Shafted (7 page)

Shaking her head, Tania said,‘No chance. They wouldn’t want the neighbours gossiping. They’ll probably just put me on total lockdown till I’m
thirty
, or something.’

‘Oh well, that’s good.’

‘For
you
. But what about me? They’ll kill me if they find out I stayed here.’

‘Can’t you tell them you stayed with a mate?’

Face lighting up, Tania said, ‘Yeah! I can say I kipped in Joanne’s garage – they’ll deffo believe that.’

‘They’d believe you slept in a garage?’ Larry gave her a doubtful look.

Assuring him that she did it all the time, Tania said, ‘It’s more a sort of den than a garage, with beanbags and cushions, and that. Me and my mates always doss there when it gets too late to go home. And Joanne and her mum are at her nan’s in Scotland this week, so no one would know if I’d really been there or not. I’ll just say I got a taxi from Bone. And if they ask about you I’ll say you told me to get lost when you found out how old I was.’

Smiling, grateful that she was willing to put herself on the line for him, Larry gave her a fatherly pat on the arm, and said, ‘Good girl. That’ll really help me out.’

‘It’s all right,’ Tania said, her own happy smile fading when Larry slipped his jacket on, because she knew that she would have to leave him now. Biting her lip nervously, she said, ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Shoot,’ Larry said, looking around for his keys.

Dreading a negative answer, Tania looked at her feet and said, ‘You do like me, don’t you?’

‘Course,’ he replied, magnanimous in the face of relief. ‘What’s
not
to like?’

‘I mean in
that
way,’ she persisted, blushing furiously, but determined to take this one last chance to salvage something from the disaster. ‘Only, I’ll be eighteen in two years, so, I just thought . . . well, maybe I could see you again – when nobody can say anything bad about it?’

‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ Larry said, herding her towards the door. ‘I’ll take you out to dinner on your eighteenth birthday. How about that?’

‘Really?’ Eyes glowing, Tania gazed up at him lovingly.

‘Really. Now, where did you put my keys?’

Winking at her when she said she’d left them on the hall table, Larry reached for the phone and ordered two cabs, then led her out.

‘My cheque!’ Tania squealed when he picked up his keys and opened the front door. ‘I left it on the bed.’

Reaching out to stop her as she made to go back for it, Larry said, ‘Forget it, sweetheart. They’ve probably already cancelled it. You won’t get a penny.’

‘But why?’ she gasped. ‘I won it fair and square.’

‘You lied about your age,’ he reminded her, pushing her gently but firmly into the communal corridor and stepping out after her.

‘It’s not fair,’ she complained, folding her arms as he locked the door and led her down the stairs to the car park. She might have lost him for the time being, but that money would have really helped to soften the blow.

‘Yeah, well, life ain’t fair,’ Larry said simply – blissfully unaware of just how true that statement would prove to be for
him
in the coming months.

4

Larry’s life fell apart. And not gradually, which he might have been able to work his way through, but swiftly and completely.

True to her word, Tania had gone home that morning and done a fine job of convincing her parents that she’d spent the night in her friend’s garage – alone. Relieved that their daughter, who had already been branded a cheat for entering the show in her sister’s name, was at least absolved of the ‘slag tag’, they had immediately contacted the press, resulting in numerous interviews with the tearful girl, who doggedly stuck to her story throughout.

That, coupled with the blood-test results which proved that there had been nothing but alcohol in Larry’s bloodstream, should have been enough to clear his name and win him back his job – especially after the police declared that he had no case to answer.

But it didn’t.

He might have been proved innocent, but Frank Woods had already made an appearance on the local evening news by then, naming Matty Kline as the new host of
Star Struck
, and citing Larry’s continuous drunken behaviour as the real cause of his dismissal. And, pre-empting Larry’s threat to sue him for slander, libel, defamation of character, unfair dismissal – or anything else he might choose to throw into the mix – he’d backed up his claims with out-takes from the
Star Struck
archives, showing Larry in the worst possible light: reeling drunkenly around the set, forgetting his lines, being abusive to the crew, and groping the female contestants.

His professional reputation in tatters, Larry had to accept that there was no going back as far as
Star Struck
was concerned. But he consoled himself with the belief that something bigger and better would soon come along. He was a major star, after all, and his fans would demand that
some
body get him back on screen as soon as humanly possible, because everybody knew that there wasn’t another host in Britain who could hold a candle to him when it came to looks, charm, and personality.

Wrong again.

The rumoured alcoholism and teeny-bopper sex scandal lingered around Larry’s head like a toxic cloud. Producers wouldn’t touch him, and his showbiz so-called friends shunned him because they were afraid of being tainted by association. But if all that was humiliating enough, it was nothing to the knock his pride took when he discovered that he’d been left off the guest list for the annual TV awards ceremony.

For five years solid, since exploding onto the screen and into the female population’s hearts with
Star Struck
, Larry had been invited to the awards and had always come away with a symbol of his success: Best Newcomer; Best Host; Most Popular Male Star;Most Downloaded Pin-up . . . Accolade after accolade, seemingly forgotten in the flash of a viciously penned news story. And he couldn’t even sue Sam Brady, because the bastard had worded the original story so carefully – and implication, according to Larry’s solicitor, was not the same as accusation, so he had no case.

Battered and bruised, and tortured by the injustice of being barred from Oasis TV and overlooked by the awards’ organisers, Larry ventured out to the clubs in search of women, intent on fucking away the pain of rejection – only to find himself blacklisted from every VIP lounge in town as word got out that he was no longer considered a celebrity. And he wasn’t even afforded the respect of being informed about this via a quiet word in the managers’ offices, which was the least he’d have expected given how much money he’d spent in their establishments in the past. Oh, no . . . it was left to the doormen to inform him that he was no longer welcome – in full view of the everyday punters, who jeered him from the queues as his old still-celebrity friends sailed past him as if they didn’t even know him.

Upset and frustrated that, despite being cleared, nobody wanted to give him a chance, Larry slid ever deeper into despair. Unable to show his face outside without some smart-arse picking a fight or calling him a pervert, he hid away by day, only venturing out at night to stock up on booze, cigarettes and takeaways. Holed up in his apartment, with the blinds closed to keep prying eyes at bay – and he was
sure
that he was being watched, despite being too high up for anybody to see in unless they used a helicopter – days rolled into nights into weeks into months, with no company except for the TV.

It killed Larry to hear the
Star Struck
music every Wednesday evening, and he despised the sight of Matty Kline’s smug grinning face on screen. But, perversely, he couldn’t
not
watch it. It was an open wound which needed to be picked and scratched and poked and prodded – and that was exactly what he did, until the poison festered in his heart and soul.
Star Struck
was
his
show and always would be, and he spent that weekly thirty minutes of agony tearing Kline’s performance to pieces and wishing him a slow, painful death. And then he would ring his agent, Georgie, demanding to know why she hadn’t lined him up any new projects yet – and calling her every fat, useless bitch under the sun when she told him that there was nothing in the offing, even though she was the one and only person who had stood by him throughout that terrible time.

Larry knew he should be grateful to her for that, and in his rare moments of lucidity between waking up and getting pissed again, he would berate himself for being such a bastard. But guilt didn’t sit too comfortably with self-pity, so every time he had an attack of remorse after abusing Georgie over the phone, he would drown it with even more alcohol.

Which was precisely what he did when, after almost a year in the showbiz wastelands,
she
actually called
him
for a change.

Already halfway through his latest bottle of Scotch despite it being only five in the afternoon, and in a foul mood because there was a noisy party going on in the apartment next door – to which, surprise, surprise – he hadn’t been invited, Larry bit Georgie’s head off when she told him he’d had an offer of a job.

‘What is it? And it’d better be good, ’cos I’m not just taking any old shit.’

Sensing from his tone that he was spoiling for a fight – as he always seemed to be lately – Georgie sighed. Any other agent would have dumped him after the telethon scandal, but her instincts had prevented her from buying into the witch-hunt. Pain in the arse that he undoubtedly was when he was drunk, Larry had been a nice, sober young man when she’d met him, fresh off the cabaret circuit where he’d been muddling along playing host in a strip venue in Blackpool. She’d never for one minute believed that he was a paedophile and, sensing that the sweet, ambitious boy he’d once been still lurked behind the raging ego, she’d stuck in there, sure that when the rumours eventually fizzled and died and he got a grip on his drinking, some smart producer somewhere would remember his appeal to the female viewing population and give him a fresh start.

And it had finally happened, but not in the way she’d hoped, and Georgie just knew that Larry was going to kick off when he heard what was actually being proposed. In fact, she was so sure he would turn it down flat that she’d spent a good ten minutes after speaking with the producer chewing her nails, wondering whether there was any point even telling him about it. But her conscience hadn’t allowed her to keep it from him, and there was always a chance, albeit slim, that he might just surprise her and jump at the chance to get back in front of the camera – like any sensible person would if they had been out of work for as long as he had.

‘Oi!’ Larry barked suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts. ‘Spit it out, or I’m hanging up. I’ve got better things to do than sit here listening to you panting down my ear like a knackered old dog.’

Gritting her teeth, Georgie said, ‘It’s such a joy speaking to you, too, Larry, and if we can forgo the insults for a moment, I’ll happily tell you. But before I do, I should point out that I’m not expecting you to like it. I
do
, however, expect you to be sensible enough to at least think it over before you say no, because the money is quite excellent for what it is.’

‘Whatever,’ Larry muttered, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. ‘And what
is
this marvellous thing you’ve got lined up for me, pray tell?’

‘It’s a game show,’ Georgie told him, adding quickly, ‘along the lines of a McIntyre sting,’ in the hopes that the mention of the heavyweight of undercover exposés might draw him in for long enough to hear her out. ‘The production company are US-based, and they assure me that they were doing this kind of thing over there long before McIntyre got into it, so there’s no problem with copyright, or—’

‘Bollocks to copyright,’ Larry interrupted. ‘Who are they, and what’s the deal?’

Crossing her fingers, because he actually sounded interested, Georgie said, ‘They’re called Shock-Wave, and they’re over here filming a documentary series about the differences between US and UK police forces. It’s quite—’

‘They want me to front it?’ Larry cut in again, wondering why on earth she’d assumed that he wouldn’t like it. He’d had nothing for a year, and now he was being offered a whole series – and everyone loved those American cop shows. This could be the start of something huge!

‘Not exactly,’ Georgie said, bringing him back down to earth with a resounding thud.‘Apparently, the officer they’ve been liaising with for the series asked if they’d consider doing this as an offshoot to the main programme, and
that
’s what they want you for. Unfortunately, it’s only been commissioned for the States at the moment, but there’s always a chance it’ll be picked up over here if it’s a success. And they’re really keen to have you on board,’ she added, wanting to boost him back up before he completely switched off on the idea. ‘They delayed going back to the States just so they could work with you.’

That last bit was a blatant lie, but Georgie crossed her fingers, praying that Larry wouldn’t question it too closely. He’d always believed that he could make it in the States given half a chance, and with any luck he’d be so flattered at the thought of an American company actually having heard of him that he wouldn’t dig too deeply.

And Georgie wouldn’t disillusion him by telling him that they
hadn’t
actually heard of him. That it had in fact been the police inspector’s idea to have him as host, claiming that a well-known presenter with a history of falling foul of the law himself might be better suited to luring in the criminals they were targeting than the goody-goody presenter whom Shock-Wave had originally had in mind.

‘The money’s fantastic for a one-off,’ she repeated now. ‘But I do have to warn you that this might be because the project contains a certain element of risk.’

‘Risk?’ Larry lit a cigarette and sucked wetly on it. ‘So, what we talking here? Danger money?’