Stars (The Butterfly Trilogy) (78 page)

     They entered an enormous bedroom that was done in classic pink and green deco, and Philippa recognized it as Marion Star's bedroom—she had seen the photos.

     "Just in through there, ma'am," he said, and Philippa went ahead of him, to find herself, to her great astonishment, in an equally enormous bathroom with erotic murals of nude men and women on the walls. When she realized that he had brought her to the famous Obscene Bathroom, and also that there was no one else there, she turned around and said, "Now just what is—"

     She saw the gun, pointing straight at her.

     Danny smiled. "Don't worry, ma'am," he said, "I have no intention of using this on you. I'm not going to shoot you. Heck, the noise would draw attention. Although if you listen real good, you can tell that the party is far away from here, and very loud."

     She went cold with terror. "What do you want?"

     "First I want you to get out of that dress, nice and easy and slow. I want to watch you do it."

     She started to tremble. "Who are you? What do you want?"

     "Come on, Beverly, let's stop pretending. You must recognize me by now."

     "My name isn't Beverly!"

     "I said get out of that dress now!"

     She reached behind with shaking hands and drew the zipper down. "I don't know why you're doing this to me."

     He removed his glasses and pulled off the beard. "
Now
do you know?"

     "But I don't know who you are!"

     "Knock it off, Beverly, and kick the dress over here to me. That's right. Now take off the bra and panties."

     Frieda decided it was time. She had been watching for Larry Wolfe—this whole performance was for him. Finally he was in the right spot, near the center of the main hall, not too far from the staircase, and looking toward them as he talked with some blonde. "Okay," she said to Bunny. "Let's go."

     Frieda studied the lighting on the staircase, then she said, "Walk slowly down to the twelfth step and then stop there. Stay there. Don't move, no matter what."

     "Wish me luck," Bunny said.

     And Frieda kissed her cheek, saying, "You've got all the luck in the world, sweetheart. Go down there and knock 'em dead."

     Bunny began her slow descent, and when she saw that no one had noticed her, she went even more slowly, stopping on each step and pausing, her hand on the banister. When a couple of people looked her way and stopped what they were doing to stare, she moved down another step. A few more guests fell silent, and then a few more. When she readied the twelfth step and found that she stood in a pool of light, she stopped and stayed there, not moving, barely breathing.

     More and more people turned her way until the rest of the crowd, realizing that something was up, looked toward the staircase and fell silent. The silence was broken by whispers and gasps, and Bunny heard the name "Marion Star" run through the main hall like ripples from a rock dropped into a pond.

     Bunny was slouching in a sultry way against the banister in a dark brown velvet gown that was so clingy she looked as if she had been dipped in chocolate. The black wig hugged her face in a bedroom way, and her darkly shadowed eyes smouldered.

     The several hundred guests looked from her to the photographs of Marion Star, back to her. Their stunned expressions told her that Frieda's brainstorm had worked. Bunny wasn't just an actress dressed up—she
was
Marion Star.

     While everyone stared at the apparition on the staircase, Smith came through the front doors and made his way through the transfixed crowd to Simon Jung. They engaged in a brief, urgent exchange, and then they left together.

     Up in her apartment, Beverly was watching the spectacle on the staircase with the same awe as the guests. Bunny Kowalski was the
image
of Marion Star. It was unbelievable.

     People started to clap. Slowly at first, and then with rising momentum, until soon the main hall was crammed with the most appreciative audience that any actress could hope for. And behind Bunny, wearing a modest black suit that she had purchased earlier at Armani, and hidden away from her client's spotlight, Frieda Goldman zeroed in on Larry Wolfe's too-astonished-to-be-true expression.

     Syd Stern, eat your heart out.

     In the Obscene Bathroom, Danny said, "Something good must be goin' on downstairs, darlin'. Hear them clappin'?"

     Philippa was handcuffed. She still wore her bra and panties. When she had refused to remove her underwear, Danny had said, "That's all right, darlin'. Ah'm a gentleman," exaggerating his Texas accent. Then he had bound her wrists behind her and made her sit on the edge of the crystal tub. Now he was sitting on the solid-gold toilet seat watching her. He had put away the gun—she wasn't going anywhere—and had brought out the knife.

     "I cut your blond lover boy with this," he said, fingering the blade.

     "Please," she whispered. "What do you want? Let me go."

     "Sure," he said with a smile. "Like you let me go three and a half years ago. Remember how I begged you?"

     "For the love of God, I don't know what you're talking about."

     "Jesus Christ, Beverly!" he boomed. "Stop pretending! Just admit what you did and maybe I'll go easy on you. Now don't keep tellin' me you don't know who I am!"

     "I don't know...you're familiar, I guess..."

     "Come on, Beverly."

     "Why do you keep calling me that? My name isn't Beverly!"

     "Oh, I suppose you want me to call you Rachel, like you did the night you made me crawl to you. Well, I played your game then, but it's
my
game now, and you're going to play by
my
rules!" He got up and walked to her, brandishing the knife close to her face. "And for starters, this is one of my rules..."

     While Beverly was watching Bunny Kowalski's stunning entrance on the large TV screen, she reached for her tea on the desk and accidentally knocked the newspaper off; it hit the floor with a thud, falling open. Because
today was the day of the ball, she hadn't had a chance to get to her mail or the paper, but now, as she picked it up to put it back on her desk, she saw the small headline for the first time: "Three Bodies Found Buried at Malibu Beach." She wouldn't have paid any attention to it except that when she replaced the paper on her desk, she caught sight of a name in the article, a familiar name: Bonner Purvis.

     Danny Mackay's right-hand man and best friend.

     Then she saw the second name: Otis Quinn.

     Both brutally murdered. Both buried in the sand.

     She froze.

     But Quinn had checked in this morning!

     She stood up. Her heart stopped.

     Not Quinn.

     Danny.

     
He was still alive.

     She ran out of her apartment, down the hall, and stopped at the landing of the massive stairway, across from where Bunny Kowalski was still posing as Marion Star. She looked down at the hundreds of people below, all clapping and hooting, and she thought, He's here, disguised, and somewhere in this crowd.

     She searched for Simon, but he was nowhere to be seen.

     And then she felt...

     She sensed something. Wrong.

     "Crawl to me, bitch," Danny said, "or I'm going to string you up from that light fixture and let you dance the way I did in jail."

     "Please," Philippa said. "You have the wrong person. I don't know who you are or what you're talking about."

     "I've had it!" he shouted. He pulled a long cord out of his pocket, one end of which was tied in a noose, and he thrust it over her head, flinging the free end over the light fixture. "You'll change your tune when you realize I mean business."

     "No!" she cried. "Oh God, no!"

     "You don't think I'll do it? Well, I did it to your boyfriend. Your blond jock?"

     She stared at him. "Ricky?" she whispered.

     "Dead as a doornail."

     
"No!"
she screamed. "Oh God!
Ricky!
"

     "Stupid name for a kid," Danny said as he tightened the noose around her neck. It was then that he realized she was still wearing her bra and panties. "Got to get rid of these," he said, raising the knife.

     "Danny," came a voice from behind him. A calm voice.

     He looked over his shoulder to see a woman standing there, wearing a sweater and slacks, with brunette hair cut in a shag. She didn't seem upset, she just stood there, looking at him. "Danny," she repeated.

     And then he looked at her again.

     "Let her go, Danny," the woman said.

     He narrowed his eyes. "Who the hell...?"

     "You know who I am," she said, coming into the bath room. "Let her go, Danny. Whatever is going on here, it's between you and me."

     His frown deepened.

     In the next instant, someone else appeared in the doorway. "Beverly," Simon Jung said, "someone said they saw you come up this way..." His voice trailed off when he saw Philippa, and Danny with the knife.

     "What's going on here!" Danny demanded, looking at Philippa and then at Beverly.

     "You were wrong again, Danny," Beverly said, coming closer, holding her hand out. "I'm Beverly. Give me the knife."

     "Stay where you are!" he shouted. Twisting around behind Philippa, he raised the knife to her throat. "One more step and I kill her!"

     "You want
me
, Danny, remember?" Beverly said. "I'm Beverly. This is between you and me."

     "No! Quinn said
she's
Beverly!" And the knife dug into Philippa's neck.

     "But Quinn was wrong. I'm Beverly, Danny."

     He licked his lips. Perspiration appeared on his forehead. "Prove it."

     She appeared calm, but her voice betrayed her fear, shaking slightly as she said, "You found me in El Paso when I was fourteen. I was running away. My name was Rachel Dwyer."

     Philippa stared at her. Dwyer! The name Hendricks had said was the name of her real parents.

     "That's still no proof," Danny said, but with some uncertainty now. He shifted nervously. What the hell was going on here? What kind of game was this?

     "All right," the other woman said. "I'll give you proof," and to his astonishment she unzipped her slacks and slowly drew them down. Stepping out of them, she came closer and said, "Look, Danny. Do you see this scar?" She pointed to the inside of her thigh, just below the panty line. "You had a butterfly tattooed here, remember? I was fourteen and we went over the border to get it done."

     He stared at the scar. The knife began to tremble against Philippa's neck, and a drop of blood appeared.

     "Let her go," Beverly said, her voice tight but firm.

     Danny slowly removed his hand from Philippa's arm, still keeping the other one around her shoulders, the knife to her throat. And in a move that caught the others unaware, he dropped the knife and whipped out a gun. Philippa fell to the floor and scrambled away from him, the nylon cord trailing after her.

     As Simon Jung quickly removed his jacket and put it around her, Danny smiled and said, "Now ain't that touchin'? Such a gentleman. You always did have good taste in men, Beverly." This last he said to the real Beverly. "So I made a mistake. Now how on earth could that happen?" Thinking of the waitress last night, he laughed. Two mistakes in a row.

     "Well I won't be making any mistakes now, because I'm killing me three birds with one stone." He looked at Beverly. "Unless, of course, you want to beg me to spare you."

     "Danny, listen—"

     "I wonder if these fine folks are aware of what a bitch you are, Beverly. Why don't you tell them about the way you tried to destroy me? Tell them about the whorehouse in Beverly Hills that you tricked me into buying, making me think it was a legitimate business and then leaking the story to the press just when I was winning the presidential primary."

     "Danny." She took another step closer.

     He shouted, "Stay right there! Aw shit, I'm tired of this!" He raised the gun, took aim right between Beverly's eyes.

     A loud bang thundered in the marble bathroom; Philippa screamed, and Danny went flying backward.

     He landed in the tub, his head hitting the gold faucets with a sickening crack.

     The three stood frozen for a moment, then Beverly rushed forward and knelt on the edge of the tub. "He's dead," she said in disbelief. She turned and looked back. Where had the shot come from?

     Simon ran into the bedroom, but there was no one there.

     Except for Marion Star, who was coming toward him, hobbling on her cane. "I heard a noise," she said.

     "Did you see anyone, Miss Star?" Jung asked. "Did anyone run past you?"

     "Nobody that I saw."

     He left the bathroom and hurried down the hall to a telephone.

     Marion walked into the bathroom, and when she saw Danny sprawled in the tub, a shot through his chest, she shook her head and said, "This bathroom always was bad luck."