Chapter 33
Chapter 33
By the time Lena left the studio, it was near midnight and the main streets of LA looked surreal with neon and blinking lights while the side streets were as usual abandoned and lonely and it felt like being inside a movie set—a thought she’d had many times before. LA had an unrealness unlike anyplace she’d ever been, and lately her life had been feeling unreal too.
That sense grew stronger when she pulled onto Highland and saw Paul’s car sparkling iridescent red in the glow of the streetlight before her apartment building. It was the last thing she expected. She parked behind him and got out of her car. He was in his front seat, sound asleep. She stood staring down at him for a moment, hesitant, not wanting to wake him because ... well, it was midnight, and he would have questions, and what was he doing here? She remembered now his parting words at the commissary. He wanted to know why she’d really been late for Claudia Mazur, why she’d been in his rooms at the Chateau Marmont. He’d expected her to explain it all, and she still had no answers.
She thought about just letting him sleep, but that would be worse. His car was parked directly opposite the door to her apartment building; there was no way she could pretend she hadn’t seen his distinctive Dynamic, and he’d know that. She knocked on the window. He started, looked around in obvious confusion, and then saw her. He opened the door. “What time is it?”
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
He blinked and ran his hand through his hair. “I thought we were meeting tonight.” How sweetly puzzled he looked, how concerned, as if it had to be a mistake and she would correct it immediately.
“I’m sorry. I—I should have told you I was working late. Let’s go inside.” She led the way to the door, to the elevator. By the time they reached her apartment, he was fully awake. Inside she threw her purse down and took off her gloves. Best to address it all head on. “I’m falling behind. I’ve got to make it up sometime.”
“Has this anything to do with the estate sale you weren’t at yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I was ... it was ... Flavio, I’m afraid.” She sent a quick forgive me into the universe, though Flavio would never know she was using him this way.
Paul let out a sound of exasperation. “Again?”
He believed her. Lena fought to keep her relief from showing. “I owe him, Paul. You know that. If not for him—”
“Yes, yes, I know. You’d still be in the sewing room. Except you wouldn’t be, sweetheart, and everyone knows it. Your talent would have seen to that, if nothing else. You’ve got to stop jumping and running whenever Flavio calls for help. Has he ever considered that helping him with his mob friends might one day get you into trouble?”
“I know,” she said, trying to sound contrite. “You’re right. But he’s been a good friend to me. He’s been so much better about the gambling, but ... a small slipup. He was in hiding. That’s why I brought him to the Chateau.” She prayed no one at the Chateau contradicted her; she didn’t think anyone had noted that Julia was with her, but she couldn’t be sure. For now it was the best she could come up with. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away, but I didn’t think you’d mind, and then everything got so busy. I’m hoping it’s all over now, but ...”
“Yes, okay. I should call him myself and tell him to stop involving you.”
“Please don’t.” She hoped he didn’t hear the quick panic in her voice. “He’d only be upset that I told you. He’d be so embarrassed. He’s very proud, you know.”
Paul yawned. “God, it’s late.”
“Too late,” she agreed. “We should go to bed.”
She led him to her bedroom, and she was grateful when he fell asleep almost the minute his head hit the pillow. Grateful and both glad and perturbed that her lies had worked so well, that he trusted her so, and she thought again about all the things she hadn’t told him, and the larger mess she was involved in and everything that could go wrong, and she became so distressed she could not sleep.
Lena had no time to call Larry Lipton the next morning, which in its own way was a relief. Claudia Mazur wanted a personal apology, so early the next afternoon, Lena drove to Claudia’s new mansion in Beverly Hills with a vase full of pink peonies and a box of chocolates to prostrate herself before a robed Claudia, who looked as if she’d only just got out of bed.
“You can put them there,” she said, pointing to a nearby table already loaded with flowers, including the pink peonies Lena had sent the day before, and at least three other vases of them. Apparently others had got the word that they were Claudia’s favorite flower as well.
Claudia had tied her dark hair into a brightly colored chiffon scarf that fluttered behind her as she walked into a room filled with round sofas and low tables, a piano and shelves boasting her Academy Award for Every Man’s Favorite three years ago, and a host of plaques for lesser awards and humanitarian endeavors. Lena made appropriate noises of respect and as quickly as was polite said, “I’m so very sorry for what happened, Claudia. I got delayed, and there was no excuse for it. I do hope you’ll forgive me.”
“You understand I asked for you specifically in my contract,” Claudia said.
“I do. Again, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s not every day that I make such a request.”
Claudia’s contracts were full of such demands, but Lena refrained from commenting. She couldn’t deny that Claudia’s request was a credit to her. “It’s an honor. I’ll strive to live up to it.”
“You’re very talented, Lena, but even talented people make mistakes of arrogance,” Claudia said sternly. “Flavio never would have treated me so abominably.”
Lena did not remind her that Flavio had repeatedly treated stars abominably, which was why he was no longer at Lux. “No, of course not. Again, I apologize. Please let me make it up to you.”
Claudia studied her for a moment, and then inclined her head as if she were a queen bestowing a favor instead of an actress no longer in the prime of her career—the reason she was doing one of Higgy’s “prestige” films to begin with, a blatant attempt at another award grab. “I appreciate your coming all this way. It does my heart good. The younger set in Hollywood just doesn’t realize how important common courtesy is anymore.”
Hollywood was too competitive for courtesy, and what courtesy existed was all fake anyway. You couldn’t trust it and the only favors in this town were quid pro quo. But Claudia could think whatever she wanted, as long as she showed up at Lux for her fitting tomorrow.
Lena was relieved when she finally finished smiling and genuflecting and was out the door. She was close to Rodeo Drive, where Flavio had his shop. After last night with Paul, she’d been thinking about her mentor. There was no reason for her to tell Flavio what had happened, and Paul didn’t doubt her story and wouldn’t bother to check, but she had a niggling, unsettling feeling. It would be reassuring to see his face.
Flavio’s shop was small, very exclusive, and decorated in the designer’s signature colors of black and white, the outside painted black with white trim, with a big showcase window holding mannequins posed in some of Flavio’s most famous designs.
She looked for a parking spot, and it was then, as she began to parallel park, and glanced into her rearview mirror, that she realized where her unsettling feeling came from. A dark car pulled into the spot behind her. Two suited men got out and quickly approached her.
Dark suits. Both wore bowlers. They’d been following her and she hadn’t known it.
Her window was down. The men appeared at her door in moments. One of them said, “Miss Taylor, we’re with the FBI, could we have a word with you please?”
It was Rome all over again. That soft insistence, that courtesy that barely veiled a menacing force. Lena panicked.
“No.” She threw the car into gear and jerked it into the road. The men jumped back in startled surprise. A car coming down the street slammed on its brakes and honked its horn but Lena kept going, speeding down the street, tires squealing, adrenaline pumping, until the men, the car, Flavio’s store, receded into the background and then disappeared. She was sweating with panic, driving aimlessly, zigzagging until she was sure she’d lost them, and then she pulled over and buried her face in her shaking hands, calming herself.
It’s over. Her heart raced. It’s over.
Then she heard a noise, a car pulling up, and when she raised her face from her hands, there was a gray Chevy beside her, a man in a porkpie hat, and a camera flash blinding her.
A private investigator, and she knew he had seen the whole thing.