Death of a Blue Movie Star

by Jeffery Deaver

  It wasn't.

  Sweating, the panic growing, she worked at Arthur Tucker's door for five minutes. Nothing happened. She'd get the pick in and twist it and turn it and hear clicking and snapping and unlocking sounds, all of which was real satisfying.

  But nothing happened. The door remained snugly locked.

  She stood back. There was no time. Tucker'd be back in three or four minutes, she estimated.

  She looked up and down the corridor. There were only two other tenants on this floor: a lawyer's office, with signs in English and Korean, and an import company. There were no lights under either door.

  "Oh, hell."

  Rune shoved her elbow through the glass. A large triangular piece fell inside. She reached in and turned the latch.

  Four minutes ... you've only got four minutes.

  But it turned out she didn't need even that much time.

  Because right in the middle of Tucker's desk was what she was looking for--the stack of papers he'd been going to great lengths to cover up. But it wasn't just any stack of papers; it was a play. The title was Delivered Flowers. Tucker, it seemed, had been making notes in the margin--additions, deletions, stage directions. Not many, a few words here and there. One change was pretty radical, though, Rune thought. Not in the play itself, but on the cover page: Tucker had crossed out by Shelly Lowe and written his own name in.

  The copyright line had been changed too, his name substituted for hers.

  On the cover was another note: Haymarket Theater, Chicago--interested.

  Shelly's been dead a few days, Rune thought angrily, and this prick's already stolen her script and sold it to somebody.

  Take it, she told herself. It's evidence.

  But then Tucker would see it was gone. She looked behind the desk. There were piles of other plays, also loose-bound like this one, on his credenza. She rummaged through them and found another one on which Tucker had crossed off Shelly's name and put his own in its place.

  She tossed it into her leopard-skin bag and left the office. There was a loud click behind her, up the corridor.

  She'd been wrong. Tucker hadn't waited at the door downstairs for as long as she'd hoped. Or maybe someone had told him the company had moved months ago. In any event the elevator opened just as she got into the stairwell. She heard his footsteps, heard them stop, heard his muttered "Oh, no" as he saw the broken glass. She eased through the fire door and took the stairs two, then three at a time down to the ground floor.

  Outside, she saw a cop up the street. Her first inclination was to bolt. But then she remembered that no way would Arthur Tucker call the police. At best he was a thief. At worst, a killer.

  The lights were brilliant dots of pure sun.

  Rune, thirty feet away, standing behind greasy pillars, felt the heat from the lights and wondered two things. Why had the lighting man decided to use four 800-watt Redhead lamps, which were way too big for the size of the set?

  That was the first thing she wondered. The second was: What was going through the mind of Nicole D'Orleans, who was naked and grappling with a tall, thin, dark-haired man on a pink satin sheet, her long, perfect legs squeezing the guy's waist with all their strength?

  "That's it baby yeah there there ooooo you know what I like you know what I want give it to me fuck me fuck me...."

  When she got tired of delivering dialogue like that Nicole would simply wail and mew. The man above her mostly grunted.

  Sweating furiously, they changed position often--missionary seemed to be passe. Some of the poses were creative but seemed exhausting even to watch; it was good that Nicole and her partner were athletic.

  Jesus, Rune thought, I couldn't get my legs up that high if you paid me....

  The sounds of their lovemaking sailed into the dark crevices of the Lame Duck studio.

  The T-shirted cameraman moved in close, as if the probing lens of the Ikegami video camera was the third member of a menage a trois. The rest of the crew was bored, leaning on light stands and tripods, sipping coffee. Outside the hot glow surrounding the mattress Danny Traub--today acting as director--gestured impatiently and ordered the cameraman around the set. "You miss the come shot, your ass is grass."

  "I won't miss it."

  "Yesterday, Sharon's leg was in the way. You couldn't see diddly."

  "I won't miss it," the cameraman responded. And moved closer to the action.

  Rune returned to her meditation. What would Nicole be thinking about? They'd been at it for half an hour. She seemed aroused. But was it fake? Was she concentrating on--

  Then, a disturbance.

  The actor had stopped his pumping and was standing up. Dazed, bleary, breathing heavily. Nicole glanced down at his crotch and saw the problem. She leaned forward and went to work with her mouth. She looked pretty skillful but the man didn't respond. He suddenly retreated out of the lights. Nicole sat back and took the bathrobe that a young woman, an assistant, offered her. The actor looked for a towel, found one and pulled it around his waist.

  "That's it," the actor called. Gesturing, palms out, with a shrug.

  Danny Traub sighed, then barked orders. The lights went out. The camera shut off. The grips and gaffers walked off the set.

  "Third time this week, Johnny," Traub whispered.

  The actor was deeply inhaling on a Camel. "It's too fucking hot in here. What's with the air conditioner?"

  "The air conditioner?" Traub's head swiveled to his imaginary mezzanine. "He needs--what?--thirty-two degrees before he can get it up?"

  Johnny was looking at the floor but focusing six inches beneath it. "I'm tired."

  "I'm paying you a thousand dollars for a hard dick. This film shoulda been in the can a week ago."

  "So shoot around me. Put in some stock inserts."

  "Johnny"--like Traub was talking to a six-year-old--"people save up their pennies to rent tapes of you and your foot-long. They want to see the wand do its magic thing, you understand?"

  "I'm tired."

  "You're strung out is what you are. You know what coke does to your yin-yang. You can be a lawyer, a doctor, a musician, probably even a fucking airline pilot and do all the blow you want and it isn't going to fuck up your job. But a man who makes porn can't do as much as you're doing."

  "Just give me a couple of hours."

  "No, I'm giving you the fucking boot. Get out."

  Nicole had been watching from the side of the bed. She stepped toward them. "Danny ..."

  Traub ignored her.

  Johnny muttered something. He walked to the corner of the set. From a leather shoulder bag he took a blue glass vial. Traub stepped up and slapped it from his hand. It hit the wall and fell, spinning.

  "Fuck, Danny, why--"

  He shoved Johnny up against the wall hard. Gave a vicious smile, looking around. "He thinks I'm joking? Yeah, he does! The man thinks I'm joking.... I can't afford to carry you anymore."

  "Cut it out."

  "Shut up!" The words were jarring, pitched high, frantic. Everyone on the set must've heard. But they all looked away--at scheduling sheets or invoices or scripts. Or they stared at the coffee and tea they stirred compulsively.

  Johnny pulled away. He sat on the bed, looking absently for his clothes.

  Nicole walked to the fallen coke shaker, picked it up and offered it tentatively to Johnny. Traub stepped forward and pulled it from her hand.

  "You dumb bitch. Didn't you hear what I just said?"

  "I was just--"

  Traub had turned back to Johnny. "I paid you up front for this week. I want half back."

  Nicole said, "Danny, leave him alone, come on."

  Traub turned on her. Said viciously, "A real actress'd know how to get him up. You're fucking useless."

  Nicole was obviously frightened of him. She swallowed and looked away from his tiny piercing eyes. "Don't fire him, Danny. Come on. He's, you know, had trouble getting jobs."

  Traub's face broke into a dark, simian grin. "An impotent porn star
, having trouble getting work? You're shitting me."

  "He's having a rough time is all."

  Traub said to Johnny, "Fuck the money. Just get outa here."

  Johnny turned abruptly and walked off the set.

  "Asshole," Nicole whispered.

  Traub spun around and grabbed her teased hair. He pulled her head close to his. "Don't ... you ... ever."

  Nicole whimpered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...."

  Anger swept through Traub. He drew his hand back in a fist. But he looked around. A beefy, T-shirted assistant stirred. The cameraman took a step toward them. Traub waited a moment and released her hair.

  Nicole's hand rose to her head and massaged her scalp. Traub gave her a fake smile again and patted her cheek. She flinched, waiting for a slap. He laughed and slipped the vial of coke between her breasts. "There's my--"

  She tossed her hair and walked away.

  Traub called after her, "--good girl."

  "Shoes," Nicole said to Rune. "A lot of times I think about shoes."

  "Shoes? Like on your feet?"

  "Yeah. You know. Just shoes."

  Rune and Nicole were sitting in one of the dressing rooms at Lame Duck, which wasn't a room at all but just an area set off from the rest of the studio with cracked and mouse-gnawed Sheetrock. They were on the fourth floor, the floor above the bombing. Nicole had said the company had decided not to move, which she thought was real tacky, what with Shelly being killed just below them. "Danny says we're got a sweetheart deal with the landlord. Whatever that means."

  Rune had snuck up to the dressing rooms after the incident with Traub. There she'd set up the camera and zoomed in for a close-up of Nicole's face. She'd lowered her voice to sound like Faye Dunaway's in Network and asked, "When you're on the set with the cameras rolling and you're with a man, doing it, what do you think about?"

  "Just one man?"

  "I mean, with anyone."

  "Danny likes to shoot with two men a lot."

  Rune said, "Okay, say you're on the set with two men."

  Nicole nodded to show she understood the question and started talking about shoes.

  "I think about Ferragamos a lot. Today, before that thing with Johnny I was picturing this great pair. It has a nifty bow on the side, real small and cute." Nicole was dressed in a shiny silver jumpsuit with a wide, white belt. She wore cowboy boots with metal rivets on the side. Her hair was teased up high. Rune noticed that her scalp was slightly red from where Traub had grabbed her.

  "I love shoes. I have about sixty pairs. I don't know. They calm me down. For some reason."

  "Sixty?" Rune whispered in astonishment.

  "That was one difference between Shelly and me. I spend everything I make. She put it all in mutual funds and stocks, things like that. But, hey, I like clothes. What can I say?"

  "I saw a couple of your films. You looked like you were really turned on, really into it. And you were just faking?"

  Nicole shrugged. "I'm a woman; I've had lots of practice faking."

  "You must think about something other than shoes."

  "Well, there's technical stuff to worry about. Am I at the right angle, am I looking at the camera, did I shave my underarms, am I repeating the same words all the time?"

  "Who writes the dialogue?"

  Nicole glanced nervously at the camera. She cleared her throat. "We make up most of it. Only the thing is, you'd think it'd be easy. You just look at the camera and talk. But it isn't like that. You kind of freeze up. You know what to say, the words and all, but the how to say it part, that's what's so hard for me."

  Rune said, "You sounded okay to me. And I've seen a couple of your films."

  "Yeah?" Nicole turned her face, glowing with purple and beige makeup, toward Rune. "Which ones?"

  "Bottoms Up. And Sex Wars. Oh, and Lusty Cousins."

  "That was an old one, Lusty Cousins. Kind of a classic. I got mentioned in Hustler. I have to say I was kinda happy with the way it worked out. I rehearsed that one for a week. Shelly made us."

  Rune glanced outside into the empty corridor.

  "Did Shelly ever write plays?"

  "Plays? Yeah. That was another one of her hobbies. She'd send them out and they'd come back with a rejection letter."

  "Did she ever have anything produced?"

  "Naw, I don't think so. But one she wrote a few months ago was supposed to be real good. Some theater was interested in it."

  The Haymarket Theater, Chicago, Rune bet, recalling the note on the copy of the play in Tucker's office.

  "Delivered Flowers?"

  "Yeah. I think so. That might have been it."

  "You know what it was about?"

  "Naw."

  Rune said, "I interviewed Danny Traub. I was talking to him about Shelly."

  "Uh-huh."

  "And he said that he really loved her. That they were this like team."

  "Danny said that?"

  "Yep."

  "He's lying," Nicole said.

  "That's sort of what I thought too."

  "He didn't give a shit for Shelly. Or for anybody else except himself. Did he, like, tell you about the times he propositioned her--which was every other day?"

  "No. Why don't you?"

  Nicole looked at the camera. "Maybe if you could shut that off."

  Rune clicked the switch.

  "He was always ..."

  "Harassing her?"

  Nicole shrugged as if there was a fine line between coming on to some woman and harassing her. "It wasn't like he was stalking her. But he was pretty hung up. She thought he was a little toad. She hated him. He'd come parading onto the set and start putting everybody down. Wisecracking and insulting everyone. You know how he does that? Talking about you, not to you, even when you're right in front of him. And since he pays them--and, man, he pays good--they all put up with it."

  "But not Shelly."

  "Oh, no way. Not Shelly. Hell, she laughed at him. A couple weeks ago Danny was ordering the director around on the set and Shelly called him a pissant. I don't know what that is exactly--you ever hear of it? Anyway she called him that, then walked off the set. Boy, was he mad. All these veins and stuff stood out on his face. I thought he was going to have a heart attack."

  "I saw the fight you guys just had."

  "Me and Danny? You saw that? That's not even a fight hardly." She took a brush and started working on her hair. It was hard work--there was a lot of spray. "Johnny's a sweetheart. He's just not doing too well right now. He's an alcoholic and he does way too much coke. He oughta retire. He was really a star in the seventies. He's kind of big, you know."

  Rune said, "I saw."

  "But Danny's right. He's no good anymore. Lame Duck's the only place he can work. Nobody else'll hire him. I guess even Danny's lost patience. I mean, that's pretty much one thing you need with a guy--they've got to get it up." Nicole shrugged. "Sort of in the job description, you know?"

  Rune paused. Water dripped somewhere. Outside, a motorcycle driver ran through his gears in a tenor roar. She leaned forward and whispered, "Do you think he could have killed Shelly?"

  "Danny?" Nicole laughed, started to shake her head. Then she stopped. The smile faded and she rummaged around in her purse. "You want some blow?" The blue vial appeared. "Johnny always has good stuff."

  Rune shook her head.

  Nicole inhaled a line, sniffed. After a moment, she said, "Why would he do that?"

  Rune was studying the Sheetrock, the uneven angles, the bent nails, the ragged sawing job. After a moment she asked, "You know what's kind of odd?"

  "What?"

  "That, when I said that--about Danny killing Shelly--you didn't seem really shocked."

  Nicole considered that for a moment. "I don't like Danny. He's obnoxious and all he thinks about is women and coke and his cars. But, I'm like, all I think about is clothes and coke. So I can't really, you know, cast stones." Her eyes darted. She was debating.

  "Go on," Rune said, kee
ping her voice low. "I have this feeling there's something you want to tell me."

  She looked at her watch, then leaned close. Rune smelled perfume and Ponds cold cream and Listerine. "Don't tell anyone, but I want to show you something."

  Nicole rose and shoved open the warped paneling that served as the door. They stepped into the gritty hallway and walked to a service elevator. "We're going to the basement," Nicole said, closing the accordion grate. She pressed the first-floor button.

  They got out in a filthy lobby and walked to a door that opened onto a flight of stairs descending into the dark.

  Rune said, "Looks like it goes down to a pit, like a dungeon."

  Nicole gave a cold laugh. "That's exactly what it is."

  She stared into the dark for a few seconds, then started down the stairs. "I don't think anyone's down here. I hope not."

  It was a long descent. They walked a full minute, with just a rickety wooden handrail for support. The only light came from two dim bulbs screwed into huge, wire-cage fixtures meant for lamps much larger. The steps were spongy from rot.

  From the foot of the stairs a corridor led to a dark, low tunnel made of rock and uneven smears of concrete. Pools of greasy water mottled the floor. Iron rods stuck out of the stone at various points. Someone years ago had poured red paint, like blood, around the rods--probably as warnings. Cobwebs and the feathery carcasses of insects filled the corners. Rune coughed several times; the air stank of fuel oil and mold.

  They continued down the tunnel.

  "This used to be a boiler room or storeroom," Nicole said, stepping through a doorway and clicking on a light switch. Fluorescent tubes flickered overhead, then burst into light. The two women squinted in the brilliance. It was a square room, twenty by twenty. The walls were the same stained, sloppy concrete and stone as the tunnel. Rings hung from the ceiling on chains. Stained leather vaulting horses sat in the corner and there was a complicated wooden rack covering one wall.

  "A gym?" Rune asked. She walked over to a trapeze made of wood and chromed steel. "I keep thinking I should work out but I don't really feel motivated. I think basically exercise should have a purpose--like running from somebody who wants to beat the hell out of you."

  "This isn't a workout room, Rune," Nicole said softly.

  "No?"

  The actress walked to a tall, battered metal locker and opened it. Took a long, thin stick from it. It looked like the sort of pointer a teacher would use.