My Lucky Star (33 page)

“So,” she said when I’d finished, “is that Moira’s laptop?”

I nodded.

“And the copy you made? Well hidden, I hope?”

“What copy?” I asked, thrown, not for the first time, by her perspicacity.

She heaved an annoyed sigh. “You have a laptop containing footage of you making whoopee with Stephen. You also have a stack
of rewritable DVDs. Do you expect me to believe you didn’t make a copy?”

“It never even occurred to me!”

“Is it well hidden?”

“Yes, very.”

“Good. We may need it if the going gets rough.”

“Just what I said!” crowed Gilbert, pleasantly astonished to be vindicated by Claire of all people.

Claire advised us not to mention the copy to Sonia, prompting hoots of derision from Gilbert and me.

“Well, duh!”

“What are we,
idiots?
” I asked, realizing at once that I’d rather lobbed it up there for Claire, who responded with a solid triple.

A car pulled up outside. Peering through the blinds, I saw a large black sedan in our driveway. I was suddenly grateful that
Claire had rallied to our defense and told her so.

“I’m not here to defend you, you half-wit. I’m just here to keep that vindictive harpy from demolishing our careers.”

“How do you plan to do that?” asked Gilbert.

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if I knew?”

I opened the door and was much taken aback to find Sonia accompanied not only by Stephen but Diana as well. Sonia’s expression
would have had to brighten considerably to achieve mere malevolence. Diana looked only slightly less murderous while Stephen
resembled a morose somnambulist.

Stress has a way of bringing out my perky side and I chirped, “Come in!” as though they were my book group and we were reading
Patrick Dennis. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

Stephen and Sonia declined but Diana growled a request for a vodka rocks as Sonia steered her into the living room.

“You told your mom?!” I whispered to Stephen.

“Sonia thought we might need her help,” he said, his glazed, “Do not resuscitate” stare suggesting just how merry that mother-son
chat had been.

We entered the living room, where Gilbert had mixed himself a second Bloody, which, from its watermelon hue, looked to be
90 percent Stoli. I fixed Diana’s drink and was rewarded with a glare of unbridled abhorrence; she couldn’t have hated me
more if I’d been a fluorescent light.

“I’m guessing you’re Claire,” sneered Sonia.

“Yes. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s a real pleasure! Makes my whole fucking morning.” She jabbed a finger at the table where we’d gathered our
plunder. “Is this all of it?”

“That’s everything,” I said.

She squinted mistrustfully.

“You sure about that, Daisy?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Because if you assholes are holding out on me —”

Claire said, “They obtained this material at considerable personal risk for the sole purpose of protecting your client. You
might show a little less rudeness and a little more gratitude.”

“
GRATITUDE!
” roared Sonia. “Oh forgive me, Missy!
Thank you
for luring my client into a gay sex ring!
Thank you
for telling him to trust a woman you knew was a blackmailing bitch!
Thank you
for possibly making the most successful actor of his generation a washed-up fucking punchline! Scumbags! You make me puke!”

She seized the computer and disks, marched out to her car, hurled them into her trunk, and rejoined us. She appeared to feel
that, with the evidence now secured, she could safely abandon the bonhomie she’d displayed thus far.

“You miserable little shits! I told you what would happen if you messed with my clients, but you didn’t believe me, did you?
Well, you’re going to find out how wrong you were! For starters, don’t think you can tell
anyone
about this and be believed because you will have
zero
credibility in this town. The minute I leave here I’m sending Bobby Spellman a DVD of
Casablanca.
Then I’ll make sure there are stories in
Variety
, the
LA Times
, and the AP about how you sleazebags conned your way into a job with my clients—which you can consider terminated as of now.
Then you will drag your sorry asses back to whatever fucking hole you crawled out of and never come near this town or my clients
again!!”

Harsh stuff, you’ll agree, and Gilbert and I regarded each other with suitably bug-eyed distress. But Claire rose and faced
the ogress with an assured, commanding look such as Joan of Arc might have worn after a fortifying breakfast.

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you don’t, huh?”

“No, ’fraid not. We have an agent here and other job offers and we mean to take them.”

“Oh, trust me, hon,” said Sonia with a vinegary snicker, “those offers are gonna go away real fast.”

“Are they?” Claire turned to Stephen. “I notice Gina didn’t come along today.”

“Leave Gina out of this,” he said sharply.

“It seems to me you’re the one leaving her out. She doesn’t know, does she?”

“Of course, she knows,” said Diana a shade too quickly. “She was too upset to come with us.”

Claire said, “Then you won’t mind my calling her to offer my condolences? She gave me her cell number so we could share thoughts
about the script.”

“You keep away from her!” warned Stephen.

“You haven’t told her. And you don’t intend to. She’s a bit of a loose cannon, your Gina. Not the brightest bulb on the marquee
and not exactly the soul of discretion. She told me all about your aunt’s memoir and her fear that Lily might rehash the malicious,
‘
completely unfounded
’ rumor that you’ve slept with men. You’re terrified that if she finds out she’ll divorce you and tell anyone who asks why.
She might even write a book of her own.”

Sonia was incredulous to the point of apoplexy.

“Are you
threatening
my client?!”

“Sorry, love, was I not being clear? Yes, I’m threatening your client and frankly, you truculent toad, I have every right
to. How dare you presume it’s our duty to safeguard your reputations even as you blacken ours, firing us and telling the whole
town we’re plagiarists!”

“But you
are
plagiarists!” said Sonia triumphantly.

“And your client
did
fuck an Oscar! And if you smear us, his wife will hear about it.”

“That’s telling ’em, Claire!” shouted Gilbert.

Stephen shot me a look of pleading disbelief as though he were being mugged and I was a nearby patrolman tending to my nails
with an emery board.

“Believe me, Stephen, this wasn’t my idea! Claire’s her own woman!”

He wheeled on her, his face a mask of aggrieved astonishment.

“So you’re just going to destroy my marriage?!”

“No,
you
are,” parried Claire, “if you don’t call off your pit bull and let us finish our work.”

“Right!” said Gilbert. “It’s time you people stopped blaming your problems on us. It’s not our fault!”

“Fuck you!” spat Stephen. “It was you two that dragged me to the damn spa!”

“For a massage! You’re the one who decided to throw an open house in his ass!”

“And just what,” added Claire, “were you planning to do about ‘Glen’ here? Do you really want to pull your spy out now, just
when Lily’s getting to the good stuff? Or do you have the Olympian gall to imagine Philip will go on doing your dirty work
after you’ve dragged him through the mud? Honestly, have you people thought this through at all?”

It was clear from Stephen’s and Diana’s expressions that they had not, recent events having consigned Lily’s memoir to the
back burner. I sensed too from the vexed glance Diana gave Stephen that she saw Claire’s point. They could hardly fire me
off Project A, permit Sonia to skip rope with my entrails, and still expect me to provide cheerful service on Project B. And
while Cavanaugh the Screenwriter could be liquidated without consequence, Cavanaugh the Mole remained a crucial asset.

“Look, Sonia,” sighed Stephen, “maybe we’re letting our emotions get the better of us.”

“YOU DO NOT NEED THESE PEOPLE!”
shouted Sonia, beside herself at the thought that her scimitar might rust, unused. “We can get someone else to ghost Lily’s
book!”

“Not if we warn her, you can’t,” said Claire.

“
More threats!!
Jesus, Stephen, are you gonna let these traitors, these
nobodies
, blackmail you?”

“There’s a difference,” said Claire, “between blackmail and self-defense. Which, I believe,” she added, glancing toward the
foyer, “we’re about to see illustrated.”

A throat cleared and the rest of us, startled, turned toward the foyer.

“I’m glad everyone’s here,” said Moira with a placid smile. “Saves
so
much trouble.”

I
SUSPECT MOST OF
you will concur by this point that a little Sonia goes a long way, so I’ll spare you the volcano of vitriol she disgorged
on learning that our visitor was the proprietress of Les Étoiles. Moira did not interrupt or try to defend herself. She listened
with the patience of a lass who has long known that one’s victims like to get these things off their chests and the experienced
villainess does not take them personally. When Sonia had finally barked herself hoarse, the rest of us agreed it might be
best to hear what Moira had to say.

Moira rose and addressed us with infuriating warmth, as though she were not the depraved architect of our misery but some
benevolent grief counselor to whom we’d turned for succor.

“First I want you all to know...I
get
it. You’re angry, you’re scared, you’re freaked out. All totally valid emotions. You feel like your whole world’s coming
to an end. But, here’s the headline—it’s not. So lighten up! I don’t blame you for what you’ve done—”

“Blame
us?!
” Diana snorted incredulously.

“I’m talking now. I mean, assaulting me in my own hotel, stealing my car. I was plenty mad about that. But, hell, you were
mad at me too, and if we can’t put all that behind us and move on, then where are we? I’ll be taking my car back of course.
As for the laptop”— she chuckled, ever the good sport—“I don’t expect you’ll be handing
that
over. Or the disks. You’re not idiots. But neither am I.

“Did you really think those were my
only
copies—just what was on the laptop and those disks? Or that I kept everything I had in the office where Kim could steal them
if she got greedy, leaving me with
nothing?
Trust me, kids, I have backups of everything. Or don’t trust me.”

She reached into her Hermès bag, removed a DVD, and tossed it to Stephen.

“Take a look at that, then ask yourself if I’d be giving it to you if it were my only copy. And in case you’re wondering,
yes, Oscar’s on there. So, nice try, kids,” she said, lighting a cigarette, “but I’m still driving the car.”

Stephen, who, from his expression, wouldn’t have cared at this point if the car were being driven by Thelma and Louise, stared
bleakly at the disk on his lap. Sonia, her spent bile duct having replenished itself, lumbered to her feet and began frothing
in injudicious proximity to Moira’s face.

“You snotty bitch! You will hand over EVERY COPY or I will rip your FUCKING HEART right out of your chest! ARRGH!” she added,
for Moira had just pepper-sprayed her.

“I’ll
KILL
you for that!” roared Sonia. She lunged blindly at Moira, who calmly sidestepped her, then, applying the sole of her Manolo
to Sonia’s ample fanny, sent her crashing chins first into a Bang & Olufsen subwoofer.

“Honestly, Stephen,” sighed Moira, distastefully eyeing her crumpled foe. “You should really consider hiring someone who can
calm down and just take a damn meeting.”

“You vile woman!” wailed Diana. “How can you do this to my son?”

“I haven’t done
anything
yet. And forgive my frankness, but you of all people should know what a woman has to do to get ahead in this town.”

Diana, stiffening at the suggestion that her success could be ascribed to anything save diligence and prayer, glared at Moira,
then helped Sonia to her feet.

“So,” said Claire, “is that what this was all about? The spa, the boys, the blackmail? All just your slimy little way of jump-starting
your film career?”

“Sorry, I missed that. Did the plagiarist say something?”

Claire glowered briefly at Moira, then shot me her “Have-Ithanked-you-today?” look. Meanwhile Moira, back in therapist mode,
sat beside Stephen, her manner earnest and comforting.

“I know how painful this is for you. You think your whole career is ruined. But it’s
not
. It’s going to go on, stronger than ever. And I’m going to be part of it. That’s been my whole purpose, my dream from the
beginning — to be in business with you.”

“Dream is right!” said Diana with woozy hauteur. “My Stephen would never make a picture for the likes of you!”

“He already has, dear,” noted Moira.

“If you show a single person one
frame
of that defamatory —!”

“Let her talk, Ma!” snapped Stephen.

“Thank you, Stephen,” Moira said and proceeded to outline the future they would share.

They would become partners. They would, effective immediately, form a company called Finch/Donato Productions. It would be
headquartered at Pinnacle, which, at Stephen’s insistence, would permit them to greenlight at least three pictures a year
with Stephen starring in at least one every other year. The partnership would be totally equal profitwise, Moira not being
the least bit greedy. And, as it was already in preproduction, the company’s first feature would be
The Heart in Hiding.

“So, what do you say, partner?” Moira smiled, extending a hand to shake. Stephen just stared at it, aghast at the thought
of forming a public alliance with this grinning pathogen.

“I
have
a production company.”

“Dissolve it.”

“If you think for one goddamn INSTANT —!”