Trophies, p.43
Trophies, page 43
“Who’s designing your uniforms nowadays?” asked Patti, ignoring him.
“Wouldn’t know, ma’am,” Officer Dunfield said. “Really, ladies, that flashing has got to—”
“And could you change the station to something more upbeat?” Patti asked politely.
“No. This is a police car—”
“Officer Fra-ank!”
Flash.
“Ladies—”
“Can the police chief eat shellfish?” Patti asked, for no apparent reason that the police office could detect.
“What?”
“Officer Fra-ank!”
Flash.
“Because I’m planning a dinner at Crustacean for the city planning commission in order to get them to change their ruling on my third-story cold-storage closet.”
“Put the cell phone down!”
“…and I heard that the chief, what’s his name, Curry? I heard he has high blood pressure and I heard that that goes hand and hand with—”
“Car sixty-seven, come in.” It was dispatch. “Do you copy?”
“Shhh!” said the beleaguered officer. “Dunfield here. Copy.”
“We have a suspected armed robbery suspect headed your way south on Beverly. Description: five-foot-ten Caucasian female armed with a…a…porcupine! Hee, ha hoo-hoo, ha!”
“Officer Fra-ank!”
Flash.
“As long as we’re pulling over, could ya pop into Canter’s an’ grab four Evians, glass bottles?” Pepper asked.
It took officer Frank Dunfield, BHPD, ten minutes to confiscate the seventh cell phone.
Sasha and Dudayev limped away from Patti’s guesthouse while Marion rechecked the ropes (for the hundredth time) that tied Zephyr to the memory-foam-mattress bed inside. As she waited for her daughter to come around, it occurred to her that she hadn’t had the luxury of spying on Zephyr while she was sleeping since the girl was fifteen. Her skin had really cleared up.
Try as she might, Marion didn’t see much of her own features in her daughter. And that was a good thing. Zephyr’s father had been cute (for a gargantuan asshole). Even the wild hair was more like her father’s. No, the only thing mother and daughter shared at the moment was teeth grinding. But it was a start.
“Arrrgh! Fuck!” Zephyr snarled ten minutes later, almost taking off Marion’s nose. “Are you out of your mind?! Yes! What a stupid question!” She looked at the ropes tying her to the head-and footboards and started to struggle.
“Easy does it,” said Marion quietly. “You’re in Patti’s guesthouse at the beach.”
“And you’re going to be locked up in loony land!” Zephyr snarled. “You and those fucks who grabbed me! And the out-to-lunch bunch! This is it! You can’t take this back, Marion! You better let me go now or—”
“I’ll let you go as soon as you stop screaming and listen to what I have to tell you,” said Marion in the same quiet voice.
It took about a half hour before Zephyr was able to hear the truth in what Marion was saying.
When at last Marion apologized for being a chickenshit for not telling Zephyr that she was her mother, she told her about her fears. The fear of making her daughter suffer. And the fear of losing her. It was the reason behind all the opportunities she had missed. And even as she finally fessed up, she knew it was a shitty excuse. Because all along it had really been selfishness. It was lying.
She told Zephyr that the three-year-old she tried to tell was frightened and that the thirteen-year-old she wanted to tell was depressed. And that the adult was still depressed. So saying, she now realized that she hadn’t spared her daughter at all.
“And that,” she said, “is what will always haunt me. Because I love you. I screwed up and I’m sorry.”
Zephyr had the exact reaction she’d expected.
She remained dry-eyed and unmoved. And she hid behind her lawyer mask.
“Can I talk now?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“You’re forgetting one apology you owe me: for dumping me off on your nightmare parents. You abandoned me, Marion! You knew they were assholes! Your dad was a misogynistic drunk and your mother was a religious kook! And that makes your whole ‘fear’ and ‘rejection’ defense fall to shit. Where’s your apology for handing me to the same people who’d abused you? Slip your mind?”
“Oh, I won’t apologize for that. I was just a kid. I was tricked into it.”
“Bullshit. And fuck you.”
Marion had expected that reaction too. She swiftly crossed the room and opened the door to the living room. “Okay, you’re on,” she said.
An old woman in a traveling dress shuffled in.
Zephyr went berserk. Marion had expected that too.
“Who in the…oh, man. No. No! I am not going to be tied up and forced to listen to this asshole too!”
As Zephyr raved, the old woman turned to Marion and pointed a bony finger. “Are you sure I’m going to make my flight home? I’m not staying! I’m not staying in this demon’s-nest city! I am a child of the faith of the apostles, harlot! You harlot to the beast—”
“You’ll cut that out if you want me to keep paying your rest-home tab, Mom,” Marion interrupted. “Now tell her the truth.”
“Oh, great. You’re supporting her? Her? Just so you can drag her out and make her lie for you?”
Marion had to restrain her mother from slapping Zephyr.
“May God curse you both!” she spat. “I do not lie. I am a child of the Holy Christ and the Blessed Virgin, and Satan shall not stain my lips with lies!”
Marion looked at Zephyr. “Threatening to kick her out of her rest home might get her on a plane. But I think Mom’s more worried about getting that two-acre flat lot with an ocean view in heaven.” She turned to her mother. “You do want to get into heaven, don’t you, Mom? So don’t you think it’s time you confessed the truth?”
Then Marion opened the door to the other bedroom in the guesthouse. “Okay, you’re on,” she said.
The thought of another person seeing her tied up almost caused Zephyr to resume ripping out curses, but when she saw the priest enter, she held her tongue.
“This is Father Michael McKay,” said Marion.
He was also Patti’s brother-in-law from her second marriage.
In seconds, Marion’s mother was all over the priest, kissing his cassock and begging him to take her away from the belly of the beast, blah, blah, blah…
Marion looked at her daughter. “She’s not going to blow her escrow this close to closing.”
Then she turned to her mother. “Keep your hands to yourself, understand?”
Then Marion left the room and shut the door.
And Marion went into the kitchen and made herself a blood-sausage sandwich. With Zane-brand blood sausage. Flown in from Cleveland.
Marion relished every bite because blood sausage always took her back. Back to when her thirteen-year-old daughter had shown up shattered on her doorstep and she’d finally felt compelled to try her hand at delicatessen work.
As her parents’ rival.
Overnight, Zane delis started popping up across the street from all of her parents’ own deli franchises. The rival Zane delis had more delicious food, bigger and better menus, bigger and better minute-wait seating with rock rooms for teens and cozy dining areas for adults, no-charge delivery that was faster than that of her parents’ delis, seemingly hundreds of employees, and best of all, unlimited capital.
Mom and Dad were wiped out in two years.
Dad drank himself to death in four.
Mom lost her mind in five.
And for some reason, Marion chose to take care of her then, putting her mother in the finest Catholic home in the country, and she’d been taking care of her ever since. She hadn’t known why she’d done it at the time and she couldn’t tell you why now.
Pesky coyote cord.
Who knew it would come in so handy?
At the Beverly Hills Police Department, Patti used her one phone call to reach Lizzie-the-decorator to tell her to do something about the ugly fabric in the station house.
Then, between asking for different colors of fingerprint ink and objecting to being photographed in “such cruel lighting,” she managed to stall her booking (and Officer Dunfield’s Taser) until the mayor of Beverly Hills could rush in and save his biggest fund-raiser.
Evidently he’d received a call from within the station house. From a cell phone that was registered to Patti Fink.
Then, as always, Patti wrote a check.
All charges against the other Trophies were dropped as well. But Patti, Pepper, Maya, and Claire decided to stick around because Lizzie-the-decorator had ordered takeout from Crustacean and “no one could ever resist those noodles!”
Officer Frank Dunfield had to dig the Rolls out of impound during his dinner break. Luckily, he returned to the station house just in time for the big group shot.
“Officer Fra-ank!”
Flash.
76
Going Public
Marion walked along the tide line of Broad Beach, unconcerned that the tar globs accumulating on her feet were surely wrecking her latest pedicure. She was too engrossed in assessing her progress (and besides, Patti had a girl coming to the guesthouse at 3 P.M.).
The second they’d untied her, Zephyr was gone like a shot and then Marion’s mother had grabbed her driver and was gone like an old shot, and Father McKay…well, he had a shot and blessed Marion and her hospital project. And then he was gone too.
But Marion felt at peace with what she had done.
Xiocena was right. The mother-child cord was still there. Even the coyote cord with her own flipped-out mother.
The whole time the old bat had been mumbling archaic terms for prostitutes and cursing her daughter and granddaughter to spend all of eternity in the regions of hell’s lower GI tract, Marion found herself wondering if her mother was getting enough nutrition. And secretly yearning to be understood and forgiven.
Damn, that mother stuff was powerful.
Zephyr had always been bullheaded. As a teen, she’d suffered wearing a pair of too-tight boots for almost three weeks before she finally admitted she’d bought the wrong size.
Marion had time.
Her problems with Richard had time too. She had no choice. He was out of town.
But Verna couldn’t wait.
And neither could the hospital fund-raising.
Verna was right. It was too late for Marion to reinvent herself. Mainly because she didn’t want to. Marion loved being a socialite hostess and could give a rat’s ass whether that was PC or not.
Besides, she was more than just a socialite hostess.
She was the socialite hostess on the West Coast! A billionaire Stage III Trophy with entertainment industry glamour; one of the most powerful and influential links on the food chain.
Normally, what with her resources and contacts, raising $28 million in charitable donations in two weeks would be a piece of cake. She’d’ve done it single-handedly.
She couldn’t think of any other profession where an individual could do that on her own.
Two weeks to raise $28 million or bye-bye UCLA and zoning permit.
If only she had her Black Book. Marion was sure there was a source in there somewhere that could help her get her hands on that kind of money.
Her Black Book had sources for everything. It was a means for living excellently. Unlisted numbers, e-mails, addresses, and information on the world’s best, most exclusive, and effective individuals and services gleaned from Marion’s life experience. It put perfect action at your fingertips.
Everything from art-restoration experts in Chicago to fashion designers in London to hairdressers in Prague. From secret embassy numbers to military experts who could smoothly deliver anyone from any catastrophe, to the finest doctors in every country on the globe who could treat and medicate every problem, to detectives in South Korea, to OPEC officers in Qatar! The finest florists in Paris; unlisted private clubs in Munich; lawyers in Nice; the best Porsche mechanics in Germany, who would fly anywhere in the world on eight hours’ notice; one-hour-perfect-custom-Savile-Row-trained tailors from Hong Kong, who, once given your measurements, would ship overnight anywhere in the world! She had the numbers of and access to most of the most influential people in the United States as well as the cell-phone numbers of their assistants. There was a club connecter in Dubai who could hook you up anywhere anytime, a fixer in Argentina who’d direct your bribes to the officials who’d grant your freedom, a silversmith in Denmark who could forty-eight-hour-copy any flatware pattern, a dentist in Botswana who could repair any chip, and a bartender in Mozambique who would fly to Botswana and make what was, as confirmed by Marion herself, the best damn martini on the planet…which you’d need after your dental work, done smack-dab in the middle of the Kalahari desert, was finished. (And all this from someone who was a dyed-in-the-wool tequila girl!)
All for a price.
The Black Book was definitely not for the slim of wallet. And no one else had ever actually seen it, save for Richard and Ivan. But everyone in Marion’s circle had heard rumors. She hardly went a day without hearing an allusion to it. And over the years, some of the richest people on earth had come to her seeking sources to save their dinner parties, artwork, cars, hairdos, vacations, fortunes, children, or simply their own asses. Sources that they’d guessed came out of her Black Book. Hell, forget rumors, there were legends about Marion Zane’s Black Book…
(!)
And hey! Maybe some of those richest people on earth would pay to skip the middleman.
Maybe they would even pay to have it all to themselves…
Up until one month before, the Black Book had been carefully guarded and constantly updated. It would need updating again and several secretaries to handle the research calls…
Damn, those project-embarking endorphins felt good!
Saved again, by the Black Book.
Of course she’d have to get her hands on it first.
77
Entering and Breaking
Pepper took the small black plastic box out of the back pocket of her jean miniskirt and checked the battery pack to make sure it was connected.
Maya was impressed. “Where you get that?”
“My ‘Universal-Gate-’n-Garage-Door Opener’? Made it in self-defense. M’ husband thinks we’re gonna get invaded by li’l brown men.” Pepper held the box at arm’s length and wanded it along the edges of the Zane-compound service-entrance gates, in search of the sensor.
“He’s afraid of aliens?” asked Marion, tucking her again recognizably auburn hair in her black knit Stüssy cap.
“Day laborers,” Pepper sighed. “Knucklehead changes our codes every three days! It’s pretty simple. Works onna binary system—”
“Shhh!” cautioned Vlad. He leaned out over the driveway and let his eyes sweep the shadows for signs of unwanted witnesses. (And let Marion, who at the moment was suffering from an advanced case of “pelvic congestion,” have a nice perv on his rock-hard round ass, tantalizingly encased in black spandex running tights.)
Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean, can you make my kitchen gleam?
Seconds later, Pepper’s device overrode the Zane-compound service-gate code with a bleep and the gates started to move.
“Open sez me!”
Vlad turned (the front view was even better!) and flung a penknife with deadly accuracy at the security-camera wires, slicing them neatly in half.
“Is everybody ready?” whispered Marion. “Patti?…Patti!”
Timing was a critical factor in their mission to rescue the Black Book. Xiocena had informed them that they had a window of opportunity only between the hours of nine and ten-thirty. Most of the staff was gone at this time, but Jeff-the-majordomo and Roger-the-chef would be stuck working overtime, doing an inventory of Marion’s vast collection of china, crystal, and silver at the behest Simon Sacks. Therefore, the alarms on the mansion’s exterior and downstairs wouldn’t be armed.
But Carter and Gary would be on night security at the gatehouse.
That meant two sets of two men to distract. Happily, all of the Trophies had developed advanced skills in this area (although there was much arguing over who got to distract whom).
Maya, Pepper, and Claire were taking Gary and Carter. They needed to get into the gatehouse so Pepper could disengage the upstairs motion-detector beams.
Patti was going to distract Roger and Jeff while Marion and Vlad made their way upstairs to (hopefully) locate the thumb-recognition safe in Marion’s closets and extract its prisoner. In the hope of lulling Roger’s volatile nature, Xiocena had “accidentally” uncorked a few bottles of excellent wine before she’d knocked off work at six.
Sasha and Dudayev were still on the injured list after their tussle with Zephyr and thus unavailable.
Vlad finally discovered Patti checking the fit of her new black Prada ski jumpsuit in a gutter puddle and barely managed to yank her and her matching backpack through the last sliver of closing security gates.
“Why you bring that?” asked Maya, poking at Patti’s pack.
“You have your ways of distracting and I have mine,” Patti sniffed, splaying a hand across her bosom. “Actress, remember? It’s my costume change.”
“You still mad you no get to wear mini,” teased Maya, referring to Pepper, Claire, and herself, who were all clad in tight, tiny outfits and heels topped off with fur coats and jackets.
“Oh, any old ho can make that work! My job is more—” Patti began.
“Jeezus, will you two quit?” whispered Pepper. “We went over this a million—”
“Maya! Pepper! Claire! Back lawn—go!” hissed Vlad, grabbing Marion and Patti and hustling them up the service drive.
Claire, Maya, and Pepper adjusted their makeup and headed in the opposite direction.
“I still don’t think I can be convincing enough. I’ve always had perfect health and I’ve never even seen someone have one,” complained Claire as the three women picked their way across the (replanted) back lawn.
