Lovers and Liars (36 page)

The man holding the revolver grinned, raising it.

Will Hayward gasped. “No, please,” he cried, unable to take his eyes off of the instrument of his death.

“It’s too late for you, motherfucker,” the big man said.

Will managed to take one desperate look around him, but Central Park was empty at this time of night—as he had
known it would be. His gaze flickered back to the man about to murder him, and he backed up a step. “Please, please!”

“There ain’t nowhere for you to go to, fool.”

He was right. Sweat streamed down Will’s face in the frigid winter night. The gun loomed larger than life in his vision, a blow up, and he could see that trigger finger beginning to squeeze …

Will screamed, backpedaling.

And just as he pulled the trigger, the giant slipped on the icy footing and went down hard, all three hundred pounds of him. The shot echoed harmlessly in the night.

Will ran.

Panting, his breath condensing into thick puffs in the freezing air, he ran for his life. The ground was slick with snow and ice, but Will didn’t fall. He knew the giant was behind him. He could hear him. He hit Fifth Avenue, gasping and doubled over. He threw a glance over his shoulder and saw him. This time there would be no escape …

The yellow cab had stopped for the light. Will lunged for it, screaming as another shot sounded. It wasn’t until he was inside and huddled against the backseat, the driver accelerating wildly away, yelling in a mixture of Spanish and English at him to get the fuck out of his cab, that Will could even begin to think again, ignoring the cabbie’s furious, frightened ravings.

One coherent thought formed.

That bastard was trying to kill him.

For he did not have a single doubt.

Abe Glassman, his oldest friend, was trying to kill him.

   Just when things were going so well.

Never had a raid been smoother.

Abe smiled. Belinda was more gullible than he’d have thought, to have swallowed the crap he’d handed her. Didn’t she understand that there was no way, no way, that he could allow her success? Didn’t she understand that he absolutely willed it that she come to heel, marry Adam Gordon, and give him his heir? His patience was finally paying off. She and Gordon were close. And her career was not going toc
interfere with his plans for her and Adam much longer. There was only one thing left—the coup de grace, as he saw it. And it wasn’t up to him. “Get her pregnant,” he had told Gordon last night.

As for that prick Ford?

Abe chuckled, more than pleased.

He had seen the newsclip on the local Aspen TV station of Ford’s arrival and his shock at the news of the takeover and
Berenger’
s cancellation. Abe’s smile grew. He had a coup for Ford too. If Ford had been shocked by that little turn of events, how would he greet Abe’s next step in his campaign of destruction?

Because destruction it would be.

Total destruction.

Abe couldn’t wait. Couldn’t wait for Ford to find out that the production of
Outrage
was cancelled. The only question was one of timing—when to let this cat out of the bag?

   Jack was in such a foul, rotten mood, he couldn’t even read the words on the script in front of him. He shoved it away. He thought of the long-legged redhead he had spent last night with, and he felt angry. He had had trouble getting aroused. Him, Jack Ford, cocksman without peer, was having trouble getting it up. He slammed his fist on his desk and paced to the window.

It had been like that for four weeks
—four fucking weeks—
ever since that uppity cunt had walked out on him. First there had been the lack of desire, not really caring about getting laid. Unless he thought of her. Then he’d get hard in a second—all revved up with nowhere to go. Damn the bitch.

He had skied all day every day with Melody right through New Year’s Day. Biting Mel’s head off half the time, the other half brooding. Once or twice when he was perched high in the air on the chair lift, he had thought he was seeing her—Belinda. The same hair, sticking out of those ridiculous woolen hats, but in bulky ski clothes it was impossible to tell. Each time he had been wrong.

But the third time he saw her he knew it was her.

It was a warm day. The chair lift had stopped momentarily. Melody had her face tilted to the sun. Jack watched a skier coming down Red’s Run, a vast mogul field, the moguls three and four feet high, really cut up, hence the fact that there was only one skier attempting it.

Wearing skintight stretch skipants, bib-style, a sweater tucked into them, a black men’s cap on her head, black sunglasses. Her figure was striking and strong: broad-shouldered, full-breasted, small-waisted, long, strong legs. He knew it was her without seeing her hair or her face.

She could ski. Perfect style, seemingly slow, cutting into and hanging over those moguls, as graceful as a ballet dancer. Her legs had to be unbelievably strong. He knew how strong they were—he remembered vividly, tactilely, how strong they were when she had wrapped them around his waist. She skied beneath his chair without looking up, every ounce of concentration on the difficult terrain in front of her, and even as the lift started moving again, he twisted his head to watch her until he could see her no longer.

And he had a hard-on.

An angry one. The bitch. No one walked out on him. No one. Especially not some piece of ass. It wasn’t
that
fine.

Now he stared down at Wilshire Boulevard with clenched fists. Obsessed. He was obsessed. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t enjoy fucking. If only he were working, but there had been a temporary postponement in production, more shit for him to worry about. Of course, if he were working, he’d be seeing her. He didn’t know whether that thought thrilled him or infuriated him. Damn. He had to know. He strode to the door and yanked it open. He had to know where she was. He had to see her tonight. “Melody!”

“Yes?” She looked up.

“Where’s the phone book? Do you know if that broad, Belinda Carlisle, the screenwriter, lives in L.A.?”

Melody stared at him.

He actually flushed.

“I can tell you where she lives, Jack.”

“How in hell would you know?”

“She’s a celebrity in her own right,” Melody said. “I read a piece about her once in one of the rags. She’s got a place in Laguna Beach.”

“What?”

“She’s got a—”

“What the hell do you mean, she’s a celebrity in her own right?”

“Don’t you know?” Melody smiled. “Her real name is Belinda Glassman. She’s Abe Glassman’s daughter.”

   Restless.

Bored.

Disgruntled
. A good word. Poised, almost waiting, feeling an empty space inside, almost able to grasp what she needed, what she was missing—yet it was elusive, intangible.

Oh, bullshit, Belinda thought. Elusive, intangible? There was nothing elusive or intangible about Jackson Ford.

She had a crush on the biggest prick in Hollywood. Then she laughed. Probably true, but she hadn’t meant it literally. Besides, he knew who she was. Had he called? Or tried to coax her into another night? No, he’d given up without a fight, as she had known he would. Spoiled. Spoiled and arrogant. Right now he was probably with one of his eighteen-year-old bimbos.

Red-hot jealousy.

Jesus, I’m in a bad way! she thought.

Outrage
was in a temporary hiatus. Belinda couldn’t help it, her skin prickled whenever she thought about it. But she’d talked to Mascione, who was unperturbed, saying this kind of thing was the norm after a big takeover and not to worry, they’d be back in production by February—he’d been promised. Fallout from Abe. Unintentional, just fallout, but … He was screwing with her career, even if it was inadvertently, and Belinda wished, not for the first time, that he could just be a normal father. In which case she would be on the set right now, working. With
him
.

Eventually they would be working together again. Eventually? February was two weeks away, and that wasn’t
eventually. Out of the frying pan, she thought grimly, and into the fire. How could someone both dread something and anticipate it at the same time? Somehow, she was going to have to stay away from him.

And, of course, staying away from him made her think of being with him, that night at the Kellers’. It made her think of the incredible passion. And her incredible stupidity.

She hadn’t used her diaphragm.

She hadn’t even thought about it.

Belinda knew herself: She wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t forgetful. But she really had forgotten. Except, there was no way she could have forgotten unless it was deliberately. For some perverse reason, her inner self was defying all reason and sanity. For some reason deep within herself she wanted to get pregnant with his child.

Maybe it hadn’t happened.

Oh, what have I done?

She, a liberated woman of the eighties, reverting unconsciously to a ploy as ancient as time?

Tomorrow, she thought with dread and disbelief, I’ll get a pregnancy test. And when I go back to Tucson, I am staying the hell away from him. He is one dangerous man.

She was going to stick to the Vinces of this world.

Last night had been a disaster. She hadn’t been laid since Ford, not in the entire time she had spent in Aspen nor the two weeks following; and last night she had had to fantasize about Ford in order to come while Vince was making love to her. Christ. Poor Vince. The doorbell rang.

Belinda knew with an uncanny instinct that it was Vince. Sighing, she opened the door.

Mary Spazzio smiled and raised a glinting black revolver at her. “You fucking bitch,” she said.

PART THREE
LIARS
January 1988
 

66

S
he hated him.

How could he?

And, God, the noises—they had kept her up all night.

And that laugh. His laugh. Low, unbearably sensual, unbearably aroused. He had never laughed that way with her. The bastard.

Melody didn’t know if she wanted to quit or die or kill Jack.

“Mel!” he shouted from his office.