Authors: Peter Robinson
The sweet, acrid smell of marijuana drifted through the air. Two young actors who played uniformed cops on the show stood near the door snorting coke through a rolled-up dollar bill. Or it could have been a twenty. Apart from the numbers, American money all looked the same to Sarah. She turned away from the actors; the scene brought back too many memories, all of them bad.
Music blasted out of Jack’s megawatt stereo system in the main room. Janis gave way to the Rolling Stones doing ‘Angie.’ Sarah studied the lights of the houses across the canyon again and wondered if
M
were watching. Was she on stage tonight?
Inside the house, people danced wildly, tossing frantic shadows over the stark white walls. Sometimes the shadows and the dancers didn’t seem to connect, as if so much wildness disconnected them the way a retina might be detached from the back of the eye. Sarah looked for Jack, hoping he would manage to get away from the throng for a minute.
Jack Marillo was her co-star in
Good Cop, Bad Cop
, the biggest early-season hit the network had had for years, such a success that it was even being shown in the UK already.
People said the main reason for the show’s success was the chemistry between Sarah’s controlled, repressed and icy blonde homicide detective, Anita O’Rourke, and her spontaneous, rule-bending, bed-hopping partner Tony Lucillo, played by Jack. Why was it, Sarah wondered, that female TV cops always had names that started with an ‘O’ and male cops had names that ended with one?
Sarah’s character was tough and competent, with a hint of vulnerability, an occasional hairline crack in the professional carapace. She was the one who always kept her cool when Lucillo shouted, gesticulated and went into his tantrums, but she also shed a tear or two in private after discovering the raped and murdered corpse of a twelve-year-old street kid.
Stuart said the audience liked the characters because they kept people in suspense about whether they’d end up in the sack together. They had filmed a kiss for the Christmas special – a chaste one, but with definite possibilities – then the network would be showing reruns for a couple of weeks to keep the viewers on tenterhooks.
Stuart also said the male viewers loved Sarah because, although she seemed a bit aloof and prim, very Brit, they just
knew
she was a screamer between the sheets. All that repressed passion. Strictly footprints on the ceiling.
Sarah took all the praise with a pinch of salt, and she took Stuart’s crude comment as a compliment. That, to her, was what acting was all about. Being someone different. She was by nature shy and quiet; her shyness was a personal prison she could only escape through acting. She could only be truly alive and real on stage or in front of the cameras.
Being reserved, Sarah didn’t like parties very much, either, but she understood the importance of attending them, especially in Hollywood. It wasn’t just a matter of being seen at the right places. Certainly that was important, as Sarah was still only an up-and-coming star, rather than a fully fledged one. But she was also relatively new to America, and she wanted to make friends; she wanted to be liked. It was especially difficult being English. People were inclined to think you were stuck-up and stand-offish just because of your accent.
So she showed up when she was invited, mingled and said the right things. She never really made any close friends that way, but at least she collected more faces to smile at when she dined at Spago’s, which she usually tried to avoid because it was too noisy there to hear yourself think.
Sarah turned to the sliding door and smiled to see Jack coming towards her with a bottle of beer in his hand. She liked Jack. Of all the people she’d met in Los Angeles – Stuart aside – he was the closest she had to a friend.
Handsome in a TV star sort of way, Jack was tall and slim, not exactly muscular, but in good athletic shape, with a dark complexion and a great head of shiny black hair. Sarah liked him because he was straightforward – no games, no bullshit – full of mischief and energy, and he had a sense of humour. Jack could act, too, not like some of the people in the show, who had walked right out of toothpaste commercials and used-car lots.
Sometimes they went out together to restaurants, plays and concerts. There had been one or two media attempts at rumours of romance, of course, but even the greenest of entertainment reporters hadn’t been able to maintain that fiction for long, reverting instead to the cliché of the beautiful star’s lonely life, her Garbo-esque love of solitude and privacy.
Sarah knew that Jack was gay, and that the one marriage he had tried, to appear hetero, had been a dismal failure. If the gossip columnists also knew, they weren’t saying anything. Hollywood could be very funny about things like that, even today.
‘Playing wallflower again?’ Jack asked, standing next to her. They turned to face the canyon and he draped his arm over her shoulder in a brotherly fashion. The solid wooden fence they leaned against was all that stood between the two of them and a long plunge into the dark.
‘Oh, shut up, Jack,’ Sarah said, thumping his arm. ‘You’re such a party animal, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
Jack feigned a frown. ‘Not for much longer. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s my birthday. I’m getting old.’
‘Thirty-seven’s not old.’
‘Easy to say that when you’re only thirty-four.’
‘How did you know that?’
Jack winked. ‘Same way I know your real name’s Sally Bolton. No problem if you flirt a bit with one of the secretaries.’
‘Swine.’ Sarah nudged him in the ribs, but a chill went through her when he mentioned knowing her real name.
‘Oh, I love it when you talk dirty to me,’ Jack joked. ‘Especially with that plummy London accent.’
‘Plummy?’ Sarah countered, switching to the broad Yorkshire she’d lost after years playing other people, other voices. ‘Ee bah gum, lad, tha mun’t call us plummy.’
Jack laughed.
‘Is that true?’ Sarah asked him. ‘About the secretary?’
‘No. You told me yourself in the fall. Don’t you remember?’
‘So I did. It’s just . . .’
‘What is it? Is something wrong?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘No. Well, not really.’
He took his arm away, grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him. ‘Come on, Sarah,’ he said in his TV voice. ‘It’s
me,
Tony Lucillo, your partner.’
Sarah slipped out of his grasp and turned to face the canyon. ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she said. ‘It was just you saying how easy it was to find out things about me. You know, personal details. I got some weird letters, that’s all.’ She turned to face him and touched his arm. ‘Please don’t say anything. I’d hate it if everyone knew about them.’ The music stopped. Sarah heard police sirens in the distance.
‘We all get weird letters. I got one from my ex-wife’s lawyer just the other day. She wants more money. Stop being so goddamn British. What was it, threatening, dirty?’
‘Neither, really. But . . . well, a bit of both, maybe.’ Sarah turned back to the canyon and told him about it.
‘Ooh,’ said a voice behind them when she’d finished. ‘That
is
creepy.’ Sarah and Jack turned around and saw Lisa Curtis. Lisa looked as gorgeous as ever in a low-cut, strapless black dress, which contrasted with her creamy skin, and her thick, glossy chestnut hair falling in extravagant curls and waves over her shoulders. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing.’
‘Oh, it’s you, Lisa,’ Sarah said. ‘That’s all right. Just don’t go broadcasting it around, okay? I could do without the attention. It’s nothing really.’
Lisa, who played the police dispatcher in the show, pointed to her impressive chest. ‘
Moi
? Broadcast? But I’m the soul of discretion, Sarah, you ought to know that.’
‘Right.’ Sarah laughed. ‘Aren’t you cold, dressed like that?’ she asked.
‘Goose-bumps are in. Anyway, I think they’re fascinating.’
‘What? Goose-bumps?’
‘No, dummy. Your letters.’
Jack excused himself to attend to his guests and said he’d be back later. Lisa cornered Sarah by the edge of the deck. The music started again; this time it was Kiri Te Kanawa singing an aria Sarah recognized from
Tosca
. Jack sure had catholic tastes, and this was clearly the Italian in him coming out. Te Kanawa’s strong, clear voice rang out over the canyon.
‘Something like that happened to a friend of mine,’ Lisa went on. ‘Well, a friend of a friend, really. I mean, I never actually
met
her. She dated this guy, like, a few times, and he got too serious, too possessive, so she dumped him. Time to move on, right? Like, get a life. Anyway, this is the kind of guy who won’t take no for an answer. He starts sending her letters every day. Like, really graphic ones about the things they used to do together in bed and how he would love her for all eternity and couldn’t bear being away from her body. That kind of thing. Real yukky. Then next it’s phone calls, flowers, the whole deal.
‘She tries to tell him she’s not interested, right, but it’s like he isn’t even hearing her. He says he knows she still loves him and she knows it, too, deep down. She’s just like fighting it because her feelings are so overwhelming and so powerful they frighten her. Can you believe it? This asshole tells her if she looks deep inside herself she’ll find the truth and the courage to act on it. Well, she tells him the only thing that frightens her is his behaviour, but he just laughs and tells her not to be a silly girl, like one day she’ll wake up and know it’s true.’
Sarah sipped her warm rum and Coke and nodded in all the right places. That was one thing about a conversation with Lisa; it wasn’t too demanding, if you had plenty of patience. Laughter spilled from inside the house, glasses tinkled and Kiri sang on about how she lived for art, her warm soprano soaring in the clear night air.
‘Next he starts hanging around outside the bank where she works,’ Lisa went on. ‘She was an assistant manager. I mean, she’s one bright lady. And the guy was a stockbroker or something. We’re not talking lowlifes here. Anyway, finally she gets really freaked. She starts to believe it really
is
her fault, that she must be encouraging him in some way, giving him signals. Like,
maybe she really did want him
.’ Lisa put her index finger to her temple, turned it a hundred and eighty degrees and back, and mimicked the
Twilight Zone
theme.
‘What happened?’ Sarah asked.
‘He goes too far is what. Just when she’s starting to feel like it might be easier to give in than keep on dealing with him. I mean, he’s got her so messed up she’s even starting to feel flattered by the attention. This guy would neglect his job and hang around outside the bank all day just to catch a glimpse of her. I mean, just a glimpse. She wouldn’t even talk to the sucker. He keeps telling her he loves her, buys her diamonds and stuff and she won’t give him the time of day.’
‘But how did he go too far?’ Sarah asked, fascinated despite herself. ‘What did he do?’
‘I guess he didn’t feel he was getting anywhere. Like, she never answered his calls or his letters. She always returned his presents. She’d even cross the street to avoid him and make sure there was someone with her when she went out on her lunch-break. Well, one time she’d been to lunch with this guy, you know, from the bank, a few times, and he comes out from work one day and finds his tyres slashed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who did it, right?’
‘What did your friend do?’
‘She confronted him with it next time he phoned.’
‘And did he admit it?’
‘Sure he did. Tells her it’s just a friendly warning. That she belongs to
him
. Then he starts talking about how if he can’t have her alive they can be together in death. That, like, brought her to her senses again. What a loser. I mean, the guy’s almost got there after months of presents and stuff, then he blows it. Anyway, she’s all freaked now and he’s like getting
really
mad.’
‘Did she go to the police?’
‘Not at first. She just warned him, like that was it. No more.
Nada
. Goodbye. That’s all she wrote.’
‘And?’
‘And one day while she’s at work he, like, breaks into her house. You know what he does?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘He steals a pair of shoes, that’s all.’
‘Shoes?’
‘Uh-huh. Navy pumps. Is that weird, or what? But wait for it. Not only does he steal a pair of her shoes. The next time he phones, do you know what he tells her?’
‘What?’
‘He tells her he’s had the fucking shoes bronzed, that’s all.
Bronzed!
’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Cross my heart.’
‘What happened next?’
‘She calls the cops. What she should’ve done right from the start, you ask me. They slap a restraining order on him. Like, he isn’t supposed to go within two miles of her or something. This is a while ago. I hear we’ve got better laws now.’
‘Did he obey the order?’
‘Dream on. Two days later he breaks into her house again. This time while she’s there. First he shoots her in the head, then he takes her clothes off. Then he gets undressed, puts his arm around her and shoots himself in the head. The cops find them huddled naked and dead together on the sofa like some modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Isn’t that just
so
bizarre?’