Chapter 9 The Beast of Swan Mansion
The Beast of Swan Mansion
Christian Stanstedt sat with one arm draped along the back of a mint suede sofa, jiggling a cracked flip-flop off and on his foot by flexing and relaxing his toes.
Sam thought Vic must be correct—this man hadn’t been awake long.
He’d answered the door in an open cotton robe patterned with parrots, beneath which he was bare-chested, with only an extremely small pair of terry running shorts providing a breath of modesty.
Sam was struggling with the shorts. They revealed so much she didn’t want to know, with an ongoing threat they might show her more every time he shifted position or crossed his legs.
He squinted at Bex while scratching idly at his chest hair. “Nobody stops by,” he said flatly.
The Swan mansion perched so high above Los Angeles that the air felt different up here. They’d wound their way uphill in Fergus’s truck until they reached a pinnacle of Hollywood that Sam had, despite her very privileged position, never attained.
The mansion was exquisite, with panoramic views of the city framed out in Spanish-inspired scrollwork, littered with Turkish carpets and trimmed in old-growth hardwoods that Sam felt guilty for admiring.
But Christian wasn’t the one who’d built it, or even who’d selected the enormous age-spotted vintage mirror that reflected the view and brought all of L.A.
into the library he’d invited them to sit in.
He’d done nothing to earn this magnificence.
“We stopped by.” Bex’s face was as empty and guileless as a kitten’s as she gave Christian the most famous version of her guileless smile. Sam took it as a cue to lean back, let her cropped silk shirt ride up, and cross her legs, every one of her seventy inches a study in entitled boredom.
Christian raked his hand through his hair.
It stood up fully six inches from his forehead before swooping lavishly to one side.
At least half of Christian’s fame had to be due to his hair’s sculptural magnificence.
He touched it often, tossing it to and fro, and it obediently fell into a flattering salt-and-pepper romantic disarray that perfectly set off his three-day stubble.
“Whatever.” He stood up and shuffled to a breakfront built into the library shelves, where he slid open a leaded glass door to reveal a bar. “Anyone want a drink?”
“Scotch and soda,” Sam said. She never drank Scotch and soda.
She hardly drank, period, because anything alcoholic predictably gave her a cluster of pimples right along her hairline that took forever to heal.
But she decided, given how Christian smelled, that the kind of functional alcoholic he was likely to be would not be keen to drink alone.
“Nothing for me,” Bex said. “I’m cleansing.”
Sam suppressed a laugh. Bexley Simon had never done a cleanse in her life.
“I’m twenty,” Vic told him. “Not enough of my cerebral cortex has developed to drink. But I’ll take a Coke with lemon.”
Sam couldn’t help but feel a secondhand maternal pride in Vic and her ability to make good decisions despite what some might believe about a twenty-year-old nepo baby with free rein of the Greater Los Angeles area.
“How about you, General?” Christian shouted this to Fergus across the room. “Want to wet your whistle?”
Fergus pushed away from the column and took a few casual steps closer, pushing his hands into his pockets. “Same as she’s having, if it’s not any trouble.” He indicated Vic with the flick of one finger. “Since I’m on the job.”
“No problem. If I’d have known I was throwing a kid’s birthday party, I would’ve hung up a few balloons, but to each their own.” He handed Sam’s heavy pour to her with a wink.
Lord.
“So.” Bex sat up straighter. “This is the Swan mansion!”
“Mmpf.” He took out half his highball in one swallow and uncapped the Scotch to ready a second pour.
Sam took a closer, longer look at Christian. There was tension around his shoulders and in his jaw. He’d winced when he’d knocked back the Scotch. Sam would have expected a man in a robe drinking before happy hour to be accustomed to the burn.
He’d let them in with little comment. He’d recognized them, sure, but he hadn’t asked any questions.
She studied the lines around his eyes with the experience of reading an acting partner.
Christian was sad.
There could be a lot of reasons for that, but this was an unfathomably rich man with a lot of power. Sam thought of her conversation with April Feinstein. Power and money couldn’t preserve the relationships that meant something to you.
“You wanna swim?” Christian topped off his drink. This time, he didn’t bother to put the cap back on his Lagavulin. “You don’t need suits.”
“No,” Sam said at the same time Vic said, “Yes.” She shot her a quelling look.
“Actually, we’re here because we had a few questions about your old friends.
The Ice Crew. It seems like there’s more than just your friend Ramona working the comeback.
I had a wild hunch to check if you had any projects coming up with anybody from the crew. ”
Christian’s face turned gray the same moment his neck and chest went bright red, as if his heart couldn’t pump properly at the very mention of—what? Ramona? The Ice Crew?
It made Sam feel like she might be onto something.
“If you’re interested in the crew, talk to Chad or Sloan,” he said. “If you like The Howling, talk to Ramona.” Christian waved his drink in a circle. “If you’re into torture, that is.”
Sam pretended to take a sip of her drink. It seared her nostrils when she got it close. “Not your besties?”
Christian laughed. “Fuck, no. Chad’s a hack trying to skate by on what’s left of his jawline, and Sloan’s as irrelevant as that hat he wears.
If it wasn’t for Lights of Marfa, nobody ever would’ve heard of either one of them.
You know Halfcab was in the can before their movie?
” He clucked his tongue. “Got stuck in post because we needed to reshoot the ending, but my costar was pregnant and wouldn’t do it until she’d had the baby and lost the weight.
By the time it released, all anybody wanted to talk about was fucking Marfa. ”
Sam desperately wanted to exchange a look with Bex to transmit her surprise that it was so easy to rile up Christian about the old days.
It meant he still had ego in the game. Vic had told them in Fergus’s truck on the way over that the rumor was that something had gone down between Christian, Chad, and Sloan back then, leading to Christian’s being literally iced out of the crew.
Maybe being recently friendship-dumped all over again, this time by Ramona, had been a serious blow to Christian’s ego.
Serious enough that he would have retaliated against Ramona?
But why bother? It could be that Christian’s waters ran a lot deeper than it appeared, but he didn’t seem like a planner to Sam. She had no idea if Vic was right and his money had made him complacent, but at the very least he was numbing something with substances, parties, and attitude.
“That’s a bad break.” Fergus spoke from behind Sam’s chair. “Halfcab was majestic. I hate guys like Chad—entitled tools who need validation so they can hitch themselves up high enough to punch down. You’re smart to walk away from that shit.”
“Thank you.” Christian raised his drink to Fergus and then put the empty highball glass on the bar. “If the Ice Crew is all you wanted to talk about, you can see yourselves out. Or go ahead and use the pool, what do I care? It’s got a hell of a view of the city.”
Vic looked worriedly from Bex to Sam. “Don’t we have a lot more we want to ask about Ramona?”
It took a great deal of self-mastery for Sam to prevent herself from spilling Scotch on her shirt. To their credit, both Bex and Fergus remained self-possessed in the face of Vic’s blunt question.
“Sorry?” Christian turned around where he was walking through a cased opening that led out of the library. His cheeks were maroon.
“There’s a rumor going around town that the whole crew is getting reunited again,” she lied. “Maybe you’ve talked to Ramona recently. Like, since Friday.”
“Vic,” Bex warned.
Vic turned to Bex. “But isn’t that really why you wanted to stop by?
To confirm the rumor, because you’re so into Ice Crew and are hoping for a reunion?
Everyone knows you’re obsessed with reunions after the Craven’s Daughter reunion and everything.
” Vic opened her eyes wide at her sister, willing her to take the bait.
It wasn’t a graceful move, but Sam could admit it was a direct way to learn if there was anything else Christian would give them about Ramona.
“So obsessed.” Bex smiled at Christian, but it was a pained attempt. “Is it true? Can we expect to see the entire Ice Crew on the big screen again?”
Christian’s cheeks were mottled purple. Sam could hear the bubbles popping in her glass.
“What is this?” His question bristled with hostility.
Sam slowly uncrossed her legs, on edge due to the palpable mood shift. She did not like this man. She could not imagine him ever having been worthy of Ramona’s friendship or Colin’s love. If he had been, he’d left that version of himself behind.
“Ramona didn’t show up on set Monday,” she said. “She hasn’t been home. Her friends are worried about her. Including Colin.”
Christian tipped to the side, stumbled, and caught himself against the wide wooden trim of the curved library opening. “Well, I haven’t seen her! I don’t see her anymore!” He wiped his hand over his mouth. “Jesus, she’s serious with this?”
Surprisingly, he directed this question to Fergus. Sam assumed someone like Christian Stanstedt was more comfortable investing authority in another man.
“Dead serious,” Fergus replied. “When did you last see Ms. Watts?”
“A while ago. Did Colin tell them I would know something?”
“What do you think Colin Worth would tell us about you and Ramona?” Sam asked.
Christian’s eyes went black, but Sam watched him try to affect unconcern. “You said she didn’t show up to work on Monday? It’s, what, Thursday?”
“It’s Tuesday, Captain,” Fergus said. “Almost three in the afternoon on a Tuesday in May.”
Christian rattled the ice in his glass. “Okay, so, Monday to Tuesday, that’s nothing.
She’s taken off. You’ll find out from the gossip pages that she got married to a supplement millionaire she met in Vegas, or she moved to Bali to study kundalini yoga.
” He pushed away from the doorway. “Ramona’s the comeback queen.
She fucks up, fucks off, and disappears.
You don’t hear from her for years so she can turn right on time to remind you how much you loved her.
It’s a game, and Ramona knows how to play it better than anyone.
The Howling is at the top of the ratings? Time for her to go.”
Sam had to admit there was veracity to what Christian was saying, anger or no.
Lasting a long time in Hollywood, surviving at all, did often mean finding a game you could play.
It wouldn’t be a bad strategy to build the public’s interest in your work by disappearing.
Sam had heard the word “overexposed” more than once in connection to The Howling.
Maybe Ramona wasn’t in danger after all. Maybe she was only trying to make it to the next round.
When Sam looked at Bex, she gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Sam transferred the message to Fergus through sister telepathy.
“Sorry to waste your time,” Fergus said, easy as warm honey. He walked over and held out his hand, and, thank God, Christian took it. “We appreciate it.”
“Shit happens. Next time be straight about it. You can find your way out?”
“You bet.” Fergus clapped Christian on the shoulder. “Thanks, truly.” He gave Christian a look like, I have to humor these women, but we both know their drama is part of the job.
It was remarkable. Her brother was a good actor.
Finally, he turned his attention to Sam, Bex, and Vic. “We rollin’?”
They followed his broad shoulders out through the labyrinth of the Swan. They were subdued as they passed between the fifteen-foot doors and onto the marble portico to a gorgeous day, everything gleaming, with Los Angeles laid at their feet.
In Fergus’s truck, the cool silence made Sam feel entombed.
“Well,” Vic finally said. “That was terrible. First of all, we haven’t done anything to help Macie or find Ramona.
Second, that guy is trying to kill pain that I have no way of understanding, but I will say it is a big hit to the aura to be around it.
And finally—and keep in mind I really think it has to be acknowledged—what Christian said about Ramona doesn’t sound wrong.
It sounds bad, and it doesn’t sound like how Macie talks about her, but it doesn’t sound wrong. ”
Sam sighed. “I want to disagree, but we do know that Ramona’s self-reliant and smart. And The Howling was in large part so interesting to audiences because it was Ramona’s big comeback. But—”
“—that part of the sparkle is starting to fade,” Bex said.
“If the episode with Chad and Sloan airs after Ramona’s disappeared, that’s a huge, mysterious platform to launch herself off of a few years from now.
And what kind of role was she going to get after The Howling came to an end?
At her age, there might not be one. There should be, but there might not.
Unless she emerges from the mist one more time. ”
Sam was staring out the window of her brother’s truck, trying to process Ramona’s disappearance through the lens of these freshly depressing perspectives, when Vic’s phone made a soft noise and she gasped.
“What’s wrong?” Bex asked.
“Ramona Watts. She’s emerged from the mist.”