CHAPTER 5

 

Wayne and Muriel left for Saint Louis and Gigawest’s next gig.

 

For the next few days in L.A. Ruffrox rather relished dueling tales of the death and blooming health of their romance.  East Coast tabloids had them headed for the altar and speculated on their pre-nup, while West Coasters wondered when they would acknowledge their split.

 

But on Saturday March 8th  in Spencer’s suite as they watched a hockey game, the startled cry  “I’m pregnant!” altered all attitudes.

 

John Richards in London had taken a radical slant on the “lust triangle.”

 

“MY EXPLOSIVE EXPOSÉ!!  RIVAL RIPS A RUFFROX RIFT !! MYSTERY MISS ARRIVES UNEXPECTED AND EXPECTING !!  Our informant tells us that Ruff’s teenage conquest has turned up from Texas PREGNANT!  She demands Ruff do dad duty!  And Roxie?  Sources say she is LIVID!  While she and Spence pimp Ymanja she must manage the ménage-a-trois.  But RUFFROX IS IN RUINS!”

 

Questions of when, where and how Spence had seeded the girl, Richards did not bother to address.

 

Within minutes of Lizzie’s alarm (she had read the Brit tabloid online) Roxie’s cell phone rang.  It was her uncle, Ambassador Leo D’Orsini in London.  He was agitated.

 

Then Ymanja producers weighed in.  Charlie Hood was bursting with box-office angst.   “Shit, Spence, your co-star hookup should have hurt us but so far it hasn’t.  Then the Vodou thing alienated the Christian Right but helped with New Agers; and since Ymanja did Vodou it looks like an advertising ploy to some peeps we’ve talked to.  The Big Bear thing was salvaged by the hole in Dave’s head – hate to put it that way, but it’s reality.  And Jack helped, bless him.  But ‘ménage-a-trois’?  Holy shit!  A knocked-up teenager?  Judas Priest! You can’t take this mess East!  We’re opening in Chicago, Philly, Pittsburgh, D.C., Baltimore – not just New York, and we can’t let the Big Apple slip out of our hands!”

 

“Take a deep breath, Charlie, and listen.  One: she’s Peony L’Ètrange’s daughter, Antoine’s step-child.  Two: they’re here with her.  The whole family’s going to New York.”

 

“Okay, that’s okay.”

 

“Three: she’s not pregnant.”

 

“Better!  How do we prove that now?”

 

“Four: she has a passport, I have a passport.  Hers says she’s never been off Haiti before last Saturday, and she didn’t go to Texas.  My passport says I’ve never been on Haiti.”

 

“Whew!”

 

“So your statement can quote me: ‘To have made Lizzie L’Ètrange pregnant I’d have had to use a thousand-mile-long dong.  A cock of cosmic proportions.’ Got that?”

 

“A prodigious prick!”  Robbie offered, loud enough for Charlie to hear.

 

Exhaling, Charlie guffawed.   “I may reword it some.  But I like it.  How’s your kid?”

 

“He’s great.  Brave little chap, doesn’t even cry when we wash and re-dress the gash.  Which is more than I can say for Nurse Roxie.”

 

“Some asshole, forget which one, claims the jerk you punched got stitched up too.  No details, of course, no picture, no name.  Spence, did it look to you like abduction attempt?”

 

“I don’t know.  Roxie...well, she’s...I’ll tell you later.  No, I’ll tell you now.  Because one of those assholes might actually do some research and throw this in to the wind: Roxie was kidnapped when she was nine, in Austria.  Terrible trauma for her whole family.  She’s talking to her uncle now.  Her family’s been solid behind us up to now, but if they think we’ve got a kidnap plot to deal with...”

 

“Well, keep that hound around.  And put on more bodyguards.”

 

“It’ll be two hounds now, actually.  Alfonso and Sofie rescued a male who is pining for Martha in New Orleans, as we speak.  Roxie’s going to adopt him permanently.  We’re going to need a bigger poop scoop...  More bodyguards, not a bad idea.  New York will be hard.  We’ll be leaving the kids in the hotel a lot.”

 

Uncle Leo had his own ideas about that.  He proposed – in fact insisted – that the two families stay in Roxie’s cousin Teresa’s townhouse on Park Avenue.  He would arrange that with Spencer’s consent.  Teresa worked in the nearby Consul General’s office.  She dealt with legal affairs.  The house had a big walled garden in the back suitable for the dogs.  And the Park to jog in with the kids.  The Consulate could recommend more bodyguards if needed.

 

Roxie, sobered by Leo’s lecture on what he judged to be her “vulnerable  lifestyle with Ruff” pressed Spence in whispers to consent.

 

Spence frowned but reduced her anxiety with a nod.  “Thank him.”

 

She passed the phone: “You thank him.  Profusely.”

 

~*~

 

Charlie added to the studio’s response,  “To quote Mr. Ruff, ‘since Miss L’Ètrange has never been off of Haiti before, and I’ve never been on Haiti, I would have needed some bizarre equipment to get her pregnant.  She is the daughter of two good mates of mine.  But if I had ever laid hands on her they’d have murdered me.  She is not pregnant.’”

 

Lizzie rapidly grew less tolerant of the attention as it intensified.  It mystified her how the gossips got by without retractions or apologies.  For instance, few ever mentioned the seven stitches in little Dave’s brow as they sympathized with the unnamed assailant.  Very few bothered to print Charlie’s press statement.  None apologized for casting her as a pregnant bimbo or Spence as seducer of a fifteen-year-old.

 

The New York City premiere of Ymanja was on Friday the 14th.  On Sunday Ruffrox, the L’Ètranges, Hank and Richie said goodbye to the Alvarados and Abbots, and left L.A.  They stopped in New Orleans overnight at Alfonso’s.  They checked the cats and added George the hound to their entourage.  Sofie and Peony talked Vodou.  With Houngan Valentin they toured St. John’s Cemetery and visited the grave of Marie LaVeau.

 

Guy Drake’s Sunday double column was doubly outrageous:  “ROXIE WILL WED RUFF ANYWAY!   WHY?   SHE’S PREGNANT TOO !”  Drake claimed that the Orsini clan was demanding a shotgun wedding despite the appearance of the girl accusing Ruff of another dalliance and impending dadhood.  “What Spence lacks in fidelity he makes up for in fecundity,” Guy snarked.  Then he detailed the “prenuptial agreement leaked to me by someone close to Roxana’s family.”  He was unaware of the Gordieva-D’Orsini firm since his magazine’s lawyers had not yet received intent-to-sue notice from them.  “In exchange for Roxie giving up her pagan practices, Spence must attend an anger management course.”  And a few lines down,  “Ruff inherited his savage temper from the savage side of his heritage: his Maori grandmother.”

That ruffled Ruff.  Antoine and over the phone the Alvarados calmed him down, speaking from long experience with racist slurs.

 

“Let it sit there, Man.  The longer it sits out there pointing at him, the worse he looks.  That shit always boomerangs.”

 

“But put a good picture of your Granny on Hags and Bitches with your very best memories of her,” Roxie advised.  “Turn the whole thing positive, you see?  And in case her spirit is upset, do some observance for her.”

 

Spence set aside scripts and scribbled his favorite reminiscences of the warm woman he  had called “Mum Kumara” as she was fond of and had dozens of recipes for sweet potatoes, in her language “kumara.”

 

After about an hour Spence had his piece ready to post.  “Hey, you’re right, it worked.  See?  I’m oozin’ honey again.  Good on ya, Mango Boobs.”  He gave Roxie a tender kiss.

 

“Mmm you taste sweet, too, Melon Balls.”

 

A call to Alfonso added yet another complaint to the Drake lawsuit.

~*~

 

With her intern Cindy in tow Jozey drank in a lounge at LAX until boarding time.  This rare trip was escape from sympathy and derision back home.  She was used to dishing derision.  On the receiving end, she wilted.  And the sympathy wasn’t much better.   Enplaning with her weighty carry-on she glanced over the pack in Coach, glad she’d have First Class stretching room.  Far down the aisle a spectacled man in a tall hat leaned out from his aisle seat and grinned at her.  She gasped and her vision blurred and briefly flared out.  Steadying her Cindy muttered, “You need coffee,” and propelled her up to First Class.

 

“Did you see him?”

 

“See who?”  Cindy sat down beside her.  “You still dizzy?”

 

“No, I’m good.  Coffee though, yes.”

 

Approaching the Mississippi the plane hit weather.  Turbulence started with several thumps and one wing dipping.  Soon seats seemed to be bucking, tray tables flapping, drink cups jumping like frogs.  Those caught in aisles clung to whatever they could grasp.  Lightning flashed in terrifying proximity.

 

Quite unnecessarily the pilot confirmed,  “We’re skimming a big storm.  Keep your seat belts buckled while we take her up a quieter altitude.”

 

The plane climbed steeply.  Static from the intercom took on a gravelly tone disturbingly familiar to Jozey.  That awful deep cackle...  The plane lurched and she spilled coffee on her cashmere jacket.  Cursing, she resolved to switch to liquor if the damn flight ever smoothed out.

 

Now it was drums she heard.  Faint but insistent.  Jozey freed herself, stood and looked around for a boom box.  A blonde woman in a long white dress and purple shawl approached, looking at her.  She had headphones wired to a player on a shoulder strap..  She fanned herself with a CD jewel case:  Boukman Eksperyans’ “VODOU ADJAE” the label read.

 

A deep air pocket threw the plane’s nose up sharply and dumped Jozey back in her seat.

 

She rebuckled her seat belt.

 

Across the cabin from Jozey and Cindy, Guy Drake slept through the turbulence, well sedated.

 

~*~

 

Teresa’s townhouse easily accommodated the Ruffrox entourage with plenty of room for the L’Ètranges as well, but they stayed with family.  Antoine had a sister Amanda who played piano in a jazz band.  His brother-in-law Andru taught school.

 

Baffled paparazzi staked out Spencer’s favorite hotel but got not one shot of any of them.

 

On Tuesday Roxie went to cook with Martha Stewart.  She chose a mournful mezzo-soprano aria from Maometto II.  She had sung this heartbreaking lament at the funerals of her parents and her husband and had never sung it since.  But today it was an extension of the brief ancestor salute she murmured daily over her morning coffee.  It left the audience blinking back tears.

 

Spence was scheduled to chat with Regis and Kelly on Wednesday, and on “Late Night” with Letterman on Thursday.

 

Dave asked Spence to demonstrate his “bizarre equipment.”

 

“It’s about a thousand miles long,” Spence told him, “so I roll it up and stow it in a warehouse til I need it.”

 

~*~

 

Jozey and Guy Francis Drake shared a taxi on Friday.  He was not housed in her hotel, but en route to the pre-premiere presser he spied her waving her umbrella at passing cabs.  The rain was close to sleet so Drake felt a rare pang of compassion.  He bade his driver pull over for her.

Jozey boarded with a sigh of relief.  “I take it we’re headed to the same place.”

 

“Oh, yes.  This should be fun!”  Drake giggled.  “Think we stoked the fire enough to get sparks flying?”

 

“Not like it’s hard to piss him off,” Jozey affirmed.  But she was less enthused than Guy.  These days her job was a distraction from her personal distress.  Feeling down tended to make her meaner.  But at the moment she felt cold and gutted as a dead fish.  Hoping New York would be bright and exciting she found it dismal and claustrophobic.  It was so vast.  Only on the shores did you sense some end of it, somewhere.  And everyone was so busy.  Did any of them care about her work?  Celebrity-starring snark, an inconsequential diversion in their lives.

 

Drake talked tabloid trash as they endured the stop and go of Manhattan traffic.  She found herself bored, and tapped her purse with her fingertips to the faint beat from the cab’s speakers.  The beat got suddenly louder.  She recognized it.  Had the whole damn world gone Haitian? Who the hell was Boukman Eksperyans anyway?

 

She frowned at the back of the driver’s head.  He had his hair in Dredlocks.  When their glances met in his rear-view mirror she stiffened.  The man wore shades missing a lens.  At the collar of his white shirt was a black cravat.  He wore a black-and-silver pinstriped vest over his shirt, and a black suit jacket.  Hanging from the mirror was a shiny black charm in the shape of a top hat.  And on hooks over the windshield rested a black baton with a silver grip.

 

This was too much.  Jozey elbowed Guy.  “Are you in on this too?  Goddamn it!”

 

He looked baffled.  “In on what?”

 

The drums grew louder but Guy didn’t seem to notice.

 

“Pull over!”  Jozey ordered.  The cab swung to the curb as soon as traffic allowed.  In high dudgeon she got out and marched off, leaving no fare or tip, preferring sleet to insult.

 

Drake too was a bit unnerved by the driver in his odd specs, chuckling like a rockslide at Jozey’s agitation.  He seemed to be dressed for a wedding.  Probably headed for one and trying to make every possible cent before he got there.  The mesmerizing drums continued until the cab was two blocks from the press venue, a lounge opposite the theater.  Then they stopped and were replaced by a radio news report.

 

“...and says the Bureau has been working with ICE to find the members who fund these websites.  In entertainment news, Spencer Ruff and his diva co-star are in town for tonight’s premiere of their flick Ymanja.  Considering the tabloid assaults they’ve suffered lately, the press conference this afternoon should be...well, just a little tense.  Expect some surf in the press pool, if not a tsunami.”

 

As Drake paid him the driver smiled brightly and said in a deep rumbling voice, “Have a nice swim, Mister Drake.”

 

Jozey meanwhile had flagged another cab.  This one was steered by a silent blonde woman with her hair pulled back in one thick braid.  She wore a voluminous purple shawl.  She had the radio on a hiphop station.  Rapidly tiring of that, Jozey requested a channel change.  She regretted it as the DJ announced the next selection: “Vodou Adjae” by Boukman Eksperyans.  Surely not the same damn broad from the plane?

 

At the press meet semi-serious reporters from Europe mixed with American counterparts and with the sleaziest of tabloid tattlers.  There were excellent questions about the film, its script, settings and music.  Ruffrox welcomed them.  They were prepared with anecdotes aplenty. Curious to see her family’s slanderers, Peony sat at a table to one side, incognito but attentive.  Antoine had accompanied the kids and their bodyguards to the Metropolitan Museum.  That jaunt was a respite from daily lessons and just as educational.

 

Having received intelligence on several malice mavens of the English tabs from Ryleigh and Jacob, Spencer used it gleefully.  Acknowledging one snide quizzer  he consulted papers in a folder.  “Ah, yes, Mark Jackson:  three-times divorced, world-class cad famous for groping girls at events like this, also infamous for your collection of – pardon the expression – ‘beaver shots’ of seated ladies; yeah, a whole section in your album devoted to nubile nitwits exiting low-slung cars in short skirts and no panties, and another section of random nipple slips from ‘round the world.  Your question, please?”

 

After a frozen moment Mark gathered himself and asked, “As Roxana calls herself the Duchess D’Orsini, will you be called Duke when you’ve married her?”

 

Before startled Spence could reply Fiona Bright addressed Roxie: “Why do you call yourself a Duchess?  Are you Duchess of Rome, or what?”

 

“You two are the only people who’ve ever called me Duchess.  So since we all know this Duchess is a figment of your imaginations,  let’s send her back to Royal Limbo.  I might as well call you Duchessa del D.U.I.  Or Baroness di Booze.”

 

“Duchess, are you eligible to marry Prince Harry? ”  This guy, from “Access Hollywood” was laughing, playing the game.

 

“Ah, Royal Bastard!  You rang?”  Spence answered, grinning.

 

When Guy Drake took his turn, smirking, Spence acknowledged him as “And you, Royal Pain.  Guards, away with him!  Throw him in the moat!”

 

“I’ve heard that Roxie’s family is making you marry her even though –”

 

“Heard from whom?  Name names.  Who’d you hear it from, when and where?  Basic journalism.”

 

“I protect my sources.  I – ”

 

Spencer growled.  “Protect your sources?  Bollocks.  This isn’t national security.   This is you spewing toxic waste and then asking us to process it.  So: if you have an actual source who exists outside that cesspool you call your mind, name him, or turn off your stinking spigot, Drake.”

 

Taken aback, Drake hesitated.  Then with his voice growing whiny, “This is why the press hates you,” he argued, “this combative attitude.”

 

“In your case the feeling’s mutual.  If I’m ‘combative’ it’s because I don’t like lies about me or people I love. What the hell do you bleeding blisters expect?”

 

Anastasia Dark’s intern Mavis entered the fray.  “If you won’t discuss your personal life with us, how are we supposed to get the truth?”  (On home turf Dark preferred the safety of her office.)

 

“Our personal lives are none of your business.”

 

“And it’s not the truth we’re talking about.  It’s the lies you tell,” Roxie appended.

 

“Your personal lives are our business!”  Jozey shouted.  She was irked by the quotables evoked by  the “Duchess” query – which she had told Mark Jackson she had rejected.

 

“That’s your problem.”  Spence shrugged her off.

 

“So I’m out of a job because you want more privacy?”

 

“Bingo!”

 

“What if,” a cheerful veteran from “E!” channel proposed,  “I ask you ‘how’s your son doing?’”

 

“That’s a decent question based on the proven fact that he was injured, so I choose to answer it: he’s doing well, thanks.  And thanks for your ‘So True, So False’ segments, Honey.”

 

Drake rejoined,  “You abuse us and then you want us to write nice things!  What’s nice about you?”

 

“Keep it up, wanker.  Not all water rolls off a duck’s back.  If it’s polluted enough a drake can drown in it.  By the way, meet Lizzie L’Ètrange’s mum Peony.  Perhaps you’d like to ask her about your pregnancy story, eh?”

 

Peony swayed up to the microphone and fixed Guy in a deadly glare.  Drake fell silent.

 

Mavis tried again.  “If the pregnant teenager rumors are not true, why did you find it necessary to release a statement denying them?”

 

“Self-answering question, that.  I correct lies because they’re lies.  A much better question is, why do people like Anastasia Dark tell lies?”  He surprised Mavis, recognizing her.  “Power trip?  You get off on shafting people, trying to sink a flick or an album?”

 

“People want to know how you live, who you screw, what your vices are!”

 

“A few might.  To the rest it’s just funny fiction to pass time on the subway.  Most of them knew folks like you in school.  The vicious ones who lied about the other kids...”  Spence jabbed a middle finger towards Jozey, “or their parents, or their teachers.  The cruel ones whose egos make them proud of their cruelty and the harm it does.”

 

Beside him Peony stood on tiptoes to use the mic.  “Mr. Guy Francis Drake, if your magazine offered you another kind of column, about labor unions or museum exhibits or social issues like addiction or pornography or abortion, and you’d get the same pay, would you change jobs?”

 

Clearing his throat, flushing red, Drake squawked, “I enjoy what I do.”

 

“Well, then:  case closed.  You like getting paid to be cruel and nasty.  You like to go     swimming in the sewer!  You lyin’ leech, you parasite!”

 

~*~

 

Returning to the friend’s house he made his camp on Big Apple stints, Drake found that his laptop computer, digital camera and picture stick had been stolen.  He had no idea who had invaded this private space and taken his most sensitive property.  Who even knew he was staying here?  He never left this address or home phone with his L.A. colleagues.  He communicated solely by email from here.  Highly agitated, Guy paced until his host got home.

 

Dick Kane had been watching Ymanja.  “Great flick,” he pronounced it.  “Big crowd, good reviews if what I heard is any indication.”

 

“Like I give a shit.  Where’s my computer?”

 

“Your computer?  Where’d you leave it?”

 

“On the desk in the guest room.  Who’s been here since I left?”  Guy had eaten out at around eight and had been away all day.

 

“Georgy was here.  He came looking for you, I left him trying to get you on your cell.”

 

“I can’t answer my cell in the middle of a press conference.”

 

Georgy phoned a few minutes later.  He berated Drake over downloads saved on his hard drive.

 

“Big deal.  I’ll delete it all.  Nobody else sees that laptop.  Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

 

“I deleted everything.  Then I threw the drive and your stick in my fireplace.”

 

“You – what?   My hard drive?  I need it – my work is on there, my contacts!”

 

“Yeah, your contacts!  Fuck, Guy, you asshole, we all agreed, save nothing! Nothing, nada, zero, zilch!  And our names were on there, with cell numbers!  The rules don’t apply to you, is that it, you big Hollywood Honcho?  You’re un-fuckin-touchable?  Karl is not happy with you, asshole.”

 

Call Waiting beeped.  “I have to take this,” Guy muttered.  If he was hoping for good news he was sharply disappointed.  This call gave notice of the joint defamation of character lawsuit filed by Roxana D’Orsini, Spencer Ruff, and Jack and Rosita Alvarado.

 

The legal staff at Sunday Scenes & Sounds  had not been pleased with Drake’s Ruffrox abortion charge or by the Alvarado bastard bit.  Now a shrill lady lawyer scolded him for luring the Gordieva-Orsini firm in to the melee with mention of a non-existent – and scandalous – pre-nuptial contract.

 

“These are not bush-league players.  They’ll take your scalp!  And cost the mag a fortune!  Clean up that damned column.”

 

Apprised of the suit Dickie Kane looked scared.  “Lawyers?  They’ll root around in your whole life, everything!  What if they find out what happened in Edinburgh?  Shit.  You didn’t save anything on another computer, did you?  Or disks?  Or memory cards?  Shit!  We never should have let you in.  You better tell Georgy.  Karl will know what to do.  But I want you out of here.  I don’t need the eyes on me, either.”

 

~*~

 

The weekend box office take from Ymanja was impressive.  Charlie Hood exulted.

 

On Sunday March 16th Drake’s weekly hit the stands minus his column.

 

No one in Los Angeles knew how to reach him, he wouldn’t answer his phone.  No one in New York reported him missing.  His magazine contacted other members of the entertainment press to no avail.  Finally, they tried the Gordieva-Orsini attorney in charge of the defamation suit.  He hadn’t heard anything from Drake.  Asked if Ruff or Roxana had seen Drake since the premiere, they were told, “I’ll ask and get back to you.”  When he did, he had nothing new to report.

 

Drake had just gone AWOL.  Ads appeared on his Drake Rakes page.

 

The publisher went to the police.

 

Chuckling, Sergeant Paige read Drake’s last three oeuvres and asked, “Are you sure he didn’t flee the country?   ‘Does he have any enemies’ is the moot question of all moot questions!”

 

The cops zeroed in on Guy’s attacks against ‘Ruffrox.’  “I wouldn’t want to be on Spence Ruff’s shit list, let alone the G.-O. Law Firm’s.  That’s a world-class outfit.  Your Guy’s dug himself a real deep hole.  If this pre-nup isn’t bogus, they’d want to learn how Drake got it, and see what else he has.  Visit Ruff’s hotel.”

 

“Which hotel is theirs?”  Detective Cam pointed to another tabloid which demanded to know, “‘Where’s Ruffrox?  Did those dangerous dogs get them dumped from their hotel?’”

 

“They’re not at the Four Seasons?”

 

“Not according to this.”

 

“Call the firm, locate ‘em.  They won’t talk to us without attorneys anyway.”

 

Cam grinned at the tab’s trash.  “Another sex tape hit the net.  Pretty soon they’ll have an award just for stolen sex tapes.”

 

Reading over his shoulder Paige offered.   “They’ll call it ‘the Boink’.”

 

“Or the Silver Schlong.”

 

“The Dawg.”

 

“The Twat Shot.”

 

“Okay, enough – what if the Lieutenant walks in?”

 

“She just did,” Lt. Katt announced behind the group at Paige’s desk.  “And my vote goes to ‘The Pam.’  Make it female for a change.”

 

~*~

 

Distracted as she walked out to lunch sipping an Irish coffee, Fiona Bright was clipped and knocked off balance by a corner-turning bicyclist signaling with a rolled-up magazine.  Fiona shrieked, hurled her heavy, lidded coffee mug at him – and was snapped by an unseen camera.  Extremely unflattering photos appeared on the Gossip Hags and Tabloid Bitches site.  The bike courier had wiped out when her mug hit his mug.  He was shown on his knees flipping her the bird.  In the background spattered pedestrians glared at Fiona.  One caption described her as “a heavy drinker and apparently not a jolly one.”

 

Roxana and Spence lunching with Antoine, Lizzie and Peony reviewed one network’s hour-long show, “What Makes a Gossip Gossip?”  “The dishers have become the dishees.”  Psychiatrists discussed the compulsion to “build yourself up by tearing others down.”   In legal segments attorneys instructed viewers on filing defamation-of-character actions.  Tabloid publishers were suddenly being served notice at a record rate.

 

Antoine mentioned that his friend Mick was still selling positive press.  Asked if anyone was buying that service, he replied, “Yeah, mon!  I won’t blow their cover, though.  I’m damn tempted myself, too.”

 

“But it’s extortion.”

 

“Extortion versus libel...I might choose extortion.  Cash for peace of mind.”

 

“Well, then everyone who can afford it pays for good stories, so the tabs quit buying them because they want filth.  It goes full circle and your money’s wasted and they go back to lying.”

 

“True, true.  But only when too many people sign up.  Til then, buy early; get it while you can.” Spence yawned.  “Wouldn’t last long.  And the first betrayals will be headlined: ‘I Sold Him Flattery’ and ‘She Bought Her Good Reputation’ and ‘Paid to Pen Pleasant Piece.’”

 

~*~

 

Harry, a Big Apple operative for the G.-O. Firm conferred with Sgt. Paige.  He had been trailing Drake, he admitted.  When last he had seen Drake on Saturday around noon, the man was with a character so far ID’d only as Georgy.  They were getting in to a black taxicab.  Harry produced a print from his digital camera.  Mufflered up to his nose, his fedora pulled over his eyes, Georgy was unrecognizable.  All that could be entered under “Description” was “white, slim build, height 5'7" to 5'9".

 

The cab had the obligatory sign on top and a meter, but no company markings visible.   Its driver, in dark glasses despite the murky weather, was dressed in a vest and cravat under a black coat.  He smiled straight at Harry.

 

Paige grunted.  “Looks like an island boy, Jamaican or Haitian.  Cab must be a home-based operation. Can’t see the license plate, damn.  What kind of car is that?”

 

Harry who knew autos, told him, “A vintage Daimler.”

 

“Well, Drake’s got his suitcase with him, so check the airports and Am Track.”

 

“I spoke to Mr. Ruff and Ms. D’Orsini,” Harry continued.  “Spence worked Drake over pretty good at a press conference coupla days ago.  He goes to London this weekend for another premiere, another press thing.  Could be Drake flew to London for that.”

 

“Probably.  Grudge match going between those two, that’s obvious.  And the Haitians, the reggae musician with the daughter: no love lost there either.”

 

“Who rents the apartment these guys were leaving?  Drake, his mag?”

 

“A man who goes by Dick Kane.  Phallic, huh?  His is the third-floor unit, C.”

 

Drake’s publisher agreed he might have gone to England.  “But not on our expense account, the bastard.  He’s AWOL as far as we’re concerned.”

 

~*~

 

Roxie remained at Teresa’s with kids and dogs while Spence and Antoine jumped the pond to represent Ymanja.  Peony and Lizzie toured the Italian Cultural Center, lunched at the adjoining Italian Consulate, and trekked from museums to art exhibits with the Ruffrox group.  A cagey Consulate SUV chauffeur expertly eluded paparazzi pursuit.  The families enjoyed exercise in the Park across from the Consulate and even took the Statue of Liberty trip in blissful privacy.

But in spite of Charlie Hood’s press statement, the price of a candid snap of Roxie with Lizzie was climbing.  Spence alone with Lizzie would bring a small fortune.  (The girl’s parents could be digitally deleted.)  Wistfully tabloid publishers recalled the ski-resort threesome of Donald and Ivana Trump with the comely third wheel who had run down that marriage.  A threesome shot with Roxie scowling was the ultimate goal.

 

In London Spence and Antoine met with Ryleigh and Jacob.  On Miss Lark they now had a slim dossier, but John Richards’ pseudonym protected him better.  So far none of his coworkers had blurted anything salty.  One of them thought he’d been born in India, another was fairly sure he was a son of London merchants.  He had once been married but there were either no children or the ex had full and undisputed custody.  Maybe it was the ex who was born in India?

 

Miss Lark whiffed cocaine.  In New York City a year back, her dealer had been arrested.  On his list of customers vice cops found her as “Barf Bird” – and the dealer, with no priors and looking for a plea deal, had identified her.  He had met and begun supplying her at the Mercer Soho Hotel.  Another guest with children had spied what she guessed was a sale, and turned the dealer in.

 

So Miss Lark’s habit,  common but still controversial enough to scar her with the ‘hypocrite’ brand, was consigned to Hags and Bitches.

 

~*~

 

Dickie Kane had little to tell the police.  But his nervous demeanor spoke volumes.  He said he had met Drake years ago on a trip to L.A.  Drake had made a habit of staying with him any time he came to New York.  No, Kane had never seen Drake’s passport but he knew there was one.  As far as he knew Drake was American-born.  Chicago native, Dickie thought.  As for the man in the photo with Drake, Dickie couldn’t identify him.  Didn’t look like anyone who lived in this building, which only had six apartments.  Probably just a stranger willing to share Drake’s ride.

Cam showed the print to the building’s other residents.  None of them admitted knowing who he was.  Asked about the cabbie in formal attire, all said they’d never seen that Daimler or its driver before.

 

But an anonymous tip gave Sgt. Paige a license plate number to trace; not the cab’s but that of the only intact vehicle parked outside a dockside warehouse to which the cab had taken the two passengers in question.  The car was registered to a George Jericho.

 

~*~

 

In London the premiere and televised press parlay passed peaceably.  Having  read reports of the New York presser, John Richards stayed away.  Miss Lark did, too, now that that website had her habit in boldface.  She had to go to Rehab.  The raid of an apparent bomb-making lab dominated front pages of newspapers and tabloids alike.

 

Neither Antoine nor Spence spotted Guy Drake anywhere they went in London.

 

On the morning after the movie’s London launch Roxie was stunned by two pieces of news.  One came from Sgt. Paige, the other from Alfonso.

 

Chapter Six