by Shari King
The heat hit her as she joined another long line, this time for a cab. By the time she reached the front, sweat was rolling down her back.
An Armenian cab driver took her case from her and loaded it in the boot.
For the first time, Sarah consciously stood, inhaled and scanned the hustle of four lanes of cars weaving in and out in front of the terminal building.
It seemed utterly incredible that she was finally in LA and yet here she was.
‘Where to?’ the driver asked her as they both climbed in.
‘Le Parc Suite Hotel, West Hollywood.’
Within her budget, with a rooftop lounge. Sold.
The driver nodded, then pulled out to a cacophony of blaring horns.
As her head fell back on the plastic seats, she felt like the cowboy coming into Dodge.
And a smile played on her lips as she realized that if this was an old-time cowboy movie, a lone rider would have stormed off into the night to warn Leith, Johnston and McLean that she was in town and she was coming for them.
31.
‘Fuck You’ – CeeLo Green
Davie’s fingers were itching, desperate to hit the keyboard on his laptop. He decided this must be what it felt like when celebrities picked up a hooker on Sunset. They knew it was a really bad idea, but sometimes it was impossible to resist, despite the fact that they had to know it wouldn’t end well. Hookers had never been his thing. No need. And besides, he’d always been too aware that it was blackmail waiting to happen.
That’s what made this current situation so unbearable. He’d been careful. Taken few risks. Only screwed people with as much to lose as him. And years of cultivating the guy-next-door niceness had been blown apart by one crazy bitch and her lust for fame.
Now, he was sitting at the island in his kitchen, where Ivanka had left a table setting for one, sandwich ignored, fingers at the ready, fighting a primal urge to . . .
‘www.twitter.com’ ‘Davie Johnston’ ‘Search’
Oh dear God.
There were thousands of tweets and a quick scan revealed that most of them included wishes or threats that would limit his life expectancy.
Yes, there were a few positives too, but he suspected most of them were written in Bangladesh, where CSA kept a factory of fake clickers on retainer. Within seconds of the order being given, thousands of underpaid workers, all with multiple profiles on every social network site, could vote, trend or drown out opposition by writing their own pre-scripted tweets. On Al’s command, they’d already bombarded Davie’s Facebook page with messages of support and encouragement, in the hope of rallying the same message in the US. After reading some of the abusive arguments blasted at the favourable comments, Davie wasn’t sure the strategy was working.
Oprah was beginning to look like the best of a bunch of bad options.
Like a masochist in a gimp mask who refused to utter the safe word, he decided he needed more pain. Back up in the browser bar, he typed in ‘Davie Johnston Lana Delasso’. Bingo. A video upload from today, on a website linked to a celebrity-scandal channel. He pressed play and then immediately stopped. He already knew the script. It was the scene from the Ivy and they were running it with a tag-line promo promoting her new show, With Love From Lana. There was a fucking stunning stretch of creative imagination. Idiots.
Wearily he closed it down, then put a call in to Al. Straight to voicemail. That was becoming depressingly standard these days. He left a message telling Al about the video and asking him to get the lawyers on it. Just another layer on this great big onion of crap.
The buzz of his phone was a welcome distraction from thoughts of taking the knife from his table and pounding it straight into his jugular. His first assumption was that it was Al, but the screen told him differently. Surprised, he answered it with almost pathetic gratitude.
‘Hey, Mum, how’s it going?’ His accent automatically reverted to a west of Scotland brogue as he did a quick calculation. It must be 4 a.m. in Glasgow. She’d probably just got back from that ridiculous bloody bus she worked on. He had no idea why she worked there. He sent her enough money to give her an incredible life and she never touched it, just left it sitting in the bank while she lived in the same house and spent her nights with hookers and homeless people.
‘Fine, son. It’s just a quick call . . .’ She always said that. It struck him that if he had a needle sticking out of his arm, she might have time for more than a two-minute chat. His attention was gone now, back on that manipulative, conniving bitch Lana.
‘. . . but I just wanted to let you know that some lassie came onto the bus the other night. Asking questions, all sorts of questions. Said she’s from one of the papers. Hang on, whit one was it? Aye, the Daily Scot.’
A brutal meeting between the knife and his jugular suddenly seemed like a welcome reprieve.
32.
‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ – The Who
Dinner with Lou at Ago, Robert De Niro and Agostino Sciandri’s restaurant on Melrose, was a weekly fixture. They always sat at the same table, on the outdoor patio, an area embellished with greenery, recreating the vibe of a Tuscan garden. The larger parties knew to request a round table, otherwise they’d be seen and not heard. And no one went there to fade into the background. On any given night, the room would ooze power: producers, directors, stars that didn’t get out of bed for less than $1 million or the promise of an incredible lay.
Despite the fact that the last thing Mirren felt like doing was donning high heels and getting out there, Lou, showing her hard-ass gossip-columnist genes, had refused to let her cancel.
‘Screw that,’ Lou blasted, when Mirren had hesitated over plans on the phone. ‘Mirren McLean, don’t you dare stand me up. Don’t let this town think you’ve got something to hide from and don’t leave me without a date on a Thursday night. Besides, it’s work for me, sweetheart. I hear Clooney and the gang are gonna be there and I’ve got nothing for tomorrow’s column.’
Mirren sighed. Having Hollywood’s top scandal hound as a friend had many advantages – great insider info, fast news and a network of spies that could rival the CIA during the Cold War.
But the one disadvantage was that she had to be seen to be out mingling with – as Lou so eloquently put it – the great and the fan-fucking-tastic. And she was determined to drag Mirren along whether she liked it or not.
‘Stop pursing your lips – it’ll give you wrinkles that not even Dr Lancer can fix,’ Lou shot down the line.
‘How do you know what my lips are doing?’
‘Babe, you’re a creature of habit.’
They both were.
Now, in the same restaurant they visited every week, having eaten the same dishes they always chose – rigatoni alla contadina for Mirren, linguine vongole for Lou – Mirren felt a welcome sense of comfort as Lou returned after having a chat with George and his buddies.
‘God, I love that man,’ Lou whispered. ‘Gave me an exclusive on his next movie. If only he demanded sexual favours in return for information, I’d be a happy woman.’
For the first time all week Mirren laughed.
‘So. What’s the latest with that traitorous prick you married?’ Tactful transitions had never been Lou’s strong point.
Mirren took a sip of espresso to buy time to formulate an answer that would hopefully cut the subject dead.
‘Brad’s looked into it for me. He’s been staying at a hotel like he said. He just needs time. So do I. End of story for now.’
Lou’s train of interference wasn’t so easily halted.
‘Time for what? Are you seriously thinking of taking him back? Come on, Mirren, you can’t be.’
Mirren decided to go ahead and pull that Band-Aid right off. ‘I am, Lou, and don’t judge me for it. According to Brad Bernson, he’s not spent the night with her this week. They met for lunch at the Ivy last weekend, but that was it. Obviously they’ll need to talk, so if it’s in a public place, it tells me there’s nothing going on an
ymore.’
‘Or Mercedes Dance is milking this for all the publicity she can get.’
Mirren exhaled and braced herself to share her decision. She’d agonized over it for days. Changed her mind a dozen times. But in the end, she knew it was what was best for her family. And they were all that mattered.
‘Look, Lou, I need to take him back. We had nineteen years; he screwed up once. Sure, it was a huge screw-up, but I need to get over it for the kids’ sake and mine. I need him to come back, make changes, get Chloe sorted out. The court is going to throw the book at her if she leaves rehab again without permission. She needs us. This is my family, Lou. I’m not losing it now or letting it become one of those tragic Hollywood fuck-up stories.’
There was a pause as Lou digested the pertinent points.
‘Found out who took her back to the clinic yet?’
‘Nope. They literally rang the bell and left her at the door.
And she’s not saying.’
Lou’s glee over the Clooney exclusive was long gone now.
‘I do get it, Mirren. And if you want him back, I won’t say a single negative thing about it. Not one.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope, not one. Although there’s a good chance the only way I’ll keep my promise is by stapling my lips together. Or suctioning myself to Mr Clooney’s frigging gorgeous face.’
Their laughter was interrupted by the vibration of Lou’s blinged-out iPhone in the middle of the table.
They could both see the message that flashed on the screen.
‘JG. MD. CDM. 262.’
‘My God, Lou, you’re like a real-life spy chick.’
Lou didn’t smile as her eyes rose to meet Mirren’s.
‘What? What is it?’
‘You really serious about taking Jack back?’
‘Yeah . . .’
‘Well, you’d better get your ass in gear, because right now he’s at the Casa del Mar, room 262, with Mercedes Dance, and in about half an hour every pap in town will be outside there.’
For a few seconds Mirren was torn. All she’d thought about all week was what she needed to do for the long-term salvation of her family and now that she’d made the decision that stupid bastard was threatening it again already. And worse, they were at the Casa del Mar. Their favourite bolt-hole, a haven of luxury on the sands of Santa Monica Beach.
‘Maybe they’re just talking. Sorting things out. That’s our room, the one we keep on retainer for weekends and visitors.
He told me he was staying. I assumed he meant alone. My bad.’
‘You got a key?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then let’s go see.’
Mirren knew it was as much of a challenge as an attempt to help, but if she was going into enemy territory, there was no one she’d rather have behind her. There was only one good way out of this and it had to start with letting Jack come home to kick off the healing process.
Lou put the pedal of her Mercedes coupé down to the metal as they crossed town in record time, pulling up at the Casa twenty minutes later. She tossed the keys to the valet parking attendant and scoped the streets for paps. None in sight. This wasn’t a usual hang-out for them – too far out of the way of the usual haunts. She paid her source well for a one-hour heads-up ahead of any other media outlets being tipped off and it looked like this time he’d made it worthwhile.
The heels of two pairs of Louboutins clicked across the floor of the marble foyer, then faded to silence as they rose in the lift. Outside the room, Mirren took a deep breath.
‘You ready?’ Lou whispered.
Mirren nodded and reached towards the door. Lou put an arm up to stop her.
‘We don’t have to do this, you know. We can just leave now. Forget him. Act like this never happened.’
Mirren’s reply was to click the key into the lock and swing the door open to see . . .
She scanned the room.
Nothing. Empty. The only sign of habitation was a room- service tray on the table by the window. One plate. One ice bucket. One empty bottle of champagne upside down in the middle of it.
It was one of Jack’s things. He’d done that since the very first night they’d ordered a bottle of Moët to toast their first real date.
Since then there had been hundreds of upside-down bottles in ice buckets – but none of them had made her feel the blind rage she felt right now.
The carpet muffled her approach as she crossed the room and opened the bathroom door.
She’d known he’d be there. The first thing he always did when he got home at night was to take a bath. But back in their house on the Colony, he had warm water, candles, oils, and managed to relax without a twenty-two-year-old movie star sitting on his dick in the middle of the tub.
For a moment Mirren was strangely fixated on the soft curve of her rival’s stomach and the swollen beauty of Mercedes’ breasts, shiny with moisture as they rose and fell. Her hands were in her hair, her head thrown back, her breathing thick and fast. Jack’s eyes were closed tight, his face in the sexed-up, just-about-to-come expression Mirren had seen countless times before.
‘Busy?’
It was all she could say, but it was enough. Mercedes screeched; Jack wailed.
‘Holy fuck!’
Mirren snatched a small victory from the fact that he’d now have one orgasm less in his lifetime. Calm. Dignified. She had to overrule her urge to scream and kill by repeating this mantra in her head.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t loud enough for Lou to hear. Mirren was bumped out of the way by her friend’s charge towards the tub. There, she slapped Jack across the face with a hastily grabbed towel and then sneered at Mercedes, ‘Right, slut-features, time to dismount. Get the fuck off your pay-cock and get out of here.’
‘Jack, are you gonna do something?’ Mercedes’ whiny drawl notched the atmosphere up from dramatic to homicidal.
‘Yes, he’s gonna do something, you traitorous bitch,’ Lou calmly informed her. ‘He’s gonna remove his limp penis from your body; then he’s gonna beg his wife for forgiveness, otherwise I’m gonna drown the fucker right here and now. Any more questions?’
Mercedes shook her head, grabbed a towel and – trying desperately to recover some shred of decorum – covered herself up and marched to the other room, stopping as she passed Mirren.
‘He said you two were getting a divorce.’ Her tone made it clear it was an excuse.
‘Maybe,’ Mirren replied. ‘But after it hit the press, you knew that wasn’t true.’
‘Well, I’m havin’ his kid, so you’re gonna have to get used to me being around.’
To Mirren’s surprise, she felt a stirring of sympathy. This woman was not much older than Chloe. What did she know about anything?
Lou was still on a wavelength of fury and disdain.
‘Yo, easy lay, did I say you could talk to my friend? You should stick to lines that are written in a script, honey, because at least then there’s a chance of someone thinking there’s a brain in there. Now get the hell out of here.’
Even Mercedes Dance, rising starlet, knew better than to argue with one of the most influential women in Hollywood.
Jack went on the offence.
‘Mirren, for Christ’s sake—’
‘Get ready,’ Mirren told him, cutting him dead. ‘I’ll be at home. If you’re not there in an hour, don’t bother coming back. Not ever.’
33.
‘Amazing’ – Kanye West (ft. Young Jeezy)
The driveway at the Beverly Hilton looked like a luxury car lot as the limos waited in line to discharge their esteemed passengers. The positions of the vehicles reflected the billing status on a movie – the closer to the front, the bigger the star. And the better the car.
This was the same driveway that morphed into the red- carpet area when the hotel hosted the Golden Globes every year. But not tonight.
Tonight, the cream of the movie industry was here to honour Wes Lomax, forty years i
n the business, still at the top and showing no sign of losing his touch.
Zander watched Sandra Bullock alight from the limo in front of them and pause for the photographers to get their shots. There was a woman who was in his definite top five of beautiful Hollywood women. They’d never worked together, but Wes had just optioned the movie rights of a true story about a couple who had survived a terrorist attack in Kenya and had Zander and Sandra in mind for the leads. Zander was up for it. Sandra’s people would be contacted in the next week or two.
Zander popped a couple of paper-thin sheets of breath freshener. Extra strength. Not that he was covering anything. Turning up here wasted would have been such a career- limiting decision that he’d managed to refrain from anything stronger than mouthwash all day.
He’d been drug-tested by the studio yesterday and had breathed a Jack Daniel’s-infused sigh of relief when it came back clean. Chloe was still at the clinic, although she was refusing to take his calls. He got it. She was mad as hell, and he would be too. But he knew he’d done the right thing. He had to believe she’d beat this. And when she did, he wanted to show he’d done it too. At least, that was what he kept telling himself in between waves of desperation for a drink. What kind of mentor was he when he still wanted to get wasted almost every minute of the day?
It felt like this was a defining moment. It really was time to clean up his act. He’d got away with it so far, but it wasn’t going to last forever. The only way his current path ended was on the same crazy chapter of Hollywood history as Sheen and Sizemore. Or worse, the tragic finale of Cory Monteith or Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Time for change. Time for sobriety.
Time to forget the past, leave the demons behind him and move forward in a straight, balanced, sober line.
‘You OK there, Zander?’
Leandro, his usual driver, checked him out in the rear- view mirror. Zander leaned over, slapped his shoulder and slipped him a $100 bill.