Star Island (5 page)

“Sure,” her mother said thinly.

“Cherish!”

“One word. You’re serious.”

“Yeah, just Cherish. Is that sick or what?” Cherry Pye started bobbing. “Yo, c’mon evahbuddy, put your hands together for Cher-ish! Cher-ish! Cher-ish!”

Janet Bunterman said, “We’ll talk about it after the tour.”

Cherry announced she was hungry, but not for omelettes or crepes. She poked her head in the refrigerator. The sharp light shone harshly on her blanched, splotchy face. “I crapped out a pile of birdseed,” she said. “What’s
that
all about?”

“Reincarnation,” said her mother.

“Hey, you think this ceviche is still good? Here, smell it for me.”

On the day Michael Jackson overdosed, igniting the most loathsome media frenzy since the O. J. Simpson trial, Bang Abbott was 2,500 miles from Los Angeles. He had flown to Nassau to check out a sketchy but enticing tip that Mitt Romney was frolicking with a pair of Italian hookers on Paradise Island. The Republican presidential contender was said to have checked in at the Atlantis resort under his own name, and the
National Eye
had already prepared a splashy double-decker headline:

Unluckily for Bang Abbott, it was a different M. Romney—Melvin, a widowed veterinarian from Joplin, Missouri—who was visiting the islands in the company of his two grown daughters. Neither of the women had ever been mistaken for a Mediterranean prostitute, and they didn’t know what to make of the obnoxious fat photographer who dogged them at Cable Beach while their father was playing blackjack. As soon as Bang Abbott confronted the equally bewildered Melvin Romney, who bore no resemblance to the former Massachusetts governor, the paparazzo rushed back to the airport and called the
Eye
.

That’s when he learned that the King of Pop had expired. Bang Abbott immediately dropped to his knees and broke into a racking sob that other passengers assumed to be a cry of grief, which indeed it was. Bang Abbott knew Jackson’s death was a lost once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—a photograph of the unbagged body would have fetched half a million dollars, maybe more. It would have been an epic tabloid coup, bigger than Elvis in his casket or Lennon on the autopsy slab.

Bang Abbott’s pain was made worse because he’d anticipated such a squalid demise for Jacko, and had been meticulously cultivating potential sources, from entrepreneurial paramedics to disgruntled mortuary personnel. He’d even sent Dodger tickets to a 911 dispatcher who had agreed to make Bang Abbott’s number the second one she dialed (after fire rescue) if there was an emergency at Jackson’s rented mansion.

Yet all the photographer’s preparations had been in vain. The golden window for getting a blockbuster photo comes in the first chaotic hours after a celebrity mishap; after that, the chance of scoring an exclusive is remote. Bang Abbott was helplessly, maddeningly stuck three time zones away from the scene of the Jackson cataclysm. By the time he barreled off the plane at LAX—after an excruciating delay in Atlanta—the Gloved One’s corpse was safely in the custody of the coroner and the story belonged to television.
The brigades of paparazzi that had descended from all corners of the earth upon Los Angeles were, in Bang Abbott’s opinion, as brainless as lemmings. There was no picture worth the risk of a fatal trampling, unless the pallbearers dropped the casket and MJ himself did a horizontal moonwalk down the steps of the Staples Center.

The inability to cash in on Jackson’s death had scarred Bang Abbott, and he resolved not to miss out the next time. Of all the stars who were crashing and burning, Cherry Pye seemed most likely to beat the others to the grave, and for that reason she’d become a focus of Bang Abbott’s morbid scrutiny. Although she was neither as global nor as gifted as Jackson, she was a wild, hot babe and would therefore, in his view, be worth plenty of money dead.

In the meantime, he had bills to pay. As soon as he walked off the flight from Miami, he checked his BlackBerry for overnight messages. A valet from the Peninsula had called to say Katie Holmes was table-dancing in the bar. Next a dry cleaner in Westwood had phoned to say Johnny Depp had personally dropped off a cummerbund for laundering. Then a waitress at Hugo’s had breathlessly reported an unpleasant encounter with Star Jones, involving a decaf triple latte.

Only the Katie sighting sparked any interest from Bang Abbott, and he suspected the tip wasn’t true; the source was so hopelessly nearsighted that he’d once mistaken Lyle Lovett for Anjelica Huston.

Bang Abbott deleted the messages and headed for Holmby Hills, the manored enclave between Bel Air and Beverly Hills where Michael Jackson had taken the big sleep. Cherry Pye was renting a house with eight bedrooms, six baths, a gym with a sauna, a billiards room and a mushroom cellar. The photographer knew this because he’d called up the rental agent and pretended to be interested in buying the place.

As always, he stopped his car halfway down the block. The Mercedes sedan was an expensive lease for a paparazzo but worth every dollar, for it allowed Bang Abbott to park practically anywhere.
Cops in the neighborhood were reluctant to tow an S-Class, fearing it might belong to some Hollywood big shot who’d call up the chief and raise hell.

Bang Abbott took out one of his Nikons, locked the car and strolled down to the foot of Cherry’s driveway. He was alone on the hunt, which was often the case these days. So many younger starlets were unraveling in sensational ways that the tabloids had to scramble to keep up. Consequently, a picture of Cherry Pye on a party spree wasn’t as valuable as it once had been, and no longer a lock for the front page. It was a fact that Bang Abbott refused to dwell upon. The new CD and concert tour would boost her back to the A-list, he was certain. When the rabid wolf pack of his peers returned to the chase, Bang Abbott would be miles ahead of it.

He squatted down to wait in the shade of a ficus hedge. Technically he was trespassing, so he kept alert for police cruisers. An hour passed with nobody coming or going, yet he remained patient. If Cherry wasn’t inside the house then she was probably on her way. He wondered if Lev had been telling the truth about getting canned—if so, Cherry’s handlers would be hiring a new bodyguard. With a little luck, the man would be more ethically flexible than Lev.

When a dirty white Land Cruiser pulled up in front of Cherry’s house, Bang Abbott rose slowly to his feet. The driver rolled down the window and said, “You’re kiddin’ me, right?”

It was another shooter. His name was Teddy Loo, and his biggest score was one of the Britney beaver pics. Bang Abbott flipped him the finger and told him to get lost.

“If I wasn’t such a goddamn humanitarian, I wouldn’t have stopped,” said Teddy Loo. “I woulda let you sit out here all day and rot like a turd in the sun.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“You missed her, dog. She checked into Rainbow Bend about an hour ago.”

“Nice try,” Bang Abbott said.

“I shit you not. I got the pictures.”

“No way. Who tipped you off?”

Teddy Loo laughed. “Nobody, dude. I was up there chasin’ some rock drummer who’s discovered the joys of smack. Got a call the guy might be breakin’ out of rehab, y’know, so I took a ride and parked in the usual spot. Then, who pulls up in her vanilla-cream Beemer but Cherry and her old lady! No muscle or nuthin, just the two of ’em.”

Bang Abbott felt sick. “You sure it was her?” he asked, thinking of the decoy. “Lemme see the shots, Teddy.”

“Dog, you got beat. It happens.”

“I don’t believe you.”

With a pitiful sigh, Teddy Loo shook his head. He took out his camera and beckoned to Bang Abbott, who approached the Land Cruiser as if it were a rancid Dumpster. Over Teddy Loo’s shoulder he watched a sequence of pictures flash across the camera’s viewfinder, and he felt the iron weight of despair.

The young woman being hustled into the Rainbow Bend Hope & Wellness Center was definitely Cherry Pye, not an imposter. Teddy Loo had caught her groping in her handbag for a pair of sunglasses. Much to Bang Abbott’s misery, Teddy’s close-ups were sharply focused, and Cherry’s stunning green eyes were unmistakable. She was wearing jeans and a black surf hoodie. As usual, her mother was dressed for a hotel tennis lesson.

“Don’t hate me,” said Teddy Loo, grinning. He put his camera away. “You want a lift to your car?”

Bang Abbott said no thanks. He tried to calm himself with soothing thoughts. He remembered the time that one of Michael Jackson’s security goons drove a full-sized Hummer over both of Teddy Loo’s feet at the gates of the Neverland Ranch. He remembered Teddy Loo crawling around the pavement and yipping like a crippled hyena while Jacko’s gloved hand waved serenely from a window of the departing vehicle. It was classic.

“Teddy, I don’t hate you,” Bang Abbott said. “You lucked out today, is all. Some days it’s better to be lucky than good.”

“I feel sorry for you, dog.”

“Ha! Don’t.”

“You know who just bought that house at the end of the street? The one with the stone gate?”

“Yeah. Kiefer Sutherland,” said Bang Abbott.

Teddy Loo hooted. “See, that’s what I mean, you’re like two years behind. Sutherland sold the place to Sandra Bullock and then she sold to Paula Abdul.”

“And that’s where you’re going now? To shoot
her?”

“I got a tip she walks her pug every Wednesday at noon sharp. You wanna come?”

“That’s great, Teddy, except I wouldn’t waste a frame on Paula Abdul if she set her hair on fire at the goddamn Ivy. Second, it’s not even Wednesday, you fucking moron.”

Bang Abbott stalked back to his car. He was steaming all the way to Malibu.

Ann DeLusia was surprised not to wake up in a hospital. Instead she was lying in a car, which she assumed to be the crashed Mustang. Then her vision cleared and she saw that the automobile was old and rusted, and the interior had been stripped bare, and that she was in the custody of a stranger.

The man stuck his head through an open window and told her to be still.

“You had a big night,” he said.

Ann nodded, staring. The stranger had to be well into his sixties, with crinkled skin as brown as cured leather. He had one gleaming eye, and a cracked fake that sat somewhat at odds with the form of its socket. On his bald pate he wore a flimsy diaphanous shower cap from which protruded two silvery braids, each strung with red and green shotgun shells. Ann noticed that the caps of the shells had been drilled out so that the hair could be threaded.

The braids weren’t growing from the back of the stranger’s head like regulation pigtails; rather, they appeared to sprout sideways at conflicting angles from his baked scalp. The plaited roots were visible through the shower cap, several inches above each ear. It was a nifty grunge look, although Ann doubted that was the stranger’s intended effect.

“You’re the guy in the middle of the road,” she said through a swollen lip.

“My hip locked up.” His voice was deep and rolling.

“Least I didn’t hit you.”

“You have superior reflexes,” he said.

“How bad am I hurt?”

“No broken bones but a few bruises. I had to cut you out of the seat belt,” the stranger said, making a snipping motion with his fingers. Then he disappeared from view.

When Ann sat up, she felt sore and dizzy. She wondered how the homeless man could be certain she hadn’t fractured anything, unless he’d been an orthopedist back in the productive phase of his life. It was creepy to think of him examining her while she was unconscious.

He came back with a mug of hot tea. “Homemade,” he said. “Local herb.”

“I hurt all over.”

“Understandable.” With one arm the man lifted her from the car and carried her to a blanket near a campfire. He propped her upright and helped her sip the tea. She saw that he was garbed in a crusty old trench coat and black high-top sneakers with no socks. Possibly she had the worst headache in the history of humanity.

“Is that a real race car?” she asked, looking back at the peeling hulk. The sides were plastered with faded decals, and the number 77 was still visible on the hood and sides. She said, “That’s pretty cool. Where’d you get it?”

“Jiffy Lube 300,” the stranger said.

“Were you a driver or something?”

The stranger seemed to think the question was quite humorous. It dawned on Ann that he was very tall, probably too tall to fit inside a racing car.

He turned away, tending to a frying pan that was sizzling over the fire.

“Have I been here all night?” she asked.

“Correct.”

“Didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“No phone, Ann,” the stranger said.

She saw that her purse and travel bag had been placed on the rust-pocked hood of the race car. Obviously the man had gone through her belongings or he wouldn’t have known her name. She wondered why he hadn’t used her cell phone to call for help.

“Do you know somebody with a car that works? Can you get me to a doctor?”

“Let’s have some breakfast and map out a plan.”