The Bequest

by kindle@netgalley. com

  “If you think I would take advantage of your tragedy—”

  “I think you’d be a fool not to.”

  Teri stood. “Ms. Crowell, I know you’ve suffered a loss, and I’m sorry for that. I’ve tried to be respectful, but I’d like for you to leave now.”

  Annemarie stood and stared at Teri, the intensity of her gaze finally forcing Teri to look away. She extended the script to Teri.

  “Please take the script with you,” Teri said. “It should be yours. You’re his mother; you shouldn’t have been just an alternate beneficiary.”

  “I’m not an actress. I can’t do anything with it, but you can.” Annemarie gently, almost tenderly, laid the script on top of the pile on the coffee table. “Read it. Then call your agent. Call the studio. Call your publicist. Get the buzz going right now. Leland would have wanted it that way.”

  She paused, then added, “Leland died so it would happen. He’s your Jesus; he gave his life for you.”

  Annemarie turned and walked out. Teri dropped back onto the couch in stunned silence. She listened to the echo of the woman’s footsteps, then the sounds of the front door opening and closing. She had once heard it said that the difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to be believable. But who would ever believe what had just happened?

  She leaned forward and looked at the cover of the screenplay: THE PRECIPICE, a Screenplay by Leland Crowell.

  She took it in both hands, without opening it, and tossed it on the floor with the other rejects.

  She grabbed the next one in the stack, opened it, and began reading the first page.

  CHAPTER 8

  Annemarie Crowell entered her apartment, dropped her purse on a flower-print couch, and went to the bathroom. With a tissue

  and cold cream, she wiped the heavy layer of make-up from her face. It was not an easy task, given the thickness with which she had applied it in the first place. She turned on the hot water, which took several minutes to heat up, then soaked a washcloth and scrubbed off the remnants left by the tissue. Beneath the mask of make-up lay a face equally hardened, the harshness merely enhanced by the make-up as opposed to created by it.

  A ringing sound interrupted her before she was finished. She tossed the washcloth in the sink, then returned to the den and extracted her cell phone from her purse. She eyed the readout then answered with two words: “It’s done.”

  In his darkened apartment office, Spencer West pushed the disconnect button on his desk phone, and then dialed a number he had written on a piece of notepaper. After three rings, a woman’s voice answered.

  “L.A. Entertainment Weekly. How may I direct your call?” “I need to speak to one of your reporters,” Spencer said. “I have a helluva story for you.”

  After Spencer filled in the press on that helluva story, he sat at his desk in near darkness, with only a small desk lamp offering any light. His body rigid, as if in a catatonic trance, he moved only his right arm, and even that like a robot. He pulled the middle desk drawer open and, without looking at its contents, took out a .38 handgun.

  He held the gun upward and pressed the barrel against the underside of his chin.

  He smiled.

  And pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 9

  Teri finished loading groceries into the back of her Toyota SUV. She didn’t ordinarily do her own shopping, but usually let her housekeeper take care of that chore. Some days, though, she just wanted to feel normal, even if that meant taking care of mundane chores herself and risking the stares of other shoppers. In her pocket, the strains of the Magnum theme announced a call on her cell. She slammed the rear of the vehicle, extracted the phone, and looked at the read-out: MIKE. She clicked off the phone and slid in behind the steering wheel.

  Back at home, she unloaded the groceries and carried them inside. The message light on the kitchen phone blinked urgently, but she knew whose voice was on the message. After all, Mike had left one on her cell, as well. Still, it could be Mama with news of Bingo.

  She pushed the playback button and listened. Sure enough, Mike Capalletti’s voice.

  “Teri, please pick up if you’re there.” A pause, then, “I think this is what we’ve been looking for. The one to put you back on the map.”

  Intriguing. She grabbed the phone and picked up, her finger poised to dial, but thought better of it. She hung up and unloaded the grocery sacks, then headed through the den toward her bedroom. On the floor, as she passed by, lay Leland Crowell’s screenplay. She stopped and looked down at it. It was almost as if it reached out and grabbed her by the ankle, so strong was its pull. She picked it up and looked at the cover. No change since the last time she had seen it: THE PRECIPICE, a Screenplay by Leland Crowell.

  She grasped the cover page between her index finger and thumb, ready to open it. But she knew that if she did, she might be pulled in, not by the quality of the work but by the sordid and bizarre set of affairs that had landed it on her den floor. She dropped it back on the carpet and continued to her bedroom.

  Mona and Teri cleared away dishes from a less than satisfying meal of spaghetti and marinara sauce, with no support foods other than sliced cucumbers. Mona opened a wine cooler for herself and a diet soft drink for Teri then ushered her outside to the deck. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, but seemed to be dissipating somewhat. Teri sat on a lounge chair while Mona sought out her usual loveseat.

  “I hear the fire’s just about out,” Mona said. “God, I hope so. I’m good for about fifteen minutes out here, and then I have to go back inside. I hate losing my outdoor time.”

  They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments.

  “Have you heard anything from Mike?” Mona asked.

  “He called, but I haven’t called him back.”

  “You going to?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She paused then asked, “Would you?”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “That’s what I thought. And I’ve still got my invisible WWMD wristband.”

  “WWMD?”

  “What would Mona do?”

  “If you’d been wearing that, you’d have dumped his ass years ago.”

  Teri laughed. “Yeah, I should have been listening to you all along.”

  “Does he know about the nutcase who left you his script?” Mona stood and went to the rail. She set her wine cooler on top and turned to face Teri. “It’s just the kind of thing he’d get all hot and bothered about if he knew.”

  “That’s why I haven’t told him.”

  “Have you read the script yet?”

  “No. And I don’t intend to.”

  Mona leaned against the rail and polished off her drink. “What if it’s good?”

  Teri looked hard at her business partner for a moment, and then burst into laughter. Mona joined in, both of them laughing until tears ran down their cheeks.

  The ringing of the doorbell from inside the house interrupted their laugh-fest. “Wait here, I’ll go see who it is,” Teri said.

  She left Mona on the patio, grabbed the deadbolt key from the coffee table, and went to the door, surprised to see that the alarm had been turned off. She looked through the peephole and sighed heavily. She stood stock still, as if hoping the person on the porch wouldn’t hear her and would go away. The doorbell rang again, followed by banging on the door.

  “Come on, Babe,” Mike called. “My key won’t work.”

  Because I had the lock changed, Teri thought. Too bad I didn’t think to change the security code, too.

  The knocking continued. “I won’t go away until you let me in,” Mike said.

  Mona appeared at the edge of the entryway, wine cooler in hand. “Are you going to let him in?”

  “I have to.”

  Mona put her drink down on an end table. “Then I’m leaving. I don’t want to say something I’ll regret tomorrow. Or won’t regret.”

  Teri unlocked the door and opened it. Mike Capalletti breezed in as Mona rushed
out beside him, two ships passing at breakneck speeds in the night.

  Mike continued into the den, straight to the stack of scripts on the coffee table, and began rifling through them.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Mike looked over his shoulder at her as she entered the den. “My key doesn’t work, by the way.”

  “I changed the lock.”

  His expression never changed as he stared at her for a moment, then he turned his attention back to the stack. “Where’s the script the dead guy gave you.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Not from you, that’s for damn sure.”

  He grabbed a script, read the title, and tossed it on the couch. “Is it one of these?”

  “How do you know about the screenplay?”

  Mike ignored her, still frantically sorting through the stack. She grabbed his arm and spun him around.

  “Mike, I asked you a question. How do you know about the screenplay?”

  “My phone’s been ringing off the wall. I’ve had reporters calling all day. You’re happy enough to let them know, but not your agent.”

  “I haven’t told anyone but Mona. And I just told her about a half hour ago.”

  “Well, someone did. It’s already on the Internet. And when it breaks in the trades tomorrow, it’s gonna snowball. It doesn’t matter how bad it is—it is bad, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t read it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get one of our writers to do a rewrite then we’ll have the studios begging us for it. It’ll be a bidding war to end all bidding wars. The buzz’ll freaking blow up the box office.”

  He turned away from Teri and started shuffling through the scripts again.

  “Stop,” Teri said.

  “What?”

  She grabbed his arm again. “I said stop.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “Somebody died, Mike.”

  Mike straightened, bowed his head, and put his hand over his heart. “Yes, let’s have a moment of silence for the dearly departed.”

  After two seconds, he went back to shuffling the scripts. So far, he had failed to notice the screenplays on the floor by the sliding glass door.

  “Now let’s see if we can’t save your career before it dies, too,” he said.

  She grabbed his arm again and yanked hard, spinning him around. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked at her hand on his arm, fingers white with tension from her grip on his bicep. She let go.

  “Get out,” she said.

  “You’re kidding, right? Just still a little pissed?”

  “I’ve never been more serious.”

  “You’ve been pissin’ and moanin’ about something to put you back on the map, and now it’s dropped right into your lap. And what do you do? You want to ignore it.”

  “I don’t want to take advantage of someone’s death.”

  “You didn’t kill him,” Mike said. “This guy killed himself, and he gave it to you in his will. He knew what he was doing.”

  “You just said it, Mike: He killed himself. Does that sound like someone who knew what he was doing?”

  “Look, Babe, he was looking for a way to get his script in your hands. He also had to know what a firestorm this would kick up. Dead man wills famous actress his screenplay. Yeah, I think he knew exactly what he was doing.”

  “But he’s dead, so what good does all this do him now?” she asked.

  “It’s like a posthumous medal of honor. Or like John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer for A Confederacy of Dunces. That only got published because he killed himself. Maybe this guy was a Toole fan.”

  “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “As your agent—”

  “You’re not my agent anymore. Remember?”

  “Did you ever get a formal termination letter from the agency?”

  “No.”

  “Read your contract. We’re still your agents until that happens. And as your agent—”

  Teri walked to the front door. Opening it, she said, “I want you to leave.”

  “And I want that script.”

  He tossed the last script on the couch and scanned the room. His eyes fell on the scripts scattered on the floor. He took one step that way, but Teri ran across the room. She snatched up the scattered scripts and held them to her chest.

  “Get out, Mike. Now.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “What was your first clue? Maybe when I told you I was serious?”

  “Come on, Babe, don’t be an idiot.”

  She marched back to the front door and stood silently. After a moment, Mike headed that way, refusing to make eye contact with her. As he brushed past and out the door, he said, “Better read your contract.”

  She slammed the door after him. She tried to blink the tears away but with no success. She looked at the scripts she held. The top one was The Precipice. She dropped the others on the entryway floor and stared at it. Maybe she should read it. Just a few pages, anyway. Didn’t she owe at least that much to the man who bequeathed it to her? Her fingers flicked at the cover. She tried to will them to open it, to reveal the first page, but it was as if they had a mind of their own.

  She carried the script to the fireplace and tossed it inside. Ashes puffed and fluttered from the last fire she had started months earlier on a winter’s day when the temperatures had plummeted into the 50s. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t Texas, with its freezing winter days, but she always loved a crackling fire, and any excuse would do to start one. Maybe even burning a screenplay.

  She knelt and turned the key to start the gas. She grabbed a fireplace match from the container on the hearth, struck it on the bricks, and opened the screen. The gas was flowing, the noise a soothing sound. She extended the flaming match toward the gas.

  Almost unconsciously, she turned the key and extinguished the gas, blew out the match, and closed the screen, leaving the script, possibly along with her career, face up on the ash heap.

  CHAPTER 10

  Chad Palmer knelt beside an aging horse lying on its side on a bed of hay in a barn on the outskirts of the Texas Hill Country town of Bandera. Behind him in the airy barn, dimly-lit by a single bulb hanging from a wire, stood Tom and Mary Tucker, Teri’s parents. Dressed in bedclothes and robes, they watched and waited for Chad’s report.

  Still fit, in his mid-forties, Chad’s sun-weathered face showed concern, his eyebrows knitted, his mouth pressed in a thin line. He turned to address the Tuckers. “I don’t think we can wait any longer.”

  “You’re sure?” Mary asked, tears already streaking her face. Beside her, Tom stood stoically, emotionless.

  “She’s suffering, Mrs. Tucker. It’s the humane thing to do.”

  “Do it,” Tom said in a cold monotone. Purely a business decision for him.

  Chad looked at Mary. “Does she know?”

  Mary was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to respond.

  “Mrs. Tucker, does she know?”

  The words shook Mary from her trance. She slowly shook her head as she pulled a cell phone from her pocket and punched a number on speed dial.

  To call Teri’s slumber “fitful” would be a gross understatement. She thrashed about, entangled in sheets, and had been doing so for the past two hours. Moonlight streamed in through open shades, almost like a spotlight singling out a star on stage. But Teri felt as if her star had burned out, along with Leland Crowell’s. She didn’t know how Leland had died, how he had taken his own life, but still she dreamed about it. Snippets of dreams, actually, covering every possible form of suicide: The Leland from the picture Annemarie Crowell had shown her putting a gun in his mouth; Leland jumping off a bridge; Leland swallowing an overdose of pills; Leland in a running car in a closed garage. Each time, she saw his ravaged face. Each time, the clown woman Annemarie Crowell stood in the shadows, watching, a screenplay gripped tightly in her
hands.

  The Magnum theme roused Teri just as Leland was about to drive a car at full speed into a concrete pillar, while Annemarie stood curbside and watched, screenplay in hand. Teri kicked the sheets from around her legs and looked at the bedside clock: 12:46 a.m.

  She grabbed the phone and looked at the read-out, then answered. “Mama, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Bingo, Baby. Chad’s got to put her down.”

  Teri sat bolt upright in bed. A quiver gripped her voice. “No, Mama. You can’t do that.”

  “It’s for the best. Chad says—”

  Mary’s voice was cut off, replaced by Tom’s. “It’s done.”

  “You can’t do that, Daddy. Bingo’s not your horse. You don’t get to decide when to put him down.”

  “And Adam wasn’t your son, but you damn sure decided without my input.”

  It was as if the words had punched her in the stomach. She bent over and gasped for breath, unable to formulate a response.

  “You gave up your right to complain a long time ago,” Tom said.

  “But Daddy—”

  The hang-up tone rang in her ears and jostled her brain.

  She got out of bed and stood, stretching as tall as she could, fighting for air. Hot tears tingled on her cheeks. She paced the length of the room, struggling to understand. Her life that had, at one time, seemed to be the stuff of dreams, had crumbled into a nightmare. And a nightmare from years ago had resurfaced to join the new nightmare. How could everything have gone so wrong so fast?

  She threw on a robe over her flannel shorts and t-shirt, stuck the cell phone in her pocket, and hurried straight to the kitchen. Almost as if on autopilot, she filled the coffee maker with water, measured coffee into the filter, and pushed the “on” button. As the water boiled and coffee dripped into the pot, she stared out the kitchen window at the blackness that seemed so fitting. She didn’t know how long she stood there, but when she turned back around, the coffee was finished.