There lay Jackie Landry's true innocence and his real strength. He had not bought into the Hollywood dream fully. He had not fallen for self-delusion. He had not inflated his worth until it was so large it engulfed a minor talent and rode it into the ground.
"You mean it," he said.
She nodded, biting her lip. She waited until the dawning of his understanding became full day. "You have to do this for me," she said, almost in a whisper as if this were a secret between them. "You have to do this for yourself."
She waited again while he stared at her, stared at her lips as if she might say more.
"I can't keep trying," he said, stating the truth he knew finally. "I can't try, I have to be what it is Cam wants. That's what you mean."
"Yes." Her heart leaped, rejoicing.
"I should have no fear, not of Cam, not of Olivia, not of myself."
"Yes, yes!"
"I have to be Perry Johns and no one else but Perry Johns. I have to be him more than I'm me. I have to let his suffering in.”
"See? I knew you'd understand!"
He stood with her and they embraced, happy children, children who have forgiven one another past grievances and are willing to love again.
He said against her ear, "Thank you, Robyn. Even if you've lied to me, thank you. Don't worry any more, you don't have to worry about me."
She closed her eyes, basking in his maleness, secure in the circle of his strong young arms. She whispered back to him, unable to stop herself, "Meet me at the Universe tonight. Dance with me then. Just one dance."
"All right," he said, releasing her and smiling down into her face.
He was radiant, an angel, and at that moment, God, how she loved him; every inch of him, every hair, every last masculine beautiful bit of him.
14
"Just like those other black holes from outer space, Hollywood is postmodern to this extent: it has no center, only a spreading dead zone of exhaustion, inertia, and brilliant decay."
Arthur Kroker, Panic Hollywood
Robyn melted in Jackie's arms during a slow dance in Heaven. The band sang old blues tunes made famous in the forties by Robert Johnson. The singer doing the cover version was black, male, and exceptionally talented, although not a rival for the throne of bluesman Johnson.
"I'll be good tomorrow," Jackie said next to her ear.
He was talking about the shooting of his scene the next day in the hills outside Hollywood. He had his arms around her waist, holding her tightly. She had her hands looped around his neck and hoped he'd do some dirty dancing before the singer finished his rendition of "When You Got a Good Friend."
"You'll be perfect," she said, meaning it. If he wasn't, Cam was going to give her real hell again.
She and Cam went back seven years, to the time when she first got into the business producing. They had done their first deal together, pitching a sweetheart western to Paramount. It hadn't gone over and was finally turned down by every studio they tried, but from then on Cam trusted her and knew her strengths. She could collect money men like other women collected diamond earrings. She was good at convincing them to risk it all.
But Cam would not spare her hell. If hell is what she deserved, he'd dish it out happily and serve up a side order of heavy suffering for good measure. That's what made him a genius. He might like you, but he wouldn't mind putting the screws to you to get his films right. All that mattered was the picture.
This time that's all that mattered to Robyn, too. That and good sex.
Jackie's body was lean and firm. Not a muscle-builder type, but still strong enough to make her heart skip beats. She had worn the blue dress, the one with the scooped neckline and mid-thigh skirt. Underneath, she wore sky blue stockings with blue and red splashed stiletto heels. Nothing else. Underwear wasn't necessary with the kinds of clothes Robyn chose to have designed for herself. The dresses all came with built-in bra bodices for the most elegant and natural uplift her breasts ever received. She might be small—all right, petite—but she made what she had go a long way. Anyway, it always surprised her how many men liked little women.
"Will you take me home?" she murmured, going crazy thinking about sex with Jackie.
They had shared dinner at the Beverly Wilshire, her treat, drinks in the bar there, his treat, and now a half hour rubbing bodies on the dance floor at the Universe. He had suggested Planet Hollywood and she said wait, let me show you the Universe, you'll like it better. And now it was time for the pièce de résistance. Show time!
"My pleasure," he said, maneuvering her from the floor before the bluesman finished his last guitar chord.
Robyn had hired a limo for the night to prove to Jackie how special he was. She'd dismiss it when they reached her place and she'd call it back if Jackie wanted to leave again. If not, if he stayed over, she'd drive him to location in the morning. Let everybody talk. It's what they did so well and she did have a reputation to uphold besides.
It was hardly ten o'clock. Neither wanted to stay up too late, not when the next day was the day Jackie meant to show her, show Cam, what he could do with his part.
Neither of them noticed they were being scrutinized from the shadows at one end of the bar as they gathered Robyn's light jacket and purse.
Both would have been surprised to know Cam sat there in the dark, nursing a draft while watching them all night.
On the other hand, if they had known he was watching, and thought it over a bit, they'd know they should have expected it. It was his biggest film. What Robyn did with Jackie to get him to act was of Cam's gravest concern. And if they'd known, they would have expected he was probably muttering to himself about how he hated the Universe, hated the alternative music, hated wasting his time in a Hollywood hot spot when he could have been down at some little stink-hole bar with real people.
But they did not know and Cam wasn't about to let them find out.
After dismissing the limo Robyn took Jackie's hand to lead him into the three-story, white stucco, two-million-dollar house in the Hollywood Hills earned from the profits on her last production deal. Once inside the elegant, but cold and austere, house that she found too late she didn't like very much, she turned into Jackie's arms and kissed him long and thoroughly. He slid both hands down to cup her ass and she squirmed against him, china doll in the arms of a sun god. It was going to be a good night. He was as hard for her as anyone she'd ever fucked.
The telephone rang and they froze, tongues in mouths, hands full of body parts. The answering machine picked up and after an anonymous male voice asked the caller to leave a message, Robyn pulled away to listen more closely.
Jackie stood next to her in the shadowed foyer, waiting. They could hear the answering machine in another room off the foyer go click and then beep and then there was a two-second silence. Finally a heavy sigh floated toward them, amplified and weary.
Karl's voice suddenly echoed through the empty dark rooms of the spacious home.
"I've been calling all night, Robyn. I'm sorry to leave so many messages. They wouldn't let me talk to you on the set today, said you were busy, weren't taking calls."
Robyn stiffened. Jackie slumped.
"I have to get this," she said to him, moving away without turning on the lights, leaving him alone in the vast foyer.
Karl's voice continued. "The police have been called in now, but they don't have anything, really, it's half a joke to them . . ."
Robyn reached an extension and picked up. "What police?" she asked, sounding angrier and more put-out than she'd meant to sound.
"You're there! Oh, thank god."
"What is it, Karl? I have company."
"I'm sorry."
"What is it? You said you called the police."
"Robyn, you need to help me. Someone's . . . well, someone must be crazy. They broke into my office and threw . . . blood . . . all over everything. The walls, the desks, the . . ."
"Blood?" Blood, she thought? Did he say that?
She heard
the front door close, a soft punctuation with a small echo. She said, "Wait a minute, I'll be right back." She dropped the receiver and let it dangle from the wall phone while she hurried to the foyer.
He had gone.
She opened the front door calling, "Jackie?" but he was gone. Not a trace of him on the walk leading to the street. No sign of him on the street either. He'd have a long walk to find somewhere to use a phone to call for a cab. What the hell was wrong with him?
"Well, shit."
She closed and locked the door, really angry now, and stalked back to the phone.
"Thanks a lot."
"What's wrong?"
"My company." She paused, hoping Karl would feel some twinge of jealousy. "Is no longer my company. He left.”
“I'm sorry, Robyn, I said that. But this is important.”
“Yeah, yeah. What about blood? I think you're losing your mind, Karl."
"I wish it were that simple," he said. And that's when she began to listen.
15
"Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist."
Jeanne Moreau, International Herald Tribune
"I had a call from my agent telling me I didn't need a publicity manager. I'm not big enough yet."
She sat across from Karl's desk wearing a prim gray suit that would have looked at home on a school teacher except for the fact she wore no blouse underneath. The jacket buttoned just above her waist so there was skin showing nearly to her navel. Flesh Girl. In his mind, that's what he'd nicknamed her. He was going to trade on that idea—nothing in the world skated as well as selling sex—but here she was leaving him when they'd hardly started a campaign for her.
"I think your agent's wrong. You're making a mistake," he said calmly.
She wrinkled her nose and glanced over at his closed office door as if she smelled something bad. She knew about the blood that had soaked the outer office. Karl didn't know how she and his other clients knew. It wasn't reported in the papers or trades. But word traveled in this town like an oil fire over still water.
"Whoever broke in the other night isn't anyone who knows you, Karleen. You don't have to be afraid."
"I'm not afraid," she said, straightening her shoulders and looking past him to the windows at his back. He wished she'd look at him. "I just don't need your services right now."
Karl glanced down at the pen in his hand. He'd been twirling it nervously and now he let it drop to the desk. He stood. "All right. If you've made up your mind, I guess that's it. I'm sorry to lose you. I had an interesting idea for your future, but . . ." He shrugged.
She stood and held out her hand. He saw half her left breast, a small suntanned moon peeking from the suit lapel. "It's got nothing to do with . . . you know." She gestured with her head toward the door.
"No, of course not."
"When I'm making more money, I'll probably be back.”
“I hope you will," he said.
She wouldn't make a lot more money if she didn't use him, he thought. You didn't make it here by looking deliciously sexy in a gray suit or by having an agent. It took more than that, lots more. But she'd been scared off by the incident that had ruined his office and he had to let her go, what could he do?
After she'd left his office, he slumped in his chair. That was the fourth new client he'd lost in as many days. It couldn't just be the break-in. Someone was getting to them, warning them off. Karl wasn't much for conspiracy theories, but the actions taken against him were as plain as day. You didn't have to be paranoid to see the barren landscape lying in wait ahead of him. His stalker simply had to be the culprit, running off his clients.
Before Karleen Comodore had come to give him her regrets this morning, he had received in the day's mail a rejection for his request for a Gold Visa. He already had a Gold Mastercard, a Diner's Club card, American Express, and maybe half a dozen other credit cards. His secretary, Lois, must have filled out the Gold Visa request off one of the advertisements that came to the office periodically. She had been trying to handle things like that so he wouldn't be bothered. He, personally, didn't give a rat's ass about another gold card line of credit.
But that they had refused him made him sit with the rejection letter in his hand, puzzling. They turned him down? He was worth roughly a million plus, owned real estate in Malibu free and clear, took in a salary from his management business that consistently went over eight hundred grand even with two accountants trying to bury his profits from the IRS, and a bank somewhere in this country turned him down for a gold card? It was unbelievable.
First Karl called in Lois and asked if she was the one who had filled out the application for the card. She had, yes, was that wrong? She knew she didn't ask him, but . . .
No, he told her, it wasn't wrong, thanks. She went back to her desk, frowning slightly.
Then he called two credit bureaus. The one in L.A. and the one in Burbank. They would not discuss on the telephone his credit rating, but they'd send him copies of their reports for ten dollars a copy. He sent for them with the fees enclosed. Now it would be a few days before he could really find out what was going on. The rejection of his application for the gold card noted "outstanding credit obligations and payment record" as the reasons for turning him down.
Obviously someone had monkeyed with his credit rating. How could they do that? Computer hacking? A friend in the credit bureau?
Karl had heard of people being ruined by vindictive ex-spouses and envious business partners. There were ways to completely undermine a person's life since everything was digitally available. If you knew the codes and the underhanded tricks, the chains to yank, the people to bribe. And somebody did.
A short rap sounded from the door and Sherry Northumberland peeked in. "Lunch?" she asked. "I have an hour free."
He smiled on seeing her sunny face. Sherry had been one of his first clients ten years before when he first started his business. He had been instrumental in getting her face known about town, introduced her to producers and directors, took her to the right parties. She was doing okay now, chosen consistently for strong female leads. He remembered that he had bought the fine walnut desk he now sat behind from his commission on the Northumberland account.
"Yeah. Lunch sounds great. Let me speak to Lois and meet you in the waiting room."
She shut the door but not before winking. He smiled, felt lighter than he had in days. Part of Sherry's success was due to the effect she had on people. She was like rain after a parched summer drought. He could use lunch with someone cheerful who might help chase away the clouds hanging over his head.
~ * ~
They sat across from one another at a little spaghetti place called Farrar's not far from his office. They wouldn't be bothered here. And Sherry didn't need to be seen at Tuscany's in Brentwood to add to her allure. At least not today.
"So how's life, kid?" She slurped from a large Coke through a straw. She wore a dazzling buttercup-yellow dress that highlighted her dark looks. She favored the dress style of the fifties. Shirtwaists, pleated bodices, belts of the same fabric as the dress.
"Your account's doing okay. You don't need me much these days, Sherry."
She waved that away. "I didn't mean me. I meant you. I heard you had some trouble at the office. Who would do such an obscene thing?"
He sipped from his cup of coffee. His tenth since rising. He felt all jangled on the caffeine, but on the other hand he needed the lift. He thought if he didn't drink coffee down like water, he'd collapse in a tired little puddle.
He hadn't wanted to talk about his troubles. He wanted to hear about her picture and if she was happy with the new husband and the new baby. Tanya, they'd named her. "I guess everyone knows. I lost a new client this morning because of it. Rumors must make it sound worse than it was."
"Blood all over the place isn't bad?"
"It's some kook."
"I hear it might be a woman. I told you about loving them and leaving them." She grinned and pointed a
finger at him. She could say things like that. They hadn't been involved. And he'd known her so long.
"I don't know who it is."
"But it could be a woman?"
He dug into his spaghetti. "I guess it could. I figure it has to be." He ate a mouthful, then put down his fork. "You're not leaving me too, are you, Sherry?"
"Hell no! You think I'd take you to a lunch this expensive to fire you?"
He had to smile. Farrar's was one of the most inexpensive cafés in the whole area. "I'm relieved to hear that. Even if you're doing fine, I want to keep track of your career."
"I'm not leaving you, Karl. Ease up. If you're losing new clients, they were kids you couldn't help anyway. You have to have balls for this business. They won't make it if a little rumor and innuendo scare them off."
Though he secretly agreed with her, he knew there were other publicity companies they could turn to. He wasn't the only one in town. He was just the best.
"I know what you're thinking," she said, tackling a string of spaghetti that kept slipping off her fork. "There are other outfits they can go to, but no one like you, Karl. No one I'd trust my whole life to, but you."
He was touched and told her so.
"Don't thank me for the truth."
"What's the rumor?" he asked. "What are people saying?"
She motioned for the waitress to refill her glass of Coke. "It's nothing much."
"Tell me. If I don't know what's being said, I can't fight it.”
She looked him in the eyes. He'd never noticed before how long her lashes were. She was a dove-like woman, soft and embraceable. He wondered why they'd never had an affair—and now it was too late. Maybe he wasn't her type. He didn't get to sleep with all his pretty clients. Didn't even make the effort. It got too messy combining business with pleasure, although that's how Hollywood worked, for the main. He just didn't like all the complications. Look how his marriage to Robyn had turned out for an example of how it could go wrong, he thought bitterly.
DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels Page 26
