to the surface to be almost audible, the whisper of water inside a cave.
I miss my squad and I miss Donnato. Our innocent, comfortable flirtation is over and things with the other guys will never be the same. It all started when I went after that bank robber on my own and worsened when I went off on the Eberhardt case. Is this what I get for following my ambitions like some fool greyhound let loose on a track? While everyone else has left the park, I’m still tearing after a fake rabbit.
In no mood to go back to the office, I pick up my package and wander past the shops, taking in the bright afternoon air, wishing I could think of something else to buy that would make me feel better. All I can come up with is a fanny pack.
I figure they might have one at Bullock’s, so I push the glass doors open and plod across the cosmetics department, asphyxiating on that cloying powdery smell, disoriented by the play of glossy white and gold surfaces reflected in the mirrored posts. It’s a hell of a heart-stopper to run right into Jayne Mason.
Not the real Jayne Mason but a life-size cardboard cutout, the same one I had seen in the den in Malibu, where she was wearing an evening gown and holding a bouquet. That one must have been the mock-up, because now there is printing across the bouquet that reads Introducing Yellow Rose Cosmetics by Jayne Mason.
A girl with immaculate makeup wearing a white lab coat with a fresh yellow rose pinned over the breast sees me staring.
“We’re having a special on Jayne Mason’s new cosmetics. With every twenty-dollar purchase you get a tote bag.”
I am struck dumb. An entire counter is stacked with samples of lipsticks, mascara, eye pencils, powder, blush, nail polish. The bright silver and yellow packaging features Jayne Mason’s signature, the same careful round lettering she wrote on Barbara’s legal pad that day in the office. The amazing thing is this elaborate and sophisticated display seems to have sprung up out of nowhere. It wasn’t here when Jayne Mason made her sweep of the cosmetics department. I realize now she had been checking to see if the line was in the store, disappointed when it was not.
And all this didn’t just spring out of nowhere.
“Who makes the actual stuff?”
“It’s by Giselle.”
I see now we are at the Giselle counter and Yellow Rose is a subdivision. Their perennial product lines, Youth Bud and Moonglow — which even I used as a teenager — are displayed around the corner. So Jayne Mason has become a spokesperson for a major cosmetics company; a deal worth millions of dollars that had to have been in place long before she met Randall Eberhardt — an arrangement she and her manager would likely go to great lengths to protect.
“Would you like a makeover, compliments of Jayne Mason?” the girl asks sweetly.
She indicates a stool beside the smiling cutout of Jayne.
I emit a high-pitched giggle that seems to go on for a long time. The girl blinks and takes a step back.
“She’s already done me, thanks.”
• • •
Even at four p.m. the bar at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is crowded with an international mix of people bartering for goods and services, including a pair of young call girls doing business with some well-tailored Japanese. Somehow Jerry Connell and I recognize each other across the bazaar; I make him for the most nervous man in the room.
“I am not a happy camper,” he says as we shoulder our way through.
“Rocky flight from St. Louis?”
“Next time call before you call, okay? Say: Hi, this is Ana Grey from the FBI. I’m going to give you a cardiac arrest in about thirty seconds, just wanted you to know.”
He shakes his head and grins. Fair-haired with appealing blue eyes, he’s wearing one of those ultrafashionable suits that look retro and futuro at the same time — a subtle gray houndstooth with skinny lapels. I sneak a touch as I guide him to the last empty table: heavenly cashmere.
We both order Perrier. Connell is anxious and intense, talking compulsively.
“This is scary. Giselle is a tremendously important account. They’ve only been with our ad agency three years, and so far we’ve had just one slice of their business, but we’ve done well enough with the Moonglow line for them to take a flier on Yellow Rose.”
“Your agency came up with the idea to use Jayne Mason?”
“It was Magda Stockman’s idea. Have you met her?”
He squeezes the life out of the lemon wedge floating in his glass.
“I know Ms. Stockman.”
“She called out of nowhere, said she was Jayne Mason’s personal manager, were we interested in developing a line of cosmetics for Giselle using Jayne as a spokesperson. She flew out, made a very smart presentation, and the client bought it.”
“How was the deal structured?”
Jerry Connell can’t sit still. His knees are thumping up and down, fingers drumming the table. Now he’s fingering his string-bean leather tie.
“It’s a partnership arrangement between Jayne Mason and Giselle. They manufacture the cosmetics.”
“And Jayne—”
“She’s required to do some commercials, point-of-purchase displays, print ads, and one or two speaking engagements. It amounts to about a week of her time.”
“How much does she get paid?”
“I can’t tell you that …” He grinds at the lemon wedge with the ball end of a cocktail stick. “But it’s in the high seven figures.”
“For one week’s work.”
“We like to think of it as a lifetime’s worth of public recognition.”
“You’re in a pretty business,” I say.
“Almost as pretty as yours.”
He looks at me sideways. The agitation subsides. Jerry Connell is a polished, educated salesman with a lot at stake and now he is going to make his pitch:
“So you called, Special Agent Ana Grey, and I took the next flight out of St. Louis. In order to do that, I had to give up my haircut with Sal. Do you know how hard it is to get an appointment with that guy?”
“Your hair looks okay.”
“I have to protect my client. Tell me what’s going on. Do I have a major problem here?”
“I don’t know yet. When did Jayne Mason sign the contract with Giselle?”
“Two years ago. It takes time to gear these things up.”
“So the deal was in place when she went into the Betty Ford Center?”
“It was.”
Remembering Magda Stockman’s impassioned speech about how all the publicity around Jayne’s drug problem had irrevocably damaged her career, “Didn’t that worry you?”
“We were assured the thing was treatable and it would be handled with discretion.”
“But it wound up on the cover of
“Any time you go with a celebrity endorsement there’s a measure of risk. They’re unpredictable. They’re human.”
“But didn’t it bother your client that their spokesperson was a drug addict?”
“It wasn’t like she was mainlining heroin. This fancy doctor got her hooked. I think there was sympathy in the executive ranks.” He smiles engagingly. “Who hasn’t done a little Xanax to get through the day?”
I put my hands flat on the table and lock into his eyes.
“Did Magda Stockman make the statement to you that Jayne Mason’s addiction was the doctor’s fault?”
“Yes, and she said not to worry, he was being prosecuted for it.” Jerry Connell stares at me. “Isn’t he?”
“Not until we can find something to prosecute him for.”
He starts fiddling with the tie like it was a piccolo.
