Ann picked listlessly at a plate of scrambled eggs. "So, overall, you'd say it was a smooth career move--getting kidnapped and chained to a commode and all."
"What I'm sayin' is, you're a smart girl. Use your imagination."
There was a knock on the door and Ann thought: Here we go.
But it was a maid, not the homeless guy with the shotgun-shell braids. Ann wondered where he was, and how he would make himself known. Having seen him in action against the busload of real-estate guys, she anticipated another memorable entrance.
After Bang Abbott sent the maid away, Ann lifted a handcuffed wrist and said, "Claude, here's a thought. Why don't you let me go now?"
"No can do."
"How come? The deal's a lock, right? They don't care about me--all they want is those stupid pictures."
He said, "They want you, too, missy. Most definitely."
"Did Janet actually say that?"
"More than once. She can't wait to see your smiling face."
"Then I'll grab a cab to the hotel."
Bang Abbott shook his head. "It's all set, so chill. One more day won't kill you."
"But I think I'm getting cramps."
"That's weak."
"Claude, please?"
He forked a rubbery strip of bacon into his mouth. "Eat your breakfast," he said.
Ann considered not warning him, just letting it play out. He was nothing but a low-rent parasite with a camera, and he probably deserved whatever fearsome shit was about to fly his way.
On the other hand, he hadn't tried to rape her, which was what she'd feared the most. And he had sort of apologized for drugging her and locking her in the cramped car trunk ("I should've rented a midsize" were his exact words). As charmless and revolting as Claude could be, Ann wasn't looking forward to watching him suffer, which was a likely scenario if he was ambushed by the man known as Skink.
"Here's a news flash," she said. "Somebody's looking for me."
"It's about time."
"I'm not bullshitting. This is nobody you want to meet."
Bang Abbott fluttered his hands theatrically. "Oooooh. Then maybe I'll just call the cops and give myself up." He reached under the mattress, took out the secondhand Colt and, in a lame Austin Powers accent, said, "Bring it on, baby."
Ann pushed away the cold eggs. "Fine. My conscience is clear."
"So who's your knight in shining armor?"
"Never mind."
"And how the hell would he know where to find you? I mean, really." Bang Abbott chuckled acidly. "Nice try, sugar pie."
His phone rang. It was Peter Cartwill from the Eye. He needed someone to go to an impound lot in Medley and take a photo of the Range Rover that Larissa, the drunken Idol, was driving when she got busted. Bang Abbott told Cartwill to find himself another errand boy.
"Those days are over for me," he said, and clicked off.
"What's the worst thing you've ever done to get a picture?" Ann asked him. "The lowest of your low moves."
The paparazzo thought about it for several moments. "I was on the Farrah death watch for a couple weeks. Sent her a humongous bunch of flowers and bribed the delivery guy to sneak some shots with his cell. She was asleep in the bed so you couldn't really see her face, but I still made eleven grand off the worldwide rights."
Ann said, "Okay, Claude, that's pretty fucking awful."
"She never knew it happened." He shrugged. "No harm, no foul."
"Wow."
"But here's the other side."
"Regale me," Ann said.
"One time I got a tip that Charlie Sheen was taking his kids to the doctor, okay--the twins? For their vaccines? So I get there early and pay one of these Brentwood moms two hundred bills to let me sit with her and her runny-nosed brat in the waiting room. She tells the nurse I'm an uncle or a godfather or some asinine thing." Bang Abbott smiled ruefully, remembering how it had ended.
"So Charlie and his wife roll in with the babies--he recognizes me, obviously--and he goes totally ballistic. Drags me out the door, decks me with a sucker punch, steps on my head and then proceeds to open his fly and piss in my ear! You believe that?"
Ann thought it was marvelous. "Right in your ear hole?"
"His aim was amazing," Bang Abbott said. "He must've chugged a gallon of coffee before he left the house--I had pee dripping down the side of my neck all day."
"Okay, that's gross."
"Worst part was, I never got a picture. Which means I never got paid."
"Poor Claude."
"I'm just sayin'. Every dime I make, I earn."
He believed it, too. Ann coolly reached over and lifted the pistol from his lap. She pointed the barrel at his shiny forehead and said, "Give me the key to the handcuffs."
Bang Abbott was surprised by her boldness, but he wasn't scared. He was thinking what a smokin' photograph it would make--a hot babe with one hand chained to a bed, the other hand aiming a gun at the camera.
"Like you're really gonna shoot me," he said.
"Oh, I totally will," Ann asserted, though she didn't believe it, either. If the guy was beating her up or trying to rip off her clothes, that would be different; she wouldn't hesitate to drill him between the eyes.
But not when he was just sitting there, being his usual sweaty lump. No way.
She said, "I'm dead serious."
"Ann, give me the damn gun."
"Take off the handcuffs, or I swear to God ... "
It was humiliating that Claude displayed no fear, not even a twitch. Some actress I am, Ann thought.
"I'm counting to five," she announced.
"Make it a thousand."
The Colt was heavy and Ann's hand was starting to quiver. Bang Abbott noticed right away.
"Look at you," he said with a smirk.
With her thumb she retracted the hammer, just like they did in the Westerns. She pictured herself as Christian Bale's character in 3:10 to Yuma.
"Claude, it's time."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," he said.
Bang Abbott's experience handling cocked firearms was comparable to that of his hostage, who had none whatsoever. He grabbed the barrel and yanked, with unsatisfactory results. The paparazzo's hand was so slick with perspiration that his grip slipped, which produced through simple physics a jarring effect upon the weapon and Ann DeLusia's grasp thereof.
Bang Abbott was jarred by the loudness of the shot, and the fact that the crazy girl had actually pulled the trigger. For a moment he didn't know he'd been hit.
His first clue was the bloody thing stuck to the ceiling of the hotel room. He peered up at it with a grim curiosity, the force of the pistol blast having flattened him to a supine position. Soon the object on the ceiling came into focus, and Bang Abbott realized he was gazing at a small gooey piece of his physical self.
An important piece, it turned out.
19
Ned Bunterman wasn't one of those domineering stage fathers. It was his wife who had guided Cheryl from talent-show cutie to pop megastar, Ned Bunterman watching from the wings with a sense of marvel. To say his daughter was tonally challenged was being kind; she couldn't yodel her way out of a broom closet.
Yet it hadn't mattered, her flat and anemic cheeping, because Janet Bunterman and Maury Lykes had done a clever job of marketing a look and pose that required no special vocal skills. "The BLS brand," Maury called it--barely legal slut, the essential ingredient being an aura of insouciant fuckability. Such a sell job was made easier by the advanced technology of modern music making; on her recordings, the former Cheryl Bunterman possessed perfect pitch, and pipes worthy of a Baptist choir girl. The voice, angelically enhanced by computer programs and backup singers, was utterly unrecognizable to her father, who was content to stay behind the scenes, stacking the money.
Before Cheryl became Cherry Pye, Ned Bunterman managed the books for a Cadillac/Saturn/Hummer dealership outside of Houston. He was not a Texan by birth but had moved there from Shreveport in his early twenti
es, fleeing a pregnant girlfriend whose father owned the largest collection of Kalashnikov assault rifles in Caddo Parish. He met Janet Wingo in a faux cowboy bar, where she worked the pool room serving drinks and selling knockoff Cuban cigars. They dated for a few months, got married and in six years produced three dull sons. Cheryl was an accident, Ned and Janet having mostly lost interest in each other by then.
Their listless marriage was sustained by bipartisan philandering until Cheryl's first talent contest at age four, when she delivered a plangent but perky rendition of "You Are My Sunshine," in memory of JonBenet Ramsey. The ghastly tastelessness of the tribute had worried Ned Bunterman, who'd made his doubts known at rehearsal. Janet overruled him, and by the end of the song the judges were sniffling and Cheryl had the second-place trophy, along with a one-year modeling contract. It would be the last time Ned Bunterman questioned his wife's judgment.
Cheryl's ascendant career became the glue of Ned and Janet Bunterman's relationship, each of them being patient and single-minded when it came to their daughter's prospects. On the day she was offered her first recording contract, he quit the car dealership and began devoting all his energy to the business of star making. He had preferred the more suggestive "Cherry Pop" over "Cherry Pye," but he deferred to Maury Lykes, who was experienced at manufacturing show-business personas.
It paid off. Before long, the former Cheryl Gail Bunterman was a bona fide celebrity making millions of dollars. Unfortunately, she was also flying off the rails on a nightly basis. Like his wife, Ned Bunterman initially chose to believe that Cherry's spinout was just a phase, a young person's natural reaction to sudden fame and wealth. Yet it soon became clear that she had a genuine and indiscriminate taste for drugs and alcohol, and no common sense. While Ned Bunterman was fond of his daughter, he didn't cling to any parental illusions; she was a simpleton, shallow as a thimble. Having worked in a Hummer showroom, he considered himself an authority on the species.
Janet Bunterman maintained a protective stance of denial, but in private she shared her husband's concern for Cherry's well-being and also that of the family's cash flow. The impact of the Boston fiasco had been instant and precipitous, income-wise. "Look what happened to Amy Winehouse," Ned Bunterman had warned Janet, "and that girl can actually carry a tune."
It was imperative that Skantily Klad be a smash hit, and for that to happen the tour had to do huge business. Cherry needed to generate some buzz, but not in the usual tawdry way. She had to get the fans back on her side; be a victim, for a change, not a fuckup.
So Ned Bunterman was pleased when Janet, Maury and even the chilly Lark twins endorsed his audacious suggestion to let Cherry do the shoot with the demented paparazzo. Later, after paying Ann DeLusia to go away, they would roll out a story saying it was Cherry herself who'd been kidnapped, abused and made to pose for degrading pictures (the cream of which would be leaked to the tabs).
According to Ned Bunterman's plan, the photographer would be given a choice: He could go along with the family's ruse or face criminal prosecution, followed by a civil lawsuit that would leave him pauperized for life. The man who would present these harsh terms was now seated in Cherry's suite at the Stefano, spritzing WD-40 on the rotor stem of a mechanical weed-trimming device that was rigged to the nub of one arm.
"Ned, this is Mr. Chemo," said Janet Bunterman.
Her husband stepped forward and offered a locker-room smile. "Nice to meet you, sir." When he held out his hand, it was twitchy. He'd never laid eyes on anyone like this bodyguard, and he had no desire to hear the full story.
"Hello," said Chemo, without looking up.
Ned Bunterman aborted the handshake. "I'm Cherry's dad."
"Swell. Pay the brother."
"What?"
Chemo jerked his only thumb toward a bellman waiting at the doorway with Ned Bunterman's suitcase and a room key card.
"Right," Ned Bunterman said, and gave the guy a ten.
Maury Lykes and the Larks were already there, talking in low voices on cell phones. After finishing their conversations they all sat down to review what Cherry Pye would be told about the photo session. One of the Lark sisters wondered if the paparazzo should pretend to be from Maxim instead of Vanity Fair. The other Lark said it wouldn't matter.
"She's really not into magazines," Janet Bunterman agreed.
"Or periodicals in general," Cherry's father added. "Kids her age don't read much."
Chemo peeked over his Sarah Palins. "She can damn sure read a pill bottle."
"There's no need to be mean," Ned Bunterman said, though no one backed him up.
Maury Lykes said it would be nice to pick a publication that Cherry had actually heard of.
"Oh, she's heard of Vanity Fair," her mother asserted. "The Lindsay Lohan spread? Oh my God."
The Larks nodded. "Cherry went postal," one of them said. "She bit herself on the foot and wouldn't let go."
"Six stitches," recalled Janet Bunterman.
Maury Lykes smiled. "Perfect. Tell her she's getting the cover, same as Lindsay."
"She can chew on her own feet?" Chemo asked.
One part of the scheme was troubling Ned Bunterman. He said, "At some point, she'll figure out this whole thing wasn't what she was led to believe."
"You mean like when she turns on the tube and there's Billy Bush talkin' about how she was snatched at gunpoint and held hostage?" Maury Lykes sniffed. "Yeah, she might put two and two together. But you and the missus are gonna have a chat with her before we float the story, okay? Tell her everything's cool. Make sure she plays along."
Ned Bunterman said, "Of course. But sometimes she--"
"Goes off-message? Yes, we know," one of the Larks said. "That's why she's only doing one media sit-down before the tour. We're thinking Larry King."
"Or possibly Mario Lopez," the other twin interjected.
Ned Bunterman said it sounded like a plan. He and Janet would leave the coaching of their daughter to the Larks, who specialized in loose cannons. "Where is she?" he asked.
"I'll fetch her," said Chemo, and stood up.
Ned Bunterman stifled a gasp; the man was a giraffe.
"The fuck are you lookin' at?" the bodyguard snapped, and stalked toward the bedroom.
Moments later he emerged, Cherry Pye lagging behind. She wore an inside-out tube top, plaid pajama bottoms and black shearling Uggs that were freckled with rug lint. Her hair was tied in a lank ponytail, exposing the misbegotten tattoo on her neck. Her father struggled to mask his dismay; the ink work looked much worse in person than on the Internet.
"Punkin, you are a vision," he crooned.
"Hi, Daddy." She let him peck her on the cheek before slumping on the couch.
Maury Lykes turned to Janet Bunterman and said, "You do the honors."
Cherry scowled. "What now? Am I, like, in trouble again?"
"Not at all," said her mother. "We've got something major planned for tomorrow."
"But Tanny and I are doing the Seaquarium."
Ned Bunterman asked, "Who's Tanny?"
"The actor she's balling," explained Maury Lykes. "He's in the new Tarantino. Plays the necro surfer."
"I'm gonna swim with the killer whales," Cherry went on. "Tanny's gonna make a video and post it on YouTube."
Cherry's mother clucked. "Not tomorrow, sweetie. You've got a photo shoot with Vanity Fair."
"But it's a protest video," said Cherry, "to call out the Japanese."
One of the Larks twirled an unlit cigarette, while Maury Lykes planted the heels of his crocodile boots on the teak coffee table.
"'Cause they're, like, wipin' out all the whales," Cherry continued. "Tanny and I saw it on Animal Planet. With rocket-powered harpoons!"
Chemo said, "Jesus H. Christ."
"What's your problem?"
"It's not the killer whales the Japs are after. It's the humpbacks," he said. The Animal Planet station was quite popular in the Florida penal system. "The killer whale, it's not even a goddamn wh
ale. They're in the dolphin family, for fuck's sake."
Cherry looked perplexed.
Janet Bunterman pressed forward. "You'll be doing the shoot at Tanner's house."
"On Star Island? Awesome."
"They promised us the cover, just like Lindsay."
"She is so gross. God!"
"Only your name will be in bigger letters," Cherry's mother added brightly.
"So who's the photographer?"
"Well, that's the thing."
Cherry jackknifed out of her slouch. "Not the same guy who did Lindsay! Forget it, Mom, there's no freaking way."
"Not him, baby. Remember the fellow who gave you the ride at Rainbow Bend--the one who flew with you to Miami?"
Maury Lykes leaned close to Ned Bunterman and whispered, "She humped him on the G5."
Cherry's father nodded somberly. He wished he'd been shocked to hear it.
"That gnarly load?" Cherry exclaimed. "He cannot be workin' for Vanity Fair!"
One of the Larks--Ned Bunterman guessed it was Lucy--said, "His name is Claude Abbott and, FYI, he's got a Pulitzer Prize."
"No way!"
"Way," said the other Lark.
Cherry grew thoughtful. "So that's how come he could afford the Mercedes."
"There you go," said her mother.
Maury Lykes snuck a glance at Chemo, who wore an expression of weary disgust.
"The Pulitzer thingie," Cherry said, "is that like a People's Choice?"
Ned Bunterman scouted the room for a minibar. He wondered if it was possible that Cherry had tumbled from her crib as an infant and dented her frontal lobe. There'd been several unreliable-looking baby-sitters that he recalled.
"The shoot starts at ten," Janet Bunterman said.
"Ten in the morning? Yuk."
"Mr. Chemo will stay with you the whole day."
Cherry said, "On the set? I don't think so," and poked out her tongue at the bodyguard.
"It's non-negotiable," said Maury Lykes.
Turning to her father, Cherry said, "Da-ad! You really want me to get all, like, naked in front of that superfr--" She caught herself just in time, recalling the bodyguard's story about drowning the woman with a boat anchor, some woman who'd called him a rude name. He was probably bullshitting, but what if he wasn't?