The Tell-Tale Con

by Aimee Gilchrist

  Mr. Pibbs shrugged his bony shoulders. “I think those who suffer morally at the hands of the movie industry would be likely to suffer morally at the hands of anyone who was capable of even a modicum of persuasion. No more harm in it than anything else that involves a person working with crocodiles.”

  Yeah, this guy was so not our man. I stood and smoothed out my dress. “Thanks so much for having us, Mr. Pibbs. Your help was so valuable.”

  We gave him several very pretty goodbyes and walked back towards the car.

  When we were safely inside, I belted myself in and sighed. “Not him.”

  Harrison shook his head. “No way. On to the next one.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN

  Rules of the Scam #27

  Anyone worth conning is worth conning right…

  Harrison had a list, which he briefly consulted before heading back to the highway. I had no idea where we were going since the master list meant nothing to me. It contained names of people I’d never heard of and addresses that were unfamiliar to me after such a short time in New Mexico.

  But I trusted Harrison to get us where we needed to go while I debated my next personality change. “What can you tell me about the person we’re going to see. I gotta prep.”

  “Okay, this house is in Santa Fe, back towards home. We’re going to, hopefully, see Vickie Bridges. But, remember, Greg says she’s a complete shut-in. So I don’t know if she’ll actually talk to us or not.”

  “She’s got to have a nurse or something, right?”

  Harrison shrugged, the car jerking slightly to the right with the movement of his arms. “I guess.”

  “Well, then we’ll have someone to talk to. Even just to tell us to go away. Tell me about this Vickie chick. Did you know her?”

  “I don’t know. I was like six when she went nuts. All I remember about her was that she liked red lipstick and my mom thought she was trashy. But Vickie seemed to love being trashy, if that was what she really was.”

  Hmm. Trashy Vickie embraced life in the red lipstick lane. “Did she like being an actress?”

  “She seemed to. I mean, I don’t know. I was young. But sometimes Dad bemoans her loss because she was that good at what she did. You know. Before.”

  I reached for the bag in the backseat and grabbed the only two things I would need for this transformation, a pair of expensive and ridiculously tight designer jeans my mother wore when she was trying to pick up marks who liked trashy rich girls, and the makeup and jewelry bag. I pulled off the stupid dress and tossed it into the back while Harrison studiously avoided looking my way. Boy, he’d better get a little bit more gumption about me changing if he wanted to stay friends.

  Or whatever.

  Not that I had friends.

  Or anything.

  Flustered, I slid the jeans over my shorts and had trouble buttoning them, they were so tight. I was still in the seatbelt, which did not help. When I was finally in them I spent a moment panting like a dog and recovering from my enormous feat of dressing gymnastics. After I finished the theatrics, I considered the touches that would make my persona just right and pulled out the makeup. Lips a deep, glossy, red. Eyes a bit too dark. No blush. I fluffed up my hair until it looked like I’d slept in my clothes and then wandered out.

  By the time we were coming into Santa Fe, I was sliding on some extremely good costume jewelry of Mom’s. It was the little details that made it all so real. I chose pieces that suggested I was both rich and tasteless. The perfect combo.

  Harrison pulled up to a curb inside of a subdivision on the outskirts of Santa Fe and glanced over at me. He’d picked exactly the wrong time. I had unfastened my bra and was pulling it out through the armhole of my tank top. I stopped when his eyes bugged out of his head, and he gave himself whiplash turning to the window.

  “Sorry, dude. I’m in costume changes.” It was the best I could muster. I didn’t think Hallmark made cards for “sorry you caught me taking off my underwear in a public place.”

  I wished I’d had a sluttier tank top, but the white ribbed one I had on would have to do. Oh! One last thing. I reached back into the bag for Mom’s box of small props and dug around until I found a cigarette pack, knocking one out and into my palm. Mom always said there was no halfway in a con. Anyone worth conning was worth conning right.

  I evaluated Harrison and frowned. He wouldn’t do at all. “Do you still have those prescription sunglasses you wore to the bank?”

  He gestured to the glove box without looking at me, like he was afraid of what I might be doing now. “In there.”

  I pulled the case out and tossed it in his lap. I’d better leave his hair alone. Revealing gunshot wounds was likely not the best way to make strangers feel comfortable. Biting my bottom lip, I turned my head to the side and evaluated his apple green, button-up shirt and dark jeans. Did he have to look so prissy on today of all days? I reached forward, and he jerked back in surprise. But he was still when I leveled him with a hard look and reached out again.

  He didn’t move when I unbuttoned the first three buttons of his shirt and mussed up his chest hair with careless fingers. I fisted my fingers because it turned out that was really intimate and left the pads of my fingers feeling uncomfortably tingly. I sat back and took it all in again now that the glasses were on. Hmm. Still not perfect. But definitely better.

  I grabbed the cigarette off the dashboard and opened the door. “Let’s do this thing.”

  He followed me out of the car, but then I dropped back and let him lead the way, since I had no idea where we were going. It was a bit of a trek up the hill to the house that Vickie Whoever lived in. Bridgeman? Maybe. Maybe just Bridge. Being an obsessed starlet fan would work way better if I remembered her freaking name.

  “What—”

  “Vickie Bridges,” Harrison said.

  He was so good.

  Vickie Bridges’ place was like every other house in the neighborhood and practically every house I’d ever seen in New Mexico. A squat, brown rancher with a courtyard, and a driveway lined with volcanic rocks. It didn’t look like the kind of home I’d expect to find a reclusive ex-Hollywood hottie living in, but then again, I’d encountered that with Greg as well. Except for the facts that weeds poked out from the rocks and there was a distinct air of disuse and neglect around the house, I wouldn’t have been able to differentiate it from the one that belonged to the president of the PTA or the banker down the street.

  Harrison looked at me and shrugged, as though he were confused by the place as well. I took a deep breath, rotated the tension out of my shoulders and swayed my way up the sidewalk in my painted on jeans. I rapped on the door, not bothering with the doorbell. It took a few moments before I could hear the sound of footsteps approaching.

  The second the door opened I knew I would have to talk fast to get into this house. The woman on the other side was the expected nurse. Early to mid-twenties, the stern set of her mouth didn’t improve her flat-faced profile. Dressed in scrubs bleached until they’d turned yellowish, her hair was pulled into a ponytail as punishing as her expression. Before I said anything, her gaze moved from me to Harrison and back again with open disapproval.

  “So, is it true this is where Vickie Bridges lives?” I glanced up and down the street like I might not be in the right place. “Please tell me it’s true, because I have been in that car so long I could totally have picked up like six guys and a couple of beers by now.”

  I winked at her, ignoring her dour expression. “Not that I would do that, right?”

  Her mouth barely moved when she spoke, giving off the bizarre impression that she was some kind of ventriloquist and we were just not seeing her dummy yet. “It is Vickie Bridges house. But she doesn’t receive guests.”

  I pouted theatrically. “Don’t tell me that, okay? I have waited my whole life to be exactly like Vickie Bridges, and now I have Van Poe eating out of my hand, and my chance to be a star has come. But I’ve heard some stuff, you know, about the way Va
n treated her. About Van. I need to hear it right from the horse’s mouth. Or whatever. Please ask her if she’ll see me.”

  I injected enough pleading at the end to be sincere, but not horribly whiny. I didn’t know if it was enough. I couldn’t tell from the nurse’s expression. Finally, she opened the door and gestured for us to pass. “I’ll ask Vickie what she thinks, but don’t expect her to see you. She doesn’t see anyone.”

  Inside it was so dark I could barely see. Not a single light was on or a curtain cracked to break up the shadows. I almost tripped over a statue of what I thought might be a lion positioned by the door before righting myself and electing not to move any farther for safety’s sake.

  “Thanks so much for asking,” I enthused. “I was like so excited at first, right? Until I heard about why Vickie Bridges had really left the movie scene. That was such a bummer, you know? She was my favorite. The reason I started acting in the first place. But it was all a dream, you know? Until my dad won all this money, you know?”

  My eyes were beginning to adjust, and I could see that not only was Vickie Bridges agoraphobic, she was also a hoarder. There was crap everywhere. On, like, every single available surface. A stack of newspapers here, and a pile of cloth diapers there.

  I put the cigarette into my mouth, but made no attempt to light it. No one wanted to see me coughing all over the living room anyway. I caught the hard glare the nurse gave me and shrugged philosophically. “Don’t worry, I won’t light it. I’m trying to quit, you know. But it’s such a bitch. My mom says it’s tacky, but who cares right? But then my agent told me it’s going to ruin my veneers.”

  The nurse pinched her barely mobile lips and asked, “Whom may I say is here?”

  “Oh, sorry.” I waved my hand around like she knew how it was. “I’m Angie. Griggs. And this is Manuel. He’s my…” I giggled and gestured to Harrison. “Uh…bodyguard?”

  One of Harrison’s eyebrows cocked up over his sunglasses, and he gave the nurse a lopsided grin that said he was good at guarding bodies and wasn’t ashamed even a little bit. He was so freaking good. It was almost, kind of, just a little bit, freaking hot. I was still staring at him when the nurse went off to check to see if Vickie would see us.

  But how could I see what I hated in my parents and Gray in another person and find it attractive? Especially Harrison? He was so…Harrison. He raised his eyebrows. “What? I was following your lead.”

  “I know. You’re doing amazing.”

  I couldn’t help being resentful of that. Because right now I was wondering who I was, if something abhorrent to me in some people could still be attractive in others. Maybe it was his intent. He didn’t mean to rob anyone. It was a better answer than anything else I could come up with. But I was still unsettled.

  The nurse came back and shook her head slightly. “Vickie isn’t up to receiving visitors today. Well, ever. But she gave me permission to answer any of your questions that I can.”

  She gestured into her darker den, and we followed, picking our way gingerly over the mess. She gestured for us to have a seat on a circa 1980’s plaid love seat. I examined it critically for signs that I might be sitting on anything alive and/or formerly edible, but it was too dark. I would have to sit with faith. I positioned myself on the very end, just in case, and waited.

  The nurse pulled a spindly-legged, light-colored plastic chair from another room and stuck it in the only free area in the room. Like two feet in front of us. Wigged out a little more by Nursey than I was by the couch, I scooted back in my seat slightly.

  “I’m Jennifer O’Malley. I’ve been Vickie’s nurse for the past three years. Can you tell me again exactly what brought you here?”

  “Sure.” I gestured to myself like Nurse Jennifer might not know of whom I spoke. “So, I’ve wanted to be an actress since I saw my first Vickie Bridges movie. But there was no way that was going to happen, right? Not without money. But then my dad won the Nebraska lotto last year, and ever since then I’ve been getting ready, you know. I totally want to do this. Then my dad hooked it up so I could audition for Van Poe, right? I was thrilled because, OMG, it’s Van Poe. He’s, like, the man, you know.”

  Tight lipped, Jennifer nodded at me, and I took that as some form of encouragement to continue. “So I came up and ‘auditioned.’” I made finger quotes. “I think my dad gave him money or whatever. But he offered me a good a part, and he doesn’t fool, right? So I figure I must be okay, you know.”

  I glanced up at her, but her expression hadn’t changed. “Anyway, I got, like, really excited, right? But then I heard about Van and how he treated Vickie, and I have to know if it’s true.”

  Jennifer took me in for a long, measured moment. Then she asked, “What’s your favorite Vickie movie?”

  I was thrown by that being her first question. I had expected something reasonable. If I was my mother, or if I’d still been in the business, I would have researched before I came. All I knew about Vickie Bridges was she’d been in thirteen movies and she was cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I didn’t know any of the movies. I had never seen one. I felt Harrison stiffen next to me, and I suspected he knew the answer, but there was no way for him to convey it without me giving myself away.

  So it was time for some righteous indignation. “Are you serious?” I demanded, flooding my voice with disgust and horror. “Which is my favorite? Do you come up to a mother in the grocery store and demand to know which child is her favorite? Do you ask a woman with two beautiful, beautiful boyfriends which is her favorite? Do you ask a stranger which of their fingers is their favorite? Of course you don’t. Oh. Em. Gee. How could I possibly begin to catalogue what’s better? The subtle nuances of…”

  “Baby,” Harrison laid his hand on my knee as soon as I kicked him in the foot. Good boy. Very, very good. “She doesn’t need a lecture.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. To Jennifer I said, voice full of censure, “I don’t have a single favorite.”

  Smirking, Jennifer reached forward and snatched the cigarette out of my fingers. “Despite the fact you aren’t going to light it, Vickie is on oxygen. You can’t have that in here.”

  I shrugged, and she twisted her lips into this bizarre thing that might have been a smile. Jeez, she was creepy. But she was definitely not the person who had shot Harrison. Not close. Plus, why would a nurse want to kill him?

  “Okay, what kind of questions do you have?”

  “Can you tell me what actually happened?” I leaned forward to seem earnest, but not too far since she was like right on top of us.

  “Well, I wasn’t there you understand.” She set the cigarette down on top of a massive pile of “Boy’s Life” magazines, dated 1961 and dusted off her hands. “But it’s my perception that Vickie was always a bit mentally…frail. But Van Poe pushes his people very hard. You ought to know it. Her last film came at a bad time for her. She was in the midst of a bitter divorce. Her husband was trying to take everything she had, including her two children. She says he cheated on her and shouldn’t have been allowed anything, but heaven knows if that’s actually true.”

  I made no commentary because, frankly, I didn’t care. Vickie’s divorces were of almost no interest to me. Unless she was trying to kill Harrison over her divorce, which seemed unlikely. “And then what happened?” I asked with wide-eyed interest.

  “Well, she was on the cusp of a breakdown anyway, but Van Poe had the idea that he would sequester the actors, deprive them of normal life needs, do what he could to push them to the edge of madness because he thought it would seem more sincere on film when the characters broke down. But, unfortunately, it was so sincere for Vickie she had to be hospitalized. It was several years before she was able to live outside of an institution. She continued to live in LA for a number of years, but about five years ago her doctor suggested that New Mexico might be a healthier environment for her other physical problems. So she moved here.”

  Jennifer randomly reached to a side table and began to straighten a pile
of old film slides. “At any rate, here she is. She never leaves the house. What money she does have, after the divorce, goes to her care. Even the doctor comes to her. Which is rather nice of him. Whatever she needs to have handled, I do for her. I don’t know how much longer she’ll live though.”

  “Wow.” I sat back. “Do you, like, blame Van Poe for that?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Do I? No. I don’t have any real opinions. I think she’s been a tad crazy from the start. Does she blame him? I think so. But she also thinks that the president is asking her to search her toilet for explosives every time that the State of the Union comes on.”

  “You think she’d a’been fine if she hadn’t worked with Van, though?” I pressed, making it seem as though my mental health was my only concern at this juncture.

  Jennifer sighed and glanced out the door, at the part of the house Vickie was likely in. “I don’t know. Maybe. I doubt it though. I don’t know that she was ever fine. But I would caution you that, from what I do know, Van is not a nice man. He pressed too hard and will take anything he can get from anyone he can force it out of. But that’s the Hollywood life for you.”

  My bottom lip trembled. “But it’s my dream.”

  “Then take your chances. Just go in aware that Van will take advantage, if he can. I’m sorry that Vickie couldn’t see you.”

  “Me too. Could you have her sign my underwear?”

  I thought that nurse Jessica’s lips twisted in what might have been amusement. “I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t do that.”

  I pouted. “Well…okay.”

  Jennifer stood, and we took that as our cue that we were leaving. We followed her to the door where I thanked her again. “Remember. You should be careful. I wouldn’t want you to have to pay for your association with Mr. Poe.”

  There was such a bizarre vibe to her. She freaked the crap out of me. But she was way too young to be Vickie Bridges herself, and, clearly, the meaning-laden glance she gave to Harrison and me was just her being the creepy person that she was.