His last few words were drawlingly posh, like he was doing an effeminate impression of Gilbert himself.
The technician had packed up and was making his way gradually to the exit. Without even bothering to disguise it, I stared after him. He had not so much a walk as a timid shuffle.
“Do you think, just because we’ve worked together before, that I’m good friends with Grayson Gilbert? That we’re all cosy together. That we’re fucking poofs? God, you people are so fucking naive! Try to understand this – he has a job to do and I have a job to do. My job is to be brilliant, his job is not to fuck that up when he’s capturing it.”
With a cough and a wheeze that were somehow audible even above the various bells and whirrs of that amusement arcade, the technician finally slipped away from the sound stage. We were alone now. Obviously Wilder had been watching him as assiduously as I had. Equally obviously, he wasn’t part of Wilder’s retinue. He was just a guy who had hung around too long while doing his job a bit too thoroughly. An edgy, uncomfortable silence hung over us both as we stared at each other.
“So, Mr Wilder, shall we talk about why I’m really here?”
“Yeah.” The left side of his face curled up with annoyance. “Tell me what the fuck that bitch Diana Christmas has been saying about me.”
“You’ve won. You’ve won. You’ve won,” that voice intoned deathlessly nearby.
Chapter Fifteen
We glared at each other, the tension burning between us now. He was so far back, it was like my very being repulsed him. All the technicians were gone, but the lights and effects of the set were unyielding. The two of us were sitting right in the centre of a little oasis of electricity, behind us was the shadow of that sinister street scene, and otherwise there was only the foreboding darkness of the empty studio floor.
A sudden snarl of violence burst across Wilder’s face and he flicked the cigarette in my direction. I ducked, but felt the tip singe my cheek.
“What has she said now?” he roared. “What does she want now? Another hand-out? Another favour which apparently I owe her because I didn’t fuck up my career with melodramatics and self-indulgence? Because I stayed in work? Because I stayed productive and kept earning?”
Red neon reflected off his face as he spoke. His looks had once frequently been described as devilish; now he just resembled a petulant demon. An angry vein pulsed in his forehead, the illumination picking up every beat.
I kept my own voice level and steady. “She wants the film,” I told him.
He blinked at me, his forehead creased, uncomprehending.
“The film of her and Sylvia Van Burlow that was made in the bedroom at one of Sid Washeen’s parties in Windsor.”
His face screwed up and he shook his head, as if hearing me speak was causing him physical pain.
“I honestly have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. Do you like wasting people’s time, is that it? You find people whose hours and minutes are far more precious than yours could ever be, and waste them – is that fucking it? Jesus!” He spat onto the swirled carpet, which was already covered in the set designer’s stains. “Is this some kind of joke of Diana’s? That twat always did have a terrible sense of humour. Absolutely putrid.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
He reached into his jacket for that crumpled cigarette packet. The police would later – for some reason – make a point of telling me they were Moroccan.
“No, I don’t!” he snarled. “And I don’t fucking appreciate any of this. Did she tell you to come here and start talking all this piffle? Did she? Because I have no idea what the fuck you think you’re doing, just that whatever’s going on in that ugly fucking head of yours is dogfood.”
We were fully illuminated; even the arc light seemed to be shining on us. My eyes glanced dizzily from side to side. I wished suddenly we could have done this in his trailer. Not that I had any real wish to be in closer quarters with this man. Not that he’d ever have invited me.
“I think you know what I’m talking about.” There was no way I was going to get my voice as hard as his, but I tried my best. “Carlisle Collins doped some drinks. The two women were coerced into doing something they wouldn’t normally do for the cameras. When she found out about it, Diana had a nervous breakdown.”
The scowl, which now seemed as much a part of his face as his nose, lifted slightly. It was like a dim light had switched on in his mind.
“Oh, that film?” he said. “Did she really tell you she wasn’t a willing party? That’s not the way I saw it in the version I watched. Not that it was any real surprise. Diana had her times when she was as partial to a bit of skirt as she was to trouser. And Sylvia was a real piece, let me tell you. The type of woman the likes of you could barely imagine. The two of them together, they really went for it.”
“So you were in the room when it happened?”
“Fuck no, idiot!” Wilder turned his nose up, disgusted. “What do you think I am, some kind of voyeur? No, Carlisle did it all and made sure his chums had copies afterwards, just for titillation’s sake. That film was like gold for a few months, except gold is rarely so accessible. I think that’s what drove Diana so bonkers. Not that she was so very public about doing that kind of stuff – although even I was surprised that she’d let herself be filmed – but the fact that Carlisle had control. Have you noticed that about her?” Wilder sniffed loudly. “Diana is a woman who really needs control. Are you fucking her? I bet you’re fucking her, aren’t you? She likes to control things in the bedroom, doesn’t she? Come now, I can tell from your face that you’re fucking her. Did she give you those bandages in the bedroom? The kinky bitch! What does she look like now? Is she still trim? Nah, I bet she’s put on a fuckload of weight, hasn’t she? I bet she’s puffed right out, a proper troffer now. When I knew her, she was young, she was tight. When I had her, she was still most definitely a piece. I remember talking about her with Carlisle, both of us agreeing that she was one of the finest, most supple pieces either of us had ever had.”
The temptation to just walk and leave him there was immense. My skin crawled at him, his wrinkled skin stained blue then red then green then red again. I nearly got up and rudely stormed away, defied entirely my polite middle-class upbringing.
“Carlisle Collins is dead,” I told him.
“Dead, ay?” he said, entirely without sympathy. “Oh well. Good riddance. He was useful to get booze at three in the morning, more than useful in getting uppers and downers, and fairly useful in a scrap. More than once I used him if I had some moody bastard bothering me, a pathetic cuckold or something like that. And, I suppose it’d be fair to say that he did have a good eye for a muff film. Undoubtedly he was a gigantic prick, but he was one who did have his uses.” He leant across, as if the two of us were compadres of some sort. “I probably still have a copy of that blue movie hanging around somewhere. Haven’t seen it in years, but I can’t imagine I’d have got rid of anything so juicy. No doubt it’ll be mild compared to some of the filth you can buy in Soho today, but I can show it to you if you like. You can see what it was like to fuck Diana Christmas when she was young. Would you like to see that? Would you?”
“Yes, we very much would,” a voice cried out from beside one of those gigantic death-shaped pinball machines.
And then – as if out of a dream – Diana Christmas strode imperiously into the light.
Chapter Sixteen
Confidence radiated off her as she marched towards us. Her fur wrap was loose over the shoulders, her headscarf swept away so that she was every inch the diva movie star, striding forth as if to reclaim her throne.
“Hello, Ray.” The smile she gave him was as cold and bloodless as any seen since the days of Medusa.
We’d both stood up, with slightly awestruck expressions on our faces.
“Diana, I don’t think this is such a good idea.” I stepped towards her, my arm held out protectively.
“Fuck me, Diana!�
� Wilder exclaimed. His cigarette dangling from his mouth, he swept his hands back through his hair as if making himself presentable. “There I was telling this bloke that you’d probably run to fat, but now I see you there’s not a jot of it. You’re looking damn good, Diana! Better than some of the fillies half your age. What’s your secret? I thought retirement out to the suburbs with that lard-arse dolt of a husband would have been a one-way ticket to cream cakes and wine blotches. I thought if I saw you again you’d be stamping around on elephant ankles. But no, you look good, Diana, damned good!”
She did have the look of a proper, honest-to-goodness – nobody surely looks so fantastic in reality – movie star. Her hair was amazing now it had been unleashed: luminous red and curled onto her shoulders, a raging fire of a hairdo.
“I’m sorry, Michael. I tried to stay back, I tried to be passive, but this is my life he’s urinating on and I just couldn’t take it any more!” Even as she spoke, she didn’t so much as glance at me. Her gaze was fixed distantly on him, the harsh lights giving it a cruel edge. “I heard what you said, Ray.”
“I’m glad.” He took a long puff of his cigarette and grinned. “You might remember how I feel about gossiping behind someone’s back. If you can’t say it direct to the person’s face, then you shouldn’t fucking say it at all! Fortunately though, I have no qualms about saying virtually anything to a person’s face. After all, there’s no way they can dislike me more than I already fucking despise them. That’s one thing you can always say about me, isn’t it, Diana? That I’m honest. Brutally honest, but most definitely honest.”
I stared at him, and then back to her. Wilder wore a smile which was far more open than the one he’d given me. An expression that said he was genuinely pleased to see her. It wasn’t reciprocated. Diana was impossible to read. Her face stayed blank, utterly smooth and calm. Devoid of emotion. I felt a chill run right down me.
A little stiffly, her handbag clutched tight at her side, she took a step towards him. “I heard what you said about having that film. I want you to give me your copy, Ray.”
He slowly put the cigarette back between his lips, and slapped his hands to his knees in exaggerated amusement. Now that he’d stood up, it was green neon which most prominently bathed his oily skin. It was like he was an animated corpse standing there.
“What the fuck for?” he laughed. “So you can go through some of your greatest hits? Your greatest tits? You know, Diana, I’m glad you sent your boyfriend here to remind me, as I’d completely forgotten about your home movie. But, really, of all the films you made, that’s the one I’ve seen most. That’s the one which stands up to repeat viewings, Diana. Even more than those two we made together. Yep, it’s your best work by a long shot!” His smirk was endlessly malicious. “Not for your bits, you understand. You were yesterday’s news by the time you made it. I’d been there and done that. No, for Sylvia von Boobies. That’s the main reason to watch that film. As I recall, you rightly enjoyed her yourself, didn’t you?”
He licked his lips with exaggerated lasciviousness. The green light made him resemble a giant salamander.
There was a tightness around her lips, and her eyes narrowed slightly, but otherwise her face remained eerily calm. There was barely a vibration of emotion in her voice. “If you’ve memorised it so well, then you won’t mind if I take it.”
“Sure thing,” Wilder shrugged. “If I still have it.”
“You said you did.”
“I said I thought I did. If you’d been listening carefully while skulking back there, then you’d know that. It’s a long time since I’ve seen it. With you and Sylvia both has-beens now, it’s not like there’s a ready audience any more who want to watch it. I’d have to explain who the fuck you both were beforehand and it would just throw up too many tedious questions.”
Finally frustration broke up to the surface. “Do you have it or not?”
“Let me think. Since I last saw it there’s been divorces, house-moves, I’ve changed countries a couple of times. I think I can lay my hands on it, but if it’s not where I think, then – what can I say? Tough fucking cheese, that’s all I can say.”
Her bottom lip maybe trembled a little, but her face was still like a doll’s as she reached carefully into her handbag and pulled out a pistol. An old Webley, not far removed from my dad’s service revolver.
I jumped. My hands shot instantly into the air through shock and fear, as if she was pointing the barrel in my direction.
Wilder though – who had the barrel’s full attention – stood still, a grin that relished its own unpleasantness still on his face.
Somewhere behind me, one of the machines spun around like a giant roulette wheel. A huge steel ball bearing, tumbling and clattering.
My voice was again as tremulous as our first meeting. “Diana?”
Her eyes didn’t even glance in my direction. “I hoped he’d be more reasonable, Michael, I really did, but I also knew from bitter experience what he’s like. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I had it, but I knew right from when you told me you were meeting him that we’d probably need a little extra. I am sorry, Michael, I really am, but I’m sure when you think about it, you’ll understand.”
The gun pointed deathly still at Raymond Wilder’s belly, but the mocking amusement in his eyes never gave in to fear.
“I want that film, Ray!”
“And I told you, I don’t know if I have it! How the fuck that water pistol is going to alter the fact I don’t really know. You always were one crazy, demented bitch, weren’t you, Diana?”
“Diana, please,” I interjected, my hands still helplessly in the air. “Don’t do this, please.”
Again I was ignored. Her eyes were firmly on Wilder, the set of her jaw never wavering. Later on I thought of how she played it. She had the steely-eyed resolve of a good person pushed into desperate acts. Whatever else this was, and its deadliness was apparent to me immediately, there was still a part of her that was an actress playing a scene.
“You know what, Diana.” Wilder dropped his final cigarette to the floor and didn’t bother to stamp it out, letting it smoulder away. “Now I think about it further, I’m going to have to say no. Even if I do find that film, even if I go home tonight and dig out my copy and wank myself senseless over it, then no, you still can’t have it. I’m going to keep my copy. With Carlisle gone, I’m going to make my own copies and give them to my friends as Christmas presents. Diana Christmas presents. What do you think of that, ay? Put the fucking prop department’s pride and joy back in your handbag! You’re embarrassing yourself. We both know you’re going to do nothing more than have another nervous breakdown.”
“If you don’t give me the film, I will kill you, Ray. I promise you that.”
“Diana,” I pleaded, a note of warning in my voice.
“You know what,” Wilder said with a scowl. “I’ve had enough of this shit. I’ve got a bottle of gin waiting for me and it’s going to be far more scintillating company than either of you two. I’ll tell you one fucking thing before I go: I don’t know how my end will arrive, but I do know it won’t be at the hands of some neurotic has-been ex-actress!”
She shot him in the stomach from about three yards away. The gun spluttered, blunt and noisy, echoing over the electronic racket and back from the sound stage walls.
I’m not sure he truly believed it had happened, even as he buckled over with a gasp. Amidst his shock, there was still an expression of incredulity.
With no hesitation she shot him again. I screamed as the bullet punctured his left side and rattled through his ribcage. It knocked him from his feet. He stumbled back two steps, and then collapsed with thudding finality to the floor, the back of his head cracking against the rim of a monstrous one-armed bandit. A stupid smart man who was only just realising how utterly wrong he could be.
The gun smoking in her hand, the acrid stench of it burning away all other aromas, Diana strode forward, and, with her gaze still coolly blank, sh
ot Raymond Wilder full in the face.
Chapter Seventeen
Raymond Wilder – star of sixty films, one-time matinée idol, husband of three wives, father to at least five children – died without any grandiose final words. His blood spluttered at first, but slowed to a thick, lifeless trickle onto the carpet of that sound stage set. Real stains intermingling with fake stains.
My head pounded, my chest felt like it was having palpitations. Around us the lights kept blinking, the flippers kept up their metallic rattle, seemingly even louder than before. As if this ghastly amusement arcade couldn’t hide its amusement at the violence committed within it.
I staggered back a step and stared at his face. Or what used to be a face. It had crumpled in on itself, a gaping red hole where his nose used to be.
“What have you done, Diana? What on earth have you done?”
“You heard him!” she cried. Now the impassive, impossible cool broke down and the tears came. Her shaking gun hand fell back to her side. “You heard how he spoke to me, how cruel he was. How could I cope with something like that? You just don’t understand what I’ve been through, Michael, all I’ve had to endure. I know you sympathise, but you can’t possibly understand. You don’t know what it’s been like to be me.”
A need to vomit replaced my pounding head as my most pressing ailment. “I don’t understand, Diana – why did you even bring a gun?”
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