Too Little, Too Late (16 page)

When her mother had been released from the sanitarium in San Francisco, she had with her a small suitcase that contained a few articles of clothing, a hairbrush and two other items which Liz had found to be unusual. Inside an eyeglass case (her mother didn’t wear glasses), she had found what appeared to be an old coin necklace and a photograph of a vivacious young woman, posing prettily at the helm of a sailboat.

Not long after moving in with her, both the necklace and photograph had disappeared. The movie poster at her feet was of that same picture
.
The poster’s colors were unnaturally bright, dating it back to when Technicolor had been in its infancy, and it advertised a movie called
One Spark Too Many.
It listed Sigourney Johnson, Dennis Diego, and Jasper Kendrall as its stars.

Liz’s mind reeled in confusion.
Her mother’s photograph had been of the same woman in the same pose but wasn’t a poster shot. Who had given the photograph to her mother and more importantly, why?
 

Eve disconnected her call. The satisfied look on her face spoke volumes as Kate eyed her daughter in amusement from the comfort of the club chair across from Eve’s desk.

“I gather you got some good news?” Kate asked.

“It’s a done deal. The Luftkins are going to buy the house on Bellagio,” Eve told her.

Kate nodded complacently, not in the least surprised. “I told you they would.”

“But I just don’t understand how you could’ve been so sure,” Eve argued, “especially since the husband had been adamant about wanting to buy a property in Bel Air.”

“Because you told me the wife loved it,” Kate explained patiently, “and because the visceral connection a woman has to a house will always trump anything a man may want. Remember that.” She got up and went over to the door. “Want some real coffee from Starbucks to celebrate? I’m about to walk over and get some before I pick up the programs for the benefit from the printer.”

Eve shook her head. “Thanks but no thanks. I promised the Luftkins I’d stop by with the paperwork.”

There was a perfunctory knock on Eve’s door before it was flung open by their receptionist, Beth, carrying an enormous vase of tiger lilies.

“Oh my!” Kate exclaimed. “Who are those for?”

Eve pointed to the small white envelope attached to the flowers. “Why don’t you read the card and put us both out of our misery?”

Kate opened the envelope and scanned the card quickly.

“Well, what does it say?” Eve asked impatiently.

“It says:
If I’ve done something to offend you, please let me make it up to you…P.
” Kate felt acute embarrassment wash over her.

“Who’s “P”?” asked Beth.

Eve glanced at Kate, taking in her mother’s discomfiture with amusement.

Kate ignored Beth’s question, hastily stuffing the card back into its envelope. “I suppose it’s too late to send them back.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” With an air of conspiracy, Beth put a hand on Kate’s arm. “I meant to tell you earlier but the guy who delivered the flowers is sitting in reception waiting to see you.”

“You mean the delivery man?”

Beth shook her head. “Nope. I think it’s “P” and I don’t mind telling you, he looks
hot
for an older guy.”

Kate tried to hide her embarrassment behind a mask of annoyance. “Tell him I’m not in.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “It’s a little late for that. I already told him you were in a meeting.”

“So tell him I left.”

“I think he’s been waiting long enough to figure out this place doesn’t have a back entrance.”

Kate turned on her daughter. “You didn’t put Paul up to this, did you?”

“What do you think, Mom?”

Kate immediately felt ridiculous. Eve had hit the nail on the head the other day. She
had
been willing to jump through hoops in order to get the listing for the Swanson Estate but now that Paul wanted something from her, she kept giving him the cold shoulder. It was too painful, although Paul certainly didn’t know that. She gave Beth a resigned smile. “I’ll tell you what. Send him into my office and after ten minutes, buzz me and remind me of my next appointment.”

“You’re the boss,” Beth muttered as she left.

Eve turned to face her mother, trying to keep a straight face. “Buzz me if you need reinforcements.”

Kate shot her daughter a murderous look as she left.

***

“Look at me in profile,” said Ashley, staring straight ahead, “and be totally honest, okay? Can you see a bump?”

Karen looked at her friend’s new nose closely. “Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Honest, Ash. I can’t see a thing.”

Ashley visibly relaxed. “This has been the absolute worst nightmare. At first, my doctor just wanted to remove the bump, but then it became a whole new ballgame when he didn’t find any cartilage in the tip of my nose.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just scamming you for more cash?” Karen took a deep drag on her cigarette. “I mean, your nose looked like it had just as much cartilage as everyone else’s.”

Ashley giggled, lighting her own cigarette thoughtfully. “That’s just the beginning. You should’ve seen the look on my mom’s face when Dr. Adam then told her my nose was too long and had to be shortened.”

“What’d she do?”

Ashley giggled. “She acted like my nose was some kind of mutant deformity and told him to just fix whatever had to be fixed.”

“Which nose guy did you use?”

“Some M.D. out in Calabasas, of all places,” confided Ashley with a shudder. “I told Mom there were plenty of good nose doctors in Beverly Hills but my mom’s yoga buddy’s best friend’s shrink used Dr. Adam and he came highly recommended.”

“Well, at least your nose looks great now,” said Karen sincerely.

“It should since it cost enough,” she remarked, glancing into the rearview mirror before changing lanes.

“How much?”

“More than Heather’s boob implants!” Heather Markham was a year older than both of them and was one of the most popular girls at Killenby, thanks to her reputation for giving a great party. She lived in Pacific Palisades and when she had been thirteen, her parents went away for the weekend, leaving her in charge of a full liquor cabinet as well as her dad’s Ferrari. Her reputation as a party princess was made after
that
weekend. Nowadays, getting an invite to a Heather Markham party was a major event.

“Did you tell Heather that?”

“Not to her face,” admitted Ashley. “But I made sure I told all the right people.” She looked at Karen closely. “Speaking of telling the right people, did you give your dad the pitch about Hawaii?”

“He said he’d think about it,” said Karen shortly. She was still pissed about the whole dinner episode and hadn’t spoken to her father in a while. “Are you sure your parents are going to let us use your house in Hawaii by ourselves?”

“We’d hardly be alone.” Ashley finished her cigarette and lit a joint, inhaling deeply before passing it to Karen. “There’d be a house full of servants to spy on our every move.” She momentarily closed her eyes when she stopped at the next intersection. “You just need to chill. It’ll all work out.”

“Whatever,” said Karen, wishing she hadn’t agreed to come with Ashley to her brother’s bar mitzvah. She had wanted to be there when her boyfriend, Josh, cut his track at the studio.

“So where’s your brother having his bar mitzvah?” Karen finally asked.

Ashley shook her head in disgust. “The Whisky A Go-Go.”

Karen looked at her friend in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?”

The Whisky A Go-Go was located on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. It was opened in the early sixties and had introduced the concept of go-go dancers in cages. From rock to punk to heavy metal, the Whisky had played an important role in the career of many southern California bands such as The Byrds, The Doors and Frank Zappa.

Ashley sighed in disgust. “You know my brother and his obsession with The Doors.”

“That in itself is more than weird,” Karen admitted. “But I would’ve thought your dad would want him having it over at the Fox commissary or some other place like that, not at a nightclub like the Whisky.”

Ashley turned onto Sunset and pulled into a parking lot not far from the Whisky. “You know my dad wasn’t around much when I was growing up, and when he was, he and my mom argued all the time. Well, I think this is his way of trying to make up for lost time by basically agreeing to whatever Eric and I want.”

“Sweet.” Karen got out of the car and waited for Ashley to lock it and set the alarm. “So what you’re saying is that I shouldn’t be bitter about my parents’ divorce, right?”

Ashley shrugged her bare shoulders philosophically. “All I’m saying is that most of our friends’ parents have either gotten a divorce or are going through a divorce. No biggie.” She tossed her car keys in her Marc Jacobs bag before flinging the bag over her shoulder. “Most of the time, the divorce is never about us, it’s about them.”

Karen shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”

“Maybe not,” conceded her friend. “But the first rule of survival is that you have to make it work for you.”

The two girls linked arms as they went inside. The music was deafening and the place was already packed with people. Go-go dancers gyrated in cages suspended from the ceiling. Karen grinned, almost getting burned by the glass blower turning out little glass creatures for each kid to take home. The club had more carnival games than an actual carnival and there was a band playing Doors music while waitresses, dressed in scantily-clad cocktail dresses, handed out appetizers.

“What is
that
?” yelled Karen, pointing to a hut with flashing strobe lights off to one side of the room.

“I think that’s where kids can make their own video games.” Ashley pointed to the other side of the room. “My dad also hired a T-shirt maker. We have to make sure we get a T-shirt before we go.”

Everywhere Karen looked, she saw kids. Some were excited and running around, others looked bored and probably wished they were elsewhere. All in all, this was just like any other kid’s party except that this one probably cost as much as an average house in middle America. Here, the kids weren’t dressed to the nines in their best party dresses but wore designer jeans, Jive tees, two hundred dollar jackets and Doc Martens.

Karen shook her head. “I
cannot
frigging believe all this!”

Ashley gave Karen’s arm a squeeze. “Aren’t divorces great?”

The huge property had been an all-but-forgotten parcel of land in Benedict Canyon when his father had purchased it for next to nothing from a California land baron who’d lost most of his fortune when the market crashed in the late twenties. Leo suspected that the selling feature for his father had been the huge underground bunker; the previous owner’s brainchild, who’d been a paranoid recluse and had it built after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Atop the entrance to the bunker was a dilapidated old hunting lodge which Karl Bauer kept intact; the only modifications he’d made to the building were to make it more secure and to add blackout paint and steel bars on all the windows and the one door. And while construction began on the elaborate Spanish hacienda that was to serve as the main house on the property, his father had spent a small fortune in running electricity and plumbing into the bunker. Lush landscaping soon hid what little there was to see of the building.

Construction on the main house had been completed two years before his father had died. He had left the property to Leo. With the advent of technology, Leo had further secured the property and bunker some years later with a highly sophisticated alarm system. It was his private sanctuary where he felt closest to his father and until recently, this was where he had come to seek solace and to reaffirm his purpose.

Leo took the key from inside his pant pocket and unlocked the lodge door before carefully replacing it. He stepped inside and turned on the lights before going over to the far wall and deactivating the alarm system. As always, he was immediately blinded by the vivid red that covered the walls, ceiling and floor.

Taking several cleansing breaths in an effort to calm his inner turmoil, Leo took off his shirt, followed by his pants, then his socks and lastly, his underwear. Each article of clothing was neatly folded and placed on the chair in the corner, the only piece of furniture in the room. His meticulous ritual usually had a calming effect on him but today, he could find no solace in anything he did.

Removing the eight-foot strand of nylon rope coiled loosely over the back of the chair, he went and stood in front of the mirror attached to the opposite wall. He had shaved this morning and his genitals were smooth to the touch, although he noted with annoyance that his penis was already rigid. A film of sweat broke out on his forehead as he looped the strand of rope into a noose-hold by bringing the loose ends back through the loped end. He pushed it to the base of his body, close to his pelvis before turning the noose side down towards his balls, executing three or four simple twists. It was difficult to maneuver the rope around his stiff penis, even with his practiced hands. Taking the separated strands of rope, he wrapped each one around each of his balls, rotating to keep them even. After he separated his balls with the rope, he left about three inches of strand on each side. Those, he brought to the bottom of his balls and tied them off before taking the excess up around his swollen shaft and tying it again.

He gave the package a firm tug. The immediate shock of pain was reassuring. Satisfied that his balls and penis were tightly bound, he reached for the crisply laundered shirt and trousers hanging on a peg on the wall and put them on, followed by a dark tie. The hat and armband quickly followed suit. The effect was immediate as his heart quickened its beat. Slowly but surely, Leo felt the customary heat start at the tips of his toes and work its way up his entire body. Searching in the mirror for the reassuring bulge, Leo realized that his penis was no longer straining against its bindings and had gone limp. He was in control.