“When did your former employer give you this tidbit of information?” Plantagenet said in a cold voice. “And when did you decide to communicate with the press?”
“I didn’t! Jonathan told me about Jimmy the day he was here.”
“Was that before or after you beat him up?” Plantagenet said.
“I can’t see how that’s relevant, Plant,” Glen said. “At least she finally told us. At the moment it’s the only lead we have. This Kahn character has been leaving messages at my office for weeks. I haven’t returned them. I assumed he was just one more bloodthirsty reporter. But maybe he’s got something that can help us.”
“I doubt it,” Plantagenet said, collapsing on the couch. “I doubt Kahn has helped anyone in his life. He’s such a bottom-feeder that no publication on the east coast will have anything to do with him. The only reason he’s working at all is that Angela Harper wanted to get in his pants, so she bought him his own little newspaper.”
Like she bought you your own little theater, Camilla wanted to say, but she didn’t.
Plantagenet went on, telling the story to Glen.
“Poor Angela. Kahn threw her over as soon as the paper got going. Dumped her for some tough-bitch little reporter half his age, according to Angela. And he’s no friend of Camilla’s, I can tell you. He wrote a piece on her for the Guardian when she was Deb of the Year that was so vicious it barked. The man is poison.”
Glen laughed as if Plantagenet had said something funny. Camilla tried not to react to the reference to the ‘tough-bitch little reporter.’
Who could it be? There was the brunette who covered the police news. She was plump, but sexy. Or maybe it was someone new. She’d been away a long time.
She wished she didn’t care so much.
“How’s Angela doing these days?” Glen said. “She’s made herself pretty scarce since the prelim.”
“You can’t blame her,” Plant said. “It’s difficult to make Camilla out to be a feminist heroine under the circumstances. Besides, Angela is fighting for the Chicano cause these days. She’s supporting Juan Carlos de Cabro for State Senate.”
Glen laughed again. “That guy’s about as Chicano as I am. His father’s a banker in Madrid, and I heard he’s a cousin of the Duchess of Cordoba.”
“That would explain why Angela has moved back to Beverly Hills,” Plant said. “She said it was to re-establish her ties with the big names to get support for his campaign. Also, apparently, it’s to keep her lover in the style to which he is accustomed. Her revolutionary image doesn’t go over so well in the ’80’s.”
Plant’s tone with Glen was light and bantering. Camilla couldn’t remember the last time he’d used that comfortable tone with her.
“I should give that Kahn guy a call about Rodriguez,” Glen said. “I’ll call him tomorrow. But hey, what about dinner? I thought you said you were going to feed me.”
“What have we got in the fridge, darling?” Plant said over his shoulder.
“Just a couple of Lean Cuisines.” She hoped they’d go for some take-out so she could hide her work before she had to clear the typewriter off the kitchen table.
“How can you eat that airplane food?” Glen sprang to his feet. “Why don’t I run down to the Safeway? You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted my fettuccine, Mr. Smith.”
“No need, Mr. Jones. I’ll get some pizza.” Plant followed him to the door.
“Honestly, I’d enjoy it,” Glen said. His laughter seemed warm and sincere. “Cooking helps me relax.”
“If you insist. There’s a little market where you can get fresh pasta a few blocks down on—oh, let me show you.” Plant patted Glen’s shoulder.
They seemed to have become very good friends.
“No.” Glen said, pulling gently away. “Stay here and keep Camilla company. She must get lonely here all by herself day after day.”
There had been lots of times when Camilla had wished Plant would remember that. This was not one of them. But Glen closed the door and Plantagenet settled in comfortably as she looked helplessly at the typewriter.
“How are your rehearsals going?” She left the table and sat on the couch next to him. “Has your temperamental leading man settled down?”
Plant laughed. “I think he’ll make a great Alexander, but he’s a snotty little prima donna. He’s started a feud with the choreographer that—oh, I don’t want to talk about it, darling. No use stewing.”
“It sounds as if you are stewing.”
But he didn’t reply. Instead, he picked up Glen’s L. A. Times from the coffee table and, in a moment, started laughing out loud.
“Listen to this, darling. This woman is brilliant. Here’s a letter from some poor old thing who complains that her husband lives like a mountain man and never bathes and keeps all his money in filthy pillow cases he insists they sleep on. She signs it, ‘Can’t Take It Anymore in California’.” He leaned back and smiled. “Now, here’s the answer:
‘Dear Can’t Take It: Oh, yes you can take it—or at least half of it—since California is a community property state. May Dr. Lavinia suggest that you take half that dirty money out of those disgusting pillowcases and put it in a good, strong suitcase and fly immediately to Nevada for a nice clean divorce? If that idea doesn’t appeal to you…’”
Plant was laughing so hard he had to stop.
She could bear it no longer. She recited the end of the letter in a quiet voice:
“If that idea doesn’t appeal to you, the weather in Acapulco is lovely at this time of year. Very Truly Yours, Dr. Lavinia’.”
Plantagenet looked puzzled. “You’ve read it already?”
“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “I wrote it.”
His eyes widened as he sat silent for a moment.
“Camilla, have you gone completely out of your mind? This was written by Dr. Lavinia. She’s a syndicated columnist. She’s about a hundred and ten years old.”
Camilla got up and walked to the kitchen table. She slid the envelope from under the typewriter and presented it to Plantagenet. She longed to make him understand that she was not the helpless child he imagined—that she had a job, and she was good at it. She watched his face as he studied the contents of the envelope.
He covered his face with his hands and sat very still. She tried to give him a reassuring hug, but he barely responded. He finally turned to her, his face full of pain.
“My God, Camilla! I have no idea who you are, do I? I don’t know you at all.”
Chapter 31— Fast Cars and Jet-Set Orgies
Nearly a week later, while facing yet another lunch of Glen’s reheated fettuccini, Camilla was startled by knock. It was only a little past noon, so Plantagenet would still be at the theater. Maybe it was the mailman. Sometimes the packages for Dr. Lavinia didn’t fit into the box. And the mail was late. So was her paycheck.
The person at the door, however, was not the mailman, or anyone remotely like him. The visitor was dressed entirely in black and wore a wide-brimmed fedora pulled so far forward that his eyes were entirely in shadow.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“Probably not, dear heart,” said a voice from under the hat. “But if you would just fill a large snifter with cognac all the way to the tippy-top, I’ll love you anyway.”
“Franny! Is that you under there?”
“Not really,” said Franny. He stumbled into the room and sank dramatically onto the couch. “It is only the shell of my former self; a broken, battered shell.” He removed the hat to reveal a blackened eye.
“How awful!” she said. “Shall I get some ice?”
“Ice? In cognac? Never. How foul! You might as well drink it with cream soda, like Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.”
“Cognac,” Camilla said, without conviction. She took a step toward the kitchen. “Are you sure there was cognac when you left? I haven’t seen any.”
“How should I know?” Franny’s voice was weak. “That was e
ons ago. I was a different person then. A person in love.”
“You’re not in love any more?”
“No. No more. Not ever, ever, ever. Men are beasts.” He put his hand to his wounded eye. “Dear heart, I really will expire if I don’t have a drink.”
She searched the kitchen for any lurking unfinished wine.
“How was your New Year’s Eve, dear?” Franny said. “On second thought, don’t tell me. Even if you spent it alone with the dieffenbachia, it was better than mine.”
Not much better, she thought as she searched behind bags of wilting greens in the refrigerator. On New Year’s Eve, Plantagenet had fallen asleep at eleven, in the middle of the second tape of Gone with the Wind, and when she woke him with a kiss at midnight, all he did was gulp some coffee and flee to his apartment. Romance had certainly not been on his mind recently. It was sweet that he wanted to wait until they were married and her “troubles” had been solved before they made love, but she didn’t see how a few kisses could hurt.
“Here’s something.” She unearthed half a bottle of flat champagne. “I’m afraid this is the only alcohol in the house. But there’s tons of fettuccine. Want some?”
Franny gave the half-eaten bowl of pasta a quick, pained look, but accepted the bottle, which he drained in one swallow.
“I’m afraid that didn’t do it,” he said. “Would you be an angel and go buy me a bottle of Courvoisier?” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a thin black wallet.
“Go out?” she said. “I can’t go out.”
“Of course you can, dear heart,” he said, handing her a twenty dollar bill. “You twist the little knob, pull, step over the threshold, and put one foot in front of the other.”
“You don’t understand. Plantagenet won’t let me.”
“He won’t let you? My, isn’t our Plant getting butch these days! What does he do, keep you in leg irons?” Franny pretended to examine her ankles.
“He’ll be furious. He doesn’t want the media to find me.”
“Playwrights should always be furious. It’s good for their craft. But can we discuss it later? Now be a good friend and run to the liquor store. Just two blocks down and turn left. I’d go myself, but—dearest, look at me. Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to go out in public like this?”
She looked at Franny’s eye and woeful face. Finally, she took off his fedora and dropped it on her own head, tucking her hair under it.
“Two blocks and turn left?”
He nodded, handing her the money.
The store was tiny and dimly lit. The one bottle of Courvoisier was covered with layers of dust. At first the store seemed completely unattended, and she stood at the counter for several minutes trying not to notice a tabloid display showing a large, unflattering photograph of her own face—cut off at the chin—next to the headline, “FAST CARS AND JET SET ORGIES.” Finally, an ancient little man appeared and wordlessly accepted the money.
Relieved to have fulfilled her quest, she walked home as fast as she could, trying not to worry about what she would do with a drunken Franny once he had worked his way through the bottle. She hoped he was the sort to pass out quickly—hopefully in the chair. She had no idea where she would sleep if Franny was home to stay.
She was so lost in worries that she didn’t notice the car pulling alongside until it came nearly to a stop.
The car was a DeLorean. With Connecticut plates.
“Great hat, Cammie!” the driver said, sliding open the window. “Finding your place sure is a bitch. I’ve been driving around for about a half an hour.” He shook back his long, dark hair and gave her a familiar grin.
“Jimmy!” she rushed to the car window. “I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing with my car?”
“Bringing it to you.” He opened the gullwing door. “It’s all yours.” He hopped over to the passenger side. “Just drop me off at the bus station—and hurry. I gotta catch the one-thirty. I didn’t realize how long that lawyer bullshit was going to take.”
“You’ve been to see a lawyer?” She tried to take in what Jimmy was saying, but all she could think of was how strange and wonderful it felt to drive the car her father had given her in what seemed like another lifetime.
“Yeah. That Jones dude. Kept asking all these lame questions about your buddies Mike and Tooter. Like I hung out with them or something. Up there and turn left.”
“Mike and Tooter? But you do know them?”
“I know of them. I do not know them, OK? Mike’s a scuzzball, and Tooter—well nobody ever said old Jimmy was friends with no narc. Especially a Fed. Gimme a break.”
“Tooter’s a Fed? You mean like the FBI?
“Sure. Everybody knows that. Except that airhead Jennifer. Too busy looking in the mirror to notice anything. I told Wave she was gonna be trouble.”
“Wave? Have you heard from her? Everybody’s looking for her.”
Jimmy went silent for a minute.
“Yeah. Well, she’s safe where she’s at. And that’s where she’s going to stay. I don’t want those parents of hers locking her up again. And I don’t want lawyers messing with her. We won’t let you go to jail, but I don’t want her to testify if she doesn’t have to.” He gave her shoulder a pat. “By the way, she said to tell you ‘hi’.”
Camilla pulled in front of the bus station as questions swam in her head.
“How did you get my car back?”
Jimmy reached for his back pack.
“Easy. I took it. Wave told me he’d just dumped it in one of his garages with his antique cars. Never tried to change the registration. Guess he was waiting for you to go to jail. I even got the pink slip. It’s in the glove compartment. But do me a favor and don’t leave it there, OK?” He opened the door. “Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot. He said to tell you he’s sorry that the check is late. It’ll be in the mail tomorrow.”
“What? Captain Nelson said that?”
“No way. That old fart is on a nice long wild goose chase to Switzerland. No, I’m talking about your boss, the guy who told me how to get here—Kahn.”
“Jonathan Kahn sent you here?”
“Yeah. Tell him he gives lousy directions.” Jimmy jumped out, slammed down the door, and took off toward the bus station.
~
When Camilla arrived back at the little house, Franny was finishing a plate of fettuccine. He scraped his plate and smiled wanly.
“Don’t worry dear heart. You don’t have to explain. Let me guess. On the way to the store, you were picked up by a tornado, which carried you and your little dog Toto to a strange land. And you’ve been trying to get back all this time, but you just didn’t have the right shoes.”
“Something like that. Here’s your cognac.” She put the bottle on the table and went to the kitchen for a snifter.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Franny said. “You don’t have to wait on me in my own house. It was tacky of me to send you out like that. I was just so upset. But the fettuccine helped. Delicious.” He accepted a glass and gave her hand a kiss. “Not only beauty, but talent as well. You’re quite a cook.”
“Oh, I didn’t cook it. Glen did.”
“Glen?” Franny said, pouring cognac. “Who’s he, the new boyfriend? No wonder you dumped poor Plant. His idea of gourmet cooking is ordering double pepperoni when he calls Pizza Hut. But what can you expect from a Jersey boy?”
“Dump Plant? What makes you think I would dump Plantagenet? I don’t have a new boyfriend. Glen’s my lawyer.” She wasn’t in the mood for Franny’s gossipy silliness right now. She wanted to call Glen to find out about his meeting with Jimmy.
Franny gave her a disbelieving smile and nestled into the couch.
“Ah, a lawyer who cooks! Does he do windows?”
“Stop it! How can you suggest I would cheat on Plant? You’re supposed to be his friend.”
“I am his friend, dear heart. And he told me all about it.”
“All about what?”
“All about how you’re in love with somebody else and that’s why he’s got himself mixed up with this three-piece suit type. I can’t imagine Plant with a Guppie.”
“Franny, you’re not making any sense. What’s a Guppie? I assume you’re not talking about tropical fish?”
“A Guppie is a Gay Urban Professional: like a Yuppie except he lives in West Hollywood. I’m not sure he’s good for Plant. After all, our Plantagenet isn’t exactly the settle-down-and-buy-a-Cuisinart-type, is he?”
Camilla tried to calm herself. She felt as if something had hit her.
“Are you saying Plantagenet’s involved with someone—a man?”
“I’m sorry, dear heart,” Franny said in a different voice. “I thought you knew. It looks as if little Franny has put his foot in it again.”
Camilla studied Franny’s face for a moment. The mocking bitchiness was gone. He obviously thought he was telling the truth. It was quite possible that he was. It certainly would explain a lot of things.
She went to the kitchen for another brandy snifter and held it out to Franny.
“Fill it up,” she said. “All the way to the tippy top.”
Franny poured. “You forgive me, dear heart?”
“It’s not your fault,” she said after several burning gulps. “I should have figured it out. He never seemed to want to be around me anymore.”
“Maybe it’s your new boyfriend he doesn’t want to be around.”
“That is such a lie! I don’t have a new boyfriend. I don’t have anybody. I don’t have one friend in the whole world. I might as well be in prison already.”
She took another swallow to stop the tears.
“Go ahead, dearest,” Franny said softly as he circled her shoulders with a bony arm. “I think it’s time we both had a good cry.”
They were sobbing in each other’s arms when the front door swung open and a damp Plantagenet walked in, carrying an umbrella and a bottle of champagne in one hand and a large, flat box in the other.
“Franny, what are you doing with my fiancée?” he said.
“Just trying to get in a quickie before you got home from work.” Franny wiped a tear from his undamaged eye as he forced a quick smile.
Randall #01 - The Best Revenge Page 22