Don't Speak to Strange Girls (21 page)

“I didn’t know her well enough,” Clay said. “I didn’t know the places she liked to go.”

“Count yourself blessed, kid,” Shatner said. “Half a dozen bars. Half a dozen drinks. I’ve had it, whether you have or not. Come on, Clay, take me home.”

Clay stood in the center of the walk. He looked both ways along the street. “I ought to find her,” he said. “This must have been hell on her. She’s going to need help more than ever.”

“She got just what she asked for. She knew yesterday when she came back to you she was finished. Leave her alone.”

Clay shrugged. “I’ll have to. Whether I want to or not. I know what she’s going through. I hate for her to think I didn’t even try to find her.”

chapter twenty-two

S
TUART SWUNG
the car slowly off the drive into the gateway of his home. He moved the car to the veranda and parked it. Abstractedly, he glanced at Shatner. Marc was reclining across the car seat, head back, mouth parted.

Clay sat there a moment, then he reached out and cut the engine. In the abrupt silence there was a wail from inside the house. Clay went tense. Shatner sat up, blinking.

“What’s that?”

The wailing was repeated. This time there was rage, but there was laughter in it, too. Shatner gazed around, trying to see where they were.

The front door opened and Hoff came padding across the veranda and down the steps. His round stomach heaved. He was out of breath.

“Lord of Isaac,” he said. “Am I glad to see you. Am I glad you are home.”

“What you running here?” Shatner said.

“It’s her,” Hoff was almost in tears. “That
shekseh.
Such carrying on. Never have I heard a woman carrying on like that. We tried to get her to leave — Kay and I — on account of Sharon being in the house and all. Oh, such a bad thing. I even threatened to call the cops, before the neighbors across the canyon did, I told her. She knew I was bluffing. She wouldn’t even listen to anything Kay tried to say to her.”

Clay slapped the door handle, slid out of the car. He strode up the steps. Inside the foyer he saw her two suitcases. Yesterday she had left them in the taxi. Today she had brought them in the house.

Kay Ringling came out of the library. Beyond, Clay heard Joanne’s anguished sobbing. He hesitated a long time, hearing it, glancing toward the stairs.

“Sharon’s upstairs,” Kay said in a cold voice. “I don’t know how long she can go on pretending she isn’t hearing this vile business down here.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Clay said.

Kay merely stared at him. Then she crossed the foyer and went up the stairs toward Sharon’s room. Trust Kay, he thought, to know the right thing.

He walked slowly into the library and closed the door behind him. He stood some moments, watching her. Her hair was disheveled, her face was distorted with her rage and her crying.

There was a sharp twist of hurt inside him at the lost look in her face. He’d flattered himself he was free of her. Only last night he’d lain in bed telling himself he was free. Now he saw it was not that easy. We are never truly free of the people we’ve loved.

He spoke her name. He kept his voice low.

“Joanne.”

She stood with her back to the doors, staring through the windows. At the sound of his voice she heeled around. Her eyes were distended. Her mouth was pulled taut across her teeth. For a moment she stared at him as if he were the monster from outer space.

For an instant, he wavered, because Joanne looked so completely defeated and alone. Then he knew better. He had to do something for her, even if he could not think at the moment what it could be.

Suddenly she drew back her arm and hurled the cocktail glass at him.

He didn’t move. The glass smashed against the wall behind him. A wide stain appeared on the texture and spread, running in wet lines down it. He didn’t glance at the wall or at the broken glass. He did not take his gaze from her face.

“They fired me,” she screamed at him. “You know all about that now — don’t you?” Her voice clattered against the walls, battering against him. “A movie star? Me? Oh, no. They don’t want me. I was no good. No damned good.”

He did not say anything. She thrust her hand through her hair. Her voice boiled, raging at him.

“Why don’t you say you knew it all the time? You knew it all the time, didn’t you?”

He shook his head.

“They dropped me. They had a one-picture deal. You knew that?” He nodded.

“But, oh, the way they talked. The way they promised me my options would be picked up — you could have told me Jeff Gordon directs quick pictures because that’s all he knows … I was pretty good in my test … Dick Creek made that … You knew that, too, didn’t you? … Dick Creek would make me look so good they’d hire me … Oh God.” Her voice rose. “They treated me so nice. My God, you would have thought I was Doris Day, the way they treated me … and all the time they knew.”

“They couldn’t have known, Joanne. They didn’t know.”

“But you knew, didn’t you? Don’t lie. Don’t lie. Don’t lie. They knew. They knew. They knew. They knew I wasn’t any good, I wasn’t ever going to be any good. They knew. Oh, they knew. They just didn’t give a damn.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about me. About
Lone Star Kid.
That low-budget dog. Did it matter who played the leading woman? Lassie could have played the leading woman. But it was going to be the big chance for me. That’s what I thought … only, I couldn’t even play that role … and they knew it all the time.”

“No.”

“Don’t say no to me, damn you. They wanted
you.
That’s why they were so nice to me. They wanted you, so they treated me like I was somebody. They did it so well they fooled me. Oh, they really fooled me. I thought it was me they wanted. And all the time it was you. They wanted you to play in that goddamn
Man of the Desert.
They were afraid you weren’t going to do it. They would have done anything to please you, to get you to play that role. They’d have hired your grandmother at two-fifty a week to please you.”

“I’m sorry, Joanne.”

She stood with her hands at her sides. Her mouth quivered. “And you knew. Damn you. You knew all along that was why they hired me.”

He came a step toward her in the room. She looked about wildly as if seeking something with which to strike him.

He said, “I didn’t think it mattered why they hired you, Joanne. You wanted a chance. That was all that mattered.”

She opened her mouth wide, screaming and laughing and crying. “You let them. You let them do that to me. You knew. They didn’t want me. Even my screen test was terrible — you could have told me … But you let them hire me — because they wanted to please you — and they hired me just to please you.”

“I want to make it up. Is there anything I can do?”

She crumpled on the divan. “There’s nothing anybody can do. I’m all empty. It was my chance — my only chance. They didn’t bother to tell me until the last day of my contract … They told me they weren’t going to renew me. Just like that — as if I had known all along.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry. You’re going to be sorry. I’m going to make you sorry.”

She looked around, found a glass, poured herself another drink, her hand shaking so badly that she slopped it over the table and the rug. She didn’t even glance at the stain.

She drank deeply, watching him over the rim of the glass. There was defiance in her voice when she spoke. “What can I do now, damn you? Now you’ve fixed me like this. Where can I go now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Joanne. Stay here and rest … We’ll talk about it later.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Money — ”

“Money?” Her voice rose, keening. “Money? You don’t want me here with you any more, do you?”

“I’m sorry, Joanne.”

“Sorry?” Her voice shook. She leaned against the armrest of the divan to keep from falling. “You’ve done this to me … You’ve left me nothing — nowhere to go — and you’re sorry… .”

• • •

Clay and Kay Ringling rode with Sharon between them on the backseat of the Rolls, going across town to the airport.

“I’m sure Darrow is a nice guy,” Clay said. “I got that much sense at least … I know you wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t everything good.”

“And you don’t mind?” Sharon said, glancing at Kay Ringling, still unable to believe it.

Clay smiled. “I’m coming to the wedding, aren’t I? If the Darrows will let me in their house — a common actor … Give me a little time. Let me get used to it.”

Sharon pressed her face against his. “You’ll love him, Daddy … because I do.”

“At least,” Kay said, “he’ll make the effort.”

“Yes,” Sharon said, smiling at Kay across Clay. “You’ll see to that, won’t you?”

“I have to earn all this money some way,” Kay said.

Kay stayed in the car when Clay walked Sharon to the loading gate. At the exit, Sharon paused, clinging to his hand. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yes. I’m going back to work. That’s all that matters.”

“I’ll worry about you,” she said. “Maybe we should have taken that trip after all.”

“Maybe some other time. I won’t drag you away from — from Amory … I know better than that.”

“I’d love to make that trip with you — Amory would have to wait.”

“Don’t ask people to wait, doll. It confuses everything.”

She bit at her lip, kissed him. “If you’re sure you’re going to be all right — I mean if you’re going back to work and all.”

He put his arms around her, drew her close against him. It was for the last time really. It would never be exactly like this moment again for them. He drew Sharon close to him and kissed her tenderly.

Everybody in the covered ramp was staring.

• • •

The driveway at his home was clogged with cars. The chauffeur could not even worm the big Rolls between the lanes of parked vehicles. Police cruiser lights blinked and whirled.

Clay jumped out of the car, aware that Kay was at his heels. They hurried along the drive, went up the steps and across the veranda with news photographers and reporters shouting at them, bulbs flashing.

There were police all through the lower part of the house, but most of them were clotted in the library.

The door to the flagstone terrace stood open. A wind furled through the curtains, blew loose papers across the floor. A sheet of paper blew against Clay’s leg. Hardly aware of what he did, he bent down, picked it up. It was a sheet of the report Shatner had made on Joanne Stark. He remembered now the way he had left it lying on the desk in the library.

He went through the doorway into the disordered room. He felt Kay Ringling close behind him, and he was thankful for her even before they told him what had happened. He saw that Shatner’s report had been ripped and torn and thrown about the room.

Hoff was near the French windows. He came across the room, walking slowly. “No sense you going out there, Clay. You just stay out of it.”

“What is it?” Kay said to Hoff. “What happened?”

“She killed herself,” Hoff said. “She drowned in that pool out there … A girl could swim like that … Why would she do it? Why would she want to do it?”

“I don’t know,” Kay said. She was not thinking about Joanne. She was thinking about Clay Stuart, about what this scandal could do to him — and to Sharon’s marriage to a man named Amory Darrow. She felt she knew why Joanne had done it.

Clay was standing immobile, staring at the French doors, the pool beyond, the people standing around it, the lights fixed on it.

Kay caught his arm, but he shook free. He went across the room and through the doorway. He saw her body on the side of the pool in a wide wet stain on the flagstones. She looked like a doll that had been tossed there, discarded.

He stood at the rim of the crowd, unable to move. He could not believe what he saw. It would be a long time before he could make himself believe it.

Clay felt his eyes burn hotly, and then he felt a rush of rage at Joanne. She was so young, so lovely. What a terrible, wicked thing to do.

He went on standing there, unmoving. The police and ambulance attendants stepped around him, the white dressed attendants running with their litter as if there were any cause to hurry any more.

He had a last glimpse of Joanne’s white face. It was smudged and gray, hair matted across her forehead. Then the attendants were lifting her to the litter and moving with her across the flagstones to the ambulance.

Reporters spoke to Clay, but Kay answered for him, her voice flat. “Mr. Stuart has nothing to say. He knows nothing about this.”

He allowed Kay to lead him back across the library to the foyer and the stairs. People attempted to stop them but Kay moved through them and they went up the stairs together.

“Stay up here,” she said to him. “There’s nothing you can do down there now. We’ll handle it.”

Clay nodded. He turned and walked along the corridor to the enclosed porch across the rear of the house. He sat down near a window. He shook out a cigarette and then crushed it in his fist. She was dead. She had drowned in his pool. She had wanted to die, hadn’t she?

He sat with legs apart, feeling sick. He could hear the distant voices below him. The cars began to move out of the drive, and the house grew quieter.

Clay didn’t know how long he sat there. At last Kay came along the upper hallway and onto the enclosed porch.

“She must have found Shatner’s report,” Kay said. “She thought you had read it … I suppose until she read that she thought she could get you back … She’s made a mess … As though she wanted to hurt everybody she could, drowning herself in your pool.”

“I don’t want to hear about it,” Clay said. “I should have done something for her. But I didn’t know what to do.”

“It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could do.”

“When — I needed somebody — she came … but when she needed me, there was nothing I could do.”

“Are you all right, Clay? You want me to get you a doctor?”

“No. I’m all right.”

“I hope this won’t rip you apart,” Kay said, “worse than before — ”