Butterfly (48 page)

in that church, including Danny himself, believes he actually brought Paul here back

from the dead. The people were so worked up, you should have seen it! There were a cou-

ple of reporters asking questions outside. And do you know what? People actually

vouched for ‘Doc Chandler’! They swore they’d gone to him for years!”

Beverly turned to gaze out at the lights. “They just wanted to authenticate a miracle

that they desperately wanted to be real. You can’t blame them for lying.”

Beverly wasn’t proud of the trick they had played on Danny tonight, but it had been

necessary. Danny Mackay had boasted of restoring three people to life. Investigations into

each incident had failed to prove otherwise. Those involved had vowed firmly that a mir-

acle had indeed occurred. Beverly didn’t like that. She didn’t like the idea that innocent

people were being duped into believing Danny’s fakery and giving him their money. He

was giving them false hope, and that was cruel. The only way to stop him from further

hurting people was to expose the three miracles for the frauds that they were. And the

only way to do that, she had realized, was to stage a fourth, this time with people who

would be willing to confess that it was all a hoax.

If Danny tried it again, he was going to wish he hadn’t.

28

When the door to Barry Greene’s office suddenly burst open, he spilled his coffee and

jumped up in time to prevent it from staining his pants.

“Barry!” said Ariel Dubois, striding in just one step ahead of his secretary.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Greene,” the secretary said, flustered. “Miss Dubois just walked right

past me.”

“It’s okay, Fran.” He waved her out and continued to mop the spilled coffee off his

desktop. The magnificent Ariel, one of the studio’s biggest stars, liked to make dramatic

entrances.

“Well,” he said, throwing the handkerchief away and resuming his seat. “This
is
a sur-

prise, Ariel. To what do I owe this honor?”

She settled into the velour easy chair and crossed one long magnificent leg over the

other. “Barry darling, I want you to do something for me.”

“When don’t you?” he sighed. “What is it this time?”

“I want that bitch Latricia off the show.”

He wasn’t surprised. In fact, Barry had been expecting this thunderclap for quite some

time, ever since the plump Latricia had lost forty pounds and started receiving fan mail

and the writers of the show began giving her more lines.

“Do you know what they’re planning for the episode of sweeps week?” Ariel asked,

venom dripping from her tone.

Barry already knew. Nurse Washington (Latricia Brown) was going to be spotlighted.

She was suddenly going to find romance with one of the show’s doctors, experience

tragedy and then a dramatic brave comeback, all at the expense of Ariel Dubois’s air time.

Well, he couldn’t blame the writers. After going on a health kick and losing weight,

Latricia Brown had turned out to be quite a good-looking woman. The letters had started

pouring in from viewers wanting to see more of her. And that last show, in which Nurse

Washington did an emergency tracheotomy on a baby and saved its life, had shot them up

into the next ratings slot.

Barry would, in fact, have liked to see Latricia’s role expanded—for two years her part

had been a very small one, and in some episodes she had never appeared at all—but he

wasn’t going to risk Ariel’s wrath. He could tell by the way she swung one gorgeous leg

and kept tossing back her mane of ash-blond hair that she was out for blood.

Well, this wasn’t the first time a star had gotten jealous over a bit player and had him

or her canned. And Latricia Brown wasn’t worth getting into a fight with Ariel. The

number one rule of Barry Greene’s life was “Avoid trouble. At all costs.”

“Okay, Ariel. I’ll find another show to put her in.”

207

208

Kathryn Harvey

One month later Barry Greene had trouble.

“And how is John, dear? Jessica?”

Jessica looked at her mother. “I beg your pardon?”

“You weren’t listening.”

“I’m sorry. I was thinking about the latest case I’ve taken on.” Jessica gave her mother

an apologetic smile. They were sitting in the glass-and-marble dining room, with a view

of the golf course and snow-capped Mt. San Jacinto in the background, of the Mulligans’

Palm Springs home, where they were eating tender steaks and baked potatoes. The food

was perfect, just as the million-dollar house was perfect. Jessica’s sixty-five-year-old

mother wore an impeccable jogging outfit of lemon-yellow velour, and her father a pale

pink rugby shirt and pleated canvas pants. They both looked trim, tanned, and rich.

“A pity John couldn’t come with you tonight, Jess,” her father said as he carved his steak.

“He’s in San Francisco. His company is—”

“I wanted his advice on an investment I’m thinking of making.”

“Yes, well”—Jessica moved her untouched steak around her plate—“he’ll be home

tomorrow.”

While they spoke her father didn’t look at her once. In fact, he rarely looked at his

daughter when talking to her. Jessica once figured she’d seen the top of his head or the

back of his neck more times than she had actually seen his face. Which was just as well,

because when he did skewer her with those hard, judgmental eyes of his, she always found

herself suddenly at a loss for words.

The three ate in silence for a while. Every now and then Jessica looked out at the spec-

tacular view and wished she had such a view from her own house. All she and John looked

out on was Sunset Boulevard.

“What’s your new case about, dear?” Mrs. Mulligan asked.

“Well, have you ever watched
Five North—”

Her father looked up.
“Five North.
Isn’t that that TV hospital show? Silliest piece of

nonsense I ever saw. Who on earth wants to watch shows about sick people? It’s aimed at

morons I have no doubt.”

“I rather like the show,” Mrs. Mulligan said softly.

“You would. Women are obsessed with illness and death.”

“In fact, Mother,” Jessica said, “have you read about the actress on the show who is

suing the producer and the studio for breach of contract?”

Mrs. Mulligan opened her mouth, but it was her husband who answered for her. “I

don’t see what the woman is all worked up about. I understand they offered her a part in

another show—a better part, mind you, and at a higher salary. She flung it in their faces,

I hear.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Dad. She’s being persecuted because the star of the

show has taken a dislike to—”

“Pass the sour cream, will you, Jess?”

“I think she looks rather pretty,” Mrs. Mulligan said, “now that she’s lost all that

weight. Sort of like an African princess.”

BUTTERFLY

209

“It’s the producer’s show,” said Mr. Mulligan. “It’s his money. If he wants her out, then

he has the right to throw her out. After all, she broke their agreement by changing her

looks.”

“Dad, there’s nothing in her contract that says she has to be fat.”

Mr. Mulligan mashed the sour cream into his baked potato and frowned. “Helen?

How long did you cook these potatoes?”

Jessica gave her mother an exasperated look and returned to picking at her food.

There weren’t any walls to speak of in the Mulligan house. The living room became

the dining room, which sort of segued into the family room. Designed for gracious desert

living, the golf course “estate” had polished marble floors, stark white walls, sparse furni-

ture in soft pastels, and a few pieces of rare, expensive sculpture. Jim Mulligan was a

retired businessman who spent all his time on the golf course, while his wife busied her-

self with card clubs, flower arranging, and Weight Watchers meetings. The three now

took their coffee into the sunken conversation pit; it was too cold outside to sit on the

patio and listen to the trickle of the Spanish fountain.

While Jim settled down into the best seat in the pit and reached for the television

schedule, Mrs. Mulligan turned to her daughter and said, “You seem awfully preoccupied

tonight, dear.”

“It’s this case I’m handling. I just don’t know…”

Mr. Mulligan regarded Jessica over the top of his bifocals. He had been fiercely proud

when his youngest daughter had graduated with honors from Stanford Law School. He

had had visions of setting her up in a substantial practice here in Palm Springs. He had

even discussed it with John Franklin, Jessica’s new husband, and John had found the idea

appealing. But then Jessica had surprised them both by announcing that she was going

into practice somewhere in Hollywood with a classmate, and that they were going to go

into entertainment law. To Jim Mulligan’s way of thinking, that was no better than being

an agent.

“What is the case?” Mrs. Mulligan asked, aware of her husband’s disapproving stare.

“I’m representing Latricia Brown.”

“The one on the medical show?”

“She knows Mickey Shannon. He referred her to me.”

“She doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” said her father. “One two-bit actress against a

powerful studio and one of the hottest producers in Hollywood? Why doesn’t the stupid

girl accept their offer? I think they’re being damned generous by half.”

“Because, Dad,” Jessica said slowly, “it’s as I said earlier. It’s the principle of the thing.

She decided to fight them and she asked me to represent her.”

“What are you going to do, dear?”

“I’m not really sure, Mother. We’re meeting with Barry Greene at the studio in the

morning.”

Jessica glanced at her father. He was scowling into the television schedule.

They continued to sip their coffee in silence. Jessica dreaded these perfunctory visits

with her parents—she did it mainly to please her mother. They had nothing in common;

she and her father invariably disagreed, and her mother never let a visit go by without

210

Kathryn Harvey

some mention of Jessica’s childlessness. The evening usually wound down with Jessica

watching the clock and counting the minutes until she could leave.

She was more than preoccupied with the Latricia Brown case, she was downright wor-

ried about it. Jessica had tried to talk about it with John before he left for San Francisco,

but he hadn’t listened.

Jessica didn’t see what was wrong with the specialty she had chosen. There certainly

was a need for experts in creative properties. Jessica and her partner dealt not only with

contracts but also with copyrights, plagiarism, artists’ rights, and anything to do with

books, television, or the movies. But, she supposed now as she drank her coffee and

looked at the clock, because she mingled on a daily basis with Industry people, neither

John nor her father approved.

She thought about the meeting tomorrow morning. She had been losing sleep over it.

In the four weeks since she had agreed to take on the case and had been advising Ms.

Brown, Jessica had not come up with ammunition to fight Barry Greene and the studio.

Although there was nothing in the contract that said Latricia had to stay fat, it was

nonetheless implied that she could not drastically alter her looks without the studio’s

approval. After all, her weight loss had not been part of the show. It wasn’t written into

the script.

To make matters worse, the press had reported Latricia Brown as having been offered

a generous settlement by Barry Greene and the studio. She had turned it down, and as a

consequence public sympathy for her was waning. A raise and a new car looked good to a

lot of the people who read the Los Angeles
Times.
But Latricia was sticking to her fight

because it was about time, she declared, that someone showed the studio moguls that

actors weren’t pieces of property to be used and discarded on a whim.

Jessica had spent nearly every hour of the past month worrying over the case and try-

ing to find a loophole with which to hang Mr. Barry Greene. But he had the money and

the power behind him, while Latricia was black, a woman, and wouldn’t even be able to

pay her attorney.

Jessica felt like David going against Goliath, and was worried because she didn’t even