When the Stars Come Out (40 page)

“Please, call me Quinn.”

“Right.” Jason shot a quick look around the set. “Let’s talk for a second, okay, Quinn?” Quinn agreed, and Jason shouted, “Five minutes!”

“Five minutes,” agreed Bernie, although he was annoyed because

calling breaks was
his
job.

Jason motioned for Quinn to follow him to a slightly more pri-

vate corner of the set. As they walked, the young superstar said,

“Can I level with you?”

“Please do.”

“This whole thing doesn’t make me very comfortable.”

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“
What
whole thing?”

“This is stunt-casting,” Jason explained. “You know what that is?”

Quinn nodded. “Listen, I’m just being honest with you. I don’t have the studio hire
my
father for sweeps week, you know what I mean?”

Quinn stopped. “You do realize that I’m not just Q. J.’s father,

don’t you?”

“I know, I know . . .” Jason tried to do “conciliatory.” “You also wrote that book.”

“This is about more than the book . . .”

Jason was barely listening. “And the gay thing, well
. . .
more power to you, old man. I really appreciate my gay fans, and I think it’s great that you’re like eighty years old and their new icon. But still . . .”

Quinn was offended. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

Jason shrugged. Hadn’t he just told him that he knew who he

was?

“I am an actor. I worked with John Wayne
. . .
Robert Mitchum
. . .

Rock Hudson. I’m not just here because I’m the gay guy who hap-

pens to be Q. J. Scott’s father!”

Jason St. Clair thought about that for a few seconds, then of-

fered Quinn a tight smile and said, “Yes, you are.”

“That little bastard,” muttered Quinn, once he was in the privacy

of his dressing room. Someone had been kind enough to set up a

small bar in a corner of the room, but he ignored it. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

Moments after Jason St. Clair had extended his claws and started

scratching, Quinn had thrown his script to the floor and stomped

off the set, leaving general confusion in his wake. While slugging that smug prick would have been satisfying, he knew that it would

have also doomed this comeback, modest as it was. In which case

the dressing room was the safest place for him to let off steam.

Bart tried to be a calming influence. “He’s just a kid. Ignore

him.”

Quinn looked at him. “
You’re
a kid, and
you
don’t talk to me like that.” He stewed some more. “I’ll bet he doesn’t talk that way to

Horshack.”

W H E N T H E S T A R S C O M E O U T

265

“Unless you don’t want people calling you ‘Philly Cop’ all week,

I’d suggest you start calling him ‘Ron.’”

“Eh.”

Finally convinced by Bart that it was the professional thing to do, Quinn returned to the set. His discarded script had been retrieved by one of the crew, and actor and dialogue were quickly reunited.

It was the last good thing that would happen to Quinn that after-

noon. Or for the rest of the week, for that matter.

When Bart arrived back at his hotel room, his face was grim.

“What’s the matter?” asked Noah, taking his eyes off the televi-

sion, where that night’s edition of
Hollywood’s Hottest Stories
was just beginning. Bart picked up the remote control and turned off

the TV.

“I don’t even know where to start. He lost his script a few times, and kept screwing up his lines, and . . .” He paused. “The thing is, he started off good. The first time the cast read the script he was fine. But then he had a run-in with Jason St. Clair, and everything went downhill. It went downhill
fast
.”

“Couldn’t Q. J. do anything?”

“His son is an idiot. He probably has to wear a timer to remind

him to breathe.” Bart rubbed his face. “I don’t know
. . .
maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe Quinn has lost it.” Looking at Noah he

added, “By the way, it gets worse. This isn’t just a case of Quinn screwing up and pissing off a few actors.
Hollywood’s Hottest Stories
is on the set this week, and they’re capturing every moment.”

“I was just watching that,” said Noah, reaching for the remote.

“Turn it back on.”

“Not tonight. But starting tomorrow
. . .
ugh, it’s going to be horrible. If Quinn can’t get his act together, he’s going to look
so
bad.”

Upstairs, the same conversation was being played out in Quinn

and Jimmy’s suite.

“I can’t understand it,” said Quinn. “It was like I was being sabotaged.”

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Jimmy placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “It’s been a while,

Quinn. I’m sure no one expects you to bounce right back. Don’t be

so hard on yourself.”

But the next day was no better. If anything, Quinn showed fur-

ther deterioration. His poor performance was the one thing even

Ron Palillo and Joe Gramm came to agree upon.

“Alzheimer’s,” said Palillo.

“Has to be,” agreed Gramm.

They were not the only ones. And that night, when
HHS
began airing the first of its four-part series “going behind the scenes of one of television’s hottest shows,” the entire American viewing public was given a sneak peek at the befuddled wreck formerly known

as Quinn Scott.

“It’s not me,” he insisted, after the first segment was over. “They gave me the wrong damn script.”

Jimmy nodded supportively and held his partner.

Chapter 12

Sometimes, I think life would be better if it was scripted.

Those awkward moments, inappropriate comments, embarrass-

ing situations
. . .
they would be gone, unless they were essential to the plot. Choosing the wrong path: gone. Loving the wrong

person: gone.

But I guess that’s what makes it life. The movies are nice—no,

the movies are wonderful—but they aren’t a substitution for life.

The only thing they have in common is that you can have pop-

corn in both of them . . .

N
oah woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Bart’s fingers lightly tapping on his laptop keyboard.

“Isn’t it a bit early for porn?” he asked.

Bart didn’t immediately answer, so Noah slid himself down the

bed to where Bart sat at the hotel room’s faux-oak desk, his face illuminated by the blue light spilling from the monitor.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Research,” Bart finally said. “I had a hunch, and I wanted to see where it took me.”

Noah stifled a yawn. “And where is it taking you?”

“Nowhere. Yet.”

“So come back to sleep.”

“Not yet. I’m wide awake. But you should get back to bed. One

of us needs to be well rested.”

“In a second . . .” Noah sat on the edge of the bed and watched

Bart’s tapping on the keyboard, straining to read the screen as he typed. Finally, he realized what he was doing.

“Bart
. . .
stop and come back to bed.”

“Not yet.”

“You’re a good man and a loyal employee, but you have to face

facts. We were wrong. Quinn isn’t the actor he used to be.”

“I think he is,” Bart said curtly, never taking his eyes off the

screen. “Have you lost your faith, Noah?”

“No. I have faith in the
man
. But the actor, well
. . .
remember, he hasn’t been in front of a camera since 1990. He’s rusty. He’s lost his skills.”

“I don’t think so. I think someone has been screwing around

with him.”

Noah sighed, sinking back into the comforter. “Who? Q. J.?”

Bart shook his head but still didn’t look away from the monitor.

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t think the actors have been involved in this.”

“Maybe Kitty sent in Ron Palillo as her secret agent.”

Bart didn’t reply.

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“Look,” Noah continued, “it’s not like people are making this

up. We’ve seen it ourselves every night on
Hollywood’s Hottest
. . .”

“We’ve seen what they want us to see.”

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. But I’m sure that there’s something

going on.”

Noah watched him as he earnestly conducted search after search,

no doubt coming across the same fruitless information over and

over and over again. His eyelids began to grow heavy, and although he wanted to be by Bart’s side throughout the long, frustrating night, he felt himself begin to drift off. His last conscious thought was a fervent wish that he had the same faith in Quinn that Bart had.

But he didn’t.

Some time later, as Noah lay half-covered by the bedsheet in the

gray area between sleep and consciousness, he sensed Bart hover-

ing over him. He cautiously opened one eye and, in fact, there he

was. Seeing Noah’s eyes flicker open, Bart leaned forward and kissed him, then whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Noah answered, by rote. “Are you coming to

bed?”

“No. And guess why I’m not coming to bed.”

Noah was silent. It was too damn early to be playing games.

Bart got right to the point. “I think I found it, Noah!”

“Found what?”

“Proof! Proof that Kitty is behind this!”

Noah was skeptical. “You have proof? What did you find?”

“Lilliane Studios.”

“Where they shoot
The Brothers-in-Law
?”

“That’s it,” said Bart. “And do you think it’s a coincidence that

Kitty Randolph’s first role in 1957 was a small part in a movie called
Charmed, I’m Sure
, and her character was named . . .”

“Lilliane?”

“Lilliane Porch, to be exact.”

Noah finally, breathlessly, joined in Bart’s sensation of discov-

ery, popping up in bed as he said, “Porch, as in PorchStar Inter-

national . . .”

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Bart nodded. “Her fingerprints are all over everything. Worse,

it’s all right out in the open. She might as well have called it Kitty International, or Randolph International. It’s all too obvious.”

“But it wasn’t,” Noah reminded him. “And who would know? As

Lilliane Porch, she was on screen for
. . .
three minutes?
. . .
and she had two speaking lines. It’s a role that doesn’t even make most of her biographies.”

“It doesn’t,” Bart confirmed, as he again took his seat in front of the laptop. “I’ve been trying to track something down for hours,

and I’ve read almost everything about her on the Internet, so trust me on this.”

“I do.” Noah crawled down the length of the bed until he was

positioned behind Bart, then cradled him from behind, staring

over his muscular shoulder at the screen. “I do.”

Bart sighed. “Okay, now that we have the knowledge
. . .
what do we do with it?”

“Tell Quinn?”

“Well, duh. But what else? How do we rescue his career? How do

we get him out of this mess?”

“The trades?” Noah suggested.

Bart scoffed at that. “Kitty Randolph owns fifty percent of this

town, and probably as many industry reporters. So forget about

blowing her out of the water in
Variety
.”

Noah had to acknowledge his logic. “So . . . uh
. . .
what are the other options?”

Bart began to power down the laptop, then turned to his

boyfriend and said, “I don’t think there
are
any options. That’s the frustrating thing. We’re out of them. We can’t go to the trades, we can’t go to the crew
. . .
shit, Quinn can’t even go to his son.” He slumped forward, staring at the now-black monitor. “And even if

we were to get someone’s attention, who’s going to give a fuck? So Kitty owns PorchStar and Lilliane
. . .
so what? I know it, and you know it, but who’s going to call it any more than a coincidence?”

He sighed. “Kitty has Quinn’s nuts in a ringer. She won! And the

only thing Quinn can do is write another book about it to plead his case. Of course, if he were to write it, no one would read it, let alone publish it, because they think he’s a senile old man.” In frustration, Bart slammed his fist on the desk. “We are fucked.”

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*

*

*

Although he got no more than an hour’s sleep that night, Bart

dutifully drove Quinn to Lilliane Studio the next morning. As they traveled from freeway to freeway, the older man noticed that Bart

was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Bad morning?”

Bart nodded. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

And now that he had an explanation, Quinn returned his atten-

tion to
The Los Angeles Times
for the duration of the ride.

At the studio, Bart followed Quinn to his dressing room, closing

the door tightly behind him.

“You can just hang out,” Quinn said, turning his attention to the

script that was waiting for him. “I won’t be needing you.”

“I can do line readings with you,” Bart said sullenly.

Quinn shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s going to do me much

fucking good anymore. They keep changing these damn scripts on

me . . .” He picked up the daily script and, almost instantaneously, announced, “And goddamn if they didn’t do it to me again!”

“Huh?”

“Look!” Quinn shoved the script under Bart’s nose. “Now Uncle

Jake has a fucking Norwegian accent. What the
fuck
does a Norwegian accent sound like? Swedish or something?”

Bart shrugged. “I guess so.”

“Fuck!” Quinn threw the script back on the table. “What are they