Marvin and Libby watched Rick advance on their table with a determined stride. Any trace of the anger he’d shown to Joanna was erased from his face. Instead he was beaming with eagerness and goodwill.
“Hi,” Rick said when he got to the table. Ignoring Libby, he leaned over, grabbed Marvin’s hand, and pumped it till all the feeling in Marvin’s fingers had disappeared. “I’m Rick Crouse. I understand you’ve been asking about me.”
“My hand?” Marvin said weakly.
Rick laughed. “Sorry,” he said, letting go of it.
Marvin rubbed his fingers to get the circulation going.
“My friends tell me I tend to get a little overenthusiastic about things.”
“Not a problem,” Marvin said.
“So what did you think?” Rick asked him.
“Think?” Marvin repeated, wondering if Rick had done permanent nerve damage.
“About my performance. What did you think about my performance?”
“Good. Very good,” Marvin stammered. What else could he say?
Rick beamed. “You don’t think I made Brick a little too disaffected? A little too working-class James Deany?”
“No. No. It was perfect,” Marvin lied. He hoped Rick couldn’t tell he was lying, because he wasn’t a very good liar, a fact that had caused him a significant amount of trouble in the past one way or another.
But Marvin decided that Rick couldn’t, because his smile grew even broader—if that was possible. “Super.” Rick steepled his fingers together. “I wanted him to be emblematic of modern man facing this vast array of technology. I know that’s not what Williams wrote, but I felt it was in the character waiting to be drawn out.”
Is that what that was? Marvin wanted to say, but instead he came out with, “You did a very good job.”
“Thanks,” Rick said. “I like to think that if Williams were alive today he would be pleased with my interpretation. I feel that as an actor one has a responsibility to push material in new directions, ones the playwright might not have consciously been aware of when he was writing.” He pointed to the open spot in the booth where Bernie had been sitting. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Not at all,” Marvin said.
Rick nodded. He waved to the woman who had played Maggie the Cat and pantomimed getting him a beer and bringing it over to where he was sitting.
“I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this opportunity,” Rick confided when he was done. “I’ve been down in the city for four years now. My ex told me I was crazy to go—well, actually she said something less polite—but I told her that if I did the work, opportunities would follow, and they have. I mean, you’re here, right?” And he gave Marvin a playful jab on the shoulder.
Marvin experienced a sharp stab of pain where Rick had punched him. “Yes, I am,” he managed to get out.
“I mean, when you’re bit by the acting bug, you gotta go with it, right?”
“Right,” Marvin repeated as the woman who played Maggie the Cat approached their table with two beers in hand.
“No matter what the consequences are, correctomundo kemosabe?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Marvin replied absentmindedly, because he was distracted by the woman approaching the table.
She looked so familiar. There was something about her mouth, the way the tip of her nose turned up, and the slight overbite. And then Marvin had it. My God. It was Priscilla Edwards, the niece of Michael Edwards, the man they’d buried two days ago. She’d gotten lost on her way to the bathroom and ended up in their storeroom.
Marvin slumped down in his seat. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize him. Maybe he could plead a severe bout of a gastrointestinal illness and leave. Or maybe he could faint. Oh my God. Why hadn’t he recognized the woman earlier? Why had he dozed throughout the performance? Why hadn’t he read the program more carefully? If he had he might have recognized her name.
“Here he is,” Rick said as Priscilla put the beers down on the table. He gave Marvin a slap on the back that sent him forward. “This is the guy Sam was telling me about. This is the agent from ICM. This is the guy who is going to make me rich and famous. Who is going to put me on the map.”
Priscilla looked at Marvin and then she looked again. Her eyes narrowed. She knows, Marvin thought. Marvin tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t get his mouth to open or his limbs to move. He felt like a pinned butterfly. Libby saw Marvin’s panicked expression and tried to think of something to do, but glancing at Priscilla’s face she knew it was too late. Why did she listen to Bernie? That was the question.
“Really?” Priscilla said to Rick. “He’s an agent? Interesting. Very interesting.”
Rick looked from her to Marvin and back to her again. “What do you mean?” he asked.
She pointed an accusing finger in Marvin’s direction. “He isn’t an agent,” she stated. “He’s the son of the guy who owns the funeral home where we held my uncle’s wake. He was standing by the door greeting everyone and directing traffic when we arrived. He even went and got extra chairs.”
Marvin began to feel decidedly sick.
“Are you sure?” Rick asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” Priscilla said. “I’ve got a good memory for faces.”
“Fuckin’ great,” Rick said. “Mercury is retrograde. I should have known something like this was going to happen.”
“Listen,” Marvin began. “I’m really sorry. I just want you to know…”
But he never got to finish his sentence because Rick stood up, drew his arm back, and punched him in the jaw before walking away.
“Nice,” Marvin heard Priscilla say as she caught up with Rick.
Marvin wiggled his jaw from side to side. Nothing seemed to be broken. He ran his tongue over his teeth. They were all there. Nothing was loose. So that was good.
“Look on the bright side,” Libby said.
“There’s a bright side to this?” Marvin asked.
Libby thought for a moment. “Not really,” she finally said.
Marvin gestured to his jaw. He could feel it starting to swell. By tomorrow it would look…well, actually he didn’t know what it was going to look like tomorrow because something like this had never happened to him before. But one thing was for sure: it wouldn’t be pretty.
“How am I going to explain this to my dad?” he asked.
“Good question,” Libby said. All she knew was that it was going to have to be an excellent story. Then she wondered how well Bernie’s foundation could conceal the bruise.
By the time Bernie got outside, Joanna was already in her car.
“Wait!” she cried as Joanna started up her Miata.
Joanna turned and stared at her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“That guy you were talking to in there?” Bernie said.
“What about him?” Joanna asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Who is he?”
“Why do you want to know?” Joanna demanded.
There was something in Joanna’s face that made Bernie think she didn’t wish Rick Crouse well.
“I’m here to repo his car,” Bernie said.
“Funny,” Joanna said. “Are you adding that to your catering as a sideline?”
“Exactly,” Bernie said. “Cook by day, detective/repo woman by night.”
Joanna laughed. “I’d love to see my ex’s car towed away.”
“You were married to him?”
“Yeah. I lent him thirty thousand dollars so he could buy into a Pita Pit franchise with it. You know what that son of a bitch did? I’ll tell you what he did. He ran off to New York with it. To study acting…” Joanna practically spit the word out. “He told me he doesn’t have to repay me because he considers the money an investment in himself. He calls himself the business. I may barf.”
“He’s not very good,” Bernie observed.
“Good?” Joanna let out a hoarse laugh. “Good? He’s terrible. But he’s
convinced he’s Oscar material.”
“Well, he is good-looking. That always counts for a lot.”
“Hah. You should have seen him before. To be fair, he wasn’t bad before, but now he’s fantastic, the lowlife sleaze. That’s actually where my thirty thousand went. Or most of it. He used it to get cosmetic surgery. That cleft chin? Fake. The cheekbones? Fake. Those blue eyes? Contact lenses. The teeth? Veneers. And then Annabel, bless her heart, paid for his chest implants.”
“Why would she do that?” Bernie asked, feigning ignorance.
Joanna snorted. “Why do you think? Because they were sleeping together, of course. She was such a bitch. She always had to have everything I had. So naturally she had to have Rick.”
“Which is why you started sleeping with Richard?” Bernie asked. If she had expected a denial she didn’t get one.
“Fair is fair. No one walks all over me.” Joanna pointed to her boobs. “Rick got his chest implants and I got these. In retrospect, I should have gotten them a little smaller, but I wanted something that showed.”
“Well, they certainly do that,” Bernie said. “I guess Richard liked them.”
“He said they were a little ostentatious—those were his exact words. I told him to go screw himself and I cut him off. ‘No more sex for you,’ I said. Not that he really cared.”
“Why wouldn’t he care?” In Bernie’s experience, that was all a lot of men cared about.
“Because he was already sleeping with Melissa. I just beat him to it.”
“To Melissa?”
Joanna rolled her eyes. “To kissing me off. If Richard had really cared about the sex thing I would have lost my job. But he didn’t, so I’m still here.”
The expression “can’t keep the players straight without a scorecard” popped into Bernie’s mind.
“Richard always has two women in the pipeline,” Joanna continued. “Sometimes even three. Though frankly, between you and me, I think three’s too many for him to handle.”
“Has he always been like that?” Bernie asked.
“As far as I know. Now they’re calling people like him sex addicts. I just call people like that pigs.”
“Did Annabel know?”
Joanna snorted. “You bet she did. How could she not? He practically flaunted it in her face. Her friends, the women who worked for Annabel—everyone was fair game. I mean, I felt sorry for her before she started messing around with Rick. Having to put up with Richard’s stuff. And she was the brains of the outfit too.” She added, “I’ll tell you one thing, I didn’t kill Annabel, but I’m glad someone did. She had it coming. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Rick had something to do with it.”
“What makes you say that?” Bernie asked.
Joanna leaned her head out of the car. “Because he was scamming her like he was scamming everyone else, and she’d just found out. So no more money, honey.”
And with that last comment, Joanna took off. As Bernie watched the receding headlights of her vehicle, she wondered how much of what Joanna had just told her was true. A second later there was a sharp screech as Joanna threw her car in reverse and started backing up. Bernie jumped out of the way as Joanna squealed to a stop in front of her.
She stuck her head out of the window again and said, “I’d talk to Annabel’s best friend, Joyce, if I were you.”
“The reason being?” Bernie asked.
“Because she’s a best friend with a caveat.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Bernie asked her.
“As they say, payback is a bitch. She’s the one who introduced Rick to Annabel. She’s the one who told Rick that maybe Annabel would help him with his acting career.” She imitated Joyce’s voice: “I was just trying to help. Trying to help.” Then she said, “Ha!” as she put the car in first and zoomed off into the night.
Chapter 14
Bernie was still thinking about what Joanna had told her when Libby tapped her on the shoulder. Bernie spun around.
Libby pointed to Marvin’s jaw.
Bernie put her hand over her mouth. “What happened?” she asked.
“Rick Crouse happened,” Libby said. “He found out that Marvin wasn’t a talent agent after all.”
“He punched me in the jaw,” Marvin told her. “I hope it was worth it,” he added plaintively.
Poor Marvin, Bernie thought. He was always so cautious, but it didn’t matter. Things just happened to him. If there was a brick nearby it would fall on his head. Not, she was sure, that Libby would see the current situation that way. Bernie lightly patted the uninjured side of Marvin’s face. “You know, you look very hot this way,” she said as she tried to cheer him up. “Almost irresistible in fact.”
“I do?” Marvin said, throwing his shoulders back.
Bernie nodded. “Absolutely. Men with bruises always are. Right, Libby?” she asked. “Right?” she repeated when her sister remained silent.
“Right,” Libby answered through gritted teeth.
But she had to admit that Marvin had perked up when Bernie had said that to him. However, that still wasn’t going to prevent her from wringing her sister’s neck the first chance she got.
“Where is Rick Crouse now?” Bernie asked.
“Back in the bar,” Libby said. “Drinking a beer.”
“The bartender didn’t even call the police,” Marvin complained. “He could at least have done that.”
“Was there blood?” Bernie asked.
“No,” Marvin said.
“Did it spill over onto anyone else?”
Marvin looked puzzled.
“Start a brawl,” Bernie explained.
“No.”
“Then there you go,” Bernie told him. “At Leon’s unless there’s a fair amount of blood on the walls, a body on the floor, or five people breaking chairs over people’s heads, the bartender isn’t going to call the cops. And even then it might not happen.”
Marvin gingerly touched his jaw, then wiggled it around a little. “You know, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been punched,” he admitted.
“Seriously?” Libby asked.
Marvin nodded.
“See,” Bernie said, thinking of Brandon, who’d made a career for a while out of brawling. “Then this is a good thing. It adds to your cool-dude factor. Trust me. You’re going to thank me later on.”
Marvin looked dubious. “Thank you for this? I don’t think so.”
Bernie raised her hand. “I promise. You’ll see.”
Libby just shook her head. Where Bernie came up with this stuff she’d never know. But, on the other hand, you did have to admire her gall. She would give her that.
Bernie thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You take Marvin home and get an ice pack on his jaw. I’ll go back inside, talk to Rick, and see what I can find out. When I’m done I’ll call and you can come pick me up.”
Libby nodded. That would work, she thought, since her main concern right now was keeping the swelling on Marvin’s jaw down as much as possible.
“I’ll drive,” she said to Marvin as she took his arm and started leading him toward the car.
“You know,” he said, “I have two funerals tomorrow. How am I going to explain my jaw?”
“No problem,” Libby said with more confidence than she felt. “We’ll come up with a really good story.”
“Well, whatever you do, don’t ask Bernie for one,” Bernie heard Marvin say to her sister.
“I won’t,” Libby replied.
When Bernie walked into Leon’s, Rick Crouse and Priscilla Edwards were sitting at the bar sipping their beers and watching TV. She went to the booth where she, Marvin, and Libby had been sitting, reclaimed her jacket, got her can of Bud Light, then walked up to Rick and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Yes?” he said, keeping his eyes glued to the TV.
Bernie waved her hand in front of his face. “Hello,” she said. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ignore people?”<
br />
He reluctantly turned to face her. “And it’s rude to wave your hand in front of someone’s face. What do you want?”
“I want to know why you punched my friend.”
“That guy was your friend?”
“That’s what I just said, didn’t I?”
He gave Bernie his full attention. “Girls in stiletto heels shouldn’t go causing trouble.”
“I’m not causing trouble. I’m asking you a question.”
Rick took a gulp of his beer and put the can back down. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I clocked him one because he lied to me. That’s why.”
“You punch everyone who lies to you?” Bernie asked him.
“No, I don’t,” he replied. “Okay. I admit I lost control of myself, but this was different. He deserved it.”
“Different how?”
“Because…”
But before Rick could finish his sentence Priscilla Edwards leaned forward and finished it for him. “Rick was really excited about meeting the agent. It was all he was talking about backstage. So when he found out that this guy Marvin was shining him on he just got a little carried away, that’s all. Heaven only knows what would have happened if I hadn’t been along. Poor Rick would have never known.”
“That’s right,” Rick said. He pounded the bar. “That’s exactly right.”
Priscilla patted his arm in a proprietary manner. Rick favored her with a grateful smile.
“I see,” Bernie said. And she did. She put her can of beer down. It was bad enough when it was cold, but it was undrinkable when it was warm. “You know, I was the one who suggested Marvin do that. I was the one who told Sam. Marvin was just doing what I told him to do.”
Rick looked back at her, a puzzled expression on his face. “Why?” he finally said. “That wasn’t very nice. That wasn’t nice at all. In fact, it was downright mean. What did I ever do to you? That’s what I want to know.”
“Nothing,” Bernie told him. “You’ve never done anything to me. I just wanted to get some information. I figured that this would be a good way of getting you talking.”
A Catered Birthday Party Page 10
