Down the Rabbit Hole (15 page)

“Sure, what do you need?” I said. I figured she wanted me to put in a good word with Hef about her candidacy. People always thought I had a lot more leverage than I did.

“I need you to talk to Hef,” Amanda begged, sounding desperate. “They told me I was getting Playmate of the Year, but now they're saying they aren't going to give it to me.”

Immediately, my conversation with Vicky months earlier popped into my head.

“Why?” I asked, hearing my own trepidation.

“They asked to see my passport,” she explained urgently. “And I don't have it.”

“Why do they want to see your passport?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

“I don't know,” she lied.

“Well, where is it?” I felt like I was interrogating her, but it was clear she was trying to manipulate my position. If Hef knew she was a prostitute, I couldn't very well campaign for her as Playmate of the Year.

“I left it at my mom's in Washington,” she cried. I could hear the panic in her voice. Her dreams were vanishing before her very eyes.

“Can't she just FedEx it?” I said, offering the simplest solution. She probably had her passport sitting in front of her as she spoke to me, but I couldn't let on what I suspected.

“No,” she said, offering no further explanation.

There was no place left for the conversation to go.

“I can try to talk to him, but he doesn't always listen to me.” (Ever
listen to me,
I thought.) “But if this is really important to you, you should try to get your passport.”

“Thanks, Holly,” Amanda said, letting out a defeated sigh. “I know you were supportive of me and I really appreciate it.”

I later discovered that in order to stop the prostitution problem, Hef mandated that any Playmate found to be working as a call girl would be banned from working any promotional appearances for the magazine. (The same fate applied to girls who posed for competing magazines such as
Penthouse
and
Hustler,
as these were much more explicit, competing publications. Hef considered this a branding issue.) To serve as a message to future Playmates, that year's Playmate of the Year candidates had to submit their passports for review. They were onto the Turkey connection, and if any girls had a stamp from that country, they were taken out of contention (as were girls unwilling to hand over their passports, apparently).

While many Playmates continued working for Nici's Girls (the promotional pay from
Playboy
couldn't compete with the escort business), I understand that Hef eventually decided to call off the investigation just as they had gotten close to a bust (no pun intended). Maybe he knew he couldn't do anything to control the former Playmates, but hoped that word of the Playmate of the Year passport check had done enough to scare the following year's group of girls. Plus, Hef must have wanted to avoid the story leaking to the press (as it eventually would). At the end of the day, “Playboy Playmates Turn Prostitutes” still isn't a good headline for the brand.

But while Hef knew many of the Playmates were moonlighting as call girls, he and his detectives were still completely oblivious to the business Vicky was apparently conducting under his very nose with his own girlfriends.

Why didn't I tell Hef what I believed about Vicky? Because I knew that if I told him that I thought Vicky had tried to recruit me to be an escort, he would run and tell her verbatim what I said. She would of course deny any involvement; Hef might choose to believe her, reprimand me for spreading catty gossip, and then I would be subjected to Vicky's vengeful wrath.

No, thank you.

Even after reports came out implicating Hef's girlfriends in the Nici's Girls escort ring, I don't know if he ever figured out who was Braun's inside girl. In the end, it was a different moneymaking scheme that sealed Vicky's fate.

Back in the early 2000s, invites to the mansion were still a prized commodity, and there was a market of wealthy men willing to pay top dollar for a spot on Playboy's exclusive party guest list. As girlfriends, it was understood that we could invite a few family members and friends to attend each of the mansion's decadent soirees. Ever the hustler, Vicky saw this as the perfect opportunity to make some extra cash. Like she said, she was going to milk this place for all that she could.

For a small fortune, Vicky would secure eager partygoers a spot on the coveted guest list under her own name (telling the office they were cousins or close friends). And because greed seeped out of her pores like sweat, she couldn't help but recruit the other girlfriends to do the same. Vicky would do all the heavy lifting (for a cut of the profits, naturally) and all the girls had to do was give the names to the office administrators before the party. I believe I was the only girlfriend she didn't approach about this scheme. My reaction to her hooking proposal must have turned her off.

Vicky's greed became her own worst enemy. While it was in everyone's best interest (the clients and the girls) to keep the escort ring as discreet as possible, the
Playboy
guest list racket was less distasteful. So, naturally, people talked . . . and word eventually found its way to Hef.

A few days before the annual Playboy Halloween bash, I had come down with a nasty case of the flu. I curled up in bed all day, barely able to move a muscle or even lift my head off the pillow. Unbeknownst to me, Hef had recently found out about Vicky's guest list scam and confronted her. He was furious with Vicky and the “Mean Girls.” When some of the names on the guest list aroused suspicion, the “paying customers” were called by one of Hef's secretaries, asking how they got the invite. They simply told the secretary that they paid one of the girls to get in. Amazingly, Vicky had neglected to tell them it was a secret. Needless to say, they were totally busted and even Vicky couldn't deny it.

Of course the evil witch was convinced that somehow I had been the one to snitch, even though I hadn't even known about the scheme at that point. Part of me wishes I could now take credit for what would be her demise, but it was not my doing. None of that mattered, because regardless of what I did or didn't do, Vicky was hell-bent on making my life miserable.

“Honeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy, weeee'rrrreeee hooooooommmmeeee!” Vicky squealed through the doors of the master bedroom, dragging out each word in a singsong childlike tone. Terrified they were going to get kicked out, Vicky and the “Mean Girls” had all gone to a local tattoo parlor to get bunny head logos inked on their ankles (an expression of their undying devotion to
Playboy
and Hef).

“Honeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy,” she cooed again, only louder. Uninvited, she flung open the doors and screeched like nails down a chalkboard, “We have something to showwwwww yoooouuuuu.”

“He's in the library,” I croaked from what felt like my deathbed.

“What?!” Vicky shouted, as if she was shocked I dare even speak to her. Leaving the other girls in her wake, she charged up to my side of the bed, her nostrils flaring like an enraged bull and her fists clenched at her side.

She came on so aggressively I worried she might hit me. It wasn't out of the question. I'd seen some of the girlfriends resort to throwing punches over things as trivial as someone cutting the bathroom line at a nightclub, but I'd never seen Vicky
so
incensed before. I think mansion life was eating away at her: she had become desperate, paranoid, and apparently volatile. Panicking, I felt my sore muscles tense, preparing for a blow.

“He's in the library,” I croaked again, a bit softer, praying they would all just leave.

“He's in the
LI-BRAAARY
,” Vicky shrieked, raising her pitch in an attempt, I assumed, to mock me. She was hovering over my quivering body, her eyes crazed and a vicious smile creasing her puffed lips. I stiffened, half preparing myself to run towards the door. I had no idea what had set Vicky off this time.

“Fuck!” one of the other girls shouted, sounding similarly enraged. “Let's go!”

Relief washed over me as Vicky turned around and began stomping away. Suddenly she spun around and at the top of her lungs screamed, “FUCKING BITCH!” and slammed the heavy door so hard the pictures on the walls shook as if an earthquake had rattled the house.

What had just happened?
I thought, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I took a few slow, deep breaths to calm myself so that I could process the encounter. I was so rattled that I lay in bed paralyzed by fear, praying that Hef would quickly return.

It felt like hours before Hef finally returned to the bedroom. He relayed the story to me about how he had caught the girls adding names to the party guest list and how upset he had been at each of them. For a moment, I felt relief.

Oh my god,
I thought.
He's going to kick them out. They're actually going to be gone.

But when he got to the part where they had gone to get their bunny brands as a sign of loyalty and how very sorry they all seemed, his eyes started to gleam with pride as a small smile spread across his face. His voice was shaking in that way that it did whenever he told a story that “touched” him.”

Are you fucking kidding me?
I thought.
He wasn't actually falling for this . . . was he?

“You mean, you're really not going to do anything?” I asked, my raspy voice barely escaping my mouth.

“What do you mean?” Hef asked, truly befuddled. I could sense he was shocked by my response. “They are genuinely sorry, Holly. They said they didn't mean to hurt me and are now more devoted than ever.”

I didn't say anything, but it was clear my silence spoke volumes, so he continued.

“They said they're going to put in a lot more time around here,” he proudly stated. “They even expressed an interest in coming in and watching movies with us at night. Do you know Dianna actually loves black-and-white movies?”

I could feel the tears burning my eyes as I tried to hold them back. Of course, I didn't know Dianna liked old movies—because she
didn't
! All the “Mean Girls” rolled their eyes behind Hef's back whenever he made mention of his beloved black-and-white films. Hef and I usually watched movies alone most weeknights, which for me was a much-needed reprieve from having to be around all the other girls. Surely the Mean Girls would have made good on their promises to Hef, not only in order stay in his good graces, but also to drive me crazy with their ever-obnoxious presence. There was no way I could tolerate any more time around those girls than I already had to.

No,
I thought.
I won't
. I just couldn't stay any longer.

“I can't believe you aren't going to do anything!” I cried, tears now cascading down my cheeks. “I can't stay here anymore! I can't live in a house with Vicky—someone who is that mean to me!”

Even though we never talked about it, Hef knew the girls were terrible to me. He just chose not to do anything about it.

“This is
my
house!” Hef screamed at me, his face red with anger. “How dare you complain to me! I treat you like a princess!”

More like Rapunzel,
I thought. I shifted my gaze downward and refused to react to his tantrum, which luckily proved to be short-lived. Hef calmed down just as quickly as he became upset.

“Well, I'm hesitant to get rid of Vicky, because other girls seem to really like her,” he said thoughtfully, folding his hands in his lap. This was code of course for her ability to recruit other girls into the bedroom. While he knew I was in the room, I wasn't completely sure if he was talking to me or just aloud, so I kept quiet.

As he sat there weighing his options, I felt defeated. Supposedly I was the “love of his life,” as he liked to say, but he was weighing my worth against Vicky's. We sat in silence for a long while.

Maybe no one would recognize me as a former
Playboy
mistress,
I thought. That was it. I would leave the mansion for good, my bunny tail tucked between my legs—and Vicky would win. Just as I was about to pull myself from the haze I'd been living under, Hef broke the silence.

“Well, you know,” he conceded, “I think Vicky
was
the ringleader in this whole thing. She really was the one that led those girls astray.” I held my breath as he surely pondered his poor little damsels being manipulated by her.

“I think I'll tell her it's time for her to leave after the Halloween party,” he said matter-of-factly as he picked up the bedside telephone to order his dinner.

I didn't say a word. Even to express my gratitude might unintentionally change his mind. I just nodded as if the decision was an unemotional, practical one.

On the inside, I was bouncing off the walls with happiness. Vicky was going to be kicked out! But on the outside, I had to remain calm and unaffected. I knew the battle was over, but I was careful not to rock the boat. That's always how things were at the mansion: you were constantly fighting just to stay afloat, to keep yourself from being kicked out onto the street. Losing sight of what it was I had even wanted before moving in, I became obsessed with being the last one standing in this perverted elimination game . . . I was determined to win.

C
HAPTER
6