Star Island (2 page)

If she’d ever been there at all.

Bang Abbott gave up and drove his rental car to a nearby McDonald’s. For breakfast he ordered three McSkillet burritos, a Danish and black coffee. He was met in a corner of the restaurant by a drawn, gray-skinned man named Fremont Spores, who had come to be paid.

“For what?” Bang Abbott scoffed. “It was a bum tip.”

Spores kept a bank of digital police scanners going 24/7 in the kitchen of his Collins Avenue apartment. He was considered the best in the business.

“You told me to let you know, was anything beachside with a young white female. You said to call right away, was anything at the clubs and hotels.” Spores bared his stained dentures. “Don’t cheap out on me, you sonofabitch.”

Bang Abbott shrugged. “Your bum tip cost me a grand.”

“Twenty-two-year-old OD at the Stefano—it don’t get no better than that. And now you’re sayin’ the information ain’t worth a hundred lousy bucks.”

“Wrong bimbo, Fremont.”

“Welcome to Miami. Now hand over the dough.”

“Or what?”

Spores stood up slowly, teetering on scarecrow legs. He probed into his shirt pocket and came out with a soggy cigarette, which he dried in an armpit of his T-shirt.

“I got other clients more important than you,” he said to Bang Abbott, who snickered.

“‘Clients’? That’s rich.”

Spores lit the cigarette. “One, name of Restrepo, he’s a businessman from South America. For him, I listen to the Coast Guard frequencies. Marine patrol, too. A heavy dude.”

“Relax, Fremont.”

“My man Restrepo, he said to call day or night, was any kind of favor I need. He’s so grateful for all the good work I do, he said to let him know, was any problems in my life.” Spores coughed and squinted at Bang Abbott through the cigarette smoke. “Is this a problem or not?”

Bang Abbott tossed two fifties on the table. “Thanks for nuthin.”

“Blow me,” said Fremont Spores. He picked up the cash and walked away.

After breakfast the photographer drove back to the Stefano. His plan was to sneak up to the third floor and knock on the door of Room 309, just to make sure. He got halfway to the elevator before one of the security guards intercepted him. Because it was early and the lobby was empty, the security guard felt free to knee Bang Abbott in the groin.

Limping back toward his parking space, Bang Abbott spied the scrawny bellman who’d assured him that Cherry Pye was partying on the third floor, a piece of apparent misinformation that had cost the photographer another fifty bucks. The bellman had just gotten off work and was standing at a bus stop, tugging off the nappy jacket of his monkey suit and yakking on a cell phone. Bang Abbott came up behind him and twisted the fuzzy flesh of his neck until the bellman whinnied.

“You screwed me over,” the photographer said.

“No way!” The bellman wriggled free.

“It wasn’t her,
chico,”
Bang Abbott said.

“In 309, right?”

“So you said.”

“Man, I seen the babe with my own eyes.”

“Wrong babe. Now gimme back my fifty dollars.”

The bellman backed away, fearing that the hefty photographer might actually try to mug him for the money. “Hold on, man—it was totally her. I’d know that lady anywhere. I got all her videos downloaded, you don’t believe me.” He held up his iPhone for effect, though he had no intention of letting the fat man put his grimy paws on it.

“Listen to me, junior,” the photographer said. “I eyeballed the girl myself. It was
not
Miss Cherry Pye. I shot her picture on the goddamn stretcher when they were haulin’ her to the ambulance.”

The bellman cocked his head. “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, bro? She didn’t go out on a stretcher, she went out in a wheelchair.”

“Don’t tell me this.”

“Through the kitchen, man. I was the one who held the doors.”

Bang Abbott kicked at the curb.

“And there wasn’t no ambulance,” the bellman added. “They put her in a black Suburban.”

“Well, fuck me up the butthole.” Bang Abbott scratched his scalp.

“I wondered where chu was, man. How chu missed her.”

“They took her out through the goddamn kitchen?”

“The chick was major messed up,” the bellman said. “I mean, she was pukin’ into an ice bucket.”

A money shot, the photographer thought ruefully. Worldwide gold.

The bus rumbled up, brakes hissing. The bellman made a quick move, but Bang Abbott blocked his path.

“Did you see any other shooters outside?”

“Any
whats?”

“Photographers. Anybody get a shot of our girl blowing chunks?”

The bellman shook his head. “Swear to God, I dint see nobody.”

“’Cause if that picture turns up anywhere in this universe, even the
West Fargo Weekly Foreskin
, I’m comin’ after you for my fifty bucks. Understand?” Bang Abbott stepped aside, and the bellman scrambled onto the bus. The photographer returned to his car, inhaled four Advils and headed for the Standard, where Jamie Foxx was rumored to be staying.

These days a photo of the actor was worth maybe a grand or two, depending on the wardrobe and sobriety level of his dates, who were customarily gorgeous. However, a single exclusive picture of Cherry Pye in the debasing throes of a narcotics overdose would have fetched five figures, Bang Abbott figured. A very solid five.

He hoped with all his withered, calcified prune of a heart that the bellman was telling the truth. He hoped that nobody else had gotten the shot.

He also made up his mind to find out how he’d been tricked. It wasn’t really a matter of honor, for Bang Abbott held no illusions about the odious station of his profession. However, he owned a fiercely competitive streak and he hated to be stymied or outwitted, whether it was by a fellow shooter or the celebrity target. He took such setbacks hard.

The dull and often lonely nature of his work—stalking people who kept no schedule—provided hour upon unhealthy hour in which Bang Abbott could work himself into a fevered snit. That is what happened as he paced the sidewalk outside the Standard Hotel, waiting for Jamie Foxx to swagger in from a wild night of clubbing.

It wasn’t unusual for stars to attempt to fool the paparazzi by donning wigs or switching cars, but this time Cherry Pye’s handlers had shown exceptional guile and enterprise. The more Bang Abbott thought about it, the more agitated he became.

I will get a picture of that crazy twat in all her dysfunctional glory, he vowed bitterly, no matter what it takes.

Ann DeLusia woke up at 4:09 a.m. in Room 409, and she couldn’t go back to sleep. When the first call came, she was soaking in the bathtub.

Not a world-class marble bathtub, either, not at this lame Deco hotel. Somebody had figured it would be cool to keep the old plumbing fixtures from the thirties, a real design treasure. The tub was so short and shallow that Ann DeLusia couldn’t stretch without raising her feet from the water and bracing them on the clammy wall tiles.

Although she wore noise-suppression headphones, Lenny Kravitz rocking full blast, she still heard the phone ringing. How could she not have? It was mounted on the wall right next to the damn toilet, on the notion that important people liked to chat while taking a dump. Even in her new five-star life, Ann refused to embrace this custom.

By the time she’d removed her iPod, climbed out of the munchkin-sized bathtub and wrapped herself in a towel, the phone had stopped ringing. She put on a terry-cloth robe that she found in the closet and sat on the bed to wait. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. Ann picked it up and said, “Yo.”

“Can you get down here right away?” Janet Bunterman asked.

“It’s my night off. I’ve got company.” A harmless lie—Ann didn’t wish to be taken for granted.

“We need you,” said Janet Bunterman.

“What’s the dress code?”

“Take the stairs. Hurry up.”

“All I’ve got on is a robe.”

“They won’t care one bit at the hospital.”

Here we go, thought Ann DeLusia. “Gastritis?
Again
, Janet?”

“Get your butt down here, Annie. The ambulance is coming any minute.”

The mood inside Cherry Pye’s suite was urgent but not panicky. Lev covered the door, conversing in hushed tones with a stranger toting a black bag. Cherry’s hairdresser, Leo, was at the bar, mixing himself a Tom Collins. The publicists stood in tandem by the bay window, chain-smoking and murmuring gravely into matching cell phones. The starlet herself had already been moved to the master bedroom, where she was being tended by her mother and a Spanish-speaking nurse who’d been sent by hotel security.

Kneeling among the medicine bottles and empty Red Bull cans was a young curly-haired actor whom Ann recognized from the MTV awards, although she could not recall his name. He wore a sleeveless gym shirt and inside-out boxer shorts, and he was picking up pills from the carpet. Ann leaned over and told him, “You’d better get outta here.”

“In a minute,” the actor said, not looking up. He wasn’t leaving without his Vicodins.

“How’s our homegirl doin’?” Ann asked.

The young man shook his head. “She ate, like, a pound of fucking birdseed. She said she was coming back as a cockatoo.”

“Coming back from where?”

“You know—from the other side. After she dies, she wants to come back as a cockatoo.”

Ann said, “Oh, I like it.”

“We went to Parrot Jungle today and got a private show, just for the two of us. There were all these cool birds doing far-out tricks, riding tricycles, dancing with umbrellas, shit like that. Cherry, she was totally blown away. On the way home we had to stop at PetSmart for a bag of seed.”

“Good thing you didn’t take her to a rodeo,” said Ann.

“She’s been listening to Shirley MacLaine’s books on tapes, so she’s like totally into reincarnation.” The actor stood up, cupping the recovered tablets protectively. “Have you seen my jeans?” he asked.

By then they could hear the siren of the ambulance. Lev hustled the young man out of the suite and warned him to keep his mouth shut.

“Where do you want me?” Ann asked.

“It’s not my show,” Lev said, nodding icily toward the twin publicists.

One of them, still glued to the phone, pointed at an uncluttered section of floor near the bar. Ann arranged herself in a convincing sprawl. Leo knelt down and mussed her hair meticulously. “Undo your robe,” he whispered. “Quick, you’re supposed to be sick.”

“Dying sick or just party sick?”

The second twin loomed over Ann DeLusia and said, “We need you to hurl when the paramedics get up here.”

“Okay.” This was one of the improvisational talents that had helped Ann win the job.

Clicking her phone shut, the publicist explained, “It was called in as an overdose.”

“Imagine that.”

“So we’ll need some vomit for verisimilitude.”

“For
what
?” Ann was thinking about what she’d eaten for dinner: room-service lasagna and a small Caesar. But that was eight hours ago.

She said, “You might have to settle for dry heaves.”

The publicist would have frowned were it not for the fact that her face was paralyzed from brow to chin with an exotic Brazilian bootleg strain of botulinum toxin.

She looks so shiny and new!
marveled Ann, gazing up from the floor.
Like glowing ceramic
.

Leo hurried out of the suite, followed by the grim sisters. The man with the black bag was admitted to Cherry’s private bedroom, and the door was locked from within. Moments later, the paramedics arrived and Lev, playing the anxious boyfriend, let them in.

Ann DeLusia flopped around impressively on the carpet and even managed to hack up some bile. The only unstaged moment of her performance occurred when she jerked the IV out of her arm; Ann was genuinely terrified of needles.

She overheard Lev tell the paramedics that he didn’t know her name, much less her next of kin, because he’d met her for only the first time that night in the VIP room at the Set, where she’d been grinding on the lap of a second-string NBA power forward. Ann thought the last fictional detail was unnecessarily salacious.

“Are you sure she’s over twenty-one?” one of the paramedics asked Lev.

“The bartender said he checked her ID.”

“Then where’s her purse?”

“How should I know?” Lev said.

So Ann DeLusia was strapped onto the stretcher as an unaccompanied Jane Doe. She was a bit disappointed that only one paparazzo—a grimy toad that she’d seen before—was lurking in the alley as she was wheeled to the ambulance. Where was the rest of the maggot mob? she wondered. Britney or Paris must be in town.

The ride to the hospital was smoother than most, though Ann had to fight off two more attempts to poke a glucose drip in her vein. At the emergency room, the paramedics informed the admitting nurse that Jane Doe’s vital signs appeared to be completely normal—pulse, BP, respiration—which seemed weird considering she was supposed to be an overdose. The nurse wasn’t exactly consumed with curiosity, and within minutes Ann found herself unattended in a small examining room that smelled like Pine-Sol and stale piss.