Two weeks later she met Neil Gray at a party. He was with his wife, but a little obstacle like a wife had never bothered Gina. What she wanted, she got. One of the advantages of being a film star.
Neil Gray was serious with a capital S. He made important movies, meaningful movies. The kind of movies Gina knew she should be doing.
She moved in quietly. Flattered him, hung on his every word, made sure he got a good view of the amazing boobs when she leaned across him to reach for a cigarette, a drink, a scoop of dip. Three days later she called. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said in a throaty voice, knowing full well that if she was having her usual effect she was disturbing him a great deal. “But I really do need some good advice, and you seem like just the person to help me.”
He was amused, intrigued. He knew “some good advice” meant “a good fuck.” They were both conversant with the language of Hollywood.
Lunch. Her house. A walled estate on San Ysidro Drive.
Salade Niçoise followed by solid fucking. Neither of them had the patience or the inclination to waste time.
A second rendezvous two weeks later. Same scenario.
They did not talk much, but Gina didn’t mind. Once a man got lost in her beautiful boobs he always came back for more. There would be plenty of time for talking.
She studied Montana at the dinner the Grays threw at the Bistro to announce their film. She was there with Chet Barnes. It sure startled the pants off Neil. But he needn’t have worried—she was cool. She even chatted politely to Montana, told her about her own screenplay. Not that she had written it yet, but she was going to.
So, Street People was to be Neil’s new film. The next day she called her agent, Sadie La Salle, and demanded a copy of the script.
“Nobody has seen it yet,” Sadie said briskly. “Besides, I don’t think it’s your type of thing. From what I understand it’s about two cops, an old one and a young one.”
“There must be women in it,” Gina interrupted tartly.
“Well, I expect so. But no star roles. I’m sure it’s not a Gina Germaine vehicle.” She paused. “Now tell me, dear, did you read And Baby Makes . . . ?”
“No,” Gina snapped. “Get me a copy of Neil’s film, Sadie. Let me decide if it’s a Gina Germaine vehicle or not.”
• • •
When Neil Gray phoned and suggested a weekend in Palm Beach, Gina said yes without a moment’s hesitation.
“It’ll be separate everything,” he warned. “Rooms, travel, everything.”
“Sure,” she agreed.
“You might get bored. I’ll have to spend time with Pamela and George.”
“I’ll bring a book.”
She brought a book, but she never got to read it. She filched a copy of Street People from Neil’s suitcase the second he left their adjoining suites, and read it in fifty-five minutes flat. Then she read it through again, concentrating on the part of Nikki. A buzz of excitement, a jolt of adrenaline.
NIKKI—EARLY TWENTIES—UNSPOILED BEAUTY—FANTASTIC BODY ALTHOUGH NOT OVERSTATED—NATURAL BLONDE—CERTAIN INNOCENT QUALITY.
I could play Nikki. I could. I could.
And it was a marvelous role. A catalyst between the two male parts. Daughter of one. Lover of the other.
I could play the hell out of a character like Nikki.
She was too old.
I’ve always looked younger than my age.
She was hardly unspoiled.
Good acting would take care of that.
Her fantastic body was more than a little overstated.
No shit? I’ll diet. I’ll bind the old boobies down. I’ll fucking starve if necessary.
Innocent?
I can fake it.
She could hardly wait for Neil to get back. He looked tired and perplexed. She slid her arms around him and led him to bed.
“Pamela’s a devious old bird,” he managed, as she started to unzip his pants.
“Really?” she questioned. “Why?”
“Because . . .” he began, then groaned. She had him in her mouth and she was blowing him as if her life depended on it, but then, in a way, it did.
Arriving back in Los Angeles, Neil issued orders as they were leaving the plane. “You’d better wait five minutes. I’ll go ahead.”
Gina pouted. “Ashamed of being seen with me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We agreed to be discreet.”
She sighed. “Okay. But I will see you soon, won’t I?”
“Sooner than you think.” He pecked her on the cheek and hurried on his way.
Most men were such bastards. But what did she care? She used them. No way did they use her. Her life was full of what she termed “business fucks,” men who could further her career, help her with her portfolio of shares (an impressive collection), assist her with real estate (three houses in Beverly Hills and an office block), and generally advise her on every matter from tax to abortion.
Gina always went to the best and never paid. Her current lovers included a Spanish real estate mogul, a Brazilian business whiz, a very rich Arab (he took care of her jewelry—that is, he shopped Fred and Tiffany’s every time he was in town), and the best lawyer, accountant, and gynecologist in Beverly Hills.
What she really wanted was a senator in her life, but she had yet to meet Teddy Kennedy, whose fame attracted her the way plump skin attracts a hungry mosquito.
She looked upon Neil Gray as the next step in her career. He could treat her as badly as he wanted. For he would pay. One way or another. She would make sure of that.
• • •
Neil looked tired. Montana kissed him on both cheeks and said, “Surprise! I thought we could talk on the way home.”
He glanced behind him. Thank God he had insisted on walking ahead of Gina. Quickly he grabbed her arm and said, “Wonderful, darling. You’re just what I need after a weekend of Pamela and George.” Briskly he hurried her from the terminal.
“Well?” she questioned. “I can’t wait. Do we or do we not have the great George Lancaster?”
“You’ll never believe this,” he said, hurriedly walking toward the open-doored limo where a chauffeur stood in uniformed attendance. “But I still don’t know.”
• • •
“Hey?” Buddy questioned. “You really get off on that stuff?”
Shelly snorted a thin line of white powder from a mirrored tabletop through a folded banknote. “Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”
“Yeah. In Hollywood, I guess.” He prowled uneasily around her messy apartment. “I used to be into it myself, but it got to be a drag.”
“A drag,” she repeated and grinned. “You got broke and couldn’t afford the habit. Right?”
“You know something?” He picked up a folder of photographs and flicked idly through them. “You have one smart mouth.”
She greedily snorted a touch more coke. “So I’ve been told—Mister Married.”
“Did your memory get jogged yet?” he asked.
She stretched lazily. “In a hurry?”
Yeah. He was in a hurry. He wanted to get back to Angel. “No hurry.”
“Then relax. Take off your pants.” She yawned. “If you like I’ll give you a blow job that’ll blow your mind.” She laughed. “Get it?”
He sighed. “Shelly, Shelly, who are you try in’ to turn on? There’s only you an’ me here, an’ I think we got each other tagged.”
“You’re right. But if ever you’re in need. Like I give the best head in town. A hundred guys have told me. And you know what, pal. I’m good because I enjoy it—love it.” She laughed again. “Sure you don’t want to give me a fast audition?”
“Quite sure, thank you.” There was something about her that reminded him of himself before he met Angel. A real smart-ass. Master of the fast line and the quick come-on.
“Well . . .” She rose and pulled at the tie on her wrapover skirt. “I guess if you’re sure.” The skirt fell to the floor, and very slowly she hooked her
fingers into the top of her leotard and peeled it down.
“Hey,” he said quickly. “Enough. You sound like a hooker.”
“Takes one to know one,” she taunted, stepping out of her leotard altogether.
He frowned. “Have we met before?”
“Ah ha! You remembered.” She walked toward him, all stiletto heels and tanned nakedness.
He backed away. “I’m going home.”
“Don’t you want to know where we met?”
“I’m not losin’ sleep over it.”
“Ah, Buddy. Let me give you head. C’mon, huh? I’m askin’ nicely.”
He had backed himself all the way to the door. Slipping the latch, he let himself out. “See you by the pool, kid. Don’t catch cold.”
She waved her tongue at him obscenely. “Street People is the name of the movie Jer is up for. Oliver Easterne’s the producer. Give it a shot.”
“Hey—all right. I will.” He took the stairs two at a time. Thirty seconds later he was fitting his key into the front door and calling out, “Angel, babe. I’m home.”
• • •
“I just don’t believe the bastard wouldn’t give you a yes or a no. The whole object of your trip was to get an answer.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Neil replied caustically.
He and Montana lounged on top of their king-size bed. She wore huge reading glasses and a man’s shirt, her long legs stretched out before her, while her heavy black hair hung in a straight curtain to her waist.
Neil, in his pajamas, looked tired and haggard. Two solid days of Gina Germaine would make anyone exhausted. Even a Warren Beatty or a Ryan O’Neal might feel the pace. Gina liked to fuck. Correction. Neil couldn’t make up his mind whether she liked to fuck or fucked to be liked. Interesting problem. Not his. He wanted her for one thing and one thing only.
“Stars!” Montana exclaimed scornfully. “They’re all a giant pain.” She reached for a Salem and lit up. “The real reason George Lancaster won’t commit is because he thinks if he says no you’ll offer the part to someone else and his ego wouldn’t like that.”
Neil scratched his chin. “The problem is Pamela. She holds the balls in that household.”
“And is she squeezing them to say yes or no?”
“I don’t think she’s quite decided. She likes the idea of George doing a movie, but she doesn’t like the idea of him running around Hollywood without her.”
“Ah.” Montana nodded knowingly. “The lady is frightened of ambitious sixteen-year-old nymphets climbing on her old man’s bones.”
He looked amused. “You’ve never met Pamela, have you? The only thing that would frighten her is if the government threatened to take away her money.”
“Can’t wait to meet her.”
“You’ll like her.”
“Wanna bet?”
“I never risk my money with one of life’s winners.”
A smile flickered across her face, and she pushed her reading glasses up into her hair. “Such a charmer!”
“Of course.”
She reached out her arms. “Come here, charmer.”
“I’ve got a headache.”
“Neil! That’s supposed to be my excuse.”
“I really do,” he assured her.
She rose from the bed and padded toward the bathroom. “I’ll get you a painkiller,” she said sympathetically. A weekend in Palm Beach with George Lancaster and Pamela London couldn’t have been all laughs. Neil looked worn out. She hadn’t really felt much like sex anyway—even though it had been a couple of weeks. Of course, sex with Neil was still great, but they had been together long enough not to feel the need to do it every night, and right now work was the raging passion. Besides, getting a movie off the ground was never easy, and she sensed that he was more worried than he seemed.
She took two aspirin from a bottle, filled a glass with water, and walked back into the bedroom. “So,” she said, handing him the pills, “we have to wait on his decision—is that it?” He gulped the pills down quickly, not looking at her. There was no headache, but any more physical exertion after what he had been through with Gina was quite out of the question. “George and Pamela will be here in two weeks’ time. We’ll get our answer then,” he said. Christ! He felt so guilty. He didn’t need her sympathy to make him feel worse.
“Visiting royalty. What fun!” she said lightly.
“I promise, you’ll like them both.”
She raised a cynical eyebrow.
• • •
Angel was well aware of Buddy entering their apartment. Although it was almost three in the morning he made no effort to be quiet. He slammed the door, called out her name, and switched on all the lights.
She lay on her stomach in bed, silent and still. At first, when he had walked out on her, she had been anxious for him to return. But as the hours passed and he didn’t even bother to call she had become hurt, then angry. What was it about her that invited such behavior? Why did she always end up being treated badly? She had spent her life apologizing for just being around. With Buddy all that was supposed to change. He was her new beginning, the start of her own family.
Men: Hadn’t her foster mother always warned her?
“Angel?” he whispered softly.
Men: Never trust them.
“Are you awake, sweet stuff?” he asked more loudly.
Men: They have dirty habits and dirty minds.
He rubbed her back. “Angel, babe?”
Men: They only want One Thing.
Slowly he slid his hands under the covers.
Men: If you give it to them they never respect you.
He pulled the covers off her immobile body. She was wearing her short blue nightie with matching panties.
“You awake?”
She remained silently on her stomach, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Buddy was undeterred. He hooked his fingers into the elastic of her panties and pulled them off.
She said nothing. Why should she? She was mad at him, wasn’t she?
He parted her legs and bent his head, his tongue darting into her warm wetness like a lethal cold snake.
Why was his tongue so cold? Why was she suddenly shaking with ecstasy? Why couldn’t she stay mad at him?
“Ohhh . . . Buddy . . .” The words fluttered from her mouth like summer blossoms falling from a tree.
He raised his head long enough to say, “You’re not mad at me, babe, are you?”
She sighed very very softly and murmured, “Turn the light out, Buddy. Please . . .”
He ripped off his pants. “Why? You got somethin’ to hide?” God but she made him horny! He spread her legs wider and replaced his eager tongue with something he had been saving for her all night long.
12
Deke Andrews rode the subway out to Queens and spent the morning checking out the used-car lots along Queens Boulevard.
He finally found what he was looking for, a small brown van with tattered curtains on the back windows. It was five years old, with plenty of mileage on the clock.
“How much?” he asked the shirt-sleeved dealer.
The dealer summed up his potential customer. “Price is on it,” he said finally.
“I know,” Deke replied, “but you’ll never get it.”
“Says who?”
“It’s not worth it. Needs work.”
“How d’you know?”
“I can tell.”
“You ain’t even driven it.”
“I can tell.”
The dealer spat a wad of chewing gum onto the ground. “I can drop a hundred.”
“Three hundred.”
“That’s my profit.”
“Cash.”
Curiosity got the better of the salesman. “Don’t you want to drive it?”
“I want to drive it out of here. Do we have a deal?”
The salesman nodded. He would have taken four hundred off, if pushed. The engine was pure garbage.
&nb
sp; Together they went into his office and did business.
Fifteen minutes later Deke drove away from the lot in the van.
He knew it was an inferior piece of machinery, but he also knew that by the time he was finished with it the engine would sing. Deke had a way with cars.
Joey said, “Do you have a car?”
Deke replied, “No. I did have. I had a Mustang. It was—”
“Shee . . . it!”
“What?”
“I wanted to take a ride. Atlantic City, maybe. Fun, huh? We could make out on the beach.”
“Make what?”
“Je . . . sus! Sometimes I don’t believe you. We’ve been seein’ each other three weeks. Waddya think we’re gonna make? Sand castles?”
“Sorry. I—”
“Don’t say sorry. I hate it when you do that.”
“I could get a car.”
“How?”
“From the garage where I work.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to wait until one came in for repairs and was left overnight.”
“Shee . . . it!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I wanna go for a drive tonight.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Then I think I’ll work. You’d better go home.”
“No! I’ll get us a car.”
“Yeah? You sure, cowboy?”
“I’m sure.”
• • •
He drove the van slowly and carefully. Wouldn’t do to get stopped. He drove out past Kennedy airport, turned off the main highway, and searched for a quiet side road. There he parked and opened up the hood. The engine was no better and no worse than he had thought. A few days of hard work should do it.
Satisfied, he headed back for Queens, where he parked the van near the station and took the subway back to New York.
His room waited. A few impersonal square feet. A bed, a dresser, his scant possessions.
It took him only minutes to pack. And then, once more, he was on his way.
13
Lunch: The Bistro Gardens.