High Fall

by Susan Dunlap

  The lights came on. All eyes were on Dolly. Kiernan remembered seeing her with Bleeker on the set. She’d looked out of place there, but here—if appearances told the tale, Dolly could have been expected to carry a mop and pail. She was squat, middle-aged, devoid of makeup, and dressed in expensive brown slacks and a well-worn sweater, but no one who saw the well-creased line of her jaw and the intensity of her dark eyes would have mistaken her power. Or passed up the chance to hear her decisive pronouncement on handling Lark Sondervoil’s death.

  “We will leak the word about Lark’s drug problem.”

  “Drugs?” Bleeker was torn, but he was alone in that. The other four sighed. With relief? Or admiration?

  Kiernan held her breath, waiting for one of them to object. Or even question. But apparently no one was willing to risk dislodging their deliverance.

  “Hold it right there!” Kiernan demanded. “Lark Sondervoil did the Gaige Move. No one’s been able to do that since Greg Gaige died. No woman’s ever mastered it. It takes control worthy of a gymnast of Greg Gaige’s caliber to do that move. Who’s going to see that and then believe that she was on drugs?”

  As one, the group turned toward her, their faces unified in shock and fear. Bleeker looked as if the rug had been pulled out from beneath him and he was embarked on a fall that he’d always known would be inevitable. Only Dolly seemed unperturbed. If anything, she looked more determined than before.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “SAG.”

  “Out!”

  “The operative point is”—she stepped toward Dolly—“I’m the one here representing our interests. And I have never heard word one about Lark Sondervoil and drugs.”

  Dolly smiled, pausing long enough to savor her victory. “Well, sweetie, I can’t speak to your information network. But if you want the official word on Lark and her drugs, you can check with the California Highway Patrol. They nabbed her last week, got a urine sample—her choice—and bingo—opiates.”

  Swallowing her shock, Kiernan thrust her hands on her hips. “Last week could have been last year. That says nothing about today.”

  “In the media it’s everything,” the bushy one said. “Once a junkie, always suspect.”

  “We’re clear,” Bleeker murmured.

  “What kind of opiates? How much?” Kiernan demanded.

  “Sweetie, we’ve been more than open with you,” Dolly said, turning away from her as she spoke. “But we’ve got business now. So, out!”

  “That’s okay. Our lawyers are outraged. I’ve got calls to make.” Leaving the threat dangling, Kiernan stalked out. It took her half the distance to the Jeep to shake the union rep persona. She loved being that in-your-face. And the final threat—she’d just added that for the hell of it. Bastards let a woman die and come up with this cockamamie story about opiates. Well, let them sweat a little. Dammit, she’d have them sweating until they were begging for offices in the deep freeze. She’d ...

  She climbed into the Jeep and rested her hands on the wheel. The first thing was to find out who Dolly was. Yarrow could tell her that. Whoever she was, she had so much authority that in the land where beauty is power, she dressed like a hag. And without a second thought, she’d admitted her oversight in allowing a stranger in the room too long. What would it take to unsettle her?

  It was going to be a damned hard case, but there was one good thing. Going face to face with Dolly—well, Kiernan was going to enjoy that.

  CHAPTER 6

  DOLLY UBERHAZY TAPPED A short thick finger against her arm. “Cary, get Archie Lesher on the line”

  Bleeker flushed. He wasn’t a flunky. Goddamned studio production executives had armies of flunkies. Was she treating him like a production assistant, like some nephew of some has-been, some kid right out of college, to humiliate him in front of the others? Or was there more to it than that? Was she signaling them that he was going to take the fall for whatever came out of Sondervoil’s death? Oh, God, of course. Of course. But he couldn’t deal with that now. Now the question was how to handle this order. He shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got his number back at the trailer. Do you have it with you?” He held his breath. Make her root through her purse—that’d slice the feet off her image. Only the illusion, of course; he knew it and Dolly knew it. But the rest of them weren’t worrying about that now, and when they recalled this meeting, at least they wouldn’t think of him as a gofer.

  Dolly pulled out a plastic-covered notepad. Bleeker glanced up at the projection booth to cover his reaction. Wouldn’t you know she’d have a dime store pad; the woman never missed a chance to remind them that she was too secure to bother with image. She handed him the pad. “In here, under the L’s. I’m just doing this to cover bases, Cary. If that woman is representing Archie Lesher, I’m a flying turtle.”

  Cary dialed and waited. Should he handle the phone or give it to her? “Archie, Cary Bleeker here. I’m at the screening— Yeah, we are devastated about Lark Sondervoil. Overwhelmed. Such a talent, and a sweetheart. Dolly’s here, and Edgar, Sally, and Max.” He didn’t ask about the O’Shaughnessy bitch. It was a gamble; he was holding his breath. He exhaled in relief and said, “Yeah, terrible about Lark. We’re all distraught. Look, Arch, we just wanted to let you know that there’s a woman passing herself off as your stand-in.”

  He exchanged glances with Dolly. The woman could give approval with less muscle work than anyone on the West Coast. And she was impressed. If he played his cards right, he could come out of this smelling like a rose—instead of stinking up the place. “I figured you’d want to know, Arch.” He kept himself from taking another look at Dolly’s face. Had he gone too far with the “I figured”? “No, of course, Archie, we didn’t deal with the woman. I don’t know who she was. Probably a groupie in here for a thrill.” He didn’t buy that for a minute; neither did Lesher, he was sure. He’d worry about who she was later; so would Lesher. But they weren’t about to do their worrying together. “Yeah, man, we’ll see you.”

  He clicked off the phone. He could have summarized Lesher’s half of the interchange, but he waited till Dolly was forced to ask.

  “So?” she said.

  “Says he doesn’t know who she is.” Bleeker shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t.”

  “He doesn’t.” Dolly said. “Mata Hari-ing isn’t Lesher’s style. He’s too smart to try a stunt like this with me.”

  Bleeker started, then forced a half smile. “Let’s call this a wrap tonight. We’re all too shot emotionally to be worth a damn on rushes. The rest will keep till tomorrow. Thanks for coming, Max, Sally, Will, Edgar, Marve.” It wasn’t the smoothest dismissal, but that was fine. He turned to Dolly and asked about the schedule. And when the others had left and he heard the lobby door swing shut behind them, he said, “That woman was talking with Trace Yarrow earlier. Remember Yarrow?”

  She shook her head.

  “He used to be a top-flight stunt man. ‘Course, that was over ten years ago. Don’t think he’s worked since Bad Companions.” He paused, noting her flinch. “But he was on the set today. Christ, everyone who’d ever heard of Greg Gaige was there. Someone said they even saw Dratz.”

  “Carlton Dratz?” Her voice was half an octave higher. It was all Bleeker could do to keep from laughing. So he’d finally gotten to the bitch.

  “Carlton Dratz, indeed. Haven’t seen or heard of him since Greg Gaige died.”

  “What about Yarrow?” Dolly’s voice was under control again.

  “He’ll still have a SAG card. I’ll track him down. I’ll see who this impostor O’Shaughnessy is and where Yarrow fits in.”

  Dolly walked to the door. Even now, when she was virtually empty-handed, she trudged like a rhino—with that big horn to skewer anyone in the way. She pulled open the door, glanced into the darkened lobby, and turned back to him. “Don’t worry about Yarrow going off on a tack of his own.”

  Despite himself, Bleeker stood staring as the door closed after her. Had she known Yarrow all alo
ng and denied it so blithely that the possibility had never occurred to him? Did she recall who Yarrow was after he had told her? If so, how did she know Yarrow would be tame? Or was the woman just so goddamned sure of her power that she took it as a given she could control anyone with a third-cousin connection to the film industry?

  He shut off the lights and walked into the half-dark lobby, pausing so he didn’t run into Uberhazy again outside. He couldn’t drive himself crazy trying to figure her out. What he needed to do was get on top of this Sondervoil business, and the first step would be to find the impostor and tame her.

  CHAPTER 7

  TRACE YARROW PUT DOWN the phone. He should have slammed it down; he’d wanted to from the moment he heard Dolly Uberhazy’s voice. But he hadn’t, had he?

  He glanced around his studio cottage. The walls were bare but for the calendar from the cycle shop. The Madras spread on his single bed had bled so much, it was as if the color were racing the threads to oblivion. His table and unmatched chairs were from the Goodwill. Hell, no one could accuse him of being “into things,” into acquiring, into status.

  He had loved doing stunt work. That’d been the best time of his life. He’d been so focused, there’d been no space for thought; he’d felt alive. And afterward, with the guys, the foot soldiers, he had known he belonged. He’d paid his dues. He’d been a “new boy” for five years, so long that he was afraid somehow the “okay guys,” the ones who’d made it, could see his secrets and know he wasn’t good enough. He’d just about decided that he loved doing gags enough to put up with life as an outsider, when suddenly one day he found that he was an okay guy himself. And he knew that the same guys he trusted doing a motorcycle spinout, or a horse drag, or a car hit, could be counted on in his life outside the business.

  And then he’d had to walk away. It had been hell.

  Now he’d got himself caught between two women. That meant trouble. He liked the detective, good enough body to be in the business, and what a mouth on her. Well, he liked that in a woman. She’d trotted right over the warning rope and gotten onto the set as if the rules weren’t meant for her. That he understood. All the time she’d been looking ahead, watching for chances, shifting, skirting, lunging, always in control. And he wouldn’t mind being the guy who crashed the levee of that control, no indeed. He could imagine that firm little body, and all that controlled passion and …

  But she didn’t quite trust him.

  His chest went cold; it was the same feeling he’d had when he’d been the driver in a car hit. The okay guy he’d had to hit had been running into the road. He was gauging the speed of the car, ready to jump and slide over the hood. If you’re going to come out just a little black and blue, you have to be in the air when the hit comes; the guy knew that. But he jumped too late. No time to brake or even swerve. Guy ended up with broken bones like yesterday’s chicken dinner.

  Yarrow tried to shake off the cold. He hadn’t let the guy down, but he’d felt just as bad as if he had. He’d hated being the driver. Taking the hit—that was his style. Being the guy you couldn’t trust, or even appearing to be—well, you might as well be dead.

  But the lady detective was right not to trust him. If she’d asked him an hour ago if she could count on him—the two of them scratching out the truth about little Lark Sondervoil, battling the greed and ego of the studio—he’d have screamed, “Yes!” It wouldn’t have occurred to him that that bitch Uberhazy could phone him up with one of those offers he couldn’t refuse.

  She hadn’t held out the moon to him—teased him with a stunt job he knew he could never again handle. She didn’t offer him a coordinator’s job that would have had everyone in the business asking why all of a sudden, after ten years away from the business, Trace Yarrow got that plum. She was too smart for that. What she had held out to him was just a simple position, a script consultant, but an on-staff position, with the one thing he couldn’t get any other way.

  He limped to the sink. Dolly Uberhazy had offered him medical coverage—the hope of therapy for the leg, of pills for the pain, of not waking up at four A.M. wondering what he would do if the leg gave way again.

  He’d sold his soul for his body. Lark Sondervoil would have understood that. And dammit, so would Greg Gaige. Would Kiernan O’Shaughnessy? She was the one he’d be hanging out to dry. Well, she wouldn’t know, would she?

  CHAPTER 8

  “WHAT’S THE STORY ABOUT Lark testing positive for opiates?” Kiernan demanded as soon as she had crossed Yarrow’s threshold.

  It had taken her an hour to drive from the heights of La Jolla through downtown, past her own turnoff, on to San Diego’s Pacific Beach where diners were still moseying across Mission Boulevard, and shoppers were skirting through the traffic at Ingraham and Garnet, and into the alleys of Ocean Beach.

  Ocean Beach wasn’t ten miles from her home, but she knew it only superficially as a remnant of the days of psychedelics—shops on Newport Avenue sported hand-painted signs in blues and purples, and merchandise leaned toward surfing wares and health foods. Volkswagen bugs still thrived, and long-haired, well-tanned blondes who ambled on along the sidewalks resembled the original owners of those automotive flower children. Keeping the bug in gas, the board afloat, a little extra cash to get high on, good music and good smoke or snort: the good life lived.

  Trace Yarrow was older than the lotus-eaters Kiernan associated with Ocean Beach, but from the look of the single room he lived in—with its unmade day bed, TV, Formica table, and thrift shop chairs—he fit right in.

  Occasionally, she had driven down alleys like Yarrow’s, alleys that divided streets in the various “Beach” sections of San Diego, and wondered who lived in these one-room units the size of garages. Who would opt to sit behind a window overlooking a paved alley or back wall? Who slept so soundly or so little as to ignore the roar of cars and trucks and motorcycles forty inches away, at two, three, or four in the morning? Who shrugged off the probability of a burglar coming in through an alley window with the ease of swinging his legs over a porch rail? Or did these tiny dwellings hold nothing valuable enough to be fenced? It was, she had decided, the bus-depot-locker style of living.

  Yarrow’s walls boasted a repair shop calendar and three flowered prints he’d probably been too uninterested in to bother taking down. Safe to say the man wasn’t visual. Still, Kiernan found herself thinking of her own duplex and the view of the Pacific waves breaking on the rocks below her balcony. And her present decorative delight: a trompe l’oeil table painted with red straw placemats, bright blue-rimmed dishes holding servings of salmon steak, roasted red chili strips, and potato salad topped by bulbs of fennel. Off to one side, a basket of gold-buttered, red-paprika’d garlic bread, and in the corner, the head and neck of Ezra as he snatched a slice. Commissioning it had been an indulgence, as was her adored bluefish, flown in fresh from the East Coast, and Tchernak. She liked to think she wasn’t dependent on indulgences, but the idea of doing time in a room like Yarrow’s was one thought she pushed away.

  This was the first case since opening the agency that she had started without promise of payment—considerable payment—and even this she chose to consider not a poor business decision but an indulgence.

  “Opiates?” Yarrow repeated, still standing by the door as if he were undecided about whether he should have let her in. The harsh artificial light underlined the creases and pouches of his chipmunk face. She guessed he wasn’t much older than she, but he’d played those years a lot harder.

  “What’re you talking about, O’Shaughnessy? A whiff of coke, or plungers full of heroin?”

  “Either.”

  He swung the door back and forth on the hinges. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “What is this, Twenty Questions? Look, Yarrow, you give me a song and dance about Lark Sondervoil being a sharp stunt woman—I take sharp to mean bright enough not to stumble over a bluff when you’re loaded.” With another potential client she would have come on easier, but Trace
Yarrow was such an in-your-face little guy, he’d mistake courtesy for weakness. ‘With him, the winner of the game would be the guy who shoved the hardest.

  “I didn’t—”

  “Save the excuses. Just tell me what’s the story on Lark Sondervoil.”

  His hand tightened on the door. “Skip it. I’m not Lark’s keeper. And there are plenty of gumshoes dying for work.”

  “Fine. Run an ad. I’ll cancel my order with the Maserati dealer.” She grabbed the door. “Consider the hour I spent in the screening room a gift.”

  “You got in to see the rushes?” he asked, clearly so impressed he lost track of the game.

  “Didn’t you think I would?”

  “So what’d you learn?” he asked, avoiding concession.

  Kiernan restrained a grin. She loved the jab and run; the thrill of the game; always alert, all the chips in the middle of the table, all the cards facedown and nothing to do but psych out the other guy. It made her feel—well—alive. But she knew the pitfalls of guys like Yarrow, driven, single-minded, men who made love like there’d be no morning. There were reasons why they were ex-lovers, and reasons why after each one she’d sworn Never again. In a dark alley they were the best guys to have striding beside you—if they showed up. She ought to grab this out, press her palms together in thanks, and shut the door behind her.

  But Yarrow knew things about Lark Sondervoil she’d never find out elsewhere—Lark, and the movie industry. She’d take the gift, but in the form she wanted. She’d pick his brain and then walk out the door. “My questions first. What’s this business about Lark and opiates?”

  Yarrow released the door, took three steps, and flopped into a dinette chair. “Anyone else, I’d tell she was crazy, but for you I’m searching my brain like a bum looking for butts in the gutter.”

  “How well did you know Lark?”

  “Met her once at a party.”

  “Once! That’s all?” Maybe Yarrow had too many cards facedown.