He had asked questions. “Who is my real mother? Where is she? Is she still alive?”
Detective Rosemont had shaken his head blankly and produced a yellowing piece of paper with the date marked on the top. The page was divided into two columns. One side listed Mr. and Mrs. Willis Andrews and a Barstow address. The other listed Estelle and Richard Hudson, and their San Diego address. Written beneath this in thick red pen across both columns was a notation—TWIN BOYS—one to each family—and on the appropriate sides were the prices paid. It seemed—at the time—that the Andrews family had gotten themselves a bargain. The Hudsons had shelled out two thousand dollars—over fifteen hundred dollars more.
A scribbled notation on the bottom read: “See page 60.”
“Page sixty was ripped out,” Leon explained. “So the only connection was you, Mrs. Hudson. I tried to phone you—when I got no reply I thought it important enough to get on a plane and come here.” He paused. “Who is the real mother?”
“I don’t know,” she said coldly. “It never interested me. Everything was taken care of—even a birth certificate with our names on was supplied.”
Buddy put his foot down hard and zoomed along the freeway. How could he lay this whole trip on Angel?
Hey, kid. You’ll never guess. I got me this weirdo brother. Like he’s . . . uh . . . my twin. And you know what? He goes around killin’ people.
Angel would widen those big beautiful eyes and think he was taking drugs again. Shit! Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn’t been there when Leon Rosemont turned up on her doorstep they never would have found him, and he wouldn’t have had to hear all that garbage about some maniac twin out there somewhere.
But they would have found him, because he had never bothered to change his name, and all at once he knew why. He had wanted to be found. Wanted his mother to care enough to come looking for him.
She never had.
Now he understood why.
Detective Rosemont said he would arrange a police guard for him back in Los Angeles. Buddy had said no, and quickly explained his situation. “I’m just not connected to this whole story,” he ended flatly. “And I don’t intend to be. There’s no way this Deke character could ever track me.”
“Look at this,” Detective Rosemont said, and handed him a photograph.
Some long-haired jerk with staring eyes.
Some long-haired jerk with his features.
Different in a way—but chillingly the same. That’s how the detective had recognized him.
It gave him real bad vibes. He had shoved the photo back at Leon abruptly. “Looks nothin’ like me,” he said roughly. “I gotta head back for L.A. now.”
He had departed shortly after, reluctantly handing over his address and accepting a number to contact the detective should he need to.
Goodbye, San Diego.
He drove down the highway, toward a fresh start, toward Angel.
Somewhere he had a mother.
It didn’t matter. He was free now.
• • •
Sitting in a cab on his way to the airport, Leon felt depressed. He had hoped the Hudson family would be the key. But Richard Hudson was dead, and Estelle Hudson didn’t know and didn’t care. What kind of a woman adopted a baby and didn’t even want to know who the natural mother was? The same kind of woman who bought a baby in the first place. He shook his head in disgust.
Questions, questions.
But where were the answers?
He desperately needed to know the identity of Deke’s real mother. That’s where Deke would go. If she was still alive—and a hunch told Leon she was.
At the airport he went straight to a phone booth and called Captain Lacoste in Philadelphia. “I’m on my way back to Vegas,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Wait!” shouted the captain. “I just heard from Los Angeles. They think they got him. Get on the next plane.”
76
The moment of impact was so unexpected. A flash of white car, a staring face. Too late to do anything but jam on the brakes and wrench the wheel of the Rolls to the right.
The two cars collided. The crunch of bodywork crumbling, the shatter of glass, the unearthly noise.
Then silence except for the raspy raunch of Rod Stewart coming from the tape machine still functioning in the Jaguar.
In the bars and the cafes—Passion
In the streets and the alleys—Passion
Lots of pretending—Passion
Everybody searching—Passion
Angel finished cleaning the apartment around one o’clock. She walked from room to room admiring her work. Everything was gleaming and sparkling, just the way it should be. She felt the baby kick and stopped for a moment, placing both hands on her stomach. It was a magical feeling. She wanted a boy, a miniature Buddy. Excitement swept over her at the very thought. They would call him Buddy Junior and he would grow up to be just like his father. Well, maybe not exactly the same.
She smiled softly, entered the bathroom, removed her clothes, and stepped under the shower.
• • •
Deke Andrews crawled from the wreck unhurt except for a cut on his forehead and a pain in his right leg. He should not have taken the white car. To steal was a sin. He was being punished.
But surely The Keeper Of The Order was above punishment?
He could hear Joey’s laughter.
Oh whore of whores, shut your painted mouth before I shut it for you.
“I thought ya could drive, cowboy,” she jeered.
He hated her with a
Passion
Even the President needs passion
Everybody I know needs some passion
Some people die and kill for passion
He realized he must move on. Get away from the two smashed cars. Dragging his leg behind him, he started up the hill.
Not once did he even glance in the other car.
• • •
She put on a simple white shift, plain sandals, and fluffed her hair, allowing it to dry naturally. Koko had wanted to cut it all off, or at least style it. But she hadn’t allowed him to. She knew that Buddy loved it exactly the way it was.
She applied scent behind her ears, on her arms, and between her breasts. Youth Dew by Estée Lauder. Koko had presented it to her. “Better on you, dreamheart, than on some of the old bags who come in the salon. My God! If they saw a youth the only dew they’d get would be on their foreheads!”
She wanted Buddy and Koko to meet. Properly. Not as adversaries. And Adrian too, of course. Maybe she would throw a small dinner party. There was a nice little dining nook, space to seat everyone comfortably, and she could make all of Buddy’s favorite foods.
So deep was she in thought that she did not hear the doorbell the first time it rang. It was only on the second ring that she responded, and hoping that it was Buddy home early, she ran to answer it.
• • •
“You’re all right, gel,” said Josh Speed.
“I should be. I’ve been perfecting my act since I was thirteen,” replied Karen Lancaster dryly.
“Thirteen, eh?”
They resumed athletic making out in a closed cabana located in a prime position beside the Beverly Hills Hotel pool. Courtesy of Josh’s record company. The cabana, not the fucking.
“Cor blimey!” screamed Josh suddenly. “I’m comin’ so fast it’s like a bleedin’ express train runnin’ through me cock!”
“You’re so poetic,” husked Karen, reaching her own peak.
He squeezed her nipples, always the main attraction. “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, gel. Later on I’ll play yer some of me songs—that’ll really get y’goin’.”
She rolled across the floor reaching for her abandoned swimsuit. “Sounds good to me.”
He was not Ross Conti. But he would do.
• • •
“I won’t be long,” Ferdie had said.
“I won’t be long . . . I won�
��t be long,” Rocky mimicked furiously three hours later as he stormed around the apartment. He had been looking forward to the beach picnic—sun, surf, and new connections. He had not skipped off to Hollywood to spend his time waiting around for the likes of Ferdie. This little prince did a lot of things, but he did not wait. Screw waiting.
He gathered together his things, stuffed them in a bag, then headed for the door.
• • •
For a moment Angel just stared, eyes huge and alarmed. “Buddy?” she questioned unsurely as she backed into the apartment, shock etched across her face. “Your hair . . . and you look so pale . . . My God! Buddy, what happened?”
• • •
WHO IS BUDDY HUDSON? She knew who he was. This Madonna with cornsilk hair and the face of an angel.
Deke stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
She was Joey, of course. He had known all along he would find her.
And she was pregnant. With his child.
77
The freeway allowed Buddy time to think, and the more he thought the more confused he became. In the end he put on the radio and lost himself in weather reports, rock music, commercials, and newscasts.
We can expect a beautiful high of eighty-five degrees today, so get out those boogie boards and head for the beach.
Yeah. That’s what he would like to do.
Stevie Wonder. “Ribbon in the Sky.” Hot Chocolate. “Chances.” Randy Crawford. “Rio de Janeiro.” Music soothed him. Maybe he’d have to see a shrink, get his head together.
You ain’t a movie star yet, kid. Let’s not go getting big ideas.
If being with Angel couldn’t straighten him out, nothing could. He’d be all right. He was a survivor.
Only he felt so alone.
Time on the freeway didn’t mean anything. Like an endless conveyor belt, cars proceeded to unknown destinations. A black Porsche zoomed by, doubling the speed limit.
He wondered what Monday would bring. Would Sadie have good news for him?
Sure she would. Think positive. Stardom was inevitable. He’d waited long enough. Especially with his billboard hitting America.
He hoped that Ferdie had kept his promise and told her about Angel. No more lies or false beginnings. He was going to make it on the truth—all the way to the top.
• • •
Santa Monica was too crowded for the likes of Rocky, the competition too fierce. He hung around for an hour, but there was no action at all, and he did not like struggling to be noticed. Screw that game. At seventeen he looked like an angelic fourteen-year-old and thought like a shrewd thirty-five-year-old. After only a brief six weeks in Los Angeles he felt that he knew his way around, and Santa Monica Boulevard was not the only game in town.
He put on his T-shirt, picked up his bag, and headed up Doheny toward Sunset.
• • •
Gina Germaine swept into the Polo Lounge half an hour late for a luncheon appointment with a female journalist from a weekly news magazine. The way she looked at it, the reporter was lucky to be getting her at all. How many other stars gave up their Saturdays to further the course of publicity? Not too many. And that is why she was at the top and others got stuck halfway up the ladder.
They treated her like royalty in the Polo Lounge. But then, of course, she was royalty—the Hollywood kind.
Gina was not in a good mood. She felt rejected. First by Ross Conti—who was a no-good has-been son of a bitch anyway. And second by Sadie La Salle. Her friend. Her agent. And a woman who was too selfish to give up Palm Springs and spend the day with her.
“Disloyal” was a word that hovered in Gina’s mind as she beamed a greeting at the woman journalist and launched straight into it “. . . I’m a simple person really. All I want is a little cottage, a bunch of kids, and the right man in my life.”
“What about Ross Conti?”
Ice-cold. “Who?”
• • •
Josh Speed wore bikini swimming briefs that left nothing to the imagination.
“Hmmm . . .” observed Karen, sharing a joint with him before emerging from the cabana. “You certainly believe in letting it all hang out.”
“If yer got it, let ’em see it. I can make a groupie come from twenty yards!” He roared with laughter.
She smiled. Josh would be a riot with Pamela and George and their dinosaur friends.
They walked out of the cabana hand in hand. Instinctively they paused, aware of the fact that the tourists needed to feast their eyes. Then Josh yelled, “First one in’s a sissy,” and with arms and legs flailing wildly leaped into the pool.
Karen smiled indulgently. What a pleasant change to be with someone who knew how to have fun. She made her way more sedately to the deep end and executed a graceful dive.
“C’mere, sexy,” yelled Josh, scissoring her around the waist with his bony legs. “ ’Ere,” he whispered. “Let me stick me big toe in yer drawers.”
“Not here, Josh,” she giggled huskily.
“Why not?” he demanded. “Yer think this groupa toffee-noses never seen a big toe before?”
• • •
Elaine arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel in good time for her two-o’clock appointment at the beauty shop. She wore a pale-blue silk shirt, white linen slacks, and sunglasses.
“Mrs. Conti,” exclaimed the girl who usually did her hair. “You look terrific! Have you been on vacation?”
She nodded vaguely. “Sort of.”
“Hawaii?”
“Not exactly.”
“Wherever it was, it’s certainly done you the world of good. A tan really suits you.”
“It’ll suit me even better when you do something with my hair.”
• • •
Oliver Easterne left a lunch meeting at Nate ’n’ Al’s, and hurried to a late lunch meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
There was just not enough time in the day. But Oliver had developed his own philosophy. Never let a potential investor off the hook. Even if it meant choking to death.
• • •
Wolfie Schweicker was not in the habit of picking up boys. He had no need of doing so. His sexual appetite was not vast, and the once-a-month special parties that he and a select group of friends arranged were more than enough to take care of his every need. So when he spotted Rocky lounging against an RTD stop on Sunset, the last thing he had in mind was to pick him up.
His silver Mercedes took the decision right out of his hands. The car slowed, the blond baby loped over, and before you could say Disneyland he was in the car.
Wolfie looked anxiously around to see if anyone had noticed. Apparently not. He drove quickly off.
How can I take the boy home? he thought. What will the servants think? He had never committed indiscretions under his own roof.
But what was the alternative? A motel? A baths? None of them the kind of places he frequented.
“Where we goin’?” the boy asked as the Mercedes turned off Sunset and headed for the hills.
“My home,” Wolfie said crisply.
To hell with the servants.
• • •
News traveled like brushfire. Bad news faster than good.
The Beverly Hills Hotel was the perfect breeding ground for a rumor to get going. An accident on Angelo Drive was no big deal. But an accident involving Ross Conti in his Rolls was.
“He’s hurt badly.”
“He’s crippled for life.”
“He’s dead.”
The story had its variations as the news passed from one mouth to another. How easy it was to embellish, distort, and twist.
Gina Germaine was told by a red-faced publicist who hovered by her table like a nervous flamingo. She received the in-serious-condition story.
“How terrible!” she fluttered, casting her eyes down and allowing her lower lip to quiver appealingly.
“Shall we forget about the interview?” the journalist asked sympathetically.
Gina made a r
apid recovery. Up came the eyes, and a wan smile took over the lips. “No,” she said bravely. “Ross would want me to keep going. I know that. He’s a wonderful man.” Short pause. “Now, what was I saying?”
Karen heard from a producer friend of her father’s, who took her to one side when she emerged from the pool and discreetly whispered in her ear that Ross Conti had been killed in a car smash. “I think you should call George,” he said solemnly. “He and Ross were always very close.”
Yes, but Ross and I were closer, Karen wanted to say, and she started to shiver uncontrollably.
Oliver heard the whisper in the Polo Lounge. Ross Conti was in intensive care. They didn’t give him long to live. Thank Christ, Oliver thought, that I canceled the movie. And then he had second thoughts. Maybe it hadn’t been such a smart move—look at the publicity he was missing out on!
Montana was still in the coffee shop when the news traveled from ear to ear. She had run into a journalist friend from New York, and they were catching up on old times. Badly injured was the story she got. “Poor Ross,” she murmured. “I just can’t believe it.”
Elaine was not told at all. At first, anyway. A group huddled by the entrance to the beauty shop trying to decide who should impart the bad news. Finally her stylist volunteered and gingerly approached her as she sat reading Vogue under a dryer, her hair wrapped in a hundred tinfoil corkscrews.
“Mrs. Conti,” she whispered. “Apparently there’s been some sort of awful car accident up on Angelo.”
“Why are you telling me?” snapped Elaine.
But she knew why the girl was telling her, and she pushed the hood from above her and shakily stood up. Beneath her suntan she paled. “It’s Ross, isn’t it?” she gasped. “Oh no! It’s Ross.”
78
When he touched her she knew. He held his hand, cold and clammy, to her cheek. She shrank away from him, her eyes wide with fear.
This man was not Buddy.
In some horrible strange way he looked like a paler, thinner, ugly Buddy—but of course he wasn’t, and how could she have ever thought he was?
“Who are you?” she whispered.
Hollywood Wives Page 57