Jackie Collins, page 31
up for breath. He squatted down beside the pool waiting for her to
surface.
After a few minutes she swam to the shallow end and climbed out,
shaking herself like a shaggy dog. The girl wasn't pretty in a
conventional way, more interesting-looking-with a pert face, snub nose
and bright blue eyes. She was five feet three with a sensational
compact body and very short red hair.
"Excuse me," he said. "I'm trying to find Cyndra Angelo."
"Who're you?"
"Her brother."
"You're her brother?"she said disbelievingly, grabbing a towel and
drying herself "Cyndra never mentioned she had a brother."
"I flew in from Chicago-figured I'd surprise her. I guess it wasn't
such a good idea."
"What did you do, break into her apartment?" she said knowingly,
toweling a bronzed thigh.
"Technically, yeah, but I know she'd want me to make myself at home.
"Tell that to the super.
"Is he around?"
"I wouldn't dig him up if I were you, he'll throw you out."
"So you can't help me?"
"Come to think of it, I did see Cyndra walking out of here carrying a
bag on . . . let's see . . . maybe it was Thursday. She's probably
away for a long weekend."
"Today's Tuesday. I'll wait."
The girl threw him a suspicious look. "Are you sure her boyfriend's
going to like that?"
Who is this boyfriend?"
She laughed. "He's okay-if you like drugstore cowboys." She finished
drying herself and walked toward her apartment on the other side of the
pool. "See ya," she called over her shoulder.
She certainly had a body. "Yeah-see ya. Uh . . . what's your
name?"
She turned around at her apartment door. "Annie Broderick. Oh, and by
the way, if you rip her off, I can identify you to the police.
And I will."
He stared at her quizzically. "Do I look like I'd do a thing like
that?"
"No. You look like an actor. Worst kind." She entered her apartment,
slamming the door behind her.
She couldn't have said anything nicer if she'd tried. An actor, huh?
Some compliment. He hadn't performed in so long he wondered if he
still remembered how.
By noon he was bored, sitting around waiting was not his style. Out of
curiosity he picked up the phone and called the number Q.J. had given
him.
"Manfred Glamour Limousines," a woman's voice said.
Glamour Limousines-was she kidding? "Let me speak to Mr. Manfred," he
said quickly, before he changed his mind.
"Who's calling?"
"Tell him . . . Uh, tell him it's a friend of Q.J."s."
Her voice rose.
"Yeah-he'll know who you mean.
There was a long wait. A very long wait. So long that he almost hung
up. Then a gruff voice snapped, "Who's this?"
"You don't know me," he explained, speaking fast. "But your expartner
said I should give you a call when I got to L.A. Q.J mentioned you
might have a job for me."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Nick Angelo. I ran Q.J."s bar in Chicago."
"And what ya got in mind t'do for me?"
"Anything you want if it's legit."
"I don't fuckin' believe this," Manny grumbled. "Ya pick up a phone,
mention that putz to whom I don't speak no more, and ya really think
I'll give ya a job?"
"Hey, listen, if it's a problem, forget it. Q.J. insisted I call. He
told me to say Q.J."s collecting-for that favor you owe him. But if it
means nothing to you.
A weary sigh. "Come in and see me."
"When?"
"Be here in an hour."
"Where's here?"
"Sunset past La Brea. You can't miss it." Manny hung up without so
much as a goodbye.
Nick decided to go for it. After all, he had nothing to lose.
Don't you ever date?" Nature asked, studying her face in a large
magnifying mirror she'd extracted from her enormous purse.
"Not if I can help it," Lauren replied.
"Not if you can elp it," Nature shrieked in her sharp cockney tones.
"Cor blimey-that's a funny one. Me, I can't get through the day if I
don't ave a fella waitin' for me at the end of it."
"You're you and I'm me," Lauren said sensibly.
"Bleedin' right," Nature agreed, searching for imagined blemishes on
her perfect peaches-and-cream skin.
Lauren had been working at Samm's for three months. It was certainly
different. Definitely not boring. In fact she was so busy she never
had time to think about anything except work. A booker, she'd soon
found out, did everything for the band of models who trudged in and out
of the place like a constant parade of dazzling beauty.
They were all gorgeous, but every one, it seemed, had a screwed-up
personal life.
Nature, Samm's most famous client, was the most screwed-up of all.
She'd taken to dropping by and sitting on Lauren's desk so they could
chat. Nature had confided she was fed up with people who brown-nosed
her to death.
"You're like a real person," she'd told Lauren. "I can talk to you,
you're so sort of normal."
That's nice. But I have work to do.
The phone at Samm's never stopped. Along with Nature, the agency
handled three of the other top models in New York-Selina, Gypsy and
Bett Smith. At the agency they were known as the Big Four. Selina was
a willowy blonde with cat eyes. Gypsy was Eurasian, exotically
beautiful. And Bett Smith was an all-American blonde with a cute snub
nose and just enough freckles.
Samm herself had turned out to be the woman Lauren had encountered at
the photo session she'd crashed. Samm Mason, former top model, now a
very successful agent.
In the late fifties Samm had been one of the top models in the
country.
When she retired she'd opened her own agency, and over the years built
it into a formidable rival to Eileen Ford and the Casablanca Agency.
Samm was tough, but it worked for her. She ran a tight operation,
protected her girls and expected everybody in her employ to do the
same. "I know how easy it is to get treated like a piece of shit in
this business," she'd often tell her employees. "That's not going to
happen to any of my girls. Not while they work for me."
Lauren palled up with an American-born Chinese girl named Pia who'd
worked at the agency for several years as Samm's personal assistant.
Without Pia to help her through the early days she might have given
up.
It was certainly nothing like working in a law officethe modeling world
was chaos. People on the phone day and night screaming for this girl
or that girl. The models yelling that they didn't want to go to
Alaska, they would prefer to do the shoot in the Bahamas. Boyfriends
calling up, men trying to track them down, clients complaining.
Lauren's job was to see that everybody arrived in the right place at
the right time. She was also expected to keep everyone happy. She
soon became adept.
After a few weeks Pia had said, "You're doing okay, Samm's really
pleased. Are you having fun?"
Fun was not exactly the best way to describe her first couple of months
in New York. She'd hardly had time to think, let alone have fun.
Early on Samm had asked if she minded working weekends. Like an idiot
she'd said she didn't mind. But still, she had nothing else to 977
ture finds out she'll kill her-she thinks anything British is
automatically hers."
Lauren tried to remain cool. In a way it was all too much. One minute
she was sitting in Philadelphia slogging away at a job she hated with a
boss who was always chasing her-not to mention her affair with Brad-and
now here she was in New York mixing with models and rock stars.
Emerson Burn was famous. And she was going to meet him. Emerson
Burn!
It wasn't so long ago that she'd had his poster on her wall hanging
next to John Lennon.
Calm down, Roberts, he's only a person. And from the sound of his
publicity not a very nice one.
"Can I depend on you to handle it?" Pia asked, already on her way
out.
"I'd do it myself but you're so good at everything-so organized."
I'm not so organized, she wanted to scream. I'm twenty-one years old
and I'd like to have a life too.
"Sure," she said. "Leave the numbers on my desk and I'll get started
tomorrow."
"Gee!" Pia peered at her watch. "It's past seven, my guy's gonna kill
me. We're seeing Manhattan. I'm crazy about Woody Allen. Can you
check all the lights are off and lock up?"
Thanks a lot, Pia. Why don't I collect your paycheck too?
She took the subway home, ignoring an elderly flasher in the requisite
grubby raincoat.
Two giggly girls sitting opposite her screamed with laughter when the
flasher turned his attention on them. "Get it blown up an' frame
it!"
one of them yelled, making a rude gesture.
The flasher slunk off down the train, searching for more docile
victims.
Lauren stopped at the corner market near her apartment and bought a can
of beans and a loaf of bread. Another gourmet dinner coming up, she
thought wryly.
Since arriving in New York she hadn't been out once. Her routine was
work and home-it didn't deviate. A couple of guys had asked her for a
date-one a photographer who'd dropped by the office to see Samm, and
the other an assistant to Samm's accountant. She'd declined both
offers. Who needed the hassle of a man? She certainly didn't.
Nick Angelo.
Every so often his name popped into her head for no reason at all, and
she found herself wondering where he was and what he was doing, and
most of all-was he happy?
Who cared? Nick Angelo was her past. She told herself she didn't give
a damn if she never saw him again.
army Manfred was without doubt the fattest man Nick had ever seen.
Manny wasn't just fat, he was gargantuan-with beady eyes, layers of
jowls and chins and dyed yellow hair sporting inch-long black roots.
He sat in a specially made Naugahyde chair behind a cluttered desk,
sucking -Up through a straw and tossing handfuls of cashew nuts into
his greedy little mouth. He was not what Nick had expected.
Q.J. and Manny together must have been the sight of the century!
"I'm Nick."
"So what?"
"You told me to come by."
"Oh, yeah, Q.J. sent ya.
"That's right."
"Whaddaya want?"
"A job. Part time. I need to be free to go on auditions if they come
up.
"What auditions?"
"I'm an actor."
"Says who?"
"Says me."
Manny shifted his enormous bulk and sighed. "Can ya drive?"
"Can ya drive good?"
"Yes."
"Ya got a clean license?"
"You bet."
"See Luigi. Tell him I said t'put you on the airport run."
"Is that it?"
"Whaddaya want-a kiss an' a cuddle? Scram."
He scrammed. Saw Luigi-a bullet-headed man with a broken front tooth
and a sour expression-got a short lecture on the do's and don'ts of
driving a limo and was told to report back at eight p.m. It was as easy
as that.
It wasn't so easy getting back into Cyndra's apartment. The super
pounced on him just as he was using his credit card on her door. The
super was a ferocious-looking man with shoulder-length dreadlocks, two
gold teeth and a take-no-prisoners attitude. He clamped his burly hand
on Nick's shoulder. "What you up to, mon?"
He attempted to explain.
The super was having none of it. He threw him out.
Nick realized he was lucky to get away without the Dreadlock King
calling the police.
He hung around outside the building until Annie Broderick emerged. She
looked different in clothes. A track suit covered her curvy body, and
a baseball cap hid her short red hair.
"Remember me?" he said.
"No," she said.
"Sure you do," he said, laying on the irresistible green-eyed stare.
"What do you want?" she asked, unimpressed.
"Your help."
She walked over to an old brown Packard and opened the door.
"Why?"
He spread the charm, waiting for the usual reaction." Cause you know
me. We're friends."
She seemed surprised. "We are?"
"Sure we are," he said persuasively.
Annie had wasted enough time. "Now, listen," she said sharply.
"Cyndra's brother-or whoever you are-stop bugging me. I may look like
an easy touch, but trust me-no way."
"I'm not after your money," he said, quite affronted.
"That's good, cause I don't have any."
"All I want to do is leave a note for Cyndra. Tell her where she can
reach me."
"Who's stopping you?"
"The super's on my case-I can't even get my bag outta her apartment. I
need to" "Explain to me. I'll pass it on," she said, waiting
expectantly.
He didn't say a word.
"Well?" She was getting impatient. "Where shall I say you'll be?"
"I don't have a place."
Now this is where she was supposed to feel sorry for him and offer the
use of her couch.
"You don't have a place," she repeated blankly. "Too bad."
So much for the old Angelo charm. This female had a cold heart.
"No-but I got a job," he said quickly, as if that might change her
mind.
"Good for you." She glanced meaningfully at her watch. "I'm late for
class."
Maybe she was a dyke-anything was possible. "Just tell her I was here
and Il be calling her. Okay?"
Annie nodded and took off.
He spent the rest of the day wandering around Hollywood-checking out
the stars' names embedded in the sidewalk, mooching through a small
shop filled with still photos from movies and finally ending up at
Farmers' Market on Fairfax, where he ordered corned beef and cabbage
from one of the many open-air counters offering all different kinds of
traditional fare.
He thought about what he was going to do next. Money was no problem,
he'd left Chicago with twelve hundred bucks in his pocket -not bad
considering he usually spent it as fast as he earned it. If he wanted
he could rent an apartment and get himself settled-although it made
more sense to wait for Cyndra to get back and camp out on her couch for
a few weeks until he got the feel of the city and decided whether he
wanted to stay or not.
Renting a car was definitely a priority. He'd soon realized that in
