Hollywood Wives

by Jackie Collins

  “As soon as possible. Next week if he can fit me in.”

  They both stopped talking to observe the entrance of Sylvester Stallone. Elaine threw him a perfunctory wave, but he did not appear to notice her. “Probably needs glasses,” she sniffed. “I met him at a party only last week.”

  Maralee produced a small gold compact and inspected her face. “He won’t last,” she remarked dismissively, removing a smudge of lipstick from her teeth. “Let’s face it, Clark Gable he’s not.”

  • • •

  “Oh yeah, that’s it . . . don’t stop . . . don’t ever stop. Oh yeah, yeah . . . just keep on going, sweetheart, keep right on going.”

  Ross Conti listened to the words pouring from his mouth and wondered how many times he had uttered them before. Plenty. That was for sure.

  On her knees, Stella, the makeup girl, worked diligently on his weak erection. She sucked him as if he were a water pump. Her technique could do with some improvement. But then, in his time, Ross had had some of the best little cocksuckers in the business. Starlets, whose very livelihood depended on doing a good job. Hookers, who specialized. Bored Beverly Hills housewives who had elevated cocksucking to an art.

  He felt his erection begin to deflate, and he dug his fingers hard into the girl’s scalp. She yelped with pain and stopped what she was doing.

  He wasn’t sorry. Quick as a flash he tucked himself out of sight and firmly zipped up. “That was great!”

  She stared at him in amazement. “But you didn’t come.”

  He could hardly lie. “Sometimes it’s better this way,” he mumbled mysteriously, reaching for a bottle of tequila on the side table in his hotel room.

  “It is?” She continued to stare.

  “Sure. Keeps all the juices inside. Keeps me buzzing. That’s the way I like it when I’m working.” If she believed that she’d believe anything.

  “I think I know what you mean,” she began enthusiastically. “Sort of like a boxer before a fight—mustn’t release that precious energy. You’ve got to make it work for you.”

  “Right! You got it!” He smiled, took a slug of tequila from the bottle, and wished she would go.

  “Would you like me to . . . do anything?” she asked expectantly, hoping that he would want her to undress and stay.

  “There’s a million things I’d like you to do,” he replied. “But the star has got to get some sleep. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Of course, Mr. Con—Ross.”

  He hadn’t said she could call him by his first name. Mr. Conti would do nicely. Women. Give them nine inches and they frigging moved in. “Goodnight, Sheila.”

  “It’s Stella.”

  “Right.”

  She finally left, and he switched on the television in time for The Tonight Show. He knew that he should call Elaine in L.A., but he couldn’t be bothered. She would be furious when she heard he had blown his lines and walked off the set. Elaine thought he was on the way out. She was always nagging him about keeping up with what the public wanted. He had done his last movie against her advice, and it bombed at the box office. God, that had pissed him off. A fine love story with a veteran director and a New York stage actress as his leading lady. “Old-fashioned garbage,” Elaine had announced baldly. “Sex, violence, and comedy, that’s what sells tickets today. And you’ve got to get in on the act, Ross, before it’s too late.”

  She was right, of course. He did have to get in on the act, because he was no longer Mr. Box Office, not even in the frigging top ten. He was on the slide, and in Hollywood they could smell it.

  Johnny Carson was talking to Angie Dickinson. She was flirting, crossing long legs and looking seductive.

  Abruptly Ross picked up the phone. “Get me the bell captain,” he snapped.

  Chip had come groveling to his trailer after his walkout. “Nothing we can’t sort out, Ross. If you want to quit today, we can schedule to reshoot the scene first thing in the morning.”

  He had agreed. At least they knew they were dealing with a star now, and not some nothing has-been.

  “Yes, Mr. Conti. This is the bell captain. How may I help you?”

  Ross balanced the phone under his chin and reached for the tequila bottle. “Can you be discreet?”

  “Of course, sir. It’s my job.”

  “I want a broad.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Conti. Blonde? Brunette? Redhead?”

  “Multicolored for all I care. Just make sure she’s got big tits—and I mean big ones.”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Oh, and you can charge her to my account. Mark it down as room service.” Why should he pay? Let the film company pick up the tab. He replaced the receiver and walked to the mirror. Fifty. Soon he would be fifty. And it hurt. Badly.

  • • •

  Ross Conti had lived in Hollywood for thirty years. And for twenty-five of those years he had been a star. Arriving in town in 1953, he was soon discovered hauling boxes in a food market on Sunset Boulevard by an aging agent’s young wife. She was entranced by his blond good looks, and set about persuading her husband to handle him. In the meantime she was handling him herself—twice a day—and loving every minute.

  Her husband discovered their affair on the day Universal decided to sign his young client. In a fit of fury the old agent negotiated the worst deal he possibly could, waited until it was signed, then dropped Ross, and badmouthed him as an untalented stud all over town.

  Ross didn’t care. He had grown up in the Bronx, spent three years kicking around New York grabbing bit parts here and there, and a Hollywood contract seemed just perfect to him, whatever the terms.

  Women adored him. For two years he worked his way through the studio, eventually picking on the pretty mistress of a studio executive, who promptly saw to it that Ross’s contract was dropped.

  Two years, and all he had done was a few small parts in a series of beach-party movies. Then suddenly—no contract, no prospects, no money.

  One day, lounging around Schwab’s drugstore on the Strip, he got talking to a girl named Sadie La Salle, a hardworking secretary with the most enormous knockers he had ever seen. She was not a pretty girl. Overweight, suspicions of a mustache, short of leg. But oh those magnificent tits! He surprised himself by asking her for a date. She accepted readily, and they went to the Aware Inn, ate health burgers, and talked about him. He loved every minute of it. How many girls were prepared to discuss him and only him for five solid hours?

  Sadie was very smart, a quality Ross had not encountered in a woman before. She refused to go to bed with him on their first date, slapped his hands away when he went after the magic tits, gave him sound advice about his career, and on their second date cooked him the best meal he had ever had.

  For six months they had a platonic relationship, seeing each other a couple of times a week, speaking on the phone daily. Ross loved talking to her; she had an answer for every problem. And oh boy, did he ever have problems! He told her about the girls he was screwing, the trouble he was having finding work. Going on interview after interview and getting nowhere was depressing, not to mention terrible for his ego. Sadie was a wonderful listener, plus she cooked him two great meals a week and did his washing.

  One night he had a narrow escape while visiting a nubile girlfriend. Her out-of-town husband returned home sooner than expected, and Ross was forced to drop out her bedroom window desperately clutching his pants. He decided to pay Sadie an unexpected visit and tell her the story, sure she would love it.

  When he arrived at her small apartment on Olive Drive he was shocked to discover her entertaining a man, the two of them sitting at her candlelit dining table finishing off a delicious-smelling pot roast. There was wine on the table, and fresh-cut flowers. Sadie was wearing a low-cut dress and seemed flustered to see him.

  It had never occurred to him that she had boyfriends, and he was unreasonably pissed off.

  “I want you to meet Bernard Leftcovitz,” she said primly, eyeing his crumple
d clothes and mussed hair with distaste.

  He flung himself familiarly into a chair and threw a silent nod in Bernard Leftcovitz’s direction. “Get me a drink, hon,” he said to Sadie, reaching out to slap her on the ass. “Scotch, plenty of ice.”

  She glared, but did as he asked. Then he outsat Mr. Leftcovitz, who finally left an hour later.

  “Thanks a lot!” she exploded, as soon as the door shut behind him.

  Ross grinned. “Wassamatter?”

  “You know what’s the matter. Walking in here like you own the place, treating me like one of your . . . your . . . goddam women!” She was spluttering with rage. “I hate you. I really hate you! You think you’re such a big deal. Well, let me tell you—”

  He grabbed her fast. Moved in for the kill—for he knew that’s what it would be—a killer scene, all thighs and heat and those amazing mountainous breasts enveloping him.

  She pushed him away. “Ross—” she began to object.

  He wasn’t about to listen to any reasons why they shouldn’t. Sadie La Salle was going to be his and screw the Bernard Leftcovitzes of this world.

  She was a virgin. Twenty-four years old. A resident of Hollywood and a virgin.

  Ross could not believe it. He was delighted. Ten years of making out and she was his first.

  The next day he packed up his things and moved in with her. He was two months overdue with his rent anyway, and money was becoming a big problem. Sadie loved having him in her life. She said goodbye to Bernie without a second thought and devoted all her time to Ross. “We have to find you an agent,” she fretted, because she knew his failure to land a part in a movie was upsetting him more than he cared to admit. Unfortunately all the agents he visited seemed to have got the message—Ross Conti equaled bad news.

  One day she made a major decision. “I’ll be your agent,” she said quite seriously.

  “You’ll what?” he roared.

  “I’ll be your agent. It’s a good idea. You’ll see.”

  The next week she gave up her job, withdrew her savings, and soon found a tiny room in a run-down building on Hollywood Boulevard. She stuck a notice on the door—Sadie La Salle, Agent to the Stars. Then she had a phone installed, and was in business.

  Ross found the whole thing hysterically funny. What the hell did Sadie know about being an agent?

  What she didn’t know she soon found out. For six years she had worked as a secretary in a large law firm which specialized in show-business work. She had the legalities down pat, and the rest wasn’t difficult. She had a product. Ross Conti. And when the women of America got a good look at him they were going to want to buy.

  “I have a great idea,” she told him one day, “and I don’t want your opinion of it, because it’ll work. I know if’s going to work.”

  As it happened he loved her idea, although it was a little crazy, and very expensive. She borrowed the money she needed from her former boss, an uptight jerk named Jeremy Mead who Ross suspected wanted to ball her. Then she had Ross photographed by the Pacific Ocean wearing faded Levi’s cutoffs and a smile. And she had the picture blown up and placed on as many billboards as she could afford all across America, with just the words: “WHO IS ROSS CONTI?”

  It was magic time. Within weeks everyone was asking, “Who is Ross Conti?” Johnny Carson began making cracks on his show. Letters started to arrive by the sackload, addressed to Ross Conti, Hollywood (Sadie had prudently informed the post office where to forward them). Ross was stopped in the street, mobbed by adoring women, recognized wherever he went. The whole thing took off just as she had predicted it would.

  At the peak of it all Sadie flew with her now famous client to New York, where he had been invited to do a guest appearance on The Tonight Show. They were both ecstatic. New York gave Ross the feel of what it would be like to be a star. Sadie was thrilled that it was she who had done it for him.

  He was marvelous on the show—funny, sexy, and magnetically attractive. By the time they got back to Hollywood the offers were piling up. Sadie sifted through them and finally negotiated an ace three-picture deal for him with Paramount. He never looked back. Success as a movie star was instantaneous.

  Six months later he dumped her, signed with a big agency, and married Wendy Warren, a rising young star with an impressive thirty-nine-inch bust. They lived together in much photographed luxury on top of Mulholland Drive, five minutes from Marlon Brando’s retreat. Their marriage lasted only two years and was childless. After that Ross became the Hollywood bachelor. Wild stories, wild pranks, wild parties. Everyone was delighted when in 1964 he married again, this time a Swedish starlet of seventeen with, of course, wonderful breasts. The marriage was stormy and only lasted six months. She divorced him, claiming mental cruelty and half his money. Ross shrugged the whole thing off.

  At that time his star was at its peak. Every movie he appeared in was a winner. Until 1969, when he made two disastrous films in a row.

  A lot of people were not sorry to observe his fall from superstardom. Sadie La Salle, for one. After his defection from her loving care she had faded from sight for a while, but then she had resurfaced and slowly but surely built herself an empire.

  Ross met Elaine when he went for a consultation with her husband. At thirty-nine he thought maybe he needed a little face work. He never got the surgery, but he did get Elaine. She moved in on him without hesitation, and she was exactly what he needed at that time in his life. He found her sympathetic, supportive, and an excellent listener. The tits were nothing to get excited about, but in bed she was accommodating and warm, and after the aggression of the usual Hollywood starlet he liked that. He decided marriage to Elaine was just what he needed. It did not take a lot of persuasion for her to divorce her husband. They married a week later in Mexico, and his career took a sharp upward swing. It stayed up for five years, then slowly, gradually, it began to slip. And so did their marriage.

  • • •

  Forty-nine. Heading full-speed toward fifty. And he didn’t look a day over forty-two. The blond boyish good looks had aged nicely, although he could do without the graying hair that had to be carefully dyed, and the deep indentations under his piercing blue eyes.

  Still, he was in terrific shape. The body was almost as good as new. He stared at his reflection, hardly hearing the discreet knock on the door.

  “Yes?”, he called out, when the knock was repeated.

  “Room service,” crooned a feminine voice.

  Room service was twenty-two and stacked. Ross made a mental note to tip the bell captain royally.

  2

  “He was never a normal boy, Deke Andrews wasn’t, always a strange one.”

  “Yeah? How so?”

  “You know, not interested in television, films, or girls. Not like the other kids on this street—even when he was growin’ up.”

  “What was he interested in?”

  “Cars. First job he got he went right out and put a down payment on an old Mustang. Loved that car. Polished it, tuned it, worked on that old jalopy for hours on end.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Got sold. Don’t know why. He never did get another one.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Sure about what?”

  “That he never got another car.”

  “ ’Course I’m sure. I know everything goes on in Friendship Street. I’ve sat lookin’ out this same window for thirty years. Did I tell you ’bout my accident? Had heavy machinery collapse on my legs. I ain’t never walked a step since. Compensation? You think I got money? I got nothing for all the stinkin’ time I put in at that lousy plant. Have you any idea . . .” The old man went red in the face as his voice rose and shook with anger.

  Detective Leon Rosemont rubbed the bridge of his large nose and stared at a cheap framed print on the wall. Who could ever figure people out? This old man was more interested in what had happened to him thirty years ago than what had happened only hours before in the house across the
street. As a witness he was useless. He had heard nothing. Seen nothing. Knew nothing.

  Soon the newspapers would be screaming their banner headlines: SAVAGE TRIPLE KILLING. MURDER HORROR IN SUBURBIA. blood massacre. How the press loved a good juicy mass murder. Three people brutally murdered in a small house on Friendship Street in a respectable suburb of Philadelphia. Jesus, how he wished he could wipe the morning’s carnage from his mind. Bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed it down sharply.

  Detective First Grade Leon Rosemont. A heavyset man in his early fifties, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with a mass of thick gray hair, shaggy eyebrows, and sharp, kindly brown eyes. He looked like an out-of-condition football star. And a football star was exactly what he had been in college. He had been twenty-nine years on the force. Twenty-nine years of mutilations, sex killings, and vicious slayings. How he hated all the garbage that came his way.

  They gave all the pretty ones to him, but this was the prettiest in a long time. Three people hacked to pieces for no apparent reason. No sexual assault. No robbery. No nothing. And not a good goddam thing to go on. Except maybe Deke Andrews, the son of the household, who seemed to be missing.

  So—was this just another nice old-fashioned family murder?

  Deke Andrews wasn’t around to tell. But then maybe he was away on a trip, staying with friends, or shacked up with a girl. After all, it was only Saturday afternoon, and according to Forensic, the killings could have taken place any time between eleven Friday night and four Saturday morning.

  Deke Andrews. Twenty-six years old. A loner.

  But then how many people had been questioned about him? Four? Five? The investigation hadn’t even started yet. These were early days.

  “Niggers!” the old man stated fiercely. “They’re causin’ trouble all over.”

  “What?”

  “It’s these niggers moved in down the steeet. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it,” he snorted. “I keep my doors locked now, not like the old days. Why, I can remember when you didn’t hafta have locks.”