She got up, pulled a silk kimono over her nakedness, and watched the sun rise over the desert. It was a beautiful sight. Once, she might have phoned Gino, woken him, and allowed him to share it with her. But in the morning light she realized it was okay if he’d found someone to spend the night with. She could be a lot of things to him, but she could never be his lover. And perhaps he needed the closeness of a woman to hold.
Maybe Susan Martino would be good for him. Maybe.
Chapter Eight
Once in a while Olympia decided she should play the perfect mother role. Not often. It was hardly a part she relished. However, a meeting with her own mother required that she make the effort.
Charlotte intimidated her. She was so annoyingly correct. She did not smoke or drink. She certainly did not do drugs. She was slim, active, and an utter bore. She was also very rich. Although that was one area where Olympia beat her out. It would be hard to top Olympia’s massive fortune.
Unfortunately, being in Charlotte’s presence always made her feel like a child again, so before leaving, Olympia sat in the luxurious bathroom of her father’s Fifth Avenue penthouse and snorted three lines of coke. The insidious white powder made her feel marvellous. A deep breath, a glance in the mirror, and she was ready for anyone and anything.
Nanny Mabel and Brigette waited by the front door. The child gazed up at her mother, huge saucer eyes in a picture-pretty face. ‘Mama,’ she said, ‘please can I have a hot dog?’
‘What?’ snapped Olympia, adjusting the collar of her sable jacket in the hall mirror.
‘An American hot dog,’ the small girl repeated patiently.
‘Certainly not,’ scolded Nanny Mabel. ‘Wherever do you get such ideas?’
‘Mama?’ questioned Brigette, ignoring her nanny. ‘Can I?’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Olympia replied vaguely, licking her lips and sucking in her cheeks. ‘Whatever Nanny says.’
‘Nanny says no,’ whined Brigette.
Olympia’s voice rose slightly. ‘Then listen to Nanny. Do come on.’
She marched out of the apartment, followed by the two of them. Into the elevator, onto the sidewalk.
The chauffeur leapt out of the waiting limousine and held open the door. Two idling paparazzi raised their cameras.
Olympia manufactured a condescending smile, and reached for Brigette’s hand. The child suddenly stood stock still and screamed, ‘I haaate everyone!’
‘Brigette,’ exclaimed a furious Nanny Mabel, ‘stop this behaviour at once!’
The two photographers, sensing something more than the usual polite picture – began to snap in earnest.
Brigette, now the centre of attention and enjoying it, yelled even louder.
Olympia wanted to jump in the car and distance herself from the whole embarrassing scene. But how could she? The screaming brat was her child – unfortunately – and she was playing perfect mother for the day.
‘Do something,’ she hissed at Nanny.
‘I can’t, madam.’ Her attempts to pull Brigette towards the car were unsuccessful.
‘Oh God!’ exclaimed Olympia. A flash exploded in front of her face. ‘Go away you stupid little man,’ she shouted at the photographer.
An amused crowd was gathering. Olympia could stand it no longer. She turned on Brigette in a fury, smacked her across the face, picked the surprised child up, and flung her in the car.
The cameras captured every moment.
* * *
A day later Dimitri viewed the photograph of his grandchild being set upon by his daughter with a mixture of annoyance and anger. The annoyance was because he had constantly implored Olympia to avoid publicity. And the anger was because she was striking his precious little Brigette, a child he doted upon.
He flung the newspaper to the ground and picked up the phone. Within seconds he had Nanny Mabel on the line.
‘Madam is resting,’ she said.
‘Wake her,’ thundered Dimitri.
‘I’m not allowed to.’
‘Do it!’
Grumbling to herself, the woman did as she was told.
Olympia hurled abuse and picked up the phone. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. She had long ago stopped being in awe of her father, ever since she had inherited her fortune at twenty-one.
He complained for a while.
She listened fitfully.
He gave orders on how she should conduct herself publicly.
She ignored him.
‘Why are you in Las Vegas?’ she asked, when he paused for breath.
A moment’s silence, then, ‘Francesca Fern is being honoured. As I am such a close friend, she and Horace begged me to attend.’
Olympia stifled a rude laugh. God! He made her so mad. He honestly believed no one knew about his affair with prima donna Fern. The whole world knew. They had fucked their way from one end of the globe to the other.
And he had a nerve complaining to her about the paparazzi. They had captured him doing everything short of actually making it with one of his society whores.
‘Who on earth gets honoured in a dump like Las Vegas?’ she sneered.
He changed the subject. ‘I want to see Brigette.’
‘We’re staying in New York until Monday.’
‘I’ll try and fly in on Saturday, then we can return to Paris together.’
‘Good.’ She was pleased. Better than travelling on a commercial airline. She liked Dimitri’s Lear jet with all its luxuries. When she found the time maybe she’d buy one for herself.
Once off the phone she stretched out on the bed and decided New York was turning out to be a fun place after all, if one ignored the paparazzi – and they were everywhere since the now famous photo had appeared on the front of the New York Post that very morning.
Tea with Charlotte the day before had gone well. Brigette, after her outburst, behaved perfectly. And Charlotte was so preoccupied with her impending wedding she hardly found time to criticize, although she did mention that Olympia was ten pounds overweight and needed a good facial.
Later, Olympia met with friends and had a perfectly wonderful time, ending up at 2 a.m. at Studio 54 – which she loved.
That day she had lunch at 21, shopped along Madison, and now she was resting before another evening on the town. She wondered if she would meet Mr Wrong, and hoped so. Two days without sex was two days too many.
Chapter Nine
Jess presented herself in Matt Traynor’s office at noon the day after Lennie’s dismissal. She was full of righteous indignation.
‘Why did you fire Lennie?’
Matt stared at the angry girl confronting him across his desk. She was so pretty, so stacked, so short.
‘Jessie baby—’ he began.
‘Don’t call me Jessie, and don’t call me baby. Just give me an answer.’
He knew what he would like to give her, she made him uncomfortably hot. Instead he shrugged noncommitally and said, ‘House policy.’
‘House bullshit. I hear he was great.’
‘Yes he was, and I told him so, but he stopped people from playing the tables.’
She snorted disbelievingly. ‘Well, if that’s the reason, why don’t you fire Ann Margret, Diana Ross, Tom Jo—’
He held up an authoritative hand and wondered if she gave great head. He was sure she did. ‘Okay, okay. I don’t need a list. Why don’t you have dinner with me tonight and I’ll try to explain it to you properly.’
‘I’m working.’
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘Ditto.’
‘When’s your night off?’
‘I’m also married. Remember?’
‘How about a late supper after your shift tonight?’
‘Where?’
He had been asking her out for two months. This was the first breakthrough. ‘My place,’ he said quickly.
She laughed loudly. She had a laugh like a hyena and eight thousand freckles and crazy orange hair. He thought she was the most attractive girl he’d seen in months.
‘What’s wrong with my place?’ he asked belligerently.
‘Nothing. Except that every showgirl in town knows its location, size, even the colour of your sheets.’
‘I give a lot of parties,’ he said defensively.
‘That’s not all you give. I’m surprised you’re not riddled with the clap.’
He managed a laugh, quite flattered she knew so much about him. As a matter of fact he had never had the clap, but the rest was accurate. And why not? He was making up for lost time. Married for twenty-four years, he had been divorced by his wife five years ago. She divorced him. The woman was mad. Nobody could have been a better husband. For the first six months he missed her, and then, like a revelation – the joys of being an affluent, powerful single man hit him. And then he found out that while he was married things had changed. The sexual revolution had taken place, and you no longer had to fight and scheme, promise and declare undying love to get a girl into bed. From that moment on Matt lived every second to its fullest. And when his ex-wife – a retarded feminist – decided they should get back together – he told her exactly where to stick the idea.
‘Will you have dinner with me or not?’ he asked.
Jess chewed on her thumb for a moment – a childhood habit she was unable to break. She really wanted to find out why Lennie had been so unceremoniously dumped. But dinner with Matt Traynor . . . ugh! With his silver waved hair, and his gold chains, and his perpetual leer . . .
At least if she went to his place nobody would see them together. It would be too humiliating for people to think she had been added to his list of conquests. She couldn’t understand why he wanted her anyway. She was hardly his style. But he had a very obvious yen for her – one she had taken advantage of by getting Lennie the job in the first place. All she’d had to do was show Matt a video tape of his work and a few key reviews – one a rave from The Village Voice, and Matt had said, ‘Sure. We’ll book him. If you say he’s good – that’s enough for me.’
Lennie being fired like that had made her look a fool. He had hired a car and stormed off to L.A. in the middle of the night with – ‘I don’t need this shit. Thanks a lot, Jess.’
She knew that as soon as he calmed down he would realize it was not her fault, and she hoped by the time he called to apologize she would know exactly what had happened.
So dinner with Matt it was.
‘Okay,’ she said.
He looked pleased. ‘Later?’
She sighed, ‘I guess.’
‘Don’t look so thrilled about it. Who knows – you might enjoy it.’
‘I’m a vegetarian.’
He wondered if that meant she didn’t give head. Decided not to pursue it. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted.’
‘I’m glad someone is,’ she muttered.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
* * *
The rented Chevrolet got Lennie into Los Angeles at eight o’clock in the morning. Not bad considering he hadn’t left Vegas until three-thirty a.m.
The city was already hot, a steamy smoggy heat which promised a long and sultry day.
He came off the freeway at the Sunset Boulevard exit, turned left, and realized he had no idea of where to go or what to do. He had only been to L.A. once before, and that was on his thirteenth birthday with mom and dad. They had stayed with an aunt in the valley for five uneventful days – the highlight of the trip being a visit to Disneyland – memorable because mom got stoned on excitement and sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ to a wooden indian.
So – he did not exactly know his way around. However, he did know that getting out of Vegas immediately was an absolute necessity after the silver-haired-smarm had told him he was out.
He, Lennie Golden, was out.
OUT.
Dropped.
Bounced.
Fired.
Shit!!
He pulled over to the side of the street and groped in the pocket of his faded workshirt for the infamous Golden black book. It was his lifeline and he carried it everywhere. There were two pages crammed with L.A. numbers. Friends. Contacts. Friends of friends. Agents. Clubs. Connections. And dear old mom. Feisty Alice Golden – the Jewish mother who would not cook him chicken soup or ask about his love life. More likely she would offer him a joint and tell him about hers!
Alice. Maybe he would crash at her place for a couple of days while he considered his next move. But then he thought about her new boyfriend – the one she had brought to New York last year. A total jerk with false teeth and an uneasy laugh. Lennie was not in the mood for his company. He moved down the list.
There was Jennifer. A perfectly delectable sugar-lipped blonde who had abandoned acting class in New York to try her luck in L.A.
There was Suna and Shirlee. The twins. Would-be singers and actresses now doing commercial voice-overs.
There was his friend, Joey Firello. A fellow comedian who had arrived in L.A. several months earlier, and was already a regular on a weekly TV show.
And then of course there was Eden. They had not parted friends. She had stormed out of his life bad-mouthing him at full volume.
Ah . . . Eden, the queen of all bitches. A beautiful, mean, fucked-up, difficult cunt.
He wanted to see her.
He needed to see her.
Maybe she’d dumped her actor friend and was ready for a reunion.
Without hesitation he searched for a dime and a phone booth.
A male voice answered on the third ring. An unfriendly, ‘Yeah?’ Was this the actor? Or a new guy? Or maybe just an answering service.
‘Eden Antonio,’ he said briskly.
‘Who wants her?’ growled the voice.
‘Uh, tell her Lennie.’
Why did he feel like a twelve year old toying to make out? And why was he calling her anyway? What was he going to say? I’m here. Just like that. No job. No place to stay. I’m here. Eden would tell him to shove it.
‘She ain’t around,’ said the voice, and cut the connection.
* * *
Eden Antonio was not a star, nor even close, but she worked occasionally on a daytime soap, and she knew that eventually it would lead to more important roles.
She sat in the middle of her queen-size bed painting her toenails, and said to her current boyfriend – a short bald man wearing an expensive custom-made dark suit – most un-Californian, ‘Who was that, sweetie?’
Santino Bonnatti shrugged dismissively as he dumped the phone down. ‘Some jerk.’ His beady nugget eyes darted around the room. This Eden broad was something, but her apartment was not. ‘I bin thinkin’,’ he said. ‘How about if I move ya out of this place an’ set y’up in a decent joint. Would y’like that?’
Eden concentrated on her toenails. She had known Santino Bonnatti for six weeks, and she had been sleeping with him for five. He was hardly Paul Newman, but according to her girlfriend, Ulla, who had introduced them, he was loaded, and might not be averse to investing in a movie if the right deal came along.
‘What business is he in?’ she had asked Ulla.
Her friend looked vague. ‘I’m not really sure. Commodities, I think. Import. Export. Important stuff.’
That had been enough to pique Eden’s interest. For once in her life she wanted a rich boyfriend, not just a good-looking bum with nothing but big dreams and a hard-on.
The fact that Santino had a wife and four kids stashed in a Beverly Hills mansion did not bother her at all. She didn’t want to marry him, just use him until he got her where she wanted to be.
‘Exactly what did you have in mind?’ she asked coolly.
He straightened his tie and peered at his reflection in a mirrored closet. ‘I dunno,’ he said vaguely. ‘I could set ya up in a house. It’d make it easier for me.’
‘Do you mean buy me a house?’ inquired Eden, never one to let the grass grow.
‘Yeah,’ he replied expansively. ‘Why not?’
Why not indeed, she though
t excitedly. I’m screwing your hairy little body, it’s about time compensation was forthcoming. A house would be very nice indeed.
She stretched out a long pale leg, and admired her blood-red toenails. The black peignoir she wore fell back and exposed a glorious mound of pale blonde pubic hair. She had it dyed regularly.
‘I think I would like that a lot,’ she said slowly.
His beady eyes fixed on her pubis. What a horny broad this one was. A few weeks into the relationship and he was already springing for a house. He felt like slamming another fuck into her, but business called, and she would be available later. ‘I’ll contact a real estate friend who owes me a favour,’ he said. ‘We’ll find ya somethin’ nice.’
She smiled. She had thin lips and small perfect teeth. ‘I’m sure you will, sweetie.’
‘Gotta go,’ he said.
‘A hard day at the office?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘Naw. I don’t like sittin’ behind a desk. I got some foreign shipments comin’ in.’
She had no idea what he did. Every time she asked he told her something different. One day he was importing olive oil from Italy, the next Colombian coffee. Whatever it was he was rolling in money.
She held out her arms invitingly. ‘Do I get a goodbye kiss?’
He obliged.
She waited until the front door slammed behind him, then she rolled onto her stomach, reached under the bed, and pressed the playback on a hidden tape machine connected to the phone. If Santino thought he could censor her calls he had another think coming. Besides, taping his conversations was fascinating – especially when he spoke to his crabby wife with the whining Italian accent.
He had made two calls the previous evening. One, a complicated business conversation dealing with shipments and vast sums of money. And the other to tell wifey he was in San Francisco and would not be home.
Lying little shit. Well, they were all liars. And all shits. Eden knew about such things.
‘Some jerk’ turned out to be Lennie Golden. For a moment Eden felt a rush of excitement – what was he doing in town? If indeed he was. Maybe he was calling from New York. She played back the tape.