by Guy Adams
‘Oh Jesus …’ sighed Fabio, ‘you slept with Elizabeth.’
‘She did say she was married,’ Henry admitted, ‘but that it was a business thing …’
‘Then maybe both of you need lessons in how to keep your goddamn mouths shut. What am I working my ass off for here if everyone’s going to run around contradicting my careful work?’
‘Sorry …’
‘Don’t apologise, I’m just amazed you got out with your dick still attached. I mean, Elizabeth … she’s a piece of work.’
Henry assumed Fabio was paying Elizabeth a compliment and smiled. ‘She certainly is – the most beautiful woman in the room and she knew it.’
‘The most …’ Fabio pulled the paper closer and scrutinised the grainy black and white picture intently. ‘How old would you say Elizabeth is?’
Henry shrugged. ‘Older than she looks, I guess. I know she’s been in the business a little while. Maybe twenty-five?’
Fabio stared at him for a moment, then returned to the picture in the newspaper. He didn’t think Henry was bullshitting him: he wasn’t the sort of kid who would lie about that sort of thing. He called a spade a damned spade.
Fabio put the newspaper down. ‘We need to wrap this up quick. I think I should pay Elizabeth a visit.’
‘Have I done something wrong?’
‘Probably not. Or if you have it’s nothing that countless other guys in this town haven’t done over the years.’
Henry took that to be a general point rather than a reference to Elizabeth in particular, thereby misunderstanding Fabio completely. Which was probably for the best: while the young man didn’t know Elizabeth well he was old-fashioned enough to the point where he would have tried to defend her honour, whether she actually possessed any or not.
The waitress arrived with their breakfast. Fabio’s sense of urgency wasn’t strong enough to stop him eating it.
Filled with carbohydrates and caffeine, Fabio had his driver take him to Elizabeth and Nayland’s house. As if his mood wasn’t unsettled enough already he met the police in the driveway.
‘What the hell are they doing here?’ he asked nobody in particular. ‘Jesus … are these two trying to give me a heart attack?’
The fact that he was doing a good enough job of that on his own escaped him, naturally, and he lit a cigar as the car pulled up outside the front door.
The driver rushed around to release both him and the clouds of smoke he was producing and he stepped out onto the gravel just as the police car drove away.
‘Police, Nayland?’ he shouted. His client was standing in the open doorway. ‘Please tell me it’s nothing to worry about.’
‘It isn’t,’ Nayland replied. ‘One of the staff has gone missing, that’s all.’
‘One of the staff? What the hell has that got to do with you?’
‘Nothing, but I’ve had to work hard to reassure the police of that fact. It was Georgina Woolrich, one of the maids. We took her out last night and she never went home.’
‘You took her out? What are you talking about, you took her out?’
Nayland led Fabio into the house. ‘There was an accident. Elizabeth was hurling glassware around the place and the maid got in the way. Nothing serious but I guess Elizabeth panicked, thinking that the girl would cause trouble. So we gave her a little cash bonus and took her out on the town, by way of an apology.’
‘Some apology. There was a time when a maid would be grateful if you hit them – it showed you acknowledged their presence.’
‘Those glory days are long past,’ said Nayland with heavy sarcasm.
‘Breaks your heart, don’t it? So what’s the problem? You took her out …?’
‘And I thought I’d dropped her off at home but it turns out she gave me the wrong address. The police think she might have been embarrassed for us to see where she really lived.’
‘So the dumb kid walks home and something happens to her?’
Nayland shrugged. ‘Maybe she’ll turn up later, I don’t know. Maybe she went on somewhere else. A friend’s house or something.’
‘Who knows? Whatever, it’s not your problem and if the cops call again you tell me and I’ll set them straight on that.’
Fabio walked out onto the patio. ‘Get whatever staff you have left to rustle up some coffee, would you? I want to talk with you both.’
‘Both? Elizabeth isn’t well, she won’t be coming down.’
‘The hell she won’t. I want to see her for myself.’
‘See her?’ Nayland had known this moment was coming, of course, but he was damned if he was going to give in to it easily.
Fabio pulled the copy of Variety from his jacket pocket and threw it onto the table. ‘She’s all over the papers. Your night out caused quite a fuss.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
‘Good? It’s great. But I don’t understand it.’ Fabio prodded at the picture on the front page with his finger, as fat and stubby as the cigar he was smoking. ‘How is she looking like that only hours after I last saw her?’
Nayland sighed and made a show of looking at the picture. ‘She’s trying a new regime,’ he said. ‘Takes years off her – that and favourable lighting has done her the world of good.’
‘A new regime? What regime?’
‘I don’t know, Fabio, she’ll tell you all about it when you see her. But not today.’
‘I may be lots of things, Frank, but I’m not an idiot. Elizabeth is seen wandering around the town’s hottest nightspots and she looks half her age. That may wash with the idiots out there, especially the ones that haven’t set eyes on her for five years – which is most of ’em since her career’s so far up Shit Creek it’s amazing the papers even remember her name – but it doesn’t wash with me. I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now.’
Nayland kept his calm. Fabio was nothing he couldn’t handle.
He shouted through to Patience, asking her to rustle up some coffee, making Fabio wait for his reply.
Nayland sat down at the table, the very image of quiet calm.
‘You can’t see Elizabeth,’ he insisted, ‘but you don’t need to. You complain about her not matching your ideal one day, then complain again when she does. Just be happy she’s causing a stir in public again.’
‘Oh, I am happy, Frank, I’m ecstatic. But I’m also nervous that this is something that’s going to bite me on the ass. How did you pull it off? What is it? A lookalike? Jesus … I’m your manager – this is the sort of thing you can discuss with me, this is the sort of thing I arrange, for Christ’s sake. But if I’m not involved I need to know the trick or I’m not going to rest easy.’
‘No trick. It’s just a cream that she’s using, you know what these women are like. Anyway, the image exaggerates. Like I said, it was good lighting, there’s nothing miraculous about it. If you saw her you wouldn’t think she looked any different.’
‘So let me see her!’
‘I told you, not now, she’s in bed.’
Fabio raised his arms in despair. ‘I can’t work like this. I’ve a good mind to drop you from my client list.’
This was a step-up from his usual threats and Nayland knew it. Still, he refused to rise to the bait.
‘That would be a shame. But it’s up to you, of course.’
Fabio met Nayland’s stare: a momentary game of poker, of bluff and counter-bluff. Fabio was surprised at Nayland’s fortitude – the man was normally a pushover. But there was time to turn the tables yet. A good player knew when to fold and when to play on.
He smiled. ‘Look at us! How long have we been working together?’
‘A good few years.’
‘A good few years. And we’re going to throw that away over something as stupid as this?’
‘Your call.’
‘Well, then, one of us needs to be the grown-up and I guess it can be me. But I still want to see Elizabeth. I want to see for myself how good she looks and then make sure we all make the mon
ey we deserve.’ The coffee arrived and Fabio made complimentary noises, showering Patience with a charm she neither needed or liked. ‘This is what I’m talking about,’ said Fabio. ‘You ask for what you want and it’s with you in moments, am I right? The perfect relationship.’
‘For the one doing the asking,’ Nayland replied.
‘That’s the world, Frank, it’s divided between people that ask and people that do. And we want to stay on the right side of that equation, right?’
Nayland couldn’t say he was completely comfort able with this simplistic view but he shrugged and nodded anyway.
‘So help me out. If Elizabeth has found some kind of miracle anti-ageing cure and is ready to hit the tiles and turn heads then I need to be working with you on that. I need to turn that into money. Because you need money, Frank – you can’t live off memories and this place must be eating up the savings you had.’
Nayland refused to comment on that. He had no doubt that Fabio knew all he needed to know about his client’s finances but he, Nayland, was still too English to discuss them openly. Besides, Fabio was right: they were by no means as rich as they had once been. But he had stayed ahead of this game so far and wasn’t about to concede a point now.
‘It must be,’ Fabio continued. ‘You need more work. You need bigger successes.’
‘You were offering me a movie yesterday.’
‘Some crappy horror picture? That’s what you want?’
‘Yesterday it was a great opportunity.’
‘To hell with yesterday, yesterday is gone. Today we should be looking for something bigger. You haven’t had press coverage like this for years. My phone will be ringing. So is this a one-off or the start of something?’
Nayland couldn’t answer that question. It had been the only thing on his mind all morning. Fabio didn’t wait for a reply.
‘Because we could be looking at an opportunity here. We could be looking at a route back to the top. If this is more than a lucky break, a moment of good fortune with a drunk photographer in a dark club. If she can make this kind of spread again –’ he stabbed at the paper with his finger once more, ‘– then your career just got a new lease of life.’
Having finally disposed of Fabio, Nayland went upstairs in search of Elizabeth.
She was hiding in her room, drapes closed, a dark cave of tobacco smoke, whisky fumes and misery.
‘Have they gone?’ she asked, buried in the shadows, the bed sheets wrapped around her like a shroud.
‘The police? Yes. They weren’t happy but I think we’ll be all right.’
‘Of course we’ll be all right. What can they prove?’
Nayland shrugged. ‘I think you’re overconfident about how untouchable you are.’
‘About this? Rubbish. We’re royalty in this town and royalty does as it pleases.’ She shifted and he caught a glimpse of her face: mascara run from tears, hair a mess. ‘But I don’t think I’m invulnerable. Not a bit of it. How could I? All the mirrors are only too happy to remind me how fragile I am.’
‘At least you had a taste, a night to remember …’
‘A taste? What use is that to me? All it did was rub my nose in it. And look at me now, I look older than ever, a shadow, a walking corpse.’
‘You look fine.’ He tried to sound supportive – even after what she had done he couldn’t help but try and stand by her. His self-loathing really was at an all-time low. As was his ability to convince her because the words failed to stick.
‘I look horrid!’ Elizabeth shouted. ‘Worse than ever.’
Nayland sat on the edge of the bed. ‘It’s all over the newspapers,’ he said, throwing down the copy of Variety that Fabio had left for them. ‘Fabio was insufferably excited.’
‘Fabio’s been here?’
‘Just left – did you think it would take him long? He sniffs money.’
Elizabeth pulled the newspaper closer, opened it out and lost herself in the front page. After a moment she began to cry. It took a moment for Nayland to recognise the noise: it had been so long since he had seen her this fragile and exposed. He didn’t know quite how to respond.
‘I won’t have it!’ she said. ‘Not now, not after last night. I won’t go back to this.’
‘What choice is there?’ he asked, though he knew and dreaded the answer.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she replied. ‘It worked before and it will work again. I just need more blood.’
‘No,’ he insisted, trying to sound as firm as he could. ‘I helped you last night because the deed was done. Nothing I could do was going to give that girl her life back. But I won’t stand by and let you do it again.’
‘“Let me”? You’re not my keeper. I’ll do what I want.’
‘And I’ll go to the police.’
‘What? And go to the chair with me, as an accomplice? Don’t think I can’t make sure that the blame falls on you, Frank Nayland. I may be old but there’s power in these ageing eyelashes yet.’ Elizabeth pressed her hands together, the very image of the terrified and repentant woman. ‘Oh officer … he made me watch while he cut her! I was so terrified but he gets so angry … I didn’t know what to do! For all I knew it might be me next …’
‘You fucking bitch.’ Nayland had known she was more than capable of this kind of blackmail; in truth there was very little she wasn’t capable of, as she had proven last night. But in that moment he hated her more than he had ever imagined he could.
‘Damn right I’m a bitch! And I’ll do whatever needs to be done for the both of us!’
‘Don’t drag me into it. This is all about you!’
‘Really? And I suppose Fabio didn’t promise it would help your career too? Don’t give me that. It benefits you just as much to be seen with the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.’
‘But then I rarely am, am I? You have other gentlemen in mind.’
‘Is it that again? Jealousy?’
Nayland wouldn’t be so easily sidetracked. ‘Dress it up however you want to, but this is about your hunger, your greed … I don’t come into it.’
‘You do if I pull you in, and be assured I will. I need more blood and you’re going to help me get it!’
Nayland couldn’t remember ever feeling so lost, not only because of where his blind devotion had got him but because he knew where it was going to take him next.
What was he to do? He had no doubt that Elizabeth would be a woman of her word: if it all came to light then she would do her damnedest to push him to the forefront of the whole affair. He could go to the police himself first, of course, get his story in early. Still, there would be no denying his involvement in the disposal of the body. That mess had his hands all over it. Would any jury really believe he had been blameless in the murder itself? Would anyone think he was so weak that he had just come running to do Elizabeth’s bidding after the deed was done? Part of him couldn’t bear the idea that they could – he was disgusted enough at his own weakness without it being a matter of public record. Even if they did, didn’t that still make him an accomplice after the fact? He might just escape the death sentence if he could sell himself as worthless enough. Might. Whatever happened his life as it stood now would be over, he would be sentenced to prison and lose everything. All over the death of a stupid maid.
The only other option was to go with it, to try and make it safe. Women vanished all the time. If they chose more carefully the next time, picked their target with care, maybe they could continue to get away with it. Certainly they would have more chance of success if he was involved in the planning: Elizabeth was a wild card, a madwoman labouring under the impression that she was untouchable by the law. Nayland had no such beliefs. If they slipped up then at best everything would fall down around them, at worst their final performance would be in the electric chair, burning for the pleasure of one last, eager audience.
Nayland wasn’t as greedy as Elizabeth but he was just as pragmatic. When it came down to the lives of a few worthless women in exchange
for his own – and, yes, an improvement on his own, Fabio had been right about that, he knew that Nayland’s star would ascend alongside hers if he let it – well … it was a transaction he could accept.
‘You’re going to do it,’ Elizabeth said, her voice no longer angry but quiet and dismissive as if they were discussing nothing more than the purchase of a new suit. ‘So let’s move on from the recriminations and name-calling and get down to how we’re going to do it.’
‘I hate you sometimes,’ Nayland said, not quite willing to let the recriminations lie. ‘You’re selfish, cruel and evil.’
‘I’m also beautiful and the only woman you’ve ever loved. What does that say about you, darling?’ She put her arm around his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Nothing good,’ he admitted, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to push her away.
‘But with a beautiful wife on your arm the world will be a better place and you know it. You say this is all about me? Fine, think that if you must. But you know deep down that you need the attention as much as I do, the adoration.’
This was partly true, though the one person he really needed that adoration from would never provide it.
‘We need to be more careful next time,’ Nayland said. ‘We need to pick someone who won’t be so easily missed. Someone who isn’t connected with us.’
‘In this city? That’s easy, the street corners are thronging with them.’
This was certainly true. Marie might cater for Hollywood’s exclusive appetites but there were always those further down the rungs of every profession. Could they ask for a better feeding ground?
‘People would recognise us.’
‘You, darling. I don’t mind being the butcher but you’ll certainly be the man bringing me my animals from market.’
So that was to be the division of labour, was it? Nayland supposed he could live with that.
‘Anyway,’ Elizabeth continued, ‘they don’t have to recognise you. Try and remember what it is that you do for a living.’
She had another fair point there. It had been so long since he had done any acting that he had almost forgotten.
‘We shouldn’t do it here,’ he said. ‘It adds too many risks.’