Director's Cut

by Alton Gansky

  Traffic was uncooperative and as thick as mud. I pressed on, doing the vehicular equivalent of throwing elbows. My frustration grew as two cars conspired to move side by side at the same speed, becoming a bone in the throat of forward progress.

  “How do you do it?” Catherine asked.

  Since leaving Hollywood she had barely spoken. I was giving her time to decompress. I have learned that fears can compound. Even small things in sufficient quantity could press a person to the ground. A ton of feathers still weigh a ton. Catherine didn’t have feathers on her mind; her issues were large and hard and unrelenting.

  “How do I do what?” I shifted lanes again.

  “Remain so together, so confident when things go wrong.” She paused, then continued before I could respond. “I visited Mom and Dad last month. My mom had been talking to yours. I know about the attack in your home and about the death of your friend.” She looked out the side window. “Yet you keep going forward, running for congress, managing the city . . . taking care of me.”

  A tiny tear crawled down her left cheek. A black sadness oozed into my soul. I kept my eyes forward, partly because of the dense traffic, partly because I knew that her anguish was contagious.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” I said. “You’ve gone through all of this with unbelievable strength.”

  “It’s a facade,” she said. “I’m a mess, Maddy. What you see, what others see, is just an act. I’m an actor, it’s what I do. Inside . . .”

  I let a moment pass. We both needed a few seconds of silence to gather our wits. “I think most people are actors, Catherine. I know I’ve spent a good deal of my life putting on airs. That’s not so bad. Sometimes we begin to feel the way we act, not the other way around. Other times the mask we wear doesn’t matter. We can fool others, but we can’t fool ourselves.”

  “So you just keep going regardless of how you feel?”

  “I used to.”

  “Used to?” She turned to face me.

  I moved to the far right lane where the traffic was slower. I couldn’t duke it out with other drivers and tell the story at the same time. I needed the slower pace. Catherine didn’t object.

  “As you know, my husband Peter was killed in a carjacking. That was a long time ago, but the shock and pain never fully goes away. All time can do is quiet the sorrow; it can never extinguish it.” I took a deep breath. “In less than two years I’ve lost two friends to violence. I wanted to hide from the world.”

  “But you didn’t run away,” Catherine said.

  “A person can’t flee such things. Loss like that is a wound. No matter where I go, the wound will still be there.”

  “So you just gut it out?”

  “Not exactly.” I felt awkward, and I was uncertain how she would respond to what else I had to say. I took the plunge. “A little over a year ago I made a decision, and it’s changed the way I look at things.”

  “What kind of decision?” she pressed.

  I let a Chevy pickup pull in front of me. Several pieces of lumber cantilevered over the tailgate. “Before Peter died, he started hanging out with a group of businessmen who used to go deep-sea fishing once a month. Peter was born and bred to be a salesman. Having a dozen businessmen confined on a boat was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.”

  “He worked with his father, right?”

  “That’s right. Glenn Structural Materials. They make commercial flooring. The businessmen came from banking, restaurants, construction, and the like. Prime targets for Peter. It was the only way you would get him on a boat like that. The only thing he ever fished for were new clients. On his first trip out, he learned that more was going on than fishing.”

  “Nothing illegal, I hope.”

  “No, nothing like that. They were holding a Bible study. On the way out and on the return trip, the men studied the Bible.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I thought so too when I heard about it. Peter went several times. I knew nothing about what was happening on the fishing boat. Peter never talked about it. He made one last trip with the guys before going to LA where he was murdered. Years later I learned that he had made a decision for Christ, that he had become a believer.”

  Catherine opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. I gave her an understanding smile. “I felt the same way when I heard of it. I didn’t learn about this change in his life for years. Peter was a believer for less than a day.”

  I forced my eyes straight ahead and reminded myself that I was driving on a crowded freeway. Talking about Peter still hurt, but I pressed on.

  “A friend, Paul Shedd, gave him a Bible. Do you know Paul?”

  “No.”

  “No reason you should, I suppose. He used to be a banker but decided he’d be happier as a restaurateur. He owns the Fish Kettle diner on the pier. Paul has a habit of reading through the Bible every year. As he does, he makes notes in the margins and underlines verses that strike him as important. Every year he gives the Bible to someone he thinks will benefit from it. He gave one to Peter the day he drove to LA, the day he was killed. When the police returned Peter’s personal possessions, the Bible was with them. I kept everything in a cardboard box stuck away in a closet. It took a long time for me to open that box. I found the Bible.”

  “And it changed you.”

  “It took a little time and a lot of explaining from Paul Shedd, but ultimately I made the same decision for Christ that Peter did years before.”

  “And so everything is perfect in your life.” Her words had an edge to them.

  “I don’t recall saying that.”

  “I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest. “It’s just that Hollywood has its share of so-called Christians. I haven’t been impressed.”

  “What are you expecting from them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sound disappointed. What are you expecting out of the Christians you know in Hollywood?”

  “I don’t know. What should I expect?”

  “You should expect people who do their best to be godly, but you shouldn’t expect perfection. Walking in faith isn’t easy. I’ve learned many take the name but they don’t take the challenge.”

  “So because you have Jesus in your life now, you no longer have problems.”

  That made me laugh out loud. I apologized and then said, “I can’t say that. In some ways, I have new problems because of my faith. Took me awhile to learn this, but embracing faith in Christ didn’t turn me into the perfect saint. It’s not like flipping a switch. The decision, the prayer, can happen in a minute, but the lifestyle takes practice. I still struggle with my temper, and most of all, my mouth.”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  I checked my rearview mirror, buying some time. I felt awkward. Being so new to the faith, I had very little practice at explaining what I had come to believe. “The difference is, now I care. Before I plowed forward and if I hurt someone’s feelings along the way I wrote it off as the price of living. Now I try to think about the impact of my words. It’s not natural for me and I have a long way to go.”

  I pulled one lane to the left and pulled around the pickup. “You asked how I dealt with the tragedies I’ve faced. Well, that’s how. I pray. I seek God’s will. I try to live like a person who has Christ in her heart. The more I learn, the more sense it all makes.”

  “But God hasn’t protected you from pain. That doesn’t seem like a loving God to me.”

  I understood the sentiment well. I should. I’ve wrestled with it for as long as I can remember. “Catherine, I’m no theologian. I’m not a preacher. I’m just a woman who has found strength and purpose when I didn’t even know I was looking for it. All I can tell you is that my belief in Christ has changed everything for me. Sometimes . . . sometimes experience is the best explanation.”

  The next fifteen miles passed in silence. Catherine sat as if someone had sewn her to her seat. She did
n’t fidget, didn’t shift, didn’t move. Her tears had been replaced by an emotionless mask. On her lap was the new script. She hadn’t said so, but her actions said she wasn’t going to let this one out of her sight.

  “I had a few minutes to talk to Detective West,” I said, putting an end to the hush. “He was tied up with interviews, but he wanted me to tell you that he was sorry to have to interrupt your meeting.”

  “He’s just doing his job,” Catherine said. “The meeting was important but not crucial. Shooting is still weeks away.”

  “He also wanted me to tell you that he searched your home again, this time looking for listening devices. He brought an expert with him.”

  “Did he find anything?” She looked at me.

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “The mystery script had our words down almost identically.”

  “That’s one of the things that bothers me,” I admitted. “If someone was listening in and recording our conversation, then why are there subtle differences between what we said and what was later written?”

  “Maybe whoever did this didn’t record it. Maybe they just listened in and later wrote it down. I’m not sure I could recite what we said word for word.”

  “That’s natural enough,” I said. “Memory is fragile.” I waited for a moment, then added what I had been putting off. “There’s something else—something Mr. Rockwood said.”

  “What?”

  “He asked where the additional pages appeared. We told him. Then he mentioned the same thing you did about three acts and plot points. He said he wondered if there would be a second act.”

  “That’s frightening.”

  “I thought so. Could it be a coincidence the pages were placed there and not somewhere else in the script?”

  “I suppose,” she said.

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I’m not convinced about anything.”

  “How competitive is the movie business?” I asked. “Could someone be doing this to you to throw off the production?”

  “It’s very competitive. Sometimes it’s cutthroat. What about fingerprints? Wasn’t he going to check for fingerprints?”

  “Yes. He found ours, of course, but he also found several others. That’s one reason he is asking for prints from the others. He told me he ran the prints he had through the computer databases and there were no hits.”

  “So there were no listening devices in my home, and the fingerprints have been a dead end. We’re nowhere.”

  “West is just starting the investigation. Give him some time.”

  “I hope I have time to give.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked. She returned her gaze to the slow-moving traffic.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just forget it.”

  Chapter 19

  I dropped Catherine off at the theater at four. That gave me enough time to run by the office and check my messages. Tess was walking out as I was walking in.

  “Hey, Tess,” I said. “Did you get my message?”

  “About the stop sign and the child in the hospital? I got it. We’re not dealing with a practical joker anymore.” Her tone was dark. “We have two people in the hospital, both in grave condition. One of them just a child. We have serious problems.”

  “I assume you let Fred know.” I started toward my office. Tess stayed at my side. More meetings are conducted in hallways than offices.

  “I did. He’s anticipating what legal actions we may face and doing the preliminary work to protect the city. You know, some would try to get the family to sign a hold-harmless agreement or try to buy the family off by promising to cover all medical expenses.”

  “We’re not doing anything underhanded,” I said. “Everything must be aboveboard.”

  “I know and I agree. Let me say aloud what we’ve both been thinking. The city stands to lose a great deal of money.”

  “We’re insured.” We crossed the threshold into the outer office and said “hi” to Floyd who was putting files away.

  “I know we’re insured. Let’s just hope we can get insurance this time next year.”

  I motioned for her to take a seat and glanced at my desk. Very few calls. That was good.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I took a seat in my office chair.

  “That’s easy for you to say, Mayor. Next year you may be in Washington, D.C. I and the rest of the council will be left with the problem.”

  She had a point. “What do you think we should do?”

  “We’re not in the driver’s seat. At this point, all we can do is try and find the perpetrators and prosecute them. We should also work out contingency plans.”

  “Maybe we should go public,” I said. “Ask the public for help.”

  “I’d clear that with Chief Webb first. He has a man working on the problem. If we get ahead of them and make things more difficult, then he’s going to be impossible to live with.”

  “He’s already impossible to live with.”

  “It can be worse.” Tess stood. “I wish I had better news.”

  “I appreciate what you’re doing, Tess.”

  She left and Floyd flowed in a moment later. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “It went. Anything I need to know about?”

  “No. Just the same ol’ same ol’. You going to the play tonight?”

  “Yes. Catherine arranged for me, a date, and my parents to attend opening night. She got balcony seats.”

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed.

  “Jerry is going to meet me there, but I’ve got a problem.”

  “Problem?”

  “My parents are out of town. That means I have two extra tickets. Got any ideas who might like to go to a dinner theater tonight?”

  His eyes widened. “Yes. Me!”

  “And . . .”

  “And? Oh, and Celeste.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Give her a call. This is your chance to make things up to her. It’s short notice, but she might like an impromptu date.”

  “I’ll call right away.” He turned to leave.

  “Oh, Floyd?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you spend the evening telling Celeste how wonderful Catherine is, I will throw you off the balcony. Understood?”

  He smiled, embarrassed. “Understood.”

  Ihave never been much for the theater. Most of my entertainment comes over CNN. It’s sad, I know, but it is what I’ve become. Sitting in a balcony room of the Curtain Call dinner theater was changing that. The theater was divided into three seating areas. Long rows of tables filled the floor area closest to the stage. People in padded chairs lined the sides and talked freely as they ate. Farther from the stage, but still at floor level, were two banks of booths. Those seats cost more but provided a slightly better view of the stage and more elbow room.

  The balcony rooms were a level above the first floor and were comprised of three walls and a wood rail. Two tables were in each room, situated near the rail overlooking the floor below and the stage. Dark green wallpaper, reminiscent of turn-of-the-century fine homes, covered the walls. A pale beige carpet blanketed the floor. The lighting was dimmed to a warm romantic glow, and the conversations of patrons below wafted up in a murmur.

  Rather than sit at separate tables, Jerry and I pushed the tables together. Jerry sat to my right, Floyd to my left, and Celeste anchored the end opposite Jerry. Although still young, Celeste was showing signs that she was crossing the threshold from youth to womanhood. Her cheeks were a little rounder than last year, and her conversation a little more fluid and less encumbered with teenage baggage. Her blond hair was shorter, hovering two inches above her shoulder. She smiled easily, engaged in the conversation, but I caught her casting odd glances at Floyd. Apparently, the stress between them was still there.

  We enjoyed light conversation and told a few jokes. A waiter brought an assortment of bread, butter, salads, and finally the main cours
e. On my plate was a nice slice of medium-well beef with a blue cheese sauce, mixed vegetables, and wild rice. I made short work of it.

  After the meal, the waiter bussed four empty plates, refilled our drinks, and took dessert orders, which would be fulfilled during intermission. As we chatted, I studied the program that had been given to us when we arrived. Normally a detail person, I felt a little embarrassed that I didn’t even know the title of the play. Too many thoughts and too few brain cells. I made up for my oversight. The first thing I noticed surprised me.

  TAKE MY HEART

  A Comedic Murder Mystery

  Written and Directed by Harold Young

  Harold Young, the high school drama teacher I had met when I came to the Curtain Call to meet Catherine. Teacher, writer, actor, director. He’s a busy man.

  The program included pictures of the actors and a brief biography of each. Leading the list was Catherine Anderson. Her picture was a professional headshot and her smile gave color to the black-and- white photo.

  “She is lovely,” Celeste said.

  I took a quick look at Floyd. His mouth opened, then closed again. Good boy.

  “The joke in my family is that all the genes for good looks migrated to her,” I said.

  “You’re very beautiful, Maddy,” Celeste said. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jerry added.

  “All right you two,” I quipped, “I’ll give you thirty minutes to stop that kind of talk.”

  “Just thirty minutes?” Jerry said.

  “I don’t want to be too dictatorial.”

  “Maybe I should be an actor,” Floyd said with a whiplash change of subjects.

  I bit back a smile. Floyd was a chameleon, always wanting “to be” whatever was in front of him. Now in a theater, he was considering a life upon the boards.

  “How come you never want to be a doctor, Floyd?” Jerry asked.

  “You have to do yucky stuff,” he replied with simple innocence.

  “It’s true. I look at lots of yucky stuff. In fact, just the other day, Maddy was cooking dinner—”