“There are no circles under my eyes.”
“Not to the naked eye, no. But the camera sees them. Very, very faint, Melanie, but still circles and a sort of generalized, hard-to-define … right there on the edge, kind of maybe-yes, maybe-no, but as Ackerman put it, the faintest, almost invisible, but definite amount of … wear and tear. Lydia Lucy, eighteen-year-old virgin music teacher, wouldn’t look like that, not even if she’d been up all night long, doing whatever virgin music teachers in Montana did for kicks way back then.”
Zach stopped on a note of finality, as if he’d said every word he had to say on the matter, and began to stuff his flannel shirt back into his jeans.
“You’re telling me to cut it out with Sid and Allen,” Melanie said without inflection.
“Oh, yeah. That too. Unless you can manage to fit them both in and still be on time to leave for the set at six in the morning after an honest eight hours of sleep every single night of a six-day week. If you want breakfast, that means bed by nine … alone.”
“If Wells were here, he’d cut your heart out, you vicious, maggoty little prick.”
“Look, Melanie, I blame myself,” Zach said remorsefully, turning to face her. “If Wells were here, I bet you’d never dream of getting involved with—anyone in particular. He established a routine for you, he ran your life, organized you in a way I can’t provide a substitute for …”
“I don’t want a substitute for Wells,” she said ferociously. “God damn it, Zach, this is the first time I’ve felt like a free woman since the day I met him. Can you begin to imagine what it’s been like? I never have a minute to call my own. Either I’m working for Wells or I’m waiting to work for Wells. Five major films! Routine! It’s stifling! Coming here, working for strangers, with nobody watching over me, nobody owning me, nobody I have to listen to and obey—this has been the most exciting experience of my life since I made my first movie.”
“Sid and Allen are your way of making up for lost time?”
“Yes! Oh, you don’t know what you’re asking me to give up. You have no idea! I’ve never … done anything like it before. They’ve been an … experiment, oh, definitely time-consuming, I admit, but … worthwhile.” She smiled at him with that mysteriously meaningful mixture of wantonness and withdrawal that audiences waited for, holding their collective breath.
“So do me a really big favor and stop?”
Zach spoke gently, but even Wells Cope had never sounded so flatly positive of what was right for her, and every self-protective brain cell in Melanie Adams responded to him.
“Consider it done,” she said quickly, dismissing the subject.
“Good. Listen, Melanie, I’ll speak to Sid and Allen, there’s no reason why you should have to handle them.”
“Zach, don’t you dare!” Melanie flashed out at him, flushing with the beginning of anger. “That’s exactly the sort of thing Wells would have said. I’ll do what you want, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly the best way to manage this. Get off my turf.”
“Sorry. But when my star is involved, I can’t help trying to make things easy for her. Forgive me?”
“Of course. Now, will you have that drink?”
“Thanks, but I have to get back to my place, I’m waiting for a phone call from L.A.”
“Ackerman?” she asked suspiciously.
“No way. Ackerman will never know we’ve talked. Do you think I’d give the sonofabitch that satisfaction. It’s my fiancée.”
“Good,” Melanie said, relieved. “And congratulations. I didn’t know you were engaged. Have I met her?”
“I don’t think so, she’s not in the business.” Zach leaned over one of her hands, raised it, and kissed it lightly. “Good night, Melanie. See you tomorrow, bright and early.”
“Good night, Zach.”
As he drove away, congratulating himself, Zach estimated that not only had he nipped a potential problem in the bud, but he’d added an additional twenty years to Melanie’s future as a romantic star. She photographed a fast sixteen now … on the worst day she’d ever known. So in another twenty years she’d still look maybe thirty-five max, so long as she remembered to schedule her sex life properly. She could always give up dinner.
Melanie Adams owed him, not that she’d ever realize it. He knew her ego would never allow her to repeat what he’d said to anyone in the world, would not allow her to check with the camerman, but just in case, he’d have a word with him before the evening was over.
In any case, as sad and empty as Valentine may once have seen Melanie Adams, those words no longer applied. She was on top of her life, as far as he could tell, and enjoying every minute of it, now that Wells Cope was out of the picture. She was going to squeeze every drop of juice out of her good-bye scenes with the two grips, that he recognized just from the light in her eyes. She was looking forward to the drama and the farewell fuck that would sweeten each kiss-off.
Fiancée. Where, Zach wondered, had he come up with that particular lie, of all the lies he might have picked out of all the multitude of lies he’d told tonight? It made a great excuse, an excuse that would keep him out of trouble with Melanie, because that kind of trouble was clearly there for the taking and that kind of trouble he couldn’t afford. Even if he could afford it, he didn’t need it. And even if he needed it, he didn’t want it. How could he not want it? Not want Aphrodite? Was there something wrong with him?
Rose Greenway retired to her own quarters on Saturday night later than she would have liked. However, she’d had to wait up to admit Sid White and escort him upstairs to Melanie’s suite of rooms. She was exhausted, as she always was after a week of getting up every day at 5:00 A.M. to dress and breakfast before Melanie’s driver picked them up. They both reported to hair and makeup at 6:00 A.M., something she’d never grown used to throughout her years in the business, although she realized fully that they were working through the shortest days of the year. Tomorrow she’d sleep late, as late as possible, Rose Greenway thought as she pulled her quilt over her chin.
Two hours later she woke up abruptly, with the impression that she had heard some sort of noise. She listened intently, but the silence of the house was undisturbed. Nevertheless, something in her long, devoted years of watching over Melanie made her uneasy enough to get out of bed, put on her warm wool bathrobe, and go to check up on her, quiet as irrationally as if she were the mother of a sleeping baby. She listened for a minute as she stood outside the door to Melanie’s room. A strip of soft, flickering light lay on the floor of the hall outside of the door. The candles were evidently still lit, the vaporizers hissing normally. All seemed to be well, they were probably sleeping, Rose Greenway thought, yet somehow she couldn’t make up her mind to go back to her own bed. On the other hand, how could she possibly enter the room? Melanie wouldn’t thank her for even the quietest, most discreet of interruptions at this hour, even if she were alone.
She hesitated irresolutely and finally pressed her ear to the door for several minutes. There was such a total absence of sound, not even a faint snore or the noise of normal breathing, that she opened the door a crack, as silently as possible, her eyes directed at the pillows of the big double bed directly in her line of vision. The bedclothes had been tossed about, but no one was in the bed. She opened the door a little further and drew in her breath in horror too great for a scream. Sid White lay naked near the foot-board of the bed, sprawled facedown on the floor. Under him she could see some of Melanie’s hair and the edge of her nightgown. Rose lunged forward and rolled Sid White off Melanie’s body with all her strength, registering, in the small corner of her mind that wasn’t intent on Melanie, the fact that the back of his head had been blown away. She staggered backwards at the sight of the fragile woman, over whom blood seemed to have been slopped from a bucket. Keeping herself from shrieking, Rose stripped off her robe, threw it over Melanie, and ran to the telephone by the bed and called the police. She dropped the receiver to rush back to Melanie, and then
grabbed the phone again. The producer, she realized automatically, never forget to call the producer.
Roger Rowan and Zach were working at Rowan’s house past midnight on a change in the production schedule for the following week when the phone rang. Rowan picked it up, annoyed at the unexpected ringing.
“Yes? Rose? What! Oh, Jesus, no! We’re on our way!” He hung up. “Melanie’s been shot, come on. Shit shit shit! I don’t fucking believe this!”
“Is she alive?” Zach shouted as they ran for the car.
“I don’t know. That hysterical bitch called me ‘Mr. Cope’ and hung up!”
9
Norma Rowan fluttered around in the waiting room, bringing her husband cups of coffee and candy bars from the vending machine in the hospital hall, while he sat in a plastic chair, obsessing over the force majeure clause in the production’s insurance.
“There’s not gonna be a problem about money,” he fidgeted out loud for the tenth time. “It clearly states that if the production of the picture is interrupted by death, illness, disfigurement, or incapacity of any member of the cast, there’s no problem with insurance guys. They’ll pay whatever it costs, even if we have to shut down the picture for good.”
Rose Greenway, huddled in the comfort of Zach’s shoulder, continued to hiccup with irregular sobs, her shock and grief slowly abating with fatigue. Zach, finally offended beyond endurance, said in a low, coiled voice, “Just shut up, Rog. We don’t know anything yet. Melanie’s been in that operating room over two hours and all you can do is talk about insurance.”
“It’s the only bright spot!”
“You should be glad Roger has the best interests of the production in mind, Zachary,” Norma Rowan screeched at him. “Where would you be if he weren’t thinking ahead, I’d like to know?”
“He’s up shit creek no matter what,” Rowan spat accusingly. “Who wouldn’t call Wells Cope? Who insisted on talking to Melanie? Who, for Christ’s sake, let her talk to Sid White. Who couldn’t leave well enough alone? Nevsky, our genius director, that’s who, and you all know it. This fucking mess is his fault!”
“Which one of you people is in charge here?” The question came from a breathless newcomer, a very young, tousled man who looked as if he had been aroused from bed only a short while ago.
“Who the hell are you?” Zach asked.
“Oliver Brady, Kalispell Daily Inter Lake, heard there’s been an accident.”
“We have nothing to say to you,” Rowan snarled.
“Melanie Adams in the hospital, and you people don’t have a statement?” the reported gabbled excitedly.
“Get the hell out of here!” Rowan screamed, lunging at him.
“I’ll get rid of him,” Zach said, taking Brady by the arm and walking him along a corridor. “I’m Zach Nevsky, the director of Chronicles. Who tipped you off? One of the medics? Had to be.”
“You’re kidding, right? Like I’m going to tell you my source. I know she was shot, multiple wounds, I know there’s a naked dead guy who was found with her, probable suicide, police at the house investigating—it’s gigantic news and I’m the first person to get it. I’m not going anywhere till I get more details. The press has a right to know. Who was that creep in the waiting room?”
“Roger Rowan, producer of the picture. He’s understandably upset, sorry about that. I’ve never seen you at any of our press conferences,” Zach probed carefully. “You new at the paper?”
“Yeah, here’s my press card, if you don’t believe me. I’m on the sports desk, but this is my story and nobody’s getting it away from me.”
“Nobody’s trying to,” Zach said smoothingly. He’d never seen a reporter who was both so brash and so nervous. Oliver Brady was clearly overwhelmed by opportunity, but not so impressed that he wasn’t standing his ground.
“We don’t know Miss Adams’s condition yet,” Zach continued. “The doctors haven’t told us anything, that’s what we’re waiting to learn.”
“So who’s the dead guy? Why was he naked in Melanie’s bedroom in the middle of the night? Why did he shoot her? Rage? Lovers’ quarrel? Kinky sex?”
“Who, where, when, what, why … you’ve got them all except the why.” Zach spoke slowly, his mind working clearly and rapidly, trying to put the best twist possible on a story that was about to explode all over the world. So much depended on the nature of the very first report.
“Brady,” Zach pursued, “by tomorrow there’ll be publicity and security people from the studio swarming all over—they’re on their way here by company jet now. Every major news source will have sent their own guys. You won’t be able to get within a hundred yards of this hospital. Your paper will probably send their top man, not a young sportswriter. There’ll only be pool coverage. But you’re a smart, enterprising fellow and you deserve an exclusive.”
“I’ve got it anyway,” Brady asserted confidently.
“Sure you do. One tenth of it. Big fucking deal. The big boys will take your stuff, rewrite it, and run with the rest.”
“Listen, Nevsky, I have more than enough, even if you don’t answer a single question, don’t try to bullshit me.”
Zach paused and considered the question with a searching look at the excited young reporter. He sighed and said at last, “Brady, you make a convincing point. Got a tape recorder? Good, just keep it running. And remember, this is off the record. I shouldn’t be giving you these details.” Zach took a deep breath. This would be as delicate as making the plot of Love’s Labor’s Lost clear to a roomful of sixth-graders.
“Melanie Adams has been the victim of a crime of passion,” Zach conceded with a sigh. “She’s been having a very intense romance, a passionate love affair with a young man named Sid White. Sid White is dead, a suicide. Miss Adams and Sid White have kept their romance very private, but it’s been going on for a long time. This was Sid White’s first film job. He is—was—a lighting designer who was willing to work as a grip on the picture to be near Miss Adams. However, Miss Adams recently realized that she had to break off this romance. Sid White was becoming an emotional basket case, irrationally jealous and obsessively possessive of her. She worried about his mental stability, he was insisting on marriage and she wasn’t willing to commit to that, love him though she did.”
“She loved the guy? You jerking me off?”
“Absolutely not. Melanie Adams was genuinely in love … but she had become unhappily aware that Sid White was wrong for her. They had a real old-fashioned romance going, Brady. Miss Adams has always been a great romantic, hell, you can tell that from her choice of films.”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“Then ask your movie critic, Brady, for heaven’s sake! Anyway, I went to see her on Friday afternoon to discuss the situation. I advised her to let me handle it, take care of it for her, but she wouldn’t hear of my interfering, got angry when I suggested it. She was too softhearted, too much of an old-fashioned romantic, to listen to advice, she insisted on speaking to Sid herself … she said it was the right thing to do. Those were her exact words, Brady, ‘the right thing to do’ … shit, if only she hadn’t been so romantic, so old-fashioned! So Sid went to her house tonight, obviously by appointment because Miss Rose Greenway, her assistant, hairdresser, and friend, with whom she shares the house, would never have admitted him otherwise. That was Miss Greenway in the waiting room, the other woman was Roger Rowan’s wife.”
“So what happened then? How come he had a gun?”
“God knows. How many people are carrying guns nobody knows about? And as I said, Melanie worried that he was unstable, possessive, irrationally jealous. All I can assume is that when Sid learned that Melanie Adams wouldn’t marry him, in fact wanted to stop seeing him, he went completely insane. He shot her, he must have believed she was dead, and then he committed suicide. Like Mayerling … you remember Mayerling? No? It was a castle in Austria where the Crown Prince Rudolf killed the woman he loved madly, Maria Vetsera, and then killed himself. It
was the crime of passion of the nineteenth century, Brady. A woman like Melanie Adams inspires that kind of passion, Brady, it’s her unfortunate destiny … Mayerling in Montana … I feel as if history is being repeated here tonight.”
“Mayerling in Kalispell … nah, ‘Mayerling in Montana’ sounds better.
“There’s been a lot of historical interpretation of exactly what happened that night outside of Vienna,” Zach continued, having hooked his fish, “whether Maria Vetsera consented to the suicide pact or not, but no one has ever forgotten that story. No one will ever forget your story, Brady. It’ll make you! But don’t get carried away. What happened tonight wasn’t a suicide pact. Melanie Adams was fleeing Sid White when he tried to kill her. Rose Greenway called Roger Rowan, the producer, when she discovered the bodies, and we both went to the house immediately. When I saw Miss Adams lying there, I could tell that she’d been trying to protect herself. One of her hands was right next to her face, warding him off.”
“I still want to know why she was wearing only a nightgown and why he was buck naked? Why not give him the kiss-off fully clothed?”
“Jesus, Brady, where’s your sense of romance?” Zach hissed at him. “You’d better find one damn quick, or you’ll be covering baseball for the rest of your life, scoop or no scoop. Why the hell do you think? I’ll tell you why! Melanie Adams must have allowed that crazy guy to make love to her one last time because she was sorry for him. That’s why! The worst thing she was guilty of was lack of judgment, being too softhearted, too romantic, too old-fashioned. Major mistake! He couldn’t have her for himself, so he killed her to deprive the world of her. A typical crime of passion, selfish, insane passion. Christ! You’re writing about Melanie Adams here, not batting averages. She’s in that operating room, victim of a crime of passion, because of romance, Brady, and don’t you forget it! I’m going back to the waiting room now.”
Lovers Page 22