by Ed Gorman
"Helpless. The opposite of me. I'm his surrogate mother." The rancor of the deserted mate coarsened her voice. "And I was from the beginning."
"How did you meet?"
She smiled and he saw a flash of the girl in her and rather liked the sight of that girl. "I was a continuity person. Or script girl, as they were called in those days. This was down in Falsworth, Georgia, don't you know." She gave him the benefit of a parody southern accent. Tobin wondered why white northern straight people could never quote blacks, southerners, or homosexuals without resorting to dialects and stereotypes. "It was a low-budget movie and Jere was the director. This was when he was right out of film school at USC, his dues-paying period. He'd tried to get some kind of work with Roger Corman-that's when Brian DePalma and Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese were working with Corman-but it just never worked out. So he got offered this kind of second unit job with this very low-budget horror movie being shot in Georgia and he took it. On the way down there, the director died of a heart attack so the production company-the people who had hired me-promoted Jere to director. That's
where we all met, as a matter of fact-Todd Ames, Ken Norris, Kevin Anderson."
"You've known each other that long? Since…?"
"Since 1968." She laughed. It was a warm feminine laugh and he wanted to kiss her on the forehead. "God, you should have heard us then, Tobin. We were so pretentious. The movie we made…" The laugh again. Now he heard the melancholy in it. "Really terrible. 'Ingmar Bergman meets The Monsters,' Variety said. And they were being kind."
"And you've been with Jere ever since?"
"Oh, yes. I took out adoption papers shortly after." She stubbed out one cigarette and immediately lit another. "Am I sounding bitchy?"
"Within tolerable limits."
"He's a child."
"Why don't you leave him?"
"I love him. Isn't that the shits?"
"It happens."
"I'm so sensible. Look at these hands." She put her large hands across the table, next to the little electric "kerosene" lamp (probably just the sort real gold miners had used) for his inspection. "Big hands, aren't they?"
"But nicely shaped."
"'Purposeful hands.' That's a line from Steinbeck. I've always liked that. It seemed to describe me exactly." She exhaled. The smoke was a beautiful electric blue in the shadowy bar. They seemed out of time and place here-as if they'd been trapped in some time warp. He did not mind the feeling at all. He thought about ordering a drink but chose not to, knowing he'd only be potzed by dinner.
"Anyway," she said, "I've had to be purposeful for both of us. When he couldn't get work in pictures, I convinced him to go into television. That's how we wound up with 'Celebrity Circle.' We saw Ken and Kevin and Todd all lose their series and so then we heard about this game show packager and we went to them and-well, 'Celebrity Circle' was born. It's been our bread and butter for eight years. And as you can see, it's fed some of us pretty well."
She seemed to want a compliment and he was happy to give her one. "You're a good-looking woman and you know it."
"Do you want to have an affair?"
He laughed. "If we do have an affair, will you tell me why you were wrestling with Iris Graves outside my room the other day?"
"Oh, that, Tobin." She tried to sound dismissive but she couldn't. Not quite. "She's been a pest the past few months. Just trying to dig up some gossip on our show for that rag she works for."
"What was the notebook?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I really don't. I'd just had an argument with Jere in our cabin about dear little Joanna Howard and I was walking down the corridor toward the swimming pool and I saw her in a deck chair taking notes and… Well, I'd had a few drinks, to be honest, and I just got irrational. I wanted to take her notebook and rip it up. Suddenly the notebook became very symbolic of everything she did and everything that filthy newspaper stands for. Believe me, Tobin, I don't wish Snoop on my worst enemy. So anyway, I grabbed the notebook from her and started running down the corridor and she came after it. She grabbed me and we started fighting and that's when you came out." She blew out some more blue smoke. There was just the darkness and the
frail light of the fake kerosene lamps and the smell of afternoon indulgence and liquor. "Hardly what my mother would call ladylike behavior." Then she paused. "But if you're asking me am I sorry she was murdered, of course I am." She looked at him boldly. Her wooden earrings clattered. "And I didn't have anything to do with it. Nothing."
"Have you thought any more about Ken Norris and why anybody would want to kill him?"
"I've thought about it but I don't know why."
Someday there would be a machine more reliable than a polygraph and you could just hook people up to it and it would tell you if the person was lying to you or not. Until then you had to depend on your own instincts and they could be pretty damned unreliable. He stared at her and again felt a little fillip of middle-aged desire and then wondered if she were lying and had no idea at all.
"Do you think they're connected-Ken's death and the other two?" she asked.
"Probably," Tobin said.
"Did they find out who the man was?"
"Somebody named Sanderson." Which reminded him that he wanted to go to the captain's office and find out what Hackett had learned about Sanderson. He eased his chair back.
"You're leaving?"
"Afraid I have to," Tobin said.
"Dance with me tonight?"
"Tonight?"
"The costume party."
"Oh. That's right."
"You don't have a costume?"
"I'll probably just wear a raincoat and go as a flasher."
"Will you flash me?"
"I don't think you need an affair right now, Alicia," he said. "I think you need to decide if Jere's worth all the trouble or not."
"He's actually quite a good lover."
"I'm happy to hear that."
"And a very attentive mate when he wants to be."
"Another good quality."
"But he needs a mother and I'm tired of playing the role." She watched Tobin as he stood up and then she said, "I'm not very brave, am I, Tobin?"
"That's the hell of it."
"What?"
"None of us are."
21
2:47 P.M.
Several times-and at perhaps too great a length-Tobin had made the argument in print and on television alike that Rudolph Mate's D.O.A., with Edmond O'Brien, and Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me, Deadly were two of the greatest film noirs ever made. He believed this so much that he took them with him whenever he traveled, and dipped into them for fifteen or twenty minutes, the way others dipped into swimming pools for similar amounts of time. Their perfection exhilarated him-the grim and mournful O'Brien; the psychotic but fascinating Ralph Meeker; and the black-and-white photography that showed roots in German expressionism but that became, in these instances, inexorably American-the urban streets at night, the millions of twisted tales played out on them.
He was watching Edmond O'Brien down the fatal glass of poison when the phone rang in his cabin. He swore and punched Freeze on the VCR remote control.
"Hello."
"I want to say this in a friendly way." The voice, sleek, theatrical, modulated, belonged to the sort of man who would spend a good deal of time catching his reflection in mirrors and windows.
"Say what in a friendly way?"
"I know you're doing a little snooping about."
"What gives you that impression?"
"I had a bite with Alicia Farris."
It was nice to be able to trust people, Tobin thought. He'd had the impression, while talking to Alicia, that they were friendly if not exactly friends. But apparently Alicia had reported right back to Todd Ames.
"I see."
"We should stick together, Tobin; the 'Celebrity Circle' people, I mean."
"I didn't know that we weren't."
&nb
sp; "You're going around asking questions."
"You make that sound like some sort of betrayal."
Todd Ames's voice got very tight. "In a way, I consider it a betrayal." He paused. "There's the show to consider."
"Ah. The show."
"You're not very good with sarcasm."
"I guess I'm just sort of old-fashioned."
"And how would that be?"
"I'd just naturally assumed that three deaths took precedence over 'the show.'"
Another pause. "Did you like 'Celebrity Gardener?'"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Did you like that show?"
"Not much, no."
"You work very hard for twenty or thirty years and you nearly make it to the top and then-well, something unfortunate happens to you, and there you are one day… on 'Celebrity Gardener.' After you'd had your own network series and been on the cover of TV Guide and been interviewed countless times on 'ET' and… I think you know what I'm talking about."
"You're saying that you've all worked hard."
"Precisely."
"And that 'Celebrity Circle' is your one and only… blue chip stock, I suppose."
"Yes."
"And that it's been jeopardized."
"Badly so."
"And that I shouldn't be asking questions because that only casts more unfavorable light on the show."
"You're beginning to understand and I really appreciate that."
"I'm not unsympathetic, Todd."
"Thank you."
"Being a has-been is no easy life. I happen to be one."
"I don't really care for that implication. We're hardly has-been's."
"No, but you are almost totally dependent on 'Celebrity Circle' for your income and whatever prestige it gives you."
"It may interest you to know that Universal contacted my agent just before we sailed and that there's a pilot in the offing and-"
"So you'd give up your new position as host of 'Celebrity Circle' for the pilot?"
"Of course not. But…"
Tobin gathered himself and said, "A friend of mine tells me that on the night Ken Norris died, he threw a drink in your face. I wonder if you'd care to tell me why."
"Once this cruise is over, Tobin, you'll never work on 'Celebrity Circle' again. I can promise you that."
"And last night at dinner, Cassie McDowell stood up and slapped you. I wonder if you could shed any light on that for me."
"What the hell do you have against us, anyway?"
"Nothing, Todd, believe it or not. I just happen to take murder very seriously."
In books people are always chuckling. Tobin had never been sure what that particular noise was actually supposed to sound like. But just then Todd Ames made a noise that Tobin could only classify as a "chuckle." It was an irritating sound. "You know, back in my theater days-I don't know if you knew that I worked with Kate Hepburn and Larry Olivier-anyway, back then I did a murder play and every night I'd come home, I'd find myself petrified to go into my apartment. Afraid."
But Tobin was still back on "Kate" and "Larry."
"I guess I'm not seeing the point, Todd," Tobin said.
"The point is that I don't like murder much, either. So I suppose I'd just as soon let the police handle all this when we get back to the States."
"Right," Tobin said, "and give the killer plenty of time to cover his or her tracks and get away." He paused. "You haven't answered my questions yet. Why did Ken throw a drink in your face and why did Cassie slap you?"
"Neither one of those questions is any of your business."
"Maybe I'll make them my business."
"We're a family," Todd Ames said. "We squabble like a family-but we've been a family ever since Day One of 'Celebrity Circle.' And we're going to amaze you with how close-knit we are."
"You're saying you won't cooperate with any investigation?"
"We have our reputations plus a show to protect, Tobin. You don't seem to understand that."
"I'm afraid I do understand, Todd, and only too well."
"You're being sarcastic again."
"I'm just trying to find out what's going on."
"Let's leave that to the authorities."
"There are lives at stake here."
"There's also a show at stake."
Tobin paused, seeing he was getting nowhere. Then, "I nearly forgot."
"Forgot what?"
"When Ken Norris threw a drink in your face, he told my friend, 'Todd's just sick of payday.' What did that mean?"
Tobin got the response he'd expected.
Todd Ames slammed down the phone.
22
3:12 P.M.
Dear Aberdeen,
You remember that real macho guy who used to be in that cop series, Kevin Anderson? Well, guess who's sleeping (snoring, actually, except mentioning that kind of spoils the effect of the mood I'm trying to create here) right next to me?
God, I can't believe it! Right next to me! Sleeping!
How it happened was we had two more murders on this boat-next time I go on a cruise ship, it's definitely going to be on a different line-and I went with Tobin (the TV critic you always said was cute even if he was short!) to check it out and then Tobin went to do something and-
Well, anyway, Kevin asked me if I wanted to go have a drink and I figured, you know, what could be the harm.
But he meant a drink in his room.
I wasn't real sure but then-you know how easily I can be influenced sometimes-he told me he'd had a small part in Saturday Night Fever and had actually gone drinking with John Travolta-and then that's what we got.
Ken and I, I mean-drunk.
And then next thing-
Well, he's sleeping right next to me.
(Back now. I had to go tinkle.) But I have to admit he's kind of weird, Kevin is. When he thought I was passed out, I heard him on the phone talking about this meeting the people on 'Celebrity Circle' were going to have-right in the middle of the night.
Then after he was gone, I got up and barfed and then I went back to bed, still trying to figure out why the 'Celebrity Circle' people would have a meeting that late and then I heard somebody come up to the door outside and I thought it might be the killer again so I scooched under the covers and waited and waited and waited and I really prayed (I was saying Hail Mary's, Aberdeen, and I'm not even Catholic) and then I heard this little swishing noise like under the door and I realized that somebody had pushed something under there and then I heard steps hurrying away down the corridor and when I finally got up to see what it was, I found this envelope and it was like weirdo-rama, Aberdeen, because inside was this really crummy Xerox copy of a picture of this little six-month-old baby. Who would send something like that.
I overheard Kevin tell Cassie in the bar that he'd gotten something yesterday, too-then this second letter. Really strange.
***
"What you writin', babe?"
"Oh, good morning, Kevin."
"Good morning. So what're you writing?"
"Just kind of like a note."
"A note."
"Well, more like a letter."
"A letter?"
"Yes."
"To who?"
"Aberdeen."
"Who's that?"
"This sort of heavy-set woman who has a mustache I work with at the insurance company."
He was bored instantly. "Oh."
"I was telling her about last night."
They were naked. It was the middle of the afternoon and they were still naked from the night before and needing showers and…
He reached over and kissed her right breast (the one whose nipple was about a quarter-inch longer than the other one, which really bugged her when she thought about it, and she thought about it more than you'd think) and said, "So you told her about us."
"Well."
"It's OK, babe."
"It is?"
"Sure."
He grinned. "First 'cause I'm good and I know I am a
nd second because, well, it's just human nature to spread the news when you sleep with a celebrity."
"It is?"
He was propped up on one elbow now and deftly stroking her shoulder. With his hair mussed, and slightly in need of a shave, and enough chest hair to make a grizzly envious, he really looked hunky. Really.
"Sure. First month I was in Hollywood, I slept with the late Constance LaRue."
"Are you serious?"
"Right. I had just come out from a farm in South Dakota and I was parking cars at what's now the Harlequin Dinner Theater and she spotted me."
"You mean spotted you for a movie or something?"
He grinned again. "Or something. Connie-Constance-she liked very young, very industrious men."
"But she played a nun in that musical with…" She shook her head. Boy, wait till she told Aberdeen about what Constance LaRue was really like.
"Have you ever been on Johnny Carson?" she asked.
"Couple of times."
"He as nice as he seems?"
"He's an asshole. He should've quit ten years ago. On top. That's the only way to go out." He paused. "That's how I left my series. On top."
Without thinking, Cindy said, "But wasn't your series cane-"
And then, seeing the glare in his eyes, she said, "Oh, that's right. You quit because you wanted to do movies."
"Right."
"I saw that one too. The Fungoids. It was really great."
"Writing wasn't all it could've been but it was a good vehicle for me. It went through the roof in South America so I went down there a few years and made a bundle. That's how I bought all those doughnut franchises I was tellin' you about last night."
"Oh, right." Actually, Cindy had tried to forget about the doughnut franchises because somehow they spoiled the effect.
Actors should act and when they weren't acting they should stand at picture windows and swish brandy around in snifters and let the crest on their smoking jackets kind of gleam in the shadows.
"I'm a morning man."
