by Barbara Paul
‘Kelly, darling, pay attention, please. We’re gonna do more out-of-city location shooting this time, so you and Nick will have to keep your calendars clear after the twenty-first. Don’t even go making a dental appointment without checking with me first. I’m gonna have enough on my mind without schedule conflicts and all that shit.’
All that shit. ‘Leonard,’ I said abruptly, ‘did you once send me a laxative and a carton of toilet paper?’
The color drained right out of his face—and then drained right back in. ‘Toilet paper, darling? Why should I send you toilet paper?’
But it was no good; he’d given himself away. ‘Why, Leonard?’ I asked. ‘Do you resent me that much?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. A bottle of Lysco-Seltzer containing a laxative and a carton of toilet paper. You sent them.’
Nick said lazily, ‘Whire we talkin’ toilet paper?’
‘You’re crazy,’ Leonard said. ‘I didn’t send you that stuff.’
‘Okay, Leonard,’ I sighed. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
Things were a bit edgy after that, even though both of us did this big act about how everything was hunkydory again. Don’t know why I let it bother me that much, but it got to me. Hitting on small bad feelings to keep away the big ones, I guess.
The meeting dragged to a close. Nick had come in a limo—it was getting harder and harder for either of us to appear in public without drawing swarms of autograph-hunters. That was good most of the time, God, the years I dreamed about it!—but you have to be on the whole time and I just wasn’t up to performing right then. I asked Nick if he’d drop me at Police Plaza.
On the elevator down, Nick draped one arm across my shoulders in that posture he likes best when he’s talking to women. ‘Doan look so sad, pretty Kelly,’ he said. ‘The hurtin’ stops soonsya let it. Let it stop, Kel.’
Well. Who’d have thought Nick Quinlan had that kind of compassion in him? He’d said exactly the right thing. I wondered if I could ever get mad at him again after that.
‘Asides, it doan help LeFever’s image none, you goan round lookin’, y’know, unsatisfied.’
Yep. I could.
I wanted to see Marian Larch—strictly personal sort of thing, no police business. It had eventually sunk in on me that I’d been just awful to her when she came with the news about Ted. I was blaming her for what happened—actually I should have been thanking her, I guess. It was pretty goddamned clear that I didn’t have enough sense to see through Ted Cameron. I’d have just gone on drifting along, never knowing. Nathan Pinking aside, what if things had stopped being good between Ted and me? Would he have gotten rid of me the way he did Mary Rendell?
Put him out of your mind. Just stop thinking about him. He slips into your mind, force him out by thinking of other things. It can be done.
Ivan (I have got to find out his last name) said Marian was down in the Property Department. I decided to go looking for her rather than wait, because a lot of the good folks at Police Headquarters were giving me the eye. I was a different kind of celebrity here; my ex-lover was a murderer.
Think of other things.
Ivan insisted on escorting me because they didn’t like people—‘civilians’ was Ivan’s word—wandering around the Headquarters building and that may even have been true. (If we’re civilians, then the police are military?) Marian was just coming out of the Property Department when we got there.
‘I’m sorry!’ I hollered at her.
Marian jumped a foot. ‘For what?’ she demanded, alarmed.
‘For being so nasty the day you, well, you know, when you brought me the bad news.’
Her plain, friendly face crumpled into a smile. ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said generously. ‘I probably could have found a better way to tell you.’
‘No, it was my fault. I acted bad or maybe badly and I’m sorry for both of them and I apologize.’
‘Nothing to worry about. We were all tense, it was a tense situation and—’
‘Damn it, Marian, I am trying to take the blame. Will you shut up and let me feel guilty?’
Ivan looked worried. ‘Are you two kidding or are you fighting?’
‘I am perfectly content to let you feel as guilty as you like,’ Marian said to me majestically, ‘so long as your guilt trip does not interfere with my stance of gracious understanding.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Ivan said with relief.
‘And you were right about something else,’ I went on. ‘It was Leonard Zoff who sent me the toilet paper.’
‘Ah-hah. Did he admit it?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘but he gave himself away when I asked him. Just now, at a meeting.’
‘I think it’s good that he knows. That you know, I mean. It’ll make him think twice if he’s ever tempted to send out any more toilet paper gifts.’
‘He seemed honestly surprised when I brought it up. But then he pretended not to know what I was talking about.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ivan complained. ‘Why are we talking about toilet paper?’
‘You’re not by any chance related to Nick Quinlan, are you?’ I asked him.
‘We’re talking about an associate of Kelly’s who had trouble getting through the anal stage of his development,’ Marian explained to Ivan. Which didn’t really explain anything, come to think of it. Neat trick.
‘Are you through for the day?’ I asked her.
‘Lord, no. Tons of work.’
‘Then sneak away for a break. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘I’m almost finished,’ Ivan said hopefully.
‘Sorry, love, I’m all set for this big dramatic scene with Marian and there’s no man’s role in it.’
He grinned. ‘Is that the actress talking or the woman?’
‘Depends on who’s asking,’ I said. ‘The cop or the man.’
He didn’t like that much, the implication that cops and men were two different things. (It was okay for him to do the same thing to me, though.) He tried to laugh it off. ‘Hey, that’s not what you’re supposed to say.’
‘I know,’ I sighed. ‘I’m supposed to say something like I was a woman before I was an actress and then bat my eyes and smile. Sorry, Ivan, I’m just not up to it today, okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said dubiously.
Marian was laughing. ‘Now, what’s got into you? Come on—I think I can sneak a break at that.’
‘My family always said “bathroom tissue”,’ Ivan called after us by way of goodbye.
We went to a private club on East Fiftieth that I didn’t much care for except that it sure as hell was private. I didn’t have to worry about strangers coming up to me there or even being gawked at. Normally I rather like being gawked at, but circumstances were different now. Our private booth had one-way glass in the window; we could watch the passing parade outside without being seen ourselves.
‘This place must cost you an arm and a leg,’ Marian said in hushed tones. ‘All I wanted was a cup of coffee.’
I explained how lack of privacy had suddenly become a real problem. ‘I don’t even feel comfortable in your office, Marian. People stare there too.’
She nodded. ‘So what’s this big dramatic scene you told Ivan you wanted to play?’
‘What’s his last name?’
‘Ivan’s? Malecki.’
‘Malecki, that’s right. Couldn’t remember it. Did I offend him, do you think?’
‘No, but you puzzled him. You sounded out of character.’
‘I am. Completely out of character. Not sure what my character is anymore.’
‘Oh Gawd, not the existential miseries.’
‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that everything’s shaken up. Leonard sitting behind Nathan’s desk and not looking at all happy about it—’
‘Really? That’s a surprise.’
‘Surprised me too. I don’t mean he regrets taking o
ver the production company—he’s going ahead with everything okay. But he’s not getting the kick out of it he should be getting. He should be King of the Hill now, but he’s not.’
‘Maybe he needs Nathan Pinking as an adversary to spark him. Could be it was the fight itself that kept him going.’
‘That’s what I was thinking. He and Nathan have been battling for so long, Leonard must feel something is missing from his life now.’
A waiter appeared pushing a trolley laden with about forty fancy finger sandwiches and at least twice that many elaborately iced pastries. That’s what you got in that place when you asked for just coffee.
When he’d gone, I said, ‘Marian, I hope you don’t mind my dragging you away from your work. No big scene, that was just to keep Ivan Malecki from coming along. There are just some things I don’t understand. Like why did Nathan Pinking sell out to an old enemy like Leonard? Why didn’t he sell to somebody else?’
‘He couldn’t. You had no way of knowing it, but Leonard Zoff already owned forty-nine per cent of Pinking’s production company.’
‘What?’
‘And Pinking owned forty-nine per cent of Zoff’s theatrical agency. It was a deal they worked out when they dissolved their earlier company—Pinking and Zoff Productions. You remember, I told you about that.’
‘Then they were still partners? All this time?’
‘They certainly were. And the contract they signed specified that neither partner could sell his share without the permission of the other partner. So once Pinking was arrested, Zoff had him over a barrel. Pinking had to sell to Zoff or see the business fold. If he hadn’t been worried about providing for his family, Pinking probably would have just told Zoff to go to hell.’
‘That’s something that’s always amazed me,’ I said, nibbling on a pastry. ‘How Nathan could be such a monster and a good family man at the same time.’
‘Never heard of the Mafia, huh?’ Marian said wryly. ‘Anyway, Zoff bought just a big enough percentage from Pinking to give himself majority control of both the production company and the agency. I think he’s going to hire somebody to run the agency for him.’
‘Yes, he’s already done that. He promoted one of his own people. Leonard’s going to keep on managing a few of his clients, though. Including me.’ Leonard-the-agent had just negotiated my new LeFever contract with himself, Leonard-the-producer. I think I came out all right on that one.
‘Do you have a new sponsor for LeFever yet?’
‘Oh God, yes. NBC had to fight ’em off, even though they raised the advertising rate again. It’s weird, isn’t it? You’d think that once the story became public—well, look. Here’s this producer that’s been blackmailing somebody into sponsoring his show. The other advertisers ought to be thinking that the show has to be a real turkey if that’s the only way a sponsor could be found. But no—they’re lining up for the privilege of paying for LeFever. We’re in the news now, and it doesn’t matter what that news is. Just so people are talking about us—that’s all that counts.’
‘What about your movie?’
‘Same thing. They’ve even started negotiating about my new series, the one to be based on the movie. In fact, all of Nathan’s shows have been covered except Down the Pike—ABC cancelled that one. But if things keep going like this, Leonard Zoff is going to end up a rich man.’
Marian made a vague gesture with her hand. ‘Well, that’s show biz.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I said glumly. ‘That’s the advertising biz.’
A silence grew between us. We drank our coffee and looked out the window. There was something I wanted to ask her, but my mouth had grown suddenly dry. I took a drink of water; it didn’t help.
I’d forgotten Marian Larch could sometimes read minds. She said, gently and considerately, ‘He’s undergoing psychiatric examination. A whole team of doctors, the Cameron clan got them for him. The police psychiatrist has already declared him competent to stand trial, but the date won’t be set until the Cameron psychiatrists are finished.’
I nodded; that’s what I’d wanted to know. ‘I’ve decided to put him out of my mind.’ My voice sounded strained.
Marian smiled sadly. ‘Good idea.’
And then I was surprised to hear myself saying, ‘I don’t want to do any more LeFever episodes.’
Marian raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, well. Now what do you suppose the connection there is?’
‘I don’t know.’ I tried to think. ‘I tell you I’m going to put Ted Cameron behind me and I suddenly realize I hate the television show I’m doing. Why would one lead to the other? Ohwowohwow. I don’t know, Marian—I told you I was out of character today.’
‘Maybe that’s it,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet it’s the character you’re playing that you don’t like. Do you see any connection between your television role and the role you were playing with Ted Cameron?’
I was so shocked I couldn’t speak. I wanted to yell, I wanted to hit her, I wanted to deny it at the top of my voice. The character I played in LeFever was only a human toy, for God’s sake, something for the hero to play with. I wasn’t like that, I didn’t think of myself like that, I knew better … at least I thought I knew better. All of a sudden I was filled with doubts, uncertainty. It was an awful feeling.
Finally I said, ‘Fiona Benedict was wrong about me.’ Somehow that came out sounding too much like a question. I made it more positive. ‘She was wrong. She had to be.’
Marian looked at me a few moments as if trying to make her mind up about something. Then abruptly she said, ‘Kelly. Don’t judge the Miss America contest. Call your lawyer friend Howard and see if he can break the contract for you.’
How ironic. How dumb. I started to laugh. It sounded artificial, even to me. ‘Relax. I’m not going to judge any Miss America contest. It’s all been decided. They cancelled me.’ Marian didn’t say a word; just sat there with her mouth open. ‘That’s right. Seems my image is no longer wholesome enough for them. What with a killer for my lover and a blackmailer producing my shows, I’m no longer fit to associate with young American virgins. That kind of dirt rubs off, you know.’ I sounded even more sarcastic than I’d meant.
Marian let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘If I said I was sorry, I’d be lying and you know it. I’m sorry you didn’t have the pleasure of telling them where to get off, but you’re well out of it, Kelly. You don’t need that. You don’t have to play those games. Now for Pete’s sake pull yourself together and get back to being your usual peppy self. You make me nervous, the way you’re drooping around. You’re well rid of all of them, Cameron and Pinking and even Miss God Bless America. You’ve had just one fortunate escape after another—what are you so gloomy about? Cheer up, damn it! You don’t realize how lucky you are.’
She looked and sounded exactly like a sixth-grade teacher I’d once had. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said in a tiny voice. ‘Go screw yourself, ma’am.’
‘That’s better,’ she beamed. ‘Now I hate like the very devil to leave this sinfully luxurious establishment you’ve brought me to, but I do have to be getting back. Work awaits.’
Belatedly I realized how much of her time I’d taken and signalled to the waiter. ‘Thanks for listening, Marian. What are you working on now—or am I allowed to ask?’
‘Sure you are. I’m on the Richard Ormsby case now.’
‘Oh?’ The waiter brought the bill and I signed; two coffees, fifty dollars. When he’d left, I said, ‘That case is still open? It’s been a while. Do you really think you’ll ever know who killed Richard Ormsby?’
‘I already know who killed him,’ she said bluntly. ‘I even know why he was killed. What I don’t know is how the hell I’m going to prove it.’
CHAPTER 17
MARIAN LARCH
Ivan Malecki sat on his spine and scowled at his feet stretched out in front of him. ‘I don’t believe it. There’s no way that can be right.’
I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and give him
a good shake. It had taken me the better part of an afternoon to convince Captain Michaels, and now Ivan was being stubborn.
The Captain shifted his considerable weight in the big chair behind his desk. ‘I’m not totally convinced myself, Malecki,’ he said. ‘But if she’s wrong, there’s no harm done. If she’s right, we damn well better follow through.’
‘I just don’t believe it,’ Ivan said mulishly.
One more try. ‘Look, Ivan,’ I said, ‘can you suspend disbelief about one basic matter, for just a moment? Every time we investigate a killing, we go in assuming the victim is dead for a reason that directly involves him. Either he’s been killed in the heat of passion, or he’s a threat to somebody, or he stands between the killer and something the killer wants, or—’
‘Yeah, yeah. This isn’t my rookie year, you know.’
‘Okay, then, can you just forget about all that? Assume, just for a minute, a man can be killed for reasons that have nothing at all to do with him personally—all right?’
‘Sure.’ Ivan sat up straight. ‘Jesus, Marian, you think I’m dumb or something? The gangs go joyriding and take pot shots at whoever happens to be standing on the sidewalk. Shooting up the neighborhood just for the hell of it. Those people aren’t killed for any personal reason. Matter of chance.’
‘Then assume for just a moment that Richard Ormsby too was killed for reasons that had nothing to do with him.’
‘Crap.’
‘Maybe it’s not, Malecki,’ Captain Michaels helped out. ‘Scotland Yard turned up a few enemies who wouldn’t mind seeing Ormsby out of the way, but every one of them was in England at the time he was shot. Ormsby was in New York only four days before he was killed. Yeah, I know—it’s possible something happened in those four days that made it necessary for somebody to get rid of him. But it’s not very damn likely, is it? Well, is it?’
‘No,’ Ivan muttered reluctantly.
‘And we haven’t turned up any reason why anyone over here would want him dead except Dr. Fiona Benedict and her damned book, and we know she didn’t do it because she was in the lock-up at the time of the killing. So what’s left? Do we tell the Commissioner and the British Ambassador and maybe even the Queen herself, gee, we’re sorry, we can’t find out who killed the visiting celeb so we’re going to go work on other cases now, goodbye and thank you? Look, Malecki, he didn’t get it for any of the usual reasons, so now we gotta take a look at the unusual reasons. And Larch here has come up with a lulu.’