The chart.
Kiki wanted that chart. She salivated at the thought of the potentially glorious gossip residing on those medical pages. Perhaps the file held nothing, or perhaps it contained just enough to snag a hot client for her roster. Kiki smiled and a tingle of excitement coagulated into a ball deep in the pit of her soon to be surgically tightened abdominal wall. She loved knowing more about a person than that person thought she could possibly know—it provided Kiki with feelings of power—control—and superiority.
Smiling at a bitchy A-list actress pitching a fit over the type of water she wanted on set became much easier when you knew she spent the last six weeks sticking a toothbrush down her throat to lose the twenty pounds she gained for her last role. Grinning admiringly at a cocky actor who turned up his nose at your praise was easy when you knew he’d shelled out six figures to an underage girl in a trailer park in Missouri to keep her mouth shut about an unpleasant sexual episode on his last film.
And the bigger the stars—the harder they fell. The more powerful the information the quicker they signed on for Kiki to not only protect them from the public but also—themselves. Across the hall, only four feet away from Kiki, was a secret, a tidbit, a glorious morsel of gossip about a member of the popular crowd. Kiki needed that chart.
How could she get it? Did she dare? Of course she dared. But how could she take it and not get caught? She had inched out of her assigned exam room toward the chart when she heard the click of the door opening down the hall.
*
Kiki finished, putting on her backless robe as the nurse opened her door. Her mind buzzed with the idea of the potent info across the hall. Almost! She’d almost grasped the magical file. Her fingertips grazed the edge. She longed to know what brought that particular star to the plastic surgeon’s office.
“Kiki, are we ready for today?” the nurse asked.
Kiki glanced at the matronly woman and wondered if she received an employee discount and, if so, why her hips looked as if she were wearing a life preserver under her pants. Pasadena, Kiki sniffed. No self-respecting Beverly Hills resident allowed her hips to be so, well, round.
“Quite ready,” Kiki said.
“Good. I’ll get you started.”
The nurse stretched out Kiki’s arm and searched for a vein. The needle pierced her skin. “You should start to feel that in just a second.”
Glorious pleasure filled Kiki. If she could live on these drugs, life would be grand. A knock sounded on the exam room door.
“Nurse?” A voice called. That voice was the voice—the voice of the elfin creature for which Kiki needed a file.
“Just a minute,” the nurse called back. “Kiki, I’ll be right back.”
Kiki’s brain swam in pre-op drugs, but she caught a glimpse of the celeb before the nurse pulled the door shut. If there had been any doubt in Kiki’s mind about which celeb was waiting across the hall, she was certain now.
Kiki turned her head toward the sink and cabinets. A woozy feeling slid through her as if the world had suddenly become misshapen—elliptical and squishy. Her eyelids drooped as she staired at the counter next to the sink. Cotton balls, Q-tips, soap, biohazard containers, files.
Files?
Next to the nurse’s stethoscope on the steel medical tray were files. Kiki opened her eyes wide and sat up. The blood rushed from her brain and she fought the urge to drop off the medical table onto the floor. One file lay on top of the other. The label on the top file read Dee and the other was … no! Could it be? Kiki slid off the examining room table, trying her best to not let her ass land on the floor. Yes, lying there, exposed for Kiki Dee to see was the one thing she wanted more than anything at that moment. Kiki lifted the medical file folder, flipped it open, and started to read.
When Kiki first woke from the anesthetic, she believed the celebrity revelation to be a brilliant dream. No secret this big could ever exist in the gossipy burg of Hollywood. Even with Kiki’s mind muddied with drugs and her body wrapped in pain, Kiki finally retrieved the memory when her driver pulled up to the Peninsula Hotel. Kiki remembered every word in that file. And through the pain of recuperation at the hotel, she savored this, the juiciest of all secrets. Savored, and strategized how best to inform the celebrity and all others whom the scandal affected that she, Kiki Dee, had stumbled upon this deep, dark secret.
And now Kiki Dee had a plan. A plan that, if well executed, would lead to countless dollars and tremendous power.
“Boom Boom,” Kiki called from her bed, “get me Sherman Ross on the line.”
“Ewww,” Boom Boom said. She curled up her nose as if she were smelling eight-day-old pastrami at Cantor’s. “What for?”
“Business.”
“There’s nothing that dirty we’re dealing with now,” Boom Boom said.
Kiki looked over the top of her black-framed Louis Vuitton glasses at Boom Boom. “Get him and then get out.”
Boom Boom clicked her tongue in the most disapproving of ways as she dialed. “If you lay down with dogs—.
“If you lay down with dogs,” Kiki yelled through the pain, “you better make sure that the bitch doesn’t bite.”
*
Sherman Ross watched the blonde slide down the pole in front of him. Her tits were huge—fake, but huge. He watched her squat and open her legs before him—a cavernous maw waited to be fed; dollars or dicks, whichever the setting allowed. Sherman Ross was either a celebrity’s worst nightmare or best friend, depending on who paid Sherman’s fee.
He inserted a twenty under the blonde’s G-string. She mouthed the words thank you and moved across the stage. In Sherman’s opinion, the day was too young to feed strippers money, but this client always wanted to meet at the Spearmint Rhino. And why not? Sherman met clients in worse places. At least this strip club was high-end, unlike the dives in the Valley that seemed to house only strippers over forty.
The women working Valley clubs wore the vacant stare of dreams lost. If you asked, most told the same story: They’d moved to Los Angeles to be film stars and had turned to porn to pay the bills. Sherman glanced once more at the girl now working the pole. At least at the downtown Rhino the tits were perky.
The locations his clients set for meetings never surprised Sherman. Clients had flown him to Europe, Asia, the Caribbean. With Sherman’s clientele, money meant nothing. He worked for all the stars; Jack, Tom, Denise, Heather, Ryan, Robert, whether they admitted to his employment or not.
And the information his clients offered him surprised Sherman. He often found himself holding up his hands to halt the flow of words from their mouths. He didn’t want to be an accessory. He only wanted to provide his clients with the information they required and then deposit his payment. Once Sherman passed along the evidence he’d gathered … well, what the clients chose to do with the material was their business. Sherman believed his success was testament to a simple mantra he had learned while in the military, in a slightly different context: Don’t ask, don’t tell. Well, the mantra plus Sherman’s excellent nose for scandal; he could find any mistress, piece of ass, or Swiss bank account.
Sherman glanced around the club. The client had scheduled this meeting for 11:30 and according to Sherman’s watch the time was almost 11:45. He had a lunch meeting at one in Beverly Hills. If his client didn’t arrive soon, Sherman would leave and shred the photos. He leaned back in his chair and sipped his freshly squeezed orange juice. He’d worked with this client before, covering up a same-sex scandal for a high-end star. Although they never discussed it, Sherman knew the client ran security for Worldwide. He’d requested pictures of a young actress currently starring in one of Worldwide’s films in a less-than-professional position with her agent. Why? Sherman never asked.
“Mr. Ross.” A tall man with gray hair sat down across from him. “You’re late, Mr. Montgomery,” Sherman said.
“My apologies. You have the file, I see.”
Sherman held the file out and watched as his client glanced at the photos.
“These are excellent. And the memory card? I assume these are digital.”
“I have that, too. I’m happy to provide it upon receipt of payment.”
“Fair enough.” The man reached into his suit jacket pocket and produced an unsealed envelope. “Exactly as you requested.”
The envelope contained the correct amount in the correct denominations. “Thank you,” he said, pocketing the cash and placing the zip drive on the table.
“You’re really quite good at this.”
“Yes,” Sherman replied as he stood. “Yes, I am.”
“This is part of a larger problem that we’re dealing with.”
“You have my numbers.”
Sherman turned to leave, but first he gave the stripper a final glance. She now hung upside down, and he watched as she worked the pole between her legs. Her thigh muscles twitched from the workout. She had a great ass, and Sherman loved a great ass. His mind flashed briefly to a celebrity porn tape he’d recently watched at a party. The footage was so hot it hadn’t even hit the Net—as far as he knew, there was only the one tape, which was now being played by the owner exclusively at parties attended by the $20 million and above club. If the footage ever hit the street, that actress’s career was toast.
The sunlight bit into Sherman’s eyes as he exited the club. He handed the valet his ticket and pulled down his Armani shades. The valet pulled Sherman’s Porsche 911 to a stop. As Sherman slid behind the wheel, his phone rang. He popped in his Bluetooth headset and pressed on the car’s accelerator.
“Sherman here.”
“Mr. Ross, I have Kiki Dee for you.”
What a coincidence. The last time Sherman had worked with Worldwide, he’d also been working with Kiki. The Brockman affair had concerned both Steven Brockman’s publicist, Kiki, and the studio releasing his film, Worldwide. Just as Steven finished his last film for Worldwide, a sexy young stud started making very loud claims around town and on the Internet about his alleged relationship with Steven on set. Some photos of the young stud in compromising positions with a boy who turned out to be just underage, plus a couple million dollars, finally convinced the little player to shut up. And Steven, his wife, Kathy, their daughter, Sylvan, and Steven’s lover, Billy, went about their Hollywood charade.
“Put her on.” Sherman pulled into traffic and accelerated.
“Sherman, my love!” Kiki said.
“Kiki, my most favorite flack. What can I possibly do for you?” Sherman loved working with Kiki. There was something wonderfully salacious about digging into the muck of celebrities.
“I can’t really say over the phone, but it is a juicy little lead that I need you to check out for me.”
“How juicy?” Sherman accelerated onto the 10.
“Juicy enough that you should cancel whatever you have after lunch and come by the house.”
“It just so happens that I’ll be in your neighborhood. What about three?”
“Delightful. I’ll see you then.”
Rule 7: Play to People’s Fantasies
Celeste Solange, Actress
Celeste Solange tilted her pelvis forward and arched her back. She stretched her long, lean leg farther into the Pacific and pointed her toe. She threw her head back, and her signature golden locks, highlighted two days before, sparkled in the Malibu sun. She smiled at the camera.
The Chanel bikini bit into her ass and her left arm ached from the pressure of lying on her side. She couldn’t feel her feet or her legs from the frigid surf, and there were sand grains between her thighs getting dangerously close to her Brazilian wax job. She’d rolled around in the surf for almost three hours now, and she was ready to stop for the day. Besides, they were losing their light. Cici had smiled at cameras professionally for almost twenty years; at this point she knew lighting. But this photographer, some boy genius from London, would not quit.
Worldwide wanted a Brigitte Bardot/Sophia Loren look for the photos that would go on the one sheet that the studio would use to advertise Cici’s latest film,
California Girl
. Cici had one of the few bodies left in Hollywood that could pull off the sexpot look. In a sea of anorexic waifs who looked like preadolescent boys, Celeste Solange was a full-fledged female. Her body had curves that needed guard rails.
She glanced down the beach at Ted Robinoff, her lover and owner of Worldwide. Ted walked along the beach as he talked into his phone. She wanted him to tell Nathan, the photographer, to finish. Cici watched Ted furrow his brow and make wide circular motions with his arms. Why is he so riled? Ted usually maintained a cool exterior. He had made his hundreds of millions in real estate and then bought into the film business. He’d purchased the last privately held studio in Hollywood, Worldwide Pictures, and, contrary to speculation, planned to keep the studio private. Ted’s purchase of Worldwide made him the last movie mogul in L.A.
“Go on then, luv, get a bit more sexy with it,” the UK prodigy, Nathan, called to Cici.
Cici glared at the photog who was dry on the beach, keeping warm in his down jacket.
Get naked, splash in thirty-degree water, and then let’s talk about sexy
, Cici thought. You idiot.
“Just one more,” Nathan said. He crouched on his knees, holding his camera, and crawled forward only a foot from Cici. “Come on now, you little bitch,” he whispered under his breath.
What? Cici whipped her head around, her eyes flashing with rage, just as Nathan snapped his final shot.
“That’s it.” Nathan gave Cici a wicked grin. “The flash of passion I needed. All right then.”
He waved toward his assistant to bring Cici a towel and a robe. Nathan stood, rubbing his legs a bit from resting on his haunches. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s almost as good in person.”
A needle pierced her heart. “Excuse me?”
She grabbed for the towel, and Nathan stepped closer. His boldness surprised her. Most men cowered like whipped puppies when she was enraged. Nathan’s eyes roamed her body as if appraising a purchase. Cici flushed, and she felt herself tingle. A sick twist in her nature, her anger toward a man often aroused her. It was a character trait that had explained her unfuckingbelievable sex life with her ex-husband, Damien Bruckner.