Rock Star (49 page)

She held her ground. ‘I’m sure it doesn’t. But a good night’s sleep is what you really need.’

Christ! Now he had a do-gooder. This one was going to try. and get him off the booze and out into the real world. No, thank you very much.

He wondered what she looked like. Juicy. Succulent. He could tell by the way she moved around the room . . . And young. Twenty-five, she’d told him when he’d hired her.

Inexplicably he felt horny. It hadn’t happened in a long time. The only woman he allowed to see him in his current state were paid call girls brought to the house late at night by his driver.

Leave her alone
, he warned himself.
Do not ruin a good thing. She works for you.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

‘Sara,’ he said, warming up his tone.

‘Yes, Mr Mondella?’ She sounded wary.

‘Hey – babe, you can call me Bobby, you mustn’t be shy. I don’t like things to be too formal.’

‘Okay.’

‘Sara?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come sit on the bed. Talk to me. Tell me about yourself.’

‘I’m not dressed,’ she said primly.

He laughed bitterly. ‘Baby, it’s not exactly like I can
see
you, is it?’

‘Mr Mondella, it’s very late.’

‘I told you to call me Bobby,’ he snapped.

‘Okay,’ she said soothingly.

His voice was a command. ‘Come sit.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What the fuck d’you mean by that?’ he exploded.

Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘I’ll get you another bottle of bourbon, Mr Mondella. I work for you as an assistant. Please let’s not forget that.’

He heard her leave the room Bitch! Once she would have been begging on her knees to have a star like Bobby Mondella. Well, screw her. Who did she think she was? Tomorrow he would fire her.

Sara hurried from his bedroom and looked behind the bar in the living room. She was flushed and breathing fast. There were cases of bourbon stacked high – the man was drinking himself into a stupor and nobody seemed to care. The only people allowed to enter the house were his doctor, driver and business manager. She didn’t trust any of them. Why didn’t his doctor stop him from drinking? How come the driver was able to sign cheques and was probably ripping him off? And why wasn’t the business manager advising him properly? All his money was being channelled into a variety of investments, which he didn’t even have a lawyer check over. For a start he should get out of the large house he was renting and into a smaller place. The money was going out every week and nothing was coming in, except occasional song-writer’s royalties.

Sara was shocked at what was going on. She’d only been working there a week, but she could smell a rip-off a mile away.

Sara Johnston was a smart girl. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she’d graduated from high school at eighteen and gone straight into a business management course. From there she’d started work at her father’s accountancy firm, specializing in show business clients. She’d handled the accounts of a lady soul singer, two managers, and a singing trio. The ins and outs of show business intrigued her, and she found the music end of it particularly interesting. Sara would love to have tried a singing career herself – unfortunately she had no voice. She had also thought about becoming a model, but she was too short and far too curvy.

Working for her father was merely a stepping stone to more exciting things. When she heard – through inside connections – that Bobby Mondella was looking for a personal assistant, she flew out to California the next day for an interview. First she saw his business manager – Nib Holmer, a swarthy white man with shifty eyes. Next she was ushered in to see Bobby, and she was shocked by his appearance. He sat in a chair by the window, overweight and unshaven. His hair was too long, and his general appearance uncared for. Wrap-around, dense black sunglasses covered his eyes.

She remembered her first sight of Bobby Mondella in the flesh. Philadelphia, 1979, on stage. She was eighteen years old and she’d thought he was the most gorgeous hunk she’d ever seen in her entire life.

Now this angry man sitting next to the window stirred her with a feeling of great compassion.

‘Why’d you want this job, girl?’ he’d asked harshly.

‘Because I need the money,’ she’d lied.

‘Hell, that’s a good ’nuff reason to sit around with a blind man. Hire her, Nils.’

She’d started work ten days later, and after one week in his company she vowed that she, Sara Johnston, was going to bring this wreck of a man back to life.

*    *    *

‘What d’you look like?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You speak English, girl. It’s a simple ’nuff question.’

Another week had passed and she was still in his employ, in spite of rejecting his advances that one night.

‘Uh, I have shoulder-length black hair.’

‘Let me feel it.’

‘I’ll make you a bargain.’

There was a weary tone to his voice. ‘What’s that, babe?’

‘Allow me to arrange for a barber to come to the house and cut
your
hair, and you can feel away.’

He laughed cynically. ‘Cute.’

Is it a deal?’

‘Why would I want my hair cut, huh? I don’t get to show it to anybody.’

‘I look at you all day.’

‘You’re paid to do it.’

‘So I am,’ she said, with a faint hint of sarcasm.

This girl pissed him off. She was feisty, not scared of losing her job. Sara, with the sweet voice, was a tough little cookie.

‘Okay, we got ourselves a deal. Come here.’

She walked over to him and stood by his chair. He reached up and felt her thick, curly hair, breathing deeply as her light scent invaded his nostrils, and – oh no, here came that old familiar feeling. This girl was turning him on again. What
was
it with her?

Before she had a chance to realize what was happening, he dropped his hands to where her breasts should be, and got himself a surprise. This girl was stacked. This lady was more than a handful, she was something else.

‘Don’t!’ She jerked away angrily.

‘Come back here
now
,’ he commanded.

‘No way.’

‘Hey, baby,’ he said harshly. ‘Do you want this job or not?’

‘Have you ever heard of sexual harassment,
Mr
Mondella?’

‘Aw, get out. Send my driver in.’

His driver had long Rastafarian locks, and a permanent sneer. Nothing would give her more pleasure than to fire him.

He spent five minutes with Bobby, left, and returned half an hour later accompanied by an ugly black woman in a tight dress, emphasizing her huge bosom.

‘Hooker time,’ the driver said, with a knowing leer. ‘An’ they don’t even havta be pretty.’

Sara found it sheer torture thinking of Bobby with the whore. She wanted to murder the sleazy driver, but she managed – with difficulty – to keep her cool. ‘How often does he have them over?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.

‘Not often,’ the man replied, picking his teeth with a packet of book matches. The dude can’t get it up no more.’ A wink. ‘Not like us
normal
studs.’

In the bedroom, Bobby struggled with his feelings of sexual inadequacy. His driver was right. Bobby Mondella couldn’t do it anymore. What was the goddam point? What was the point of anything? He’d been to the top, and now, with some cheap prostitute slobbering all over him, he’d hit the bottom.

Bobby Mondella. The star who fell from grace. Literally. Only he hadn’t fallen, he’d been thrown from that balcony in Rio. Doused in booze, and tossed from the terrace of his tenth-floor apartment. Jesus! They’d intended to murder him, and yet he’d survived to tell the tale – which nobody believed. ‘You were drunk,’ everyone – including the police – said. ‘You were alone.’ They all agreed. ‘You fell.’

And no amount of argument on his part could convince them otherwise.

Well, fuck ’em all.
He
knew it was no accident. If an awning hadn’t broken his fall he would have been dead. Someone had tried to have him killed. Only he couldn’t put a name to the person who arranged it.

What did it matter? He was finished anyway. They’d achieved their objective.

Nova had apparently vanished from the Rio apartment long before the police arrived, leaving no trace. Bitch. Fucking bitch. He’d heard she was back with Marcus like nothing happened. She’d certainly never tried to contact him. Not even when he lay in the hospital with nearly every bone in his body broken.

The bones healed. His eyes didn’t. He was blind, and nobody could tell him why. It wasn’t clinical – psychological, they said.

Psychological, ha! What the fuck did all those fancy-assed doctors know? If he could see – he would. It was as simple as that.

Nichols Kline took care of everything. Guards in the hospital to keep away the press. A private flight to L.A. Nichols even organized the rented house, hired the private nurses and security guards he’d had for the first six months, and arranged for Nils Holmer to have power of attorney and take care of Bobby’s money.

The money deal wasn’t so great. It was all spend, spend, spend, with nothing coming in. He’d never been good at financial matters, always leaving it to accountants and business managers. Now Nils kept on telling him he was almost broke. And Nichols vanished out of his life forever.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he said, when Nils came by with more bad news. ‘You’ve gotta know I was one of the biggest-earning stars in the goddamn
country.
Where the fuck has it all gone?’

‘Taxes, expenses, bills, and bad investments. Plus you lived a pretty extravagant lifestyle.’

‘Jesus Christ!
You
were supposed to be lookin’ after the investments. What happened?’

Nils looked affronted. ‘I only make ’em. I can’t guarantee ’em. It’s the financial climate, Bobby. There’s no way I can control that.’

‘Are you tryin’ to tell me I’ve lost everything?’

Nils shrugged. ‘You’ve got enough left to get by on. Move out of this house, get a smaller place. I have to leave the country for a while – I’ll have someone else in the office take care of things for you.’

Bobby knew he was being shafted. So fucking what? There wasn’t any place left to go. He was finished. Why prolong the agony?

That night he overdosed. Took every goddamn pill he could lay his hands on.

Sara found him at three o’clock in the morning. He was unconscious on the bathroom floor, with spilled bottles of pills all around him.

From that moment on she took charge. Sara Johnston was a very determined young lady, and she knew – without a doubt – she was going to bring Bobby Mondella right back to the top where he belonged.

Kris Phoenix

1987

‘Marcus Citroen would like you to appear at his wife’s fundraiser for Governor Jack Highland in July.’

So spoke Hawkins Lamont, resplendent in tennis whites, with his impeccable George Hamilton suntan. The two of them sat in the garden room of the Polo Lounge eating lunch.

‘Screw Marcus Citroen,’ Kris replied, chewing on a bread roll.

The Hawk raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’

Kris stared at his manager. ‘It means Kris Phoenix don’t jump for anyone.’

The Hawk waved at an acquaintance across the room, sipped his fresh grapefruit juice, and said, ‘Has Marcus done something I should know about?’

‘The whole bleedin’ record industry knows about it,’ Kris responded sharply.

‘In that case,’ the Hawk replied smoothly, ‘perhaps you can enlighten me.’

‘Come on, man,’ Kris said roughly. ‘Don’t give me that “you got no idea what’s goin” on’ shit.’

‘What
is
going on?’

‘Sharleen.’

‘Ah.’ The Hawk shook his head sadly. ‘A most unfortunate incident.’

‘Jesus!’ Kris exclaimed. ‘I don’t
believe
you people. A woman kills herself, fuckin’
kills
herself, an’ you call it an
incident.
’

‘I didn’t realize you knew Sharleen,’ the Hawk said.

‘Yes. I knew her. It was a long time ago, but we kept in touch here an’ there.’

‘She was a drug addict.’

‘She was a poor bitch who got herself fucked over by the record industry, an’
especially
by your friend – Marcus Citroen.’

‘
My
friend –
your
boss.’

The waitress placed a Neil McCarthy salad in front of Hawkins and a juicy hamburger for Kris.

Kris waited for her to leave before saying, ‘I don’t have a
boss.
I work for myself, an’ my record company gets rich off me – just like you do, Hawk.’

‘We get rich off each other,’ the Hawk pointed out coldly. Rock stars. Ungrateful, uneducated, unappreciative egomaniacs.

‘Anyway,’ Kris said flatly, ‘everyone knows she did it because of Marcus. It’s not exactly a secret.’

‘Supposition.’

‘What?’

‘The good old rumour-go-round. As far as I’m aware, Marcus was always very generous to Sharleen. He kept her under contract long after she stopped making hits.’

‘He sucked the juice out of her. An’ when she was dry he cut her loose an’ left her with nothing.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Yeah, well, you’ve got your opinions an’ I’ve got mine, an’ there’s
no
way I’m doin’ a fund-raiser for him. No bleedin’ way.’

*    *    *

‘Do you love me?’ Cybil demanded, raising her golden curls from the task at hand.

He wished she wouldn’t ask him that. What was he supposed to say?
Yeah – when I’ve got a hard-on I love ya t’death. An’ when I don’t – well – it’s only rock ’n’ roll, ain’t it?

Maybe he wasn’t capable of loving anyone. Perhaps catching Willow in bed with that German prick all those years ago had done him in as far as women were concerned. Not to mention ten thousand groupies along the way.

He knew one thing. Women. You couldn’t trust ‘em.

‘Go for it, baby, don’t stop,’ he said, pushing Cybil’s glorious mane of hair back into place.