Blackmail

by Parnell Hall

  Other high points in our vigil? There weren’t many. In the course of the next week I recognized a total of three actors. One I’d done summer stock with. One was another of Cliff McFadgen’s girlfriend’s roommates, the wallflower named Bernice.

  The third was Bradley Connely again. And to be honest, this time I didn’t recognize him—he had his long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and tucked under his collar—and if Alice hadn’t pointed him out, I wouldn’t have had a clue. This was rather embarrassing, since she’d only seen him once in passing and I’d sat and talked with the guy. But it sort of underlined her importance in this little venture.

  After that, nothing happened till the middle of the next week. I mean nothing. I got so I felt like What’s the matter with these actors? Why aren’t they out here auditioning, don’t they want to get any work?

  It was now the middle of the third week, and Alice and I were seriously thinking about giving up. From my point of view, the only thing keeping me from giving up was then I would have no excuse whatsoever for hanging on to the photo. However, actually finding the woman had proved such a fruitless task that, instead of doing that, I was now devoting most of my time trying to come up with another good excuse for hanging on to the photo. So far I hadn’t managed to do it.

  Anyway, it was three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon and Alice and I were checking out an audition for an off-Broadway production of a play called The Apron Strings. For this audition, Alice and I were actually sitting in the audience. Events had conspired to make us do so. The theater was on the second floor of an office building, so waiting on the street was out. And when we got upstairs, it turned out waiting in the lobby was out too, because a woman at a desk there was accepting pictures and resumes. She wasn’t patrolling the door to the theater, however, so we were able to walk right in, without even surrendering a picture and resume. So at least, as I sat there in the auditorium, I was happy in the knowledge I wouldn’t be called upon to audition.

  I was pretty unhappy about everything else. As I say, after two and a half weeks, finding the woman seemed to be a lost cause. And nothing else was happening in terms of the investigation. I certainly wasn’t doing anything, except going to auditions and working for Richard. That left things squarely up to Sergeant Thurman. I had spoken to Sergeant MacAullif on the phone at least once a week, and according to him there had been absolutely no progress. As far as he was concerned, the only bright note was there had been no further murders.

  Anyway, Alice and I were sitting there watching people audition. We were sitting apart so, on the off chance someone I knew came in, I wouldn’t have to introduce her. Alice is not an actress and wasn’t keen on having to play one.

  The audition itself was somewhat interesting in that, rather than making the actors deliver prepared monologues, the director was having them read scenes from the play. That was nice, because it meant I could get a look at more than one actress at a time.

  In this particular scene there were three, a mother and her two grown daughters. The plot seemed to revolve around the younger daughter’s impending marriage, of which the mother obviously disapproved, probably because she didn’t want her little girl to leave home—apron strings, get it? From what I could see, the play was just a distaff rehash of The Silver Cord, but what the hell, it was letting me look at a lot of actresses.

  The three on stage now were a dumpy, middle-aged woman, a tall, willowy blonde, and a little brunette with pigtails. The pigtails seemed a bit much—both women playing the daughters looked to be in their mid to late twenties, and the braided hair struck me as a desperate attempt to look young enough for the part.

  I was having these thoughts because I had already written the women off as qualifying for our missing porn star. The blonde was too tall and thin, and frankly her breasts weren’t big enough. And even discounting the pigtails, the brunette flunked out on her nose. Granted, actresses have nose jobs, but never in reverse. The woman in the porno pix had a little ski-jump. Pigtails had a hook.

  I was sitting there watching the scene when suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, expecting either to see some actor I knew or to be asked to leave.

  But it was Alice.

  “It’s her!” Alice whispered.

  I turned, looked at the back of the theater. “Where?”

  “There,” Alice said. She pointed to the stage.

  I looked up at the stage. Blinked. “It can’t be,” I said. “She’s too tall and no tits.”

  “Not her. Her!” Alice said.

  “Pigtails? She’s got a hook nose.”

  “No,” Alice said. “Her!”

  I blinked again. Gawked.

  There were only three women onstage.

  Blondie.

  Pigtails.

  And the dumpy, middle-aged mother.

  47.

  I FELT LIKE A DAMN FOOL driving out to New Jersey the next day to interview her. Just like I’d felt like a damn fool when Alice and I followed her home from the audition to see where she lived in the first place. The answer—Teaneck, New Jersey—did not inspire me with confidence. Nor did the fact the woman drove a Ford station wagon and lived in a two-story frame house with a tricycle on the front lawn, a swing set in the side yard, and a clothesline out back.

  I looked at Alice.

  “Shut up,” she said. “It’s her.”

  So here I was, twenty-four hours later, driving up to the same house.

  I had spent that twenty-four hours trying to get out of it. Because I knew doing it was going to make me feel like a damn fool. I mean, if it were anything else. But pornography? No, I really didn’t want to be there. And I must tell you, as I drove out, I hoped when I got there her station wagon would be gone.

  It wasn’t, however. It was parked right out in front of the garage. It was a two-car garage, the doors were open, and I could see there was another car inside. It occurred to me, maybe her husband’s home, maybe I should wait for a better time. It also occurred to me that if I didn’t do it now, I wasn’t going to want to come back.

  However, what it came down to basically was that facing this woman wasn’t as unattractive a prospect as facing Alice if I didn’t.

  I went up the front steps and rang the bell.

  Despite the car in the driveway, I was hoping against hope she wasn’t home. No such luck. After a few moments I heard the tired-sounding shuffle of feet, then the click of the latch, and the door swung open.

  It was her, all right. I mean it was the woman I’d seen audition in New York. But the woman in the pictures?

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Mrs. Gardner?” I said. It was the name on the mailbox.

  “Yes,” she said again.

  I hesitated. From within came the sound of a television, tuned to a children’s program, and over it the unmistakable voices of kids watching.

  I took a breath. “It’s about the picture.”

  She frowned. “Picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “What picture?”

  I had it in my briefcase in a manila envelope. I pulled the envelope out now, undid the clasp, opened it, pulled the picture out. It was facing me, so she still couldn’t see it.

  “What is it?” she said.

  I heard the sound of children’s voices again. I felt sick. In the photo the woman was holding her vagina open with one hand and holding a man’s penis in her mouth with the other.

  “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?” I said.

  “No, I don’t. Is there a point to this?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you recognize this.”

  I turned the picture around.

  Her face drained of color. She opened her mouth, closed it again. Her lip trembled. Then stiffened. And her eyes got hard.

  She looked up at me. “What is this?” she said. “Blackmail?”

  It was my turn to be stunned. But what else? Of course she s
aw it that way.

  “I take it you recognize the picture?” I said gently.

  “How dare you,” she said. “How dare you do this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But we need to talk.”

  “Damn it,” she said. “Not here.”

  From within the house came another voice. Deep, masculine. “Honey? Who is it?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. I could see the panic in them. She shoved the picture back at me.

  “Go! Please go!” she said. “I’ll meet you. I promise. In an hour.”

  “Where?”

  “Who is it, honey?” came the voice again.

  Closer this time.

  “Insurance salesman,” she called. Then, to me, said urgently in a low voice, “Riverside Mall. In front of Conran’s.”

  “Huh?”

  “Riverside Mall in front of Conran’s,” she repeated. “Ask anyone. Now put it away!”

  I shoved the picture into the manila envelope and tucked the envelope back in my briefcase just as her husband came into the foyer.

  He was a cop.

  48.

  “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?” she said.

  We were seated in a small restaurant in the Riverside Mall, which I had found with no trouble at all. It’s a large mall out on Route 4. I’d actually been to it with Alice a few times, I just didn’t know the name of it. The first person I asked guided me there.

  She showed up in an hour. As promised. Looking as hassled as you might expect.

  Even if her husband hadn’t been a cop.

  We’d had to go somewhere, so I’d suggested a restaurant. She said she couldn’t eat a thing, but allowed me to force coffee on her. So there we sat, having coffee in the mall, just like any other couple taking a break in the midst of afternoon shopping.

  “Is it you?” I asked.

  She gave me a hard look. “How can you ask me that? Why would you be here if you have to ask me that?”

  “When was it taken?”

  “What the hell do you care? Tell me how much you want.”

  “I don’t want money,” I said.

  She drew back slightly. “I don’t do that anymore.”

  I put up my hand. “No. Please. You don’t understand.”

  She snuffled once, and I could see a tear form in the corner of her eye.

  “I sure as hell don’t,” she said. “Damn it. Why did you have to come here?”

  I looked at her. “Frankly, I don’t know.”

  She raised her eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But are you really as innocent as all that?”

  “Sure,” she said. “When you’ve got that picture.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean, for Christ’s sake? What’s this all about?”

  “It’s the other pictures, actually.”

  “The other pictures?”

  “Yes. The blackmail pictures.”

  “Then this is blackmail?”

  “Not at all.”

  She started to cry. Stopped herself angrily. “No, damn it,” she said. “I won’t let you do this. I’ve got a husband. Two children. You cannot do this to me. Now talk, damn it. What do you mean, blackmail pictures?”

  “There were other pictures,” I said. “Pictures of you. Of this type, but with a different man. Taller, with darker hair than the man in this picture. Would you know who that was?”

  “No.”

  “But you don’t deny being the woman in the pictures?”

  “Why?” she said. “Why? This was nearly twenty years ago.”

  “Twenty?”

  “Something like that. I was young, I needed money. I was desperate. Why would you want to smear me now?”

  “I don’t want to smear you, but you’re going to have to answer some questions.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the other pictures.”

  “What about them? Why are they so important?”

  “I don’t know why they’re so important. I only know, because of them, three people are dead.”

  She knocked over her coffee. And she hadn’t drunk enough of it but what it made a hell of a mess. I had to call the waitress, get a towel, mop it up.

  The waitress was the cheery type, all smiles. Without being asked she brought another cup.

  And then she was gone and it was just the two of us again, sitting there over our coffee cups.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me the whole thing. You say people are dead?”

  I told her. Not the whole thing, but enough. I left out my part in it, for instance. Just gave her the bare bones of the blackmail scheme and the murder.

  From the expression on her face while she listened, I might have been telling her the United States had opened a colony on the moon and she and her family had been chosen to be transported there.

  When I was finished, she actually drank some of the coffee.

  “That makes no sense at all,” she said. “Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for a twenty-year-old picture of me?”

  “Only one reason I could think of,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your husband’s a cop.”

  She reacted as if she’d been slapped. Then composed herself and looked at me hard. “Yes,” she said. “And he doesn’t know. And I don’t want him to know. Now, that would be a reason for me to pay money to someone not to tell him. But no one’s asked me for money. No one came to me at all. Except you. Up until this afternoon, as far as I knew, everything was just fine. And then you bring me this.” She shook her head. “I can’t see how my husband being a cop could have anything to do with it.”

  “Unless,” I ventured gently, “someone wanted to exert some pressure on him.”

  Her eyes got hard again. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not. Not Andy. If that had happened, I would know. I could tell. He’d be different. And he isn’t. And, besides, how does that fit in with your story? The blackmail demands. The people paying money. And the murders. It doesn’t fit at all.”

  I said nothing. It had just occurred to me, whatever the blackmail scheme had originally been, her husband, upright policeman Andy, killing all the participants and grabbing all the photos of his wife, fit in just fine.

  “All right, look,” I said. “You admit posing for the pictures?”

  “Please,” she said.

  “No, no,” I said. “The point is, do you remember the names of any of the men you posed with?”

  “No,” she said. “I barely knew them. I never saw them again.”

  “Were there many?”

  “No, there weren’t. It was three, maybe four times. I got a boyfriend, moved in with him. Got a job.”

  “You were an actress?”

  She smiled slightly. Wistfully. “Yes. I was an actress. Still am.”

  “I know. And you’ve never seen those pictures again? From the time you made them?”

  “I never even saw them then.”

  “You’ve never seen them?”

  “This was the first one. My god, what a shock.”

  “And you know nothing of any blackmail scheme?”

  “No.”

  “And you never heard of Patricia Connely, Cliff McFadgen, or Jack Fargo?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all.”

  I took a breath, exhaled. “Okay,” I said. “Mrs. Gardner, I’m really sorry I bothered you. And I hate to bother you some more, but I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to have to ask you to do.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Talk to my wife.”

  49.

  SERGEANT MACAULLIF LOOKED SOMEWHAT LESS than pleased.

  “You withheld this?” he said ominously.

  “I may have neglected to mention it.”

  “Three fucking weeks you withheld this?”

  “Well, two and a half, anyway.”

  “Two and a half, three, whatever. The po
int is, you withheld the fucking picture?”

  “Actually, I believe it’s a cocksucking picture.”

  MacAullif leveled his finger at me. “Don’t get cute. You know how important this is?”

  “It’s not one of the blackmail photos.”

  “It’s the woman.”

  “Yes. Who apparently had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “My wife thinks so too.”

  MacAullif opened his mouth.

  I said, “Watch it.”

  He closed it again. MacAullif met my wife once. It was only for a few moments, but that didn’t matter. There is a code, and wives are off limits.

  “That’s really very nice,” MacAullif said. “I’m really pleased to hear it. But, taking nothing away from your wife’s powers of detection, or yours, do you suppose there’s the slightest chance a veteran police interrogator might do a little better?”

  “Frankly, I don’t think so.”

  “You arrogant fuck.”

  “There’s nothing arrogant about it. I don’t think the woman knows anything.”

  “You know how much I value that opinion?”

  “I have some idea.”

  “I’ll bet you do. You son of a bitch. You come in here, tell me you want to talk off the record, and then you tell me this.”

  “Well, I couldn’t tell you on the record. Then we’d both be in deep shit.”

  “Where do you think we are now? You just confessed to withholding evidence. If I don’t turn you in, I’m an accessory.”

  “And what if you do?”

  “I’m a schmuck. You get a charge that won’t stick.” MacAullif banged his fist on the desk. His face was beet red. “You gonna tell me who this woman is?”

  “Absolutely not. If I told you that, you’d have to do something, wouldn’t you?”

  “I have to do something now.”

  “Nonsense. Like you say, you got nothing to go on. You could never make it stick. We’re talking hypothetically off the record.”

  “You’re talkin’ hypothetically off the record. I’m sitting here listening. And I don’t like what I hear.”

  “Wanna stop griping and look at what we got?”

  “I don’t wanna do shit. I want you out of here, I never saw you, this never happened.”