Beebo walked toward her, her mission making her impossibly sure of herself. The two women eyed each other as Beebo approached down an aisle of staring men, like an infernal bridegroom passing through an honor guard of devils. Luckily, neither Beebo nor Venus were people to collapse in the face of public shock.
Silence fell, except from Leo, who said clearly, “I’ll tell you just once, Beebo. Leave. You’re fired, and I never want to see you again.” He spoke softly but in the hushed garden his voice carried to the audience of Hollywood topnotchers.
“Fired? I never worked for you, Leo,” Beebo said.
“Venus, tell her to go,” Leo ordered his wife.
But Venus, watching Beebo, loved her enough to feel instinctively that Beebo would not come to humiliate her in public without a drastic reason. With her characteristic public calm, so different from the histrionics she indulged in private, she walked boldly to Beebo and said, “All right, what is it?”
Beebo hadn’t even time to take a breath before she heard Leo say, “By God, you get that kid out of here or I will.”
Venus ignored him, walking toward the house with Beebo coming close in her wake. But this was once that Leo would not let himself be flouted in front of his friends. He had to bring Venus to heel as a matter of pride, and not only because he considered her action self-destructive. It seemed as if Venus were making a donkey of him before God and the world as payment for the years of tolerance and love and patience he had spent on her. It was too much for him. He caught up with her, spun her around, and brushed Beebo aside.
“Tell her to get out of our lives, or I’ll take her apart,” he said. He so rarely threatened Venus that he scared her. But Beebo faced him. “Leo, why in hell do you think I’m here? I came—”
He didn’t let her finish. “You cocky little bitch, you want it all, don’t you? Even her ruination! After all I told you.”
“Let me explain!” Beebo said, alarmed now like Venus. But Leo reached out with icy rage and slapped her face. A red storm swirled up suddenly in Beebo, and she lit into him so hard that for several amazed seconds, he let himself be punched. But when he got his bearings he was after her with all the tornado fury of a cuckolded husband. Every man who had ever shared a bed with Venus Bogardus got a souvenir sock that night—and every girl. Only it was Beebo who took the blows.
She fought well enough, but Leo came on with a wild single-minded lust for vengeance that had her back in the grass before long, heaving for breath, cut and bruised. She would never surrender, and Leo, possessed by years of bitter grievances and pent-up vengeance, was in no mood to be merciful.
Beebo, sinking beneath his punishment, became aware at last that the blows had ceased. She heard Leo give a cry and opened her eyes to see Venus, shoe in hand, glaring at him. She turned to Beebo and her face softened. “Can you get up?” she asked. “I’ll take you home.”
Leo put a hand to the back of his head where the sharp heel had cut his scalp. He brought his fingers away, wet and red, and turned to look at his wife. But Venus, taking advantage of his brief confusion, had pulled Beebo to her feet and rushed her through the house toward the car.
The crowd surging after them deterred Leo’s chase just enough to prevent him from catching them as they drove away. An uneasy silence settled on the party as the silver coupé sped off. Nobody knew what to say to Leo. But he left almost at once, making brusque apologies to his host.
“Well,” said the smug voice of a Hollywood observer, who wrote for one of the trades, “I guess it’s true, after all. I wasn’t going to print it.”
“Print what? What?” the crowd chorused eagerly.
“The tip I got from New York last week.”
“I got it, too,” a woman reporter piped up. “I thought it was sour grapes, but I have my people checking it.”
The guests began to rumble for enlightenment, but the first gossipist said, “Read it in the morning paper, friends.” And he left with several other members of the movie press, all chattering as they walked down the drive.
Beebo slumped in the front seat, her head against the window, mute with pain for several moments.
“We’ll take you home and clean up those cuts, darling,” Venus said, wincing at the sight of them when she stopped for a light.
Beebo shook her head. “Dr. Pitman has Toby at the hospital,” she said. “That’s what I came about.”
“What?” Venus was so shaken she almost lost control of the car. Beebo had to grab the wheel from her. “It’s okay, honey, he’s going to be all right,” she said quickly. “He had a seizure, that’s all.”
“God, I knew it was something awful the minute I saw your face,” Venus cried as the car moved erratically down the street. “And that sonofabitch husband of mine had to pound you to pieces—”
“Don’t blame Leo,” Beebo said, her voice soft and drained. “I don’t. It wasn’t me he was hitting so much as all the people who came before me.”
Venus was crying and Beebo tried to make her stop the car. “Toby’s had dozens of seizures in his life, but they didn’t put him in the hospital. What aren’t you telling me?” Venus said.
“He fell,” Beebo said. “We were walking in the garden after the show. He had a seizure and fell, and his head struck a rock. He has a cut on the forehead, but—”
“Oh, dear God!” Venus gasped, and Beebo said, “Stop the car. Damn it, Venus!”
“But we have to get to the hospital—”
“In one piece,” Beebo said. “I’ll
