Murder, Murder, Little Star

by Marian Babson

  There must be very few scenes remaining. And chief among them must be the rooftop dance. Or would they abandon that now?

  Another round of spontaneous applause followed on First's shout, 'Cut!'

  'Good,' Mr Herkimer said loudly to his stars. 'Very good. A few more scenes like this one, and we've got ourselves a picture!'

  'That's right.' Dick Brouder appeared from the back of the sound stage; Laurenda was with him. 'So let's not waste any more time. We'll shoot the rooftop scene next.'

  'We won't,' Twinkle said stubbornly.

  'We will.' His stubbornness was as great as her own. 'However, we'll shoot it on the floor, if you like.'

  He signalled to Sparks, who signalled back and did something with various levers.

  The rooftops groaned, squeaked, and began a gradual descent to the ground. They watched in silence until the platform containing the rooftops settled, with a thump and a final groan, on the floor of the studio.

  'If it's been able to do that all along -' Twinkle broke the silence - 'Why didn't you put it down here before?'

  'Why, indeed?' Dick Brouder's face was grim.

  As though on cue, the door of the Production Office opened behind him and Continuity and two of the policemen came out and stood quietly, as though they, too, were interested in the answer to that question.

  'It was Producer's orders.' Sparks's voice floated out of the surrounding darkness.

  'Never!' Mr Herkimer denied it vehemently. 'Never did I give such an order! I had no idea that set was mobile.'

  'Not you,' Sparks said. 'The other Producer.'

  They wheeled as one to face Tor Torrington. He stood his ground, but the suavity of his smile seemed rather frayed at the edges.

  'It was simply a matter of trying to keep expenses down,' Tor said smoothly. 'If we could shoot it at the higher level, we wouldn't have to bother with so many difficult camera shots or expensive trick photography. It makes things easier in the cutting-room, too. It works out at considerably less expense, all things considered -'

  'Everything considered except me,' Twinkle said bitterly.

  'Oh, I took you into my calculations, too,' Tor Torrington assured her. 'The insurance premium on your cover increases quite considerably on your next birthday, you know. And it isn't very far off, is it?'

  Amazingly, Twinkle shrank back, instead of flying out in rage at this statement. Frances looked around at the others. Most of them seemed as puzzled as she was, but a few - the inner coterie - obviously knew something that made sense out of Tor's sudden ascendancy over the situation.

  'Yes, let's talk about Twinkle's insurance cover, Tor,' Dick Brouder said softly, although he was one of the puzzled ones. 'I noticed it on the Budget back at the beginning of the picture and I thought it was pretty high then. Precisely what is she being insured against ?'

  'Baby - ' Laurenda made a vain effort to change the subject. 'I think you ought to go and rest before the next scene. Dick, don't you want to get the cameras and lights lined up? Herkie - ' recklessly, she appealed to the highest authority she knew - 'make them stop it!'

  But there was a quiet reshuffling of places in the background as the police moved forward to stand just beyond the brightly lit group in the centre of the scene. Mr Herkimer was no longer the highest authority available.

  Dick Brouder repeated the question. 'What is she being insured against?'

  'Nature. An act of God. The march of time - ' Tor Torrington shrugged. 'Whatever you want to call it.

  She's at a . . . delicate age, and we have our investment to protect. If she should suddenly start to grow ... in any direction . . . before the picture is safely in the can - ' He shrugged again.

  'That's silly! Plain silly!' Laurenda seemed determined on a last-ditch fight. 'I've told you so!' She glanced obliquely at Dick Brouder. 'A ten-year-old child -'

  'Don't be a Goddamned fool!' Twinkle caught the glance and her last fragment of control gave way. 'I'm fourteen years old!' She gave Dick Brouder an oblique glance of her own. 'We're both older than you think!'

  Suddenly, it all made sense. Frances remembered the shapeless smocked blouses, the outbursts of hysterical resentment at any reference to ageing or growing up. The refusal to work with other children

  - real children -on the set. Laurenda's insistence on calling her daughter 'Baby' was more of a reminder than an endearment.

  Even the curious smirk on the face of the Immigration official that first day when he turned back for another look at Twinkle's passport was explained. She had thought that he had smiled because Mr Herkimer had denied that Twinkle had a surname - but Mr Herkimer had also just announced that Twinkle was a ten-year-old child. And the year of Twinkle's birth was stamped in her passport as well as her real name.

  'So what?' Dick Brouder was unimpressed. If Twinkle had expected her revelation to have any effect on his feelings for her mother, she had thrown down her trump card in vain.

  'You shouldn't have said that, baby.' Laurenda was the most upset. 'Baby, you should never - She doesn't know what she's saying - ' Laurenda appealed to the others. 'She's too upset. I hope I can count on all of you never to mention it again. Especially to the Press - '

  Mr Herkimer was shaking his head sadly, already aware that such a plea was useless. Twinkle's

  peculiar vulnerability was the key to the whole situation. So much so that it could not be concealed when the case came to court. Twinkle's days as a child star were over.

  'You intended to protect your investment, all right,' Dick Brouder said. 'Twinkle was grossly over-insured. And the picture was nearly finished. It was obvious that nothing drastic was going to happen.

  Any minor physical changes that might begin now could be disguised for the few shots remaining. You were going to have your picture, but you were greedy enough to want the insurance money, too.'

  'That's nonsense,' Tor Torrington said. 'As you've just pointed out yourself, the picture is nearly finished.'

  'But the insurance company wouldn't know that, would they? It's a bit out of their line. You could wait a suitable length of time before releasing it and claim that a lot of the scenes had been re-shot or faked using the insurance money -'

  'It would have worked,' Mr Herkimer nodded sadly. 'It almost did work.'

  'He tried to kill me,' Twinkle gasped. 'He tried to kill me!'

  'He didn't mean to kill you, I think.' Mr Herkimer patted her on the head absently. 'He only meant to damage you a little. That would have done just as well for the insurance. There was also an accident clause in the policy. A broken leg or two would have delayed the picture enough for us to collect on not bringing it in on time and all the overtime we'd have had to pay.' His voice was regretful. 'We could have cleared a nice profit.'

  'You're trying to claim that Tor did this all on his own?' Perhaps for the sake of the watching police, Dick Brouder tried to get everything as clear as possible. 'You mean you didn't know anything about it?'

  'I swear I didn't! I can forgive you anything - ' Mr Herkimer faced his partner and sighed heavily -

  'Anything except poor Morris. Why did you have to kill the best scriptwriter we ever had ?'

  'It was an accident.' Tor Torrington surrendered gracefully. Why shouldn't he? With luck, and the most expensive lawyers, he would receive the lightest sentence on the lesser charge. 'You know it was an accident. Morrie insisted on going up in that harness -'

  'That harness was tampered with!' Continuity stepped forward. 'It was all right when Props and I collected it. But it had been deliberately frayed so that it wouldn't hold. The police have found - '

  'Even so, it would probably have held Twinkle.' Tor Torrington tried to gloss over the weakest point in his defence. 'She would just have been very frightened -with luck, into a nervous breakdown. We could have collected on that, too. At worst, she'd only have broken a few bones. Even at her advancing age, bones mend easily.'

  Frances wondered what the note-taking police really thought. Tor Torrington
seemed to be working on his defence even as he confessed, growing more innocent-sounding by the minute. He had talked his way from a murder charge to a manslaughter charge, and now seemed intent on further reducing his culpability. Was there such a charge as malicious mischief? Or perhaps he was trying for mere vandalism ?

  'Believe me, Herkie, I can't forgive myself, either. If only Morrie hadn't been so determined to go up on those rooftops. How could I have known he'd pull a stupid trick like that ? If only he'd ever stuck to

  one of his diets, it might not have been so bad - '

  Now, it appeared, it was all Morris's fault. Next, Tor Torrington would be arguing that it had really been an obscure form of suicide.

  'What about the milk?' Continuity demanded. 'That nearly killed me - so how much did you put in it?'

  'You must have been abnormally sensitive to the stuff,' Tor told her. 'There wasn't enough to hurt the kid, just enough to knock her out for a while. I thought, if she had what seemed to be fainting fits, we could get a doctor over here to sign a certificate of illness and we could collect on that.'

  'You louse!' Laurenda had begun shaking violently. 'You rotten louse!'

  'Please, Laurenda,' Tor winced. 'Let me explain my position - '

  'Suppose you explain it to us, sir.' Two policemen came out of the shadows. 'Down at the Station. It is my duty to warn you . . .'

  'Don't say anything else, Tor' Mr Herkimer's voice was anguished. 'Keep your mouth shut until I can get us a lawyer -'

  'You needn't worry,' Tor Torrington said. 'I've stopped talking now until my lawyer arrives.'

  'Wait a minute!' Mr Herkimer was galvanized into action as the policemen led Tor Torrington away. He raced after them. 'Wait a minute! I'm coming with you! . . .' His voice faded into the distance.

  The other actors and the technicians began to melt away, awkward and embarrassed, momentarily unable to cope with a situation for which they had no script, no instructions.

  'Come on, Laurenda,' Dick Brouder said gently. 'We'll get you something for that headache now.' He led her off.

  Up at the control panel, Sparks was dousing the lights, one by one. Twinkle stood alone in the glow of the last spotlight, arms crossed defensively in front of her, staring down at her feet as though she could see the broken shards of her career there. Then that spotlight, too, dimmed and went out.

  CHAPTER XX

  'Why don't you go and change?' Frances suggested as she shepherded Twinkle into the empty suite. She had not dared to suggest that Twinkle change out of her costume before they left the studio, feeling that the sooner Twinkle was removed from the scene of so much unpleasantness, the better. They had had to return by public transport since someone - Mr Herkimer, perhaps not allowed to travel in the police car with his partner, or Dick and Laurenda - had commandeered the company limousine. She was thankful that styles were so elastic these days that Twinkle's costume had elicited no more than an occasional smile.

  Silently, Twinkle went to her room. Frances remained in the sitting-room. Although Twinkle would no longer protest at being helped to disrobe, now that her secret was out and it no longer mattered if anyone noticed that her shape was changing, there was a new reason for leaving her alone now.

  Twinkle needed some privacy in which to face her own thoughts in her own way.

  Twinkle returned eventually wearing a sweater and skirt. She looked, for the first time, like a young lady growing up. It was the thoughtful expression on her face as much as the dash of lipstick that added

  to that impression.

  'What are you doing to do ?' Frances asked.

  'I'll go into Summer Stock.' Twinkle did not pretend to misunderstand. 'That's why I was always so careful not to get into any trouble with Equity, even when I was acting most like a kid. I'm still a member in good standing.' Frances realized that she had been thinking about the impending problem for longer than anyone had suspected.

  'I don't suppose Broadway would have anything for me - I'm at the awkward age for scripts. But I could do a few seasons on the Straw Hat circuit with one of the classic teenage scripts updated. I'm good enough to keep the customers happy, and maybe I can learn more about acting from the stage angle.'

  'That's not a bad idea,' Frances approved.

  'I'm going to buy myself a Pekinese, too.' Twinkle revealed another recent decision. 'Just like little Fleur.'

  'A very good idea,' Frances said. 'I'm sure Cecile will give you the name of the breeder she bought Fleur from.'

  'Do you think she would?' Twinkle showed a brief flash of animation before lapsing back into her career problems. 'Of course, I'd rather keep on making films but - '

  'The awkward age is even more awkward in front of a camera?' Frances remembered Mr Herkimer's gloating as he contemplated the eventual come-uppance of Twinkle.

  'You've heard them talking,' Twinkle said. 'The transition is the hardest one there is, and nobody's going to break their necks trying to find special scripts for me. The kind I need. I guess,' she admitted,

  'I've made a lot of enemies.'

  'Not enemies,' Frances protested. 'That's too strong a word. You're still almost a child. But I'm afraid you have annoyed a lot of people.'

  'And always the most important people,' Twinkle sighed. 'Maybe it serves me right.'

  Before Frances could find anything comforting to say, they heard the key turn in the front lock, a babble of voices, a rush of footsteps and, abruptly, the sitting-room was crowded with people, all talking at once.

  'We'll finish the picture,' Dick Brouder said decisively. 'That's the first item on the agenda.'

  'We've got to get the best lawyer in town,' Mr Herkimer dictated. 'Until we can fly our own lawyers over from Los Angeles. And then we've got to - '

  'As soon as the picture is finished, I want Twinkle to take a nice long rest,' Laurenda said.

  'I shall help in any way I can,' Cecile Savoy declared. Fleur-de-lis yelped encouragement from her arms.

  'We'll start shooting again in the morning - '

  'Is it too late to call the American Embassy? What time do they stop working? Tell them this is an A-1

  priority emergency - '

  They continued talking, each embroidering his or her own theme. They ignored Twinkle, even when the conversation seemed to be about her. They were courtiers in a dissolving Court. The Queen is dead; long live - who? Suddenly, Frances recognized the parallel she had been searching for since becoming part of the Unit.

  'Lady Jane Grey!' she said. The poor forlorn little teenager pushed upon a throne she did not want, forced to accept a crown she had no right to, badly-advised, manipulated, schemed for and schemed against, used to further the ambitions of the power-hungry courtiers surrounding her . . .

  'What's that?' They all stopped talking abruptly. Mr Herkimer advanced, almost on tiptoe, as though afraid of startling her. 'What's that, darling? Say it again. Tell Herkie.'

  'I - I only said - ' Frances looked around, unnerved at being the centre of so much attention. 'I was just thinking aloud - Well, Twinkle is like Lady Jane Grey. A little.'

  'A little.' Mr Herkimer turned his gaze to Twinkle, still sitting quietly on the sofa. 'A lady soon, yes.

  And Lady Jane Grey? It's all coming back to me, but somebody refresh my memory. I think our Frances has just been brilliant!' He beamed fondly at her.

  'Lady Jane Grey - ' Cecile Savoy took the floor -'was a child bride and a child queen. She was only seventeen when her relatives put her on the Throne of England - briefly. She was called the Nine Day Queen, because she was deposed after reigning for only nine days. She was tried for treason and beheaded on Tower Green.' Cecile eyed Twinkle assessingly. 'It could be a highly dramatic, tragic part, with many excellent supporting roles. I, of course, have already played nearly every major female role in the House of Tudor.'

  'Nobody's done a historical picture in a long while,' Mr Herkimer said thoughtfully. 'It could be time for one to go over big again. It would have Class.'
r />   'The costumes!' Ilse breathed rapturously. 'The brocades, the velvets, the ruffs, the farthingales - '

  'We've got a great Unit all set up here,' Dick Brouder said. 'We could put them on retainers while we finish the current picture and cut and dub it. We'll have to come back to England for the trial, anyway.

  Most of us will be needed to testify.'

  'Do you hear them, honey?' Laurenda enthused. 'They've found it! They've found a transition picture for you. After that, you could go on to adult parts.'

  'And she dies in the end?' Mr Herkimer's eyes gleamed appreciatively. 'Beheaded? That would fit in with the horror craze these days. We could get a shot of her head rolling towards the audience, spurting blood - '

  'I could play that part,' Twinkle said thoughtfully. 'It would give me the chance to do some real acting.

  And if I died like that in the end, then everybody would forgive me, wouldn't they?'

  'I believe they would,' Frances agreed. Such a death would be symbolic, an atonement and a reparation.

  And, in a curious way, it would be understood as such by the others in Twinkle's world. They moved among shadows, living for the shadows they created up on a silver screen, shadows that were more real to them than their own lives. And who was to say they were not right? The shadows on the screen would live and love and laugh and talk and play out their scripted destinies long after their creators had aged and died. The shadows were their immortality.

  In such a world, Twinkle's symbolic death by the headsman's axe would be understood, accepted -

  even applauded. From it, Twinkle would arise and go on to fresh triumphs as a young adult star.

  'But we need the best scriptwriter available,' Mr Herkimer said. 'The very best. Goddam Tor - we need Morris Moskva!'

  'Really, Mother,' Amanda said. 'We do think you're being unreasonable, don't we, Simon?'