Sympathy for the Devil (3 page)

T
o give the grounds of the estate the proper Halloween atmosphere, we had spent quite a lot on the decorations: on simulated death and dying, wrecks and rotting, skulls and skeletons.

The branches of the handsome old trees on the property had been blown with “cobwebs.” Baby spotlights were positioned to pick out the witches and goblins lurking behind boulders and hedges.

The estate was wired so that miniature speakers emitted moans and groans as guests walked by, tripping the infrared beams that activated holographic images of ghosts projected into the night sky. Just then, Holly and I could hear a trail of moans coming up around the corner of the house towards us.

Lily Huntley was dressed as Rapunzel. She was accompanied by someone who was totally done up as a frog. I did some mental measurements, dismissed the idea that the frog could possibly be Bruno, and relaxed a little.

Lily wore a shimmering floor-length gown that was cut very low in front, exposing her rather small chest. A magnificent hairpiece extended her famous waist-length hair almost to the ground in an elaborate arrangement of braids and flowers.

“Oh, good! Madeline, I'm so glad I ran into you. The party is thrilling, isn't it?”

I almost said, “So far,” but caught myself and murmured, “So…kind!” instead.

“Could I make one tiny request?” She smiled impishly.

She could make big honking demands, for the money she and her husband were spending.

“Bruno's son, Graydon, is acting a little huffy because of the dead Elvis we have out in the lounge. See, Gray is dressed up like Elvis, too, and I think he's a little p.o.'d that the guy you got looks a lot more like Elvis than he does.”

“Yeah. Your dead Elvis is great,” commented the frog.

I glanced over at the dance floor, which had been laid over the tennis court. It featured a band dressed as dead rock musicians looking a little moldering: Hendrix, Morrison, Mama Cass. And in the tent that served as the bar lounge on the other side of the property, what could be more hauntingly perfect than an Elvis impersonator made up to look like he'd spent every year since his death in August 1977 rotting horrifically?

I couldn't think what Lily expected me to do.

“Should I remove our Elvis, then?”

I'd really hate to do that. Not having entertainment in the lounge would be a mistake. I knew Bruno's grown son, Graydon Huntley, pretty well. His sense of self-importance usually amused me, but not when it got in the way of my rotting Elvis.

“I know!” She perked up. “Madeline, why don't you go find Gray and tell him how tremendous he looks.”

I had to smile. Lily sure knew how to work this family.

“Point out how much like the young sexy Elvis he looks.”

“I'll say young,” I promised.

“Great! See you at the buffet later.” And she was off, trailing long blonde tendrils, followed closely by a five-foot, nine-inch amphibian.

Holly and I followed the path that led around the house to the immense flagstone patio where seventy-five tables had been set around the Olympic-size pool. There were
striped silk canopies spread high over each of the three serving areas. We paid homage to the orange and black theme by covering one entire buffet table with shiny black platters of color-coordinated delicacies. Black blini served with sour cream and golden caviar, grilled Atlantic salmon over black linguini in a lemon cream sauce, and candied orange slices dipped in bittersweet black chocolate were just a few of the dozens of dishes that were being artfully positioned for maximum eye impact.

Holly whooped when she saw the effect we'd achieved with the pool, the large aqueous centerpiece of the dining area. We'd managed to produce a nice eerie smoke coming off its surface with dry ice. A few mechanized sharks circled, just below water, and on top floated a raft on which a real human skeleton in a day-glo orange bikini was catching rays by starlight.

Holly and I turned to the tables and checked a few of the black-edged placecards: “The Late Mr. Steve Allen,” “The Late Ms. Brooke Shields,” and smiled. Almost at once, I heard shouts. They were coming from the guest house which had been transformed, for the party, into our fortune teller's cottage. The man I'd noticed earlier, Marvelous Dracula, was staggering backwards out of the door. He was yelling, “No! That's impossible! Get away from me!”

I know parties. Shouting is almost never a good sign.

I moved quickly over to that end of the pool to see if I could help. He turned and almost bumped into me. His face, beneath the Dracula makeup, looked drained of blood. So help me.

“Is something wrong?”

He looked at me and seemed to calm himself down as if by will. Before him, after all, stood Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

“Sir…” I tried to sound professional, despite my dozens of satin bows and pair of glittered wings. “My name is Madeline Bean, and my firm is running this party. If
something has upset you, please let me know and I'll try to put things right.”

“It was nothing. It's that fortune-telling gal, that's all. She had me there, for a minute. But that's the fun, eh? She told me my karate picture was gonna open big, so that's good news.”

This man had been screaming a minute ago. Was he having a good time or was he scared witless? “So, you're okay?”

“It's just a Halloween prank, I guess. See, she told me I wouldn't
live
to spend any of the money that
Blue-Eyed Black Belt
is gonna make. Said I'd ‘die in the arms of Suzanne.'”

Die? She was telling all the guests they were going to
die
?

“The thing is, how'd she know the name of my picture? We changed the title yesterday. It hasn't been in the trades yet.”

He was referring to the trade newspapers, The
Hollywood Reporter
and
Variety
. But I was more worried about this thing about death in the arms of someone named Suzanne.

“Do you know anyone named…Suzanne?” I asked him delicately.

“My new secretary. Just started to work for me last week.”

“Oh,” I said. I was thinking. How ever had this fortune teller gotten that kind of inside information?

“But don't worry, nothing personal going on with Suzanne. Anyway, not yet. Maybe not ever if I listen to this advice, eh?”

Marvelous Dracula looked unhappy, but no longer shocked.

Upon his demand, I pointed him in the direction from which we could faintly hear “Blue Suede Shoes,” and watched him make for the nearest bar. Things were getting out of hand. One man was turned off his beloved automobile. Another was warned off a future mistress. What the hell was going on with our soothsayer?

I walked through the door of the guest cottage and found myself in its small living room. For tonight, it had been arranged as a waiting area. On the table, a sign showed the face of a clock. It read, “Cassandra's next appointment will begin promptly at:…” The clock hands were set to ten-thirty. Next to the sign was a working clock that showed the current time to be 9:13.

I called out, “Hello!” and walked back through a doorway that had been hung with beads, and down a tiny hall that led to the one large bedroom. The door was closed and a sign warned,
KEEP OUT
. I knocked at the door. No answer.

I tried the handle and it opened quietly. Like the rest of the property, this room had been totally transformed. Where a king-size bed usually awaited the Huntleys' overnight guests, we had placed a round table with a gold gauze cloth that fell to the floor. On the center of the table was a stand that held a crystal globe the size of a basketball. It cost $250 for the night from a prop rental house that claimed it came from
The Wizard of Oz
.

We'd hung pale green curtain fabric all around the room and on the ceiling parachute silk was draped to give the feeling of being in a gypsy's tent. The lighting was very dim and indirect, but I could see at once the place was empty.

In the kitchen, however, I had a start. In the center of the linoleum was another rat. A stiff rat. Maybe it was a prop. I didn't stay long enough to check it out.

I took one last look into the crystal ball room, and this time I noticed a long leather strap on the floor, just sticking out from underneath the draped table. I knelt down and pulled on it. A black leather knapsack came out. Our soothsayer must be a very trusting soul to leave her purse laying around.

I stood up, leaving the bag undisturbed, wondering what to do. Maybe just push it back under the table? I used the point of my silver Good Witch shoe to nudge it back under, but unfortunately, I just managed to dump some of the
knapsack's contents onto the floor, while the bag slipped back out of sight.

My eyes were riveted to the odd assortment of items that had been disgorged: a tube of lipstick, a small glass vial of white powder, a card of birth control pills, and a .22-caliber pistol with a “Grateful Dead” skull carved into its ivory handle.

J
ust then I heard the gong sound out, announcing the start of the dinner buffet. I bent down, quickly scooped the contents back into the soothsayer's knapsack, gun and all, and shoved the entire thing into its hiding place. I decided that as crises go, six hundred hungry people descending on poor Wesley had just taken precedence over our weird Cassandra.

Outside on the pool patio, a mob was circling the buffet tables like they all hadn't had perfectly wonderful expense-account lunches that day. I'm a cook at heart. This is what I love to see.

It was my first chance to take a really good look at some of the incredible costumes that were being worn. After goodness knows how many hours spent in aerobics classes and tanning beds, many of the female guests were using the costume theme to show off their toned and tanned flesh. The effect was staggering. Just imagine the prettiest girl from every high school in America moving to L.A. and all showing up at the same party. The congregation of so many former homecoming queens always strikes me as surreal.

People were making their way through the buffet line. A fabulous body floated past me. She was dressed in an absolutely see-through gray unitard with tiny opaque patches where modesty weakly prevailed. She wore a pale gray wig that was all fluff and curls and her mouth was covered with a transparent surgical mask. Across her shapely behind
were the letters that explained her concept. They spelled out “Smog.” Since she had come up with a way to display her tight butt
and
an environmental message at the same time, I figured she had a great shot at winning one of the costume awards. Wesley and I were betting on the event, so I made a note.

She bent over a serving table in a highly revealing pose. I reconsidered. This woman was after much more than a measly “Best Costume” trophy. In an outfit like that, she just might land herself a big-time agent. At these industry parties, the boundary between socializing and pursuing one's career could be as thin as the dotted line on a C.A.A. contract.

The tables were filling up as I walked to the main house. I noticed the drunken shrimp was popular. It was a new recipe we were trying where the shrimp are marinated in tequila and lime juice before being grilled. I was making a note to tell Wes to reserve some shrimp for late-arriving guests, when I saw Graydon Huntley seating himself at a table nearby.

At thirty-four, Graydon is Bruno's second son. Bruno's firstborn, Bru, Jr., had yet to show up and I thought that was just as well. The Huntley clan had been difficult to handle when I had been catering for Bruno on his various shows. I suspected they hadn't improved with age. Of the bunch, it's Graydon who is mostly harmless.

From his large office at Bruno Huntley Productions, Gray spends the bulk of his busy day mastering Solitaire on his Powerbook and fills in the rest of his schedule by having his secretary set up tee times at Lakeside. His position as senior vice president was a gift from his father. Like most of Bruno's gifts, it was pretty much undeserved and way too generous. But rather than be embarrassed by his functionless title, or even grateful for his lucky stars, Graydon mostly felt annoyed he hadn't been made president of the company yet.

Graydon looked up at me and grinned, his mouth a little
too full of spinach/pumpkin souffle. “Hi, Mad-Woman,” he said.

“Gray. How are you?” I smiled back.

“Cool. Nice party, huh?”

I wondered if he had forgotten it was I who was doing the party. Gray knew I ran a catering business, but sometimes it was hard to guess what information slipped through the sieve.

“Thanks, Gray,” I said. “I'm loving all these costumes.”

“Hey, what's with that terrible Elvis impersonator they've got going in the back? Have you seen him? He doesn't look anything like the King. Do you think?”

“Well, maybe the older, heftier version,” I said. “Not like the young Elvis. No, that's the Elvis everyone loves. I think you were so clever to come as the early Elvis. It takes guts to try to measure up to his sexy good looks, and you've certainly got them.” Guts I was talking about, but of course Gray thought I meant looks.

“D'you really think so?” He perked up. Of course.

“Where's Carmen?” I asked.

“Oh, I don't know,” Gray gave an unfocused look to the crowd. “Somewhere. I just look for the beehive, that's the easiest way to spot her.”

I tried to imagine his dark pretty wife dressed in a giant beehive costume, but it didn't fit her hot, smoldering image.

“She's dressed as Priscilla in the big hair days. She really looks fantastic! She's wearing this tight white sweater and tight black skirt, and those real spiky high heels. She looks so damn cheap!” He smiled.

Priscilla Presley. That was more like the Carmen I knew.

Just then my Motorola squawked. “I'd better get going,” I told him. I took a step or two as I listened to the radio.

“This is Rudy. I've got a little situation down here at the entrance. Guy wants in without a costume and he's kicking up a fit! Please advise.”

I pressed the speak button and told him I'd be right there.
Holly was working as a spare waitress and she came up to me.

“Trouble?” she asked.

“I'll deal with it. Could you tell Wes to save the shrimp?”

Rudy had been quite accurate. Standing at the table with him was a grown man actually kicking down the signs that were set up at the entrance. I walked more quickly when I saw he was starting to kick at Rudy. Was this guy crazy?

I got a closer look. It was Bru, Jr., and he saw me approach.

“Hey, Madeline! Get over here! This demented jerk is trying to keep me out of Dad's party. What load of crap is this, anyway?”

He had a face like his father's, only every place that it could have turned ugly, it had. He was a couple of years older than Graydon but his hair had turned completely gray, like his father's. His beard was also gray. It had been about three years since he and I'd last met, but on him it looked more like ten.

Bru was considered the black sheep of a pretty darkly-fleeced brood. After rumors of stealing cafeteria money from the studio where his dad had offices, Bru, Jr. no longer held a position at his father's production company.

Instead of keeping another unworkable son on the payroll, Bruno simply paid his eldest son's bills and got him out of scrapes. But it wasn't like Bruno to just hand Bru an allowance. He had to get something in return for his cash. So he traded in humiliation. He made Bru come begging. Because Bru, Jr. could never seem to keep a job, they played out this sad ritual on a monthly basis.

“Hi, Bru,” I said as I walked up to him. He stopped kicking stuff for a minute and started threatening and whining. For the Huntley boys, this is standard operating procedure.

“Let me in this minute or I'll tell Dad!”

“We have some extra costumes here for special guests,
Bru. Why don't you look them over and pick something before you go in?”

“That's bullshit! I'm not wearing any fucking costume!”

“Okay. No problem. Let him in, Rudy.”

I started to turn away, but Rudy was angry. After putting up with all of Bru's insults and attitude, he hated seeing him get away with it. I saw what was coming and sighed. It's a guy thing.

“I thought Mr. Huntley said no exceptions to the rule, not even for his family.” He did not open the gate.

“That's true, Rudy,” I said, “but let's let Mr. Huntley, Sr., deal with this now.”

I looked at him, kindly, but quite firmly. It's a boss thing.

Reluctantly, Rudy lifted the gate, and as Bru walked past he viciously yanked at Rudy's troll mask and broke the elastic that was holding it in place.

Rudy looked stunned. Bru took the mask, threw it in the dirt, and started stomping on it, ripping the delicate rubber features. Then he looked straight at Rudy and said in a low voice, “You'll never work in this town, pal. Never. I've seen your face. I can make it happen. Pack up and move back to Minnesota or wherever you came from. You screwed with the wrong guy!” Then he walked away, never looking back.

Before I could say anything to Rudy, I heard an unfamiliar voice speak up. I hadn't noticed earlier, but another guest had arrived late and apparently witnessed Bru's vitriolic speech. He now addressed Rudy in a shocked voice.

“Young man, I cannot believe what just happened. That man is not going to ruin anyone, I can assure you. That loud, obnoxious man cannot himself get a job in this town.

“Let me introduce myself,” he continued. “I'm Jacob Dunmaster.”

Rudy looked up in disbelief. Dunmaster was one of those legendary casting directors that no struggling actor could get in to see.

“Here's my card. Please call me Monday morning. I'm
sure there is something I can find for a handsome boy like yourself.”

Rudy grinned. “Gee, thanks Mr. Dunmaster. This is great!”

“Nonsense, young man, I think I know talent when I see it.” He eyed Rudy's pecs and delts. “And, please, call me Jacob.”

At this point, I thought the conversation might actually be getting, well, romantic, and I took my leave quickly. In Hollywood, romance can be an odd mixture of desire and advantage, and really, who was I to judge? I just want everyone to be happy.

By the time I got back to the patio, the dinner was in full swing. The party was loud, as all good parties are, and I was starting to feel a bit of pride as I surveyed the scene.

A small combo was playing jazz in the background, and as the last song ended, the bandleader announced, “Your attention please, as tonight's host saves your hostess!”

I hadn't expected this. It must have been something Bruno sprung on the band leader and all I could do was gape in astonishment as a spotlight was moved from the band to focus on Bruno Huntley standing on a platform next to the house. Bruno was dressed as a young and handsome Prince Charming, in purple tights and gold cape. He wore a wig in the style of a long blond pageboy and he was looking up at one of the second-floor windows.

The Huntley estate was of Spanish design, and standing out on a wrought-iron balcony was Lily. She had somehow attached an even longer extension onto her floor-length hair, and she threw this blonde rope down to the ground. Bruno smiled and hammed it up, and then actually began to climb! It was a trick, of course, but it did look like he was climbing up her hair.

The crowd went almost silent, and then there was furious whispering, and then laughter.

Bruno seemed to love the crowd's response and he hauled himself all the way to the balcony. As he climbed
over the rail, someone yelled, “Just like Jack Palance at the Oscars!”

He called down in his loud, hoarse, General Patton voice, “Friends! I am glad you could join Lily and me for this little get-together. Enjoy yourselves! What is life all about if not friendship and love?” And then he kissed his wife. The crowd had, most of them, been involved in making T.V. shows long enough to recognize an Applause cue. They cheered.

Wesley approached and could barely contain a snort. “‘Friendship and love!' I need a drink!”

Wes had been stewing all day about old problems he had with Bruno. Being this close to the man seemed to bring up his rancor.

I looked at Wes, all dolled up in his Wizard of Oz getup, and had to smile. What he needed was a distraction.

“Is there champagne in the kitchen?” I asked him.

“After you.”

We walked to the kitchen door, eavesdropping on our way. No one had anything nice to say about the host, I'm afraid.

After pouring tall drinks into some regal Baccarat crystal flutes, Wesley proposed a toast. He always did this midway through a party. It was a Wesley Westcott tradition.

“Let's hope the worst is over and the best is on its way!”

The bubbles were the tiny, expensive kind and we felt indulged. As we sipped the wine, I tried to see if there was anything else going on with Wesley that might be putting him off-balance. He hadn't seemed quite himself all day.

“Everything okay at home?” I asked.

“Sure. Mal is fine. Although she may not forgive me since I've been working such ridiculous hours.” He looked at his watch.

Mal was Wesley's beloved springer spaniel. He was so attached to her, he'd actually gotten her name tattooed on his left wrist.

I looked at the kitchen clock and figured now was a good
time to find our fortune teller. I still had to tell her to cool it with the dire personal predictions.

By this time, most of the guests had finished their espressos and were moving off towards the dance tent. There was just enough time to get to the soothsayer before her next appointment.

I opened the door to the guest house and walked back to the fortune-telling room in the rear. The door stood open and a pretty young woman was just sitting down at the table. She wore a beautiful silk gypsy dress, much nicer than the one I remembered renting for the occasion. Her shiny black hair was pulled up into a ponytail, tied with a green paisley scarf. She had beautiful skin and wore gold hoops in her ears. With dramatic black eyeliner emphasizing her upturned eyes, she really looked the part.

“Hi, I'm Madeline Bean,” I said as she looked up.

“Yes. I know.” Her purring, deep Brenda Vacarro voice was unexpected.

“How's it been going?”

“Not bad.” She looked at me with eyes that were a little too green. Contact lenses, probably.

“Thanks for filling in here on such short notice. You've been very effective.”

She smiled without revealing her teeth.

“Maybe too effective.” I smiled back. “I've been hearing from a few of your customers that your predictions may be a little too Stephen King for the room. Perhaps you could use some other words besides, oh…say,
death
.”

“Mmmm,” she murmured. She still looked me straight in the eyes with her disconcerting emerald greens.