Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors (4 page)

Cowler nodded, glad that his boss had stepped in strongly. “Our US colleague Peter Jamison will assist you locally with logistics and anything you need.”

Sir Limes got up; the audience was over. “Weekly status. Good hunting.”

Fowler got up, taking his cue to save the world. After some pleasantries, he went out toward his office.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Friday’s Fate

Three events on Friday before the Awards ceremony decided my fate. First, the
LA Times
and the morning TV shows headlined “A Nasty Fight Between Hollywood’s Star Couple,” meaning a loud and public split up of Nicole Berg and Allan Sturgis at a party in Las Vegas. The reasons were unclear, but Nicole had tossed a glass of the finest champagne into Allan’s face, and he had left Vegas the very same night, heading to Miami with some super model or other. The second big news was a robbery of the famous Beverly Hills’s Rodeo Drive jeweler Cooper-Morningstar.
 

They were about twenty seconds into the newsreel when my phone rang. I sighed, put down my breakfast danish on my kitchen counter, and said into the phone, “I didn’t do it!”

“How come I don’t believe you completely?” Mundy munched his breakfast in parallel, two miles up the Pacific Coast Highway.
 

The news item ran for another minute. Quite a few Hollywood stars had been planning to wear pieces of Cooper’s next big collection at the Oscars ceremony—and the theft now forced them to think of alternatives.
 

Mundy grew impatient. “Come on, Cal! Promise me again that you spent the night in bed.”

“I must admit; I never thought of it that way.”

Mundy’s voice grew tenser. “That way? What does that mean ‘that way’? You did it, but you are misrepresented by the media?”

“Mundy, you should hear yourself. That makes absolutely no sense.” I started eating again, drinking up my coffee. “I was in bed. I didn’t do it. I never did anything, and you know it.” You never knew who was listening in. “But it would be a great publicity stunt. Steal the Hollywood beauty pieces for the Oscars and force the Hollywood elite to visit my shop to buy ‘Moonstone’ models.”

Mundy groaned and hung up. I had told him the truth: I had not been involved in that heist, unfortunately, as the thieves had grossed about thirty-million-dollars’ worth of jewels. The black market would probably earn them about a third to a half, depending on the quality of the middlemen. I briefly thought about my ex-fiancée Thomas Cornelius, who had a secret identity as a fence of art and stones, and whether he was involved or not.

The next “only in LA” moment came around noon, when Mrs. Otis left to bring over a pizza from the take-out place opposite my store. The problem was that the open kitchen of the pizza restaurant offered a view of a very cute new pizza maker who had constantly flirted with Annie and me over the last week. Annie’s and my hormones were raging, and when lunchtime approached, Annie won the flip of a coin—and the ability to walk over to order the pizza in person. And while she was at it, she decided to wait for it over there as well.
 

I was in the middle of rearranging some displays when the wind chimes sounded their soothing noise and the door opened to bring in … Nicole Berg, this time with a small Mercedes SLK parked in front of the store, large sunglasses, and a scarf around her very recognizable hairdo. She wore regular designer jeans, a simple black cashmere pullover, and Holland’s shoes, not unlike some of my other better-off customers. I closed the display and walked over to her while she took off her sunglasses.

“Nicole, nice to see you again.” We shook hands; she accepted a coffee.

“Terrible what happened this morning, wasn’t it?” she started.

“This morning? What exactly?” I asked carefully because I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to her lost boyfriend, the Beverly Hills jewelry heist, or the weak overseas box office numbers of her last movie, which had also been published this morning.

“The break-in at Cooper-Morningstar … you must have heard,” she explained, sipping her coffee. A twinkle in her eyes told me that she could have meant her break-up with Allan as well.

“Of course, of course. Terrible, a lot of beautiful jewelry gone, and some of Hollywood’s greatest without anything to wear for the ceremonies”

Nicole sighed playfully—or maybe for real? I found it hard to distinguish between the actress and the real person and vowed not to go out with an actor, ever. Nicole said, “I am among those unlucky few.”

“Oh dear, so do you plan to go naked?”

Nicole didn’t laugh but said seriously, “Don’t be silly. Of course not. My good friend Ava…,” Ava Persson, last year’s supporting actress Oscar winner; never go into a friendship with a famous star if you can’t stand name-dropping, “…who is in the same situation has made an emergency order with Paull&Paull of San Francisco, and they promised to help her out.”

 
“Have you found something already?” I inquired, suspecting the obvious.

“Not unless you will show me your most spectacular pieces. Necklace and earrings. Got something that goes with that Panamericana bracelet?”

My heart was beating fast; my mouth turned dry. Nicole Berg, screen legend, planned to wear my jewels at the Oscars award ceremony. Joan Rivers would comment on Nicole’s shoes and her dress and her hairdo. And would then mention my jewels! About one billion people behind the TV sets would stare between her breasts, and the females would see … my necklace.
 

“You
can
help me out, can’t you?” Nicole asked.

I downed my coffee, walked over to the door, locked it, and put up the closed sign—right into Annie Otis’ face. I gestured, shooing her away. Annie took it with good grace and went back to extend her pizza-boy flirt while I flirted with movie star fame.
 

“Okay, let’s talk spectacular!”

We spent about an hour together, with me presenting her the ten best pieces I had in store. The Panamericana set was too playful and too colorful for an important media event like Oscar night, so we had to turn toward serious diamond-based stuff. We quickly had it down to two combinations. One was an early version of a necklace I had manufactured for a Saudi family member. It was high in the six-figure range and matched very well with a pair of five-carat diamond studs for her ears. Nothing else would be needed; all eyes would be on the necklace all the time. The second option was a diamond rich choker necklace, 1.5 inches wide, that featured a fantastic, sparkling, twenty-carat stone as a focus. It came with two matching bracelets for the arms, fitted very tightly like sweat armbands, and a pair of earrings, each fashioned of five small diamonds on a platinum thread. I took two shots with my Nikon and brought them up on my Mac to give Nicole a basis for comparison. After two changes, she decided to wear the choker necklace with the matching accessories. It underlined her delicate features, and the tight fit gave a fleeting impression of expensive bondage.
 

“This is it! It looks fabulous, Calendar,” she said, studying her impression in the mirror with shining eyes.
 

“It looks fantastic on you. Would you mind if I took a more few photos?” I held up my digital Nikon camera again.

“No, go ahead,” she said and did some serious and silly poses for me, while I was snapping away like a pro. We had to break out into laughs several times, giggling like schoolgirls imitating super models at a fashion shoot.

After my last frame and a particular silly expression on her face, she said, “Allan never ever photographed me,” a sudden sadness coming over her face. “He used to carry a small camera with him all the time, for snapshots. And he used to draw it out at the most inconvenient times when someone famous had an embarrassing moment or something strange or beautiful happened.”
 

“You want another coffee, or a tea? Might soothe you,” I tried lamely, knowing I was not very good at this empathy thing.
 

She shook her head. “But he never took a photo of me. I mean, not that he needed to. All he had to do was pick up any magazine on the newsstand and see my current haircut.”

“Did he ever tell you why?” I asked.

“You will laugh, just like I did, but by now I think he said what he really felt. He said, ‘I do not want to steal your soul.’” A tear trickled from her eye, so I pulled out a tissue, and she sneezed.

“I am sorry. You had been a very … nice pair,” I commented.
Jesus, did I really say that?

“Thank you, Calendar, you are most kind. And your work is so beautiful.”

I saved the moment by becoming all business again. “Usually you film folks only rent the jewelry for Oscar night and don’t buy it. Any opinion on that? I am new in this field.”

Nicole looked in the long mirror, turning left and right, bringing up her hands to her face, marveling at the many rows of small, brilliant, white-fired stones. “Can I afford it?” she asked, deadpan, with a small smile playing around her mouth.

I picked up Mrs. Otis’
Hollybiz Magazine
and thumbed through it. “According to informed sources, you got 18.5 million dollars for your last movie. That covers it.”

“You should hear my financial advisors on what is left after taxes and other costs of stardom living. How much is the set?”

“To buy?” I had never put a price tag on it yet but decided to go for it. “I can make you a good offer if you take the whole set. It is seven-fifty.”
 

She looked up, surprised. “Seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand bucks?” She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, confirming whether it could possibly be worth that much. But fire sparked from each of the four-hundred-and-fifty small diamonds and the few big ones of highest quality and melted away every female hesitation like ice in the sunshine. “And rent?”
 

This question took me somehow by surprise, and I had to give a quick guess. G
o for it, girl.
“For Oscar night, I would charge a one-time fee of three percent of the sales value plus an insurance fee which is around four-thousand dollars. That brings it to about twenty-four-thousand dollars including tax.” Which was likely a better deal for both of us because I would probably be able to sell it after the media exposure for a million bucks. “Plus, you have to provide a guard for the transfers to and from the shop to your home and to the event. Not my idea, but the insurance wants it,” I explained.

Nicole looked into the mirror again. “All right, deal. I rent with an option to buy within the next two weeks.”

Done deal. We filled out some forms required by the insurance, she covered the rent with her black Amex, and I prodded and fingered around her precious famous neck and arms to make the jewelry even a better fit.
 

 
Nicole said, “Say, do you know a good place around here to have lunch? After all that jewelry hunting, I am ravenous.”

I cocked my head. “If you’re into Italian, I know a place just three minutes from here on PCH. A good dim sum Chinese is just around the block. Your pick.”

“Let’s do the Chinese. Would you like to join me?”

And that is how we ended up spending the afternoon together, the actress and the jewelry designer. Two successful women in LA making ends meet. I interrupted Annie Otis’ extended lunch break and told her to mind the shop while I had my lunch break. She followed me over to the shop again, constantly looking over her shoulder, where our common pizza friend was winking at us, blowing kisses and forming new pizza dough.
 

“He is soooo cute. I wonder if he has a girlfriend. She must be so lucky. I wonder how he is in bed….” A constant waterfall coming straight out of her overcharged hypothalamus.
 

“Mrs. Otis, he may be gay,” I interrupted her.

She looked back for a minute, squinting through her eyelids, and was rewarded with a wave of his hand. “You think so? I don’t think so. He hasn’t made that impression on me. I think he is interested in me….”

Nicole had been waiting for me outside the store, and Annie Otis was too pizza boy engaged to notice, so she went into the store and reopened it for regular business while Nicole and I went to lunch.

A couple of dim sum baskets, jasmine teas, and rice wines later, we had covered childhood, movies, and jewelry making. We had very different backgrounds, me with my hippie commune parents and her with a typical American small town simple world. We had both cut our ties with the past, overcome obstacles along the way, and were now famous and rich—rich with experience and rich with money. Well, destiny had dished her a little bit more of each than me.
 

“Cal, I can’t believe that my Hollywood colleagues have not discovered your works earlier. Your work is very good, and that you have some on display in major European museums is fantastic—and on the head of a European queen! Just a fairy tale come true.”

“But that doesn’t buy me anything in America, necessarily,” I pointed out. “I am considered an artist, not a fashion star. It is like Vivian Westwood versus Giorgio Armani. They both cut mean stuff out of cloth, but Giorgio hits it with the scene and the commerce, while Westwood remains….”