by C. S. Poe
Not to my own pain.
Not to the sound of a gun using an illegal silencer.
Or the fact that Ethan had just been shot.
My adrenaline went into overdrive, and I scrambled the rest of the way to my knees.
“Don’t move,” Paul ordered, his voice too close for comfort.
I froze, hands up in surrender. “Paul,” I said, my voice almost steady. “I’m unarmed.”
“I know.”
I dared a quick look toward Ethan. He was alive, curled in the fetal position, and whimpering. The script had fallen nearby and was soaked in blood. “Can I stand?”
“No,” Paul answered without hesitation. “You move, and I swear to God, I’ll pull the trigger.”
“All right,” I said slowly. “But listen, we need to get help for Ethan—”
“Shut. Up,” Paul hissed.
I struggled for a plan, but I’d been dealt a dud hand in this round of poker. We were alone. My phone was in my pocket. Ethan was of no help. Paul was in fight-or-flight mode. And while silencers didn’t work like movies portrayed them, no way would folks all the way in the lunch room have heard the pop.
All I had on my side was a bluff.
“Paul,” I said again, keeping my voice low so as not to startle him.
“What?” he snapped. The rubber of his sneakers squeaked against the floor as he moved to the equipment cases and closed the lids.
“I have backup coming.”
“I heard you,” Paul answered in between the snapping of the locks. “You aren’t a cop.”
“No, you’re right, I’m not.” Sweat prickled under my arms. “I’m a private investigator.”
“Who’d you call, then?”
“Detective Grey,” I lied. “He’s a homicide detective with the 105th Precinct. He was here yesterday when I found Davey.”
“Let him come,” Paul answered. He moved past, gun trained on me with one shaking hand as he bent to retrieve the script. “If Ethan killed Davey, he deserves to rot in a cell.”
I watched Paul’s blurry shape walk to my right and then disappear from my line of sight as he moved behind me again. “And what do you deserve if you shoot me?”
Paul didn’t have an answer to that.
“You can’t use John’s script as your own. You can’t even take the idea now. You’ve been caught.”
“I said shut the hell up,” Paul warned again. “Damn it. If you’d just kept your fucking nose out of it, Rory—”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“No, of course not,” he spat. “I knew you’d come here to sniff around after I heard you talking with Marion.” Paul laughed, full of vitriol. “That overpaid prima-donna actor living off the laurels of us nobodies instead of accepting he’s a commodity—”
Paul was interrupted by a sudden scream. There was a thwack, a crack, and then the unmistakable sound of a pistol sliding across the floor. I jumped to my feet and turned to see Marion’s outline in the poor lighting. He was breathing hard, visibly shaking, and holding a graphite boom pole in his hands like a bat. Paul had crumpled to the floor like a ragdoll after a knock to the back of the head.
“He—he was going to shoot you,” Marion protested.
I nodded in agreement as I reached for the fallen weapon. I got down on one knee beside Paul, put two fingers to his neck, and felt his pulse. “He’s alive. Going to have a hell of a headache when he comes around, though.” I went to Marion, pried the pole out of his hands, and took him into my arms. “Thanks,” I whispered as he wrapped himself tight around me.
EXT. CHAPTER ELEVEN – DAY
I stood outside of Kaufman Astoria Studios with a few dozen other cast and crew members of The Bowery, watching the ambulance crews pack up Ethan and Paul into their own buses.
“You sure you want to refuse medical treatment?” Grey asked.
I briefly removed the ice pack from my jaw. “I’ve still got all my teeth.”
“He hit you with a chair.”
Like I needed to be reminded.
“Paul will be okay, right?” Marion asked. He’d been all but glued to my side since we’d phoned 911 and effectively shut down another day of production. “I had to hit him,” he insisted for probably the dozenth time. “He was going to shoot Rory.”
Grey held up a hand. “He’s going to be fine, Mr. Roosevelt. Had you not acted, Byrne might have ended up with more than simply a bruised jaw.”
“You saved Rory’s life,” John agreed as he turned away from the ambulances. “But why were you even on set, honey?”
“That’s a good question,” I said while looking down at Marion. “Not that I’m upset, but I’m pretty certain I told you to go away.”
“I did,” Marion answered. “I’d barely reached crafty when Ethan stopped me. He saw you kiss me before going on set.”
Grey gave me a you-dog look.
I ignored it.
Marion swallowed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. “We’ve been broken up for six months, but he’s so… he still tries to control what I do. Who I see. He said he was going to beat the shit out of you.”
“He did a fairly decent job,” I remarked.
“Because I was afraid to stop him,” Marion murmured, finally looking up. “But he’s—a killer. I couldn’t leave you alone with him.”
I put an arm around Marion’s slender shoulders and gave him a sideways hug.
“And when you went after Mr. Lefkowitz?” Grey pressed.
“Paul was already in there,” Marion answered. “Maybe he’d been in there the entire time, or came through the side entrance, I don’t know. But I saw the gun—saw Rory with his hands up—so I grabbed the first thing I could find. When I was pretty certain I had a half-second’s chance of stopping him….” Marion motioned swinging a bat.
The ambulances turned their sirens on and pulled out of the studio driveway.
Grey motioned John aside to speak semi-privately.
I dropped my arm from Marion’s shoulders and pressed the ice pack to my jaw again. “I’m sorry.”
He moved to stand in front of me. “For?”
“For my accusations earlier.”
Marion squinted a little as the sun peeked out from behind winter clouds. “Did you really believe I’d lied to you? That I could have stolen the script?”
I considered the question for a long while. Cold air puffed around my face as I breathed. “No… but… I’m a rational, work-obsessed person. I follow the rules. The facts.”
“And the facts were stacked against me?”
“I felt like I had to believe them. Even though I didn’t want to.” I lowered the ice pack. “I wasn’t joking, Marion. I’m no good at the stuff that happens afterward. That’s why I have an extensive ex-boyfriends list.”
He chewed his lower lip for a moment as he stared at the road. “Maybe you need more rehearsals.”
“Come again?”
Marion looked up, and his mouth quirked into that smile I loved so much. “And if we need to go off script to figure it out, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”
“I thought movie-making required teamwork.”
“Two makes a team.” He took the ice pack from my hand and gently pressed it to my face. “The MET is having a special exhibit on Kuniyoshi and his woodblock art of cats. There’s a really great Indian restaurant nearby too. If you’re free later.”
My jaw was throbbing, but it didn’t stop the smile from breaking out across my face.
FADE OUT
Rory Byrne and Marion Roosevelt return in:
Action on Murder.
(The Silver Screen: Case Two)
C.S. Poe is a Lambda Literary and two-time EPIC award finalist, and a FAPA award-winning author of gay mystery, romance, and speculative fiction.
She resides in New York City, but has also called Key West and Ibaraki, Japan, home in the past. She has an affinity for all things cute and colorful and a major weakness for toys. C.S. is an avid f
an of coffee, reading, and cats. She’s rescued two cats—Milo and Kasper do their best to distract her from work on a daily basis.
C.S. is an alumna of the School of Visual Arts.
Her debut novel, The Mystery of Nevermore, was published 2016.
cspoe.com
Also by C.S. Poe
SERIES:
Snow & Winter
The Mystery of Nevermore
The Mystery of the Curiosities
The Mystery of the Moving Image
The Mystery of the Bones
Magic & Steam
The Engineer
A Lancaster Story
Kneading You
Joy
Color of You
The Silver Screen
Lights. Camera. Murder.
NOVELS:
Southernmost Murder
NOVELLAS:
11:59
SHORT STORIES:
Love in 24 Frames
That Turtle Story
New Game, Start
Love, Marriage, and a Baby Carriage
Love Has No Expiration
Visit cspoe.com for free slice-of-life codas, titles in audio, and available foreign translations.
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