Beauties and the Beast (5 page)

He sat. Diana looked at him. She said nothing, but Thornton shot to his feet and moved to the row of ancient seats to the side.

“Just a minute,” Billy found voice. “How come the old Queen gets top billing? I'm a bigger draw than him. I can fill a football stadium with fans.”

Diana looked at him with cold detachment. “You're so young,” she said.

Angela looked at him with longing. “And so talented,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” boasted Billy. “I'm the biggest star in the world.”

“Believe me,” said Diana, “You wouldn't be here if you weren't.”

Billy somehow couldn't accept the words. There was something there, in the air. He couldn't quite place it, tantalisingly it peeked from the back of his mind, giving teasing glimpses, but never fully revealing itself. Like memories of the last gig, fragmented, unreal. “Who are you?” was all he was able to say.

“Diana Verdilet,” she said, “production manager.”

“That's a funny sort of name,” mused Mickey. “Are you from overseas?”

Diana smiled. “Citizens of the world, an international production team, I suppose you could call us. Wherever there's a challenge we accept it. The harder the play, the harder we try.”

“Have script, will travel eh?”

“That just about sums us up.”

“I expect you've trod the boards as well,” added Mickey.

“No,” said Diana, “not exactly, but I have had the honour of acting as Master of Ceremonies for some very important occasions.”

Her eyes had what Billy Winter saw as a demonic gleam. He had a flash of déjà vu.

“Ceremonies, eh?” he said. “I can guess what sort. You're going to have a Black Mass. I know about you lot. I've been to a few parties with your friends. They were wild nights all right, really wild nights.” He looked round at the bleakness of the stage and at the brightness of the lights. “You're going to hold a black Mass!”

There was a silence that screamed until Billy broke it, giggling. “Where's your altar?” he said. “What you going to sacrifice, a chicken, a pig, a baby?”

“Shut up!” Mickey's voice, tinged with hysteria, rang out sharply.

“They're going to try and raise the devil,” shouted Billy.

“Don't talk stupid,” screamed Mickey.

“I'm not,” said Billy. “I know their sort. They're going to do it.”

“Who in their right mind would want to do that?” asked Mickey.

“They would.” Billy pointed to a smiling Angela and Diana.

“Why?” asked Mickey, unconsciously crossing himself in a Catholic salute.

“Any number of reasons,” said Billy, “money, power - to force us to do what they want.” He paused. “They are going to do it.”

“Well they can do it without me,” said Mickey with conviction, “that stuff's for crackpots and deviants. You'll not get me at those things. I won't even go to a fortune teller. You can keep your supernatural. Superstitious rubbish anyway.” There was less conviction in his last statement.

“Interesting.” Thornton's modulated tones cut in. “Such ceremonies can be of use to advance a career. I've seen them work. Don't write the idea off so quickly.”

“Did you sell your soul to the Devil then?” asked Billy. “Is that how you got to the top? You couldn't have done it on talent.” He was still verging on hysteria.

The men were concentrating so hard to protect their individual egos that none of them saw the looks exchanged by Angela and Diana. They were looks of dark amusement and fathomless eyes gleamed with malicious laughter.

They had this trio of defeated misfits exactly where they wanted them. Soon they would perform in perfect harmony. Dance to the already orchestrated tune.

“Gentlemen,” it was Diana's swamp-oily voice that stopped the bickering. “We are here simply to audition. Time is wasting. Can we please get down to business?”

The men stopped talking, chastened.

With those words she swayed in a graceful walk to the computer bank. She sat on the chair and pulled her legs under the table. She flexed her fingers and set to work on the keyboard, rapidly typing in a code. The computer blinked, and whirred. She studied it carefully and smiled, giving beckoning glance to Angela.

The blonde moved gracefully across to the terminal. She sat on the edge of the table. She crossed her legs and they were very visible. She watched as Diana clicked on a keyboard. She leaned in, showing more leg as rows of words appeared on the screen.

Billy and Mickey slowly moved to the other seats and sat, leaving space between them, waiting, no-one willing to be the first to break the silence.

Diana lost the slight frown that puckered her flawless brow and addressed herself to Mickey.

“Mickey Finnegan, the highest paid comedian in Australia; a master of timing and rarely a blue joke.”

“Not in public anyway.” said Mickey, preening at the praise.

“You've been the business a long time haven't you?”

“Forty-five years.” Mickey was proud of his achievement, “and most of it at the top of the heap.”

Diana perused the screen then moved the mouse, which was coloured black on a red mouse pad. She clicked it and the printer began to warm up. There was a hum and a single page glided from the end. Diana stood and moved to the printer. She picked up the sheet and read it again, before looking directly at Mickey.

The comic threw a puzzled smile at his co-auditionees.

“You started out as a scene shifter with the Boy Scout Gang Show didn't you?” said Diana.

There was a subdued snigger from Thornton and Mickey felt the embarrassment creep up from his collar. He didn't know he could still blush.

“I won a TV talent quest,” said Mickey hotly. “That's what got me started. Okay, I was in the scouts and I did work in a Gang show - one, that's all, when I was 11. I got my break on TV. I earned my success.”

“It was a long time until you went back to television, wasn't it?”

“I wasn't stupid. I had a good act. A good act can last for years in the clubs and halls, but when I did go back to TV I went back as a star. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. It was my style see, it was new.”

“It's bloody well old now,” said Billy, sniggering.

Mickey threw him an angry glance. “Not many made the transition from stage to TV. I'm proud of what I did.”

“And all thanks to the Gang Show?”

“What are you talking about?” The exasperated Mickey shot to his feet. “I keep telling you, I won the talent quest.”

Diana stared at Mickey and he felt her eyes pierce his brain. The blood drained from his face. “How did you know?” he gasped. His legs wobbled and he slumped back onto the chair. Only instinct stopped him from dropping the ukulele, which he was holding in a knuckle whitening grip.

Diana smiled the smile of a Snow Queen. “Research,” she said.

There was silence; until Thornton's huge voice broke it. “Well, Madam,” he boomed. “Aren't you going to let us all into his nasty little secret?”

“Shall I tell him, or shall you?”

Mickey avoided her eyes. “I know what you're going to say.” He almost whispered. “But it's not true.

“If it's nasty, I'll bet it is,” snapped Thornton. “Please do tell us.”

“Mickey's young friend in the Gang Show also had a talent didn't he Mickey? The comic glared silently. “He also became a comedian. And then one day, Mickey stole his whole act and took it to the TV station.”

“That's a lie.” Nervous tears hovered behind Mickey's eye.

Thornton enjoyed Mickey's discomfort. “Sounds about right to me, you sleazy little man,” he boomed, “Gang Show indeed.”

“Were your beginnings any grander?” Thornton was caught in the blaze that was Angela's eyes. He faltered, ego deflated.

“I climbed to my position at the top with dignity and sheer talent,” he muttered.

“Did you?” purred Angela.

“Yes I did,” said Thornton, peering, trying to achieve full focus on the girl. “Who are you anyway? You seem somehow familiar.”

“Probably an acolyte from one of your Black Masses,” said Billy. “You depraved old bastard.”

Thornton ignored the singer manfully. “Who are you?”

“My name is Angela Caduti.” she said, with a renewed air of innocence.

Thornton paused, thinking, reaching into his mind for the relevant information he sought. He sifted, sorted, and then located it. “Caduti. If my memory serves me correctly, Caduti, in the original Latin, means ‘falling' does it not?”

Angela and Diana exchanged an amused glance. A wicked, knowing glance. Mickey shuddered. Pictures slid in to his mind, images of the Spanish Inquisition, a flaming torch, kindling, a woman screaming in pain. A dead witch. Maggots.

Angela spoke and thankfully cleared his brain. He was sweating cold sweat

“Almost, Mr Thornton,” it was the cat's purr again. “The literal translation means fallen.”

“Fallen,” Thornton pondered then laughed out loud. “Angela Caduti. Fallen angel. Where on earth did you get name like that. No-one is called Fallen Angel.”

“No-one is called Belvedere Thornton either.” The comment came as a blast of Arctic breath from Diana.

“Except me,” countered Thornton.

“You started life as Harry Williams.”

“True.” Thornton appeared unfazed. “But I became an actor. I needed a stage name. I chose a rather splendid one too didn't I? Belvedere Thornton.” He savoured the words. “It has quite a ring to it, you just admit.”

“So does Angela Caduti.”

Thornton eyed the blonde thoughtfully. “So you are an actress. Maybe we met in Hollywood? You must have been to Hollywood.”

Angela laughed it was throaty, marshy and dark. “Hollywood, yes,” she spoke like a faraway trumpet, muted brass, “and Rome, London, Paris, New York. Just about every place there is - and some that probably aren't.”

Mickey and Billy caught the mystery of her words and exchanged a puzzled glance, but Thornton heard nothing. “Hollywood, it was. We must get together, talk over old times.” For a reason inexplicable to him, Thornton rammed his hand into his pocket and found a photograph. It was there, and so was the memory. “How did you come to choose such a poetic Latin name?”

Angela licked her lips and cast a flickering lizard glance at Diana, who shook her head imperceptibly. Angela slid back in her chair, a pout forming on her lips.

“Come on darlin', tell us.” Billy called out.

Angela looked at her, pleading. A little girl smile. Please?

Diana smiled. “You have an audience,” she said. “How could I come between you and an audience?”

Eagerly Angela leapt to her feet and advanced on the three men. “When I was a baby I had white blonde hair and a fair skin, which is why my mother called me Angela. Later I developed a flair for acting - the cameras loved me.”

The picture of Angela formed in the minds of the men. She was beautiful, with a hint of mischief behind the baby blue eyes. There were men, men fighting to be close to the child. Paedophilia! Touching, being touched. The pre-pubescent child and the mother turning her back; the horror soared through the linked minds of the trio. But the horror was worse as they saw the face of the girl.

She laughed. Her eyes glazed with lust. A baby, a sprite, a demon sent to lure men? Impossible!

She grew taller, the hair kept baby blonde by the bottle. Her breasts grew. The girl was breathtakingly beautiful and there were still the men, different men, men who had not been driven to suicide or confession by their sins.

She played, teased, and pleaded with them, driving them to uncontrollable passions until they attacked her, raped her. Afterwards, passion spent, they stared in horror at the fragility of the girl and her tears. What they didn't see were her eyes as they ravaged her. They were gleeful, masochistic, and indulging in every fantasy. Then she cried, the men screamed in remorse, but they couldn't let go. The returned again and again, sinking deeper and deeper into a pit.

It was a silent horror movie.

One day the mother broke into the hotel room. The man was a famous actor, the naked girl was fifteen years-old and her head was being forced... down and she suddenly began to scream. Then there were the police, the trial, and the verdict. The actor jailed. The girl sobbed and was comforted. Then malevolence crept into her eyes, evil as she stared triumphant at the convicted man who howled at realisation of the trap he had willingly rushed into.

“My folks wanted me to quit then. Leave the business.” Angela's voice slowly penetrated the images. Mickey blinked his eyes, Billy sniffed. Only Thornton stayed unmoving. “But I had other ideas - and so did a very ambitious producer, despite the court case. You see, during all the fun, I'd also been sleeping with him for more than a year. A little while after my other man went to jail, the producer's wife caught us having a little fun. He enjoyed his pain.”

She sighed reminiscently. “So there I was a little fallen angel with all my credibility shot. Anyway the producer and I ran off to Rome and for me it was the beginning of great things. The producer - and the notoriety - helped me to get a wonderful start as an adult. I made many films, mostly X-rated. The Angel of Sin, they called me, and life was a wonderful downhill slide from then on.”

She went back then to her chair and sat, legs, trembling lightly, crossed and revealing. She smiled at Diana and the men sat in silence, still stunned by the graphic images of depravity they'd experienced.

Diana raised an eyebrow. “Are we ready to continue now, my dear?”

Angela hung her head. “I'm sorry, Diana. It's this place. It's cold. Too far from home, that's my problem.”

“You're a nymphomaniac, that's your problem.” Billy's mouth was the first to click into gear.