Authors: Joe Keenan
“How did this
happen?
Tell me, please, because I cannot begin to fathom your motives! Why you would tell
anyone
about that damn script, let alone Moira —”
“We didn’t tell her! She found out!”
“
How?!
Nobody knew but us!”
I told her we’d run into Moira at a restaurant and that Gilbert, no less eager to flaunt our success than Claire herself had
been, had asked her by for a drink. I outlined the night’s ruinous events, laying appropriate emphasis on Gilbert’s culpability.
“So you see, we had no choice but to deliver Stephen.”
“Then you’ve been here before?”
“Just once. And Stephen loved it! He’s practically a regular. So he’s happy, Moira’s happy. There’s nothing to be upset about!”
“Oh, no!” said Claire corrosively. “Everything’s
dandy!
We’ve won a high-profile job through plagiarism, but hey, that’s all right’cause no one knows about it except a
satanic blackmailing bitch!”
“She’s already gotten what she wants!”
“And you think she’ll stop there? She’s
MOIRA
, you dolt! She’ll be beating us to death with this for the rest of our lives!”
“Calm down,” I whispered. “There are people on the terrace now.”
“God!” she moaned, plopping miserably onto the bench. “I can’t believe I’ve let this happen to me. Any of it!!”
“Shhh!” I said, for we were no longer alone. A masseur clad in a tight Les Étoiles T-shirt had emerged from a cottage some
twenty yards away and was advancing toward us en route to the main house. He carried some used towels and a bottle of massage
oil. As he drew closer I realized I knew him, though from where I couldn’t say. The man, blond and quite sexy in a boyish
Abercrombie & Fitch sort of way, recognized me too and smiled in greeting.
“Hey! How you doing?”
“Great,” I said. “And you?”
“Same old, same old,” he said with a wink and proceeded on his way. As I watched his well-sculpted fanny retreat, it suddenly
hit me. He was Buster. Monty’s hustler. And he was working at Les Étoiles, performing chores he characterized as the “same
old, same old.”
“Who was that?” asked Claire.
A while back, you may recall, I spoke of how hard it is to maintain your equanimity while reeling inwardly from the discovery
that the screenplay for which you’ve been taking bows is, in fact,
Casablanca.
That challenge, I now saw, was mere child’s play compared to the task of preserving a poker face while digesting the news
that the luxury spa to which you’ve lured your dream man is, in fact, a discreet, high-end male brothel.
“Who was it?” she repeated, suspicious now.
“No one. Guy from the gym.”
“You seem upset.”
“Of course I’m upset! Moira’s got us by the short ones, you’re furious at me, I have a cold coming on —”
She seized my wrist and stared at me so intently her eyes seemed, like a lobster’s, to protrude on stalks.
“Is there anything, Philip —
anything
— you’re not telling me about?”
“You’re hurting my arm!”
“Anything?”
“Look, I know you’re ticked off, and I don’t blame you, but the truth is—oh, damn!” I rejoiced, for sauntering toward us in
her debut performance as a Welcome Sight was Gina. She waved cheerily and Claire, seething, waved back.
“Do you guys have a minute?” she asked. “I had this question about my character.”
“Actually,” I said, “I was just heading back to my room. Tummy trouble. I’m sure Claire can answer better than I could.”
It was a low maneuver but one that would not, I reasoned, make Claire any madder at me since this was, at present, impossible.
I hastened toward the terrace, determined to find Moira and demand to know what Buster was doing on her payroll and how many
of his ilk could be counted among the spa’s amenities. I proceeded to the lobby, where the desk clerk (Harlot? Dominatrix?)
told me that Moira was in the lounge. I found her sitting at the end of the bar, inspecting page proofs for an elegant new
brochure. The Malenfants had left but there were ten or so patrons scattered about, including Sir Hugo Bunting, the much-lauded
English actor whose fondness for Shakespeare was subsidized by hammy stints as villains in big effects-laden comic-book movies.
His presence at Les Étoiles did little to contradict my theory.
Moira smirked at me as I took the stool next to hers.
“Someone looks cranky. Claire haul you out to the woodshed?”
“What the hell kind of place are you running here?” I hissed.
“What are you talking about?” Her tone was bland but she’d lowered her voice.
“I’m talking about Buster.”
“Who’s Buster?” she asked. Her bewilderment seemed genuine, though, being Moira, this did not mean that it was.
“He
works
for you. The blond with the muscles.”
Her eyes darted to the barkeep, who was serving a newcomer two stools away. Her expression remained cordial even as she angrily
muttered, “There’s no one working here named Buster.”
“Call him what you want but I’ve met him and I know he’s a god-damn hustler.
Ow!”
I added, as she’d just grabbed my hand and dug her nails into my palm so deeply that I could now add stigmata to my woes.
“Keep your voice down. You want the bartender to hear?”
“He doesn’t know?”
She shook her head, then snatched her cigarettes from the bar and lit one.
“Does
Stephen
know?”
She made no answer nor did she need to, her eyebrows conveying more eloquently than words how amusingly obtuse she found the
question. A sudden burst of laughter turned our attention to the bar’s entrance, where a high-spirited trio of gentlemen,
fresh, no doubt, from their happy-hour blow jobs, was ambling in.
“I am not having this conversation here,” said Moira, rising and leading me out to the bar terrace. We had it to ourselves,
the post-sundown chill having driven her guests indoors. Moira’s manner was cooler still as she seated herself at a table
and took an exasperated drag off her cigarette.
“Gawd, what is
wrong
with you! Asking about these things right in the middle of my damn bar! You haven’t told Claire, have you?”
“God, no!”
“Well, see you don’t. That self-righteous cow’s just the one who’d blow the whistle on me.”
“So you admit it then? That this whole place is nothing but a posh boy brothel?”
“Les Étoiles,” she said icily, “is
not
a brothel.”
Her eyes darted inside, where the threesome had seated themselves at a window table a few feet away from us. Moira, leery,
I supposed, of lip-readers, rose and led me around the side of the building past the dining room to the larger south terrace.
This was deserted and the salon overlooking it more comfortably distant. We took a table on the outer edge by the stone balustrade.
“Les Étoiles,” she resumed petulantly, “is not a
brothel
. It is a full-service luxury spa. Certain of my clients demand fuller service than others and we’re happy to provide it.
Top quality, total discretion. Ninety percent of my guests have no idea what the other ten percent are getting and that’s
just the way my Diamond Plan clients want it. They come here because they feel safe, and they adore me because I’m the first
hotelier they’ve ever met who understands what they
really
want. Sir Hugo called this place paradise on earth, which I found very touching.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind?! What happens to you, not to mention
them,
when this all gets out? And you know it will! You can’t keep a thing like this under wraps forever!”
“So far, so good,” she said blithely. “My boys will never squeal. They’re making more money than they ever dreamed of. Besides,
they’re scared.”
“Scared?”
“I told them all my backers are the Russian Mafia and if anyone kills the golden goose I can’t be responsible for what happens
to him. A complete lie but it keeps them quiet. As for the clients, my God, who are
they
going to tell? I choose them very carefully and they’re all very big names. So even when they see some other bigwig they
suspect might also be here for the deluxe package—and who might have a good hunch why
they’re
here—well, they just smile because they know the other guy’s not going to blab any more than they are. These men didn’t get
where they are by not knowing how to keep a secret. It’s very Skull and Bones.”
“So to speak.”
I did not share her confidence that all squealing would be confined to the massage rooms and I said as much. She replied that
it was my timidity that had held me back in life and that I should take a page from Gilbert, who, though indisputably the
product of a butterfingered wet nurse, at least had a certain audacity.
“Tell me! What do you think got us into this mess? God,” I said, my mind reeling, “how do you even rope them in? Goddamn movie
stars! Do you just say, ‘Have a nice massage, and, oh, if you like dick, ask for Buster’?”
Moira conceded that this had been the trickiest part of the enterprise and one she’d pondered at length while honing her business
plan.
Her first task, she said, had been to hire a crackerjack staff of real massage therapists, for most of her guests would expect
nothing less (nor, indeed, more). Then, after extensive research and interviews, she’d recruited a small but skilled stable
of red-hot hunkadoodles who were, she boasted, the cream of LA’s beeper-boy set. She promised them she’d more than double
their incomes while providing a glamorous working environment plus benefits. She then provided them expert training in various
massage techniques so that they’d blend in with the other staff and pass when necessary for the real thing.
“You’re right, though—the tricky part was the first approach. It couldn’t seem forward or tacky or we’d just scare people
off. But we worked out a pretty good system.”
Whenever a suspected candidate for Deluxe Treatment was reeled in, he’d be assigned an appropriately pec-tacular full-service
masseur. The Adonis, clad in a spandex T and linen drawstring pants, would pop a Viagra beforehand so that by midmassage the
client would find looming mere inches from his face what the client, if a studio prexy, might call a “major tentpole event.”
One of three scenarios would then play out. The client, embarrassed or timid, would ignore it, in which case the masseur would
do the same. The client would complain and the masseur would apologize abjectly for his unbidden arousal, then offer to have
someone else finish the massage. Or, as happened most often, the client would say, “My, my — whatcha got there?” and voilà,
another satisfied customer.
The initial tryst would be followed by a private consultation with Moira. She’d tell the client that she’d heard his massage
had grown somewhat exuberant. The extra attention, she’d assure the blushing patron, was on the house, but if he was interested,
similar forms of “Stress-Reduction Massage” were discreetly available to those members of the Les Étoiles family who desired
them. Such members, she’d assure him, represented a mere fraction of her clientele, most of whom were unaware that such services
were on offer to a pampered few. Her regular masseurs and all nonessential staff were equally oblivious to these favors, the
fees for which were tallied quarterly and discreetly billed as “membership dues.” Often the clients, mostly closeted and/or
married, would ask either shrewdly or snippily how Moira had surmised they’d rise to the bait in the first place. Her reply
never varied.
“At Les Étoiles we pride ourselves on anticipating our patrons’ needs.”
“So there you are,” she concluded proudly. “Not bad for a little girl from the Upper West Side.”
“Oh, yes,” I sneered. “From small-time scam artist to Hollywood whoremonger. It’s a fucking Hallmark Hall of Fame movie!”
“Prude,” she said flatly, then her face suddenly lit up in a welcoming smile. She waved to a newcomer in the salon and held
up a finger to promise prompt attention.
“I have to go. Dame Judi’s here.” She started off toward the salon but after she’d gone a few steps turned back and said,
“Not a word about this to anyone, you hear?
Anyone.
Don’t forget, dear—you’re working for me now.”
She left and a familiar voice behind me chirped, “Are you
really?
”
I prayed this was merely a stress-induced auditory hallucination, but when I turned, there, dapper as ever in a blazer and
maroon silk ascot, stood Monty Malenfant.
“Glen, you scamp! You’re just full of surprises!”
M
ONTY!”
I
CRIED, CLUTCHING THE BALUSTRADE
, the shock having gelatinized my knees. “Has anyone ever told you you’re adorable when startled?”
“What are you doing here!”
“Surely I needn’t tell
you
that,” he said with a saucy wink. “I’d heard the most intriguing things about the place from sweet little Buster—who goes,
can you believe it, by ‘Adrian’ here!—and simply had to try it. Makes a nice change, I must say, from ordering in. Rex, you’ll
be thrilled to know, is here as well. It’s his birthday so I thought I’d treat him to a boy who wouldn’t rob him and then
beat him up as those in his price range are regrettably wont to do.”
“But you said you were joining Lily on her press junket.”
“Ah, the junket!” he said, laughing heartily. “I’d forgotten you’d swallowed that one. No, Lily is not on a press junket.
The last time Lily had a press junket the preferred mode of transport was stagecoach. Junkets are what Lily
claims
to have when she needs to hide out and heal after making yet another assault on time’s ravages. I tried like hell to talk
her out of this one. ‘Lily,’ I said, ‘pull that mug of yours any tighter and you’ll look like a bongo with lips.’ But no,
she’s determined to look her best for the floods of attention she poignantly expects to receive when her next picture escapes
quarantine. So,
this,
” he said, gesturing toward the salon, “is where you do your — cough, cough—‘physical training’? Well done, I say. A boy
couldn’t ask for a swankier workplace.”