“God, that hurts! She has points I never dreamed of! Get her off me.”
Mitzi crawled over to him and tried to push Gretchen off him.
“Ouch! Man, that is excruciating. And some men did this voluntarily?”
I slid down the rack of shoes, the Birkenstock clutched to my chest.
The shoe closet door burst open, and Ryga jumped in, gun in hand. Two young police officers, a guy and a woman who looked like teenagers, were behind him, guns drawn.
“Lu! Mrs. Lauterman called me. Said you might be in trouble.”
Then he looked at the closet, the semi-comatose bodies, the shoes, Mitzi’s large purple behind, the gun, and the once famous Lulu Malone collapsed against the rack.
The expression on his face had been one of no-nonsense authority. Now that was replaced by another, which I couldn’t identify precisely, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t flattering to Lulu Malone.
He gestured the officers into the closet. One held a gun on all of us, while the other carefully picked up Gretchen’s pistol and put it in a bag. More officers brushed past Ryga, until there were almost as many people in the closet as shoes. Ryga gave orders and divided us up so we could give our statements separately to the officers. All very efficient and comforting, in a strange way. It was even more comforting to see Gretchen and Sherilyn taken away in handcuffs.
I like to think I have a powerful effect on men from time to time, as long as I am dressed right and the dimples are in place. I wasn’t crazy about seeing an attractive man turn his back on me, shiver horribly, hunch over and stumble away drunkenly, in the throes of either laughter or revulsion. I know I can be intoxicating, but this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Just Desserts and Paid Dues
Some weeks later, I sat at the head of a table in a private dining room at the Hyatt. I was on my second glass of a very fine organic Chardonnay from California, and gazed happily at Bent, Geoff, Mitzi, Mrs. Lauterman, Pete (who was out on bail for assault, bail which I had paid, of course) and Horatio. I had also invited Hal Shapiro as Horatio’s date.
“Order whatever you want. Don’t look at the prices,” I said. I signalled the waiter for another bottle of wine.
Mrs. Lauterman looked unhappy, although I was sure it had nothing to do with her second excellent martini.
“Lulu, dear, the prices here are more than my condo fees. Are you sure you can afford it?” She turned to roll her olive down the table to Horatio, who was appropriately appreciative.
“Absolutely,” I dimpled. “I am a woman of means.”
And I was. When Stan’s safety deposit box was opened by the bank and the lawyers, we had discovered that although he had followed Sherilyn’s orders to block my payments, he hadn’t been totally compliant. He had put my money into a high-interest investment account, and I now had more money than I had dreamed possible from those long gone Bow Wow commercials. Not only that, but the DVD sales of Darling, Detective had been surprisingly brisk, and I was looking forward to the royalties that would land in my bank account in the next year.
Mitzi was beaming, too, as I had not only paid her commission on what was owed me, but had also given her great comeback in the shoe closet by paying a commission on the interest, as well, which was not inconsiderable.
Stan’s box had yielded other surprises. We all knew Stan had salted away a lot of money in investments, but we didn’t know that he had changed his will in the last month of his life. I hadn’t realized he had no family except for distant cousins. He had divided his assets between the Old Actors Charity and Pete, Bent, Geoff, Gretchen and me. I guessed that Stan, with his Irish Catholic background, had felt a surge of guilt and had determined to make reparations for the ills he had inflicted on us.
Gretchen had immediately sunk her share into the best lawyer she could find to defend her against murdering her benefactor. They were probably whispering together in the visiting room at the prison at this very moment. Sherilyn was in the same facility for assault, and after much more whispering, there was now talk of a reality series starring Gretchen and Sherilyn as star-crossed, secret lovers who overcame all odds in order to commit to each other behind bars. The tabloids had photos of Sherilyn and Gretchen, dressed in stylish prison garb, holding hands across a table, with ominous guards, straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, standing over them. The concept had “hit show” written all over it. That’s showbiz.
Bent was grinning like a Halloween jack-o-lantern. He had traded in his old beater of a van for a newer version. It was still a beater, but it didn’t make as much noise. Geoff looked dreamy and happy, no doubt imagining how terrific his love life was going to be, now that he was not only a hunk, but also a hunk who was almost out of debt.
Pete wasn’t actually smiling, but he looked relieved. His dance with the garden gnome was going to remain our little secret, as long he brought over a pie once a week. We had negotiated some flexibility for him—a tourtière one week, blueberry tarts the next. It just had to be pastry, and my lips were sealed with sugar and butter.
He didn’t know it yet, but given my changed financial circumstances and the realization that he not only hadn’t been planning to kill me in the closet, but hadn’t seriously tried to kill Stan either, I was formulating an offer to set him up with his own catering business. I knew he needed a big change in his life. And I still had a life, thanks to him and the gnome. I reminded myself to send Jerome, who had given it to me years ago, a nice gift, perhaps a designer tie.
Hal was talking quietly to Horatio, who was on his best behaviour. I pretended I had invited Hal for Horatio, and it was partly true, as it was the only way I could convince the restaurant to allow my pooch entry. I also wanted to express my appreciation to Hal for bringing my big bow-wow back to me. And, okay, maybe there was a little bit of thinking that once Hal saw me at my best, he might be more receptive to the occasional dinner.
Not a big deal, though as at this point I needed some quiet time to assess my future.
Horatio was sitting politely on a chair, with a large linen napkin around his neck and a triple serving of the garlic escargot in front of him. I noticed that Hal occasionally gave him little pointers on having only one at a time, as a concession to etiquette.
We chatted happily and ate our way through prime rib, lobster, Arctic char, game hen, candied asparagus, assorted vegetables and exotic salads, which had been tweaked, made over, coloured, embellished and renamed into items one sees only on the Food Network. Soft jazz played over the sound system, with the occasional world music or retro ballad mixed in.
Mitzi tapped on her wine glass with a spoon to get our attention, then raised her glass.
“To Horatio!”
We raised our glasses and drank heartily. Horatio’s ears lifted at the sound of his name, and he sent us all a happy and aromatic burp.
Mitzi had been so inspired by the change in our fortunes that she had become Agent Terrible again, landing Horatio a very nice gig in a series of household cleaner commercials. Don’t ask.
“And one more toast,” she said. We waited.
“Today I got a call from Beeswax Productions.” We all knew they had produced the Darling, Detective series. “The DVD sales of the series have gone through the roof. The DVD just won an award from Crime Television. Beeswax is over the moon and has raised financing for a series redux. Starring Lulu Malone in her original role as Dora Darling, returning to the workforce after a stint in Afghanistan.”
My mouth and my eyes popped open with amazement.
“They want a meeting next week to discuss terms,” she said, rolling her wine around in her glass with naughty gusto. “Assuming you are willing,” she added innocently, looking at me from under her wild curls.
“Am I willing?” I was laughing in a truly demented way. Then I paused. “Isn’t the timing of the war a little off? Dora would be working with a walker by then—no offense, Mrs. L.”
“None taken, dear.”
Mitzi waved he
r plump little paw dismissively. “You’ve been out of the game too long, Lu. This is television.”
At that moment, the waiter was clearing my plate. He did a double take, and pulled back. Uh-oh. I knew that look.
He stood very tall, and elegantly sang, in a beautiful, trained tenor, “Doggie Doggie Bow Wow.” He held the last note in tribute, bowed slightly and left the room.
I smiled benevolently and raised my glass.
“To Dora Darling, Detective.”
We drank again. I had hired a limo for the evening, so we could party with abandon.
“You could be a real private eye, Lu,” said Pete. I smiled, knowing he must mean my deductive powers, although perhaps he was being a bit generous, as I had been more than one or two steps behind the action, rather than ahead of it. “You just kept on trying to figure things out, no matter how many embarrassing mistakes you made. And diving into that dumpster …”
“You should have seen her,” said Mitzi.
“I did,” said Hal.
“You didn’t smell her,” said Mitzi.
“I did,” he said.
“I have another toast,” I said rather loudly.
The waiter appeared and passed around dessert menus.
We all raised our glasses again.
“This may seem strange to you,” I said. I felt a little odd saying this, but in a way it made sense to me. “Stan did terrible things, but in the end, he did the right thing. He paid his dues.”
They all nodded. Stan had tried to make it right for all of us.
“And in the end, he gave us our due. He respected us, ultimately.”
They nodded again.
“To Stan!” And we downed our glasses. Geoff efficiently refilled them in the waiter’s absence.
Hal frowned slightly, and took his hand from Horatio’s head.
“Aren’t you putting too much emphasis on getting the respect due you from a person who was a criminal?”
Mitzi burbled into her wine. “How do you spell respect? With lots of dollar signs?”
Pete shook his head. “Come on, Mitzi. We all spell respect our own way. It’s about knowing what you’re worth. Knowing that you’ve paid your dues.”
Mitzi burbled some more. The limo had been a very good idea.
I silently agreed with Pete. I had paid my dues big-time. I opened my dessert menu to hide my smile.
The others took my cue and opened theirs.
It was only then that I noticed the engraved, gold-printed title on the leatherbound dessert menu.
“Just Desserts.”
I dimpled and ordered everything.
Acknowledgments
There are many people to thank when a book is published. The writer works alone, in a solitary but rewarding endeavour. One’s companions, in my case, are mellow jazz or bossa nova, salty snacks sometimes masquerading as health food and whatever soothing tea or liquid refreshment is handy. However, without encouragement, support and feedback from friends and associates, the words would sit in the iMac without seeing the light of day.
When Deadly Dues was in its early drafts, I asked for help and I received it. Many thanks to the talented Bill Robertson, Michael Huck, Marni Andrews, Natalie Edwards, Brenda Lissel, Paddy Campbell and Robert Finley (through the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program) for their insights and encouragement. Wordfest 2007: the Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival sent a host of writers, including this one, to the Banff Centre for a salon and retreat, where I wrote much of Lulu’s antics, against the background of the glorious mountains of Banff. Special thanks to my fine friend Linda Callaghan for generously giving professional, creative and legal advice. I am especially grateful to Louise Penny for taking time from her busy schedule to read an early draft of my first chapters, and for giving me notes and encouragement beyond my wildest dreams.
Many thanks to Anthony Bidulka, author of the wonderful Russell Quant mysteries, and Tom Cox, much respected film and television producer, for taking the time to read Lulu’s adventures and offer some good words.
A big hurrah of appreciation to Ruth Linka of TouchWood Editions for making this book possible. And a huge volley of thanks to my wonderful editor, Frances Thorsen of Chronicles of Crime, who loves a good mystery, and laughs at my jokes. I was fortunate to have an editor as insightful, sensitive, tactful and clever as Frances. It was also very handy, that she knows more about sheepdogs than I do.
This is a book about actors, not about me, even though I have been an actor. Although there are no real people depicted in this book, the many late nights swapping war stories over drinks with many performers over the last decades, helped inspire it. Actors love to laugh, and they love to drink, and they especially love to do both at the same time, and they have a keen memory for every detail of the shoot, the wrap party, the audition, the affair … The telling of it becomes more hilarious, more tragic, with every visit, and so legends are born.
To my actor friends, you know who you are. And how I admire you. I hope you read this book and smile.
Finally, thanks to my family, who support and encourage me. My cousins Michael, Debra, Randy and Donna, my dear Aunt Elizabeth, and, my beloved mother, Julia, who makes me laugh all the time, and who always, always, laughs at my jokes.
Linda Kupecek
Lulu Malone returns in Trashing the Trailer
“And furthermore,” said Dennie, slashing her makeup brush across my cheeks, “I am so not interested in his problems with rehab or drug dealers, especially when he is doing both at the same time.”
I raised myself up in the makeup chair, and peered in the mirror. So far, so good. Dennie might have gone wild with the brush, but at least I still looked presentable.
“You don’t know he was dealing drugs.”
“What else?” She flailed the brush around and dislodged one of her favourite signed photos, the one of Anthony Hopkins, from the wall above her station. It floated down and skimmed off my curls, landing on the floor. Dennie was so enraged that she didn’t notice, and since I was at the wrong end of the makeup brush, and just minutes away from my call to set, I wasn’t inclined to point it out just now. I tried to estimate how quickly I could snatch the photo from the floor before she stepped on it.
“Maybe he had a personal crisis, a former lover who turned up in his life to—”
“What former lover?” Now Dennie was pointing the eyeliner pencil at my face, and I was deciding rapidly that discretion was the better part of valour.
“No former lover!” I said calmly, although from Dennie’s expression and body language, it is possible that I might have been shouting.
Noting her reaction, I regrouped into sounding comforting and mature. “For all I know, Rick is a monk. No lovers whatsoever!”
“What sort of a crack is that?” Dennie was way too close to my face with the eyeliner pencil, and I pressed myself as far back into the makeup chair as I could. Where is a nice recliner when you need one?
I wondered why on earth all the crew members whose livelihoods depended on my well-being as Dora Darling, star of Darling, Detective: Back in the Game, were nowhere to be heard or seen, when usually they were knocking on the makeup trailer door regularly with updates on when I was needed on set. Where were the ubiquitous summons, “We’re ready, Ms. Malone,” or “Lulu, aren’t you done yet?” when I desperately needed them?
After a disastrous few years as an impoverished former dog food spokesperson and a constantly recognized ex-celebrity, accompanied by a necessary stint at McDonald’s in order to pay the condo fees and huge meals required by my sheepdog, Horatio, I was now back in the game. Darling, Detective, a retro series I had starred in many years before, had done so well in DVD release that the production company had ordered another season. Dora Darling was now a bit older and wiser, with a handbag full of modern weaponry, but she was still smart and funny. I was longer in the tooth now, too, but my dimples were still there and so were my curls. And, of course, most importantly, my
acting chops.
Dennie stood very still and stared at me with what I really hoped was professional assessment, not malevolence. We had worked together for the past three months on Darling, Detective: Back in the Game, and although we had never shared secrets or giggles, I had thought we had a convivial, although strictly professional, relationship. She was the makeup artist. I was the so-called star of the series. In the past, I had ended up best friends with many of the makeup artists I had worked with on series, specials, TV movies and features. My friend Jerome was now out of the film business and running his own hair studio, when he wasn’t travelling the world in search of university degrees or adventure. Candy had become a massage therapist, and we still got together on occasion for a good massage and a fine Merlot. Ilonka had retired, after too many epic shoots where she had to make up hundreds of extras every morning, and now ran a bed and breakfast, where all she had to do in the morning was make up beds and breakfast, and smile. She invited me for tea every few months, and we exchanged war stories from the Japanese western from which neither of us had recovered well.
Today, Dennie was way out of line, obsessing about Rick, the stills photographer, her current lover, while distractedly almost doing my makeup. Would it be mean of me to mention to the producers that she was becoming more of a source of anxiety than photogenic beauty? I didn’t want to be petty, but last week my skin was definitely orange in one scene, and the writers had had to come up with some additional dialogue for the next scene in the episode to explain it, although frankly I doubted that overuse of artificial tanner was a truly contemporary solution.
Just as I decided to say something to Dennie along the lines of “Dennie, you have to pull yourself together,” or “Dennie, dump Rick, he is best friends, really best friends, with every woman on set,” or “Dennie, if you don’t get that eye pencil out of my face, I am going to scream the way I did in that low-budget horror movie, the scream that people still talk about!” or maybe, “Dennie, don’t kill me!” (not the most dignified response but maybe the most practical), she moved even closer, looking at me intensely.
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