Knock him down, build him up. Which was he to believe?
Confusion and guilt were the two emotions he grew up with. Along with a dark lingering fear which woke him most nights, and sometimes sent him out on the street to do things—things he was supposed to do.
He raped women. They were the enemy, and deserved to be punished just as he deserved to be punished.
He was always careful, picking elderly victims who were too frightened to fight back.
When he met Joey things changed. If his parents would only accept her, everything would be all right.
It was nearing dusk just outside of Amarillo, Texas, and Deke had stopped to fill up with gas. As he rejoined the freeway he noticed a girl hitching a ride. She was tanned, and carried a backpack. Her outfit consisted of brief khaki shorts and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words JOGGERS DO IT IN THEIR SHOES.
He stopped. Didn’t know why. Realized as soon as she was sitting next to him that he had made a mistake.
She wanted to talk. “What’s your name, hon?” “Where are you heading?” “What do you do?” “How long you been on the road?”
His surly grunts did not silence her. Ignoring the fact that he did not answer, she chatted on about herself. She was a Southern girl, she told him, married at sixteen, divorced at seventeen. A waitress for two years, until one day she just decided to hit the road and travel the country. “Ah’ve had a real good time evah since,” she confided. “No stinkin’ time clock to punch. Just free an’ out for fun.” She edged across the front seat. “For a ten-spot ah’ll give you real sweet relief. I’ll even share a joint with you. How’s that grab you?”
It didn’t grab him. It infuriated him. They were all whores.
She took his silence as acceptance and patted him lovingly on the knee. “For an extra ten I’ll relieve you with mah mouth, an’ for five more ah’ll swallow it all down just like a good lil’ old gal. Whaddya think of that?”
He thought he would kill her. It was so easy to dispose of the slime. Rid the world of bad people. Clear out all the whores and pimps and people who laughed at him.
But she hasn’t laughed at me.
She will.
“Pull over at the next rest stop,” she said matter-of-factly. “And hon, you sure as sugar gonna looove mah Southern comfort.” She laughed.
There, you see?
He was satisfied. It was a sign that he should do what he had to do. He would dispose of the whore. She had been sent to him for just such a reason.
More and more he was beginning to realize that things didn’t just happen, they were worked out ahead of time, and certain human beings were put on earth to keep order. He liked the phrase “to keep order.” The words were clean and precise.
“I am a Keeper Of The Order,” he said resonantly.
“Sorry?”
Mustn’t let her know. Must not warn her ahead of time.
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
“C’mon, hon, find us a spot an’ pull on ovah,” she said, wriggling close to him. “Ah’m a lil’ lady who enjoys her work. Hot damn! You an’ I are in for some wild time!”
Hot damnation.
Another sign.
He put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The sooner it was done, the sooner he could get on with his real mission. The Keeper Of The Order had work to do in California.
He was getting closer all the time.
25
For three weeks Elaine had been having an affair. Her first in two years. She had not meant to start anything as unsettling and time-consuming—especially with her party plans progressing so well, and a great deal of organizing still left to do.
The party meant so much to Ross and herself, she really should not have allowed anything to distract her. But the best affairs are never planned, they just slide into your life like potent after-dinner drinks, one leads to another, and before you know it you are deliciously tipsy.
Elaine’s had started exactly like that. A private massage with Ron Gordino. “Put on a towel,” he had drawled, “and settle yourself on the table.” Casually he indicated his private bathroom, and she had slipped out of her leotard and wrapped the pink towel he had so thoughtfully supplied tightly around herself.
An affair? The farthest thing from her mind as she lay face down on his massage table and gave herself up to his strong probing hands.
He used scented oils, just as he had promised, and he worked her shoulders, her back, the base of her spine, firmly and sensuously. And as he worked he moved the towel lower and lower, until quite naturally he had whisked it away, revealing the lace panties she had prudently kept on.
“Elaine,” he complained, “you’re not supposed to wear anything for this kind of massage. These oils get real messy, an’ I wouldn’t want to ruin your fifty-dollar panties.”
She was startled. How did he know they cost fifty dollars?
“That’s all right,” she said quickly.
“No it’s not, take ’em off. You’re not shy, are you?”
She hesitated for only a moment, and then decided she didn’t want to seem unsophisticated. Little Etta from the Bronx. “Certainly not.”
“So let’s go.”
She nearly objected, but it seemed so silly, because he was only going to see her ass, and she had a very nice one, even Ross had confirmed that fact. Gingerly she reached back and wriggled awkwardly out of the offending garment.
He helped her, pulling them off with an easy authority. “That’s better,” he said, squeezing oil from a plastic bottle onto her now bare bottom.
She squirmed slightly—wondered if this was the service he gave Bibi Sutton—then surrendered to the deep circular motion of his kneading fingers. What a sensation! Instant turn-on. Especially as the oil began to dribble down the division and Ron Gordino’s fingers found a spot at the base of her spine that made her let forth an involuntary gasp of pleasure.
“Good, huh?” he drawled confidently.
“Very,” she replied, hardly daring to trust her voice.
“Turn over.”
Turn over? She was naked, vulnerable, tuned to a high sexual pitch. Turn over, and what then? Sex? With an exercise instructor? Didn’t she deserve better than that, even if he was the flavor of the month?
You had your dentist, Elaine. You had a two-bit actor. What are you, suddenly choosy?
She turned over. And so it all began.
Three or four times a week they met in his private office and he relieved her tensions along with his own. Conversation was limited, sexual acrobatics were not. Ron Gordino believed in stretching the body to its limit. Elaine was a willing pupil. For two years she had been sexually neglected, and suddenly she was like a desert survivor who craved as much water as she could get.
“You’re a crazy lady, Elaine,” drawled Ron.
How right he was. Crazy to be involved with him, but enjoying every clandestine lustful moment.
Naturally, Karen noticed at once. “What’s going on with you and the sheik of the exercise biz?” she inquired playfully. “You spend more time in his office than he does.”
Karen was one of her best friends, but a rule of survival in Hollywood was: “Never trust anyone—especially best friends.”
“He gives great massage,” Elaine replied innocently. “Remember my old back problem? I swear he’s almost got it cured.”
“What old back problem?”
“I had a slipped disc—years ago. I’ve suffered with backaches ever since.”
Karen looked at her skeptically. “Hmmm . . .”
The acceptance list for the party was shaping up nicely. Right at the top there was a yes from Sadie La Salle, for whom—although she did not know it—the party was being given. Elaine could not have been more delighted. If all went according to plan, life could be good again.
Things were already looking up.
• • •
Angel departing from his life without a trace did not thrill Buddy one little bit. In fact, it f
rightened the hell out of him. She might be twenty years old, but she was still a baby, and the streets of Hollywood were alive with pimps and hustlers who would be only too happy to get their slimy hands on a girl like Angel.
He shuddered at the thought and tried to believe that she had jumped a plane home, although he knew it would be the last thing she’d do. He had Shelly phone Louisville anyway.
“Some woman says she’s in Hollywood,” she stated, hanging up.
“Maybe she took a train, hasn’t arrived yet,” he reasoned.
“Yeah. And maybe she’s still here. Let’s face it, there is life in this town after Buddy Hudson.”
He ignored her. What did she know?
In his mind he played out a scenario. Angel, in Louisville, back with her foster family. Buddy, in Hollywood, signing a major deal to star in Street People. Then flying—first-class, of course—to Louisville. Being met by a limo, the kind that stretched for sixteen feet with television and a bar in the back. Driving to Angel’s house, where the chauffeur would open the door of the car, he would climb out, and she would come running to meet him. Beautiful Angel pregnant with his child. And let them all eat their hearts out.
“Any word on your test yet?” Shelly questioned.
Change of thought. Change of mood. He picked up the phone and dialed Inga’s number. “What’s happening?” he asked anxiously.
“Buddy! This is the third time you’ve called me today. You only tested four days ago, and I’ve told you—I’ll buzz you as soon as I hear anything.”
Not good enough. Was Inga telling him everything she knew?
“How about dinner tonight?” he asked abruptly, deciding that a little personal attention might help.
Inga was startled. For weeks she had been trying to lure him into a date. “You’re on,” she said quickly, before he changed his mind. “When and where?”
“I’ll pick you up at your office. What time are you through?”
“Five.”
“Five,” he repeated. “I’ll be there,” with an eye to maybe bumping into Montana Gray and getting the true scam on what was happening.
He had forgotten Shelly was in the room. “Goin’ out on dates already?” she asked sassily. “How quickly you guys forget.”
“Lend me fifty bucks, Shelly?” he cajoled.
She was outraged. “I lent you fifty two days ago. Borrow from Randy—he’s the one with the bread. I’m just a working girl who wants to get paid for your liberal use of my telephone as well as gettin’ my fifty back.”
Buddy headed for the door. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Easy for you to talk—big man.”
• • •
“I think Elaine’s playing doctor,” Karen Lancaster announced.
“What?” asked Ross, lazily squeezing one of her incredible nipples between thumb and forefinger.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed mildly, rolling across her large circular bed to escape his touch.
“Come here, woman!” he demanded.
“Come get it, man!” she replied.
He crawled across the tangled sheets growling like a tiger, and fell on top of her, his tongue out and in action, his penis erect.
She laughed, loving every minute. “You’re becoming insatiable, Ross!”
“You’re not exactly the Virgin Mary yourself.”
They made love noisily, knowing that their grunts and groans would disturb no one at the isolated beach house. Afterward Karen said again, “I think Elaine’s playing doctor.”
And Ross repeated, “What?”
And Karen said, “She’s screwing the hired help. She’s got herself a loverboy. She’s having an affair.”
He snorted with amusement. “You’re nuts! Elaine doesn’t even like sex at home; she’s the last person who would go out looking for it.”
“Wanna bet?”
“You’re way off base.”
“What’s the matter, baby? Don’t you like the thought of wifey getting it on with somebody else?”
Irritation crept into his voice. “And who have you picked out for Elaine’s so-called lover?”
“Ron Gordino!” she announced triumphantly.
“Who the frig is Ron Gordino?”
“He is a twenty-eight-year-old, six-feet-two-inch ex-lifeguard—now the body man in Beverly Hills. Personally recommended by Bibi Sutton.”
Ross began to laugh. “That fairy!”
“Bi, darling. There’s a big difference between gay and swinging both ways. Our Ron definitely swings every which way—including loose—I can assure you of that. And right now he’s giving Elaine everything you probably think she doesn’t want at home. She’s getting royally laid, Ross. Just take a look at her if you doubt it. She’s positively glowing.”
“Elaine doesn’t screw around,” he said shortly, racking his brains to remember when he’d last taken a good look at his wife.
Karen rose gracefully from the bed. “Suit yourself,” she murmured sweetly. “I’ve never met a man who truly believes his wife would cheat on him. Even though he may be jumping on anything that breathes.”
Elaine? Cheating?
Ridiculous.
Elaine was into the house, clothes, entertaining, doing the right thing. She didn’t even like sex.
“Listen,” he said confidently. “I know Elaine wouldn’t do that to me.”
“You’re doing it to her.”
“That’s different.”
Karen pursed her lips and blew a short sharp raspberry. “Chauvinist!”
“Cow!”
She selected a joint from a silver box, jumped back on the bed, and sat cross-legged while she lit up.
Ross watched her, his fingers aching to get back to work on her erotic nipples.
“Would you mind?” she inquired artlessly, dragging deeply, then passing the joint to him.
He took a long satisfying pull. “Yes. I’d mind.” And why shouldn’t he? He paid the bills. He paid for her nails, her hair, her clothes, her exercise class. She was Mrs. Ross Conti. And if she was screwing around (although he sincerely doubted it), then wasn’t that a direct attack on his masculinity?
“Why?” Karen demanded.
“Can we cut out the questions? Who gives a frig?”
“You. Obviously.”
The seed had been planted, it was enough.
• • •
It did not take long for Angel to become the darling of Koko’s hairdressing salon. She sat behind the reception desk all wide eyes, smooth skin, and soft blond hair falling loosely around her shoulders. What a change from the fiercely lacquered Darlene, high priestess of the bitchy comment.
“Who is she?” everyone asked Koko. “And where did you find her? She’s so sweet, and so polite.”
“Don’t I know it,” Koko tsked, watching over her like an overpossessive pimp, terrified she would be stolen from him by some marauding talent scout. It was the first time he could remember calm in the salon. No screaming hysterical women or bitter fights about overbooked appointments. Even Raymondo, the most temperamental stylist in the place, was calmed by her presence. He kept a respectful distance, which for him meant not pinching her ass every time she passed.
Her beauty struck everyone, but up front she announced that she was happily married and that her husband was out of the country for a while. Politely she declined all offers of social engagements—whether from staff or clients. She was friendly but aloof, revealing nothing about herself, but being quite prepared to listen to other people’s problems for hours at a time.
Several times daily someone or other told her she should be a model or an actress, and she smiled and explained that she just wasn’t interested. And with Buddy’s baby growing inside her she honestly wasn’t. Oliver Easterne and his wild promises were forgotten. Straightening out her life was more important.
She thought about Buddy a lot. He had let her down badly. Instinctively she knew she must give him time, if only to make him realize how important their r
elationship was.
In a way she felt very strong and proud of herself for what she was doing. Being alone wasn’t easy, but it was better than being with Buddy and watching him destroy himself.
“You wanna go dancin’ tonight?” Raymondo leered, passing by the reception desk for the tenth time that day.
Demurely she shook her head.
“No she doesn’t,” snapped Koko, materializing from a private cubicle. “Do you, dreamheart?”
She smiled softly. Koko’s concern touched her. He fussed around her all the time. She turned to greet a fat woman in a voluminous caftan with frazzled yellow locks. “Good morning, Mrs. Liderman, and how are you today?”
Mrs. Liderman beamed. “Feeling the heat, and so is Frowie.” She scooped a miniature poodle from the floor and thrust it across the desk at Angel. “Give baby a drinkie, there’s a good girl.” Diamonds flashed on her fat hands.
“They’ll cut off your fingers for those rings one day,” Koko sighed. “I wish you would be more careful, Mrs. L.”
The woman giggled coyly. “I’d feel naked without my little sparklers.”
Koko mock-sighed. “Then for God’s sake keep them on—do!”
Mrs. Liderman giggled even louder. Angel smiled politely, and the fat woman waddled off to be dealt with by Raymondo’s capable hands.
“One of the richest old bags in L.A.,” Koko confided sotto voce. “And she still looks like she buys off the rack at the May Company.”
“I like the May Company,” Angel protested.
“You would.” He sighed. “Dreamheart, one of these days I shall simply have to educate you. With your looks, you too could end up being one of the richest ladies in this town. But there is so much for you to learn.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
• • •
Gina Germaine padded barefoot across her thick white carpet and threw her arms tightly around Neil Gray’s neck. “You really liked my test, didn’t you?”
He extracted himself from her grip. “Yes.”
She was hungry for praise. “Just yes?”
“You were very good.”
“What did Oliver and Montana think?” she asked anxiously. “Am I Nikki, Neil? Goddammit, am I Nikki?”