The Last Don - Mario Puzo [94]
Skippy Deere looked angry. “You can’t talk to her without a PR and legal person around,” he said. “You know better than that, Jim.”
The detective offered his hand to Claudia and Cross and said, “Jim Losey.”
They knew who he was. The most famous detective in Los Angeles, whose exploits had even been the basis of a mini-series. He also had appeared in very minor roles in films, and he was on Deere’s Christmas gift and card lists. So Deere was emboldened to say, “Jim, give me a call later and I’ll arrange a meeting with Miss Aquitane properly.”
Losey smiled at him amiably and said, “Sure, Skippy.”
But Athena said, “I may not be here much longer. Why not ask me now? I don’t mind.”
Losey would have been suave except for that constant wariness in his eyes, an alertness of his body that many years of crime work had planted in him.
He said, “In front of them?”
Athena’s body was no longer in motion, and she had erased all her charm when she said quietly, “I trust them far more than I do the police.”
Losey took that in stride. It was familiar. “I just wanted to ask you why you dropped the charges against your husband. Did he threaten you in any way?”
“Oh, no,” Athena said scornfully. “He just threw water in my face in front of a billion people and yelled ‘acid.’ The next day he was out on bail.”
“OK, OK,” Losey said, and held up his arms in a placating gesture. “I just thought I could help.”
Deere said, “Jim, give me a call later.”
This raised an alarm bell in Cross. He looked thoughtfully at Deere, avoided looking at Losey. And Losey avoided looking at him.
Losey said, “I will.” He saw Athena’s handbag on one of the chairs and picked it up. “I saw this on Rodeo Drive,” he said. “Two thousand dollars.” He looked directly at Athena and said with a contemptuous politeness, “Maybe you can explain it to me, why anyone would pay that kind of money for something like this?”
Athena’s face was like stone, she moved out of the frame of the ocean. She said, “That’s an insulting question. Get out of here.”
Losey bowed to her and left. He was grinning. He had made the impression he wanted.
“So you’re human after all,” Claudia said. She put her arm around Athena’s shoulders. “Why did you get so mad?”
“I wasn’t mad,” Athena said. “I was sending him a message.”
After the three visitors left, they drove from Malibu to Nate and Al’s in Beverly Hills. Deere insisted to Cross that it was the only place west of the Rockies where you could get edible pastrami, corned beef, and Coney Island–style hot dogs.
As they ate Deere said reflectively, “Athena won’t get back to work.”
“I always knew that,” Claudia said. “What I don’t get is why she got so mad at that detective.”
Deere laughed and said to Cross, “Did you get it?”
“No,” Cross said.
Deere said, “One of the great legends of Hollywood is how anybody can get to fuck the stars. Now, male stars it’s true, that’s why you see the girls hanging around locations and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Female stars, not so much . . . a guy works on their house, a carpenter, a gardener, can get lucky, maybe she gets horny, it happened to me. Stunt men score good and other guys on the crew can get lucky. But that’s fucking below the line and hurts female stars in their careers. Unless, of course, they are Superstars. Us old guys who run the show don’t like that. Hell, doesn’t money and power mean anything?” He grinned at them. “Now, you take Jim Losey. He’s a big, handsome guy. He really kills tough guys, he’s glamorous to people who live in a make-believe world. He knows that. He uses it. So he doesn’t beg a star, he intimidates her. That’s why he made that crack. In fact that’s why he came out. It was his excuse to meet Athena and he figured he could take a shot. That insulting question was a declaration he wanted to fuck her. And Athena froze him out.”
“So she’s the Virgin Mary?” Cross said.
“For a movie star,” Deere said.
Cross said abruptly, “You think she’s scamming the Studio, trying to get more money?”
“She would never do anything like