DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (37 page)

"I wish it were that simple," he said. And that's when she began to listen.

15

"Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist."

Jeanne Moreau, International Herald Tribune

"I had a call from my agent telling me I didn't need a publicity manager. I'm not big enough yet."

She sat across from Karl's desk wearing a prim gray suit that would have looked at home on a school teacher except for the fact she wore no blouse underneath. The jacket buttoned just above her waist so there was skin showing nearly to her navel. Flesh Girl. In his mind, that's what he'd nicknamed her. He was going to trade on that idea—nothing in the world skated as well as selling sex—but here she was leaving him when they'd hardly started a campaign for her.

"I think your agent's wrong. You're making a mistake," he said calmly.

She wrinkled her nose and glanced over at his closed office door as if she smelled something bad. She knew about the blood that had soaked the outer office. Karl didn't know how she and his other clients knew. It wasn't reported in the papers or trades. But word traveled in this town like an oil fire over still water.

"Whoever broke in the other night isn't anyone who knows you, Karleen. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid," she said, straightening her shoulders and looking past him to the windows at his back. He wished she'd look at him. "I just don't need your services right now."

Karl glanced down at the pen in his hand. He'd been twirling it nervously and now he let it drop to the desk. He stood. "All right. If you've made up your mind, I guess that's it. I'm sorry to lose you. I had an interesting idea for your future, but . . ." He shrugged.

She stood and held out her hand. He saw half her left breast, a small suntanned moon peeking from the suit lapel. "It's got nothing to do with . . . you know." She gestured with her head toward the door.

"No, of course not."

"When I'm making more money, I'll probably be back.”

“I hope you will," he said.

She wouldn't make a lot more money if she didn't use him, he thought. You didn't make it here by looking deliciously sexy in a gray suit or by having an agent. It took more than that, lots more. But she'd been scared off by the incident that had ruined his office and he had to let her go, what could he do?

After she'd left his office, he slumped in his chair. That was the fourth new client he'd lost in as many days. It couldn't just be the break-in. Someone was getting to them, warning them off. Karl wasn't much for conspiracy theories, but the actions taken against him were as plain as day. You didn't have to be paranoid to see the barren landscape lying in wait ahead of him. His stalker simply had to be the culprit, running off his clients.

Before Karleen Comodore had come to give him her regrets this morning, he had received in the day's mail a rejection for his request for a Gold Visa. He already had a Gold Mastercard, a Diner's Club card, American Express, and maybe half a dozen other credit cards. His secretary, Lois, must have filled out the Gold Visa request off one of the advertisements that came to the office periodically. She had been trying to handle things like that so he wouldn't be bothered. He, personally, didn't give a rat's ass about another gold card line of credit.

But that they had refused him made him sit with the rejection letter in his hand, puzzling. They turned him down? He was worth roughly a million plus, owned real estate in Malibu free and clear, took in a salary from his management business that consistently went over eight hundred grand even with two accountants trying to bury his profits from the IRS, and a bank somewhere in this country turned him down for a gold card? It was unbelievable.

First Karl called in Lois and asked if she was the one who had filled out the application for the card. She had, yes, was that wrong? She knew she didn't ask him, but . . .

No, he told her, it wasn't wrong, thanks. She went back to her desk, frowning slightly.

Then he called two credit bureaus. The one in L.A. and the one in Burbank. They would not discuss on the telephone his credit rating, but they'd send him copies of their reports for ten dollars a copy. He sent for them with the fees enclosed. Now it would be a few days before he could really find out what was going on. The rejection of his application for the gold card noted "outstanding credit obligations and payment record" as the reasons for turning him down.

Obviously someone had monkeyed with his credit rating. How could they do that? Computer hacking? A friend in the credit bureau?

Karl had heard of people being ruined by vindictive ex-spouses and envious business partners. There were ways to completely undermine a person's life since everything was digitally available. If you knew the codes and the underhanded tricks, the chains to yank, the people to bribe. And somebody did.

A short rap sounded from the door and Sherry Northumberland peeked in. "Lunch?" she asked. "I have an hour free."

He smiled on seeing her sunny face. Sherry had been one of his first clients ten years before when he first started his business. He had been instrumental in getting her face known about town, introduced her to producers and directors, took her to the right parties. She was doing okay now, chosen consistently for strong female leads. He remembered that he had bought the fine walnut desk he now sat behind from his commission on the Northumberland account.

"Yeah. Lunch sounds great. Let me speak to Lois and meet you in the waiting room."

She shut the door but not before winking. He smiled, felt lighter than he had in days. Part of Sherry's success was due to the effect she had on people. She was like rain after a parched summer drought. He could use lunch with someone cheerful who might help chase away the clouds hanging over his head.

~ * ~

They sat across from one another at a little spaghetti place called Farrar's not far from his office. They wouldn't be bothered here. And Sherry didn't need to be seen at Tuscany's in Brentwood to add to her allure. At least not today.

"So how's life, kid?" She slurped from a large Coke through a straw. She wore a dazzling buttercup-yellow dress that highlighted her dark looks. She favored the dress style of the fifties. Shirtwaists, pleated bodices, belts of the same fabric as the dress.

"Your account's doing okay. You don't need me much these days, Sherry."

She waved that away. "I didn't mean me. I meant you. I heard you had some trouble at the office. Who would do such an obscene thing?"

He sipped from his cup of coffee. His tenth since rising. He felt all jangled on the caffeine, but on the other hand he needed the lift. He thought if he didn't drink coffee down like water, he'd collapse in a tired little puddle.

He hadn't wanted to talk about his troubles. He wanted to hear about her picture and if she was happy with the new husband and the new baby. Tanya, they'd named her. "I guess everyone knows. I lost a new client this morning because of it. Rumors must make it sound worse than it was."

"Blood all over the place isn't bad?"

"It's some kook."

"I hear it might be a woman. I told you about loving them and leaving them." She grinned and pointed a finger at him. She could say things like that. They hadn't been involved. And he'd known her so long.

"I don't know who it is."

"But it could be a woman?"

He dug into his spaghetti. "I guess it could. I figure it has to be." He ate a mouthful, then put down his fork. "You're not leaving me too, are you, Sherry?"

"Hell no! You think I'd take you to a lunch this expensive to fire you?"

He had to smile. Farrar's was one of the most inexpensive cafés in the whole area. "I'm relieved to hear that. Even if you're doing fine, I want to keep track of your career."

"I'm not leaving you, Karl. Ease up. If you're losing new clients, they were kids you couldn't help anyway. You have to have balls for this business. They won't make it if a little rumor and innuendo scare them off."

Though he secretly agreed with her, he knew there were other publicity companies they could turn to. He wasn't the only one in town. He was just the best.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, tackling a string of spaghetti that kept slipping off her fork. "There are other outfits they can go to, but no one like you, Karl. No one I'd trust my whole life to, but you."

He was touched and told her so.

"Don't thank me for the truth."

"What's the rumor?" he asked. "What are people saying?"

She motioned for the waitress to refill her glass of Coke. "It's nothing much."

"Tell me. If I don't know what's being said, I can't fight it.”

She looked him in the eyes. He'd never noticed before how long her lashes were. She was a dove-like woman, soft and embraceable. He wondered why they'd never had an affair—and now it was too late. Maybe he wasn't her type. He didn't get to sleep with all his pretty clients. Didn't even make the effort. It got too messy combining business with pleasure, although that's how Hollywood worked, for the main. He just didn't like all the complications. Look how his marriage to Robyn had turned out for an example of how it could go wrong, he thought bitterly.

"They're saying you hurt someone. That someone's out to hurt you back."

"That's bullshit!"

"You told me to tell you the rumor. That's the rumor, Karl. I know it's a crock of shit and I said that to the person who told me. 'That's the biggest crock of shit I ever heard,' that's what I said."

"I've stepped on toes, but who in the business hasn't? But I swear to you, Sherry, I've never deliberately fucked anyone over. Never. That's not how I operate."

"Singing to the choir, baby." She smiled again and he sat back, wiping his mouth, easy once more.

"So what are you going to do about it?" She took the refilled Coke from the waitress and gave her a smile as winning as the one she had given him.

"The police pulled out of it. They won't be a help so I'm on my own."

"Why did they do that?"

"They have a point system, sort of, in stalking cases. I don't have enough points."

"What's that mean?"

"It boils down to the fact I haven't been physically threatened or assaulted."

"Someone tried to run you off the freeway!"

He glanced up. "You know about that, too?"

She nodded. "I'm afraid I might know most everything. Like everyone else."

"The police said the freeway thing might not be connected. Until someone says they're going to kill me, put out a hit on me, or actually stick a knife in my back, they can't really get involved. There's something like four thousand stalkings going on in L.A. every year. Did you know that?" She shook her head. Shock at the high number caused her to frown, worried. Actresses were usually the target for stalkers. "And the numbers are rising. They don't have the manpower to get involved and they don't have the authority until there's been . . ."

"Blood."

He winced, remembering the office covered with sticky, stinking clots of the stuff. "Yeah," he said. "Until someone brings out the knife."

Sherry looked pained and pushed her plate aside. "I think my appetite just went to Caracas."

"Mine too."

He finished his coffee and she drank her Coke and they let silence hold them in the palm of its hand so they didn't have to talk anymore about what a toilet his life was turning into.

On the sidewalk when they parted, she gave him a big hug. "I'll spread the rumor that the rumor everyone's hearing is a lie. Maybe that'll help."

"You're fabulous, Sherry. I love you like a sister. Kiss little Tanya for me. We'll get together . . ."

She smacked him on the arm before walking away. He watched her yellow dress, the full skirt buoyed by petticoats, move and sway with the motion of her lithe legs.

She halted, turned around, shielded her eyes even though she wore dark sunglasses. "You'll be careful?"

"You betcha."

"All right." She waved. "All right," she said, "call me if you need me."

She left him on the sidewalk in the famous Californian golden sunlight, his worry heavier than it had been in his office, before the lunch.

Nasty rumors, horrible incidents, credit bureau snafus—what next? he wondered. Is there really a knife aimed at my back?

Who, who, who?

He needed to call Catherine. And Marilyn. And a few more women.

Sherry and the rumor mill were right. He had hurt someone and she was out to hurt him back. Hard.

16

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'"

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Karl watched Lisa carefully as she removed her satin slip the color of cranberries and stood naked before him. He reached out and took her by the waist, drawing her close enough to press his face into her breasts. Lisa Golden's body could make him forget his name. He knew he shouldn't use her as a drug, but sometimes it was necessary to blot out the world just for a while. Lisa would forgive him if she knew. And she probably knew. Not only was Lisa smart, but she was perceptive beyond her years.

She ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, caressing his scalp and pulling his face over a few inches for him to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

His head swam and he groaned aloud. He moved from her nipple, kissing her breast as he went, rising from the edge of the mattress, kissing the hollow of her throat that smelled of a floral perfume and then to her chin, and finally her lips. He laid her on the bed, soaking in her heat.

She took a thatch of his hair and pulled his head away. He looked into her eyes, believing she would request something special.

"When can I move in?"

Oh god. Not that. Not now. He felt his ardor wane, turned from her, and lay on his back staring at the ceiling.

"Karl? Did I say something wrong? It's been a year of this aggravation where I have to dress and leave for my place or you dress and leave for yours."

He rolled his head from side to side. "It's not wrong, Lisa. It's just . . . inconvenient."