by Janice Weber
“It was a wrong number.”
Lie: That conversation had lasted two sentences too long. “Aha.”
“One of Joseph’s mistresses, I presume. I told her the party was over.” Dagmar’s diamond rings quavered as she lit a black cigarette.
“How is it that you didn’t know about this place, Dagmar?” Ross asked after a moment.
She blew tersely at the ceiling. “I had an idea. A fairly good idea. But what would have been the point of sending in the bloodhounds? It wouldn’t have changed a thing.” Dagmar’s eyes glinted behind a veil of smoke. “Men are terrible with secrets. They think that silence is a protective shield when in effect it’s a dead giveaway. Women do somewhat better, but their eyes and voices eventually betray them. That woman in your office, for instance. Miss Fischer, is it? She’s in love with you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ross sputtered.
“Forgive me, but I’m not convinced, and I’ve never even seen the two of you together. I’ve only heard her voice when she says your name.”
“She’s been with me for years,” Ross protested feebly.
Dagmar smiled. “You’re protective of the women close to you. I’m glad to see that.”
Again, fiercely, Ross missed Emily. If she were on the sidewalk beneath Dagmar’s balcony, he would have leaped over the railing to be with her. All this confession and dissection had created a giant vacuum in his guts: If he didn’t become a husband again soon, he would collapse. Wedlock had been his natural state for too many years. He was not cut out to be a lover to Marjorie or a confidant to Dagmar. He was only good, only content, being both to Emily. Dreadfully homesick, he said, “Would you mind if I took one more look at that statue?”
“By all means.”
He crossed the hallway to Joe Pola’s sanctum. Frail light from the sun drew the sculpture from the shadows. “Pretty,” Ross whispered, running a finger along the cool, glowing cheeks. “It looks like my wife.”
“Really? You may have it, then.”
He looked over: Dagmar’s voice sounded exactly like Ardith’s that day she had trashed the contents of Dana’s office. “That’s very kind. But I couldn’t.”
“It means nothing to me. In fact, I’d prefer it away from here. I’m quite convinced it’s a statue of Joseph’s first mistress. Even now I can’t look at the thing without wishing I had killed her.”
Quickly crossing the room, Ross embraced her. She seemed fragile as a rose, stiff as a sequoia. “Shhh. Don’t talk like that.”
Withdrawing from his arms, Dagmar said, “Thank you so much for coming today. No one’s given me flowers in years.”
“I’ve upset you.”
“No. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I have to go out of town for a few days. Let’s get together when I return. Bring your wife along. I’m very interested in meeting the object of your affection.”
“Sounds good,” Ross lied. “Where are you going?”
“New York. Estate business.” As she straightened his collar, Dagmar said, “You’re a brave man, Ross. Really.” Her eyes glittered as she closed the door.
After news of Philippa’s shooting became tabloid grist of the week, Choke Hold surged to the top of the box-office charts. Crowds camped out on the hospital lawn beneath her window, whence Aidan Jackson delivered hourly bulletins on the victim’s condition. Enough flowers for fifty funerals arrived. As videos of Philippa’s films became scarce as great screenplays, theaters across the country began planning retrospectives. Simon’s office received more inquiries in one day than it had in the last year. Unfortunately, lying in a stupor, the star was in no condition to enjoy this midlife rush of popularity.
Emily’s appearance at the hospital had nearly sent Simon back to his bed at the Enema Capital of the Universe. “Who are you? What kind of joke is this?” he had shouted when she had taken off her scarf and sunglasses. “Police! Get this woman out of here!”
“I’m Philippa’s sister, Emily,” she had said, going to the bedside. “Who are you?”
“Her manager, Simon! She never told me about a sister!”
“You’ve talked to me on the phone on several occasions,” Emily reminded him.
“That was with her baby sister!”
“I’m eight minutes younger.” Emily took Philippa’s hand. It felt dead. “How’s she doing?”
Simon slumped into a chair, overwhelmed with double vision. “She’s barely making it.”
“How’s Franco?”
“Fine. That dipshit could wait tables tonight if he wanted to.”
“Have the police found anything?”
“No.” Simon looked more closely at Emily. “You’re Phil’s sister who lives in Boston? Now I see why she never introduced us.”
Emily lay her cheek on Philippa’s hand. “Has she talked to you?”
“No. She’s been out cold.” Simon’s mobile phone rang. “Yes? Hi Marv. You do, eh? Send it over. I’ll take a look maybe next week. No, that’s the soonest I can get to it. There are hundreds ahead of you in line, believe me.” He hung up. “Christ, Phil had better snap out of this. I’ve got enough work to keep her going until the next century.” He sank into a chair. “Why’d she have to get shot in the gut? Why not a little nick in the arm or something? Crap! By the time she’s back on her feet, she’ll look like Norman Bates’s mother! Did you ever take any acting lessons, Emma? Maybe talent runs in the family. Obviously looks do.”
“Why don’t you go home and rest,” Emily said. “I understand you’ve been under the weather lately.”
He paused, confused; that voice, that inflection: stress was playing tricks on his hearing. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” Simon said. “I think I need a good night’s sleep.”
After he had left, a nurse came to check Philippa’s vital signs. Eventually a doctor appeared and reviewed the gory details. Philippa had been shot twice at close range with a .40-caliber pistol. Miraculously avoiding serious organs, both bullets had plowed through her side, exiting cleanly into the car seat; had they exploded into any bones on the way in or out, Philippa might have gone to the morgue instead of the hospital. But she had barely survived the loss of so much blood; sheer willpower, it seemed, had kept her heart beating those last few miles in the ambulance.
Since Philippa’s grip on life was still precarious, Emily was allowed to stay with her at the hospital. The first night was bad. Philippa groaned terribly, then lay so still that Emily thought she had stopped breathing. The second day was the same, but with little snorts and starts: Philippa’s body was adjusting to two ragged tunnels. As she lay comatose, invaded by dribbling tubes, Simon visited, saying little but staring a lot. Philippa’s third husband, George, who still received generous alimony payments, checked in on his golden goose. Franco dropped by with a fresh head bandage and a photographer, to act stunned. Ross called every few hours, asking if Emily would like him to come out. No point, she replied, so he sent books instead. To pass the time, Aidan Jackson pumped Emily for intimate family memoirs for transmission to the fan club. He spent hours cataloguing Philippa’s get-well cards. The police, getting nowhere with their investigation, requested that they be notified the moment Philippa opened her eyes.
“Fucking wig,” Philippa snarled on the second night.
Emily went to the bed. “It’s Em,” she whispered. “Can you hear me, honey?”
Philippa lay absolutely still, as if she had just been disconnected from a power source. She lay that way for another fifteen minutes, then tossed her head. “The white truck! Watch out!”
That white truck again: Philippa had been raving about it when they lugged her into the operating room. The police had been tracking down every white truck in Los Angeles despite Franco’s assertions that their attacker drove a white Mercedes. “Phil,” Emily whispered. “Don’t worry. You’re all right.”
Philippa dropped off again, this time until daybreak. Then she said, very calmly, as if conversing with a maiden aunt, “Oh dear. Rare steak give
s me such hemorrhoids.”
What could possibly be running through Philippa’s mind? Unable to sleep, Emily began making notes of her sister’s strange utterances. When Philippa recovered, they could amuse themselves trying to figure out what she had meant.
“I’m not a plum,” Philippa snapped. “Don’t call me that.”
Emily’s pen wobbled as she wrote the words in her date book. Someone had called Philippa a plum? That was what Guy used to call Emily. As she waited for her sister’s next outburst, Emily glanced over the thirty little squares on the page in front of her: This had been the worst September of her life. Guy had been dead for nine squares. Soon it would be ninety, nine hundred.... Those squares would accumulate forever. She still couldn’t comprehend that infinity. Emily looked for less empty squares. Oy, Ross’s brother had turned fifty-three last Tuesday. Perhaps Ross had remembered to call. Her great-aunt would be eighty-nine on the thirtieth; Ross would be forty-five next week. What would she do for his birthday? Just a month ago, Emily and Dana had been discussing a surprise party on his boat; obviously that was out of the question now. Poor Ross. Poor Dana. How long had he been dead already? Emily counted: twenty squares and rising.
From long habit, she looked for the little dot on the date marking her last period. Reeling between murders and masquerades, she hadn’t paid much attention to her body this month. Hmm, no dot in September. Emily turned back to ... Wednesday, August 16; over five weeks ago. All this zipping between time zones must have discombobulated her cycle. And yet... Emily ran her finger down the Wednesday column, stopping two weeks after that little dot. What had she been doing the thirtieth of August? Nothing. It was just another Wednesday. Had she slept with Ross? Hadn’t he been in Dayton that week? Of course he had ... that was how she had been able to sleep one blissful night with Guy. That had been September 2. Past her prime time, as the doctors had been telling her for years. Her eggs only lasted minutes. Last month’s ovum would have already degenerated into a corpus luteum by the time Guy’s sperm had begun whipping down the pike. Yes?
Simon turned up around nine o’clock with a snail pizza, one of the most popular take-out items from Luco’s. “How’s the patient today?”
“She talks in her sleep. The nurse tells me that’s a sign of recovery.”
“Great! How long before she’s back on her feet?”
“No one knows.”
Simon frowned. He had just breakfasted with a heavy producer who wanted Philippa to star in a vampire movie. The current leading lady, a manic depressive, had just been fired and shooting was to begin in mid-October. The producer suggested that they do the blood-sucking scenes first; that way all Philippa would have to do was lie down and writhe. When she felt better, they could shoot the more active things like Victorian swimming parties. Breathless at the offer, Simon had 99 percent accepted; every actress in Hollywood had been gunning for that role. All he had to do now was snap Philippa out of this aggravating coma.
“This morning I landed her the gig of a lifetime,” Simon said. “But she’s got to be on her feet in two weeks.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
Simon lifted the window a crack, waved to Philippa’s fans picnicking on the lawn, and lit a cigarette. “Listen, Emma, I’ve been thinking. Have you ever wanted to be an actress? See your name up in lights? Get hundreds of letters from people who adore you? Put an Oscar in your trophy case?”
“Not particularly.”
Shit. Simon blew a ragged trail of smoke out the window. “But you must be terribly proud of your sister. She’s worked very hard to get where she is.”
“I appreciate that.”
“It would be such a shame, so goddamn—unfair—for her career to suffer just because some lunatic shot her. You wouldn’t want that, would you? Not if you could prevent it?”
“You want me to pretend I’m Philippa, don’t you.”
Simon threw the cigarette out the window. “I could have an acting coach here in one hour. In a week, you’d be as good an actress as your sister. I feel that in my bones.”
“And how do you think Philippa would feel in her bones?”
“She’d be thrilled and grateful, darling. And you’d have the time of your life.” Taking Emily by the shoulders, Simon turned her slowly around, studying her body. “A little work on the hair and you’d be the spitting image of the star of Choke Hold. In my opinion, there could be no greater act of sisterly love.”
Philippa struggled with her sheets. “Damn you, I’m not your plum.”
Simon looked tetchily over. “What is she raving about now? Who’s a plum?”
Again Emily’s thoughts suspended over a canyon named Guy. After a moment she said, “She’ll tell us when she wakes up.”
“She’s got a little more color today,” Simon observed. “I predict she’ll be out of here by the weekend. That woman’s got the constitution of a horse. Wish I were built half as well. That last siege at the hospital nearly killed me.”
“Whatever happened to Mr. Vitzkewicz, by the way?”
“Who the fuck knows? I find him, I’ll sue him.” Simon looked at his watch and squeaked. “Places to go, people to see, Emma. Think about what I said.” At the door, he paused. “Remember, opportunity knocks but once. You can split the proceeds with your sister.”
After he left, the policeman investigating the case came by to see if Philippa were in a talkative mood. No new suspects had been found, although nine people had now turned themselves in, volunteering to have been violent criminals. When Franco and his photographer appeared for another bedside tableau, Emily went for a walk. Deprived of sleep, her body was beginning to run in a fuzzy overdrive; events seemed to register in slow motion and the gap between thought and action had widened to several seconds. Passing a pharmacy, she floated in and bought a pregnancy testing kit. It was right next to the ovulation kits she had been buying to no avail for years. She returned to her hotel and took a long, hot shower before running the old experiment with urine, tiny vials, and second hands on watches.
God! Pink: pregnant. Guy was not dead after all. New blood, wonderful strength, immediately began to warm her veins. The life force, perhaps? Emily called her husband’s office. “Hi, Marjorie. Is Ross in?”
He came on the line. “How’s everything, darling?”
“Great. Would you be able to come out here? I have so much to tell you.”
Communicating again? That gave him hope, like the first crocuses in spring. “How’s Philippa?”
“Talking in her sleep. The doctor says she’s working things out.”
“Have the police made any progress?”
“No. They’re looking through the computer records for owners of forty-caliber pistols.”
“They’re somewhat unusual. That should help.” Dana had been the proud owner of a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson, which he had bought through a friend on the police force. The pistol had more knockdown power than a .357 but wouldn’t obliterate the target like a .45. Dana had kept it on his boat, supposedly to shoot predatory fish. “Any other news?”
“I got an offer from Philippa’s manager this morning. He wants me to act in her next film.”
“You’d do that?”
Not anymore. Still, just to keep her husband on his toes, Emily said, “It sounds like fun.”
After a small silence, Ross said, “What the hell, if it amuses you, go ahead. I’ll catch the next plane out.”
“Really?”
“I’ve just been waiting for the invitation, sweetheart.”
Inert as a slug, Ward remained in her office for several days following Detective O’Keefe’s visit to Diavolina. One afternoon Klepp walked in with a lunch tray, as if he were a nurse and Ward a patient in a mental institution. “Someone on the phone for you, ma’am.”
“Whoozit?”
“She doesn’t want to leave her name. Says it’s important.” He waited a few moments; Ward didn’t budge. “Go ahead, talk to her. You could use a little diversi
on.”
Grunting, Ward lifted the receiver. “Yez?”
“This is Dagmar Pola. I’d like to speak with you. Could we meet at your restaurant?”
“Whad you want?”
“I’d like to give you a red satin shoe, size seven, with a little black bow.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“I believe I can help you.”
Another good Samaritan? Like hell. “Bring me that shoe.” Ward hung up. “Fuckin’ termites are coming outta the woodwork.”
“You’ve got to be ready for them, ma’am. It’s the secret of survival.”
“Whatr you, my mother?”
“Your friend,” Klepp replied, opening a window. “Go and freshen up. You want to present a solid first impression, even to termites.”
“Wha for?”
“Because you never know when the tables might turn again.”
Cursing, Ward dragged downstairs to the shower. She put on a gigantic T-shirt and white chef’s overalls. She combed her hair for the first time in a week. Returning to the kitchen, she invigorated her system with a megaload of coffee and mashed potatoes. Meanwhile, Klepp straightened up her office. When he showed Dagmar in, Ward almost looked as if she were in charge of the place again. As the two women surveyed each other’s overlays of pearl and muscle, Klepp retreated, feeling that he had just introduced a small, smoking fuse to a ton of dynamite.
Dagmar took a red shoe from her handbag and laid it on Ward’s desk. “I’ve been wanting to speak with you for a long time,” she said.
Ward stared, shocked, at her sister Rita’s missing shoe. “Where’d you get this?”
“Ten years ago, I attended an architect’s dinner in honor of Dana Forbes. It was a long evening with many boring speeches. After the third or fourth, I stepped out to the balcony for some fresh air. It had been decorated for the occasion with trees and trellises. From the fortieth floor, one had a magnificent view of the harbor. I was quite alone behind a trellis, watching the ships, when I heard two women’s voices. Both were unaware of me. Once I overheard the nature of their discussion, I thought it best to remain out of sight.”
