Show Business Kills (43 page)

“Mrs. Schiffman, I’m so sorry about what happened to Jan O’Malley. Of all people. I’m the biggest fan of ‘My Brightest Day.’
I even bring a little TV to work so I can watch it. And if you’re the real Mrs. Schiffman, your voice sure fits a lot better
with what I imagined after I saw you on the Oscars the year
Faces
was nominated. I mean, I remember paying attention because I knew you graduated from here, and when they had that shot of
you sitting next to your husband, wear-
ing glasses and all, and looking so timid. I never would have thought you’d have such a big voice.”

“The caller had a particularly big voice?” Rita Connelly asked.

“She did. I mean it was that deep, foggy kind of voice. Of course Suzanne Pleshette is tiny, too, isn’t she? And she has a
voice like that, but anyway, the woman who called here and said she was Mrs. Schiffman sounded a lot like her. You know the
one who played Bob Newhart’s wife on his show? And I think she was on ‘The Rockford Files,’ too.

“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Schiffman, I take all the blame for this. As I’m sure you know, we really try hard to maintain the
privacy of our graduates, but it seemed like such a good idea for someone with your connections to send out a letter to solicit
funds for the new theater, which is what the woman I talked to said she was going to do, so I got overly enthusiastic and
gave out that private information. I hope it was okay.”

Rose sank into the chair that faced her messy desk. “It wasn’t okay. It was anything but okay,” she said, and pushed the button
to disconnect the phone. When Rita Connelly left, Rose called Ellen in the office, and when she wasn’t there, Greenie suggested
she try the car.

“Guess who was the person who received the fax with the alum names on it,” she said when Ellen answered.

“Who?” Ellen asked.

“Me.”

“What?”

“Somebody with a deep voice called the school and said she was me.”

“Maybe it was Harvey Fierstein. When he’s in drag, he looks a little like you.”

“Funny. The cop actually came to my house because they let the stalker go for no evidence, so they’re probably desperate to
pin this on someone.”

“Do you think anyone would believe that I saw Alex Bibberman leaving Jan’s house on Friday?” Ellen asked.

“Maybe.” Rose laughed.

“Shit, there’s an accident up ahead,” Ellen said. “I’m going to be late for the frigging meeting. Call you later.”

She was in the far-left lane of the 405 freeway, unable to budge because there was an accident up ahead. She dialed her direct
line at the studio.

“Ellen Bass’s office,” Greenie answered.

“I’m going to be late for the meeting.”

“I don’t even know why you’re coming to the meeting. You’re going through a big trauma, El. The meeting can happen another
day.”

“I want to get it over with,” she said.

“Do you need me to come and get you?”

“You’d have to have a helicopter to get me out of here. I’m in the far-left lane on the 405 and there’s a serious fender bender
about a half a mile up.”

“Bibberman will say you didn’t leave early enough.”

“I left at seven-thirty. It usually takes me twenty minutes. I was planning to be in an hour early to go over some notes for
the meeting. I’m trying very hard not to cry.”

“I’m not. I’m going to cry my eyes out. Hold on. There’s your other line.”

Ellen looked at the rows of unmoving cars, wishing that instead of laughing about yoga every time Marly mentioned
it to her, she’d taken a few classes. Classes that would have taught her how to breathe through her spine or some other bullshit
that Marly said helped her to relax. She couldn’t remember ever relaxing a day in her life. Marly was right, the job was toxic.

Click, Greenie was back on the line.

“It may not feel like it today, but you’re a lucky woman,” he said.

“Yeah? How so?”

“That was Bibberman’s secretary. Jodie must be on the 405, too, she says she won’t be here ‘til ten.”

“Oh, Greenie, thank God.”

The freeway traffic didn’t let up for nearly an hour, and by the time Ellen arrived at the lot it was two minutes before ten.
There was no time to stop at her own office, so she headed straight for Schatzman’s office. She was running, when she heard
a woman’s voice call her name.

“Ellen?” She turned.

“Jodie.”

“How are you?”

“I’m… okay.”

She wished she looked as cool and collected as Jodie Foster, who now moved down the hall to catch up with her. Ellen wore
a black straight skirt, a black silk sweater, stockings, and an Escada blazer, and Jodie was wearing a brown denim skirt,
an oversized white T-shirt, and sandals. You had to be young to have the confidence to wear that to a meeting. Jodie Foster
would be brilliant in Rose’s
Good-bye, My Baby
, Ellen thought.

As they walked down the hall together, Ellen remembered Jodie’s subtle performance in
Silence of the Lambs
. She was
a complex and thoughtful actress who loved intelligent women characters. None of the women she played were ever dippy or gratuitously
sexual. Wouldn’t it be perfect for her to star in and direct
Good-bye, My Baby
.

But Schatzman called it romantic drivel, and Bibberman called it a woman’s sob story, so Ellen had given up ever having it
done there.

“Isn’t Jan O’Malley a friend of yours?” Jodie asked Ellen.

“She is. One of my closest.”

“I thought I remembered that. I’ve been following it on the news. I’m so sorry.”

Ellen sighed. “Thank you.” They were nearly at Schatz-man’s office.

“Do they know who shot her? Was it a fan?”

“There was a fan stalking her, and they arrested him, but they released him this morning for lack of evidence. And there was
always a doubt in my mind about him being the one anyway.”

There were in Schatzman’s reception area now, and the secretary waved a little wave to Ellen to indicate that they ought to
go in. “Because Jan’s housekeeper said she heard the doorbell ring and that then Jan let the person in.”

Ellen and Jodie were still looking at one another, but Ellen could feel the four men trembling with excitement as they all
stood wearing their we’re-great-guys smiles on their faces. “That sounds odd to me,” Jodie said, and then she and Ellen looked
at the men. And Bibberman, so eager to be the first to say something, to be amusing, to tell a joke even if it was a bad one,
blurted out, “Maybe she let the guy in for a quick shtup.”

Both Ellen and Jodie froze. Ellen looked at the nervous
eyes of Schatzman and Richardson, and she could tell they both thought it was an idiotic blunder for a million reasons. Ellen
felt as stunned as if Bibberman had kicked her in the face. She was shaking with anger and the need to speak her mind. But
she took an instant to consider what it could do to her career.

Roger’s tuition. Her mother’s rent. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t hold it back. “Bibberman, do you ever listen to yourself?”
she asked. Her voice sounded vexed, but she wasn’t shouting. She was glad she hadn’t screamed at him the way she wanted to.
The skin on her face burned hot. She could feel Jodie standing coolly next to her. “I’ve seen you do some dumb things, but
this one truly wins the dumbshit-of-the-year award. This is even better than that quote I read in
Esquire
where Katzenberg said about Molly Ringwald that he wouldn’t know her if she sat on his face. You’re not just a misogynist,
Bib, that would be bad enough. You’re rude, thoughtless, perverse…”

“Ellen, this can wait…” Schatzman tried to interrupt her, but now she couldn’t control the avalanche of rage.

“No. It can’t. Because this poor schmuck has finally accomplished what he’s been trying to do, and I want him to know it.
I want him to get that his idiotic language, his attempts at exclusion, his bullying that defies the Crips and the Bloods,
and the abject humiliation he does so well, have finally made me able to say those two words he’s been waiting to hear. I
quit. I quit because I can’t spend another day at a company with a colleague who would do shtup-the-stalker material not just
to me about one of my best friends who is dying, maybe due to that stalker, but irony of hilarious ironies, in a room with,
of all people, Jodie Foster!

“It’s almost too idiotic to be true! It’s one of those aren’t-people-in-the-business-idiots stories we can all tell for years
to come. And now you’ll probably want me to take her aside and tell her how sensitive you are.”

What she just said made her laugh. She was so beaten up, so wrung out, so stressed in every way, she couldn’t stop her own
giggles. “Bibberman, it’s so awful, it’s brilliant. And the only thing I can do about it is to quit. You win, I quit. I am
longing to get out of here, to run away and do anything in the world but have to see your nasty little face one more morning.
And Jodie, if you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll leave, too.”

Then she turned and walked down the hall and out of the building to her bungalow to pack her things, alternately laughing
and crying.

  
33
  

W
hen she walked up to the drive-on gate at Hemisphere studios, the guard in the booth was talking to a guy in a yellow Rolls-Royce
whom he waved by. Then he leaned out to talk to her
.

“
Hi,” she said, “I’m a friend of Ellen Bass
.”

The guard smiled. “Lucky you,” he said
.

“
I’m going to run by her office and say hi,” she tried, thinking if she could get past the guard, once she was on the lot she
could ask someone where Ellen’s office was
.

“
And your name?” the guard asked, picking up a clipboard
.

“
My name
?”

“
Is she expecting you? If she is, her office left us your name
.”

“
And if she doesn’t know? I mean, I was just in the neighborhood and
…”

“
I’ll call her office and clear you
.”

Her name would just draw a blank or, worse yet, bring a sneer from that snotty secretary of hers. “I want to surprise her,”
she said
.

“
Lady,” the guard said to her, “over at Universal there
was a guy who showed up not long ago and wanted to surprise everyone in the executive office building with an Uzi. Not that
I think you look dangerous, but I like this job, and the rule is, I have to have you cleared or you go away, even if you’re
Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. That’s the rule
.”

A tram full of tourists passed by just behind the guard, and she could hear the young woman in the red jacket who sat at the
front of the tram speaking into a microphone, saying something about “the office buildings where all of the important decisions
are made, just on your left, and behind it, the studio commissary. And further along you’ll see a group of bungalows where
a select group of executives have their…
”

“
I’ve known Ellen Bass for thirty years,” she said quietly
.

“
Doesn’t matter,” the guard said
.

“
I guess not,” she said, then turned and walked back toward the motel. She’d go in and have a cup of coffee and then pack her
car and hit the road. She had nothing left. She had to go home. Back to that dumpy apartment and gray life in San Diego. Her
money was almost gone, and she couldn’t get to any of her old friends, couldn’t get near them. People here spent their lives
trying to get these big jobs and careers so they could be famous and in the public’s face, and then once they made it, they
had guards at gates
.

Maybe she should try to get a regular job, a waitress job, just for now, until she could communicate with Ellen and convince
her to hire her. Goddamn Ellen was right across the street, and she couldn’t get to her. There had to be a way. In the motel
coffee shop she sat at the counter, where there were no other customers, and ordered a toasted English
muffin and some coffee, and when the waitress handed her somebody’s used
L.A. Times,
she knew the woman recognized a kindred down-on-her-luck spirit
.