CoverBoys & Curses (6 page)

Chapter
Seventeen

The
Beach & a Shrink

AFTER
CLOSING ON MY BEACH house, Carly Posh had four weeks to decorate it top to
bottom, while I stayed on at the bungalow. The day for me to move in came none
too soon.

The Posh
Possessions delivery van pulled out of the driveway as I walked through the
transformed rooms. “I can’t believe it,” I told Carly. “You’re unbelievable.
I’ve never turned over the reins and let someone choose everything for me.”

It was
everything I wanted. Mostly, it was nothing like my apartment in Chicago. Carly
offered me a seat in my brand new chair and hurried to the kitchen to retrieve
the bottle of champagne she had chilling in the empty refrigerator.

“It
wasn’t as easy as I thought,” Carly said. “I mean, I’ve done this kind of thing
a dozen times, but you had me a little worried.” Carly poured the champagne
into two flutes I’d never seen before.

“What do
you mean?”

“I think
I know you. Back in school you were so whimsical and free and colorful. But the
last time I saw you in Chicago your place was pretty austere, to be honest. I
took a gamble and decided you needed something a little more cheerful.
Beach-happy stuff.”

I raised
my glass to toast her. “A lot’s happened to me.”

“I wish
I could have been nearer you,” Carly said.

“Weird,
huh, that I took comfort in that old apartment, when I thought I was so happy.”

Carly
looked at me with a bleak smile and the slightest shrug rising from one
shoulder.

“I love
what you’ve done. It’s just what I need to bring me back amongst the living.”

“You’re
still thinking about Payton, aren’t you?”

“She
always signed her emails to us, Carly. Always. In caps. BFF, YOUR BLOOD SISTER,
PAYTON. She had an auto signature for us. One click. And I called her mom.
Asked her about Payton’s computer. She said she couldn’t figure the thing out
and donated it to charity. She couldn’t even remember which one. The hope of
finding anything on that is long gone.”

Carly
shifted, in obvious mental discomfort in the overly comfortable chair. “Remember,
Lauren, when I told you I had started seeing a psychologist?”

“Sure.”
An uncertain panic laced my voice.

“Look,
I’m just here to be your friend, no matter what.” She reached into her handbag
and pulled out a business card. “Furniture, champagne flutes, even a house on
the beach—they aren’t going to make you happy, Lauren. Here’s the name of the
guy I go to, and honestly, he’s the best.”

I
accepted the card. The plain raised black ink read
Harlan Coal, Ph.D. Psychologist. Therapist.

Carly
must have read the blank expression on my face. “He’s created some breakthrough
therapy that produces measurable results. At least for me. God knows, you’ve
been through enough. I’ve been going to him for several months. In fact, I just
moved on to his compound.”

“Compound?
You’re kidding me!”

Carly
wasn’t kidding. It had freaked out Gabri, too, I later learned, when Carly had
asked her to draw up the sales contract for a house on a compound.

“Don’t
look at me that way,” Carly said. “It’s my own home and I’ll make a killing on
it anytime I want to sell. It works for me. It’s near the Hollywood Hills, not
too far from your office and on a chunk of property I didn’t even know was
there.”

I tossed
the card onto my new table. “Sounds creepy if you ask me.”

Carly sighed.
“I get more out of my therapy living there and hanging out with people like me,
whenever I want.” She shook out her choppy black hair. “Come on. Let me show
you a couple more things I took liberty to pick up for you.”

We
walked into a second bedroom and there was Teddy, spread out like royalty on
his new cushy be and next to an enormous cat tree. He looked perfectly at home.

I ran
over to scratch his belly. “Perfect Carly. You really didn’t need to do this.”

“And
there’s more. Come look.”

Carly
knew I liked my tunes, and she was quite correct that my entire sound system
was sorely outdated. She slid back the left side of the burl wood entertainment
center to reveal the top of the line components. “And I know you need your
daily news fix,” Carly said. She pushed a button on a remote and the large television
screen lifted up from behind the cabinet.

The six
o’clock news was on. “Perfect. You’ve thought of everything.”

Carly
walked over to the sofa to retrieve her handbag and a pile of loose manila
folders. “Just think about it,” she said. “I mean, getting an appointment with
Dr. Coal. I’ll set it up for you because he fills his calendar fast. I know
he’ll work you in if I ask him.”

The
television news flashed a series of what looked like yearbook portraits, one
after another. The commentator announced, “Timothy Lyons did not fit the
runaway child profile, and evidence of foul play was found at the scene of his
home, including a substantial amount of blood and hair samples. DNA results
will be in soon. This brings the year’s total to twelve young boys that have
disappeared from the Los Angeles and Southern California area under suspicious
circumstances. All of the missing seem to have vanished without a trace. Police
need your help. Foul play is now being considered and their missing status is
now listed as suspicious. Concerns are rising that there be more missing young
boys, possibly expanding the course of many years. Please contact the police department
if you have any information.”

“This is
too much,” I said aloud. “Carly, did you hear that?”

“I don’t
listen to much news. Blank it out.”

“Do you
remember Payton’s brother?”

“Of
course I do. Mike. I think that’s maybe why Payton might have committed
suicide. I don’t think she ever got over losing him.”

“Right.”

“What’s
right?”

“He was
lost. No one ever said he died. They never found a body. He just disappeared
and his parents didn’t give a damn. But Carly knew he wouldn’t have just
skipped town without contacting her.”

“So?”

“I don’t
know. Too many coincidences. Too many loose ends.”

“Dr.
Coal will help you sort it all out.”

CARLY’S
VAN BLOCKED my driveway. When she left I decided to pull the car into the
garage. Only when I walked back to the door did I remember the golf clubs in my
trunk. Unloading the travel bag, I unzipped it, just in case there was
something more to see inside the case. All I saw were the heads of a dozen or
so clubs. I threw the unwelcome bag against the far side of the garage. At
least they’d make it look like I had a life.

Chapter Eighteen

Voodoo

A
WASTED TRIP TO TUCSON, more time wasted at the luggage claim at LAX, and now I
had to come to terms with the big fake smile I had worn at my own opening gala
while suspect that every guest predicted my great demise. It did little to lift
my mood. Driving up the 405, I felt like I’d hit the wall both emotionally and
physically. I reached for my phone and pushed the auto-dial. Without thought, I
suppose.

“Brock
Townsend”, he answered.

“Hey.
It’s Lauren.”

“This is
a surprise. Last time I saw you I thought you were mad at me. Treated me like
shit at your grand gala opening, if I recall.

“I’m
sorry about that. I really am. It was a stressful night for me. I’m a far cry
from being the hostess with the
mostess
.”

“I’ll
second that emotion.”

“It’s
just there were a lot of people there that had no right to celebrate with me,
and on my dime. I’m pretty sure they’re all of the opinion
CoverBoy
will be deep-sixed within a year.”

Brock
took his time responding. Too much time. Finally, “Since when does Lauren
Visconti give a rat’s ass what other people think?”

I
remembered why I had called him in the first place. I didn’t give a rat’s ass.
I cared that I had was checked out of the bungalow and on my way to a sexy
bedroom in a beach house in Malibu. I remembered Brock’s smell, and how I
longed for that musty scent on my bed linens. I was a smart fool, and very
human.

“Can I
make you dinner tonight to make up for my bad behavior?”

“Sounds
great, but I’ve got a game tonight. It was a fluke I could make your grand
opening.”

Instant
embarrassment. Mortification. I tried to redeem myself. “At least you know I
extended the olive branch. I know I was an ass.”

“Do me a
favor. Pull the thorns off that olive branch next time you offer it my way and
we’ll be cool.”

I
WAS CORRECT. My party was over. Too many people were telling me my magazine was
destined to fail before I even ran the first local issue. At best, I was called
the newest L.A. cheesy cougar, which I detested because I didn’t deem myself old
enough to be a cougar and I didn’t think I was particularly cheesy, either.

“Don’t
listen to them,” Geoff consoled me.

“Yeah,
well, easy for you to say. They’re knighting you as the next Rock Hudson. Read
this.” I handed him the morning paper.

“Honey,
it
ain’t
all that bad to be known as a femme fatale
Hugh Hefner. Let me show you our advertising dollars.” He clicked on the
spreadsheet and turned his monitor to face me, full well knowing he’d see my
wide grin as I read the numbers.

Geoff
was not only a brilliant computer techie; he also had business savvy gained
from an MBA from Tulane, although he rarely touted it.

“Laurs,
there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Your
voice just dropped an octave. Talk to me.”

“I
talked to my mother the other day.”

“Oh,
Geoff. Not again.”

“Hear me
out.” He removed a vial from his breast pocket and set it in front of me. “She
overnighted
this to me. Told me to get it to you right
away.”

I’d met
Geoff’s Jamaican mother once, and even his eccentric grandmother before she
passed away. In her late eighties, the grandmother’s mind functioned something
on this side of scrambled but still gooey raw. I had listened in as she had a
long and engaged conversation with her mother. As if she was on the phone and I
could only hear her side of the dialogue. Except there was no telephone. And
her mother had been dead for ten years.

Then there
was the wee legend that the deceased grandmother held court as an alleged high
priestess of Obeah Voodoo.

“What
does your mother have for me this time? Something from your grandmother’s
grave, right?” I grinned. “Crushed alligator teeth? Grave dirt?”

“Don’t
make fun of this. The last time she had something for you it cured you of the
flu in twenty-four hours, didn’t it?”

I wanted
to come back and tell him maybe I had the twenty-four hour flu, but spared the
attitude. I unscrewed the top of the vial and smelled it. “Rum based. That
works for me.”

“She
told me to warn you of a negative energy all around you. And she wants you to
beware of the number six.”

“Isn’t
six the sign of the devil?”

“Triple
six,” Geoff said. “The sign of the devil. But my grandmother said six. Only the
number six.”

“Well, I
would thank her but she’s dead. You can tell your mother thank you, but I don’t
have a date with the devil and the only thing on my calendar for six o’clock is
a haircut. I think I’m safe.”

“Don’t
shoot the messenger, Laurs. Listen to me. How’s a little rum-based potion
gonna
hurt you?”

I
laughed.

Geoff
grew more serious.

“There’s
something else.”

“Please
spare me,” I said.

“My
grandmother had one more message. You will sing and have no memory of it, and
that will be a good thing.”

“What
the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Like I
said, Laurs, don’t shoot the messenger. But let’s face it. A good thing is a
damn good thing these days!”

THE
SICKENING NEWS didn’t smack me in the face, but it did raise the hairs on the
back of my neck. A reporter called on my private line. I found his questions obnoxious
and the situation a travesty. But mostly, I admit, I found the whole thing to
be rotten timing.

           
The call concerned our first
official issue. Gone was the skirmish over the steroids and bribes our preview
issue presented. This time we ran a powerful story on the tragedies of eating
disorders. We interviewed several top runway models who agreed to reveal the secrets
to their beauty. Those dark secrets hidden within the veils of the industry.
Eileen Ford’s insistence that her models strictly adhere to the fish and water
diet had nothing on the newest up and coming talent agencies. They touted the
cocaine diet to properly manage their weight. For one young woman who became
our feature article, the cocaine use led to heroin. She told us this. We
printed it.

Today’s
news? Police had found our most outspoken young model’s body in east L.A.,
splayed out in front of a
laundromat
at four in the
morning, stabbed six times. Her ring finger had been severed off for the bauble
that had adorned it. The bauble, a ten carat emerald flanked by diamonds, was a
gift from her agent, of course.

The authorities
came to a quick resolution. The model was trying to make a quick score in the
wrong part of town at the wrong time of night. Whacked out and stupid would be
the only reason she would wear a ring like that in that part of town.

I’d met
the model. I’d been present at the interview. The familiar pain of curling
flames of fire surged through my spine. I’d met up with yet another death.

I looked
at the vial of an Obeah Voodoo concoction. I unscrewed the cap and lifted a few
small drops to my mouth.