SILENT (a psychological thriller, combining mystery, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  Talking of feminine, we must not forget the new darling of the screen, on-screen and off-screen wife Betsy Bellamy. Pretty, looking gorgeous in Edwardian dresses, she’s the perfect beauty to Mason’s beast. We predict great things for this gal once she’s had time to hone her obvious talents. Whenever the couple turn up as some event or other – and they’ve been kept busy on that score by Metropolitan’s publicity team – she attracts as much attention as her husband. Some stores are even displaying a Dorottya-range of clothing, which are selling like hotcakes to those wanting to indulge themselves in a little piece of doomed elegance.

  You’ve got to wonder exactly how far Mason can take this – there are rumours of a sequel to capitalise on the success of Bride – or more to the point, how far will Metropolitan push Mason? He won’t want to be typecast, you can bet – he sees himself as a character actor with a broad range – but for now I guess he’s enjoying being the centre of attention. Get it while you can, Rick; we all know the centre of attention moves like the centre of a hurricane, never stopping long in one place.

  So there you have it folks. There’s money to be made in blood!

  Rick Mason folded the newspaper, a self-satisfied smile on his lips. ‘Even the New York Times love us, Betsy,’ he said, leaning to look out of the car’s window. It was late evening, but New York being New York, the streets were bathed in artificial light from shops and stores, from apartments, from hundreds of car headlights; and the sidewalks never seemed to empty of swarming people. Mason had the feeling he was being taken like a leaf down a fast-moving stream. He only knew it was New York because it was Wednesday. They’d be on an overnight sleeper someplace else later that night.

  He turned to Betsy. She was quiet, huddled into a tight corner of the limo, almost as if she were trying to put a little distance between them. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘You’re edgy. Something spooking you?’

  ‘You’re spooking me,’ she said. ‘Why are you wearing those things? You know I don’t like them.’

  ‘My clothes? This is Baron Dragutin’s uniform…’

  ‘I know what it is, Rick. And they’re not your clothes; they belonged to that horrible man. You don’t need to wear them.’

  ‘It’s expected of me.’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘They’ve come to see Dragutin,’ he defended. ‘I’m giving them what they want.’

  ‘They’re coming to see Rick Mason and Betsy Bellamy, not Baron Dragutin.’

  ‘It’s called promoting the movie, Betsy,’ he said shortly.

  ‘It’s called a growing obsession with the man, Rick. You’ve not been the same since we came back from Slavonia. Since Mr Horvat was killed. You’ve changed.’

  He said, ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ He saw lines of people standing in a snaking queue on the sidewalk. A number of them started to wave when they realised who was in the fancy limo cruising past them. He waved back. ‘It’s this pregnancy,’ he said. ‘They say having a baby sometimes screws up a woman’s emotions.’

  ‘I’m tired, Rick; I want to go home. We’ve been on the road for weeks now, plugging this picture.’ She stroked her midriff. ‘The baby is due in three months and we never seem to have time to rest up, to have time for one another. Metropolitan is pushing you too hard. You’re pushing yourself too hard.’

  Mason clutched her hand. It felt cold. ‘I’m doing this for the both of us. You know what Hollywood can be like. Like it says in the New York Times article, one minute you’re the main course, the next you’re leftovers being scraped into the trashcan. We’ve got to grab this while we can. You wanted to be an actress, babe, remember?’

  Her face had a grey sheen to it. Her eyes distant. ‘Seems lately you’re more interested in your career at the expense of mine.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Betsy?’

  ‘My role in the next movie has been so thinned out of the screenplay that I’m being reduced to nothing more than a simpering bit-part.’

  ‘I fought to have the production delayed in order for you to have time to have the baby, Betsy, you’re forgetting that. And it’s not up to me how the movie shapes up, you know that.’

  ‘That’s rubbish and you know it. Metropolitan wouldn’t have been able to finance Dragutin’s Bride without you bankrolling a lot of it, and without Davey’s brilliant screenplay. You helped steer the last movie, so what’s different about this one? And anyhow, they’ve managed to do a great hatchet-job on Davey’s new screenplay and I notice you’ve not said one word against it. You were given a sizable amount of shares in Metropolitan in return for your investment in the movie, which gives you a voice at Metropolitan, but you choose not to exercise it.’

  ‘Let me tell you something about the screenplay – Davey’s never around to discuss changes with him. He keeps his goddamn head so low we never know where he is these days, and people get edgy dealing with the invisible man. This is big business, Betsy; they can’t afford to screw it up. Maybe if he showed his face once in a while he’d have a say, but it sure ain’t going to work with his head shoved in the sand somewhere. What’s eating him? Why play the recluse?’ He let go of her hand, folded his arms and ignored the cheering line of people. ‘Whatever it is you’re not telling me, I think it’s about time you considered spilling the beans.’

  ‘You said what’s past didn’t matter, remember?’ she returned.

  ‘Yeah, sure I do. But the past is impacting on our future, Betsy. The guy is becoming a crazy recluse.’

  She thumped him on the arm. ‘Don’t you ever say those kinds of things about him! Davey, he’s all I had for a long time. At least I know where I am with Davey. I can trust him.’

  Mason was stung by her words. ‘You can trust me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not so sure anymore…’

  ‘We’ve got each other, Betsy, and soon we’ll have a kid of our own. We’ll be a family…’

  The car pulled up outside the cinema. It was lit up like a fairground, the title of Dragutin’s Bride in large red letters lit up by a circle of bulbs. He noticed thoughtfully how his name was printed bigger than Betsy’s on the six-foot-high posters, and it was his masked face that loomed out at them. There was a dense, swaying crowd being held back by a thin blue line of NYPD officers, their buttons and badges gleaming beneath the lights. The people grew ever more frenzied on seeing the car. Mostly young women, he observed. It had been the case wherever they went. What was their slightly unhealthy fascination with a repulsive, cruel, deformed creature that used women as mere objects upon which to enact his evil appetites? What was it about him they found so appealing, so magnetic? What sick part of the mind had he unwittingly tapped into?

  Without waiting for the chauffeur to open the door for them, without waiting for her husband to take the lead, Betsy got out of the car and strode out over the red carpet that had been laid in their honour for this special screening. Mason watched as she worked the crowd, smiled, waved, her fur stole draped in such a manner that it hid the mound of her pregnancy. Not for long, though, he thought. Camera flashbulbs popped and fans screamed out ‘Dorottya! Dorottya!’ Eventually she stopped half-way to the theatre entrance and turned to her husband.

  He emerged from the car, slowly, deliberately; his dark-blue uniform resplendent under the gleam of the bright lights, and the crowd erupted into the loudest screams he’d ever heard. The women were pushing against the officers who struggled to hold them back. Like a pack of baying she-wolves, Mason mused, their eyes wild and hungry, almost maniacal. It was almost frightening, he thought as he stepped over to his wife and she linked her arm through his. Almost.

  ‘You can never escape!’ he said above the din, and it was like putting a flame to a keg of gunpowder. The crowd roared its approval. It had become a kind of catchphrase for him, so much so that it had started to appear on the billboards and promotional materials.

  He went to where the officers held back the crowd, reached out his white-gloved hand through them to stroke the
outstretched fingers of the young women.

  ‘Take me to your castle, Dragutin!’ one of them shouted. ‘Do whatever you want to me!’

  He waved at the woman, who gasped and put a hand to her breast. He looked at Betsy, but her eyes had gone cold again. She appeared strangely alone, standing there in the centre of the red carpet, surrounded by pandemonium and yet somehow separate in a bubble all of her own. He went back to her, held her close and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I forgot myself.’

  ‘When’s the baby due, Betsy?’ a reporter asked. A small clutch of them had been allowed beyond the flimsy rope barrier and the line of hard-pressed police officers.

  ‘Three months,’ she said, her face at once beaming.

  ‘What do you want, a boy or a girl?’

  ‘We don’t care as long as it’s healthy. That’s all that matters to us.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re going to be more of a mother than an actress, Betsy?’

  ‘We women can be both, you know,’ she returned crisply. ‘Having a baby isn’t an illness, and being a mother isn’t debilitating. I’m going to continue making movies.’

  ‘What are you going to call it? Jozsef? Dorottya?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ she said. ‘Look, aren’t you tired of all this baby talk? What about asking me about my role in the next Dragutin movie?’

  Attention suddenly flicked to Mason, as if they’d grown bored with Betsy. ‘Hey, Rick, is the Baron going to be even more of a monster in the next movie?’

  ‘Guess you’ll have to wait and see. We’re still working on it. We’ve got a bigger budget this time round. We may even go to Slavonia to film on location in Castle Dragutin.’

  ‘On location? Nobody shoots on location, Rick. Can we quote you on that?’

  ‘Sure, go ahead,’ he said.

  ‘No one said anything about going back to Slavonia,’ Betsy confronted Mason.

  ‘Ah, just talk for now,’ he assured, patting her hand. ‘Stories designed to keep the press happy, something new to write and gossip about.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she said coldly.

  ‘Like I say, just talk. Later, eh, honey?’ He faced the crowd again and waved. They went up to the grand doors of the theatre, where he turned once again to face the people, like a royal prince at the gates of a palace.

  ‘You can never escape!’ he cried from the top step.

  The crowd loved that.

  * * * *

  23

  Bunny Foster

  The next time he stepped out of a limo at the Palm Club he didn’t have to pretend to be someone big just to get in. This time they all knew who Rick Mason was. They fell over themselves in their efforts to welcome him into the club. No trouble either in getting a table for Betsy and him.

  Outwardly he was calm, assured, even faintly dismissive of all the attention, but inwardly he was grinning like a fool, lapping it all up. He even felt disdain for the way they fawned all over them. How curious, he thought; he was the same person inside, but now elevated to the status of a king, to sit alongside the other kings of Hollywood royalty on their false thrones made of fresh air and cardboard. And yet why, he thought, did he feel above them, not of them, as if he peered down at them all from some lofty vantage point and they were nothing but insects scurrying around at his feet?

  Conrad Jefferson joined them. He was smoking his trademark cheroot, his face already flushed red with the wine he’d consumed privately in a plush backroom reserved for special clients; the prohibition didn’t seem to have any effect on Jefferson’s enjoyment.

  He’d brought along with him a young woman, extremely attractive, chestnut-haired, swan neck rising from a low-cut evening dress in shimmering red silk. Diamonds – the real deal – flashed at her throat, on her ears, on her wrist. Evidence, Mason thought, of Jefferson’s extreme generosity. Or gratitude. He introduced her as Bunny Foster.

  ‘Bunny,’ said Betsy, eyeing the slender, young woman as she sat down at the table, feeling rather like an inflated blimp by comparison. ‘Hopefully you weren’t baptised that.’

  Bunny smiled. All teeth and red lips. ‘Oh no, it’s because I used to bounce around the place all excited as a kid.’

  ‘She has a rather effervescent personality,’ Jefferson said.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Bunny,’ Mason said, a black, elbow-high glove reaching out to shake his hand gently.

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you. I saw Dragutin’s Bride and nearly fainted in horror.’ The same black-clad fingers went to her ample bosom. ‘But you’re far more handsome in person than I ever imagined. Not at all like that horrible Baron. Your wife is so lucky,’ she said, smiling at Betsy.

  ‘Yes, I guess I am,’ she said flatly. Jefferson’s appearance at their table had been unexpected. She didn’t particularly like the man. She’d heard tales of him seeing girls as young as twelve. She didn’t know if any of the rumours were true, but his lecherous gaze made it true for her.

  ‘Bunny is an actress,’ said Jefferson.

  ‘Anything we know?’ Betsy asked.

  Again the woman smiled warmly. She was trying hard to be friendly. ‘Not yet. This is my first big break.’

  Mason glanced at Jefferson. ‘Really? What big break is that?’

  ‘Bunny is being cast as village girl Anna,’ Jefferson said, stubbing his cigar out half-smoked and taking out another one.

  ‘Which village girl is that?’ Mason pressed.

  ‘It’s a new part being written in, to accommodate Bunny’s talents.’

  Mason was acutely aware of Betsy’s impassive expression. ‘Yet another alteration to the script, Conrad?’

  ‘We know what we’re doing, Rick. Trust us, eh?’ He puffed out clouds of blue smoke across the table; it hovered around Betsy’s breasts for a second or two. ‘Anyhow, just wanted you guys to meet up.’ He rose from his seat. ‘We got other things to do,’ he said. ‘Have a swell evening.’

  ‘It’s been nice meeting you,’ said Bunny. ‘I guess we’ll see more of each other on set.’

  Betsy’s eyes remained frosty. ‘I’m sure we will.’

  ‘I hope everything goes well with the baby. You look so large!’ said Bunny, tittering. ‘I can’t imagine being stretched so big. It must make you feel so fat.’

  ‘I feel pregnant,’ she said.

  Bunny’s smile dropped. ‘Sorry, Miss Bellamy, I didn’t mean…’

  Jefferson pulled at Bunny’s arm. ‘Due any time now, huh?’ he said, a touch of impatience in his voice. ‘Anyone would think the kid didn’t want to be born.’

  ‘Any week now,’ she replied. ‘It won’t affect the shooting-schedule,’ she assured, ‘if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘Not my worry,’ he said, grinning. ‘I pay other people to worry on my behalf.’

  He said his goodbyes and the couple were left in peace. They ate in silence for a while. ‘What was all that about?’ she said at length.

  ‘It’s the way things are done, Betsy. I’m not entirely happy about it myself. Too many fingers on the script for my liking. Where is Davey, for God’s sake? At least if he showed his face we could help steer things a little better. What made the last movie a success was a script largely untouched by others. Hell, Betsy, I ain’t a writer. What do I know what’s going to work?’

  ‘Well everyone else seems to know what’s best,’ she replied. ‘All we need now is a Bunny on the set.’

  ‘You were the one looking for your big break once, remember? Give the kid a chance.’

  ‘You like her? You found her pretty compared to me, is that it?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I never said that. Jeez, I’ll be glad when this kid is out and we can get back to normal.’

  Her knife and fork clattered noisily against her plate as she dropped them down. ‘What, so now it’s something to get over and done with? An inconvenience?’

  ‘You’re drawing attention to yourself, Betsy. Don’t make a sc
ene.’

  ‘Or what, Baron Dragutin? You’ll chain me up in my room and keep me out of sight?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, scowling at her.

  ‘See? That’s the look you’re giving me every day. You never used to look at me that way. You’ve changed, Rick. What happened to the happy-go-lucky socialist?’

  ‘Even socialists have to eat. And I was never a goddamn socialist. Keep your voice down.’ He grabbed her hand tightly.

  ‘You’re hurting me. Let me go.’

  ‘Not till you promise me you’ll calm down.’

  She stared straight into his eyes. ‘You men are all the same,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought you were different.’

  A shadow fell over their table. They looked up to see the imposing figure of Luke Dillon, head of Prima Motion Picture Company. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you. May I join you?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mason, releasing Betsy’s hand. Her wrist remained white from his grip. She slipped it from the table to rest on her lap.

  Dillon pushed away the ashtray bearing the crushed cigar and sat down. ‘I couldn’t help notice you sitting here. How’re things with Jefferson?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Mason. ‘Everything’s just dandy.’

  ‘I’ve not had the occasion to offer you my congratulations on the success of Dragutin’s Bride, Rick. Or should I call you Baron Dragutin?’ He laughed, but it had a way of unsettling you, thought Rick.

  ‘He’ll like that,’ said Betsy straight-faced.

  Mason ignored her. ‘Forget the niceties, Dillon,’ he said. ‘What are you really here for?’