“It doesn’t make sense.” She looked at Tilda. “What are you trying to do?”
“All I’m trying to do is find Leviathan.”
“But you’ve found him! Bruce is Leviathan. Tell her, Bruce.”
“I’m sorry, Sibyl,” he said in a low voice.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You just forgot what was under that panel, or mixed it up with another one.”
“No, that’s not it. I lied, Sibyl. I’m not Leviathan.”
“Of course you are. That’s how we got together. It’s been our secret, but now we can tell everybody. You’re Leviathan. I’m going to marry Leviathan.”
“I’m not Leviathan,” he repeated.
“Then who are you?”
“I’m Bruce Williford. That’s all I am. But I love you, Sibyl.” He reached toward her, but she hopped out of her chair.
“Don’t touch me! You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me all along.”
“Not about everything. I do love you, and I want to marry you.”
“Go to hell!” She grabbed up her bag and stormed out of the room.
Bruce stared after her miserably, and Tilda was afraid he was going to break down, but he took a couple of choking breaths and held it together. “I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at her. “I didn’t think it would go this far.”
Tilda couldn’t think of a solitary thing to say, so she just nodded. Hoover started to step forward, but she stopped him with a look. She could tell that Bruce wasn’t going to get violent.
He just picked up his pad and pencil and slumped out of the room.
“Shit,” Hoover said.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Nope.”
“I better go make sure they’re not causing any trouble.”
“I think I’ll just stay here and hate on myself for a while.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. You know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
He left, and she reflected that she knew too damn much. She knew that she’d ruined a marriage before it even happened, and she knew that she hadn’t found Leviathan and had no idea where else to look.
Chapter 39
Episode 6
In a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, Sid and Marty help Posit win the love of a glamorous lady alien by making it look as if he’s the one singing their love songs. When the deception is revealed, the lady at first spurns Posit, but is won over by his skill at drumming.
—SATURDAY MORNING SPREE BY CHARLES M. LUCE
TILDA expected Bruce and Sibyl to be long gone by the time she finished kicking the wall and packing up, but when she left the function room, she saw the two of them in the lobby.
“At least let me take you home,” Bruce was saying.
“Go away, Bruce,” Sibyl said with great finality.
There was nothing the guy could do but turn away and trudge out the door. Sibyl maintained her implacable air until he was out of sight, then started sobbing.
Tilda rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, then went to the bathroom, grabbed a handful of tissues out of the holder, and brought it out to thrust at the crying woman.
“Thanks,” Sibyl sniffed, then spent another five minutes wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
When Tilda thought she was done, she asked, “I hate to ask this, but how are you going to get home?”
“I don’t know!” Sibyl wailed, and the tears flowed freely once more.
Tilda took another trip to the bathroom for another wad of tissues. Then while Sibyl sniffled, she went just out of earshot to use her cell phone. When she returned to Sibyl, who was at least temporarily back in control of herself, she said, “Look, one of the security guys has to go back to Boston tonight. He’ll take you along, if you want.”
“Really? That would be great. I was afraid that I’d have to call my mother, and I don’t think I could handle that right now. She never liked Bruce.”
“The only problem is that he’s busy for another couple of hours, so you’ll have to wait around.”
“That’s okay.” Sibyl looked around the lobby as if gauging its comfort level.
Tilda had every intention of going her own way, but made the mistake of looking at Sibyl again. That reminded her of the time she broke up with a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, and how a guy she barely knew had taken pity on her and comforted her with ice cream. She and Cooper had been fast friends ever since. She owed it to what Dylan O’Taine would call the Cosmic Balance to return the favor.
She said, “Look, the bar here makes a pretty good cosmo. Let’s go get a buzz on.”
With most of the film crew out prepping the next day’s location, the bar was nearly empty, and the bartender was happy to bring them cosmos and a bowl of pretzels.
Of course, Tilda knew she’d have to sit through the tale of Sibyl’s and Bruce’s ill-fated love affair, but as long as the waiter kept the drinks coming, she figured she could interject the right questions and maintain the correct facial expressions.
“I should have known he was lying!” Sibyl said. “He only pretended to be Leviathan because he knew I was a huge fan of Pharos.”
“Then you knew each other already?”
She nodded. “A bunch of us from a comics fanfic board got together at Boskone a few years ago. Bruce said he really liked my stories, but now I don’t know whether to believe him or not.”
Worried that the tears were about to return, Tilda asked, “Did he tell you right away that he was Leviathan?”
“No, not for a long time. We saw each other several times at cons before he said anything about it. But when we were at Arisia the next year, he asked if he could talk to me alone over dinner. That’s when he pulled out his sketchbooks and told me.” She almost smiled as she said, “He said that if Pharos hadn’t been cancelled, my stories were just the kind of thing he’d have wanted to do. But I suppose he was making that up, too. He just wanted to get into my pants.”
The next round arrived, and Tilda gave her drink a moment’s attention before saying, “He has Leviathan’s style down cold. I wonder how many other girls he used that story on.”
“Bruce would never have done that,” Sibyl said, sounding shocked.
“Seriously? There are a lot of Pharos fans—he could have used those sketches to get some serious booty.”
“Not Bruce!”
“But once he bagged you, he moved on, right?”
“Of course not! We’ve been . . . We dated for almost three years.”
“And he treated you well?”
“Oh, yeah, we get along great.”
Tilda noticed Sibyl had switched back to present tense. “Is he good in bed?”
“Tilda!” Sibyl said. Then she giggled, no doubt thanks to her second cosmo, and said, “Yeah, he really is.”
“A nice-looking guy, treats you well, good in the sack . . . But you never considered dating him before he told you he was Leviathan?”
“Not really. I mean, he was nice and all, but I just never thought about him in that way.”
The third set of drinks arrived just as Tilda came up with a plan. “I wonder how long it took him to learn how to draw like Leviathan. I’m no artist, but I wouldn’t think it would be an easy style to master.”
“He knew exactly what he was doing,” Sibyl said with an indignant sniff.
“He must have been pretty motivated to put in all that time just to get your attention. It’s not like he was desperate or anything. Nice-looking, knows how to treat a woman, good in bed . . . Yet he did that just to get to you. It’s kind of flattering.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Sibyl said, stirring her cosmo.
“Not that he was right to lie, of course, but tell me the truth. If he’d shown you his drawings without saying he was Leviathan, just said he was a Pharos fan, would you have been interested in him?”
“I’ll never know now, will I?” Sibyl said, but she wouldn’t meet Tilda’s eyes.
“But you said you’d known him awhile, right? Maybe he thought that this was the only way he could get you to date him. And if he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have realized what a great guy he is.”
“Yeah, real great. For a phony.”
“But now that you know—” Then Tilda waved her hand, as if brushing the idea aside. “No, you can never trust him again. I get that.”
“Never!” Sibyl said.
They sipped in silence for a few minutes, then Tilda went for broke. “You know, since you’re not going to be seeing Bruce anymore anyway, would you mind if I called him?”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m between boyfriends, and I already know he’s not Leviathan, so that’s not going to bother me. And if he’s that good in bed . . .” Tilda looked at Sibyl. “You don’t care, do you? I mean, you said you were through with him.”
“I am. Definitely.”
“Then you don’t mind?”
Sibyl opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again to say, “Hell yes, I mind! I love that idiot!”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, and I know exactly what you’re doing. You’re saying that I’m a moron for not noticing what a great guy he was and making him come up with this whole Leviathan thing to get my attention, and I’d be an even bigger moron to let him go now.”
“I just hate to see a good guy go to waste,” Tilda said.
“Well you can just forget about him going to waste. Bruce is my good guy.” Sibyl pulled a cell phone out of her purse, and pressed the first number on her speed dial. “Bruce,” she said, “it’s me. I’ve changed my mind. I’d really like you to take me home.... Yes, you will have to make it up to me, but maybe I’ve got some things to make up to you, too.... Okay, I’ll meet you outside.”
“How far did he get?” Tilda asked.
“He’s in the parking lot,” Sibyl said with a happy grin. “He said he was too upset to drive back to Boston.”
“Sibyl, I can be a lousy judge of my own relationships, but I really think he’s a keeper.”
“I think you’re right.” The bartender, sensing they’d come to the end of their debauchery, slipped a check onto the table, and Sibyl reached for her wallet.
“Nope, this is on me,” Tilda said. “You go get your guy.”
“Thanks, Tilda.”
“You can thank my friend Cooper if you ever meet him.”
She looked confused, but just nodded and ran out.
Tilda considered getting another cosmo, but figured being a professional failure was painful enough. There was no reason to add a hangover to the mix.
Chapter 40
“It’s no secret that Quasit was inspired by Posit,” Wilder said. “I started out using Posit, but the studio objected. I hear Marvel Comics did the same thing to Sonic Man, who started out as Spider-Man. I wasn’t trying to steal the character—I just have such great memories of my time on The Blastoffs.”
—“HEY KIDS! IT’S CARTOON TIME!” BY TILDA HARPER, ENTERTAIN ME!
TILDA went upstairs to her room and called around in search of sympathy, but her luck continued to suck. June was at an open house at the kids’ school, Cooper was at a party, and Nick was busy getting ready for tomorrow’s shoot. If that weren’t depressing enough, he said that Dom and he had made no progress in clearing Pete Ellis of the hit-and-run. Maybe if it had happened during the summer, when the Cape was busier, there might have been another witness around, but all they had was Tilda, who hadn’t seen enough to help.
She was tempted to hide in her room, but she was tired of room service. In fact, she was tired of the hotel. It was time to get out and go somewhere else, anywhere else. The clerk at the front desk gave her directions to the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis, which was enough like any other mall that she could forget she was even on the Cape. She window-shopped, ate at the food court, and then wasted time and cash at the arcade. By the time she got back to the inn, she’d managed to nearly wipe out what a debacle the day had been, and was willing to stay absentminded for the rest of the evening.
Unfortunately, her luck still hadn’t improved. Hugh Wilder was sitting on a bench in the lobby, and when he saw her, came right over.
“Tilda,” he said, “I’ve been looking for you. Can we talk for a minute?”
“Sure.” Tilda wondered what Wilder was going to want her to write about. Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Watching The Blastoffs? Chicken Soup for Blastoffs Fans? Ten Things about The Blastoff Brothers That Nobody Gives a Crap About? Since she was betting on the last one, she didn’t want to invite him to her room because that would make it tricky to get rid of him if she got bored, so she said, “Let’s see if there’s a seat in the bar.”
They found an empty booth and ordered sodas. Once they’d been served, Wilder said, “I’ve had something on my conscience, and it’s been bothering me.”
“Oh?”
“You know how I told you those stories about life on the set of The Blastoffs? How it was one big happy family, and how the kids were such good kids? The fact is, I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
“Really?” Was she finally going to get some dirt about Laryea?
“You know young men can get a little wild. Especially in Hollywood. Good-looking, a little money in their pockets . . . I’m sure you’ve heard all the stories about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, so you know what can happen when young people aren’t supervised properly. The fact is, there was some of that going on on the set. The producers didn’t want a scandal, so they told us to just pretend we didn’t see the empty bottles, or smell the wacky tobaccy, or hear the noises coming from the dressing room.”
“So Laryea was a bit of a party animal when he was young?” Tilda asked, not particularly shocked. But what Wilder said next did shock her.
“Oh, no, not John. He was always a good kid. We never had a minute’s worry with John. It was the other guy. Spencer Marshall. He was a born troublemaker.”
“Marshall was a troublemaker?” Tilda said, not sure she’d heard him right.
“From day one. I tried to stay away from him myself, because he tended to blame other people for his mistakes. If he missed a line, it was because somebody had given him the wrong script. If he missed his mark, it was because somebody pushed him or got in his way. It was never his fault.”
“Really?”
“Plus he had a temper, and a mean streak, too. There was an incident with a girl on the set. I never did hear the details, but if the rumors were true, he did a lot more than lose his temper with her.”
“He always seemed so nice on the show.”
“He did a good job on camera, I’ll give him that. But once the lights went out? It was like night and day. After a while I started to wonder if there was something wrong with the boy. Psychologically, I mean. You know how some kids get off on playing with fire? Well Marshall had this lighter he carried everywhere, and was always flicking it open and staring at the flame. Kind of creepy.” He paused as if deciding how much more to say. “And there were incidents on the set.”
“Like with the girl?”
“Like with fires. Just small ones, more smoke than anything else. But it seemed like there were a lot more than there should have been.”
“I never heard word one of this.” Admittedly she hadn’t spent a lot of time reading up on Marshall on the Web, but nothing she’d seen had even hinted at this. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It was a long time ago, and it’s not like he was ever a big star. After the show ended, people pretty much forgot about him.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”
“A couple of reasons. First off I’ve been feeling guilty about deceiving you the way I have been. I meant well—I don’t like to speak ill of anybody, especially somebody who’s not around.”
“You said there were two reasons.”
“I did. The fact is, I may have seen—I think—Look, I better not say any more until I make sure of my facts.”
“Come on, you can’t leave me hanging after dropping a bombshell like that.”
But the older man shook his head. “No, it just wouldn’t be right. You know what Posit used to say: ‘Gossip travels faster than light—don’t repeat it unless you know that it’s right.’ ”
Tilda pushed a little, but could see that there was no use. He’d told her as much as he was going to, and after a minute or two more, he came up with an excuse to leave.
She was just as glad. She needed a few minutes to try to digest what Wilder had told her. Could she have been that far off in her reading of Pete? Sure, she knew he’d been a drinker, but he’d started that long after The Blastoffs blasted off the air. Of course, the only way she knew that was because that’s what he’d told her. A reporter should know better than to accept an unconfirmed story. Then there was the other stuff, the temper and the mean streak.
Wilder hadn’t told her why he’d decided to spill his guts all of a sudden, but Tilda knew what the reason must be. He knew Pete Ellis was Spencer Marshall, and that Pete was there on the Cape. Could he have seen something in Pete’s behavior to remind him of those earlier, nastier times? She hadn’t seen anything like that, and she knew Dom hadn’t either. Then again, Pete was an actor, and what had June called them? Professional liars. Tilda had recently been fooled by that actor from the Power Pets, so obviously her instincts weren’t perfect. As for Dom, his record was solid, but was he that good?
She ran her fingers through her hair. The man Wilder had described sounded nothing like the Pete she knew—what he sounded like was the kind of man who could have gone out driving while drunk, hit somebody, and then denied it. It also sounded like the kind of man who would have gotten mad about Tilda identifying the limo, and decided to get back at her, maybe with a knife.
No, it didn’t make sense. Pete couldn’t have gotten to the cottage ahead of her the night it was broken into. Except . . . Now that she thought about it, she remembered that she’d initially gone to the wrong cottage. How long had she spent trying to get that door open before realizing it was the wrong one? Long enough for Pete to slip past her and get into her cottage?
-->