My Lucky Star (31 page)

“Look,” said Stephen, rising to face her, “if you think you can shake me down here —!”

“Oh, sit, you stoned jackass. I’m not trying to shake you down. I’m trying to save your sorry ass, though I’m guessing it’s
too late for that.”

Stephen, accustomed to a touch more obeisance from his employees, said, “Hey! There’s no need for name-calling!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Hurt your feelings, love? I have not begun to name-call, you conceited, overprivileged oaf! You dick-brained,
Oscar-fucking imbecile!”

Stephen turned to me with a flustered, betrayed look that broke my so recently euphoric heart.

“You told me she wouldn’t be a problem!”

“Trust me,” said Claire, “I am the least of your problems! Do you even begin to realize the magnitude of the blunder you’ve
made in delivering yourself into the hands of Moira Finch? Do you have the first idea whom you’re dealing with?”

“Claire,” I explained weakly, “has never liked Moira.”

“No, I never have, Stephen. Neither have these two. And do you know why? Let me spell it out for you. Moira,” she said, jabbing
a finger into his chest, “is not a
nice lady!
She is a thief, a liar, and a grifter par excellence. She is a backstabbing con artist who would sell her own mother for
a Tic Tac, and if a vampire bit her, the vampire would die.
That,
my friend, is the woman you have so shrewdly entrusted with your most incendiary sexual secrets!”

“What are you talking about?” exclaimed Stephen, eyes bulging. “Philip said she was great!”

“He had to. She was blackmailing him!”

“What?” yelped Stephen, recoiling at his least favorite word.

“It was hardly blackmail,” I said, rising, alarmed, to my feet. “More an exchange of favors.”

“It’s why they brought you here in the first place,” said Claire. “Because Moira made them. She threatened to spill our dirty
little secret, which is that our spec script, the one that made Bobby recommend us, was this one’s”— she thrust a finger at
Gilbert —“clever little rewrite of
Casablanca.
”

“I don’t think it matters how we got the job!” said Gilbert. “What counts is the bang-up job we’ve done on the new one, which
is completely our own work and —”

“Shut up about the fucking script!” snarled Stephen. He sprang to his feet and began pacing frantically about the room.

“Is this true, Philip?” he demanded. “She
blackmailed
you into bringing me here?”

I said she had not done so explicitly, but conceded that we’d sensed a certain danger in saying no.

“She wanted a big fish,” said Claire, “and thanks to these two she got one. Which brings us back to Oscar —was that your idea
or Moira’s?”

“Of course it wasn’t my idea! He just walked in!”

“And you were stoned?”

“It relaxes me!”

“A bit stronger than usual, was it?” asked Claire.

Stephen gaped at her as if she’d guessed the name of his fifth-grade crush.

“How the hell’d you know that?”

“Then one thing led to another?” pressed Claire.

“None of your damn business!”

She stared at him in amazement and something like pity, which unnerved me more than her wrath.

“And it never occurred to you she might be
filming
it?”

It clearly had not. The suggestion literally floored Stephen, making him stagger backward and trip over an ottoman. As he
lay there, his face a rictus of horror, I wondered briefly if he’d had an actual coronary, his body making the snap decision
that death would be preferable to life in a world where such footage existed and was easily downloadable.

“You think she
filmed it?!
” said Gilbert, sounding less alarmed than eager to secure premiere tickets.

“If I know Moira,” sighed Claire, “that’s exactly what she did, what she’s been doing from the start. Roping in the suckers,
pinhole cameras in every room, biding her time till she can name her price.”

“Fuck!”
The expletive did not spring from Stephen’s lips but rather rocketed from the back of his throat like a forcefully Heimliched
olive pit.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!!”

“Now let’s not panic!” I said, rushing to help him up.

“Don’t touch me!” he growled. “You’re the asshole who set me up for this!”

His words were like daggers and I brimmed suddenly not with guilt but anger at Claire, whose alarmist theory had turned my
beloved against me. I wheeled on her. “Well, thanks a lot for getting him all freaked out! For all we know it’s never even
occurred to Moira that she could —
oh, shit!”

For an image had just detonated in my head. It was of the small security room located off Moira’s office. I recalled the locked
door, the pugnacious little guard, the computer equipment. Mostly though I remembered the rows of flickering video monitors.
Hadn’t one displayed a room much like that in which our recent sexcapades had unfolded?

“What?” demanded Claire.

I described my discovery, which did little to lessen Stephen’s hysteria. He was pacing now like a caged puma, his thoughts
no doubt centering on Oscar and his own regrettably abandoned calls for brisker fucking.

“Don’t worry, Stephen! I’m going to fix this!” I vowed.

“Oh, really, Phil?” he said with venomous sarcasm. “And just how are you gonna do that?”

“Yes,” chimed Gilbert snidely, as if he bore no responsibility for our present dilemma. “Do tell us your master plan!”

The desire to regain lost love is a powerful spur to invention and I swiftly hit on a strategy. I outlined it in broad strokes.
Stephen seemed cautiously hopeful, Claire offered astute embellishments, and Gilbert said he’d been about to suggest it himself.

Stephen called downstairs and asked for Moira. He told her there was a matter of some delicacy he wished to discuss but could
not do so in his suite as Gina was there. Could she meet him in Philip’s room? Moira consented and we hastened next door to
my room, where Claire, Gilbert, and I secreted ourselves in the closet. Moira arrived and when she’d advanced far enough into
the room we pounced and tackled her to the floor.

“Get your goddamned hands off me!”

She struggled, demonic and wild-eyed as though fearing an unsolicited exorcism, but Claire and Gilbert held her down while
I frisked her and found the prize I was after—her key ring. I smiled, dangling it before her in triumph.

“How
dare
you assault me! You give those back right now or I’ll say something you’ll wish I hadn’t!”

“You mean the
Casablanca
business?” said Claire. “Sorry, love, those beans are all spilled. Now it’s your turn to come clean.”

“Have you been filming me?” demanded Stephen.

“What?” replied Moira, doe-eyed and bewildered.

“My massages!” he snapped. “Have you been filming them?”

“Of course not!” she exclaimed, scandalized. “The very idea! You know I treat my clients’ privacy with the utmost respect!”
She jerked her head toward Claire. “I suppose
she’s
the one who’s been filling your head with this rubbish?”

“If it’s rubbish,” said Claire, “then you won’t mind waiting here while we pop downstairs and check out your little video
room.”

Moira heaved an irate sigh and shook her head, marveling at our paranoia.

“Fine. You’ve got the keys. Knock yourselves out.”

She sank into a chair and gazed out the window with the bored superior look young poetesses wear in algebra class. This was
not the response we’d anticipated and the four of us exchanged a puzzled glance. Moira, taking advantage of our momentary
inattention, sprang from the chair and flew toward the door. She managed to open it and very nearly got out but Stephen, making
good on his boast that he does his own stunts, gave chase, dove to the ground, and grabbed her ankle, causing her to fall.
He dragged her caveman style back into the room, ignoring her shrill threats of legal action, which Claire promptly silenced
with the aid of a rolled-up pillowcase. We then secured her hands and feet with neckties and deposited her, bound, gagged,
and furious, back into the chair.

We agreed it would take two of us to guard Moira and prevent her, if possible, from turning into a wolf and leaping out the
window. Claire and Stephen agreed to stay with her while Gilbert and I plundered her sanctum.

As we raced down the hall I stopped suddenly, struck by a disquieting thought.

“What?” said Gilbert.

“The guard,” I said, describing the malevolent Kewpie doll who’d barred my way earlier.

“You say she’s tiny?”

“Yes, but her gun’s not.”

“Ah.” Gilbert frowned. “We’ll have to distract her then.”

“How?”

Gilbert pondered the matter for all of three seconds, then darted back down the hall to where a fire alarm was mounted next
to an extinguisher. He triggered it and the tranquility of the spa was instantly shattered by a clangorous din. Doors flew
open and startled guests, Claire among them, popped their heads out. I rushed back, told her to sit tight, then rejoined Gilbert,
who was standing at the top of the stairs, smiling proudly down at the chaos he’d wrought.

As anxious guests streamed into the lobby from the bar and salon, our eyes remained fixed on the door behind the reception
desk. In due course it opened and out came the receptionist along with slutty raccoon girl. Seconds ticked by and I began
to wonder if Kim’s dedication was such that she’d sooner face incineration than abandon her post but she finally emerged,
scowling, from her den.

“Yeesh!” said Gilbert. “Who put a dress on Danny DeVito?”

As Kim busied herself herding patrons out to the lawn it was simplicity itself to dash down the stairs, nip behind the desk,
drop to a crouch, and waddle into the office. As we’d expected, the door to the security room was locked, but the fourth key
we tried opened it.

Once inside, we closed the door and inspected the bank of video monitors. There were twelve in all, displaying four different
treatment rooms from three angles each. Two of the rooms were now empty. In the other two rooms buff young men were struggling
hastily into their clothes while their clients, gentlemen of middle years, huddled in robes, looking fretful and thwarted.

Beneath the monitors was a counter on which sat an Apple laptop with a large screen. I hit COMMAND-F for “find” and typed
in “Donato.” This led me to a folder that bore his name and contained thirty-two items, the icons for which were little filmstrips,
suggesting video files. Each was labeled by date, the most recent being today’s. I clicked on it and the screen filled suddenly
with remarkably crisp footage of Stephen sitting on the massage table, smoking the joint as Ricky kneaded his neck. I pressed
COMMAND-QUIT
and the scene disappeared.

“Watcha do that for?” squawked Gilbert. “They weren’t even naked yet!”

“There’s no time, you horny idiot! Check the drawers and cabinets!”

A hasty search yielded a Lucite box containing twelve shiny disks like DVDs. They were in paper sleeves on each of which was
scrawled some famous name, Stephen’s among them.

“You take these, I’ll get the laptop!” I said, disconnecting the cables but keeping the power cord. Satisfied we’d confiscated
all we could, we exited through Moira’s lair to the outer office, entering it at the precise moment that wee Kim barreled
in from the lobby.

“
You!
What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she inquired, reaching for her gun.

My usual strategy in moments of such dire peril is to freeze in horror and pray to wake up. But I had a megastar to save and
wasn’t about to let this surly Cerberus stand between me and his tender gratitude. Noting that she was standing on a beige
carpet runner and that we were not, I dropped to a squat and gave it a brisk yank, causing her to plummet the relatively short
distance to the floor.

“C’mon!” I yelled and we fled, Gilbert taking care to stomp on her kidneys so as to extract still more wind from her sails.
We sped through the lobby and out to the driveway, where the confused guests milled about, anxiously speculating on the whereabouts
of the fire.

“Shit!” cried Gilbert, frantically patting his pockets.

“What?”

“We valeted!”

The LA custom of valeting—leaving one’s keys and car with a fellow who parks it for you then retrieves it when needed—is normally
a welcome convenience. There is nothing like it, however, to put a crimp in a getaway, which is why your savvier burglar eschews
the practice entirely, preferring to keep a driver waiting or, at the very least, self-park. There was no chance that even
the speediest valet could retrieve Gilbert’s car before Moira’s enraged sentinel emerged from the spa, pistols blazing.

“Moira’s keys!” said Gilbert. “Is her car on there?”

I whipped the ring from my pocket and saw that it indeed held a key to her Porsche. This was a timely stroke of luck as the
enraged thuglet had just exited the lobby and was letting rip some full-throated war cries.

“Stop! Thief!
Stop them!!
”

We sprinted madly toward the parking area in search of Moira’s Porsche. It would not, we promptly realized, be easy to find,
since, owing to the affluence of her clientele, the lot looked pretty much like a dealership. Fortunately for us, Moira liked
her boss lady perks and the RESERVED FOR M. FINCH sign led us swiftly to her gleaming black Carrera.

Gilbert took the wheel. We peeled out, tires screaming, and roared down the driveway at a speed that brought loud rebukes
from guests near its edges. We barely heard one last furious cry of “Stop them!” before we passed through the gate.

After we’d traveled a safe distance, taking many an arbitrary turn to foil pursuers, I borrowed Gilbert’s cell, having left
mine at the hotel, and called Claire. I informed her of our success and asked if she’d retrieve Gilbert’s and my luggage as
we’d not be returning to Les Étoiles anytime soon. I asked to speak to Stephen. I told him what we’d found, laying it on pretty
thick in the derring-do department, then asked if he wished to rendezvous later for a handoff. This drew a howl of protest
from Gilbert, who saw no reason to relinquish the disks before we’d had a proper screening.