The Perfect Ghost

by Linda Barnes

  Diva that she is, I’d have pictured her in head-to-toe black, but she wore the kind of jeans that cost hundreds of dollars instead, plus knee-high suede boots and a shearling coat with a hood that framed her face. She carried a brown Bloomingdale’s bag and poked impatiently at the doorbell as I flattened myself against the wall.

  I could have retreated, rushed upstairs, and locked myself in. The cab would wait five minutes, honk a wistful note, and depart. The bus would leave without me; the opportunity would pass me by; life would pass me by. My breath rasped in my throat as I forced myself away from the sheltering wall and thumped the suitcase resolutely down the remainder of the stairs. Caroline glared at me through the glass till I unlocked the inner door.

  She’s a force to be reckoned with, your wife, all jangle and nerves. Slim and mean and restless, a predator, ready to pounce.

  Shall we go up, or must we do this in the hallway? Can’t you just hear her, high-strung and nasal, the icy correctness of that “shall”? Nature should have made her taller so she could stare down her nose to greater effect.

  You married her because she was beautiful, you told me. I tried to see her as you might have, as you must have seen her years ago, but it was hard to conceive of any softness or kindness in that steely visage, any alluring curve in that disciplined body. She was beautiful the way a starkly modern statue is beautiful, not a marble sculpture, but a metallic one. Her profile was sharp and precise, an ice-edged cameo.

  She demanded to see your room.

  “Office,” I corrected her.

  “Whatever you want to call it.”

  “Sorry.” I indicated the duffel. “I’m on my way out.”

  “You never go anywhere.”

  “I am today.”

  “But I’m already here.”

  “You can come back some other time.” Another time when I wouldn’t answer the bell. I tried to push past her, but she feinted left and blocked my way.

  “Are you moving out?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She made a show of consulting her wristwatch. “What time will you be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You won’t say.”

  “I’m late. I have to go.”

  Our volume must have risen with my desperation because Melody poked her head out the door of 1C, the apartment directly beneath mine. The prettiest thing about Melody is her name and the second prettiest is her voice, which was deep and authoritative as she asked whether I needed any help. What help she could offer was limited to the cell phone clutched in her claw-like hand; she was poised to dial 911.

  Caroline’s eyes shifted as she took in the owl-like face that peered out the door at a level slightly higher than my waist and realized that the interrupting woman sat in a motorized wheelchair.

  “It’s okay,” I told Melody.

  She regarded my duffel with alarmed and questioning eyes. “You’re leaving?”

  “Will you take in my mail? If you see anything piling up? Take-out menus and stuff?”

  “You’re going away?”

  “Don’t worry. The van’s gassed up and ready to go.”

  Melody and I are not neighborly. It would never occur to either of us to drop by for a chat or go out for a drink. I keep her cantankerous van fueled, tuned, and repaired in exchange for its monthly use when I grocery shop at the Star Market on Commonwealth Avenue, the one that’s open 24/7 and never has a wait at the checkout line at one A.M. on Tuesday mornings. On the rare occasions when I purchase milk or juice for Melody, she is scrupulous about prompt repayment down to the last penny, but we rarely encounter each other, preferring to communicate by e-mail and squeeze envelopes containing lists or cash under each other’s doors.

  “Why not lend me your key? I’ll give it to your neighbor when I’m through.” Leave it to Caroline, quick on the uptake, to find an advantage in any situation. She smirked and held out her hand as though I were bound to obey her royal command.

  Melody, evidently deciding that her interference might do more harm than good, ducked her head back into her shell and left me to soldier on alone. My breath caught in the back of my throat and I thought longingly of the swivel chair in my office, my own narrow bed, my feather pillow, all the comforts I was leaving behind. It didn’t seem fair that I had to face those losses and deal with Caroline, too.

  “If Teddy had wanted you to have a key, he’d have given you one.” I inhaled through my nose, felt my pulse quicken.

  “I forgive you.”

  “Next time, phone before you come and—what did you say?”

  “I forgive you.”

  I stared at her, flummoxed. “You forgive me? For what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  How you used to rant about the futility of arguing with Caroline, the utter idiocy of debating a woman who possessed less logic than a two-year-old. Walking away, taking a time-out was the only option, you said, but you rarely took your own advice and inevitably wound up playing the game, embroiled in another round of acrimony and discontent.

  Not me. “My cab will be here any second.”

  “Teddy said you never went anywhere. Some recluse you are.”

  I stared longingly at the glass-paneled door. Caroline seemed so strong, so well defined, so overpowering. My heart was jumping around my rib cage like a fidgety rabbit.

  “How about a trade?” she said.

  I wasn’t clear what she meant until she brandished the shopping bag.

  “I brought you his notes. And a couple of other items you might want.”

  You never kept any of your work at home. You didn’t trust Caroline not to burn it all, notebooks, tapes, whatever, when she got angry.

  “He left some things up at that house in Eastham,” she continued, noting my puzzled eyes.

  “You’ve been there?” I was so upset my breath started to whistle.

  She regarded me as though I were mentally deficient, impaired. “Of course. I had to go, to see where he was when—”

  “It’s rented through the end of the month. You had no business there. You had no right to—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what I can do.”

  I lunged for the bag. “Give me that.”

  “Show me Teddy’s room.”

  She thought she had the upper hand, thought she’d made a deal, but the idea of Caroline in my apartment, in my room, sniffing my sheets for evidence of sexual secretions, leaving behind traces of her overpowering perfume, was intolerable.

  A Town Taxi pulled up. I waved frantically through the glass at the driver.

  Caroline put her hand on my arm. “I’m willing to trade, straight up, the bag for the key.”

  I hate to be touched. I flinched, drew back, and tried not to show my disgust. “I’ll call you when I get back.”

  “Everything that belonged to Teddy belongs to me now.”

  “His notes belong to me.”

  “They’re worth something. They’re valuable.”

  “They’re valuable if they’re part of a book. You need me to finish this book or you won’t be able to collect Teddy’s share of the royalties.”

  She glanced speculatively up the stairs. “I could break in.”

  “Go ahead.” Anything to get her out of the way.

  She took a single step sideways, halted. She was still in my way, but I thought I might be able to squeeze by her. Can you imagine Caroline picking a lock, Teddy? Ohmigod, she might chip one of her blood-red talons.

  “I mean it,” she said.

  “Good. So do I. The alarm is set, and Melody won’t need to call 911 because it’s a direct connection to the police department. Not the university police, either. The real police.”

  “There were policemen at the funeral.”

  “Policemen?” The word tumbled and fell with the weight of a brick. A policeman had called first thing this morning, but I’d tried to block it out, excise it from my memory.

  “Good morning. Hello. Uh, yeah, this
is Detective Snow, Dennis Port Police Department. Miss Moore, if you could call me back at 508-555-3872, I’d sure appreciate it. That’s my cell number and I’m looking into the circumstances of an auto accident down here, a fatality, Theodore Blake, friend of yours, and I’m sorry for your loss. Like to ask you a few questions about Mr. Blake’s work here and so on, so please get in touch. Or you can call the station, that’s 508-555-3400, and ask for Officer Rimes. No, better call my cell. Detective Snow. I might not be available the rest of today, but you ought to be able to reach me tomorrow.”

  Caroline kept on speaking, demanding to see your room, while I recalled Detective Snow’s exhausted tone and gravelly voice, and regretted that I hadn’t picked up, a thing I rarely do, preferring to monitor my calls. I always answered your calls, Teddy, and I should have taken his. I’d intended to, but my hand had stayed frozen above the receiver. I wondered whether Detective Snow had attended your funeral, ill as he sounded.

  “Were they in uniform?” I asked. “The policemen?”

  I hadn’t called him back.

  “No, but you could tell. Shiny suits and lace-up shoes. And one introduced himself, a little gray man? Detective Snow?”

  “I never met him.”

  “No, you weren’t there.”

  It’s true; I didn’t attend your funeral. It’s not like Caroline would have welcomed my presence.

  If we’d been part of a diorama in a natural history museum, you could have entitled it “The Wronged Wife.” We maintained our frozen tableau until the Town Taxi driver sounded his horn. The noise broke the spell; I grabbed my duffel with one hand, snatched the Bloomie’s bag with the other, charged through the vestibule and out the door.

  I yelled at the cabbie to drive, drive fast, and he did, screeching his brakes at the corner while I fumbled in my bag for a Xanax and choked it down dry.

  CHAPTER

  five

  Tape 022

  Sylvie Duchaine

  1/28/10

  Teddy Blake: You were Garrett Malcolm’s first editor, Ms. Duchaine, weren’t you? On Blue Flame?

  Sylvie Duchaine: My claim to fame and fortune, my dear, and do call me Sylvie, please. No matter what else I may do, I will always be associated with Garrett, and Blue Flame will certainly be mentioned in the first line of my obituary. Yes, even when he was starting out, he seemed to know exactly, but I mean exactly, what he was doing. I was at the very beginning of my career, too, so I had no idea what a rare talent he was, how lucky I was. I was—I am so spoiled by having had him as one of my very first directors.

  TB: What sets him apart from other directors you’ve worked with?

  SD: From the beginning, he has a plan, a carefully thought-out plan, but—how can I say this? One that frees him rather than captures him, if you know what I mean. He knows what he wants, and yet he can make changes in the moment to get where he wants to go by a different path. Like when you’re walking through a busy neighborhood and you hit a dead end. Some directors, some writers, don’t know what to do, but Malcolm always senses his way around the obstacles. He’s adaptable, but he’s focused. Because Garrett works with the actors before he shoots, because he takes the time to know them, he gets beautiful film. It’s so easy to make a film with a director who has vision, who edits through the writing.

  TB: How did your relationship with Malcolm begin?

  SD: Pure luck. He intended to make Blue Flame with my friend, George Terry, as editor, but then there was trouble scraping together the money to start filming and George accepted another film, a dream job in Norway. He recommended me before he left. So Malcolm and I went to lunch and talked about what kind of light he wanted, the speed, the spirit of the film, and before we knew it, it was dark, way past dinnertime. We spoke the same language, we listened to the same music, we loved the same films. We didn’t finish each other’s sentences or anything, but it was like I’d unexpectedly met someone from my hometown, a missing family member. We were both young, filled with enthusiasm.

  TB: Blue Flame was a small-budget baby, wasn’t it?

  SD: My God, yes. There was no time and less money. Not a lot of film to leave on the cutting-room floor. But what he got from the actors was extraordinary.

  TB: You never saw the set, did you? I remember reading that you don’t like to visit the set.

  SD: It’s not my way, no. First of all, I hate locations. I hate traveling. I think of myself as audience, as the audience’s representative, in a way, so I don’t like to see anything that reminds me that the film isn’t real. I want the film, I want only to see the film, and to know where the story’s going, and to work with that knowledge.

  TB: And Malcolm was fine with that?

  SD: Malcolm and I learned from each other. We learned together. I’m one of those Murch-trained people. I cut on the fly, twenty-four frames a second, marking the moments where I feel the need to cut to a new shot. Murch always said it was like jazz, like a drummer knowing precisely when to hit the snare, hearing the music in the moment.

  TB: Were you and Malcolm lovers?

  SD: Whoa, whatever gave you that idea?

  TB: You did. What you said. You spoke the same language, listened to the same music, finished each other’s sentences—

  SD: No, we didn’t. And I’m not going to go there, Teddy. Not about Malcolm, not for a book.

  TB: It would all be off the record, Sylvie. I’m just trying to understand the man.

  SD: I’m not going there.

  TB: Somebody will.

  SD: Not me. I’ll talk about film.

  TB: Okay. Blue Flame was such a success that there was a lot more money available for Green Gem.

  SD: The money wasn’t that significant.

  TB: But by the time you did Red Shot …

  SD: It still wasn’t big-budget. Mainly the money went to hiring better actors.

  TB: Like Claire Gregory? Can you talk about Claire?

  SD: God, what can you say about Claire that hasn’t been said? Cancer, and so fast, such a tragic loss. God, she was beautiful clear through, like an angel. My Catholic grandmother would have said God wanted another angel in heaven, that Claire was too good for this world, but I don’t go there, either. Just a damned rotten shame. Pancreatic cancer, and it was before they had all this gene-matching and long-term treatment. It was quick and painful. A wonderful talent, and the sweetest sweet woman, too. Once they married, I’d certainly never—damn. I’m not going there, Teddy.

  TB: She was easy to work with?

  SD: I only worked with her film, and the only other actress who has that kind of range, that kind of luminosity, where you can see what she’s thinking, like she’s almost transparent, is Meryl Streep. And Claire, when she was young, had the kind of humor Meryl only developed with age. So—I don’t know—do you remember Carole Lombard, or is that too long ago for you? I think of her because of her humor and her command, and because she died young, too. The only problem working with Claire was that every scene, you wanted to use every take.

  TB: It’s something to be proud of: the Justice trilogy.

  SD: Those films were such a joy. I was disappointed Malcolm didn’t keep the series alive. At the time, it was pure selfishness: I thought I’d never work again. It was such a long time ago, and such a short time, if you know what I mean. After the Bond films, they were the ones, the new ones, the bright-tomorrow pictures. People love them even now, they quote them, they have their own fan sites and blogs devoted to Benjamin Justice. They were the films of our innocence, the one-man-can-save-the-world films. No wonder they’re still popular. They were funny and clever and they didn’t try to be more than they were: entertainment, date-night movies, old-fashioned fun. They weren’t dark like the Bourne franchise. They were free and crazy and funny.

  TB: And they moved.

  SD: They soared. They rocked. The film scores were addictive. It pains me to hear them in elevators now. Makes me realize what a relic I am.

  TB: Claire was already a well-know
n actress when she signed on for the third film, but who’d ever heard of Brooklyn Pierce?

  SD: He was Malcolm’s discovery, the quintessential beach boy. Yeah. Bad screen test, but Malcolm took one look at him and knew. Brooklyn had that special quality: He made all the other actors look better than they were. He had those great eyes, too. His love scenes were electric, even in the first film. By the time he got to partner with Claire, the chemistry sizzled. It was chemistry that grounded the films, made them more than what they were on the page.

  TB: Were Malcolm and Claire an item then?

  SD: Oh, Teddy, you keep trying.

  TB: An innocent question. Just trying to keep the time line straight.

  SD: Then you know Malcolm and Claire were just about to be married. She was pregnant with Jenna, but nobody knew it then.

  TB: Do you think that’s why he stopped the series at three? Because of Claire?

  SD: You’d have to ask him, Teddy. And tell him if he ever does another Justice sequel, I’m available.

  TB: Any favorite editing moments with Malcolm?

  SD: So many. The detail work that man would do! The homework! He loved doing research.

  TB: For instance?

  SD: Remember the arson sequence in Blue Flame?

  TB: Of course.

  SD: He spent days with a specialist from the fire department, learning different methods of fire-setting, deciding on the best technique. So that when he finished filming, I had every conceivable shot I needed, twice over. We argued about that sequence. I think he’d had such fun learning about fire that he thought the audience would like an education, a break in the middle of a tight action film for a little schooling on arson methods. He totally obssessed about the fire-starters, the alarm clocks the terrorists rigged to delay ignition. I used a few quick cuts, close-ups, the wooden floorboards, the damaged propane tank, the flaring lighter. He played with the sound, too, the long hiss of the escaping gas, the striking of the lighter. He was a stickler for authenticity.

  TB: Over the years, how would you say Malcolm has changed?

  SD: Like everyone does, he became more himself. After the Justice films, he took a break. Then he did the two comedies, Rip Tide and Still Moon. The critics didn’t like that. They thought he was taking too long a break, like he’d gone on an extended vacation, but I think those films are way undervalued. Underrated. They’re worth watching for Claire’s performances alone. They’re sweet and unassuming, small but intense. They were much more popular in Europe than they ever were in the States. And then after Claire’s death, he concentrated on those two incredible noirs. The similarities in his films, the obstacles his heroes face, and overcome or don’t overcome, those are his trademarks. The intensity of his characters, the way they experience the world, the way they persevere.