Shadowtown

by Lutz, John

  “But is there room on the show for two vampires?” Shane Moreland asked. Maybe he was immune to infection.

  Overbeck glared at him.

  “Only kidding,” Shane said. He looked at Gaines. “I guess you heard about somebody tampering with the tape so a vampire appeared in the background in one of our episodes.”

  “Difficult not to hear about it,” Gaines said. “Nobody’s talking or writing about much else.”

  “Will has got a script for you to look over,” Shane told him, motioning with his gleaming pate toward one of the silent writers.

  “That might seem a little premature,” Overbeck said, “but I talked to Manny Brokton on the phone, and we won’t have any trouble coming to terms. And we want to rush your inclusion in the show. I’m cabbing over to Manny’s office now to finalize details, then we’ll get together with you and you can sign a contract. It’s one you’ll be happy to sign.”

  “I’m sure,” Gaines said. He accepted a bound script from Will the writer.

  “Until then,” Overbeck said, “a handshake deal.” He smiled and held out his right hand toward Gaines.

  Gaines said, “Deal,” and shook. Overbeck had surprisingly long fingers and a powerful grip for a man his size.

  Without either of them having spoken, the two writers left, and Lana Spence walked into the office.

  Gaines had worked with a few top names in the business, but still he felt a twinge of awe when he realized he was in her presence. She was obviously between costume changes, wearing a bright-red silk robe with a flowered sash yanked tight around her lean waist. Her body moved smoothly beneath the reflecting material, playing over the imagination.

  “Welcome to the show,” she said to Gaines, and came to him and kissed him on the lips. She gave off a faint scent of lilac as she moved.

  Startled, Gaines found he couldn’t reply. His throat was dry, and he didn’t want his voice to croak.

  “I’ve seen what the writers have in mind,” Lana said to the room in general, “and I’m looking forward to some glorious, bloodsucking love scenes with Mr. Gaines.”

  Mister, no less. “It’s Brad,” Gaines said. “Please.”

  She laughed and ran her hands along her hourglass figure. Casually, as if unconsciously checking to make sure there were no rough edges. There weren’t. “Brad it is.”

  Gaines saw Shane and Overbeck exchange glances; Shane might have smiled.

  What the hell? Gaines had heard about Lana Spence and her hot and cold affairs. But he was no cherry; he knew the deal. The publicity of an affair with Lana Spence, especially now, wouldn’t hurt his chances of landing larger roles after his stint on “Shadowtown.” In exchange for that career boost he’d become another notch on Lana’s well-whittled bedpost. That struck Gaines as a fair deal at this point in his life. Actually more than fair; Lana Spence was a few years past prime, but still a dish to be ravished.

  A youngish-looking guy knocked on the door, poked his head into the office apologetically, and said, “Sorry, Lana, but we need you now.”

  “On my way, Matt.”

  The silk gown swished in unsettling rhythm as she walked to the door; was she wearing anything beneath it?

  “See you on the set,” she said to Gaines, as she made a graceful exit. Her buttocks tightened and loosened against the smooth material.

  “And off the set,” Shane Moreland said, not bothering this time to conceal his smile.

  Gaines, still hearing the rustle of silk on flesh, smiled back.

  Art Tobin—4:00 P.M.

  Lance Jardeen reminded Tobin of Burt Lassiter. Maybe most of Lana Spence’s men ran to type.

  Then Tobin realized it was similarity of the men’s surroundings rather than physical resemblance that struck a chord. Like Lassiter, Jardeen lived in a tiny suite in a run-down residential hotel. Like Lassiter, Jardeen’s possessions suggested he had little income. And there was a wasted quality about both men, evident even beyond Lassiter’s appearance in death.

  Unlike Lassiter, Jardeen was short. He had a pugnacious jaw and brilliant blue eyes. His nose was small and perfect, and Tobin suspected he’d had plastic surgery to shape it. Jardeen had wide shoulders and a dynamic way of moving, but it seemed somehow that the energy was being manufactured for Tobin’s benefit, and as soon as Jardeen was alone again he’d collapse on the sofa and sleep for a couple of hours. To Tobin, Jardeen would never have been cast as a vampire—not tall enough. Yet through costume, lifts in the shoes, and carefully selected backdrop, magic could be worked to add six inches to a person’s height. Or the impression of an additional six inches.

  “Seven years ago,” Tobin said, “you were Lana Spence’s lover.”

  “A rather personal statement,” Jardeen observed. “Do you know this for a fact, or are you fishing?” He seemed untouched by this intimate probing of his privacy, yet he was obviously wary of Tobin. As if there were moves in a game being made here.

  “Fact,” Tobin said. The room they were in was on the first floor; noise from outside was deafening. Tobin knew traffic could be heavy in this neighborhood, even late at night. He wondered how Jardeen managed to sleep.

  “You’ve done your homework,” Jardeen said.

  “We call it legwork. Just like they call it on television. This is called an inquiry. You’re supposed to answer questions.”

  “About the ‘Shadowtown’ case? And the vampire business at Lana’s apartment?”

  “That is not answering questions, Mr. Jardeen; that is asking them.”

  Jardeen smiled. His teeth were straight but yellowed. “Yes, Lana and I were lovers a long time ago. It lasted about six months—not a bad run for Lana.”

  “Were you ever in a movie or play together?”

  “You mean other than our relationship?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That’s what our affair was to Lana, really, a very private play. A benefit. For her.”

  “I mean movie or play.” Tobin was getting tired of this sparkling repartee.

  “No. It appeared that we were going to be. At that time I was doing Camelot in a Chicago theater. I was lined up for a part on Broadway, a major role, but it never materialized. I found out later that Lana had a role in the play and preferred another co-star.”

  “This was after you broke off your relationship, I assume,” Tobin said.

  “Before,” Jardeen said. “I thought you’d done your legwork; you should know how Lana operates.”

  “How’s she operate?”

  “She uses men. Really uses them. She’s quite an expert at it. Her role on ‘Shadowtown’ is close to her genuine self.”

  “You watch her on ‘Shadowtown’?”

  “Not regularly.”

  Tobin listened to the roar of traffic as several large vehicles passed close together. They sounded like lions close by on the other side of the wall. “Where were you about ten o’clock last night, Mr. Jardeen?”

  “Right here. Alone.” He smiled and shrugged. “I can’t prove it. But you can’t seriously believe I was playing vampire at Lana’s place, can you? I haven’t seen her since we … parted.”

  “Was it an amicable parting?”

  Jardeen raised his chin slightly, as if aware of a camera dollying in for a profile shot. “It was pretty bitter, actually. I confronted Lana with proof she’d torpedoed the Broadway role that would have been mine. She didn’t try to deny it. In fact, she was amused. I got angry, then she finally did too. I left her fuming at a restaurant table, with the check. She could afford it; she was leaving the next day for New York and Broadway.”

  “To act in the play you were supposed to be in.” Tobin shook his head; he found that he sympathized with Jardeen. Show business was tough, in or out of bed. “How’d she get her part in the play?” Jardeen’s yellow, bitter smile returned. “I used my influence in her behalf with the director. Then she used her influence with the producer. Not in my behalf.”

  Tobin looked out through a
dirty window at a stone wall that had been stained by rusty water. Then he let his gaze play over the pathetic room. Some life, some graveyard for an actor’s dreams. “We’d appreciate it if you hung around town for a while, Mr. Jardeen.”

  “No problem. I seldom go anywhere these days. I haven’t been offered a decent acting job since Lana let it be known—”

  “Let what be known?” Tobin asked.

  “She spread the word that I had a serious drug problem, and that it had affected my short-term memory.”

  “Meaning you couldn’t memorize lines?”

  “Meaning a lot of things.” Jardeen’s squarish, tortured face seemed to age a decade in the harsh light. “Meaning mainly that I’d make other cast members look bad. That’s how acting works; it’s an organic process involving everyone on stage or in front of the camera.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?” Jardeen asked, frowning.

  “Have that kind of drug problem?”

  He laughed, too loudly. “In those days, no. That came later, and it was hell. I finally kicked it at a clinic in New Jersey. I’ve been clean since. I have to stay that way if I want to live. Before then, when I was acting in Chicago, I used recreational drugs lightly, but that’s all.”

  “And you blame Lana Spence for your drug problem?”

  Jardeen began absently running his fingertips over his chest in a circle, digging, as if scratching a persistent itch. “I blame only myself.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

  “You have any idea who might have written death threats to Miss Spence?”

  “I might have written some. But I didn’t.” The words seemed to boil up in Jardeen, erupt from his constricted throat, hissing with emotion. “The bitch deserves to die.” He suddenly realized he was scratching himself and dropped his right hand.

  “You’re not alone in that opinion,” Tobin said. “She seems to have a destructive effect on her lovers.”

  “That kind of impulse is in some women, but it rules Lana Spence. She stunts the self-respect of her victims, destroys the ego, then sows the ground with salt.”

  “Has she destroyed your ego, Mr. Jardeen?”

  “Possibly. I’ve managed to con myself into thinking otherwise, but the truth is she marked me as a loser and it’s a prophesy that’s been fulfilled. By myself as well as through others.”

  Tobin looked into the brilliant blue eyes and saw the defeat Jardeen had described. Despite their brightness they had the unresponsiveness of a corpse’s eyes. “What remains in your life, Mr. Jardeen?”

  “Hate.”

  “For Lana Spence?”

  “For myself. I simply don’t have anything else.”

  Including an alibi, Tobin thought.

  The door opened suddenly and a blond man in a tan safari jacket stepped in. He was smiling, but when he saw Tobin his moon-shaped face registered surprise, and, for an instant, terror. He knew immediately Tobin was a cop, and he knew Tobin realized that. They’d both had enough experience with their opposite numbers to recognize the moment.

  “Phil, I’m busy,” Jardeen said. Almost panicky.

  “Sure. “Phil was smiling. He toyed with one of the jacket’s zippers. Tobin had never seen a jacket with so many pockets. They all had zippered flaps. Phil backed out of the room. “I’ll drop by later, Lance.”

  “You sure?” The panic again, closer to the surface.

  “Hey, of course.”

  Phil grinned, nodded to Tobin, and hastily closed the door behind him. It created a faint draft across Tobin’s ankles.

  “A neighbor,” Jardeen said. “A pest, to tell you the truth. Always bursting in without knocking.”

  “Where’s he live?”

  Jardeen was in control again. Acting. “Gee, I’m not positive. On this block, I think.”

  Tobin knew better. “He looks familiar.”

  “Everybody says that about Phil. He’s a type. A big Mickey Rooney.”

  Tobin wasn’t sure if that accounted for the familiarity, or if he’d seen Phil before. The guy did, now that Jardeen had mentioned it, look like Mickey Rooney. “We might ask you to come to the station house and give a statement,” he said.

  That didn’t seem to frighten Jardeen. “Okay. Glad to help. Though I don’t know much.” He managed a smile that was almost debonair. “I’m afraid it’ll be a short statement.”

  “But maybe a sweet one,” Tobin said. He apologized for taking up Jardeen’s time and then left.

  He waited outside, concealed by some rusting outdoor modern sculpture half a block away, until he saw Phil reenter the building. Phil was walking jauntily and had his hands stuffed into two of his tan jacket’s many pockets. He even swaggered a lot like Mickey Rooney did in some of his movies; a short-man swagger, though Phil was average height.

  When Phil emerged less than half an hour later, he hailed a cab and climbed in.

  Tobin got to his car and followed him to an old apartment building in a seedy neighborhood near Tompkins Square.

  The iron railing on the front steps was twisted as if a vehicle had come up on the sidewalk and bent it. Graffiti was spray-painted all over the walk in front of the place, and several of the building’s windows had cardboard taped over holes in the glass. An old lady wearing a man’s threadbare coat and oversized galoshes slumped next to the door, by a couple of brown shopping bags that probably contained everything she owned.

  Tobin recognized the address at once.

  This was where Marv Egan lived.

  E. L. Oxman—4:45 P.M.

  Oxman thought it would be a good idea to talk to Manny Brokton. He might well have represented some of her former lovers in their show-business careers. He might, in fact, know some secrets about Lana. Everyone seemed to know secrets about Lana, and she seemed to know them about others. If they were male, anyway.

  Brokton’s office was on Broadway near Fifty-fourth, on the twentieth floor of an office building whose lobby contained a variety of small shops. It was also the kind of lobby that provided a walkway to the next block, and there was a steady stream of people taking that shortcut, some of them slowing occasionally to gaze into shop windows. There was a lot of marble in the lobby, and the mingled sounds of footfalls and conversation had hard edges.

  When an elevator arrived at lobby level, Oxman was surprised to see Harry Overbeck step out. Overbeck looked as rumpled as ever, wearing wrinkled slacks and a baggy gray sweater. He plopped one of those shapeless, crushable hats over his brush-cut hair as he dodged a woman lugging half-a-dozen large shopping bags.

  Instead of entering the elevator, Oxman decided to find out what Overbeck was doing here. He walked over and watched Overbeck’s fleshy, florid face register surprise, then a kind of polite pleasure.

  “I’ve just been to see Manny Brokton,” Overbeck said.

  Oxman gently gripped his elbow and steered him toward a secluded area of the lobby where they wouldn’t be overheard. “What about?”

  Overbeck didn’t hesitate. “Business. We’re doing some casting for the show.”

  “I thought the show was cast.”

  “We’re adding a character. Casting’s an ongoing process with episodic television. Especially the soaps.”

  Oxman supposed that was true; he didn’t watch enough television to know for sure. “Boob tube,” was the term that came to mind when he thought about television. Not fair, maybe, but he was a practical man in a practical world and that was how he felt. “Do you know if Brokton represented any of the men in Lana’s past?” he asked.

  Overbeck smiled and shook his head. “Plenty of them, I’d imagine. He’s been an agent for a long time, and actors tend to jump from agency to agency, especially early in their careers.”

  “Who are some of the people Brokton’s represented?”

  “Well, he was Allan Ames’s agent. And he represents Jean Richards, who plays the mayor’s wife on ‘Shadowtown.’”

  “How did Brokton and Lana get together?”

  �
�Ha! How could they not get together? They were made for each other, in a business sense.”

  “Which means?”

  “Am I speaking off the record?”

  “Sure. If you want to be.”

  “They’re both selfish and unscrupulous.”

  “Then how come you deal with Brokton?”

  “Like Lana, he’s damned effective at what he does. And if you want a particular actor, you have to deal with his or her agent. The thing about Brokton—”

  Overbeck’s face suddenly went pale and his jaw fell slack. He was staring beyond Oxman’s right shoulder in a way that gave Oxman the creeps.

  Oxman turned and saw the crowd of people standing near the elevators all looking in the same direction, toward the Broadway exit. “What’s the matter?” Oxman asked.

  Overbeck actually rubbed his eyes. “I thought I saw somebody in a black cape just run from an elevator and out through the lobby.” He gave a nervous giggle. “Hell, maybe I’m imagining things. Or maybe it was some kind of promotional stunt.”

  Oxman knew Overbeck hadn’t been alone in what he’d seen— whatever it had been. He ran to the lobby exit, out onto the sidewalk, and realized he’d never catch up with anyone on the crowded midtown streets. And in New York, people didn’t pay a great deal of attention to a man wearing a black cape. They encountered weirder sights every day.

  Running back into the lobby, Oxman saw that the elevators had taken away most of the people who’d been waiting. A few remained. He approached a dumpy, middle-aged woman wearing a business suit that looked too small for her and flashed his shield. “Did you see someone run by here wearing a dark cape?” He felt foolish asking the question; it was like a line from a late-night horror movie. Or as if he’d somehow gotten caught up in a daytime soap.

  “Sure,” the woman said, as if she saw such apparitions regularly. “I figured he was in costume for an advertising stunt or something. Whazza matter, he steal the cape?”

  A teenage Latin boy carrying a large, brown vinyl portfolio said, “I seen him too. He was in a hurry.”