Shadowtown

by Lutz, John

  Zach was right about one thing. She belonged with E.L. Oxman. They belonged together.

  She knew that now with certainty.

  Sy Youngerman—2:40 P.M.

  Youngerman was going to enjoy doing it to her, but he knew he’d better pretend otherwise—and pretend well. She could cause a lot of trouble, and probably would anyway, no matter how he broached this subject. It was in her genes, apparently. Maybe it was what made her such a success, gave her the kind of drive and ruthlessness usually associated with top-level corporate executives instead of actresses. Or with successful serial killers.

  Youngerman had his dark hair fluffed and combed straight back in its fifty-dollar salon style, was wearing his white sweater and dark slacks. He looked almost collegiate, if about ten years too old for the Ivy. He planned his appearance this way; he didn’t want to come across as the heartless show-biz mogul cutting the throat of a friend. Hell, Lana Spence had never been a friend.

  He leaned back in his desk chair in his Shadowtown Productions office, carefully held a neutral expression, and said, “It’s been decided you’re not going to recover from your car accident, Lana.”

  She cocked her head at him, dark hair cascading over a lean shoulder, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. He was going to like doing this even more than he’d thought. He remembered the almost daily turmoil she’d caused on the set, the clash and crush of male egos. The subtle, exquisite cruelty.

  He made what he’d told her more easily understood. “We’re going to kill off the Delia Lane character, Lana. We’ve been thinking about going with an occult angle anyway. Now … Anyway, Lois Smith will be the show’s new vixen—a female vampire.”

  She was an actress, all right. Her features set in an almost casual expression, as if he’d told her rain might spoil her picnic. But a twitching beneath her right eye gave hint of the rage she must be feeling as the significance of his words penetrated and gained full impact.

  Lana edged forward in her chair, as if she might spring up and over the desk at him. Like in the old “Wonder Woman” series. Youngerman had a moment of uneasiness. Might she actually get physical? Violent?

  “You can’t do that,” she said with exaggerated calm. “Haven’t you read my contract?”

  Youngerman nodded. “Even the fine print, Lana. Especially the fine print. The lawyers have been consulted. We can and will do it. We have no choice, if we want the show’s ratings to climb. All the numbers, the reaction tests we’ve been doing—”

  “Reaction tests?” she interrupted. “You mean to tell me a roomful of yokels off the street with sensors attached to their fingertips are going to knock me out of this role?”

  “Those sensors measure metabolic rate, Lana. They’re scientifically reliable. And the test subjects aren’t yokels, they’re a carefully chosen cross-section of the television mass audience. Average people. Good Americans.”

  “And I suppose their average metabolism sank when I came on the screen.”

  “No, no, not at all. But it rose whenever anything relating to the occult was shown. Especially in regard to a female vampire. Women like the idea of a lady bloodsucker, and most of our viewers are women. Jesus, maybe it’s some kind of subconscious sicko sex thing, but it exists and it creates a wider audience for the show, so we gotta go with it. Lana, you know how this business is.”

  She got up, couldn’t stay seated any longer. Without thinking what she was doing she began to pace like a tigress, faster and faster, in front of Youngerman’s desk. She’d lost roles before, like every other actress; what was the big deal?

  But he knew what the big deal was—this was by far her most successful role, the biggest fame-and money-maker of her career. Its end might signify the beginning of her inevitable decline. And that’s why he was getting his kicks doing this to her, because she deserved it.

  So many ruined men in her past, so many stories about her, most of which were true. One lousy stunt after another, one victim after another for her to step on during her climb to star status. Not too many people would feel sorry for Lana when they read in the trade papers that her “Shadowtown” role was being terminated. That she was another victim of the show-business long knives.

  He said, “It’s not just the metabolic responses, Lana, telephone surveys correspond. Everything has to end, unfortunately. Even a character as brilliantly played as you portrayed Delia Lane has to run its course. You know the game, Lana. It’s time for something new. The caravan moves on, kid.”

  “‘Kid,’ is it? It was ‘Lana’ or ‘Miss Spence’ yesterday.”

  “Sorry, Lana. I didn’t mean to be flip. But yesterday’s dropped into the past. The show, and you, have got to look ahead.”

  “What’s Overbeck think of this idea?”

  “He and I agree on it. But it isn’t anybody’s ‘idea,’ Lana. It’s what the facts dictate. The murders, all this vampire publicity, it means we’d be stupid not to give the show an occult slant—and we have to move right away.”

  Her pacing had slowed but she was shaking her head. “I can’t believe this, Sy. The way my goddamn life’s been going lately. First someone wants to kill me, and now you want to kill me!”

  “Not you, Lana—Delia Lane.” The look in her eyes struck Youngerman as kind of creepy. How closely did she identify with Delia? After all, Delia and Lana were quite similar in a lot of ways. So similar it was sometimes uncanny. And certain actresses, with certain roles, sometimes had difficulty stepping out of character when they walked offstage.

  “Manny won’t—” She stopped herself, suddenly remembering.

  He reminded her anyway that her sleazy protector was no longer around to wheedle and threaten and find contract loopholes. “Manny Brokton’s dead, Lana.” He sighed and stared at his hands folded on the desk. “That’s a shame, like a lot of things that’ve happened lately. A deep-shit, black-hole shame. But that’s the way it is. The way it has to be.”

  She sat back down, calmer, staring icily at him. “Few things in this world have to be one way or the other.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Lana. I’m afraid it’s something every beautiful woman has to learn.”

  “And how do you intend to work this out?”

  “The writers have already figured how to write Delia out of the show, in a matter of days.”

  “Jean Richards isn’t going to bite me in the neck, is she? I won’t have the Lois Smith character kill Delia.”

  “No, not that. Lois’s bite would make Delia a vampire, according to the writers,” Youngerman said. He waited, watching, secretly delighting in the light of desperate hope that flared in her eyes.

  “Well, why not? Why not have two female vampires on the show? If your response tests and ratings numbers indicate a positive upward trend for the occult and for female vampires, why not hit the audience with both barrels? Give them even more of what all the murder publicity has made them want?”

  He pretended to think it over for a moment, then firmly shook his head. “No, Lana, you know that’d only dilute the impact of both characters. Besides, we’ve already got Graveman, the Brad Gaines character. Three vampires would be too much; two women would destroy the balance. We need one—and only one—strong female occult figure, and Lois Smith is it. You’ll suffer a relapse of your auto-accident injuries. Complications will develop and you’ll die in the doctor’s arms. It’ll be a great scene, one the audience will remember for years. Bigger than the wedding on ‘Hope’s Other Life.’”

  Lana’s mouth twitched bitterly. “Yeah, where’s Hope now?”

  Youngerman shrugged. “Hope’s Other Life” had been cancelled six months after the ballyhooed TV wedding of its main character, and the actress who’d played Hope was doing peanut-butter commercials. “So the viewers wouldn’t accept Hope as a married woman,” he said. “Viewers are fickle.”

  “Not so fickle they’ll accept Delia Lane’s death,” she said haughtily.

  “So fickle they won’t accept her alive the way t
hey used to, Lana. This is nobody’s fault. It’s simply time for you to move onward and upward, accept some of those major film roles Manny told us keep coming your way.” He stood up behind his desk, signaling her the conversation was over. An executive decision had been reached, and that was that. Business. “I’m sorry, Lana.”

  She didn’t move. “You don’t fool me, Sy.”

  He felt a tickle of alarm at the back of his mind. “About what?”

  She laughed at him then, as if he were something less than human, born of woman solely for her amusement. He couldn’t be sure if she meant it, or if it was an act to cover her anger and sense of loss. His own anger rose hot and bitter in his throat, but he swallowed and held his calm attitude.

  “I didn’t want this to get nasty,” he told her.

  “Oh yes you did, Sy. Only you wanted to control the nastiness.”

  She walked to the door. Her slender body was as tense as he’d ever seen it. Fluidity of movement had deserted her. She’d been struck in the heart for sure. He smiled faintly, briefly, at her rigid back.

  The smile disappeared when she turned to face him, preparing to leave. No doubt she’d thought of an appropriate exit line.

  He was disappointed by her lack of imagination when she said, “I won’t take this lying down, Sy.”

  “That’s a cliché we’d write out of the show’s dialogue, Lana. The way we’re going to write you out.”

  “This isn’t script dialogue, Sy, this is real life. My statement stands.” She went out and slammed the door hard enough to make him wince.

  That was better, Youngerman thought, that “statement stands” line. It had a newspapery, Front Page ring to it.

  He picked up the phone, punched a Lucite button, and said, “Have Zach Denton come in here.”

  Then he sat back and crossed his arms. He’d enjoyed his conversation with Lana so much he actually felt guilty about it.

  And at the same time, he was somewhat uneasy.

  What was this business doing to him?

  E. L. Oxman—7:30 P.M.

  As soon as he entered the Twenty-fourth Precinct station, Oxman saw Tobin sitting at his desk reading a morning tabloid and smiling. When Oxman got closer, Tobin looked up and grinned wider.

  “How about this, Ox?” he said. He cocked his head to the side and read from the paper: “‘New TV vampires draw blood in ratings wars. Real vampire still seeks jugular juice.’”

  “Imaginative,” Oxman said.

  He’d talked to Tobin earlier by phone and wanted more information on this Phil character. A known drug courier, Tobin had said. Evans of Narcotics knew right where to find Phil. So where was Evans? Where was Phil? Who was Phil? And did he fit into this the way Oxman and Tobin figured? “If you can tear yourself away from the so-called news,” Oxman said, “give me the info on our friend Phil.”

  Tobin folded the paper in half and tossed it onto the desk. A black-and-white still photo from an old Bela Lugosi movie showed at the fold. Lugosi was leering into the camera, his mouth distorted by dark stains. Oxman didn’t want to read the caption. He recalled that Lugosi had been buried in his full vampire costume; that seemed important to Oxman but he couldn’t figure out why.

  Tobin leaned far back in his swivel chair; he did that habitually. Oxman often felt like extending a foot and nudging him onto the floor, just to erase the smug expression he sometimes wore. Tobin was wearing that expression now. He knew he’d done a solid piece of police work with Phil.

  “Phil Malloy’s his full name,” Tobin said. “Narcotics knew all about him. Small-time courier, delivers drugs for an operation that works out of New Jersey. The DEA’s watching them now and plans to move when they get a little more evidence. Anyway, Phil runs drugs for the suppliers of both Marv Egan and Lance Jardeen.”

  “A link,” Oxman said. “Along with Lana Spence.”

  “On the other hand,” Tobin said, “it’s not all that unlikely that these two guys would know one another and make connections with the same drug supplier. You know show-folks and drugs. And a couple of used-up actors like Jardeen and Egan might hang out in the same places and tell each other how the world and their agents fucked over them.”

  “Not unlikely they would,” Oxman agreed, thinking that was something he should have thought of long before now. Maybe Phil Malloy could bring them up to date. “Where’s Malloy now?”

  “Upstairs in an interrogation room, getting uneasy while he’s waiting for us. Evans picked him up on a possession charge forty-five minutes ago.”

  “The Jersey outfit will send a lawyer, won’t they?”

  “Yeah, he’s on his way. Fella name of Singer.”

  “Izzy Singer?”

  “Yeah. Know him?”

  “Vaguely.” About six months ago, while waiting in court for a homicide case to reach the docket so he could testify, Oxman had seen Singer represent a defendant in a drug case. Singer had worked the judge beautifully, and the defendant got probation even though it was his second sale-of-a-controlled-substance offense and he had an assault record. That had left a sour taste in Oxman’s mouth. Maybe the fix had been in. And Izzy Singer had been such an unctuous, obviously insincere yet somehow effective performer in the courtroom that Oxman remembered him vividly and with loathing. Good cops put criminals into courtrooms; good lawyers like Singer arranged for them to walk out. Hell of a system.

  “What’d Phil have on him?” Oxman asked.

  “Couple of pellets of crack. No big deal. Unless you got two previous felony convictions behind you, like Phil does.”

  “Gives us something to bargain with,” Oxman said. “What’s Evans say?”

  “Narcotics would rather have Phil on the street right now, actually. They like to see who he talks to and why, and they think he can be turned into an informant. They say bargain away. Some future date, it’ll make their arm-twisting all the more persuasive.”

  “I suppose he’s not talking until Singer gets here.”

  “Yeah, that’s his position,” Tobin said. “Guy’s been around the block and knows the moves. On the other hand, he’s jumpy.”

  Oxman unbuttoned his sport coat and adjusted his shoulder holster. “So let’s go talk with him, Arty. Maybe he’ll change his mind and volunteer some information.”

  “You intimidating bastard,” Tobin said with a grin, and followed Oxman to the steps.

  Phil Malloy was seated at a walnut table in a small, green-walled room on the second floor. The table was nicked and scarred and had one leg slightly shorter than the others; it wobbled if you put your elbows on it and leaned. The room had a fluorescent ceiling fixture boxed in with wire, and had no furniture other than the table and four wooden chairs. It had one window, with rusty grillwork over the glass. There was a large, square mirror on one wall that looked as if it might be two-way. But Oxman knew it was just an ordinary mirror. There was the unmistakable scent of perspiration and fear in the room, along with tobacco smoke. Phil should shower more often, Oxman thought, being careful not to show his revulsion as he picked up the pungent smell of rancid sweat and unwashed flesh.

  The window was lowered about two inches on top, and smoke up near the ceiling was oozing through to outside, as if Phil’s spirit were escaping even if his odorous bodily husk remained slumped despondently at the table. He’d been puffing Winstons; a near-empty pack and a matchbook lay on the table before him, next to an old metal beanbag ashtray full of ashes and butts. Today wasn’t going well for Phil. It would get worse. He looked as if he knew that it would and was wondering how much worse.

  Oxman thought immediately, The guy looks like Mickey Rooney, only bigger.

  Phil stiffened in his chair and his blue eyes rolled from Tobin to Oxman. “Singer here?” he asked. He started to light a cigarette, changed his mind and shook the match out and dropped it in the ashtray.

  “He’s on his way,” Oxman said, watching Phil. He was wearing a jacket with about two thousand pockets. Oxman wondered if every zippered compart
ment had been searched.

  Phil didn’t like being watched. He squirmed uneasily. “I told the other guy, Evans, I didn’t wanna talk till Singer got here. He said that was okay with him.”

  “It’s okay with us, too,” Tobin said.

  Phil wriggled some more. He was a man who couldn’t stand silence. He’d be easy.

  “You gotta go take a piss, Phil?” Tobin asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay.” Tobin gazed down sleepily at him. “You let us know if you do.”

  Phil unconsciously picked viciously at a wart on the back of his left hand. He suddenly hurt himself and stopped. He slid the right hand out of sight beneath the table. “I mean, I had this small amount of junk a friend asked me to hold for him. Hell, it ain’t such a big deal.”

  Oxman watched Tobin shrug. “Could be big enough to mean a lotta years, Phil.”

  “Well, Evans didn’t seem to think so.”

  “He’s Narcotics,” Oxman said. “Maybe he knows.”

  Phil looked surprised and worked his lips. A lock of blond hair flopped down onto his forehead. “You guys ain’t narcs?”

  “We’re Homicide,” Oxman said.

  “Huh?” Phil got pale and brushed the hair back. It flopped onto his forehead again, exactly the way it had been.

  “Don’t you remember me?” Tobin said. “I saw you in Lance Jardeen’s room the other day at the Waywind Hotel.”

  Phil peered up at Tobin, and his moon face was transformed by sudden recognition. “Yeah, yeah. Now I remember. Jardeen said later you was there about a—”

  “Murder,” Oxman finished for him. “A series of murders, actually, Phil.”

  But Phil had swiveled his body in his chair and was staring out the window. “You don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll wait for Mr. Singer.”

  Oxman looked at Tobin, who shook his head.

  “We don’t mind, Phil,” Oxman said.

  That was the thing to say, because the door opened and Izzy Singer stepped into the room.