“They gave her less than a day to get out of here. The car lease guy is coming to her house tonight to pick up the BMW,” Greenie said.
Ellen smiled. Greenie was as glad as she was to be getting out of this place. She’d already had a call from Jodie Foster about a job, or at least about some projects they could do together.
“Schatzman knows that Ellen made every deal that was worth anything last year. In fact, she saved his heavily used ass a few times, and still he let all that sexist shit go right past him, like he wasn’t even hearing it. If you ask me, they’re all a bunch of…”
Greenie’s tirade was drowned out for Ellen by the voice of the tour guide on the approaching tram, “… brilliant studio executives who develop and nurture the fabulous films you stand in line to see,” the guide was saying in a saccharine voice. “Some of those executives have offices in the one-story bungalows on the left.” The sound of the tram full of tourists, trundling by her office at regular intervals, had become such a usual part of her day, such a part of the studio’s revenue-producing business, that Ellen rarely thought much about it.
Sometimes when she was on a long phone call, she’d look out the window and study the faces of the passing tourists, wondering who they were and what their lives were like. But mostly she’d learned to block out the sound and the interruption the trams full of curious tourists caused when outdoor shooting had to pause as one of them clanked noisily past a set. She’d learned not to grit her teeth when she was in a hurry, in her car, to get somewhere on the back lot, and found herself behind one of the noisy metal vehicles, having to inch along and overhear the same cutesy spiel repeated by the tour guide to the eager tourists who had paid thirty bucks a head for the privilege.
Today it was Rose’s little white Mustang convertible stuck behind the tram. As the tram finally rumbled along on its way, Rose tapped a little hello beep to Ellen, then pulled into one of the spots nearby.
“Rosie?” Ellen asked nervously. “Is it…?”
“Jan’s the same,” she said. “Maria left Joey with Billy and the twins and drove over to the hospital. She asked me if she could sit with Jan for a while. They’ve been together for a long time, and I understood. So I came here, but…” Her eyes were blinking furiously behind her glasses, the way they did when she was angry. “I drove up to the guard and said I was coming to your office, and he said you no longer worked here. I said I knew you didn’t but I was coming to help you move… and he just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.”
“Oh, God,” Ellen said. “When Marly got here, the guard was still clearing people to come here, but now they must have been told that I’m off limits.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe the fuckers have gotten to the guards, too.”
Rose was fuming. “I’ve known that guard for years, I’ve been here a thousand times in the last twenty-five years. I said, Trenchie, what do I have to do to get on the lot?’ He said, ‘You have to be cleared by someone who works here, Rose.’ He was giving me a tip. Telling me if I could get clearance from somebody else, he’d let me go by. So I pulled over to the side and got on my car phone and called Will Staple’s office, and his secretary cleared me. What is wrong with those people?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ellen said. “It just reaffirms my resolve to get as far away from these nasty lowlifes as I can. Maybe we can even get Good-bye, My Baby made, Rosie, by somebody who will understand it. I sent it over to Jodie this morning, and she already called to say she loved it.”
Rose hugged her.
“Sure, sure, now Rose shows up, when all the work is finished,” Greenie teased through the window when he spotted her out there. “Get in here and tote those boxes.”
Rose grinned. “I’m on my way,” she said and started for the bungalow. Ellen closed the trunk of her car just as another tram rolled up the street. “… brilliant studio executives, who develop and nurture the fabulous films you go to see. Some of those executives have offices in the one-story bungalows on the left.”
Ellen walked into the office and looked at the passing tram out the window. At least they had tinted those windows, so she could look out but the tourists couldn’t see in. Good-bye Schatzman, so long Bibberman, she thought, good-bye tours. I won’t miss you.
On the streets of the back lot, the trams moved like snails to give the tourists time to snap pictures of the famous sights they remembered from their favorite films. But around these executive offices, since there was so little of interest for them to see, sometimes the tram drivers had been known to put a little weight on the accelerator.
So the tram was clipping along at a pretty good pace at that moment, and Ellen wasn’t a hundred per cent sure, but for an instant, she looked at the wistful face of a woman, a passenger on the tram who was leaning on the rail, who looked strangely familiar to her.
A woman who was older, no, maybe not so much older, but haggard and tired-looking, with graying-at-the-temples-hair. She was wearing a black cardigan sweater and carrying a big striped purse. She was so familiar that it gnawed at Ellen as she walked over the threshold into the office.
The bathroom, she thought, coming back to the reality of the move. She wondered if Greenie had packed up her things from the pretty tiled bathroom in her bungalow. When he saw her on her way in there, he called out, “I did most of it, but there are still a few little things I wasn’t sure about, so they’re on the counter.” Absently, later she remembered it was absently, she went into the bathroom and tossed the remaining cosmetics into the half-full moving box on which Greenie had marked E.B. BATHROOM STUFF.
“Thank God for Jodie Foster,” she heard him saying. “Otherwise I’d be looking in the L.A. Times for employment opportunities. And I have zero skills. All I know how to do in this world is to say, ‘Sorry, she’s very busy!’ That qualifies me to do what? Answer phones for Heidi Fleiss!” Ellen and Rose laughed at that joke. “Well now, at least we’re looking at possible jobs.”
Tampons, hair spray, lozenges. Jobs. A vent brush, a blusher brush, a tube of lipstick in a color she no longer wore. Receptionist. Proofreader. Nanny. That’s what those words meant that someone had written next to all of their names on the list. Jobs. An empty bottle from an old prescription of an antibiotic, prescribed by Dr. Andrew Schiff-man. She tossed it into the wastebasket. A bottle of her cologne. Norell.
Betty Norell. The name hit her, and when it did, so did a lot of other thoughts that rushed at her like an oncoming train. Chichester. If only it were open all year round, I’d never leave the place. That’s what Randy McVey said in the meeting. Chichester was the theater started by Olivier, and Rose said that’s where Betty Norell worked in the winter.
She put the cologne bottle down on the counter and walked into the office, where the others were taping the last few boxes. “Who remembers what it said on that list? The one Rita Connelly had with all of our names on it.”
“Names and home addresses,” Marly said.
“And some other words that somebody wrote on it,” Rose said, “like nanny, and…
Jobs. Proofreader. Receptionist. “The list was made by Betty Norell,” Ellen said. “She thought she’d come here and one of us would give her a job. Next to Rose is where it said proofreader, next to me it said receptionist… and Jan… next to Jan it said nanny.” She was pale and fearful. “What did Jack Solomon say the other night about her?” she asked.
“Oh, some long story about how her daughter was searching for her and he was such a good guy he took her call, even though he was in a meeting with God or somebody like that,” Rose said.
Greenie looked up from the last box. “That name sounds familiar,” he said. “Betty Norell.” He was processing the name. “Is that someone you know?” he asked and shuffled through the box he’d been about to close. “She sent you a video ages ago,” he said to Ellen. “No,” he sighed. “It’s not in here.”
“What kind of video?” Ellen asked.
“You know, like all those kooks out the
re who send in their home tapes, all those people out there who read articles about you and think you can make them a star. I just figured she was one of those, so I put it in the cupboard with all the rest of them. I had no idea you knew her. I mean, I think in her note she said something like, ‘Hi, Ellen. Take a look at this and let me know if you have a part for me.’ But they all say that, try to sound so chummy. In fact, now that I think about it, I think she may have even called here, but wouldn’t say what she wanted, so I didn’t put her through. I mean, you get dozens of calls like that a week.”
“Can you put your hands on the video?” Ellen asked.
“Maybe,” Greenie said and tore the tape from one of the sealed boxes. “Who is she?”
“She was the best actress in our class at Tech,” Marly said.
“Betty Norell shot Janny,” Ellen said, sitting because she didn’t think her legs could hold her any more. And then she put it all together for them, all the thoughts that were rushing around in her mind. She collected them and then blurted them all out. Starting with the fact that the list the police found in Jan’s front hall had jobs next to each of their names. It was faxed to San Diego, where Betty Norell lived, to someone who said she was Rose but had a voice that sounded like Suzanne Pleshette. A voice that was so deep Maria could have mistaken it for a man’s voice.
“But I thought Betty Norell spent winters in repertory in England,” Rose said. “At the theater started by Olivier. What’s it called? Chichester. That’s what it says in the alumni magazine.”
“That’s what she writes in to the people who put together the alumni magazine,” Ellen said. “They don’t check. I could tell them I owned the world and they’d put it in there. But it’s a lie. Chichester is only open in the summer.”
“Why tell that lie?” Rose asked.
“Maybe because it’s the dream we all had for ourselves at Tech. To never sell out. To only do important work. To be true to the theater,” Marly guessed. “I know I’m jealous every time I read that.”
“Yes!” Greenie said suddenly, pulling a video cassette out of one of the boxes and then out of its sleeve. “Shall we?” he asked and shoved it into the VCR. There was a black screen, then a hand-lettered sign that said, BETTY NORELL SWANSON, THE GLASS MENAGERIE. PRODUCED BY HER DAUGHTER POLLY SWANSON. After an instant there she was, with gray hair, a lined face, the way she’d looked in The House of Bernarda Alba when she played the ugly jealous sister.
“As you know, I was supposed to be inducted into my office at the D.A.R. this afternoon,” she said in the character of Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.
“I remember when she did a scene at Tech from this and she played Laura, the daughter,” Rose said.
“We all used to play the daughter, dear,” Marly said, and Greenie turned up the volume on Betty’s voice. It was a great, deep, resonant sound.
“But I stopped off at Rubicam’s business college to talk to your teachers about your having a cold and to ask them what progress they thought you were making down there,” she said, and her performance was already powerful. She had just spoken a few lines, but her instincts about the character were so strong, her ability to lose herself within the role so sharp, that she was well into it. That expression on her face was the look of a mother whose dreams had all crashed to the ground.
Ellen put a cold hand on her own hot face. The woman she was seeing was the woman on the tram, the woman carrying a striped purse. The striped purse Eddie the pool man had seen when Betty Norell came to her house looking for her. Probably she was the next one to be attacked. The way she’d attacked Jan. But why? It didn’t matter why.
“She’s on the lot. Call security,” Ellen said out loud. Her voice was filled with terror. “I saw her go by on the tour, a few minutes ago. She probably took the tour to get on the lot, and she must be planning to shoot me next.” Betty Norell, the best actress in the class, had sent her a tape, and she’d never watched it. Betty Norell was the one who shot Jan, and now…
“The phones are dead,” Greenie reminded her.
“Well, I may be, too, if you don’t get through, now! Call from my car. Tell them they have to cover all the trams and find a middle-aged woman carrying a big striped purse.”
Greenie grabbed Ellen’s keys and ran out the door to her car.
“My God, I just remembered,” Rose said. “A long time ago, right around the time Allan was so ill, I got a letter from her. It was sent to my agent’s office because the Writers’ Guild won’t give out our home addresses, but they will tell people who want to reach us who our agents are, and she said something like, ‘I know you’re some big fancy hotshot now, and don’t have time for someone like me, but you better help me.’ I thought it was so mean-spirited, and I was hurting so much from my own loss, I never answered it.”
“Buy why would she want to kill you? Not returning somebody’s calls isn’t a reason for murder,” Marly said. “If it was, the whole William Morris office would be dead.” Nobody laughed.
“Who knows. Jealous, enraged at what she perceives is our unqualified success,” Ellen said.
Greenie entered, red-faced. “Security says they can’t do anything for you. They told me if you have problems, you’ll have to take care of them yourself,” he said.
“Then let’s go,” Ellen said.
“Where?” Rose asked.
The video was still on and now Amanda Wingfield was saying “… little birdlike women without any nest, eating the crust of humility all their life!”
“Ellen, this tour is so huge, and if you think you saw her go by a few minutes ago, she could be anywhere now,” Greenie said. “There are shows, and rides, and stores, and stands, and booths, and thirty thousand people a day doing them. You’ve been back there often enough to know how nuts it would be to try and find her. Besides, what if she has a gun and figures out that you’re looking for her? Let’s call the police and let them take care of this.”
“Fine, call Rita Connelly at the West Hollywood Police station. Tell her to rush here. But by the time she does, this woman could be gone. I’m going to find her. She shot our friend.” Ellen pulled her car keys out of Greenie’s hand and rushed out the door of the bungalow.
Marly looked at Rose. “I think this falls into the category of Turkish prisons and backs of ambulances, kiddo, so we’d better go, too.”
The dark-tinted windows of Ellen’s BMW made the squintingly bright day look grayish to Rose as she slid in.
“Where are we going to look first?” she asked, leaning forward from the backseat and talking to Ellen, who was backing the car out of her parking place.
“I don’t have a fucking clue,” Ellen admitted.
“I’ve never been on the Hemisphere tour,” Marly said.
“Well, don’t say I never take you anywhere,” Ellen said, and she floored the car up the hill toward the tour center.
* * *
35
Rose envied the camera-toting, summer-clothed groups of people, walking with their arms around one another from the parking lot to the ticket booth. A large group of Japanese tourists were having their photo taken together, laughing and jockeying for position in front of the HEMISPHERE HOLLYWOOD sign. A photo, she thought, taken of the four of them at Tech. What in the hell was it doing ripped up and in her wastebasket? That particular photo.
This morning when Antonia, her three-day-a-week cleaning lady, came in, Rose asked her if she knew anything about it, but her cleaning lady looked at the pieces Rose had assembled, and she shook her head.
“I never thought I’d see the day I’d actually pay to do this,” Ellen said as she parked. The three of them got out of the car into the glaring sunny day, and walked over to the ticket kiosks to stand in line behind a large noisy family with seven children, all under the age of twelve. “While we’re waiting, we’d better figure out if we’re staying together or splitting up, if one of us takes the shops and another one takes the rides and another one takes the shows until we
find her.”
“And more important, what we do if we find her,” Rose said. “I’m afraid. If you’re right, she could still have the gun. I turned down a big offer to do a rewrite on Kindergarten Cop because I hate guns.”
Ellen slid her company MasterCard under the glass to the woman in the ticket booth and held her breath, wondering if the studio schmucks had canceled that, too, but somehow the charge card she used for all of her expense account items must have slipped their minds, because it cleared, and the woman handed her three tickets and three brochures.
“Are we having fun yet?” she asked Marly and Rose, and nudged them through the turnstile. Inside the gate they stopped to psych out what they were going to do, and Rose and Ellen looked at Marly, who had her eyes closed.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ellen said. “Asking your bladder where Betty’s hiding?”
“I’m getting in touch with my natural knowingness, which is going to help me intuit how we should best do this,” Marly said softly, her eyes still closed.
Rose saw Ellen’s impatience rise, and she was feeling angry herself, and afraid, and not so sure that all of this wasn’t some manifestation of Ellen’s being forced to move off the lot in such an ugly, stress-provoking way. Betty Norell had been a nice, quiet girl at Tech. She tried to remember the times they’d interacted in those days. To picture her in her mind, in the dorms, in the cafeteria.
Betty had run downstairs with her the day she and Allan were pinned. Stood next to her. And Betty… one memory stopped her, and chilled her. Wasn’t it Betty Norell who had snapped the now torn picture of the four of them? Wasn’t she walking by them one day right after Marly got her new camera, and they were all laughing and carrying on and taking pictures of one another and were dying to have a picture of the four of them together. Didn’t Betty Norell walk by, and didn’t one of them ask her to take that picture? That had to be a coincidence. Even if she was here, in town, even if she was the one who shot Jan, there was no way she could have found her way into Rose’s home office.
Show Business Kills Page 31