CHAPTER 4

 

 

Where is the mercy, where is the love?’”

 

The other men chorused Mick Jagger’s refrain,

 

“‘She’s a hard woman to please

I’ve thought about letting her know

She’s a hard lady to leave, yes she is...yes she is...’”

 

Plunging his voice to basso profundo Wayne groaned,

 

“‘How can I say goodbye to my baby?’”

 

Before long guitars and Wayne’s clarinet were produced, Roxie commandeered the lounge’s piano, others sang along and the celebration was going full throttle.

 

~*~

 

Sulking in her room alone Anastasia pondered why Beryl had turned on her.  How had she even known about Simon?  It wasn’t that Beryl was a clever investigator.  Like the rest of them she took scraps and embroidered them into tapestries.  Her pumping of Roxie d’Orsini’s kid was good use of an accidental opportunity, but hardly the work of a genius.

 

Saturday dawned sunny and promising highs in the seventies.

 

Antoine went to LAX early to wait for Peony.  She was bringing her 15-year old daughter Lizbeth.

 

As Robbie stepped from the shower Emily sang, “‘Boy, you are a vision in white!  How’d you get your pants so tight?’  – Oh, those aren’t white pants, that’s you!  You need some sun, White Meat.  C’mon, let’s hit the beach.  I promise to baste you every ten minutes.”

 

He sighed.  “All right, but not until I buy one of those huge straw hats.”

 

“Fine, just not one with tassles.”

 

Wayne and Muriel took to the sand with them.

 

It had been decided to wait for Monday to put on Hags and Bitches the documents and statements on which the “Who Done It?” campaign was based.  This weekend was the Awards show so the town was a crammed with directors, producers and writers calling for meetings and trading scripts.  Spencer already had a stack of scripts to read.  So did Robbie and Emily.

 

The town was also teeming with unmarried women.  Spence gave Hank and Richie the 3-day weekend off.  He and Roxie took the kids down to the pool.  There they met Lizzie for the first time.  Peony’s daughter from a teenage seduction was a gorgeous girl with all the best traits from several ethnic sources.  Lizzie was as sweet as she was lovely.  A surprisingly young fan of Spence’s work, she bear-hugged him with a spontaneous squeal: “I just adore you!”

 

A lurking pap snapped a still of that.  She had bribed the liquor delivery lad to let her in.

 

After lunch Antoine and Peony took Lizzie shopping for an Oscar-night gown.

 

“That girl,” Spence told Roxana, “could come back with a modeling contract.”

 

~*~

 

The red carpet obstacle course was much more interesting this year.  Rude questions flew both ways.

 

Asked if her marriage had suffered from the bastard slam Rosita rejoined, “Instead of sliming my marriage you should check out Jozey Markswell’s.  Especially her hubby’s Monday ‘afternoon delight’ in that downtown hotel two blocks from his office.”

 

Jackson Alvarado mocked O’Malley:  “I don’t cruise with a posse. And I guess old Tad didn’t need a posse to thrash on his kid.”

 

A small, painfully fashionable young woman with a microphone stopped Roxie with the question,  “You’ve worked on two films with Spencer.  Are you afraid of his violent temper?”

 

Roxie demurred, “No, but I’m terrified of drunk drivers.  Fiona Bright’s drunk driving convictions make her a very scary person.  And I wouldn’t trust my property to that Sugarman, he’s a thief.  And I wouldn’t let O’Malley near my child.  And – ”

Alarmed, the interviewer – Jozey’s intern Cindy – moved to someone else.

 

Anastasia braced Spence with the red carpet’s first Vodou query.  “Are you trying to make Roxana give up Vodou magic?”

 

Spencer replied calmly,  “She is a magical girl with a very spiritual nature.  Her beliefs are of course her private business.”

 

“Does she use dolls, stick pins in them?”

 

“No.  She has this huge stuffed tomato thing she keeps her pins in.  Next to her Singer.”

 

“But what about the spells and curses?  Doesn’t all that worry you?”

 

“I’ve never seen her do spells or curses.”

 

“But I hear she threw a Vodou curse on Beryl Couvier after Beryl cornered her daughter in the hospital.  They say the curse turned Beryl against her colleagues.”

 

“Load of bollocks!  No matter what you say Roxie’s curses are the same four-letter ones we all use, except the Italian and Russian ones; those take more letters.  And if curses could kill, Couvier would have croaked long ago.  Folks have been cursing her for years.”

 

Through the gauntlet at last Roxie muttered, “If I thought my curses worked I’d aim one right between Dark’s eyes and another right up Drake’s arse.  Then Fiona: I’d curse her with permanent nettle burn.  And Jozey – six more cheating husbands.  And – ”

 

Spence rumbled in her ear,  “Watch your mouth, Vodou Vixen.  Don’t pass them more ammunition.”

 

~*~

 

Guy Drake skipped his usual Sunday insults.  Next Sunday he’d get his yearly double column space so he could criticize Oscar apparel and dispute the Academy’s picks.

 

~*~

 

Monday, Jack, Ruff, Roxie, Antoine, Peony and Lizzie took five of the children the hundred-plus miles up to Big Bear overnight.  Rosita stayed home baby Joe.  It wasn’t the best season for Big Bear but the lake was lovely and there was snow to delight the kids.  And to arm a kids-versus-grownups ambush.  They found clean air and escaped flashbulbs.  But they failed to notice a white van of the ubiquitous Econoline model following them up the mountain.

 

Lakeside, Roxie exercised her voice at a spot that returned echoes.  “‘O terra addio, addio

valle di pianti!  Sogno di gaudio, che in dolor svaní!’”

 

“So you’re fluent in Italian?” Lizzie inquired.  “Were you born there, or here?”

 

“There.  But I’ve spent more years in England and New Orleans than in Italy.  My Italian has sprung leaks over the years, and now it’s stuffed with phrases from opera librettos.  Opera Italian comes in handy only when you’re, for instance, sealed in a tomb beneath the temple of Ptah with your lover lamenting your dream of joy, which has vanished in sorrow, and seeing heaven open up to you.”

 

“We hope it doesn’t come to that!”  Jack gulped audibly.

 

“Yeah, that would harsh your buzz,” Antoine agreed.

 

“Actually, not a bad death: singing away the last of your air under a solemn statue of Anubis with Amneris and the priestesses of Ptah above weeping ‘Pace, t’imploro, pace, pace, pace!’” Spence had introduced his sons to opera through Verdi’s “Aida” and had marveled at their immediate entrancement.  The martial theme, the betrayals and the drama of the long final tomb scene had excited them along with the gorgeous music.

 

“‘A noi si sciude, si schiude il ciel...e l’alme erranti volano al raggio dell’eterno di. ...si schiude il ciel, si sciude iiiiil ciel!’”  The high sustained note on the last “il” was strained thin.  Roxie’s voice was not yet ready for a true soprano aria.  But the other notes weren’t bad, just more breaths required between phrases.

 

In New York Roxie was to cook with Martha Stewart a pasta dish with artichoke hearts and black olives in lemony-garlic sauce, and she’d promised an aria, too.  It might have to be a mezzo-range aria.  But Roxie was determined to sing for Martha’s audience.

 

After a picnic lunch the party took to a kid-friendly hiking trail.

 

Martha and the Alvarado’s chocolate labrador Drama Queen hit the trail and snuffled the snow joyously.  Jack, Martin and James led the trek.  Spence walked behind Emma with Drama Queen and Dave with Martha – they insisted on handling the leashes, feeling very grown up.  Roxie and Lizzie kept apace with Spence.  Katya, Peony and Antoine brought up the rear.  Katya was bursting with curiosity about Haiti.

 

On one steep stretch of slope stone slabs had been set in to form stairs.

 

Drama Queen bounded up the first few and pulled her leash from Emma’s hand.  Halfway up the stairway she paused and waited for Martha to catch up.  Martha wagged upward with Dave climbing as fast as he could clinging to her leash.

 

They apparently blocked the camera angle of a man who stood half behind a trailside shrub with a digital video cam.

 

Annoyed, the man snatched and lifted Dave with his free arm and tried to dump him lower down the rock-tread stairs – but Martha’s weight on the leash resisted.  Dave was flipped backward and dropped headlong.  He hit the stone hard.  He screamed, “Daddy!”

 

The videographer crouched awkwardly, his camera still shooting, as Spence lunged towards Dave.  Martha leapt between the stranger and her little charge.  The stranger swung his camera at her, banging her just behind her left ear.  Infuriated Spence punched at the man and connected with his chin.  Gathering up his sobbing three-year-old Spence turned and descended with the rest of the party.  Blood was streaming from a gash through Dave’s eyebrow.

 

Spence didn’t know where the closest doctor was so he called the rescue squad.

 

The culprit dashed through the woods to where his Econoline waited.  He decided his best defense would be a preemptive offense.  Cal Donald drove his van back to L.A. and quickly sold his inaccurate account for cash, and at a discount since no name would be attached,  to Reggie Sugarman.  He was fond of Reggie’s radio and TV shows.  And read his Sugarman’s Cubes and Lumps blog regularly.

 

Indignant calls from the elderly in his audience had Sugarman ready to grind his mic between his teeth when Cal phoned.  Reggie was so thrilled at the chance to divert attention to a shocking news item that he floated this one without checking for leaks.

 

~*~

 

Fiona and O’Malley each consulted the cyber-savvy brains who’d designed their web sites.  Could they determine the real source of those five emails?  They did their best and both reported that the source computer and the email account were registered to Beryl Couvier.

 

There were files in there dated before her death.  Those emails could have been written and saved as drafts before her death and sent after it.  No way of telling without the computer itself.

Tad had taken some snide teasing at work.  When he averred that the email was a volley from his ex-wife, a coworker reminded him that the abuse reports were filed seven years back and Kevin was now seventeen – a bit late for a custody fight.  And there was a convincing pile of proof at Gossip Hags and Tabloid Bitches.

 

“Shit!  You read that crap?”

 

“You write worse crap than that.”

 

“Go fuck yourself.”

 

“You look a lot different than you did seven years ago.  For instance, you have more hair...a whole lot more.”

 

“So I got plugs.”

 

“And your nose...”

 

“None of your friggin’ business.”

 

Jozey accused Anastasia Dark of mounting the whole email-exposé campaign under Beryl’s aegis.  She related in her online splurb the revelatory phone call from a “DARKVIEW ” intern who claimed to have been recently fired.  Was there such a woman?  Or was it all a put-up job?  Embarrassing pictures of Jozey berating her spouse outside 326 had been posted on Hags and Bitches:  who had taken them?

 

Dark denied that any of her coworkers had called Jozey.  “I’ve never fired an intern. Jozey’s Marvin cheating doesn’t surprise anyone, but I didn’t know about it before we got Beryl’s email.”  As for Hags and Bitches, Dark sneered that she would never contribute to that anti-tabloid blog.

 

~*~

 

Jack stayed at the emergency room with Spence and Dave.  His wound disinfected, X-rayed, sutured and bandaged, Dave was assured his coconut wasn’t cracked.

 

“Keep a close eye on him.  If he starts acting weird, you know the drill,” the pediatrician told Spence.

 

“Yes, I do,” he’d suffered mild concussions himself.  “But how do I know if a three-year old is acting weird?”

 

Relieved but still seething Spence discussed with two policemen bringing charges against the assailant.  Jack had got the best look at him, might be able to pick him out of a lineup.  But the man had disappeared.  Unless someone volunteered his identity, he would be hard to track down.  Besides, the Ruffs wouldn’t be in California much longer.  Ruffrox was due in New York soon for another premiere.  Attendance was part of the contract.  So were talk show gigs.

 

“But if some witness comes in with a name or a picture,” Spence told the cops, “please let me know.”  He gave them his cell phone number.

 

Roxie, Peony and the other kids had gone back to Big Bear Hotel with Antoine. Taking from her big purse the First Aid kit she seldom left home without, Roxie used veterinary skills Artur had taught her to clean and stitch up Martha’s cut.  In case it was requested the women wrote out their own testimonies.

 

~*~

 

“That Aussie volcano erupts again!”  Reggie bellowed in his radio segment, forgetting Spence’s New Zealand origins.  “Blew up in the face of a journalist up at Big Bear.  The poor guy was just trying to earn his bread, offended the Oscar winner by accidentally touching his son, and got his chin smashed as punishment for that.  And oh, yeah, Ruff’s squeeze du jour sicced her attack dog on the guy.  They took off before the cops could question them.  We’re waiting to hear what excuse Tough Ruff makes for this dustup, folks.”

 

The story swiftly gained momentum.  By Tuesday it was everywhere.

 

Fiona Bright faxed her retelling.  “RUFF SLUGS BIG BEAR TOURIST !!  But did TUFF RUFF GET CUFFED?  Of course not.  In Lalaland an Oscar is a ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card.’  A-listers can punch any peon who displeases them.  The unstable Aussie and his volatile Vodou vixen Roxie were both involved in this latest violent episode.  Sorcery wasn’t her weapon, though.  She loosed her hell-hound on the hapless hiker.”

 

Jozey further embroidered the swatch but added a photo of a lovely girl embracing Spence beside a pool.  Spence wore snug swim shorts; the girl was unfortunately fully dressed.  But Jozey’s caption made the most of the shot:  “SPENCE DUMPS HIS HOLLYWOOD HEATHEN FOR A NEW GIRL – AND SHE’S EVEN YOUNGER !!  This one should be easier to control.  Pagan ROXIE was just too wild, sources close to the Kiwi say.  Spence was heard in a bar singing ‘Hard Woman’ with drunken gusto: ‘She’s a hard woman to leave  ...I’ve got to say goodbye... She’s a tough cookie, hard lady, I’ve got to say goodbye!’” Hard woman to leave?  In spades!  Spence may find himself dodging spells and curses for a long time to come!”

 

As his Tuesday “Hollywood Hot Seat” segment began, Jack and Rosita marched on Sugarman’s TV set to set the record straight.  With his signature boyish smile abandoned, head down and eyes flashing, Jack challenged Sugarman on-screen.  “Man, you need to clean up the mess you made.”

 

“Is that so?  Well, folks, I guess I’m in the hot seat today.”  Reggie had that line already prepared, along with a statement blaming his personal scandal on his greedy uncle Van.  “Make that the electric chair. You’re blaming the wrong dude.  Were you there?  No.  Were we?  Yeah.  Did you see what happened?  No.  Did you watch that little bleeding three-year old get stitches in his face?  No. I did.  Did you see your ‘poor’ ‘journalist’ pick that boy up and throw him down those stairs?  No.  Did you hear that baby scream when his head hit that rock?  No.  Did you see that prick put a beat-down on an innocent dog who was protecting the kid?  No.  We did.  Yeah, we did.  And if the A-hole is so innocent, why didn’t he sell you his footage?  He was rolling the whole damn time.  He can’t let that video out because it shows he did the assaulting, not Spence.  And man, if you can’t understand the difference between a father rescuing his boy and the jerkoff who hurt that boy, we hope you don’t have kids. Because you’re missin’ an instinct every father needs.”

 

Rosita finished, “But family is not your thing, is it, you lyin’ abuser of li’l ole ladies!”

 

A the L.A. hotel Antoine told a reporter,  “You do not put your hands on a mon’s child unless you want that mon to come at you like a freight train. And that girl in the picture, Missus Soon-Will-Be-Ex-Markswell, is my wife’s teenage daughter.  Nothin’ but a fan to Spencer, and if you worry ‘bout Vodou curses, you messed up big time makin’ her mama mad.”

 

Their passionate rebuttals reverberated on the same frequency as the lies, for once.  No parent in the public eye dared to slam Spence now.  Not faced with police-released images of Dave with a bloody gash over a swollen-shut black eye, and one of sad-eyed Martha sporting her own bandage.

 

A few tabloids pressed the premise that a  job involving public appearance somehow nullified one’s right to privacy.   So-called “celebrities” must surrender some civil rights.

 

Outside Ruffrox’s hotel a sullen pap whined to a “real” reporter:  “All they have to do is stop and pose for us.”

 

“Even when you climb trees to snap them through their bathroom windows?”

 

“We don’t all do that.”

 

“But the ones who do use the same excuse: they give up their privacy when they become entertainers.  How ‘bout when they’re off the clock, taking quality time with their kids?”

 

“They’re never off the clock.  Look, without us they never get on the clock!”

 

The reporter snorted at that fallacy.  “Name one great actor who got great roles because you people stuffed tabloids with pictures of him, or her.”

 

The people he named were club-scene and red-carpet paparazzi pets with little of note on their resumes.  They were known for their interchangeable lovers, rehab stints and “going commando.”  It was a dismal defense of the premise.

 

~*~

 

It didn’t slip Spencer’s notice that Roxie consulted the California branch of Gordieva-Orsini.  “What’s that about ‘kidnapping?’”

 

“By California law that man can be charged with kidnapping Dave.  It’s a felony to take a child forcibly from the control of his parent.  If the victim gets hurt the penalty is worse.  There might be a problem with the parent’s control part – we might have to argue that Martha on leash was an extension of your custody and control.”

 

“But Sweethips, I doubt the bloody yob was trying to kidnap Dave.  Right under our noses, in a pretty public place?”

 

“Well, Sweetlips, I was.”

 

“Was what?”

 

“Kidnapped right under my family’s noses in a public place.”

 

Spence felt like he’d been punched in the solar plexus.  “When?  Where?  Why is this the first I’ve heard of it?”

 

“It’s not a fun memory, Caro.  I was on an ice rink at a resort in the Alps.  My parents and Alfonso were skating, too.  I was nine.  All it took was a few seconds’ head start; they couldn’t chase him in ice skates.  And he had a vehicle waiting ready to roll.  An ATV.  Little kids are portable.  Easy to grab and carry.”

 

“Holy Mary, Roxie!  Who was he?  Did he get ransom for you?”

 

She sighed.  “First he knocked me down and shoved a cloth soaked with ether in my face.  Pretending to help.  He ran off the rink with me and threw me in the ATV.  The motor was running; I was out of it but there were many witnesses.  A few hours later, up the mountain after dark he skidded the ATV off a cliff and died.  I was thrown clear.  He was a professional criminal with a long record, and his wife was in on it, too.  She was supposed to arrange the ransom. He was supposed to stash me in a cabin up on the mountain and wait for the signal, then drive off and leave me.  She confessed when she heard he was dead and went to prison.  It was next day when the search party finally found me.  That’s how my lung got messed up, by the way.”

 

Spencer digested that.  He was deeply shocked for the second time in two days.

 

“So maybe I’m paranoid about kidnapping...”  Roxie shuddered off the memory and let him fold her in his arms.  “Nothing like that will ever, ever happen,” she swore in a hoarse whisper, “to a child of mine.  Or yours.”

 

“Amen!  It won’t happen.”  They rocked together for several minutes.  “Besides,” he quipped with a comforting chuckle, “Down Under we don’t ice skate much.”

 

The tabloid take on her embrace of Spence reduced Lizzie to gales of laughter.  She was a Vodouisante herself, had years ago received her Lavé Tête and was due to Kanzo that summer.  Peony was not at all amused.  But Lizzie’s innocent mirth proved infectious.  Soon even Spence was chuckling.  It wasn’t necessary to acknowledge Jozey’s venom-spit with any response.

 

~*~

 

Martha had her own defenders.  Bloodhounds are not so dubbed for liking gore, but for the royals who first bred them.  They are the tenderest of dogs.  They will track a vicious fugitive for days and finding him, lick his face.  On the trail of a loved lost child – or one it doesn’t know, for that matter – a good bloodhound must be forced to stop, rest and eat, or it will track until it drops dead.  From puppyhood Martha had been impeccably trained by Roxie’s spouse, and Roxie had learned along with her.  It was not in Martha to attack anyone.  But she was so anxious with her junior charges that if she was not restrained, she would haul them out of the flattest surf or even a wading pool.

 

Dog experts brought friendly floppy eared bloodhounds on to the sound stages of every morning talk show.  Roxie debated “interviews” with Martha, deciding against over-exposing her.  As Spence remarked, “Not a bad deal if that pack of human curs are scared of her.  Keep them yapping at a distance.”

 

Chastened but unapologetic Reggie took solace in returning serve at Tad O’Malley  a.k.a. Thaddeus Franz.  Pictures of Thaddeus a decade back differed significantly from Tad’s current look.

 

“This guy seems to be guzzling from the Fountain of Youth.  He’s growing younger, growing hair, and his nose has shrunk.  I think he does something to his eyebrows.  Well, if he’s disguising himself to fool his ex-wife, oh, snap!  Busted.  Or maybe he chose the Way of  the Metrosexual to further his career.”

 

Reggie’s joviality waned when police came to question him.  They wanted the name of the man who’d hurt Dave Ruff.  “Hey, he wouldn’t tell me,” Reggie lied.

 

“Then why would you put out his story?  Why would you pay an anonymous source?”

 

“No choice.  We got his story cheap because he wouldn’t identify himself.  It’s a great story.  Worth what we paid.”

 

“How did you pay?”

 

“Cash,” Reggie lied again.  He had written a check.

 

The network’s legal office warned him that his expense books must be turned over to prosecutors if Cal Donald was caught and charges brought.

 

Sugarman shrugged off the threat.  “We got our story.  If he gets fucked, who cares?” 

The possibility of a kidnap charge came up on CourtTV.

 

“In California law the term ‘substantial’ plays a significant part because it is not defined.  To kidnap a person you don’t have to succeed in holding him, just in taking him.  He must be moved some ‘substantial’ distance for purposes other than ransom to make it kidnapping.  But if prosecutors can prove the motive was ransom, then kidnapping for ransom does not require that the victim be moved any distance at all.  If you grab a person and stand there with the person, with a gun or knife on him, say, and you are paid in exchange for releasing him, you have kidnapped him for ransom.  The amount of time you have him in your power is unspecified so it can be very brief.  Now, the Ruff incident as far as we know involved just the taking control of the child by force.  And there was force, even violence.  The child according to the eyewitnesses was moved two or three yards.  The motive is still a mystery.  If this louse was just tossing this toddler out of the way to get better video – ” the show’s hostess/lawyer threw her hands up in obvious disgust,  “– well, as I see it, it’s still a case of kidnapping.  The picking up and moving makes it kidnapping.  And that little boy was injured, too.”

 

Cal Donald left California in a hurry.

 

Chapter Five