Hollywood Boulevard

by Janyce Stefan-Cole

  "Yes," I said, and she stepped aside to let us pass. In that moment I saw, from the way she stepped aside, the quiver of modesty in her expression, that she was so in love with Andre. I wish I could have laughed and hugged her.

  I slowed to a crawl once we were in the darkened corridor leading to my and Sylvia's doors. Did Detective Collins have to be with me when I entered the suite? Did I have a choice? Was I still official police business?

  Sylvia must have slipped the passkey into my bag. I'd seen it there earlier, at the hospital. Billy grunted when he saw it. "We could get prints off that," he said, making the correct assumption it had been stolen and returned.

  I held the card in my hand for a few seconds before inserting it into the lock. I shook my head. "Gloves," I said. The Detective wanted Sylvia badly, but as long as I had anything to say about the matter he wouldn't get her. I hadn't cooked up a story for the police yet, wasn't sure what I planned to tell them regarding my sudden disappearance. I was thinking along the lines of a row with my husband: I'd gone to stay with a friend, I could say. Dottie came to mind. She'd stick by me if asked, but I'd hate to have to do that to her. The bruises were going to be tougher to explain. The way I saw it, I hadn't done anything wrong. My Indio message would corroborate that I'd gone away to think things through. Nobody had gone to Indio to look for me, so far as I knew; I'd lost my way and ended up north. If pressed, I'd say I didn't care to mention where I'd gone to privately conclude my marriage was over. Whatever I said wasn't going to add up, but that line should raise eyebrows sufficiently to knock the police off the scent. If I wasn't complaining, where was the crime? I could add that I needed to think about accepting the offer to replace Luce Bouclé. There was truth to the last two parts, but none of that would satisfy the press hounds; they'd stick around, smelling lies to pick over and embellish, drag through the mud. As Harry Machin would say, "They're inevitable so put them to good use. No one believes half of what the Hollywood press says anyway."

  "Detective Collins, could I ask you to give me a few minutes alone with Andre?"

  "I can leave now if that's what you want." I shook my head.

  The lock blinked green; I turned the knob and handed the passkey to Billy. "Just a couple of minutes, okay?"

  Andre was on the phone, facing the balcony. He turned and saw me and said into his phone he'd call whoever it was back.

  We stood a minute looking at each other, a sea of tension fl owing between us. I smiled as if remembering something pleasant. He came toward me; I met him halfway.

  "Ah, Ardennes! My God, Detective Collins said you were shot—"

  "That wasn't part of the plan?"

  He looked at me for a long moment before giving in and answering. "Ardennes . . . you were not supposed to be taken from the hotel, not hurt in any way." I shook my head. He came up to me, carefully— as if I might break— taking my right arm, guiding me into the sitting room and over to the couch. I didn't sit down.

  "What you did to that poor woman, Andre, to use her grief like that— don't tell me you paid her; I don't care. What you did to her was cruel, just unforgivably cruel." I took a breath, waved my arm, the good one; almost a swipe, but at nothing. "I'll do the part," I said.

  There were two quick knocks on the door. Devin Collins opened it and came in.

  Andre turned to face him. "Detective Collins, I am grateful, and I—"

  "The deal isn't quite sealed, Mr. Lucerne. Ms. Thrush will have to make a statement. She doesn't seem to want to indict her captor, who may also be her shooter."

  Unseen by Billy, I shook my head slowly at Andre. "Was there a captor?" he asked the detective.

  Billy was among the artists now, on a different stage, where information traveled by less direct paths. His cop's intuition would take him only so far into the realm of facts being, in and of themselves, not all that interesting. He wouldn't understand how we made our worlds up. . . . Billy's universe of cops and robbers and killers isn't as real. We played cops, and wrote cops, could create a libretto for a policeman's opera, get into the cop soul, but we couldn't any of us stay in character as a real cop. The next few minutes were going to bewilder and anger Detective Collins. It couldn't be helped.

  Billy turned to me. I gave him nothing, only shifted my gaze back to Andre. "The money is still in place?" I said.

  "Of course, with you in."

  I nodded. "When do we start?"

  Andre shrugged, expanded his arms. "Now?" He bit his lip. "If you are able."

  "I'll need a bath. . . ."

  "No, yes, yes, of course. We can rehearse as soon as you've reread the script." He glanced at my torn jacket sleeve. Some fancy camera work would be required to hide my run- in with Sylvia and her gun. Kind of like Lucille Trevor and her disfigured legs— or Anne Dernier and hers.

  "Five minutes to learn my lines!" I turned to Billy. "Okay if I come in tomorrow to make a statement?"

  "Sure. Or the next day, or after that." Something like loathing passed over his face. He probably felt used. "You'll be careful of her, Lucerne?"

  I answered before Andre could: "Mr. Lucerne will be moving out, to another room or, if he likes, another hotel."

  "Does that concern me?"

  "It might if my safety is in question."

  "According to you it never was."

  Now it was Andre's turn to be left out in the cold. But he'd need no translation for what just passed between me and Billy.

  Andre sat on an armchair and crossed a leg over his knee. Mimicking him, I suppose, I sat on the couch, directly opposite. Billy stood, a fulcrum between us.

  "So I gain the actor but lose the wife," Andre said. It was not a question.

  I thought of Sylvia: One down, one to go. I said, "It's what you wanted. Or maybe what you need, like the song says."

  Billy pulled one of the two dining chairs out and sat down. He didn't cross his legs.

  " Still here, Detective?"

  " Until Ms. Thrush assures me she'll be all right."

  The balcony door was open on the warm day. I could see the hills up to the observatory. The San Gabriels were shy behind a thickening haze. The air looked to be turning ugly; by evening a familiar gritty feeling would descend on the City of Angels. I didn't care a hang about White Shirt at the moment, though I could see his house and two sets of sheets on the line, one off- white, one lavender. Very soon I wouldn't care about much beyond my character. I would become Anne Dernier and all else would be peripheral, distraction and confusion. Andre would direct, and he would have me— or Anne— totally. I would be under his and her thrall all the way to my bones. I both dreaded and longed for that immersion. We would rob each other, me and the character; get at a truth rarely known in real life. I thought of Harry. I'm back, dear old Harry; rest in peace.

  I turned to Andre. "Harry's gone. I don't have an agent."

  "Kurt can make up a contract."

  "Yeah, no, thanks, not Kurt. Fits will have someone."

  He twirled the fingers of his left hand. "Luce Bouclé's terms, to the fullest."

  "You cast her on purpose." Andre bowed his head. "You really do stink," I said, but not with malice.

  Detective Collins stood up. Andre and I turned to face him. He looked at me, haunted suspicion in his eyes. "Taxpayers' money was used here, if that matters to you."

  "Meaning?" Andre asked.

  "Meaning I hope this episode wasn't some lousy Hollywood publicity stunt."

  "Ah. Sincerity is overrated, though, don't you think, Detective? No one was seriously hurt, hmm?" Andre's tone could freeze ice.

  I winced for Billy's sake. "No," I said quietly, not looking at him. "We're just talented imposters."

  I looked at Andre— the easier male, the one of waning potential.

  "We're a long way from the moon over Montego Bay," he said to me.

  Andre and I had been married five days. The other guests left that morning. The staff was gone for the day, or in their quarters, so we were alone. The Caribbean
spread before us; lights on the hills along the bay twinkled and swayed but felt temporary in the night, as if they knew they had no business on an island where wild jungle grew over neglected civilization in a matter of days. On the lip of the horizon a tour boat made slow passage on its way to Mexico, the size of a tiny bathtub toy with strings of white lights, a fl oating fiesta. Tree frogs were already long at their surround- sound calls, like thousands of tiny glass bottles rubbing their legs together in the dark. The moon pushed up orange behind the lush mountains until a black shred of cloud caught on it; moonlight seeping out beneath the veil as in a dark Ryder painting. We soaked in the hot tub, leaped steamy, naked bodies into the cold pool. The shroud tore away and crystal moonlight lit the landscape black and white. Venus, balanced to the moon's right, beckoned, forever unable to embrace her sister. It was a night for poetry or sex. We chose the latter. Andre spread blue and white striped towels on the ground beside the pool and we fell on each other. His passion was never white hot; he made few sounds, enjoying an unorthodox placement of a hand or finger. He was a considerate lover without letting go of the balance of power. That night he was an athlete, a yogi of endurance; entering me and withdrawing, whispering into my ear, back in, a fit of movement and out again until I pulled him into me, insistent and yearning. Fits once asked me if Andre was a director in bed. He may have been that night. Too bad for him he took possession just as the idea of quitting began to germinate in my deepest folds.

  Oh, I suppose he cast a spell that night, but now we were here in the Hotel Muse, and the spell was broken. This was not going to be a baby- torn- from- the- womb ending. Not Joe and me ripping everything to miserable shreds before letting go of the tatters. "It was a lifetime ago, Andre, and so much has changed."

  I took my jacket off, even though I felt cold. Andre glanced at my bandaged arm. I wanted him to see it. I reached for my cashmere shawl, from the back of the couch where I'd left it how many days ago.

  "Yes, you've returned to your senses," he said. "This madness of not acting is over."

  I'd just spent three days in a dead woman's closet. I'd calmed myself in that claustrophobic hole, my smelly lair on an old stripper's gowns. I'd been shot at, for Christ's sake. How could Andre be so certain I wouldn't press charges and the whole abduction come out? Because he knows me that well, that's how. Even with bullets fl ying. Even if I wanted to, turning him in meant turning Sylvia in, and that was not going to happen.

  "Dear Andre," I said, "how you've manipulated everything."

  He laughed, but not smugly. "You are going to be magnificent, Ardennes. Acting is where with all my being I believe you belong."

  Andre was not complacent. It was just that his unfortunate European intonation and his enormous, driven confidence made him sound it. He was acutely present and boyish again, watching me. He'd risked a great deal to get me back in front of his camera, blind to the selfishness of it. If Andre Lucerne was a businessman, he'd be a billionaire. He goes after, and gets, what he wants. Sylvia was only a pawn; I bet he paid her well.

  After that moonlit night came a dangerous storm. We woke up to heavy rain, a tropical depression that churned into a tropical storm. So much rain fell, maybe a foot in a day. The road out of the villa washed out, a torrent of rushing brown water tossing white rocks and chunks of asphalt like a Colorado rapids. Angry rain and more rain and a howling wind all night. The bathroom fl ooded under the sideways falling water. How could the sky hold so much water? The generator was turned on, so we had lights when hardly anyone else on the hill did. No telephone, no DSL, no way out; the two of us at the edge of the world. Flights off the island were canceled; the road beyond the villa continued to wash away. The tree frogs croaked beneath the sound of wind and endless rain, maddeningly primitive. I kept getting up to see if any stars had appeared; it was crazy, there were no stars. The third morning it let up; pale yellow silt and sand filled the sea, washed from the earth, spreading like a virus, corrupting the Caribbean blue.

  " There was a storm after the moon," I reminded Andre.

  " There are always storms," he said.

  "And we'll always have Montego," I said. I wouldn't waltz out of Andre Lucerne's life without some regret. I guessed at his plan: Get me under his directing and the rest would fall into place. I'd be naive to think he didn't want power over me. But he was mistaken if—

  The three of us turned toward the door at the sound of someone rapping: two slow, three fast, pause, two slow. That would be Fits. Detective Collins went into gear. "Stay where you are," he told us. He walked soundlessly to the door, looked through the peephole and opened up. In walked Fits.

  "You living here now, Detective?" Fits asked, without stopping for a reply. He walked toward Andre. "Any word?" he asked.

  Andre stood up, pointed with his chin. Fits turned the corner. I stood up.

  "Hey, darlin'." He came up to me, all open and warm, didn't hold back. "Whaddaya, cut yourself shaving?" He took me and pressed me to him, delicate toward my bruises. His was the most welcoming embrace, the only one without an agenda.

  "I'm doing the part," I whispered into his ear. "And I've been shot, but only you know."

  He pushed me back, lightly, to look into my eyes; was I on the level or had I lost my mind over the past missing days? "Tell me you're good."

  "I'll be okay, Fits."

  "Welcome home, baby."

  He spun me once, and we slipped into a slow waltz. He whispered into my ear, "I know a doc with closed lips." Good old Fits.

  Andre and Billy watched until Fits dipped me and our brief dance ended. Andre's expression was delight. This was what he lived for. Billy was not immune, but he poked at the scene: "Doesn't anyone around here ever ask what happened?" Fits, Andre, and I looked at the cop in our midst, Fits with his beefy arm still around my waist. "Yeah, guess not. I think I get it." He turned and headed for the door.

  "Devin," I said, and he stopped. "Let me walk you to your car." I walked over to him and touched his back, letting go as we passed through the door. We were quiet until we reached the car. I felt as if a thousand eyes were on me from all over the hotel: Andre's crew, the maids, even the other guests; if White Shirt could see the parking lot his eyes would be on me too. I was performing for them all. But not for Billy. To think I thought I was invisible only few days ago. "So I'll come in tomorrow?"

  "Whatever you want."

  "I mean, you won't get into trouble?" He shot me a look— he'd already told me . . . I nodded. "I'll call you."

  "Call the desk sergeant; arrange to make a statement."

  "Won't you be there?"

  "I'll file my report."

  "Billy."

  "You people don't operate in good faith."

  I smiled. He was right, of course. " Worse than criminals?"

  "You'll be all right here?"

  I nodded. "I'll have to jump into Andre's movie with everything I've got, and I'm scared to death. I'll have no life once we start, but I'd like . . . Can I call you?"

  "You have my number." He touched my hair, the lightest of gestures. "Have that arm looked at," he said, sounding the stern cop. He climbed into his car, backed out, and was gone. If he took a backward glance, I didn't see it.

  I watched his car drive the sharp curve downhill that led out of the Hollywood Heights. A spasm of loneliness passed over me, utter and deep, but was quickly replaced by a spasm of excitement, the kind you get as a kid when it's not your birthday but feels as if it is; an unnamable sense— irrational joy, maybe— that something good was going to happen.

  Andre always maintained I never really quit. Acting is what I do, and I happen to do it well. "The business end is just part of it; the liars and power creeps, the suck ups and phonies, the nasty, self- involved types are just something Osgood would have to live with for the rest of his life." That last line was from the one movie I did with Fits— I just wanted to try it out.

  Anyway, no more hotel spying: no White Shirt or the kitty who befriended me or the
old man at sunset with his ugly dog and jar of wine. I won't be wandering Hollywood Boulevard. I'm back in the acting game, where— for now— it looks like I belong: the good, the bad and the chronically make- believe. Funny, I was free to quit but not free to unquit until Andre started playing his dangerous games. I can hear Joe now saying, I told you so.

  You just can't slam that Joe file all the way shut, can you, Ardennes; can't shake off the past. And there's my mother, telling me I would make things harder for myself than they had to be. Maybe so, Mom, but what's so good about everything coming easy? Maybe we have to fall on our faces a few times to catch on, to figure out how to make the pieces of our past fit together into some sort of whole.

  I started back up the stairs and heard a door open and then a car start. The parrots suddenly squawked in the coral tree. I turned at the top of the stairs and saw Zaneda smile and wave to me from the unit across the way, where I'd seen the lovers that moonlit night. The Muse was coming back to life. Or was that me?