Chapter One: In You Go
"So anyway, after several bombs – a lot of bombs actually, a whole string – he just stopped making films. Nobody would cast him anymore. Box office poison they all said. Lost his studio conFtract, and couldn't get another one. From the top of the world to unemployable, in what must have seemed like overnight. Eventually he just... ran out of money. He was still living like a movie star years after he was one, and he just ran out. I think the tax man got the place, just ahead of any number of other creditors. That was in the late thirties. Early forties, maybe. Somewhere around there."
The real estate agent's voice echoed a bit as we wandered through the vast, empty rooms. She was in full pitch mode and working hard to drum up some romance, or at least some interest, in the place. Not that it needed it, really. But at this asking price you played every angle.
"Must be a fairly common story in this town. Falling stars." I blinked hard as we moved through tall french doors from the dim, still interior and back into the brilliance of the afternoon sunshine.
"I suppose so. I guess it's easier to get into the habit of being a star – a movie star, a rock star, whatever – than it is to get out of it. And stardom is so very expensive, you know, in so many different ways. On the good side, it does leave behind a lot of prime real estate for the rest of us to buy."
For one of us to buy, actually, I thought. And for one of us to broker the deal for the current owner, collecting a tidy commission for her efforts. But I let that pass. "Nice place. For this kind of money, it had better be," I said instead.
We wandered through a garden and ended up by the edge of the pool. It was surrounded by a wide deck of brick paving, some more flowers, and then a lot of grass. Not enough for a polo match, maybe, but a lot of grass. The place was surrounded by tall hedges trimmed carefully as a championship poodle, with eucalyptus trees densely planted behind them. A cabana was off to one side, an outdoor bar on the other, and a pair of tennis courts were down the hill and past some more trees – you could just see the lights over the treetops. The property was so large and wooded there wasn't another house in sight. Somebody could throw one hell of a party in this back yard, I thought.
"Oh, there isn't a better property in the whole city. Or a better city, anywhere. This is still a movie star kind of neighborhood, you know. Even though the current owner is an investment banker."
"These days, that pays a whole lot better than the movies. More reliably, at least. And I should know."
The heat had been brutal for days, the entire time I'd been house hunting. Southern California in August can be like that. We'd spoken over the phone, she and I, and then met at her office. She'd driven us out in the agency's huge Mercedes Benz. My agent couldn't make it, so it was just the two of us wandering through the house, looking at the yard, admiring the pool.
"It pays well enough that the owner has actually traded up, if you can believe it. For an even bigger place, just over the line in Bel Air. Although I can't imagine a better property, anywhere, if you want my opinion. And that's only Los Angeles over there, you know, The City Of. Not Beverly Hills. But you'll have to keep that in mind, if you decide to make an offer. This guy can afford to hold out for his asking price."
"I'll need to think about it some more. Before we start talking numbers."
"Everybody who sees this place just loves it. You'll have to move fast if you want to grab it."
Typical real estate bullshit, I thought. But I let that pass too. The property had been on the market for just over a year, and the asking price had been cut in stages from preposterous to outrageous to merely absurd. And having this much money tied up in a declining asset would be hard on anyone, even an investment banker. I'd keep that in mind if I decided to make an offer.
Near the cabana, directly in the sunshine of the early afternoon, were half a dozen deck chairs, flanked by several small tables. Walking past, she'd dropped her purse onto one of the tables; I laid the jacket I'd been carrying all day on a chair. The farthest table held a bottle of very expensive French suntan lotion and a stack of crisp white towels, folded neatly. Several more towels, bunched up, were crumpled below. Her eyes followed mine.
"Hmmm, looks like somebody from the office has been working on their tan, and didn't clean up after," she explained. "It's OK, really it is. The owner doesn't mind if we use the place, somebody might as well, and he's paying for the maintenance anyway. But we're supposed to clean up after."
"They probably expect to come back."
"Not today. We have an exclusive listing, you know. And I've got our only key."
Inside the house had been like a slow oven. The air conditioning should have been left on, but it wasn't. She was wearing a filmy silk dress of dark, shimmering gold, which set off her short tawny wave and deep California tan. All three were nicely complimented by a discrete jade necklace and earring set, which had matched her green eyes in the full summer's sun. Inside, that light streaming through uncurtained windows cut an absolutely perfect silhouette of a nearly perfect figure. On such a scorching day, she hadn't worn a slip – she spent a lot of time working out, I judged. While we walked, I had listened carefully in the sweltering stillness to the quiet whisk of nylon between her thighs. I'd had a lot of innocent fun trying to guess stockings or pantyhose.
Now, as we stood next to the pool, I savored the sight of cool blue water on such a hot day. "This is the best place I've looked at. By a wide margin. So far, at least, I think I could live here."
She tried hard to act nonchalant. But her eyes lit like fireworks. Jade green fireworks. At anything close to the asking price, she was in for a big payday.
"So you're definitely going to make an offer?" Of course, she'd want to seal the deal as soon as possible. But I was in no hurry.
"Well, I still have to think about it – for a while anyway. Let's go swimming."
Before she could react, I reached up, worked the button behind her neck, and had the zipper running down her back. With so many emotions hitting all at once, she seemed to freeze on the spot. Sensory overload, maybe. I guess that's what I was counting on. I stepped behind and had the dress slipping off her shoulders before she could move.
Panicked hands shot up to the neckline, keeping it from falling to the deck, and her eyes opened even wider, wild. But she didn't say anything.
I moved up close behind, pinched the fabric and gently pulled the dress down. She didn't let go, exactly. But she didn't grab hold. Designer silk slipped softly through her fingertips.
My head over her shoulder, I watched between lacy cleavage as it fluttered to a heap at our feet. Running my fingertips up her side, thumbnails dragging, and across her tummy, she shuddered below my hands. I can be a bit of an ass sometimes, and I liked making her shiver like that.
