by R. T. Jordan
“You didn’t threaten to be the next star-turned-killer,” Placenta reminded her.
The reporter said, “Tonight, probably a bajillion viewers watched as you said a few mean things on I’llDo Anything to Become …” She stopped to look at her notes. “Famous. In fact, you threatened to murder one of the judges.” She stopped and spoke to the anchor in the newsroom. “Roll the tape, please.” A replay of Ped-Xing telling the world that he’d be famous if he killed Polly Pepper filled the screen.
The camera returned to the overly serious reporter. “Do you have any comment?”
Ped-Xing looked at the woman as if she had green teeth. “Aren’t there a couple of wars in the Middle East that you should be covering? Or a drive-by shooting on the freeway? Or a sex scandal starring a Disneyland costume character?”
The reporter looked taken aback. “We’re also told that the police are taking your threat seriously and have placed Polly”—again, she looked at her notes—”Pepper, under round-the-clock protection.”
Polly smiled and leaned against Randy. “Are you my big and strong security detail?” she purred.
“If Bambi Levitz, the Wonder Reporter who doesn’t seem to know you, says so, it must be true,” Randy said.
As Ped-Xing tried to move away from the camera, the reporter grabbed him by the arm. “One last question. How, when, and where will you kill Polly… Pepper?”
“I’m not killing anyone or anything!” Ped-Xing roared. “Except maybe my competition! Dang! That old judge should consider my remark a huge compliment. I hear she used to be a star. Thane Cornwall is nobody. The headlines would be bigger if I took her down. D’ya think?”
“Old? Used to be?” Polly fumed. “From now on, he’ll never get more than fifty points from me! Refill, please,” she called to Placenta, wiggling her glass above her head.
* * *
Unless the household was preparing for one of Polly’s legendary soirees, Saturday morning at Pepper Plantation was never any different from every other day of the week. Placenta was up by six, but the mistress of the manse crawled out of bed only when the mood hit her. This morning it was nearly ten when Polly and Detective Archer wandered in their bathrobes and bare feet to the poolside patio breakfast table. “Does the sun always rise this early?” Polly said to Placenta as she slipped on her sunglasses, then walked straight toward her Bloody Mary, which had been set on the table.
Placenta poured coffee for Randy Archer and placed a glass of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice at his setting. “Muffins.” She pointed to a basket covered with a linen napkin. “Breakfast will be out in a jiff.”
“You’re a gem, Placenta.” Randy smiled.
“I’m on my best behavior to keep you around.” Placenta nudged him with her elbow.
Polly, too, smiled and sighed with contentment. She placed a hand on Randy’s and gave it a quick pat. “You were a dear to protect me from unimaginable Twilight Zone evils last night,” she said, looking into his dark brown eyes. “You have a way of making me feel—sweet sixteen.”
Randy’s smile radiated brighter than the light reflecting off the water in the swimming pool. “And you have a way of making me feel—like the guy in the Cialis commercial who’s always ready.”
Polly sighed again. “Nothing can spoil this splendid day.”
At that moment, the telephone rang. “Naturally!” Polly said, and gritted her teeth. She called out to Placenta, “If it’s J.J., tell him I’m hiding from killer fans!” Then she took another sip from her BM.
In a moment, Placenta appeared with a breakfast cart on which rested plates of berry-topped heart-shaped waffles, caramelized bacon, sausage links, poached peaches, and fruit compote. From her apron pocket she withdrew the cordless phone. “It’s your producer, Richard Dartmouth,” Placenta said, holding the handset out for Polly, who grimaced.
“I’m in Bolivia.” Polly pushed the phone away. “I’ll be damned if I’ll do another promo spot. Especially not today!”
Placenta grumbled as she pushed the On button. “Miss Pepper’s keeper says her cage is empty. When the bounty hunters drag her AWOL butt back I’ll ask her to call you.” She listened a moment longer, then added, “That’s the only section of the newspaper that she ever reads anyway.”
As Polly and Randy were playing footsy under the table and enjoying bites of their breakfast, Placenta said, “He’s summoning everyone for a meeting tomorrow at ten.”
“On a Sunday?” Polly protested. “What if I want to go to church?”
“And give the pope a stroke? Mr. Dartmouth said to tell you to read the Calendar section of the L.A. Times before you call him back.”
Polly looked across the table and picked up the morning newspaper, which was faceup with a large picture of an entire town in the Midwest submerged under floodwaters. Polly tsked in sadness for the victims. “If they lived here on Stone Canyon Road, such things wouldn’t happen.” Polly pulled out the Calendar section and started to skim the contents. “What am I looking for?” she asked. Then Polly’s jaw dropped and her eyes bugged out.
“What’s the scoop?” Randy asked as he watched Polly’s lips move as she read the words on the page.
“I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous. It’s a dud!” she whined.
Tim finally wandered to the table, his hair disheveled, and still wearing his bedclothes: a diaphanous threadbare T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. Until his first infusion of caffeine for the day, it was impossible for Tim to be fully conscious. He automatically wrapped his hands around a mug of organic Mayan blend coffee that Placenta had set before him. Tim took a long swallow. Then, looking at his mother’s face, which showed a combination of anger and resentment, he managed to ask, “‘Nother dead body drop by?”
“We’re all dead! Everyone associated with this stupid summer show. Apparently the ratings for last night’s debut stank!” Polly snapped. “I’m sunk.”
“You always float to the surface,” Tim grumbled, his mind beginning to limber up.
Randy took the paper out of Polly’s hands. He found the article and began to read aloud. “Headline,” he said, “‘Famous Flops.’“ He looked up at Polly, and then continued reading. “I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous made its big, splashy network debut last night. However, someone forgot to tell the Sterling Studio executives that their target audience of tweens dash out of their cribs on Friday nights. Thus, the ratings were lower than the calories in a Diet Coke.
“An American Idol wannabe, I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous is scraping the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper reality genre. It rates somewhere between America’s Most Moronic Medical Mistakes and Britain’s Worst Teeth.”
Randy looked at Polly, then continued. “Although it’s scheduled to run for five weeks, we’d rather be dodging stray bullets in South Central than wasting time watching this drivel. To quote one of the judges (Thane Cornwall), after passing judgment on an assembly line of pathetic nontalent, we’d like to say to this show: ‘Dismissed!’“
Polly looked morose. “They didn’t even mention my name.”
Placenta handed Polly another fortifying Bloody Mary.
Polly had lost her appetite. She nibbled on a slice of caramelized bacon, then set her utensils on her plate and patted her lips with her napkin. “I suppose I’d better call Dartmouth. They’ll be pulling the life support plug on the show, but I’d rather hear the death rattle from his lips.”
Placenta handed Polly the telephone and called out the numbers that she’d written down. In a moment, Polly was connected to the president of unscripted programming. The conversation was brief, and when Polly disconnected the call she had a slight smile on her face. “He and Sterling are willing to let the show try to find its audience. I’m not out of work after all. At least not yet. The meeting tomorrow is to talk about strategy and promotion. I suppose I’ll have to make the rounds of all the talk shows again. I need a vacation.”
Polly didn’t have to travel far to attend the Sunday morning
meeting in Richard Dartmouth’s home. He lived in the posh Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills, which was close to Polly’s own estate. Tim drove his mother and Placenta up the steep incline of Tower Drive and found the address that Richard had e-mailed to Polly. They parked on the street, then rang the front gate doorbell at which a plaque on the iron bars read
BIENVENUE À MON MAISON HUMBLE.
“Humble, my foot!” Polly said, looking up at the grand house. “A house should speak for itself. You don’t see a sign on Pepper Plantation announcing Ma maison est plus grande que votre maison!”
“Always on time!” Richard said when he opened the door. He looked at Tim and Placenta, and back to Polly. “Does your posse always travel with you?”
“Can’t shake my shadows,” Polly trilled as she eased her way past Dartmouth and into the house. She oohed and aahed, pretending to admire Richard’s designer home. “The view is almost as breathtaking as my own!” she exclaimed, looking from the foyer through the vast open space to the floor-to-ceiling windows in the distance. There was a view of the Pacific Ocean.
“The others are in the study,” Richard said. “May I get you something to drink before we start? Some juice? A Pellegrino?”
“Don’t bother about me, dear,” Polly said absently as she examined the spacious, modern décor of the open floor plan and doted on several bizarre objets d’art that looked like large paper clips bent into contorted shapes resting on display pedestals. “Mother and Child,” she read from a brass plate in front of one piece. “The way they’re tangled together, I suppose child is suckling. If you’re making mimosas, I’d kill for one.”
Richard hesitated before looking at his wristwatch. “Um, gee. Mimosa. Yeah, okay. Let me look into that. It’s Sunday. Maid’s day off. Er … In the meantime, my study is down that corridor.” He pointed in the vast distance. “Join the others and make yourselves comfortable.”
Polly and company made their way down the long sandstone-tiled hallway that took them past a gallery of what Polly called “the weirdest collection of paintings I’ve seen since that horrible Orbinthall exhibit of Ted Bundy’s, Richard Speck’s, and John Wayne Gacy’s thumbprints on canvas.”
When they arrived at the study, Polly, Tim, and Placenta walked in to find director Curtis Lawson, Steven Benjamin, Brian Smith, and three unfamiliar people, two of whom quickly identified themselves as executives at Sterling Studios, and the third as Richard’s secretary, Lisa Marrs. Polly introduced her son and maid before shooing them to the other side of the room and promising the group that her family would be invisible.
While waiting for Richard to arrive, Lisa sidled up to Polly. “Oh! My! God!” she said, the color draining from her face. “I swear, I never do this—slobber all over movie stars, I mean. But you’re you! I mean, you’re Polly Pepper! Duh! Of course you know that. Everybody does. Well, not everybody, but most people are pathetic. I’m rambling. When I was a little girl I watched you all the time. I wanted to be you when I grew up! My family thought I was a freak.”
“You look perfectly normal,” Polly said, not sure if she should encourage further conversation.
“It’s just that I made them nuts with all the loud laughing that came from my room,” Lisa said.
Polly embraced Lisa’s effusiveness and beamed her most sincere smile. “You look way too young to remember The Polly Pepper Playhouse!”
“Oh, hell, your show was canceled long before I was born.”
Placenta inadvertently cackled from her seat in the corner.
“But I found a set of videos of your show at a garage sale,” Lisa continued. “Of course, now I have the boxed special collector’s edition of DVDs with commentary from the entire cast, as well as Carol Burnett and Sandy Duncan. When I first came to Hollywood, I took a bus tour of the stars’ homes. Of course Pepper Plantation was the highlight. I’ve always dreamed of going to one of your famous parties. Maybe someday—”
Lisa was interrupted when Richard arrived with a tray of three mimosas. “One for each of you,” he said, looking at Tim and Placenta.
“They’re driving,” Polly said. “Just set the drinkies here.” She pointed to the place directly in front of her on the coffee table.
As Lisa moved back to her seat on the sofa, Richard looked at his watch again. “We’ll wait a few more minutes for Thane. I’ll say one positive thing about him, he’s almost always on time.”
“The more opportunity with which to be nasty,” Steven Benjamin cracked.
To fill the next few minutes, Richard discussed the previous night’s show. “The studio audiences loved the program!”
“Too bad the rest of the planet wasn’t home,” Polly sniffed.
“Regardless, you all did an amazing job,” Dartmouth added, looking at Polly, Brian, Steven, and Curtis. “I’m proud of your work, and you should be happy too.”
“Forget about career-destroying reviews, eh?” Polly added. “This is the only time during my illustrious internationally acclaimed career that I’m thrilled to have not been mentioned in the paper!”
“The Times critic should be strangled,” Curtis added.
Placenta called out from the other side of the room, “You could do the deed and blame it on that Ped-Xing person.” She ignored Polly’s withering look. “I’m just saying that since that boy has already made death threats, someone might get away with doing in a critic or two, then blame it on Ped,” Placenta added.
Richard Dartmouth looked at his wristwatch again, then at his assistant. “Lisa, call Thane’s cell and his BlackBerry. He loves to make an entrance, but this is ridiculous.”
Another fifteen minutes passed. “Lisa,” Richard said, “run over to Thane’s house and tell him to get his faux British butt over here, pronto. The man has no consideration for others!”
During the next hour, Richard Dartmouth laid out his marketing plans for capturing his coveted Friday night television viewing audience and saving his expensive summer replacement show, as well as his own reputation as a young Turk in Hollywood. As Polly suspected, she was to be a key instrument in getting the word out that what Fear Factor was to the phobic, I’ll Do Anything to Become Famous was to the creatively challenged but sadistically exceptional.
Eventually, Polly stood in the front foyer of Dartmouth’s mansion saying good-bye to her television family. “Repackaging the program’s publicity to present the show as proof that for one to become famous, all one has to be is mediocre is brilliant strategy,” she said as Brian Smith and Steven Benjamin anxiously played with their car keys. “Hell, it worked for Pammy Anderson. And whatever happened to that Neanderthal, Steven Seagal?”
When Polly was finally out the door, air-kissing her colleagues good-bye, the sound of helicopters hovering in the sky made everybody stop and look up. “The paparazzi must have discovered that I’m in the neighborhood.” Polly waved. “Will a telephoto lens make me look fat?”
“I think they’re police helicopters,” Tim said.
“Leave it to snooty Beverly Hills to have a neighborhood watch that includes surveillance by air,” Polly said. “Although one would think they would muffle the noise from their blades.” She then bade, “Ta!” to her friends and climbed onto the backseat of the Rolls.
As Tim maneuvered the car down Tower Drive and prepared to turn left onto busy Benedict Canyon, Polly said, “I’m in the mood for a little Veuve and Carly Simon, please.”
As Tim simultaneously tried to keep an eye on traffic and find his mother’s favorite CD, Placenta opened the bar refrigerator.
“Careful not to upset the champies, dear,” Polly called out to Placenta as Tim found a break in the line of cars and stepped on the accelerator.
When Tim was safely driving down Benedict toward Sunset Boulevard, he pushed the button to the stereo system. Before he had an opportunity to insert the CD into the slot, a news announcer said, “… dead at his home in Benedict Canyon. Cornwall was thirty-seven.”
Chapter 5
Ti
m floored the accelerator and shot past two police cruisers as he raced home to Pepper Plantation. When the trio arrived at the mansion, they made a dash for the great room. Tim grabbed the television remote control, Placenta uncorked a bottle of Veuve, and Polly flopped down on the sofa just as her not-so-secret crush, Anderson Cooper, was beginning his report on CNN.
The news was horrific. Cooper confirmed that television personality Thane Cornwall had been found stabbed to death in his bed. In addition, he confirmed that the alleged murderer was already in custody, having been caught literally red-handed by Cornwall’s maid. Cooper read the name of the alleged killer. “Lisa Marrs.”
“Who?”
“No!”
“Surprise, surprise.”
“She adored me,” Polly said.
“With Richard in the room, I wasn’t exactly paying attention,” Tim added.
“She had an edge,” Placenta said.
“She hardly spoke,” Tim said.
“My fans are usually harmless,” Polly said.
The news report went on to say that Cornwall’s maid had arrived at the estate and found Lisa Marrs in Thane’s bedroom standing over the body.
Polly tossed back her flute of champagne in one long swallow and set the glass down for a refill. “Perhaps this Lisa girl was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Richard sent her to Thane’s house, she found the body, the maid came in, and everybody jumped to conclusions. Happens all the time.”
As Placenta refilled Polly’s glass she said, “To whom does this supposedly happen all the time? I’ve never been accused of killing anything more than an orchid.”
Polly took a sip from her glass. “I mean, people believe what they think they see.”
“Body. Blood. Weapon. Do the math,” Tim said.
Placenta considered Tim’s comment for a moment. She looked at Polly. “With me as the lone exception, most servants have Sundays off. I wonder what this maid person was doing letting herself into Thane’s house on the Sabbath?”