Beneath a Bloodshot Moon

by Sam Roskoe

“Are you telling me you believe this boy? That you believe the lies he is telling you?”

  “What I know is that you gave me a list of names that somehow convinced Kay Martin to offer me a million for something I don’t have and I’m likely never to find.”

  Confusion took over Tarquin’s face and he lowered his gun hand.

  “A million dollars? For what?” he said.

  “For a script. For the script to ‘Beneath a Bloodshot Moon’ that she thinks I have. That your list convinced her I have. And now I know why she thinks that.” A smile grew on my face that kept pace with my realization.

  “Why she thinks what?” Tarquin Meriwether said.

  “Why Marla thinks I have that magical script you talked about. The names, the names you gave me were as messed up as your recollections, Meriwether. You confused real life with the cast from…from…”

  My smile faded quick smart.

  “This script couldn’t actually be real, could it? You didn’t actually see it, did you, Meriwether?”

  “I did not,” Tarquin Meriwether said defiantly, but then he followed up quick with a less defiant voice. “Not that I know of in any case. Not that I can recall or…could it be possible?”

  “I turned enough to look Charlie Jones in the eye. “Your father is offering me double what Kay Martin offered for the same script.”

  “It’s impossible,” Tarquin said, but he was talking in the low voice of someone trying to convince themselves that a bad thing hadn’t happened.

  “Incredible,” Charlie Jones said, “nobody has that script. Nobody who’d own up to it in any case. And what the hell does this have to do with Marla unless…you don’t think that Marla…that somehow Marla might have been…”

  Anger grabbed his face and squeezed all the youth out of it.

  “Bastards. Those filthy murdering bastards,” he said through gritted teeth.

  He chased his words up off the steps and headed out toward the darkness with his hands white-knuckled around the .22 Hipster.

  I could see where he was going, and where it might lead all of us. Was there a motive behind Marla Donovan’s death that none of us could have foreseen? Not jealousy or revenge, but a sinister grab for some fabled script both Kay Martin and Elsnick thought still existed?

  Seemed unlikely.

  But that wasn’t going to stop Charlie Jones.

  Something else did, but not right away.

  Chapter 21

  “Wait!” I shouted as Charlie Jones walked off toward the dark. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”

  “I’m thinking of putting a bullet into the invisible man’s head, that’s what I’m thinking of doing,” Charlie Jones said.

  I ran after him and caught him just before he entered the dark.

  “You’re not thinking right, kid,” I said. “Just ask yourself how likely it is that Marla was killed because of some hoodoo about a script? It’s not plausible, right? If she had the script, if she knew where it was, then they would have paid her off and there’d be no mess to clean up.”

  “I suppose but…”

  “But me no buts. Whatever reason is in behind Marla’s death it wasn’t because of some—“

  No sooner had I started to speak than Charlie Jones took off again.

  “Hold up,” I said, “just hold your damned horses and think about this, kid. Don’t burn all your bridges when you don’t know the full truth. Just you—“

  He entered the dark. His footsteps the tick-tock of a clock.

  Tarquin came to my side.

  “I could have sworn he was the killer. I remembered parts of that night so vividly, Mr. Finch, the night of the wrap party, the knife in his hand. The bloody moon above us all on the set. I swear, I swear upon my mother’s grave that I didn’t—“

  He could swear all he liked, but I couldn’t hear him.

  The gunshot deafened me.

  My ears rang.

  When they stopped I heard something new.

  Somewhere in the cavernous darkness of Stage Six, Charlie Jones let out a dying croak.

  Chapter 22

  Low enough to make a snake jealous of my moves I slid through the darkness to where I thought I would find Charlie Jones’ body.

  I wanted to believe the kid was still alive. I wanted it badly. But I knew a corpse waited for me.

  And a killer.

  But who?

  Johnny Jackson? I searched the darkness for an answer but found none. None I could see or hear at any rate.

  Johnny wouldn’t have stopped, my panicked mind thought. He wouldn’t have stopped with the kid, he’d squeeze that trigger forever, unless…

  He’s still there. Waiting.

  I froze. My heart opened up a dance school in my chest. My tongue dried enough to sand wood.

  The darkness shielded me, but the same darkness blinded. What could I do? Empty the chambers of the .38 in the hope I’d strike it lucky? I may as well have thrown a handful of slugs and hoped one of them went off in his face.

  They say that when you hit a brick wall you have choices. You can climb over, go around, go through or go under. Nobody tells you what to do if the wall is in the dark and you can’t see where the wall begins or ends.

  Neither of us could see that wall. Equal now, I realized. But I had to make the first move to break the silent stalemate.

  “Jackson! Jackson is that you?”

  My voice bounced around in the dark and found more darkness until it came back to me.

  “You hear me? Jackson, you hear me you rotten punk!”

  If he heard he didn’t let on.

  But maybe he didn’t have to?

  I pictured the big lug as an overgrown bat, and me the insect. A bat with a smile on its face as it got closer and closer still.

  A tickle of fear ran through my stomach. The dark pressed in from all sides.

  I rolled to my right.

  My ankle pressed up against something soft and warm.

  Something dead.

  Charlie Jones.

  Slow, my heart a foxtrot, I reached down in a futile hope to find a hidden heartbeat.

  Warm body, no life. Not a flicker of life.

  Sickened, I pushed away.

  Kid didn’t deserve a bullet, I thought. Neither did I.

  I turned, glanced over my shoulder.

  I thought I’d gone further into the dark, but I was close enough to make a run for the steps we’d stood on moments earlier.

  Empty steps.

  No Tarquin. He’d vamoosed. I wondered if I’d have to chase him again and risk another sleepless night as I trawled the Hollywood streets.

  If I escaped the darkness to make such a search. As it was all I could do was wait and breathe and hope that I’d catch a break sooner rather than later. But that wasn’t the way to go, I knew it. You couldn’t just hold your breath, cross your fingers and click your heels together three times to make the world right again.

  I had to move.

  And not further into the dark. I had to risk the light. I had to find an exit, a way out of this mess before the cannon boomed again.

  I rolled onto my knees, and then jumped up into a squat.

  So far, so good I thought. Could be I’d come out of this with all my limbs intact. Could be I was the only one in the damned place, alone, with nothing but my own thoughts as enemies and the killer gone along with Tarquin.

  Coulda shoulda woulda.

  Only one place under the lights offered cover. The grand fountain, so out of place, most likely taken from some other part of the movie, looked wide enough at its center to provide a bulwark against flying death. All I had to do was make it behind the thing before any of those bullets caught up with me.

  I gave it the old college try.

  But I’d never been to college, old or new. As I reached the edge of the fountain, the first shot rang out.

  A bullet cracked into the fountain to my left.

  Now, a .45 can do all
kinds of damage to a soft thing like a human being, but you expect a little more robustness from a fountain. At least you do when it’s built of stone and filled with water.

  Not in Hollywood.

  The bottom of the fountain exploded and littered the path before me with hunks of Plaster of Paris.

  My eyes bulged. The dance classes started up again in my chest.

  I darted to the right just as the second shot rang out.

  A muzzle flash lit the darkness. Not long enough for me to see the face behind the gun. Long enough to take aim though.

  The second bullet crashed into the fake steps of the set behind me.

  I dropped and hugged the floor.

  I pulled my .38 up and squeezed off two shots.

  A shot rang out in reply.

  I rolled.

  Another shot boomed in the darkness. Lightning flashed. The concrete spewed a sliver of itself up where I’d lay a moment earlier.

  I rolled again and then saw a patch of darkness just behind the fake steps where I wouldn’t be so much of a target.

  Another shot rang out.

  Lightning flashed.

  I dove for the darkness and came up with my back to the underside of the fake steps. My heart was the wrong kind of beat for a mambo, it was a new rhythm, something you couldn’t and didn’t want to dance to. My breath came in quick gulps.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, I told myself. What kind of superhero did I think I was? If I’d just waited it out a little longer, if I’d just waited for whoever it was out there to make their move…if I’d…

  The bell that rang in my ears stopped. My heart took over and turned the world to a pounding throb. I wondered when I’d have enough of my wits about me to mount some kind of defense.

  When the hand dropped onto my shoulder I nearly jumped out of my suit.

  “Shhh, it’s me,” Tarquin said, close enough for me to taste Bourbon.

  I wanted to sock him in the jaw, if I could locate his jaw in the dark that was.

  “Be quiet,” I said, my voice a chewed whisper.

  “Is he still out there?”

  A shot answered for me.

  “I think he might be,” I said.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Probably die if you keep talking. Hush,” I said.

  I leaned to my right, my face brushed against the light.

  Whoever was out there in the dark, they had to know where we were by now. They had to know where to aim. And they had to kill us both if they wanted to keep this clean.

  The thought brought me back into the dark.

  “How many is that?” I asked Tarquin.

  “Shots?”

  “No, winged fairies. Of course shots.”

  “I haven’t been counting. Weren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might if that Gunsel out there didn’t bring any spare ammo.”

  “You think he didn’t?”

  “No.”

  It wouldn’t matter in any case. I didn’t know how many slugs he’d squeezed off or how many he’d had to begin with. And if he ran out then…then he’d be long gone before I had a chance to grab a hold of him.

  “They might want to think about hiring something more than stuffed shirts to guard this lot,” I said to Tarquin. “Or at least a few who aren’t deaf.”

  “It’s a movie lot, Mr. Finch, there’s gunfire here all the time.”

  But not right at that moment. I counted another thirty seconds in my head. Not a peep from the darkness.

  Had the Gunsel run out of bullets? Had he run off the stage when those bullets were gone? Or did he wait in silence for an opportunity to finish what he’d started?

  The wait would probably kill me before any bullet would.

  “Are there any more lights around here?” I said to Tarquin, my voice a strained whisper.

  “There are as many lights here as there are stars in the sky.”

  “And you know where they are, do you?”

  “Yes, but why would you—“

  “You’re going to turn them on,” I said.

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  “And while I’m committing suicide, what pray, will you be doing, Mr. Finch?”

  “Hand over your gun,” I said.

  “And leave myself completely unarmed. I’m beginning to think you really do wish to see me dead.”

  “Just hand it over. You’ll do just fine, trust me.”

  He dropped the pistol into my lap and followed it with a disapproving tutt.

  “Would you be surprised if I said I wasn’t as confident as you about my near future?”

  I hefted his gun in my hand, and mine in the other. They felt right, balanced, as though I might just have a chance to come out of the other side of my plan with breath in my body.

  “On the count of five,” I said, “you’re going to head for the light switches.”

  “And you? What will you do, Mr. Finch?”

  I got up onto my haunches.

  “Ever shoot tin ducks at the fairground?” I said.

  “Once, as a child, but…oh.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “just call me Daffy.”

  Chapter 23

  “Five, four, three—” I said, my voice as tense as a guitar string about to snap.

  I stopped.

  A sound echoed through the darkened studio. At once the tap of a woman’s pumps but then the tap-tap of a cane as it struck the ground.

  A woman in pumps.

  A man with a cane.

  Didn’t seem possible, but had my idea about the Gunsel been all kinds of wrong? Had Elsnick and Kay Martin joined forces?

  “Two?” Tarquin whispered into my ear.

  I grabbed hold of him and put on the squeeze for silence.

  He ignored me. “What should we do, Mr. Finch?”

  Sit here and wait for death, I thought. Seemed about all we could do, unless we wanted a repeat of the last ten minutes of aimless panic and gunfire.

  Kay Martin and Elsnick were here for us. They were here to re-negotiate our deal about the magical script. I could see the kind of deal that they’d made with Charlie Jones.

  I might have had a chance all on my lonesome and with Tarquin headed for the lights, but now, with two of them out there? What could I possibly do?

  Talk.

  When in doubt the flap of gums could buy precious time.

  So I talked.

  “Martin, Elsnick, you know this isn’t going to get you anywhere, don’t you?”

  They didn’t say a thing, but I could imagine the smug smiles on their rich and pampered faces. Alone they were competition for each other, but together, together they could call the shots.

  So where was the noise?

  Where was the offer of a deal or some last-minute taunts?

  Did they mean to kill me outright? If they thought I had the script, why would they want me dead, and why would they even bother with Charlie Jones?

  My head hurt like I’d tied three off the night before, but it was the kind of hurt that comes just before the headache passes. A thought formed, a light came on in a darkened room. Some of the pieces of the puzzle that was Marla Donovan’s murder were clear now fit together at last. Soon I would have it all, but I had to survive another day to put it all together.

  I would have to survive the few minutes that followed that thought.

  “You kill me, you’ll lose it all. Hear me? You’ll lose the script. You’ll lose whatever you think you can get by owning that script!”

  Tarquin leaned into my side.

  “I don’t think they care much for your logic, Mr. Finch. Are you sure it’s them out there?”

  “I’m not sure of much anymore. You could always take a stroll and ask them face to face, make sure I put the right names to the faces.”

  “You think I’d get far enough to see their faces, if it is them?”

  “I think you’d get a nice obitu
ary in the papers. Something full of treacle words, you know that kind of thing.”

  “I’m glad, at least, that you’re confident in my demise.”

  The sound of pumps and a cane echoed in the gap between our talk.

  What kind of torture was this? Why let me hear them approach? Two-bit crooks of all kinds liked to talk themselves up, they liked to tell their victims how short time was and what would happen in that time.

  No talk.

  Except me.

  “Take another step and I’ll plug the both of you!” I shouted.

  “Can you?” Tarquin asked.

  “Yeah, and for an encore I’ll shoot the moon. You think I can see in the dark or something?”

  “Oh, you’re showing bravado, yes, I understand.”

  “I wish those two—“

  Clickety-clack-clickety-clack.

  The noise put the chill on me, only I wasn’t cold. Not for long. I could feel it in my belly, a fire that spread and curled the edges of my lips.

  I laughed. The kind of laugh that, if left unchecked, can just as easily turn into a hysterical cry.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Finch? Have you gone insane, are you suffering from some type of nervous exhaustion?” Tarquin asked.

  “No, no,” I said, wagging my head, “you’re going to love this.”

  “Love what?”

  I dropped both guns into my pockets as I jumped out of the dark behind the steps.

  There was no gunfire, no lead to put the wrong kind of heat into my belly.

  “Mr. Finch, please get back under cover where you can’t be seen.”

  I glanced to the dark under the stairs.

  “Don’t worry, I believe we’re quite safe now, at least we are from any gun happy triggermen.”

  “Mr. Finch, you’re worrying me. Please, for the love of all that his holy, will you get to some cover before—“

  I got down on my haunches and stared into the darkness of the studio.

  I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there.

  “Steinbeck? Come on out, boy,” I said.

  His nails clacked against the hard floor of the studio. They sounded at once like the pumps of a woman and the tip of a cane.

  ***

  The lights were on, no more darkness, but plenty of shadows remained. In a town that was made of shadows you had to expect them. You had to figure that any truth you might find would be somewhere where the light couldn’t quite reach.