CHAPTER 17
Ty Rusk. Ty Rusk. Devin still couldn’t believe it. At first she’d thought that perhaps she’d been mistaken, that the half-naked guy standing in the doorway had simply been someone who resembled the star. But no, it really had been Ty. She was sure of it. She’d know that face anywhere. After all, he was only on the cover of every magazine around. Besides, she’d seen the small mole on his neck, the one she always noticed in his photos. She found it sexy.
Who would have thought he was a fag? she mused as she twirled the blond wig she’d just taken off around on her finger. There were a lot of men in Hollywood she could imagine sucking cock. Tobey Maguire, for instance. She’d always thought he seemed like he would be good at taking it in the can. She could even see a macho dude like Bruce Willis having an itch for some man-on-man action every once in a while. But Ty Rusk? It had never even crossed her mind. It wasn’t that he was so butch or anything, it was just that he seemed so, well, normal. Unlike a lot of celebrities, he didn’t come across as having anything to hide.
“Oh, but he does,” she said, laughing happily at her good luck. Christ, he’d called Reid Truman “lover man.” Devin shuddered. Reid wasn’t bad looking, at least for an older guy. But him and Ty together? She didn’t even want to picture it. What could Ty possibly see in him?
Maybe he pays him, she thought suddenly. That would make sense. Not that Ty could possibly need the money. She’d just read that he was one of the highest-paid young stars out there. Still, maybe he got off on having someone pay to sleep with him. She’d heard weirder stories. Or, more likely, his pay wasn’t in the form of cash but in bigger, more important, roles. Money, she knew, was the least of the currencies available to people with power.
Not that it really mattered. Whether he was gay or just some producer’s sex toy for hire, it would be news. And someone would pay for it. That was the kicker to the whole story. She hadn’t gone out to the house Truman was renting to see whom he was shacking up with. She’d gone out there to see if she could maybe talk her way into a job. Her plan had been to show up dressed as one of Jack’s maids, then charm her way in. The odds of it working had been remote, but how many chances would she ever have to get close to a Hollywood player? It was an opportunity she hadn’t been able to pass up. The blond wig and overdone makeup had been last-minute additions, props to help her get into her role as a cleaning woman.
Her act had worked. She hadn’t gotten into Reid’s house, but she’d struck gold anyway. The question was what to do next. She had some priceless information, and someone would want it. But who? She knew the regular entertainment magazines wouldn’t touch a story like this. They’d have too much to lose if they were sued. She had to look lower, and that meant the supermarket tabloids. They didn’t care if a story was true or not. If it was, they came out winners. If it wasn’t, the worst that could happen was that a star took them to court. Even then, it was the star who came out looking like the bad guy. No matter how innocent a person was, denying a story created an assumption of guilt.
She went downstairs to the kitchen, where her mother was standing in clouds of steam, cooking a batch of her pasta sauce.
“Taste this,” Mrs. Lowens said to her daughter as she held out a wooden spoon brimming with marinara.
“No, thanks,” replied Devin, looking past her mother to the stack of newspapers and magazines that sat on the dining room table, waiting to be thrown out with the next day’s trash. She rifled through the stack, grabbing the occasional paper, and then retreated from the kitchen even as her mother asked for her opinion on what vegetable to have with dinner.
Back in her room she looked at the various magazines she’d snatched from the table. The Enquirer. The Star. The Informer. They all looked the same, with outrageous headlines crowning the most unflattering photos of the stars whose lives they purported to reveal. There was Sarah Jessica Parker, baggy-eyed and haggard, alongside a banner proclaiming ANOREXIC SEX AND THE CITY STAR’S HUBBY SAYS “YOU’RE TOO SKINNY TO MAKE LOVE TO.” Conversely, Liz Taylor graced the cover of a different rag, her bloated face plastered in clownlike makeup as the headline disclosed LIZZY IN A TIZZY AFTER DRUNKEN PLASTIC SURGEON TURNS HER INTO MONSTER.
But by far her favorite had to belong to the Weekly World News’s Bat Boy. BAT BOY REVEALED TO BE SON OF JFK! exclaimed the cover, which sported an ingeniously engineered photograph in which a pointy-eared Bat Boy was shown cradled in the arms of a smiling papa Kennedy. As if the photo weren’t sufficient proof, an additional tagline added DNA TAKEN FROM JFK JR.’S CORPSE PROVES THEY’RE BROTHERS! OVERJOYED CAROLINE SAYS, “I HAVE A FAMILY AGAIN.”
She flipped through each magazine. Every one of them contained stories about celebrities, but mostly they were about who’d had breast enlargements, who had an eating disorder, and who had checked in or out of rehab. Probably any one of them would be interested in a story about Ty Rusk being queer, but she wanted to maximize her payout. What she needed was someone who could take her information and really do something with it.
She opened the last of the magazines. Like the others, the Weekly Insider boasted of inside scoops and celebrity dish: JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMME AND OLSEN TWINS IN X-RATED LOVE TRIANGLE, proclaimed their lead article. She was about to toss it into the reject pile when she turned the page and saw a column called “Hollywood Hush-Hush.” The name intrigued her, as did the subtitle: OUR OWN C.J. RAYMACHER REVEALS THE DEEPEST, DARKEST SECRETS OF TINSELTOWN.
A small picture of C.J. Raymacher was placed next to his column. He was cute, Devin thought. She’d always pictured the writers of tabloid newspapers to be old men with bad weaves and nothing better to do than make up stories about Pamela Anderson’s tits. But Raymacher wasn’t old. He was probably thirty, she though, with short blond hair and a sly smile, as if he knew all kinds of things that he would gladly share, if you would only ask.
She read his column. A lot of it was a rehash of the same stuff she’d seen in the other papers. But some of it was new, and very interesting.
“What director of Titanic proportions was seen dining out with his latest leading lady while the star of his last picture (and current wife) thought he was in the editing room?” she read. “And which recent Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress apparently has more than a passing fancy for her golden boy, telling her now ex-fiancé, ‘I don’t need you in bed. I have him’?”
Oh, please, Devin thought. Still, it was funny. And there was something about C.J. Raymacher that she liked. He was sarcastic, and clearly didn’t care if he made enemies of the stars he wrote about. He was, she thought, the sort of person who could help her get what she wanted.
She turned to the front of the paper. There she found the address and phone number for the magazine’s headquarters in Los Angeles. Without hesitating, she picked up the phone and dialed.
“Insider,” said a voice on the other end.
“C.J. Raymacher, please,” said Devin in her crispest, most authoritative voice.
“One moment,” the receptionist told her before filling her ear with a tinny Musak version of the Carpenters’ “Rainy Days and Mondays.”
Mercifully, the song lasted through only half of the chorus before the line was picked up again. “C.J. Raymacher.”
“Hi,” said Devin. “I have a story for you.” She figured the best approach was to just jump in. Hopefully, Raymacher would be intrigued enough to ask her to continue.
“If it’s about a certain soap opera star who doesn’t want anyone to know his wife is also his cousin, you’re too late,” responded the columnist. “And please don’t tell me you have news about Michael Jackson trying to clone Bubbles, Charlie Sheen setting up a crystal meth lab in his on-set trailer, or Angelina Jolie turning a plaster cast of Billy Bob’s wanker into a Christmas tree topper.”
“Better,” said Devin.
“I’m listening,” Raymacher said. “You have thirty seconds. Then I’m going to lunch.”
“What if I told you that one of the hottest stars around right now is in the closet?” Devin teased.
“I’m hanging up,” answered Raymacher, sounding irritated.
“What if I told you it was Ty Rusk?” Devin blurted out, momentarily losing her cool as she feared Raymacher would make good on his promise.
“Who is this?” Raymacher asked after hesitating a moment.
I’ve got him, thought Devin, grinning to herself. “Let’s just say I’m someone who knows things she shouldn’t,” she said.
“And what makes you think Rusk is gay?” Raymacher continued.
“I happen to know where he and his boyfriend are staying right now,” replied Devin vaguely. She didn’t want to give Raymacher too much information, or he wouldn’t need her.
“This boyfriend,” Raymacher said. “It wouldn’t be a big-shot Hollywood producer, would it?”
Devin’s heart sank. Did Raymacher already know about Ty and Reid Truman? Was he just trying to figure out how much she knew about it? She wasn’t sure how to answer him.
“Maybe,” she said finally. “I’m not exactly sure who he is. But I saw them kissing.” She threw in the little lie to keep Raymacher hooked, suspecting that if she didn’t give him more than she really had he would just brush her off.
“Pictures?”
“Excuse me?” said Devin.
“Pictures,” repeated Raymacher. “Do you have pictures?”
“No,” admitted Devin.
“Look,” Raymacher told her, “I get calls from people like you all the time. I don’t know who you are or what you might or might not really know, but I can’t do anything with this. Thanks anyway.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” said Devin quickly. “I said I didn’t have any photos, not that I couldn’t get any.”
Raymacher sighed. “Don’t fuck with me,” he said. “Do you know how big Ty Rusk is right now? Do you know how many calls I get every day from people who claim to have something on him? Just this morning some girl called saying she was pregnant with his baby. Last week his high school algebra teacher called saying he had proof that Rusk cheated on his SATs. Everybody thinks they have a story. And you know what, so far every single one of them has turned out to be total bullshit. So stop wasting my time.”
“Reid Truman,” said Devin.
“What?” asked Raymacher.
“You asked me who Rusk’s boyfriend was,” said Devin. “It’s Reid Truman.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know who he was?” Raymacher said warily.
“Well, I do,” Devin retorted. “I’m not stupid. I know when to keep an ace up my sleeve.”
“Well, you played it at the right time,” said Raymacher, sounding impressed. “I’d written you off as just another crazy trying to get some attention.”
“I’m not crazy,” Devin assured him. “And I know it’s Reid Truman.”
“That makes things a little more interesting,” Raymacher said, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. “That I can maybe do something with. But I still need more proof.”
“I can get it,” said Devin confidently. “It will take a little time, but I can do it.”
“Who are you again?” Raymacher asked her.
“Just a girl who doesn’t want to be stuck in a small town for the rest of her life,” Devin replied. “I don’t care if Ty Rusk fucks sheep, but I know a good story when I see one.”
“And just what do you want to get out of this?” continued Raymacher.
“What can you offer?” Devin asked him.
“Five hundred bucks a photo,” replied Raymacher. “A thousand if you can get them nude.”
Devin laughed. “The Enquirer offered twenty-five hundred each,” she said, bluffing.
“All right,” said Raymacher, clearly annoyed at being outbid. “Three thousand a photo if they’re good ones.”
“I want more,” Devin said.
“That’s as high as I go,” Raymacher answered.
“Not money,” said Devin. “I’ll get you photos and I’ll get you a story. But I want something from you.”
“And that would be?” asked Raymacher.
“Introductions,” she said. “I told you, I don’t plan on being a small-town girl the rest of my life. I want out of here. So if I give you the story of the year, I want you to help me get a job out there. TV. Movies. PR. I don’t care what it is. I just want in.”
To her surprise, Raymacher laughed. “You’re a regular little Eve Harrington,” he said when he was done. “Sadly, you remind me a lot of myself a few years back. Tell you what, you get me a story and photos that prove Ty Rusk and Reid Truman are an item and I’ll introduce you to whoever you want.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” Devin asked him.
“How do I know I can trust you?” shot back Raymacher. “I can’t,” he continued, answering his own question. “And you don’t know that you can trust me. But if either of us is going to get what we want, we’re both going to have to take that chance.”
Devin thought for a moment. He was right. Besides, what else was she going to do with the information? She supposed she could try to blackmail Ty and Reid, but that seemed too dangerous. If she got caught, she would be in a lot of trouble. This way she was just providing information. What Raymacher did with it was his business.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
“Good,” said Raymacher. “When do you think you can have something to me?”
“It’s going to take a while,” Devin told him. “If I’m going to get anything really good, I have to get closer to them.”
“And you think you can do that?” asked Raymacher.
“No problem,” Devin assured him.
“Call me when you have something concrete,” said Raymacher.
“You’ll be hearing from me,” Devin told him, and hung up.
She picked up the copy of the Weekly Insider and looked at C.J. Raymacher’s photo. “I think you and I are going to be very good friends,” she said. “And I think this is going to be a great summer.”