Skin Tight

19

Dr. Rudy Graveline was a fellow who distrusted chance and prided himself on preparation, but he had not planned a love affair with a Hollywood star. Heather Chappell was a distraction-a fragrant, gorgeous, elusive, spoiled, sulky bitch of a distraction. He couldn’t get enough of her. Rudy had come to crave the tunnel of clear thinking that enveloped him while making love to Heather; it was like a sharp cool drug. She screwed him absolutely numb, left him aching and drained and utterly in focus with his predicament.

For a while he kept cooking up lame excuses for postponing Heather’s elaborate cosmetic surgery-knowing it would put her out of action for weeks. Sex with Heather had become a crucial component of Rudy Graveline’s daily regimen; like a longdistance runner, he had fallen into a physical rhythm that he could not afford to break. TV people were after him, his medical career was in jeopardy, a homicide rap was on the horizon-and salvation depended on a crooked halfwit politician and a one-armed, seven-foot hit man. Rudy needed to stay razor-sharp until the crisis was over, and Heather had become vital to his clarity.

He treated her like a queen and it seemed to work. Heather’s initial urgency to schedule the surgery had subsided during the day-long shopping sprees, the four-star meals, the midnight yacht cruises up and down the Intracoastal. In recent days, though, she again had begun to press Rudy not only about the date for the operations, but the cost. She was dropping broad hints to the effect that for all her bedroom labors she deserved a special discount, and Rudy found himself weakening on the subject. Finally, one night, she waited until he was inside her to bring up the money again, and Rudy breathlessly agreed to knock forty percent offthe usual fee. Afterwards he was furious at himself, and blamed his moment of weakness on stress and mental fatigue.

Deep down, the doctor knew better: He was trapped. While he dreaded the prospect of Heather Chappell’s surgery, he feared that she would leave him if he didn’t agree to do it. He probably would have done it for free. He had become addicted to her body-a radiantly perfect body that she now wanted him to improve. The task would have posed a career challenge for the most skillful of plastic surgeons; for a hack like Rudy Graveline, it was flat-out impossible. Naturally he planned to let his assistants do it.

Until Heather dropped another surprise.

“My agent says I should tape the operation, love.”

Rudy said, “You’re kidding.”

“Just to be on the safe side.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“Sure I do,” Heather said. “It’s my damn agent, is all. She says since my looks are everything, my whole career, I should be careful, legal-wise. I guess she wants to make sure nothing goes wrong-”

Rudy sprung out of bed, hands on his hips. “Look, I told you these operations are not necessary at all.”

“And I told you, I’m sick of doing sitcoms and Hollywood Squares. I need to get back in the movies, hon, and that means I need a new look. That’s why I came down here.”

Rudy Graveline had never tried to talk anyone out of surgery before, so he was forced to improvise. By and large it was not such a terrible speech. He said, “God was very good to you, Heather. I have patients who’d give fifty grand to look half as beautiful as you look: teenagers who’d kill for that nose you want me to chisel, housewives who’d trade their firstborn child for tits like yours-”

“Rudolph,” Heather said, “save it.”

He tried to pull up his underwear but the elastic snagged on heavily bandaged kneecaps, the product of the disco tryst in the fireplace.

“I am appalled,” Rudy was huffing, “at the idea of videotaping in my surgical suite.” In truth he wasn’t appalled so much as afraid: A video camera meant he couldn’t hand off to the other surgeons and duck out to the golf course. He’d have to perform every procedure himself, just as Heather had demanded. You couldn’t drug a damn camera; it wouldn’t miss a stitch.

“This just isn’t done,” Rudy protested.

“Oh, it is, too,” Heather said. “I see stuff like that on PBS all the time. Once I saw them put a baboon heart inside a human baby. They showed the whole thing.”

“It isn’t done here,” Rudy said.

Heather sat up, making sure that the bedsheets slipped off the slope of her breasts. “Fine, Rudolph,” she said. “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll fly back to California tonight. There’s only about a dozen first-rate surgeons in Beverly Hills that would give.anything to do me.”

The ice in her voice surprised him, though it shouldn’t have. “All right,” he said, pulling on his robe, “we’ll video the surgery. Maybe Robin Leach can use a clip on his show.”

Heather let the wisecrack pass; she was focused on business. She asked Rudy Graveline for a date they could begin.

“A week,” he said. He had to clear his mind a few more times. In another week he also would have heard something definite from Chemo, or maybe Roberta Pepsical.

“And we’re not doing all this at once,” he added. “You’ve got the liposuction, the breast augmentation, the rhinoplasty, the eyelids, and the rhytidectomy-that’s a lot of surgery, Heather.”

“Yes, Rudolph.” She had won and she knew it.

“I think we’ll start with the nose and see how you do.”

“Or how you do,” Heather said.

Rudy had a queasy feeling that she wasn’t kidding.

The executive producer of In Your Face was a man known to Reynaldo Flemm only as Mr. Dover. Mr. Dover was in charge of the budget. Upon Reynaldo’s return to New York, he found a message taped to his office door. Mr. Dover wanted to see him right away.

Immediately Reynaldo called the apartment of Christina Marks, but hung up when Mick Stranahan answered the phone. Reynaldo was fiercely jealous; beyond that, he didn’t think it was fair that he should have to face Mr. Dover alone. Christina was the producer, she knew where all the money went. Reynaldo was merely the talent, and the talent never knew anything.

When he arrived at Mr. Dover’s office, the secretary did not recognize him. “The music division is on the third floor,” she said, scarcely making eye contact.

Reynaldo riffled his new hair and said, “It’s me.”

“Oh, hi, Ray.”

“What do you think?”

The secretary said, “It’s a dynamite disguise.”

“It’s not a disguise.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted a new look,” he explained.

“Why?” asked the secretary.

Reynaldo couldn’t tell her the truth-that a rude plastic surgeon told him he had a fat waist and a big honker-so he said: “Demographics”

The secretary looked at him blankly.

“Market surveys,” he went on. “We’re going for some younger viewers.”

“Oh, I see,” the secretary said.

“Long hair is making quite a comeback.”

“I didn’t know,” she said, trying to be polite. “Is that real, Ray?”

“Well, no. Not yet.”

“I’ll tell Mr. Dover you’re here.”

Mr. Dover was a short man with an accountant’s pinched demeanor, a fishbelly complexion, tiny black eyes, and the slick, sloping forehead of a killer whale. Mr. Dover wore expensive dark suits and yuppie suspenders that, Reynaldo suspected, needed adjustment.

“Ray, what can you tell me about this Florida project?” Mr. Dover never wasted time with small talk.

“It’s heavy,” Reynaldo replied.

“Heavy.”

“Very heavy.” Reynaldo noticed his expense vouchers stacked in a neat pile on the corner of Mr. Dover’s desk. This worried him, so he said, “My producer was almost murdered.”

“I see.”

“With a machine gun,” Reynaldo added.

Mr. Dover pursed his lips. “Why?”

“Because we’re getting close to cracking this story.”

“You’re getting close to cracking my budget, Ray.”

“This is an important project.”

Mr. Dover said, “A network wouldn’t blink twice, Ray, but we’re not one of the networks. My job is to watch the bottom line.”

Indignantly Reynaldo thought: I eat twits like youfor breakfast He was good at thinking tough thoughts.

“Investigations cost money,” he said tersely.

With shiny pink fingernails Mr. Dover leafed through the receipts on his desk until he found the one he wanted. “Jambala’s House of Hair,” he said. “Seven hundred and seventeen dollars.”

Reynaldo blushed and ground his caps. Christina should be here for this; she’d know how to handle this jerk.

Mr. Dover continued: “I don’t intend to interfere, nor do I intend to let these extravagances go on forever. As I understand it, the program is due to air next month.”

“All the spots have been sold,” Reynaldo said. “They’ve been sold for six months.” He couldn’t resist.

“Yes, well I suggest you try not to spend all that advertising revenue before the broadcast date-just in case it doesn’t work out.”

“And when hasn’t it worked out?”

Reynaldo regretted his words almost instantly, for Mr. Dover was only too happy to refresh his memory. There was the time Flemm claimed to have discovered the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s airplane (it turned out to be a crop duster in New Zealand); the time he claimed to have an exclusive interview with the second gunman from Dealey Plaza (who, it later turned out, was barely seven years old on the day of the Kennedy assassination); the time he uncovered a Congressional call-girl ring (only to be caught boffing two of the ladies in a mop closet at the Rayburn Building). These fiascos each resulted in a canceled broadcast, snide blurbs in the press, and great sums of lost revenue, which Mr. Dover could recall to the penny.

“Ancient history,” Reynaldo Flemm said defensively.

Unspoken was the fact that no such embarrassments had happened since Christina Marks had been hired. Every show had been finished on time, on budget. Reynaldo did not appreciate the connection, but Mr. Dover did.

“You understand my concern,” he said. “How much longer do you anticipate being down in Miami?”

“Two weeks. We’ll be editing.” Sounded good, anyway.

“So, shall we say, one more trip?”

“That ought to do it,” Reynaldo agreed.

“Excellent.” Mr. Dover straightened the stack of Reynaldo’s expense receipts, lining up all the little corners in perfect angles. “By the way, Miss Marks wasn’t harmed, was she?”

“No, just scared shitless. She’s not used to getting shot at.” As if he was.

“Did they catch this person?”

“Nope,” Reynaldo said, hard-bitten, like he wasn’t too surprised.

“My,” said Mr. Dover. He hoped that Christina Marks was paid up on her medical plan and death benefits.

“I told you it was heavy,” Reynaldo said, rising. “But it’ll be worth it, I promise.”

“Good,” said Mr. Dover. “I can’t wait.”

Reynaldo was three steps toward the door when Mr. Dover said, “Ray?”

“Yeah.”

“Forgive me, but I was just noticing.”

“That’s all right.” He’d been wondering how long it would take the twerp to mention something about the hair.

But from behind the desk Mr. Dover smiled wickedly and patted his midsection. “You’ve put on a pound or three, haven’t you, Ray?”

In the elevator Reynaldo angrily tore off his seven-hundred-dollar wig and hurled it into a corner, where it lay like a dead Pekingese. He took the limo back to his apartment, stripped off his clothes, and stood naked for a long time in front of the bedroom mirror.

Reynaldo decided that Mr. Graveline was right: His nose was too large. And his belly had thickened.

He pivoted to the left, then to the right, then back to the left. He sucked in his breath. He flexed. He locked his knuckles behind his head and tightened his stomach muscles, but his belly did not disappear.

In the mirror Reynaldo saw a body that was neither flabby nor lean: an average body for an average forty-year-old man. He saw a face that was neither dashing nor weak: small darting eyes balanced by a strong, heavy jaw, with a nose to match. He concluded that his instincts about preserving the mustache were sound: When Reynaldo covered his hairy upper lip with a bare finger, his nose assumed even greater prominence.

Of course, something radical had to be done. Confidence was the essence of Reynaldo’s camera presence, the core of his masculine appeal. If he were unhappy with himself or insecure about his appearance, it would show up on his face like a bad rash. The whole country would see it.

Standing alone at the mirror, Reynaldo hatched a plan that would solve his personal dilemma and wrap up the Barletta story simultaneously. It was a bold plan because it would not include Christina Marks. Reynaldo Flemm would serve as his own producer and would tell Christina nothing, just as she had told him nothing for two entire weeks after the shooting in Stiltsville.

The shooting. Still it galled him, the sour irony that she would be the one to get the glory-after all his years on the streets. To have his producer nearly assassinated while he dozed on the massage table at the Sonesta was the lowest moment in Reynaldo’s professional career. He had to atone.

In the past he had always counted on Christina to worry about the actual nuts-and-bolts journalism of the program. It was Christina who did the reporting, blocked out the interviews, arranged for the climactic confrontations-she even wrote the scripts. Reynaldo Flemm was hopelessly bored by detail, research, and the rigors of fact checking. He was an action guy, and he saved his energy for when the tape was rolling. Whereas Christina had filled three legal pads with notes, ideas, and questions about Victoria Barletta’s death, Reynaldo cared about one thing only: Who could they get on tape? Rudy Graveline was the big enchilada, and certainly Victoria’s still-grieving mother was a solid bet. Mick Stranahan had been another obvious choice-the embarrassed investigator, admitting four years later that he had overlooked the prime suspect, the doctor himself.

But the Stranahan move had backfired, and nearly made a news-industry martyr of Christina Marks. Fine, thought Reynaldo, go ahead and have your fling. Meanwhile Willie and I will be kicking some serious quack ass.

Every time Dr. Rudy Graveline got a phone call from New York or New Jersey, he assumed it was the mob. The mob had generously put him through Harvard Medical School, and in return Rudy occasionally extended his professional courtesies to mob guys, their friends or family. It was Rudy himself who had redone the face of Tony (The Eel) Traviola, the hit man who later washed up dead on Cape Florida beach with a marlin hole through his sternum. Fortunately for Rudy, most mob fugitives were squeamish about surgery, so he wound up doing mainly their wives, daughters, and mistresses. Noses, mostly, with the occasional face-lift.

That’s the kind of call Rudy expected when his secretary told him that New York was on the line.

“Yes?”

“Hello, DoctorGraveline.”

The voice did not belong to Curly Eyebrows or any of his cousins.

“Who is this?”

“Johnny LeTigre, remember me?”

“Of course.” The hinky male stripper. Rudy said, “What are you doing in New York?”

“I had a gig in the Village, but I’m on my way back to Miami.” This was Reynaldo Flemm’s idea of being fast on his feet. He said, “Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said that day at the clinic.”

Rudy Graveline could not remember exactly what he had said. “Yes?”

“About my nose and my abdomen.”

Then it came back to Rudy. “Your nose and abdomen, yes, I remember.”

“You were right,” Reynaldo went on. “We don’t always see ourselves the way other people do.”

Rudy was thinking: Get to the damn point.

“I’d like for you to do my nose,” Reynaldo declared.

“A ll right.”

“And my middle-what’s that operation called?”

“Suction-assisted lipectomy,” Rudy said.

“Yeah, that’s it. How much’d that set me back?”

Rudy recalled that this was a man who offered ten grand to have a mole removed from his buttocks.

“Fifteen thousand,” Rudy said.

“ Geez!” said the voice from New York.

“But that’s if I perform the procedures myself,” Rudy explained. “Keep in mind, I’ve got several very competent associates who could handle your case for, oh, half as much.”

The way that Rudy backed off on the word competent was no accident, but Reynaldo Flemm didn’t need a sell job. Quickly he said, “No, I definitely want you. Fifteen it is. But I need the work done this week.”

“Out of the question.” Rudy would be immersed in preparation for the Heather Chappell marathon.

“Next week at the latest,” Reynaldo pressed.

“Let me see what I can do. By the way, Mr. LeTigre, what is the status of your mole?”

Reynaldo had almost forgotten about the ruse that originally had gained his entry to Whispering Palms. Again he had to wing it. “You won’t believe this,” he said to Dr. Rudy Graveline, “but the damn thing fell off.”

“Are you certain?”

“Swear to God, one morning I‘m standing in the shower and I turn around and it’s gone. Gone! I found it lying there in the bed. Just fell off, like an acorn or something.”

“ Hmmm,” Rudy said. The guy was a flake, but who cared.

“I threw it away, is that okay?”

“The mole?”

“Y eah, I thought about saving it in the freezer, maybe having some tests run. But then I figured what the hell and I tossed it in the trash.”

“It was probably quite harmless,” Rudy Graveline said, dying to hang up.

“So I’ll call you when I get back to Miami.”

“Fine,” said the doctor. “Have a safe trip, Mr. LeTigre.”

Reynaldo Flemm was beaming when he put down the phone. This would be something. Maybe even better than getting shot on the air.