Another Thing To Fall

by Laura Lippman

  "Oh, she ordered a drink, but she had a bottle of Nantucket Nectar with her, and she drank from that. The waitperson tried to give her a hard time about bringing in an outside beverage, so she tucked her bottle under the table and ordered a drink, but she kept sneaking sips from the bottle under the table and barely touched her drink." She snorted. "I don't blame her. They probably charge fifteen dollars for a glass of cranberry juice!"

  They had arrived at Tess's parking spot, but she was too fascinated by Mrs. Blossom's story to worry about the meter. The woman may have signed up for the class to give herself something to do on Monday nights, but she seemed to be a bit of a prodigy. A woman such as Mrs. Blossom, properly trained, could learn to be so visible as to be invisible.

  "Look," Mrs. Blossom said, pointing skyward.

  They were at the corner of Charles and Baltimore streets, where the downtown outpost of Johns Hopkins ran an old-fashioned electronic news ribbon around the top of the building. The headlines were written by the staff of the Beacon-Light, and they were well known throughout Baltimore for their wordy obtuseness and not infrequent grammatical errors. But the message that had caught Mrs. Blossom's eye was crystal clear to Tess: MAN WANTED IN TV SET MURDER KILLED BY POLICE IN STANDOFF.

  Part of Tess's mind couldn't help deconstructing the headline. "TV set murder" — that made it sound as if a large Magnavox had been the weapon. Besides, Greer hadn't been killed on set; she had died in the production office, which was across town from the soundstage. But even as she picked those nits, Tess had no problem discerning the larger meaning — Greer's boyfriend had been killed when police officers caught up with him. If running was a good marker of guilt, in Tull's worldview, then resisting arrest was an unsigned confession. So, a dunker for Tull. The obvious answer was the obvious answer.

  She was happy for her friend but disappointed that she would never have a chance to talk to JJ Meyerhoff about his ex-fiancée, Greer, and whether she had any connection to Mann of Steel's problems.

  Chapter 25

  Ben should be happy. Well, not happy — Greer was dead, and now her fiancé, poor fucker, God bless him, had gone down in a hail of bullets. But it tied everything up, neat as a bow, and Ben was in the clear. Which was only fair, because he hadn't actually done anything.

  But what if someone else materialized? What if Greer had confided in someone? What if he was, in fact, in some sort of fiendishly creative hell where he had to live forever with the idea of someone else popping up, full of… insights. That had been Greer's airy-fairy term. "I had the most interesting insight." Even Greer had seen his side of things, though. Then again, it was in Greer's interest to be persuaded, because it meant she could collect endless bennies from him with a relatively free conscience. It was a relief that she was gone. Like all blackmailers, she had already started angling for what she wanted next. The last few weeks, Greer had reminded Ben of The Leech Woman, a B horror film in which a woman found the elixir to eternal youth. The trick was that it required killing a man and harvesting some gland, and each hit of the youth juice provided a shorter lease on wrinkle-free immortality, so the woman had to kill more and more frequently, until she finally killed a woman in desperation, which turned out to accelerate the aging process. Greer had been getting greedy that way, insatiable.

  But that wasn't what killed her, Ben reminded himself. She had been killed, fittingly enough, by one of the people she had stepped on as she climbed her little ladder.

  "If Mann of Steel gets a pickup for season two," she had said in the car just the other day, on the way to set, "do you think an associate producer credit would be appropriate?" Then quickly, before he could answer, she conceded the impossibility of her own ambition. "Oh, never mind, I guess I'm being silly." Ben would have been charmed if he hadn't remembered, in vivid, glaring detail, how she had played the same trick with her current position. "I know I just got promoted to the writers' office, but I wonder — could I be considered to fill Alicia's job, now that she's been let go? I guess not, that's silly, although I am the only one who's been on board since preproduction, and I'm the one who knows all of Lottie's systems — no, it's ludicrous, forget I ever said anything."

  Ben hadn't forgotten exactly, but he had thought that Greer had talked herself into seeing that she was pushing too hard, too fast. He had been shocked when Greer became more pointed a few days later: "Look, you'll see that I get an interview, right? With Flip? And you'll put in a good word for me? I mean, that's not too much to ask, is it? After — well, I just thought I had demonstrated to you what a conscientious employee I am, that I am absolutely loyal to the production."

  God, it had probably been only a matter of time before he was one of the bodies who fell under those sensibly shod size seven feet.

  He should be happy. Or something. Whatever he felt, he had to start revising Flip's version of 107, the penultimate ep. Flip had brought it in at sixty pages, twelve too long, knowing that Ben would fix it. Yassuh, yes, Master Flip, I'll tighten up your flabby-ass script. He sighed, glancing at the bedside clock radio, thinking about the all-nighter ahead. Now that Monaghan knew about his affair with Selene, what did he have to lose? Why couldn't Selene just come over here, while Monaghan or her cohort waited in the lobby? Isn't that what a real bodyguard would do? Sure, he had implied that he would stop if Monaghan wouldn't rat him out to Flip, but he hadn't promised. Okay, the idea was crazy, but he could call Selene, flirt with her. Maybe phone sex? He selected her name from his address book but ended up going straight to voice mail. When had they spoken last, outside work? He couldn't remember. When had she last called or texted him? It was the night Greer was killed, the night she went to New York. Since then — nothing.

  Suddenly, it seemed essential to walk to Little Italy, the littlest Little Italy he had ever seen, and grab a cup of real espresso to power him through the night of writing ahead. Vaccaro's was only a mile or so, and it was a nice night for a walk — crisp, autumnal. The fact that Vaccaro's was blocks away from Selene's apartment — well, that was mere coincidence, didn't enter into his decision at all.

  Within an hour, he found himself standing on the sidewalk across the street from her building, feeling like the most pathetic sap that ever lived. He wanted to scream her name, hold a boom box above his head in the pouring rain, all the clichés. Instead, he stood there, blowing on his espresso, wordless. And what could be more impotent than a writer without words?

  Johnny Tampa's bedtime ritual took almost an hour, but he was proud of the fact that he used inexpensive products — cold cream on his face, generic shampoo, the drugstore knockoff of Oil of Olay. His mother had raised him to believe in thrift, and he had never broken faith with her ways. Some of his peers had, and where were they now? Johnny may have endured a long dry spell, workwise, but he would never have to worry about money. The hardest part had always been reconciling his private habits with his public image, which demanded a certain amount of extravagance. It killed him, buying a first-class ticket with his own money, but he had to do it from time to time, lest he be seen flying coach. He couldn't afford being marked as a loser. He had to keep up the pretense that he had been waiting for the right job all these years.

  The television droned in the background, keeping him company. One of the cable channels was doing an all-weekend marathon of The Boom Boom Room with "extras" — shopworn trivia that would be old news to diehard fans, and who but diehard fans would watch a marathon of The Boom Boom Room? Besides, some of the so-called trivia was just plain lies. He and his mom had not lived in their car when they first went out to Los Angeles. They had a perfectly nice apartment, in a building favored by lots of young actors. And, yes, he had been in the Mickey Mouse Club, but not the cool one, which spawned Britney, Justin, Christina, et al. He had been in the lame 1970s version. But no reason to sweat that inaccuracy, given that it made people think he was a lot younger than he was. Then again, if people thought he was doing the Mickey Mouse Club back in the early 1990s, they might conclude
he had aged horribly.

  It was so odd, watching his young self. He was a better actor now, no doubt, and his face was more interesting. But who knew that age was so thickening? Not just the waistline, but everything — face, features, even his feet. Then again, some of his peers seemed to get thinner, and that wasn't attractive either. They looked gaunt, dried up. Maybe it was just his imagination, but it seemed the previous generation of actors — Nicholson, Connery, Hackman — had aged much better.

  Depressed, he grabbed the remote by the sink and clicked away, running through the channels rapid-fire. He rested for a moment on the news story about Greer's boyfriend, getting killed when he wouldn't surrender. Man, that was weird. But then, other people's passions always struck Johnny as mildly ludicrous. In a movie or a television show, when both people were hot, you could get it. Besides, it was in the script. But just two ordinary people, getting all crazy over each other? Johnny had been married briefly in his twenties and taken a big financial hit in the divorce, and that had been enough to decide for him that he didn't want anything long-term, ever again. In California, he used an escort service — very discreet, with nice girls, ones who weren't too hard or used up, and he was careful to keep things relatively kink-free, lest he ever show up on a client list; you'd never catch him having to explain some girl dressed up like a Brownie. God, he would kill for a brownie. Maybe he should find someone, sublimate the hunger with sex. Here in Baltimore, he had assumed he would hook up with someone in the production, but it hadn't happened. Yet. He still thought the scary blonde, the one who had pretended not to know who he was, had potential. Yes, she was kind of terrifying, but he found that attractive in a woman.

  But she was assigned to watch Selene, and he would be crazy to try and get close to anyone who was part of Selene's camp.

  Fully oiled and moisturized, he slid into bed, switching the television back to his own marathon. The trivia box popped up beneath his chin, his beautifully sharp chin: Where is he now? The answer was provided after a string of commercials for erectile dysfunction cream and some magic stain remover. "Johnny Tampa has retired from Hollywood, but a comeback is rumored for 2008."

  You betcha, he thought.

  "That was fast," Marie said sleepily, watching the ten o'clock news. "People will get mad, wait and see."

  "People will get mad because they solved a murder?"

  "They'll say that it was because it was a white girl, and she worked on that television show, that they never put that much effort into the drug murders. But it's so obvious that the boyfriend must have done it."

  He shouldn't ask any questions, shouldn't draw the conversation out. Change the topic, change the channel. But he couldn't help himself. "Obvious because he ran away and didn't surrender?"

  "Exactly. It would make a good Law and Order episode, only it would need more twists. On television, the boyfriend wouldn't be guilty. It would be someone else."

  Change the topic, change the topic, change the topic. "Who?"

  "Why, someone with the production. Like, she'd be having an affair with her boss, and maybe his wife found out. Or that skinny little actress girl killed her because… she wouldn't sell her urine so she could pass the contractual drug test."

  "The actress in the movie has a contractual drug test?" News to him, but Marie often knew such things, thanks to her steady diet of magazines.

  "Not in real life. I'm making stuff up. Like you and Bob did, when we were younger. Remember? I never said anything out loud because you thought I was just the stupid little sister, but I would be doing my homework at the dining room table while you talked in the kitchen. You had the best ideas."

  "Bob did. I could barely keep up with him."

  "Bob added the flourishes, fleshed them out. But all the ideas started with you. Bob always gave you credit."

  "Talking about Bob makes me sad." And anxious, so very anxious.

  "I'm sorry."

  Only he was not thinking of Bob just now but of Marie, the Marie he re-met the summer he and Bob graduated from college, the Marie who had somehow outgrown her scabby knees and pigtails and turned into a really striking girl. Not exactly beautiful, but sexy. The early 1970s had suited her. He supposed he should have realized then that one dramatic transformation indicated there could always be another. If it had been hard to find little Marie in that long-haired girl, then it was impossible to see the traces of twenty-one-year-old Marie in the puffy features and swollen ankles of the woman lying next to him on the sofa. And yet, he didn't love her any less. The case could be made that he loved her more than ever, especially since they had lost Bob. Oh, Bob — why didn't you come to me earlier, tell me the truth sooner? Why did you let it get so out of hand, why did you lie to me?

  "Law and Order always has a second twist, in the second part," he said to Marie. "A legal maneuver, a conflict of interest. So there would have to be a third thing, something really mysterious."

  "Like what?"

  "I haven't a clue. As you said, Bob was the one who made my ideas work."

  "But you had good ideas, too," she said, her voice soft with sleep. She would be asleep before the weather forecast. He couldn't carry her to bed anymore, but he would shake her gently, guide her there, as if she were a sleepwalker. "You always had the best ideas."

  Oh, yes, he was just teeming with good ideas. They were in this fix because of his good ideas, because he thought he knew better than Bob how to go about things.

  Stop, his mind advised him, in the cadence of a telegram. Had he ever received a telegram, or did he know of them only via the movies and cartoons? Had he ever lived a life, or was he still waiting for life to start? Fate had given him a chance to make things all right. Stop. Stop. Stop.

  Why was it taking so long for Marie to fall asleep tonight?

  Lottie sat in her office, free at last to still her mind and try to absorb the news. Alone, she allowed her legs to swing free, kicking against her chair, a little-kid habit she was careful to police around others, because she knew it made her look cute, precious. But it was going on eleven-thirty, the end of a long and turbulent day. She should feel relieved, not anxious. Not only was Greer's murder essentially solved, but there hadn't been an incident on set for almost a week — unless you counted Johnny Tampa's complaint that someone had mailed him an unflattering tabloid article, and no one was taking that seriously — except Johnny. No fires, literal or figurative, to put out, no locals trying to State-and-Main them, no snafus with permits. Even the weather had been kind, beautiful October day after beautiful October day. The production had been blissfully uneventful — except, of course, for Greer's death, and the police had removed that from the movie's moral balance sheet as well.

  Lottie wished she could be as quick to absolve the production. If she had hired JJ, would that have made a difference? She told herself that a man who would kill his ex-fiancée — or girlfriend, or wife — wasn't susceptible to cause and effect. A violent man would always find a reason to act violently. Still, Lottie couldn't help thinking that the production had changed Greer. The young woman who had volunteered to work for free on the pilot had been so eager, so sweet. Had she been changed by her proximity to Flip, by her glimpses into the money and perks provided by such a lifestyle?

  They hadn't found the murder weapon, but that didn't seem to bother the police. It bothered Lottie, though, as did the memory of Flip's trashed office. Why hadn't JJ taken anything if he wanted to make the incident look like a burglary? Flip's Emmy, for example. It wasn't hockable, but you could imagine someone trying to sell it on eBay. Flip's iPod, in the dock next to his computer. Okay, so the killer wasn't really a burglar, and he hadn't thought like a burglar. He was an unstable young man, hopped up on adrenaline, desperate to cover his tracks.

  Still, something tugged at Lottie's logical, meticulous mind. Part of the reason that Lottie hadn't hired JJ was because he was so obviously pussy-whipped. He hadn't wanted the job, he all but admitted, but Greer had pushed him into applying for
it. He had smiled goofily at the mere mention of Greer's name, and it was clear that he thought her a tremendous prize, that he was the luckiest man in the world to have her as his future wife. It had been cute, if unfathomable. Really, if you had asked Lottie then where she thought the relationship was headed, she would have predicted that Greer was more likely to kill him one day. Or, more correctly, shed him for his lack of ambition, his limited potential — which was exactly what happened, she reminded herself now. Greer, dazzled by Hollywood, broke up with her loser boyfriend, and he lost it. End of story.

  Well, the good news was that their troubles were over. They could probably fire the Monaghan woman, save that expense. It had been ridiculous, hiring a watcher for Selene, given how much they already paid for security on set.

  Checking her computer clock, she used her office phone to call home, where it was only eight-thirty. She couldn't bear to talk to her children over the unreliable cutting-in, cutting-out buzz of a cell phone. It was hard enough to have a conversation with four-year-old Angela, the younger one. She could never decide which was worse — Angela's distant, distracted mode, when she prattled about the day's events and seemed slightly vague about who Lottie was, or the dramatic, melancholic wail: When are you coming home, Mommy? I miss you. Tonight, Angela told her a long, hard-to-follow story about preschool and a goldfish, but Lottie had hung on to every word. Her seven-year-old, Topper, was stoic, inured to her absences — and that was more painful still.

  "They're fine," Jason assured her, taking the phone. Perfect Jason, as he was known among her friends and family, P.J. for short — good-looking and strong and capable. One of Lottie's more tactless friends had even wondered if it was fair of Lottie to take a six-footer out of the dating pool. "That's a foot more than you need." Of course, Lottie saw it differently — she had to marry up, literally, so her children would have a fighting chance to escape the curse of her genes. How she had worried, every year, over the height percentiles. So far, both children were reliably above the eightieth percentile, but she had been fairly normal, too, until puberty. Jason said she worried too much, but show her a unit production manager who didn't. It was practically the job description.