Death of a Blue Movie Star (21 page)

“We had a number of EPIs…. Michael preferred interviews to EPAs—auditions. He’s a funny fellow. You
ever talk to him, you know he’s got very definite ideas. Usually the producer couldn’t care less about the hired help—the actors, I mean. He leaves that to the director. As long as the principals get good reviews and pull in a crowd that’s enough for them. But not for Michael. He rides herd on everybody: director, principals, walk-ons, arrangers, musicians, everybody.”

Rune wasn’t sure where this was going but she let the casting director continue at his own pace.

“So when it came time for casting, Michael kept his beady little eyes over my shoulder. We read resumes, we saw tapes, we talked to talent agencies.” He shook his head. “Everybody went through the standard interview—everybody but Shelly. That’s the astonishing part.

“Somehow she’d gotten her hands on a copy of the script for the new play. I can’t guess how. Michael treated them like gold ingots. There just weren’t any copies floating around. But she’d gotten one and had memorized the leading role. So it’s time for her interview. She walks into Michael’s office and doesn’t say anything. She just starts walking around. What’s she doing? I don’t know. He doesn’t know.

“But then I catch on. I’ve cross-read the play enough during auditions…. She’s doing one of the crucial scenes, following the stage directions for the beginning of Act Three. Then she gives the first line of dialogue in that act and looks at me—like a prima donna looking at a conductor who’s dropped the beat. So I start feeding her the lines. I thought Michael was going to be royally pissed. He doesn’t like people to do clever things he hasn’t thought of. But after a minute he’s impressed. My God, he’s beside himself. And so was I. Shelly was amazingly good. We tell her, Great, thank you, we’ll be in touch, which is what we always say. And Michael was his typical noncommittal Michael. Only she’s got this look in
her eye because she knows she’s blown everybody else out of the water.

“After she leaves we read her resume again. Strange, you know: She doesn’t have any formal training. Some respectable off-Broadway productions, some LORT—that’s regional theater. Some summer stock and some performance pieces at Brooklyn Academy and local repertory groups. Either she shouldn’t be as good as she is or we should’ve heard of her. Something was fishy.”

Rune said, “And he did some investigating?”

“Right. Michael found out what kind of movies Shelly made. And that was it for her.”

“He’s got a thing about dirty movies?”

“Oh, yes. See, he’s very religious.”

“What?” She laughed.

“I’m not kidding. The pornography thing—it was a moral issue. And the funny thing is he was furious. Because she was perfect for the part. But he wouldn’t let himself hire her. He was quite, um, vocal when he found out.”

“But the way he behaved … This poor stagehand, the one who gave me your name … I thought he was going to kill the guy.”

“Ah, but not one foul word passed his lips, did it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“He’s very active in his church. He prays before each performance.”

Rune said, “Well, so what? The Bible’s full of begatting, isn’t it?”

“Hell, there’re actresses on Broadway’ve slept with as many men—and women—off camera as Shelly Lowe did on film. But Michael’s a deacon of his church. A newspaper story—oh, the
Post
would love it—about Michael Schmidt’s leading lady being a porn queen?” Becker’s eyes brightened. “As appealing as that thought is to those of us
who’d like to scuttle the bastard … So, you see why he couldn’t let that happen.”

“She must have been heartbroken.”

Becker shrugged. “She was an adult and she made a choice to make those films. Nobody forced her to. But she didn’t give up without a fight. And what a fight it was.”

“What happened?”

“After I called her to give her the bad news—I felt I owed her that—Shelly made an appointment to see him. We’d already cast somebody else by then but I guess it half-crossed my mind that she was going to try to
charm
, if you want to be euphemistic, Michael into giving her the part after all.”

“Shelly wouldn’t do that.”

Becker looked at her with his eyebrow raised.

“Not to get a part,” Rune said. “She wasn’t like that. It doesn’t make sense but I know that about her now. There were some lines she wouldn’t cross.”

“In any case that’s what occurred to me. But that wasn’t what happened….” His voice faded. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

Rune squinted. “Just pretend it’s gossip. I love gossip.”

“A terrible fight. Really vicious.”

“What could you hear?”

“Not much. You read poetry, Robert Frost?”

Rune thought. “Something about horses standing around in the snow when they should be going somewhere?”

Becker said, “Ah, does anybody read anymore? … Well, Frost coined this term called the
sound of sense
. It refers to the way we can understand words even though we can’t hear them distinctly. Like through closed doors. I got a real
sense
of their conversation. I’ve never heard Michael so mad. I’ve never heard him so scared, either.”

“Scared?”

“Scared. He comes out of the meeting, then paces
around. A few minutes later he calms down. Then he asks me about the new lead for the play and whether the Equity contract has been signed and I tell him it was. And I can tell he’s thinking about casting Shelly again even though he doesn’t want to.”

“What happened, do you think?”

“I noticed something interesting about Shelly,” Becker said. “She really did her homework—getting the script in the first place, for instance. See, we get a lot of young, intense hopefuls in here. They know Chekhov and Ibsen and Mamet cold. But they don’t have a clue about the
business
of the theater. They think producers are gods. But as creative as Shelly was she also had a foot in the real world. She was a strategist. For the first EPI, she’d found out everything there was to know about Michael. Personal things as well as professional.” Becker gave Rune a meaningful smile and when she didn’t respond he frowned. “Don’t you get it?”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“Blackmail.”

“Blackmail? Shelly was blackmailing him?”

“Nobody here knows for certain but there’re rumors about Michael. A few years ago he was traveling through some small town in, I don’t know, Colorado, Nevada, and we think he got arrested. For picking up a high school boy—the story was that he was just seventeen.”

“Ouch.”

“Uh-huh. Also around that time there was an announcement that Michael had paid two hundred thousand for the rights to a play.
Nobody
pays that kind of money for a straight, nonmusical play. It had to’ve been a phony transaction—I’m sure he used company money to pay off locals and keep out of jail.”

“I thought he was a deacon in his church?”

“This was before he saw the light.”

“You think Shelly found out about it?”

“Like I say, she did her homework.”

Rune said, “He fired you. You’re a little prejudiced against him.”

Becker laughed. “I respect Medea’s strength. Can I forgive her for killing her children? I respect Michael for what he’s done for New York theater. Personally, I think he’s a pompous ass. Draw your own conclusions about what I tell you.”

“One last question. Was he in Vietnam? Or was he ever a soldier?”

“Michael?” Becker laughed again. “That would have been a delightful sight. When you’re in the army I understand you have to do what other people tell you. That doesn’t sound very much like the Michael Schmidt we all know and love, now does it?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

His eyes squint, picking up golden light from the sun, as he gazes over the sagebrush and arroyos for signs of Indians or buffalo or strays. His .45 is always on his hip
….

Rune was using her fingers as an impromptu camera viewfinder to frame Sam Healy. She waved to him and he ambled slowly toward her.

He’d be great in her film.

There was something different about him today. Two things, in fact. One, he wasn’t somber anymore.

And, two, he gave off some kind of quiet strength she hadn’t seen before in his face.

Then Rune looked past him and she realized why the change. The ten-year-old boy, who Rune had thought just happened to be walking beside him, was undoubtedly Adam, his son. Healy’s face revealed the protective, authoritative, aware nature of a parent.

Sam seemed to stop just short of a hug and a kiss and nodded to her. “Thanks for meeting me. Well, us.”

“Sure,” she answered, wondering why he hadn’t told her he was bringing the boy. Maybe because he’d been afraid she wouldn’t show up.

Healy introduced them and they shook hands. Rune said, “Nice to meet you, Adam.”

The boy said nothing, just looked at Rune critically. Healy said, “Come on, son, what do you say?”

The boy shrugged. “They’re getting younger all the time?”

Rune laughed and Healy, blushing a bit, did too. The successful joke had been delivered so smoothly she knew he’d used it before.

They started down the sidewalk in lower Manhattan.

“You like U2?” Adam asked Rune as they walked along Broadway past the Federal Building. “They’re so totally awesome.”

“Love that guitar! Chunga, chunga, chunga …”

“Oh, yeah.”

Rune said, “But I’m mostly into older music. Like Bowie, Adam Ant, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads.”

“David Byrne, yeah, he’s like your megagenius. Even if he’s old.”

“I still listen to the Police a lot,” Rune said. “I kinda grew up with them.”

Adam nodded. “I heard about them. My mom used to listen to them. Sting’s still around.”

Healy said, “Um … Crosby, Stills and Nash?”

Rune and Adam looked at him blankly.

“Jimi Hendrix? The Jefferson Airplane?”

When he got a stare in response to “The Doors?” Healy said quickly, “Hey, how ’bout some lunch?”

They sat across from the ornate Woolworth Building, Rune and Healy. Adam, replenished by two hot dogs and
a Yoo-Hoo chocolate soda, chased squirrels and shadows and scraps of windblown paper.

“Sam,” she began, “say you have a couple different suspects and you know one of them did it but you don’t know who.”

“In a bombing?”

“Say, any crime. Like you’re an ordinary movable investigating something.”

“Portable, not movable. But it’d probably be a detective evaluating suspects.”

“Okay, a detective with three suspects. What would you do to figure out who the perp is?”

“Perp,” he said. “See, I said you were a born cop.”

In a thick Slavic accent: “I learned English from
Kojak
reruns.” She grew serious. “Come on, Sam. What would you do?”

“In order to make an arrest you need probable cause.”

“What’s that?”

“Something that shows your suspect is more likely than not to’ve committed the crime. A witness, conflicting alibis, physical evidence at the scene connecting the suspect and the crime, fingerprints, genetic marker test … A confession’s always good.”

“How do you get confessions?”