Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (3 page)

     The sound of glass clinking brought Frieda back to look at Carole Page, who was just about to drain the bottle of Dom Pérignon that had been intended for the three of them. Frieda didn't mind not having any; she had declined it, in fact, because she was saving her celebrating for when she showed Bunny what was in her attaché case. Frieda had brought along a bottle of Mandarine Napoleon, Bunny's favorite liqueur, just for the special moment. They would pour it over ice and toast each other, the world, and beautiful, beautiful life.

     As the empty champagne bottle went back into the ice bucket, something made Frieda think that Carole Page wasn't drinking out of nervousness over a tram ride, but because of deeper, more disturbing causes. Frieda had heard rumors around the industry that Carole's latest movie was a bomb, her fourth in a row, signaling a career in trouble. Frieda tried to be discreet in her scrutiny of the beautiful actress, but she couldn't miss the familiar haunted look around Carole's eyes. One saw it
everywhere in Hollywood: the look of a woman swept up in the grip of the aging process and terrified of it. Carole Page had been spectacular in her twenties and early thirties, filling a movie screen with a sparkle and dazzle that was uniquely her own. But then, inch by inch, it seemed the sparkle had begun to tarnish, the dazzle to fade, until now a pale shadow of fear hovered in those sapphire eyes. Frieda had seen it time and again in her years as an agent; it was an affliction as old as the movie industry itself. Beautiful women were not allowed to age.

     Feeling a sneeze coming on, she reached into her alligator handbag for a tissue. Not quite catching the sneeze before it escaped, so that she muffled a small
quack
with her Kleenex, Frieda smiled apologetically at the woman sitting next to Carole, who had briefly looked over at her. That she was a doctor was apparent from the medical bag and the name stamped in the leather. And she looked doctorish, Frieda thought, with no makeup, mahogany hair braided into a thick coil at the back of her head, and strong and capable hands with neatly trimmed fingernails. Frieda guessed that the doctor was in her late thirties, with no wedding band in evidence, and she wondered what was bringing
her
up to the snowbound resort.

     The car stopped at a second gate, where another guard checked the passengers against his list on the clipboard, and then it continued along a road that grew narrow and steep as it wound into the foothills. Suddenly, the sunlight was gone and night swept across the desert. High granite walls closed in on the limousine as it cut through a canyon floor littered with huge boulders and prehistoric rock formations. Long shadows spilled from rugged ravines and gullies, the scrub gave way to stunted pine trees, and the air grew icy, even though there was no snow at this level. Frieda could imagine what the resort was going to be like: appallingly rustic with unbearable movie snobs paying out tons of money to "rough it." But she warmed herself with the thought of the 15 percent of the multi-million-dollar deal she was going to get, as soon as Bunny signed the papers.

     "This must be it," Carole said as the limousine drew to a halt in front of a small, plain building that had no windows, no signs indicating what it was—just an ordinary, unassuming door. There was a tiny parking lot next to it, filled with Jaguars, BMWs, a classic Corvette, and two bright red Ferraris.
And a uniformed guard patrolling it. Just beyond the flat roof of the small building the first of the cable towers could be seen, along with the corner of the shed that housed the massive tramway machinery.

     When the chauffeur opened the passenger door, letting in a gust of arctic air, Carole briefly held back, thinking that this was her last chance to abandon her insane plan and turn around and go home to Sanford. But, reminding herself that what she was going to do she was actually doing for him, she slipped her hand into the driver's gloved hand, returned his smile with one that she hoped was equally charming, and walked toward the plain door. Frieda Goldman came out next, clutching the attaché case and feeling the alpine air sweep down the mountain and slice through her summery clothes. The driver flashed her a sexy smile, and she noticed how strong his grip was. She hurried after Carole, praying that the building was heated. The third woman came out last, drawing her down-filled jacket over her chest with one hand, carrying the medical bag in the other. She didn't accept the driver's hand; she didn't receive or return his smile, because her eyes were fixed on the mountain that rose before her in formidable majesty and promise. She followed Carole and Frieda through the unassuming door and was at once met by a clearer, more breathtaking view of the mountain, seen through the glass wall on the other side of the room. She also received a shock. This little building was the tramway boarding lounge, and it bore no resemblance to the inhospitable wilderness surrounding it.

     Dr. Judith Isaacs had once flown on the Concorde to London for a medical convention, and the British Airways boarding lounge in New York reminded her of this one—filled with people milling around a bountifully spread buffet and a fully stocked bar. But the Concorde lounge was done in a muted traveler's gray, while the waiting area for the Star's tram had been done in trendy desert romantic—white linen sofas, knobby pillows, Indian rugs, pre-Columbian sculpture, and palms and cacti in massive southwestern pots.

     Judith quickly scanned the crowd for children, but she saw none. She had been promised that there would be no children at Star's. She relaxed an inch.

     "Seventy percent of your patients at Star's will be there for plastic surgery," she had been told during her employment interview, and as she
looked around at the other guests who were quietly waiting for the tram, sitting with their sable coats and lynx jackets, their ski poles and golf bags, wearing faces that were famous or looked as if they should be, she wondered what these beautiful, perfect people could possibly do surgically to improve themselves. Maybe a few of them would end up as her patients, she thought; maybe Carole Page, who had been so nervous in the car, drinking all the champagne and touching her lips every so often, would wind up in Judith's examination room. Judith surmised that the actress had had her lips augmented—the whitish unnatural outline of the lips and the slightly flattened indentation in the upper lip were telltale signs of collagen injections. Judith also wondered if Carole had come to Star's for further cosmetic surgery, although what else that slender, large-breasted body could possibly need she couldn't guess. But it didn't matter to Judith. Whatever ailments these rich and famous people brought to her—face-lifts or tennis elbows, nose jobs or ski injuries—it wouldn't be like practicing real medicine. Dr. Isaacs had sworn never to practice real medicine again.

     She went to the cold glass wall and looked up at the snowy mountain that stood in the gloom of desert twilight. The actual peak of San Jacinto was hidden behind swirling mists, so the resort couldn't be seen, imbuing it with further mystery and heightening her anticipation of working at a place she had never seen. The jagged slopes and roughly hewn ravines were painted in strange, almost unnatural colors, intensely sharp and deep, with the surrounding Santa Rosa Range glowing a golden russet where bottomless purple shadows filled canyons and arroyos. It reminded Judith of the Maxfield Parrish painting that hung in her master bedroom. That
had
hung in her master bedroom.

     She watched movements in the reflection of the lounge behind her, some of the couples sitting close together, murmuring over drinks, other guests sitting alone, fingers drumming nervously, their eyes casting furtive but knowing glances. Judith wondered how many illicit rendezvous were being put into motion tonight, like the dark-haired actress by the bar, known for her bitchy role in a nighttime soap opera—she kept glancing over her shoulder at a sandy-haired jock sitting in the corner, who was clearly pretending to read a copy of
Hollywood Reporter
while he returned those
quick, veiled looks. Romance was in the air, Judith thought; perhaps more accurately, sex was in the air. The occasional laughter seemed to ring with it; the champagne glittered with it. When she saw the chauffeur on the far side of the lounge bringing her luggage in, so tall and young and broad shouldered, she realized that he, too, seemed made for sex.

     Then in the window's reflection she saw Carole Page come away from the bar with a sparkling glass of wine, and Judith thought how perfectly the actress fit in with this beautiful crowd, slender and stunning with thick ash-blond hair cascading over the wide shoulders of her silver fox coat. Carole cast an anxious glance around as she crossed the lounge, and then she came to stand next to Judith at the window. They stared in silence at the fragile-looking tramway cable that looped away from the foothill station, rose up between craggy pine-covered bluffs, and disappeared into the clouds at the top. After a moment Carole said, out of the blue, "They say it's haunted," as though she and Judith had been having a conversation.

     "I beg your pardon?"

     "The mansion up at Star's," Carole said. "It used to be owned by that silent movie queen who disappeared mysteriously back in the thirties. It was called Star's Haven, and there was a sensational murder there, some movie director who was a sexual deviate. They call it the Obscene Bathroom Murder. Marion Star was the main suspect, and she vanished. They never found out who killed him."

     Judith stared at Carole for a moment, then looked back at the mountain that was rapidly being swallowed up by the night. She thought of the employment interview she had had with the resort's general manager a few weeks ago, and how there had been no mention of the owner of Star's or the identity of Judith's real employer. And she realized now how strange it was to be going to work for someone she had never met, whose name she didn't even know. So she said to Carole, "Do you know who owns it?"

     "No, and I don't know anyone who does. I have friends who've stayed here, but no one's ever met the owner. There's a rumor that he or she has a sordid past, but I don't know."

     They fell silent again as they watched the toylike tram car make its way slowly down the mountain. It didn't look large enough to hold all these
people, and the cables didn't look strong enough. Carole was thinking that maybe she
was
afraid of tramways after all and took a healthy drink of the champagne. Judith thought that the cable needed only to be strong enough to take her up the mountain, because once she was up there she was never going to come down again.

     At the buffet, Frieda Goldman inspected the bountiful offering and decided upon a giant mushroom stuffed with crab. As she nibbled on it, wondering how many calories it contained, she looked around the lounge, which had come as a surprise. She recognized many who were here; mostly they were movie people, and they all seemed electrified. The air was charged with excitement and anticipation, and when she saw the rich flash of diamonds and gold, her vision of the mountain resort underwent some fine-tuning. It might have snow and frost, but it would be luxuriously elegant; only the best. She was beginning to suspect that that was why Bunny had stayed so long—she was having too much fun. Possibly, Frieda speculated as she caught sight of the sinfully handsome chauffeur again, the homely little Kowalski girl from Scranton had found love and romance at last.

     Frieda crossed the lounge to where Carole Page and the doctor were standing, and she murmured, "Good lord," her eyes growing wide behind the tortoiseshell glasses. "It's the North Pole already." She shook her head and her iron gray hair stayed in its perfect page boy.

     "I've heard that Star's is like a smaller version of Hearst Castle," Carole said in a quiet voice, as if afraid of disturbing the mountain. "It's full of incredible movie history. A lot of people go up there to see where the murder took place. But I came here for a rest." Which wasn't true. Carole was here because Larry Wolfe was coming to write Marion Star's story. Carole hoped to seduce him, get what she wanted, and be down the mountain as fast as she could.

     Judith said, "There's going to be a Christmas ball next Saturday night, and I understand it's very difficult to get an invitation. But as guests, of course you'll both be invited."

     "I won't be here for the ball," Frieda said, hugging her excitement to herself. "I'll be gone before then."

     "So will I," Carole echoed hopefully.

     They were both wrong.

P
HILIPA HAD JUST DEDICATED
"P
RAISE YOUR SUCCESS" INTO
her tape recorder when she looked up and saw, through the large window over her desk, a young man walk up from the beach toward the terrace of her house. He was shirtless, his lean, muscular arms and chest glowing in the Australian sun. Barefooted and hatless, all he wore was a pair of tight jeans. As he climbed the steps of the terrace, Philippa saw strong thighs, a sexy rear end, and a promising bulge that strained against his zipper.