Trophies, p.10
Trophies, page 10
Ivan watched the Maybach pull out the gate and returned to the kitchen, where Jeff and Carter, one of the security guards, were overseeing the cleanup. Richard had already gone upstairs. Roger, showered, spiffed up, and lounging with a glass of Pernod, was alternating between cooing into his cell phone and growling for everyone to hurry up. Time to burst his bubble.
“Good night, Roger. I’ll see you in three months.”
Roger looked at his reflection in the cell-phone screen and patted his hair. “I’m right behind you, as soon as these fools finish.”
“I’m afraid not. Tonight is Thursday. Mr. Zane has his ten-thirty massage.”
“But he fired the masseuse!”
“He’s trying a new one. She’ll need to be shown in and let out. He’ll need waitstaff.”
“I have a motherfucking date! Can’t Jeff or Carter do it? All they ever need is water or tea. Ivan, you should see this girl. She’s over—”
“…yes, like a mountain. Carter has security duties and Jeff has his child. I left a memo.”
Roger never read the memos.
He let out a string of French curses and threw his phone into the sink.
“And if there’s nothing further…” Ivan began.
The entire kitchen resounded with a hearty, “Get out!”
Before he got into his Porsche, Ivan took a last look at the Zane compound. He wondered if he’d ever see it again.
Roger was on his third glass of Pernod when Gary, another security guard, came into the kitchen.
“Spare some leftovers, bud?” Gary asked.
A blade flew past his head and stuck into Ivan’s memo on the cork message board.
“I’ve got blue balls, you fuck!” Roger spat.
Gary developed a sudden craving for Jacopo’s pizza delivery and ducked out.
Suddenly Roger heard a voice say, “I’ll stay for you.”
He turned to see a uniformed woman who was obviously a waitress from the catering staff. One he’d never seen before. That was odd because the catering staff had packed up their van and split twenty minutes ago. Granted, she was rather unremarkable-looking and moved like a mouse, but she wasn’t invisible. How long had she been standing there?
“Who the fuck are you and why are you still here?”
“Okay, I won’t stay. Just trying to help out,” the woman offered.
She hurried to the employees’ closet and fished out her coat.
Roger had always considered himself an excellent judge of woman flesh. Probably the reason he hadn’t noticed this waitress was that she was way over his age limit for sex. This one he guessed to be in her late forties. Her unmade-up face was pleasant and unlined but her hands were old and the ass had slightly dropped. Plus, her brown hair was well coiffed but couldn’t hide the coarse texture of its natural gray. That could only mean one thing: bad divorce attorney and now catering to make ends meet because she’d spent all the alimony on face work and hairdressing to catch another husband. Not an uncommon experience on the Westside. It also meant she wasn’t a flaky kid, looking to rip off the Zanes. She’d want to do a good job so her services would be requested again.
Roger looked at his watch. He could either leave now or spend the rest of the evening with a jar of Vaseline.
“Fifty dollars, no more. And I want to photocopy your ID.”
She almost jumped at the sound of his voice. Mousy broad must really need the money.
“That’s fine.”
After he copied the waitress’s driver’s license, Roger whipped up two gorgeous steak sandwiches for Gary and Carter. They’d go along with it.
Once she was alone, the waitress straightened the employee dining room and set two very special water bottles in the bucket of ice Roger had left out. She placed the ice bucket on a tray, added napkins, and left it ready, by the kitchen door. Unbuttoning the collar of her uniform, she took a peek into the dining room to make sure she was alone. Satisfied, she straightened her shoulders and seemed to grow taller and wider. Even her gait changed as she slowly sauntered into the foyer, coming to a stop in front of the grand staircase.
Now she could properly greet Marion’s home. “Guess who’s guarding the henhouse,” she muttered, peeling back a grin and exposing sharp gleaming canines as she licked her lips.
13
A Not-So-Soft Underbelly
Not wanting Marion’s cocktail to go lonely, Ivan had left a two-quart thermos of margaritas in the backseat of the Maybach. Since crying leaves you thirsty, the ladies helped themselves, more than once, which led to the discovery that the combination of Valium and tequila stimulated the oratorical centers in Xiocena’s brain.
A flood of words began rising from her mouth. “I miss my sister so much; I keep hoping Carita become like her. But my sister an’ me, we grow up on a farm in Chiapas, with no gangs, no horny stepfather. Carita…she grow up sad. The minute my sister die, she go straight to gang and she get hard. She want money to get away from stepfather, but American kids—they no want to work. They want easy money. Big money fast. I tell her don’t be asshole! Come live with me! Gangs are not family and gang money is from drugs and stealing. But she have to see for herself, and when she want to stop, they jump her out with a bad beating. She show up at my door, two years later, I no recognize. Torn clothes and purple all over. She only fifteen. Then she live with me an’ go to school an’ we get her emancipated. She stay with me two years but she no happy. She grow eyebrows back but nice girls see tattoos and don’t want to be her friend. So she want to quit school an’ get a job. She sad an’ again think money will make her happy. I tell her money okay but is not your mama. I tell her the jobs pay shit with no college.”
Xiocena caught herself and looked at Marion, who knew Xio made triple the average housekeeper’s pay, well above what many college graduates were learning.
“You are the only one who pays good,” Xio was quick to add.
Marion briefly considered mentioning the Honduran tent village in Patti’s backyard and Pepper’s well-bribed nannies, but Xio was on a roll.
“I offer to change her school but she say she no wanna wait an’ she quit. Then she start to make money an’ move out. I never know what her job is. She say she sell stuff on the Internet, but in school, she make F in computer. And she live inna shit apartment inna bad neighborhood. I say come home; your mama, she would not want you to live like this, but she say the money will get better. Then she get hurt.”
Xio grabbed Marion’s wrist. “You know what I think?”
Marion almost said, Do I have a choice? but remembered she was bearing witness to a tragedy and admonished herself back into listening. Still, she was beginning to tire of the monologue.
“I think Carita was puta! Or maybe she go back with gangs. The doctors say she no fall on bedpost. They say the bruises and bleeding were from fists.”
“Honey, you did what you could,” Marion soothed. She hated the generic condolence, but she’d exhausted her repertoire of original expressions and was too wasted to come up with new ones. As Xiocena finished her drink, she discreetly set the thermos out of reach.
“Ah, we were not mother and daughter. You have Dickie Jr. and Crystal, Mrs. Zane. You are all so lucky!”
“Lucky?” Did Xiocena mean “lucky” like saying, “Hey, that’s lucky!” when someone stepped in dog poop and you wanted to make them feel better?
Marion thought Dickie Jr.’s lawyer was the luckiest of all. He’d just purchased a Sun Valley ski condo with fees earned keeping the little shit out of jail. The boy was six months graduated from business school and already screwing with SEC regulations. It was on Dickie’s account that the only truly expensive items displayed in her houses were over one hundred pounds and unliftable. Last time he was home, her Fabergé eggs went on walkabout.
And Crystal, who only called her when she wanted to borrow the boat, the plane, or a vacation home, had yet to make a discernible contribution to the human race. She thought tipping the doorman of her Fifth Avenue apartment was community service. And then there were the paparazzi photos.
You’d think that if a person planned to have her cootchie photographed in public, she’d at least get a decent wax. If Marion saw one more photo of her stepdaughter’s privates on the Internet, she was going to apply for a gynecology license. Pepper had e-mailed the girl’s latest portrait with the caption, Hurray! Crystal’s finally got a job—spokesmodel for Taco Bell.
Both kids were a chip off the block of their birth mother. Marion really should have forced Richard to fight harder for full custody. But back then, she was only a Stage I…
“Too bad we never had our own kids, eh, Mrs. Zane?” Xio asked. “They would have been fierce. You ever miss not having?”
Marion bit down hard on a chunk of ice. It took her a second to recover. “Not really.”
Then she snatched up the thermos and took a long pull. Glasses were for pussies.
14
Stepchildren of the Night
Claire could feel Billy’s body stiffen within her dozy postcoital embrace and she knew he wanted to make a call. One minute later, he patted her flank and eased out of bed.
“They’re wrapping in Manila. Gotta call Terry…”
“Can I get you some tea or—?”
“No, Cookie, I’m fine.”
Throwing on a robe, he padded off to the study.
“Cookie”? He’d never used that term of endearment before. Weird. Claire caught her reflection in a silver frame on her nightstand. Did she look like a “Cookie”? Wasn’t that what they called the greasy old man who fixed beans in the cowboy movies? Next to all those gorgeous women at the Zanes’ tonight, she sure felt like a “cookie.”
Well, not for long. Starting tomorrow, she was going to be styled! And not just her look. Craig had contacts for everything, from party planners to travel agents. Craig-the-stylist was going to be her guide to her new lifestyle of lotus-eating.
Ignited with anticipation, she rolled onto her back, relishing the highthread-count sheet beneath her body. The room was decorated with the quiet elegance and cool colors, with fruitwood furniture and sumptuous fabrics, of the entire house. Definitely tasteful. Billy’s choice of a classic Holmby Hills mansion, with its white brick exterior, shutters, and boxwood hedges confirmed that he was the perfect match for a Secret Rainbow Princess. Claire might have grown up above retail space but she practically had a degree in Tasteful Stuff, thanks to the Web. Her new life was perfect. Almost like a Brooks Brothers ad!
Was something breathing next to her head?
Six-year-old Eva popped up an inch from her face. “Are you naked?” she asked.
“No! What kind of question is that?”
Claire quickly slipped into her wrapper under the sheets. The excitement of the Zanes’ reception had caused her to forget that Billy’s daughters were spending their first night with their new stepmother. She had even torn out that recipe for breakfast waffles to surprise her new brood.
“Get out of my daddy’s bed!” Eva yelled.
Not exactly “Welcome to the family.” Surely, the child was confused.
“Sweetie, did you have a bad dream?” Claire asked tenderly.
Eva stumped her foot. “I’m not going back to sleep until you get out of my daddy’s bed!”
Claire sat up and fluffed the sheets. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was kill with kindness. “This comforter is so yummy,” she crooned. “Do you want to come up and join me?”
Eva got in at once. “I know it’s yummy. I used to get to cuddle before you came.”
Ahhh. Eva was feeling displaced. Claire had read about this issue in the child psychology paperback she’d bought at the airport in anticipation of living with children. She would reassure her. “Well, who says you can’t now?”
“Katia,” Eva replied.
That would be the nanny. The one who reminded Claire of a dark-haired Ann Coulter, without the legs. She’d barely met the woman when she was introduced to the girls at the restaurant. Katia had insisted on sitting alone in the back, where she ordered stuffed cabbage and a Jager-meister. Yuk!
“Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. You know, I think there’s a Strawberry Shortcake on the TiVo in here.”
“Oh, I love that show!”
“Me too!”
Claire turned on the TV, and within minutes, she felt the little girl nestle into her side. How sweet! She’d never thought as far ahead as children in her Secret Rainbow Princess Promise, but this was nice. Except…
Eva was sucking her thumb.
Claire had cut her teeth on the kiddie pageant circuit, where facial symmetry outweighed even figure and talent with judges’ scoring. If there was anything that could turn a smiling winner into a loser with braces, it was thumb sucking. Besides, Eva was six. Time to have outgrown that habit. What would people think?
Slowly, gently, she pulled the thumb out of the sleeping girl’s mouth.
“DON’T!” cried a stern voice.
Katia was standing inside the doorway. When the heck did she come in?
“Never draw attention to the thumb. Never.”
Like a bad dream, the nanny came closer and closer to Claire until her lips brushed her ear. The woman smelled like one of those pine-tree air fresheners that they sell at the car wash. It took all of Claire’s willpower not to recoil.
“Her mother doesn’t want her getting a complex.”
“Does her mother want expensive orthodontia?” Claire whispered back.
With a preternatural jerk, Katia straightened and blared, “So, you think Eva’s mother is an idiot!”
Stung, Eva looked at Claire. “I—I never said…”
“My mommy’s not an idiot! That’s mean!” the child cried.
“I never said she was, sweetheart…” Claire soothed.
“But you are choosing to ignore bedtime and other parenting decisions,” interrupted Katia. “You think you know better.”
“Eva came in here herself,” Claire explained. “We were just bonding and having fun. Why are you so worked?” And why aren’t you working at Guantánamo?
Katia turned on Eva, who was now sucking away to beat the band. “Ignoring bedtime is unhealthy. Do you want to get sick? Do you want to have green mucus and sore throat and miss all the birthday parties and fall behind at school so you are ashamed when you get left back a grade and all your little friends advance without you? When little girls miss their sleep, they don’t grow properly and their bodies become stunted like trolls. Do you want to work in a circus when you grow up? That is the only place where trolls are welcome.”
Now Eva was crying in earnest.
And Claire wanted to borrow her thumb. “Katia! Enough with the scare tactics. Nobody’s turning into—”
Just then, nine-year-old Haley flounced in, yelling, “People are trying to sleep!” Eva sprang from the bed into her arms.
“Claire was making me sick in the bed!” she announced.
Haley gasped and looked at Claire like she was a monster. “Stranger danger,” she croaked to her sister.
“Wait a minute, I’m not a—”
“I can hear you guys through my headphones!” cried thirteen-year-old Brooke as she stormed into the room. The two younger girls ran into her arms. Claire shot out of bed a little too fast, catching her wrapper in the covers, exposing a breast. Haley screamed before Claire could readjust it.
“You keep your hands off my sisters!” hissed Brooke.
Claire felt as though she were being sucked into a whirlpool. “Okay, everybody, this is a giant misunderstanding. Eva came in here and—”
Eva broke for the hall, crying, “I don’t want to be a troll!”
Haley followed on her heels. “I’m telling Daddy!”
Claire tried to continue. “—didn’t want me sleeping with your dad…”
Whoops, bad image.
Horrified, Brooke clapped her hands over her ears and ran out screaming, “Daddy!”
After remaining perfectly still during the delirium she’d set off, Katia swiveled her head and shot Claire a ghastly smirk. “I’ve been here a long time,” was all she said.
15
Who’s Yer Daddy?
Pepper gave a silent prayer of thanks as she stepped onto the solid ground of her driveway and realized she was still in one piece. Ari, smarting from the Kousakis encounter at the Zanes’, had bolted out of the reception and beaten her to the valet. The kid in the white shirt and clip-on tie had no idea he was handing the keys over to Mr. Toad. She didn’t mind when Ari took out that curlicue address marker at bitchy Kathy Kutcher’s house on Doheney when he was outrunning the cop but she’d always liked the yard lighting at the Greenes’ and those hibiscus trees on Coldwater were just about to bloom. Like her, they didn’t deserve to die so young.
Ari couldn’t let go of the fact that she’d been the one to deal with Kousakis. He didn’t let up about it the whole drive home.
“Why didn’t Marion tell me about Natura Thessaly?”
(Because Kousakis didn’t feel your ass!)
But Pepper didn’t dare divulge that George Kousakis had propositioned her. Greeks killed one another over that sort of shit and she didn’t fancy the idea of conjugal visits at Soledad. “I dunno, Ari, maybe she forgot. There were a jillion folks comin’ in her front door and we, um, just missed our turn.”
“I was going to handle him. I had a plan.”
“I know, Ari, must’ve been the wine. I’m so sorry…and that was a stop sign back there.”
“I specifically asked you not to handle him.”
“I know, Ari. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Do you hear a siren?”
“I am a grown man! A businessman! This was my family and my problem to fix. I love you and appreciate your wanting to help, and in fact, you did help where four grown men had failed, but I hadn’t failed, yet. I could have handled him!”
“Of course you could, Ari. I’ll never do it again…Is that a cat on the windshield?”
