Flavor of the Month (71 page)

Jahne fought the panic closing up her throat. Over the tops of the heads of the throng, Jahne noticed a tall, black security guard coming out of the store, and begin to push through the crowd. She felt elbows in her back, and the bodies pressed in around her. Then someone pulled at her hair. There were more screams, and her name was being shouted over and over. She felt as if she were drowning. “This way, Miss Moore,” the guard said when he finally reached her, and extended his hand. Jahne took it, and let the man propel her through the crowd, blindly pushing aside arms holding paper and pens as he pulled her along.

“Miss Moore, please, for my little girl,” one woman said. Jahne hurriedly took the paper, signed it while she moved, and handed it back in the general direction of the woman. Another hand grabbed at it, but a new voice started screaming, “That’s mine, give that to me.” Jahne caught a glimpse of two women struggling, and, for the first time, she actually began to fear for her safety.

“Give me one, Cara! You gave one to that bitch, why not me?” a woman was screeching at her, as the guard pulled on the shop door to open it against the mob.

“No more autographs today!” the guard shouted.

“Too good for us, Jahne?” a fat, middle-aged woman shouted. She kept her head down. “Fuck you! We made you, you bitch.” That last remark would have frozen her to the floor if the guard hadn’t given her arm a final tug, pulling her to safety on the other side of the doors, which he then locked behind them. He led her to the back of the store. Jahne, feeling dizzy and almost faint, heard the security guard calling the police on his walkie-talkie, leaving the crowd to swirl behind the glass like aquarium sharks in a feeding frenzy.

Jahne didn’t have to look in the mirror as she slumped onto the little office sofa. She knew she was pale.

“Drink this,” a woman in a security uniform said, handing her a cup of water.

She gulped it, just to do something. But it did make her feel better. “What happened?” she asked.

“What happened?” the guard repeated. “
You’re
what happened.”

“I…I had no idea. I mean, I’ve never seen this before.”

Two policemen came hurrying into the office from the rear delivery door. “Follow me, Miss Moore,” one of them snapped. “We’ll go out through the trucking bay and drive you to your car. Then we’ll follow you in the squad car until you’re safely home.”

“Thank you, I can’t tell you how…”

“Don’t thank me. Just don’t do this again. Next time, bring your own security, like all the others.”

It was surprisingly difficult for Jahne to get an appointment with Gerald La Brecque. She resented it. Perhaps she was simply getting used to the star treatment she thought she deplored, Jahne told herself grimly as she waited for the man to arrive. Both Michael McLain and someone at Marty’s office had recommended him, but, despite her calls, it had taken almost two weeks to get this home visit. Two weeks during which she had not heard a word from Sam Shields.

At two-thirty—
exactly
two-thirty, Jahne noticed—her buzzer rang. Not bad-looking, she thought as she opened the door. Oh, fine, she told herself. How desperate are we? Next we’ll be looking over UPS men and personal trainers as potential dates.

The audition, seeing Sam, and the mini-riot had unsettled her, no doubt about it. Funny how being mobbed had made her feel lonely. It took the riot to make her believe that she was different now. Special and alone. Then she hadn’t heard from Sam. Could he have recognized her? Could he have simply rejected her performance? For two weeks, she’d been obsessed with the question. No wonder she was looking for love in all the wrong places. She smiled politely at the security consultant.

But La Brecque really wasn’t bad-looking. Average height, dark, with a neat mustache that looked very soft, although the rest of him looked anything but. He eyed her very directly—his eyes were a strange, very light gray that made them seem almost colorless—and accepted her offer of a seat but not a drink.

“Sorry about the delay in setting this up, Miss Moore, but we’ve been swamped just now.”

“That’s all right,” she found herself saying, and meaning it, though she’d resented him two minutes before. He seemed so, well, so very
real
. God, when was the last time she’d dealt with anyone outside the Industry? she wondered. No time during the last five months. Even her houseboy was an unemployed actor.

He looked across the coffee table at her. “So,” he began. “Why don’t you brief me on the current situation…?” His sentence trailed off with such a slight inflection that she barely recognized it as a question. It was more of a directive.

“Well, it’s really an issue of security. I mean, of course it would be or I wouldn’t call you. Security here and when I’m out. I mean, I don’t want a bodyguard or anything. Probably I’m overreacting, but there have been a few…incidents. And fan letters.” It was the letters from prisoners that really bothered her the most. She’d read the first one with compassion and a vague sense of obligation. Then the next. She got so that she could pick them out in the piles, the number at the upper left-hand side, the prison franking instead of a stamp. Some were almost all right, others merely obscene, but the worst were the fifty-page dedications, complete with drawings and/or poetry. Lots of them were worse, but the letters from men in prison really frightened her. “They make me nervous. But it’s probably nothing. Religious nuts, or teenage pranks. You know the sort of thing…”

But instead of smiling at her reassuringly, he only put his hand to his cheek and rubbed, a sort of assessment movement. “Have you saved them?” he asked.

For the very briefest moment, she thought he was talking as Sharleen might, in the religious sense. Then, stupidly, she asked, “The letters? No. They’re horrible. Why would I save them?”

“To save yourself.”

“Save myself from what?” she asked, fright rising, and with it anger. Jesus! She had waited to see this guy and used up a precious free afternoon to be reassured. Now was he going to try to scare her out of her wits? Is that how he earned his living? By increasing the ever-growing paranoia of the Hollywood crowd? “Are you saying this is a matter for the police?”

La Brecque rubbed his cheek again. “I’m afraid not. They only intervene
after
something happens. Before that, it’s up to you, me, and the courts.”

“But they’re just the usual crank letters. You know.”

“Well, I don’t, because I haven’t seen them. And probably most of them are. But there are others that are more indicative of possible deranged behavior. And we keep a computerized file of the dangerous ones we know about, try to be aware of their whereabouts. We keep adding to our data base. It’s important to save them.”

“I get a lot of mail from prisoners. They scare me,” she finally admitted.

“Well, those are the ones behind bars. It’s the
others
I worry about. Rebecca Schaeffer. And that sniper shooting of Genny Logan, for example. Right in her living room. That one hasn’t been solved. She wasn’t a client of mine.” He looked around. “If you don’t mind my saying so. Miss Moore, you are being very cavalier about your safety. Anyone could get in here if they wanted to. And you couldn’t stop them if you didn’t want them to.” He paused. “Do you own this place?”

“No.”

“Good. Because it can’t be secured. Not here in Birdland, and on a public road. They call this part of the Hollywood Hills the Swish Alps. Lots of gays. Nothing wrong with them, but lots of possibility of street hustlers.”

“So what can I do?”

“You can move. Buy a place. We’ll move to seal your property tax records so no one can access your home address. And we’ll check out any place that you consider buying to ensure its safety. But you’ve got to get out of here.”

“But I just rented it!” She’d barely settled in here, was just starting to feel comfortable,
plus
she had a lease she couldn’t break.

“Miss Moore, this is really a matter of life and death we’re talking about.”

Jahne looked at him, expecting a smile at the hyperbole. But there was none. “You ever hear of Robert Bardo?”

“No.”

“He walked up to Rebecca Schaeffer’s door. She was starring in a sitcom. Lived in a place a lot like this. Never met Bardo. Didn’t know him. Opened the door. Gave him an autograph. She was nice, pleasant, to him. It wasn’t enough. He came back. He killed her.” Jahne shivered.

“I’ll do whatever you say.”

“We’d need quite a bit of information to start.”

“Such as?”

“Names of friends, past lovers, any enemies. Professional jealousies, past and current employees, that sort of thing. Relatives, their addresses, current relationships.”

Jahne felt a moment of panic. Should she disclose her past, or pretend she had none? Tell him about Sam, about Michael, about Michael and Sharleen, about Michael and Lila? Oh, Jesus, her life was becoming unmanageable!

“Of course,” he told her, “all of this will be totally confidential. There has never, ever been a leak from my organization.”

“And how much will all this cost?”

“Quite a lot, I’m afraid. For the time being I’ll put staff on per diem. Then what I’ll do is put together a proposal along with a fee quote. There will be an initial fee, and then a monthly retainer. A year will run in the mid-five figures.”

She sat there, stunned, and just looked at him. Mid-five figures. Like fifty thousand dollars? She could take care of a lot of Dr. Moore’s patients for that! And buy a few Donna Karan outfits as well. She sighed.

“It might make it easier if you think of it as part of the cost of doing business,” he said gently. It was the gentleness of his tone, combined with the glint of his wedding band as it rubbed his cheek, that brought tears to her eyes. Because, all at once, she wanted him to rub his hand across her own cheek, to tell her that it would be all right. To take care of her.

Jahne spent the evening throwing a few things in a bag and calling hotels. She didn’t know what she would do. In the meantime, she called Mai and slept at her house.

The next day, back to pick up more of her stuff, Jahne was still reeling from La Brecque’s security evaluation. How vulnerable he said she was, how she would have to move to another place, how much it would cost, how she would have to watch her movements in public. It was all so depressing, so limiting.

And lonely. She almost blushed at remembering how she had reacted to the sight of La Brecque, as if she hadn’t been with a man in years. As if she were desperate. He didn’t catch any of it, of course. Nor the expression on her face when she noticed his wedding ring. At least she hoped not.

Jahne walked over to her desk, which, now she knew, dangerously exposed her to the sights of possible snipers from outside. She sat at it nonetheless, took out a piece of her new stationery—with her address here, which would be useless now—and began to write to the only friend she felt she had in the world.

Dear Brewster,

Thanks for the picture from Raoul. He’s getting good. I’m glad to hear about the speech improvement. Who cares if all he wants to say are swearwords, as long as they are well articulated. I guess his speech therapy is working. I miss him and I miss you.

Could she write that? Wasn’t it too personal? She’d sound pathetic, and give him the wrong idea.

The phone rang, and Jahne put down her pen and walked over to answer it. Anything was a relief right now, though she couldn’t imagine who had her number except Sy and some other Industry types she didn’t want to hear from. She sighed. “Jahne, it’s April Irons. Have I caught you at a bad time?”

“Not at all. In fact, I was just sitting here, staring out at my view, feeling how wonderful it was to be in California. How are you, April?”

“Couldn’t be better. And neither will you be after I tell you why I’m calling. Sam and I
love
you. We’ve screened the test a dozen times already. We feel you’re
perfect
for the part of Judy in
Birth of a Star
.”

Jahne felt her heart surge in her chest. She was right! She had blown Sam away! “You
have
made me happy, April.
Very
happy. Thank you.” But what was flooding her? It wasn’t joy or triumph or even relief that she had “passed” her screen test. It focused on the “we”: April said “Sam and I.” April referred to them as “we.” And why hadn’t Sam called her?

“Of course, we’ll work out the details with your agent, but I wanted to be the one to tell you personally. By the way, is your agent
still
Sy Ortis?”

Still? Jahne caught the inflection. “Yes, he is.”

April sighed. “Fine. We’ll talk to him, then. But I
know
we’ll work everything out. I
know
you’re going to be just fabulous.”

“Well, thank you. Really. Thank you,” she mumbled. God! She’d done it. She’d be in a movie. No, she’d
star
in a movie. If she wanted to. But Sy would be furious. He’d told her over and over that it was a stupid concept. Well, it was her career, her decision, not Sy’s. “April, send the contract to me first. I’d like to think it over. And I’d like to give it to Sy.”

“Fine. And congratulations, Jahne.”

Jahne put the phone down and threw her arms around herself. She couldn’t believe it! Even though she’d thought she’d been good at the screen test, even though she’d been confident, she hadn’t really believed this could happen: that she could be cast in an important feature, that she could be a star, a
movie
star, and that she could work again with Sam!

She waltzed herself around the room, and then she stopped again at the phone. My God, she’d have to tell someone! Who could she call? Mai! And she’d get Mai a job on the picture, doing her wardrobe! It would be good news for both of them!

“Hooray for Hollywood,” she said out loud, and drew the curtains so the snipers might miss.

Lila felt as if there wasn’t anyone in her life who didn’t want something from her. Marty wanted her gratitude, Michael wanted her body, Robbie wanted her fame, and every asshole out there wanted her autograph. This afternoon, all she wanted was to spend some time alone, but no one would let her.