Hollywood Husbands (17 page)

Silver retired to her bedroom while Nora got rid of the journalist. She was the last in a day of interviews for England.
Palm Springs
was to be shown on television there, and they wanted immediate impact. The English company that had bought the series had asked Silver to fly to London for a week. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. England conjured up mixed memories. It was the scene of her lowest point in life, and although she had made a miraculous comeback, she was not sure if she ever wanted to return. Hence the parade of journalists through her house.

Nora bustled into the room. ‘Done!’ she announced triumphantly.

‘Thank God!’ replied Silver, stretching with relief. ‘Nobody can ever say I don’t work hard for my money.’

Nora had to agree. Silver never stopped. Her energy level was quite incredible. Mere twenty-year-olds would kill for her dynamic vigour.

‘Tonight’s the opening of that new restaurant you promised Fernando you’d attend,’ Nora reminded. ‘Do you need me to come with you?’

‘Dennis is taking me,’ Silver said with a sigh.

Dennis Denby was the latest in a long line of escorts. He was thirty years old, blandly good-looking, the son of a well-known producer and his socialite wife. Dennis, who ran his own advertising agency, was quite amusing and very ambitious. He was also reasonably adequate in bed. However, he did have one major drawback. From the age of twenty-one, Dennis had systematically bedded every married woman over thirty-five in Hollywood. It seemed to be an obsession with him, and Silver was not sure she liked being on the end of a very long assembly line.

They had been dating for several weeks, and he was certainly a personable escort. The problem was she found she couldn’t really take him seriously.

‘I thought you’d be bored with him by now,’ Nora remarked intuitively.

Silver laughed. ‘When the plate is empty you pick up the crumbs.’ With a knowing nod she added, ‘Especially when one is hungry.’

Nora squinted with amusement. Silver Anderson’s sexual appetite was legendary, dating back to times when it wasn’t fashionable for a woman to demand equal rights in bed. Silver had always defied convention when it came to the male sex. If she ever wrote her autobiography it would be a regular
Who’s Who
of famous and attractive men – although she was proud of claiming never to have slept with anyone to further her career.

‘Who am I to say how hungry you are?’ Nora remarked cynically. ‘But licking the plate is a bit much!’

Silver laughed wickedly. ‘It’s not the plate I lick!’

Nora was the only one who could criticize and get away with it. Silver enjoyed the feisty honesty of her publicist, whom she also regarded as a good friend.

Growing up in show business, Silver had never had time to make friends. Hundreds of acquaintances, and now that she was a star again – thousands. None of them cared about her as a person; all they were interested in was getting close enough to bask in the stardust – hoping that a little of it would rub off on them. Dennis Denby was a perfect example. He
adored
going out with her. He revelled in the attention, the photographers, the fans.

He didn’t love her. That was okay, she didn’t love him either. They were both using each other for their own purposes.

Silver tried to remember the last time she was in love, and couldn’t. It was years since she’d experienced the exhilarating flush of being with someone just because…

She was forty-seven years old. Too experienced, too wise, too famous.

* * *

Wes Money did not know how he ever got into the position of having to take Reba Winogratsky, his landlady, out on a date.
Just luck, I guess
, he thought, as he struggled into his only suit, and tried to hide the frays around the collar of his one white shirt.

Last week, Reba had turned up alone. No Mexican maid or fat son in tow. She had collected the back rent he owed, prowled around the house, and then sprawled on his couch and confided what a bastard her husband was. It seems she had caught him in bed with his secretary, and all hell broke loose.

‘I am taking that scurvy son of a bitch for every dime he ever made,’ she announced. ‘I am gettin’ me the best shit-hot lawyer in America!’

‘Good idea,’ Wes responded, wishing she’d remove her waxed legs and vindictive expression from his couch.

‘The man’s a cockroach!’ she declared. ‘Lower than a cockroach!’ And angry tears rolled down her over-rouged cheeks.

Naturally, good old Wes Money had to console her. And somehow that consoling had ended up with him on top of her investigating the private parts of his landlady, who drove a new Mercedes, only wanted cash, and called her husband a scurvy son of a bitch cockroach.

He wouldn’t have minded, but he didn’t even get a rent rebate. Just an invitation to the opening of a new restaurant she had invested in. Reba, he discovered, had a passion for cash and sex. In that order.

He should never have started with her. Too late now.

She arrived, dressed for the occasion in a tighter than tight green lurex dress, hooker ankle-strap stiletto heels, and a silver mink jacket. Her dyed red hair was teased into a bird’s-nest, and her leathery face and flinty eyes were inexpertly loaded with the best Elizabeth Arden had to offer. She smelled of Blue Grass.

‘Hello, sailor,’ she said, with a crooked leer, and he detected an excess of whiskey on her breath.

‘Hello, Reba,’ he replied, and wondered how he was going to extract himself from
this
one and still run a month late on his rent.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The studio audience buzzed with anticipation. Jack Python was back in stride, and they loved him. Unlike Carson and Letterman and Merv, he did not sit behind a desk; he operated from a square table for two, just him and his guest – a probing, hour-long confrontation. Unlike Donahue he did not roam through his audience with the hypnotizing speed of a tornado. He took it easy, sometimes loosening his tie (he always wore one) or taking off his jacket. He made his guests feel comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that sometimes (most times) they forgot about the eager, intent audience, and the intrusive cameras, and chatted as if it was just Jack they were talking to.

He drew them out gradually, carefully. And because he only had one guest a week, he was able to read every piece of research, and decide which questions he wanted to ask. No researchers pointed Jack Python in the direction they wanted him to go. He did it his way.

Today he talked to a bespectacled film-maker who rarely did interviews. The man was a genius, an autocrat and an egomaniac. Layer by layer Jack exposed him, and the reasons he was the way he was became clear.

The audience hardly dared to breathe. They devoured the one-to-one conversation. Jack Python brought them truth, and they respected him for it. He was the perfect American combination: brains and looks. All the Kennedy brothers had possessed it, and Jack Python had been told that if he wanted it, a political future lay ahead. With his amazing popularity and keen awareness he was a prime candidate for an electoral position. He had already been approached by a group with the money to back him should he ever express a desire to run for the Senate.

‘That’s crazy!’ he’d said at first. But when they explained where his popularity could get him, he hadn’t been so sceptical. Hence his all-out effort to clean up his act with the ladies – just in case he wanted to give it a shot.

The show was nearly over. Jack observed ‘wind up’ signals from his producer, and he gently cut off his guest, who was revealing more than he’d come out with in almost ten years of analysis.

Spontaneously the audience began to applaud. A genuine wave of real appreciation. The applause signs hadn’t even been raised.

Jack thanked his guest, who was determined to keep talking. They shook hands. Camera one panned back and the lights lowered. As the credits ran, the two men were shown in silhouette.

The show was over.

Jack wanted to get up and race for the shower, only it was never that easy. Extracting himself from the guests was the most difficult part. For an hour he had been their sympathetic, interested, questioning friend, drawing things out that they might never have talked about before – especially not in public. Now it was finished, and with few exceptions they always seemed to need to keep talking.

The women were the worst. Most of them wanted to end the conversation in bed, and once upon a time so be it. Usually he was very careful, and his only slip with a guest, since being with Clarissa, was with a small, rounded movie actress who had such a puppy-dog desire to be loved that he hadn’t had the heart to say no. She apologized throughout their lovemaking for everything about herself. Then she fixed him a dish of nourishing lentil soup, and sent him back to Clarissa with the promise that she would never tell.

Fortunately she kept her word, and was now married to a dog trainer. It seemed a suitable match.

Jack’s producer, Aldrich Pane, came to the rescue as usual, giving Jack the signal to vanish while he brought the guest down from the Python high.

Jack didn’t hesitate. Straight to his dressing room, under the shower, a release of all thoughts.

Half an hour later he was dressed, refreshed, and sitting in the control room watching a tape of the live programme. Aldrich usually joined him, and they had their own private wake if the show was bad, and a celebration if it really took off.

The most important element was the guest. If the guest worked, the show did. If the guest was a dud, everything collapsed.

Tonight was a gem, which pleased both men. It meant an excellent rating for the week. Usually they were somewhere in the top ten.

‘Betcha we’ll be in the big five,’ Aldrich said, beaming happily.

Jack agreed. Finding the right guest to carry an hour was never easy, and when it worked as well as it had done tonight it was a good feeling. Especially when he was right, which had just been proven. None of the production team had wanted the reclusive, bespectacled film-maker: they had all claimed he wouldn’t talk. What a joke! It had been difficult to shut him up.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Jack said, striding out to his car.

Aldrich waved goodbye. They made a good team. Aldrich had all the patience Jack lacked, and Jack was the driving force. When
Face to Face with Python
went on the air, Jack had insisted on bringing Aldrich in as producer. They had worked together on
The Python Beat
in Houston, and Jack knew he was the right choice. Aldrich moved with his wife and children to Los Angeles, and years later the weekly hour-long programme was hotter than ever.

Driving back into Beverly Hills on the freeway, Jack pushed a tape into the deck and listened to his personal assistant, Aretha, reading off some of his mail. She had the most delightful sing-song voice, and a smile to match. He had found Aretha when he was working in Chicago. At the time she was making coffee around the studio and not much else. Jack spotted potential, and wangled her a job as production assistant. When L.A. happened, he called and asked if she was interested in being his right hand. ‘Jack, honey, I’d be anything for you,’ she enthused, and caught the next plane out. She was black, weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, and everyone loved her. Including Jack. He called Aldrich and Aretha his two A’s, and swore he’d never get through the day without them.

The traffic was heavier than usual, and by the time he reached Hollywood he was wiped out. He called Clarissa on the car phone and told her he was running late. ‘Did you watch me?’ he asked, anxious for her opinion if not her praise.

‘Why should I watch you?’ she said, quite seriously. ‘I’m seeing you soon.’

One of the things he hated about Clarissa was that she took no interest whatsoever in his work. She
knew
he liked her to watch. Was it a conscious effort to annoy him that she never did?

‘Listen, I’m kind of tired,’ he said. ‘I’m going to sleep at the hotel tonight.’

Her voice sharpened a fraction. ‘If you want.’

‘Yeah. I’m not much company.’

‘Very well.’

There was no
I’ll miss you – I’ll massage your back – I’ll look after you
.

Was
that
what attracted him to Clarissa? Her aloofness. Her undemonstrative attitude. Or did he just like being with her because she was an Oscar-winning actress and not some Hollywood bimbette?

He shook his head. Ecstatically in love he wasn’t. The truth was he never had been. He was thirty-nine years old with everything going for him. He had experienced one short marriage which had scared him to death, and legions of women. And yet he just didn’t know.

Love.

It probably didn’t even exist.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Good evening,’ said Dennis Denby.

‘Good evening,’ sneered Vladimir.

Dennis raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘May I come in?’

Vladimir allowed him to do so reluctantly. Vladimir was very possessive about Madame Anderson, and this one did not strike him as one of Madame’s better escorts. Vladimir had preferred last month’s, a caustic New York man-about-town who cracked incessant jokes, and tipped handsomely.

Dennis Denby walked into the library and began to pour himself a drink.

Following him accusingly, Vladimir edged him out of the way. ‘My job,’ he said, taking over. Not that he wanted to make Dennis Denby a drink, but his familiar way in Madame’s home infuriated Vladimir.

Dennis walked to the nearest mirror and inspected himself. He was nice-looking, if somewhat slight. Beverly Hills born and bred, he had manners, style, and a rakish way of dressing. Tonight he wore a canary-yellow jacket over a pin-stripe shirt, and black silk Italian trousers with patent leather shoes. On anyone else the outfit might have looked odd, but Dennis managed to carry it off with great aplomb.

‘Will you let Miss Anderson know I’m here,’ he said to Vladimir as the houseman handed him his drink.

Vladimir wondered if Dennis Denby travelled both roads, and decided he did. Poor Madame. She probably didn’t suspect. Maybe he should drop a gentle hint – although Madame’s escorts barely lasted longer than a month, so this one’s time was almost up. ‘I vas just going to do so,’ Vladimir said, the sneer fixed firmly on his face.