Chapter Eleven
At one in the morning I heard from Billy; he texted asking if I was still awake. I responded that I was still packing, which wasn’t a lie as I had started about ten minutes before. I really hated packing and the longer I hadn’t heard from Billy the more worried I had become.
“What the hell was that meeting about?” I questioned when I met him at my front door.
“Our trip is delayed. We aren’t going to Vegas now until further notice.” He answered without acknowledging my question.
“Why not? You wanted to get there early to scope out the locations and stuff.”
“Well, plans change.” He had a far off glazed look in his eyes, as if his mind was a thousand miles away.
Clearly it had something to do with the meeting he had just come from.
“I’m going to have a big party at my house tomorrow night, I want you to come.” It was more of a command than an invitation.
“Actually, if we aren’t leaving this weekend then I’m going to call Cal and make plans to visit him in Miami.”
“Miami? That’s okay, you can go there.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
He was acting rather strangely. He wasn’t making eye contact with me and he still seemed to be deep in thought.
“Billy, is everything okay?”
“Hunh? Oh yeah, everything’s fine.” He snapped out of it.
“Do you want to come in for a drink?”
“No, it’s late. I’m going to go home. I’ll see you in the morning before you leave for Miami.”
“Okay.” I handed him his car keys. “If you’re sure.”
“Yeah, thanks, see you tomorrow.” Without another word, he went to his car and pulled it out of my gate and across the street into his.
I closed the door, worried about Billy. Something was happening, but I didn’t know what it was yet.
I stayed up late into the night trying to finish packing, but I wasn’t very successful. I waited until it was eight o’clock in the morning in Miami before I called Cal to tell him I was coming for a visit.
“Why are you out of breath?” I asked when he answered the phone.
“I was working out.”
“Really?” I had never known Cal to workout first thing in the morning. “Okay, well I just wanted to tell you that I’m coming to visit this weekend.”
“This weekend? I thought you were going to Las Vegas?”
“Change of plans. I don’t have to be there yet, so I thought I would come and visit you.”
“Oh, babe, you know I’d love for you to come here, but I’m going to be busy on set all weekend. I wouldn’t be able to spend any time with you.”
“Really?” I was disappointed. “No problem, maybe next weekend then?”
“I’ll be filming then too,” he quickly added.
“All right.” I was feeling a bit hurt and angry, thinking he was blowing me off.
“We’ll figure it out. Listen, babe, I have to get back to my workout.”
Before I could say anything else he hung up the phone. He was really starting to irritate me.
***
With having very little sleep, I ambled down to the kitchen later that morning in search of food.
“Oh dear, look what the cat dragged in.” Carol commented on my haggard appearance as I yawned and sat down at the table. “Breakfast is almost ready.”
“Thank God, I’m starving.” I realized I had never eaten dinner the night before.
“Why do you look so rough today? You haven’t been drinking again, have you?”
“No, I was up most of the night packing to go to Vegas, then when those plans changed I was going to go to Miami, but now I’m not going anywhere so I half-packed for nothing.”
“What do you mean you’re not going to Miami?” Billy asked as he came into the kitchen, making me jump in fright.
“Cal is going to be working all weekend so he said not to bother going down. How do you keep getting into my house?”
“Who films on the weekends? That’s bizarre.” He ignored my question about the house.
“Here you go,” Carol announced as she put plates of eggs, bacon, and fruit down in front of both Billy and me.
“Carol, how did you know I would be here to eat?” Billy asked.
“Billy, darling, I always have extra food here waiting for you,” Carol warmly answered.
“Carol, have I told you how much I love you lately?” Billy stared at his plate.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t eat dinner last night like this one.” Carol pointed towards me.
“I haven’t eaten since lunch time yesterday.” He answered, as he started stuffing his mouth full of food.
“You two need to eat more often. I know you are big Hollywood celebrities, but you are making me worry about the two of you.” She left the kitchen to busy herself in another part of the house, leaving us alone to eat.
“You didn’t eat at the restaurant yesterday?” I asked, knowing full well it was not a real dinner, that it had to been a meeting to discuss Marco Trassari. I wondered silently what he had done to upset the other members of the Commission but I wasn’t going to ask that.
“No, there wasn’t any food.”
“I thought it was a dinner among friends.” I imitated Sonny as best as I could.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what was it?” I asked pointedly, hoping he would tell me the whole story. Curiosity was getting the better of me.
“Listen, if you aren’t going to Miami then I need you to come to the party at my house tonight.” He completely changed the subject.
“Yeah, sure.” I began eating. I didn’t want to push him, I figured Billy would tell me what was going on when he was ready.
“Good, come over around nine. Thanks for breakfast. Tell Carol it was delicious.”
I looked up from my plate. All of Billy’s food was gone and he was heading for the door.
“What the hell? You’re done already and you’re leaving?”
“I have too much stuff to do for this party tonight. I’ll see you later.”
***
Around nine-thirty that night, I left to go across the street to Billy’s party. I knew that some of his gatherings became wild, but I hadn’t planned on staying very long. I opened my gate at the bottom of the driveway and was shocked at the scene before me.
There were paparazzi and cameras everywhere. Limos lined the street, pulling up to his wide-open gate and letting people out. It was more like a scene at a movie premiere than a simple house party, but then again, nothing Billy did was simple.
Billy was at the end of the driveway greeting guests as they got out of their respective cars and posed with them for pictures.
“There you are,” Billy called as I made my way through the crowd. He put his arm around my shoulders as we stood side by side in front of all the cameras flashing.
“What’s going on, Billy?” I asked while smiling and barely moving my lips.
“Nothing, just keep smiling.”
“Can you take over welcoming people?” Billy asked one of the many security guys at the gate. “I’m going inside.”
“Absolutely, Mr. Stone.”
We quickly walked through his house, stopping only briefly to speak to a few people. It was raging inside with music blaring and hardly any space to stand because the place was so packed. People were jumping into the pool in the backyard, there were bartenders set up strategically throughout the house, and wait staff were mingling, offering trays of food.
Once we got through the house, Billy locked us in his bedroom alone.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, it was clear to me that something serious was happening.
“God, I hate parties in my house.”
“What are you talking about? You have parties all the time here.”
“Not like this. Normally there aren’t this many people and usually there are a lot more models.”
“Gross.” Since the whole Brianna incident, I was starting to dislike models.
Billy laughed. His bedroom was huge with a large king-sized bed in the center of the room. A sitting area off to the right side overlooked a seventy-five-inch flat screen television on the wall. There was a private bathroom, huge walk-in closet and, because the house was a bungalow, there were patio doors that led to a private outdoor sitting area that was separate from the rest of the house.
“If you hate parties in your house then what is with the big bash and why are we locked in here?”
“I don’t want to be out there, that’s why.” He sat on one of the plush chairs in front of the blank television.
“And?” I sat across from him.
Billy gave me a long, hard stare as if contemplating what to say.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” I angrily asked.
Billy continued to watch me.
“Does it have anything to do with the meeting last night?”
“I really can’t say anything, in case we get questioned. I want you to be completely innocent.”
“Why would we be questioned?” I was confused, then a thought hit me. “Billy? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I was just a part of the conversation.”
“Billy.” My stomach dropped to the floor. “Who?”
Billy said nothing, but continued to hold my gaze.
“Who?” I yelled.
“Marco Trassari.”
“The head of the Trassari crime family? I knew it when I didn’t see him at the restaurant. Why?”
“He’s skimming money from his casino and not paying the percentage he owes to the Commission.”
“Why is he not paying?” All the heads of the Commission had to pay a percentage of their hotel and casino earnings to a main account. I had never been told the reason why they had to pay a percentage, it had always been a mystery to me. I did know it was a long-standing tradition that dated all the way back to Charles “Lucky” Luciano when he started the Commission in 1936.
“He says the casino isn’t making any money. Sonny sent over an auditor and found millions were being transferred to an off-shore bank account. Sonny questioned Marco about it and Trassari said he knew nothing about it. Funny enough, though, when Sonny had his guys check the bank account it was in Trassari’s mother-in-law’s name.”
“Oh, that’s not bright.”
“Tell me about it. They plan on dealing with Marco tonight.”
“Now I understand the need for the huge party with the tipped off paparazzi, but we can’t hide in here all night.”
“Sure we can.”
“No, we need to be seen at the party so there isn’t any time lapse that we are unaccounted for.” I’d seen enough Law and Order shows to know how it worked.
“Shit, you’re right. Let’s go.”
We both jumped up from our respective chairs and went back out to the party. The evening was spent mingling with celebrities and celebrity wanna-bes.
Throughout the night, Billy and I would make eye contact from across the room and smile. I tried to stop the excited little butterflies that would flutter in my stomach every time we would lock eyes, but I couldn’t get them to settle down. I really tried to remind myself, that despite not seeing Cal for weeks, we were still together.
At four in the morning, the last of the partiers left and Billy’s house was once again quiet. A complete disaster, but quiet.
“Well, I think that was a success,” I announced.
“Hopefully.”
“I think enough people saw us the entire night. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah,” Billy said absently. “Let me walk you home and I can send the paparazzi away.”
Together, we went outside and met with the few remaining photographers.
“Hey, guys,” Billy addressed them as we crossed the street. “Everyone is gone.”
“No one is left?” one of them asked.
“Nope, just a huge mess, so unless you want to stick around and help clean up, then there is no reason to stay.”
The guys laughed, took a few shots of us going through my gate, and then they were gone.
“The neighbors will be happy the party is finally over.” I laughed as I climbed the front steps.
“There’s only one neighbor I care about.”
“Billy, you are too sweet to me.” Butterflies began to flutter in my stomach again.
“You think I was talking about you? No, I meant old Mrs. Larabie two doors down.”
I hit him in the chest.
“Just kidding,” he corrected.
“Thanks for tonight, it was a fun party.”
“Thanks for coming over. I’m glad Cal blew you off.”
“Yeah, me too.”
His gaze met mine and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. I really wanted him too.
“Okay, well, good night.” He quickly turned to leave.
“See you later today?” I called to him.
“Absolutely.” He waved. “I have to make sure you’re actually packed.”