by Simon Brett
‘Tickey-Tockey,’ said Blotto.
‘It is because of their upbringing, you see. Giovanni and Giuseppe grew up in extreme poverty in Sicily. They were orphaned at a very early age. When they first came to America, they got in with some bad company, they were set on a path of violence and criminality. Yes, I will use the word . . . they became embroiled with the “Mafia”. But for the charitable efforts of the Cosa Nostra in making them realise their social responsibilities, they might irredeemably have gone to the bad. But fortunately the Cosa Nostra turned their lives around. They renounced criminality and violence and undertook to devote their lives to helping others. Only very occasionally, like this afternoon, do they backslide and hit people over the head with loaded socks. Of course they are very sorry and wish to apologise to you for that unpardonable lapse in behaviour. Don’t you, Giovanni and Giuseppe?’
Apologies were growled out behind Blotto.
‘I fully understand,’ he said. ‘Of course, I have no experience of growing up in poverty, but I can readily believe that it could cock a boddo’s eye more than somewhat. So I readily forgive the chaps’ lapse with the loaded sock.’
‘Excellent.’
‘One other thingette, though, Mr Orvieto . . .’
‘Mm?’
‘If you’re such a peaceful organisation, why have you tied me to the chair?’
The Italian spread his arms wide in a gesture of helplessness. ‘We are a peaceful organisation, but we don’t know where you fit into the hierarchy of evil, do we? You might be armed and dangerous. We tie you to the chair only for our own protection.’
This seemed such a reasonable reply that Blotto accorded it another ‘Tickey-Tockey’.
A thin smile cut across Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto’s cavernous face. ‘Now what we haven’t established, Mr Devereux, is why you wanted to contact the Mafia.’
Blotto chuckled innocently. ‘And why I ended up talking to the Cosa Nostra instead.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, it’s rather a jiggling tale and probably not something where you can give me much of a jockey-up, but have you heard of a breathsapper of an actress called Mimsy La Pim?’
Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto appeared to be riffling through the card-index of his brain before conceding that he thought he’d heard the name. Which, if Blotto had known what Hank Urchief had told Twinks about the relationship between the two, he would have recognised as a very skilful bit of acting.
‘Some fumacious stenchers have kidnapped her.’
‘Is that so?’ said Lenny, giving a very good impression of surprise.
‘And I thought you were the kind of boddoes who might have a mousesqueak of an idea where she might be found.’ In response to Orvieto’s wide-handed gesture of helplessness, Blotto went on, ‘Of course, that was when I thought you were the kind of lumps of toadspawn who belonged to the Mafia. Now I know that you represent a charitable organisation like the Cosa Nostra . . . well, obviously I realise I’m shinnying up the wrong drainpipe.’
Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto shrugged sympathetically. ‘If I could help you, then of course I would.’
‘I’m sure you would. I can tell, just by looking at you, that you’re a Grade A foundation stone.’
Lenny nodded gratitude for the compliment. ‘I guess you need to find some real Mafia people.’
‘Good ticket. Any idea how I might do that?’
The shrug that greeted him made Blotto realise the incongruity of his question. How could someone who ran a charitable organisation like the Cosa Nostra have any contact with a crime syndicate like the Mafia? In fact, it was insulting to his host even to raise the suggestion.
Blotto’s profuse apologies were interrupted by Orvieto. ‘Don’t worry about it. We all make mistakes. And listen, if you do manage to find this Mimsy La Pim, let me know about it. She sounds, from all accounts, like a real classy broad. I wouldn’t want anything unpleasant to happen to her.’
‘Tickey-Tockey,’ said Blotto. ‘I think perhaps I ought to be pongling off now.’
‘Of course.’ Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto gestured to Giovanni and Giuseppe, who came forward to untie the ropes that tied their prisoner’s arms to his chair. Freed, Blotto rose, as if to take his leave, but then lingered for a moment.
‘Is there something else I can do for you?’ asked Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto.
‘No,’ Blotto replied. ‘But, by Wilberforce, there’s something I can do for you.’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced five crisp ten-dollar bills. As he handed them across, he said, ‘You told me your only support was charitable donations. I’d like you to have this, to further the activities of the Cosa Nostra.’
‘That’s very kind,’ said Orvieto. ‘You’re a real gentleman.
‘Keep up the good work,’ said Blotto.
Then he allowed Giovanni and Giuseppe to blindfold him, lead him out of the room and back into their car. They left him in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard without the beginning of an idea where Lenny ‘The Skull’ Orvieto’s headquarters were.
14
A Surfeit of Amorous Swains
Twinks was ambivalent about her new role as a star of the silver screen. The work was not onerous. She just had to stand in front of the camera being alternately bullied and cajoled by Gottfried von Klappentrappen to look beautiful, something which came naturally to her, anyway.
She soon discovered that the chief drawback to being a film actress was that she spent so little time in front of the camera. Though Helen of Troy had been shoehorned into more scenes than history or myth had ever offered her before (causing the classical adviser Professor Gervase Blunkett-Plunkett to pull out even more of his remaining hair), there were acres of time spent just hanging around the set. Twinks, active by nature, had a very low boredom threshold, and the pleasures of film-making soon began to pall. She picked up the translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War into Gujarati which she had started on the S.S. Regal to work on during her long breaks from shooting, but her heart wasn’t really in it.
On the other hand, she was, for the first time in her life, experiencing the novel sensation of being paid. Someone who had been brought up like Honoria Lyminster had never been involved with something as demeaning as work. She told herself she’d only taken on the part of Helen of Troy as a means of investigating Mimsy La Pim’s kidnapping, but the fact remained that Hank Urchief’s agent Lefty Switzer (who, Hank had insisted, should act on her behalf) had negotiated a very advantageous deal for her services, so she was being paid a huge amount of money for hanging around on a film set.
For the first time, for a very short moment, Twinks contemplated having a career beyond amateur sleuthing. A couple of years in Hollywood, being paid at the rate she was for Helen of Troy, and she’d be able to sort out the Tawcester Towers plumbing single-handed. That was a much more attractive prospect than marrying a Texas oil millionaire – certainly if they were all as taciturn as Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
The idea of financial self-sufficiency also appealed to the strong independent streak in Twinks. She didn’t want her financial well-being to be controlled by her family or, even worse, by a husband.
Yes, maybe the acting lark did have a lot to be said for it.
Being the new star on the block, though, brought with it a tiresome number of commitments away from the studio. The Trojan Horse publicity machine at Humungous Studios, in collaboration with her new agent Lefty Switzer, kept demanding that she make personal appearances at the smartest venues. Wherever Twinks went, flashlights popped and blazed. Her picture was all over the Hollywood papers. Heddan Schoulders and her coven of lesser gossip columnists kept printing new (and completely erroneous) insights into her character and private life.
Hollywood, starved of real history, loved her aristocratic background, and it soon became common knowledge that Honoria Lyminster was in truth the illegitimate daughter of George V. Much mileage was gained from the difference in her background from t
hat of Hank Urchief, who had, of course, been brought up on a turkey farm in Minnesota, because the gossip columns assumed – to Twinks’s considerable annoyance – that she and Hank were enjoying an extraordinarily steamy love affair. It took her a while to realise, when interviewed by the press, that to say she and the actor were ‘just good friends’ was Hollywood code for a rampantly physical relationship. She decided saying nothing might be a way of avoiding the inferences they picked up, but that only convinced the scribblers that she was hiding something – and gave them carte blanche to make up whatever fictions they chose.
Another part of Twinks’s new role in life was an obligatory attendance at parties. If she had thought Mimsy La Pim’s was a one-off occasion, it soon became clear that there was at least one event on the same scale or bigger every night in Hollywood.
And The Trojan Horse’s publicity team insisted that the film world’s newest star couldn’t escape attending as many of them as possible.
It was at the end of her third day of extravagantly paid time-wasting on the film set that Twinks was dragooned into attending a party at Toni Frangipani’s house. She had no particular desire to see the self-regarding lothario again, but the bullies in Humungous Studios’ publicity department said it was her contractual obligation to be there. There were lots of things they said she had a contractual obligation to do and, since she had never seen the contract that Lefty Switzer had signed on her behalf, it was hard for her to argue.
So she went to the party with a minder from the Humungous Studios publicity department to check she didn’t sneak off too early. And she went with bad grace. Which was unusual for Twinks. Like her brother, her emotional barometer was set permanently to ‘sunny’, but that evening storm clouds threatened. Maybe the unfamiliar experience of three days’ actual work had tired her. Never before had she been forced to experience how the other half lived.
Twinks was not the kind of girl who would have worried about going to a party where she didn’t know anyone. Self-possession in any environment was an essential product of her upbringing.
Anyway, though she knew few people at Toni Frangipani’s, there seemed to be plenty who knew her. Even in such a short time, the news of The Trojan Horse’s new Helen of Troy had spread to every level of Hollywood society. Nothing as formal as an introduction was required by these brash Angelenos, who all seemed to regard Honoria Lyminster as their personal property. Apparently, everyone was entitled to a piece of her, and her every move was monitored. Heddan Schoulders and her lesser acolytes lurked with pencils poised over notebooks, waiting for some new tiny foundation of detail on which they could erect another edifice of lies.
Toni Frangipani’s house was even bigger than Mimsy La Pim’s, and in his case the architectural style being bastardised was that of the medieval castle. Twinks, who had spent her entire life in authentic medieval castles, was unimpressed by its splendours. The coats of armour standing in every corner were clearly replicas, and the faces staring from the frames in the Long Gallery were from Central Casting. She felt a twinge of patrician pity for people who had grown up in a land with no history.
Nor was she impressed by a further encounter with the house’s owner. Toni seemed to regard the fact that she had come to his party as proof she had seen the error of her ways and was as susceptible to his charms as every other woman in the movie-going universe. The first words he said to her were, ‘It issa up to you. Either we go to the beddaroom now – my guests do notta need my permanenta presence – or we waita till they have gonna and you staya here the nighta. The choicea is yours.’
‘My choice’, responded Twinks, with the iciness that can only come from generations of maltreating serfs, ‘is that you stop behaving like a peacock posturing in a mirror. If you think I want to spend more time than I have to with a lump of toadspawn like you, then I’m sure I can find you the address of a suitable bonkers-doctor. I believe that profession is one that’s thriving in Hollywood. In case you haven’t already twigged my drift – and I don’t get the impression that you’re a whale among intellects – then my choice is that I never see your greasy Italian face or hear your squeaky Italian voice again. Are we on the same page now?’
An expression of shocked affront was not one that, in the course of his career, Toni Frangipani had ever been required to assume before. Indeed, his silent movies had only demanded two expressions: heroic nobility when he set off into battle and snarling contempt when he was alone with a woman. His mouth opened and closed in astonishment, but no words came. Then he quickly moved away to find a more acquiescent member of the opposite sex (not a difficult thing to do in Hollywood).
Hank Urchief who, along with most of the Hollywood A-list, had witnessed the encounter, smiled a smile of self-congratulation. In the notebooks of Heddan Schoulders and her lesser acolytes, notes were written at a rate of knots. What Twinks was giving them was pure gold dust.
Hardly had Toni Frangipani beaten his retreat than Twinks was accosted by another aspirant for her favours. Their argument over Medusa’s circlet of snakes had brought a coolness into the director’s relationship with his latest wife. He was also hearing ever stronger rumours on The Trojan Horse set that Zelda’s fidelity might be open to question. If he found them to be true, and if he could identify the culprit, which shouldn’t be too difficult amid the swirling gossip of Hollywood, then his revenge would be swift and terrible.
In the meantime, it made sense for him to start looking elsewhere for female companionship. He was not unaware of the photographic coverage and column inches that his new Helen of Troy, Honoria Lyminster, was getting, and besides, for a director of von Klappentrappen’s status, an emotional entanglement with his latest leading lady was de rigueur.
Though the plain – very plain – fact was obvious to everyone who encountered him, and though he spent his life surrounded by some of the most beautiful people on the planet, it still hadn’t occurred to Gottfried von Klappentrappen that he was unattractive. His power and influence in Hollywood had not, up until then, allowed many women in the movie world to resist his advances. But then, of course, he hadn’t tried coming on to Twinks before.
‘Hi, sugar lump,’ he said, bouncing up to her like a rubber ball.
Honoria Lyminster bridled. ‘I am not a spoffing sugar lump!’
‘You sure are sweet enough to be. And if you and I got together, things could be even sweeter.’
‘That I doubt,’ said Twinks, only showing the tip of the iceberg but making it clear there was a whole lot more underneath.
‘What say,’ suggested the von Klappentrappen, impervious to the Antarctic blast being directed at him, ‘we go off for a spot of dinner, à deux as the French put it and’ – he chuckled teutonically – ‘see how the evening ends up.’
‘We don’t need to go through all that clangdumble,’ came the spirited response. ‘I can tell you exactly how the evening ends up for us . . . because it’s ending zappity-ping right now! When I want to spend my free time with a groping slimeball who doesn’t even make it to zero on the charm-scale, I’ll be sure to let you know!’
Twinks moved away from Gottfried von Klappen-trappen, who was mouthing silently in exactly the same way Toni Frangipani had.
Hank Urchief’s self-congratulatory smile was even broader this time. Meanwhile, scribbling away like mad, Heddan Schoulders and her lesser acolytes could not believe their good fortune.
It was perhaps inevitable that, as Twinks reached for a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, it should be picked up and handed to her by another amorous swain. Wilbur T. Cottonpick, who was dressed in a spangly suit that made him look like a bullock wrapped in tinsel.
‘Hi,’ he said. Then, being, as she had discovered, a man of three words, he let his actions substitute verbal blandishments. Putting his arms around her, the Texas oil millionaire reached his lips towards hers.
Twinks recoiled as if she’d been electrocuted. ‘Are you attempting to kiss me?’ she demanded.
‘And has it occurred to your minuscule pea of a brain that I might not want your fumacious lips on mine?’
‘Nope,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
‘Well, you spavined clip-clop, will you infiltrate into your granite cranium the notion that I do not like being touched by men with the manners of mismanaged mules!’ The plan, which she had only vaguely contemplated in the first place, of saving the Tawcester Towers plumbing by marrying a Texas oil millionaire, was now very nearly out of the window. If Wilbur T. Cottonpick had ever been in the frame for that role, he certainly wouldn’t be after her next words. ‘And the idea that I, Honoria Lyminster, would give a tinker’s tuppence about someone as underbred as you would raise a laugh from an Easter Island statue!’
As with the two previous recipients of Twinks’s scorn, Wilbur T. Cottonpick’s mouth moved up and down in shock, but was unable to pronounce a single one of his three words.
The scribbling speed of Heddan Schoulders and her lesser acolytes was now rivalling the Flying Scotsman. Hank Urchief smiled at them confidently as he sashayed across to join Twinks.
‘Nice work,’ he said.
She looked at him in puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry? I haven’t a mouse-squeak of an idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I was listening when you saw off those three.’
‘I was brought up by my Mater to believe it was bad manners to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. That kind of behaviour is totally beyond the barrier.’
‘Hey, Twinks, cool it. We’re in Hollywood now. No one gets too fussed about protocol out here.’
‘So I observe,’ she said acidly.
‘Take eavesdropping away and the whole system would grind to a halt. It’s at the centre of the whole movie publicity machine.’