The Fan Club Read online

  THE FAN CLUB

  Irving Wallace

  First published by

  Simon and Schuster

  March 29, 1974

  AMERICA’S MASTER STORYTELLER

  IRVING WALLACE

  HIS MOST DARING NOVEL

  THE FAN CLUB

  Every man dreams of a love goddess…

  “Picture Raquel Welch or Marilyn Monroe

  lying in the next room naked…”

  THE PLAN: to capture her and teach her the brutal realities of love

  THE ACT: a bold kidnapping of the world’s #1 sex symbol

  THE CLIMAX: the American dream of perfect love turns into a shattering nightmare of lust and terror

  “IT COULD BE

  THAT WALLACE HAS HIT UPON

  THE ULTIMATE IN EROTIC FICTION.”

  —John Barkham Reviews

  “Pure sex and sensation. Wallace is a craftsman who skillfully enmeshes his readers until he is ready to cut them adrift at ‘The End’.”

  —Ralph Hollenbeck, Parade of Books

  “Written with skill, suspense and surprises.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Irving Wallace’s best book.”

  —Vernon Scott, UPI

  “Possibly the best thing he’s done yet.”

  —The New York Times Syndicate

  “Sensational…dynamite reading—a shock a paragraph.”

  —Los Angeles Herald Examiner

  FOR ALL WOMEN

  AND PARTICULARLY ONE

  NAMED

  Sylvia

  I don’t mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. But what goes with it can be a burden…people take a lot for granted and expect an awful lot for very little. A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

  MARILYN MONROE

  1962

  Were it not for imagination, sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

  DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

  1778

  The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

  HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  1854

  First Act

  1

  IT WAS NOT LONG after daybreak this early June morning—ten minutes after seven o’clock, according to his wristwatch—and the sun was continuing to rise, slowly warming the vast sprawl of buildings and the long stretch of Southern California country.

  He and his friend were there again, the two of them flattened on their stomachs in the scrubby growth at the edge of the cliff, concealed by a high hedge of bushes from anyone living in the nearby houses or entering this dead-end street called Stone Canyon Road on a hilltop in exclusive Bel Air.

  Both of them held binoculars to their eyes, still waiting.

  Tilting the glasses higher, peering beyond the object of his surveillance, he could clearly see Stone Canyon Reservoir, with the miniature figures of several early-rising sightseers promenading along the artificial lake. Lowering the glasses slightly, he could follow the ribbon of Stone Canyon Road where it wound up toward this high elevation in Bel Air. Then his glasses moved to catch a glimpse of a narrow, steep side street —that would be Levico Way—which he knew led to a cul-de-sac where stood the security gate that guarded entry to her well-photographed estate.

  Now, once more, his binoculars were probing inside her estate, focusing down on the secluded asphalt road far below, the driveway that led from the locked gate between clusters of heavy trees and an orchard to the palatial mansion standing on a gradual rise beyond. For him, it was as impressive as ever. In other times and other places, only kings and queens lived in such splendor. In this time and this place, the great houses and modern palaces were reserved for the very rich and the very famous. He did not know about riches, but he did know for certain that none other in Bel Air was more famous, more world-renowned, than the mistress of this estate.

  The magnified section of the asphalt road between the gate and the cluster of elms and poplars remained in focus, as he breathlessly watched and waited.

  Suddenly, someone moved into his field of vision. He reached out with his free hand, tapping his partner’s shoulder. “Kyle,” he said urgently, “there she is. Can you see her coming around the trees?”

  He could hear his partner shift slightly, and after a brief interval his partner spoke. “Yeah, that’s her. Right on the dot.”

  They lapsed into silence, their binoculars trained on her, steadily, relentlessly holding the small, distant figure in view as she reached the end of her familiar quarter-of-a-mile stroll to the locked gate. They continued to hold on her as she turned away from the gate, halted, knelt, stroked and then spoke to the tiny excited Yorkshire terrier that had been prancing at her heels. At last, she stood up, and briskly began to retrace her steps in the direction of the huge mansion at the head of the driveway. In moments, she disappeared from view, obscured by the thick cluster of trees.

  Adam Malone lowered his binoculars, rolled over on his side, and carefully packed them away in the leather case attached to his wide belt. He would not need them again for this purpose, he knew. It was precisely a month ago to the day that this vigil had begun. He had chosen this exact observation site, and first used it, on the morning of May 16. This was the morning of June 17. He had been up here, mostly alone but occasionally with his companion Kyle Shively, watching and timing her early morning walk for twenty-four of the past thirty-two days. This would be the last time.

  He looked at Shively, who had pocketed his binoculars, and was sitting up, brushing the grass and dirt off his striped sport shirt.

  “Well,” said Malone, “I guess that’s that.”

  “Yeah,” said Shively, “we’re all set now.” He patted his newly grown, fierce black moustache, and his cold slate-colored eyes lingered once more on the scene far below. His thin lips curled into a crooked smile of satisfaction. “Yeah, kid, we’re ready now. We can go ahead tomorrow morning.”

  “Down there,” murmured Malone, still with a trace of wonder.

  “You bet, down there. Tomorrow morning. Just like we planned it.” He jumped to his feet, slapping at the dirt on his worn blue jeans. He always loomed up taller than Malone expected him to. Shively was at least six feet two, lean, bony, rangy, hard. Not an unmean bone in his body, Malone reflected, staring up at him. Shively bent over and reached out, dragging Malone to his feet. “Come on, kid, let’s get cracking. No more of this peekaboo. We’ve had enough of looking and talking. From now on it’s action.” He favored Malone with a grin, before starting toward the car. “From this minute, we’re committed. There’s no turning back. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  As they retraced their steps to the car in silence, Adam Malone tried to invest the project with reality. It had been in his head so long as a waking dream, a wish, a desire, that he found it hard to accept the fact that within twenty-four hours it would happen.

  Once more, to believe it, he did what he had done frequently in recent days. He tried to fasten his mind on its beginning, and to review the entire process of transformation, fantasy soon to be converted into reality, step by step.

  It had been, he remembered, a chance encounter, an accidental meeting, one night only six weeks ago in the comfortable public bar of the All-American Bowling Emporium in Santa Monica. Glancing at his companion, he wondered if Shively also remembered…

  2

  IT HAD ALL BEGUN sometime between ten thirty and eleven fifteen, the evening of May 5, a Monday. None of the four men was to forget that. Certainly, Kyle Shively would not forget it.

  It had been a bad evening for Shively. By ten forty-five, he was in an angrier mood than at any time since he had arrived in California from Texas. After waiting in the restaurant, and finally realizing that he
had been stood up by that snotty rich chick, he had gone outside to telephone her, and after his second call, he had been ready to explode.

  Right now, Kyle Shively was seething as he strode along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, heading toward the neon-bright All-American Bowling Emporium, and the Lantern Bar inside, his regular hangout. A few drinks in that oasis, he hoped, would cool him down.

  Shively could take many things, but the one thing he could not take was being treated like a second-class citizen—being made a fool of—by some uppity, tight-assed broad who thought she was better than you because her husband was some sort of moneybags. Oh, Shively had met plenty of those rich lookers, all right. Ever since he had gone to work two years ago as a mechanic at Jack Nave’s Economy Gasoline Station, he’d got his share of the action. No complaints about that.

  The way Shively saw it, he was one guy who knew himself pretty well inside out. You didn’t need a psychologist to tell you about yourself. You just needed ordinary common sense, a commodity which Shively felt he possessed in abundance. Maybe he wasn’t what you call educated—he’d been a high school dropout in Lubbock, Texas—but he’d learned plenty from just plain living. He’d learned a lot about handling people those two years as an infantryman in Vietnam. He’d picked up some good insights about the world, about himself, hitchhiking around the States. And since settling in California, he’d got even smarter.

  Now, at thirty-four, he knew what counted, at least for him. It came down to bare essentials, if you thought about it, and he had. Only two things counted: drinking and fucking. He prided himself that since being at Nave’s Economy Gasoline Station, he’d done enough of both. Drinking and having your own place and going out—well, he was just about able to handle that on the $175 a week that penny pincher, Jack Nave, paid him. But Shively also knew that he was becoming indispensable to Nave. He worked fast, and what he did he did well, and he was sure there wasn’t a better repairman for brake linings or tune-ups or valve jobs in Santa Monica. He knew that he deserved more than that lousy $175 a week. And he intended to get it. He was getting ready to hit old man Nave for a raise any day now.

  Shively had talked to other mechanics around Los Angeles, and he’d found out that the way they made theirs was they were paid 48 percent of the labor charges on each car they worked over. That is to say, you started with whatever the customer was billed for the repair work done. Then after the cost of the parts was deducted, those other mechanics practically split the rest of the dough with their boss. Some of them took home maybe $300 a week. Shively knew that’s what he deserved, and would ask for and get, no matter how much old man Nave screamed bloody murder. Which would mean that his after-hours life, the drinking and good-timing part of it, would be easier and on a higher level.

  As for the fucking, no problem, there was plenty of live stuff around, especially when you worked in a busy filling station like he did and when you had the style and build that he had. Anyway, the quantity of snatch was there, if not always the quality. But sometimes he even got the high-grade, high-octane stuff. Jack Nave’s station pulled in a lot of the classy carriage trade—the Cadillac and Continental and Mercedes owners—and that way, any afternoon, you could get to meet the wives of the rich customers, or their young daughters who were busting to break loose for a quick roll.

  Yeah, he’d scored with a couple of those rich ones in the last months. Scoring with those broads made you feel good, he had to admit it. Making it with them showed that you were equal, even superior. Shively liked to philosophize on this, and he philosophized on it now as he strode toward the All-American Bowling Emporium. Yup, once you got one of those fancy dames up to your room, and got her clothes off, and got her naked and flat on the bed, then everything else went out the window. You weren’t some grease monkey with dirty fingernails and only $175 a week, not anymore. And the chick, with her Saks’ and Magnin’s clothes on the floor, with her Cadillac and college education and fifteen-room house and servants and half-a-mil in the bank—all that was forgotten. She was just tits and ass and wanting it just like you wanted it. That was the big equalizer, wanting and doing it, and nothing else counting more. The greatest leveler on earth, the greatest equality-maker in the world, was a man’s cock. A good stiff eight inches did more to promote social justice than all the big brains in the world.

  And that’s what made him so goddam boiling mad tonight. The injustice of being treated like he wasn’t good enough, not equal, not deserving.

  He’d met this Kitty Bishop broad about a month ago. It was the first time he’d seen her. Her husband, Gilbert Bishop, was one of Nave’s regular customers. Bishop usually brought the new Cadillac in himself, or had one of the servants bring in his wife’s Mercedes. He was a rich old bastard, maybe sixty, and Nave said he’d made his millions in real estate. The bastard.

  Anyway, about a month ago, for the first time, old Bishop’s wife turned up in person. The old man was out of town on business, and she, this Kitty Bishop, was driving her Mercedes to the beach in Malibu when her engine started sputtering and the car jerking and she thought she’d better stop by and let Nave see what was wrong. Well, that jerk Nave’s knowledge of automobiles started and stopped at the gas tank, so he turned the customer and her Mercedes over to Shively.

  Shively emerged from under the grease rack, and there she was getting out of the car to speak to him. He couldn’t believe his eyes, that this was Mrs. Bishop. Hell, she must’ve been thirty years younger than her old man. And a real looker, a redhead, standing there in her open robe and polka-dot bikini because she was on her way to the beach, and smiling at him and explaining what was wrong. Shively listened, looking all the time, taking in the smallish boobs but good firm skin and a great ass.

  In a few minutes he had the car hood up, and was fiddling with the distributor points, adjusting the carburetor and talking to her about removing the carburetor and boiling it out sometime soon. All the while she kept watching as he worked and talked. She just kept watching, smoking and smiling. At last, they got friendly, and he kidded around with her and she kidded right back. When he was done, he didn’t try anything. But after she left, he kept thinking about her.

  A week later, she returned to the station with some different car trouble. Then two more times. Those times there was nothing much wrong with the car, so Shively began to be surer that she was coming by mainly to see him. Then, this morning, again, there she was in a sheer blue over-blouse and tight matching shorts, smiling and telling him that something was rattling underneath the car, she thought maybe the tail pipes. So he grabbed a creeper, and slid under the car, and when he was done and pushing himself out and free, he saw her and he was sure, almost sure, she’d been staring down at his crotch.

  When he got up, they kidded around a little. He was standing next to her, and he glanced off and saw that Nave was out of earshot. He decided what the hell, why not? But just then she went past him, and got into the car, closing the door. He moved quickly to the door, bent down close to her head, as she had leaned forward to turn the ignition key.

  He looked straight in her eyes. “I got to confess, I certainly enjoyed talking to you, Mrs. Bishop.”

  She looked right back at him, then said, “I enjoyed it, too, Kyle.”

  “I’d like to do more of the same. Like to know you better. I’m off work at nine tonight. What about meeting me at nine thirty tonight at The Broken Drum for a drink?”

  “Well, you don’t waste time with a woman, do you, Kyle?”

  “Not if she’s a woman like you. I’ll be there at nine thirty.”

  She threw the stick in reverse and started to back out. “Oh sure,” she said, or something like that, and she was gone, and zap, he was in like Flynn, for certain.

  He had been cheerful and humming the rest of the afternoon. During his two-hour supper break, he’d gone shopping, then to his apartment to drop off the expensive booze, and fix up the place for tonight’s action. Then he’d gone back to work until nine, and after
that he’d scrubbed the grime off his hands and forearms with Lan-Lin. He’d shaved in the men’s room with the electric he kept handy, slicked down his dark curly hair, and changed to clean clothes.

  He was at The Broken Drum, ready and waiting for Kitty Bishop, at nine thirty sharp.

  He was still at The Broken Drum, still ready and waiting for Kitty Bishop, at ten thirty.

  She never showed. She’d stood him up, the bitch. She’d got him all wound up and hot, and had left him there high and dry. He got the message. She was putting him in his place. She was telling him he wasn’t good enough for her. Well, goddam, he had a thing or two to tell her.

  Storming out of the restaurant, he rushed back to the station. Nave was busy at the gas pump. Shively went into Nave’s office and looked on the customer Rolodex. From old Bishop’s card, he copied their Holmby Hills telephone number on a piece of scratch paper. Then he left and made his way to the public phone booth outside.

  He dropped in some coins and dialed. Ring, ring, and there she was. He recognized her voice. Cool, like nothing had happened.

  “Kitty? It’s Kyle. What’s going on? I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Kyle. Kyle Shively. You know. You remember, I saw you at the station this morning. Remember? We made a date for a drink at The Broken Drum.”

  Then she laughed. “Oh, that’s who it is. You’re not serious, are you?”

  He felt himself turning livid. “What do you mean I’m not serious? I invited you for a drink tonight, and you said sure. You accepted.”

  “Oh, this is embarrassing. I don’t understand, Mr. Shively. You couldn’t have believed I was going to meet you. Really now, how could you? You simply misunderstood.”