he said. “We wrap the series today. A week from Monday it goes on the air in time for sweeps month.”
“We all think you’ve got a winner,” Georgie said.
“I’d love to see their reaction over at Eyewitness News when we hit them with social consciousness. They’re still doing T and A. Times have changed. People want real. They want to feel the grit, smell the dirt. That’s what we’re going to give them.”
A short knock at the door of the makeup cubicle, and a tall young man with a long, serious face entered.
“Stuart, I’ve made a couple of changes in your close for tonight. Want to look it over?”
“What for? Just make sure the cue cards are legible.”
The younger man started to leave.
“Oh, say, Alan, I meant to tell you you’ve been doing a fine job filling for me this week.”
“Thanks.”
“But don’t get too good. I figure I’ve got a few more seasons before you take over as anchor.” Milestone laughed to show he was joking. Alan Baird laughed because he knew Milestone was serious.
The last day of shooting on Skid Row went without a hitch. The Channel 6 camera van, its logo painted over with a grubby brown, went undetected parked in a loading zone. During the week only one local, a wheezy derelict called Walter, had recognized Stuart Milestone. Fred Keneally, the producer, gave him ten dollars to shut up and go away.
In the cramped interior of the van Keneally and Alan Baird watched Stuart Milestone on the monitor. Camera and Sound concentrated on their equipment while a young production assistant waited for orders.
For this segment Milestone was pretending to be a panhandler. He was not doing well. Real panhandlers knew better than to work a street where there was no money.
“He makes a convincing bum, wouldn’t you say?” Alan observed. Keneally looked at him. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”
“Not me. We know who the star is. My time will come.”
On the monitor screen Milestone turned to face the camera and gave the finger-across-the-throat sign.
“That’s it,” Keneally said. “Let’s go outside and set up for the closing speech. Dexter, got the cue cards?”
The production assistant jumped to attention. “Got ’em, Mr. Keneally.”
“Wait a minute, what’s he doing?”
Out on the street Milestone saw a woman approaching him. She was a perfect bag lady specimen—eroded face, bent-over walk, stringy hair hanging from a motheaten fedora. She wore several baggy sweaters, a black skirt that hung to her swollen ankles, grubby sneakers. Milestone flashed the sign to the camera van to keep rolling.
The woman walked up close and gave him a blast of winebreath. “You’re new on the street, aren’t you, honey?” Her voice rattled with phlegm.
Milestone nodded, sinking back into the homeless character he had played over the past few days.
“I’m Jessie. I know about everybody on the street, and I knowed you was new. What’s your name?”
“They call me Whitey. I been in town most of a week.”
“Where you from?”
“Lots of places. Minneapolis last,” Milestone said, using the bio Alan Baird had worked up for his character.
“Cold back there, I’ll bet.”
“Yeah, cold.” Milestone shifted his position so the camera could get an open shot at the women while picking up his best profile. “Tell me about yourself, Bessie.”
“That’s Jessie.” She looked away and back in an oddly girlish gesture. Milestone found her eyes disturbing. Black and lustrous as ripe olives, they did not belong in that wreck of a face. “Ain’t much to tell. I been around here most of my life. I do what I can to get along.”
“What about your family?”
She gave him a gap-toothed laugh. “Hell, I got no family. The people here on the street are my family. How about you?”
“Nobody,” Milestone said, spreading it on. “All alone.”
“You don’t look like a bad guy, Whitey. You got a place to flop?” He shrugged. “Just, you know, doorways. The alley. Like that.”
“You want to come up to my place? I got a nice room. Stove and sink and everything. You could stay until you get yourself set up.” Milestone bit down on a knuckle, trying to look thoughtful as he fought to keep from laughing. “That’s nice of you, Jessie, but I couldn’t—”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I got food up there. I’ll bet you’d like a hot meal. And I got a bottle of wine. Nearly full.”
“That sure sounds good.” He pointed at a sputtering neon sign across the street. “How about if I meet you over there at the Horseshoe Bar at, say, eight o’clock?”
The woman’s grimy face split in a grin. “Like a date, huh, Whitey? Okeydoke. I’ll go on home and get fixed up.” She shuffled off down the street, looking back once to flutter her gnarled fingers at him.
Once she had rounded the corner Milestone sat down on the curb and yanked off the stocking cap that had concealed his thick blond hair. He smacked his knee and laughed until tears blurred the dark makeup under his eyes.
Keneally and Alan Baird came across from the van accompanied by young Dexter with the cue cards.
“What was that for?” the producer said.
“It was too good to pass up,” Milestone said, getting to his feet, still laughing. “Did you catch that old bat coming on to me? It will make a great scene.”
Alan cleared his throat. “Don’t you think that’s a little cruel? She was just trying to do something nice for you.”
“Nice? Bullshit. She wanted my body. ‘I got a bottle of wine. Nearly full.’ Can you believe that?”
“I don’t like it,” Alan said.
“Hey, Mr. Sensitivity, if it will make you feel better I’ll slip the old bat a few bucks tonight, okay?”
“Tonight? You’re going to keep the date?”
“Oh, hell yes. It will make the party. Picture the look on the crone’s face when she sees me without the tramp getup and realizes she made a date with Stuart Milestone. Beautiful! Fred, tell everybody the crew party will be over there at the Horseshoe Bar. This is going to be priceless.”
Alan turned and walked back to the van. Fred Keneally looked after him with a worried expression.
“He’ll be all right,” Milestone said. “His nose is out of joint because I ad libbed the bit with Jessie. He doesn’t think I can talk unless he puts the words in my mouth.” He ran a comb through his hair. “Let’s shoot the final speech. I want to get cleaned up.”
Someone clutched at his jacked and wheezed, “Mr. Milestone?” He turned to see Walter, the bum who had recognized him the first day.
“What do you want? Didn’t you get paid off?”
“Oh, yes sir, no problem. I just wanted to tell you that you ought to be, well, careful about fooling with old Jessie.”
“Careful? What are you talking about?”
“I heard what you were saying just now, couldn’t help it. And you oughtn’t to play a joke like that on Jessie. She wouldn’t like it.”
“So what?”
“She’s a witch.”
“Hell, I could see that.”
“No, I mean she’s a witch. A real one.”
“A witch,” Milestone repeated slowly.
“That’s right. She doesn’t make any trouble for us down here, but I’ve heard stories. If you go ahead and do her like you were sayin’, well . . .” Walter let his voice trail off.
“Gee, thanks a lot for the warning, fella. I’ll sure be on my guard.” Milestone rolled his eyes and brushed Walter aside to join the others at the van.
The Big Six News took over one end of the Horseshoe Bar for Stuart Milestone’s wrap party. They had just watched a tape of Milestone’s encounter with Jessie. They looked to the boss for his reaction before venturing their own.
Stuart Milestone, freshly bathed and barbered, laughed. The others, with a couple of exceptions, laughed with him.
“Isn’t she marv
elous?” he said. “Wait till you see her in person.” He shot a cuff to consult his Rolex. “Hey, it’s after eight. You don’t suppose I’ve been stood up? Stuart Milestone left waiting at the bar by the ugliest thing ever to put on a skirt. How embarrassing!”
The party people were laughing so hard, again with a couple of exceptions, that nobody saw her when she first stood up from the high-backed booth where she had been sitting. One by one they looked over there, and as they did the laughter died.
Her drab hair was washed and combed straight down. She wore a dress that was thirty years out of date, but clean. There was a dab of rouge on each withered cheek. The black lustrous eyes, the eyes that did not belong in the old face, reached into the soul of each and every one present, settling at last on Stuart Milestone. The silence was deep as a grave. After a long, long minute she turned and walked away from the party and out the door.
For a dozen heartbeats nobody moved. Then Alan Baird stood suddenly.
“Excuse me,” he said, and followed Jessie out the door.
“Hey!” Milestone called after him. “Hey, Alan, where do you think you’re going?”
The younger man went out into the night without responding.
“Aah, who needs a skeleton at the feast, anyway? Drink up, guys, the boss has deep pockets tonight.”
But the fun was gone. The joke was stillborn. After ten minutes even Stuart Milestone heard the false note of his crew’s laughter. “Let’s call it a night,” he said. “This place is depressing.”
The Big Six News party straggled out of the bar, paying no attention to the lone figure standing in the shadows. When Milestone came out she stepped into the light to block his path. The thin old lips with their pitiful dabbed-on color drew back to expose stained and crooked teeth. The black, ageless eyes blazed. In one hand she held a small jar of dark red liquid.
“You didn’t want my wine,” she said in a dead level voice. “Try this!” She splashed the contents of the glass into Milestone’s face and vanished into the night.
He staggered back against the building. Half a dozen handkerchiefs were whipped out to wipe away the fluid.
“What is it?”
“Wine?”
“Blood?”
“Get away from me,” Milestone ordered. The others backed off and he scrubbed at his face with his own monogrammed kerchief. “Are you all right, Stuart?” Keneally asked.
Milestone touched his face gingerly, first on one side then the other. “Yeah, I’m fine. For a minute there I thought the crazy old broad threw acid on me. Come on, let’s get out of this sewer.”
He slept poorly that night, troubled by dreams of ugly people pursuing him down an endless Skid Row. He awoke Saturday with a sour taste in his mouth and a slight but persistent headache. The symptoms were those of a light hangover, though Milestone had drunk nothing stronger than club soda.
He shuffled into the bathroom and began brushing his teeth. In mid-stroke he stopped and leaned close to the glass. Under his neon blue eyes were smudges of brown that definitely did not belong. Leftover traces of makeup? He wiped at his face with a damp cloth. The smudges remained.
Too much time on Skid Row, he decided. He switched his thoughts to the future. Monday he’d be back at the anchor desk, and a week later they’d be showing the homeless special. Big ratings were assured, and possibly an Emmy. Then he could sit back and wait for offers from the networks.
Milestone went back to bed, slept most of the day away, and felt better when he awoke at dusk. A good dinner with attractive company, and he’d be 100 percent again. He flipped through his Rolodex and chose Chelsea Porter, a bosomy swimsuit model whose dark beauty complemented his blond good looks. Chelsea aspired to a television career and believed Milestone could help her. He did nothing to discourage the idea.
She was ready when he arrived at her apartment. She was stunning, as usual, in a form-fitting blue-black dress. Her smile slipped a notch as she opened the door.
“Something wrong?” he said.
“No, honey, it’s just . . . are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. What are you talking about?”
“You look kind of peaked, that’s all.”
He pushed past her to the mirror over the mantel. The bimbo was right. The smudges under his eyes were darker, and the flesh had a puffy look. His overall color was not good despite the thrice-weekly sessions at the tanning parlor. And had the spark dimmed in his eyes?
Chelsea moved up beside him. Comparing her vital young beauty to his new pallor depressed him.
“You’ve been working too hard,” Chelsea suggested.
“Yes, that’s it. I had a hard week on Skid Row. What I need is rest. I’ll call you next week.”
He left Chelsea standing in her doorway wearing the blue-black dress and a puzzled frown. He wanted only to spend the rest of the weekend alone and undisturbed so he would look good for his return to the anchor desk Monday.
“Jesus, Stuart, what have you been doing to yourself?” Georgie flitted from one side to the other as Milestone sat rigidly in the makeup chair.
“You got a problem?” The anchor man was in no mood to discuss it.
“Well, one of us has. Take a look.”
He held the magnifying hand mirror up in front of Milestone’s face. In the unfiltered light of the makeup cubicle the flaws were apparent. His eyes were watery with a light crust on the lids. Crow’s feet radiated from the outer corners. His jawline was less well defined as the flesh seemed to have loosened. His color was worse than ever.
“Now you tell me if there’s a problem,” Georgie said.
“Never mind. Just fix me up for the camera.”
It took until five minutes before air time for Georgie to restore Milestone to his handsome self. His reading of the news that night was perfunctory, his byplay with Sports and Weather more forced than usual. Not even the promo for next week’s homeless series brightened him. After the show he walked off the set and out of the studio without a word to anyone.
He awoke Tuesday from another night of unpleasant dreams. For a long time he lay in his king-size bed, staring up at the beamed ceiling of his bedroom, trying not to think about his face. When finally he could stand it no longer he got up and walked into the bathroom.
After a frozen ten-second look at his image, Milestone brought up a groan. All the imperfections of the day before were there, only deeper, darker, worse. And there was more. Pinches of loose skin drooped over his eyelids. His firm cheeks were sallow and sagging. There were deep wrinkles across his forehead and an angry cleft between his eyebrows. The creases Georgie had last week penciled from nostril to mouth were there now for real.
That night George made no comment as Milestone presented himself in the makeup chair. His frown and his tight little mouth said it all. He worked feverishly on the anchorman right up until air time.
Milestone ignored the startled looks of Sports, Weather, and the crew as he took his place at the anchor desk. He raced through the reading of the news so fast that Sports and Weather had to pad out the close with more inane chatter than usual.
On Wednesday Milestone showed up early in Makeup. All day he had avoided mirrors, but he could feel the scaly patches of skin on his face. He saw in his comb the wads of hair that came away from his crusted scalp without a struggle. The sagging jowls weighed like saddlebags. And on his upper lip something like a cold sore had broken open to discharge a viscous fluid.
Georgie dealt swiftly with him this time. He blow-dried the thinning hair into a semblance of fullness. He spread Tahitian Bronze pancake like frosting, shaded the loose flesh at the jaw, sealed the open sore, and dusted the surface with talc. Without comment he yanked the towel from Milestone’s collar and scurried off on some unspecified errand.
The show was a disaster. Milestone’s voice cracked. He misread cue cards. The heavy makeup lay on his face like a death mask. No one on the set would meet his eye.
Afterwards, as he was heading fo
r the door, a hand fell on his shoulder. Milestone flinched as though expecting an axe between the shoulder blades.
Fred Kineally said, “Stuart, before you go Mr. Lichty wants to see you.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow,” Milestone said without turning around.
“Now, Stuart.” The producer’s tone was gentle, but there was an icy core to his voice.
A week ago Stuart Milestone would have told the station manager where and when a meeting would take place. Not tonight.
“Have a seat, Stuart.” Norman Lichty—overweight, balding, pockmarked—sat unsmiling behind his power desk. A station executive did not have to look good.
“Can you guess why I asked you up here?”
“I’m in no mood for games, Norman.”
“Well, neither am I, so I’ll be direct. The Big Six News this week has been deplorable. Tonight’s was the worst yet. Your mind isn’t on your work, and you look terrible.”
“I’ve been hitting it pretty hard, what with the panhandler series and all—”
“I didn’t say tired, Stuart, I said terrible.” He adjusted the desk lamp so the light shone full on Milestone’s face. “Have you taken a good look at yourself? The switchboard is jammed with calls asking what’s wrong with you. What is wrong with you?”
Milestone opened his mouth for an indignant reply, but it died in his throat. All he could manage was a shrug.
Lichty turned the light away. “I want you to take some time off, starting tomorrow. Rest up. See a doctor. Do whatever you have to do.”
“But the show . . . the homeless special . . .”
“The special is in the can. Alan can handle the anchor desk until you’re ready to come back. Believe me, Stuart, this is the best for everybody.”
“Oh, sure,” Milestone mumbled. “For everybody.” He left the building the back way and hailed a taxi.
The next day he sat alone in his apartment with the lights out and the blinds closed. He avoided the mirrors. He knew what he had to do, but not until it was dark. He would not go out on the street looking like something from Night of the Living Dead.
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