The Lioness(12)

CHAPTER FIVE


    Reggie Stout





“Sometimes a marriage lasts a lifetime. Sometimes it lasts five years. What is that great Oscar Wilde quote? ‘The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.’ I know that right now Marilyn is in a very vulnerable place,” said Reggie Stout, the star’s publicist.

—Movie Star Confidential, February 1961



Reggie Stout was on the ground, Carmen Tedesco to his right and the actress’s husband, Felix, to his left. Carmen was just staring, her chin in the dry dirt, but Felix was whimpering, those haunted hazel eyes of his lost, at least for the moment, to his tears. It sounded to Reggie as if Felix was hyperventilating. He’d heard other young men make exactly that sort of noise on Okinawa in the spring of 1945, usually in the dark and always after a counterattack. When a new attack loomed, regardless of who was going to start it, the soldiers always were deathly quiet. (That was the adverb one sergeant used because he was superstitious and thought saying the word out loud would add an extra layer of protection.) When a soldier cried softly the way Felix was right now, it meant that he was wounded and, more likely than not, going to live. In Reggie’s experience, the dying in the jungle mostly were silent.

Reggie wasn’t sure where Peter Merrick was, but he hadn’t heard any more shots—other, of course, than the final one that had taken off the head of that lovely grandfather Juma, who was Charlie Patton’s right-hand man—and the men who’d appeared out of nowhere like lions didn’t seem to bother to kill people with a whole lot of stealth. No garroting or knives here; they were quite comfortable with the blast of a gun. He thought their accents very likely were Russian, but he wasn’t positive.

He knew that he wasn’t supposed to look back over his shoulder, but he allowed himself one furtive glance at the fellow who had ordered them to lie down where they were: it was one of the youngest of their attackers who was behind them. The kid was holding what Patton had told Reggie a couple of days ago was a Mannlicher, a pretty ancient rifle, and a name that the hunter pronounced in such a fashion that Reggie had thought it sounded more like a Bavarian dessert than a weapon: munn-leesher. Patton had one in his arsenal, and it was back on their first day in the Serengeti that he had given Reggie a tour of the guns because he had overheard his guests talking and realized that although this was a Hollywood crowd, one of the group was a veteran who had been involved in (the guide’s words) “a real melee.” Reggie himself would never have used that expression to describe Okinawa. Patton had brought the guns with him even though this was a photo safari and there were two armed rangers with them, because Katie’s agent, Peter Merrick, was staying an extra week and going hunting with Patton after the other Americans had returned to California. It was, Reggie thought, an armory that was as ridiculous as it was impressive. The man kept the guns lined up in a rack in the back of one of the lorries, each weapon a spire in a wrought-iron fence, their muzzles—some with sights—the decorative finials.

Reggie wondered whether the men who had descended upon their camp had discovered that truck yet. For all he knew, they had already commandeered the weapons, and the Mannlicher in the kid’s hands was Patton’s. But if they hadn’t found the hunter’s arsenal? Reggie pondered whether he himself might be able to sneak to the lorry and, if he succeeded, grab one of the guns and some ammunition.



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    .?.?.

A safari. He’d been flattered that Katie had invited him, but also surprised. It was one thing to speak at her wedding and raise his glass in one of the very first toasts at the reception; it was another to be asked to be among the seven people whom she and her husband were bringing to Africa. He was only ten years older than she was, but sometimes he felt twice her age.

But, what the hell, when would he have another chance to see Africa? Why not tag along? He had offered to pay his share, but Katie Barstow had said no. Absolutely not. He was her guest.

Katie was among the few clients whom Reggie Stout managed directly these days, but his firm also represented Carmen Tedesco, who was here too. Carmen was Katie’s age, but her star was nowhere near as high in the sky as Katie’s and never would be. But that didn’t matter to Reggie: he was still keeping a fatherly eye on her as well as on Katie here in the Serengeti. On the flights to Africa, he had probably spoken to Carmen more than he had in the four years she’d been a client of his firm.

Now Muema—the second guide—and a ranger with a gun were taking them on a nature hike along the perimeter of their first camp. Only Carmen and her husband, Felix, and he had gone on the stroll, the rest of the group choosing to bathe and drink before dinner. The guide was standing before a whistling thorn acacia that stood eight feet tall and explaining how the tree was spectacularly adept at protecting itself from being eaten by impalas and giraffes. It had barbed wire–like thorns scattered among the leaves, but it also had small black globes that were home to cocktail ants and gave the plant its name: the wind whistled as it breezed through the insect holes in those globes. Felix took a picture of it with one of those new Kodak Instamatics that used a cartridge with the film neatly tucked inside it. The camera was the shape of a cigarette box, and not that much bigger.

“Katie should plant some of those at the ranch she’s bought in Santa Clarita,” Carmen said to him.