‘Cynical.’
‘Cynical—shit, I’m a realist. Give up, babe, it’s a losin’ proposition.’
‘That’s what everyone told me about you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So why are you with me?’
‘Because I looked beyond the image and I found a man I could relate to. A man who’s had his share of tough knocks.’
Margaret understood him better than anyone. She had taken the time to find out why he’d been in trouble in the past, and when he’d told her everything about himself she’d stayed with him anyway. And it wasn’t just sex. The sex was something else, but what really mattered was not so much the physical action—more a clash of two opposite and very strong personalities bound irrevocably together.
‘Do me a favor, babe. Forget about saving any more hookers. Trust me—it’s too dangerous,’ he’d told her.
She had just smiled at him, that warm, sexy Margaret smile, and ignored his advice.
He didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly he was in the middle. Right in the fuckin’ middle. There was money he owed—not a lot by his standards, a couple of hundred thousand. No big deal, he could pick that up on a single, or a couple of weeks gig at some Las Vegas shithouse. But he owed it, and the way things were, he just didn’t have it on hand to pay back. He’d recently had to pay a giant sum to ex-wife number two, and his other expenses were big and immediate. Dukey K. Williams lived as a real duke would have liked to.
Anyway, he owed money to some big boys in Vegas. Of course, they knew he was good for it. Lots of stars lost at the tables before their salaries even hit their pockets; there was nothing unusual about that. The situation was under control.
It was no secret when he started going with Margaret Lawrence Brown. In her own way she was as famous as he was. The newspapers and magazines began discussing their relationship as if they were two slabs of prime steak, not human beings with thoughts and feelings.
At first it was tough, although it didn’t seem to bother Margaret, and if it didn’t bother her, who was he to complain?
Then she got on her kick about saving the hookers. It wasn’t enough she had every little housewife across America up in arms and ready for revolution. No. She wanted the whores. And when Margaret wanted something, she made sure she got it.
Her campaign was slow and clever, and at first people laughed. Save the hookers! For what?
Dukey was also skeptical. He couldn’t help admiring her, but even he didn’t believe she was that powerful.
But that powerful she was. And suddenly people were not laughing any more, and suddenly Dukey began getting a few calls, and suddenly there he was, right in the fuckin’ middle.
‘Stop your girlfriend’s action and we’ll forget about your debt’ was the way the calls started. And as they got heavier and heavier, Dukey tried, really tried, to persuade Margaret to stop.
As usual, she didn’t want to know. Margaret did things her way.
Eventually he paid off his two-hundred-thousand debt just to get them off his back. He had to borrow the money from a friend out of his past, a narcotics boss named Bosco Sam.
Immediately the threatening calls stopped.
A week later Margaret was shot.
Dukey wanted revenge. He wanted it just as much as Rio and Cass and the two sisters he had known nothing about until after Margaret’s murder.
Their plan was not going to work. Their plan was to grab Enzio Bassalino’s three sons by the balls sexually and mentally, destroying their lives, and by doing so reduce the old man to a wreck.
Bullshit.
No chance.
Still, Dukey decided he would let them play around until he was ready to put his own plan into action.
Things were getting involved, only he knew it was going to be his way in the end.
* * *
Rio paced around the apartment. ‘Dukey’s going to be trouble,’ she warned.
‘He always has been,’ Cass said dryly. ‘Why should now be any different?’
‘I can’t imagine him and Margaret together,’ Lara joined in.
‘Oh, they were something together,’ Rio said. ‘Pure electricity. You know Margaret and her men. If they were easy, they bored her.’
No, Lara wanted to say. I didn’t know Margaret and her men. I wish I had. The truth was, she hadn’t really known anything about Margaret’s personal life, because she was always too busy talking about herself.
She glanced over at Beth, the other sister she didn’t know at all. Silently she vowed to make up for the past. She wanted to get to know Beth properly.
‘Well.’ Rio stood up. ‘I gotta make tracks. Four starving kids are waitin’ for mama’s presence.’
‘How old are your children?’ Beth asked.
‘Old enough to drive me crazee!’
Cass stood up, too. The meeting was over. The decision was made.
Soon revenge would be theirs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tall and good-looking, Nick Bassalino was the perfect Italian-American boy. Fine white teeth, often exposed in a ready smile, warm brown eyes, and longish black hair, slightly curling. He was thirty-three and favoured black Italian suits, silk shirts, handmade shoes. Nothing but the best for Nick Bassalino. He lived in style in a large house high above the lights of Hollywood. Not an actor, he’d had many offers because of his almost unbelievable good looks. It was only on close scrutiny that you might suspect his nose was fixed—it wasn’t. His teeth capped—they weren’t. And his jet-black hair slightly helped along by a bottle of dye—it wasn’t.
Nick headed an import/export company called Warehousing Incorporated. It was the biggest outfit of its kind on the West Coast, and Nick was the boss.
When your father was Enzio Bassalino you certainly didn’t start at the bottom.
Nick’s current lady friend was April Crawford, an aging movie star with four husbands behind her. The starlets and dingalings were not for Nick. He liked to command a little respect when he went out, and in Hollywood the surest way of doing that was to be seen with a star.
They had been together a year. The arrangement suited both their public images. It pleased April that Nick had his own money and didn’t freeload off her. He looked good, wasn’t too young—not a baby—nothing to make a laughingstock of her. He got along with her friends, and of course—most important, as far as April was concerned—he was sensational in bed. Pure stud all the way.
As for Nick, he enjoyed the respectability of being with April, mixing with the movie colony, and seeing his picture in the fan magazines. April brought a little class into his life.
The one thing he didn’t understand was why Enzio objected to the relationship so strongly. His father was always phoning him and complaining. ‘What’s with you and the old bag? What’s goin’ on, Nick? You’re making the name Bassalino a joke.’
‘Better I should be with a piece of beautiful, dumb eighteen-year-old cooze, I suppose,’ Nick would reply dourly.
‘Yeah. Why not? Is it so terrible to have a pretty face, firm tits, a piece other men want—but you’ve got? Huh?’
‘You just don’t know,’ Nick would say, tired of the same old argument.
‘So I don’t know, big fuckin’ deal. Only I haven’t done too bad for an old man who don’t know. An’ you haven’t done too bad by being my son.’
‘All right, all right. Forget it. I’ll send you a text when we break up. You can go out an’ celebrate.’
‘Schmuck!’ Enzio would mutter, and they both ended up laughing. It was a weekly conversation.
The two of them had a relationship based on love, the fierce, proud love that binds an Italian family.
Whatever Enzio had done in his life—and he’d done plenty—he knew he had always been a good father to his boys. In spite of their mother’s ill health (he always referred to Rose’s madness as ill health), he’d brought them up to be fine men. Nick was doing a good job of running Wareho
using Incorporated. He was tough; people thought twice about messing with him. Yes, Nick was a true son of Enzio Bassalino.
* * *
‘Are you ready yet, darling?’ April Crawford approached Nick in his dressing room. They had separate houses, although on weekends April liked him to stay with her.
April Crawford was a well-preserved blonde in her early fifties. She was petite, slim, perfectly groomed and made up. From a distance she looked late thirties, but up close tired little lines and a faint puffiness gave her secrets away.
‘I’m always ready for you, sugar,’ Nick said cheerfully, grabbing her, making her squeal with pleasure.
He had been eight years old when he’d seen her on the screen for the first time and fallen in love.
‘I think we should arrive early tonight,’ April said. After four husbands and numerous lovers she had never experienced such delights as Nick Bassalino had to offer.
‘You’re the boss.’
‘I wish we didn’t have to go at all. Perhaps if I phoned Janine she’d understand…’
‘She will not understand,’ he said firmly. ‘We’re gonna go. We’re both dressed, and you look great—like a little doll.’ He had no intention of missing Janine Jameson’s party. She was a contemporary of April’s, and equally famous.
They rode to the party in Nick’s black Mercedes. April wore a pale blue sequin dress. Some of the sequins came off and stuck to his clothes. He picked them off impatiently.
‘Don’t lean on me in that dress,’ he warned. He always liked to look immaculate.
‘You’re so fussy.’ She laughed gaily. ‘But I love you all the same.’
At the party there were plenty of familiar faces—stars, directors, producers. Nick basked in the company. He loved show business.
A busty starlet approached him at the bar as he was ordering April a drink. They had made out once or twice, long before he met April.
‘How’s it going, Nicky Ticky?’ the girl asked, thrusting her well-developed bosom toward him. ‘Getting fed up with grandma yet? ’Cos you know, any time you do, I’ll be glad to hear from you.’
‘Hey, babe, what you gonna do when your tits drop?’ he asked with a not-so-cavalier wink. ‘Better stop hustling an’ take yourself a typing course, ’cause it don’t look to me like it’s gonna be too long.’
‘Cocksucker!’ the girl muttered, furious.
‘Excuse me, I have a lady waiting,’ Nick said amiably.
April didn’t carry her liquor well. After two Scotches her speech started to slur, and shortly after that her walk became lopsided and her face went slack. In short, she fell to pieces.
It irritated Nick. He didn’t drink much himself; in his business it paid to be alert, so he usually stuck to plain club soda. He was always warning April to cut her intake. That’s why he tried to mix her drinks himself, carefully watering them down. But she was onto him and usually grabbed a fresh drink from every passing waiter.
Janine Jameson’s party was no exception, and April was soon rolling in the aisles. Nick knew from past experience to keep his distance. Drunk, April became belligerent and insulting. A real pain in the ass.
He was talking to a lady gossip writer when he first saw the girl. She was standing by the bar with a group of people. She was of medium height, with golden-tanned skin and a mane of sun-streaked auburn hair. She had an exquisite body clad in a clinging long white dress, slit high. She was about the most spectacular-looking woman he’d ever seen—and in his time he’d seen a few.
‘Who is that?’ he couldn’t help asking.
The lady gossip writer smiled. A crisp, bitchy smile. ‘Better not let April hear the hard-on in your voice,’ she warned. ‘She’s Lara Crichton, one of those poor little rich girls whose picture is always in the fashion magazines.’
He quickly changed the subject.
Lara spotted him immediately. After all, she had pictures of him, a short dossier on his life, and she knew all about his relationship with April Crawford.
After observing him across the room she angled herself at the bar so that when he glanced up she was directly in his line of vision.
When he first spotted her he did a classic double take.
First part—easy, but then the initial impact had always been easy for Lara. Ever since she could remember men had noticed her. Even when she was a small girl of seven and had been sent to London she had attracted attention. Very pretty, she’d had no trouble charming the childless couple she was staying with.
They worshiped her, and although they didn’t have much money, they lavished everything they could on her.
Lara soon grew used to attention, and as she developed and grew she certainly received more than her fair share.
At fourteen she left school to study dancing, diction and movement. She entered a charm competition in a magazine and won. The prize was a free modeling course at a reputable school where she was discovered by the best model agent in London, and shortly thereafter she became a successful teen model.
Photographers loved her; she had a chameleon quality essential for a good model. With no trouble at all she could look girlish, sophisticated, sexy, even plain. It was a matter of expression, and Lara mastered the art.
Her work was the most important part of her life. She dieted, exercised, ate health foods, and slept at least eight hours every night. Dates were unimportant, work was all-consuming.
Soon her incredible beauty deepened and bloomed, and she began to add polish to the diamond. She started to go out with specially selected men. One who could teach her about wine, another about racing, and yet another about baccarat, chemin de fer, and ‘twenty one.’
She refused to sleep with any of them, although they all tried. She hadn’t found the man to teach her about sex.
A week after her twentieth birthday she met Jamie P. Crichton and knew at once that this was the man she was destined to marry. Jamie had already inherited a trust fund worth several million pounds, and there was plenty more to come. He was young, good-looking, and arrogant. He was also surrounded by girls, and although his initial reaction to her was predictable, she knew that if she wasn’t very careful, she could sink without a trace into the sea of females around him.
So she played it very smart, refusing to go out with him at all. Instead she cultivated his friends. Everywhere Jamie went, she was bound to be.
His best friend, Eddie Stephen Keys, fell madly in love with her and proposed. Lara wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less than her original choice.
It took several months for her to get through to Jamie. And then suddenly one day he knew, and that was that. He chartered a jet, they got married in Tahiti, and the world press embraced them as the latest Beautiful Couple.
Their marriage lasted exactly one year. A year during which Lara became a celebrity.
Then just as suddenly it was over; they both wanted a divorce. They were equally bored by the restrictions of marriage and the drudgery of being with each other all the time.
It was a friendly parting of the ways. Jamie agreed to pay her a generous settlement, and she took off for Tijuana, where she got a quick divorce, and then on to Acapulco, where she met her first Italian prince.
Since that time Lara had moved around. All the best places at the best times with the best men. It was only when Margaret was shot that she finally stopped to think. What was she doing with her life? Why was it so important to be in the right place at the right time with the right man? Why did she constantly seek out hedonistic, boring escorts who could offer her nothing but money? Was it that exciting to be photographed at every airport? Quoted in every empty fashion magazine?
And why did she need to travel down the Nile? Safari in Africa? Ski in Gstaad? And summer in Sardinia?
On reflection, it all seemed such an empty life. The death of Margaret, traveling to New York, and spending time with Margaret’s friends and her sister Beth had finally made her realize this.
Now her mind was made up
. She was determined to help avenge Margaret’s death.
Nick Bassalino was the perfect opportunity. And soon he would be all hers.
* * *
Lara had been brought to the party by Jeanette and Leslie Larson, a young couple whose only claim to fame was that Les’s mother was one of the richest women in the world. Lara had arrived in L.A. several days before. She was staying with the Larsons as their houseguest, and they were thrilled to have her. Within a week she knew she’d get to meet Nick Bassalino, for April Crawford was known to be an avid partygoer. Running into him so soon was pure luck.
She pointed him out to Jeanette. ‘Who’s that man?’ she asked casually.
‘I guess you mean Nick,’ Jeanette replied with a knowing laugh. ‘He’s April Crawford’s boyfriend, and he’s strictly not up for grabs. The guy is crazy about her, follows her around like a nanny. Why? Do you think he’s attractive?’
‘Is he an actor?’ Lara asked, countering the question.
‘No, he’s some sort of hustler, wheeler-dealer. Les says he’s a hood.’ Jeanette giggled. ‘You do find him attractive, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’ She faked a yawn. ‘A bit too obvious. All tight trousers and teeth.’
Jeanette nodded. ‘Anyway, as I said, he’s well taken care of, and let’s face it, darling, hardly your style.’
Lara wondered exactly what Jeanette thought her style was.
The party was a bore, but Lara knew that somehow she had to meet Nick. Sammy Albert, an actor with the reputation of a super stud, was busily trying to persuade her to split and go to a club called The Discotheque. She’d told him no three times, but he was enamored and continued to follow her around, trying to get her to change her mind.
‘Do you know April Crawford?’ she asked at last. I’d love to meet her.’
‘Do I know April! I’ve had her!’ Sammy joked, taking her over and introducing her.
April’s eyes were bloodshot, her lipstick smeared. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said icily. Competition was not her favorite thing.
Lara turned on the charm and flattered the movie star as she steered the conversation to a mutual friend who lived in Rome.