Mason will not be taking any more calls,” and nods toward her client to begin.
“I was doing a picture at Fox, a spy thriller kind of thing, and it was the scene after the cocktail party where they throw a bomb through the embassy window.… And I was dancing with Sean — what a love! — who plays my husband, the ambassador who gets killed.… We were rehearsing for the camera, dancing in front of the most beautiful marble fireplace, when I’m supposed to hear gunfire in the distance and break out of his arms — well, I took one step and suddenly my ankle went out and Sean tried to catch me but I fell right on top of my leg, all twisted. The floor was hard as blazes. What kind of floor was that, Maureen?”
“Teak.”
“Right onto the teakwood floor.”
“And you went to see Dr. Eberhardt?”
“They packed my leg in ice and put me in a limo and Maureen and I took off down Pico at about a hundred miles an hour, right, sweetie?”
“I felt sick at my stomach the whole time,” Maureen says in a soft, sweet voice. “For you. Because you were in such pain.”
“Thank you, darling.” Jayne squeezes her hand.
“Were you already Dr. Eberhardt’s patient?” I ask.
“That’s where fate steps in. Actually I’d never met Dr. Eberhardt. They wanted to send me to Cedars but I insisted on going all the way to Santa Monica to see Dr. Dana, a dear, dear old friend I’ve known for years. My driver was calling ahead on the car phone when they told him Dr. Dana had recently retired to Maui and this young Dr. Eberhardt from Boston was taking his place. By that time we were halfway there and I was in such agony and so mad at Dr. Dana for leaving me that I couldn’t think about anything else.”
“How was Dr. Eberhardt’s examination?” Galloway wants to know. “Would you say it was thorough and professional?”
“As a medical man, he’s absolutely wonderful. Very smart. Very well educated. And charming. He was moving my hip around and it hurt like hell and I said, ‘I’m really a big chicken, I can’t take pain,’ and Dr. Eberhardt said, ‘Don’t kid me. I saw you kick that gunslinger in the balls!’ Well, he made me laugh and I knew I was under his spell.”
“What was the diagnosis?”
“Troco-something bursitis of the hip. And I tore some cartilage in my knee.”
“What was the treatment?”
She turns to Maureen. “You were in the room. What did he say?”
“Rest, ice, and physical therapy.”
I wait a moment. There is silence except for the faint whining of the tape recorder.
“No pills?”
“What?”
“Dr. Eberhardt did not prescribe any pills for your bursitis of the hip at that time?”
Jayne Mason gives up her ownership of the room to sit on the edge of the coffee table and bend toward me until her face is about ten inches from mine. She smells of citrus and vanilla.
“I’ll be very honest with you,” she says. “He would not have given me those pills if I didn’t ask for them.”
“You asked for the pills?”
“Yes.” Her skin, even up close, is flawless. The aquamarine eyes are rimmed with green and unnaturally shining with large black pupils. “He gave me the pills because I told him I had to go back to work that afternoon.” She is speaking slowly and deliberately. She wants me to buy this — her bare-faced, up-close, not-ashamed-of- anything honesty.
“You mean so you could work on the movie, even though you were injured?”
“I’ve had a lot of problems in the last three years, Ana,” speaking intimately now as if we did in fact meet in that fancy restaurant up on Beverly Glen, two rich ladies sharing lunch while baby octopuses commit suicide off our plates. “I’ve been through two agents, I’m being sued by a so-called producer — I can’t tell you how difficult it’s been. I owe a lump-sum payment on a third mortgage to the bank—”
“Jay, let’s stay on track,” Stockman warns.
“This
She frowns, thinking about the crappy picture, pouring Evian water while everybody waits.
“So I made a deal with Dr. Eberhardt. If he would just give me the pills so I could finish work, I would do ice packs, physical therapy, whatever he wanted.”
“Did he agree?”
“It was supposed to be for one time. But I was weak and he played into my weakness.”
“How?”
“If I had a headache, he’d prescribe pills. Then I’d get a reaction and he’d give me something else, until I became a dependent wreck. He never said, Jayne, be a big girl and go cold turkey. He was the doctor, I put myself in his hands. Finally I got into the Dilaudid and it became a chemical addiction beyond my control. The bottom line is I needed Dr. Eberhardt and his pills to get through the day.”
“Did you sleep with Dr. Eberhardt, Ms. Mason?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did he ever send you roses?”
“I sent
“You must understand this man has destroyed her career,” Stockman intones. “Who will hire a known drug addict to make a movie? All this negative publicity has made her uninsurable and without insurance she cannot be employed to act. She has no source of income, and due to some unbelievably incompetent money management, Jayne Mason is in a serious financial crisis.”
Stockman fixes those knowing eyes on me — wolf eyes, when you look carefully, with that same predatory calm.
“But she has decided not to be a victim anymore. As a woman, you understand what courage that takes.”
Considering what I’m going through with Duane Carter, it hits home. “I’ve fought my battles.”
“We all have.”
Gee, I kind of like the feeling of the men in the room being excluded for once.
“Ana, I know you are going to make a difference — not only to Jayne, but to other women who don’t have the resources to stand up to exploitation.”
Stockman is as skilled a performer as her client, and I’m ashamed to say I fall for it. The flattery — of me, of each other — is finally as dizzying as the narcotic perfume of yellow roses and in an anodyne haze I promise to do my best.
As Galloway escorts everyone out, I compliment Miss Mason on her peach chiffon dress.
“Don’t you love it? It’s by Luc de France, my personal designer.”
“I’ve heard of him.” I smile at Maureen, who is still holding Mason’s hand like a child. There is nothing in her look to acknowledge the joke. But then, there is precious little there at all.
• • •
Two days later the Boston field office comes through with the gold. As a result of their deep background check they located a former patient, Claudia Van Hoven, who claims Dr. Eberhardt got her addicted to prescription drugs, exactly like Jayne Mason.
I am perched at an angle on Donnato’s desk so I don’t have to look at the picture of him and his wife.
“You know how long it takes to get approval for travel — but Galloway told me to get on a plane for Boston
