight jeans that ride up her snatch."
"If you say so," said Chemo. "Some guy called your phone and said she got popped for a DUI."
The paparazzo gave another strange cackle. "Ha! Was it Fremont you talked to?"
"Am I your goddamn secretary?"
"Guess what--I don't care about Larissa anymore. I don't care about any of 'em."
"Too bad," Chemo said. "The guy who called, you owe him two hundred for the tip."
"You promised that rodent two hundred bucks?"
"But, hey, before you take care of Freeman--"
"It's Fremont," Bang Abbot
t said irritably.
"Yeah, before you take care of him, you better take care of me."
This time the photographer wasn't laughing. "I don't get it. Take care of you because ...?"
"Because now you're golden," Chemo said. "Remember?"
When Bang Abbott got off the phone, Ann DeLusia saw he was bothered.
"Is Larissa the one we were stalking at Ortho?" she asked.
He nodded. "She just got busted for drunk driving."
"Bummer. She must've slipped out the back door."
"No big deal."
"Then why the gloomy face?" Ann asked.
"Cherry's new bodyguard wants a payoff."
"What for?"
Bang Abbott shook his head. "Unbelievable. I might have to shoot the fucker."
"That's a fine idea, Claude. Play to your strong suit."
They'd just left a joint called Cheeseburger Baby, where the paparazzo had gorged himself in a premature celebration of the Cherry Pye coup. His fleshy cheeks glistened with french fry grease, and poppy seeds speckled his stained teeth.
Ann said, "On a happier note, when will I be a free woman?"
"Not sure. Probably Monday or Tuesday."
"Then I'll need fresh clothes."
"Here we go," Bang Abbott grumbled.
Returning to the Marriott, they saw three Miami Beach police cars parked by the entrance. Bang Abbott drove to the other side of the building and hurriedly took Ann up a stairwell to their room. After handcuffing her to the bathroom plumbing, he stuffed his Colt pistol under one of the mattresses and went downstairs to investigate.
The lobby was in disarray. Clothing and toiletry items were strewn about, and a rectangular scorch mark was visible on the pale marble floor. The photographer positioned himself behind a cluster of other curious guests; some wore hotel bathrobes and were bleary-eyed, as if roused from sleep. From their conversations Bang Abbott learned that a man had walked out of the elevator and gone off on a woman who was checking into the hotel. He set fire to her suitcase, snatched a Maltese from her arms and then dashed out the front door. Nobody seemed to know what triggered the bizarre confrontation, or whether the man and woman knew each other. The missing dog's name was either Bubba or Barbara.
Bang Abbott edged closer to eavesdrop on one of the cops, who was interviewing a lanky desk clerk with a peculiar accent. Evidently the assailant wasn't staying at the hotel, because the clerk said nobody on the night shift remembered seeing him before. The cop wanted to know if the intruder appeared drunk or drugged-out, and the desk clerk said no, not really. It was his opinion that the woman must have done something to light the guy's fuse.