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    Star Island: A novel
    Star Island: A novel
    Star Island: A novel
    Ebook515 pages6 hours

    Star Island: A novel

    By Carl Hiaasen

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane from “Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic” (The New York Times Book Review) and the national bestselling author of Squeeze Me.

    Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen—and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.

    Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”—meaning wasted—to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.

    Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public—and from Cherry herself.

    The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink—the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . .

    Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?

    BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVintage Crime/Black Lizard
    Release dateJul 27, 2010
    ISBN9780307594389
    Star Island: A novel
    Author

    Carl Hiaasen

    Carl Hiaasen (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty adult and young adult novels and nonfiction titles, including the novels Strip Tease (1993) and Skinny Dip (2004), as well as the mystery-thrillers Powder Burn (1981), Trap Line (1982), and A Death in China (1984), which were cowritten with fellow Miami Herald journalist Bill Montalbano (1941–1998). Hiaasen is best known for his satirical writing and dark humor, much of which is directed at various social and political issues in his home state of Florida. He is an award-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, and lives in Vero Beach.

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    Reviews for Star Island

    3.5/5

    454 ratings45 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It's always a crazy romp with Hiaasen! Fun to have Skink show up again in this book.
    • 4/5
      God Bless Skink!!!
    • 4/5
      This is a classic Hiaasen book with snarky humor and an interesting plot. The story revolves around a pop star who is out of control even with her parents and manager supervising her. Skink becomes involved which always adds fun to one of his books.
    • 3/5
      3.5 Hilarious satirical send-up of South Beach life and no-talent movie stardom (think Kardashians) in which promoters, the adoring fans, and the celebrities themselves are all to blame for the vapid lifestyle and money machine that perpetuates the cycle. This was my first Hiassen for adults and it definitely is for adults in that he spares no crassness or vulgarity in capturing the "true" essence of the situation. I did appreciate the crossover character of Skink, the short-term FL governor, now Everglades-dwelling environmental vigilante who does not suffer fools lightly (really, at all), whom I knew from his YA title book. There are a lot of plot threads here, but they all come together well by the end. Center of the story is Cherry Pie, an underage lip-syncher (no talent) with a big image, ego, and publicity machine behind her (Maury, her promoter, and the sadistic former-felon bodyguard, Chemo who is supposed to keep her on the straight and narrow, her uptight twin publicists, her enabling parents, Janet and Ned Bunterman, her B-list celebrity boyfriend Tanner Dane Keith, an obsessed paparazzo, Bang Abbot and her unknown look-alike, "normal" actress Ann DeLusio.) Cherry is a train -wreck of a girl who repeatedly overdoses, does outrageous things and thinks the world revolves around her (think Lindsay Lohan in the 2000s) Her upcoming tour (Skantily Klad) is the only hope to salvage her career and everyone in her entourage is striving/conniving to make this happen, but she unknowingly (unthinkingly) is doing everything in her power to tank it. Ann stands in multiple times for the public/paparazzi while Cherry is passed out/in rehab/on the lam. She is accidentally kidnapped by Bang Abbot, which everyone tries to turn to their advantage. She reaches out to Skink for rescue and things really get convoluted and wild. Either Hiassen has a fabulous imagination or I have way too much naivete when it comes to Hollywood gossip. It's a fun escapist story with a lot of humor and sarcastic commentary on our times.
    • 5/5
      Actually, I think this might be one of Hiaasen's best. Although all are good, this one just has the perfect touch. A talentless kid singer 'star', a scumbag photographer, really bad parenting, and, of course, the ex-governor... all mix into a great tale.
    • 4/5
      Carl Hiaasen still has it! I love this man's work, his voice, and his style of writing so much, I cannot even tell you! this book was another amazing ride through the satirical life of Hiaasen's characters, and one that I will gladly go through again and again. I hated to see this book end, and I cannot wait for the next book to come out!
    • 3/5
      This book was only alright. Drugged out pop star and her "momager", her tour manager and her entourage and the lengths they go through to keep her antics out of the press. A paparazzo that is obsessed with getting the picture of her when she OD's which is pretty much inevitable. And her double, a struggling actress that looks like Cherry, they hire to portray Cherry publically when she's in rehab or the hospital having her stomach pumped so the public doesn't know. There's a host of other characters in this book, none of which are very likable. There's a lot going on and having listen to the audiobook, it's possible I may have missed something, but it was just one thing after another. There was kidnapping, hostage taking, bribery, theft, duplicity, heavy drug use, violence, sex, this book as something for everyone I guess. I just never found anything I could like about any of these people. I guess if I had to choose one I was at least interested in it would be Annie, the double. She seemed to be the most "normal" of any of them. I also didn't know this was part of a series, but Skink is a character, though not a key player so I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not reading the first five books.
    • 1/5
      Awful. Couldn't wait to finish.
    • 1/5
      You would think that young nymph-like, lip-synching druggies and their hangers-on would be impossible to parody. But you thought that of Sarah Palin, too. Tina Fey knew how to stick in the knife and twist it. Hiaasen, not so much. He bludgeons with a big hammer.

      His heavy-handed satire (his normal) drags on with sex, drugs, tattoos, private jets, and not much rock and roll. OKish book, if you are stuck someplace with nothing else and cannot sleep.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes you just need a fun little distraction of a book to take your mind off your worries, and this is the perfect choice.
    • 3/5
      One never opens an Hiaasen book expecting intricate plot themes and stunning charactizations. One reads Mr. Hiaasen because he has a biting wit which blends so well with his satirical look at certain aspects of life. In STAR ISLAND he tackles the pop diva music world personified by Cherry Pie … the perfect melding of so many young popsters on the current music scene. Cherry is over-indulged, under-talented, drug-dependant and stage-mothered. She is also stalked by uber-papparazzo Bang Abbott and has a look alike stand-in for those times she has the “tummy problems” she happens to be so prone to (nudge-nudge-wink-wink).

      This book is a humorous, no hold barred accounting of Ms. Cherry Pie’s sad life and poor career choices. The population of amusing peripheral characters is what made this book work for me. They were so over-the-top and took themselves so seriously that it was hard not to laugh at the unbelievability for the whole time we were allowed to glimpse into their lives. Personally I think this is a book you need to be in the mood to read … kind of like a pallete cleansing light sorbet between heavier main courses.
    • 4/5
      Carl never lets me down. I love his characters. His books are a joy to read. And oh how happy I was to have my favorite Ex governor back in my life. :)
    • 2/5
      Craziness on steroids in South Florida. 
    • 3/5
      The story follows a spoiled teen music star with a serious party mentality and her double who covers for her when she is incapacitated. Not the best plot from Hiaasen, but a few good digs and politicians and the entertainment world.
    • 5/5
      Papparazzi, corrupt real estate development deals, a clueless, utterly untalented pop star whose parents employ a team to keep her and the gravy train going. and crazed former governor of Florida who subsists on roadkill and brings vengeance down on those disrupt the pristine beauty of his state. These are the ingredients that Carl Hiaasen uses to cook up another masterpiece.
    • 1/5
      I normally love reading Carl Hiaasen, and that's the only reason I finished this book. His books are a bit formulaic, but they're fun, quick reads. Star Island was not really worth the time it took to read it(a lot longer than normal since I kept putting it down). It wasn't funny, it wasn't exciting, and I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Not even Skink.
    • 2/5
      It might be me, but this seems like a not so energetic Carl Hiaasen. All the elements are there, but I just couldn't enjoy this one the way I have so many of his other novels.
    • 3/5
      Given the nature of this book which is simply entertainment and not great literature I can give no more than 3 stars. But for what it is I enjoyed it. If you are looking for mindless humorous quick read than this worked. I doubt if I would read another book by Hiaasen unless it was at a vacation home and I needed something to read.
    • 4/5
      As entertaining as expected. The main characters, Skink and Jim, re-appear lending satire and humor to the story line.
    • 4/5
      No secret here -- I'm a Hiaasen fan, especially when he features Clinton Tyree, a.k.a. Skink in the stories. Those two can romp through Florida like nobody's business, and do it in grand style with some star-powered licks taken as well.
    • 2/5
      Pretty much paint-by-numbers humor from an old hand. The characters are all readily visualizable as their Hollywood templates: Lindsay Lohan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara (at age 50, or thereabouts, not at age 95, or whatever they actually are now), and, of course, Burt Reynolds as the governor in dreadlocks. Of course there's an ecological message. The land is played out, in every way.
    • 2/5
      As good as it was when it started, Star Island, seems to lose most of it's momentum halfway through, until it reaches it uneventful ending. Overall, it feels like like a book that's half again as long.
    • 4/5
      "Star Island" is classic Carl Hiaasen:  a wild romp, set (of course) in South Florida, and filled with despicable but hilarious characters who get their due.  Cherry Pye is a 22 year-old hard-living pop star, who wants nothing more than to get and stay high--and to change her moniker to Cherish.  To protect her reputation, her parents and her manager hire Ann DeLusia, a look-alike actress, to pretend to be Cherry at events that the singer herself is too smashed to attend.    They also hire a body guard:  Chemo, a 7 foot ex-con with seriously pock-marked skin, and an amputated arm that's been replaced with a weed-whacker.   When Ann is kidnapped by Bang Abbott, an obese, odiferous paparazzo pursuing a money shot of Cherry, it's up to Lucy and Lila Lark, the over-Botoxed twins who serve as publicists for Cherry, to manage the situation, and they'd prefer that Ann disappear rather than let the public know that Cherry has a double.  But this is actually Ann's second kidnapping in just a few days, and her prior kidnapper, who took a liking to her, has promised to help her out whenever she needs it.   Hiaasen readers will recognize the first kidnapper:  it's Skink, the eco-terrorist former governor Florida who now lives as a hermit in a camp in the swamps, and is known to take outrageous steps to punish those whose actions will harm the local environment--like tying up a condo developer and placing a spiny sea urchin in his underwear!

      Like all Hiaasen novels, the plot is complex, and the writing is first-rate.  It's not great literature, but it's great fun to read.
    • 3/5
      Any book with Skink in it wins me over. This one was no exception, from changing his human fake eye for one from a stuffed hunting trophy to picking his teeth with a dessicated starling beak, he's a hoot to follow because you never know what he'll do next. Newcomers might think the environmental bit was tacked on, but that's Skink's metier - kicking unscrupulous butt in the name of ecology. And I caught a lovely Zevonism in there about someone leaving the 'detox mansion' - sweet.

      That being said, this book felt more forced than usual for Mr. H. The idiotic escapades of a brainless pop-star just got to be over the top even for him. And I wished I saw more of what made Ann so attractive to Skink to make him seek her out for rescue, and less of Cherry, her parents and handlers. Bang was pretty entertaining in his conscience-free, hapless way, but unlikeable. Maybe making Chemo a tad more sympathetic would have done the trick. The similarities to Frankenstein's monster weren't lost on me, but the sympathy was. Oh and I hate you, Carl baby, for putting that rancid Warrant song in my head for days. Thanks, bud.

      All in all not bad if you're a fan and like the lengths Hiaasen goes to, but if you can't put your tongue firmly in your cheek, don't bother.
    • 3/5
      I never thought I would give a Carl Hiassen book only three stars but sadly, that’s the most that “Star Island” deserves. This is a competent comedy written by a man who is normally a comic genius.

      All Hiassen’s usual characters are here, “Skink” the one-eyed ex-governor turned crazy eco-warrior. “Chemo” the scary killer with the peeled face and the bitten off hand from “Skinny Dip”. There is the usual chaotic larger-than-life plot revolving around greedy, grasping people who are so amoral they have little or no understanding of what they have become and there are the few characters whose humanity, independence and refusal to give up makes them shine in the human-swamp that surrounds them.

      But the story lacks passion. Hiassen seems to be going through the motions. Skink, for once, seems lost and not entirely sure of why he’s there. Dear God, he even ends up in a pin-striped suit. Chemo loses his menace and even seems to develop a conscience.

      The evil that the bad people do is largely to themselves and is hard to get excited about.

      The book is redeemed by the two main female characters, Cherry Pie, the young self-abusing pop-star and her body-double, spunky actress, Anne.

      These are the women that Hiassen seems to fall in love with in the book and that love drives everything else. He does a wonderful job of showing Cherry as more than an air-head. My heart went out to her because she wants to called “Cherish” because it sounds cool but I couldn’t help seeing the pathos of this name for someone who has never been cherished.

      Anne is brave and funny and honest and gets all the best lines. What’s not to love. Except perhaps that she treats the governor as an accessory, a plot device in the drama of her life, rather thana person. Perhaps this is what makes her the perfect actress.

      The book is of course well written, it made me laugh. It just wasn’t as good a “Skinny Dip” or “Nature Girl”.

      Perhaps I’m missing the point. Perhaps what Hiassen wanted to show was that the paperazzi-ridden pop world is so fake it kills all real passion but I don’t think so.
    • 2/5
      i am not sure how stars really are but I am sure they are not that insane at least I hope so. Not sure if a bodyguard with a weedwhacker as an arm and a govoenor in the swamps of Florida are believable.
    • 3/5
      This is a typical Carl Hiaasen book. He hits it on the nail about how our society builds up mediocre young stars and the trouble they get into. it just wasn't one of his best books. Maybe because I felt none of his characters didn't have any redeeming qualities. and out of the blue he adds the environmental aspect, but it wasn't developed as he has done in the past and was such a small part in the book. His others, tie together more, but to me this was way out in left field.
    • 5/5
      It's possible I am getting jaded to Hiaason's stories, but this one didn't parse a penny in imagination or flow. He kept me going, but little love of and between the characters would be good. There was only a kind of empathetic caring between two or three of the characters and a more non-caring and unlikeable bunch of charecters I've never seen. Tim Dorsey, Hiaasen's copycat novelist over there in Tampa, went with a seriel killer as a protagonist and I simply cannot read Dorsey's stuff. There is NOTHING funny, either in satirter, sardonicism, or in any kin d of human humour, about killing people, and that leap of the imagination i can not and will not cross. It is too "fictional" to my soul, if you will. Carl is in danger, possibly, of going the same way as Dorsey. Dont do it!. We (the readers) want to casre about their protagonist. That's what he has in Skink -- a person who we have come to care about over the series, aqned why? Because his creator-writer lets the craziness down fairly often whith him and shows us his humanity. Satire doesn't mean you have to be unloveable.
    • 4/5
      If you love Carl Hiaasen, there’s no surprises here. It’s your usual mix of wacky characters put into a wacky situation that more often than not, is the result of their own despicable actions. In the midst of all the less-than-savory characters is your beacon of shining hope: Ann DeLusia. All Ann wants is to be an actress, but the novelty of pretending to be Cherry Pye is getting old. She’s already trying to figure out how to extract herself from her job when she’s mistakenly nabbed by Bang Abbot, a paparazzo who becomes obsessed with Cherry after a brief, but intimate, encounter with the inebriated starlet. He has dreams of cementing Cherry’s legacy with a Marilyn Monroe-esque photo collection, and it turns out that Ann is his ticket in.

      While the story is mostly solid, there were some weak points. I really couldn’t muster up a care for the Jackie Sebago/real-estate scam storyline, which really just seemed like a reason to bring Detective Reilly into it. I also thought the ending was weak. After Ann is rescued (sort of) and the scheming to keep her quiet begins, I really expected her to go out with a bit more of a bang. The final confrontation in the nightclub is pretty bleh.

      But, Hiaasen is still one of my go-to authors for humor and adventure. His characters are over-the-top without being fantastical, and you usually can find some sort of message amidst the chaos. This was well worth the listen.
    • 2/5
      Hiaasen is at his best when whichever satirical axes he has to grind dovetail with the needs of his characters. This was not one of those situations. Nothing quite came together, and the distance between each of the subplots deflated any potential for screwball hijinks. And to end with an Animal House-esque epilogue where he spends a paragraph explaining how every character turns out just smacks of laziness. Weak sauce.

    Book preview

    Star Island - Carl Hiaasen

    1

    On the fifteenth of March, two hours before sunrise, an emergency medical technician named Jimmy Campo found a sweaty stranger huddled in the back of his ambulance. It was parked in a service alley behind the Stefano Hotel, where Jimmy Campo and his partner had been summoned to treat a twenty-two-year-old white female who had swallowed an unwise mix of vodka, Red Bull, hydrocodone, birdseed and stool softener—in all respects a routine South Beach 911 call, until now.

    The stranger in Jimmy Campo’s ambulance had two 35-mm digital cameras hanging from his fleshy neck, and a bulky gear bag balanced on his ample lap. He wore a Dodgers cap and a Bluetooth ear set. His ripe, florid cheeks glistened damply, and his body reeked like a prison laundry bag.

    Get out of my ambulance, Jimmy Campo said.

    Is she dead? the man asked excitedly.

    Dude, I’m callin’ the cops if you don’t move it.

    Who’s with her up there—Colin? Shia?

    The stranger outweighed Jimmy Campo by sixty-five pounds but not an ounce of it was muscle. Jimmy Campo, who’d once been a triathlete, dragged the intruder from the vehicle and deposited him on the sticky pavement beneath a streetlight.

    Chill, for Christ’s sake, the man said, examining his camera equipment for possible damage. Stray cats tangled and yowled somewhere in the shadows.

    Inside the ambulance, Jimmy Campo found what he was looking for: a sealed sterile packet containing a coiled intravenous rig to replace the one that the female overdose victim had ripped from her right arm while she was thrashing on the floor.

    The stranger struggled to his feet and said, I’ll give you a thousand bucks.

    For what?

    When you bring her downstairs, lemme take a picture. The man dug into the folds of his stale trousers and produced a lump of cash. You gotta job to do, and so do I. Here’s a grand.

    Jimmy Campo looked at the money in the stranger’s hand. Then he glanced up at the third floor of the hotel, where his partner was almost certainly dodging vomit.

    Is she famous or somethin’? Jimmy Campo asked.

    The photographer chuckled. Man, you don’t even know?

    Jimmy Campo was thinking about the fifty-two-inch high-def that he’d seen on sale at Brands Mart. He was thinking about his girlfriend on a rampage with his maxed-out MasterCard at the Dadeland Mall. He was thinking about all those nasty letters from his credit union.

    Whoever she is, she’s not dead, he told the photographer. Not tonight.

    Cool. The man continued to hold out the wad of hundreds in the glow of the streetlight, as if teasing a mutt with raw hamburger. He said, All you gotta do, before loading her in the wagon, just pull down the covers and step away so I can get my shot. Five seconds is all I need.

    It won’t be pretty. She’s a sick young lady. Jimmy Campo took the crumpled money and smoothed it into his wallet.

    Is she awake at least? the photographer asked.

    On and off.

    But you could see her eyes in a picture, right? She’s got those awesome sea-green eyes.

    Jimmy Campo said, I didn’t notice.

    You really don’t know who she is? Seriously?

    Who do you work for, anyway?

    A limited partnership, the man said. Me, myself and I.

    And where can I see this great picture you’re gonna take?

    Everywhere. You’ll see it everywhere, the stranger said.

    Eighteen minutes later, Jimmy Campo and his partner emerged from the Stefano Hotel guiding a collapsible stretcher upon which lay a slender, motionless form.

    The photographer was surprised at the absence of a retinue; no bodyguards or boyfriends or hangers-on. A lone Miami Beach police officer followed the stretcher down the alley. When the photographer began snapping pictures, the cop barely reacted, making no effort to shield the stricken woman from the flash bursts. That should have been a clue.

    Sliding closer, the paparazzo intercepted the stretcher as it rolled with an oscillating squeak toward the open end of the ambulance. True to his word, Jimmy Campo tugged down the sheet and stepped away, leaving an opening.

    Cherry! the photographer shouted at the slack face. Cherry, baby, how ’bout a big smile for your fans?

    The young woman’s incurious eyes were open. They were not sea-green, mint-green, pea-green or any hue of green. They were brown.

    Goddammit, the photographer growled, lowering his Nikon.

    The woman on the stretcher grinned behind the oxygen mask and blew him a kiss.

    Grabbing at Jimmy Campo’s arm, the photographer cried, Gimme back my money!

    Mister, I don’t know what you’re talking about, said the paramedic, elbowing the sweaty creep back into the shadows.

    Inside a chauffeured black Suburban, racing across the MacArthur Causeway toward Jackson Memorial Hospital, a performer known as Cherry Pye was retching loudly into a silver-plated ice bucket. Her real name was Cheryl Bunterman, one of many ferociously guarded secrets about her life. Since the age of fourteen, when she’d first appeared in a dubious buckskin cowgirl outfit on the Nickelodeon network, Cheryl Bunterman had been introduced to one and all as Cherry Pye.

    The person who’d invented that shamelessly porny name was sitting next to Cherry Pye in the third leather bench seat of the big Suburban, stroking her daughter’s crusty blond hair. Feel better now? Janet Bunterman inquired soothingly.

    No, Momma, I feel like shit. Cherry whimpered, hurled, and then drifted off again. Half-sitting and half-sprawled, she wore a white terry-cloth robe, courtesy of the Stefano Hotel, and nothing underneath it. Even in semi-consciousness her small red-knuckled hands remained fastened on the rim of the ice bucket.

    Janet Bunterman had long ago chosen to overlook her offspring’s promiscuous fondness for drugs and alcohol, and on this particular occasion decreed that a late snack of spoiled shellfish was to blame for Cherry’s current debilitation. Also riding in the vehicle were a locally recruited physician, two stone-faced publicists, a hairstylist and a chunky bodyguard named Lev, who claimed to have served with the Mossad.

    Who ordered those vile scallops from room service, anyway? Janet Bunterman demanded.

    Cherry did, said Lev.

    Nonsense, snapped the superstar’s mother.

    And also the two bottles of Grey Goose.

    "Lev, how many times have I warned you about calling 911? Like she’s some sort of … civilian."

    The bodyguard said, I thought she was dying.

    Oh please. We’ve been through so many of these gastritis scares.

    The doctor looked neutrally at his new patient, but the publicists, who were identical twins, exchanged dour glances. The hairstylist yawned like a cheetah.

    This time was worse, the bodyguard said.

    Janet Bunterman said, That’s enough. Don’t upset her more.

    Ask the doc. It was bad.

    I said, that’s enough. Lots of girls have tummy problems. Right, Dr. Blake?

    Let’s see what the tests show at the hospital. The doctor was being diplomatic, for he knew very well what would turn up in the blood and urine of Cherry Pye. Upon arriving at Room 309 of the Stefano, he’d found the starlet nude, speckled in sunflower husks and twitching like a poisoned cockroach on the carpet. The bodyguard had pulled the doctor aside and provided a list of all known substances that the girl had consumed during the night, and the approximate amounts. It was the doctor’s earnest desire to be free of this crew before those three hundred milligrams of Dulcolax kicked in.

    Well, our Annie sure saved the day, Janet Bunterman said in a positive tone.

    That’s her job, one of the publicists remarked coolly.

    The other one said, It was her night off. We lucked out.

    Ann’s a pro, Lev agreed.

    Sometimes, added Janet Bunterman with a barbed pause, I think she’s the only one we count on in this organization.

    What do you mean by that? Lev asked.

    Conversation was suspended when Cherry Pye awoke and urped again, stentoriously.

    Afterward she wiped her mouth on a sleeve and whined, Can’t somebody please hold this freaking bucket?

    Of course, sweetheart, her mother said. Lev will hold your bucket.

    "No, Lev will not," said Lev.

    Cherry Pye’s mother reached up and angrily punched one of the dome lights, harshly illuminating a scene that had been barely tolerable in the dark.

    She said, Lev, turn around and steady the bucket for Cherry. It’s the least you can do.

    No.

    Somebody? gurgled Cherry. Jesus, what do I pay you assholes for?

    No one, including the woman’s mother, made a move. Only the hairdresser spoke. Come on, people, step up, he said. Baby girl’s in pain.

    Janet Bunterman fixed her well-practiced glare on the stubborn bodyguard. Lev, I swear, if you don’t hold that yuck bucket for my sick child, my only child, your meal ticket, then you’re fired.

    Understood.

    That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?

    No, Mrs. Bunterman, that’s not all. Your daughter’s a fucking train wreck. Also, she sings like a frog with emphysema. The bodyguard tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder. Pull over, François, he said. I’m getting out of this nut wagon.

    Still wielding his cameras, Bang Abbott returned to the lobby of the Stefano and took an ambush position behind a potted schefflera tree. The security goons paid no attention, which probably meant that Cherry Pye had already left the hotel.

    If she’d ever been there at all.

    Bang Abbott gave up and drove his rental car to a nearby McDonald’s. For breakfast he ordered three McSkillet burritos, a Danish and black coffee. He was met in a corner of the restaurant by a drawn, gray-skinned man named Fremont Spores, who had come to be paid.

    For what? Bang Abbott scoffed. It was a bum tip.

    Spores kept a bank of digital police scanners going 24/7 in the kitchen of his Collins Avenue apartment. He was considered the best in the business.

    You told me to let you know, was anything beachside with a young white female. You said to call right away, was anything at the clubs and hotels. Spores bared his stained dentures. Don’t cheap out on me, you sonofabitch.

    Bang Abbott shrugged. Your bum tip cost me a grand.

    Twenty-two-year-old OD at the Stefano—it don’t get no better than that. And now you’re sayin’ the information ain’t worth a hundred lousy bucks.

    Wrong bimbo, Fremont.

    Welcome to Miami. Now hand over the dough.

    Or what?

    Spores stood up slowly, teetering on scarecrow legs. He probed into his shirt pocket and came out with a soggy cigarette, which he dried in an armpit of his T-shirt.

    I got other clients more important than you, he said to Bang Abbott, who snickered.

    ‘Clients’? That’s rich.

    Spores lit the cigarette. One, name of Restrepo, he’s a businessman from South America. For him, I listen to the Coast Guard frequencies. Marine patrol, too. A heavy dude.

    Relax, Fremont.

    My man Restrepo, he said to call day or night, was any kind of favor I need. He’s so grateful for all the good work I do, he said to let him know, was any problems in my life. Spores coughed and squinted at Bang Abbott through the cigarette smoke. Is this a problem or not?

    Bang Abbott tossed two fifties on the table. Thanks for nuthin.

    Blow me, said Fremont Spores. He picked up the cash and walked away.

    After breakfast the photographer drove back to the Stefano. His plan was to sneak up to the third floor and knock on the door of Room 309, just to make sure. He got halfway to the elevator before one of the security guards intercepted him. Because it was early and the lobby was empty, the security guard felt free to knee Bang Abbott in the groin.

    Limping back toward his parking space, Bang Abbott spied the scrawny bellman who’d assured him that Cherry Pye was partying on the third floor, a piece of apparent misinformation that had cost the photographer another fifty bucks. The bellman had just gotten off work and was standing at a bus stop, tugging off the nappy jacket of his monkey suit and yakking on a cell phone. Bang Abbott came up behind him and twisted the fuzzy flesh of his neck until the bellman whinnied.

    You screwed me over, the photographer said.

    No way! The bellman wriggled free.

    "It wasn’t her, chico," Bang Abbott said.

    In 309, right?

    So you said.

    Man, I seen the babe with my own eyes.

    Wrong babe. Now gimme back my fifty dollars.

    The bellman backed away, fearing that the hefty photographer might actually try to mug him for the money. Hold on, man—it was totally her. I’d know that lady anywhere. I got all her videos downloaded, you don’t believe me. He held up his iPhone for effect, though he had no intention of letting the fat man put his grimy paws on it.

    Listen to me, junior, the photographer said. "I eyeballed the girl myself. It was not Miss Cherry Pye. I shot her picture on the goddamn stretcher when they were haulin’ her to the ambulance."

    The bellman cocked his head. Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, bro? She didn’t go out on a stretcher, she went out in a wheelchair.

    Don’t tell me this.

    Through the kitchen, man. I was the one who held the doors.

    Bang Abbott kicked at the curb.

    And there wasn’t no ambulance, the bellman added. They put her in a black Suburban.

    Well, fuck me up the butthole. Bang Abbott scratched his scalp.

    I wondered where chu was, man. How chu missed her.

    They took her out through the goddamn kitchen?

    The chick was major messed up, the bellman said. I mean, she was pukin’ into an ice bucket.

    A money shot, the photographer thought ruefully. Worldwide gold.

    The bus rumbled up, brakes hissing. The bellman made a quick move, but Bang Abbott blocked his path.

    Did you see any other shooters outside?

    "Any whats?"

    Photographers. Anybody get a shot of our girl blowing chunks?

    The bellman shook his head. Swear to God, I dint see nobody.

    "’Cause if that picture turns up anywhere in this universe, even the West Fargo Weekly Foreskin, I’m comin’ after you for my fifty bucks. Understand?" Bang Abbott stepped aside, and the bellman scrambled onto the bus. The photographer returned to his car, inhaled four Advils and headed for the Standard, where Jamie Foxx was rumored to be staying.

    These days a photo of the actor was worth maybe a grand or two, depending on the wardrobe and sobriety level of his dates, who were customarily gorgeous. However, a single exclusive picture of Cherry Pye in the debasing throes of a narcotics overdose would have fetched five figures, Bang Abbott figured. A very solid five.

    He hoped with all his withered, calcified prune of a heart that the bellman was telling the truth. He hoped that nobody else had gotten the shot.

    He also made up his mind to find out how he’d been tricked. It wasn’t really a matter of honor, for Bang Abbott held no illusions about the odious station of his profession. However, he owned a fiercely competitive streak and he hated to be stymied or outwitted, whether it was by a fellow shooter or the celebrity target. He took such setbacks hard.

    The dull and often lonely nature of his work—stalking people who kept no schedule—provided hour upon unhealthy hour in which Bang Abbott could work himself into a fevered snit. That is what happened as he paced the sidewalk outside the Standard Hotel, waiting for Jamie Foxx to swagger in from a wild night of clubbing.

    It wasn’t unusual for stars to attempt to fool the paparazzi by donning wigs or switching cars, but this time Cherry Pye’s handlers had shown exceptional guile and enterprise. The more Bang Abbott thought about it, the more agitated he became.

    I will get a picture of that crazy twat in all her dysfunctional glory, he vowed bitterly, no matter what it takes.

    2

    Ann DeLusia woke up at 4:09 a.m. in Room 409, and she couldn’t go back to sleep. When the first call came, she was soaking in the bathtub.

    Not a world-class marble bathtub, either, not at this lame Deco hotel. Somebody had figured it would be cool to keep the old plumbing fixtures from the thirties, a real design treasure. The tub was so short and shallow that Ann DeLusia couldn’t stretch without raising her feet from the water and bracing them on the clammy wall tiles.

    Although she wore noise-suppression headphones, Lenny Kravitz rocking full blast, she still heard the phone ringing. How could she not have? It was mounted on the wall right next to the damn toilet, on the notion that important people liked to chat while taking a dump. Even in her new five-star life, Ann refused to embrace this custom.

    By the time she’d removed her iPod, climbed out of the munchkin-sized bathtub and wrapped herself in a towel, the phone had stopped ringing. She put on a terry-cloth robe that she found in the closet and sat on the bed to wait. Two minutes later, the phone rang again. Ann picked it up and said, Yo.

    Can you get down here right away? Janet Bunterman asked.

    It’s my night off. I’ve got company. A harmless lie—Ann didn’t wish to be taken for granted.

    We need you, said Janet Bunterman.

    What’s the dress code?

    Take the stairs. Hurry up.

    All I’ve got on is a robe.

    They won’t care one bit at the hospital.

    Here we go, thought Ann DeLusia. "Gastritis? Again, Janet?"

    Get your butt down here, Annie. The ambulance is coming any minute.

    The mood inside Cherry Pye’s suite was urgent but not panicky. Lev covered the door, conversing in hushed tones with a stranger toting a black bag. Cherry’s hairdresser, Leo, was at the bar, mixing himself a Tom Collins. The publicists stood in tandem by the bay window, chain-smoking and murmuring gravely into matching cell phones. The starlet herself had already been moved to the master bedroom, where she was being tended by her mother and a Spanish-speaking nurse who’d been sent by hotel security.

    Kneeling among the medicine bottles and empty Red Bull cans was a young curly-haired actor whom Ann recognized from the MTV awards, although she could not recall his name. He wore a sleeveless gym shirt and inside-out boxer shorts, and he was picking up pills from the carpet. Ann leaned over and told him, You’d better get outta here.

    In a minute, the actor said, not looking up. He wasn’t leaving without his Vicodins.

    How’s our homegirl doin’? Ann asked.

    The young man shook his head. She ate, like, a pound of fucking birdseed. She said she was coming back as a cockatoo.

    Coming back from where?

    You know—from the other side. After she dies, she wants to come back as a cockatoo.

    Ann said, Oh, I like it.

    We went to Parrot Jungle today and got a private show, just for the two of us. There were all these cool birds doing far-out tricks, riding tricycles, dancing with umbrellas, shit like that. Cherry, she was totally blown away. On the way home we had to stop at PetSmart for a bag of seed.

    Good thing you didn’t take her to a rodeo, said Ann.

    She’s been listening to Shirley MacLaine’s books on tapes, so she’s like totally into reincarnation. The actor stood up, cupping the recovered tablets protectively. Have you seen my jeans? he asked.

    By then they could hear the siren of the ambulance. Lev hustled the young man out of the suite and warned him to keep his mouth shut.

    Where do you want me? Ann asked.

    It’s not my show, Lev said, nodding icily toward the twin publicists.

    One of them, still glued to the phone, pointed at an uncluttered section of floor near the bar. Ann arranged herself in a convincing sprawl. Leo knelt down and mussed her hair meticulously. Undo your robe, he whispered. Quick, you’re supposed to be sick.

    Dying sick or just party sick?

    The second twin loomed over Ann DeLusia and said, We need you to hurl when the paramedics get up here.

    Okay. This was one of the improvisational talents that had helped Ann win the job.

    Clicking her phone shut, the publicist explained, It was called in as an overdose.

    Imagine that.

    So we’ll need some vomit for verisimilitude.

    "For what?" Ann was thinking about what she’d eaten for dinner: room-service lasagna and a small Caesar. But that was eight hours ago.

    She said, You might have to settle for dry heaves.

    The publicist would have frowned were it not for the fact that her face was paralyzed from brow to chin with an exotic Brazilian bootleg strain of botulinum toxin.

    She looks so shiny and new! marveled Ann, gazing up from the floor. Like glowing ceramic.

    Leo hurried out of the suite, followed by the grim sisters. The man with the black bag was admitted to Cherry’s private bedroom, and the door was locked from within. Moments later, the paramedics arrived and Lev, playing the anxious boyfriend, let them in.

    Ann DeLusia flopped around impressively on the carpet and even managed to hack up some bile. The only unstaged moment of her performance occurred when she jerked the IV out of her arm; Ann was genuinely terrified of needles.

    She overheard Lev tell the paramedics that he didn’t know her name, much less her next of kin, because he’d met her for only the first time that night in the VIP room at the Set, where she’d been grinding on the lap of a second-string NBA power forward. Ann thought the last fictional detail was unnecessarily salacious.

    Are you sure she’s over twenty-one? one of the paramedics asked Lev.

    The bartender said he checked her ID.

    Then where’s her purse?

    How should I know? Lev said.

    So Ann DeLusia was strapped onto the stretcher as an unaccompanied Jane Doe. She was a bit disappointed that only one paparazzo—a grimy toad that she’d seen before—was lurking in the alley as she was wheeled to the ambulance. Where was the rest of the maggot mob? she wondered. Britney or Paris must be in town.

    The ride to the hospital was smoother than most, though Ann had to fight off two more attempts to poke a glucose drip in her vein. At the emergency room, the paramedics informed the admitting nurse that Jane Doe’s vital signs appeared to be completely normal—pulse, BP, respiration—which seemed weird considering she was supposed to be an overdose. The nurse wasn’t exactly consumed with curiosity, and within minutes Ann found herself unattended in a small examining room that smelled like Pine-Sol and stale piss.

    Beyond the half-open door she heard the moans and wails of real patients, and she felt a twinge of guilt for occupying a needed bed. She hopped down, tied the sash of her robe, pulled her hair into a ponytail (which she secured with an elastic examination glove that she’d fashioned into a scrunchie) and walked barefoot out of the hospital. Nobody tried to stop her. Nobody said a word.

    A white Town Car was out front, idling in a handicapped spot, exactly where Lev had told her it would be. Ann got in the backseat and rolled down the window to admire what was left of the Florida sunrise.

    I got some bagels, the driver offered.

    Sounds good.

    He handed the bag across the seat. They said I’m supposed to bring you back to the hotel.

    Ann DeLusia blinked up at the brightening sky. Where else would I go? she said.

    Cheryl Gail Bunterman was born in Orlando, the youngest and most outgoing of four children. At age six she won first place at a regional talent show with a spirited off-key version of Big Yellow Taxi, a song she’d learned from one of her mom’s Joni Mitchell albums. As she grew older, Cheryl’s stage poise improved far more than her singing, but her parents aggressively compensated by supplying provocative wardrobe and dance lessons from a petite stripper recruited at a local gentlemen’s club, the Central Florida equivalent of Parisian cabaret. Ned and Janet Bunterman were determined to make a superstar of their lil’ punkin.

    Debuting her new show-business name, Cherry Pye auditioned for, and won, a small role as a cartwheeling cowgirl in an ill-conceived after-school TV special called Hudson River Roundup. The story followed a group of innocent yet resourceful Wyoming teens who get lost on a school field trip to New York and are forced to pitch camp in a Bronx subway tunnel.

    The former Cheryl Bunterman had only one speaking line—Back off, buckaroos!—but her spunky delivery enchanted a viewer named Maury Lykes, who had TiVoed the program in the Key Biscayne penthouse where he spent three months a year. Maury Lykes was a record producer, concert promoter and talent shark who addictively monitored the Nickelodeon channel in search of fresh prospects. That, and he nursed a criminal fondness for underage girls.

    Cherry Pye underwent three months of expensive coaching before Maury Lykes resigned himself to the fact that she had the weakest singing voice he’d ever heard from anyone not confined to a hospice. A well-known backup vocalist was brought to the recording studio while Cherry herself was whisked away to study the valuable craft of lip-synching.

    Her first single, Touch Me Like You Mean It, was released with an accompanying video podcast on her fifteenth birthday. The ensuing uproar from offended Christian groups caused a spike in sales that vaulted Cherry Pye’s inaugural effort to number nine on the Billboard charts. A CD with the same title was rushed out three months later, selling 975,000 copies. It proved to be the biggest hit of the year for Jailbait Records, and Maury Lykes rewarded Cherry with a contract that made her an instant millionaire though essentially a slave to him for life—and an eventful, high-maintenance life it was. These days her reckless escapades made more of a splash than her music, a situation that Maury Lykes was eager to rectify. He’d heard from reliable sources that, anticipating her final crash, one of the major tabloids had already composed Cherry’s obituary.

    She goes on tour in three weeks, he reminded Janet Bunterman.

    Don’t worry, Maury. She’ll rebound.

    They were standing at the foot of the bed, in a private room at Jackson Memorial. Cherry lay before them, fast asleep and snoring like a trucker. A bedpan had been wedged unceremoniously under her bare bottom because the laxatives had struck with magnum force.

    She’s your daughter, for God’s sake. Get her under control, Maury Lykes said, a replay of more conversations than he chose to remember. Whatever it takes, I don’t care. Stick a LoJack up her butt.

    Not so loud, Cherry’s mother whispered.

    The promoter led her outside, to the hallway. He noticed that the door to Cherry’s hospital room stood unguarded. Where the hell is Lev? he asked.

    Oh, we had to fire him.

    What for?

    Insubordination, Janet Bunterman replied.

    Huge mistake. Gi-mongous mistake, Maury Lykes said irritably. Lev was sharp. He stayed on top of things.

    Yes, including my daughter.

    That was all Cherry’s move. You can’t blame Lev.

    Janet Bunterman said, She has a weakness for certain types of men.

    Yeah, thought Maury Lykes. Anybody with an eight ball and a nut sack.

    So what happened last night? the promoter asked.

    She went out clubbing with that boy from the new Tarantino project.

    The one who plays the necrophiliac surfer? What’s his name—Tanner something? Maury Lykes always liked to know whom his troubled wards were dating. He didn’t wish to read it first in the tabloids, or see it on TMZ.com. Is that the asshole who fed her all the pills?

    It’s just gastritis, Maury. Cherry ate some bad scallops.

    Right. Last time it was eggplant.

    What’s your point? said Janet Bunterman.

    And the time before that, Cobb salad.

    She has a hypersensitive stomach. Ask her doctor!

    Maury Lykes appreciated the value of occasional public misbehavior—it had prolonged the careers of several clients who would otherwise have vanished from the celebrity radar due to a manifest lack of talent. Airport tantrums, DUIs, botched shopliftings and other episodes of delamination could be useful between projects, when there was no other way for a young star to keep from being forgotten. But soon Cherry Pye would be launching a much-anticipated comeback CD (her second), and embarking on a twenty-seven-city concert tour that was (to the deepening consternation of Maury Lykes) not yet sold out. Rumors of another sloppy overdose would dampen advance ticket sales, for at this point even Cherry’s most loyal fans wouldn’t pay forty-two bucks to see her perform in a trashed condition. They could already watch that for free on YouTube: the infamous aborted show at the Boston Garden, a crisp spring evening two years earlier.

    Before the opening number, Cherry had whimsically decided to try crystal meth—just to see what all the buzz was about, as she later explained to Details magazine. She’d lasted for three songs, and at no time had the movement of her lips matched the voice track being piped through the speakers. When the crowd in the first few rows had begun to jeer, Cherry had spun around, dropped her leather mini-shorts and bent over to moon the offenders. Naturally she’d lost her balance and fallen on her head, leaving Lev to haul her offstage with a modified fireman’s carry.

    Pay attention, Maury Lykes said to Janet Bunterman. Your daughter’s turning into a cliché, and I don’t represent clichés.

    You do if they sell records, Maury.

    But they don’t sell records. They just sell magazines, he said. So clean her up, and keep her that way.

    She needs to watch what she eats, Janet Bunterman muttered.

    And don’t let her fuck any more actors, okay? They’re a bad influence.

    Now hold on—that boy she was with last night, he’s done Tennessee Williams in Chicago.

    I don’t care if he did Tennessee Ernie Ford in the basement of the Grand Ole Opry, Maury Lykes said, keep the kid away from her. You got a pen?

    Janet Bunterman found a pink Sharpie in her purse. Maury Lykes grabbed it and wrote a phone number on the back of his business card. Cherry’s going to need a new bodyguard.

    Who is he? Does he work for you?

    If you don’t call him, I will. Maury Lykes pressed the card into her palm and said, He’s an expert on ‘gastritis.’

    Cherry Pye’s mother frowned. I hope he’s nothing like Lev.

    Oh, he’s not like Lev, honey. He’s not like anybody you ever met.

    Bang Abbott still found pleasure in his craft, such as it was.

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