by Lutz, John
“Of course.” She sounded barely tolerant of his mental sluggishness. She twisted her lean body, opened a drawer, and removed a plain white envelope. “I found this stuck under my dressing-room door yesterday.” She reached into the drawer again. “And this and this the week before.” She seemed to begin losing her composure, but Oxman had the feeling she was playing for effect, acting for him. Show biz in the blood. “I’ve been receiving these for the past two months.”
Oxman took the stack of envelopes from her, opened them one by one, and read.
There was nothing particularly imaginative or interesting about the notes. They were all obscene, and whoever had written them threatened to do painful and humiliating things to the recipient and then kill her. The printing, in soft pencil, was simple and childish, the sort of thing that would be useless to a handwriting analyst, and the stationery was cheap stuff sold in drugstores all over the city. The notes were addressed not to Lana Spence, but to Delia Lane.
What was interesting was the signature at the bottom of each note, also done in the same crude scrawl: Edgar Grume.
“Grume’s dead,” Oxman said inanely. “I mean, even Allan Ames, the actor who played him, is dead.”
“Being dead never stopped Grume before,” Lana said archly.
“Maybe not, but he was sure as hell stopped when Ames died.”
Lana stood up, walked to a closet with sliding doors, and took off her robe, as if Oxman weren’t there. He swallowed hard. She was wearing a black slip and bra. Her breasts were larger than he’d imagined when seeing her fully dressed, and they seemed intent on escaping the bra’s ample cups. She slipped a white sweater on over her head, bent immediately to check in the mirror and make sure her hair hadn’t been too mussed, then said, “Someone in my position receives all sorts of strange mail, Detective Oxman, but the tone of those notes scares me. They’re so straightforward and matter-of-fact about my—or Delia Lane’s—dying. And they keep coming. They just keep coming.” Again she pulled a distraught face, as she turned to the closet and began sorting through clothes. Hanger wire squealed across the metal rod; empty hangers pinged against each other.
“Any idea who might feel that strongly about you?” Oxman asked.
“I make enemies,” she said. “It’s part of my life, having enemies. Part of every actress’s life. Especially if she’s …”
“A star,” Oxman finished for her. So modest she was.
“Exactly,” she said, unsmiling.
Oxman knew there were certain beautiful women who, by virtue of their beauty, expected the world to tilt their way and all good things to come to them as if that were their due. Some of these women, along with their beauty, carried in their core an innate feeling of inferiority, and when they didn’t receive what they expected, they needed to establish that the world and not they were at fault. When they weren’t catered to, they got irritated. Sometimes very irritated. That was Lana Spence, Oxman figured: beautiful, talented up to a point, and insecure enough to be aggressive, even hostile. He could believe she had enemies. But a series of life-threatening notes, signed by a dead vampire (as if there were any other kind), was an extreme reaction, even toward a woman like this. Oxman wondered what Lana Spence had done, and to how many and what people.
“I’ll take these with me, Miss Spence,” he said, gesturing toward the stack of letters.
“Of course you may,” Lana said, as if he’d asked permission. “I don’t like having them around where I have to look at them. And since you’re going to be investigating threats on my life, you might as well call me Lana.”
“It’ll be a privilege,” Oxman said, only half seriously.
She hadn’t picked up the note of sarcasm in his voice. “Don’t force me to act like a star, Detective Oxman. Or may I call you Ox, as your partner does?”
“I’d answer to that,” Oxman said.
“I just bet you would, Detective Oxman.” She grinned wickedly, the same grin he’d seen earlier before the cameras; she thought she’d made an inroad.
“I need a starting point,” Oxman said. “You must suspect someone, if even remotely, of writing these notes.”
“No. I can’t believe anyone would actually want to murder me. Or is he only trying to scare me? Should I take these death threats seriously, Ox?”
“You said ‘he,’” Oxman pointed out. “Who’d be your leading candidate, or at least a possibility, to wish you any kind of harm? A rejected suitor, maybe? You must have an army of those.”
She found a plaid skirt and stepped into it as she thought. She zipped it up the back and let the sweater hang out. With a shake of her head so her hair was slightly disarranged, she suddenly looked years younger. She got out a black pair and a red pair of high-heeled shoes. “These or these?” she asked, holding out both pairs for Oxman to see.
“Wear the black,” Oxman told her. “Now, about these death threats …”
“All right, I’m sorry.” She slid her stockinged feet into the black shoes, twirled before a full-length mirror, then nodded in satisfaction. “I’m not suggesting anyone I know wrote those notes, but there is what you call a rejected suitor; Christ!—that sounds like a term out of a Tennessee Williams play! Six months ago we had an argument on the set, and he struck me.”
“With his fist?”
“Yes. I was surprised; no man had ever hit me until then. The night before, I’d told him we were finished. He didn’t want to believe it. He walked up to me on the set between takes and wanted to talk it all out again. I strongly suggested he stop bothering me, and he got mad and all of a sudden I was curled up on the floor and couldn’t breathe.”
“This man was fired from the show, I presume.”
“No, I wouldn’t let Sy or Harry fire him.”
“Why not?”
“He’s one of the best at his job, and he apologized and promised never to harm me again. And he hasn’t. He’s been a gentleman since then.”
“Okay. I suppose certain actors are indispensable to a soap opera.”
“He isn’t an actor,” Lana said, “he’s Zach Denton, our set designer.”
Something, a vague stirring, rustled in the back of Oxman’s mind. Something beyond the violent pornography Denton had carried in his portfolio. “Why did you break off the affair with him?”
“The earth had spun on its axis too many times,” Lana said. “Time had passed, and I was bored with Zach. Simple as that. Sorry, but that’s the way I am and I don’t intend to change.”
“You told him that?”
“Not quite so bluntly. But the message got across.”
Someone knocked firmly three times on the door. “We’re ready to leave, Lana.”
“The cast is going to Riverside Park to shoot the picnic scene,” Lana explained. “That’s why I’m dressed like a cheerleader with the hots. Should bring back memories in the viewers. Everybody got fucked at some time or another on a picnic, don’t you think?”
Oxman thought back to a day almost a quarter of a century ago. “Guess I’m no exception,” he said. He stood up, stuffing the stack of notes into his sport coat pocket. “I’ll talk to Zach Denton. Meanwhile, you take care, Lana.”
“I feel better now that I’ve talked to you,” she said, as he held the door open for her. The back of her hand brushed his thigh as she stepped past him. Not accidentally, Oxman knew. Her life was a reflection in the eyes of men, as was her sense of self-worth. It was the curse of many truly beautiful women.
Oxman watched her run down the hall to where a tall, distinguished-looking man with the bearing of a stage actor waited for her. They exited the place like royalty.
She might feel better now, but Oxman didn’t. She had complicated the murder investigation. Death threats signed Edgar Grume, an Edgar Grume costume missing, and what appeared to be a man in a black cape seen fleeing from the scene of McGreery’s murder. What had, an hour ago, seemed simple, had now become not only complicated but bizarre.
Oxman left the b
uilding, nodding a good-bye to Merritt the guard. This afternoon or tomorrow would be soon enough to talk to Denton, who was probably at Riverside Park anyway. Talking to him might lead somewhere, but the fact that he’d lost his temper and punched Lana Spence didn’t necessarily make him a murder suspect or even a crank note writer. Denton was a big boy who’d probably been jilted before, and he’d had six long months to cool off since his run-in with Lana.
It was Lana Spence whom Oxman needed to find out about, and not from Lana Spence.
Arthur Sales—4:30 P.M.
Sales didn’t feel like going home. Not to Wendy and her interminable bitching. Their marriage would never be the same, and that was fine with Sales. Maybe Lana had done him a favor, when she’d instigated, and then ended, their brief affair. Losing Lana had hurt at first, still hurt sometimes, but at least now he was sure he wanted to leave Wendy. Well, he thought he was sure. He’d always felt his heart tugged this way and that with Wendy.
Wendy Conroy, actress and sometime art dealer. Now full-time art dealer, really. But she’d done enough acting to notice genuine sparks between Sales and Lana Spence on “Shadowtown” and she knew Lana by reputation. A bitch. A classic bitch. Not at all unlike the character Lana played on “Shadowtown.” Reality—or unreality— didn’t end with the cutting of the scenes, Wendy suspected. Then she’d hired a scumbag private detective to get the proof she needed that Sales and Lana were having an affair. Sales still felt a rush of shame and anger when he thought about the photographs taken secretly at the motel in New Jersey. The things Lana had talked him into doing! Even soap-opera fans would have a hard time imagining.
Wendy had waved the photographs in front of Lana and threatened to give them to the Enquirer if Lana didn’t stop seeing Sales. Lana laughed; she’d discarded Sales and moved on to other game the week before. And she knew Wendy was running a bluff and would never chance the consequences for herself of letting those photographs reach the press—the backlash of publicity, the potential slander suits. The hired thug who called himself a detective had broken the law to obtain the photos.
Then, apparently Lana had hired her own devious help; Sales couldn’t imagine her sneaking into his apartment and stealing the photos and negatives herself. A few other items were taken, to make it appear to have been a common burglary. But Sales and Wendy both knew that somehow Lana had stolen the proof of the illicit affair between herself and Sales. She knew when to cover her ass as well as uncover it, Sales had to admit.
Sales parked his car and went into the Clover Lounge on West Forty-fourth Street. It was a dim place, with a long, curved mahogany bar, lots of wood paneling, and an Irish motif. It smelled, not unpleasantly, of cigarette smoke and spilled liquor.
The bartender, Jamie, seemed pleased to see him. He shot a deferential smile and waved a cheery hello as Sales hoisted himself up onto a bar stool and ordered a Scotch on the rocks. Above the bar, near the cash register, was a framed, signed eight-by-ten photograph of Sales with his arm around Jamie’s shoulders. The Clover Lounge allowed Sales to carry a substantial tab here. Rather than face Wendy tonight, Sales had decided to add to that tab.
“Things going okay, Mr. Sales?” Jamie asked. He was a narrow, pimply young man with greasy black hair and the scraggly beginnings of a beard. He was always poised, always polite, an experienced bartender despite his youth.
“Going as usual.”
“Could be worse, then,” Jamie said optimistically.
“Guess you read about the ‘Shadowtown’ watchman’s murder,” Sales said.
Jamie placed the Scotch glass in front of Sales on a coaster and nodded. “A tough thing, all right. They gonna catch the guy that did it, you think?”
“They always do,” Sales said, sipping his drink. “At least in every play or film I’ve ever been in.”
He caught a glimpse of his still-lean handsome reflection in the back-bar mirror, like an image from one of his movies, lowering the glass from his lips. His flesh was still firm, but he was getting older and he could see it on close inspection. Anybody could see it on close inspection. He was forty-three. Soon he’d be out of young-stud parts and doing character roles, playing patriarchs and mature lovers without genitalia. Unless “Shadowtown” continued to run. Could the damn show run forever? Some soaps seemed to. Would Sales want to act in it forever? With Lana Spence? He shrugged and swallowed the rest of his Scotch. Why not? he told himself. He remembered how many cattle calls—auditions—he’d been to as a young actor. This wasn’t an easy business and he figured he should be grateful for his part of eligible bachelor and consummate cocksman Roger Maler. Half the housewives in America were in love with him as Roger.
And here he was married to Wendy, who didn’t love him. And recently spurned by Lana, who also didn’t love him. Even Lana as Delia Lane didn’t love him. Didn’t love Roger. Sales started on his second drink. Sometimes even he momentarily confused the world of “Shadowtown” with his real world. What was it Poe wrote? Something about life being a dream within a dream? Close to that, anyway. Hell with Poe.
“I guess the police questioned you,” Jamie was saying.
“What? Oh, sure, Jamie. In a preliminary way.”
“No bright lights and rubber hoses, huh?” Jamie was smiling with his bad teeth.
“Not yet, anyway,” Sales said. He tossed down the rest of his drink and motioned for another. He was knocking them down too fast this evening, he suddenly realized; better slow down. Damned bottle would get a hold on him again, if it didn’t already have a hold. Booze, drugs … they were occupational hazards.
He wondered, what was that cop, Oxman, going to learn from Lana.
It was Lana who’d asked to talk to him; what was the maneuvering bitch going to tell him? Maybe she was going to put some moves on him, get old John Law into the sack for reasons of her own. Turn him into a shell the way she had so many men. Sales wasn’t sure if it was Wendy or Lana who’d been responsible for his falling off the wagon two months ago. God knew he still thought enough about both of them. Thought too much about too many things.
He and Wendy suffered through what might be described as a love–hate relationship, heavy on the hate. Still, you didn’t live with a woman for five years without forming some sort of attachment and concern, at least on a subconscious level that affected your emotions. Hell, five years was a long, long marriage by show-business standards. He didn’t want to see Wendy harmed by Lana, didn’t want Lana to have that satisfaction, if that’s what she had in mind. All Sales wanted to do, when he found the courage, was to leave Wendy and be left alone by her. And by Lana, the “black widow,” as some of her former lovers referred to her.
“The black widow that feels compelled to destroy her lovers.”
“Pardon, Mr. Sales?”
“Uh, nothing, Jamie. Line from a play. Can’t get it out of my mind.”
“We gonna hear it soon on ‘Shadowtown’?”
“If they don’t cut it.”
Jamie freshened his Scottch.
Sales wondered what Lana could know about the murder of the watchman. And what was the deal with this vampire nonsense? What could she know about Edgar Grume—or Allan Ames. Had she ever made it with Ames?
No, not that Sales had heard. How had she missed him?
One thing Sales knew for sure: Lana was trying to use Oxman some way. He hoped Oxman was smart enough to see through it. Even a world-wise cop could fall victim to Lana’s charms. Even a world-wise actor like Sales himself. He’d known what she was doing to him and he’d let her. That was part of the fascination. And now his marriage was beyond redemption, if it hadn’t been already.
“The trouble with this world,” Sales said to Jamie, “is that a man seldom can know anything for sure.”
“That’s for sure,” Jamie said, and moved off to serve a couple who’d just come in and sat at the other end of the bar.
“Isn’t that the guy on TV?” Sales heard the woman ask Jamie. “You know, on one of those soaps?
”
Sales turned his head away slightly so they couldn’t see his face. He knew he wouldn’t look as good now as he did on screen. And of course he’d look closer to his actual age, not thirtyish like Roger. Jamie was whispering to them, explaining that Sales liked to stay anonymous in here; not that he wasn’t a nice guy. Great guy! Hey, look at the photo behind the bar. Him and me … Jamie, protecting Sales’s privacy.
Sales had to autograph a cocktail napkin brought down by Jamie, but he got by with a smile and a wave to the couple at the end of the bar and they didn’t come over to join him, didn’t force it. He was grateful for that. Good fans. Probably even watched the commercials.
Within two hours Sales was incapable of getting down off the bar stool by himself. The murder at the studio kept running through his thoughts. Jamie came to help him. “Vampire,” Sales said to him, “fucking vampire.”
“Sure, Mr. Sales, I already called you a cab.”
Outside, on the sidewalk, Jamie stood supporting Sales, waiting for the taxi to show, trying to avoid the stares of passersby, trying to keep Sales conscious and under control. “How about them Mets?” he asked Sales. Sales knew what Jamie was doing; keep the man talking, thinking, upright.
Sales didn’t care about the Mets right now. He wondered if Lana was going to tell Oxman that Wendy had threatened to kill her. Threatened her in front of witnesses. Would Oxman understand that Wendy hadn’t really meant it?
The cab veered in tight on the puddled street, pulled close to the curb, and splashed water on Sales’s cuffs.
“She wouldn’t hurt anybody,” Sales said earnestly to Jamie, aware that he was slurring his words. “Not really.”
“No, sir. Specially not a lady-killer like you,” Jamie said, helping him into the cab.
What the hell? Sales thought. My feet are wet!
Jennifer Crane—5:00 P.M.
“He doesn’t keep me posted on his cases,” Jennifer told Myra Deeber on the phone. “Not even juicy cases like this one.”
