“Whaddya think?” asked the counterman, hoping for a discussion of the merits of sex with a legless woman.
Deke raised his cold black eyes from the magazine and stared. It wasn’t right that Joey had posed for such pictures and that strange men could feast their eyes on her naked body. If he had time he would remove the scum, squash him dead, just as he had squashed the ants.
“They’re all whores,” he said at last, realizing that The Keeper Of The Order did not have time to deal with every stinking pervert who crossed his path.
The counterman laughed derisively. “You’re so right, pal. I couldn’t’ve said it better myself. Hookers—every damn one!”
Damnation is closer than you know, Deke thought. He was in California now, and nothing was going to stop him from doing what he had to do.
29
A psychiatrist would say that it was a scream in the dark. An attention-getting act performed by a person who desperately needed help. Elaine knew all the psychological garbage. She had not sat on an analyst’s couch for a year without learning a thing or two. She had learned that seeing a shrink was expensive, time-consuming, and ego-boosting. Who wouldn’t enjoy talking about herself nonstop, an hour at a time, three times a week? It was one little luxury she had finally decided to do without.
These thoughts ran through her head as she sat in the manager’s office and said—yet again—“I am outraged that you could even have thought for one moment that I intended to steal that tacky bracelet. My husband is Ross Conti. If he so desired he could buy this whole store for me!”
“Yes. I understand that,” said the manager, not understanding at all. “But you must see our point of view. You left here with the bracelet in your possession, and it was unpaid for.”
“A mistake,” she said haughtily. “I misunderstood your salesperson. I thought that she had charged it to my account.”
The store detective hovered by the door.
“I really must go,” Elaine said quickly. “This whole incident is a gross error on your part.”
“I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to go yet.”
Why had she been so careless? How could she have risked everything on the day of her party? What if it got in the newspapers?
“Why?” she demanded imperiously.
“Because,” said the manager, “our policy is to prosecute.”
She leaped up in a panic, thinking of the publicity. “Please!” she implored. “You can’t do that! I’ve told you who I am. Why can’t we just forget it?”
He frowned. “You’ve told us who you are. But that doesn’t prove who you are.”
“I’ve shown you all my credit cards. Surely that’s good enough?”
“No driver’s license, no picture—”
“I never carry my license,” she interrupted quickly.
“That’s a shame.” He pursed his lips. If the woman was who she said she was, then the publicity would help neither of them. On the other hand, he couldn’t just let her stroll casually out of the store merely because she claimed to be the wife of a film star. An idea came to him. “If we could perhaps contact Mr. Conti, and he came to collect you, then maybe we could forget about prosecuting. I’m sure, as you say, it was a genuine mistake.”
The female detective’s lip curled in disgust.
“Yes,” said Elaine quickly, filled with relief. “I know exactly where I can find him.”
• • •
Eventually they made love, because that had been the purpose of his visit in the first place.
Karen kept laughing as Ross pumped solidly away. “Did you see that woman’s face?” she gasped. “I mean, did you see it?”
“I could hardly help seeing it,” he huffed.
“Ummm—let’s change positions.” Skillfully she rolled around—keeping him firmly inside her—until she was on top.
He had noticed that Karen was not too thrilled by the missionary position. He liked it himself; it gave him somewhere to rest his bones when he needed a break.
“And that security moron!” she giggled. “Can you imagine! If you had been a burglar he would’ve wet his pants!” She angled an erect nipple into his mouth, and he sucked greedily. “Niiiiice,” she sighed.
He felt the beginning of the rush. Not bad. He had given her ten minutes of solid action; she couldn’t complain about that.
“Christ!” he groaned. “Jesus H!”
The phone rang just before he hit. Valiantly they tried to continue, but the ringing was too intrusive.
Disengaging her nipple from his mouth, Ross said, “Well answer the frigging thing.”
She grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”
Ross could not hear who it was, but from the way she pulled herself off him he knew it must be George Lancaster.
“Daddy!” she cooed in confirmation. “Sorry . . . I mean George. How are you today?”
Ross watched his erection deflate. He felt like a horse blocked at the gate. Ten more seconds and he would have been a winner. Now he would just have to run the whole goddam race again. If he had the strength.
He looked pointedly at his watch. “I’ve got to go to the bank,” he mouthed.
She nodded, covered the mouthpiece for a second. “Okay. Go, and I’ll see you later,” and then she went back to her riveting conversation.
Enough was enough. He dressed, found the elevator key, and let himself out.
The morning had hardly been perfect. He hoped the day would improve as it progressed.
• • •
Karen spoke to her father for twenty-five minutes, and at the end of the conversation he invited her to a late lunch at the Polo Lounge.
“I’ll be there,” she said breathlessly.
She ran a bubble bath, pinned her long hair up, and slid into the warm water. Daddy was back in town. And if he wanted her to she would spend every second with him. She might be thirty-two years old, but she had her priorities straight.
The phone rang again, and she picked up the bathroom extension. “George?” she asked hopefully. He didn’t like her calling him Daddy—said it made him feel too old.
“No. This is Elaine,” said the voice of her friend, sounding uptight.
“Oh, hi.” She could hardly conceal her lack of enthusiasm. “All set for the big night?”
“Yes,” said Elaine in a strained voice. “Can I have a word with Ross?”
“Ross?” Surprise filled her voice.
“I know he’s there, and I need to speak to him urgently.”
Karen laughed hollowly. “Why would Ross be here?”
“This is urgent. Put him on.”
“I don’t understand,” Karen said in a concerned tone. “Are you all right?”
“He’s not with you, then?”
“Of course he’s not here. I don’t—”
Elaine hung up.
Karen was stunned. She stood up in the bath, bubbles sticking everywhere. How had Elaine known? Had Ross told her?
No. He wanted it kept a secret more than she did. Come to think of it, she couldn’t care less whether it was kept a secret or not. Having Ross Conti was the next best thing to having Daddy. And since having Daddy was a definite no-no . . .
She had a brief feeling of remorse about Elaine, but that soon passed. Karen always got what she wanted; it had been that way since she was a little girl. And if someone got hurt along the way, well, that’s show biz—as Daddy always said.
• • •
Elaine hung up the phone tight-lipped. “It may take me a few minutes to locate my husband,” she said, wondering if perhaps she was having a nightmare and would soon wake up.
Then she called Lina, their bank, Ross’s health club, Ma Maison, their business manager, Lina, the Polo Lounge, the suntanning salon, the Bistro, Lina and finally Karen Lancaster again. Her phone did not answer, which convinced Elaine that even now they were rolling around on Karen’s king-size custom-built bed having wild sex and laughing at poor Elaine.
“I’m
having a big party tonight,” she said desperately to the manager. “Is this really necessary?”
“Was it really necessary for you to take the bracelet?”
Suddenly she snapped. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she screamed hysterically. “I have important friends in very high places, and you are making a nasty mistake keeping me here.”
He had been on the verge of letting her go. After her series of phone calls there was no doubt that she was who she claimed to be. But he never liked being threatened, and just who did she think she was anyway?
“I’m sorry,” he said smoothly. “You have a choice. The police or your husband. Whichever you prefer.”
• • •
As the Corniche glided away from Karen Lancaster’s Century City apartment, a shabby brown Datsun slid into the lane behind it. The Datsun was driven by a man named Little S. Schortz. A name he had never been happy with, but one he had become used to over the years. The kids at school had dubbed him Tight Schortz. His ex-wife had called him Too Schortz. And the people he came in contact with during the course of his work invariably ended up calling him every other name you could think of.
Little S. Schortz was a private detective—the kind you could hire for a hundred bucks a day as long as you paid in cash. And the sort of people who hired him always paid in cash.
He was not a class act, but he knew how to play dirty, and he specialized in divorce cases—the seamier the better. He was an expert at catching a cheating husband or wife. Many a motel door had felt the force of his shoulder as he burst in—flash camera in hand.
Little S. Schortz felt he had lucked into the big time with the Glynis Barnes divorce case. “I want to know every move my husband makes,” she told him on her first visit to his one-room Hollywood office. “I want times, dates, and most important—photographs of every woman he sees.”
He went to work at once. Following Chet Barnes was a pleasure, and he soon settled into a daily routine which hardly ever took him out of Beverly Hills. He sat outside some of the best restaurants, taking the occasional shot of Chet Barnes emerging with various women. Once a week Glynis Barnes arrived at his office bearing cash. She collected the photographic evidence, then departed with the words “Let’s give it another week.”
One day a particular picture grabbed her attention. “Do you know who this is?” she asked sharply, thrusting it at him.
He glanced briefly at a photo of Chet Barnes emerging from La Scala, his arm around a copper-haired woman in a tight dress. He shook his head while Glynis Barnes paced his small office muttering to herself.
“Have you seen him with her before?” she demanded. “Did he spend the night at her place? What happened?”
Frankly he had no idea. Immediately after taking that picture he had quit and gone home. So he lied. “Yeah, he spent the night. I thought you’d want me to stay until morning, so I did. Anything after twelve is double-rate, you know.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “Now, this is what I want you to do.”
She told him the woman was Karen Lancaster. The name didn’t mean anything to him until he put it together with George Lancaster and found out it was his daughter!
Glynis had suspected all along that her estranged husband had the hots for Karen. Now that she was sure, she wanted to prove to him what a tramp Karen was. “I want her followed,” she said. “And get me some good photos. Explicit. Watch her twenty-four hours a day. I don’t care what it costs.”
He followed Karen to her beach house just a couple of days later. The photos he managed to get were hot. First he risked a roll of film through the glass front of her house while she rolled around on the bed with a man. Then he captured her and the boyfriend in the ocean.
It wasn’t until later when he developed the photos that he realized the man was Ross Conti. And he had stills of him the like of which his fans had never seen!
He decided that handing the photos to Glynis Barnes would be crazy. Why settle for a few hundred when it could mean thousands?
He waited a week, then withdrew from the case, much to Glynis Barnes’s annoyance.
He waited awhile longer, then enlarged some of his favorite shots and set about finding Ross Conti. It was easy. All he had to do was buy a cheapo map of the movie stars’ homes, and the Contis were listed right there along with Tony Curtis and Johnny Carson.
Early one morning he parked opposite the Conti house and waited for the moment to be right.
Three maids arrived, giggling and chattering away in Spanish.
The milkman delivered twelve quarts of orange juice and six cartons of milk.
A woman left the house, climbed into a pale-blue Mercedes, zipped out the drive, changed her mind, drove back to the house, then reemerged and shot off again.
He bided his time, until eventually he was rewarded with the sight of Ross Conti, in his Corniche, a mere twenty minutes later. He followed the car all the way to Karen Lancaster’s apartment in Century City, and was delighted to think that the affair was still going strong.
Later, when Ross Conti drove out in the distinctive gold Corniche, Little S. Schortz was right there behind him.
• • •
Randy’s apartment stank of Au Sauvage aftershave, Yves Saint Laurent deodorant, and Jean Naté body splash.
“I hate all that crap,” Buddy said, busily doing one-armed press-ups.
Randy emerged from the bathroom clad only in brief jockeys. “What crap?” he demanded.
“All that shit you’re spraying yourself with. Doncha know that stuff can give you cancer?” He released his weight and lay flat on his stomach. “Jeez, y’know, I don’t feel so good. I think it’s breathin’ in all these poison fumes.”
“You don’t like it you know what you can do.”
Buddy got up off the floor and leaned weakly against the wall. “I didn’t sleep so good last night. I had a real bad dream—like it was vivid. I was—”
Randy held up a commanding hand. “Don’t tell me your dream. My own don’t thrill me, so why should I want to know yours?”
Buddy went to the refrigerator. “You’ve never got any food in here,” he complained.
“Christ! You’re worse than a wife! Why don’t you go over to Shelly’s an’ excite her with your bellyaching?”
“That’s the trouble. I excite her with more than that. I’m not into another relationship. What Angel did to me was—”
“Cut it out,” said Randy sharply. “I got a lot on my mind and I don’t need your problems too. You wanted to sleep on my floor—I lent you my floor. You wanted to borrow some bucks—I lent you bucks. Now for this I don’t need a running commentary on your lousy life.”
“Thanks. It’s good to have friends.”
Randy had been in a bad mood ever since Buddy had mentioned that he too was going to the Lancaster party. “Stay away from me and Maralee,” Randy had warned, nervous of his past.
What did the schmuck think he was going to say? “Hey, Maralee, nice to meet you. Did you know that your boyfriend and I used to do a little hustling together?” Jeez! He wanted to forget about it just as much as Randy.
He had made his daily phone call to Inga, and got the usual—“They’re interested. They like you a lot. You’re really a hot favorite.” How hot could he be when weeks were passing and nothing was happening? Maybe Inga was giving him sweet horse-shit. Maybe the role was already cast. Maybe he didn’t have a hope. . . .
“Angel!” He muttered her name under his breath. “Why did you have to run out on me?”
• • •
Montana drove into Beverly Hills, but the thought of shopping for a new outfit to wear to George Lancaster’s party failed to excite her. She was outraged by his arrogant and rude attitude. Just who exactly did he think he was? An over-the-hill aging superstar, that’s who. As for Oliver and Neil, they had really let her down. Oliver, crawling like a modern-day Uriah Heep, and Neil, nursing his bourbon as if it were mother’s milk.
&n
bsp; She had tried to talk to Neil several times in the past few days, but he had dismissed her attempts at meaningful conversation with disruptive comments about the script, sidetracking her into heated discussions. All of a sudden she was fighting for scenes he wanted to cut. Important scenes he had never objected to before.
She felt frustrated and out of control. What the hell was going on? Why was everything turning sour? Street People—her baby—was slowly being taken away. She had written the script, and now it was as if the words no longer belonged to her. Okay, so she had practically cast the film except for the leading roles—but so what? From now on it would be a George Lancaster movie, and he was the kind of man she had always hated. Self-important, tough, assured in his mistaken knowledge that men were superior beings to women.
She decided not to go back to the office. The beach seemed like a much better idea, so she drove along Wilshire all the way to the ocean, where she parked the car and strode along the seashore, trying to calm down.
The waves were high enough to surf, and plenty of kids were indulging, their bronzed bodies flying over the water with speed and grace. She wished she had a swimsuit and a board—for that’s just what she felt like doing. And why shouldn’t she? On impulse she hurried back to the car and drove to a sports shop on Santa Monica. There she purchased what she needed.
She hadn’t surfed in years—certainly not since she had known Neil. Entering the swell of the ocean, at first she felt awkward and stupid—even, at twenty-nine, too old. But soon she was back in the swing of it, riding the waves just as in the good old days—having a marvelous time.
She forgot about George, Oliver, the movie, and most of all Neil. Excitement swamped her as skills she had forgotten came into play.
How good it was to feel young again and to have nothing on your mind but the next wave.
How good it was to be in control.
• • •
“Can I talk to you a minute?” Little S. Schortz sidled up to Ross Conti outside Bijan on Rodeo Drive.
“Sure,” said Ross magnanimously, thinking the seedy-looking man was a fan. “What do you want to know? Did I really jump off the clifftop in Prowler myself or was it a stand-in? Don’t worry, everyone asks me that, and I can tell you it was me. If you lend me a pen I’ll sign your envelope. Who’s it for—your sister?”