Chapter Twelve

 

 

Forty-eight hours later, they stood in line to board a Continental flight back to L.A. Pete, Aaron’s screenwriting pal, would be picking them up at LAX and taking them back to Aaron’s house in Torrance, about ten minutes away on the 405. Aaron’s plan was for the two of them to pay Porter a visit at the club—a public place where the man was less likely to cause a scene—and then arrange to pick up Tess’ car and whatever personal effects she’d left behind at Porter’s mansion in Beverly Hills.

“I’ve got to run to the bathroom,” she told Aaron, slipping away. Inside the restroom, she finally acted upon the decision she’d made two days ago. Aaron would never understand or accept why she had to see Porter alone, so concerned was he for her safety. She owed Porter, her boss and friend, that much. He’d been good to her, had claimed to be in love with her, and had showered her with gifts to prove himself. He’d even offered to marry her, for crying out loud. No man, other than Aaron, had ever promised marriage before.

She owed him, plain and simple, so she called Porter’s cell phone. When he picked up, she made her request. He sounded calm, almost cheerful as if nothing had happened. He agreed readily.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Tess hung up before any more could be said. The man deserved a face-to-face breakup and a heartfelt explanation. She’d rehearsed her speech the last two days over and over in her mind. Would Porter be reasonable? She’d soon find out.

When she returned to Aaron, her boarding pass clutched in her hand, he simply said, “We’re going home.” She smiled at him and squeezed his arm. There was so much implied in that short sentence.

“Yes, we are. Can I stay with you tonight?”

“You bet. Mi casa es tu casa.” My house is yours. His sandy eyebrows wiggled mischievously before adding, “Mi cama es tu cama.” My bed is yours.

 

* * * *

 

During the five-hour flight, Tess’ stomach twisted in knots. She declined food and could only drink water. Even easygoing Aaron couldn’t eat. It was as if they both had a sense of foreboding. A confrontation with Porter wasn’t going to be pleasant. Maybe Aaron was thinking about Porter’s threat at the engagement party—he was looking at his fingers a lot during the flight. Would Porter act out on such an outlandish threat? Tess scowled and gazed out the window. He wouldn’t dare!

LAX was, as usual, a teeming place with humans on the go. People coming from colder climes still wore jackets and coats. Angelinos on the move padded around in sandals and flip-flops. Most sported casual wear, the prevalent style this season being cargo Bermudas, Hawaiian shirts and tank tops. Sunshine warmed their faces as Tess and Aaron waited in front of the “Arrivals” terminal, a baggage handler wheeling out the cart carrying Tess’ two Pullmans, carryon and music satchel.

While Aaron began to push his cart, loaded with his one suitcase and synthesizer, toward Pete’s hulking SUV, waiting at the curb, Tess slipped a five-dollar bill to her porter and pointed to a long, sleek black limo gliding up to a stop.

“C’mon, Tess—” Aaron halted as soon as he realized she wasn’t following him. He spun around, looking confused, then he saw the black limo and Porter standing behind the open, back door. “Oh, no, Tess. Don’t do this.” His voice broke and his face crumpled. She hurried to reassure him.

“Aaron, Aaron, listen to me. I called him, yes, but it’s only to talk to him in private…to break it off.” To quash his look of horror, she added, “Please, Aaron, please believe me. I’m not going back to him…I promise. I owe him a private breakup.”

Her last word seemed to plunge and twist the knife in his guts. He looked physically ill. Visibly in pain, he even clutched his stomach. Not surprised, she knew he’d react in that way and she dreaded it. Porter was waiting and she wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Tess walked toward the limo in her heeled sandals, calling back to Aaron, who remained frozen to his spot on the sidewalk.

“I’ll call your cell in one hour. Aaron, I promise.”

She turned away, walked the last few feet to the limo, her heart dragging behind her. Porter continued to stand by the passenger door, watching Aaron as she climbed into the back seat, her eyes averted from Porter’s face. No sooner were her bags stowed in the limo’s trunk than Porter’s driver slid behind the wheel and steered the limo into traffic.

“So, nothing to say, Tess? That’s not like you.”

Porter’s calm voice dripped with icy sarcasm. She sighed and opened her mouth to speak—

Whack! Her head snapped to the side and her ears rang with the sudden, backhanded slap. Reflexively, she raised her hand to protect her face. Her right cheek and side of mouth stung sharply. She tongued the blood on her lower lip, then wiped it off with a finger. She could feel her mouth burn and swell up.

“Okay, I deserve that.” She kept her eyes downcast on her tightly clasped hands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. It just…we just…”

“Oh, spare me,” Porter snarled, “I knew how that prick felt about you. He’s had a hard-on for you for years, even I could see that. At our engagement party he looked like a kid who’d lost his pet dog. I knew if you were alone with him for any length of time, you two’d end up fucking your brains out. So that’s what happened, huh?”

She stiffened, but kept silent.

“Just a fling, Tess? Are you willing to toss it all away for a loser and his cock? Oh, don’t tell me it’s true love.”

Porter’s mocking tone drew her wary eyes to his face. His expression was cold, implacable, hard to read. The reality of the situation became so clear to her. There he sat, cool and smug in a suit and tie, the consummate businessman ready to make a deal. She was just another perk to one of his business deals. Nothing more. His huge ego was bent out of shape, but that was all.

“Porter, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how much I cared for him…since I was sixteen…”

“What the fuck, Tess? You think I care? You think I don’t understand how these things work? My daughter’s your age. She does cartwheels over a pretty face and a hard body. Sure I liked a pretty thing like yourself on my arm and you weren’t so young to cause me trouble. Sure I liked being called a stud by the old fogeys I do deals with. In this town, image is everything, you know that. But, baby, chicks like you are a dime a dozen. I know your personal history, let’s not forget that. Your dope-peddling old man, your whore of a mother—”

“Just a minute, Porter!” She wheeled around and raised a fist, her anger spilling over. She caught the driver’s warning eye in the rear-view mirror. He was armed and built like a tank. Swallowing her rage, she buried her fists in her lap, her face inflamed.

“That’s it, Tess, stay cool. You’ve got a temper, but I’m not finished with you. When we get to my place, you’ll find all your crap in a box in the back seat of that clunker you drive. Sonny’ll transfer your bags to your car which is parked outside my gate. I expect you to get the hell off my property and never come back.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Why was he letting her off so lightly? Something was not quite right here, but she wasn’t going to puzzle over it now. Slowly, she retrieved the huge diamond engagement ring out of her clutch purse and held it up.

“Here, this no longer belongs to me.”

Porter barked a short laugh. “Keep it, you earned it. I figure, ten bucks a fuck, you came cheap. Besides, you’ll need to pawn it.”

His last words took a moment to penetrate the hot cloud of anger engulfing her mind.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re fired.”

Her head whipped around. His eyes glittered brightly with hatred. “You heard me. You’re fired.”

“But I have eighteen months left on my contract. We still have a contract…the club…I’m headlining…”

“Not anymore. I’ve already replaced you at the club…and in my bed, not that you’d care in the least about that detail. In fact, you’re relieved. I can see it in your face. The contract, my dear Tess, is easily cancelled. There’s a clause about illicit drug-taking… and the rumor spreading around town and the club circuit is you’re a cokehead. I can’t have employees like you bringing down the reputation of my club. My clientele’s too highbrow…as my attorney reminded me just the other day. You’re entitled to seek legal counsel, of course, but I advise against it.”

Tess bit back her outrage and willed herself to sit still, a tight, wooden mannequin of fear. What more could he do to destroy her reputation? Her ability to work?

“Oh, and I expect you to cancel all the wedding details…if you haven’t already done so. I’m too preoccupied with my new…er, headliner to trifle with such nonsense.” He laughed again, an ugly, mirthless laugh. “Your friends are following us—I’m impressed by the fuckup’s perseverance. He’s afraid I’m going to physically harm you? Assault you? I believe you hit your face on the doorframe getting in, didn’t you?” He chuckled harshly. “How touching true love is.”

A cold, heavy silence descended as the limo drove northwest on the 405, then veered off on the Bel Air exit. The heavy limo lumbered up Coldwater Canyon Drive, made two more turns and finally paused in front of Porter’s massive front gate. Tess’ five year-old Ford Explorer sat by the curb. Disdaining to even glance at Porter, Tess climbed out as Sonny, the driver, transferred her suitcases and other bags to the Ford’s rear cargo hold. Then he handed Tess her car keys.

Porter rolled down his window. “One more thing, Tess. Whatever you find at your apartment or at the fuckup’s place, I suggest very strongly that you regard it as one of those sad little lessons in life. Don’t do anything stupid. And that goes for the fuckup, too. Don’t bring in the cops.”

Her stomach dropped as Pete’s car braked on the far side of the gate. Aaron jumped out of the front passenger seat. The wrought iron gates had opened and Porter’s limo rolled forward. She paused long enough to cry back at Porter, “Go to hell, asshole!”

Glancing over at Aaron, Tess shook her head and then climbed into her car. Porter’s limo disappeared up the drive while Tess sat, willing her trembling body to calm down. She fought back the tears and sickness as bile rose in her throat. With effort, she forced it back down. Her hands shook on the steering wheel. She wanted to get out of there, but she couldn’t turn the ignition key, her hands were shaking so badly.

What did Porter mean by don’t bring in the cops?

When Aaron appeared at her car door, she got out and flung herself into his arms. Dry-eyed, she clung to him for dear life and sanity until the trembling stopped.

“That wasn’t so bad—Tess, your face! That sonuvabitch! He hit you?”

“Just a slap. It’s nothing, Aaron. I would’ve done the same if I were him…probably more. Really, it’s nothing. Please, let’s get out of here.”

Aaron looked over at the closed gate. “My place?”

She paused for half a beat. What would they find there? Porter’s threat…

“Yes. Let’s go quickly!”

 

* * * *

 

Aaron drove her car as Pete followed in his SUV. They retraced the route they’d just taken from the airport, traveling south this time on the 405. Tess shook her head every time he asked her a question about her encounter with Porter. She wasn’t ready to talk about it or Porter’s veiled threat. They exited on Hawthorne and went south, then turned west on Sepulveda Boulevard near the Del Amo Fashion Center. A couple of blocks away Aaron’s neighborhood appeared. As soon as they pulled up in front of Aaron’s little bungalow, the neighbor to his left greeted them with a wave.

The middle-aged woman ran a business out of her home and, according to Aaron, she and her husband seldom traveled. Naturally, he’d asked them to watch his house while he was gone.

“Aaron, Aaron, I’m so glad to see you.” The woman pointed at the yellow crime scene tape criss-crossed over his front door. “I called them last night—no, early this morning when I heard all the noise. Jim told me you wouldn’t be home yet, so I knew they must be burglars or vandals. The police came and I guess scared off the two men, but not before, well, you’ll see.” She pointed to the house.

“Shit!” Aaron bolted for the house, Tess close at his heels. The woman followed, then Pete.

Porter’s warning…

The doorframe appeared cracked. The neighbor explained that intruders had jimmied the lock on one of the rear windows, but had kept the front door closed. The first police car appeared on the scene, about five minutes after she called them and they were the ones who broke in the front door. Too slow a response, she asserted hotly. Evidently, the intruders had a specific mission to smash and run, for they were gone by the time the police arrived.

Not taking it all in, Tess examined the cracked doorframe while Aaron went inside. She heard him cry out in anguish.

“Oh God!” Tess rushed to his side and saw what he’d just seen.

His grand piano, given to him on his twenty-first birthday by his parents, lay in a grotesque heap. The ivory and black keys, all eighty-eight, lay askew all over the dining room floor like scattered dominos. Once gleaming black wood, now in rough splinters and hacked off pieces, showed its brown undersides. The piano’s broad lid was caved in, flattened like a man’s hat crushed by a giant’s fist. The internal wires and levers, which once created beautiful music under Aaron’s nimble fingers, were now twisted in ruin. Her immediate thought: sledge hammers. The men must’ve been incredibly strong to have wreaked such damage on the beautiful instrument in such a short period of time. Only the legs remained untouched and upright.

She was awestruck. Too shocked to speak, Aaron sank to his knees and just stared, the scene too horrible to take one’s eyes off of. Tess’ heart broke from the anguish and pain she saw etched in his face.

Porter did this. Made this happen.

The neighbor turned to Tess. “The police checked for fingerprints. They said they’d call Aaron today. We gave them his cell phone number. They also left a card.” She looked at Aaron questioningly. “The police said whoever did this—they were professionals.”

Tess numbly nodded and stared at Aaron. Pete stepped forward and showed his sensitivity by steering the voluble woman back to the front porch where Tess heard them conversing quietly. Watching Aaron suffer silently made her sick. The bile rose again, this time in a violent eruption. She ran to the kitchen sink in the rear of the house and vomited into it. Only then did her tears flow. Unabated. Unashamedly.

Like a hurt little girl, she wept as she splashed her face with cold water. Wept as she returned to the living room and kneeled beside Aaron. Wept as she enfolded him into her arms and embraced him with all her might.

She felt his chest rise and fall as he struggled for self-control. His neck and face bathed with her tears. Finally, his hands patted her back.

“It’s okay. Tess, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I caused this.”

“No, just the price we pay to be together. It’s just a piano. I’ll get another one.” He let out a mirthless snort. “Least, I have my fingers, my hands. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

So like Aaron. Working past his pain to console me.

What will I find at my place?

 

By dinnertime, she found the courage to call her best friend, Marisa. She was usually home after five, learning her lines for the next day’s shooting. She knew her friend would be home or on her way from the Burbank studios. She called from her cell phone, Aaron nearby and watching her intently.

“Tess! I didn’t know what time you were getting back. Oh, Tess…”

“Is it bad?”

“It happened late last night …Loco woke me up with his barking. I heard some noise above me in your apartment, so I called the cops. I knew Loco wouldn’t bark if it was you—”

“Oh God, what did they do?” The news was grim. Tess felt the blood drain from her brain as she listened to Marisa. She suddenly felt dizzy and covered her face with one hand.

“Where are you? Are you safe?”

“Yeah, I’m at Aaron’s.”

“Stay there tonight. The landlord’s here and he’s furious. Give him a day or two to calm down. Come tomorrow while he’s at work.”

“Okay,” Tess muttered, her heart pulsing in her throat. She felt another wave of nausea sweep over her and glanced at the kitchen sink behind Aaron.

“Stay safe, chica.”

They rang off and Tess bolted for the sink.