The 22 Murders of Madison May

by Max Barry

  She found a box. When she opened it, she was looking at a pair of earrings. They were less jewelry than chandeliers.

  “You don’t get to keep these, sorry,” Neil said. “They’re worth more than my car.”

  “How do I thank you for all this?”

  He switched lanes. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. You earned this.” The traffic thickened; Neil kicked the brakes. “Okay,” he said. “So the plan is to get you in front of Calvin so you can amaze and delight him and make him remember why he loved you in the audition. But I want to tease and leave him wanting more. So it’s going to be kind of an abrupt end to the night for you.”

  “Like Cinderella.”

  He laughed. “That’s it exactly. You go to the ball, you make the prince fall in love, and you get the fuck out before the spell wears off. You’ve got it.”

  The traffic moved off. “But he does want me?”

  “He totally wants you. They almost hired you the first time. We just need to make them feel comfortable.”

  She nodded. He sounded convincing. But they always did. She was not convinced.

  “Now, as soon as I arrive, I’m going to get caught up in a bunch of bullshit,” Neil said, “so this is my apology in advance for leaving you to fend for yourself. Circulate, meet a few people, and stay clear of Calvin Anderson until I can introduce you. Because five minutes after you two meet, I’m sending you home, which will be hard to explain if you only just got there. Make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be overawed. All these big names, nothing scares them more than someone like you, bright and on the rise. So don’t feel like you don’t belong. You do. The most important thing that’s going to happen at this party is that some people will get to meet Maddie May.” He glanced at her. “I’m not kidding.”

  “Okay,” she said, but he must be, of course.

  “Believe it,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  The house was a floodlit Spanish Colonial Revival featuring tall arched windows and plenty of curving black iron. She had always liked those homes, which felt very open and friendly. The driveway was a curve of white stone around a single palm tree. As they pulled in, a valet hurried toward them. Standing nearby was a man in a casually beautiful suit with an open-necked shirt and a woman in a glimmering lilac slip dress and, dear God, she recognized the man. She had seen his films. It had felt unbecoming to ask Neil who would be at the party—who these big names were, exactly—and so she had not. Which was just as well, because if she’d known this man was among them, she might have thrown herself from the car.

  The door popped open. “Thank you,” she told the valet, concentrating on landing her newly heeled feet on the driveway.

  “I’ve got it!” cried a second valet, jogging toward her. “This is mine!” The first valet turned. There was some kind of valet standoff. Then the first valet walked away and the new one smiled at Maddie triumphantly. There was a strange excitement about him. “Welcome to the party.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m a huge fan,” he said. “A really huge fan.”

  This was so unexpected that she simply stared. Before she could say anything intelligent (From what, exactly?), he bounced around the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, threw her one more admiring look, and drove away.

  When she looked around, Neil was standing beside the incredibly famous actor and his wife. All three of them were staring at her.

  “You set that up,” said the actor.

  “I fucking did not,” said Neil.

  “You must have set that up.”

  “I swear, I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You’re Maddie,” said the woman, and clasped Maddie’s hand. “I’m Hannah. So lovely to meet you.”

  “Thank you, I’m so excited to be here,” Maddie said, which would be her go-to line tonight; she had decided in the car.

  “Chris,” said the actor, as if she didn’t know; as if anyone in the world, anywhere, would not know. He stuck out his hand.

  She shook it like a child, like someone who had never shaken a hand before. “Hello,” she said, because she had already used her line and forgotten the rest of the English language.

  “I didn’t even know anyone would be standing here,” Neil said. “How could I have set it up?”

  “I don’t know,” said the actor, “but you did it, you rat bastard.”

  They walked toward the house, Neil and Chris—could she call him Chris?—leading, Maddie and Hannah behind. She didn’t actually know whose house it was. She had never asked. “Do you live in L.A.?” asked Hannah, and Maddie explained that, no, she had just flown in. “That’s very wise,” Hannah said. “Everyone who moves here wants to move away.” They ascended marble steps. Hannah lifted her slip dress to keep the hem above the ground. Like royalty, Maddie thought. Beyond a wide double door was a high, airy lobby with a terra-cotta floor and an iron staircase curling around to a mezzanine. A dozen or so guests milled about, patrolled by servers. To Maddie’s left was another, cozier room, which was also bustling.

  “So Hannah and I are standing there like fools, trying to discover where her coat went,” said the actor, using his performing voice, which projected throughout the lobby. Already he was drawing a crowd. “But none of the valets will look at us. Not one! We are invisible. Then I see Neil’s car careening toward us, and I think, ‘Ah, at last, a chance to corner one of these gentlemen.’ Sure enough, as he pulls up, not one but two valets rush to his assistance. Two! ‘Excuse me,’ I say . . .” A joker in the audience interjected, which Chris acknowledged but did not allow to interrupt the flow of the story. “ ‘Excuse me,’ I say, ‘but I wonder if I might . . .’ They’re paying me no attention at all. Because they are, I realize, fighting over which of them will have the honor of holding open the door for—no, no, not for Neil, God help us. This is a true story! For Neil’s companion, an entirely charming young woman by the name of Maddie May, who is, for those unaware”—his voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur—“rumored to be on the brink of her first role in a major theatrical production.” Here he gestured to Maddie with a flourish that she’d once seen him do on-screen in reference to an object of critical plot importance. There were polite cheers, some scattered applause, which he raised a hand to silence. “Once Maddie is safely escorted from the vehicle, I seize my chance to try again with the valet. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. But still he won’t look at me. His eyes are fixed on Ms. May. And I hear him tell her: ‘I’m such a huge fan.’ ”

  The audience roared with laughter. She was momentarily besieged by people touching her arms.

  “It is the end!” Chris cried. “My star doth wane!”

  People introduced themselves. She tried to remember names: Benji is Big, Wilma has Wild hair, Peta (Pitta?) is Pretty and Pale. She accepted a thin champagne flute. People asked if Chris’s story was true, and Maddie said the valet hadn’t actually snubbed him, nor been that fawning—although that last part was modesty, since the valet had seemed genuinely starstruck, for reasons that were beyond her. “Is it Calvin’s?” a man asked her. “The film you’re doing?” She said she hoped so and the man nodded and said Calvin was amazing, she was getting the best possible start. This was true, Maddie thought. She was getting the best possible start. She circulated for the next thirty minutes and at no point was she left alone or required to tell people who she was. She carried her champagne flute but didn’t drink from it, because if she became any more light-headed, she might float away.

  The adjoining room contained a white fireplace, white sofas, and, at the very end, a collection of thronelike armchairs. Perched on one was a woman who had once played the queen of England with such ferocity that it reframed everything Maddie had thought she knew about acting. The woman glanced at Maddie and then away, before Maddie gained the wit to stop gaping.


  “Look at her,” said a woman she’d been chatting to. “She spotted Julie.” The woman laughed and touched Maddie’s arm. “It’s fine.”

  She tried to compose herself. “She’s practically why I became an actor.”

  “Oh,” said the woman, glancing at the man beside her.

  “You know what they say,” said the man. “Never meet your idols.” The woman gave him a look and he raised his hands. “I’m kidding. Julie is lovely. Do you want to meet her?”

  She did. So badly. “I mean . . .”

  “Just enjoy the night,” said the woman, which Maddie found to be ambiguous. Enjoy it by meeting Julie or by not?

  “Here,” said the man, and took Maddie by the hand. The woman said his name, not in a good way. He and Maddie crossed the room to the throne chairs, where the woman Maddie had once watched on a loop for hours had her elbow on her knee, her chin on one hand, leaning forward to listen to another woman. She didn’t look in Maddie’s direction until the woman was done, and that was good, Maddie thought: respectful and also commanding. When she did turn, she executed a small tug of the lip and the barest lift of an eyebrow that was so perfect and mesmerizing that Maddie stared into her face to unlock its secrets.

  “Sorry for interrupting,” said the man. “I wonder if I could introduce you ladies to Maddie May, who, it turns out, is an actor because of you, Julie.”

  There was a small pause, during which Julie’s expression changed in ways that Maddie would need to study to be able to categorize. “Is that so?”

  “Yes!” she said, too earnestly. “Your Victoria was such an inspiration to me. I wore out the tape studying you.”

  Julie glanced at her friend, then back at Maddie. “I’d have thought you were too young for tapes.”

  “Disk, I guess,” Maddie said. It probably hadn’t been a disk, either. She hadn’t meant it literally.

  Julie gazed at her a moment longer. She was inserting a beat, Maddie realized. A deliberate pause to grant weight to a situation and allow the audience to digest its meaning. Maddie had the feeling that the meaning was: This girl is something of an idiot. “So kind of you to say,” Julie said, her lips twitching into a smile that was polite yet dismissive.

  Maddie and the man returned to the group. The woman was staring at him with open hostility. “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Hey,” said the man. “Welcome to Hollywood, honey. The sooner you get used to it, the better.”

  “Can you not?” said the woman. “For like five fucking minutes?” She placed her champagne glass onto the tray of a hovering server and extended a hand to Maddie. “I need to powder my nose. Come?”

  Maddie had felt okay, but by the time they reached the bathroom, she was shaking. The woman—whose name was Keira, if Maddie recalled correctly, Keen-eyed Keira—snapped open her bag and began to touch up her makeup. There were two ornate mirrors, each with its own sink, beneath a grand chandelier. “You good?”

  “Yes.” She placed her hands on the sink and breathed for a minute.

  “Don’t let it bother you. Her only purpose for existing is to make other people miserable.”

  Maddie nodded.

  “Take a minute,” Keira said. “Or five. We’ll go out together.”

  “Thank you,” she said, truly grateful for Kind Keira. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was okay. Every fairy tale had a wicked queen. “I’m fine.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes,” she said, and she was.

  * * *

  —

  Neil was by the fireplace with Calvin Anderson, the director. He beckoned. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all night.” This panicked her momentarily before she realized this was a lie for Calvin Anderson.

  “I’ve been making new friends.”

  “Well, I have one more for you. Maddie, you must remember the smartest director of our generation, Calvin Anderson.”

  Calvin extended his hand, which she shook. His grip was firm and warm. Behind his glasses, his eyes were a calm, deep brown. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Fuck, it’s bad luck what happened to that girl you cast,” Neil said. “Fell off her horse, I heard?”

  Calvin shook his head slowly. “She didn’t fall off a horse. She was attacked.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Someone broke into her house in the middle of the night. It’s horrible. The horse story is a cover because she doesn’t want pap photos of her face. Honestly, she’s barely recognizable.”

  “Jesus, that’s obscene,” Neil said. “Who would do something like that?”

  “I assumed it was you,” Calvin said, and Neil roared with laughter.

  “Well, everything happens for a reason,” Neil said, glancing at his watch. “Maddie, I know you have to run in a few minutes, but would you mind holding my drink while I run to the little boys’ room?”

  “Sure,” she said, accepting his glass. She smiled awkwardly at Calvin. “I’m sorry about Aria. She would have been really good.”

  Calvin nodded but didn’t say anything. She began to panic a little.

  “I really love the part,” she said. “Clara. Since the audition, I honestly haven’t stopped thinking about it.”

  He eyed her. “I’ll be honest. I felt there was something calculated about your performance.”

  “Oh, interesting,” she said, dying inside.

  “When I watched you, I didn’t feel Clara, who acts first and thinks later. I saw someone who was always a little aware of what she’s doing.”

  She nodded. She did not have the part. There it was.

  “I’m sure you’ll have an incredible career,” Calvin said. “There are roles for an actor like you. But I don’t think this is one of them.”

  Ideas ran through her head. Show him how impulsive you can be. Scream. Yell. Throw the glass into the fireplace. Without turning, she could feel the imposing presence of Julie, probably glowering at her from her throne, or else ignoring her entirely; either way, Maddie could march over there and whack her with a cushion, like the pillow scene from the film.

  No. No no no. She was being superficial. Dig deeper, they said at NYU. Even when you were doing well: Good, now dig deeper. She would impress no one with histrionics.

  Start with what’s real.

  She said, “I think you’re right. I wanted the part so much, I brought that self-awareness into the room.” She raised her glass and sipped, to buy time, before realizing it was Neil’s, and whiskey. “Interesting,” she said again. She straightened and leaned forward. Lips parted, just a little. “So are you two gonna do it?”

  This was a line from the script, which she’d performed in front of Calvin Anderson two months before. But he was right: She’d been self-conscious. She’d spent so long preparing—she’d written diary entries from the perspective of Clara Appleseed, the fearless and free-spirited youngest daughter of a dysfunctional family, who wanted nothing more in the world than to be with her older sisters always and forever. And all that was in her mind as she walked into the audition. She hadn’t been inside Clara. She had been hovering outside, observing.

  For a moment, Calvin didn’t say anything. He wasn’t Calvin, though. He was her older sister, Mabel. They were alone in the bedroom they’d shared as children.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Calvin said. “I might.”

  “Roy said you were lazy.”

  “What?”

  “He said you were lazy. In bed. That’s what he said.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not lazy,” Maddie said, and she wasn’t bragging, not really; she was just proud of herself. “I do everything. Even . . .”

  “What?” Calvin said. “No. Don’t tell me.”

  “
I want to tell you.”

  “Stop it.”

  “It’s when he takes his thing,” she said, “and . . .” She made a gesture, tipping back her head, raising her hand. In her head she was inspecting a prize dog at a show, checking it for lift and form, because, really, Clara had no idea about sex.

  “Mom!” Calvin shouted.

  She jumped, turned. But there was no one there, of course, except party guests, watching silently. Chris, the actor, began to applaud first, driving his hands together in great thunderclaps. Maddie turned back to Calvin, flustered, like always when she came out of someone else’s head. For the first time, he didn’t look like her presence was a mild inconvenience.

  “That was better,” he said.

  “I leave you alone for five minutes,” said Neil, materializing, “and you put on some kind of show. Maddie, are you not late for your event?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry—”

  “Calvin understands,” Neil said. “We’ll put you two together again soon enough, if he wants.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Calvin said, and shook her hand, and people moved in, wanting to talk, but Neil put a hand in the small of her back and steered her between them like some kind of vessel, a ship carrying returning war troops. “Maddie . . .” he murmured, his breath tickling her neck. “I want you to go to your hotel and not speak to anyone. Go there and do not come out for anyone but me.” At the door, he stopped. “For the next forty-eight hours, you’re the hottest property in the world, okay?”

  She laughed, because that was ridiculous, but his expression didn’t change.

  “Go,” he said. “There’s a car waiting.”

  * * *