The Desert Waits

by J. Carson Black

  “Friends.”

  A knock broke the silence. “Mr. Lang,” someone shouted, “could you comment on Booker Purlie’s death?”

  “Is it true you found the body?”

  “Was Booker Purlie a suspect in your wife’s murder?”

  “Can you comment on Booker Purlie’s death?”

  Ted strode around the room, pulling drapes. “I’ve got wine in the mini-bar. I could use some, how about you?”

  “Red if you’ve got it,” Alex said, placing herself as far from the door as possible.

  “There’s a corkscrew around here somewhere.” Ted reached for the flight bag on the counter and blanched as something resembling a four-inch crescent wrench clambered out of the bag and moved quickly across the counter’s surface, its many legs marching like an army.

  Dark and shiny, it shimmied over the edge and down the side of the counter.

  Seeing it was a jolt, even though Alex’s mind automatically cataloged and dismissed the creature as a poisonous arthropod that didn’t pose much of a threat—as long as it was left alone. It fell into the “they won’t bother you if you don’t bother them” category.

  Ted let out a half-bark. All reason had flown from his eyes, replaced by the unmistakable animal instinct—fight or flight.

  He chose flight, scuttling back against the wall, his features rigid with unfathomable terror. He nearly trampled her in his rush for the door. Unable to master the doorknob’s simple mechanism, he turned his back to it, pressing himself as close to the door as he could, as though he could assimilate himself into the wood.

  “Ted?”

  He didn’t answer. His face was ashen and his breath came in shallow rasps.

  “What’s the matter? Did he bite you?”

  Ted stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  “Did he bite you?”

  He looked bewildered. His gaze swung to the place where the centipede had disappeared, a crack in the wall beside the refrigerator.

  This time it was Alex who reached for him. “Ted, it’s all right. Even if he did bite you, the poison is negligible. You’re a big strong guy and they’re only dangerous to babies or the very old. You’re all right.” She made him face her and repeated the words. “You’re all right.”

  Ted focused on her. “He ... didn’t bite me,” he said, and slumped against the door.

  His abject fear of the bug was so much more intense than his reaction to finding Booker Purlie’s body that Alex wondered if he suffered from some pathological fear of insects.

  He shook like a sapling, but his color was coming back. “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me.” He grinned weakly. “I hate crawly things.”

  To put it mildly. Alex started to pull away, but he held her hands like a vise. “Don’t, please,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “God, it came that close to touching me, oh God, oh God ...”

  “Ted, he’s gone now. You don’t have to worry—”

  “He’s in that crack.”

  “I’m sure he’s long gone.”

  “I can’t sleep here. I’ve got to get another room.”

  “That crack is in the outside wall. I’m sure he’s gone.”

  Muttering, he pushed past her, flung open the door, and strode into the night. Cameras flashed, digicams’ record lights glowed, microphones poked holes in the air. A crush of reporters broke like tide on a beach, swallowing Ted whole.

  “What happened?”

  “Is this some kind of delayed-stress reaction?”

  “How did you discover the body? Is it true that—”

  Alex watched as the crowd strung out across the lawn, resembling the centipede in Ted’s wall.

  Shaking, she walked back, unchallenged, to her own room, where the cat greeted her lovingly, a refreshing change from madness.

  Fourteen

  There is growing speculation today that superstar Caroline Arnet’s death may not have been an accident.

  —David Jarrett, World News Tonight

  It was over. Really over.

  Alex awoke the next morning to that realization. She lay spread-eagled on the bed, (Snowflake? Tinkerbell?) curled like a doughnut on top of the covers and pinning her there.

  “Bed-hog. Want some breakfast?”

  The cat stood up, arched her back, stretched. Sat up and blinked sleepily. Yawned.

  Another beautiful sunny morning. Alex felt sunny, too, as if a terrible thunderstorm had come through, shattering everything in its path, but leaving what little that remained clean and fresh. The morning after a storm is always the most beautiful.

  Alex tried not to think of Booker Purlie hanging from the shower nozzle.

  She couldn’t feel sorry for him. All she could think of was Caroline, her life cut short.

  Alex fed the cat and washed out some underthings in the sink, her heart lighter than it had been in a week. Today stretched out before her with nothing to do. She didn’t want to go into the canyon and disturb the blind, so this was pretty much shaping up into a holiday. She could read, swim, drive across the border and do some shopping. She could do anything, now that the shadow had been lifted.

  Alex glanced at the yellow roses in the trash. No more flowers or cards or implied threats. Caroline was avenged, and Alex felt like singing aloud.

  As she walked to the restaurant, she passed the gift shop and stopped. Several magazines faced the window. Three of them—TIME, People, and Newsweek—featured Caroline’s face on the cover. “DEATH OF AN AMERICAN ICON,” “CAROLINE ARNET: 1966-1996, A RETROSPECTIVE,” “MOURNING ON THE SET.”

  The tabloids had moved on to something juicier—Tom Cruise’s love-life.

  On an impulse, Alex went into the store and picked up copies of all the magazines and tabloids featuring Caroline. She was almost to the counter when she saw the book, prominently displayed on the paperback rack.

  FALLEN ANGEL: THE CAROLINE ARNET STORY.

  How had they published a book so fast?

  She walked over to the rack. Caroline’s face graced the glossy cover, her eyes shadowed and haunting. In this photo, she looked more like the stars of the past—luminous skin, pouty lips. Alex picked up the book and almost dropped it again as she saw the author’s name underneath the photograph.

  Ted Lang.

  Something dark slithered through her as she stared at his name. It seemed so cold, calculating to publish a book so soon after Caroline’s death. She turned the book over.

  “She was beautiful. Vulnerable. Mysterious. The quintessential California Girl whose life had gone terribly wrong even as she soared to stardom. Now, in an unprecedented biography, her husband, producer Ted Lang (Sasquatch!, Deadly Impunity: The Madeline Delessio Story) shares with the world his soul-searching account of their life together and the demons that haunted this secretive, ill-fated star. Her troubled past, her tortured career, her lost innocence, the shattering circumstances of her death now revealed by the one person who knew her most intimate secrets. This is Caroline Arnet’s true story, written by the man she loved.

  “Soon to be a major motion picture.”

  Caroline had been dead one week. How had this all come together so quickly?

  “Didn’t waste any time, did he?” Luther van Cleeve spoke near her ear.

  “I don’t know how they could physically put it out so fast.”

  .”When there’s money involved, believe me, they can do anything. All they have to do is compile. It’s a matter of public record—the films, the photos.” He picked up the paperback and thumbed through it. “This is practically a picture book. Every star has an obituary on file with the papers, something they can pull out at the last minute.”

  “You mean you have one, too?”

  “Yup. I’m sure of it.”

  Alex shivered. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “I’ll tell you what would bother me: if they didn’t have one on me.”

  Alex turned the book over in her hands. The paperback was put out by Labyrinth Publishing out of LA
“This is more than just a newspaper obituary, even with all the photographs and the big print.”

  “Ted’s been writing his memoirs for years. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the biggest part of his memoirs were actually her memoirs.”

  “You think he’s that cold? That he’d do this for the money?”

  He shrugged. “When the will’s read, he’ll have more money than God. Let’s just put a charitable face on it and say he wanted to tell the world about their romance. Ted loves attention.”

  “He sure went after you the other night.”

  “Ted can’t drink. He gets belligerent and crazy when he does.”

  “What he said didn’t bother you?”

  “Yeah, it bothered me, but I’ve got a tough skin. He’s nothing compared to the tabloids. Besides, Ted’s in a dream world.”

  “Is everybody in the movie business nuts?”

  “Seems that way.” His kind face reminded her of Gentle Ben. Not the guy, the bear. “Let me buy you breakfast.”

  “You’re not working today?”

  “Night shoot.”

  They took a booth near the window. The sun glittered on the pool, bending fragments of brightness through the partly open window blinds. It was a perfect day, and for the first time in ages, Alex felt really good.

  “It must have been awful finding Booker,” Luther said after they ordered. “You think he did it?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Luther stared at the pool. “I don’t know what to think. Except that the big superhero didn’t protect her very well.”

  “Seems like there’s a lot of guilt going around. You, me, Ted—”

  “I heard he was with you when you found Booker.”

  “It was sort of an accident. But I’m glad he was there.”

  “You mind if I ask you something?” He went on without waiting for her answer. “You seem to spend a lot of time with Ted.”

  “Not by design.”

  “Don’t you like him?”

  “He’s all right, but he’s latched on to me since Caroline died and I’m just not a nurturer.”

  Luther grinned.

  “If they’d had it in school, I would have flunked nurturing. What surprises me is that you don’t seem to have any hard feelings toward him,” Alex continued. “If he’d talked to me that way, I would’ve cut him dead.”

  “I told you, it was the liquor talking. Nothing personal.”

  He might say that now, but Alex remembered the smoldering hatred in Luther’s eyes when Ted suggested he’d killed Caroline on purpose. “He accused you of murdering Caroline.”

  “Yeah.” He shook his ponderous head. “Pissed me off at the time, but he’s always making outrageous statements like that. He was just spouting off for your benefit.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted to shock you. He likes to get a rise out of people.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Lute shrugged. The chorizo plate came, and he tucked in like a field hand. “For fun, is my guess. I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Ted says. He’s got all these grandiose schemes, but they never work out; he’s all over the map. I think that’s why he acts out sometimes, puts on the bravado. He’s trying to measure up to the Ted Lang ideal in his head.”

  “You sound like a psychoanalyst.”

  “Got my Master’s in Social Work from UCLA. Counseling.”

  He saw the look on her face and laughed. “You don’t believe me, do you? Doesn’t fit the stereotype of the big dumb superhero.”

  “I don’t think anyone ever accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of being stupid.”

  “Nope.” He munched thoughtfully.

  “But I thought Ted was doing pretty well. He is associate producer on Jagged Impact, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, Grey told me he is,” Luther admitted. “But the thing you’ve got to understand is, an associate producer can be anybody—the director’s brother, some money guy who wants the credit.”

  “And Ted happens to be the star’s wife.” Her mind returned to the other night, where Ted’s bile had been clearly evident. “You’re remarkably unconcerned that he hates you the way he does.”

  He shoveled in another forkful of huevos rancheros the size of a small landmass. When he came up for air, he said, “Ted doesn’t hate me.”

  “You stole his wife.”

  “They hadn’t slept together for years.”

  Alex knew her mouth was open. “But he said—”

  “Ted talks a good game, but he and Caroline have never had what you call a passionate relationship. His decision, even before she found out she was HIV positive.”

  “But he says he loved her.”

  “He did. He was the perfect husband, always there, supportive as hell. Caroline thinks—thought,” he added soberly, “that maybe he’s one of those asexual types who just isn’t interested in sex. I think she wanted him to be like that, although it was hardly close to the truth.”

  “Oh?”

  “He had lots of women. The guy can really turn on the charm when he wants to. I know for a fact he was seeing someone earlier this year, about the time we started shooting Impact. That’s why it’s funny he got so excited all of a sudden about Caroline and me. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

  Alex wondered if she’d landed on another planet.

  “Ted’s just trying to get by like anyone else. I can’t say he didn’t use Caroline, but she used him just as much—if not more. Just his presence helped her keep her distance from predatory men for years.”

  “Until you?”

  He grinned. “Until me. Only I don’t consider myself predatory.”

  “It was a marriage of convenience then?”

  “On Caroline’s part. Oh, she loved him in her way. They had a weird thing going, and this is an MSW talking.”

  “Unfortunately, their marriage didn’t faze Booker Purlie.”

  “No,” he agreed solemnly. “It didn’t.”

  Alex toyed with her food. “Could you tell me what she was like? I mean recently?”

  “She was beautiful, kind, good. She was also wild, a risk-taker, a person who knew no limits. And she was scared to death.”

  “Because of the HIV,” Alex supplied.

  “Yeah, but I think she was more afraid of herself ... of what was inside.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She didn’t like herself. No matter how big a star she was, inside there was this little girl with a low self-image.”

  “You sound like a counselor.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s not that hard to figure out. Even though she guarded her vulnerability like some big secret, everybody knew. Or at least sensed it. That’s the first word out of the reviewers’ mouths: fragile.”

  “I always thought she was strong.”

  “The strongest people generally accept themselves for who and what they are. Caroline only looked strong.”

  “But she was famous. People loved her. Certainly that should have been a shot to her ego.” But Alex had already sensed that all that fame, money, and adoration had not touched the terrified person within Caroline Arnet. Luther was right; it wasn’t so hard to figure out.

  “You know she envied you,” Luther said as he unwrapped a tortilla.

  “Me?”

  “Didn’t you ever wonder why she invited you to come?”

  “I assumed she just wanted me here.”

  “I asked her why she was so dead set on calling you—I guess I felt that I was protection enough. She said she needed you to advise her because you’d know what was real and what was fake. She had no faith in movie people, not even me. She said we were all too caught up in it—couldn’t see the forest et cetera.”

  “You mean she wanted a fresh eye.”

  “Yeah, but I think there was more to it than that. She only mentioned you one other time, the day we flew in to Tucson, but I got the impression that she wished she could trade places with you.”
/>   “The prince and the pauper,” Alex said.

  “What’s your life like, Alex?”

  She shrugged. “It’s pretty uneventful. I go out into the wild and take photographs of animals.”

  “You like who you are?”

  Alex thought about it. “Yes. But how could I be anyone else other than me? This is who I am, whether I like it or not.”

  “You never wanted to be anything else?”

  “Oh, I suppose. When I was younger, I wanted to be a model.” She corrected herself. “Actually, that was Caroline’s dream. I just sort of followed along. It sounded good at the time. But I figured out that wasn’t me.” She reflected that Luther must have been a pretty good counselor.

  “Caroline searched all her life to find out who she was,” Luther said. “And it still eluded her.”

  “Everything okay here?” asked the Carmen Miranda look-alike as she topped off Luther’s coffee and dropped off the check.

  “The more I think about it, the more I know why she had to have you here. She thought it would rub off. She thought you could repay her the favor for rescuing you.”

  Now Alex was really lost. Alex’s life—mundane as it was— couldn’t rub off on someone else. Caroline had her own life. And as for Caroline’s rescuing her ... “I can’t believe she thought it was such a big deal.”

  “What was a big deal?”

  “That day at the showers.”

  Luther’s brows knitted together. “What are you talking about?”

  Alex told him about the incident in the showers at their school.

  “I don’t think that was what she was talking about,” he said. “I got the impression she really saved you—you know, like pushed you out of the way of a speeding car or pulled you out of a flooded canal. It sounded to me like she saved your life.”

  Suddenly, the air conditioning was too cold. “I’d remember something like that.”

  Luther squinted at the check. “That’s the impression I got.” He looked at his watch. “Some of us are going in to Palo Duro today to do some shopping. Want to come? We’re meeting in the lobby at nine, if you’re interested.”