by L. J. Greene
“The nag didn’t come through,” I said. It was a familiar tale. Sometimes Jimmy’s tips were golden. Sometimes they weren’t.
“You got it,” King said. “He had his crew tailing me for the money he’d floated me, so I borrowed from Walker to pay up. Then I owed Walker, and he put the screws on, upped the juice on my loan. I owed him big, Cole. Big. And he sent his boys for me.”
No one would ever accuse them of it, but it was plain to anyone with eyes to see that Jimmy Wu and Pete Walker ran a tandem business. Jimmy took bets and Walker was the biggest loan shark in West Hollywood. They helped each other out, recommended each other to their customers. I knew it. The police knew it. Everyone knew it. But that was just the way things were in this town.
I gave King another shake for good measure. “I owe Walker too, Freddie. We all owe him. But we don’t all sell out our friends.”
“You don’t get it,” he said urgently. “I was in too deep, I’d run out of time. They were making me do lowdown things, things a decent man would never do…but it was a rock and a hard place, mate. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was planning to get out, disappear. Go east maybe, or even back home. Then out of nowhere—out of nowhere—as long as I got you to take the job—”
“Cresswickham paid off your debt,” I guessed.
King looked ashamed, but he shrugged. “I really am sorry, Fox. But I’m fond of my neck and I wanted to keep it straight. I had to take the lifeline. And anyway, it’s not like you’ve been put out, is it? I’ll still pay you, if that’s your beef.”
“I oughta knock your damn teeth out,” I told him, and raised a fist.
He cringed, but said, “Go on, then. I guess I deserve it.”
I wanted to. I wanted to bust his nose and take out my anger and embarrassment and humiliation on him, but there was no point. Beating King wouldn’t change anything, and he was just as much a dupe as I was. “Aw, forget it,” I said.
He called out to me when I reached the sidewalk. “Word of advice, mate. Never trust those rich bastards.”
“You’re a fine one to be lecturing me about trust,” I told him bitterly, and left him there on the street.
Chapter 14
In the afternoon I had nothing else to do but lie by the Marmont pool, wearing my towel around my neck to hide the bruises Mancini routinely left on me. I took a bottle of bourbon with me. No one said a thing about it, until the Magnolia Girl walked by when it was starting to get cool and stopped to raise a critical eyebrow at me.
“You should go sleep it off,” she advised.
“Tried already. Didn’t work.”
She sat next to me on a straight-backed chair, her white skirts swirling around her knees. “Don’t let him get to you, honey.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A stupor like this? That’s always over a man.”
“Maybe it’s over a girl,” I said darkly, but she shook her head.
“Girl troubles have a different stench,” she said. “Less stale bourbon, more…”
“More what?” I asked. At least she was taking my mind off my troubles.
“Rotten. Stagnant. Like dead flowers in a vase. Or so it seems from the fellas I’ve known.” She looked away.
I swung my legs over the side of the lounging chair and sat up to get a better look at her. She was wearing her hat, as always, but no sunglasses, so I got the full benefit of her beautiful brown eyes. She pulled the bottle from my hand and I almost expected her to throw it in the pool. But instead, she raised it to her lips and drank. She wiped her mouth afterwards and huffed. “Still not your drink?” I asked, grinning.
She wrinkled her nose. “Not for lack of trying.”
“Maybe it’s your method. I could help you out.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re half drunk and still stinking of whatever you did last night, and you’re hitting on me?”
I rubbed a hand across my face, feeling the coarse scratch of my unshaven jaw. The jaw Leo had been panting against last night as he choked me. He’d been getting more turbulent each encounter we had, but last night had certainly been the roughest so far. I felt a sudden yearning for something soft, a tender spell of lovemaking that wouldn’t leave me at death’s door. “Tell me straight, lovely Bella. Do I have a chance?”
She studied me, and for a moment I thought it might be a go, but then her eyes narrowed. “What are those marks on your neck?”
“Nothing. Just got into a fight.” I pulled the towel higher. I’d forgotten about them as the afternoon and the bourbon had worn on, although my throat was still sore.
She gave a sudden, bird-like twist of her head, as though something startled her, and stood. I blinked up at her as she thrust the bottle back at me. She said: “Take some advice. Quit while you’re ahead.”
“You mean with you? Or with the booze?”
“Neither,” she whispered, and she was gone in a pirouette of white silk.
I made my way back to the bungalow, but it was too light in there, too cheerful. The blinds seemed unable to keep the sun out. I passed out around five, a near-empty bottle by the bed, but woke when Leo entered close to half-nine. He came through to find me groggy on the bed, where he caught me up in his arms at once, kissing me back to sobriety.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
He leant back from me and I wondered what he was thinking. He ran a finger over my lips, like he was testing the truthfulness of my words. His smile had a cynical list to it, but his tone was gentle, understanding. “Of course not. We must have been mad last night even to contemplate it.”
Relief made me sag in his arms, and he laid me back down on the bed. He brought me a drink, but I pushed it away. I couldn’t face it, not then. He drank it himself, lying down beside me fully clothed.
“Well,” I said eventually, when the room had stopped spinning around in my head. “If there’s not going to be an accident and we already know a convenient death from health reasons ain’t on the cards, what are we going to do?”
He rolled onto his side and put a hand down my shorts, but I grabbed his forearm. “Come on,” I sighed. “You do a damn good job of distracting me, but you need to level with me.”
“I distract you, do I?” His tone was breezy, but there it was again, that shrewd, cunning look that was going to drive me out of my mind—if all the murder talk didn’t do it first. “Anyway, I can’t level with you. I don’t know what we’ll do. It rather depends on Reggie.”
“Don’t call him that,” I mumbled, and let go his arm. He took the opportunity to continue exploring the contents of my shorts.
“Alright,” he said. “I won’t call him that.”
“I don’t want him hurting you anymore.”
“No more do I.” He had me in an encouraging grip, but I was starting to think I’d drunk too much to have fun that day. I stayed only half-hard despite his efforts.
“Leave off,” I said, irritated, but he wouldn’t.
“I like it like this.”
Well, if he liked it, I wasn’t going to stop him. He pulled off my shorts and sucked on me, taking me all the way into his mouth and swirling me around on his tongue. He really did seem to enjoy it, and after a while I started to as well, although nothing much changed downstairs. But somehow it was a comforting feeling, and I was pleased that I could please him.
He moved my legs wider so he could get between them, still fully dressed as he was except for his shoes. He kept a hand on me, massaging me like he was forming raw clay.
“I’d enjoy fucking you like this,” he told me.
“I’m not going to spill. I can’t even get hard.”
“I don’t mind. In fact, I’d like it that way.”
I swallowed. He was cupping himself through his pants as he ministered to me, and I could see he was ready. I thought about him taking punishments for me, and I figured the least I could do was let him have this if he wanted it. I didn’t know why he wanted it, but I wanted it too, and there
would be plenty of times in future when I wouldn’t let the drink get the better of me. I was starting to think I’d better give it up, anyway. Give all those full bottles to the Magnolia Girl, now she had a taste for it.
“Alright,” I said. “Undress and have me.”
He shook his head and reached for the vial of oil he kept by the bed. “Like this, I think.” He leant over me, nose to nose.
“You’ll get your clothes messed.”
His fingers worked under my balls, petting at my hole. “Yes, I will. And I’ll go home reeking of you and Lord Cresswickham will know exactly what I’ve been doing. And he might rage, and he might hurt me for it, but he’ll never be able to forget that I’ve had my pleasure with another.”
It was a logical enough argument, put like that, and he had three oiled fingers inside me already. My prick was still slumped at half-mast, but I felt the sparks when he pushed against my most sensitive part, and whimpered when he withdrew.
He used those soiled fingers to take down his fly, and wiped them off on his thigh before coating himself with the oil. His cock was as pretty as the rest of him, long and curved in a gentle arc, rising out of a thatch of charming black curls. He arranged a pillow under me and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He eased into me until his clothes were snug up against my skin. It would be hell to get the marks out from the linen of his dress pants, but I liked the thought of Cresswickham’s powerless rage as much as he did.
He had me like that, with my languishing cock trapped between us so his silk shirt rubbed against it, my scent and my sweat soaking into his fine clothes. He was right: he’d stink of me, undeniably, and the thought made me roll my hips in luxurious spite. Yes, let the Englishman know.
I grabbed at his hips, urging him deeper into me, and he gripped my hair, yanking at it until I stretched out my throat for him, exposed to his scraping teeth. I was shuddering all over, mewling like a kitten, shaking in pain as much as I was in pleasure. Like the day before, he came when I moaned his name, panting against my neck like a dying man. After he pulled out, he began to clean me up with a shirttail, and I grinned at him.
“You really weren’t kidding about making it obvious, were you?”
“Not kidding at all.” He palmed my shaft again. It was throbbing but soft still. He gave a satisfied smile and got up to dress properly, tucking away his stinking shirttails, and pour us both a drink.
I accepted the bourbon when he handed it to me, but there was something still bothering me. “Cresswickham’s been following me around town a while. Got to me through my agent.”
“Goodness, I shouldn’t think so. Why on earth should he?” He had just the right tone of surprised amusement.
Cool and collected as always, he was, and never answering a question straight. It made me mad. I wanted to rock him, so I said, “Stop lying to me, Mancini.”
“I have never lied to you.” His voice was even, but there was a temper flash in his eyes.
“Cut it out,” I said. “You lied about being married, you lied about being rich, you lied about—”
“I am not responsible for your wild assumptions,” he broke in, smoke pouring out of his mouth along with his indignation. “You made them; I just never corrected them. I’m not lying to you. I didn’t want to tell you the whole truth, but I’ve never lied.”
“Tell me the whole truth now, or I swear to God—” I stopped when he rolled his eyes.
“Oh, yes? What do you swear? Please do continue.”
I set down my glass, got up from the bed, and pulled on my pants. “I’m through here. You do as you like; I’ll be on my way.”
He moved to block my passage into the bedroom, where I fully intended to pack and leave. He was apologetic and pouting. “Don’t be like that, please. Don’t let’s fight, not when he’s the one with whom we should be angry. I’m sorry; you deserve to know the truth. Come and sit down and let me explain it all to you.” He was pressed right up against me, seductive and warm, his hips fitting into mine and his hand curved over my waist, like he was pulling me in for a dance. He dropped his head to trail his lips from my neck up to my ear and murmured, “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
I let him lead me to the sofa, and he put our drinks on the coffee table before taking up my hand to kiss my palm. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
My head whirled. I needed to know something true, something that I could test if I had to.
“Where were you born?”
There was a small pause before he said, “I was born in Pittsburgh.”
“Then why tell me it was Philadelphia?”
“Over the years I’ve almost come to convince myself it was. You see, when I first met him, I told Reggie I was born in Philly and grew up in New York. I fancied it sounded better that way. ”
I laughed, and he flushed a little across the nose. I wanted to hurt him, make him knotted up inside like I was. “You’ll never be an equal in his eyes. Why even bother putting on your airs and graces? You’re just another dirty American mutt to him in the end, no matter how special he might treat you.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. His conciliatory smile only made me madder.
“Of course I’m right. Why, you’re his trained monkey, dressed up in a tuxedo, driving him around in his—” I stopped. The air rushed out of me. Driving Lord Cresswickham around town. When I’d seen Fred King at the town car, he’d been arguing with the driver. Cresswickham would never drive himself, and certainly not on American roads.
Leo took my hands again, tight, and I looked down at my wrists where my diamond cufflinks glinted in the light. I wore them always, ever since he’d given them to me. We’d taken to calling them the Fitzgerald cufflinks, after the story I’d shared. I’d told him about meeting my idol, and not a week later King was buttering me up in Schwab’s, telling me some rag wanted my Gatsbian style of writing.
I felt sick to my stomach. How stupid I’d been the whole damn time.
And even if I asked him outright, I knew then he wouldn’t tell me what he’d been doing arguing with King. He’d improvise a new melody, just like a skilled jazz player. No wonder he liked the music so much.
I yanked my hands from his, and his face turned wary.
Chapter 15
I said slowly, “The interview was a set-up. I got it out of my agent today; he was in debt to Cresswickham. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“You’ll remember I asked you not to go,” he said pointedly. “If only you’d obeyed me. But you didn’t obey me.”
I wavered in my doubt. There was no embellishment to his answer, no attempts at endearment.
“Did he send you in as a lure, that very first time we met in the bar?”
His brow creased like he was in pain. “No, and I’m sorry if you’ve been given cause to think that. I won’t say I’ve thought sometimes it might have been better if we’d never met, but…”
“But what?”
“But I could never wish for it. I’m not sorry we met, and if that makes me a cad, then so be it.” He cupped my face and gave me a tentative smile.
I pulled back. “You’re telling me it was just a coincidence? That us meeting was unrelated to Cresswickham seeing me on the street somewhere—deciding he liked the look of my face—no, Mancini, it won’t do. You’ll have to come up with something better than that.”
He took out his cigarette case and busied himself lighting a Gauloise. “Alright,” he said at last, and then took a long drag. “You’re quite right; it wasn’t entirely a coincidence. Reggie was on the look out for a new…acquisition. He likes a pretty face, as you can see from the footmen he hires. He’d been asking around town. I’d even heard your name floated.”
“Then why—”
“I didn’t realize it was you,” he snapped. “I didn’t catch your name the first time we…And when you told me, I was—I was already—” He stabbed out his half-smoked cigarette, grinding it until the tobacco leaves spilled out. “I was
already head over heels for you,” he finished quietly. “I was trying to protect you. I wanted you with me so I could keep you safe.”
Keep me locked up tight like Rapunzel in her tower. I bristled at the idea. “But you knew he was watching you.”
His hand clasped mine again. “Sure,” he said. “Sure, I knew that. He likes to keep an eye on me, and when I started coming out here so often, he wondered why. Of course I lied some of the time; told him I was going out to parties, film premieres. He hates that kind of thing. I still thought I might be able to keep you secret from him, because he didn’t know about this bungalow. It wasn’t a perfect plan, I’ll grant you that, but it seemed better than the alternative, which was to hand you over.”
I tossed back my bourbon, finding that I needed it after all. “And how’d he know which strings to pull to make the marionette dance? My agent laid on the Gatsby line thick and fast.”
“How should I know? Perhaps your agent knew you liked Fitzgerald. You don’t make a secret of it.”
Maybe. Maybe I’d mentioned it to King in the past. In the early days of our acquaintance we’d gone out drinking sometimes, and I’d talked to him of my ambitions. I might have told him how I admired Fitzgerald. But how could I be sure? Mancini went to so much trouble perfecting his mask that even now I couldn’t know if he was telling the truth.
He’d been so uncharacteristic with his slip of the tongue that day when he’d asked me to ditch the interview. Stay away from Lord Cresswickham, he’d said, when I’d never told him the name. But I knew him better now. When Leo Mancini wanted to keep a secret, by God, he kept it.
Stay away from Lord Cresswickham. The way he gasped and bit his lip after, like he’d let something out he shouldn’t’ve—a little too pat, perhaps? Too rehearsed? I’d asked how he knew the name and I remembered his weak response: There are only so many émigré aristocrats in this city.
I’d smelled a stink about the answer even then. And hadn’t he trusted me more easily than he should have, my bluff phone call to cancel the interview? He’d never even mentioned it again in the days following, never warned me or reminded me what was at stake. And surely—
