Lucky Stars (25 page)

“Then what happened?”

“Turned out it wasn’t the booze talking. Carlos
was in charge of supervising th
e other members of Victor’s staff, including Vincent, the chauffeur, who took care of all the cars. I found him working on my Mercedes one day and asked what the problem was. He said Carlos told him to check the oil or something. I got into the car a few hours later and what do you
know? As I was on my way to Saks, the brakes failed, and I ended up
wrapped around a tree. I was supposed to die, but I didn’t. I survived, and the minute I was out of that hospital, I was on the phone to my lawyer dissolving the marriage.”

“But if Victor really tried to kill you, why didn’t you go to the police then?”

“With what proof? My car had bad brakes. I couldn’t make anyone believe that Victor
caused
the car to have bad brakes. You know what a smooth talker he is. Who’s gonna believe a boozy bitch like me over Mr. Hollywood Snake Oil Salesman? And then there was the issue of publicity; I didn’t want any. My father was a pillar of the community and the family didn’t need a scandal. I’d given them enough headaches over the years, including marrying a man they didn’t trust from day one.”

“So Victor really tried to kill you.”

“You got it.”

“And he admitted to killing Mary Elizabeth?”

“He claimed he got Rosa to do it. You’ve met the senora, I assume?”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing. She was as corrupt as the rest of them. The night of Victor’s big confession, he told me she put something in Mary Elizabeth’s food—something that killed her. Apparently, Rosa always prepared them a cooler full of treats to take on their sailing trips. Mary Elizabeth had a lot of food allergies, he said, so she liked to bring her own meals whenever possible. The day she supposedly drowned, Rosa must have given her something she wasn’t allowed to eat, and that was the end of her.”

“And whatever it was didn’t show up in the autopsy,” I mused. “It’s amazing that Victor got away with what he did.”

“Not so amazing, honey. That man always
gets away
with what he does. He’ll never get nailed.”

“Oh, yes he will. And I’m going to be the one to
nail
him. Thanks to you, my mother won’t end up like
Mary
Elizabeth.”

“
Thanks to me? I already told you. I’m not telling
my
story to the police.”

“Forget the police. My mother doesn’t need the negative publicity any more than you do. Police lead to reporters and photographers and TV cameras. If they all got hold of the fact that she? was about to marry a criminal, her career as the straight-shooting Fin’s Premium Tuna Lady would be history. She’d be the butt of jokes, lose her credibility, wonder why her phone has stopped ringing. She’d be devastated to find out what it’s like to fail in this town.”

“That would be messy, wouldn’t it?” said Karen.

“Very. In addition to the professional fiasco, there would be an emotional toll on her if the cops burst in on her love nest and dragged Victor away in handcuffs. She might go into denial. She might view him as a martyr. She might refuse to believe he did anything wrong. She might even think I put the police up to arresting him, just to come between them. That’s what she believes about me anyway—that I can’t bear for her to be happy.”

“So what’s the solution? You can’t let her go ahead and marry Victor.”

“You’re right. I can’t. So I guess the solution is for her to catch him in the act of being a liar and a cheat, to discover for herself what a creep he is. The revelation will knock her for a loop no matter how I handle this, but I might be able to soften the blow just a little if I arrange it so she sees him for who he really is and then
breaks it off with him—herself. That’s the only way she’ll emerge with a shred of self-respect, with any sense of empowerment.”

“Wow. Your mother’s a lucky lady to have such a caring and creative daughter,” said Karen. “It’s cool that you want her to save face like that. But Victor is a cagey guy, honey. How are you going to arrange for her to catch him in the act of being a louse?”

“Yeah, how?” said Jack and Maura, who were listening in on an extension.

“I have an idea,” I said to all of them.

t
hirty-one

J
ack accompanied me on my trip to Wisconsin. Talk about a good sport. For a guy who’d spent his life avoiding emotional involvement, not to mention fearing exposure about taking Victor’s bribe, he demonstrated his commitment to me by telling his producers he had a “family emergency” and would have to skip a taping or two of his show. It’s a
clich
é
to say that it’s in crisis situations that you find out who your true friends are, but I found out what a true
fri
end he was during my mission to save my mother.

And he wasn’t just along for moral support. He had an important job to do. Since he was a professional interviewer and was skilled at getting people to say and do things they might not otherwise say and do, he had
the task of helping me convince the former Mrs. Chellus to participate in my scheme.

Was I comfortable leaving my mother in Victor’s clutches up in Montecito while the two of us were flying to Milwaukee? Hardly. But I was counting on putting my plan in motion in time to keep her from walking down the aisle with that crackpot.

So there we were, standing on Karen Sweetzer’s front porch, waiting for her to let us in. She lived in a white, Southern colonial in the Fox Point section of the city and, judging by the house’s size and setting, she wasn’t hurting financially. She was cordial when she finally answered the door, although our presence clearly pained her. She had thought she’d gotten rid of Victor and the memories of their turbulent time together, and now here we were dredging everything up again.

She stood at the door, a cigarette in hand, her shoulder-length platinum blond hair so teased and stiff with spray it had the look and texture of cotton candy. She was in her mid-to-late fifties, I guessed, but seemed older, due to the heaviness around her hips and the deep crevices around her mouth. She wore tight-fitting black Capri pants, black mules with pom-poms on them, and a white button-down blouse that was opened to reveal a great deal of cleavage. She wasn’t beautiful—her nose was a little too long for her face and her blue eyes were obscured by too much mascara and her lips had been collagened into miniballoons—but she was striking in a showy sort of way. Obviously, Victor must have found her so, along with her family’s financial portfolio.

“Come in,” she said, waving us inside, her fingernails painted the same vermilion red as her mouth. “Oh, and don’t mind my precious Luther. He’ll calm down once he gets to know you.”

Precious Luther was a Doberman. He was getting to know us all right, first by baring his teeth and growling at us, then by sniffing our crotches.

We sat in her living room. The sofa and chairs were draped in sheets of plastic, perhaps to prevent Luther from devouring the upholstery. I’ve never understood this—why have furniture if you’re going to cover it up?—but there we were.

“Karen,” Jack began once we were all settled and Luther had left us alone. “Let me begin by thanking you for all the information you gave Stacey on the phone, and, of course, for agreeing to see us now.”

“Hey,
I
’m not wild about this, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you everything I know about Victor. The fact that you turn out to be the guy on
Good Morning, Hollywood
doesn’t hurt, either. I’m as big a star fucker as the next person.”

Karen had a bit of a potty mouth, but I hadn’t expected a nun.

Jack cleared his throat. “Karen, we came here to ask you a favor.”

“What kind of favor? I already told you more than I intended.” As her body tensed, so did Luther’s, and so, as a result, did mine.

“As Stacey explained on the phone, we don’t want to send the police to the hotel in Montecito to arrest Victor. We want Helen to find out what a rat he is on her own.”

“And as I also explained, my mother isn’t speaking to me,” I added. “So it’s not as if I’m the one who can persuade her that he’s a rat. I can’t even show my face there.”

“Which leaves you, Karen,” said Jack. “You’re the one who can reach Helen.”

“Me? How?” She gestured wildly with her cigarette,
causing the ashes to fall onto the carpet. Perhaps she should have put plastic on the floor, too.

“By flying back to California with us,” said Jack. “Our idea is that we’ll get you a room at the San Ysidro Ranch, where Helen and Victor are staying, and that you’ll confront him—both of them—with the truth. Helen will be able to hear your story for herself, without a clue that Stacey had anything to do with it. What’s more, she’ll be able to watch Victor reveal his dark side as you accuse him of being a murderer. She’ll be so appalled by the horrific nature of the whole affair that she’ll leave him so fast, he won’t know what hit him
and
she’ll realize Stacey was right about him, thereby repairing their relationship.”

“Oh, Karen,” I said, taking her hand in what I hoped would be a display of sisterhood. Luther thought otherwise and appeared to want to maul me. “Tell us you’ll do this. Tell us you’ll save my mother’s life. It’ll only take a day or two out of your schedule and, of course, we’ll pick up all your expenses.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d like to help—as I told you, I think your mother’s a real role model for women—but I can’t bring myself to face off with Victor, not after what he tried to do to me. The man wanted me dead. Dead! I can barely spit out his name, let alone be in the same room with him.”

With that pronouncement, she broke into big, bronchial sobs that soaked her face with tears blackened by her mascara.

Jack rushed over with a handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose loudly. Then she looked up at us. “Please don’t think I’m a bad person,” she said, her tough-broad image deserting her. “It’s just that I’m afraid.”

“I understand,” I said. “I’d be afraid, too, if my husband tried to murder me. But Jack and I will be right outside the door while you’re having it out with Victor. He won’t be able to hurt you. I promise, Karen. Please trust me, trust us.”

“I do trust you. It’s just that I’m
scared
!” Karen wailed, shredding the tissue into tiny pieces, most of which clung to her black capri pants. “Why do you think I keep Luther around? You don’t get over it when someone tries to kill you.”

“But imagine how sweet the revenge will be,” Jack reminded her. “Just picture Victor’s face when you show up and ruin his seduction of Stacey’s mother.”

“We need you to go to Montecito, Karen,” I said, taking both of her hands in mine this time—before she could light another cigarette and make the room even smokier than it was. “Remember what I told you on the phone. In order for my mother to emerge with her self
-
esteem intact, as well as her career, it’s essential that she be the one to catch Victor in his lies and then dump him quietly, rather than watch him be carted off by the police and see herself on the front pages of the tabloids. That’s why you have to arrive at the hotel and surprise Victor. He’ll go postal, right in front of my mother, and she won’t have any recourse but to give him the boot.”

“I wish I had a daughter like you,” said Karen, drying her tears. “I have nobody but Luther, while you have this tight bond with your mother—when you’re speaking to each other, that is.”

“You know, only a few months ago I would have
paid
a man to marry her, just so she’d get off my back and focus on someone else for a change. But this mess with Victor has made me realize that I want a relationship with her, even if it means putting up with her harangues. I want her in my life more than I don’t want her in my
life. I love her more than I want her to change. In a nutshell, I understand now that if I want her to accept me for who I am, I’ll have to accept her for who she is. Does any of that make sense to you?”

Karen nodded. “The question is: Does my not wanting to go with you to California make sense to
you?”

“Of course. I’m sympathetic to the fact that you’re afraid of being around Victor. But what if you took Luther with you?”

“Come on. You can’t just pick up and go places when you’ve got a
dog,
”
she said as if I were an idiot, “especially one with Luther’s special needs.” Luther was, at that moment, caressing his balls.

“So you won’t change your mind?” said Jack, looking defeated.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

I wasn’t giving up. Not yet. “But remember, my mother’s your role model,” I persisted. “You said you adore her, Karen. She’s the same woman who wags her finger and scolds the audience about buying the best tuna fish and you’re in a position to help her. She’s been having a great run, getting parts in sitcoms, dramas, and feature films. She’s even appeared on Oprah twice. Her entire image—the very foundation of her success—is based on her credibility, her reputation for being a woman of solid, upright, no-nonsense values. If the media found out she was marrying a murderer, that would be the end of her career in show business. I know from firsthand experience how hard it is to get where she’s gotten, and I’m not about to let her blow it all because of some guy with a screw loose.”

“What do you mean, you know from firsthand experience?” said Karen.

“Oh,” I replied. “I guess I should have said something
about my own background. It just didn’t seem important in view of what my mother is going through. I’m an actress, too.”

“Stacey is a fine actress,” said Jack. “Maybe you caught her in the Jim Carrey comedy
Pet Peeve.
The movie was a stinker and she didn’t have much to work with in terms of a script, but she rose above the material. I didn’t realize how good she was the first time I screened the picture, but I’ve seen it again since then and I can tell you she’s wonderful.”

I smiled at him, flattered that he was praising me to a perfect stranger, gratified that he was admitting he’d been wrong about me, comforted that he was in love with me and had proven it by
his words and deeds in my hour
of need. But the fact remained that even if I did have all the talent in the world, even if I was better than my resume suggested, even if I were to achieve the level of stardom I’d always dreamed of, it wouldn’t prevent my mother’s career from crashing and burning, and it was her career I was worried about at that moment, not mine.

Of course, it didn’t occur to me until a minute or two later that by finally letting go of my professional disappointments—from the juicy parts I’d never landed to the rave reviews I’d never garnered—and simply trusting my acting ability for once, I might actually be able to salvage Mom’s career, not to mention my own. Why did I need Karen to show up in Montecito, I realized, when I could just as easily play her?