* * *
‘Hello, little girl.’
‘Tim!’
‘What a memory!’
‘Why haven’t you phoned me before?’
‘I thought rich little girls like you wouldn’t want to be bothered with broke actors.’
‘Are you broke?’
‘Nearly. But I think I can rustle up enough change to take you to dinner tonight.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Why not? You’re free aren’t you?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’ll meet you in the bar at Trader Vic’s, eight o’clock.’
Brigette replaced the receiver and squealed with joy. She had known Tim Wealth would phone, and now he had. Brilliant!
He had asked her on a date and she would go.
Except . . .
How was she going to get out of the house?
Alice was taking a nap in front of a giant TV.
She snored delicately.
Brigette shook her vigorously awake.
‘Where am I?’ mumbled Alice, lost for a moment.
‘My girlfriend from school is here,’ Brigette announced.
‘Where?’ panicked Alice, sitting up in a hurry and looking around.
‘Not here, silly. In L.A. She’s visiting.’
Alice had been dreaming of John Travolta. She had read somewhere once that he preferred older women, and she knew if he ever clapped eyes on her it would be love at first sight. Mrs Alice Travolta. That would make Lennie sit up and take notice. ‘How nice, dear,’ she said vaguely.
‘She wants me to stay overnight with her,’ Brigette lied.
Alice was delighted. ‘That’ll be nice for you,’ she said, patting her hair. Claudio was coming over and this would give them an opportunity to be alone. Looking after Brigette was one thing – but neglecting her sex life was another. Claudio was an extremely
talented
short person, and she missed his ardent attentions.
‘I don’t want to go to my friend’s house in the Rolls,’ Brigette announced. ‘It’s so embarrassing!’
If Alice had her way she would never go anywhere except in a Rolls Royce, ever again. What a peculiar child Brigette was.
‘How will you get there?’ she asked.
‘I’ll call a cab.’
‘Lennie said—’
‘Please, Ali. Pretty please! I won’t tell Lennie if you won’t.’
Alice failed to see the harm in allowing the girl to go by cab. ‘Oh, very well. But don’t talk to the driver. They’re all illegals, you know.’
Brigette grinned slyly. What she planned to do was also illegal, but who cared?
She raced to Olympia’s closet and scanned her clothes. Sweaters and blouses, dresses and pants, scarves and belts, jackets and pants. Browsing Olympia’s closet was like being in a store. Her mother’s taste was gross, and Brigette couldn’t find anything worth wearing except a ragged-looking leopard-skin scarf hanging in the back. She could have bet it once belonged to Flash.
Excitedly she reached for it. Tight jeans, one of Lennie’s jackets, and the scarf – especially if it really had once belonged to Flash – would be a cool outfit.
As she tugged at the scarf, there was a whirring noise, and part of the wall in the closet slid away revealing a hidden room.
Brigette was startled, but only for a moment. She figured she had stumbled across the hiding place for her mother’s jewels.
Inquisitively she pushed past clothes and entered the tiny room. Shelves lined the walls. And on the shelves were stacked bottles and bottles of different colour pills, glass phials, boxes of smelly brown tobacco stuff, and packets of white powder.
Brigette frowned.
Drugs?
Whose?
Lennie’s? He was a movie star. Weren’t all movie stars supposed to be bombed out of their minds? She had read it in
The Enquirer
or somewhere.
Curiously she picked up a packet of white powder. It looked like powdered sugar, but she guessed it was cocaine. With a rush of excitement she remembered her last meeting with Tim Wealth. He had snorted coke, and been cross with her when she sneezed and blew most of it away. What would he say if she took him a gift? He would
have
to be pleased. And she wanted to please him more than anything else in the world.
* * *
‘Hiya, little girl,’ Tim Wealth said, rising to greet her.
‘I’m eighteen,’ Brigette lied. ‘Fade out on the little girl.’
He leaned toward her. ‘I always get horny in Polynesian restaurants, how about you?’
She was weak in the knees, but she didn’t want
him
to know.
‘What are you drinking?’ she asked, looking at his glass.
‘Whisky sour.’
‘I’ll have the same,’ she said, and hoped and prayed they wouldn’t ask for her ID.
As if reading her mind he said, ‘You’re only eighteen – you can’t be a legal drinking partner until you hit twenty-one. You want to get me arrested?’
If he only knew!
‘I’ll order you a Mickey Mouse drink and you can share my whisky sour on the sly. How’s that?’
She nodded happily. He was so fantastic! And understanding.
Dinner was wonderful. At least it looked wonderful. Brigette was too excited to eat. It was difficult to believe she was actually sitting in a restaurant with Tim Wealth.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he encouraged over chicken chow mein. ‘Are you really the granddaughter of Dimitri Stanislopoulos?’
She nodded. ‘He died, you know.’
‘Yeah, I read about it,’ he said casually. He had read
all
about it. ‘A rich old dude, huh?’
‘I guess.’
She guessed. He stared at the pretty little blonde girl and wondered how best to use her. He felt no remorse that he had to do so. She was using him. Fourteen years old and pretending to be eighteen. Jail bait. Rich jail bait.
Dangerous
jail bait. She couldn’t care less that because of her deception he could have got his ass slung in the can. Why should she? Everything had been handed her on a silver platter all her life, and always would be. Slightly different from
his
humble beginnings. At fourteen he was fighting off his stepfather in the outside john. Miss Stanislopoulos, with her big blue eyes and golden curls, probably didn’t even know what an outside john was.
He wondered what kind of access she had to all the money that was supposedly hers. Fourteen was kind of young. No doubt she was surrounded by trustees and guardians and was watched all the time.
If she was watched all the time, how come she was out with him guzzling his whisky sour and waiting impatiently to get laid?
He asked her a few questions about who she was staying with in L.A., and heard all about crazy Alice, Lennie Golden’s mother.
‘How’d you get here?’ he asked curiously.
‘Uh . . . I took a cab.’ She hesitated. ‘I would have driven, but my car is in the shop being fixed.’
‘Oh yeah, what’s wrong with it?’
‘Engine trouble.’ She took a quick sip of his drink and hoped he wouldn’t ask any more questions.
‘What do you drive?’ he persisted.
She thought of Lennie’s Porsche sitting in the garage. ‘A Porsche,’ she said quickly.
He was playing with her. ‘What model?’
She struggled to get up. ‘I gotta go to the bathroom.’
He stood politely. ‘Be my guest.’
Jerry Myerson threw the glossy magazine on Steven’s desk with a resounding thud. The Bonnatti publication, titled
Comer
, featured Mary-Lou Moore in black stockings, garter belt and little else. She gazed at the camera, lips moist, expression sulky, and position precarious.
‘Get a load of this,’ said Jerry pointing to the writing alongside the near naked girl,
MARY
-
LOU
OPENS UP
. . .
SEE ALL HEAR ALL
. . .
FIVE GLORIOUS PAGES
. . .
Steven looked. And swore. And flipped the magazine open, searching for the other photos.
‘Did you know about this?’ Jerry asked.
‘Hell,
no,’
Steven replied through clenched teeth as he studied the rest of the pictures.
‘She should have told you,’ Jerry grumbled. ‘This is going to blow your victory right out the window. The decision’ll be reversed and she’ll end up paying Bonnatti’s costs.’
Steven was silent as he stared at the offensive shots. There was Mary-Lou in an empty bathtub – one leg thrown casually over the side. There was Mary-Lou lying on a chaise lounge, legs apart, with just a feather boa for company. And more of the same. Each shot portrayed – as known in the wonderful world of men’s magazines – split beaver.
‘Damn!’ said Steven harshly.
Jerry was sympathetic. ‘I know, I know. It’s a shock. You thought she was a sweet kid, and all that. But believe me – women – you never can tell what they’re going to get up to next. I—’
‘Spare me your half-baked philosophies,’ interrupted Steven angrily, still staring at the photos. ‘This is
not
Mary-Lou.’
‘Steven. I know you like the girl, but—’
‘This is
not
Mary-Lou,’ he repeated angrily. ‘These pictures are fakes.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Fakes. Composites,’ Steven said excitedly. ‘Her face. Somebody else’s body superimposed. Jesus! I’m talking English, aren’t I?’
‘Are you sure they’re not the real thing?’
‘Jerry. Please. I’m
living with
the girl. I should know what she looks like without her clothes on.’ He waved the magazine in the air. ‘This is definitely
not
Mary-Lou.’
‘So all we have to do is prove it,’ said Jerry logically. ‘And then it’s back to court for a
real
pay-off. If what you say is true, my friend, this one’s a piece of pie with double whipped cream. We are looking at a
massive
settlement.’
‘That’s three, four years down the line,’ Steven pointed out. ‘It’s more depositions and papers and meetings and postponements. All the legal machinations.’
‘Why are you telling me something I already know?’
‘Because I’m not sure Mary-Lou is willing to go through it again. She’s going to want these pictures never to appear.’
‘Impossible. The magazine’s hitting the stands any moment.’
‘How would you like it if somebody did this to you?’ Steven said furiously.
Jerry laughed. ‘I don’t think I’d sell as many magazines!’
‘You asshole. Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?’
‘There are certain things one cannot control. We have a legal system to take care of things – which, I might point out, you are part of. So either you go with it, or you have a nervous breakdown.’
‘Screw you!’ Steven exploded. ‘This one I’m not going to sit back on.’
Jerry shrugged. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Just try me,’ Steven said grimly.
The thrill was in doing it. Now that she had achieved that feat, Lucky needed to move on to something else. She had built the Santangelo. It was everything she wanted it to be. Her hotel. Her pride. But she had no intention of sitting in Atlantic City counting the money. She wanted a new challenge, another adventure.
A business consortium wanted to buy her out. They were offering a huge profit on the two hundred million the hotel had cost to build.
Sell, she decided. Take the money and run, as Gino would say. Not that she needed the money, she was rich beyond her wildest dreams. What she
did
need was the freedom. Being tied to Atlantic City for the rest of her life was not her idea of heaven. Quietly she instructed her lawyers to proceed with the deal.
‘Olympia Stanislopoulos is challenging the will,’ her legal advisors informed her.
It came as no surprise.
‘Tell her I’ll double what her father left her,’ Lucky generously decided. ‘And she can have the yacht as a gift.’
Olympia’s answer was swift and to the point. ‘No.’
Lucky tried again. ‘I’ll treble what Dimitri wanted her to have, and I’ll throw in the New York apartment. If she doesn’t accept my offer within ten days I shall withdraw it and all previous offers.’
Olympia’s reply was, ‘Why wait ten days? When I get that bitch in court and prove she killed my father and forced him to change his will,
everything
will be mine.’
The lawyers rubbed their hands together gleefully. And so did the press.
* * *
‘I’m leaving,’ Lennie said.
Olympia favoured him with a glare. ‘You don’t mean it,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t walk out on me and all the things I can give you.’
They had been fighting for weeks, ever since the reading of the will. In the Bel Air house he could escape. But in their New York apartment there was no such luxury. Lennie knew he couldn’t take it any more. Why was he hanging around anyway? Olympia’s looks were restored – plastic surgery had taken care of every one of her scars. So she was fat. Was that his problem? Was he supposed to feel sorry for her and stay with her forever?