False Idols

Chapter 1

Harvey Laden! Who has he been seeing?

“Okay, so the way it really happened was like this.”

I place my finger by Sandy’s nipple. “He was right here by the entrance.” I draw a line to her belly button. “And I was over here, in the parking lot.”

The action tickles her, making her giggle.

“Austin Rivers was by the door?” she asks, her voice breathy.

“Yeah, he was coming out.” I shift next to her on the waterbed, and we both bounce on a little wave. “So, anyway, he’s here.” I return to her nipple and watch it harden. I grin. “Or maybe I was.” I lean down to lick it, and she laughs again.

“Anyway, Austin was over there, and I was here.” I drag my finger to her belly button. “Then out of nowhere he—oh, I almost forgot.” I slide my finger to her hip. “The photographers were over here.”

Sandy looks down at her naked torso. “Where was this again?”

“Like, right outside of The Roxy. Okay, so we’re all leaving the club, and I’m just over here with my friends, minding my business, and Austin yells over at me ‘you got a problem, man?’ and I said ‘no, no problems here, man’ and my friends are watching him, see?

They were here.” I shift my finger to the other side of her belly button.

“And the paps start getting closer, trying to get photos of all the action, and they get to, like, right about here.” I move my finger to a spot halfway between her belly button and hip bone.

“And, like, out of fucking nowhere, Austin comes over to me and shoves me back, and I crash into one of the photographers.”

Sandy’s hazel eyes widen as she twirls a strand of chestnut hair. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s an asshole. I knocked a pap down, and he dropped his camera and it busted up on the sidewalk.

All this shit kind of happened at once.” I trace circles around her belly button.

“Austin and I are in front of the club, shoving each other over here. I didn’t want to fight him, but he tackles me, and Steve Windell is trying to pull him off me, and the photogs are just making flashes all over the place and that shit is blinding so Austin swings, but the flash made him miss, so I shoved him real hard to get him off me and he fell. ”

Sandy’s rapt with attention. “Then what did he do?”

“He tries to hit me again, and so we end up tussling on the ground, get in a couple punches, and it takes two of the bouncers from the club to haul us apart.”

“Really?”

“And when they do, Austin starts shouting all these threats at me. But it doesn’t matter because all the rags were talking shit about me like always, even though he started it.

” I reach across her, snagging the lighter and joint we were smoking earlier from the nightstand. “So that’s what really happened.”

She bats her eyes at me. “Interesting.”

“So, don’t believe everything you read, babe.”

I light the spliff and inhale. I roll onto my back and gaze up at the mirror above the bed.

It’s sexy as hell while getting it on. But right now, not so much.

Sandy’s tanned, lithe body in black, silky sheets—that are likely ruined with body fluids—is a sight for sore eyes.

But I’m in the mirror beside her, and that’s the problem.

I can hardly make out the bruise around my right eye anymore, put there by Austin’s fist. It was weeks ago, but the outline of it lingered.

So, yeah, I guess he did hurt me a little bit.

The only joy I’ve gotten out of it is knowing Austin had the same bruise, probably worse, from where I socked him good.

Sandy shakes her head as she looks down at me. “I don’t believe everything they say.” She lies down on her side, propping her head up on an elbow. She grabs the joint from me and takes a hit. “I was just curious. I read that you went after him first, that’s all.”

I’m not surprised. I have a reputation. He does, too, actually. The difference is that mine hasn’t been good.

I stare into the mirror. If I get high enough and squint my eyes a little, I might think I’m looking at my father.

It was about five years ago, right around the time I turned fifteen, when everyone started telling me how I looked exactly like him.

I should be proud to resemble the legendary Pete Laden.

The lead guitarist who created all those riffs for Hot Night’s biggest hits.

But I’m not proud. I am the only person on this godforsaken earth that has this kind of love-hate relationship with their own reflection.

Because however much I might hate it, it did make me famous.

People couldn’t get enough of me. Girls especially.

They’d tear my clothes and scream my name.

I couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, without someone yelling “It’s Harvey Laden!

” They screamed while I pretended to play the guitar while singing a song that wasn’t mine with a voice that wasn’t mine.

They had no idea I was a fraud. They had no idea that none of the legendary Pete Laden’s talent was passed down to me.

I haven’t had to pretend to be some great musician in a long time, and now the only time I hear my name is when I’ve gotten into trouble.

And I’m always getting into trouble.

“The rags have to blame me for shit,” I mumble irritably. I take the joint from Sandy. “Because Austin Rivers is their Golden Boy. I’m their Bad Boy.” I inhale and hand the joint back to her. “They’re always saying I instigate shit when it’s actually him.”

I had to pay for the photographer’s busted camera out of my own pocket, when it wasn’t even my fault.

Pete found out about the whole thing, went into a rage about me embarrassing him, and told me to get out of his house.

I could have said a thing or two about being embarrassed, but I didn’t.

I laid up with this chick I’d met a week or so before, then Tamar somehow found out where I was and told me I could come back. I almost didn’t, but I had to.

Sandy takes a hit and exhales. “Why would they say those things about you?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“Like what?”

I think about that for a second or so, my brain getting fuzzy from the weed.

I used to watch Austin’s show, Love Thy Neighbor, when I was a kid.

I liked Austin’s character—Reggie Camden—because we were the same age.

Nobody knew he had red hair until the third season when they started filming in color.

And Reggie had this wacky family with a magician for a dad.

I remember wanting my dad to be a magician too.

But the only disappearing act Pete’s pulled is disappearing for months at a time to go on tour or party.

Sandy passes the joint again, and I inhale. I cough a little. “Austin used to be a cute little kid. And people don’t want to believe that cute little kid grew up to be an asshole.”

“I don’t understand why he’s so mean to you,” Sandy says. “Could it be he’s just jealous?” She slides a hand seductively across my chest.

When we were both in Teen Street, they called Austin The Boy Next Door and me The Bad Boy.

They would compare us. It was just a gimmick the magazine used to get all the teenyboppers to buy it.

But it was weird that they picked him and me to compare like that.

Why? We didn’t know each other. Not personally.

We weren’t friends. But I got loads of mail after that, and before long there were crowds of screaming girls wherever I went.

They loved me. They’d picked me over Austin Rivers. I was somebody.

Until I wasn’t.

Sandy leans over to kiss me, and I reach behind her to put out the joint, because it looks like we’re going for round two here, and that’s cool with me. I don’t want to think about Mr. Hollywood anymore.

“Harvey,” Sandy purrs, rolling onto her stomach and folding her arms under her chin. “Will you rub my shoulders? They’re sore.” She gives me a seductive little pout.

I turn to get behind her and put my hands on her shoulders. We met at a party one night at this place off Mulholland. I can’t even say when it was; they all blend together. She came up to me and asked if anyone had ever told me that I looked like Pete Laden.

I smiled at her and told her no.

Three hours later, she had her tight red dress pulled up around her waist and was riding my dick in a lounge chair by the pool.

Sandy makes a playful little moan and turns her head to coyly look up at me. “Feels good.”

I lean down to kiss the back of her neck while my cock swells at the promise of more action. She turns onto her back and wraps her long legs around me.

I’m about to stick my dick in her when a door slams downstairs. And then a male voice curses loudly.

“Shit,” Sandy exclaims, sitting up.

I jump out of the bed. There’s stomping up the stairs.

“Quick.” She wraps herself up in the sheets and helps me gather up my clothes. “Over here.” She goes over to the window to open it as I stick the joint between my lips and try to pull my pants on.

The bedroom door crashes open, and a red-faced, balding man in a brown suit surveys the scene in front of him.

Messy bed. Full ashtray. Sandy naked in a silky sheet.

His furious eyes land on me just as I hop out of the window, half dressed, onto a canvas awning.

I practically fall through it as I roll off onto a concrete patio and break into a run.

“You sack of shit!” the man yells out of the window as I jump into my cherry-red Jaguar. “If I see you with my wife again, I’ll fucking kill you!”

I cut on the engine and “Immigrant Song” from my Led Zeppelin 8-track blares from the tape deck. I give the guy a friendly wave as I peel out of the driveway and burn rubber right out of Laurel Canyon.

My pants are still unzipped. My shirt hangs around my neck, and I’ve only got one shoe on.

My bare foot presses on the gas, I shift gears, and I roll the window down.

Air blasts through my hair as I light up the joint.

I want to laugh, adrenaline coursing through me, and I’m ready for anything.

Fighting, fucking, or just tearing through these curvy canyon roads, toking and not giving a damn about anything.

And you know what? Not caring about anything is great.

It’s a nice feeling. It’s freeing, it’s reckless, and this isn’t the first time it’s landed me into trouble. And it won’t be the last.

As I speed along the twisting roads, shifting gears and puffing on the joint, I bask in the carefree haze, the pot sending my brain on a pleasant swim.

But the carefree feeling is temporary.

Because as I drive along, I start thinking about Austin Rivers again.

I don’t know why Sandy had to bring him up after a perfectly good lay.

I’ll spend months trying to forget he even exists, but in moments like this, he always seems to creep back into my mind.

I wonder what he’s up to. I don’t know why.

I don’t care what he’s doing, but I wonder if he’s out at the clubs, doing some chick, or throwing another party at his house.

For the briefest moment, it crosses my mind to drive up to Hollywood Hills and see for myself; pay that freckled little fuck a visit and sock him right in the mouth while I’m at it.

I think about his freckled face and the smile he always wore in the magazines.

The Boy Next Door. I laugh out loud. He’s the good angel on your shoulder, telling you to be truthful.

I’m the bad angel on your other shoulder, telling you to lie.

I must be high as hell, because I can’t stop laughing at that.

Us as angels. Wouldn’t that be something?

Why didn’t the editors at Teen Street think of that?

I should really turn around and drive to Austin’s house and tell him this. I think of the look on his stupid face when he opens the door to see me. I should go there just to see that. Just to see the shock and disgust. And this time if we fight, I’d make sure he never got in a single punch.

But I don’t know what I’d do if he looked at me like he did last New Year’s Eve.

I try to shake it out of my head, but I can’t.

I am so fucking high, and it’s all vivid in my mind.

Half-naked girls, booze, coke, and Ambrosia on the stereo.

His place smelled like cigarettes, expensive leather, and Jovan Musk.

Some of it’s blurry, but some of it isn’t.

Especially what happened after midnight.

I close my eyes for a moment, hoping that when I open them, the image of him in my mind will be gone.

And that’s exactly what happens.

I open my eyes, and Austin Rivers is gone. He’s been replaced by a cop car stopped in front of me. I slam my foot on the brake, but I’m going too fast.

As my cherry-red Jaguar crashes into the back of the cop car, I cover my head to protect myself from all the bloody hell that’s about to rain down on me.