Hollywood Sinners

EPILOGUE

Hollywood, Spring 2012



Chloe French pulled back her shoulders, lifted her head and awarded a glittering smile to the cameras. At her first Awards she looked every inch the part in floor-length cream Dior, her hair a jet-black sheet, an emerald locket at her cleavage.

‘Chloe, Chloe, this way!’

‘Chloe, over here!’

Moving on the carpet like a pro, she turned this way and that, her arm linked with the man standing next to her. She felt like a queen. Chloe French was one half of America’s most celebrated power couple.

Tonight was significant not just to her, but to all of Hollywood. The industry had been rocked to its core by the events that took place eight months ago in Las Vegas–this was the first time they had all been brought together since. Memories of that night at the Orient were hard to shake. It was the movie premiere that never was.

Eastern Sky had gone on to break box-office records, though arguably for the wrong reasons. Lana Falcon was now being hailed as one of the finest actresses of her generation, possessing a grace and style reminiscent of the greats. Her performance had, as anticipated, earned her a nomination tonight. After what she’d been through, the world held its breath that she’d take it.

Cynical critics attributed the attention surrounding Lana to what happened on the night of her premiere: they claimed that her work was viewed in a favourable light given the circumstances under which the film had been released. More hare-brained conspiracy theorists maintained that the whole episode had been nothing but a cleverly executed stunt. Exactly what had happened in Lana’s suite that night was never fully known to the public.

But now, close to a year on, it was impossible to forget the devastating outcome. Thanks to a host of gathered TV crews, the tragedy had been broadcast across the world in a series of shaky, indistinct shots. The best footage belonged to the team who had been interviewing Kate diLaurentis on the red carpet: one moment they were discussing her imminent comeback; next, close by, the sound of smashing glass and the screech of a car alarm. A flicker of uncertainty on the actress’s face, before the camera had whipped round, closing in on the action in a chain of trembling frames. People were screaming, running, pushing past each other, not knowing what they were escaping from. They were shouting, ‘Run for your lives!’ Panic bred panic and it had spread down the Strip, through the streets, an unstoppable force. Terrorists. A bomb.

Only it wasn’t that.

The man had fallen from the sky, thousands of feet from the Orient Pagoda, and crashed through a news van’s windshield at nearly a hundred miles an hour. The bullet between his eyes showed he had been dead long before he’d hit the ground.

Amid the fear and confusion, the premiere had been abandoned. Anchors had reported from Vegas, but it was a solemn account they’d delivered, not the star-studded story of just a few hours before. Police and paramedics were called. The area sealed. Several fragile guests had needed counselling. News of the event was broadcast across the planet: this movie, its stars and the Orient Hotel became household names overnight.

The time had come to turn the page. Organisers of tonight’s event knew it was the first step of a long journey: it wasn’t just insiders who needed affirmation that the untouchable glamour of this world still existed–it was the public, too.

Chloe looked adoringly at the man as he embraced her. They laughed together for the cameras, their foreheads touching, bulbs flashing all around. She leaned back in his arms, delightedly sliding into a series of rehearsed poses.

Chloe French and Cole Steel had been dating for just six weeks. Two months after Vegas they had begun filming together on Cole’s new action picture and romance had–to their surprise, so the story went–blossomed. According to the papers, Cole’s marriage had been rapidly falling apart, understandably so, and Chloe, sweet English girl with a heart of gold, had become a shoulder to cry on. Out of respect to Lana they’d waited until the divorce papers had come through before going public with the relationship. In the press Cole referred to the period as ‘without doubt the most difficult time of my life’.

For him, she was a heavenly proposition. Young, beautiful and at just the right level to take the contract as bait. Just the previous week he had confessed his eternal devotion on a popular TV chat show, reciting an ode he had penned for Chloe entitled ‘At My Weakest, You Were There’. The performance had gone on to smash viewer ratings on YouTube.

For her, it was the ultimate Hollywood goal. It didn’t get better than being Cole Steel’s wife. Marriage, security, a family, it was all she had ever wanted. Real life didn’t work that way, there were too many unknowns, too many people you couldn’t trust. Cole’s way was reliable, an offer of safety she had long been craving. And despite the no-sex clause, which of course he had to put in as a formality, she was looking forward to getting to grips with the Hollywood crown jewels. How hard could it be to go to bed with Cole Steel every night? Not very. Despite the age gap, he was still every woman’s fantasy.

But all that would come. Cole was a true gentleman, practised in the art of chivalry. For weeks they had been dating and he still hadn’t tried to get her into bed. It made a refreshing change. Chloe had no doubt he was waiting for their wedding night and, boy, did she plan to give him a night he would remember.

Cole, too, was living the publicity dream. After Lana lost the baby his critics backed off, accepting that even celebrities were vulnerable to tragedy. To all intents and purposes, the trauma of Lana’s ordeal had sadly brought their marriage to a close. The shock of her appalling attack by a crazed stalker and the circumstances under which her child had died would change her for ever: Cole was the desperate, loving husband who tried to make it work; Lana the woman who could never find a way back. It was heartbreaking. Cole had been waiting all his life for the right woman with whom to have children and, just as he had found her, the privilege had been snatched away. Choking back tears, he hoped that one day he and Chloe could share that joy.

He cared for Lana, in his way. He was sorry she had lost her baby, and for the terror and grief she must have endured that night. Nobody should have to go through that.

And in the aftermath of the tragedy, he had decided not to pursue his plans for Parker Troy. The guy had committed a crime against him, but he had lost a child as well as Lana. Now that Cole had Chloe and, despite the odds, things had worked out favourably, he decided to exercise a little charity. Whatever the papers might say, he did have a heart.

But fortunately for Chloe, his charity ended there. She’d had her share of drama at the now infamous premiere, had been forced to miss her first red-carpet appearance due to food poisoning, but any publicity attached to her absence was swallowed in the aftermath of Lana’s story. When she had confided the reasons for this to Cole, Kate and the rock star Nate Reid had both received letters by private courier informing them that if either went within fifty yards of Chloe French again, they could rest assured that they had already seen their last sunrise.

Cole and Chloe were an institution, and as such they were invincible.

He took Chloe’s chin in his hands and kissed her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Michael Benedict looking on, a hunched figure over his stick as he was interviewed by TV crews. The old man was shaky–this had to be his last Awards, thought Cole, he surely couldn’t survive another year. Surely he couldn’t.

Chloe gazed up at him as the crowd hollered her name, adoring his handsome grin and sparkling eyes. With Cole there would be no lies, no secrets, no heartache; no bitter vengeance; no hidden pasts. A new start.

Theirs would be the perfect marriage. She’d show the world it could be done.

Kate diLaurentis stepped out of the limousine to a cacophony of screaming fans. Her husband, last month voted Comedy’s Sexiest Man by a women’s lifestyle magazine, followed, his arm hooked protectively round her waist.

Paparazzi swooped in on the fresh blood.

‘Kate, look this way! Give us a smile, Kate, that’s beautiful!’

Kate knew she looked beautiful, she didn’t need these leeches to tell her. Fashion magazines, now touting her new range as cutting-edge style, praised her chic, fresh-look wardrobe; critics fell on her performance in George Roman’s new movie as ‘inspired’ and ‘extraordinary’; gossip rags loved nothing more than to pick over her appearance, hoping to find traces of surgery, fillers, enhancers, anything that could account for her looking so good. But she’d given all that up a long time ago–along with the prescription drugs. She’d seen what they did, the tragic, too-young deaths they were responsible for. Now, just returned from a promotional tour in Europe, Kate diLaurentis was right back in the spotlight, where she belonged.

Cole and his new accessory were at the other end of the runway, clinched in an elaborate PDA for which the cameras were going wild. It was amusing, really. The girl imagined it was the best thing that had ever happened to her–they all did at first. With Cole she got fame, a stellar career, protection. but getting looked after was a double-edged sword. Cole’s threatening letter made Kate suspect that he’d watch this new acquisition with a fierce eye, and something told her that Chloe French wouldn’t like it one bit.

For this reason their partnership pleased Kate. The Vegas stunt had failed to glean the negative publicity she’d been hoping for–the whole thing had been overshadowed by Lana Falcon–and Cole’s abominable note had put an end to any further plans she might have harboured. It was neat, therefore, that Chloe had walked right into her own bespoke punishment.

Kate felt for Lana, especially since her divorce united them as members of an exclusive, two-woman club. How on earth Lana had ended up pregnant was something even she couldn’t work out.

Jimmy Hart squeezed his wife’s waist.

‘Careful with the dress, Jimmy,’ she instructed, not letting her smile falter for a second. Hers was one of Hollywood’s stable families and Kate wanted the world to know all about it. She wanted to be the envy of every woman in town who suspected their husband was doing the dirty. Kate was testament to the fact that, with a little careful planning, a Hollywood wife could do anything.

Jimmy Hart relaxed his grip on Kate. That cute little backing dancer he’d been shagging certainly had no qualms about being handled rough. He grinned into the cameras and delivered a playful thumbs-up, a gesture everyone liked to see accompany a comedian.

OK, so he’d stayed away from women for a while–Kate had returned to the bedroom with enthusiasm and it had kept him occupied for a record amount of time. But at the end of the day, he liked girls. What could he do about it? So long as he was discreet, and he’d learned that he really had to be, then he didn’t see the problem. He’d hurt Kate before and he didn’t want to do it again–after all, he loved her–but what she didn’t know couldn’t harm her. As long as he spent time with the kids, serviced his wife every once in a while and made sure his next film was a long-awaited triumph, he didn’t see the problem.

Kate had insisted on keeping on that sneaking cow Su-Su, but what was he going to do about it? He felt sorry for her–she’d wanted more than he’d been prepared to give and when he’d gone off her, she’d freaked. It was understandable, she was only human.

‘Jimmy, this way, Jimmy!’ He gave the cameras every angle, leaning in to kiss Kate’s neck. The cameras sparked.

Jimmy was about to work with Sam Lucas for the first time, the director hot on everyone’s lips after Eastern Sky. This was a more serious role than his previous endeavours, and he hoped it would be the same vehicle for Hart as The Truman Show was for Carrey. Jimmy felt that someone up above was finally on his side. Gone were the days of self-loathing and drink. He had a gorgeous wife and two adorable kids, a great job, and on top of that he had beautiful girls queuing up to share his bed. This was most definitely the life. And long may it continue.

Nate Reid, his hair in a state of dishevelment that appeared to be unpremeditated but, in fact, had taken an hour to achieve, showed off his newly whitened teeth to the cameras. The girl on his arm, a brunette actress and famed burlesque dancer known only as the Pink Lady, dared to bare all in a shocking-red floor-length gown that was split up to the thigh. Her glossy mane was swept over one pale shoulder; her lips bruised purple. Together they were LA’s anti-couple, a dazzling combination of raw talent, sex and couldn’t-give-a-shit attitude. Nate worried that his state-of-the-art gnashers might compromise this, but decided that at this point in his career, he was immune to criticism.

Where other twosomes were chastely pecking at each other, Nate grabbed his beau and proceeded to lodge his tongue down her throat. The paps went crazy. Easy. He’d be front page news tomorrow.

Speaking of chastity, he caught sight of Chloe and Cole Steel, working up a PR storm at the other end of the red carpet. They were talking to fans and greeting media contacts, smiling and laughing like they were with old friends. She was good at it, he had to admit. And he was prepared to take the credit: if it weren’t for him toughening her up, she would never have landed with a powerhouse like that.

It wasn’t as if he’d enjoyed what had happened to her in Vegas. On the contrary: at times he’d been absolutely shitting himself. At one point back there he’d thought Chloe had gone and croaked on him–that would not have been good. Fortunately, with a few bouts of cold water chucked on her face, she had eventually come round.

But it had been a mistake getting caught up with Kate diLaurentis, he saw that now. Sure, their shared cause had been sweet, but she had revealed herself since then to be a bitter old tart. He had tried to contact her several times, even showed up at her mansion when Cole’s letter came through, but the old lady claimed never to have met him. He’d been escorted from the premises and that had been that.

The Pink Lady, real name Amanda, was being interviewed by an overweight journalist with a beard that looked like he’d drawn it on himself. Nate stood alone, savouring the cameras’ undivided interest–at the end of the day, he guessed, even having a partner was enough of a compromise on that front.

Shortly after the premiere, Nate had abandoned the group that had made him famous and had gone it alone. Last Nate heard, The Hides had done a chain of shambolic gigs in Archway and were still playing songs that Nate himself had copyright on. It proved what he had known all along: that the band was a deadweight without him. Nate Reid was the magic.

He had gone on to release a solo single, which shot to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. He was indisputably the biggest rock star of the twenty-first century.

Marty King and Rita Clay took their seats together in the auditorium. Rita had turned a few heads already, and not just because she was on the arm of her rival agent. She was stunning in a floor-length plum-coloured gown that exposed her smooth black shoulders and complemented her cropped blonde hair. She looked beautiful.

Marty spotted Brock Wilde and nodded a greeting. Negotiations had started all over again–they had approached Chloe French with the contract earlier this month. He hoped Brock knew what he was in for with this. He wasn’t a power agent–yet–but he’d better be a fast learner.

They had been lucky with the Lana situation, real damn lucky. He felt for the poor girl, of course he did, but from Cole’s perspective it had worked out nice and neat. And, as he knew all too well, his client liked neat things.

As the lights dimmed, Rita looked to Lana. She prayed her friend was OK. It would be difficult to get up in front of the crowd here if she did take the Award, with everyone knowing what she had gone through. It had been a horribly public ordeal. But Lana was strong. She was a fighter. And she would get through.

Rita, too, had been amazed at how things had developed after the premiere. Not just for Lana and Cole, but for her.

Over the course of dissolving the contract, across late-night phone calls and impromptu meetings, during heartfelt conversations over Lana’s tragedy, she and Marty had–surprising no one more than themselves–become close. She had never found this rotund white man attractive until then, when suddenly something like Vegas happened and everything got re-evaluated. Marty had shown compassion, sympathy and, above all, professionalism.

They had just recently emerged as a couple–LA’s top power agents united. Love worked mysteriously. For Rita and Marty, it just seemed to fit.

Marty took her hand. ‘I’m the luckiest guy here,’ he said, meaning it.

She smiled back at him. ‘Damn right you are.’

‘Daddy, you’ve got fat. You’re taking up half my seat.’

Bernstein eased back, satisfied. ‘I’ve always been fat, kitten. You ain’t gonna change that.’

Jessica made a face. ‘You could look better,’ she snapped, pulling out a diamond-encrusted compact mirror and admiring her own reflection. She was clad in an all-gold catsuit, accessorised by a wide seventies-style belt and giant hoop earrings. Not traditional Awards fare, but she liked to bring a bit of Vegas fun to a place like this. Especially since everyone seemed so serious. She’d only just got over what had happened herself–it had been an appalling tragedy–but life moved on and you had to go with it.

Bernstein sighed. At least she wasn’t swearing. Those radically expensive elocution lessons must be paying off.

At first he had taken his younger daughter’s interest in the hotel industry with a great big bucket of salt, but in the aftermath of the Eastern Sky premiere she had proved herself to him time and time again. It was exactly the distraction he had needed. And it turned out Jessica was made for it: she was fearless in a pit-bull way; uncompromising and without mercy, a woman whose dick for business was as hard as any man’s. The family would love her.

As for his own family, it was just the two of them now. Two Bernsteins against the world.

Shortly after the premiere, he and Christie Carmen had parted ways. He had walked in on her giving an enthusiastic blow job to one of the showgirls–obviously they weren’t vetting them too closely these days. Christie was out the next day. ‘I knew it all along,’ Jessica had said dismissively, though he suspected she hadn’t. Jessica and Christie had struck up a sort of friendship–Bernstein wondered if she wasn’t more upset by the split than he was.

But Elisabeth.

He experienced a wrench in his gut when he thought of the daughter he had lost. His heart ached when he remembered how their last words had been spoken in anger. He could not dwell on it.

Nor could he dwell on the son he would never have. Remembering St Louis, he balled his fists. Fate was cruel.

It was a time for renewed focus. Life moved on, and nobody knew it better than him.

A dozen rows back, Elisabeth Sabell sat cloaked in shadow. She had almost convinced herself not to come–for weeks she had just stared at the invitation, too ashamed to contemplate a public appearance–but in the end some faint recollection of what pride felt like had persuaded her.

Nobody here knows, she kept telling herself, politely greeting acquaintances. Nobody except Frank Bernstein, and she had no intention of ever again speaking to him. His betrayal of her was beyond comprehension. He was nothing to her, she was nothing to him–they were strangers.

He wouldn’t have told Jessica, he wouldn’t have told anyone. She knew that because he had been her father and that was how he worked. Anything that risked compromising his reputation and it was as if it had never happened. For once, she was grateful. She thought about him now like one might remember someone who had died. But for her there wasn’t a hint of sadness at the loss of their relationship. She kept waiting for it to come but it didn’t. Perhaps, she’d reasoned in her darker moments, it was because the word ‘father’ simply meant nothing to her any more. How could it?

She was an orphan. More than that, she had been misled so tragically by those she’d put her faith in that it was as if she had never been born of two parents. That connection was irrelevant to her now, like not knowing if the fruit in her hand came from the tree or the vine, and not caring either way.

The past eight months had been nightmarish. No, that wasn’t fair: even her worse nightmares didn’t come close to the abomination of the truth. There were times Elisabeth tried to label what had happened, the cold shame and hot terror she had wrestled, the agony she had endured and the dread she knew, finally, would set hard in her body and never let her go. To find a word that captured her trauma would help her towards understanding, perhaps put some slim distance between her and It. But there wasn’t a word, not a single one in the whole of her vocabulary, that could even come close.

It had been a slow road. She could scarcely recall the night of the premiere, remembered the horrors of the letter and the way she had sobbed on it, ripped it, destroyed it, but after that was only a blur. Later, waking up in hospital, she pieced together what had happened. She’d been knocked down on the Strip by a jibbering tourist whose first time it was driving abroad and taken to the ER, where she’d remained unconscious for several days. On waking, the first face she’d seen had been Alberto Bellini’s. She would never forget as long as she lived the way he had looked at her.

They hadn’t spoken. She was too dazed, he too much in shock. But, anyway, there had been no need. There was nothing either could say that would mean anything or make any sense.

In his eyes was sadness, regret, disgust at himself but most of all, love. That was what broke her heart the most. He hadn’t known: it was as much of a horror for him.

It was goodbye. When Bellini turned, so slowly it was like a dream, and left the room, she knew she would not see him again. She guessed Bernstein had told him–at least he hadn’t left that extra luxury to her.

Last she’d heard Bellini was retired and living in Sicily.

She’d moved away to the coast, had holed up there for months. Several times she considered killing herself–she wasn’t dressing, eating, washing, there was nothing of her life left to live. Jessica had tried to come visit, couldn’t understand why her sister had closed off. Elisabeth told her that there had been a disagreement of such magnitude between her and Bernstein that she could no longer maintain contact.

Perhaps in the future, when some of this rawness had healed, she would be able to contemplate renewing the relationship with the girl she had thought was her sister.

In the end, it had been Donatella who saved her. She’d been in touch with news that a producer friend was interested in signing Elisabeth to his label. The world continued turning–the planet over, people were getting on with their lives—and nobody, in spite of her paranoia, knew the crime she had committed. There was hiding, there was surviving, and there was somewhere in between: trying. Elisabeth Sabell was trying.

Every day had been a battle–first just to look in the mirror, then to leave the apartment, then to buy food, to eat it. Gradually, over the months that followed, she learned how to be herself again. Since the New Year she’d been working in LA with Felix Bentley, a friendly English guy with a smile that made her remember what happiness was. For the first time she was feeling a future opening up.

As the Best Actress nominations were announced, Elisabeth scanned the theatre for Lana Falcon–the only other person that night who had endured horrors beyond her wildest dreams. Tonight she was bound to the other woman in a shared knowledge. Love, success, fame–none of it meant anything without truth.

Elisabeth hoped she was doing OK. She decided that after this was over she’d call her up, see if she wanted to meet for coffee. Life was for living, and you had to love the people you picked up along the way.

She crossed her fingers for Lana to take the Award.

Lana Falcon heard her nomination and closed her eyes. She listened to her scene played out and the sound of her own voice. It was like another person, a different Lana talking across the many months that divided that place and this. The voice no longer belonged to her. It belonged to before.

She could never go back and change what happened–and, in a strange way, she didn’t want to. That fateful night in Vegas had been the death of her. But it had also been the birth. It was a line, a closed door, a mark that said, No more. There was life to be lived, and she would not take a moment longer to live it. She owed it to the people who had not made it.

Lester came back that night to take what was precious to her. He had killed her baby and with it a part of her had died for ever. She missed the child more than she had ever thought possible, more than she had missed anyone, even though they had never met. Gratitude did not come close. The baby had given her courage and made her fearless, had provided the strength she needed to change her life, and those things would live on always in her heart.

She had not killed her brother back in Belleville. Neither of them had. It was horror and it was ecstasy, to know she was both guilty and innocent. Guilty for hiding away from a truth she was too afraid to face; innocent because she was not and never would be a murderer. Unlike him. It seemed Lester Fallon, a supposed fraudster known across the Midwest in a variety of guises but most commonly Nelson Price, had finally got the fame and recognition he was desperate for.

Lana craved normal conversation. Save for Rita and Marty, nobody in LA seemed to know how to treat her. They eyed her sadly with a mixture of pity and unease, as though her misfortune might be contagious. The friends she had made as Cole Steel’s wife had gradually melted away–this sort of hardship didn’t happen to people like them: the protected; the rich; the stupid. It was a frightening, alien thing. Even Parker Troy, the father of her lost child, didn’t know what to say and so didn’t say anything at all.

She didn’t want to talk about the baby she had lost, or the intruder who had broken into her room that night. She didn’t want to talk about her near-rape, and the way he had knocked her out cold. She didn’t want to talk about waking up in a hospital bed and being told what had happened. She didn’t want to talk about the other death that night. The other death …

After it had happened she had gone away to Europe, moored on a yacht off the coast of Capri. She had stayed there for weeks, reading and drawing. She had found the nerve, after some correspondence, to telephone Arlene. Her voice was the same as she remembered and it shone a light in her time of darkness. They spoke about the baby Lana had lost. Lana felt sure she was a girl.

Amid the carnage of that night, a glimmer of hope had sprung.

On stage, the presenter slid a finger along the seal of the little gold envelope.

‘And the winner is …’

Next to her, Robert St Louis took her hand in his. He ran a thumb over hers.

She turned to him: her love, her life, the man she would adore the rest of her days. The same Robbie Lewis who had saved her soul.

The audience waited. Anticipation crackled round the theatre.

‘Lana Falcon!’

Applause came at her like a tidal wave. People were on their feet, wanting to show their support, wanting to be there at this, the first night of the rest of her life.

At the centre, two lovers stayed seated. Robert took Lana’s face in his hands.

‘Hey,’ he said, kissing her, ‘you know what I think? I think this is just the beginning.’