I was the first to speak.
“So, if one of us bumped him off, using your retro phrasing,” I said, “why would we be sitting here instead of catching a bus to Yellowknife?”
Pete looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Because we wouldn’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
Gretchen suddenly put her little claws over her face and started to cry. Little squeaky sounds that were embarrassing and triggered whiplash throughout the bar. It was so awful that it must have been real. Gretchen would never have looked that pathetic and mousy on purpose. I exchanged an uneasy glance with Geoff. I started to move closer to Gretchen so I could give her a hug (while trying not to get jabbed by any of her points), when our table went black. The shadow over our conversation was now literal as well as figurative.
Sherilyn Carp leaned over the table and hissed at Gretchen, “You stupid bitch! Can’t you behave in public?”
Gretchen peeked up at Sherilyn, gave a little squeak, shrank back into the booth and cried even more, tears squeezing out from between her claws and trickling down her hyper-made-up face. She must have used products that cost more than my monthly condo fees, because not a bit of pointed black mascara or chiselled blush dislodged from her lovely angular beauty. I tried to get closer to her in a show of support, but all her points got in the way. Her elbow jabbed me in the chest and I recoiled, still sending reassuring noises in her direction. She was weird as hell, but she was still my friend.
Sherilyn Carp, with bouffant blonde hair, pale pink lipstick and hard black eyeliner (the sort of makeup that can be wildly appealing to some men, especially if the cleavage is as defined as Sherilyn’s), leaned further over the table, her face a few inches from Gretchen’s. Geoff, Pete and Bent swooned at the view. Men.
She was wearing a black tank top cut almost to her navel, black pants that should have got her arrested for indecent exposure, and sky-high Manolos. I could feel my heart tinkle into nasty, envious little pieces. Sherilyn, the untalented, the mean-spirited, the polyester princess, was wearing brand new, this season’s Manolos. I tried to hide my Salvation Army Nine West loafers under Geoff’s boots. (He looked at me as if I were trying to make a pass at him and then, seeing my eyes glued to Sherilyn’s feet, put the deuce together and obligingly stepped on my feet. Ouch, but necessary.)
“You little slut! Shut up!”
I was astonished. It was now even more clear that they had some sort of relationship, but civilized people simply don’t behave this way in public, unless they are onstage in front of a rapt audience and making a nice salary for their troubles.
“Hey, Sherilyn,” I said, using my calm, deep power-voice, the one I used as the Oracle of Delphi in that weird sci-fi series. “I think you are out of line here.”
Sherilyn stood back, and snarled. I ducked instinctively. All those years of improv paid off. Her Kenneth Cole bag swung around in an arc and would have given me a magnificent black eye, except for my extraordinary reflexes. Unfortunately, my reflexes had neglected to take into account the hardness of the table, which was incredibly painful when applied to a rapidly descending face, and I had a slight woozy moment. When I came to, Sherilyn was gone, with the boomerang Kenneth Cole bag. Gretchen had disappeared in a poof of whisper. Geoff and Pete were applying ice cubes in napkins to my eye. Bent was ranting about decadent, nouveau riche women who used high priced purses as deadly weapons, when the working poor had to sleep on the streets. I decided that, as far as I was concerned, I was going to forget about knocking myself out. The story would be that Sherilyn had attacked me with a Kenneth Cole bag. If I had money for a lawyer, I would sue. But since I didn’t, I could relax and enjoy the solicitous attention.
This was good. At least the evening had ended well. I am such a Pollyanna.
A Tangled Web
Later that evening, I lay on my bed with an ice pack on my face, listening to Charlie Haden and wondering if it is such a good idea to come to the defence of friends who disappear the moment you are attacked with a Kenneth Cole bag. Luckily, my nose wasn’t broken and my dimples were intact, but I had a heck of a black eye and a killer headache. Charlie Haden is a cure for all woes. I listened to his soothing bass, and slowly my muscles began to unknot.
I adjusted the ice pack. I didn’t need to worry about losing any gigs, because my engagement calendar was blank except for my Big Mac shifts (a gig I had no doubt lost) and lunches with Mitzi, two realities which were about as far apart as you could get (although Mitzi did admit to the occasional Big Mac Attack). And—oh no—that charity fundraiser. It was going to take an entire tube of Elizabeth Arden to cover up the damage. I had so effectively blocked the fundraiser from my memory that I wasn’t entirely sure where I was supposed to be, or when. Once I became vertical again, I would trudge into my den and check my e-mails, so that I would know where I was supposed to show up, pretending to be rich and famous, in order to seduce the truly rich and famous into giving money to a good cause.
Despite my good intentions, my mind veered back to the revelations of the day, especially Gretchen’s surprising relationship with Sherilyn. I had never understood why anybody took Sherilyn Carp seriously. She had always seemed to me to be a shallow, nasty young woman. Obviously, some people, mostly men with more hormones than brains, thought otherwise. Perhaps Gretchen, with all her elegant points, found Sherilyn’s voluptuous vulgarity appealing, in a replay of the old opposites-attract scenario. Or perhaps Sherilyn had played on Gretchen’s insecurities, promising her roles and a career renewal. Maybe Sherilyn had tired of Stan and found Gretchen’s sharp delicacy intriguing.
To me, Sherilyn was pathetic, an unaware woman who flaunted her sexuality in an embarrassing series of just slightly outdated styles—pink lipstick, big blonde hair, low-cut tops. Was her style deliberately blatant and coarse? But then I had to recognize that in my youth I had dressed inappropriately on too many occasions. Perhaps I was not in a position to pass judgment. However, I smugly reminded myself, once I had become what I like to think of as a grown-up, I no longer bared unappealing or intimate parts of my body in public. At least, not deliberately. The unfortunate dance with Greg Halligan at the wrap party for the sci-fi series was something I was trying to forget. So I decided to cut Sherilyn Carp some slack in the fashion department.
Sherilyn had become a producer very suddenly, with Stan’s help. As soon as she started handing out business cards, with Stan at her side, beaming in what was more a lascivious than solicitous manner, the integrity of the union was compromised. It was hard to tell if there was any underhanded pressure to work with Sherilyn, but unfortunately, whether there was or not, a cloud of malaise permeated the union. Stan had made it clear that Sherilyn’s production company was the favoured child: the best agreements, the secret deals, everything that steered all work her way. The standards that Katrina had maintained had disappeared out the window when she took her first maternity leave. Without Katrina to rein him in, Stan had become a man befuddled by pink lipstick. Katrina was strong. Her ethics were unquestionable. But her defection into the land of motherhood had left us with Stan as an interim leader. I am not philosophically opposed to children, but at times I really wished that Katrina had been a bit more considerate in her multiplying. Lorraine was tough, but there was only so much she could do to keep Stan in check without losing her job. Sylvia, at least, scared Stan enough that he had to keep his sexist comments to a minimum. I once heard her tell him that she had run into tougher characters in prison, and she had rearranged their anatomy very effectively and would be glad to do the same for him if he ever touched her again. Only she didn’t say it that politely. I had to look up some of the words she used on the Internet, and was shocked.
Sherilyn resented any woman with education and a semblance of manners. She was vicious to Ramona, a gentle and cultivated casting director who was revered by actors. Why? Because Ramona treated people with respect, and was respected in return?
Sherilyn had embarked on a smear campaign agains
t Lisette, a feisty, outspoken director who had dared to say what nobody else would: that Sherilyn relied on Stan for her career. Lisette was difficult, vibrant and smart, with impressive credits, including an Emmy award–winning TV movie, but she was now on Sherilyn’s hit list. Lisette didn’t take any guff from anybody, including Sherilyn, and wasn’t overly concerned. She said as much to me, over drinks at a wrap party. “Lu, watch your back. You’re smart and you have style. Sherilyn will try to get you, trust me.”
Then, once she had aired her opinion of Sherilyn to all and sundry, any project with Lisette attached suddenly had major contractual problems with the actors cast. Stan found amazing ways to undermine any shoot have didn’t have a Sherilyn benefit. No extra muffin on meal break? Penalty! Only one loo in each trailer? Penalty! One minute overtime? The entire production was jeopardized. On the other hand, if any of Sherilyn’s films went into overtime, forgot wardrobe calls or were late with royalties, Stan seemed to take an ethical snooze.
All of us encounter unpleasant people on occasion. The challenge is to defuse or diffuse their impact on one’s life. Sherilyn Carp was one of the truly poisonous personalities I had encountered in my years in the business. Sometimes I wondered why she had so little humanity. Had she been so deeply hurt or abused in her past that she had become incapable of kindness or compassion towards anybody? What sort of unhealthy power did she have over Gretchen and Stan?
My face started to hurt all over again, thinking of this.
I tried to relax into evolved thoughts. Om. Om. No luck. I snuggled back into my pillows and reminded myself that I should be grateful that she hadn’t been carrying a laptop. Om. Om.
The doorbell rang. A further annoyance. Who wanted to kill me now?
I stumbled down the stairs, grabbed the rolling pin at the bottom (I never bake, but I suddenly viewed my grandmother’s rolling pin in a new light, as a major security tool, after the events of the Zonko night), and went to the door.
I now had enough of a sense of self-preservation to check the peephole, and what I saw was Ryga’s face. Sigh. I reluctantly unlocked the door and opened it.
He looked at my Winnie the Pooh pajamas and then at my black eye. And then at the rolling pin.
“Hot date?”
“I lead a very exciting life,” I said. I didn’t move back to invite him in. I was hoping my body language and the rolling pin said it all.
“Yes.”
An awkward silence (with, alas, absolutely no sexual undercurrents) hung between us for an interminable minute.
“I have a few questions,” he said. “But not about your intruder.”
Uh-oh. Not about your intruder.
I reluctantly opened the door further and followed him into the living room, where he carefully chose an arts and crafts chair (five dollars at a totally fabulous garage sale in Glendale) far from the plastic-covered loveseat on which Mr. Size Twenty had expired. I carefully seated myself on a lovely pine chair (three dollars at the same sale).
“Nice eye.”
“Thanks.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“You know Stan Pope?”
“Of course.”
I found myself clutching the Winnie images on my jammies in nervousness, then decided this wouldn’t be a good idea when Ryga became interested in all the clutching.
“When did you last see him?”
Aha. I was way ahead of him. I had thought this out. “At a reception at the Arts Club last week. He sneezed on me.”
He looked at me for a long moment. What did he want from me? A confession?
Duh.
I hate it when people do this. But then, I am an actor. I know all the tricks, how, onstage, dragging out a moment makes it so much more important than it really is. (And how, in film, it quickly gets you fired, because of the vast amounts of money involved in film production, compared to the theatre.)
“Do you know Stan?” I asked, innocently. Before I could stop myself, the dimples came into play. Knee-jerk reaction when under stress.
Ryga stared at my dimples and sort of smiled. Aha. Gotcha.
“His assistant reported that he hadn’t been to work since Monday and that he wasn’t answering his cell or e-mail. She was concerned.”
“Mmmmm.” I nodded neutrally. No point in pretending I would be in a state of worry over Stan.
“We checked his phone. He had made a number of calls on Monday evening, and one of them was to your number.”
“I didn’t answer my phone Monday. I wanted to concentrate on the full moon meditation.” As soon as these idiotic words tumbled out of my mouth, I remembered that the full moon meditation had happened the week before, and I had missed it because of my shift at Big Mac’s. Luckily, this guy wouldn’t notice.
“The full moon meditation was last week.”
“Well, I was busy with something, because I remember getting his message too late.”
Stalemate.
Ha ha. He can’t prove I talked to Stan, instead of my answering machine. I had erased all messages, then reset the machine. Ha ha ha. Sometimes, Lulu Malone has presence of mind beyond her wildest dreams. I tried to cover my moment of glee, which, even as I felt it, I realized was entirely inappropriate, given that one human being (however nasty) was dead and another (even more nasty, being Zonko) was also dead. I was frazzled and scared.
“Ms. Malone,” he said, ponderously. So we were back to formality. This seriously reduced the attraction factor in our exchange. Which was a moot point, as the attraction factor appeared to be a repressed element, solely in my department. I have never been attracted to ponderous men, and he was definitely growing more ponderous by the moment. Perhaps this was a good thing, as I had no time to engage in frivolous, and no doubt fruitless, fantasies about eccentrically attractive police detectives.
“Somebody was murdered in your home. I am surprised you aren’t more concerned.”
I wanted to scream at him, “I have other more important things on my mind! Like who killed Stan!’’ But I couldn’t say that. I had to keep pretending that I was a normal person, not an actor beleaguered by bodies.
I rallied.
“This guy died on top of me! Do you think this was a great experience for me?”
“Everybody reacts in different ways,” he nodded.
“And, worse, Horatio has disappeared.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“My dog.”
“Oh yeah, big fellow. I noticed the photos on the refrigerator door.”
“And somebody is trying to kill me.”
“No kidding,” he said.
Such a comedian.
“You don’t understand. There was the big guy in my condo. With bad breath. And then yesterday, at the shoe store, somebody tried to strangle me.”
“At a shoe store?” he said, looking as if he didn’t believe anybody committed crimes at a shoe store.
“I was in the side doorway and then somebody threw something over my head. I kicked him where it hurt—”
He winced.
“—and then he ran away. And the shoe store manager asked Mitzi and me to leave. It was humiliating.”
• • •
Ryga left, after many admonishments about locking my doors. I shut the door with relief—and then apprehension. I was on my own.
Without Horatio around as an admittedly undependable security alarm, I rigged the patio doors with piles of thrift store crockery. (No way was I going to put out my Susie Cooper. Instead, I pulled out the Made in Japan stuff, which although not highly valuable, still had some worth.) I balanced the cups and saucers, creamers and sugar bowls, with their white background and brilliant colours, in artistic heaps, so that anybody forcing the doors would make enough noise to raise me—and Mrs. Lauterman.
After that, I crawled up the stairs and ran a lavender salt bath, then abandoned my Pooh wardrobe for a clean sleep shirt, and crawled into bed.
• • •
> I was awakened by the sound of crashing crockery. I entertained the thought of just pulling the covers over my head, then realized this wasn’t sensible. I grabbed Grandma’s rolling pin, which at least I had had the foresight to put on the floor by my bed. Why the heck couldn’t I have a Glock? Everybody in crime has a Glock! Why am I so deprived? All I have is a rolling pin!
I paused by my bedroom door, then felt my way to the top of the stairs. I really wanted to run back and hide under my bed, but I forced myself to keep going.
I tried to remember how my intrepid private eye, Dora Darling, had felt as she had confronted the baddies. I remembered my surge of bravery as I had embarked on the fight scenes in that long-ago series. Emotional recall, yay. I felt a surge of energy at the top of the stairs. I stepped down carefully, alert, making no noise in my bare feet. Perhaps it wasn’t so great that I was wearing a Mickey Mouse sleep shirt, but I figured whoever had broken in wasn’t going to be taking fashion notes. They were probably more interested in killing me.
Step by step, in the dark and the silence, I worked my way down the stairs. I figured the intruder was at a disadvantage. He (or she) didn’t know my condo as well as I knew it. Or at least, that is what I told my pounding heart. The dark and the silence pressed in on me, even though all my senses were prickling. I wasn’t really terrified. I was probably just shaking because I needed a sugar fix.
I felt like an idiot. The intruder probably had a gun or a knife. I had a rolling pin.
At the bottom of the steps, I paused and listened. I couldn’t hear anything. No ragged breathing of the demented killer. No slow icy huffs of the psychopath. Why can’t these people just come out with it and attack?
Be careful what you wish for. A rope dropped over my head and jerked back on my neck. It pulled me off balance, which led me to the brilliant conclusion that my killer—correction: would-be killer, think positive—was behind me.
I gagged. I couldn’t get any air into my chest and reflected briefly on the roles I would never play, the shoes I would never wear and the garage sales I would never cruise, before remembering to heave up the rolling pin and swing it somewhere over my head onto what I hoped was the head of whoever was behind me.
Deadly Dues Page 12