The Millionaires' Death Club Page 6

  Slouched over a table, with bottles of Belgian beer clutched in their hands, were two guys wearing dark trenchcoats and identical black baseball caps. Metallic-red shades lay in front of them. For a second, I thought I’d walked onto the set of The Matrix. I had to hold the table to steady myself.

  Them – the highest paid actors in the world, stars of a dozen mega-blockbusters between them. They always topped the polls as the men most women wanted to sleep with.

  You could smell the money, the success, the attitude. There, on the right, was Hollywood’s top black actor Jez Easton. Beside him…

  Not only had my jaw gone slack, my whole body was sagging. Just feet away from me was the brightest star of them all, my very own Jay Gatsby.

  A friend once told me that whenever she wanted to stretch out a beautiful moment, she popped an LSD pill because it slowed down time perception. I wanted to grab how I felt right now and make it last forever. This was a magic bus moment, when the driver arrived right on time and took me to exactly the right destination.

  The latest gossip on the girlfriend-ometer was that Sam Lincoln was currently single. Not even a sniff of a vaguely serious belle. Therefore, opportunity beckoned for sweet Sophie. But Jez Easton too? That made no sense. Jez had spectacularly fallen out with Sam at an MTV awards ceremony eighteen months ago. Most people thought it was hilarious when, instead of jointly presenting an award to a hip-hop star, they began throwing punches at each other because, so Jez claimed later, Sam made some under-the-breath insult that wasn’t picked up by the microphones and had never been revealed to this day. Now it was hard to find a magazine where the two men weren’t goading each other. I’ll piss on his grave, Jez infamously declared. I’ll ram sticks of dynamite up his ass, Sam had retaliated.

  If Mencken had talked them into putting their differences aside, he was a genius. Movie fans everywhere would queue for months to see Sam and Jez in a film together.

  ‘Here she is, guys,’ Mencken said. ‘Our very own English princess.’

  Oh God, Sam Lincoln is looking at me.

  ‘Hi guys, I’m Sophie.’ I gave them my most endearing smile and held out my hand expectantly. Would Sam kiss it? It dangled there for a few seconds, unwanted. There was complete silence.

  ‘The guys don’t shake,’ Mencken said.

  Sam scribbled something on a yellow Post-It note, tore it off the pad and passed it to me. It was surreal to be receiving a piece of paper from someone so famous. In a childish scrawl, it said, ‘You’re fired.’

  The words started to swim in front of my eyes, twisting themselves into sharp, taunting little shapes. Mechanically, I began walking away. My head was all over the place.

  Mencken came after me and stopped me. ‘Come back, Sophie.’

  Numb, I allowed him to lead me back. Sam was showing Jez his note and they both laughed, their bodies crumpling and contorting, but neither let a sound escape. They gave each other a high five, doing a decent impression of being best buddies.

  Now it was Jez’s turn to write something on a Post-It and parade it in front of me. When I tried to take it, he jerked his arm back. Again, he and Sam dissolved in silent laughter. This time a low five was exchanged under the table.

  I grabbed the Post-It. ‘You’re still fired!’ it said.

  ‘Fuck you!’ I tottered away on my high heels. I’d blown it so much that I felt like El Ninõ, and I wasn’t even sure what that was.

  An arm reached out and restrained me.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Mencken said. ‘They loved you.’

  What?

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about all that weird stuff. They’re always messing around.’ He explained that the actors were having a ten-thousand-dollar bet about who could keep quiet the longest, hence the Post-Its. ‘My limo’s waiting outside.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s time for your final test.’

  *****

  How ever rich they are, no matter what job they do or where they come from, men always end up in a sleaze-joint leching after young female flesh. It’s the No.1 law of nature, isn’t it? That’s why Mencken had brought us to Sin 6, a new lap-dancing club off Piccadilly Circus. It was gloriously kitsch, designed to look like an idyllic scene from the Garden of Eden.

  We were in the best seats directly in front of the stage and must have looked peculiar with Sam and Jez still in their Matrix gear on such a humid night.

  When a waitress brought the champagne we’d ordered, Sam brandished a Post-It saying, ‘BOTTOMS UP.’

  I wanted to smile but my facial muscles seemed to have locked in the misery position. I’d spent most of my life dreaming of a situation like this but now that it was actually here, I couldn’t handle it. We clinked glasses and I took a long sip of Krug. Thank God for champagne because it’s the ideal drink for absurd occasions. Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, triumphs, disasters – I’ve drunk champagne at all of them. You’d think there would be different drinks for highs and lows, but champagne always fits the bill.

  Maybe something else was stopping me from smiling. This silence thing was appalling. I couldn’t impress Sam with my personality, such as it is, and right now it was performing the amazing shrinking routine.

  When I first went to Roedean and met all of these incredibly bright and confident girls, I didn’t think anyone would ever become friends with me. I wasn’t sporty, academic or good at anything in particular. I was gauche and had a reputation for being a bit of a clown. At first the other girls sniggered at me, but as I became prettier and started wearing more stylish gear, everything changed. Before long, I was one of the most popular girls in my year. Somehow, I’d made it to coolness. But I didn’t feel cool. I’d accidentally got a few things right, that’s all. I was a fake then and I still was. So, I’ve played that game of faking it ever since, and mostly it works. The question was whether I could be a good enough faker to get Mr Sam Lincoln to warm to me.

  As we watched a succession of gorgeous dancers performing their routines, Sam tapped me on the arm and passed me another note. ‘What are my two most famous catch-phrases, Brit babe?’ it asked.

  For an instant, I didn’t care about anything other than being called a babe by Sam. Luckily, his question was easy, the same one Mencken had asked. Did they use it as some sort of test?

  ‘All the way,’ I said, giving the more famous of the two. As for the second, it came from one of my all-time favourite movies. In The Out Crowd, Sam played a young snob from Harvard Law School who was obsessed with being in the loop, until he fell in love with a young woman who definitely wasn’t. The story of an arrogant jerk being brought to heel by Sally, an ordinary Wal-Mart shop worker, was, oddly enough, the one that made Sam a superstar. I snapped my fingers, trying to impersonate Sam’s famous gesture from the movie. ‘If you’re not in, you’re out,’ I said.

  Sam smiled half-heartedly, but I wasn’t getting a friendly vibe from him. He and Jez were sinister sitting there in their trenchcoats, hats and shades. People were staring at them and whispering.

  I glanced away then noticed a young guy in white trousers and a white linen shirt heading straight for us. I’d clocked him earlier because he resembled a blond-haired Elvis Presley. He swayed drunkenly, stumbled, then pitched forward into Sam. From his seat, Sam pushed him back and he went reeling into Jez, knocking over a half-full champagne glass.

  ‘You think these girls are sexy?’ the drunk slurred, waving towards the stage. ‘I could tell you about a goddess. I swear to you, if you ever met her…’ He swayed back and forth. ‘Look on her works, ye mighty, and despair…’

  I was startled to hear a drunk in a strip club quoting from my favourite poem. We were told at school that Shelley’s Ozymandias was all about how short-lived earthly glory was. For me, I thought that having poems written about you thousands of years after you died was about as glorious as it got.

  Jez obviously didn’t appreciate poetry. He got to his feet and shoved the man away. ‘Prick,’ he barked as the drunk staggered in the direct
ion of the toilets. Instantly, an accusing finger stabbed out from Sam, directed straight at Jez’s mouth. Even Mencken turned round.

  ‘That’s a ten grand noise you’ve just made, loser-man.’ Sam jumped out of his seat, grabbed Jez and thumped him on the back, but his triumphant smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived. He sat down again and glared at the blonde dancing on stage. ‘Hey, fatso, have you never heard of Atkins?’

  The manager appeared from nowhere. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

  ‘We didn’t pay good money to watch fucking Weight Watchers work out,’ Jez said.

  ‘Where’s the talent in this crummy joint?’ Sam swept his hand dismissively towards the regulars. ‘And stop the Eyes staring at me. It’s pissing me off.’

  Mencken led the manager away a few steps and whispered something. The manager’s eyes lit up and I thought he was about to kneel and kiss Mencken’s feet. They spoke briefly then Mencken came back, grinning.

  ‘They want to show us their “special” service.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ Sam grunted.

  Mencken whispered to Sam and Jez, and their faces beamed.

  ‘Sweet.’ Jez laughed in a deeply unpleasant way. ‘Princess Diana,’ he cackled. ‘That’s real sick, but I guess it’s true.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Mencken. He seemed to be struggling not to laugh.

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t know about this place. Your clients would love it here.’

  ‘It only opened a month ago. I haven’t had a chance to check it out.’

  ‘That’s not good enough.’

  I nodded glumly.

  ‘At least you took it on the chin. It’s how we react to our mistakes that makes us winners or losers.’

  ‘Please, I’ll do whatever it takes.’

  ‘Don’t get so worried,’ Mencken said, ‘I doubt I’d get too many soap bars out of you.’ He pointed towards a staircase. ‘This club has an upstairs area for high rollers. The strippers up there are all look-alikes of famous beauties.’ He handed me a list the manager had given him featuring names such as Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Jennifer Connolly, Keira Knightley, Beyonce, Halle Berry, Cindy Crawford, Grace Kelly, Angelina Jolie, Aishwarya Rai, Louise Brooks, Isabelle Adjani, Paris Hilton.

  ‘Lap-dancing is five times more expensive with these girls, but apparently they’re worth every penny.’

  ‘I heard Jez say something about Princess Diana. Surely there isn’t…’

  ‘There is! They haven’t put her name on the list because it would be tasteless, but the manager tells me American clients always ask for her. She’s so popular that the club has supplied five Diana look-alikes.’

  I felt as queasy as I did the night I watched David Cronenberg’s movie about people getting orgasmically turned on by car crashes.

  ‘Sam and Jez have asked for all of the Diana look-alikes,’ Mencken said.

  Gross. I tramped upstairs behind the others, wondering why I was hanging around with these perverts.

  We were shown to a private suite where another conference took place between the manager and Mencken.

  Mencken returned and announced that the Princess Dianas were otherwise engaged at a special function at the American Embassy. The only multiples available were Madonna and Paris Hilton, four of each.

  ‘OK,’ Sam said, ‘we’ll have all of them.’

  A minute later, we were gazing at a line of beautiful girls, the Madonnas in cowboy hats and chaps, the Paris Hiltons in sheer black stockings and suspenders.

  One of the Madonnas looked at me with a puzzled smile. ‘Who are they?’ she mouthed, making eyes at the disguised actors. I pretended not to understand.

  Sam nudged Jez and said, ‘Watch this. I picked it up from a movie about Vegas showgirls.’

  He walked along the line then made them all turn round and bend over for him. When they faced front again, he pushed one of the Paris Hiltons in the shoulder and said, ‘See ya,’ as nastily as he could.

  I’d never seen anything so rude, and I couldn’t work out why the girl had failed Sam’s test. Too skinny? Not blonde enough? Too few piercings?

  Sam tugged at the G-strings of the others and had a good look. One of the Madonnas now got the ‘see ya’ treatment.

  Weird.

  I once had a boyfriend who was obsessed with pubic hair. He was always going on about Hollywoods, Brazilians, Tiffany Boxes and so on. For Valentine’s Day, he wanted me to dye my pubic hair red and shave it in the shape of a love-heart. I guessed Sam had the same sort of fetish. Would I have passed his test? I was normally a Brazilian, since most men I knew preferred it, but I’d now decided to whip it all off and go full Hollywood in Sam’s honour. I hadn’t got round to getting a piercing in the action zone but that was on the cards too. I already had my tongue pierced because men swore it made blowjobs much better. One of these days, I was hoping to meet a pierced-tongue man to reciprocate the favour. Fat chance.

  ‘I’ve got rid of the dead wood,’ Sam announced to Jez. ‘They ought to be glad I didn’t ask them to bend over and spread their cheeks to show us what they’re really made of. That’s usually the best way to see who’s up for it and who isn’t.’ He gave a sleazy grin. ‘Well, you can finish up.’

  Jez now inspected the line and got rid of another Madonna before signalling to a waitress. ‘Cristal,’ he shouted. ‘Ten bottles.’ He started telling a story about doing lines of coke on a supermodel’s super-smooth, newly waxed pussy, after eating her edible, strawberry-flavoured knickers. Yukeo.

  I had to make a visit to the loo and was glad of a moment’s respite. After seeing Sam in action, I was rapidly reformulating my opinions. Forget hunky dreamboat god. A pig-ignorant sleaze-bag was more accurate, with Jez a short head behind.

  I locked the cubicle door and slumped onto the seat. When I’m running from hassle, I always end up in the loo. Is that all life is – a succession of bad toilet trips? As a kid, I liked building snowmen and watching them melt. I found it fascinating the way there was something and then nothing, just a puddle on the ground. I felt a bit like that now, watching my illusions about A-listers vanish.

  After, when I looked in the mirror, my face was blotchy and my mascara smudged. Not a sexy look. I wanted someone normal to hug me and tell me everything was going to be OK.

  When I returned to the suite, Sam and Jez had removed their coats, hats and shades. Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit was blaring out while naked Madonnas and Paris Hiltons did a cheerleader routine, with the actors freely pawing at them. Everyone knew that was totally against the rules. I guessed the girls weren’t objecting because, now that they could see who they were with, they were starstruck.

  Sam filled a glass of champagne to the brim and drank it in one. He gave me a wave. ‘See, English, I always get what I want. ALWAYS.’

  He was wrecked and obnoxious, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. Tanned, with his perfect white teeth and his neat blonde hair, he was fantastic eye candy. Those blue eyes of his were mesmerising. He was well and truly back to his ultra-smooth Jay Gatsby look. He got up from his seat, came over and stood beside me. I had to concentrate hard to avoid drooling.

  ‘No woman ever turns me down.’

  I didn’t doubt it.

  He grabbed my hand. ‘Am I a jerk?’ Just as quickly, he let go. ‘But you’d never tell me, would you? No one ever speaks to me. They see someone called Sam Lincoln, Hollywood Legend. The real me is right here but no one’s listening. No one ever tells me the truth.’

  Well, you just didn’t, did you? Not with A-listers.

  ‘You all fucking bore me.’ Raising his right hand, he formed his index finger and thumb into the shape of a gun then began silently shooting everyone, mumbling you’re dead, fucker each time. ‘Why can’t one of you do something interesting?’ He slumped into his seat. ‘Just once in your pathetic lives.’

  One of the Paris Hiltons climbed onto his lap and ground herself against him, pushing her breasts into his face.


  ‘You’re doing it all wrong.’ Taking a swig of champagne from the bottle, Sam pushed the girl to one side, struggled to his feet and made her sit down.

  ‘Man, have I got to teach you how to do it?’

  The girls giggled as Sam stripped off. Soon he was naked apart from tight white boxers. He began gyrating crazily, like a drunken rodeo rider, whooping and hollering. Jez stripped off too, as the girls clapped and cheered. Both men were super-fit, in perfect condition. I could see that the other girls were highly appreciative of the view they were getting. Who wouldn’t be?

  I lost track after a while. Too much champagne, I guess. Everything became blurred. I seem to remember that someone slapped my bare bum. It must have been Mencken. ‘Time for your test,’ that’s what he said, wasn’t it? I think he made me join in with the dancing. Did I take all my clothes off?

  A pilot once told me that in aviation circles there’s a term known as ‘time of useful consciousness.’ If I remember right, it’s the time the body can cope without oxygen, and it diminishes rapidly with altitude. Very high up, you only have seconds to save yourself before you become unconscious. With me, I think of it in terms of alcohol. I know that by the end of my eighth glass of Cristal there’s precious little consciousness left.

  What was certain was that I passed out. I know that because when I came to I heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner. The dimmer lights in the room had been turned up to maximum and the manager was talking to one of the cleaners over the noise of someone snoring. I looked down, and there, his head resting on my stomach, was Sam. What was he doing down there? What was I doing down here? Jez was just as bad, stretched out on one of the sofas.

  I was wearing only my knickers. Where was my dress? I pushed Sam’s head away, then got to my feet and searched for my stuff.

  Sam woke up and vomited. I winced, imagining if he’d done that seconds earlier.

  ‘What happened?’ he moaned.

  I found my dress lying on one of the seats, snatched it up and retreated to my usual refuge. I sat in the loo for five minutes, doing nothing but sobbing. The night of my life? Christ.