Deadly Dues (34 page)

“You should have seen her,” said Mitzi.

“I did,” said Hal.

“You didn't smell her,” said Mitzi.

“I did,” he said.

“I have another toast,” I said rather loudly.

The waiter appeared and passed around dessert menus.

We all raised our glasses again.

“This may seem strange to you,” I said. I felt a little odd saying this, but in a way it made sense to me. “Stan did terrible things, but in the end, he did the right thing. He paid his dues.”

They all nodded. Stan had tried to make it right for all of us.

“And in the end, he gave us our due. He respected us, ultimately.”

They nodded again.

“To Stan!” And we downed our glasses. Geoff efficiently refilled them in the waiter's absence.

Hal frowned slightly, and took his hand from Horatio's head.

“Aren't you putting too much emphasis on getting the respect due you from a person who was a criminal?”

Mitzi burbled into her wine. “How do you spell respect? With lots of dollar signs?”

Pete shook his head. “Come on, Mitzi. We all spell respect our own way. It's about knowing what you're worth. Knowing that you've paid your dues.”

Mitzi burbled some more. The limo had been a very good idea.

I silently agreed with Pete. I had paid my dues big-time. I opened my dessert menu to hide my smile.

The others took my cue and opened theirs.

It was only then that I noticed the engraved, gold-printed title on the leatherbound dessert menu.

“Just Desserts.”

I dimpled and ordered everything.

Acknowledgments

There are many people to thank when a book is published. The writer works alone, in a solitary but rewarding endeavour. One's companions, in my case, are mellow jazz or bossa nova, salty snacks sometimes masquerading as health food and whatever soothing tea or liquid refreshment is handy. However, without encouragement, support and feedback from friends and associates, the words would sit in the iMac without seeing the light of day.

When
Deadly Dues
was in its early drafts, I asked for help and I received it. Many thanks to the talented Bill Robertson, Michael Huck, Marni Andrews, Natalie Edwards, Brenda Lissel, Paddy Campbell and Robert Finley (through the Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program) for their insights and encouragement. Wordfest 2007: the Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival sent a host of writers, including this one, to the Banff Centre for a salon and retreat, where I wrote much of Lulu's antics, against the background of the glorious mountains of Banff. Special thanks to my fine friend Linda Callaghan for generously giving professional, creative and legal advice. I am especially grateful to Louise Penny for taking time from her busy schedule to read an early draft of my first chapters, and for giving me notes and encouragement beyond my wildest dreams.

Many thanks to Anthony Bidulka, author of the wonderful Russell Quant mysteries, and Tom Cox, much respected film and television producer, for taking the time to read Lulu's adventures and offer some good words.

A big hurrah of appreciation to Ruth Linka of TouchWood Editions for making this book possible. And a huge volley of thanks to my wonderful editor, Frances Thorsen of Chronicles of Crime, who loves a good mystery, and laughs at my jokes. I was fortunate to have an editor as insightful, sensitive, tactful and clever as Frances. It was also very handy, that she knows more about sheepdogs than I do.

This is a book about actors, not about me, even though I have been an actor. Although there are no real people depicted in this book, the many late nights swapping war stories over drinks with many performers over the last decades, helped inspire it. Actors love to laugh, and they love to drink, and they especially love to do both at the same time, and they have a keen memory for every detail of the shoot, the wrap party, the audition, the affair . . . The telling of it becomes more hilarious, more tragic, with every visit, and so legends are born.

To my actor friends, you know who you are. And how I admire you. I hope you read this book and smile.

Finally, thanks to my family, who support and encourage me. My cousins Michael, Debra, Randy and Donna, my dear Aunt Elizabeth, and, my beloved mother, Julia, who makes me laugh all the time, and who always, always, laughs at my jokes.

Linda Kupecek

Lulu Malone returns in
Trashing the Trailer

“And furthermore,” said Dennie, slashing her makeup brush across my cheeks, “I am so not interested in his problems with rehab or drug dealers, especially when he is doing both at the same time.”

I raised myself up in the makeup chair, and peered in the mirror. So far, so good. Dennie might have gone wild with the brush, but at least I still looked presentable.

“You don't know he was dealing drugs.”

“What else?” She flailed the brush around and dislodged one of her favourite signed photos, the one of Anthony Hopkins, from the wall above her station. It floated down and skimmed off my curls, landing on the floor. Dennie was so enraged that she didn't notice, and since I was at the wrong end of the makeup brush, and just minutes away from my call to set, I wasn't inclined to point it out just now. I tried to estimate how quickly I could snatch the photo from the floor before she stepped on it.

“Maybe he had a personal crisis, a former lover who turned up in his life to—”

“What former lover?” Now Dennie was pointing the eyeliner pencil at my face, and I was deciding rapidly that discretion was the better part of valour.

“No former lover!” I said calmly, although from Dennie's expression and body language, it is possible that I might have been shouting.

Noting her reaction, I regrouped into sounding comforting and mature. “For all I know, Rick is a monk. No lovers whatsoever!”

“What sort of a crack is that?” Dennie was way too close to my face with the eyeliner pencil, and I pressed myself as far back into the makeup chair as I could. Where is a nice recliner when you need one?

I wondered why on earth all the crew members whose livelihoods depended on my well-being as Dora Darling, star of
Darling, Detective: Back in the Game
, were nowhere to be heard or seen, when usually they were knocking on the makeup trailer door regularly with updates on when I was needed on set. Where were the ubiquitous summons, “We're ready, Ms. Malone,” or “Lulu, aren't you done yet?” when I desperately needed them?

After a disastrous few years as an impoverished former dog food spokesperson and a constantly recognized ex-celebrity, accompanied by a necessary stint at McDonald's in order to pay the condo fees and huge meals required by my sheepdog, Horatio, I was now back in the game.
Darling, Detective
, a retro series I had starred in many years before, had done so well in DVD release that the production company had ordered another season. Dora Darling was now a bit older and wiser, with a handbag full of modern weaponry, but she was still smart and funny. I was longer in the tooth now, too, but my dimples were still there and so were my curls. And, of course, most importantly, my acting chops.

Dennie stood very still and stared at me with what I really hoped was professional assessment, not malevolence. We had worked together for the past three months on
Darling, Detective: Back in the Game,
and although we had never shared secrets or giggles, I had thought we had a convivial, although strictly professional, relationship. She was the makeup artist. I was the so-called star of the series. In the past, I had ended up best friends with many of the makeup artists I had worked with on series, specials, TV movies and features. My friend Jerome was now out of the film business and running his own hair studio, when he wasn't travelling the world in search of university degrees or adventure. Candy had become a massage therapist, and we still got together on occasion for a good massage and a fine Merlot. Ilonka had retired, after too many epic shoots where she had to make up hundreds of extras every morning, and now ran a bed and breakfast, where all she had to do in the morning was make up beds and breakfast, and smile. She invited me for tea every few months, and we exchanged war stories from the Japanese western from which neither of us had recovered well.

Today, Dennie was way out of line, obsessing about Rick, the stills photographer, her current lover, while distractedly almost doing my makeup. Would it be mean of me to mention to the producers that she was becoming more of a source of anxiety than photogenic beauty? I didn't want to be petty, but last week my skin was definitely orange in one scene, and the writers had had to come up with some additional dialogue for the next scene in the episode to explain it, although frankly I doubted that overuse of artificial tanner was a truly contemporary solution.

Just as I decided to say something to Dennie along the lines of “Dennie, you have to pull yourself together,” or “Dennie, dump Rick, he is best friends,
really
best friends, with every woman on set,” or “Dennie, if you don't get that eye pencil out of my face, I am going to scream the way I did in that low-budget horror movie, the scream that people still talk about!” or maybe, “Dennie, don't kill me!” (not the most dignified response but maybe the most practical), she moved even closer, looking at me intensely.

I shrank back. She had moved so quickly that the Anthony Hopkins photo drifted under the makeup counter. At least one actor was safe.

She loomed over me. I tried to disappear into my chair, wondering where all those damned assistant directors were, the ones who were usually breathing down my neck, asking after me solicitously, behaving as if I were important. If I was so important, why was I alone in a makeup trailer with a young woman with purple hair and very white teeth, who was aiming a very pointed eye pencil at my face?

Now the makeup pencil, with its extreme sharpened point, was dangerously close to my very best dimple, and although I had a faint hope that Dennie was planning to highlight that, I knew in my heart it was unlikely, since the eye pencil was dark brown and my dimple was a lovely shade of peach. I could smell her breath mints as she breathed heavily on me. Oh, I hoped she didn't have any germs. When the lead in a series gets sick, it costs the production company big-time.

After all I had been through in the past year, assaulted by home invaders, insulted by strangers, attacked by former friends, was I now going to go to the Green Room in the Sky courtesy of a makeup artist I barely knew?

Dennie had stopped gesturing, which was a good thing. She was staring into my eyes, but not quite focusing, which maybe wasn't such a good thing.

Then she gave a little twitch, threw her arms around me and landed on me with her full weight, her arms around my shoulders, her head resting next to my ear.

Thrown back into my chair by her weight, I started to babble.

“Dennie, hey, whatever it is, it's not that bad. Get a grip. I'm due on set in a few minutes.”

This last comment was supremely selfish, but I was thinking not only of my own welfare, but also of the constraints of series television and the financial concerns of Beeswax Productions, who were now my greatest pals and admirers, as long as we stayed on time and under budget. I also noted that my phrasing could have been improved, as “get a grip” could have been interpreted as seducing a member of the electrical crew in revenge, when in fact I was simply urging her to get her emotions under control.

I patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

“It will all work out, Dennie. You just have to be strong. Centre yourself. I can lend you some excellent self-help books. I'll even give you my stash of
Oprah
magazines.” I noted the makeup chair creaking, and devoted a few seconds to trying to assess our combined weight. My math is so lousy that I had to give this up and return to the more evolved approach of shoulder pats and pep talk.

After a few moments of trying to comfort and manipulate Dennie into getting off my shoulder, I began, slowly, terribly, to notice that Dennie wasn't moving. In fact, she seemed dead to the world. More accurately, she seemed, well, just plain dead.

I screamed, very loudly, using my highest register, the one that had served me well in the previously mentioned horror flick, and I didn't stop screaming until the first, second and third assistant directors, plus a grip and an extra (who, it turned out, just wanted my autograph) burst through the doors of the makeup trailer. I thought I had stopped screaming by then, but they inconsiderately informed me later that I kept screaming until Gordon, the production manager, stomped onto the scene and poured five ounces of his best Scotch down my throat.

D
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