Chapter 6
The Restaurant, Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood
Antoinette stopped talking about the supposed WeHo Ripper long enough for us to decide that we’re both too tired to go out for food tonight.
Now we’re seated at an outside table in the hotel restaurant and, in the sinking evening light, we could really be a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of LA.
Antoinette is glowing under the fairy lights that adorn the wooden beams overhead. She’s twirling spaghetti around her fork and actually looks happy. She’s even wearing the scarf I bought for her and I was right: it looks stunning on her. I hope she’ll let me borrow it.
‘Okay?’ I ask. She beams at me.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘This is actually lovely.’
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the food specifically, the restaurant in general or hanging out with me, but she’s smiling and I’m taking that as a win.
I knew I’d be able to convert her to loving it here.
She was tired and hungry earlier. That’s why she was grumpy.
I get like that too. That’s another thing we have in common!
‘It is,’ I say and clink my glass of sparkling water against hers.
I’m taking a bit of a break from the booze.
Something horrible happened to me in Cannes earlier this summer, something that probably could’ve been prevented if I hadn’t been chaotic drunk.
Anyway, it makes sense to keep a clear head when we’ve got a job to do out here.
Antoinette apparently ‘barely drinks anyway’ because ‘urgh, getting blackout drunk and ending up going viral is so cringe’.
This is a little hard to believe when I saw her packing away the champagne at my mother’s wedding a few weeks ago.
Anyway, instead of cocktails we’re going to have a nice supper and an early night, ready to properly start our search for Aidan Ward in the morning.
‘Oh I almost forgot to tell you,’ Antoinette says as she winds more pasta onto her fork. ‘You’ve got an appointment tomorrow.’
‘An appointment for what?’
‘I found a therapist,’ she beams. ‘From Reddit. I arranged it all while you were out earlier. It slipped my mind with all the WeHo Ripper stuff.’
‘Antoinette!’ I say. ‘That’s amazing. Do you think it could be him?’
She gives me a humble shrug. ‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘But he’s definitely worth checking out. He’s British and the clinic is new, according to the WeHo Local sub. It’s worth a shot.’
My heart accelerates in my chest.
‘For sure,’ I say. ‘What time?’
‘Midday,’ she says. ‘I know you’re not a morning person.’
See?
She knows me so well already.
Like only a sister could.
I’m about to ask for more details when we’re interrupted by a man staggering over to our table.
‘Excuse me, ladies.’
He’s older, probably mid-sixties, and looks like he’s been living the Hollywood lifestyle hard.
His sandy-brown hair is very obviously thinning on top but he’s grown the back bits long and has them tied in a ponytail.
His skin is tanned and craggy in the way that skin overexposed to the sun always is, leathery.
God, why won’t people listen when they’re screamed at about sunscreen?
He’s wearing a white billowy shirt that’s unbuttoned almost to his navel.
His torso is covered in tribal tattoos, the kind that were super fashionable in the nineties but just look faded and sad now.
Quite a bit like their owner actually.
I recognise his face in a vague sort of way but I can’t think where from. He smiles down at us, one of his front teeth is gold and it glints under the fairy lights. The effect is creepy.
‘Can I help you?’ I say, not appreciating the intrusion.
‘I couldn’t help but notice you’re British,’ he says, or rather slurs, he’s definitely one Whiskey Sour away from the ER.
Then he adds in an accent I guess is supposed to be British, ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance.’ He holds out his hand but, when neither Antoinette nor I make a move to shake it, runs it through his receding hairline as if that was what he’d intended all along.
He leans against our table. ‘What brings you girls to the Chateau?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘but I’m actually trying to enjoy dinner with my sister.
’ I catch Antoinette’s eye, expecting her to back me up but she’s staring at the stranger wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
I’m clearly not going to get any support from her.
I turn to the man again, hoping he’ll pick up on my social cue to fuck the hell off.
But he does not.
He continues to stare at me.
‘What are your names?’
Antoinette smiles sweetly at him. ‘I’m Kate,’ she says. ‘And this here is my sister. Pippa.’
He smiles and that horrible gold tooth flashes like a warning light. ‘I’m having a little party in my room tonight,’ he says. ‘Maybe the two of you would like to come along? It’s the penthouse. Just a little gathering to celebrate wrapping my movie.’
Then I realise where I recognise him from.
He’s Ron Wilde.
The Ron Wilde from tons of movies I watched when I was growing up.
People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive several times in the late nineties.
I peer at his face again. His fondness for alcohol and drugs has always been well documented.
They should really use his current face if they want to put people off that kind of lifestyle though.
With all the money in the world, he has not aged well.
And, actually, I’m sure I saw an interview with him earlier this year where he was praising himself for now being sober.
I surreptitiously sniff the air near him.
Sober.
What a joke.
He’s practically sweating booze.
‘No thank you,’ I say politely. ‘Now would you mind leaving us to our meals?’
He narrows his eyes at me and looks like he’s about to say something. But then changes his mind and saunters back to wherever he came from, muttering ‘suit yourself’ and spilling his drink.
Antoinette looks at me. ‘That was Ron Wilde,’ she says and I’m preparing myself for a lecture on how we should have accepted his party invitation because he’s one of the most famous men in the world, when she adds, ‘I fucking hate him.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He doesn’t come across as the most likeable man in the world.’
She stabs angrily at her pasta. ‘He’s precisely the reason why we need to collectively stop telling mid white men that they’re exceptional.’
I nod in agreement.
‘I can’t believe he’s still got a career after everything he was accused of.’ She glowers darkly at her plate of food. ‘He should be in prison, not approaching women in hotel bars. He shouldn’t even be allowed around women at all.’
Ron Wilde’s name came up a lot when all the #MeToo stuff first started kicking off online.
Three women accused him of sexual misconduct and it looked like he was cooked.
The #RonWildeIsOver party was in full swing.
But a year later the cases were dropped due to ‘lack of evidence’.
Within months he was back on set and the women had to go into hiding due to online harassment.
One of them was even doxxed and had to move states.
I learned all this from a gossip magazine I picked up during a keratin treatment.
Now Ron Wilde is bigger than ever. A clear example that sexual assault allegations do absolutely zero harm to a man’s career if he’s rich and famous enough.
Antoinette is still murdering her food. ‘We should kill him,’ she hisses at me across the table.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Ron Wilde,’ she says. ‘We should kill him.’
I glare at her and put my finger to my lips. ‘Shhhh!’
She looks around the restaurant but no one is paying any attention to us, too engrossed in their own food, their own conversations, their own lives. ‘No one’s listening, Kits,’ she says.
‘We’re not killing Ron Wilde,’ I say.
‘Why not? He’s literally right here.’
‘Killing an A-list actor in a super famous hotel?’ I shake my head. ‘It’s a terrible idea, Antoinette.’
‘But Kitty,’ she pleads, ‘those terrible things he’s done. And he’s just gotten away with it.’ She leans across the table. ‘We could do it. It’s giving revenge arc.’
‘It’s giving reckless and irresponsible,’ I say.
‘But—’
‘No,’ I cut her off. ‘It’s a terrible idea.’ Not that I wouldn’t love to end him. Because I absolutely would. But this just isn’t the time. Or place. Even the world’s most famous no-tell motel wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the murder of one of Hollywood’s leading men. Sadly.
We finish the rest of our meal in almost silence, Antoinette throwing death glares at Ron Wilde and his entourage.