The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  “The bosses,” I said.

  He gave a hearty laugh and slapped me on the back. “I’m telling you. This place is filled with crazies. Come on into my office, I’ll fill you in.”

  TWO

  The front room of the security office was a small, air-conditioned, wood-paneled room with a metal office desk on which there were two telephones, a green-shaded lamp, a desk clock, a pen-and-ink set, a calendar blotter, and a message pad. There was a wooden rolling chair behind it, and three orange armchairs along the wall in front of it that had probably served time on one of the movie sets before their upholstery wore thin and they were reassigned here. A middle-aged dark-haired man with a well-managed mustache looked up as we came in and then away as he saw it was Knox, who continued on through a door behind the desk marked “Private.” This led to a narrow hallway off of which there were three more rooms. The first was an empty squad room with four desks, two couches, and a blackboard across one whole wall. The second was a kitchenette with a large table in the center and no less than three automatic coffee machines. Knox went into the third room, which was much like the first, only it had Knox’s photographs on the wall. There were pictures taken with various movie stars, and pictures taken when he and I had been police, with Knox looking trim in his city uniform, and pictures taken when he was with the DA’s office, looking less trim, but much thinner than he was now. “Close the door,” he said, sitting down behind the desk.

  I did and took the chair across from him.

  “Sorry about the kid at the gate. We have a high turnover and it’s either old retired cops like me or kids the academy turned away. The old guys can’t take the heat in the box, so it goes to the kids. More than half of this job is managing my own staff.”

  I said I hadn’t been bothered.

  He nodded and puffed out his upper lip by forcing air into it. Then he moved his lips as though tasting something, and said, “This is a crap job I have for you, I just want to say that up front. It’s a crap job, but the money’s good and easy and I need someone I can trust.”

  “I’ll just take my regular fee.”

  He shook his head. “No. I put in for fifty a day. And expenses, of course. This is the picture business, you take as much money as they’ll give you.”

  “Let’s leave that,” I said. “What’s the job?”

  He puffed his lips again and rocked in his seat while rubbing one hand back and forth on his blotter as though checking for splinters. He didn’t want to tell. Telling me would make it real. At last he slapped his desk and said, “Oh, hell, you’ve already seen the kind of thing I have to deal with. These movie people live in a different world than guys like you and me.”

  “That’s not what Life magazine says. Haven’t you seen? Bogie built his own porch and Garbo sews all her clothes.” Knox snorted at that. “Well, they love and hate and die like anyone else, don’t they?”

  “Sure, but they do it to the sound of violins, with their faces ten feet tall.” He slapped his desk again. “If you have any sense of propriety left after being on the force, they sure knock it right out of you here. What do you know about Chloë Rose?”

  “I’ve seen her pictures,” I said.

  “Well she manages that tortured beauty act from her pictures all the time in real life, too. And now we think maybe she’s going crazy.”

  “What’s she done?”

  “Nothing much. Nothing besides the usual crying jags and mad demands and refusal to work that we get from any number of these women stars, including some who make the studio a lot less money than Chloë Rose. But now she thinks she’s being followed. She’s nervous all the time about it, and it’s making it hard for Sturgeon to shoot the picture she’s making. The studio has her on a five-year contract and there are three years to go, so there are people who are worried.”

  “Worried that she’s actually being followed or worried that she thinks she’s being followed?”

  “Thinks.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Maybe she is being followed, I don’t know. But I tend to doubt it. These people are all paranoid. It’s their sense of self-importance. Either way, I’ve managed to convince her well enough that I’ve got things under control here, that the only people on the lot are people who belong there. In truth, there’s any number of ways to get onto the lot without us knowing. We have to throw people off the lot all the time, people who think they belong in pictures and are ready to prove it.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Just follow her around when she’s not on the set. Stakeout in front of her house at night.”

  “You want a bodyguard. I’m not a bodyguard.”

  “It’s not a bodyguard job. I told you, she only thinks she’s being followed. You just need to make her feel safe. For show.”

  “So I’m supposed to follow her around to make her feel better about somebody following her around?”

  Knox held his hands wide and leaned back. “That’s show business.”

  “Go back to Miss Rose’s mystery man. It is a man, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what she says.”

  “You said that you convinced her that the only people on the lot are people who belong on the lot. Why couldn’t her tail be someone who belongs on the lot?”

  “He could be. But don’t point that out to her. She must not have thought of it.”

  “What’s he supposed to look like?”

  “Like every other man you’ve ever met, if you go by her description. Medium height, dark hair, medium build. You’ll talk to her about it. She’ll fill you in.”

  “And she’s seen him on the lot?”

  “On the lot and off.” He leaned forward. “That’s if you believe her. I told you already. There’s nobody following her. She’s going dotty. There’ve been a batch of tantrums on the set. And her private life is worse than a paperback novel.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He took a breath and let it out slowly. I waited.

  “Her husband’s Shem Rosenkrantz,” he said. “He had a few books they liked in New York ten, fifteen years ago, but the last few years he’s been hanging around here doing treatments that never get made. They never get made because he’s too busy fooling around with the starlets and he doesn’t keep it a secret from his wife. This picture they’re filming now is one he wrote and it’s getting made because she’s in it. And he’s still having an affair with her co-star, this new girl called Mandy Ehrhardt. Meanwhile, Sturgeon, the director, has a thing for Rose, Missus Rosenkrantz if you’re keeping score. Which might be fine if she wanted it too, but...”

  “You sure he’s not involved with this business?”

  “Sturgeon? No. Sturgeon’s on good behavior. And he’s got reason to be. He had his last three productions fall apart in the middle of filming, and if he doesn’t prove he can finish something, he’s washed up here.”

  I mulled it over. “That all?”

  “It’s not enough?”

  “Any old boyfriends that might be tailing her around?”

  Knox said through his teeth, “Nobody’s tailing her.”

  “Just for argument’s sake.”

  Knox burst out laughing. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still treat every job like it’s a real case.”

  “What am I supposed to do when someone’s paying me?”

  “This is the picture business, boy. We all get paid for make-believe.”

  “Silly me,” I said. “Always trying to do the right thing.”

  “You didn’t learn anything when they threw you out of the department?”

  “Sure, I learned that the law’s something they print in books.”

  He held up his hands, palms out. “All right, all right. I’m not asking you to do anything that’ll compromise your precious sense of ethics. All I want is for you to sit down with our star, get her to tell you her story, make lots of notes, and then tell her she doesn’t need to worry. And then you can go get drunk in your car or sleep for all I care. It�
�s just for a few days until the picture is done.”

  “I don’t like it. I don’t like that what you need’s a bodyguard, but what you went and got is me. I don’t like a job that’s not really a job, looking for a man that may or may not exist just to make some actress feel better. Send her to a doctor.”

  His face turned stormy. “I’ve already laid out our dirty laundry,” he said, and opened his hands over his desk as though it were actually laid out there before us. “More than I ought to have said.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have learned in a movie magazine.”

  “Come on, Foster. What’s wrong with you? This is easy money. I was scratching your back. You got so much work you can turn down fifty dollars a day? Since when?”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it, I just said I didn’t like it.”

  I could see the muscles of his face relax. He smiled and nodded. He had to be careful, Knox. The littlest thing would give him a coronary someday.

  He stood up, his chair rolling backwards as it was freed from his weight. “I did tell you a few things they don’t have in the glossies. And I’m sure you’ll find out others. If I didn’t know how discreet you are...”

  And Knox did know. Back on the force, he would have lost his job more than once if it hadn’t been for how discreet I was.

  “Come on,” he said, “let’s go meet your client.”

  I stood too, but waited for Knox to come around the desk. “You’re my client, Al.”

  He opened the door. “At least pretend that you’re excited to meet a movie star.”

  THREE

  The first time I saw her in person, it was at a distance and she was on a horse. From what I could make out, she had a small frame; like she weighed less than the saddle they had under her. They had her dressed in a tan leather jerkin with tassels over a blue gingham dress that made no effort to hide a pair of black maryjanes, which I assumed they would keep safely out of the shot. Much of the thick dark hair she was known for was hidden under a ten-gallon cowboy hat. She sat sidesaddle but held the reins like someone who was used to riding the conventional way. Her famous face could have been any pretty girl’s at that distance, just a canvas the makeup artist had painted on. Up close I knew she’d look the way I’d seen her dozens of times on posters and billboards and at the pictures. She wasn’t a woman, she was a star. Chloë Rose.

  We parked the golf cart on the suburban side of the backlot street and walked over to the Old West. The standing set had been built on a stretch of dirt road not quite as long as a football field. There was a ragtag of wooden building fronts lining the street. Some had gotten paint and some hadn’t. Each building had a sign, to indicate which one was the saloon, which one was the chemist’s, and which one was the jail. It wasn’t a bad façade if you closed your eyes and used your imagination.

  There were at least fifteen other people on the set—a horse handler, the director, the assistant director, makeup, electric, and some I couldn’t identify. As we approached, another woman in a cowgirl costume and a man in a rumpled suit shouted at each other in the shade of the dry goods store. A child of eleven or twelve stood nearby, uninterested.

  “You’d better not forget yourself,” the man said, “or who got you where you are.”

  “A washed-up drunk who lives off his wife?”

  “You’re living off my wife too, aren’t you?” That made him Shem Rosenkrantz. “We’re all living off of Clotilde on this damn set. I’m just asking for a little favor, that you watch him for a few hours. I’ve got to work.”

  She shot her fists out behind her. “Mandy, do this. Mandy, do that. I’ve paid you back plenty already. Or are you dissatisfied with the service?”

  At that, Chloë Rose jerked her horse away from the handler, almost knocking the director over, and cantered to where the couple was fighting. They stopped and looked up at her. The young boy took a step back. “Can’t you at least pretend here?” she said in that famous French accent.

  Rosenkrantz said something in reply, but Chloë Rose had already turned her horse and brought it almost to a gallop, not slowing until she reached the far end of the Old West set. Rosenkrantz chased after her, running through the cloud of dust her horse had kicked up. As he passed Sturgeon, the director gave him an angry look that was a step away from tears. Rosenkrantz made a placating motion with his hands, still hurrying through his wife’s wake.

  Knox turned to me. “Wait here. This might not be a good time.”

  “What makes you think that?” I said.

  He started over to the assistant director, who had turned to say something to the director of photography, shaking his head.

  I stood with the woman and the kid. She had auburn hair in waves that were too regular to be natural. Her face was angular, so that it was pretty from the front but not as much from the side. When it was angry, which it was just then, all the lines in her face turned sinewy, like she was stretched too tight and might snap at any moment. Knox had warned me off of asking questions, but it was an old habit with me. I said, “Miss Ehrhardt? I’m Dennis Foster. I’m looking into some reports of unusual activity on the set. You see any strange men about? Anyone who doesn’t belong? Or maybe he belongs, but not quite as much as he’s around.”

  She didn’t turn to look at me while I said all this. She kept her hip cocked with one fist planted on it to show that she was angry. “With all these people around, who knows who any of them are?”

  “So you didn’t notice anything?”

  “Look around. Notice anything you’d like. I’m working.”

  “I can see that.”

  She looked at me then. “Was that a crack? You forgot to tell me when to laugh.”

  “Now would do fine.”

  She sneered. “Watch it, mister, or I might have to call security.”

  I pointed to Al Knox, who was making large gestures as he talked, but seemed unable to distract the assistant director from his clipboard. “That’s the head of security there. I came with him. Or didn’t you notice?”

  “I didn’t care.”

  “You don’t notice anyone, do you?”

  “Sure, today there’s been the mailman, the milkman, the iceman, the priest, a guy from the paper, and a talking cow.”

  The boy beside her gave one short pant of amusement.

  I looked at him, then back at her. “I get it,” I said. “You didn’t notice anything you feel like talking about. Or at least talking about with me.”

  “You get paid for being so smart?”

  “Not enough.”

  “What’s this all about anyway? Is it because of Chloë?”

  I said nothing.

  “Chloë’s scared of her own shadow. Look at all the time we’re wasting now because something upset her fragile disposition.”

  “I wonder what it could have been.”

  “You know what? —— Chloë, and —— you too.”

  “There are children present,” I said.

  She crossed her arms over her breasts and turned her back to me. I noticed the kid staring at me. I smiled at him, but his face remained impassive. “You see any strange men around?” I said to him.

  “I see you,” he said.

  I nodded. I’d asked for that. I looked around for Knox.

  He was on his way back towards me. When he saw me looking he shook his head, his lips pressed together, and waved me over with a swat of his hand. “No dice. They’re going to keep shooting now. Sturgeon’s only got the horse for another two hours.”

  I fell in beside him. “I’ll meet her later.”

  “I just would have liked to introduce you,” he said. “Smooth your way in.”

  “I’ll manage,” I said. We were at the golf cart now.

  He stepped up on the driver’s side. “Just remember, be discreet,” he said, and grunted as he pulled himself under the wheel. “We’re keeping this whole thing on the Q.T.”

  “Mandy seemed to know about it. Says Chloë’s
paranoid.”

  “What were you talking to Mandy for? Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions?”

  I ignored that. “The kid goes with Rosenkrantz?” I said.

  “Yeah. By his first wife, I guess. Visiting from back east.”

  “And how does Chloë feel about that?”

  He began to answer but someone cried, “Quiet!” and he fell silent. He gestured for me to do the same. On the set, everyone had resumed their positions. The director was behind the camera and Chloë Rose was on her horse looking off into the distance. There was stillness as everyone waited, trying not to shuffle their feet or cough. Chloë’s lips moved, a beat went by, and then everyone else moved again.

  “It’s still amazing to me how small these sets are when they look so big in the cinema,” Knox said.

  Mandy Ehrhardt was coming our way with the boy trailing behind her. She was moving as though a bee had stung her.

  “Maybe they’re done after all,” Knox said, and leaned out of the cart, “Mandy, hey, Mandy, are they finishing?”

  “No,” Mandy said without stopping. “But I’m supposed to get the kid a candy bar in the commissary, because co-star apparently means gofer.”

  “You could get one for me too,” Knox called after her.

  She held up her hand with only one finger raised. The boy skipped a few steps to keep up with her.

  “Too bad she didn’t wait,” Knox said, letting out the clutch on the cart. “We could have given her a ride.”

  The cart’s engine made a buzzing sound as Knox made a U-turn. We were suddenly in Springfield or Livingston or any of a thousand other towns in the U.S. The street sign even said Main Street. That lasted about fifty yards before we were coursing down a Chicago city street, and after that a dirt road outside a medieval castle.