Sinners

  It was two in the morning when he arrived, and he thought better of disturbing Natalie. He called Thames Mason because he was lonely.

  She dutifully got out of bed, came over, got into bed and consoled him. She told him all about her scene with Clay, laughing all the way. Then she finished by saying, ‘Man, is that guy hung!’

  Charlie immediately felt inadequate and sent her home, but not before she made him promise he would take her to the première of The Twelve Guns the following night.

  He wondered if she discussed what he was like in bed, and decided to ask Clay.

  He slept fitfully and had a weird sexual dream involving himself, Natalie, Thames, Sunday, and his mother. He awoke feeling lousy, and went down to the pool.

  It was too early for anyone else to be there, and he swam undisturbed. He had made up his mind to go back to London. There was no point in hanging around, going mad doing nothing. He decided to return and build a house, put down roots somewhere. It would keep him busy, and when the house was finished he would tell Lorna that he wanted the children every weekend. They would love it. He would even let them design their own quarters.

  He phoned Clay, who was happy to come over for breakfast. On impulse he told him about Sunday.

  Clay said, ‘Well, I reckon she fancies you, and when you’ve finished I wouldn’t say no to that one.’

  ‘If she fancied me she’d have hung around, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Women are funny creatures. She probably thought you didn’t fancy her.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Your logic! How’s Natalie feeling?’

  ‘Fat. She’d love to see you. Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight?’

  ‘Can’t. Taking Thames Mason to a première.’

  Clay whistled. ‘Now there’s a raver!’

  ‘Yes, you’re telling me.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d been there.’

  ‘You don’t know everywhere I’ve been.’

  * * *

  Later he dressed for the première in a new Doug Hayward dinner suit. He inspected himself in the mirror and was forced to admit that the rest had done him good. He was thin, in great shape, with a nice dark tan. He had abandoned the John Lennon specs and was back in his horn-rims. His black hair was just long enough to curl slightly over the back of his collar.

  He drove the Ferrari to Thames’s apartment.

  She lived in typical Hollywood bachelor-girl style in an apartment building on the Strip. There were photos and stills of herself everywhere.

  ‘I must photograph you,’ he said, accepting a scotch in a green plastic glass with ‘I like you’ printed on the bottom.

  ‘Oh, I’d love that,’ she cooed, ‘I’m very photogenic. In fact I’ve been told I have perfect features. Maybe we could do a whole bit for one of the fan mags. You know – you photographing me and them photographing us.’

  She looked spectacular in thigh-high silver boots and a silver body stocking with intriguing patches of material missing.

  ‘I’ll probably be going to London this week,’ he confided.

  She was not the least bit interested. ‘Do you think my eyelashes look too thick?’ she asked anxiously.

  He peered at her. It was difficult to tell; her eyes were surrounded with silver shadow. ‘I don’t know, love, I’m not much good at make-up, but you look great.’

  ‘Do I?’ She twirled around in front of him. ‘It should be a fantastic première, everyone will be there, and everyone will notice me with you.’

  He could hardly see how they could miss her, with him or not. A six-foot-two-inch redhead who looked like Thames Mason was hardly an everyday occurrence.

  ‘Would it matter if I wasn’t Charlie Brick? If I was just Joe Nobody, would you still want to go with me?’

  She frowned. ‘Who’s Joe Nobody? I’ve never heard of him . . . Oh, I see,’ she giggled, ‘trying to put me on, huh?’

  ‘Come on, we’ll be late.’

  Outside her apartment, Thames surveyed the Ferrari with a slight sneer.

  ‘Don’t you have a Rolls and driver?’ she asked in surprise.

  Charlie was beginning to count to ten under his breath. Would he never learn? This was positively the last starlet.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Sunday hated scenes. She hated firing people, but Katia had to go. The next morning she paid her two weeks money in advance and told her to leave.

  The girl was sullen about it, but her departure didn’t seem to bother Jean-Pierre. He was so delighted to have Sunday back that he never left her side.

  They went to the market and stocked up, for Katia had left a refrigerator full of cold chilli beans and rancid hot-dogs.

  ‘What have you been eating?’ Sunday asked Jean-Pierre. He grinned and sat in the supermarket trolley, picking out blocks of ice cream, apples, chocolate, cookies, all his favourite things.

  Limbo was thin and jumpy. Sunday was furious with herself for having gone to Palm Springs and left them. It was Claude’s fault. Everything was Claude’s fault.

  Branch phoned at lunchtime. ‘What time shall I pick you up?’ he enquired. ‘I’ve got a limo.’

  ‘Oh!’ She had forgotten all about the première, and what was she to do with Jean-Pierre now? ‘Look, Branch, I don’t think I can make it. I had to fire my maid and I’ve got no sitter for Jean-Pierre.’

  ‘You have to make it. You promised. I’ll find you a sitter, don’t worry about it, just make yourself real beautiful and I’ll call you back.’

  She was stuck. She didn’t want to go, but how could she let Branch down?

  * * *

  For the première she decided to wear a filmy chiffon top over harem trousers tucked into satin boots. Her hair was loose, not quite concealing gold gypsy earrings. She looked very beautiful.

  Branch was on time, bringing with him Esmé Mae, Max Thorpe’s long-time maid. A fat placid lady, she made immediate friends with Jean-Pierre and fussed around Limbo.

  Sunday departed quite happy with the arrangement. She left instructions where she would be and emphasized the importance of contacting her immediately if she were needed. In her mind was the vague thought that Claude might arrive to take Jean-Pierre away.

  Branch wore a white fringed leather suit, and a big ten-gallon hat. He was laughing and pleased with himself. ‘I may only have a small part in this here movie, but I’m sure as hell gonna get me noticed, walkin’ in with you.’

  She decided Branch was a typical good-looking hunk of Hollywood idiot. Sweet and nice, but dumb.

  Suddenly she found herself thinking about Charlie Brick and how different he was. How warm and amusing and – yes attractive, in an off-beat way. She wished that she attracted men like that instead of all the bastards.

  ‘How’s Max?’ she asked, making conversation.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Branch replied with false enthusiasm. Max wasn’t fine at all. He had been in a bitchy fury since Branch had told him that he couldn’t take him to the première, and today they hadn’t spoken at all.

  Sunday sighed and leaned back in the limousine.

  She wished that the evening were over.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Planning the operation had not been easy, and until Herbert read in the newspaper that Sunday Simmons was attending the première of The Twelve Guns, he had been uncertain how to achieve his purpose. When he read that she was to be there, everything fell into place, and he picked that night as the night.

  His only worry was that she might not return from Palm Springs, but the newspapers said she would be at the première, so he just had to take a chance.

  Louella had been getting impatient and making cracks, but she seemed satisfied when he gave her the date and told her to go ahead with arrangements.

  Marge was sulking. Nobody would tell her what was going on. Louella simply stopped contacting her, and Herbert was rude and bad-tempered. What really upset Marge was the fact that Louella and Herbert kept meeting. She found her only solace in the l
ocal supermarket, and successfully gained ten pounds. Fortunately they gave credit.

  Herbert got up early on the day of the première. There was much to do. The previous evening he had spent parked outside Sunday Simmons’s house at the beach, and had been rewarded by her return home quite late in the evening.

  He was delighted when all the people in the house left shortly afterwards. Her Mexican maid was a little bitch. He had telephoned several times during Sunday’s absence, and when he gave her the pleasure of a few poetic utterances, she had hurled a stream of foreign abuse at him and hung up.

  Marge said, ‘You wanna have breakfast?’

  He cast her a look of contempt, ‘No.’ Did the fat cow not realize that this was the last morning they would ever spend together? Of course she didn’t! In fact, not even Louella knew of his plans for Marge.

  He showered and put on a clean shirt and trousers. Then he went next door to see Louella.

  ‘Is everything prepared?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Are you sure she’ll do it?’

  ‘You keep on asking me that.’ He replied in an irritable voice. ‘She said she’ll do it. We have a very special friendship. I told you she will do anything for me.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she just give you the money, then? Why’s she going to go through with this?’

  ‘Because she wants to.’ He replied patiently. ‘How many men will there be?’

  ‘Fourteen guys at a hundred and fifty bucks apiece. They’re all lined up hot and ready, so don’t think you can pull a fake on us. They’re going for a lot of money, so you had better produce the genuine goods.’

  ‘She’ll be here. Nine o’clock, I’ll bring her in. She doesn’t want conversation or anything like that, just a normal circle-of-friends evening, everything the same as usual. The men will take their turns exactly the same as with Marge, and then I’ll take her home.’

  Louella shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have thought a movie star would have wanted to do this sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll want to do it all right.’ He narrowed his cold mean eyes. ‘She’s very good at it.’

  Later that day he dressed in his chauffeur’s uniform and went by bus to the car lot, where he had arranged to borrow a black Lincoln Continental. The car was perfect for his purpose, as it had belonged to a pop star and was fitted with black-tinted windows and various locking devices on the doors and windows which ensured complete privacy. It had also been tuned to a very high degree and could go extremely fast.

  The man at the car lot had advertised the car and was delighted when Herbert appeared and told him he worked for Charlie Brick. He had been happy to make an appointment for Herbert to borrow the car for an evening to get Mr Brick’s approval.

  Herbert was a convincing liar.

  He collected the car and drove to the beach. There, at a deserted spot, he changed the licence plates and worked on the interior speakers for a while. Then he fixed the glass panel which separated the front seat from the back in such a way that it could only be opened from the driver’s position. He also altered the interior mechanism so that all doors would lock automatically. Anyone getting into the back seat would be a prisoner, unable to get out until he released them.

  Satisfied with his work, he drove to Sunday’s house and waited.

  Soon she would come out, and he could go in and get what he wanted.

  And then the final steps.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Two huge revolving searchlights lit up the sky around the Cinerama Dome on Sunset where The Twelve Guns was being premièred.

  Police held back the hordes of oohing and aahing fans who spilled across the sidewalk, craning for a glimpse of their favourite stars.

  A television unit was set up in the foyer with Jack Julip of the Jack Julip show doing quickie interviews with anyone who mattered.

  Anxious cameramen milled around, flashes at the ready to catch the overflowing cleavage and long ripe legs being paraded before them.

  Stu Waterman, head publicity man for Now Productions, disappeared into the men’s room for the fifth time in twenty minutes to gulp another slug of whiskey from his very useful gold-plated present-to-himself hip-flask.

  Things were not working out as planned. Carol Shipman, who had worked ass-naked for ten days on The Twelve Guns, had refused to arrive at the première in the buff on a horse – refused because she didn’t think it dignified. Dignified indeed, coming from some little English hooker who showed her pussy to anyone who asked!

  Stu was incensed. As an alternative, he had had to settle for Cindy Lawrence, a starlet with forty-two-inch boobs who had never appeared in anything.

  Cindy wore a long flowing wig that covered nothing, and a lot of poster paint saying The Twelve Guns. Stu helped get her on the horse at the back of the cinema, and she set off round to the front with her escort of five cowboys.

  Stu dashed through the cinema, lining up the television cameras and lensmen.

  He was just in time to see Cindy arrive. The horse, nervous from the screams of the crowds, immediately bolted, and Cindy fell off, breaking an arm and exposing a lot more than even she was supposed to.

  Somehow, a blonde with a forty-two-inch bust, sprawled naked in an ungainly position on the sidewalk, did not have the impact that was originally intended.

  Carol Shipman arrived in what appeared to be a nun’s habit, wearing no make-up and her hair scraped back. Stu had to nudge his own photographer to take her picture. Jack Julip was not even interested.

  ‘I thought I told you to look sexy?’ Stu hissed.

  She stared at him, not even bothering to reply.

  He bit his lip angrily. Where were all the new stars? These little fuckers couldn’t even bother to run a comb through their hair.

  Angela Carter arrived, all red hair and white furs. The crowd pressed forward, the flashes started, Jack Julip grabbed her anxiously.

  Stu sighed with relief and darted off to the back to see what was happening. His assistant – Mike – was helping a round-assed brunette up on to one of the horses.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Stu hissed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mike replied. ‘She’s with Brad Lamb and he won’t get on a horse.’

  ‘Well, get her off. The whole point of this gimmick is to have the stars arrive on the horses. I didn’t set this up for a load of unknown cooze.’

  Mike helped the girl off. She glared at Stu as he took another swig from his flask, and dashed back to the front.

  Just then a white Bentley drew up and the chauffeur opened the door to let out Dindi Synde and her escort.

  ‘Hello, Dindi, sweetheart.’ Stu wrapped his arm around her. She was wearing little more than a pair of black leather shorts, a gold-studded bra and thigh-length boots. ‘I’ve got a little stunt planned that you’d be just right for.’

  ‘Name it, baby.’ She giggled. ‘You know I’ll do anything.’

  * * *

  ‘You were right,’ Charlie said irritably to Thames, ‘I should have had a Rolls and chauffeur tonight.’

  They had been stuck for ten minutes in a line of traffic approaching the cinema.

  Thames was studying her face in a giant-sized compact. ‘We’d still be stuck here, chauffeur or not,’ she remarked.

  ‘We could get out and walk,’ he suggested.

  ‘With that crowd? Are you kidding? They’d mob me!’

  She laughed briskly, shutting her compact, delighted with her appearance.

  An official approached them, checking the pasted number on the windscreen of their car.

  ‘Mr Brick?’ he asked.

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘Mr Brick, sir. Please turn off at the next side turning. We have arranged a quicker way for you to reach the cinema.’

  ‘But I’ve got a driver meeting me at the front.’

  ‘It’s all been arranged, sir.’

  Charlie shrugged. Anything was better than being stuck in traffic, which was one of his pet hates. He did as the man ask
ed, and was shortly stopped by another official.

  ‘Lookee at all those horses,’ said Thames. ‘I guess it’s some kind of stunt.’

  Mike hurried over, extending a nervously sweating hand. ‘I’m Stu Waterman’s assistant,’ he said. ‘Stu thought it would be nice for you and the lady’ – he peered at Thames – ‘to arrive on horses, or both on one horse if you like.’

  ‘One horse would be fun,’ Thames cooed.

  Charlies laughed out loud. ‘Not me, mate, the only time I ever got on a horse I was being paid, and I ended up flat on my backside.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any fee,’ Mike said earnestly. He wished Stu would return. It wasn’t fair sticking him round the back with the horses, which nobody seemed to want to ride.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ Thames cooed, ‘it would be fun. Please let’s do it.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he replied tersely.

  ‘You would have an escort of five cowboys,’ Mike said. ‘It will be very effective. Everyone’s doing it.’

  ‘Yes, well I’m not,’ Charlie said. ‘But I’m not stopping you,’ he added to Thames.

  ‘I can’t do it alone,’ she said sulkily. She didn’t want to miss the opportunity of arriving with Charlie.

  * * *

  Branch said, ‘What a wild idea!’

  The thought of drawing up to the cinema on a horse, with Sunday up there with him and an escort of five cowboys, appealed to him immensely.

  Sunday was not so impressed. ‘You go right ahead, Branch. I’ll meet you in the lobby.’

  ‘Hey, honey, what do you mean? You’re with me. I’ll hold you tight, won’t let you go.’

  ‘It’s not that I’m frightened of falling off. I just – er – don’t want to do it.’

  Stu Waterman had been listening patiently. He took Sunday persuasively by the arm. ‘Sweetheart, think of the publicity, think of the TV cameras, think of—’

  She shook her arm free. ‘I think it’s a stupid stunt.’

  Branch coughed in an embarrassed fashion. ‘Hey, Stu, maybe I should do it alone, and Sunday can kinda come out and meet me.’