Flavor of the Month (116 page)

He had it! He’d call Hefner. This wasn’t for Christie. He’d go right to the top. A centerfold. And not one of those soft-focus stills from the film. Fresh, hot meat. She’d show them
everything
. And then they’d put her, quick, into another TV film. The bitch would do what he told her now, if she wanted to survive. This shit worked for Madonna, didn’t it? Then there was the Smith family. Apparently Dean wasn’t the hillbilly’s brother, so they would sue all those tabloids on Sharleen’s behalf, and maybe she could get engaged—or, better yet, married. It should get the church and the Moral Majority assholes off his back. That just left Lila. With her dead, maybe
Three for the Road
could go on, once Marty snapped out of it. Or even before, with another director. And the Kyle freak would be replaced. After all, finding fresh meat in Hollywood wasn’t hard. Only a week ago, he’d decided to drop Sharleen and Jahne. Now he’d drop Lila and keep the other two. With two of the three in place, the show had a good chance of survival.

So, really, the only problem left was Marty. He was drooling and babbling, all right, but so what? A few weeks at the rest home and he’d be in the pink. And maybe, Sy Ortis thought, maybe even
Marty
can be replaced. Okay, the ideas, the format, all of it was his, but it was established now. Maybe that kid, the AD from
Birth
—what was his name? Joel Something. He could do it. After all, what was there to do?

For four more days, days of siege, Sy managed to hold Early Artists and himself together while they were buffeted by the media, by the Industry, and by the Network and sponsors. Every bastard whom he had ever screwed felt it his duty to call in and be counted. Every son-of-a-bitch in the Industry had something smart to say. Well, fuck ’em all. The audience last night for
Three for the Road
had broken all records. As Sy had promised Hyram Flanders that it would. So now all Sy needed to do was find a way to replace Lila and Marty and keep, as they say, the show on the road.

The phone intercom buzzed. “Miss Moore is here to see you.”

“Okay.”
Madre de Jesús
, he was in no mood for this twat who always had fuckin’ opinions and attitudes. At least today she should be under control. He’d seen them, the Talents, when they first were hit with the realization that what the public giveth it could also take away. Look how humbled Crystal had become. And—he smiled to himself—he liked his Talents humbled; humbled and scared. It made them a lot more respectful. Until, of course, they were panicked, and then they’d turn on their own young and eat them alive.

Jahne Moore would be concerned but not panicked, he figured. She’d probably calmed down from the surprise of
Birth
, she’d realized by now he was right about it being a hit, and the opportunity to continue on
3/4
with, perhaps, an expanded part would keep her in line. Plus, the
Playboy
or
Penthouse
spread he’d just about lined up (with a bonus to him, of course) would silence this plastic-surgery rumor. It was a good strategy. She’d finally appreciate him. Sy put down his respirator, ready to calm an upset and frightened Talent.

Except she didn’t look upset or frightened. She looked beautiful as ever, but also calm. She was wearing a pair of those goddamn jeans with a plain white sweater, but he couldn’t help thinking, for a moment, of what was under it. He smiled, but she didn’t return it. What was wrong with this
puta?

“Hello, Sy,” she said, and sat across from him. “I’m here to exercise my option.”

“What option?”

“To drop out of
3/4
.”

“What?”

“I’m out, Sy. You put it in the contract. Now I’m using it.”

What the hell was this shit? Sy narrowed his eyes. “I know you have a lot of other offers flowing in. In fact, I’ve read a few properties, possibilities, but let’s not throw up the baby with the bathwater.”

“Out, Sy. Throw
out
the baby with the bathwater. But never mind. I’m quitting. Quitting
3/4
, movies, cosmetics ads, mall openings. I’m out of the business.”

Sy’s secretary stuck her head inside the door, ignored Jahne, and said to Sy, “Your wife’s on the line.”

“Which one?” Sy snapped.

“Sandra.”

“Not which
wife!
Which
line?
”

He punched the blinking light the secretary indicated among the bank of other blinking lights. “What?” he shouted. “No! Don’t you DARE GO TO THE CLUB. DON’T SPEAK TO ANYONE. NO. ESPECIALLY NOT ANNE.” Anne was his wife’s friend, married to a reporter on the
L.A. Times
. “So,
be
lonesome!” he told her, and hung up. He turned back to the Moore bitch.

“Listen,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. “You’re still upset about
Birth
. About the violence. The death. You’re overreacting. I understand. You’re sensitive. You’re an artist. But you must look at this as a challenge.”

“Forget it, Sy. I’m out of here.”

“Jahne. Listen. I have a great idea. A way to show them all. I’ve talked with Guccione. We’ll show them that these rumors are all jealous lies. Exaggerations. We’ll do a layout. Eight pages. Bob says he’ll shoot it himself. And you’ll be gorgeous. Spectacular. Bigger than ever. And you’ll have your choice of parts.”

“Good. I’d like to do Cordelia.”

“What part was that? Did I see that script? What’s the working title?”

“
King Lear
. We could pick up the option cheap.”

“Very funny. I’ve heard of
King Lear
. Shakespeare doesn’t play. Except that Mel Gibson vehicle.”

“Hamlet?”

“Whatever. Anyway, Jahne, don’t talk this way. We got a lot invested in you now, and I know this is just a stage you’re going through. Bad publicity hurts. But you’ll get over it. We’ll just counter it with this layout.”

“Show them my goodies?” She laughed and shook her head. “Forget it, Sy.”

“I’m not sure that you understand what I’m trying to say. Listen,
everyone
out here has had a little cosmetic work. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I realize you might not choose to do this normally. And normally I wouldn’t recommend it. But we’re talking about extreme damage to your career here. And a tastefully done layout in a fine magazine…”

“Sy,
Penthouse
isn’t a ‘fine magazine,’ and Bob Guccione is the Antichrist.” Jahne paused, and then she smiled at him. “Anyway, it wouldn’t work. The scars are too obvious.”

“The scars? Wait. What are you telling me?” Sy Ortis cried, his hand clenching around the aspirator he clutched. “Are you saying all this bullshit is
true?
”

Jahne looked at him directly. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“So you’re scarred all over. Like a Frankenstein?” Sy Ortis asked, his high voice almost a shriek.

“I don’t like to put it that way, but, yes, the scarring is extensive.”

“So, no
Penthouse
.”

“No
Penthouse
,” Jahne smiled.

“What the fuck are you smiling for?” Sy spat at her. “The three of you were dream meat. God, now it’s a nightmare! Do you know what this does to you?”

Jahne shrugged. “Ends my career as a sexpot?” she asked, and giggled. The bitch
giggled
.

“How about ends your career completely? Don’t you see? The illusion is gone. They’ll look up at the screen and wonder, ‘Where are the scars?’ They’ll be watching for clues. They’ll be mesmerized. No producer, no director will want you.”

Jahne laughed.

“What the fuck are you
laughing
about?” Sy screamed.

“I think it’s funny. A TV exploitation show that created the three sexiest women in America. What you so candidly call ‘dream meat.’ One is a Frankenstein, one sleeps with her brother, and the third one was a man. Not much left there to exploit, huh, Sy?”

There was never a funeral like it. Not Rudolph Valentino’s, not Jean Harlow’s, not even Marilyn Monroe’s compared to the carnival-cum-media-orgy that Lila Kyle’s funeral became
.

There was no one to do it for her except poor, heartbroken Robbie Lymon. Theresa was drugged out, Sy Ortis was bummed out, Marty was freaked out, and Ara Sagarian was out-and-out dead. Loved by millions, reviled by millions more, Lila had no one to pick out her casket and arrange the memorial service but an old camp follower of her mother’s
.

Robbie had the body dressed in a lavender Bob Mackie dress—if she had chosen to be a girl in life, she’d also be one in death, he said—and a frightening picture of Lila in the casket, her red hair clashing with the lilac-colored dress, was printed on the cover of half the magazines of the world. There were close to a thousand funeral wreaths and flower arrangements sent
.

Thousands came to see her. “They were her fans,” Robbie said, weeping. “She loved them.” The problem was that not all of them loved her. One woman tried to wipe the makeup off her dead face. Another began speaking in tongues before the casket. The funeral home finally put Lila behind a glass viewing wall. It gave her a sort of Snow White-in-the-glass-coffin look
.

Worse than the ones that reviled her, though, were the ones who came to worship at her shrine. Hundreds of young men (and some not so young) showed up in full Lila Kyle regalia, including high heels, makeup, and the
de rigueur
long red wig. Some screamed and fainted at the sight of her corpse. Others sobbed. Many had to be helped out. But, once they had viewed her, they raced to the end of the seven-block-long line to do it again
.

Thousands of teenage girls showed up, too. Somehow, they didn’t seem to mind the gender-bender revelation. Perhaps they even liked her more for it. After all, David Bowie had dressed almost as extremely and built a following twenty years before. And this was the nineties. The girls wailed out their pain in a constant keen of adolescent screaming
.

There were close to two hundred cars that tried to make the long run to Forest Lawn. The scene at the gravesite was bedlam. And, with all the people there, the only one who had actually known Lila in life was her aunt Robbie, who had to be carried from the grave
.

Small things. If he kept his mind on small things, on tiny little things, Marty knew he was okay. A patch of sunlight reflecting off a wrinkle of the snow-white sheets. The shadow of the bedside lampshade on the wall. The taste of the sliced banana on his corn flakes.

Slowly, Marty, in bathrobe and slippers, moved to the window that looked out over the beautifully manicured grounds. It must be Japan, he thought. Everything was so perfect, so neat, it had to be Japan. But then he remembered, and moved away from the window.

He heard the now familiar key in the lock, and saw the nurse—what was her name?—come through the door. “Hi, how are you doing today, Mr. DiGennaro?” She picked up his breakfast tray and walked toward the door. “You did very well today. Your appetite is coming back.” She closed and locked the door behind her, leaving him in the silence of his thoughts once again.

He sat in the reproduction-Queen Anne armchair that overlooked the garden below his window. Oh, no. Now he was upset. Tears filled his eyes, then slowly slid down his cheeks. He often sat here, in this clean and quiet room, and cried. He still had not figured out why, exactly, so he just let himself cry.

The hospital bed had been made earlier, the fake-Aubusson rug vacuumed, and the Sheraton-style chest and bedside tables dusted. All this while he was at water therapy, before breakfast. He was impressed with the service here. A good hotel. No trouble in the world couldn’t be alleviated by a stay in a luxury hotel. Wherever it was. If it wasn’t Japan, was it England? No. Too sunny for that.

He continued to sit on the brocade-upholstered chair and cry. Sometimes, every now and then, like now, just before medication time, a tiny window would open in his mind, and he’d remember. Lila. Lila was dead. And then he’d cry. Lila had lied to him, he remembered, the tears now flowing faster. And Lila was a man.

She didn’t have to lie. He would have loved her anyway. But that made him a homosexual, and he was sure he wasn’t that. Still, they could have found a way. They
did
find a way. It would have been okay, if only Lila hadn’t lied. Lied and died. It made an ugly poem, buzzing in his head. She shouldn’t have lied and died. They could have worked it out, just the two of them.

But now, Marty knew, it wasn’t just the two of them. He was the laughingstock of Hollywood, and pitied by everyone. It was the pity that hurt the most. Or perhaps it was knowing he would never see Lila again. No, it was the fact that he could never work again, never create beauty on a screen again, that really hurt the most.

Lila lied to him. And now she was dead. Lied and died.

Soon the nurse would return with the pleated paper cup of pills and the glass of water. Soon, soon, and then the tears and memories would stop.

Usually Marty remembered none of this. Usually he couldn’t pull up a past event, a memory. Not even when Sally came to visit. He knew he knew Sally, but he couldn’t remember how, or from where.

And not remembering anything, not knowing what had brought him to this place where he lived behind a locked door, that was exactly the way Marty liked it.

Monica Flanders towered over the crouched form of her son, Hyram, who sat at his desk. At four feet eleven, it was not easy to tower, but Monica achieved the effect spectacularly well.

“First we find out the blonde is sleeping with her brother…”

“He wasn’t really her brother, Ma,” Hyram began.

“Oh, excuse
me
,” Monica said icily. “She recently found out he wasn’t. I feel
so
much better.
Then
the world discovers that the brunette is a monster.” She took a deep breath. So did Hyram.

“Not a monster, Ma. Just a plastic-surgery patient. You yourself…”

“I myself never looked like she did,” Monica snapped. “She was a nothing. A mess.
She
represents Flanders Cosmetics?” she snorted. “And if that wasn’t enough—a pervert and a lump—now we add a freak. A cross-dressing female-impersonator transvestite queer
faygele
to convince women to wear our lipstick. Perfect, Hyram. Perfect. Great idea you had.”