The Boy Who Never Grew Up (41 page)

Usher’s face tightened. He turned to Schlom.

Norb cleared his throat. “You’re treating me like the Big Bad Wolf or something. So you get me as a partner. I’m a businessman, you’re a businessman. What’s the big deal?”

“The Murakami deal is the big deal,” Shelley said flatly. “As you well know.”

Schlom shrugged his heavy shoulders. “New capital. New markets. It’s the future.”

“Not for us it isn’t,” Shelley fired back. “We’re independent, and we intend to stay that way. I’m sorry, gentlemen. As long as Pennyroyal sticks to this position we’re headed for court. I see no other way to resolve this.”

“If I may jump in here—” I said.

“You I don’t wanna hear from,” grumbled Schlom.

“Let Meat talk,” Matthew spoke up. “I want him to.”

Shelley nodded at me to go ahead.

“I believe we should all try a little harder to understand Pennyroyal’s side,” I said. “After all, she’s made a number of sacrifices. Not just lately, but throughout her career.”

Matthew frowned at me, perplexed.

Shelley exchanged an equally perplexed look with his wife. “Wait a second—whose side are you—?”

“Shaddup,” barked Schlom. “This I wanna hear.”

Pennyroyal gazed at me adoringly from across the table, bathing me in her warm glow.

I sipped my coffee. “To reach this point in her career, Penny has had to do things no one else in this office would even consider doing. But she’s done them. No matter how unpleasant they were. No matter how unpopular they were. Attention must be paid. Maybe not one half of Bedford Falls, but certainly attention.”

And I had everyone’s attention. Everyone except Georgie, who was too busy drooling on Pennyroyal’s overalls. Even Lulu under my chair was all ears, so to speak.

“This was never a complicated case at all,” I began. “It was simple. Painfully so. I was saying to Lieutenant Lamp just last night that when in doubt about who in Hollywood is fucking over who, all you have to do is follow the dollar. Four people have been murdered. Negatives have been stolen out of this office. Homewood has been torched. All for money. That’s what it’s been about all along. Nothing more. Nothing less. So let’s take a cold, clear look at it, shall we? Let’s ask ourselves who stands to gain the most from all of this. Norbert Schlom and his lovely wife, Toy?” They both gave me frosty glares. “No way. Sure, Norb stands to clean up when the Murakami deal comes through. But he’s already a multimillionaire. As is Toy, thanks to community property. No, they’ve got theirs. So have Shelley and Shelley Selden. And Matthew. And Bunny. They’ve all got theirs. These are rich people. Even if they lose Bedford Falls to Norb and Murakami, their pockets will still be full of money. Which eliminates all of them. And which brings us to the people who aren’t so rich.” I looked around the room at them. “Trace Washburn? He stands to lose no matter whether Bedford Falls stays independent or not.” Trace shrugged with bleary-eyed resignation. “Sarge Harris?” She stiffened, flaring her nostrils at me. “She’ll have a job either way. As long as Matthew works, she’ll work. She has no great financial stake in the outcome of this. Nor does Shadow Williams. Nor does Joey Bam Bam. True, he’s lost Johnny Forget. But he’ll always get another client. Someone hotter probably.”

“That’s ultra-ultra true,” Bam Bam piped up. “In fact, as of nine o’clock this morning I’ve signed—”

“Shaddup,” growled Schlom.

“Yessir,” responded Bam Bam crisply.

“Cassandra Dee?” I continued. “She wins either way. No matter what happens to Bedford Falls, her book makes money, and she moves on to bigger projects. All of which brings us to the one person who does stand to gain the most and always has—Pennyroyal Brim—the self-proclaimed victim of this ugly war, the sweet young thing who five years ago was a starry-eyed cheerleader with pompoms and who today is on the brink of owning a half interest in a major independent studio, a half interest she intends to sell to Panorama City Communications for a reported one hundred and fifty million dollars, plus a production unit to call her very own. Not too shabby. I’d certainly call it worth the trouble.”

“Now wait just a minute here, Mr. Hoag,” Usher interjected. “I don’t see exactly what you’re getting at but—”

“You could have made out fine without much of a fuss,” I said to Penny. “We’ve all heard what Shelley just offered you. Plus you’re a successful young actress. You’d continue to work. Perhaps meet and marry another heavyweight. But that’s not enough for you. That’s chicken feed. You so much as told me so at Spago my first night in town. You told me you were tired of being patted on the head like all of the other pretty little girls. You told me you wanted clout. So you’ve clawed, chewed, sucked, fucked, schemed, manipulated, and murdered your way all the way to the top. Just about, anyway. You almost made it, Penny. But not quite. You came up just a little bit short.”

Pennyroyal gazed across the table at me, her face a blank. We might have been discussing the European Community.

“Gaaawd!” gasped Cassandra. “Say something, Penny, will ya!?”

“Is it true, Penny?” Matthew whispered at her in shock and dismay. “Is it?”

“Of course it is,” snapped Bunny, a mean glint of triumph in her eyes. “She did it all. I knew it.”

“I suggest you say no more, Mr. Hoag,” Usher said sternly. “As Miss Brim’s legal advisor I must inform you that given the nature of the accusation you appear to be leveling, and the fact that you are leveling it in front of several influential members of the film community, not to mention a representative of the Los Angeles Police Department as well as—”

“Speak English for Chrissakes, will ya?” Schlom hollered at him.

“You’re leaving yourself wide open to a slander suit, kiddo,” warned Usher. “Stop right now. Or be prepared to face the consequences.”

“He’s right, Hoagy,” Lamp agreed. “Don’t do this.”

I tugged at my ear. “Thank you for the warning—both of you. I appreciate your concern. Now, if I may continue …?”

“Go ahead,” ordered Schlom, anxiously moistening his liver lips. “I wanna hear more.”

Usher shook his head. “Norbert, I’d advise you to—”

“I’d advise you to shut the fuck up!” roared Schlom.

Usher reddened. “Let’s go, Miss Brim. We needn’t listen to any more of this.”

Pennyroyal stayed right where she was, her face still a blank. She had not said one word. Georgie dozed in her lap.

“If we’re going to discuss your career in detail, Penny,” I went on, “we have to go back farther than five years. All the way back to high school.” I glanced over at Cassandra, who was scribbling madly in a notepad. “Getting all of this, Cassandra?”

“Gaaawd!”

“Back to that summer before your senior year, when you were first recruited at the Galleria Mall by your soon-to-be partner in crime, Toy Schlom, known then as Toy Barbie.”

Schlom whirled on his wife. “
You’re
mixed up in this?!”

“No, Norb!” she cried, with such terror I wondered just what manner of body blows he administered to her in the privacy of their own tear-down home. “I’m not! I swear!”

“She’s not, Norb,” I assured him. “She just happens to know Pennyroyal from their old playground days.”

“That’s all, Norb,” Toy insisted, clutching at his hand with hers. “I knew nothing.
Nothing
.”

“Until last night, that is,” I pointed out. “When you and I were talking in Norb’s study, Toy. Sure, you backed up Penny’s PG-rated version of her past. What are old friends for, right? But something strange happened to you when I bounced that rape story of hers off of you. Something went click. That’s when you knew, wasn’t it?”

Toy lowered her eyes. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“Knew what?” demanded Mr. Shelley.

“That Pennyroyal was choreographing this whole thing,” I replied. “Pitting the two sides against each other. Raising the stakes higher and higher. All of it carefully calculated. All of it to her own advantage. You’re shrewd, Penny. Much shrewder than anyone has ever given you credit for. Except for Bunny. She never thought you were the girl you made yourself out to be, and she was right. You’re also a hell of an actress. Your whole life is one Oscar-caliber performance.” I glanced back at Toy. “Penny’s been pulling all of the strings. That’s what went click in your eyes last night, Toy. But I didn’t catch on. Not until later in the evening. It was something the lieutenant said.”

“Me?” Lamp spoke up, puzzled. “What did I say?”

“Las Vegas,” I replied. “You said Las Vegas.”

He scratched his head. “So?”

“So that triggered something in my mind. A slip that you made, Penny.”

“What slip?” asked Schlom.

Penny still hadn’t said one word. She just gazed at me steadily.

“A small one, really. But you’ve been so careful all along, so very, very careful, that it stuck out all the more. You were telling me about when you and Matthew got married.”

“I remember that,” said Cassandra. “I was there.”

“You’ll recall she said the two of them ran off to Vegas like a couple of kids—kids who had never been to the place before.”

“Yeah?” said Cassandra, doubtfully.

“Matthew told it differently. He said Pennyroyal showed him all the sights. He said that she knew the town well.”

“She did,” whispered Matthew, wide-eyed, as if we were all seated around a campfire telling scary stories.

“Of course she did, Matthew,” I said. “Because she’d put in many long hours there under the name of Carla Pettibone, working girl. It was all bullshit, wasn’t it, Penny? About how you didn’t know what you were getting into when you posed nude for Shambazza. About how when you found out you pulled out. A nice, sweet story. And total bullshit. I sort of knew it. And you sort of knew I knew it. So you came to me in my bungalow with a new, improved version. About that one, horrifying little rape party with Toy and Norb. Another nice story. And more bullshit. Because the truth is you willingly became part of Shambazza’s stable from the day Toy first recruited you. He was your pimp for three years. You made good money, certainly more than most high school girls with part-time jobs. You got to wear nice clothes, eat in fancy restaurants. There were trips to Vegas, excursions on big yachts, parties. It was plenty glamorous—you could even convince yourself you were getting into show biz, just like you told me. All you had to do in exchange was—well, we all know what you had to do in exchange. But you did it. You performed. And you’re a good, hard-working little performer. They all told you you’d be a star someday. Only, they didn’t come through for you, did they? Not any of them. Toy, she hooked herself a big one. All you got was pregnant. That part of your story was really touching, by the way. All about your true-blue soccer player. What was his name? Craig? Touching. And more bullshit. You got pregnant on the job. You got yourself an abortion, and you got out. Amazing, really, how none of it left a mark on you. You’re as sweet and clean as the day you were born. On the outside anyway. You left no footprints in the sand either. This is a town with no memory. And you were smart enough to stay out of the porn movies and the magazines. Of course, there
was
the matter of those photographs Shambazza took of you, and wouldn’t give back. Those became a real problem later on. But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?”

“Tell me if it’s true, Penny,” Matthew pleaded, his face torn with pain. “Is it? Tell me! I have to know!”

She sat there holding Georgie. Finally, she shivered and broke her silence. “I did it for the contacts,” she began, her voice flat and detached. Mechanical, almost. “There’s nothing so unusual about that. Lots of young actresses willingly do it—and they don’t even get paid for it. At least I got paid. I wasn’t that stupid. But I was wrong. I thought it’d do my career some good. It didn’t. They just led me on and wiped the floor with me. So I quit. Carla Pettibone went bye-bye. My high school grades got me into SC. I’d heard that a lot of alumni networking went on there. I took some theater arts classes, and I became a cheerleader. Posed for school calendars, posters. Got my face on TV during games. I thought it might lead to some modeling assignments or TV spots. It seemed like it was worth a shot.”

“And it was,” I said. “Because it was your turn to get lucky. Even luckier than Toy did. You happened to bear an amazing resemblance to one Mona Schaffer, a girl Matthew Wax had a crush on when he was a kid. Because of that he made you Debbie Dale. You walked in the door and the part was yours. You’re not stupid. You knew that the press has a way of finding out things about a star’s past. And let’s face it—Carla Pettibone, prostitute, and Debbie Dale, America’s sweetie pie, didn’t exactly fit together. So you went to Shelley Selden with a carefully sanitized version of the facts. You admitted you’d had an abortion when you were in high school, since they might be able to trace that. And you told him all about that mean man Shambazza who took those nude photographs of you. You had to tell him. You couldn’t take a chance on them surfacing. Shelley, being a careful man, approached Shambazza and bought the negatives from him, satisfied that he was nipping any potential problem in the bud. Only Shambazza wasn’t satisfied, was he?”

“I was still one of his girls,” Pennyroyal confirmed bitterly. “That’s what he told me. I was his property and always would be. He threatened me. Said he’d slash my face with a razor if I didn’t pay up.”

“You and Toy both, I imagine,” I suggested.

Toy closed her eyes and nodded faintly. “He was free-basing. Horribly strung out. More of a nuisance than a menace, really. Norbert paid him so he’d stop pestering us. And he probably would have continued to pay him if someone hadn’t …” She trailed off, her violet eyes on Pennyroyal. There was horror in them.

“The police dismissed it as a drug killing,” I said. “Only it wasn’t. It was you, Penny. You’d worked too hard to get this far. That man wasn’t going to threaten what lay ahead of you. No one was.”

“It wasn’t like that at all!” Pennyroyal objected heatedly. This was the first rise I’d gotten out of her. “I was afraid of what he might do to me! You didn’t know him—he was mean!”

I nodded. “So you went up to his studio and shot him dead—the no-more-fears formula. With that you became a star. And you became Mrs. Matthew Wax.” Matthew’s head was bowed. He looked very pale. “He was a shy, sweet, naive guy. And putty in your hands. You succeeded where so many women before you had failed. You swept the great Matthew Wax off of his feet. Now you had it all. Stardom. A husband who was rich and famous. And, soon, a baby with which to secure your lifelong financial claim. But that still wasn’t enough, was it? Not for you. So, after two years of living with the man, two years of pretending to be in love with him, you calmly announced that you wanted out. You felt stifled. You needed your independence. And with that you set out to turn your divorce into the richest, gaudiest breakup in show business history. You hired the most inflammatory high-stakes lawyer in town, Abel Zorch, who also happened to be tight with Norbert Schlom. Zorch assured you he could get you half of Bedford Falls as part of your settlement if you fought hard enough. You knew that Norb was in the process of putting together the sale to Murakami. You also knew he desperately wanted Bedford Falls as part of it. None of this was a secret. So you three cooked up a nice, cozy deal between friends—you would give Norb your half interest in Bedford Falls in exchange for the one thing you really wanted, the one thing every performer in the business wants.
Clout
. A major chunk of Panorama City Communications stock. Your own production company. Your own financing. Whatever you wanted. You’d be a player. And to hell with Bedford Falls. Norb, he’d figure out how to wrest the other half away from the family. That would be a walk in the park for him. You and he shook hands on it. Then you set out to turn up the heat. You
wanted
publicity, the more outrageous the better. You
wanted
to put the House of Wax on page one.”