Lennie Golden. A luxury she had allowed herself. A loser. But sexy and smart and funny, with a great body. Oh yes . . . she missed their lovemaking. In a way she missed their fights. And they had had some humdingers!
Then she remembered. Lennie Golden. A one-way street to nowhere. He would always be a nothing . . . And she, Eden Antonio, was going all the way to the top – with a little help from a friend.
* * *
In the underground garage waited Santino’s car and driver. His bodyguard, Blackie, had already joined him at the elevator. Santino never travelled anywhere without protection. In his business he needed it. There was no reason to take unnecessary risks, and that’s what Eden’s crummy apartment was.
‘Remind me,’ he said to Blackie, ‘I gotta get this broad set up in a house.’
‘Yes, boss,’ nodded Blackie.
Santino took a breath spray from his pocket and squirted it in his mouth. Eden intrigued him. She was beautiful and cold and a user. It would be interesting breaking her in. She thought he was a mark, ready to be fleeced. But she didn’t know him, did she?
She would. When he was ready. And only then.
* * *
Wayland did not bother asking where Lennie was, so Jess felt no need to explain his abrupt exit.
She returned home after meeting with Matt, stripped off her clothes, and flopped out on the overgrown grass beside the dirty pool.
Wayland was in a daze – as usual, so stoned he didn’t care what happened to anyone. The baby was asleep in a wicker carrybasket under a tree. Jess bit on a hang-nail and thought about her life. It wasn’t perfect. Whose was? But it could certainly be a lot better.
Why had she married Wayland?
Was being seven months’ pregnant a good enough reason?
Maybe. Maybe not. Plenty of people had kids without getting married. Yeah, but maybe they didn’t have a mother dying of cancer in the hospital. A mother whose fervent wish was to see her only daughter married.
Funny really, for all of her thirty years she and her mother had fought over everything. Came the crunch, and she found she would do anything for the woman who had brought her into the world. So she married Wayland, who at least before they did the deed seemed like a fairly normal human being – not the stoned zombie she had ended up with.
He had really fallen into a soft patch. A wife who worked her ass off, cleaned the house, looked after the baby, and kept him in drugs. What more could a man ask for? Man. That was a laugh. He hadn’t been near her in months. He preferred to get high rather than laid. The two did not always go together. Not that she cared. She would rather he didn’t touch her. He never showered, his hair was always dirty, and his teeth were beginning to rot because of the nasty little habit he had of ingesting pure sugar – just spooning it straight from the package. Disgusting!
She gave a long drawn-out sigh. She was depressed by Lennie leaving. They had spent hardly any time together, and she had harboured the hope that once they talked – really talked – he would help and advise her. In fact she had been counting on him to get her out of the mess she was in. She hadn’t told him about her mother, had not wanted to upset him on his first day in town. Now it was too late. He had thought she was screwing around. Ha! Who had the time, energy, or inclination? Her hours were spent between home, hospital, and the casino.
She stared at Wayland and hated him. When they first met he had seemed like a gentle, easy-going, kind person. A touch eccentric, but he was an artist. He had shown her a portfolio of brilliant drawings. Since they were married he had not put pen to paper – let alone brush to easel.
For gentle read weak; easy-going meant lazy; and kind equalled dumb. She snorted in disgust, and the baby started to cry. Wayland did not budge – naturally. Jess jumped up and scooped Simon from his basket. At least she had a gorgeous baby – the relationship had produced something of value.
She walked slowly into the house and thought about dinner with Matt Traynor. Not an event she relished, but maybe if she found out the truth she could persuade him to rehire Lennie.
Oh, if only she could! She needed a friend, and she needed him now.
* * *
So much for Eden. In a way Lennie was relieved because he really wasn’t prepared to talk to her. Best to get settled first, and then give her a call.
While he was near a phone he decided he would check out his mother, maybe the boyfriend had moved on, one never knew with Alice. She had gotten herself an answering machine, and there she was in high spirits and gravelly voice saying – Hi-de-ho! This is Alice. I am out. Disappointed? Don’t be. Leave your name, your number, and (giggle, giggle) vital statistics. If your luck is in, I will call you back.
Why did she make him cringe with embarrassment? Shouldn’t he have learned to accept her by now? He tried Joey Firello. Also out. Then he called the twins.
Shirlee answered, screamed a greeting, and insisted he come by for breakfast immediately. It seemed like a good idea. Besides, he had nowhere else to go.
Chapter Ten
In the morning Lucky felt great. She was back, the sun was shining, and she couldn’t imagine why she had been so uptight about Gino and the widow Martino the night before. It was nothing. It was a lay. Someone different. A constant parade of showgirls was enough to get anyone down.
She grinned. Good old Gino. He still had it. She should be proud of him, not mad. And today they would get everything settled, it would be business as usual.
In high spirits she leapt out of bed, did a few isometrics, then threw herself under an icy shower. For a split second she saw Marco’s smiling face – so handsome and dark . . .
She forced the image away, and thought instead about the casual pick-up the night before. Fortunately he had not been hot to trot, because she would have regretted it in the morning. How dumb of her to have picked an employee – she hoped Matt had done as she asked and fired him.
She stepped from the shower, shook drops of water from her glistening black hair, and slipped into a white towelling track suit. In Atlantic City she had run for the first time, and liked it. There was a jogging track on the grounds of the Magiriano, and she planned to use it.
Downstairs early morning gamblers filled the Casino. The ping of the slot machines was a twenty-four-hour-sound. It reassured Lucky that all was in order. She stopped for an orange juice in the coffee shop, chatted with a couple of security guards, then made her way down to the gym where she found
Boogie working out with weights.
‘Hey – hey – hey,’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s with you?’ Boogie looked sheepish at having been caught. He was tall and quick and skinny. Never thought about developing a muscle in his life.
‘It must be love,’ Lucky crooned, and with a wave made her way outside to the running track.
* * *
Gino’s morning progressed at a more leisurely pace.
Susan awoke him, again with a tray of goodies, kissed him lightly on the lips, and said, ‘I never realized anyone could make me as happy as you do.’
He struggled awake with a grin. This sure was some classy broad. ‘You don’t do a bad job yourself,’ he said, and decided he would buy her a present, maybe an important piece of jewellery.
She smiled, all pearly teeth and swept back hair. She looked like a million bucks in the morning.
He fingered the decolleté of her beige lace peignoir. ‘Anyone ever tell you you got great tits?’
‘Gino!’
‘Wassamatter? No one ever told you that?’
‘Not in quite such a way.’
He gave a dirty laugh. ‘You’re such a goddamn lady. That’s what I like about you.’
‘Ah . . . so that’s what you like,’ she murmured teasingly.
‘That and your great tits!’
He dug his hands in and she imperceptibly flinched, but did not draw back.
He played with her nipple and guided her hand to his penis. Deftly she moved away. ‘Breakfast time,’ she said sweetly
.
Obligingly his hard-on slid into oblivion.
‘Hey,’ he objected, ‘last person who told me to eat my breakfast was a six-foot nurse with hair on her chin.’
‘Eat up.’
He grinned. ‘I’d sooner eat your pussy.’
‘Gino! Sometimes I wonder if you’re seventy or seventeen.’
‘Just keep wondering, sweetheart. I like to keep ’em guessing.’
* * *
After running around the track for twenty minutes, Lucky took a brisk swim in the super-Olympic-size pool. She managed twenty-five laps, which pleased her, considering she was out of practise. On her way back upstairs, she stopped by Matt’s office, but he was not in.
She sat on his desk and called Gino. He was not there either. For a moment her face clouded over. Two nights in a row with the widow Martino? Two all-nighters when he loved his own bed? Two nights of solid fucking which was not good for a seventy-two-year-old man with a heart condition.
She frowned. Her day did not seem quite so bright. She needed answers and he was out getting laid.
‘Have him call me the minute he gets back,’ she said to the operator. ‘Oh, and you can tell him it’s urgent.’
* * *
By the time Gino was dressed and ready to leave the comfort of Susan’s rented house, it was past noon. Susan, dressed in a crisp white tennis dress, sat under an umbrella on the patio sipping mint iced tea.
‘Would you care for some?’ she said.
He was still in a joking mood. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Tea, dear. Not even Superman can manage anything else today.’
‘Hey—’ he said. ‘How about tonight? You wanna have dinner with me and Lucky?’
A tiny note of surprise crept into her carefully modulated tone. ‘Do you always dine with your daughter?’
‘Huh? Yeh . . . well, most times. We kinda got into the habit.’
‘Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?’
He shrugged. ‘She was married to this guy – a real nothing. My fault.’
‘Why was it your fault?’
‘I married her off when she was very young. Thought I was keepin’ her out of trouble ’stead of gettin’ her into it. She divorced him when I was out of the country. Now she’s wrapped up in the business – knows as much about things as I do.’
‘And you spend all your time together?’ Susan stated dryly.
‘Suits both of us.’
It doesn’t suit me, she thought, but did not say. Instead she beamed and murmured, ‘Lovely. We’ll all have dinner. Lucky seems like such an interesting girl. I shall enjoy getting to know her.’
* * *
Matt reached Lucky before Gino. His tone was cool.
‘Are you pissed at me?’ she questioned.
‘Why should I be? I dig getting out of bed at two o’clock in the morning and firing a first-class comedian who didn’t do a thing to deserve it.’
‘Don’t say dig. It makes you sound like some creep from the stone age.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ A long silence which she finally broke. ‘Who will you replace him with?’
‘A singing nun. Should send people to the tables in droves.’
‘Ha, ha. Was he upset?’
‘Of course the poor bastard was upset. His ego took a nosedive.’
‘Tough.’ She paused, then added, ‘You paid him for the whole two weeks?’
‘I even gave him a bonus.’
‘Then that’s okay.’
‘If you say so.’
She put the phone down and hoped she would never set eyes on Lennie Golden again. He was the first man ever to reject her advances. Still . . . even if he had performed she would have fired him. He had gotten himself caught in a no-win situation. It was his own fault anyway, he had started the whole thing by the pool in the afternoon – coming on to her like stud-of-the-year. Of course, physically he was undeniably attractive. Not her type, she didn’t go for the Robert Redford look. She liked her men dark and hard with a certain menace about them. Who did the creep think he was anyway? She hated guys like that.
Suddenly she saw the funny side of it. Mr Come-on couldn’t get it up. The only way he made it was his way.
She hoped he had learnt his lesson.
* * *
The pure yellow diamond ring on the widow Martino’s pinky sparkled brightly.
Gino could not wipe the grin from his face.
Lucky scowled.
Another sensational evening. Just the three of them this time. And the bitch giving Lucky digs that she recognized as major danger signals.
Naturally it was all very civilized. Susan, calm and charming. Only Lucky caught every one of the zingers that came her way.
She did not rise to the bait. She knew she was being set up, and there was no way she was blowing it in front of Gino. Susan wanted her to blow. Susan wanted a confrontation.
So Lucky stayed cool. She smiled and fended impertinent questions, and laughed and joked, while all the time her black eyes shone with fury that this grasping woman had somehow invaded their lives.
‘What do you think?’ Gino asked proudly, when Susan finally went to the ladies room.
I think you’re getting senile.
I think she’s a cunt.
‘I think she’s very . . . uh . . .’ she groped for a suitable adjective ‘. . . attractive.’ Jokingly she added, ‘But isn’t she a touch ancient for Gino the Ram?’
She used the nickname he had carried in his youth. Costa had told her all about that part of his life.
Gino fingered the almost faded scar on his cheek, another reminder of far-off days, and smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t want the twenty year olds, they got no conversation. I don’t want the thirty year olds, they’re all lookin’ to get hitched. Susan’s just right for me.’
‘How old is she?’
‘I don’t know, and I ain’t bothered. Forty something. Who gives a shit?’
Forty something, my ass. She has to be over fifty at the very least.
‘She must have been awfully young when she married Tiny. Weren’t they together thirty years?’ Lucky asked artlessly.
‘Nah. More like twenty.’
‘Oh. I read somewhere it was thirty.’
‘Yeh?’
At least she had implanted the suspicion that the widow Martino was older than he thought.
‘Excuse me, dear.’ Susan returned to the table freshly powdered and lipsticked, and smelling of Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew.
Lucky stifled her fury. She was not about to sit there any longer. ‘I think I’ll stroll around the casino. You don’t mind, do you?’
Mind? They couldn’t care less if she took a running dive off the roof of the hotel.
Chapter Eleven
The twins greeted Lennie exuberantly. He hadn’t seen them in eighteen months and was amazed at the transformation. In New York they had been two fairly ordinary-looking girls. Not unattractive, but no raving beauties. Now they were traffic stoppers. Platinum blondes (previously the hair was mouse) with matching nose jobs, gleaming suntans, gorgeous bodies and pneumatic breasts (Californian silicone at its best).
‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed.
‘It cost a fortune – but it’s worth every red cent,’ drawled Suna.
‘Sure is,’ agreed Shirlee.
‘You look awful,’ they chorused.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he replied. He really needed this.
They lived in a tiny wooden one-storey house on Keith Avenue, with dead plants hanging on the porch, along with macramé pots and baskets and a withered grape vine. The house was filled with a hodge-podge of Salvation Army furniture and junk. There was a minute back yard, and a clapped-out Volkswagen parked in front.
The two girls wore brief striped leotards and high-heeled white sandals. They were identical.
‘What are you doin’ here, Lennie?’ they chorused, settling him on a couch with busted stuffin
g, and sitting down on either side of him.
He laughed. ‘I honestly don’t know. Drove in last night with nothing in mind.’
‘From New York?’ asked Shirlee.
‘Some drive,’ added Suna.
‘From Vegas,’ he said.
‘Vegas,’ they exclaimed. ‘What were you doin’ there?’
‘It’s a short story. Boring. I thought I’d give L.A. a shot.’
Shirlee stood up and stretched. He couldn’t get over the bodies they had acquired. She stared at him significantly. ‘Have you seen Eden?’ she asked.
‘Eden who?’ he dead-panned.
‘Come off it, Lennie,’ sighed Suna.
He tried to look nonchalant. ‘Is Eden still here?’ he asked casually.
‘Yes,’ said Shirlee.
‘And how,’ added Suna.
Where is she? he wanted to ask. Who is she with? Does she still look great? Does she miss me?
He managed a calm, ‘Is she still going with that half-assed actor? What was his name – Tim Wealth or something?’
The two girls exchanged looks. Neither wished to tell him Eden Antonio had hooked up with a short, bald, married mystery man, and was nothing more than a kept woman.
‘Don’t think so,’ Shirlee said, and abruptly changed the subject. ‘Do you have an agent here?’ she asked.
‘No. But plenty of numbers to call.’
Suna shook her head knowingly. ‘You need an agent. Nobody gets anywhere without one. This isn’t New York where you use who you know.’
‘So I’ll get an agent. No hassle. What are you two doing? Apart from looking like the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.’
‘We’re hot!’ exclaimed Shirlee.
‘Well, almost,’ added Suna.
‘We’re up for a series,’ said Shirlee.
‘No more voice-overs. From now on it’s all or nothing,’ enthused Suna.
‘This house might look like a dump to you,’ Shirlee said seriously. ‘But it’s central. One block from Santa Monica and three blocks from Beverly Hills. Do you realize how important location is?’
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