An Accidental Affair (26 page)

Driver remained without judgment. He said, “Fighting. It gets in your blood.”

“It stays there. Dormant at best, but it stays there. Mine has been activated.”

“Bloodlust.”

“I’m up to two guns, but I’m still outnumbered.”

“I can’t fight your physical battles for you. But I can keep the odds even. Not in your favor. Just even. If it’s between you and one man, I’ll do what I have to do to keep it that way.”

“So you’re up for a fight, need be.”

“Just let me know if I need to change clothes.”

Maybe some part of me needed a reason to beat someone’s ass and feel good about it. The high from that victory was a drug too. Now two boys from the Bergs family were far from being handsome. I had done more damage to Johnny’s brother than Pac-Man had done to Oscar in his final eight rounds. I had beaten his ass in front of a hallway filled with people.

I said, “My family. When we were living abroad in Hackney and Tottenham, those were the days. Those were the soup days. They used to get up at five thirty in the morning. I’d get up earlier. Around five. It was the only calm time in the house. Thirty minutes of silence. I’d speed-read a few chapters of a book; didn’t matter if it was bad or good. My mother would get up before my father. She woke up praying. Noisy and praying. Never prayed with her lips shut. The noise would start. Brothers would start to get up. The race for the bathroom would commence. When we came here to the States, it eventually became better. My father worked all over. Laborer. Handyman. Mechanic who loved cars. My mother worked in a factory, processing paperwork, dealing with new or rehires, separation notices, doing whatever they did in HR. My typewriter, she bought it from a shop and gave it to me. It’s my most prized possession. Not the cars. Not the house. Underwood matters the most.”

“You talked to your family since this started?”

“No. They’d only depress me more than I am already depressed.”

“Pick one person. Call them. Make one phone call and check in.”

Driver wasn’t just having a conversation. He was getting me to talk, calming me down.

I left Driver seated with his coffee and stepped into the bedroom with my iPhone.

That was when I called my family. I talked to one of my brothers, the youngest, the one that I was the closest to, the one in film school back at NYU, and told him that I was fine. He wasn’t being bombarded with e-mails and hounded by the local press. He still had our family name, the ugly British name that I had been born with and changed when I started working in this business. He was concerned. I hadn’t returned calls. Or e-mails. Or texts. I had vanished. I was good at vanishing when stressed. Everyone had been worried. They loved Regina. But everyone did. She was beautiful. She was rich. She was talented. Trifecta. My brother told me that they were all in shock, trying to understand what couldn’t be understood.

I gave him twenty minutes of talking, then told him to spread the word that I was fine.

What would happen next was outside my field of vision.

Then I let him go and went back in the front room with Driver long enough to tell him that I needed to get cleaned up. He told me that, if I didn’t mind, he’d stick around for a moment. I told him that my iPad was next to Underwood and he could surf the Internet while he waited.

He reached into his pocket and took out a crossword puzzle and a pen.

He waved the puzzle in the air and said, “I’m covered.”

I didn’t have high gates. Or Dobermans. But I had a guard at the front door.

I yanked off my mutilated and soiled clothing and showered, then dressed in a different pair of D&G jeans, pulled out a tee with a picture of a veiled Middle Eastern woman. Only her eyes could be seen; across the top the phrase read
GENTLEMEN PREFER BURKAS.

I sat on the bed and took a deep, deep breath and still smelled Patrice.

From the front room Driver called out, “Thicke.”

“Yeah.”

“A lady came by. She looked like Audrey Hepburn, Helen Mirren, and Julia Roberts.”

“British accent. Very classy. Elegant.”

“Told her that you were in the shower. She didn’t leave a message, but she left a book for you. Said she was at Barnes and Noble, bought it for you and wanted to leave it.”

“A book by Gunnar Staalesen. The character Varg Veum.”

“As soon as she left, another tall and slim woman with dreadlocks stopped by.”

“Misty Mouse.”

“Didn’t tell me her name. Just said to say she stopped by. She left a manuscript.”

“
The
Cruelty of Men Toward Women
.”

“I left both packages sitting next to Underwood.”

I looked at my cellular. I had left it on. It was vibrating nonstop.

Regina Baptiste, or Sasha, or whoever in the hell she was now was calling nonstop.

And I had text messages from
STEVE MARTIN
.

The message read:
REGINA B ASS.

Driver called back to me. “I just got another message from Steve Martin.”

“Me too. Just got one from Steve Martin too.”

Driver hesitated. “Could be an anagram.”

“Now you’re making it into a puzzle.”

“Actually, I’m an Occam’s razor kind of guy.”

“I think it’s a joke. Regina Baptiste’s ass. Or Regina’s big ass.”

“Like I said, could be an anagram. Or just Regina Baptiste’s assistant.”

I paused. “That’s not her assistant’s name. Her assistant is a young, Turkish girl.”

Driver said, “They could be looking for her assistant, trying to get info on your wife.”

“I think it’s a joke. Regina Baptiste’s ass. She has shown her assets to the world.”

Driver said, “Well, on that note, Thicke, I have no idea who it is or what it means.”

And there were quite a few calls from an unknown number.

I asked, “Are you getting a lot of calls from unknown or blocked numbers?”

“Ever since this started. They started coming in that night you beat Bergs.”

“Answer any?”

“We were in red alert that night. Only talked to you. I let them go to voice mail.”

“If they call again, answer. I’ll do the same on this end. Might be the Bergs.”

My phone vibrated again. Then came the text from Bobby Holland.

He told me what he had.

And to make good, he played thirty seconds of an audio of Regina Baptiste.

For the first time in over two years, Bobby Holland had my attention.

Driver followed me toward the parking lot. I carried the Louisville Slugger. We took the long way, not the expected route, cut through other letter-coded buildings. When we made it to the parking lot, Driver motioned. The Bentley was parked at the L of the buildings.

He said, “She’s back.”

“She never left. If she did, she didn’t go far.”

“She’s scared.”

“Yeah. She’s scared.”

“And alone, James. No matter how many fans she has, she feels alone. Everybody in the world has forsaken her. I’m talking about the people that she really cares about, not the ones that get a paycheck because they’re riding on her fame. She has been forsaken.”

“Did you have to say it like that, Driver?”

“Yeah. I had to.”

“Forsaken.”

“Forsaken is a powerful word. Very biblical.”

“I could fire you.”

“Then I’d walk down there and start working for her.”

“At a raise.”

“I’d lower my fee for her. She’s nicer than you. You can be a pain at times.”

“I figured you’d say that.”

In the land of the blue-collar workers and paupers, Regina sat in a chariot made for a queen. My cellular rang. My wife was calling me the way Patrice’s husband called her.

I answered.

“Regina.”

“James.”

I held the phone for a long moment. “Bobby Holland called.”

“That narcissistic, psycho, bootlicking, Nazi creep.”

“Yeah, that Bobby Holland.”

“Don’t talk to him. Please. Don’t talk to him.”

“Too late.”

“What did he say, James?”

“He has something that he’s trying to sell.”

“Blackmail is so cliché.”

“Cliché, but effective.”

She went quiet with her words, her breathing coarse and riled.

She whispered, “Come here. Please.”

I hung up the phone. It was time to try and be more mature than emotional.

I handed Driver the baseball bat and he waited where he was. I looked up at the dirty windows, saw a few residents staring down; then I headed toward the Bentley. A moment later, I opened the passenger door and climbed inside a space cooled to seventy-three degrees. The car felt more comfortable than anyplace I’d been since I had landed here. I evaluated Regina Baptiste. This broken-down version. Her body was wracked with guilt, tension, grief, anxiety, fear, and worry. She’d lost weight over the last two weeks. My guess was that she was down at least ten pounds. She didn’t look like the woman on the billboards anymore. Eyes swollen and red, tissue in her left hand, she looked disordered and molested. She was barefoot and wore ripped jeans and a black T with white letters that read:
DEAR GOD, WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WIN THE LOTTERY?

I said, “Bobby Holland has another tape.”

Her swollen eyes widened with concern. “What happened to your face?”

“Ran into a Bergs.”

She wiped away her tears. “Johnny Bergs?”

“One of his brothers. Well, I ran into his fist is a better description of what happened. His brother came looking for revenge right after I saw you down here.”

“Are you serious? Are they following me?”

“Don’t touch my face. Don’t touch me at all, Regina.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you set me up?”

“Of course not. Are you crazy?”

“Was jumped in the hallway right after you drove away angry.”

“He beat you up?”

“He looks worse. A lot worse. Half of it because he was born that way.”

“You need to go to your doctor.”

“Maybe tomorrow. If I’m not in jail. But jails have the best doctors for free.”

“James, don’t play like that.’

“We’ll get to chatting about Johnny Bergs. We need to talk about Bobby Holland.”

“He’s scum.”

“It’s true then.”

“Yes. It’s true.”

I closed my eyes, my headache strong. “Was this so-called tape before me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Was whatever’s on the tape, whatever he has, was that before we married?”

“It was before you. But the public won’t care. Marilyn Monroe has
been dead for decades and they’re still buying nude photos and film, trading it like it’s on the stock market.”

“I know. The difference is Marilyn Monroe is dead. Most associated with her are dead.”

“I don’t need any more bad press. My parents, they don’t need me to have any more bad press. My family doesn’t need any more shame. I’ve humiliated everyone. I’m more worried about my family than I am the rest of the world. My family is my world. I haven’t dealt with this yet, this Johnny Handsome thing. I want it to go away, but the less I say, the more they lie. They are printing that we had had an affair for years, that I have Johnny’s love child, all sorts of crap. They’re saying that every love scene that I’ve done in a movie is
authentic
.”

“You’re worried about your family?”

“That means you too, James. We’re family now. Like it or not, we’re family.”

“Bobby Holland. Let’s focus on him for the moment. What does he have?”

“Whatever Bobby has is different. And over four years old. We were together back then. We were a couple. I was crazy about him at first. He recorded us all the time, innocent stuff, recorded every little thing I did, most of the time without me knowing it. I trusted him back then, so it didn’t matter. But he recorded me saying and doing things that could end my career. We were loaded, getting loaded, and just being fools. No one needs to see me that way. No one needs to hear the things that I said. We’re all mean-spirited in private. It was a private moment.”

“Regina. Anything else I need to know?”

“The has-been line in Hollywood stretches for miles, across fifty states and into every country. Always a short line of stars. But the line of has-been gets longer every fucking day.”

“Still quoting my works.”

“One false move and the sky will light up with the brilliance that can only come from a falling star. When they fall, they all go to the same place. They all fall into the pit of nothingness.”

“Two years after we met at a bar, you’re still quoting me.”

“Feels like I’m living one of your dark screenplays right now, and that’s not cool.”

“I’m living it too. More fun writing it than living it. Much more fun to write.”

A moment passed.

She said, “I had an incident on the plane.”

“I heard.”

“They disrespected me and put me off the fucking plane like I was a criminal.”

“You attacked a flight attendant.”

“After the verbal assault. She insulted me and I threw champagne in her face.”

“That’s not nice. Makes first class look like no class.”

“The bitch deserved it.”

“Well, throw Coke next time. Clear liquids are no good. They come out too easily.”

“You should’ve heard what she said to me. How she treated me was horrible.”

“A Johnny Handsome fan.”

“The head of his fan club. Bitch is lucky that I didn’t yank off her tacky front lace weave.”

“Assault charges?”

“I have to wait to hear from the FAA. My attorney will handle it.”

“Sounds like at least a fine. But that’s cheaper than a full-blown lawsuit.”

She held up her cellular. “Look at the responses to this so-called news. People behave pretty much the same way most newspapers write, on a sixth grade level, for the unlearned and the immature.
They never see the big picture, judge everything in shades of black and white.”

We let another moment pass.

She said, “The morality clause.”

“There is a morality clause in marriage too.”

She nodded.

A morals clause was a provision in her contracts that prohibited certain behavior that would garner bad publicity for the product. Sexual acts. Drugs. Common in the business. The film studios wanted to protect their brand. If the polls were low, if Regina Baptiste had forfeited the respect of the public, she would be of no use to the moneymaking machines and everyone could fire her now. Without a memo. What Bobby Holland had could make a difference. She had fallen, but she wasn’t on her back. Bobby Holland could destroy her with ten seconds of a tape that had been made years ago. I hated what she had done, but I had to protect her. That was part of the contract that I had made with her, morality clause or not.