Sinners (25 page)

‘I’m not angry,’ he said quickly. ‘Why should I be?’

She stood up and bit her nails silently for a few moments. ‘I’m eighteen and I feel old, so I can understand it must be pretty dreadful to be your age.’

‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said abruptly. The girl was an idiot.

‘You don’t have to bother, I’m not going home yet anyway, I have to meet some friends on the Strip.’

She was worse than the fawning starlets with her offhand manner.

‘Fine,’ he said coldly. ‘The desk will call you a cab.’

‘See you,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the pot.’

Charlie then phoned Thames Mason, whose number he had taken just in case.

She was with him in less than half an hour, her six-foot-two body clad in floral lounging pyjamas. She plugged her career for ten minutes, suggested that maybe her part could be built up in
Fred
, and then stripped off to reveal an Amazon body.

Charlie made love to her quickly and inefficiently and sent her home with a promise of another scene to be written in for her.

When she left he felt more alone than ever. If he had not been who he was, she wouldn’t have come running over.

So-called actresses, they weren’t worth shit!

Sunday checked into the hotel directly from the airport. She was tired and angry. What a fool she must have been to trust a man like Steve Magnum! It worried her that she had even been planning to marry him. What kind of relationship could a girl expect with a much-married movie star?

The trouble was she had not been leading a normal life. She had arrived in Hollywood depressed and withdrawn, done two films in quick succession, and Steve Magnum had made a play for her at the right time.

She undressed and ordered a hamburger and a milk shake in her room. She also had the newspapers sent up, but there was still nothing in them about her and Steve. If it didn’t appear the following day she would just have to phone Carey and find out what was going on.

She brushed her hair at the window, admiring the view. Was it worth flying to Rome to find out the truth from Benno? No, of course not, because Dindi had been speaking the truth, and somehow, now that she knew it, everything fell into place. Paulo had never really seemed to enjoy making love to her; he had always seemed a little distracted, sometimes bored. The only times he was genuinely passionate were when he could persuade her to go down on her knees in front of him while he admired his long blond beautiful body in the mirror.

The two men in her life – Raf and Paulo – had never given her any real satisfaction.

Thinking about it, she felt her body become warm. Angrily she got into bed. She knew only too well what frustration meant. When the Steve Magnum affair was over she would go out like other girls, and have an affair with the first man she liked well enough.

She couldn’t sleep. Thoughts kept crowding in on her. After an hour of tossing and turning she took two of the sleeping pills that had been given to her in Rome after Paulo’s death. This was the first time since then that she had had cause to take them. She disliked taking medicines after seeing what drugs had done to Paulo, but she needed sleep desperately.

At last she slept, a deep heavy sleep, because the pills were strong and she was unused to them. She dreamt of Steve. He was in bed with her, pulling her nightdress off and moulding her breasts with rough hands. She moaned in her sleep. He was pinning her arms down and entering her roughly, and she was gasping and curling her legs around him, and raking her nails down his back. Then she was on a roller-coaster of sensation, her whole body taut, nerve-ends ready to explode in a fantastic climax. Nothing mattered any more except reaching the top of the mountain, and as she hit the peak she started to laugh, and the relief and the joy of it was incredible.

Then she opened her eyes in time to watch Claude Hussan roll off her.

She lay there for a moment, her mind in a fog.

Calmly, he was lighting a cigarette. Puffing on it once, he handed it to her.

She brushed it away, the truth of what had just happened dawning on her. He had somehow or other
got into her room and raped her
, and she hadn’t even woken up – or had she?

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a low voice, realizing how ridiculous the question was even as she asked it. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I have my ways. I was merely answering your invitation on the plane.’

‘What invitation?’

He laughed. ‘My dear lady, I knew what you wanted, even if you may not have known yourself.’

She was ashamed. Had it been so obvious that she needed a man?

Her body was in a soft state of abandon and fulfilment.

His hands started to use her again. ‘If I was wrong I’ll go,’ he said.

She sat up quickly. ‘Get out of here!’

He wound his hand in her hair and pulled her back beside him. Then he kissed her long and hard. ‘It’s better this way,’ he said. ‘Now we can have an honest relationship without going through all the
merde
of dating, and juvenile things like that.’

She moaned, responding to his body. What did she have to lose? It was too late for outrage and cries of rape, and since their first meeting in Acapulco she had been attracted to him. ‘All right,’ she muttered, surprising herself.

‘You’re a clever woman, Sunday,’ Claude said, only a trace of a French accent in his voice. ‘Now I shall make love to you while you’re awake, and tomorrow we will get to know each other.’

*    *    *

By the time Steve Magnum’s detectives tracked Sunday down, she and Claude Hussan were inseparable. Steve was furious. He was sure that the reason Sunday had run out on him in Acapulco was because of the French director. He snarled at Carey to release the statement to the press, which she did at once, sparking off much speculation and gossip.

Steve immediately started dating every available girl in town. He even stopped blaming Dindi, and saw her too. She attached herself like a leech, gradually getting rid of rivals and moving in on him as his constant companion.

Carey shuddered at Sunday’s latest choice in men. Claude Hussan had the reputation of being a mean, cynical, bastard, who enoyed great success with the ladies. His wife was a lesbian, and he had two mistresses in Paris who had both borne him children. He was a brilliant director, but apparently murderous to work with, and completely ruthless when it came to other people’s feelings. Rumour also had it that he was prepared to indulge in any sexual deviation, especially orgies.

Carey shook her head. He didn’t sound like Sunday’s sort of man at all. She wished that Sunday would at least telephone her. She hadn’t heard one word and although she left messages at the hotel in Rio her calls were not returned.

Marshall said, ‘Don’t worry. As long as she’s back in time for her next movie it’s not your business. She’s your client, that’s all.’

‘She’s also my friend,’ Carey replied, and continued to worry.

*    *    *

Claude Hussan was in Rio to interview two actors he wanted for his film. As it was to be his first American film he wanted every part perfectly cast.

He gave Sunday the script to read. She was excited about it. If only he would consider her for the woman’s role; it was a wonderful part.

‘Who do you have in mind for Stefanie?’ she asked casually one night.

‘An actress of great strength,’ Claude replied. ‘A woman like Bancroft or Woodward. An American Moreau.’

She was silent. He would obviously never consider her, although she was sure she could play the part. Stefanie, a rich Beverly Hills wife who lives in a mansion with her husband, an ageing voyeuristic banker. One day their house is broken into by two boys, who make love to Stefanie, forcing her husband to watch. They stay, keeping the couple prisoners, until gradually Stefanie’s loyalties switch from her husband to the boys and she becomes like them.

‘I have to get back to L.A. soon,’ she remarked later that evening, ‘I really should let Carey know I’m on my way.’

‘I’m not stopping you,’ he said brusquely. ‘Our arrangement is to do what we want when we want to.’

‘But I don’t
want
to go. You know I signed for a film.’

‘A film? Is that what you call those flimsy pieces of garbage you make?’

They had been together only two weeks. She knew she must be in love because it didn’t seem to matter what he did, she just wanted to be with him. He was incredibly rude to everyone – waiters, maids, the hotel receptionists, he treated them all like dirt. He had a contemptuous attitude towards everyone.

One day she asked him, ‘How can you talk to people that way?’

‘If they have no more ambition in life than being a servant, they deserve whatever treatment they get,’ he snapped.

She was embarrassed by his behaviour. She smiled at the waiter he had recently screamed at, tipped the maid he threw out of the room, chatted amiably to the temporary nurse he had hired to take care of his son.

Jean-Pierre was a lovable little boy, although rather quiet for a five-year-old. Claude hardly seemed to notice his existence, but Sunday spent a lot of time with him. She took him to play on the beach, for walks, and started to teach him English.

‘Why is he with you?’ she asked Claude one day. ‘You never give him any attention. Where is his mother?’

He ignored her, a habit he had when he did not wish to answer a question.

She sighed. He was an impossible, difficult, spoilt man. But when he made love to her every night it was so thrilling and beautiful that she chose to ignore his faults.

She knew she couldn’t put off contacting Carey any longer. She had been reluctant to phone her, knowing she would criticize, but it had to be done as she had to get back to Los Angeles. It wouldn’t be so bad. Claude was flying to Paris for a week and then he too would be in L.A.

‘Are you bringing Jean-Pierre back with you,’ she asked. ‘Or will he stay in Paris with his mother?’

‘His mother does not want him with her,’ Claude replied shortly. ‘Usually he stays with his grandmother, but she is sick, so I suppose I shall have to keep him with me.’

‘It makes me very sad the way you treat him,’ she said. ‘You take no notice of him. Don’t you care?’

‘He is with me, isn’t he? That should mean that I care, shouldn’t it?’ He was angry. ‘I could have arranged to leave him, but I bring him with me.’

‘Shall I take him back to L.A. with me tomorrow?’ she asked on impulse. ‘We get along very well. I think he likes me, and after all, you will be with us in a week.’

He turned away from her. They were lying in bed, resting before a dinner engagement.

She touched his back gently. ‘Please let him come with me, Claude, it would be like having a little piece of you near me. I’m going to miss you so much. We could phone the nurse now and tell her to prepare his things. I don’t leave until the afternoon, there’s plenty of time.’

He kicked the covers off and lay on his back. ‘Make love to me the way I like it, and if it’s good, we’ll see.’

Charlie’s lawyer telephoned him on the set. ‘She’s agreed to an outright payment,’ he announced. ‘Her lawyers advised her to stick out for alimony, but she decided to accept your offer.’

‘Natural greed got the better of her,’ Charlie said, relieved. ‘I knew it would. Finalize the whole thing as soon as possible.’

He hung up, delighted. The money he would have to pay was worth it – anything to cut Dindi Sydne completely out of his life.

Dindi was also delighted. Charlie Brick had served her purpose, and to get rid of him
plus
receiving a large cash settlement was more than she had hoped for.

Everything was going her way.
All the World Loves a Stripper
was well into production. She was receiving a great deal of publicity, and not only from the film. In the columns her name was constantly mentioned as the girl who was consoling Steve Magnum after his broken engagement. And it was true, she
was
consoling him; nothing consoled him more than a long raunchy session with the whip. She didn’t mind that, though. In fact, she really quite enjoyed it, and on the side she was banging a beautiful pale blond pool boy who came to her house three mornings a week, serviced her, and then serviced the pool.

It was really very convenient the way everything had worked out – Sunday getting hooked up with Claude Hussan, and Steve blaming
him
for Sunday’s behaviour. Of course Dindi was smart enough to know that Steve was carrying one big torch, but that was only because he hadn’t had an affair with Sunday, a fact he had admitted to Dindi one drunken night.

Secretly Dindi admired Sunday. Miss Simmons certainly knew how to grab a guy by the balls.

She wondered how she was making out with darling Claude. Once, in Rome, Dindi had had a scene with his wife while he sat fully dressed on a couch, watching. He had never spoken to her, just paid her the money she had been promised by the agent who had taken her there. Sunday certainly believed in getting mixed up with weirdos!

When her film was finished Dindi planned to visit Las Vegas with Steve on his once-a-year gambling stint. At the same time she could get a quick divorce from Charlie. She was just as anxious to be rid of him as he was of her, and if she played her cards right, maybe – hopefully – there might be a chance that Dindi Brick – née Sydne – might just possibly become Mrs Steve Magnum.

*    *    *

‘I hear you’re all going up to that rock festival,’ Charlie said to Laurel casually.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘it’s going to be so great. We’ve hired a bus to take us, and we’re going to sleep out in tents. Floss says it’s going to be a beautiful experience. Hey, why don’t you come?’

‘No, you don’t want me along, it’s going to be all you kids—’

‘Charlie,
please
come. You know we’d love to have you with us. Floss will be knocked out if I tell him you’re coming.’

‘Perhaps I could drive there, maybe follow your bus in my car.’

She grimaced. ‘That would look sort of funny. Can’t you come in the bus with us? Mick’s coming, and Tina, Rex and Janie, Phillipa—’