Death of a Blue Movie Star (18 page)

Sitting in his dusty Times Square office, he dropped a dull-white heater coil into a chipped cup of water. It sputtered fiercely. When the water boiled he removed the coil and dropped in a twice-used, crusty Lipton tea bag. The sunlight came through the curtains, which were faded in waves that marked the sun’s passage over the year. Outside, the sounds of construction were like the noises of battle.

Feeling old.

Sometimes, watching one of his young protégés on stage, he felt anything but old. He almost believed he was still the twenty-five-year-old, dressed in the musty costume of Rosencrantz or Benvolio or young Prince Hal, waiting for his cue to enter from stage right.

But not today. Something had triggered this morbid feeling of antiquity as he’d climbed off the Eighth Avenue train at Fiftieth Street and walked in a slow zigzag to his
office. Looking at the marquees of the theaters. Many of them were now on the ground floors of high-rise buildings; they weren’t separate structures like the grand old Helen Hayes, the Martin Beck, the Majestic. He thought that said something—the theaters being parts of office buildings. When he remembered the old marquees—the huge, jutting trapezoids of dotted lights—he remembered mostly the logos of musical comedies. Why did he picture those (a form of theater he did not enjoy and rarely attended) more easily than the marquees announcing the plays of Miller and O’Neill and Ibsen and Strindberg and Mamet, all of whom he believed to be geniuses?

It must be because he was getting old, he figured.

He thought of his students. Where were they all? A dozen on or off Broadway. Six or seven on television sitcoms or adventure shows. Two dozen in Hollywood.

And hundreds and hundreds that had gone into accounting or law or carpentry or advertising or plumbing.

Hundreds and hundreds who were good but weren’t good enough for the system: the star system, that goddamn inverted pyramid, with so little room for people at the top.

Arthur Tucker sipped the tea and wondered if his life had been a failure.

And now … the incident with Shelly Lowe. He wasn’t sure if—

His phone rang, a jarring metallic blare. He picked it up, said, “Hello.”

And heard some breathless young girl talking a mile a minute. Checks? She was saying something about a problem with the mail. She was on the first floor of the building and some checks addressed to him had been misdelivered to her office. Tucker didn’t believe he was expecting any checks. Most of his students paid in cash at the end of their lessons, handing him the crisp, precious twenties straight from the Chase ATM.

“Well, they look like checks. I’m all alone here. I can’t bring them up. You want me to leave them outside my door tonight.”

In which case they’d vanish in five minutes, he knew.

“I’ll come down. What office?”

“One-oh-three. If I don’t answer right away I might be on the phone,” she said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Tucker pulled on his tweed jacket, with its leather elbow patches and torn satin lining. He forwent his hat. He walked into the dark corridor, locking the door after him. He pressed the big black button to summon the elevator and waited for three minutes until it arrived. He stepped inside and began the grinding journey down to the first floor.

Rune tried a dental pick.

She’d bought it at a pharmacy from a clerk who didn’t seem particularly curious why someone wearing Day-Glo Keds and a miniskirt printed with pterodactyls would be interested in a dental tool. Then she’d gone back to the houseboat. She’d practiced on the locks to some of the interior doors and got them open pretty fast. She hadn’t graduated to the front door, which had a doorknob cylinder and a Medeco, because she got impatient. Anyway, she figured, the theory was undoubtedly the same.

It wasn’t.

Sweating, the panic growing, she worked at Arthur Tucker’s door for five minutes. Nothing happened. She’d get the pick in and twist it and turn it and hear clicking and snapping and unlocking sounds, all of which was real satisfying.

But nothing happened. The door remained snugly locked.

She stood back. There was no time. Tucker’d be back in three or four minutes, she estimated.

She looked up and down the corridor. There were only two other tenants on this floor: a lawyer’s office, with signs in English and Korean, and an import company. There were no lights under either door.

“Oh, hell.”

Rune shoved her elbow through the glass. A large triangular piece fell inside. She reached in and turned the latch.

Four minutes … you’ve only got four minutes.

But it turned out she didn’t need even that much time.

Because right in the middle of Tucker’s desk was what she was looking for—the stack of papers he’d been going to great lengths to cover up. But it wasn’t just any stack of papers; it was a play. The title was
Delivered Flowers
. Tucker, it seemed, had been making notes in the margin—additions, deletions, stage directions. Not many, a few words here and there. One change was pretty radical, though, Rune thought. Not in the play itself, but on the cover page: Tucker had crossed out
by Shelly Lowe
and written his own name in.

The copyright line had been changed too, his name substituted for hers.

On the cover was another note:
Haymarket Theater, Chicago—interested
.

Shelly’s been dead a few days, Rune thought angrily, and this prick’s already stolen her script and sold it to somebody.

Take it, she told herself. It’s evidence.

But then Tucker would see it was gone. She looked behind the desk. There were piles of other plays, also loose-bound like this one, on his credenza. She rummaged through them and found another one on which Tucker had crossed off Shelly’s name and put his own in its place.

She tossed it into her leopard-skin bag and left the office. There was a loud click behind her, up the corridor.

She’d been wrong. Tucker hadn’t waited at the door downstairs for as long as she’d hoped. Or maybe someone had told him the company had moved months ago. In any event the elevator opened just as she got into the stairwell. She heard his footsteps, heard them stop, heard his muttered “Oh, no” as he saw the broken glass. She eased through the fire door and took the stairs two, then three at a time down to the ground floor.

Outside, she saw a cop up the street. Her first inclination was to bolt. But then she remembered that no way would Arthur Tucker call the police. At best he was a thief. At worst, a killer.

The lights were brilliant dots of pure sun.

Rune, thirty feet away, standing behind greasy pillars, felt the heat from the lights and wondered two things. Why had the lighting man decided to use four 800-watt Redhead lamps, which were way too big for the size of the set?

That was the first thing she wondered. The second was: What was going through the mind of Nicole D’Orleans, who was naked and grappling with a tall, thin, dark-haired man on a pink satin sheet, her long, perfect legs squeezing the guy’s waist with all their strength?

“That’s it baby yeah there there ooooo you know what I like you know what I want give it to me fuck me fuck me….”

When she got tired of delivering dialogue like that Nicole would simply wail and mew. The man above her mostly grunted.

Sweating furiously, they changed position often—missionary seemed to be passé. Some of the poses were creative but seemed exhausting even to watch; it was good that Nicole and her partner were athletic.

Jesus, Rune thought, I couldn’t get my legs up that high if you paid me….

The sounds of their lovemaking sailed into the dark crevices of the Lame Duck studio.

The T-shirted cameraman moved in close, as if the probing lens of the Ikegami video camera was the third member of a ménage à trois. The rest of the crew was bored, leaning on light stands and tripods, sipping coffee. Outside the hot glow surrounding the mattress Danny Traub—today acting as director—gestured impatiently and ordered the cameraman around the set. “You miss the come shot, your ass is grass.”

“I won’t miss it.”

“Yesterday, Sharon’s leg was in the way. You couldn’t see diddly.”

“I won’t miss it,” the cameraman responded. And moved closer to the action.

Rune returned to her meditation. What would Nicole be thinking about? They’d been at it for half an hour. She seemed aroused. But was it fake? Was she concentrating on—

Then, a disturbance.

The actor had stopped his pumping and was standing up. Dazed, bleary, breathing heavily. Nicole glanced down at his crotch and saw the problem. She leaned forward and went to work with her mouth. She looked pretty skillful but the man didn’t respond. He suddenly retreated out of the lights. Nicole sat back and took the bathrobe that a young woman, an assistant, offered her. The actor looked for a towel, found one and pulled it around his waist.

“That’s it,” the actor called. Gesturing, palms out, with a shrug.

Danny Traub sighed, then barked orders. The lights went out. The camera shut off. The grips and gaffers walked off the set.

“Third time this week, Johnny,” Traub whispered.

The actor was deeply inhaling on a Camel. “It’s too fucking hot in here. What’s with the air conditioner?”

“The air conditioner?” Traub’s head swiveled to his imaginary mezzanine. “He needs—what?—thirty-two degrees before he can get it up?”

Johnny was looking at the floor but focusing six inches beneath it. “I’m tired.”

“I’m paying you a thousand dollars for a hard dick. This film shoulda been in the can a week ago.”

“So shoot around me. Put in some stock inserts.”

“Johnny”—like Traub was talking to a six-year-old—“people save up their pennies to rent tapes of you and your foot-long. They want to see the wand do its magic thing, you understand?”

“I’m
tired
.”

“You’re strung out is what you are. You know what coke does to your yin-yang. You can be a lawyer, a doctor, a musician, probably even a fucking airline pilot and do all the blow you want and it isn’t going to fuck up your job. But a man who makes porn can’t do as much as you’re doing.”

“Just give me a couple of hours.”

“No, I’m giving you the fucking boot. Get out.”

Nicole had been watching from the side of the bed. She stepped toward them. “Danny …”

Traub ignored her.

Johnny muttered something. He walked to the corner of the set. From a leather shoulder bag he took a blue glass vial. Traub stepped up and slapped it from his hand. It hit the wall and fell, spinning.

“Fuck, Danny, why—”

He shoved Johnny up against the wall hard. Gave a vicious smile, looking around. “He thinks I’m joking? Yeah, he does! The man thinks I’m joking…. I can’t afford to carry you anymore.”

“Cut it out.”

“Shut up!” The words were jarring, pitched high, frantic. Everyone on the set must’ve heard. But they all looked away—at scheduling sheets or invoices or scripts. Or they stared at the coffee and tea they stirred compulsively.

Johnny pulled away. He sat on the bed, looking absently for his clothes.

Nicole walked to the fallen coke shaker, picked it up and offered it tentatively to Johnny. Traub stepped forward and pulled it from her hand.

“You dumb bitch. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“I was just—”

Traub had turned back to Johnny. “I paid you up front for this week. I want half back.”

Nicole said, “Danny, leave him alone, come on.”

Traub turned on her. Said viciously, “A real actress’d know how to get him up. You’re fucking useless.”

Nicole was obviously frightened of him. She swallowed and looked away from his tiny piercing eyes. “Don’t fire him, Danny. Come on. He’s, you know, had trouble getting jobs.”

Traub’s face broke into a dark, simian grin. “An impotent porn star, having trouble getting work? You’re shitting me.”

“He’s having a rough time is all.”

Traub said to Johnny, “Fuck the money. Just get outa here.”

Johnny turned abruptly and walked off the set.

“Asshole,” Nicole whispered.

Traub spun around and grabbed her teased hair. He pulled her head close to his. “Don’t … you … ever.”