Lovers and Gamblers (27 page)

When Linda told him that she had to go to Los Angeles for a couple of days with Dallas, he didn’t mind a bit. It was a relief in fact, giving him absolute free time with Al – a fact that Linda would have bitched about.

Linda noticed his attitude, and she smiled coldly, saying, ‘It might even be longer than a couple of days.’

‘Take as long as you need,’ Paul replied absently.

Sonofabitch. What did he care? If only she could summon the strength, she wouldn’t come back at all.

* * *

They arrived in Los Angeles early the next morning and drove straight to the house. Linda prowled around inspecting the facilities she would have for her photography.

Bernie had come up with the phone number of a black call girl. As Linda had thought, he had a special little book with a listing for every preference. His eyes had bugged out as to
why
Linda wanted the number of a black hooker in LA. But she had just smiled and said, ‘Everyone to their own, Bernie sweetheart,’ and left it at that.

The girl – exotically entitled Diamond – answered the phone on the second ring in a lazy Southern drawl. Linda said they had a proposition, and could they talk. Diamond agreed, noted the address, and said she would be with them in an hour.

She turned up two hours later, a dazzlingly pretty girl in her early twenties with an abundance of long black hair and a Diana Ross smile. Her only problem appeared to be short legs and a dropped ass. Apart from that she was a knockout.

Linda fed her some story about a married man whose wife needed pictures of him in action.

Just as Diamond was objecting, Linda mentioned a fee of five hundred dollars, and the deal was clinched.

Diamond left in a cloud of Hermès perfume, promising to return later.

‘We’re all set,’ Linda announced. ‘Do you think you had better call Lew and make sure he’ll be here?’

‘He’ll be here,’ said Dallas bitterly. ‘I just hope I can go through with it.’

‘Come on!’ chided Linda. ‘Just think of the outcome… Think of the time when
you
can screw him.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Dallas, ‘I can just imagine his face when I show him the photos. It would never occur to him that I’d have the brains to work this out. He thinks I fucked my brains out when I was a working girl.’

‘Listen, kid, I hate to say it, but they all credit women with minimal thinking capacity. Hey – you know what I think? I think a few drinks around here would not go amiss. And how about a little grass – you got any?’

‘In a red box under the fridge. Linda, isn’t it ridiculous – I’m nervous.’

Linda smiled. ‘Aren’t we all? But forget about it, relax. Tonight we’re going to win for a change, I just know it.’

Al awoke with one of the worst hangovers he could remember. His head pounded in a series of drumbeats, his eyes hurt, even his teeth ached.

He tried to remember… Jesus, the show. What had happened with the show? Had he appeared? He honestly couldn’t remember.

He lay very still, trying to ignore the fact that he had to piss, trying to concentrate.

He remembered going to some lousy afternoon party. Some gathering full of snobbish English exiles. Miami-based chinless wonders. Tinkly-voiced, horse-faced girls who regarded him as some kind of freak. It had somehow brought back every bad memory of the days before the fame.

He had left the party abruptly and gone to a whorehouse. The man least likely to have to pay for it had selected a jolly little Cuban girl and spent three hours getting boozed in her pathetic little room.

He hadn’t screwed her, merely humiliated her. And after, he felt like a real shit, and had continued on his drinking jag all the way to the concert.

He remembered vaguely Evan joining him somewhere along the way. And Bernie, and Paul arguing with him. But had he gone on? He truly couldn’t remember.

The desire to piss was too strong to resist, and by the time he came out of the bathroom Paul was sitting on his bed. They regarded each other warily. Neither quite sure what terms they were on.

‘Fuck the push-ups this morning,’ mumbled Al. ‘What I really need is a couple of gallons of orange juice and a new head.’

Paul picked up the phone and requested a jug of fresh orange juice from room service. ‘Food?’ he questioned. Al made a face.

‘So,’ said Paul, hanging up, ‘what’s the problem?’

‘No problem. Just felt like cutting loose.’

Luke had filled Paul in on Al’s activities of the previous day. ‘What made you go to that party?’

‘What did you want me to do? Sit here and play footsie with Evan? You’d all pissed off – I couldn’t even find Bernie.’ He hesitated. ‘How did the show go?’

‘You staggered around a lot. Insulted the crowd. Fortunately there was so much screaming you could have stripped off and sung Bollocks and no one would have noticed. At least we got you on.’

‘Where’s Evan?’

‘I sent him down to the coffee shop.’

Al held his head. ‘The kid is driving me nuts, gotta get him off my back. Gotta send him home.
You’ll
have to tell him,
I
can’t.’

‘Thanks a lot. The boy idolizes you. If you send him home it’s going to be an A-one rejection – he’ll become even worse. I think you should give him another chance.’

‘Another chance at what? He won’t drink, smoke, or screw. Watches me like a hawk – I can’t take it, makes me nervous.’

Paul opened the door for room service, and poured Al a hefty glass of orange juice. ‘Just leave him alone. Stop worrying about him. First of all, it’s wrong to have him in your suite – we’ll get him his own room in future. Don’t have him follow you everywhere – let him make his own friends.’

‘I wish he would.’

‘Leave him alone and he will. I’ll have Linda take a friendly interest in him when she gets back.’

‘Where’s she gone?’

‘To Los Angeles with Dallas – she has some problem – Linda’s helping out.’

Al’s interest perked. ‘What problem?’

Paul shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Dallas flew in, grabbed a hold of Linda, and they flew off this morning. I think that…’

‘Dallas was here?’

‘Last night.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I just did.’

‘That’s great, isn’t it. He tells me when she’s gone.’

‘
You
were gone last night. You were lucky to do the show. You were…’

‘Do me a favour, Paul. Piss off. Your voice is pounding into my head and I can’t take any more.’

‘Sure. Plane leaves in two hours. Press reception and television interview arranged to take place at O’Hara Airport upon arrival. Kup show to be recorded this afternoon. Party in your honour tonight at the Macho Mansion.’

Al groaned. ‘If I’m not dead by that time…’

Paul smiled thinly. There had been two calls that there was a bomb secreted on Al’s plane, and at this very moment the plane was being thoroughly searched. ‘You’ll make it.’

Al grinned. ‘Sure I will. Sauna. Massage. Stomach pump. By the way – you got a phone number for Linda?’

‘I didn’t know you cared.’

‘I do. She’s lovely but taken. Do you mind if I phone Dallas?’

Paul wrote a number on a piece of paper. ‘Be my guest.’

After Paul left, Al felt relief. Things were back to normal between them. It made him feel a lot better. God almighty, if Paul couldn’t understand his moods by now…

He poured himself some more orange juice, gulped down several Bufferin. Forced himself to take a cold shower, then decided he couldn’t miss doing his push-ups and got through half of them before collapsing.

Only then did he pick up the telephone and ask for the number Paul had given him. He didn’t know what he was going to say if Dallas answered, but he wanted to talk to her, just say hello again. Of course she would have to fly into Miami the night he was pissed out of his mind. It seemed to be fate that they kept on missing each other.

The operator told him to hold on. He waited impatiently and was surprised at how disappointed he was when he was informed that the number did not answer.

Shit! What
was
it about Dallas?

He folded the piece of paper with the number on it and put it carefully into his pocket. Later, he would call again later.

* * *

Edna King peered at herself in the bathroom mirror. Melanie had persuaded her to have her hair cut. She had dragged her to a place called Mr. Capone’s, and a tall, thin, leering Italian had chopped off her shoulder-length mouse, and she had emerged with short blond curls.

Reluctantly she did have to admit it looked better. Although what Al would say she didn’t know. He would probably be furious. He was always telling her he liked her just the way she was – well, that was what he used to tell her. He hadn’t told her much of anything in the more recent times they had spent together.

She stood up and admired her new svelte figure. Thanks to Melanie watching her like a hawk she had lost ten pounds. And her make-up was much better since Melanie had taken her to that place where they had taught her to apply things in a more subtle fashion. But what would Al say when he found out how much she had spent on a whole new wardrobe of clothes? He would be furious. ‘Don’t be silly,’ Melanie had argued, ‘he spends more on clothes in a month than you have in your entire married life.’ That
was
true, but still, he was the star of the family.

Edna smiled at herself tentatively in the mirror. Melanie had persuaded her to go to the dentist and have her crooked front tooth capped. It still surprised her to smile and see the difference.

She sighed. She just hoped that Al wouldn’t be too angry.

Melanie had laughed at her fears. ‘You look wonderful. Younger, prettier, smarter. Al will be knocked out, just you wait and see.’

And it wouldn’t be that long to wait. Melanie had booked the tickets already which would fly them both to America on a surprise visit.

Edna rubbed nervously at her subtle brown eye-shadow, blending it in even more. At least Melanie was right about one thing, she did look much better, whether Al approved or not.

* * *

Macho
was the giant success men’s magazine of the seventies. What
Playboy
had been to the sixties, and
Penthouse
to the early seventies,
Macho
was now. Its enormous sales left all its rivals trailing in its wake. The appeal of the magazine was that it had something for everyone. Month after month it featured beautiful, nearly naked, very famous ladies. Nude men with vibrant hard-ons. Unknown nymphets indulging in near porn. Incredibly elegant fashion lay-outs. A very comprehensive Arts section. Political writers of great esteem. In fact it was the cream of all the top magazines combined into one.

Van Valda, owner, founder, and editor supreme, had set himself up in a Chicago mansion bigger even than Hefner’s former palace. He lived there in splendid isolation surrounded by an ever-changing procession of Nymphets.

To be a Nymphet you had to be between fifteen and seventeen, very pretty, and quite dumb. Any job which phased you out at eighteen did not appeal to intelligent girls.

At the Macho Mansion a huge party was being prepared for Al King, and his reputation had preceded him. Nymphets fluttered back and forth squealing with joy. It wasn’t often that a true life superstud honoured them with his presence. Usually they had to make do with Van – who couldn’t get it up. Or visiting important men who could only just get it up.

‘I wonder if he’s as sexy as he sounds,’ breathed one pink and white fifteen-year-old.

‘Better!’ assured a more sophisticated sixteen-year-old. ‘I know a girl who knows a girl whose sister has had him! She says…’

Hot little rumours flitted back and forth all day. And six baby Nymphets crowded onto Van’s giant bed to watch Al’s arrival on Van’s giant-sized television screen.

Van smiled paternally. He was a thin, undistinguished-looking man of forty, whose one desire in life had been to make a lot of money and surround himself with beautiful and sexy females. The money part had gone without a hitch, but somewhere along the way his hard-on had vanished, and for two years he had been painfully impotent. Painfully, because the desire was still there, but the implement was not.

He fondled a gorgeous little thing’s right breast, always hopeful. She smiled and encouraged him. He put his hand down the pants of another girl, and she wriggled around.

He stopped both activities. He would sooner watch one of his famous porno home movies. Maybe Al would be interested in seeing one later. He could run the Ramo Kaliffe, always good for a laugh.

‘What time will he be here, Daddy?’ burbled a sweet little redhead. ‘Will he fuck us? Will he fuck all of us? Wouldn’t that be fun, girls, wouldn’t that be really boss?’

They all squealed their agreement.

Van climbed off the bed. Better get his equipment together, this was one movie he didn’t want to miss.

* * *

Mob scenes at the airport heralded Al’s arrival. He stepped from his plane, impeccable and sexual in an all-black outfit. He made a boxer’s salute at his fans, smiled for the cameras. Behind him Paul marvelled at his tenacity. A few hours before he had been a complete wreck, now he was like a new man.

He handled his press conference beautifully. He combined just the right amount of aggressiveness with a humorous charm, and the ladies and gentlemen of the press loved it, especially the ladies.

Bernie hovered protectively, ready to combat any difficult questions. But they didn’t come, and everything went off smoothly.

Paul noticed Evan scowling in a corner, and he went over to him. ‘How’s it going? Enjoying yourself?’

Evan shrugged and mumbled, ‘’Sall right.’

Paul felt guilty that he had paid hardly any attention to his nephew. But he didn’t want him finding out about his relationship with Linda. Evan would tell Edna. Edna would tell Melanie. Melanie would go raving mad.

‘Spoken to your mum?’ Paul inquired.

‘Yes,’ muttered Evan.

‘Everything OK at home?’

‘Yes.’

A great conversationalist Evan was not.

‘I suppose you miss home.’

‘No, I don’t miss it. Don’t miss anything.’