Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (66 page)

Tamara nodded obeisantly, and Pearl continued kneading her tensed muscles, her hands creeping lower and lower, until
they were near the young woman's nubile breasts. Tamara, though she was not totally innocent and guileless, if inexperi
enced in some matters, let the touch of the other woman
soothe her. Pearl was proving useful, after all. The fingers felt
so gentle, so light, so . . . caressing.

There was a sudden knock on the door, and both women
jumped. Pearl jerked her hands away.

'It's time, Miss Boralevi,' a stagehand called out. 'Mr. Ziolko
should be on the set at any moment!'

Chapter 3

Naked or dressed, Louis Frederic Ziolko was too impressive
a man to easily melt into a crowd. For one thing, there was
his great height, his naturally wavy black hair, his princely Renaissance nose, his sensual, arrogant lips and his penetrat
ing obsidian eyes. For another, he had the toned, well-
developed body of the natural athlete. He looked a casting
agent's dream for the ultimate Hollywood prop, the quin
tessential playboy. And playboy he was, when the opportunity
presented itself.

To outsiders who didn't know any better, making movies
seemed the ultimate casual life, consisting of forty-five percent glamour and forty-five percent parties, with an occasional ten
percent of lackadaisical work thrown in, when in reality the
exalted citizens of this celluloid fiefdom thrived on the greatest
work to lowest relaxation ratio known since slavery. Filmmak
ing being a gruelling six-day-a-week business with inhuman
hours that stretched from dawn to well past sunset, these
relentlessly driven workaholics naturally took spirited advan
tage of their one well-earned day of rest—Sunday. Sunday
afternoons consisted of endless rounds of swimming parties,
tennis matches, and social get-togethers. These legendary
events in the Hollywood Hills—most notably Lookout Mountain—actually began on Saturday nights, with stars roaming from house to house, carrying their cocktails with them. App
ian Way on Lookout Mountain became known as the Gold
Coast, and if it didn't provide enough action, the stars would
descend from their roosts, dressed to the nines, and head for Ciro's and the Trocodero to dine and dance. In many ways,
these much-celebrated parties were just an extension of work.
No one dared turn down the imperial summons of a studio
chief’s invitation, even if it was well known that he wanted his
lawns sprinkled with stars, starlets, directors, and writers to
be photographed for the ravenous newspapers and magazines
or for the studio's very own news reels, thereby creating news
out of play and exploiting it as a great public-relations event.
Not surprisingly then, Hollywood parties turned into the stuff
of legends.

For his part, Louis Ziolko was a regular feature at all these Sunday gatherings, seemingly none the worse for wear after dancing the night away with a beauty on the Sunset Strip. He
was a demon on the tennis courts and a fish in the pools, which
kept him in superb physical condition. He appeared more
mature than his thirty years, and since he was an extraordi
narily handsome, cultured, well-mannered bachelor, and
women in Hollywood are no different from women the world
over, he had more than his fair share of beauties breathing
down his neck for friendship, marriage, or a casual tumble in
bed in exchange for helping further their careers, or some
times simply for the pure pleasure of it.

He revelled in this female attention. These Saturday nights
and Sunday afternoons helped create Louis Ziolko the legend:
the successful, debonair, rich, and sexually heroic young
director-about-town. More than one woman had let herself be
seduced by him in the mistaken hope of obtaining a ring for
her finger; but only one woman ever had, and like most ex
wives, she was a fading memory to Louis, except when
alimony time rolled around.

Despite the torrid affairs and scandals which brewed with
the regularity of clockwork, especially in the Hollywood Hills,
the film community was a close-knit one, and most studio
bosses were downright prudish when it came to matters of sex.
Consequently Louis was discreet regarding his more notorious
sexual affairs. Otherwise, he was dauntless in his actions and
beliefs and cared not an iota for the opinions of others. While
he sometimes bedded women who spread the word of his
prowess, it was also to his advantage to pay for the gratification
of the female company he craved—a thirst he slaked by picking
up various prostitutes whose daily path he would not be in
danger of crossing. Paying for sexual favours was not abhor
rent to him, it was practical. He welcomed paying for services
rendered, followed by a swift good-bye, with no questions
asked, nothing known about him to his partner and vice versa,
and above all, no lingering relationships. This was preferable
to involved, potentially dangerous affairs that might eventu
ally explode out of proportion and become more complicated
than he wanted them to be.

If anything made his life less than perfect, it was the fact
that he was unmarried. The trouble was, he had yet to meet a
woman he thought he could stand to live with.

While Tamara waited with bated breath for Louis Ziolko's
imminent arrival, she had no idea that he was not then on the
set, that he had no intention of going there, and that he was
certainly not in a good mood. Last night he had spent drinking and screwing vigorously; this morning he had awakened to the
worst headache in memory, and worse, he could see every
thing he'd ever worked for slipping away. Literally. Right in
front of his eyes.

Yesterday his troubles had begun when his burgundy-and-
black model 'J' Duesenberg had given up the ghost in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard and had had to be towed to a garage, where, he'd been informed it would have to 'set for a
week or two till them parts come from Dee-troit'. He'd have
to use his dark blue Chrysler. Later that night, he'd had to thumb through nearly every page in his 'little black book'
before he'd finally struck lucky and found a girl who was avail
able for the night. He'd never used her before but had heard
she gave good service.

This morning, he'd awakened to an ominous rumble. His
first thought was: My house!

Even in his sleep, he'd heard the ear-splitting groan, and he
could have sworn that the house had actually bucked like a
goddamn bronco in a rodeo. The terrible thought which
haunts all Californians had flashed instantaneously into his
mind: Quake!
The
quake! The
killer
quake!

His heart had leapt to his throat as he'd jerked bolt upright
from the midst of his peaceful, dreamy sleep, only to catch the
call girl rifling his baubles, making a neat pile of his gold-
and-diamond cufflinks, diamond evening studs, gold lighter,
Cartier cigarette case, and gold Rolex watch.

Then, just as he'd leapt from the bed to throttle the two-
bit whore, a horrible cracking sound rent the air. A deep,
shuddering rumble had followed, and they'd both been thrown
to the deep-pile carpet.

Unlike Louis Ziolko, who was Brooklyn-born and bred,
the girl was a seasoned Californian and found her feet first.
Forgetting the expensive baubles on the bureau, she bawled: 'Quake!' and made a naked beeline for the nearest doorway.

Yanking that particular door open proved to be a dreadful mistake. It opened onto the narrow walk-around deck facing
the rising vertical hillside of the canyon behind the house.
Ziolko was suddenly wide-awake, horrifed by the wall of gluti
nous mud flowing ceaslessly through the door like brown
vomit spewing from a monstrous mouth. He knew in a flash
that unless he acted fast, both of them would be smothered
within seconds.

He yanked the terrified girl by the arm and they both
escaped by making a dash for the balcony door on the other side of the room. Even as they ran across the balcony toward
the driveway, Ziolko couldn't help wishing that he'd let the
thief drown in that morass of mud, but this belated thought
instantly fled from his mind as another, more treacherous one
took sudden precedence: the balcony underfoot, which hung three hundred feet above Los Angeles, was actually groaning
and heaving, its huge concrete slabs buckling one after the
other.

Earthquake!
Ziolko's mind still screamed in silent terror.
The killer quake's here!

Only once they stood on the still-unmoving driveway did it occur to Ziolko that the ground all around was steady. Only
the hillside on which the house was perched was sliding down
the canyon in a sheet of liquid mud.

Now, standing naked in the torrential icy blast of rain,
Ziolko screeched, 'It's a mud slide! A goddamn mud slide!'
Shivering with cold as they stood on the relative safety of the driveway, both he and the girl riveted their eyes on Ziolko's
pride and joy—his house. The cantilevered Art Deco structure, all concrete beams, sturdy pilings driven deep into the
hillside, and streamlined balconies that jutted proudly out
over Los Angeles, had never been intended for this nearly
vertical site, a fact which the previous owners, an asbestos
tycoon and his young starlet wife, had taken no heed of whatsoever. They instructed the worried contractor to sink pilings
into the soft hillside so that the ocean-liner superstructure of the house looked as if a massive tidal wave had detached it in toto from a seagoing hull out in the Pacific and washed it up
against the hillside.

A year later, the wife of the tycoon had developed a passion
for all things Latin and moved into a Spanish stucco 'hacienda'
in Bel Air complete with a new Cuban playboy husband whose
sexual endowment and endurance were legendary.

When Ziolko learned that the house was for sale he'd
promptly purchased it, had a huge swimming pool blasted into
the hillside at the far end of the house, dotted the rooms
sparsely with sleek-veneered Art Deco furnishings, and settled in contentedly, laughing at the spoilsports who in turn laughed and condemned the canyon-hugging folly.