When I heard Mucho sniffing at the door I hid the keys inside the pillowcase and sat very still. Sylvia turned on the closet light and opened the door up to the chain. Again she ordered me to the back, showing the gun.
"The piss pot stinks, Sylvia."
"Good morning," was her reply. She wore a long, gown-like robe with satin edging and feathers at the collar. I recognized it as the one she had on when I ran into her in the laundry. Her slippers were gold lamé ballet flats. She looked so small. I thought of rushing her as she pulled out the food tray from last night. "Don't move!" she barked, pointing the gun like she'd read my mind. She shoved a new tray in with her left hand. It held a raspberry cheese Danish, a pot of tea, a cup and a small pitcher of milk, a fresh bottle of water. Two teabags, so she knew I liked it strong even if she didn't have the real deal loose tea. In some ways Sylvia was a very considerate jailer. She re moved the chamber pot last.
I watched these maneuvers from the back of the closet like a well- trained pet that wants to bite its mistress, to chew her arm off, but knows better than to try.
"What if I refuse to eat?"
"You won't," she said as she rechained the door, leaving it open and the light on.
Day two of captivity.
Fits called the Detective’s landline early, from his car on his way to the studio. "What's the time?" the Detective asked, sounding groggy. His nightstand clock read five twenty- eight a.m. He sat up, threw off the bedding so the cold, not- yet- light morning air would wake him all the way. A window was open. A car suddenly honked outside.
"I thought of something in the night, waited till I was on my way to work— you never know when you'll get a break on set— you awake?"
"Go ahead." "I remembered a phone conversation with Ardennes a couple of days ago. She told me there'd been a fire at the Hotel Muse, but it was like fifty years ago. She thought maybe some burlesque queen murdered an actress in the fire, something like that."
"What was the actress's name?"
"She didn't say. Maybe she was losing it, huh? Maybe she's
slipped off the deep end of the planet. . . ."
"What's the connection?"
"The stripper lives in the hotel. I think she called her Sally or
Salome, something with an S."
"All right. Thanks."
"You find anything out yesterday?" The Detective was quiet. "I want to help if I can."
"She turned in her rental car. Or somebody did."
"Huh. Hard to get to Indio without wheels."
" Think of anything else, call." The Detective clicked off. He sat up, covering his groin with the sheet, though he was alone in the room. Why would Ardennes care about a fifty- year- old crime? He glanced at the clock.
After breakfast I got busy going over all sorts of things in my mind; plenty of time to ruminate in my cell. Sylvia had closed the door but left the light on. The closet didn't warm up like yesterday and I wasn't as panicked, for the moment. You have to learn to take the calms between storms, is how I see it. There could be little doubt Sylvia was mad as a hatter but not pathological— at least I didn't think she was. Of course, I could be dead wrong, and, mad or not, she seemed capable of anything.
So I sat there trying to remember a conversation with Joe. It involved one of those phrases he'd repeat that I never believed he meant, one that sticks and works its way back into the brain like a virus. The phrase was Do whatever you like. The first problem was the word like, which I always mentally wanted to correct to want. There is a critical difference: Doing what you like is flimsy, indulgent, whereas doing what you want is firmer, more of a stand. I'd like to play the piano spoken on a summer porch over mint juleps with Chopin playing in the background: a whim. I want to play the piano: formidable, a statement of purpose.
Meanwhile, I shifted my interpretation: Do whatever you like = I'll have nothing to do with your folly. Subtext: and suffer the consequences. "Ardennes, if you want to go from stage to screen, if you want to star in a TV series, go ahead, sign with this Harry Machin you think is the center of the universe; by all means do whatever you like."
Further interpretation, arrived at in the acquired wisdom of my solitary prison musings: Don't seek my approval. As in, go on up that trapeze; don't mind me while I pull away the net. Did that mean I'd expected Joe to catch me if I fell? Was that what I wanted, or what he'd thought I wanted, for Joe to provide me with a safety net? I wouldn't want a safety net pulled. But what net? Since when has there ever been anything in place to catch me if I fall?
My parents had this perfect marriage, this ideal love for each other. Only my perfect mother had an affair with an imperfect married man before she met my dad.
She told me about it when I was a dewy- eyed teen. I'd developed a killer crush on my English- lit teacher, who was married. I became pretty silly about the whole thing, imagining all sorts of signs that he returned my adoration but was trapped— unhappily, of course— in a marriage to a stringy, ungenerous older woman— or so I imagined. One day, unable to stand it any longer, I left him a note asking if he would see me after school, away from campus. The teacher, Mr. Russell, called my mother. She in turn called me home that weekend and sat me down: Why did I want to see Mr. Russell outside school?
I bellowed, bursting into tears, "He told you?" I was ready to die, to sink right into the kitchen linoleum. My mother waited patiently until I ran out of heart- wrenching ammunition and protest. She made us chamomile tea with honey and asked me what attracted me to the teacher.
"How can I say? Just him! I can't help it! This is love, Mother. For God's sake."
"A crush, Ardennes," she corrected, her tone controlled. "You're so young. You think you want to die, but you are lucky Mr. Russell is a good man."
"Lucky? I wanted to run away with him and he called my mother! I'm such a jerk."
"No, you're wonderful. Your mother, though, was a very foolish girl once upon a time." And she told me the story. The guy sounded like a real bum. He'd visit her one weekend a month where she was teaching, at a private school in Pennsylvania. He'd been her college professor. She told me she finally found the courage to tell him it was over. Of course it wasn't, and she was in agony for a long time. "If ever I was going to become a tragic poet, that was the time and he was the material. Happily, I did not write one single line of poetry."
It was winter; outside, the day was gunmetal- gray and heavy, as if weighted with snow. The light in the kitchen was disappearing around us. "Do I have to go back to school, Mom?" She nodded. "I have to face him?"
"It will be all right."
I shivered. "I'm going to my room for a while." I planned to lie down and die of grief. I was halfway down the hallway, past the master suite, my parents' big bedroom that had always been special, both welcoming and a room I felt not quite privy to, when I ran back to the kitchen. My mother was still seated at the table, very straight in her chair, hands wrapped around her mug, already cold. "Did Daddy rescue you?"
She laughed lightly. "No. He came along a little later."
"Do you love him more than the other guy?"
"Im proper question," she said. I understood she'd shared something big with me and that I would have to live with the blanks in the story because suddenly I wanted all sorts of dirty details: what the guy looked like, the sex . . . had she ever seen his wife? She told me to go do my homework. I froze at the kitchen door, turned around. "Does Dad know?"
"Homework, now."
By the time I made it back to school on the train that Sunday night I had transferred her experience to me and made it mine. I saw plainly the next day that Mr. Russell was too slight, with arms like sticks. Did I want to be held by a pair of sticks? What he had was a voice; he could read Shakespeare, short stories, even poetry and stop a class of fidgeting girls. Other than that he was just a nice guy, and a good teacher. Perfect love? Romeo and Juliet? All the mortifying embarrassments we live through before we even turn sixteen . . .
Anyhow, J
oe said Harry Machin ruined me. Because of Harry I took parts Joe thought beneath me. He wasn't entirely wrong. But he had a punishing contempt for missteps in those he admired. The trouble is, Joe was on a constant lookout for missteps. Do whatever you like, but I disown your mistakes. . . . What happened to humans err, forgiveness is divine? Only the divine can say forget it, not a big deal, try it again?
Okay, now change the argument: Ardennes, do whatever you want. But I didn't need him to tell me that. I did what I wanted. I ran for it, and then I slowed down . . . and then I quit. Joe won.
Joe won?
And Andre? Andre married three actresses—
Sylvia was back! She unlocked the door. I looked up. I had taken to lying in the back corner of my cell. I'd made a nice little nest for myself out of a pile of dresses and things bundled on the floor. "Are you hungry?" Sylvia asked. If she minded my making a bed of her clothing, she didn't say.
Was it lunchtime already? Hadn't I just eaten breakfast? Funny how fast the sense of time dissolves when you're locked away from clocks and cell phones and media of all sorts. "Not very. I could use more water, preferably not spiked."
She told me to push the breakfast tray to the door and go back to my corner. I felt like saying, "Yes, Mistress," but didn't. She took the tray out, chained the door, and came back a few minutes later with a bottle of water, leaving it just inside the door. Mucho stuck his nose in and barked once. I'd started to hate that dog.
" There is activity in the vicinity of your room," Sylvia announced. I stood up in my cell, walked over to my prison door. Sylvia sounded oddly satisfied, if not outright pleased.
"What sort of activity?" I asked, but she was suddenly gone and I was locked in again. I heard the TV or radio go on, loud.
It was the doorbell, and Detective Collins was ringing it. He held his badge up in front of Sylvia's peephole. She opened the door, her right hand held modestly at her throat. "Sylvia Vernon?" Sylvia smiled vacantly. "I'm Detective Collins. I've been ringing your bell several minutes." Sylvia studied the badge. "Can you hear me, Ms. Vernon?"
"I was resting, with the TV on. Nothing to watch; junk as usual. Those soaps are the bottom of the pit. How on earth do women watch such trash?"
"Is that your dog barking?" "Mucho!" Sylvia ran to the bedroom, opened the door, and scooped up Mucho. She closed the door. The Detective stepped into the kitchen and then a little farther in. The TV was still blaring in the bedroom. Sylvia returned to the Detective, Mucho in her arms. "You're the gentleman from the other day. I saw you with my neighbor, Ardennes Thrush."
The Detective didn't skip a beat. "You two are friendly?"
"Mucho! Stop that growling or I'll shut you back in the bedroom." She tapped the dog's nose. "No, you wouldn't like that, would you?" Mucho quieted down. "That's better. What did you say?"
"You and your neighbor are friendly?"
"We've had tea."
"When did you last see Ms. Thrush, do you recall?"
Sylvia pulled her body back at the waist, looked up at the big Detective from her just- over- five- foot- two frame. She smiled. "That would be with you."
"Funny, I don't remember seeing you."
"I had the idea you didn't want to be seen."
"And what were you doing while I wasn't being seen?"
Sylvia laughed. "I have a large balcony, a lookout on all the comings and goings from my own little tower. People are interesting to watch, don't you think? Especially in a hotel, where all sorts of behavior goes on." She lifted her brows suggestively.
"Seen anything interesting lately?"
"Lieutenant, can a lady ask why she's getting the third degree?"
"It's Detective. When was the last time you spoke to Ms. Thrush?"
"Back to Ardennes; am I sensing something amiss?"
"You don't have to answer, Ms. Vernon. For the moment."
"Threats, is it? Well, let me see. Mucho, when did we last see Ms. Thrush? Two days ago, I think. Wouldn't that be the very day I saw you? Yes, she invited me for coffee. She was expecting someone, so our visit was brief. Maybe it was you she expected?"
"Did she seem concerned about anything?"
"No . . . I don't think so. Is something wrong with Ardennes? She doesn't see her husband much; she's so alone. . . ." Mucho started to whine. "You think so too, Muchie?" She smiled at the Detective while petting Mucho's head. "Hollywood can be such a lonely town, don't you think?"
"The name Lucille Trevor mean anything to you?"
It was Sylvia's turn to not skip a beat. "I knew Lucille. She died in a fire in this very apartment, a very long time ago. Why?"
"Thanks for your time."
"Don't you want to read me my rights?"
"Have you done something naughty?" Sylvia smiled a flirty little smile. Detective Collins turned to go.
Sylvia stepped into the hallway after him. "You know, there was one thing, not much to it, but a man did come by the other day. Heavyset, wore one of those leather biker vests." Sylvia shuddered, perhaps with some bad biker memory. "He and Ardennes seemed to have words. I think he may have shoved her."
" Where was this?"
"The parking below my balcony. They weren't shouting, more like hissing cats, so I couldn't catch what it was about."
" Would you know the man if you saw him again?"
"Of course. He was here yesterday afternoon." The Detective gave Sylvia Vernon a hard, scrutinizing look. "But you still haven't said what this is all about, have you?"
"Thanks again for you time, Ms. Vernon."
"Call again, Detective. Anytime . . ."
All the while Sylvia was toying with Billy I lay in my dungeon, hands over my ears against soap operas blaring on Sylvia's TV with even louder commercials in between: ads for everything from hemorrhoid ointments to remedies for erectile dysfunction. I had no way to know he was at the door, how close we'd been for those few min utes. It was well over thirty hours since I'd seen daylight, heard a bird, seen the wind in the trees, or had a bath. Now I was being driven mad by daytime TV.
Hours passed with nothing from Sylvia. The evening news was on. Maybe I would be reported missing on the broadcast. I didn't care. I'd crawled as far back as I could and hidden under some of Sylvia's gowns, the pillow over my head. I hadn't eaten since morning. I was out of water. I'd sucked on the stale candies from my purse and was out of supplies. I felt exhausted even though I'd hardly moved in two days. I yanked at the fishnet rope. Did she drug me again? Or was it just the dark and the not knowing that made me so sleepy? A kind of escape? I shook my head and tapped it. I needed to wake up and start thinking. And where the hell was Andre? How much time was he going to let go by before calling the cops . . . And Billy? What kind of cop was he? Shouldn't a SWAT team have stormed the place by now? What would Joe say to my present predicament. . . . You know, Ardennes, you need to stop referencing Joe. Really? Says who? Says I. And who are you? You. Me. Us. Joe didn't want to be anybody's daddy. Nobody's daddy. Nobody's mommy . . . I was singing. Who said anything about a daddy? I was so in love with Joe, but was there a whiff of that idea in him? I mean, the man never had a doubt in his life that I knew of. So? What would Simon Thrush say? He'd say: What page are you on, Ardennes? Yeah, what page am I on?
I was seven before I realized my handsome daddy was old. It was Father's Visiting Day at school, some of the girls acting like real twits, excited brides awaiting their grooms ( Freud wasn't entirely off). I saw the day as an opportunity. I already hated math, and the dads were due just as we were set to open our dreaded red- and- blue workbooks. I was watching the clock. "Arithmetic is canceled today, students," Miss McCarthy announced as the fathers filed in. Most of the fathers filed in; what about kids without— dead, divorced, unwilling or unable to get time off work? What about daddies who hit their kids or preyed on them sexually? Whose idea was it to pretend we all lived in a happily- ever- after world? I had it pretty good, but then I saw how old my dad was compared to the others. He had all those gray hairs m
ixed in with the brown! How come he was so old? My half- siblings were old too. This was not normal. He smiled at me and winked. I waved back, involuntarily, but I wanted to climb inside my desk. The fathers lined up in the back of the classroom and our teacher welcomed them. I didn't hear the rest of the presentation. I would rather have done numbers. There was a chink now in my total adoration, like I'd caught Daddy with his pants down and seen something scary. That never happened; years went by in blissful ignorance before I saw anything scary between a boy's legs. Big deal; I had an older dad. I just didn't want the other kids to see. I didn't go over to him, kept my eyes on my sneakers when he came to claim me. I'm sorry, Daddy . . .
I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!
Hollywood Boulevard Page 25