Judith Krantz by Dazzle Read Free Book Online

blushed if she’d had it in her.
    Tony Gabriel hadn’t changed since the last time she’d seen him, at least two years ago. Still the same rumpled, careless soldier of fortune, still too thin, with weatherbeaten skin, pockets bulging with God knows what—certainly his passport—dark hair that seemed to be mostly cowlicks, victorious brown eyes, a big nose and those two deep vertical creases in his cheeks on either side of his lips that had driven a hundred women bananas. Two hundred. But that didn’t make him a sociopath.
    “What’s that stuff in your glass?” he asked her.
    “Iced tea.”
    “You’re a sick, poor, beautiful, pitiful child, I’m going to put you to bed and make you feel all better soon. Better all over, I promise. Trust me, as you people say to each other. Waiter, bring me scotch, neat, double, any brand. What’s good to eat here, Phoebe? I’m starving.”
    “Most people order the meatloaf. It’s what this place is known for.”
    “Ah, Hollywood. The mothers of most of the people who live in this place served them meatloaf because they were poor, they left home because of that eternal meatloaf, they made millions trying to get away from the memory of that meatloaf, and now they come back for it. I’ll have a steak. Big, very rare. Now, what happened? Is it all set?”
    “No, it is not. Just what did you ever do to Jazz Kilkullen? She doesn’t have a high opinion of you, sweetie. In fact she won’t let me rep you or even let you rent any space at the place.”
    “Jazz? Who made her the boss of you?”
    “It’s not that,” Phoebe objected, piqued at his choice of words. “It’s just the way we set things up when we bought the studio as partners.”
    “The renting I can understand. But the repping?”
    “She convinced the others that I wouldn’t have enough time to rep them properly if I took you on. What’s the real story on you and Jazz?”
    “Honestly, if I understood it, I’d tell you. Basically Jazz was another groupie. You know about me and my groupies. I don’t do anything to encourage them, but how can I help it if they decide to turn me into something I’m not?”
    “You’ve been known to fuck your groupies, Gabe,” Phoebe observed gently.
    “I didn’t say I didn’t. That’s why God made groupies. But, Phoebe, what are friends for? Friends like us? Did you fight for me?”
    “I totally went to bat for you. But it wasn’t happening. I’m truly sorry, Gabe. You’d better try one of the big photo agencies. They’d jump at you.”
    “I don’t want a big agency. I’ve had Gama, I’ve had Sygma, I’ve been a part of the best of all that and now I want something else. I want those choice fat, juicy assignments that make a ton of dough and I want you to pick the best of them for me. I want
Smithsonian
magazine, I want the
National Geographic
, I want
Diversions
, and all the other slick travel magazines that you steal from doctors’ offices, magazines that send you to some luxurious resort and pay you in solid gold. Maybe I even want to be the Slim Aarons of the 1990s.”
    “Jesus, Gabe, you’re a burnt-out case.” Phoebe was stunned. She’d heard him for years ranting on the depravity of such lush assignments.
    “Right on. You’ve got it. I always said you were smart. I’ve hit the wall. Nineteen years of risking my ass and now there are teams of television cameramen in there before I can even get close to the action. There’s no room left for my kind of work, Phoebe. It’s on the news before I can get the film back to my editors. Nobody wants actuality photographs anymore. I’m a dinosaur but I have the wits to know it. So go back to Jazz and set her straight and point me towardthe mating of pandas, the joys of snorkeling, inside Wimbledon and ‘A Day in the Life of a Duchess.’ ”
    “I can’t do it, Gabe.”
    “She’s that good, huh?”
    “Yep.”
    “Well, what the hell, she should be. I taught her everything she knows. Look, don’t