Mystery Writers of America Presents the Rich and the Dead

by Inc. Mystery Writers of America

  She nestled back among the pasha-style cushions and leaned into the candlelight, hoping the flickering of shadows would be kind to her softening jawline.

  “I was worried you weren’t coming back,” he said with what sounded like a slight Jersey accent carefully policed. “They came back so many times to take your salad away, I had to threaten to break the waiter’s fingers.”

  “So what were we talking about?” She saw that her half-drained glass of Chateau Petrus had been replenished.

  “I can’t believe I’m having dinner with Christie Ball.” He shook his head.

  “Please call me Jackie,” she said, using the name she’d had since she was sixteen.

  “I’m sorry I keep staring, Jackie. I just remember what a crush I had on you back then. Your posters were everywhere.”

  “My goodness, Martin.” She covered her mouth, self-conscious about her gums. “How young are you anyway?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’m older than you. But you know how it was. You made working men feel like schoolboys.”

  “You’re a liar, but I love you for saying it.”

  She sized him up as basically a complacent type with a wife, four kids, and a McMansion in Short Hills. A hands-on type who figured out there was more money to be made behind a desk. There was something attractive about the way the corners of his eyes crinkled up when he listened. Most women her age would consider him fairly good-looking, she realized, but then most women her age had never gone screaming down Mulholland Drive on the back of a Triumph Trident with their arms and legs wrapped around Warren Beatty and their flaxen locks rioting in the wind.

  “Anyway, the union pension fund,” she said. “What are we going to do about it?”

  His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils twitched ever so slightly as if he had just caught the odor of a gas station on an August morning.

  “Jackie, you need to understand that I represent the interests of fifty thousand men and women who have dedicated their lives to public service,” he said seriously. “I don’t know how much exposure you had to that in Hollywood, but there’s no glamour in it. These people work the midnight shifts at city hospitals and haul hazardous waste to the dumps. They expect to be taken care of in their old age. And you’re asking me to gamble their life savings with this investment company. Why should I do that?”

  “Martin, you’re right to be careful,” she said, going into the spiel she’d practiced with Charlie’s prosecutors. “It is risky. But L. B. Thompson is the fastest growing firm of its kind. Last year, the real estate portfolio earned twenty-two percent in just…”

  She started to reach into her Chanel bag for the brochure Charlie had given her, but Martin took hold of her wrist.

  “It’s okay,” he said, slowly turning her hand over as if to force the palm open. “You can show me that later. But right now, there’s something I’m more interested in.”

  His liquid brown eyes roamed across her features appreciatively. With Charlie, it was different, she had to admit. He gorged on her greedily, like a boy stuffing himself with pizza after football practice, ravenous and indiscriminate, glad to have a woman who weighed less than him across the table. But this Martin studied her more like a connoisseur, taking his time savoring her vintage, noting the care she took in putting herself together. The pressure of his thumb was velvet gentle but steady on her quickening pulse.

  “You want to know how you’ll be taken care of,” she said.

  The crinkle lines dispersed, and she realized she’d sounded too eager. “Let the conversation unfold naturally,” Charlie’s handler had said. But timing had never been her strength. In fact, she’d never been that good at simulating emotion. Her value was as an object to be looked at, riding on her looks until they would take her no further, vaguely hoping some commensurate skill would eventually kick in. But now that she had put the line out, she had to “commit to it,” as they said in the acting classes that never really helped her get work.

  “Obviously, the company wouldn’t pay you back directly for investing the fund with them, because that would be a kickback,” she said. “But there’s another way.”

  “Okay.” He cocked his head to one side, seeming receptive.

  “A movie.”

  “You want me to invest union pension funds in a film?”

  “No,” she said, slowing herself down to remember the money laundering scenario she’d been given. “You would invest a very small amount of your own money first….”

  “My money.”

  His eyes half-disappeared when he smiled this time. There was nothing remotely threatening in his expression, but she still found her hamstrings tightening for some reason, as if he’d just casually mentioned an interest in dismemberment.

  “It’s not as scary as it sounds,” she said a little breathlessly. “Thompson will put up most of the financing. So when the movie comes out, you’re guaranteed at least double your money back.”

  “So it’s like a side deal, where the money gets washed?” He lowered his chin. “I guess you can play these games moving cash around in film accounting, but I have a more practical question.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s it going to be?”

  “Hmm?”

  His hand moved up her arm. “This movie. For there to be any budget to put money into and any revenues to take out of it, there has to be an actual film. Doesn’t there?”

  “It’s going to be my comeback,” she improvised.

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Why? Is that a problem?”

  Even though they were talking about something fake, she still felt a clutch in her heart. Not that he would hurt her physically, but that he might start laughing in her face.

  “So is there a script?”

  “We’re working on it. It should be done in the spring.”

  “And what’s it about?”

  She exhaled too sharply, almost blowing out the candle on the table. Who knew he would ask so many questions? Did Charlie and his handlers think this would be easy for her, making things up on the spot? She wasn’t some theater workshop veteran who was used to riffing. She was a former model accustomed to having her lines highlighted for her in each week’s script.

  “It’s about a girl like the one I played on the show,” she began to embroider. “But more… mature now, of course.”

  “As we all are.”

  “I think there’s a hunger for these kinds of stories out there,” she went on, encouraged by the way he nodded. “Anyway, she’s just gotten out of prison for something she didn’t do, and now she’s going to get revenge on the guys who set her up….”

  Not bad for a former airhead who only started reading seriously ten years ago. Maybe the passage of time had given her something in exchange for everything it had taken.

  “So who’s going to be in it?” Martin hunched forward, staring deep into her eyes.

  She felt a knot in the back of her neck as she tried to remember the names of some contemporary stars. “It’s going to be a whole retrospective thing.” She crept farther out on a limb. “I’ve already talked to Warren about it, and now Dustin’s interested….”

  “Wow….”

  “And Harrison Ford wants to see the script.” Her ears popped as if she were climbing too quickly. “So we’re already talking to people on the West Coast about dividing the costs of theatrical distribution with someone in Europe.”

  “It sounds great, Jackie,” he interrupted. “I’d love to help you….”

  “You would?”

  “Yes, I’ve always thought you were wonderful. And just sitting here, talking to you, brings me back to another time in my life. People haven’t appreciated how special you are, and I think that’s a shame.”

  “Martin, that’s so nice of you.”

  “Well, I mean it. Whatever you had then, you still have now. But even more so…”

  She leaned farther toward him, into the candlelight, almost singeing her hair. Oh, yes
. This was what she wanted, to be taken seriously, to be believed in again. She almost regretted using whatever allure she had left to guile him.

  “So tell Charlie that we’ll work out the details with investing the pension fund,” Martin said. “But there’s something more important that we need to discuss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That I’d like to spend more time with you.”

  His hand covered hers. She wondered what the men listening in the van outside were making of all this.

  “What would you say about that?” he asked.

  “Well…” She raised her Bordeaux, trying to collect herself.

  “Please. I don’t mean to pressure you. It’s just that I’m going through a divorce, and I heard Charlie is getting back together with his wife, and…”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You didn’t know?” He tucked down his chin. “I thought that was part of the reason he set us up tonight.”

  “Martin.” She tried to smile, but some of the muscles in her face were restricted. “I don’t think I’m following you.”

  “My lawyer’s wife is friends with Estelle, Charlie’s wife. She says they withdrew the papers because neither of them could face the financial fallout. So that meant you were available.”

  “Available?” She pictured herself like an empty chaise lounge by an old swimming pool.

  “I thought you knew….”

  Her hand closed up under his as it began to dawn on her how she’d been used. Dear, sweet Charlie had dangled her as bait to attract a shark, and now he was cutting the line on her. This fat, greasy man had played her for a sap like Barbara Stanwyck two-timing Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Wasn’t she supposed to be the femme fatale here? How could he have done this after she’d lowered herself for him? After she’d lowered her standards just by being with him? Hadn’t she allowed him to love her? Hadn’t she tolerated his bad breath; his sagging jowls; his stupid jokes and boring anecdotes; the endless rubber chicken dinners and charity dances with state legislators, lobbyists, and investment managers in Albany and White Plains?

  But then she turned and caught a glimpse of herself in a wall mirror, and the thought reflected back that maybe it was her fault for not being a good enough actress to fool him. Maybe he’d sensed that in the back of her mind she was already moving on, writing her memoir of overcoming disease and an addiction to diet pills, in which he’d be a minor footnote, not worth mentioning in her talk show appearances.

  “I’m okay,” she said numbly.

  “You sure? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine.” She recomposed her smile. “I guess he just wanted to share the wealth, right?”

  “It’s not like that.” The leathery folds of his face opened up like a wallet. “I’m sure Charlie just wants you to be taken care of.”

  “To be taken care of.” She swirled the dregs around the bottom of her glass.

  “If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll take you home right now.”

  She finished her drink and set it down with a loud thump. The sultans and their dates in the side booth stared at her, as if some crazy old woman was about to make a scene. She stared back defiantly, daring them to say something. Fame had come and gone, millions of dollars had run through her fingers, and her face was starting to resemble a rain-soaked orchid, but she was still here, wasn’t she? Maybe there was still time to adapt, to become a husky old good-time broad, indomitable and undaunted, dragging her mink on the rug on the way out and taking pride in the simple fact of not giving a damn anymore.

  “Order me another round,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’m just getting started.”

  She kissed him full on the mouth. Didn’t she deserve to be with a man who could really take care of her? Then she sashayed back to the bathroom, giving the men in the side booth an eyeful and their dates a lesson in how to carry yourself with what used to be known as class. She waited for the ladies’ room door to close behind her before she tore off the wires and tossed them in the trash. She was sure she hadn’t given Charlie or the prosecutors what they needed. Then she went back out to enjoy the rest of her evening.

  THE CLOUDS OVER Beverly Hills were pulling back as the new development girl, twenty-five and just starting to pay off her college loans, finished the morning pitch session.

  “And then there’s this one,” she said, sliding over the news story she’d pulled off the web last night. “I thought it was interesting.”

  The vice president in charge of production leaned over the conference table to study it, confounded that Pilates had not kept him from developing a gut before forty. “Former TV Star Killed in New York,” the headline said.

  “Just give me the coverage.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “This girl who used to be the star of a police show in the seventies got shot five times coming out of her apartment building. The story says she’d been subpoenaed to testify against some mob guy in a pension fund scandal. Her boyfriend roped her into it to get himself off the hook, and the prosecutor went along with it for the publicity value. Instead they got her killed. I thought it had some potential as a fem-jep story—”

  “All right, wait a minute.” The vice president grimaced. “First of all, as soon as you say ‘pension fund scandal,’ my eyes glaze over. Second of all, she’s dead at the end, so that’s a bummer. And third of all, this story says she was fifty-eight. How are we supposed to care about someone that freaking old?”

  “Right.” The D-girl nodded. “I should’ve thought of that.”

  “It’s okay, you’ll learn.” The vice president took a quick glance at the old file photo accompanying the story. “You know, it’s too bad, though.”

  “What?”

  He pushed the picture back across the table. “She really used to be a nice-looking girl.”

  THE SADOWSKY MANIFESTO

  BY KAREN CATALONA

  It may have started with a seven-figure inheritance, but for Max Bergen, the literary agency had never been about the money. Great-aunt Mildred’s bequest meant Max could pick his office from the best commercial real estate in New York, fill it with expensive furnishings, and then focus on what he really cared about: experimental, opaque literature. Whether any of those projects brought in the type of money to support his lifestyle seemed inconsequential. But after years passed, bills mounted, and his inheritance dwindled, Max Bergen began to look at his slush pile in an entirely new light.

  That morning was like most. Nibbling on one of Edna’s home-baked goodies, he skimmed through the query letters that Edna had left open and neatly stacked on his desk. The queries went into three piles: the maybes, trash, and the wall of weird.

  “There’s a lovely one on cat training,” Edna noted, using her cane to walk the short distance out to her desk.

  Max, his mouth full of her moist apple crumb cake, nodded and waited respectfully until she was out of sight before tossing the pitch into the trash. Book queries involving pets were some of the worst, although a howler he found last week, Life Lessons from My Parakeet, with its earnest Hallmark sentimentality, had earned a spot on his wall of weird.

  Max started reading through the queries and was able to make some quick decisions. A query for poetry. Trash. Personally, he liked poetry, but it didn’t sell. Query with three misspelled words. Trash. Query for a comic novel featuring a talking dog. Trash. Query for a “fiction novel.” Trash.

  Max sipped his coffee and had the vague memory that there was a talking-dog movie that did really well last year. He contemplated the potential existence of a market for talking-dog novels. He lifted the query from the trash and put it in the maybe pile.

  The phone rang, and Max heard Edna’s friendly “Hello?”

  He had told her a few dozen times to answer the phone with: “Max Bergen Literary Agency,” but she often forgot so editors thought they had misdialed and got someone’s grandmother. Edna
Bloomgarten entered the job market for the first time shortly after she entered her seventies. Only after her husband’s death from a heart attack did she learn about his gambling addiction and the two mortgages and that most of their savings was gone. Edna couldn’t type and the fax machine gave her a lot of trouble, but she ran a tight ship and her cinnamon-marbled coffee cake made up for a lot.

  Max returned to his queries. The next was a mesmerizing pitch for a literary novel with a daring theme and abhorrence for punctuation. He wasn’t sure he understood the concept but suspected it was genius. With a heavy sigh, he tossed it into the trash. He had stacks of brilliant literary novels he couldn’t sell piled up in his apartment; if he wanted to keep his agency afloat, he could no longer afford to follow his own tastes. After all, somebody had to keep Edna in flour, sugar, and eggs.

  Edna peered around the door at him, tightly grasping the doorframe. “You’ve got a call.” The fear and urgency were plain in her tone.

  “Who is it?”

  Edna looked stricken and whispered, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you.”

  Feeling a flush of worry, Max wanted to ask more but Edna looked like she might keel over. He waved her away so she would go sit down.

  “Hello,” he answered tentatively.

  “Max Bergen?” The voice was clipped, authoritative.

  “Yes, that’s me. What can I do for you?”

  “Agent Keating of the FBI. I have a few questions. I was wondering if I might take a few moments of your time.”