Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (53 page)

T
HE PRIVATE PHONE RANG, INTERRUPTING AN IMPORTANT
meeting. The call was taken in a secluded office, out of the hearing of others.

     
"Philippa has reservations at the Marriott in Palm Springs," came the report. "She's on her way there right now."

     
"I see. Then we're almost out of time." An exotic red and green parrot with a bright yellow face skittered on its perch and let out a piercing squawk. When the bird was silenced: "Were you able to make the arrangements?"

     
"Don't worry, the special arrangements have been made. Everything is in place."

     
"Did you get the gun?"

     
"Yes."

     
"Good, I'm on my way."

I
'LL KILL YOU!
" C
AROLE SCREAMED AS SHE RAN AFTER
L
ARRY.
The fight drew the attention of several onlookers trudging through the snow on their way to the ski lift. One of them, a gossip columnist who was at Star's for the Christmas holiday, made a mental note that Larry Wolfe, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter, seemed to be having a secret hideaway fling with Carole Page, a still-beautiful over-forty actress whose career was rumored to be in trouble.

     Carole stopped chasing Larry long enough to bend down, scoop up some snow, and form it into a ball. She was out of breath from laughing. Larry had started the snowball fight. Carole had been taking a walk away from the main buildings of Star's, where snowplows regularly kept the grounds and pathways clear, and was heading toward the pine forest when a well-aimed snowball had hit her squarely between the shoulders. Let it be Larry, she had thought, and upon turning, and seeing that it was indeed the man she was hoping to seduce into seducing her, she had taken off after him in mock anger.

     She was wearing an ankle-length Canadian lynx coat and a white sable cossack hat—what she thought of as her Julie Christie in
Dr. Zhivago
effect. She was aware that the style had gone out with the sixties, but on her she knew that it still worked, complementing her ash-blond hair and blue eyes. And when she saw how Larry's eyes moved up and down her body, she knew her seduction plan was working.

     She compacted the snow in her hands, leaned back, and let it fly. Larry ducked and ran after her, plodding through the snow, laughing, trying to catch his breath in the thin mountain atmosphere. Carole turned and tried to run, but she didn't try too hard. He grabbed her and they fell breathlessly into the snow. As they struggled, they laughed, Larry pinning Carole's hands over her head. Then he was suddenly serious.

     "Let me come to your room tonight," he said.

     Carole felt her heart do something funny in her chest. "No—"

     "Yes," he said, and then he was fully on top of her, heedless of the stragglers on their way to the ski lift who tried not to gawk at the famous personalities cavorting in the snow.

     "People are watching us!" she said.

     "I don't care. Tell me I can come to your room tonight." Larry couldn't remember when he had been this sexually excited. Last night, when they had had dinner together while Andrea was off reading Marion Star's diary, he had thought Carole was interested. But then he had walked her back to her bungalow and suggested he come in for a nightcap, and she had left him standing out there in the snow, making it quite clear that the only man she was interested in, in
that
way, was her husband.

     "Let me come to your bungalow," he said as he held her down in the snow, wishing he could do it to her right here and now. "I'll be discreet, I promise. No one will know."

     He felt her start to relent, her body softening beneath his. The necklace of big pinkish pearls she always wore had fallen back and was lying at her throat, nestled in the collar of her white angora sweater. Why hadn't he noticed her before now? he wondered, feeling his arousal becoming intense. And then he knew: it was because he assumed she played around and was therefore available to anybody.

     "Please," she said, pushing him away and sitting up and brushing off the snow. "I didn't come here to cheat on my husband. I told you last night that I always go away for a rest when I finish a picture, so I'm here for a rest, that's all."

     Larry sat back, his mirrored Ray-Bans reflecting the whiteness of the snow. With the mountain wind stirring his thick black hair, and his square jaw framing a disarming smile, and the fur on the hood of his Alaskan parka sparkling with snowflakes, he looked, Carole thought, like a dashing Arctic explorer. She had felt his strength as they had briefly wrestled; she could imagine the muscled body that was hidden beneath the fur, and she understood why he had so many conquests to his credit. But he didn't turn her on. He wasn't Sanford, her sexual dynamo, her virile husband who made marathons of their lovemaking sessions. Carole knew that there was no way any man could compare to Sanford, not even sexy Larry Wolfe. Which was what made her situation so ironic: that she was here to force herself into having sex with a man whom she knew wouldn't be as good as her husband, in order to keep her husband. God, it almost gave her a headache.

     "Are you sure you don't want me to come to your room?" he said. "I'll give you pleasure like you've never known."

     "Please," she said again, with a show of less conviction. She didn't want to discourage him totally. "I just can't."

     He stood up suddenly, showering snow on her, and said, "Well then I'm going for a swim. The pool's heated. Care to join me?"

     She shook her head, and he strode away.

     As she watched him disappear into the pine trees, Carole smiled to herself. She almost had him hooked. Now all she had to do was reel him in, and the Marion Star role was hers.

     "My coming-out party, so to speak," Andrea read in Marion's diary, "was held at Eden, Dexter's ranch out in the Valley. It was an unbelievable affair; all of Hollywood royalty attended—Cecil B. deMille, Gloria Swanson, the Douglas Fairbankses, Chaplin. Dexter spared no expense: when we sat down to dine, the women found alongside their place settings bottles of perfume made from flowers grown at the ranch. When
the guests unfolded their napkins, they discovered hundred-dollar bills in them. A valet brought around a tray of expensive jewelry and perfumes for the ladies' perusal, and after dinner they rolled dice to determine in which order they could choose from the tray. Sly Dexter had slipped an uncut emerald among the jewelry and was amused to see that none of the ladies chose it.

     "This was the night he introduced me as Marion Star. Dexter had spent two years creating me. The image was important, he said. Harlow had her platinum hair, Clara Bow's was red— she even had her two chow dogs dyed to match it—so he decided that I should be dark. He wanted me to smoulder. The idea was to make men think they would go up in flames if they were to make love to me.

     "It was on this night that Dexter also announced that be was going to star me in his next picture,
Her Wicked Ways.
This came as much of a surprise to me as it did to the gathered company. I cried to realize that one of my two dreams was about to come true.

     "As for my second dream, to have the great Dexter Bryant Ramsey make love to me...

     "Since my image now was one of a licentious sexpot with a voracious appetite, even though I was only nineteen years old, Dexter insisted that I start going out with as many men as I could. I was not allowed to have a steady lover; it was important that the public think I was the character I was soon to play in
Her Wicked Ways
—in other words, a woman who needs many men to satisfy her sexual hunger. I hated this, but I trusted Ramsey. He was my father's age, very handsome and distinguished, and so I did whatever he told me to do. Which included going to bed with men I didn't care for. Some I even hated. It also included undergoing three abortions by a surgeon who was in Ramsey's debt.

     "Dexter had buried my Fresno past and told the world that I was the only child of rich British tea plantation owners in Ceylon. I had run away, he told the gossip columnists, because I was being forced to marry an old maharaja. Whether anyone believed this or not, it didn't matter. My sexual escapades became daily material for the movie magazines. The public devoured it. What I could never understand was how Dexter was able to let
me go off with strange men. Not only let me, he orchestrated many of my 'dates.' For two years, he had been my mentor, my protector, my friend, my idol—even my father, in a way. And now that he should not only allow me, but push me to go with these men, frightened me in a way. But whenever I cried or told him that I felt bad about it all, he would hold me and comfort me and tell me that it was all for my career, and that someday I was going to be the biggest star in Hollywood.

     "When my movie,
Her Wicked Ways
, came out, it damn near caused a riot. The year was 1925, the film was silent, but they didn't need sound to know what I was up to on that screen. I followed it immediately with
Scheherazade
, playing opposite Valentino, the sexiest screen lover of the day, and together we set the world on fire. One half of the population condemned us, the other half wanted to be like us. Women wanted to be me, men wanted to go to bed with me. Within four months of the release of
Scheherazade
, the studio reported that I was receiving more fan mail per week than Mary Pickford.

     "It had been nearly three years since my rescue from the block of ice by Dexter Bryant Ramsey; I was now
the
biggest female star in Hollywood; I could have anything I wanted. But all I wanted was Dex. But he, strangely, did not seem to want me."

     Until eight months ago, Larry Wolfe had thought that there was one major turn-on in life: winning an Oscar. But now that he had the coveted statuette, he decided that the real turn-on was getting a woman who didn't want him. As he swam vigorous laps in the private heated pool in the walled garden of the bungalow he shared with Andrea, without swim trunks and therefore finding the sensation arousing, he thought about Carole Page and their romp in the snow earlier. Once again, she had made it clear that she wasn't interested in getting it on with him. It only excited him all the more.

     Completing his final lap, he pulled himself out of the pool and realized that he had an erection. No surprise, considering he had been thinking about the elusive Carole Page. How was he going to get her into his bed?

     The three bungalows at Star's had been designed for ultimate privacy. Each had two large bedrooms on either side of a living room, where there
was a wet bar, kitchenette, and fireplace.

     The pool, though small, was heated and enclosed within high walls. Snow frosted the tops of those walls, and stars splashed the black sky overhead, while the mountain air cut like glass. But Larry, although nude, was warm enough because of the outdoor heating lamps and the steam rising from the lime green pool. As he reached for his towel, he saw movement through the sliding glass doors that led into the living room. A maid was inside, cleaning up what was left of the lobster dinner that room service had delivered earlier.

     Larry thought she was decent looking and would no doubt be transfixed if he should even say a word to her. One quick crook of his finger and she would be in his bed, willing and ready. A total turn-off. Larry could spot them miles away, women ready for him. Even poor Andrea, he thought as he wrapped the towel around his narrow waist. He knew she had been in love with him for seventeen years. He saw that puppy look in her eyes all too often. But she didn't stand a chance. Not with him, or with anyone. In the movie industry, even if you were behind the scenes, looks meant a lot. And Larry often thought that Andrea must have been standing behind a door when
those
had been handed out.

     As he pulled the sliding-glass door open, and then closed it behind himself as he stepped inside, the young maid glanced at him, turned bright red, and nearly dropped her tray. Larry gave her a suffering smile and gestured toward the door, indicating that she should leave as quickly as possible. Which she did. Then he went into the bathroom off his spacious bedroom and got onto the electronic stair-climber.

     Through the open doorway to the living room, he could see Andrea's books scattered on the large glass-topped coffee table:
The Dexter Bryant Ramsey Murder; Marion Star: Hollywood Tragedy;
and
The Orgy Age.
He had to hand it to her—she was diligent when it came to researching a story. He vaguely wondered what she was finding out in the diary he had paid an astronomical sum for. It had better be dynamite; Mr. Yamato was flying all the way from Tokyo with his checkbook because of it.

     Larry couldn't believe his luck. Shortly after the Academy Award ceremony, Andrea had mentioned to him that she had read about this Japanese
businessman who had a thing for Marion Star—he collected all her movies and had hundreds of photographs of her around his house. Coincidentally, a diary had been found at Star's Haven, and the owner, Beverly Burgess, was putting it up for auction. "I think we should bid for it," Andrea had said, "and then let Mr. Yamato know that we're going to do the movie. I'll bet you he would be eager to finance it." That was when Larry had gotten the idea of producing the film as well as writing it.