Catch and Kill, page 31
Police declined to comment on the arrest beyond confirming that it had taken place. A spokeswoman for DreamWeaver said the studio had no comment.
The story was accompanied by an old picture of the bulky, unsmiling Ari holding the door of a dark sedan for Charles.
Angie fired off a text to Kevin.
Did you go to the police?
Her phone buzzed almost immediately.
Trying to make amends.
Too little too late.
But you were the impetus.
Be careful.
I’m okay. Met with my lawyers.
Be safe.
Will be in touch.
Angie tried to get some breakfast down, scanned various websites for flights to New York, showered, and was starting to slowly get her things together to pack when she decided one last time to try Patricia.
It’s Angie. Can I talk to you
for a few minutes?
She was folding a sundress for her suitcase when she heard a chime indicating a response to her text.
Sure, NY
You’re welcome to come out
Will send address
***
Just before four o’clock, Angie pulled up in front of a two-story yellow stucco house that sat behind a tall wrought-iron gate. She got out and pressed the call box button. No answer. She pressed again, worried that she was being toyed with, but then she heard a click and the gate started to swing open. She made her way up a winding path lined with small lanterns. The front gardens were heavy with palms, orange trees, flowering jasmine, and birds of paradise.
As she climbed the front steps, a huge espresso-colored wooden door swung open. Patricia looked younger than she remembered. She wore faded jeans, a white shirt, and was barefoot. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup.
“You look good,” Angie said. “How are you?”
“Well, I’m not dead, obviously. No thanks to that asshole who ran me down.” Patricia gave a wry grin. “You don’t look so hot, though. You look fuckin’ exhausted.”
“Yeah, well, things have been . . . not great.”
“You don’t say.”
“It’s been a ride.”
“I can imagine. Kevin called. We talked for an hour before he fucked off to God knows where. Wouldn’t tell me. Better that way, he said.”
She gestured for Angie to follow as she entered an airy foyer with cream walls and a tiled floor. A sweeping staircase led to the second floor. To the right was a sitting room, done in browns and greens. A brick fireplace dominated one wall, plush chairs and a settee offering seats that they took. Angie glimpsed through an adjacent dining room a wall of glass that looked out on a swimming pool glittering in the afternoon sun.
Patricia pulled out her phone. “Have you seen the Reporter? The story just dropped.”
Angie leaned closer and they both peered at her screen. Sure enough, the Reporter had, twenty minutes earlier, published an item about DreamWeaver’s top legal executive, Tanya Castillo, who had been fired for engaging in bad faith business practices.
Sources also tell the Reporter that Castillo ran an unsavory scheme in which actresses were promised plum roles in exchange for sexual favors.
“This sort of behavior will not be tolerated,” said studio head Charles Weaver in a statement. “We greatly value our employees as well as all the creative talent we work with. And the idea that we would hire or fire an actress based on some salacious exchange of sex for work is utterly abhorrent. We will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of these rumors, and we will waste no time in clearing out the perpetrators.”
“He threw her under the bus,” Patricia said. “If it all comes out now, Charles can say he had nothing to do with any of it, that his name was forged on those NDAs, and he knew nothing about it.”
Charles, naturally, would continue to be quoted as being horrified by the disclosures, Angie knew. But the real story of Charles’s criminality? Unlikely to ever see the light of day. He made too many people too much money.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you that day at the restaurant.” Patricia put her phone away. “And I’m sorry I’ve blown you off since. I couldn’t face it—all the humiliating things that scumbag made me do over the years. Then it happening to Scar. You made it all too real again.”
“I get it, I do. You’re strong, though. I wish Scarlett had been as strong as you.”
“Scarlett was strong, but too good for this place. I don’t have that problem.” She gave Angie a small smile. “All right, New York, I’m forgetting my manners, you want something to drink? I’d offer you a belt, but I’m off the hard stuff. We could have tea. I got this whole infuser thing. Trying to live clean and all that. It’s boring but nice in its own way. But I’m not doing any goddamn yoga.”
“Tea is good.” Angie followed Patricia through the dining room to a large farm-house style kitchen with a rustic wood table. Despite its grandness, she found the house surprisingly homey.
“I’ve just signed on to shoot an indie thriller in Finland,” Patricia said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a big star in Scandinavia and shack up with some studly twenty-something ice sculptor named Sven.”
“You know, Patricia, if anyone could pull that off . . .”
They shared a dry chuckle.
Then Angie cut to the chase. “I need your help with something . . .”
***
Angie had another stop to make. She didn’t care about settling a score. She just needed a favor.
When Nicole opened her condo door that evening with a fresh pixie cut, sporting a pale pink T-shirt and black leggings, Angie’s heart lurched. She hadn’t stopped thinking of her, but seeing her was harder than she’d expected. She took a deep breath. “Can I come in?”
Nicole stepped aside and Angie entered the living room. Nicole closed the door and joined her. “So?”
Angie’s stomach clenched. “I have to ask you something, a favor. But I want to know first. Why did you tell him? He looted my house. He took all the documents. He stole my laptop.”
Nicole gave it a few seconds before responding. “He knew we were together. And he knew you were on to something. He’d called me into his office a few times. I never told him anything about you looking for answers to Scarlett’s suicide, but then . . .”
“What?”
“After you left here, that last time, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to support you, but I was already unnerved, and then he called me. He made threats. How it would be a shame to lose my job. How gay people were absolute equals now, but women could be accused of sexually harassing women just as surely as men could be. And getting involved with a subordinate was, of course, forbidden. And anyway, didn’t everyone know what a ‘vixen’”—she made air quotes—“I was? He said I’d be accused of harassment, exploiting my position, and trading sexual favors.”
“So what happened?”
“I told him to back off.” She looked down. “And I lost my temper. I told him he’d better not say anything about you or me, and he sure as hell better not start lying about me, because you had enough information to bury him.”
Angie gaped at her in surprise.
“I just blurted it out. I know he’s dangerous and I should have just hung up and played it cool, but he had me rattled, and I . . . I lost it and caved.”
Charles’s reach was never-ending. He’d gotten to her girlfriend. He’d gotten to her parents. He’d gotten to Scarlett. “You shouldn’t have told Charles I was going to expose him. That was my battle, not yours. It wasn’t right to assume you’d go down fighting with me.”
Nicole took both of Angie’s hands in hers. “I’d go down fighting with you any day. For the record, I never covered up any crime. I knew Charles could be sleazy. But I also knew there were women who welcomed his attention because they wanted to make it and knew that was a way in. Welcome to Hollywood. And I’m sorry for what happened to Scarlett, truly. As gross as Charles can be, he wouldn’t have wanted Scarlett dead.”
“I’m not so sure about that. What about the codes to the NDAs?”
“That shit on the flash drive? I didn’t even know that was on there.”
“Why was it in your office?”
“When I took over IP, all the departments sent their files to me with books, movie titles, writers, agents, all this information that was scattered all over the place. That folder must have gotten mixed in with everything else. I probably thought it was dated, expired material, and stashed it away.”
Angie evaluated her. And decided she believed her. She also still loved her, she realized. But her heart was a jumbled mess of longing and disappointment. She wasn’t in a place where she could be present or authentic in a relationship. She had to focus on herself before she could focus on anyone else. Except for Scarlett.
“So, that favor?”
***
Her last stop was the hardest one.
She found her father in the same waiting room at Cedars, the same fluorescent lighting, same black plastic tables, same orange plastic chairs. He looked like he hadn’t moved since she’d last seen him. He looked haggard. Old. Lost. For all of his blowhard tendencies, he was nothing without his wife.
He gave a start when she sat in the chair next to him, an empty paper coffee cup gripped in his hand. His face was drawn, gray like the room, his eyes red and bleary.
“Hi, Dad.” She took his free hand and held it, something neither of them had ever done before. He squeezed hers in return but didn’t speak.
She was about to do something that would change her forever, and she wanted to make things right where she could.
“There’s no way I can forget what you and Mom did,” she began, “but I know you thought you were doing what was best for Scar, you thought you were helping her. I also know you hold yourself responsible.” She made sure to look him in the eye. “And you should.”
He gave a slight nod and turned his face away.
She continued, “What you need now is support. Empathy. And I’m going to be the first to extend that.”
He looked at her with a vulnerability she’d never seen before, and also like she was an adult, possibly for the first time. “But you have to respond in kind. You’ve always been distant. A tyrant. To the whole family. And we never understood why. And you’re a literature professor, for shit’s sake. I got my degree in English and I’m a book editor. Why have we never talked about that?” She stopped and waited.
He removed his hand from hers, wiping it across his face.
“It’s not brain surgery, Dad.”
He gave her a sharp look, then softened. “I know. That doesn’t make it easy.”
“Life isn’t easy. You don’t know that yet? I’m half your age and I know it all too well. Why do you think I’ve hidden in books since I was a child? Maybe that’s something we have in common?”
She took his hand again, and he squeezed hers and said, “I’d like to talk about literature with you.”
“We could have always done that.”
He nodded again.
She’d said what she needed to, even if it had taken Scarlett’s suicide and Ellen’s possible death for her to say it and him to hear it. She just hoped what she was about to do wouldn’t endanger the tenuous connection they’d finally made.
***
Back at Scarlett’s, she poured herself a glass of sparkling water and went to stand out by the pool. She watched as the sky darkened into shades of crimson. There was no wind. The fronds of the palms were silent and motionless. The pool wasn’t illuminated, its depths murky in the twilight.
Angie stood in the shadows, willing herself to summon Scarlett’s self-belief, her fortitude, her backbone. I need you more than ever tonight, Scar.
She went back inside and changed into jeans and a hoodie she’d brought from New York but hadn’t worn since she’d been in LA. She fished a pair of Scarlett’s driving gloves out of a drawer. She made sure she had a pair of sunglasses in her purse. She Googled the nearest Home Depot on her phone.
Then she called Charles.
18
Charles Weaver pulled into his reserved spot at the DreamWeaver underground parking garage and cut the engine. He didn’t see any other cars, but Angie had said she’d meet him there. Finally coming around, the little bitch. Even harder to tame than her sister. But he had broken her. And the wait had, in the end, made the chase more satisfying. He adjusted himself, then hopped out of his car with anticipation, locking it with a chirp.
“Oh, Charles.”
Her voice came out of the shadows of the structure. He smiled at the way she said his name. He couldn’t see a damn thing, but he liked this game. This was going to be fun.
“Angie?”
A figure materialized, wearing jeans, a hoodie, sunglasses, and black leather gloves. “That’s not quite the outfit I had in mind when you said you wanted to meet to ‘make up’. I expected much less.” He chuckled. “Come here, into the light. I want to see you. You’re not the first bitch to come crawling back after I put her in her place.”
“What did you call her?”
Charles turned to his right. Another figure was emerging from the shadows, the face obscured by a hoodie. What the hell? “Who is that?”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Patricia? Angie, did you plan a menage-a-trois? You dirty girl. So, Pattycake, you’re back for more. You always were insatiable.”
“You and your twisted fantasies.”
A third woman? What was going on? Charles peered into the shadows and finally made out a figure in the dim light. “Dominique? What the fuck?”
Patricia started to circle him like a slow-orbiting planet. He swiveled his head to track her, the skin on his arms prickling. He’d been caught off guard, and he didn’t like the feeling.
“Pattycake, I’ll bet it still hurts where that car ran you down, doesn’t it, you fucking lush? Maybe if you weren’t day drinking, you would have seen it coming.” He laughed and felt a surge of power as it reverberated in the cavernous garage. He felt like he had the advantage again. “Jesus Christ, I can break you in half. All of you. With a flick of a finger. Don’t you dare fuck with me.”
“No one ever wanted to fuck you.”
He spun around. Angie had moved closer. What was she holding behind her back?
“And you’re never going to fuck with anyone ever again.”
“All right, this is bullshit. I’m out of here. And you all are fucking DEAD in this town.” He fumbled for his key fob when Patricia materialized on the other side of the car. She raised a baseball bat and brought it down on his windshield before he had time to even process it. “You fucking cunt! Do you know how much this car cost? It’s worth more than your fucking LIFE!”
“It’s not worth much now, is it?”
Charles whirled around to face Angie. She raised her own bat, gripping it with both hands, letting it hover over her shoulder like a champ. “This may not be a 1924 Rogers Hornsby, but I think it’ll do the trick.”
He looked to the security cameras for help. Where were the fucking security guards? He didn’t know their names to call out but he couldn’t bring himself to simply shout “Help!” surrounded by four fucking cunts.
He turned, left, then right, then pivoted to his rear. He was surrounded. Angie, Patricia, Dominique, and . . . where the hell had the fourth one come from?
“Who are you?” Charles tried to keep his voice level, in control. But a distinct quaver betrayed him.
“You don’t remember me?” She gave a low laugh. “You’ll remember me now.”
Four baseball bats raised in unison.
That was when he realized in a crush of terror that even if the assault was caught on camera, their faces covered by hoods, and the shadows of the garage would obscure their identities even more.
“Pattycake . . . ?”
“Don’t worry, Charles.” He could hear the smile in Patricia’s voice. “As I recall, you always took care of business, um, quickly. And we will, too.”
As Angie lifted her bat high above her head, she whispered, venom dripping for her lips, “This is for Scarlett.”
And they descended.
EPILOGUE
A month later, on a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, Angie was laughing so hard that she nearly choked on her iced coffee. She walked through SoHo with Joaquin, her arm looped in his as he regaled her with tales from the fashion world.
“Well, girl, I told him, ‘Your work is just shameful. Do not ruin this beautiful fabric and my gorgeous creations with stitching you wouldn’t use on your mother’s kitchen curtains.’ Puh-lease.”
They continued laughing as they careened down the street toward the park where they were meeting Scott and his kids. “So are you going to get some sort of show next season?” Angie asked.
“Well, it won’t be Bryant Park, baby, but I got a few fashion websites interested and two buyers for smaller chains, and I’m working on getting an interview in Women’s Wear. And Marc Jacobs almost made eye contact with me at this opening last week, so I’m getting there, sweet thing, I’m getting there.”
Angie’s phone buzzed. “It’s Rita,” she told Joaquin before answering. “Hey! Joaquin and I are near you at Vesuvio. You wanna meet us for coffee?”
“Oh, I can’t, honey, I gotta color my hair. But you kids have fun. I’m thinking of going more burnt sienna than burgundy. You remember that color? Burnt sienna? From the Crayola box?”
“I do. I do remember burnt sienna,” Angie said with a smile, looking at Joaquin and pointing to her head.
Joaquin made a face of mock-horror and mouthed burnt sienna?!
“Anyway, honey. Can you come by this week? I’m drowning in manuscripts. Which is a good thing. If it doesn’t kill me.”
“I can help out,” Angie told her. “But, Rita, what’s up with Mackenzie? I’ve left messages and sent texts but she’s not responding. I feel awful.”
The story was accompanied by an old picture of the bulky, unsmiling Ari holding the door of a dark sedan for Charles.
Angie fired off a text to Kevin.
Did you go to the police?
Her phone buzzed almost immediately.
Trying to make amends.
Too little too late.
But you were the impetus.
Be careful.
I’m okay. Met with my lawyers.
Be safe.
Will be in touch.
Angie tried to get some breakfast down, scanned various websites for flights to New York, showered, and was starting to slowly get her things together to pack when she decided one last time to try Patricia.
It’s Angie. Can I talk to you
for a few minutes?
She was folding a sundress for her suitcase when she heard a chime indicating a response to her text.
Sure, NY
You’re welcome to come out
Will send address
***
Just before four o’clock, Angie pulled up in front of a two-story yellow stucco house that sat behind a tall wrought-iron gate. She got out and pressed the call box button. No answer. She pressed again, worried that she was being toyed with, but then she heard a click and the gate started to swing open. She made her way up a winding path lined with small lanterns. The front gardens were heavy with palms, orange trees, flowering jasmine, and birds of paradise.
As she climbed the front steps, a huge espresso-colored wooden door swung open. Patricia looked younger than she remembered. She wore faded jeans, a white shirt, and was barefoot. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup.
“You look good,” Angie said. “How are you?”
“Well, I’m not dead, obviously. No thanks to that asshole who ran me down.” Patricia gave a wry grin. “You don’t look so hot, though. You look fuckin’ exhausted.”
“Yeah, well, things have been . . . not great.”
“You don’t say.”
“It’s been a ride.”
“I can imagine. Kevin called. We talked for an hour before he fucked off to God knows where. Wouldn’t tell me. Better that way, he said.”
She gestured for Angie to follow as she entered an airy foyer with cream walls and a tiled floor. A sweeping staircase led to the second floor. To the right was a sitting room, done in browns and greens. A brick fireplace dominated one wall, plush chairs and a settee offering seats that they took. Angie glimpsed through an adjacent dining room a wall of glass that looked out on a swimming pool glittering in the afternoon sun.
Patricia pulled out her phone. “Have you seen the Reporter? The story just dropped.”
Angie leaned closer and they both peered at her screen. Sure enough, the Reporter had, twenty minutes earlier, published an item about DreamWeaver’s top legal executive, Tanya Castillo, who had been fired for engaging in bad faith business practices.
Sources also tell the Reporter that Castillo ran an unsavory scheme in which actresses were promised plum roles in exchange for sexual favors.
“This sort of behavior will not be tolerated,” said studio head Charles Weaver in a statement. “We greatly value our employees as well as all the creative talent we work with. And the idea that we would hire or fire an actress based on some salacious exchange of sex for work is utterly abhorrent. We will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of these rumors, and we will waste no time in clearing out the perpetrators.”
“He threw her under the bus,” Patricia said. “If it all comes out now, Charles can say he had nothing to do with any of it, that his name was forged on those NDAs, and he knew nothing about it.”
Charles, naturally, would continue to be quoted as being horrified by the disclosures, Angie knew. But the real story of Charles’s criminality? Unlikely to ever see the light of day. He made too many people too much money.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you that day at the restaurant.” Patricia put her phone away. “And I’m sorry I’ve blown you off since. I couldn’t face it—all the humiliating things that scumbag made me do over the years. Then it happening to Scar. You made it all too real again.”
“I get it, I do. You’re strong, though. I wish Scarlett had been as strong as you.”
“Scarlett was strong, but too good for this place. I don’t have that problem.” She gave Angie a small smile. “All right, New York, I’m forgetting my manners, you want something to drink? I’d offer you a belt, but I’m off the hard stuff. We could have tea. I got this whole infuser thing. Trying to live clean and all that. It’s boring but nice in its own way. But I’m not doing any goddamn yoga.”
“Tea is good.” Angie followed Patricia through the dining room to a large farm-house style kitchen with a rustic wood table. Despite its grandness, she found the house surprisingly homey.
“I’ve just signed on to shoot an indie thriller in Finland,” Patricia said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a big star in Scandinavia and shack up with some studly twenty-something ice sculptor named Sven.”
“You know, Patricia, if anyone could pull that off . . .”
They shared a dry chuckle.
Then Angie cut to the chase. “I need your help with something . . .”
***
Angie had another stop to make. She didn’t care about settling a score. She just needed a favor.
When Nicole opened her condo door that evening with a fresh pixie cut, sporting a pale pink T-shirt and black leggings, Angie’s heart lurched. She hadn’t stopped thinking of her, but seeing her was harder than she’d expected. She took a deep breath. “Can I come in?”
Nicole stepped aside and Angie entered the living room. Nicole closed the door and joined her. “So?”
Angie’s stomach clenched. “I have to ask you something, a favor. But I want to know first. Why did you tell him? He looted my house. He took all the documents. He stole my laptop.”
Nicole gave it a few seconds before responding. “He knew we were together. And he knew you were on to something. He’d called me into his office a few times. I never told him anything about you looking for answers to Scarlett’s suicide, but then . . .”
“What?”
“After you left here, that last time, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to support you, but I was already unnerved, and then he called me. He made threats. How it would be a shame to lose my job. How gay people were absolute equals now, but women could be accused of sexually harassing women just as surely as men could be. And getting involved with a subordinate was, of course, forbidden. And anyway, didn’t everyone know what a ‘vixen’”—she made air quotes—“I was? He said I’d be accused of harassment, exploiting my position, and trading sexual favors.”
“So what happened?”
“I told him to back off.” She looked down. “And I lost my temper. I told him he’d better not say anything about you or me, and he sure as hell better not start lying about me, because you had enough information to bury him.”
Angie gaped at her in surprise.
“I just blurted it out. I know he’s dangerous and I should have just hung up and played it cool, but he had me rattled, and I . . . I lost it and caved.”
Charles’s reach was never-ending. He’d gotten to her girlfriend. He’d gotten to her parents. He’d gotten to Scarlett. “You shouldn’t have told Charles I was going to expose him. That was my battle, not yours. It wasn’t right to assume you’d go down fighting with me.”
Nicole took both of Angie’s hands in hers. “I’d go down fighting with you any day. For the record, I never covered up any crime. I knew Charles could be sleazy. But I also knew there were women who welcomed his attention because they wanted to make it and knew that was a way in. Welcome to Hollywood. And I’m sorry for what happened to Scarlett, truly. As gross as Charles can be, he wouldn’t have wanted Scarlett dead.”
“I’m not so sure about that. What about the codes to the NDAs?”
“That shit on the flash drive? I didn’t even know that was on there.”
“Why was it in your office?”
“When I took over IP, all the departments sent their files to me with books, movie titles, writers, agents, all this information that was scattered all over the place. That folder must have gotten mixed in with everything else. I probably thought it was dated, expired material, and stashed it away.”
Angie evaluated her. And decided she believed her. She also still loved her, she realized. But her heart was a jumbled mess of longing and disappointment. She wasn’t in a place where she could be present or authentic in a relationship. She had to focus on herself before she could focus on anyone else. Except for Scarlett.
“So, that favor?”
***
Her last stop was the hardest one.
She found her father in the same waiting room at Cedars, the same fluorescent lighting, same black plastic tables, same orange plastic chairs. He looked like he hadn’t moved since she’d last seen him. He looked haggard. Old. Lost. For all of his blowhard tendencies, he was nothing without his wife.
He gave a start when she sat in the chair next to him, an empty paper coffee cup gripped in his hand. His face was drawn, gray like the room, his eyes red and bleary.
“Hi, Dad.” She took his free hand and held it, something neither of them had ever done before. He squeezed hers in return but didn’t speak.
She was about to do something that would change her forever, and she wanted to make things right where she could.
“There’s no way I can forget what you and Mom did,” she began, “but I know you thought you were doing what was best for Scar, you thought you were helping her. I also know you hold yourself responsible.” She made sure to look him in the eye. “And you should.”
He gave a slight nod and turned his face away.
She continued, “What you need now is support. Empathy. And I’m going to be the first to extend that.”
He looked at her with a vulnerability she’d never seen before, and also like she was an adult, possibly for the first time. “But you have to respond in kind. You’ve always been distant. A tyrant. To the whole family. And we never understood why. And you’re a literature professor, for shit’s sake. I got my degree in English and I’m a book editor. Why have we never talked about that?” She stopped and waited.
He removed his hand from hers, wiping it across his face.
“It’s not brain surgery, Dad.”
He gave her a sharp look, then softened. “I know. That doesn’t make it easy.”
“Life isn’t easy. You don’t know that yet? I’m half your age and I know it all too well. Why do you think I’ve hidden in books since I was a child? Maybe that’s something we have in common?”
She took his hand again, and he squeezed hers and said, “I’d like to talk about literature with you.”
“We could have always done that.”
He nodded again.
She’d said what she needed to, even if it had taken Scarlett’s suicide and Ellen’s possible death for her to say it and him to hear it. She just hoped what she was about to do wouldn’t endanger the tenuous connection they’d finally made.
***
Back at Scarlett’s, she poured herself a glass of sparkling water and went to stand out by the pool. She watched as the sky darkened into shades of crimson. There was no wind. The fronds of the palms were silent and motionless. The pool wasn’t illuminated, its depths murky in the twilight.
Angie stood in the shadows, willing herself to summon Scarlett’s self-belief, her fortitude, her backbone. I need you more than ever tonight, Scar.
She went back inside and changed into jeans and a hoodie she’d brought from New York but hadn’t worn since she’d been in LA. She fished a pair of Scarlett’s driving gloves out of a drawer. She made sure she had a pair of sunglasses in her purse. She Googled the nearest Home Depot on her phone.
Then she called Charles.
18
Charles Weaver pulled into his reserved spot at the DreamWeaver underground parking garage and cut the engine. He didn’t see any other cars, but Angie had said she’d meet him there. Finally coming around, the little bitch. Even harder to tame than her sister. But he had broken her. And the wait had, in the end, made the chase more satisfying. He adjusted himself, then hopped out of his car with anticipation, locking it with a chirp.
“Oh, Charles.”
Her voice came out of the shadows of the structure. He smiled at the way she said his name. He couldn’t see a damn thing, but he liked this game. This was going to be fun.
“Angie?”
A figure materialized, wearing jeans, a hoodie, sunglasses, and black leather gloves. “That’s not quite the outfit I had in mind when you said you wanted to meet to ‘make up’. I expected much less.” He chuckled. “Come here, into the light. I want to see you. You’re not the first bitch to come crawling back after I put her in her place.”
“What did you call her?”
Charles turned to his right. Another figure was emerging from the shadows, the face obscured by a hoodie. What the hell? “Who is that?”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Patricia? Angie, did you plan a menage-a-trois? You dirty girl. So, Pattycake, you’re back for more. You always were insatiable.”
“You and your twisted fantasies.”
A third woman? What was going on? Charles peered into the shadows and finally made out a figure in the dim light. “Dominique? What the fuck?”
Patricia started to circle him like a slow-orbiting planet. He swiveled his head to track her, the skin on his arms prickling. He’d been caught off guard, and he didn’t like the feeling.
“Pattycake, I’ll bet it still hurts where that car ran you down, doesn’t it, you fucking lush? Maybe if you weren’t day drinking, you would have seen it coming.” He laughed and felt a surge of power as it reverberated in the cavernous garage. He felt like he had the advantage again. “Jesus Christ, I can break you in half. All of you. With a flick of a finger. Don’t you dare fuck with me.”
“No one ever wanted to fuck you.”
He spun around. Angie had moved closer. What was she holding behind her back?
“And you’re never going to fuck with anyone ever again.”
“All right, this is bullshit. I’m out of here. And you all are fucking DEAD in this town.” He fumbled for his key fob when Patricia materialized on the other side of the car. She raised a baseball bat and brought it down on his windshield before he had time to even process it. “You fucking cunt! Do you know how much this car cost? It’s worth more than your fucking LIFE!”
“It’s not worth much now, is it?”
Charles whirled around to face Angie. She raised her own bat, gripping it with both hands, letting it hover over her shoulder like a champ. “This may not be a 1924 Rogers Hornsby, but I think it’ll do the trick.”
He looked to the security cameras for help. Where were the fucking security guards? He didn’t know their names to call out but he couldn’t bring himself to simply shout “Help!” surrounded by four fucking cunts.
He turned, left, then right, then pivoted to his rear. He was surrounded. Angie, Patricia, Dominique, and . . . where the hell had the fourth one come from?
“Who are you?” Charles tried to keep his voice level, in control. But a distinct quaver betrayed him.
“You don’t remember me?” She gave a low laugh. “You’ll remember me now.”
Four baseball bats raised in unison.
That was when he realized in a crush of terror that even if the assault was caught on camera, their faces covered by hoods, and the shadows of the garage would obscure their identities even more.
“Pattycake . . . ?”
“Don’t worry, Charles.” He could hear the smile in Patricia’s voice. “As I recall, you always took care of business, um, quickly. And we will, too.”
As Angie lifted her bat high above her head, she whispered, venom dripping for her lips, “This is for Scarlett.”
And they descended.
EPILOGUE
A month later, on a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, Angie was laughing so hard that she nearly choked on her iced coffee. She walked through SoHo with Joaquin, her arm looped in his as he regaled her with tales from the fashion world.
“Well, girl, I told him, ‘Your work is just shameful. Do not ruin this beautiful fabric and my gorgeous creations with stitching you wouldn’t use on your mother’s kitchen curtains.’ Puh-lease.”
They continued laughing as they careened down the street toward the park where they were meeting Scott and his kids. “So are you going to get some sort of show next season?” Angie asked.
“Well, it won’t be Bryant Park, baby, but I got a few fashion websites interested and two buyers for smaller chains, and I’m working on getting an interview in Women’s Wear. And Marc Jacobs almost made eye contact with me at this opening last week, so I’m getting there, sweet thing, I’m getting there.”
Angie’s phone buzzed. “It’s Rita,” she told Joaquin before answering. “Hey! Joaquin and I are near you at Vesuvio. You wanna meet us for coffee?”
“Oh, I can’t, honey, I gotta color my hair. But you kids have fun. I’m thinking of going more burnt sienna than burgundy. You remember that color? Burnt sienna? From the Crayola box?”
“I do. I do remember burnt sienna,” Angie said with a smile, looking at Joaquin and pointing to her head.
Joaquin made a face of mock-horror and mouthed burnt sienna?!
“Anyway, honey. Can you come by this week? I’m drowning in manuscripts. Which is a good thing. If it doesn’t kill me.”
“I can help out,” Angie told her. “But, Rita, what’s up with Mackenzie? I’ve left messages and sent texts but she’s not responding. I feel awful.”
