Hollywood Secrets (20 page)

“
How did the fitting go?” he asked into the mouthpiece instead.

“
It was a total disaster!”

“
The dress didn’t fit?”

“
Well, of course it fit. It’s a
designer
gown
tailored
to my measurements,” she shot back.

I silently willed her to mention which designer by name.

“
The problem is some paparazzi prick took my picture in it.”

Trace glanced my way.

“
Hey, don’t look at me! I was here the whole time.”

“
Babe, there are going to be hundreds of pictures of you in that dress. What’s the big deal?”

“
What’s the big deal? What’s the big deal!” she screeched on the other end.

Trace pulled the phone away from his ear.

“
The big deal, Trace, is that our wedding isn’t for another two weeks. No one is supposed to see this dress for another two weeks!” Her tone had gone from distressed right up into whiney two-year-old threatening a full-blown tantrum. I could almost picture her stomping her foot in time to her complaints. “Do you know how the press has hyped up my dress, Trace?” she asked.

Again he shot a look at me, as if I was personally responsible for a world of hype.

I blinked back innocently.

“
I may have read about it,” he answered.

“
If pictures of my dress leak before the wedding, I’ll be yesterday’s news before I even walk down the aisle. Imagine what that will do to my reputation! I cannot have my first pictures of my wedding dress leaked to the public by some slimeball with a telephoto lens.”

“
Did this particular slimeball happen to smell of pork rinds?” I couldn’t help asking.

Trace repeated my question to Jamie lee.

“
God, I don’t know! He was fat, gross, and had a twin.”

Mike and Eddie. Dammit! I cursed under my breath. Not only had they scooped me on the wedding dress, but the second it appeared in
Entertainment Daily
, Felix would know it, too.

“
This is such a disaster,” Jamie Lee whined again on the other end.

I had to agree. Though for entirely different reasons.

Trace closed his eyes and sighed out loud. “Okay. What do you want me to do about it?”

“
I want you to buy me a new dress,” I heard Jamie Lee say.

“
Great. How much?”

“
One hundred and fifty thousand.”

I choked on my Vitamin Water. Holy tulle and lace, Batman! That was a hell of a price tag for one little dress. I made a mental note to call that amount in to Tina as soon as I had the chance.

“
Fine. Get the dress, send me the bill,” Trace said into the phone.

That was it. I was so dating the wrong guys. I thought back to my last boyfriend. The most expensive thing he’d ever bought me was a pair of flip-flops at Old Navy. And those had been on sale!

“
Thanks, honey,” Jamie Lee responded. Gone was the whiney toddler, in her place something dripping with enough honey to attract a whole colony of flies.

“
So are we fine?”

“
We are now.”

“
Great. Listen, I may be spending the night out of town,” he said.

“
Fine. Whatever. Listen, I gotta go.”

And before he could comment further, silence on the other end said she’d already put in her last word.

“
Boy, she’s a peach,” I said.

He shot me a look.

“
I mean, not that I was eavesdropping or anything,” I quickly covered.

He shook his head. “She’s not that bad,” he responded, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

“
Again with that phrase. You better watch out, Trace, sounds like true love to me.”

“
Drop it,” he said, pulling a stick of gum from his pocket. He unwrapped it, biting down hard.

“
If you say so.” I paused. Sipped my drink. Listened to the steady hum of travelers huffing to their gates.

Finally I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“
Interesting ring tone you have for her.”

He grinned. “Like I said, she’s not
that
bad.”

I couldn’t help a little snort.

“
A little drama comes with the territory,” he said.

“
Which reminds me…” I reached into my bag and pulled out the little item I’d liberated from the wardrobe rack back at the Sunset Studios. “This is for you.”

I handed it to Trace. He took it, turned it over in his hand, held it up in front of him with two fingers.

“
It looks like a dead squirrel. What is it?”

“
A mustache.”

He looked at it again. Then back at me. “You have got to be joking.”

“
Hey, you’re the one who complained about the lame disguise. This is much better. There’s sticky tape in the bag.”

“
I don’t think so.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You’d rather be mobbed for autographs wherever we go?”

He sighed. Deeply. “Fine. Point taken.” He stood and made his way to the restrooms across the walkway. Two minutes later he re-emerged with the mustache artfully affixed to his upper lip.

“
How do I look?”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Kinda like a seventies porn star.”

“
Smartass,” he hissed. Though, I could tell from the way the dead squirrel was twitching, he had half a smile brewing again.

I turned back to my photo assignments, finishing up the last Aniston pic, then emailed the lot of them back to Felix, along with the candid “glistening” photo I’d taken earlier of Trace.. I looked down at the time. We still had a good forty minutes before our flight left.

Remembering our interview that morning with Ben Carlyle, I decided to indulge my earlier curiosity about Tootsie’s alleged admirer – Johnny Rupert.

I pulled up the Hollywood archives database and keyed in his name.

Johnny was the small-time actor who’d landed a few minor roles in a string of films put out by Sunset Studios in the forties and fifties. While I wasn’t 100% ready to rely on Carlyle’s assessment of the guy, I had to admit, as I pulled up the photo of Johnny, I could well imagine him the following-a-starlet-with-his-tongue-dragging-on-the ground type. He was slim, even for those days, and short. The less-than-masculine term “petite” came to mind. His features were all just a little too small for his face – a pinched mouth, a tiny, upturned nose, and a pair of close-set eyes rimmed in thick, black lashes. His black hair was slicked back from his forehead and, in the first photo I found, he was wearing the typical suit and tie of the time. He was standing on the Sunset Studios lot, in the same courtyard Pippi Mississippi inhabited today. His suit was just a little too big in the shoulders, a little too long in the wrists, belaying the fact that it was an ill-fitting wardrobe piece and not of his own personal collection. He was posed with two other actors, both similarly clothed.

I went back to the search results, coming up with only two more pictures of the guy, both clearly taken on the same day at the studios. Although the lack of photos wasn’t terribly surprising considering his lack of big credits.

I opened a new window and pulled up a news search engine, keying in Rupert’s name. After scrolling though a page of hits that had nothing to do with my Rupert, I finally came across a link to an old newspaper article detailing how he had, indeed, died in a car crash in the eighties. He’d been out with a Ralph Kingsly, another actor, on their way to Las Vegas for the weekend when they’d been struck by a semi truck whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and jumped the median. Johnny had been in the passenger seat and died instantly. His buddy, Ralph, had been airlifted to a nearby hospital and listed in critical condition at the time of the accident.

I wondered if Ralph had made it. I plugged his name into the internet movie database, searching for credits. A small list of roles came up under his name, indicating that he hadn’t been mortally wounded in the crash. Though nothing was listed past 1970, when he’d apparently made his last film. I made a mental note to look for Mr. Kingsly when I got home.

Since I still had a few idle minutes, I decided to follow the one other we had as well: Becky Martin.

Here I came up with quite a few more hits, Becky apparently having appeared in quite a few films, many of them beside Tootsie. In fact, she’d taken over the lead role in the film Tootsie had been shooting at the time of her death. Hmmm… suspicious indeed. Carlyle hadn’t mentioned this fact, though I had a feeling his sights were so set on Johnny, Becky’s possible guilt hadn’t even entered his mind.

I leaned in for a closer look at the girl. She was younger than Tootsie, probably early twenties if the fine layer of baby fat on her face was any indication. She was blonde, like Tootsie had been, though her hair had a platinum quality that appeared almost white in the black and white photos. Her nose was a little too big for her face – something that certainly would have been taken care of by Dr. B had she rose to stardom in modern times – but her eyes were big, blue, and rimmed in enough mascara to make her look like a china doll. Her hair was worn in a close-cropped bob, her bangs clipped just above her penciled in eyebrows. In several of the photos she wore a bow cocked off to the side.

But for all her attempts at a fresh, innocent look, her big blue eyes held the unmistakable glint of a calculating woman, a young lady who was on a mission to stardom no matter who got in her way.

I scrolled through the photos to see if I could come up with anything more recent, though she seemed to disappear after that last film.

Undaunted, I plugged her real name into my search engine. A few clicks later, I finally found what I was looking for. An obituary for a Rebecca Lubenschwartz. Or, as she was referred to in the article, Mrs. Schlomo Goldenfink nee Lubenschwartz. Talk about a mouthful.

She’d passed away in a nursing home outside Cleveland just last year after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. The obit was short, sweet, and to the point, mentioning that she was survived by two children and a dozen grandchildren. Nothing alluding to her life as Becky Martin. I wondered if this was per her wishes. Had she taken off for Cleveland to outrun Becky Martin? Out of guilt perhaps?

Beside the obituary sat a photo of the late Ms. Lubenschwartz. I stared into the wrinkled face. Age had been kind to Becky, softening the hard look in her eyes, converting the baby fat to a strong jaw line that time had not touched. She wore a network of wrinkles next to her eyes, but they hung more like comfortable laugh lines than unsightly flaws. All in all, she looked like someone’s jovial grandmother. Just as with Carlyle, I had a difficult time picturing her as a killer.

I downloaded the articles I could find and compacted them all into one file, saving the lot of it to my hard drive.

I was just sending the whole file off to Max when I looked up to find an older couple staring at Trace from across the terminal.

Great. More fans.

The guy wore a Hawaiian shirt and khaki trousers above topsiders, while the wife was dressed in capris and a blue hair scrunchie. Clearly out of towners.

The wife nudged her husband. “It’s him,” she whispered, pointing at Trace.

Here we go again.

Only the husband shook his head. “I don’t think so, honey.”

I glanced at Trace. Huh. What do you know, maybe the mustache was working.

“
No, no, I’m certain. It’s him. I mean, look at him. He looks just like the guy in that movie.”

“
What are the chances it’s really him, darling?”

The wife shook her head. “No. I’m positive.” She left her husband’s side and in two quick steps was beside Trace.

“
Excuse me,” she said timidly.

Trace, thus far oblivious to the whole exchange between husband and wife, pulled his eyes from the TV news to face her. “Yes?” he asked.

“
I don’t mean to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re him aren’t you? That actor?”

Trace pulled a forced smile. I could tell even he was getting weary of the fan-club routine. “Yes, I’m afraid I am.”

The wife blushed. “Oh, my. See, I told you so, Harold.”

The husband shrugged. “Well when the little lady’s right, she’s right.”

“
Oh, we just loved you in
You’ve Got Shemale
.”

I choked on my Vitamin Water. “You’ve got what?”

The wife blinked. “The adult film. You know, the naughty spoof of that Trace Brody film,
You’ve Got Email?
I’d recognize that mustache anywhere. You were so good as the actor spoofing Brody.” She glanced down at Trace’s wee-willie-winkie region. “
So
good.”

Trace opened his mouth to speak. But only a strangled sound in the back of his throat came out.

I swallowed a snicker. Okay, I tried to swallow it, but it came out anyway. “He was good, wasn’t he?” I asked.