Hollywood Husbands (11 page)

* * *

Mannon Cable was twenty-seven years old and the best-looking hunk ever to cross Nora Carvell’s path when he walked into her office. Not that she was interested. She preferred girls, always would. Only Mannon didn’t know that, so when he first set eyes on the middle-aged woman with the cropped hair and the permanent cigarette dangling from her lips, he went into his number. Sexy walk. Macho scowl. Cobalt blue eyes scorching everything in sight.

‘Take a seat,’ Nora snapped. ‘And tell me your life history. Then we’ll make something up.’ She shuffled some papers around on her desk. ‘Have you been over to the stills department yet?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head.

She squinted at his sun-kissed good looks, trying to decide how to sell this new piece of beefcake. ‘Go ahead. Shoot.’

He told her about being born in Montana, coming to Los Angeles at nineteen. Studying at various acting classes, working as a waiter, an extra, a gas pump attendant, a repossessor of cars, and a stunt man.

‘Married?’ she asked.

‘Nope,’ he replied.

‘Homosexual?’ she persisted.

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Are you kidding?’

Pencil poised, she checked him out for signs of lying. ‘I’m not gonna make it public knowledge, sonny. I just have to know these things so I can protect you.’

‘I am not a queer,’ he said stiffly.

She scribbled on a piece of paper and said, ‘Come back tomorrow. I’ll have you all figured out.’

He returned the next day to be handed a typed sheet of imaginative accomplishments. He was a football hero, an English honours major who had been injured in a football game and told that he would never walk again. For two years he had lain in a hospital bed unable to move until – miracle of miracles – blind faith pulled him through and he came to Hollywood and was discovered for this very movie he was about to make.

‘This is all lies,’ he protested.

She shrugged. ‘So I bent the truth a little. Big deal.’

‘I don’t like it.’

Inhaling cigarette smoke she said, ‘You don’t havta
like
it, sonny, just remember it.’

He shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘It’s studio policy. Bio info’s gotta grab ’em. Whaddya think’s gonna grab ’em about
your
background?’ A cloud of smoke enveloped her and she began to cough. ‘Are you sure you’re not a fag? Y’live with two other guys. What’s the deal?’

‘Get fucked,’ he steamed, and walked out.

After that they became good friends. It was Nora’s idea that he do the Burt Reynolds spoof centrefold. He did it with a big, shit-eating grin and a large picture of a strutting cock (the barnyard variety) covering
his
strutting cock (the Mannon Cable variety). It caused quite a stir, and everyone knew who Mannon Cable was after that.

When Nora left the studio a few years later she came to work for him as his personal publicist. Eventually she went off to live in Italy with her companion of many years, and when her lover died she came back to America and took a job at City Television. Her first assignment was Silver Anderson. She had worked with her ever since.

* * *

Mannon finished a series of gruelling press-ups, and threw a towelling robe over his shorts. When he was married to Whitney, parties were a rare event. Whitney was content to stay at home on the ranch, just the two of them. She liked to ride their horses, walk on the beach, and join him in fixing a barbecue. Until she started her dumb career and fucked everything up. Now the Malibu ranch was sold, the horses too. Home was a formal mansion on Sunset Boulevard, and he wasn’t happy.

Melanie-Shanna waited in the games room, which featured a pool table, full western bar, and his collection of guns on the walls.

When Mannon had showered and dressed he joined her.

‘Hi, honey,’ she greeted him quietly. ‘Feeling good?’

‘Yeah, great.’

He didn’t know what it was about Melanie-Shanna – it wasn’t her fault, she just aggravated the hell out of him. Maybe it was because
she
was his wife and Whitney wasn’t. They had met when he went to Houston to make a movie. While he was there, recovering from Whitney’s walk-out and her subsequent affair with Chuck Nielson, he had judged a beauty contest. Melanie-Shanna, with her mane of auburn hair, her clean, long-limbed body, and her sweet smile, was the natural winner. He had taken her out to dinner a few times. Then he had taken her
in
to dinner. One thing led to another and he made love to her on the floor of his sumptuous suite. She was only twenty years old when they married a week later. Whitney was nearly thirty. Let her eat her heart out.

Basically Mannon married Melanie-Shanna to make Whitney jealous. It didn’t work. And it left him in the crapper with a young wife and no pre-nuptial agreement. To make matters even worse, Melanie-Shanna adored him.

‘Can I fix you a drink, honey?’ she asked.

‘Why do you always have to tag
honey
onto the end of every sentence?’ he said aggressively.

‘Sorry, hon – er, dear. I’m not aware that I do.’

‘Well,
be
aware,’ he warned. ‘It makes you sound like a cheap dance hostess.’

She turned away so that he couldn’t see her large eyes fill with tears. What was she doing wrong? For months he had hardly had a good word to say to her. When they first met he had been so loving and kind, truly the man of her dreams. He hadn’t known that for years she’d had his picture tacked on her wall after seeing him in
Sweet Revenge
. Mannon Cable had always been her favourite movie star.

Now she was Mrs Mannon Cable, and it wasn’t making either of them happy.

Quietly she poured scotch into a glass, added ice cubes and handed it to him.

He swallowed the drink in two gulps. ‘I suppose we’d better go,’ he said dourly, walking to the door. ‘And I’m warning you, I don’t want to stay late.’

‘Neither do I,’ she said, following him out. Tonight she wanted to come home early. Because tonight she was going to tell him they were expecting a baby.

Chapter Fourteen

‘Wanna go party?’ Heaven asked Eddie on the phone.

He laughed, low-down and dirty. ‘I thought we had our own party this afternoon.’

‘Some party,’ she giggled.

‘A blast, right?’

‘A
big
blast.’

‘You wanna repeat it?’

She paused. ‘I have another sort of party in mind.’

‘Aw…’ Eddie said. ‘I hate those open parties. They’re always full of kids, an’ I hate not gettin’ in the house, an’ being treated like garbage, an’—’

‘This is a
proper
party,’ she interrupted. ‘Like a
Beverly Hills
party, with movie stars and fancy food and probably some dumb band.’

‘Food?’ Eddie questioned. ‘Real food?’

‘I guess.’

‘Who invited us?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Nobody invited
you
,’ she responded tartly. ‘Only
I
can take you,’ she taunted. ‘That’s if I
want
to, an’ if your car’ll get us over the hill.’

‘Whose party is it?’

‘My mother finally remembered I’m alive.’

‘Silver Anderson?’

‘I’m not related to Linda Evans, you geek.’

There was a short silence while Eddie digested this information. Finally he said, ‘What’ud I have to wear?’

‘Anything you like,’ she replied blithely. She herself planned to cause a sensation in her red leather micro-dress, and the longshoreman’s overcoat which she had just bought at Flip on Melrose with money from her singing gigs.

‘Do y’
wanna
go?’ Eddie inquired, remembering how she felt about her famous mother.

‘I dunno,’ she replied, unsure for a moment. ‘I don’t see why I
shouldn’t.
I
am
her daughter.’

‘Uh… let’s do it then,’ he said.

‘Oh… I don’t know.’ She changed her mind quickly.

‘Aw, c’mon, H. Get on the track ’n’ stick to it.’

‘Maybe I will. I’ll call you back.’

She hung up on him before he could argue. She enjoyed playing games with Eddie. Especially
now
. Anyway, she couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted to go to her mother’s dumb party or not. On the one hand it might be a real blast to spy on the Hollywood set first-hand. On the other – who would Silver have there? Certainly not Rob Lowe and Sean Penn. More like a bunch of doddering old farts.

As if to make up her mind, her grandfather, George, appeared at the door of her room. He was a tall, thin man, with a shock of thick white hair and a preoccupied expression always in place on his deeply lined face. He didn’t look like Silver, and no way resembled Uncle Jack. He had a sort of nutty professor air about him. Heaven liked him a lot. For a grandfather he was ace. And he left her alone.
Most
important.

‘Are you home for dinner, dear?’ he asked, fiddling with his glasses which hung from a blue cord around his neck.

‘I think I’m going out, pops.’

‘Good, good,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘Then I can let Mrs Gunter go.’

Anything
to let Mrs Gunter go. She was their housekeeper/cook/busybody, and she drove Heaven nuts.

I’m not bothering with dinner myself,’ George added vaguely. ‘I shall be in my workroom all night.’ His eyes fixed on a half-naked poster of Sting tacked to her closet. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Out with Eddie,’ she replied, deciding the hell with it – she
would
go to her mother’s party. Why shouldn’t she? ‘We’re playing a gig.’

‘Twelve o’clock curfew,’ George reminded.

‘Sure, pops,’ she agreed. She could walk in at four in the morning and he wouldn’t know it. Once he was in his workroom nothing disturbed him. Usually he carried on through the night, losing all track of time.

She didn’t mention Silver’s party. It would only upset him, and he might try to dissuade her from going. George and his famous daughter did not speak. It had been that way for thirty years.

Oh well… Heaven didn’t blame him… Maybe she shouldn’t talk to her mother either. Silver treated her as if she hardly existed. Never called. Never asked anything about her life when they did get together. Usually it was a twice-yearly dinner at La Scala with Nora in attendance. The woman was a bitch.

Big fucking deal. Who cared?

She did.

Chapter Fifteen

Clarissa Browning rented a secluded house on Benedict Canyon. She leased it from a young director who had gone to work in Europe for a year. The house was dark and old, surrounded by tall trees and untended grounds. Clarissa liked the coldness of the house, the bathrooms that were over fifty years old, the dark wood panelling everywhere, and the general gloom.

Even the swimming pool was not of the usual California variety. There was no jacuzzi. No floating pool furniture. It was always filled with leaves, as the filter rarely worked. And it was always ice cold, as the heater
never
worked. At night coyotes howled, and other small, wild animals scurried across the old tile roof. Sometimes snakes slithered into the pool and drowned.

Clarissa enjoyed lighting a log fire in the bedroom and reading from her extensive collection of classics. She liked to bundle up in a long flannel nightie with a hot mug of cocoa for company, and pretend she was back east.

Arriving home from the studio early Saturday evening she was pleased to see Jack Python’s dark green Ferrari parked out front. He had his own key to come and go whenever he pleased. It suited her. Clarissa never brought her homework to the house.

He was in the bedroom watching television. Or was he watching? On closer inspection she discovered he was asleep.

Silently she observed him for a moment – so still… so quiet. Usually Jack was always on the move. The green eyes probing, finding out things. The hard body ready, poised. The sharp mind, clickety clickety click.

He excited her. He always excited her.

The first time they met she had thought –
Handsome son of a bitch with a hard cock and not much else.
She had changed her mind soon enough. He had a hard cock all right, but that wasn’t all. Jack Python had energy and curiosity and a steel trap of a mind. He was a fast thinker with words to back up his thoughts. He was not just a pretty face.

They slept together immediately, in spite of friends warning her that Jack Python came and ran. Not with Clarissa Browning he didn’t. She had no intention of becoming just another name on his long list.

Patiently she attempted to get to know him. It wasn’t easy. Charming and warm and intelligent as he was, Jack never allowed anyone to get close. Clarissa understood. She was the same way herself.

She moved to California to do a movie, and when he eventually got around to calling, she played his game, and refused to see him. It soon became clear that Jack did not like rejection.

When they finally saw each other it was understood they were an item. They had been an item for over a year now. It suited both of them.

Clarissa scrubbed off her studio makeup, removed her clothes, and stood over the sleeping figure of her lover. She forgot about the young actor at the studio that morning. Merely business. Jack Python was pleasure. Such pure exquisite pleasure…

She shuddered in anticipation of what was to come. In bed he was a master. He had an uncanny knack of knowing her every need, combined with the most impressive staying power.

‘Just a trick,’ he said one day, when she asked him how he did it.

‘Tell me!’ she persisted.

‘Just call it mind over matter,’ he grinned.

Her presence was not waking him. She clicked off the hated television. (Hated by her, loved by him. ‘How can you not watch
Hill Street
?’ he demanded every Thursday night at ten o’clock.) The sudden silence disturbed him, and he rolled over, still asleep and still dressed in his usual weekend clothes of Levis and a sweater.