Playing Dead

Chapter 8

1950

Rick Ducane was the toast of Hollywood, an action hero with a Brylcreemed slick of British smoothness who could hold his own alongside Flynn and Lancaster. The audiences loved him, like they loved to hear about the young Princess Elizabeth having her second child, a daughter named Anne.

‘The Yanks love all things English,’ said LaLa. ‘We have to capitalize on that.’

Rick knew she was right.

The studio loved him too. He wasn’t beset by women trouble like Flynn, he wasn’t egotistical like Lancaster; he was easy to manage, a workhorse. He arrived promptly for his read-throughs, learning his lines with punctilious care.

Born in poverty, he adored and quickly became adapted to the high life – the private planes, the twenty-four-hour limos and bodyguards, the great house and the swimming pool high up in the Hollywood hills; he’d earned it.

The only slight shadow upon his otherwise dazzling life was his wife, Vivienne – and his son, Frances – now installed in a wing of his palatial house in the Hollywood hills. Vivienne drank to while away the time in her comfy Hollywood prison. She had started having drinking buddies in – Christ alone knew where she met them. That disturbed Rick. Suppose Viv got legless and told one of these wasters who she was married to? The studio would string him up by the balls. But Rick was away so much on location that he frequently – and blissfully – forgot that his wife and son were there at all.

When he did come home he was harangued by Viv for being late, absent, uncaring.

‘You’ve got a child,’ she ranted at him, gin bottle swinging from her hand, her bleached-blonde hair showing an inch of black untended roots and her once-pretty eyes slitted and mean with drunken rage. ‘Don’t that mean a thing to you, you cocksucker?’

Rick cast a look at the child. Nearly ten years old now, and watching them with hunted eyes as they shouted and swore over his head.

Actually, it didn’t mean much to Rick. He’d been brought up by a chilly, unmaternal woman, and as a consequence he didn’t feel particularly bothered about kids. He’d had her, she’d got pregnant: the luck of the draw.

Or not, depending on your viewpoint.

His viewpoint was that he wished he had never met her, wished he had never stuck his dick up her in the first place; then there would be no Viv staggering around the place night and day giving him earache, when all he wanted was peace and quiet after a hard day’s work, and no kid skulking in corners watching him with hostile eyes.

‘You bastard,’ she was shouting. ‘We’re just your dirty little secret, aren’t we? You’d rather we didn’t exist at all – wouldn’t you!’

Frances looked on the verge of tears.

Viv was raging.

‘Fuck this,’ said Rick.

He turned on his heel, left the house, got back in his car – she followed him out, shrieking and cursing at him as he started the engine and then drove away.

Rick called one of the older, dimming stars he’d once been a walker for at the Oscars. Chloe Kane was no old fart. She was still beautiful, but calls from screenwriters and producers and the press had all but dried up. What the hell – she was forty and everyone knew that once a woman hit the big four-oh in this town, she was done for.

But Jesus, she was still so beautiful, even if her allure was waning. Thick glossy red hair – which must be dyed, but who cared? – and a mouth that still invited trouble. A body that would make a bishop kick a hole through a stained-glass window, even if she had let her personal grooming slide and her bush was a tangle of red and grey that extended down her thighs and up to her navel. But so what? She was stacked, and last time they’d spoken she’d said call me – please.

So here he was, calling her. And she liked that. It soothed his sour mood, how pleased she was to hear from him. When had his wife ever sounded like that? She invited him over. Poor cow had nothing going on except an evening in on her own with her pet pooch for company; he was doing her a favour.

‘Darling,’ she greeted him at the door in that famous, breathy tone she had used to such good effect up on the silver screen. ‘How lovely. Come on in.’

There had followed a wild night in which they had made out in the hall, on the stairs, in her huge, imposing bedroom (‘Strictly for press shots, darling; actually I sleep in a teensy little room down the hall’), much to the pooch’s annoyance.

It was gone two in the morning by the time he got home. He crept in, fearful of waking Viv. The last thing he wanted now was another argument. He was exhausted. Chloe was very demanding.

In the lounge he found empty bottles and upturned bowls of nuts and nibbles that crunched under his feet as he walked. A thousand-dollar rug and she treats it like this, he thought. Nat King Cole was stuck singing ‘Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa’ over and over again. He went over and switched Nat off.

Then he went through to the master bedroom. The coverlet was perfectly in place, the bed still made.

Now what the hell?

Had she gone out somewhere? He hoped not. She was a crazy driver in her too-visible red Corvette at the best of times – oh, and the arguments they’d had about that – but today she’d had a skinful. What he didn’t need was her wrapping her damned car around a tree and the press getting wind of her existence. She was just a nobody.

He hurried along the hall, past the closed door of Frances’s room.

That kid. Strange little fellow: he wanted to be an actor when he grew up like his dad, and Rick was flattered by that, but – for fuck’s sake – the kid didn’t have the talent; all he could manage was a few lines of amateurish mimicry. He would deter him from entering the industry if he could – do the kid a favour. Bad enough when you had that special touch of stardust; it was still hard, gruelling work all the way. But without it . . . Hollywood would break your heart. No doubt about that.

He opened the bathroom door.

Maybe she was ill? Puking up all that gin, no doubt. He heard water flowing.

‘Viv? Honey?’ he said softly.

Through the half-open window the moon cast its silvery light into the room. He could see the bath filled to the brim and overflowing. Something was lolling in there, arms akimbo.

Shit! Had she fallen asleep and fucking well drowned? How the hell were they going to hush that up if she had? He felt a spasm of fear at the thought. His career, his fabulous career, in ruins, and for a gormless whore he’d been stupid enough to get the hots for, and marry.

He flicked on the light with a movement that was half panic, half anger, and fell back instantly.

Vivienne was in the bath, but her head was above the water. Her eyes were open, but they weren’t going to see anything, ever again. There was a long gash across her forehead. Her face was a blanched, vacant mask. The water in the bath was bright red.

He made a noise in his throat, horrified.

No. She was just playing dead or something; he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

But . . . it was true. He reached out, picked up one limp, cold hand. Felt for a pulse and found none.

She was dead. Now how the fuck were they going to keep this quiet?

He heard a movement. Letting out a half-strangled shriek, he turned and saw Frances standing silently in the hall, watching him.

Chapter 9

1971

Constantine Barolli’s estate on Long Island’s stylish Montauk peninsula would be a stunning location for Lucco Barolli’s marriage to Daniella Carlucci. The house itself was massive, clapboarded in soft duck-egg blue-and-white trim; it was fronted by huge decks and terraces that overlooked and led down onto the long white beach and into sand dunes thick with the billowing fronds of marram grass.

Cara had told the men on the gate to expect Saul Jury at four, that he had business with her, and that they were to show him straight in; she’d be waiting in the waterfront lounge. The roar of the Atlantic breakers pounding the beach was a throaty, ominous counterpoint to her black mood.

Saul Jury arrived promptly at the agreed time. He always did; with high-end clients you learned early on not to fuck around too much. Shame her husband hadn’t learned the same lesson, because Saul suspected that this was not a lady who’d take betrayal lightly; she didn’t have the look of a gentle, forgiving sort of girl.

As he was shown in to the huge lounge with its big expanse of glass that displayed the ocean out there beyond the white stretch of the beach, Saul felt overawed. He’d had wealthy clients before, but these folks lived like the Rockefellers. Schlepping home to his little apartment in the Bronx, he had often glanced up and wondered about the flashy Manhattan types and the rarefied air they breathed – that special, radiant space they occupied. He knew he was in the presence of great wealth here. But seeing the scary people on the gates and patrolling the grounds, he also knew that these were not the sort of people you would ever want to upset. Olive oil and fruit importers, for fuck’s sake. Saul knew what that meant. He was starting to feel more than a little sorry for the erring Rocco.

When she’d first taken him on they’d met up in Central Park, neutral territory, but now Saul was seeing Cara in her natural environment, and it made him feel like the small fry he was. Hell, he was happy to be small fry. He didn’t want to be up too close and personal with people like this.

She looked vindictive and trigger-happy; he’d thought that the very first time he’d seen her: Here is a woman who won’t take prisoners. What if she now decided to shoot the messenger?

Cara stood up as he was shown in by Frederico, who waited around the house when he was not driving for her father. Frederico – or ‘Fredo’ as he was affectionately known by the family – was the son of one of Constantine’s gardeners and a cook. He was her own age and she knew he adored her – he had been making cow-eyes at her ever since kindergarten; but he was beneath her and they both knew it. It was Fredo who had driven her to the meeting with Saul in Central Park. He had asked no questions, but she had seen the curiosity in his eyes. Idiot, she’d thought, as if I would tell you anything.

Dismissing Fredo with a wave, Cara swept imperiously towards Saul – dwarfing him in will and in size too. Cara winced as she shook his limp, ineffectual hand. She hated using the services of this cheap little man, but he was a nobody, he was outside her family’s normal circle of influence, and that was good: she didn’t want any of this getting back to Rocco’s ears before she was ready. ‘What have you found out?’ she asked.

For a split second, Saul thought of saying that he’d found nothing, that Rocco was clean, and high-tailing it out of there; fuck the money. But the thought lasted a split second only, because he needed that money. He had a bit of a gambling habit, and yes, both his mother and his wife knew about it and nagged him day and night.

There was some professional pride involved here, too. He had caught Rocco red-handed doing the dirty with his fag boyfriend. He had pictures, dates, information, everything gathered together; he’d done a good, thorough job, like he always did. But now, being here, seeing this place, these people, the look in Cara’s eyes, he thought he would just as soon not get involved because what he might be doing by staying out of it was saving Rocco Mancini from a whole heap of trouble.

Professional pride won. Saul fished out the photos and the neatly typed information; he handed them to Cara. And as Cara looked at them in growing disbelief, slowly her face emptied of colour, her hands tightening on the sheets of paper and the damning photos until her long, beautifully manicured nails dug in.

‘But . . .’ Cara glanced up at him. ‘What is this? You said he was seeing someone called Frances Ducane . . .’

Saul nodded. ‘That’s him. That’s Frances Ducane.’

‘But . . . for God’s sake! I thought you meant a woman.’

‘No. A man. I’m sorry if you misunderstood, Mrs Mancini. That’s Frances Ducane. His dad was a big Hollywood star; then there was a scandal and . . .’ His voice trailed away.

Cara was silent, staring at the pictures of her husband betraying her with a man. Finally, she said: ‘You can go.’

‘I’ll send the bill on,’ he said.

She said nothing. She was still staring at what he’d shown her: her husband of only a year, kissing a handsome young actor. Not even a woman. Her husband was cheating on her with a man called Frances Ducane, son of the more famous Rick.

Chapter 10

1950

Mud sticks. Oh, so true. Rick knew it. The first thing he’d done when he’d found Viv’s body was to phone the studio, tell them. They would know what to do; they would help him.

Only, they didn’t. He couldn’t get hold of anyone.

As he was going apeshit trying to figure out what to do, Frances came into the lounge and said, ‘I phoned.’

Rick stopped his anxious pacing and stared at the boy. ‘. . . You what?’

‘The ambulance. I phoned.’

Oh shit.

He could see it all caving in on him. Could see it all hitting the fan.

He phoned the only one he could truly count on. He phoned LaLa.

‘Rick? What the fuck? It’s four o’clock in the morning.’

‘LaLa. You’ve got to help me. Viv’s dead.’

‘She’s what?’

Rick was standing in the hall. ‘She’s dead,’ he said again. LaLa would help. She would know what to do. ‘Looks like she slipped or something getting in the tub. Cut her head open. Either that or one of her drinking cronies whacked her. Either way, she’s dead.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh? Is that all you can say? LaLa, the woman’s dead . . . Shit a brick . . .’

The ambulance was pulling up, and the police. Frances opened the door to them.

‘Oh dear. Are the police there?’ asked Lala.

Then the press were crowding into the hallway, flashbulbs were popping in his face.

‘Yeah. And the press. Some bastard must have tipped them off.’

LaLa hung up.

‘LaLa? Hello?’ He redialled, but she didn’t answer. Anyway, the police wanted to talk with him . . .

Within days – hellish long days when the press camped outside, trapping him inside his own home with nobody but Frances for company – the studio heads wrote and very politely told him that he should consider his contract terminated, with immediate effect.

He phoned LaLa, but her secretary said she was in a meeting.

The day after the studio heads dumped him, LaLa dumped him too.

The papers came, and he flinched at the headlines.

‘Secret wife of dashing movie star Rick Ducane in suicide drama’, they shrieked.

‘Mystery death of Mrs Rick Ducane.’

‘Did he do it?’ Beneath that one, there was a picture of him standing in his hallway, white-faced with shock, holding up a hand to fend off not only the photographers but also disaster. But he couldn’t stop this.

Vivienne had killed him. Killed his career, killed his life.

The police questioned him endlessly, but his alibi was watertight. They hauled in a couple of her drinking buddies and questioned them, too, but nothing stuck. Finally, they seemed to be satisfied that Viv’s death was nothing but a tragic accident.

Within a month he fled back to England with Frances, and he never acted again.

Chapter 11

1971

Once she had recovered from the shock of it – for Christ’s sake, a man? – and had stood there for several minutes, staring out with sightless eyes at the sunlit sea and wondering how he would dare do that to her, Cara went quickly to her father’s study. He was busy of course; Nico, his right-hand man was there, standing beside him as he sat at the big walnut desk, and there were other men with him too. Her father was doing business, but there was no business that could be more urgent than this.

Constantine looked surprised at the interruption, but he quickly read her expression and apologized to the three men who were there with him and asked them to wait outside while Cara spoke to him.

‘Nico, can you go too please?’ Cara said, and flung herself down in a chair.

Nico looked at Constantine. He nodded, and Nico quietly left the room.

‘So what’s so important?’ asked Constantine mildly.

Cara flung the brown envelope containing the photos and the reports onto her father’s desk. Constantine looked at his daughter’s face for a long moment, then picked up the envelope and tipped out the contents. Cara watched him as he looked through them, giving each document and each photograph his full attention. Finally, he put the items back in the envelope and pushed it back into the centre of the desk.

‘I’m sorry, Cara,’ he said.

‘Not as sorry as I am, Papa,’ fumed Cara. ‘I knew. I just knew he was up to something.’

‘You used an outsider for this?’

‘I used a private detective. I didn’t want all the family and their friends knowing my business.’

Constantine gazed at her levelly. ‘But now you don’t mind, uh?’

‘Only you, Papa. I only want you to know this. I couldn’t stand to be made to look such an idiot.’ Cara stared at him and her eyes filled with tears. ‘He has insulted me, made a fool of me.’

‘So now you bring this to me. Why?’

‘Why?’ wailed Cara, red-faced with temper, the tears flooding over and running down her cheeks. She looked like a large, angry child – which, he thought, was effectively what she was.

Constantine loved his daughter. He loved all his children. But he wasn’t blind to their faults. Since her mother Maria’s death, Cara had taken on the role of only daughter with an almost missionary zeal. She had clung and cuddled close to her father, fawned over him; and maybe, to be fair, he had fawned over her too – rather too much, in fact. Annie Carter had come as an unwelcome shock to Cara, but maybe it was partly his fault that she was so hostile to Annie.

Now she thought . . . what? That he was going to solve her problematical marriage with a magical wave of his hand? He had warned her against Rocco before she rushed into wedlock with the boy. A few background checks had quickly shown that Rocco was lazy, feckless and inclined to fuck around. He’d warned her of this. But Cara, so used to getting her own way, had been obdurate. She wanted to marry Rocco; no one else would do.

Now she was coming to him for help. He had many, many problems – the Cantuzzi family was trying to muscle in on some of his businesses, and they were going to have to learn the hard way that this was unacceptable behaviour. Always there were concerns.

He was the protector of many Italian families in New York, shielding them from the worst excesses of the American legal system by employing many useful people in the judiciary and the Police Department.

The Barolli organization had a system of payoffs in place, and a large ‘sheet’ or list of officials on a monthly wage, so no friends of the Barollis would ever face the trauma of prosecution.

The whole operation was unbelievably slick; Constantine had over many years made it so, and now it was an empire with him at its head and many layers of power beneath him. His sons had, of course, followed him into the business; Lucco and Alberto were caporegimes, or captains, and everyone beneath them was a soldier. He had his legal counsellor, or consigliere. It was a smooth, well-oiled system. He gave his orders to Lucco and Alberto, and those orders filtered down and were carried out; rarely did Constantine have to issue a direct order to anyone.

But such a complex business didn’t run itself. There were always problems to be resolved. Added to that, he had a gorgeous pregnant wife, and no time to spare for rescuing a silly situation that should never have arisen in the first place.

‘He’s insulted me. He deserves to die for it,’ said Cara.

Constantine sat back in his chair and stared at her.

‘The Mancini family are old friends to us,’ he pointed out. ‘Rocco is their youngest boy and he’s been spoiled. He wasn’t a good choice for you. As I told you, when you decided to marry him.’

‘I want you to do something to him, Papa,’ said Cara, sobbing now, nearly incoherent with rage. ‘I want you to hurt him. Break his legs. Do something.’

Constantine shook his head slowly as he looked at her. ‘You’re missing the point here. I told you. The Mancinis are friends of ours. We have reciprocal arrangements going all over town, all over the country. And you expect me to wound, maybe kill their youngest boy?’

‘If you love me, you’ll do it,’ hurled Cara.

Constantine leaned forward. His blue eyes held hers in a hard, laser-like gaze.

‘You know I love you. That isn’t in question here. What is in question is your choice of husband and what’s to be done about him if he’s looking elsewhere for his enjoyment.’

Cara jumped to her feet, overturning the chair. ‘Well you are obviously going to do nothing,’ she spat out.

Constantine sighed and leaned back. ‘I’ll talk to his father. Maybe between us we can come to some sort of arrangement.’

‘So you think all this is my fault?’ shouted Cara.

‘You made a bad marriage.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens.’

‘You don’t understand anything,’ she complained. ‘You’re too wrapped up in your new little cosy domestic setup. You don’t care about the fact that your daughter is being humiliated, that all my friends will laugh at me.’

Constantine rose to his feet in one swift movement. The look on his face shut her up in an instant. She’d gone too far; she knew it.

‘I understand this. My domestic arrangements are my business,’ he said coldly. ‘And if your friends laugh, then d’you really think they’re friends at all? And I also understand that only a fool shits on his own doorstep. Do you? The Mancinis are good people and I will not be damaging their youngest son to gratify your injured pride.’