"You'll marry the son-of-a bitch over my dead body!" shouted the father.
"How dare you see him without telling us!" yelled the mother.
"You will never see him again! Do you understand me, you little slut!"
"Are you listening to your father? Are you? ARE YOU!?!"
It was two hours since Lisa and Robby had declared their love for one another in the hospital entranceway, and Janice and Cameron's tirade had been going on like this for almost as long. They no longer cared if the hordes of press that surrounded their home could hear them -- they just wanted to make an impression on their daughter. But after two hours, their throats parched and their voices cracked, Janice finally gave up while Cameron sent Lisa to her room and jammed a chair under the doorknob to lock her inside.
Lisa didn't mind too much. It was what her father always did when he didn't know what else to do with her. Besides, she had a lot to think about.
She knew that clearing Robby of the rape charge had been the right thing to do, regardless of the humiliation she had expected to face. The torment of putting an innocent man behind bars had simply been too much for her to bear. She had realized that she had to come clean as she wrote her note -- and Dr. Joe had confirmed it for her.
Going along with Robby's game was the right thing as well, and she couldn't wait to tell Dr. Joe about it at her Monday appointment. No one was hurt, she would say, and now more than ever she would be the envy of every kid at school. A rich and famous TV star was madly in love with her. It was as if God Himself had rewarded her for her good deed.
She just couldn't figure out why Robby had done it. She had already cleared him of the crime, so he had no reason to make up such a story -- unless he actually did love her. This made her smile, but then she shook her head. It was too preposterous to consider, and she should be smart enough to figure out the real reason that Robby had told the world that he loved her.
But what if he really did?
When Lisa's father first came to believe that his daughter had been raped, and by a famous TV star no less, he wanted blood. An eye for an eye, Cameron had told everyone. The Latina D.A.'s penetrating eyes and soft yet commanding tone assured him that justice would prevail. He had no doubt that Theresa Chavez would make good on her promise of putting Robby away for the better part of his life where he would receive the same bodily violation that he had bestowed upon Lisa.
But when Lisa publicly announced she and Robby had been lovers all this time, Cameron was more furious than ever. Perhaps Robby hadn't raped her per se, but the the amount of manipulation he must have heaped upon her was almost as bad. Was Robby the reason Cameron's sweet little girl had tried to kill herself? Lisa's most recent suicide note, if read within this new context, certainly seemed to point that way.
So when Robby phoned that afternoon asking for Lisa, Cameron was understandably upset. When he called back immediately after Cameron hung up on him, the father was furious.
"Listen, you sick Hollywood fuck," he shouted. "I'm meeting with the D.A. tomorrow and will insist she file charges against you for statutory rape. If you call my house again, I'll get her to add invasion of privacy or harassment. And if none of that matters to you, listen to this. You try to contact her again, I'll kill you myself."
"You think I'd let her speak to you, you twisted pervert?!" he shouted on Robby's next call. "Phone my house one more time, and you will die!"
Through her locked bedroom door, Lisa heard every word her father shouted at the actor, and she couldn't have been happier. Robby was trying to reach her! It was now up to her to convince Daddy to let her see the man who was going to make her horrible existence a fantastic reality!
"Call again and you're a dead man!" she heard her father scream on yet another call.
It was not entirely a bluff on Cameron's part. Generally a law-abiding citizen, Cameron would do what he needed to protect his daughter. Still, he preferred to have Robby destroyed legally. Only if the judicial system completely failed him would he take matters into his own hands.
So he phoned Theresa Chavez at the Van Nuys Courthouse. Robby is harassing my daughter, he shouted. He demanded a restraining order to keep Robby away from Lisa. He accused Theresa of incompetence and blamed her and the entire city of Los Angeles for allowing Robby to walk free in the first place.
What Cameron didn't know was that Theresa was the only person on Earth who hated Robby more than he did. There was no doubt in her mind that Robby had manipulated the system, and she was humiliated by being outsmarted -- especially by a actor of all things.
Cameron also didn't know that Theresa blamed him for her setback. She never would have been in this mess had Cameron and his wife simply been better parents. It was obvious by the Docks' televised reaction they had no idea about their daughter's secret love affair, but how could they not have known? What kind of parent pays so little attention to the activities of their child? She knew the answer. The kind of parents whose children blow up schools with home-made bombs, whose children shoot up fast food chains with Daddy's rifle, whose children date forty year old actors.
But what she hated most about the Docks' was that they took their scandal to the press first. Theresa's present predicament could have easily been avoided if she had known Lisa was going to drop the charges. But they sandbagged her, so the last thing she was going to do was take insults from the man who almost ruined her career. Therefore, she saw no reason to tell Cameron that Robby would most likely be charged with double murder sometime early the following week.
Theresa had already coerced two of the witnesses who had been in the holding cell into going along with her fabricated tale. The rookie jailhouse guard hadn't actually seen who did it anyway, but could honestly testify to hearing someone shout for him -- even though he could only make out the end of it.
"Something, something, Robby Rockman just killed the skinheads!"
When the guard raced to the cage he saw the victims already dead and the giant transvestite holding a struggling Robby in place. All Theresa had left to do was convince the transvestite to blame the skinheads' deaths on Robby, and she had no doubt he would go along. She would offer to drop all charges against him if he did as he was told, or pledge to convict him of the double-homicide herself if he didn't. She was meeting him in less than an hour, and found that she was actually looking forward to it.
"I can't stop Rockman from phoning you, Mr. Docks," she told Cameron in the polite, cold tone that made her famous in certain circles. "If he tries to approach your daughter physically, perhaps something can be done. But then you telephone the police, not me."
Cameron merely shouted his frustrations even louder, which only caused Theresa to become colder than before. He slammed down the phone, in the same way that he had slammed it down on Robby many times earlier, and he realized he would have to take care of this himself.
He got his gun out of his lockbox and told his wife he was going to target practice to "blow off some steam."
Ironically, that was exactly what Theresa would tell her co-workers later that afternoon when she put her .32 caliber pistol in her purse and left early for the day.
Mitch's father sent him home shortly after Lisa condemned the boy on TV to save him from further ridicule. Mitch's sister and Mom were at their own jobs, so that left Mitch alone in the house. There were eighteen messages on the answering machine. The first five were friends from school teasing him in fun or scorning him with contempt. Either way, it was obvious what the rest of the messages would be, and he couldn't bear to listen to them. He yanked the machine so hard the cord ripped out of the wall, and he threw it down to the tile floor. He jumped up and down on it like an animal as he screamed profanities that no one could hear.
Practically foaming at the mouth, he knew he just had to do something to work off his frustration -- that's what his coach would say. He considered going to the gym but knew that only more ridicule awaited him there. He picked up two ten-pound dumbbells and ran out of the house, ran down the block, and ran all over the East Valley.
He had no destination or direction. He was simply keeping the legs sprinting and the arms pumping. After five miles his legs felt like spaghetti and his arms burned like fire, but he kept going. It was only the pain and exhaustion that would keep him from thinking the things he didn't want to think.
Although Lisa's change of story might have been a mystery to everyone else, to Mitch the answer was obvious. Robby had gotten to her. He had offered her money, fame, something to clear his name, and the dumb bitch had fallen for it.
Why else would she screw him over like this when they had such a perfect arrangement?
Because Rockman convinced her to. Rockman made her ruin him. It was HIS fault!
But as he thrust the ten-pound dumbbells forward and back, he could only visualize pounding the wrought iron weights into Robby's face.
He didn't realize it, but he had run almost fifteen miles and had crossed into Burbank by the time he had to stop and catch his breath. There were a bunch of trailers up ahead and Mitch, the California kid, knew it had to be a movie shoot.
He sat down on the curb and he wondered...
Cheyenne Ellis knew that her brother was connected, but she had no idea how important he actually was. I'll rename his organization "the System" because I don't want any of its real members to come try to kill me. I'm just a writer and no story, no matter how enjoyable, is worth dying for. That's just my belief -- other writers may feel differently.
The System was a nationally connected gang that controlled close to thirty per cent of the drug flow in the United States and Canada. Different pockets of different cities may have subordinate gangs with different names, but many of them are nothing more than subsidiaries to the System. Up to now, the media has portrayed the Italian, Chinese and Russian Mafias as a highly organized crime structure while portraying black gangs as a bunch of uneducated animals running around and shooting each other for kicks. It is media racism, and the System wouldn't have it any other way. As long as law enforcement agencies continue to believe they're disorganized, these agencies will focus on everybody else. That's why when cops and FBI agents arrest some black drug dealer, they find it easy to believe his story that he is but a pawn of the Italians. The leaders of the System remain unnamed, and their organization grows more secure.
How their organization is exactly structured I can't tell you. I know the Italian Mafia's is based on the Roman Empire because I've read that. I believe the Chinese Triad is based on some ancient legend because I've heard that. But until some high level System dude goes state's witness, none of us will ever know their true hierarchy.
What I do know is this. Cheyenne's brother went by an alias which I'll change to G-Dog (his real alias is equally preposterous.) G-Dog Ellis was one of the System's top hitmen. As such, he never murdered anyone of importance in his hometown, in the same way that the top Los Angelinos never do it in L.A. When a local leader requires a high profile killing, they simply contact the leaders of a chapter city and make damn sure their own top guys have very public alibis.
So when a certain member of the L.A. city council was giving the System a hard time and their threats went unnoticed, G-Dog Ellis was brought in from Detroit to make sure the councilman's wife died in an unfortunate drunk driving accident.
But as far as Cheyenne knew, G-Dog was simply a low-level pimp with big connections whom she would support once she achieved stardom. So when he called her from his buddy's house in Baldwin Hills that Friday, claiming that he was still in Detroit, she had no reason to doubt him.
She told him she had been shooting for four days (even though the filming itself had started a couple of days before that,) and how nice everyone was -- purposely excluding the fact that she was fucking the producer. She praised Ciggy, Norman and the film's star for their kindness. By way of anecdote, she told how Savannah had come to her rescue and put Robby in his place after he had verbally abused her and publicly ridiculed her.
G-Dog was glad that his little sister had fallen into such a good group, but then asked her more questions about Robby. Cheyenne had heard Ciggy -- as well as other producer clients -- complain about actors over the years, so she was able to recount Robby's abusive escapades with a sense of humor. But the young hit man couldn't hear it without a dark cloud of hatred forming within his brain.
G-Dog was six years older than Cheyenne. Their father, the founder and leader of a local black gang in the projects of Detroit, was ultimately smart enough to hook up with the new national coalition of the System. I'll call him Germaine Ellis. He had the balls and ferocity of his son, and the talent and wisdom of his daughter.
"She better than either of us, son," he had told little G-Dog. "An' she's gonna break out. You an' me, we ain't got what she got. You an' me, we gonna die young. But when I die, I don't want you crying 'bout it now, 'hear? Just carry on what I been doin, an' make sure your li'l sister gets to go all the way to wherever she's goin.'"
Germaine was gunned down in a drive-by shooting three months later.
So, upon hearing his sister's tale, G-Dog went ballistic. To him, Rockman's belligerence was nothing more than a power play to keep his little sister down. Cheyenne tried to explain that this is just a part of Hollywood, that many actors are this way, but G-Dog wouldn't hear of it.
"This bastard is fucking you up?" he said. "I'll FUCK HIM UP!"
And then the line went dead.
"Can't you just let me talk to him?" Lisa begged her father.
Janice had let her daughter out of her bedroom so the family could at least watch TV together. But the nightly news showed virtually nothing but the Robby-Lisa scandal.
One channel after another broadcast Lisa's marriage proposal to Robby, followed by Robby's acceptance, followed by their big kiss. It took all of Janice Docks' strength to keep her dinner down, and Cameron simply wanted to strangle someone.
"Please?" Lisa begged her father. "I know he gave you a number where I could reach him. I just want to speak to him. Why are you so afraid of--"
Cameron, who was drunk by then, raised his hand as if about to strike.
"Don't you ever ever speak to him again, you imbecile!" he shouted. "BACK TO YOUR ROOM!"
"Okay!" she wailed as she ran off fearfully. "I'm sorry!"
This became their family ritual for the rest of the weekend. Lisa was locked in her bedroom during the day while her mother was at work and was only allowed out at night to watch TV with her parents. The press continued to park themselves on the front lawn but in increasingly smaller numbers, slowly coming to accept that Lisa would never come out and that her parents would never "give" them anything. By the end of the weekend, only a few of the most dedicated would make occasional visits, and not for very long.
Saturday night's news was similar to Friday's, as was the inevitable conversation that followed: the television showed the same clips, Lisa made the same plea to be allowed to talk to Robby, Cameron raised the same hand to strike her, and Lisa ran to her room, sobbing the same sob.
But on Sunday night, the news was different. The clips showed Trudy speaking out against her asshole husband on the Rockman estate lawn, and it showed Robby's cocky departure from their home.
Lisa knew better than to ask permission to speak to Robby, but she simply couldn't contain herself.
"Please, Daddy. Look at that!" she cried. "He really does want to marry me."
Cameron couldn't contain himself either. More drunk than usual, he pulled back his right arm and backhanded his daughter across the face. Lisa flew across the living room and bounced off the wall and onto the floor. It hurt like hell, but she knew better than to complain. This wasn't the first time her father had hit her, so she apologized for her request and returned to her room.
Cameron despised himself for hitting his daughter. It had been only three days since he had promised himself it would never happen again. Yet for his inability to keep that promise he blamed Robby. It was the actor's fault, and he must pay!
He knew that Theresa wouldn't be in her office on a Sunday night, yet he couldn't face staying home where he might lose his temper and strike his daughter once more.
He told Janice he was going to Jake's Pub down the street for another drink, and she never noticed that his gun was still in his jacket pocket.
Like Lisa, Mitch also watched the Sunday news with his family. When his father said that he wanted to speak to the boy privately, Mitch insisted he needed to go running and asked if they could have their talk afterwards. Mitch's dad agreed, not realizing that he would be in bed long before his son returned home for the evening.
G-Dog told the other crackheads that he had some business to contend with, and, if anyone asked, he was still in Detroit.
And Theresa put her gun and Mace in her purse, and went out to meet a friend.
*** Up Next: "At The Beverly Hills Hotel" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
Copyright © 2015 Tinseltrash, Inc.