Randall #01 - The Best Revenge (28 page)

Chapter 31— Fast Cars and Jet-Set Orgies

Nearly a week later, while facing yet another lunch of Glen’s reheated fettuccini, Camilla was startled by knock. It was only a little past noon, so Plantagenet would still be at the theater. Maybe it was the mailman. Sometimes the packages for Dr. Lavinia didn’t fit into the box. And the mail was late. So was her paycheck.

The person at the door, however, was not the mailman, or anyone remotely like him. The visitor was dressed entirely in black and wore a wide-brimmed fedora pulled so far forward that his eyes were entirely in shadow.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“Probably not, dear heart,” said a voice from under the hat. “But if you would just fill a large snifter with cognac all the way to the tippy-top, I’ll love you anyway.”

“Franny! Is that you under there?”

“Not really,” said Franny. He stumbled into the room and sank dramatically onto the couch. “It is only the shell of my former self; a broken, battered shell.” He removed the hat to reveal a blackened eye.

“How awful!” she said. “Shall I get some ice?”

“Ice? In cognac? Never. How foul! You might as well drink it with cream soda, like Honey in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
.”

“Cognac,” Camilla said, without conviction. She took a step toward the kitchen. “Are you sure there was cognac when you left? I haven’t seen any.”

“How should I know?” Franny’s voice was weak. “That was eons ago. I was a different person then. A person in love.”

“You’re not in love any more?”

“No. No more. Not ever, ever, ever. Men are beasts.” He put his hand to his wounded eye. “Dear heart, I really will expire if I don’t have a drink.”

She searched the kitchen for any lurking unfinished wine.

“How was your New Year’s Eve, dear?” Franny said. “On second thought, don’t tell me. Even if you spent it alone with the dieffenbachia, it was better than mine.”

Not much better, she thought as she searched behind bags of wilting greens in the refrigerator. On New Year’s Eve, Plantagenet had fallen asleep at eleven, in the middle of the second tape of
Gone with the Wind
, and when she woke him with a kiss at midnight, all he did was gulp some coffee and flee to his apartment. Romance had certainly not been on his mind recently. It was sweet that he wanted to wait until they were married and her “troubles” had been solved before they made love, but she didn’t see how a few kisses could hurt.

“Here’s something.” She unearthed half a bottle of flat champagne. “I’m afraid this is the only alcohol in the house. But there’s tons of fettuccine. Want some?”

Franny gave the half-eaten bowl of pasta a quick, pained look, but accepted the bottle, which he drained in one swallow.

“I’m afraid that didn’t do it,” he said. “Would you be an angel and go buy me a bottle of Courvoisier?” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a thin black wallet.

“Go out?” she said. “I can’t go out.”

“Of course you can, dear heart,” he said, handing her a twenty dollar bill. “You twist the little knob, pull, step over the threshold, and put one foot in front of the other.”

“You don’t understand. Plantagenet won’t let me.”

“He won’t let you? My, isn’t our Plant getting butch these days! What does he do, keep you in leg irons?” Franny pretended to examine her ankles.

“He’ll be furious. He doesn’t want the media to find me.”

“Playwrights should always be furious. It’s good for their craft. But can we discuss it later? Now be a good friend and run to the liquor store. Just two blocks down and turn left. I’d go myself, but—dearest, look at me. Can you imagine how embarrassing it is to go out in public like this?”

She looked at Franny’s eye and woeful face. Finally, she took off his fedora and dropped it on her own head, tucking her hair under it.

“Two blocks and turn left?”

He nodded, handing her the money.

The store was tiny and dimly lit. The one bottle of Courvoisier was covered with layers of dust. At first the store seemed completely unattended, and she stood at the counter for several minutes trying not to notice a tabloid display showing a large, unflattering photograph of her own face—cut off at the chin—next to the headline, “FAST CARS AND JET SET ORGIES.” Finally, an ancient little man appeared and wordlessly accepted the money.

Relieved to have fulfilled her quest, she walked home as fast as she could, trying not to worry about what she would do with a drunken Franny once he had worked his way through the bottle. She hoped he was the sort to pass out quickly—hopefully in the chair. She had no idea where she would sleep if Franny was home to stay.

She was so lost in worries that she didn’t notice the car pulling alongside until it came nearly to a stop.

The car was a DeLorean. With Connecticut plates.

“Great hat, Cammie!” the driver said, sliding open the window. “Finding your place sure is a bitch. I’ve been driving around for about a half an hour.” He shook back his long, dark hair and gave her a familiar grin.

“Jimmy!” she rushed to the car window. “I’m so glad to see you! What are you doing with my car?”

“Bringing it to you.” He opened the gullwing door. “It’s all yours.” He hopped over to the passenger side. “Just drop me off at the bus station—and hurry. I gotta catch the one-thirty. I didn’t realize how long that lawyer bullshit was going to take.”

“You’ve been to see a lawyer?” She tried to take in what Jimmy was saying, but all she could think of was how strange and wonderful it felt to drive the car her father had given her in what seemed like another lifetime.

“Yeah. That Jones dude. Kept asking all these lame questions about your buddies Mike and Tooter. Like I hung out with them or something. Up there and turn left.”

“Mike and Tooter? But you do know them?”

“I know of them. I do not know them, OK? Mike’s a scuzzball, and Tooter—well nobody ever said old Jimmy was friends with no narc. Especially a Fed. Gimme a break.”

“Tooter’s a Fed? You mean like the FBI?

“Sure. Everybody knows that. Except that airhead Jennifer. Too busy looking in the mirror to notice anything. I told Wave she was gonna be trouble.”

“Wave? Have you heard from her? Everybody’s looking for her.”

Jimmy went silent for a minute.

“Yeah. Well, she’s safe where she’s at. And that’s where she’s going to stay. I don’t want those parents of hers locking her up again. And I don’t want lawyers messing with her. We won’t let you go to jail, but I don’t want her to testify if she doesn’t have to.” He gave her shoulder a pat. “By the way, she said to tell you ‘hi’.”

Camilla pulled in front of the bus station as questions swam in her head.

“How did you get my car back?”

Jimmy reached for his back pack.

“Easy. I took it. Wave told me he’d just dumped it in one of his garages with his antique cars. Never tried to change the registration. Guess he was waiting for you to go to jail. I even got the pink slip. It’s in the glove compartment. But do me a favor and don’t leave it there, OK?” He opened the door. “Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot. He said to tell you he’s sorry that the check is late. It’ll be in the mail tomorrow.”

“What? Captain Nelson said that?”

“No way. That old fart is on a nice long wild goose chase to Switzerland. No, I’m talking about your boss, the guy who told me how to get here—Kahn.”

“Jonathan Kahn sent you here?”

“Yeah. Tell him he gives lousy directions.” Jimmy jumped out, slammed down the door, and took off toward the bus station.

~

When Camilla arrived back at the little house, Franny was finishing a plate of fettuccine. He scraped his plate and smiled wanly.

“Don’t worry dear heart. You don’t have to explain. Let me guess. On the way to the store, you were picked up by a tornado, which carried you and your little dog Toto to a strange land. And you’ve been trying to get back all this time, but you just didn’t have the right shoes.”

“Something like that. Here’s your cognac.” She put the bottle on the table and went to the kitchen for a snifter.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Franny said. “You don’t have to wait on me in my own house. It was tacky of me to send you out like that. I was just so upset. But the fettuccine helped. Delicious.” He accepted a glass and gave her hand a kiss. “Not only beauty, but talent as well. You’re quite a cook.”

“Oh, I didn’t cook it. Glen did.”

“Glen?” Franny said, pouring cognac. “Who’s he, the new boyfriend? No wonder you dumped poor Plant. His idea of gourmet cooking is ordering double pepperoni when he calls Pizza Hut. But what can you expect from a Jersey boy?”

“Dump Plant? What makes you think I would dump Plantagenet? I don’t have a new boyfriend. Glen’s my lawyer.” She wasn’t in the mood for Franny’s gossipy silliness right now. She wanted to call Glen to find out about his meeting with Jimmy.

Franny gave her a disbelieving smile and nestled into the couch.

“Ah, a lawyer who cooks! Does he do windows?”

“Stop it! How can you suggest I would cheat on Plant? You’re supposed to be his friend.”

“I am his friend, dear heart. And he told me all about it.”

“All about what?”

“All about how you’re in love with somebody else and that’s why he’s got himself mixed up with this three-piece suit type. I can’t imagine Plant with a Guppie.”

“Franny, you’re not making any sense. What’s a Guppie? I assume you’re not talking about tropical fish?”

“A Guppie is a Gay Urban Professional: like a Yuppie except he lives in West Hollywood. I’m not sure he’s good for Plant. After all, our Plantagenet isn’t exactly the settle-down-and-buy-a-Cuisinart-type, is he?”

Camilla tried to calm herself. She felt as if something had hit her.

“Are you saying Plantagenet’s involved with someone—a man?”

“I’m sorry, dear heart,” Franny said in a different voice. “I thought you knew. It looks as if little Franny has put his foot in it again.”

Camilla studied Franny’s face for a moment. The mocking bitchiness was gone. He obviously thought he was telling the truth. It was quite possible that he was. It certainly would explain a lot of things.

She went to the kitchen for another brandy snifter and held it out to Franny.

“Fill it up,” she said. “All the way to the tippy top.”

Franny poured. “You forgive me, dear heart?”

“It’s not your fault,” she said after several burning gulps. “I should have figured it out. He never seemed to want to be around me anymore.”

“Maybe it’s your new boyfriend he doesn’t want to be around.”

“That is such a lie! I don’t have a new boyfriend. I don’t have anybody. I don’t have one friend in the whole world. I might as well be in prison already.”

She took another swallow to stop the tears.

“Go ahead, dearest,” Franny said softly as he circled her shoulders with a bony arm. “I think it’s time we both had a good cry.”

They were sobbing in each other’s arms when the front door swung open and a damp Plantagenet walked in, carrying an umbrella and a bottle of champagne in one hand and a large, flat box in the other.

“Franny, what are you doing with my fiancée?” he said.

“Just trying to get in a quickie before you got home from work.” Franny wiped a tear from his undamaged eye as he forced a quick smile.

“Good God! Where did you get that shiner, Fran? Don’t tell me Camilla has been beating up her gentleman callers again?”

How could he mention the scene with Jonathan, when he’d been such a creep himself? She sniffed and tried to put on a calm face.

“Did you see my car out in front? I got my DeLorean back. Jimmy brought it. And he’s been to see Glen.”

“I know,” Plantagenet, said, setting down the pizza and champagne. “And there’s more. So much more, darling!” He rushed to give her a bear hug. “Come have some pizza and champagne! We’re celebrating.” He eyed the bottle of cognac on the coffee table. “But it appears you two have started without me.”

“Yes,” said Franny. “We’re celebrating my return to the world of the single.”