Two-Faced (36 page)

Unless . . .

Oh, no! What if they’d realised that she wasn’t really Mia? Could she get into trouble for impersonating her and wasting their time?

As Michelle made her way outside, she felt even more nervous than before she’d gone in. Oblivious to the sly looks that the remaining girls were casting her way as they too wondered why she hadn’t been sent home, she sat down and concentrated on breathing evenly, wishing that Sammy was still there to hold her hand.

Wishing that
Mia
was here instead of her, like she should have been.

The rest of the girls went in – and came straight back out and disappeared. One girl, however, rejoined Michelle on the seats. But she didn’t look confused; she looked cool and confident, as if she already had this job in the bag. And Michelle was sure that she probably had, because she had that certain
some
thing about her that Mia had: that sparkle of absolute self-belief in her eyes, and all the poise of a true working model.

Ten minutes later, one of the men from the panel popped his head out. Smiling, he said, ‘Sorry for the delay, ladies, but it looks like this may take a while. Go get yourselves something to eat while you’re waiting – and make sure you tell them to add whatever you order to our tab. Okay?’

Returning his smile, the other girl rose to her feet, saying, ‘Sure, babes. Ciao for now.’

Unable to do anything except smile as the girl slinked out sexily, Michelle jumped up and rushed out to look for her mum and Sammy. Finding them in the restaurant, where they were sharing their third pot of coffee, she slumped down in a chair and buried her face in her hands.

Immediately guessing that she’d failed the audition, Sammy reached across and rubbed her shoulder. ‘Now, now, my love . . . there’s no need to get upset. You did your best, and that’s all we expected of you.’

Flooded with disappointment, although she’d secretly never expected any different outcome, Kim repeated what Sammy had already said, adding, ‘You’re a good girl, and we know how hard this was for you, but you got in there and gave it a shot, and you’ve really done us proud. It’s not your fault you’re not cut out for this; it’s
Mia
’s for letting us all down.’

‘Thanks, mum,’ Michelle murmured, truly glad that she was here, because she needed her support more than ever right now.

‘Right, well, at least it’s out of the way now, so you can relax,’ Sammy said, giving Michelle an encouraging smile as he sat back to let her know that she shouldn’t feel bad. ‘Let’s get you something to eat, and then we really should think about heading back. The traffic will be horrendous before too long.’

‘I’ve, er, got to wait,’ Michelle told him, biting her lip nervously. ‘I think I might be in trouble,’ she added quietly, glancing around to make sure nobody was listening. ‘I think they might have realised that I’m not Mia.’

Sammy asked her to explain. His bushy eyebrows rose when he heard what had happened. Chuckling softly when she’d finished, and had pointed out the other girl, he said, ‘Ah . . . how interesting.’

A glint of excitement in his eyes now, he looped his hands together on the table top and quietly told Michelle that the other girl was the one he had pinpointed as being her only real competition when they had arrived.

‘The fact that they asked you both to wait,’ he added, ‘is a very good sign indeed. I knew they were in a hurry, but I had no idea they were going to make a decision today. I imagined that they might hold a few more auditions first. But that’s the Americans for you, I suppose . . . they know what they want, and they make sure they do all the groundwork beforehand so as to waste as little time and money as possible.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Kim asked, sensing that it was good but wanting him to spell it out so that she didn’t get it wrong.

‘I’m saying that it looks like this has become a two-horse race,’ Sammy told her. ‘And
that
,’ he added to Michelle, ‘is incredible, considering this is only the second time you’ve ever done anything like this.’ Shaking his head now, as if even he couldn’t believe it, he said, ‘This is certainly something to celebrate, and I think I’m going to have to invest in a large bottle of champagne –
whatever
the result.’

The photographer’s assistant was sent down to collect the girls. Unable to face eating because her stomach was churning, Michelle had been sipping on a glass of water for the past hour. Face drained of colour now, she told her mum and Sammy that she’d see them in a bit and prepared to follow the assistant back up to the panel room. But the assistant told her that she was sure nobody would mind if she brought them along – which Michelle took to mean that she would probably need their support, because she was about to be told that she hadn’t got the job.

She was wrong.

As soon as the other girl was told the bad news and released, Michelle, Sammy and Kim were invited into the room.

‘Congratulations, Mia,’ the woman told her, smiling warmly as she stood to kiss each of Michelle’s cheeks. ‘You’re the new face of Blaze UK.’

In an absolute daze, because she couldn’t believe that she had managed to pull it off, Michelle listened without understanding a single word as Sammy and the Blaze executives discussed the details of the proposed schedule. Then, after signing her name on the contract, and having her hand pumped and more kisses planted on her cheeks, she drifted out between her mum and Sammy as if she were on a cloud.

Wearing his intelligent agent’s face all the way down to the underground car park, Sammy waited until they were alone before showing how ecstatic he really was. Yelling a jubilant ‘
Yippee!
’ which made both Michelle and Kim burst out laughing because it sounded so preposterous coming from such a fat old man, he grabbed Kim and waltzed her around on the concrete floor. Then, turning to Michelle, he pulled her into an enormous bear-hug, telling her how fantastically well she’d done, and how very, very proud he was of her.

‘And you thought you couldn’t do it,’ he scoffed, leading them to the car now. ‘Should have listened to Uncle Sammy, ’cos I
told
you!’

Still laughing, Kim said, ‘Er, excuse me,
Uncle
Sammy, but I seem to remember that you were just as convinced as me and her that she’d fluff it. You didn’t even want to let her do it; it was my idea.’

Holding up his hand, Sammy said, ‘Ah, now you’re quite wrong about that, my dear. While I admit that I had my reservations, they were based purely on Michelle’s inexperience. But I’ve never doubted that she had the right look. And, I might add, that’s not just because she is her sister’s double. This young lady –’ he swept a hand out to indicate Michelle ‘– has her very own look. And I don’t know if either of you were listening back there, but the Blaze guys were raving about her.’

‘So why did it take so long for them to decide between her and that other lass?’ Kim wanted to know, climbing into the front seat when Sammy stopped talking for long enough to open the car doors.

Sammy explained that the two girls had lent an entirely different look to the product. Blaze hadn’t planned to aim at girly-girls; they wanted to tap into the young, trendy, sexy, independent-woman market. And while the other girl had been the exact personification of that, Michelle had come along and thrown a big old spanner in the works.

‘The general consensus,’ he concluded, ‘was that while Michelle gives off a far softer, more vulnerable impression than the vibrant, hot young chick they had envisaged as the face of Blaze, she’s got something so mesmerising about her eyes on film that they just couldn’t ignore it.’

‘Christ,’ Kim murmured. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

‘It’s nothing I hadn’t already told you,’ Sammy reminded Michelle, grinning at her in the rear-view mirror as he pulled out of the car park and onto the road. ‘Remember last time? The producer specifically mentioned your eyes, and I told you to try and remember whatever was going through your mind that day, because it obviously worked. Well, it’s happened again. Only this time you didn’t let the nerves get to you. You, young lady, are a natural.’

Still reeling from the shock of it all, Michelle felt herself slowly coming back down to earth as they headed home. And the closer she came to landing, the more she knew that she couldn’t take any of the credit for what had happened today. This was all down to Mia.
She
was the one who had created the look that Michelle had emulated today; and it was her expression and mannerisms that Michelle had been copying. She was the true model; Michelle was just a good imitator – and the sooner Mia came back, the better, because there was no way Michelle would be able to keep it up for ever. Before long the Blaze people would start to realise what a mistake they had made.

PART THREE

23

Steve’s face was calm but his mind was working overtime, wondering how the hell to get rid of some of his money without actually losing it.

That was the problem with powders: the more you could afford at one time, the less it cost, and the larger the profits. And it was a constantly growing market, so there was always somebody waiting to snatch it out of your hands as soon as it came in. So the business snowballed, and you found yourself rolling in even more of it.

Great stuff, but where the fuck was he supposed to stash it without attracting unwanted attention? He couldn’t keep it here in the safe because, much as he trusted his guys, every last one of them would torch the place with him in it if they thought he had that kind of money lying around waiting to be lifted. Same with his apartment – or anywhere that was connected with him. And even if they didn’t get at it, he’d be thinking that they were
trying
to, which would send him crazy.

And banks were just as bad – if not worse. It had been easy once upon a time to distribute it around multiple accounts in multiple banks, but since the crafty bastards had started merging and sharing information which was previously secure, all it would take was for some computer nerd to start playing dot to dot and they would soon have the full picture of exactly who had what and where.

And he couldn’t do the usual Mr Big trick of splashing out on cars, mansions, yachts and ridiculously ugly and expensive artwork, because that was too noticeable, so it was guaranteed to bring the authorities down on him like a swarm of bees. And they weren’t stupid; they knew there was only so much money to be made from a tiny lap-dancing club in a grotty little backstreet.

Any which way you looked at it, he was fucked, because the more you had, the more at risk you were of losing it – and of going to prison for a very long time. And with the crash of so many markets recently, the less other people had, the more noticeable his wealth became. But what was he supposed to do? Stop dealing and start trying to scrape by on the pitiful club profits? He’d be broke within a month!

Looking up when Vern popped his head around the door, he said, ‘What’s up?’

‘Davy’s here.’

Sighing, Steve said, ‘Bring him up.’

Davy Boyd was smiling when he strolled in a few seconds later. He reached across the desk and shook Steve’s hand. Flopping down onto the visitor’s chair, he took a dimped spliff from behind his ear and lit up as Steve poured a couple of shots of the white rum that Davy favoured.

‘So, you got it?’ Davy asked, taking his glass and settling back in his seat.

Taking a package out of his drawer, Steve tossed it over to him. ‘Same batch as that last lot from a few months back.’

Shaking it, Davy peered at the packet closely. ‘Cool, man. My boys were all over me for more of that shit, but I had to tell them they’d seen the last of it when you said you couldn’t get hold of any more. How much you got?’

‘More than enough to keep you happy,’ Steve replied, grinning slyly.

Easing a corner of the package open, Davy sniffed at the powder, then tested it with the tip of his tongue. His spliff-reddened eyes were testament to his own preferred high, but he still liked to know the shit he was passing on to his customers. Murmuring, ‘Nice, nice’ now, he nodded his approval and resealed the bag. ‘So, how much?’

‘Seven an ounce.’

‘Fuck,’ Davy spluttered, his eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. ‘That’s gone a bit rocket-fuel, ain’t it? It was only five and a half last time.’

‘Hey, I’ve had a major hassle shipping this lot in,’ Steve told him, not in the least worried because he knew that Davy would take it whatever the price. ‘Came over in a shitload of straws weaved into rugs, so I’ve had the ball-ache of extracting it and getting it packaged. And now I’ve got hundreds of fucking rag-rugs rotting away in a lock-up to get rid of.’

Peering at him thoughtfully, Davy said, ‘How much you want for them?’

Laughing, Steve took a swig of his drink. ‘You joking, or what?’

‘Nah, for real,’ Davy insisted. ‘My bird, Vivienne – she’s into all that arty-farty shite. She needs something to keep her occupied before she drives me nuts with her yakking, and this could be it. Set her up with a stall on some market – let her flog the shit so she thinks she’s still got her independence. You know what birds are like.’

‘Not my birds,’ Steve quipped. ‘They prefer being kept. And that suits me, ’cos you can’t trust any bitch when she starts running around thinking she’s earning her own money.’

‘Seen,’ Davy drawled, grinning slyly.

‘Anyhow,’ Steve said, getting back to business. ‘I’ll do you a deal. You take the gear for seven an ounce, and I’ll throw the rugs in for nothing.’

Mulling it over, Davy said, ‘Six-fifty, and I won’t charge you for ridding you of them.’

Steve held his hand across the desk. Davy shook it, finished his drink and shoved his glass forward for a refill. ‘So, how’s the house?’ he asked as Steve obliged. ‘Managed to get shut yet?’

‘Have I fuck,’ Steve snorted, screwing the lid back on the bottle and restashing it in the drawer in case Davy thought they were making a day of it. ‘And I don’t want to think about it, so drop it, ’cos you’re the one who suggested the fucking property market in the first place.’