Death of a Blue Movie Star

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Wow."

  "Wow,' she says. Yeah, wow. I own this town house and I could eat in any restaurant in Manhattan every night of the year, I wanted to. I own--not a share--I own a house in Killington. You like to ski? No? I could teach you."

  "You own Lame Duck?"

  "A controlling percentage. There are some other people involved."

  "The Mafia?" Rune asked.

  The smile stayed on Danny Traub's face. He said slowly, "You don't want to say that. Let's just say they're silent partners."

  "You think they might have anything to do with the bombing?"

  Again the fake smile. "Some calls were made. Some questions were asked. Nobody from ... over the river, let's say, had anything to do with it. That information's gold."

  She supposed that meant Brooklyn or New Jersey, headquarters of organized crime.

  "So, yeah, I'll talk to you. I'll tell you my whole life story. I've been in the business for about eight, nine years. I started as a cameraman, and I did my share of acting too. You wanta see some tapes?"

  "That's okay. I--"

  "I'll give you one to take home."

  A blonde woman--maybe last night's entertainment--appeared, groggy and sniffling. She was dressed in a red silk jumpsuit, unzipped to the navel. Traub raised his fingers as if he were signaling a waiter. The woman hesitated, then walked toward them, combing her long hair--it tumbled to her mid-back--with her fingers. Rune stared at the hair, a platinum-gold color. Neither God nor Nature could take credit for a shade like that.

  Traub said to Rune, "So what would you like? Coke? I mean the real thing, of course." He held up a saltshaker. Rune shook her head.

  The audience heard: "She's a Puritan. Oh, my God." Traub glanced back at Rune. "Scotch?"

  Rune wrinkled her nose. "Tastes like Duz."

  "Hey, I'm talking single-malt, aged twenty-one years."

  "Old soap isn't any better than new soap."

  "Well, just name your poison. Bourbon? Beer?"

  Rune stared at the woman's hair. "A martini." It was the first thing that came into her mind.

  Traub said, "Two martinis. Chop-chop."

  The blonde wrinkled her tiny nose. "I'm not, like, a waitress."

  "That's true," Traub said to Rune, who had apparently joined his audience. "She's not like a waitress at all. Waitresses are smart and efficient and they don't sleep until noon." He turned back to the woman. "What you're like is a lazy slut."

  She stiffened. "Hey--"

  He barked, "Just get the fucking drinks."

  Rune shifted. "That's okay. I don't--"

  Traub gave her a cool smile, the creases cut deep into his face. "You're a guest. It's no problem."

  The blonde twisted her face in anemic protest and shuffled off to the kitchen. She muttered a few words Rune couldn't hear.

  Traub's smile fell. He called, "You say something?"

  But the woman was gone.

  He turned back to Rune. "You buy them dinner, you buy them presents, you bring them home. They still don't behave."

  Rune said coldly, "People just don't read Emily Post anymore."

  He missed the dig completely. "You mean like the flier? Wasn't she the one tried to fly around the world? I did a movie about an airplane once. We called it Love Plane. Sort of a takeoff on The Love Boat--I loved that show, you ever see it? No? We rented a charter 737 for the day. Fucking expensive and a pain in the ass to shoot in. I mean, we're in this hangar in March, everybody's turning blue. You don't realize how small a plane is until you try to get three, four couples spread out on the seats. I'm talking wide-angle lenses. I mean, almost fish-eyes. Didn't work out too good. It looked like all the guys had dicks about an inch long and three inches wide."

  The blonde returned. Rune said to Traub, "My film. Will you help me out? Please. Just a few minutes about Shelly."

  He was hesitating. The blonde handed out the drinks and put an unopened jar of olives on the thick glass coffee table. Traub started to grimace. She turned to him and looked like she was going to cry. "I couldn't get it open!"

  Traub's face softened. He rolled his eyes. "Hey, hey, honey, come here. Gimme a hug. Come on."

  She hesitated and then bent down. He kissed her cheek.

  "You got any?" she whined.

  "Say please."

  "Come on, Danny."

  "Please," he prompted.

  She said, "Please."

  He fished into his pants pocket, then handed her the saltshaker--filled with coke, Rune assumed. She took it, then walked sullenly off.

  She hadn't said one word to Rune, who asked Traub, "She's an actress?"

  "Uh-huh. She wants to be a model. So does everyone else in this city. She'll make some movies for us. Get married, get divorced, have a breakdown, get married again and it'll take and she'll be out in Jersey in ten years, working for AT&T or Ciba-Geigy."

  Rune felt Traub's eyes on her. The feeling reminded her of the time her first boyfriend, age ten, had put a big snail down the back of her blouse. Traub said, "There's something, I dunno, refreshing about you, you know. I see all these women all day long--beautiful blondes and redheads to die for. Stunning, tall ..."

  Oooo, watch the tall, mister.

  "... big tits. But, hey, you're different."

  She sighed.

  "I mean that sincerely. You want to come down to Atlantic City with me? Meet some wild people?"

  "I don't think so."

  "One thing I am is talented. In the sack, you know."

  "I'm sure."

  "Plenty of recreational pharmaceuticals."

  "Thanks anyway."

  He looked at his watch. "Okay, tell you what, Uncle Danny'll help you out. You want to shoot me, so to speak, go ahead. But let's hurry. I got a busy day."

  In ten minutes Rune had the equipment set up. She slipped a new tape into the camera. Traub sat back, popped his knuckles and grinned. He looked completely at ease.

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "Anything that comes to mind. Tell me about Shelly."

  He glanced sideways, then looked into the camera and smiled sadly. "The first thing I have to say, and I mean this sincerely, is that I was wholly devastated by Shelly Lowe's death." The smile faded and his eyes went dull. "When she died, I lost more than my star actress. I lost one of my very dearest friends."

  From somewhere, Rune had no idea where, Danny Traub produced what might pass for a tear.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The gruff man, in his sixties, with abundant white hair and cool eyes, looked down at Rune.

  "So you think you can act?" he asked sternly.

  Before she could say anything he turned and walked back into his office, leaving the door half-open. It was an old-fashioned office door, with a large window of mottled glass in it. The sign, in gold lettering, read: ARTHUR TUCKER, ACTING AND VOICE INSTRUCTION.

  Rune stepped into the doorway, but stopped. She didn't know whether she'd been dismissed or invited in. When Tucker sat down at his desk she continued inside and closed the door behind her. He wore dark slacks and a white shirt and tie. His dress shoes were well worn. Tucker was slightly built, which made him seem younger. His legs were thin and his face chiseled and handsome. Bushy white eyebrows. And those piercing green eyes ... It was hard to hold his gaze. If Tucker were a character actor he would've played a president or king. Or maybe God.

  "I don't know whether I can act or not," Rune said, walking up to the desk he sat behind. "That's why I'm here."

  The office on Broadway and Forty-seventh was a theater museum. The walls were covered with cheap-framed photos of actors and actresses. Some of them Rune had seen in films or heard of--but nobody was very famous. They seemed to be the sort of actor who plays the male lead's best friend or the old wacko woman who shows up three or four times during a movie for comic relief. Actors who do commercials and dinner theater.

  Also on the walls were props, bits of framed fire curtains from famous theaters now gone, Stagebill covers pa
sted on posterboard. Hundreds of books. Rune recognized some titles; they were the same as Shelly Lowe had on her bookshelf. She saw the name Artaud and she remembered the phrase again: the Theater of Cruelty. It brought a jolt to her stomach.

  Tucker went through an elaborate ritual of lighting a pipe and a moment later a cloud of smoke, smelling of cherry, filled the room.

  He gestured to the chair, sat. Lifted an eyebrow, saying in effect, keep going.

  "I want to be a famous actress."

  "So does half of New York. The other half wants to be famous actors. Where have you studied?"

  "Shaker Heights."

  "Where?"

  "Ohio. Outside of Cleveland."

  "I don't know any academies or studios there."

  "It was the middle school. I was in the Thanksgiving pageant."

  He stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

  No sense of humor, she noted. "That's a joke."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I was also a snowflake once. And in high school I painted backdrops for South Pacific.... That's another joke. Look, sir, I just want to act."

  "I'm a coach," Tucker said. "That's all I am. I improve, I don't create. If you want to go to school, study drama, come back, I may be able to help you. But for now ..." He motioned toward the door.

  Rune said, "But my friend said you're the best in the city."

  "You know one of my students?"

  "Shelly Lowe," Rune said and pressed the button of the little JVC camcorder in her bag. The lens was pointed upward, toward Tucker. She knew she wouldn't get the whole angle, but she'd see enough. Also, she thought the little black border might give it a nice effect.

  Tucker turned to look out the window. A pile driver in a nearby construction site slammed a girder down toward the rock that Manhattan rested on. Rune counted seven bangs before he spoke. "I heard what happened to her." Tucker's ruddy face gazed at Rune from under those bushy white eyebrows. Did he brush them out like that? Rune changed her mind: He'd be a much better wizard than a president. A Gandalf or Merlin.

  Rune said, "Whatever else about her, she was a good actress."

  After a long moment Tucker said, "Shelly Lowe was my best student." A faint, humorless smile. "And she was a whore."

  Rune blinked at the viciousness in his voice.

  Tucker continued. "That's what killed her. Because she sold herself."

  Rune asked, "Had she been coming to see you long?"

  Reluctantly Tucker answered her question. Shelly had been studying with him for two years. She'd had no formal training other than that, which was very unusual nowadays, when schools like Yale and Northwestern and UCLA were producing the bulk of the professional actors and actresses. Shelly had a superb memory. She was like a chameleon, slipping into parts like someone possessed by the character's spirit. She had a talent for dialects and accents. "She could be a barmaid from northeast of London, then change herself into a schoolteacher from Cotswold. The way Meryl Streep can."

  Tucker spoke these words of admiration with troubled eyes.

  "When did you find out about her film career?"

  His voice was bitter again. "A month ago. She never said a word about it. I was stunned." He laughed with derision. "And the irony is that when it came to her legitimate auditions she wouldn't take just any job. She didn't do commercials or musical comedy. She didn't do dinner theater. She wouldn't go to Hollywood. She did only serious plays. I said to her, 'Shelly, why are you being so pigheaded? You could work full-time as an actress if you wanted to.' She said, no, she wasn't going to prostitute herself.... And all the while, she was doing those ... films." He closed his eyes and moved his large head from side to side to shake off the unpleasantness. "I found out a month ago. Someone was returning a tape at the video store I go to. I glanced at it. There she was on the cover. And, what's more, it was under the name Shelly Lowe! She didn't even use a stage name! When I found out I can't tell you how betrayed I felt. That's the only way I can describe it. Betrayal. When she came in for the next lesson we had a terrible fight. I told her to get out, I never wanted to see her again."

  He spun around to face out the window again. "Every generation has its candidates for genius. Shelly could have been one of those. All of my other students--" He waved his hand around the room, as if they were sitting behind Rune. "They're talented and I like to think that I helped them improve. But they're nothing compared with Shelly. When she acted you believed her."

  Just what Tommy Savorne had said, Rune recalled.

  "It wasn't Shelly Lowe on stage, it was the character. Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, the Greek classics, Ionesco, Ibsen ... Why, she came this close to the lead in Michael Schmidt's new play." He held his fingers a millimeter apart.

  Rune frowned. "The big producer? The guy gets written up in the newspapers?"

  He nodded. "She went to his EPI--"

  "What's that?"

  "Equity Principal Interview. It's like an audition. She met with Schmidt himself twice."

  "And she didn't get the part?"

  "No, I guess not. That was just before our fight. I didn't keep up with her." Tucker ran the stem of his pipe along his front lower teeth. He was not speaking to Rune as he said, "My own acting career never went very far. My talent was for coaching and teaching. I thought that with Shelly I'd leave behind someone who was truly brilliant. I could make that contribution to theater...."

  He stared at a photo on the opposite wall. Rune wondered which one.

  "Betrayal," he whispered bitterly. Then he turned his gaze to Rune. She felt naked under his deep eyes, shaded by the brush of his eyebrows. "You seem very young. Do you make those films too? The ones she did?"

  "No," Rune said. She was going to make up something, the sort of job a girl her age should be doing, but with those strange currents shooting out from his eyes--a green version of Shelly's blue laser beams--she just repeated the denial in a whisper.

  Tucker studied her for a long moment. "You have no business being an actress. Pardon my bluntness but you should look for another line of work."

  "I just--"

  But he was waving his hand. "I wouldn't do you a favor by being kind. Now if you'll excuse me." He pulled a script toward him.

  It wasn't much of a list.

  Rune sat at her desk--Cathy's old battered gray government-issue. She'd pushed it right next to the cracked front panel of L&R's air conditioner, which was churning out about a tenth of the BTUs it once had. She closed the Manhattan phone book.

  There were only two A. Llewellyns listed and neither of them was an Andy. That left only the remaining twenty million citizens to survey in the other boroughs, Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut.

  Shelly's most recent boyfriend would have to go unquestioned for the time being.

  Larry walked into the office and glanced at Rune. "Whatcha doing, luv?"

  "Looking up things."

  "Things?"

  "Important things."

  "Well, if you could postpone your search for a bit I've got something important for you."

  "Letters to type?"

  "Yeah, well, I wasn't going to mention it but those last ones? They were 'ardly the best typing job I've ever seen."

  "I told you I wasn't a typist."

  "You spelled the man's name three different ways in the same bleedin' letter."

  "Was that the Indian guy? He had a weird name. I--"

  "But his first name was James and that's the one you misspelled."

  "I'll try to do better.... You have my distributor for me yet?"

  "Not yet, luv, but what I do 'ave is the people for this advertising job, right? In the next room. Did the estimate go out yet?"

  "I typed it."

  "But did it go out yet?"

  Rune said patiently, "It's going to go out."

  "So it 'asn't gone out yet?"

  "It's finished, though."

  "Rune, they're 'ere. Now. We're going to talk concepts today. They should've 'ad the est
imate before this meeting."

  "Sorry. I'll bring it in."

  He sighed. "All right, let's go meet everybody. If they ask we'll tell 'em we were 'olding on to the estimate till this meeting. It was intentional."

  "Larry, you shouldn't do advertising. It--"

  "Oh, one of your boyfriends called."

  "Yeah, who?"

  "'ealy, something like that. Wants you to call."

  "Sam called? Great. I'll just be--"

  "Later."

  "But--"

  He held the door open and smiled threateningly. "After you, luv."

  Rune heard the name but forgot it immediately.

  Larry was droning on, looking impressed as he recited, "... the second biggest wallet and billfold manufacturer in the United States."

  Rune said, "How interesting."

  The man with the company and the unmemorable name--Rune called him Mr. Wallet--was about fifty, round and sharp-eyed. He wore a seersucker suit and sweated a lot. He stood with his arms crossed, hovering beside a doughy woman in her late twenties, who also crossed her arms, looking with flitting eyes at the lights and cameras and dollies. She worked for the company too and was his daughter. She was also, Rune found out, going to act in the commercial.

  Larry pretended to miss Rune's eyes as they made a circuit of the ceiling at this news.

  Another young woman, horsey, with a sensible pageboy haircut and an abrasive voice, said to Rune, "I'm Mary Jane Collins. I'm House O' Leather's advertising director. I'll be supervising the shoot."

  "Rune."

  Mary Jane extended her bony hand, the costume jewelry bracelets jingling. Rune gripped it briefly.

  Daughter said, "I'm a little nervous. I've done voice-overs but I've never been on camera before."

  Mr. Wallet: "You'll do fine, baby. Just forget that--" He looked at Mary Jane. "How many people are going to see her?"

  "The media buy should put us at about fifteen million viewers."

  He continued, "Fifteen million people are going to be watching your every mood ... oops, I mean move." He laughed.

  "Daddy." She smiled with a twisted mouth.

  Mary Jane read some papers. To Larry she said, "The budgets. I haven't seen the revised budgets."

  Larry looked at Rune, who said, "They're almost ready."

  He mouthed, Almost?

  Mary Jane's dark hair swiveled as she looked down at Rune. "Almost?"

  "A problem with the typewriter."

  "Oh." Mary Jane laughed with surprise. "Sure, I understand. It's just that ... Well, I would've thought you'd have them for us before this. I mean, this is the logical time to review them. Even today is a little tardy, in terms of timing."