I could barely make out his eyes from behind the shaded glasses but I felt his piercing stare.
“I’ve been turning a blind eye.”
He winced, I think. Did he feel my pain? He said nothing.
Was it really about my blinded eyes? Was it the subject of missing kids and my memories of Mike, Payton’s brother?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
This Gift Will Keep on Giving
“I’M SORRY, SWEETHEART,” Coal said. “I have obligations at The Centre. I need to get back. Would you like me to see you to the valet?”
He let go my hand. I hadn’t even realized his fingers had laced through mine.
I shook my head, watching as Brock and Sterling made their way out the front door “No. I’m a sucker for desserts. I think I’ll stick around and gorge myself.”
I gave him a peck on the cheek and Dr. Coal stood to leave. The suit of armor no doubt monitored his exit, if not the innocent kiss.
Engaged in conversation and perhaps given the mostly narcissistic company, not one guest seemed to notice my absence. Staff presented domed silver trays around the table of guests. My coffee had been replenished, another warmed brandy I did not request nor want, beside it. The moment I sat down, I was served, not offered, the flaming Baked Alaska. I wouldn’t have said no, anyway.
One of the servants confronted Gabri as she returned from somewhere down the long hall. “Ma’am”, I heard him say, “The package is in the way of the butler’s pantry. Do you mind if we move it?”
“What package?” Gabri shrieked with delight. She commanded everyone’s attention.
The staff member pointed to a large wrapped gift propped near the entrance to the butler’s galley.
Gabri feigned surprise. “No card. Now, which one of you brought the hostess a gift? You know I said no presents allowed.”
No one confessed to their abuse of the house rule.
The package proved too enticing to refuse. Thin, and about four feet wide by three feet high and wrapped in yards of plush burgundy velvet, it blended into the shadowy background of Gabri’s room. Still, it was hard to imagine no one had witnessed its appearance. Then again there was that narcissism reigning thick in the air like banks of neon-backlit slot machines in Atlantic City screaming ‘Choose me. I’m a winner’.
Gabri asked Jack Helms to help her with it, and he lifted the package to a high sideboard. With one swift tug, she untied the braided cord wrapped around the gift.
“Holy shit,” Helms muttered. Others gasped and cried out, horrified, as the sheath of velvet slid to the floor to expose the painting for all to see.
I would have imagined that Gabriella Criscione held a dark side, or at least a tough side. She had to be tough on the business ladder as she climbed to the top. But I never guessed her for the offensive goblin that appeared before us.
She ranted and flared. She tossed her arms out as if the maestro of the ‘Be cursed and be damned’ to all that bore witness. She rattled off what might pass as grade school Italian. And then, in a blink of finite time, she transformed into a weeping child.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Art is Subjective
HELMS STAYED BEHIND with me as the valets scrambled to bring all the cars up for the urgent exodus of guests.
I went to the kitchen and scooted staff out of my way in order to put on a pot of water for chamomile tea, then I took a serving tray into the drawing room where Gabri sat curled up into the corner of a garish red sofa.
“Who hates me this much?” Gabri moaned, hugging her chubby knees close up against her body from beneath her satin gown.
Helms pulled the velvet back over the painting and moved with acumen toward the kitchen. He ordered to Gabri’s chef, “Get it out of here. Stash it in the garage for now.”
Underneath the shroud of covering, none soon would forget the clear depiction of Gabri, one of L.A.’s top ten Realtors, captured in timeless oil as a grotesque nude. A compilation of an ancient Miss Piggy and an equally aged and vulgar Elvira. Pimpled flesh spilled in fatty folds across the canvas. A swollen hairy arm held firm around a gleaming medieval suit of armor.
I proffered Gabri the cup of tea. “Take this.”
She cowered.
“Gabri, at worst it was just someone’s idea of a harmless joke”, Helms said. “You’re a tough woman. It’s not necessarily a bad depiction. Maybe it was meant to be funny. Come on. Political humorists do it all the time,” Helms said.
“Evil”, Gabri choked.
We all knew the painting was malicious by intent. That’s why the other guests scurried out to their fancy cars and off to their fancy houses. Imagined or real sanctuary, they were off to find it far away from Gabri’s moat-protected castle.
“I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years,” Gabri groaned, “but I would never have imagined someone would stoop to this. Real estate is a cut-throat business and here I am, an old dago from Chicago. Honestly, the only way I could make a living in this town was by being a pain in the ass rather than the typical royal bitch that floats through life around here. I never thought this—” her voice trailed off.
I didn’t know her that well but my heart ached for Gabri. I didn’t know she hailed from Chicago. I wondered why I didn’t recognize her name but maybe she wasn’t doing real estate back then and there.
“People adore you. They respect you. There’s a reason for that besides just being tough. If it isn’t an ill-appointed attempt at critical humor and homage to your success, then just one person is jealous of you. That’s all,” I said.
I stumbled for more words. Gabri’s aggressive personality now wilted in my presence. She was a spirit, broken.
Gabri asked Jack Helms to fetch her some amaretto. On ice. With a strange veil of timidity, he obeyed.
“Maybe we should notify the police,” I blurted out. Oh my god, why did I even think that?
Gabri retorted, “So, you do believe it’s a little more than sick humor we have going on here?”
“Wait a minute,” Helms said. “The police will find nothing criminal here. They’ll walk away never to return and you’ll wind up in some cheap tabloid. But Lauren has a point. You need to notify your security company. And for shit’s sake, ask them who came by here tonight that wasn’t on your guest list. It’s just being prudent.”
My mind still functioned, even after the second brandy. Jack Helms had a profitable history with Gabri. He’d bought and sold many a home with her and in return she’d provided top L.A. digs as hot locations for his film projects.
Helms interrupted my thoughts. “Leave it to me. I’ll take care of it. Let me make some phone calls.”
A voice inside me kept guard. Everyone has a dark side. What did I just witness? And why?
Gabri grabbed my arm with grizzly force. “Did I tell you I fucked up one of Brock Townsend’s deals?” Her voice quaked.
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters right now. Brock wasn’t behind this. He’s an asshole, but he wouldn’t do this.”
I knew the territory. Gabri probably did have enemies. Brock was not one. He flew and flittered in and out of huge business deals like a bee might sip at moldy sugar water at a hummingbird feeder. It didn’t matter. He was in. He was out.
“I probably cost the man a few million, Lauren,” Gabri said. “Not that he doesn’t have plenty of money but money has a way of pissing people off.”
“Brock was here. He enjoyed himself.”
“But he left before this fucking unveiling. He must have known.”
“Not Brock,” I said.
“Whatever. Like I told you, I have a lot of enemies.”
I LEFT GABRI WITH her dutiful staff. No matter how rude she was to them, ultimately she reeked of something pitiful and they were there for her.
Jack Helm’s followed me out the door. The valets had dropped our keys onto the foyer’s marble table. I guessed we had overstayed our welcome. Gabri needed time to sort things out, on her own, and in her own spac
e I called a dungeon but she called a home.
“I think you’re right,” he said.
“About what?”
“I didn’t want to alarm our hostess, and for sure the L.A.P.D. has better things to do than chase down some phantom pervert whose only weapon is a paintbrush. But I know a couple of guys that can help.”
“With what?”
“One guy is in forensics. Another, stalking is his claim to fame. I mean, he was a stalker. Reformed, maybe. Something’s not right here. I don’t think it would hurt to run this evening’s events past both of them.”
Our cars had been pulled up near the entrance. Helm’s helped me into my car.
“About your missing children program,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Can we talk?”
“I’m flying tomorrow. Call me in a couple.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fresh Cherries
FOR A SECOND TIME I cancelled my plans to meet Carly and Sterling for lunch. Too much to do. Too much to avoid. The dream was forever on my mind. I tried to abandon all consciousness of it but it permeated my life. The best way I could protect my best friends was to stay away from them.
I REMEMBER THE STAFF meeting well. We had gathered around our small but functional conference room table. Up for debate, the entire expose on plastic surgeons. And the naysayers spoke up with the same old objections that I was running old stories past their prime.
“You’re right. Everyone has heard of Cat Woman and the Barbie Doll. So what else do we have?” I asked.
One of my new staff writers spoke up. He probably had figured out his position was tenuous and I was the boss. It was no guts, no glory for him. “We all know that there’s a lot of genital mutilation. Last month’s story on Dr. Dhurra only scratched the surface. Does the general public know about the plastic surgeons out there making zillions of dollars doing clitoris cosmetic surgery?”
His knees shook, only visible because I preferred glass tables. This new guy dared to speak up and claim his turf. He was there to write, and writers brought facts to the table that turned into stories if they were any good.
“Tell us,” I said.
“They’re most often called vulva beautification procedures. Labia minora reconstruction. If the need dictated—and it was always purported as a need, thin labials were fattened up with injections, while if patients come in with too thick of pubic fat pads, they’ll be happy to reduce them with liposuction.”
“That can’t feel too good,” a female writer added as she squirmed her own butt deeper into the chair.
“And then there’s clitoral dehooding.”
I smiled at my young protégé.
“And there’s a helluva lot subscribers that have never heard of revirgination,” the new writer added.
My token naysayer and favorite critic shut up. I wondered where the hell the writer came up with this stuff and what he did on the weekends.
“Women are going in for elective surgery to get plastic hymens implanted.”
“I’ve heard of it,” another writer said. “Like, with blood bombs and all.”
“That’s right. Gel sacks full of fake blood. So the guys can get the cherries they cherish”.
My small audience spoke nothing. “I want to know why. Is it a woman with one big fat lie because she’s no virgin? Is it a woman, submissive to her man’s pleasures, or is it something else? A couple seeking something new and different?”
My senior writer was the first to speak. “It sounds like major surgery to me. Not your ordinary sex toy. And for the record, I’ve never heard of it.”
I said, “Get their stories. I want to hear from the patients, anonymously, of course. But as for the doctors—”
“I know the drill,” said my junior writer. “Print the names of these fine plastic surgeons. But first, get their ‘no comment’ comments.”
TWO WEEKS LATER I was still debating what ‘a couple’ meant, for that’s when Jack Helms had told me to call him back. I’d picked up the phone a good ten times but never dialed his number.
My insecurities insisted that maybe he wouldn’t even talk to me. I phoned him only after preparing myself to hear his voicemail. Or some call screener. That might be better than listening to his morbid thoughts about missing children, because maybe he would take my call.
He responded via webcam. Away in Italy, he thought I might be interested in another story idea.
“There are certain provinces here where wives are still regarded as property,” he said. “The women sit on front porches with their husbands, forced to face the walls of their home. They can’t look out on the street.
“They can only listen as their husbands choose to describe to them what they see. Or conversely, choose what to censor. Anything and everything. Passersby, activity—anything, Lauren. This prevents the women from making forbidden contact with other men.”
“It sounds good. I mean bad, but good,” I said.
Helms was researching yet another documentary idea.
“I have that last issue of yours,” he said. “I think you should show the full cheese.”
“What?” He caught me off guard.
“The entertainment biz is about dichotomy. You have your exposés going for you, all juxtaposed next to dirt-ass fucking male models. I’m just saying do more with the skin thing and the male models. It sells. Women keep getting all the glory these days.”
I didn’t exactly want to be known as the next Bob Guccione and his Penthouse.
“Can I ask you about your project? The missing children?”
“Fire away.”
“I’ve been looking for a missing child. My friend’s brother. It’s been years. She hired a private investigator and all that stuff.”
“And you got zippo, right?”
“Right. He just disappeared. They somehow determined he was a runaway of his own accord.”
“It’s kind of like the missing prostitutes. They make for an easy mark because no one reports them missing.”
A man called out from the background, “It’s show time, Mr. Helms.”
“Gotta run, but send me what you have on this kid,” he said. “I have sources. Oh, and as far as Gabriella Criscione and any stalker goes, it’s nothing.”
“The painting was nothing?’
“Nothing that my guys could come up with and I’ll take their word over the L.A. cops any day of the week. Let’s just say she has enemies, but no one wants her dead. At least not yet.”
DR. COAL LEFT ME three messages. I ached to return them. I needed to schedule another appointment with him. It was time to figure out my life and why the Lauren Visconti Curse made love a certain death threat. I just didn’t have the time.
And I was afraid.
Chapter Thirty
Let’s Ride a Pony
GEOFF RELISHED THE limelight and the new backdrop of the city of angels agreed with him. Some critics had called Sukie’s artful portrayal of the male body as something akin to Rodin’s masterpieces. Geoff chimed in that he would go down in history as the conclusive reason behind Mona Lisa’s mystifying smile.
We’d been friends too long for me to turn down his offer to meet me at the Santa Monica Pier. True to his word he was easy to spot in front of the arcade and dropping handfuls of quarters into pinball machines for eager children.
“Not how I usually spend my workday,” I hollered in between whirling bells and the cling-clang of metal balls slamming against rubber bumpers.
“Hey, Babe, you ain’t lived until you played hooky at the pier. I figured that out the first week we started operations down here.”
“If you’re setting me up for a raise your plan is seriously flawed,” I laughed.
Geoff turned away from the children, willing to forgo the anxious faces of their faces already pitting skills against one another at the arcade.
My beautiful puerile friend announced, “Let’s go ride a pony,” he said. He led me over toward the his
toric carousel.
I began to suspect I was in for more than a pony ride, but if it wasn’t a raise he was looking for I was duped.
We stopped long enough for me to purchase a bag of caramel corn.
“Breakfast of champions,” I explained as we gave the ticket taker our red coupons. “Now tell me, is this a pony ride or a phony ride. Just why are we playing hooky?”
“It’s bad, honey,” Geoff whispered in a hoarse voice. We had just taken our seats in a golden chariot for two; two magnificent white wooden Clydesdales prancing us through the woods, or at least up and down through a fading forest mural scenery.
“Our reviews?” I gasped. “No way! We’re on top!”
He ignored my mock horror and looked away. “Remember your doctor from Afghanistan?”
“Of course I do. Brave female doctor. She’s coming to L.A. to do some more photo work with Sukie. She’s a guest speaker at some huge women’s conference this weekend.”
“She’s already here. She was here.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no easy way to say this, Laurs. She’s dead. She was killed.”
“What?”
“Rumors are already flying. Not sure if it was crazy L.A. locals or her own government. Word got out quick about our article. Maybe to the wrong people.”
Geoff reached into his linen shirt pocket and pulled out a package of mini-tissues, prepared for my emotions to gush the tears that would stream down my cheeks in two rivers.
I shook my head. “We don’t know that. It’s L.A. Anybody could have done it. A robber. A doper. Anybody.”
“It looks personal. That’s all I’ve learned. She was knifed eighteen times. The detective I spoke with said that ranks it up there as a likely crime of passion.”
“Why am I just hearing of this now?”
“Because I stepped in. I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
My throat felt lined with something the thickness of creosote. “But she doesn’t know anybody in this city.” I pulled at another tissue only to blacken it with streaming mascara. “Geoff. Oh, no, Geoff. Are you saying our story killed her?” I finally managed.
CoverBoys & Curses Page 8