by Cate Andrews
By now, in the foulest of foul moods, he stormed back into the lobby with every intention of collecting his coat and going home. Instead, he found his path blocked by a hairy blonde man with electric blue fingernails, a golden Californian suntan and ‘Surfer Dude’ stamped across the front of his faded t-shirt.
‘Mr De Vries,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Jesse Roth from Hollywood Film. Can I have a word?’
Barely breaking stride Stephen barged him out of the way like a seasoned shopper on the first day of the sales. He detested Hollywood Film. In fact, he detested any trade publication that had placed his brother’s movie above his in their Film of the Year lists.
‘Mr De Vries…’ persisted Jesse, trailing after him, ‘i’d really like that word if you may.’
‘Talk to my publicist,’ snapped Stephen, over his shoulder.
‘What publicist?’ asked Jesse, innocently.
‘What do you mean, what publicist?’ said Stephen, spinning round to face him. ‘Garrett. Patrick Garrett, you stupid moron. Everyone in this town knows that. All my press goes through him.’
‘I see,’ said Jesse, trying not to smirk. ‘Would this be the same Patrick Garrett who quit your services exactly ten minutes ago?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Why on earth would Garrett quit the night before the Oscars? It’s like Henry V pulling a fast one before the Battle of Agincourt.’
‘Except Henry was the underdog,’ countered Jesse, showing off his English Major credentials. ‘Garrett resigned as soon as I showed him an article that’s appearing in our special Academy Award issue tomorrow. Would you like to take a look?’
Stephen scowled and tore the magazine from his outstretched hand. Glancing down, he quickly discovered why Walt had shunned his own party that evening.
Moments later, he knew he was finished.
Chapter Sixty-Two
‘What you need is a haircut,’ announced Lucy, beaming at Lily. ‘Then Walt’s going to whisk you down to Rodeo Drive, do his best Richard Gere bit and glam you right up. Aren’t you, darling?’ she added to a frowning Walt, who was hovering by his vast stone grey fireplace beneath a priceless Picasso in his gargantuan drawing room.
‘If you say so.’ He may be the most powerful man in Hollywood, but Walt was powerless to refuse a single thing that Lucy asked of him.
‘But I can’t accept that,’ gasped Lily.
‘You can and you will,’ insisted Lucy. ‘A hot date to the Academy Awards tonight is the very least Walt can do for you. You’ve spent hours slaving over a hot laptop for him, making him millions. And he was horrid to you in Cannes.’
Walt’s steely grey eyebrows shot up. It was debatable what turned him on the most about Lucy - her boobs or her balls.
‘But aren’t you going yourself?’ asked Lily, fretfully.
‘I can’t, I’m working. I promised my editor I’d do a report from the red carpet. He swung me an eleventh hour accreditation pass late last night.’
Lily scratched at her bare arm absentmindedly. It seemed so implausible that a posh frock and a hasty restyle would make Michael sit up and take notice. Then again, she was in Hollywood. Maybe she should shoot for the archetypal happy ending and be done with it.
‘Ok,’ she whispered, ‘I’ll give it a whirl.’
‘Great!’ cried Lucy, jumping up from Walt’s cerulean-blue ten-foot long chaise longue, on which she had enjoyed far more than just sitting on in the last few weeks. ‘Project Michael is a-go! Now, as it’s a Sunday and Oscar morning, we may have to twist a few arms. Fortunately, Walt’s rather good at that.’
‘I’m on it,’ he growled, whipping out his phone and dialing Serena immediately.
‘In the meantime, I’m going to call Polly and see if we can pinch Christine’s hair and make-up team for an hour or two.’
‘This is crazy,’ whispered Lily, but so were a lot of things since Walt marched her out of his hotel on Friday morning. There was the discovery that he wasn’t such a cold-blooded bully, then she had declared the entire contents of her heart to him, and finally, just when things couldn’t get any weirder, he had persuaded her to fess up to Michael and pledged his full support in helping her do so. As a result, she and Lucas had been holed up in Walt’s Bel Air mansion for the last two days whilst he and Lucy devised the best strategy to knock Michael off his feet with a well-aimed, impeccably timed missile of Lily Moore loveliness.
Eventually, they had both agreed on the heady, breathless, razzle-dazzle of the Oscar red carpet. Where else could Lily legitimately materialise dripping in diamonds and looking a trillion dollars? Certainly not Michael’s doorstep. According to Walt, everywhere outside Bel Air was a no-go ghetto and she would have been mugged before she even made it up the drive. What’s more, once Lily and Michael’s eyes had met over the tops of the heads of all the diminutive action stars, they would still have plenty of time to scoot inside for a pre-ceremony smooch before the business end of the evening got underway.
Lily was touched, despite a growing hunch that Walt’s intentions were mired more in self-interest. At the same time, her tiny bubble of optimism was being constantly pricked with razor-sharp needles of doubt. She was a single mum. She had an appalling track record with men and, despite her recent dramatic weight loss, it would take a billion Beverly Hills haircuts to put her within a single split-end of Michael’s league.
Over by his Picasso, Walt was getting an earful from Serena. After his article had appeared in Hollywood Film this morning, her phone had been ringing off the hook with requests for interviews. She had just cancelled the rest of her Jane Austen re-enactment weekend to deal with it all.
‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ she screeched at him. ‘I’ve had to take eighty-one messages from that revolting scamp, Stephen De Vries, alone.’
Walt was rather taken-aback by this. If it were he who had been branded a ‘raging egotistical sadist’ and a ‘disgrace to the film-making community’, as he described Stephen so pithily in his article, he would have emigrated to Eastern Siberia.
Perhaps Stephen was planning to brazen out the allegations on the red carpet later? If so, he would have a helluva lot to comment on, reflected Walt darkly. Vincent’s fraud, his protracted affair with Maisie, his contemptible treatment of his crew… Walt had skillfully drawn on every last rotting morsel from Lucy’s footage, before chucking in on final, savage missive of his own; That from this day forward, under absolutely no circumstances, would he, Global Studios or any of its hundreds of industry subsidiaries, have anything whatsoever to do with Stephen De Vries.
Across town, Joe was sat at Michael’s kitchen table in a white t-shirt and black Calvins, devouring Walt’s article in Hollywood Film. Polly was perched beside him, her feet resting on his knees, looking almost unrecognisable with her long dark hair wound into bright green rollers and half a tissue box rolled up and stuffed between her toes as the second coat of oyster pink nail varnish dried.
They both glanced up as Michael wondered into the kitchen. The American was already dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and tux trousers. With his hair slicked back and bow tie undone, he looked more Ratpack than Dean Martin himself.
‘I know you paraphrased it to me last week but, my god, this thing is brutal!’ exclaimed Joe.
Michael smirked and grabbed the orange juice carton from the fridge door. ‘Now you know why I had to bury it.’
‘You can’t drink that!’ cried Polly, butting in. ‘Aren’t you sick with nerves? My stomach feels like Mike Tyson’s punch bag.’ She watched in amazement as Michael pulled out a fruit salad and started snubbing the grapes and picking on the pineapple chunks.
‘I think my body’s in denial,’ he said, grinning at her.
‘You and Stephen both,’ murmured Joe. ‘There’s no way in hell he’s going to wriggle out of this one.’
‘He can’t. It’s completely unrecoverable,’ said Michael simply. ‘The article’s not just a character assassination, it’s a veiled threa
t to the rest of Hollywood to steer clear. That’s why Dad needed to retract it before the ballots closed.’
Joe turned back to the paper. He had waited three long years for Stephen’s comeuppance, but now that it was here, and in spite of all the dreadful things he had done to them, he couldn’t bring himself to take any pleasure in his brother’s spectacular downfall.
‘The bit I can’t piece together is how your father found about Vincent and the Harper scripts in the first place.’
Polly stopped testing her nail varnish with a toothpick. ‘Ah, I think I might have some idea about that,’ she said cagily, as her phone started ringing. ‘Speak of the devil... Hi Lucy,’ they heard her mutter, maneuvering the handset in between the rollers. At the same time there was a knock at the front door.
‘Fucking media,’ growled Michael, slamming the fridge door. With his father refusing to speak to the press, his front lawn was once again being ripped apart by their broadcasting vans.
‘I’ll handle it,’ called out one of Bill’s team from the hallway, as Polly squeezed past with her phone clamped to her ear.
‘I want a word when you’re done, honey,’ called out Michael. ‘I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling us.’
Just then, Bill’s publicist appeared in the kitchen’s doorway with a very neat looking man wearing an exceptionally well-ironed black polo shirt tucked into his underpants and clutching a russet brown leather briefcase.
‘I didn’t realise you took house calls from your accountant,’ murmured Joe as Michael dived forward to greet him.
‘Mr Peterson!’ he yelped. ‘Holy crap, this is a miracle! I’ve been trying to reach ya all week!’
‘I’ve been on holiday, Mr Wilson,’ snapped Mr Peterson tersely, ‘which also happens to be in your neck of the woods, so I decided to swing by and deliver my final invoice to you in person. Of course, if I’d known what a jungle awaited me on your front lawn, I would have emailed it to you instead.’ This was added somewhat reprovingly, as if the press intrusion was entirely Michael’s fault.
Joe hid his sniggers behind Hollywood Film. He had never met anyone so bureaucratic. What on earth was he doing in sunny California? The man should be camping in Slough. At least then all the little grey buildings would match his personality.
Meanwhile, Michael was gazing at him with a bewildered look on his face.
‘How can this be your final invoice?’ he said, as Ray thrust a manila envelope at him. ‘You haven’t supplied me with what I requested.’
This time it was Ray’s turn to look confused. ‘Mr Wilson, i’m not ordinarily in the habit of repeating myself and, as I explained last week, the subject of your investigation has been staying in Los Angeles since January. In fact, I’ve just received word that she and her son were seen leaving The Global Studios Hotel & Spa in the company of your father, no less than two days ago.’
‘You’re telling me that Lily’s been here in LA this whole time? With my father?’
‘Mr Wilson’ said Ray, frowning, ‘I’m afraid this is all very muddling to me. You seem to be acting as if our entire phone conversation last week never took place.’
‘But it didn’t! It couldn’t have! I left my phone in my f….’ Michael stopped. Without another word, he turned on his heel, grabbed his car keys and barged headfirst into a blizzard of blinding flashbulbs.
By the time he reached the pampered verges and sprawling mansions of Bel Air, Michael’s heart was thudding painfully against his ribcage. Not his father, please god not his father, he kept repeating to himself over and over again.
Glaring coldly at Walt’s security team, he tore up the driveway with his foot to the floor, spraying tiny bullets of ice white gravel in all directions. He reached the house just as Lucas came bouncing out of the front door like a jolly blonde beach ball. He was sporting a Mutinous Pirates T-shirt and clutching a grey, plastic cutlass between his teeth.
Michael squealed to a stop. The little boy had shot up at least three inches since Morocco. Pure happiness, due in part to two days exclusive use of Walt’s four swimming pools, radiated forth from him like sunshine.
‘Michael!’ he screamed in delight, catching sight of his face above the steering wheel.
In a flash, Michael was stumbling out of the car to reach him, catching his shoe under the clutch and leaving it discarded in the footwell.
‘Lucas,’ he muttered, as the little boy threw himself into his arms.
‘I still like bugs,’ he announced. ‘And I really like your daddy’ he added, grinning up at him. ‘He’s a lot nicer than mine.’
Michael flinched as if Lucas had stabbed him through the heart with his plastic cutlass. ‘I’m glad you like him, Lucas,’ he managed faintly. ‘Does your mom like him too? Is she happy here?’
Lucas nodded.
‘Is she around? Can I speak to her?’
Lucas shook his head. ‘Nope. She’s gone shopping with Mr Walt.’
Just then, a short, pixie-faced blonde, the same blonde from his father’s office, appeared on the porch, shading her eyes with one hand.
‘Lucas, sweetie, your fish fingers are nearly done,’ she chirped then froze when she saw Michael, shoe-less and white-faced, standing in the driveway.
Michael stared back at her in horror, assuming she was Lucas’ new nanny. Oh Lily, he thought to himself, helplessly, you’re a magnet for the world’s most inappropriate childcare. The blonde and his father were clearly screwing each other’s brains out. No great surprises there. His father had always had a thing for his nannies.
‘I have to go,’ he muttered into Lucas’ hair suddenly, wrenching himself away.
‘No, please, don’t,’ cried Lucy, taking a step forward. ‘Walt and Lily won’t be long. I’m expecting them back any minute.’
‘Then tell ‘em I said hi,’ he said bitterly.
Moments later, he was tearing back up the driveway again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
A few miles away, in another vertices of the ‘Platinum Triangle’, the three super-affluent LA neighbourhoods comprising of Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, Stephen sat slumped against a wall in the dressing room of his $10 million glass-fronted mansion. He was surrounded by two empty bottles of Courvoisier and the jagged fragments of his Academy Award Nomination certificate picture frames, smashed to smithereens that morning in a fit of drunken rage.
Just like my fucking career, he thought dully, gazing at the debris and purposely ducking eye contact with the glossy black Tux hanging opposite. It had been carefully selected by his ex-stylist, Sergio, six months previously for tonight’s ceremony but after this morning’s revelations in Hollywood Film it seemed destined to stay unworn and unappreciated by Joan Rivers and her team of hawk-eyed, Oscar red carpet fashion police. To forever taunt him like a jilted bride’s wedding gown.
Ex-stylist
Ex-girlfriend
Ex-contract with Global Studios
Stephen slammed his fist into the wall. The list was so crushingly relentless.
Once Hollywood Film had hit the stands a few hours ago, he had been inundated with resignations and rebuttals. The most stinging was an email from his so-called new Business Partner, Toad Norris, who had been the first to tell him in no uncertain terms to get stuffed.
Maisie, on the other hand, had been only too happy to pick up a phone and tell him, or rather screech at him, what a bloody fiasco he was. As the actress let rip, he could make out snippets of her PR team chatting away furiously in the background. They were hitting up every media contact they knew with strenuous denials to the allegations. If only he still had Garrett, thought Stephen wistfully, yearning for a PR damage limitation plan. Alas, the ace publicist, along with the forked snake himself, Walt Wilson, was refusing to take his calls. Even Bunny Hopkins was proving more elusive to pin down than an agitated flea.
It was Vincent whom he resented most that morning, however. This was his stinking mess, but the selfish bastard had gone and
carked it, leaving him up to his wrinkle-free neck in shit. Thanks to his two-faced, fat-fuck of an ex producer, he had a paparazzi circus staking out his driveway and a Least Wanted poster of himself plastered up all over Hollywood. Stephen shuddered and clutched at his chest. Christ, just thinking about it made him feel as if Sergio was forcing him into an XS dress shirt.
As he sat there in a broken heap, cramp gnawing at his left thigh, contemplating suicide, a pee and his third bottle of Courvoisier, not necessarily in that order, he heard his phone beeping again. Steeling himself for more misery, he opened the text and frowned. It was an image of a bright yellow rose. His eyes flickered over the accompanying text and his face twisted in fury.
To paraphrase that delightful and far more capable, Mr Hitchcock, Stephen: ‘Revenge really IS sweet and (thankfully for my Oscar gown’s sake) not in the least bit fattening…’
Christine
You evil bitch, he raged, staggering to his feet and lurching towards his Tux, indignation bolstering his booze-soaked limbs like a supersonic Zimmer frame. Fuck Christine and her varicose veins. Fuck Walt Wilson and his stroppy article. Fuck all those who had written him off. His car was still booked and his Oscar still awaiting him. The GBA jet might be tail-spinning wildly but if this was it, if tonight was his last gasp of the big time, then Stephen De Vries was going down in a blaze of golden glory.
‘Have you texted him?’
‘Yes, twice.’
‘Left a voicemail message?’
Joe stared at Polly, comprehendingly. ‘My god,’ he drawled, rolling his eyes, ‘now why didn’t I think of that?’
