Girl About Town

by Adam Shankman

“Who is that?” he asked Max, but the makeup artist only shrugged and said, “Another guy with money.”

  Before Freddie could do anything, Sassoon burst onto the set, slapped down a rolled-up copy of the script, and shouted, “Places, everyone. I want this in one take.” For a moment Freddie couldn’t see the set at all as everyone seemed to swarm on the actors, giving them one last piece of direction, telling them to break a leg, adding just a touch more powder. Vasily whispered something into Lulu’s ear. Louella gave air kisses to half the cast. Then, after some exasperated words from Sassoon, the set cleared of everyone but the actors. “And . . . action!”

  Instantly the actresses dressed as rich party girls began to talk and giggle and flirt with the actors playing wealthy young men. Ice clinked in glasses, rhinestones sparkled under bright artificial light, and Lulu, portraying Jezebel March, swallowed water posing as a martini, stage slapped her supposed beau, and pulled the real but unloaded gun from the drawer. She laughed gaily, did a little dance, playfully pointed the barrel at her friends and rivals, and—

  “Cut!” Sassoon roared. “Damn it, Tanner. She didn’t hit you that hard. You don’t have to stagger. Let’s do this again, and make it fast.”

  Vasily slipped to Lulu’s side and took the gun from her hand. He looked like he was giving her acting tips, showing her how to point the weapon convincingly. Vasily handed it to Blake Tanner as he passed, and he took it back to the desk. Freddie saw a dark-haired vamp of a girl with a heart-shaped beauty mark near the corner of her mouth glide up to Blake and put her arms around him. She whispered something in his ear, cast a look over her shoulder at Lulu, and laughed. Then she pulled the revolver from his hands and aimed it at Lulu. Lulu just glared at her.

  “Get a move on, Ruby,” Sassoon barked, and the girl made a pouty little frown before putting the gun back in the drawer and taking her unobtrusive place among the extras.

  “Action!” Sassoon called again, and the process was repeated. As Lulu danced and whirled with the gun, Freddie saw her suddenly stop, a look of shock on her face as she noticed the handsome young man in the suit lounging in a corner. Her back was to the camera, though, and a half second later she caught herself and went on, but there was a new hysterical edge to her laughter.

  She knows him. And she’s afraid of him.

  As the scene went on, Freddie could tell that Lulu was shaken. Blake Tanner lectured her character, and she snatched up the gun, aiming it at the gaggle of high-society friends, then at Blake, at her own head, at . . .

  At the man in the snappy suit lurking off set. Freddie thought Lulu’s maniacal look had nothing to do with acting. Or was she aiming at the dark-haired young actress, who was deliberately maneuvering to have a more prominent place in front of the camera and who now stood almost between Lulu and that man?

  There was a jostling among the other actors. Lulu’s male costar moved abruptly, and the dark-haired girl stumbled slightly, then recovered. Freddie barely noticed. He watched Lulu’s hand tense, her finger curl and tighten. But there would be no “bang.” That’s what Freddie had assured himself with his last-minute inspection.

  Lulu squeezed the trigger, and Freddie flinched at the explosive report of gunfire. The camera swiveled to focus on the supposed bullet hole predrilled into the wall, and for a second all eyes were either there, or on Lulu, who was supposed to faint gracefully on cue. Everyone was still acting, despite the startling boom. Everyone except for the dark-haired pretty young girl. Freddie saw a spot of red bud and blossom like a tropical flower on the décolletage of her white gown. Then, with a naturalism that would have made her acting coach proud, she sank to the ground with a thud in a heap of bare limbs and swiftly spreading scarlet.

  More than anything, Freddie wanted to run to Lulu. But he dashed to the stricken girl instead. He was still pressing his wadded-up jacket to her wound, speaking softly into her ear, when the police arrived.

  EIGHTEEN

  Lying on the floor with the echo of the gunshot ringing in her ears and the chaos of people and voices all around her, Lulu was profoundly grateful to the screenwriter and Sassoon for having kept the fainting scene. She’d argued against it when she’d first read the script, saying that her character would never faint. Jezebel might scream, she might flee, but she would never simply relinquish all responsibility for her actions by slipping conveniently into unconsciousness.

  To which Sassoon had brusquely told her that fainting allowed them to quickly cut to her male costar’s perspective, and also show an awful lot of thigh when they panned back to Lulu sprawled decoratively on the plush ivory carpet.

  Since that first day in Vasily’s classroom, Lulu had hardened to the point where she would never truly faint again. She had no natural escape from the nightmare that was unfolding, so she turned to her only real strength: acting. While girls screamed and running feet pounded around her, Lulu pretended to be out cold. She felt a warm wetness on her arm, a little dog’s tongue licking her reassuringly. Good old Charlie. He was on her side, at least.

  Just one more minute, she begged the universe as she squeezed her eyes closed, still feigning unconsciousness. Please let it not be real. The little terrier whined and licked her cheek, bringing her closer to the terrible reality. I know it has to be real, only . . . not yet.

  Because he was there. And where he was, danger and death followed.

  While she pretended to be unconscious, she tried to figure out what happened. Her first thought was that Sal had shot someone—had shot her, in fact. Then she realized that the shot had come from her gun. But that’s impossible. It’s only a prop! The smell of gunpowder hung in a cloud around her, and her hand ached from the revolver’s recoil. No. This can’t be happening.

  But Lulu heard the shouting everywhere around her. “She shot Ruby!” “Is she dead?” “Medic!” “Call an ambulance!” “Call the police!” “Call the legal department!”

  She let herself peek from barely cracked eyelids at the pandemonium around her. Some of the actors were still hunkered down in case more shots followed. The gun had fallen from her hand, and she saw Roger King pick it up.

  “Where’s security?” he barked.

  “Taking care of Docky,” someone answered. “The good doctor drank himself into a stupor and had to be escorted home.”

  “Perfect.” Roger grimaced and opened the revolver’s cylinder, dumping the bullets and spent shell into his palm before slipping them into his pocket. He put the gun on a table. “Nobody touch this,” he ordered. Then he and the assistant directors started to herd everyone off to the side while a few people crouched over Ruby.

  In the corner, Louella looked shocked but not displeased by the terrifying events that were clearly the seeds of a delicious scandal. She was frantically taking notes. Vasily, hovering nervously nearby, looked utterly stunned at first. Then Lulu thought she saw what looked like the shadow of a smile flicker across his face. Blake, pale and aghast, attempted a semblance of composure. Shakily, he ran his fingers through his hair and turned his best side to the world.

  Lulu felt a presence looming over her and squeezed her eyes shut. A hand, large and warm, rested on her shoulder. No, no, no. Not him.

  When I open my eyes, it will be . . . who?

  Of all the people in the room, Lulu settled on the one she knew the least. That strange young man with his Latin and his fisticuffs, who laughed at her so maddeningly and thought she was “interesting,” of all things. Please let it be Freddie Van coming to my rescue, she thought desperately.

  She opened her eyes and . . . Of course . . . It was the mobster, Sal, looking down at her, still as stone in the midst of all that chaos, with hard eyes and an amused mouth.

  “You’ve really got yourself into a scrape this time, kiddo.” His voice was soft, and so was his hand on the bare skin of her shoulder. But those eyes . . . they were still the black iron she remembered. “Let’s see if we can fix that.”

  And she knew by his tone that he could. He could fix any
thing. He was that kind of man. Money, power, those were important, and she knew Sal had them in spades, inherited from his father, the single most powerful crime lord in all of New York. But he had something else, too: will.

  She’d heard it bandied about by people in Hollywood over cocktails, people with half-formed ideas and an exaggerated sense of their own importance. “The will to power,” they said knowingly, mispronouncing Nietzsche’s name, spilling their cocktails, and thinking they had it because they had fast money and fickle fame. They were wraiths beside this solid man.

  Sal looked at her, and she knew immediately that he could make everything all right.

  But what would it cost her?

  The screaming and mayhem seemed to Lulu to stretch forever. Time worked strangely, expanding and contracting. Sal helped her to her feet. She felt the warmth of his body. It seemed to draw her magnetically, and she swayed closer. She felt faint, for real this time. How easy it would be to collapse into Sal’s arms and let him make all of this go away. Because even if she wasn’t guilty, she knew that she appeared guilty, and that might be enough.

  In the distance she heard Sassoon bark, “Give her air! Clear the area, for crying out loud!” Why was everything moving in slow motion?

  People knew she and Ruby always competed for the same parts, that they had a long-standing grudge. Lulu could lose her career, her freedom. She could be cast back into the gutter, and her family along with her.

  How had it happened? Who put real bullets in the gun?

  I’ve been set up, she thought as she trembled on her feet. Someone wanted to make me look guilty. But who?

  She knew it couldn’t have been an accident. The prop master made sure of that. The guns they used were kept in a special place and checked and double-checked. If there were real bullets, it was because someone wanted them to be there.

  Sal touched her cheek, gently brushing away a platinum lock that had come free from her opal hairpin. Lulu felt the temptation of small helpless things to lean on a strong protector, the desire of a kitten to curl up against a fierce dog. But the teeth that could protect her could also rip her apart. Shocked at her momentary urge, she pulled abruptly away, staggering to be on her own, unsupported.

  She saw Freddie kneeling on the floor. Beneath him was . . . Oh! Red and more red . . . real blood, undeniably real in that fake world. It’s not supposed to be real, she thought stupidly. Not here, of all places.

  Ruby’s eyes were rolled back, and her mouth hung open. The blood was everywhere, so much, too much. No one could lose all that blood and survive. A sick feeling rose in Lulu’s stomach, and her knees shook. She reached out a hand, but there was only Sal nearby and she could not reach for him. For a moment her hand flailed in the empty space, looking for support. She thought, frantically, what would an innocent person say? The adrenaline of wild fear coursed through her. She was innocent, but she felt culpable somehow.

  Because of Sal, something whispered in her ear. Because of what you did. You’re a bad person, and here’s the proof.

  But now Sal was gone, melted into the background as if he’d never been there. For a confused instant she wondered if he actually had been. Was he a manifestation of her own corrupt deeds come back to even the score? The world was haywire, blurry . . . except for the vision of blood, dark and thick, pooling beneath Ruby’s unmoving body.

  Lulu stood alone in that crowd of actors and extras, director and crew. Vasily stared at her, blinking rapidly. Even Lolly froze for a moment, her notes forgotten. They all seemed to make a space for Lulu, a circle of loneliness, the masses, angry and afraid, collecting to judge the guilty. She stood in a spotlight. Her mouth moved, but she felt as if she’d forgotten her lines.

  What happened? she wanted to say, but the words got stuck, and her lips mouthed “Wh . . . wh . . .” again and again. “What . . . ,” she managed to gasp.

  But another voice covered her words.

  “What the hell happened?” Niederman barked as he burst from his private office. All eyes turned to Lulu as the on-call Lux emergency medical team frantically tried to revive the blood-soaked Ruby. Niederman took Lulu roughly by the elbow and hustled her away.

  “I just played my part,” Lulu said in a small voice after she collapsed into Niederman’s office chair. “I was just acting. That’s what I do. I never thought there would be real bullets in the gun. How could I? I don’t know how it happened. . . . It’s all a blur.”

  “Sure,” Niederman said, mopping sweat from his forehead and chomping on his cigar as he paced. “Stick to that. That’s what you tell them.”

  “But that’s what happened,” she protested. “The script said to pick up the gun and wave it around and fire it. That’s all I did. Don’t you believe me?”

  “Of course I do,” he said. Then his entire aspect changed. His eyes became remote, his voice hard and cynical. “It doesn’t matter if I believe you or not. Frankly, it doesn’t matter if the police believe you. The question is, does the public believe you’re innocent? If they do, you’re golden. If not, you go from a rising starlet and money-making machine for Lux to a temporary tabloid headline, and then next stop: box-office poison.” He didn’t seem to be talking to her anymore. “When the lawyers get here, we’ll see if we can make this all go away. God knows we pay the police enough hush money to mop up all the messes you boozed-up, overentitled actors make in this town. With a little luck and a cooperative judge, this might all disappear. As far as Lux is concerned, this needs to have never happened.”

  There was an insistent pounding on the door. Lulu’s entire body began to shake.

  “You just keep your mouth shut, and . . . Damn!”

  “Lulu Kelly, you’re under arrest for murder,” bellowed one of the two uniformed police officers who barged past the hapless studio security.

  It felt to Lulu as if her lungs were collapsing. The roar of blood racing through her head seemed to deafen her, and her vision kaleidoscoped.

  “She’s dead?” Lulu whispered. For a second it seemed like the most important thing. Then the other part hit her. “No! I didn’t do anything. It was an accident! I mean—”

  “Shut your mouth, Lulu,” Niederman said. “Wait till the lawyers come. Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but you can’t take my prize starlet away before the attorneys get here. We have an understanding with the department. You don’t want to be undermining the DA’s office, now, do you?”

  “That understanding don’t hold here,” one of the policemen informed him. “An entire soundstage saw this woman shoot the victim. Everyone says these two girls had a beef. Our deal don’t hold for murder.”

  “What, your retainer isn’t enough? Five hundred—a thousand! Come on, just fill in ‘accidental discharge’ in the cause-of-death section and call it quits. Two thousand!”

  The policemen stood Lulu up and pulled her arms behind her back. She felt cold metal and heard the slither and click of handcuffs being latched onto her wrists. “No, please! I didn’t do anything!” She began to sob.

  “The chief of police and the DA’s office will be hearing about this!” Niederman shouted after them as they dragged Lulu away. “Don’t worry, Lulu. I’ll have you out in an hour.”

  “I didn’t do it!” Lulu screamed wildly over her shoulder. “It was an accident!”

  The entire cast and crew watched, silent. No one made a move to help her, and no one looked her square in the face. Freddie, Ruby’s blood mingled with his fake-dirt greasepaint, met her eyes for just a moment, then looked away. Every face was almost blank with shock. Even the little terrier at Freddie’s feet looked lost and confused, whimpering softly as he shifted from paw to paw. Only Sal, standing in the shadows, wore a little smile on his lips.

  Niederman had promised to have her out in an hour, but the next morning Lulu was still in a cold room under the glare of a single lightbulb, sitting on a painfully uncomfortable metal chair with her hands locked behind her back. It wasn’t a jail cell, quite, but despite her desperate plea
s, she hadn’t been allowed to visit the bathroom. Instead, a leering guard had brought her a bucket, already none too clean, and waited in the doorway, pretending not to watch, while she awkwardly hiked up her silver Schiaparelli gown.

  Men had come and gone for the last sixteen hours, questioning her with varying degrees of severity until she thought she was losing her mind. No one had actually hurt her physically yet, but they’d bullied and harangued her for hours on end, denying her even a cup of water. Standing inches from her terrified face, they’d shouted and spat and paced and shouted some more, the same questions over and over.

  “Why did you shoot Ruby?”

  “Why did you hate Ruby?”

  Or sometimes, as if they were offering her a little rope to grasp at, the better to hang her later: “Who paid you to shoot Ruby?”

  Lulu felt like she was in a nightmare. This didn’t make any sense. The shooting was obviously an accident. Why were they jumping to conclusions? They should have interviewed everyone on set before they even thought of arresting her. She’d seen enough crime and courthouse movies by now to know proper procedure.

  Something was terribly wrong. There seemed to be no way out and no one to help her.

  Shortly after dawn, a new officer came in. At least, she assumed he was an officer, though he wasn’t in uniform and she didn’t see a badge. He was well dressed, in a pin-striped suit with broad-cut shoulders. Maybe he’s a detective, she thought. She composed herself to beg, to argue, to bat her eyelashes and smile sweetly, whatever it took to be believed. She turned her eyes up to him hopefully . . . and without warning, he slapped her hard across the face.

  Lulu fell off the rickety stool and cried out, the white-hot sting of his open hand burning her cheek. But as soon as she hit the floor, he hauled her up roughly, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms.

  “You’re going to rot in prison, Lucille,” he snarled, breathing the stench of stale cigarettes into her face. “That girl’s parents have got the best lawyer in town, and they’re going to throw the book at you.”