As he approached, Cassie noticed that his face didn’t have the revved-up glow of the evening before. “Finished talking to the midget?” Sarge sneered.
Cassie didn’t respond to the slur.
“I got up to watch the KEY morning show at that godforsaken hour, but I didn’t see a damn thing about the boys,” Sarge declared.
Dammit! Leroy should be taking the heat for this, not her. It had been his bright idea. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tucker. But that’s how it goes sometimes. We can never promise that something is going to make air.”
Sarge wasn’t buying it. “I think I was duped. That’s what I think. You never intended to have the boys on.”
He was right, and Cassie didn’t feel like making any other excuses for Leroy’s deception. Still, it was all part of the game. Promoters were forever inviting the media to events in the hopes that their clients, big and small, would get television exposure. Sometimes they got it, sometimes they didn’t. There were no guarantees. Sarge Tucker surely knew that.
“All I can say is I’m sorry, Mr. Tucker.”
There was a momentary awkward silence, and Cassie began to continue toward the crew car. But Sarge called after her. “That’s pretty mean business over there, isn’t it?” He thrust his chin in the direction of the cordoned-off rose garden.
“Yes, it is. Did you know the man who was murdered?”
Sarge fingered one of the gold chains around his neck. “Not well. But I did go in his shop from time to time. It’s sure a shame he was killed, but it made certain that our concert was on the front page of the newspaper and on local TV this morning. You know what they say,” said Sarge with an arch wink. “Bad publicity is better than no publicity.”
“I’ve heard it, but I really don’t agree with it.”
What a huckster. Cassie walked away in disgust.
THE BOY pedaled along beside her. “You didn’t like that guy, did you?”
“What makes you say mat?”
“I could just tell by the way you talked to him.”
“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, Vincent”
The child was not rebuffed. “I learn a lot of good stuff that way.”
They reached the parking lot. Cassie opened the car door to let out the hot air.
“I didn’t like him either,” Vincent offered.
“Oh you didn’t huh? Why not?”
“He looked like a girl with all those gold necklaces. And I didn’t like the way he talked about Anthony.” Vincent looked away for a moment. “And I didn’t like the way he talked to you.”
Cassie smiled. “Thank you, kind sir, but you don’t have to worry about me.” She looked directly into the youngster’s eyes. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Vincent a secret that it took me years to figure out. It’s usually a good idea to trust your instincts.”
CASSIE AND Leroy sat in the air-conditioned Jeep as Felix slammed the door on the trunk full of gear. Two men approached, one in a summer sports jacket and tie, the other in a turquoise WSBC T-shirt. Cassie opened her window.
“Hi, again. Remember me? I’m Tony Whitcomb from Suncoast News.”
Cassie shook the clammy hand stuck through the window. “Right. We met last night.”
“Yeah, I just wanted to say hello again and tell you how much I admire your work.”
“Thanks.”
“I watch KEY all the time. I dream of working at the network level someday.”
Poor guy. Cassie managed a polite smile.
“But I know you need connections to get there,” Tony continued. “I have some stories I’m really proud of, but I need the right people to see them.”
“Do you have an agent?”
Tony shook his head. “No. I suppose I should get one, huh?”
“It might help.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to look into that.” The prospect of paying someone a percentage of his earnings didn’t appeal to him. “Any chance I could send you my tape and you pass it on to the powers that be at KEY?”
Well, the guy certainly had chutzpah. What the heck? It wouldn’t cost her anything to send it on to New York. “Sure, I guess I could do that. No promises though.”
“Great, Cassie. Thanks a lot. I’ll get that tape to you right away. Where should I send it?”
She ripped a sheet from her notepad and wrote down the Miami Bureau address.
As they drove away from the Ringling grounds, Leroy remarked, “They all think the network is the promised land.”
“They should only know,” said Felix. “Did you get a load of the shooter’s camera? It was better than mine.”
CHAPTER 28
By calling in sick right after the murder scene pictures, Brian would reap the benefits for a double payday. WSBC-TV would still pay him for a day’s work while he’d earn a nice fat check from Webb for working on Velvet Nights. But when he called the station to say he wasn’t coming in, the assignment editor informed him that the sheriff’s department had come and taken the video Brian had shot at Cà d’Zan the night before. They wanted to see if there was anything on the tape that would help in the investigation of Leslie Sebastien’s murder.
Brian cursed himself for not dubbing off the tape after the late news the night before. Now the cops had the only copy. Webb wasn’t going to like that.
The cameraman tried to recall what was on the tape. Varied shots of the guests, many taken from the back. Most, though, were of Gloria, with many focused on the cleavage above her gold lamé gown. That would look bad.
CHAPTER 29
Thank the good Lord, Charles was with her! Etta was so nervous she couldn’t think straight, and she was relieved that she had her husband to deal with the nurse at the reception desk about all the health insurance business.
Charles took the seat next to hers in the waiting area, and Etta grabbed hold of his hand.
“Will you look at that,” said Charles, pointing to a poster on the wall and trying to distract her. “Contact lenses that change the color of your eyes.”
Etta moved her head up and down automatically but said nothing, unable to concentrate on what Charles was saying.
The door at the side of the waiting room opened. “Mrs. Chambers?” called another nurse.
“Yes. I’m here,” Etta answered in a weak voice.
“You can come in now.”
Giving one last squeeze to Charles’s hand, Etta rose to her feet and followed the nurse.
“Which eye are you having done today, Mrs. Chambers?” asked the nurse, looking at her clipboard.
“My left.” Dr. Lewis had assured Etta that it would be safe to do both eyes at once, but she didn’t want to take the chance. What if something went wrong? No, she’d do one eye first and then, after seeing how it worked out, come back in a couple of months and have the other one done.
The nurse placed a green adhesive-backed dot above Etta’s left eye. “Would you put your head back, please, Mrs. Chambers?” The nurse squeezed four drops into Etta’s eye. “These will cleanse and numb your eye.”
At intervals of several minutes, the nurse repeated the procedure with the drops a few more times. Then she helped Etta put a robe on over her clothes, covered her shoes with blue paper booties, and fitted an elasticized cap over her silver hair. Etta sat in a reclining chair and waited while the anesthesiologist inserted an IV needle in the back of her hand.
“This is to relax you, Mrs. Chambers.”
“Um-hmm.” She could barely get out the response.
Five minutes later she was escorted into the operating room and laid down on the table. Her eye was taped open and her face covered with gauze, leaving just her left eye exposed for surgery. She heard the door open and Dr. Lewis’s voice as he entered the room. “Okay, Etta. Here we go.” The lamp he wore on his forehead beamed into her eye, a bright, intense light
The Valium must be working. She suddenly felt like talking. “Did you have a nice time at the party last night,
Dr. Lewis?” she asked.
“It was okay. Though I’m not exactly a big Boys Next Door fan. Do you feel anything, Etta?”
“No.”
“Ready to insert the lens. You may feel tugging or pressure as I insert the lens, Etta.”
But Etta felt nothing as the new lens was slid in through the slit on the side of her eyeball.
“That was terrible, wasn’t it, Dr. Lewis, about that poor man they found murdered? I keep thinking I had only just checked his name off on the guest list when he arrived. He never suspected that last night’s party would be his last.”
“Yes. I saw it on the news this morning. It’s a terrible thing.”
“My husband bought me a bracelet from Leslie Sebastien’s jewelry store for our anniversary just last month,” Etta rambled on from beneath the surgical cloth. “And did I tell you? Yesterday morning, I was on the beach when that little boy found the hand.”
“No. I don’t think you mentioned that,” said Dr. Lewis.
“It still gives me shivers. I feel sorry for that poor woman, whoever she was.”
“How do you know it was a woman? I didn’t hear that it was a woman’s hand on the news.”
“Well, I guess it could have been a man’s, if he wore red nail polish with a spiderweb stenciled on top.”
HE HUNG his white lab coat in the closet. After his morning surgeries and early afternoon office hours, Harry Lewis was eager to leave work, stop home to change, and get down to the marina. The conversation with the old Chambers gal had him worried.
He tried to see Merilee as little as possible. One of the city’s leading doctors didn’t really want to be seen in the company of a porno queen.
It had started innocently enough. He’d actually met her at the Publix of all places, walking down the frozen-food aisle. She had been so scrubbed and clean-looking, her jet black hair swept back from her face in a neat ponytail, no makeup on her high cheekbones. He’d watched her as she put ice cream in her shopping cart. He still remembered. Chocolate chip mint.
He had lingered, longer than he had to, and then, as unobtrusively as he could, he followed her around the supermarket until she went to the checkout line. He took his place in the line behind her, watching as she pulled a magazine from the rack and browsed through it while she waited her turn.
It was while she unloaded her groceries from the cart onto the conveyor belt that he had noticed her nails. Long and bright red.
She must have felt him staring at her, because she looked his way and smiled. He’d smiled back and started the conversation.
They’d had several dinners together before she told him what she actually did for a living. What the hospital board of directors could do with that!
Harry had tried to break it off, but he couldn’t help himself. He could go for a few weeks, but then, hating himself, he’d call Merilee again.
In between times, he had her videos to keep him warm.
CHAPTER 30
The morning’s shoot was not going well. Webb was not pleased with his actors’ gyrations beneath the papier-mâché facsimiles of the babies Romulus and Remus, and their wolf mother. After the third take, Webb yelled at the actors beneath the twisted sheets. “Nobody’s going to pay a dime to see Velvet Nights in Venice if you don’t try to look like you’re enjoying yourself, Gloria. And, Van, the sneer on your face makes the wolf’s snout look friendly. Lighten up for God’s sake. This is a fantasy piece, not a horror flick.”
Brian waited until they broke for lunch before giving Webb the bad news. As the cast and crew lined up at the catered buffet, he pulled the producer to the side of the studio.
“What do you mean, the police have the tape?” Webb demanded, his face growing florid.
“I’m sorry, boss, I really am. But there’s nothing I could do about it.”
“You should have made a dub.”
“Yeah, I know I should’ve. But I was tired and I just wanted to get home.”
“That’s just great. Now you’ve had your damned beauty sleep, but I don’t have the material for my opening!” Webb’s face was red beneath his tan.
Brian cast around for a silver lining. “Look, Webb, the station is going to be using the material that aired last night over and over any time they do a story on the murder. The cops are going to be poring over the outtakes with a magnifying glass. People are going to become familiar with that tape and what’s on it. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe you don’t want to use the video after all.”
The cameraman might well have a point, but Webb didn’t feel like acknowledging it. “Maybe, schmaybe,” he snarled. “Maybe I like to have the option of deciding what and what not to include in my work. Now, thanks to you, I don’t have any choice.”
WRAPPED IN her purple silk bathrobe, Gloria sat alone in the dressing room, picking at her macaroni salad and seething. Her litany of grievances played over and over in her mind. It was all too evident that Van hadn’t brushed his teeth this morning, and her chapped skin testified to the fact that he hadn’t bothered to shave. He had been rough as he turned her body and careful to make sure that it was his best attributes that were shown to the camera, not giving a hoot about how she looked or if he was blocking her. It just wasn’t professional.
At first Gloria had tried to make good on her mental vow to show Van a great time in appreciation for his support over her taking Merilee’s role. But now she was getting the idea that it wasn’t that Van wanted to work with her. Rather, it was that he didn’t want to work with Merilee. Though Gloria didn’t like admitting it to herself, Merilee, by her sheer star power, did dominate every scene she was in. She was magnetic.
The dressing room door opened before Gloria had a chance to respond to the brief knock. She wrapped the robe closer around herself as Van entered. “Truce?” he offered.
Gloria gazed into her paper plate and was silent.
“Come on, baby.” Van walked over to the dressing table and picked up a makeup brush. Inspecting himself in the mirror, he expertly powdered under his dark eyes, camouflaging the puffy circles. “We both have a lot riding on this one, Gloria. Let’s go back out there and show ’em we got what it takes.”
Gloria observed him as he continued working on his face. The glaring makeup bulbs highlighted the wrinkles around Van’s eyes and mouth. Merilee had been right when she complained that she deserved a younger costar. Van was getting too old for this business, and he undoubtedly knew it. He could pump all the iron he wanted, even go for a face-lift, but the camera would forgive only so much.
Feeling her eyes on him, Van turned to face Gloria. “What are you thinking about?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Nothing,” she said guiltily.
“I can tell. You are thinking about something.” His tone grew more menacing.
“No, I’m not.”
“You know what I think, Gloria? He moved toward her, taking hold of her silk-clad arm. “I think that you shouldn’t underestimate me. I think that you should know who’s in charge here.” His grip grew tighter.
Gloria tried to laugh him off. “Come on, Van. Stop clowning around. We’re too old for this.” She tried to twist her arm away.
At that, he struck her.
Gloria raised her free arm to shield her face. “Van, stop! Please, stop! Not my face!” she whimpered.
His open hand froze in midair as he remembered that they had to be back out on the set in a few minutes. His other fist released her arm.
“Stop crying,” he hissed. “Wash your face and put on some fresh makeup. But remember, I call the shots, Gloria. Understand? You damned well better get out there and follow my lead this afternoon. This is my movie.”
“I’m going to tell Webb,” Gloria threatened, sobbing.
Van stopped at the door. “You do that, and maybe you’ll go missing, too.”
CHAPTER 31
Leroy simply went into the Publix at Bee Ridge Road, found the store manager, and asked if they could
come in and shoot customers stocking up on supplies. With permission granted, Felix shot in the aisles that held canned goods, bottled water, and batteries. Cassie interviewed people as they came out of the supermarket, getting their takes on the upcoming storm.
“They say Sarasota hasn’t been hit by a major hurricane in over forty years. I figure it’s only a matter of time before our luck runs out,” said a mother with a young child sitting in her shopping cart.
“I just got an evacuation zone map because I have no idea where I’m supposed to go,” responded another woman in a business suit.
“I was in the Keys when Hurricane Donna slammed in, back in 1960,” said a retiree. “Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.”
After a few more short interviews, Cassie’s rumbling stomach told her it was time for lunch. She and Felix went back to the car, where Leroy was on his cell phone with New York. “They aren’t sure if they’re going to use us tonight or not,” he said, snapping the phone closed. All three knew that meant they would have to proceed as if they were going to make air anyway. “Let’s go out to a beach and get some stuff there.” He checked his map. “The closest beach is Siesta.”
“Well, I’m starving,” chimed Felix to Cassie’s relief. “Let’s stop and get something to eat.”
“We’ll find someplace on the way,” said the producer.
They took Siesta Drive over the North Bridge and followed the curve that led them to Ocean Boulevard. They parked in front of the first place they found to eat. An open-air joint on the left-hand side of the road. The Old Salty Dog.
Most of the weathered picnic tables were empty. Cassie hoped that was not an indication of how the food was going to be. She ordered the English fish-and-chips, while Leroy and Felix ordered what the menu proclaimed to be the specialty of the house, Famous Salty Dogs—hot dogs dipped in beer batter and deep-fried.
“This may be a heart attack waiting to happen, but it’s the best damn thing I’ve eaten in a while,” said Leroy, munching away on the first of his two dogs.
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