The Perfect Ghost

by Linda Barnes

  The descent from the high dunes to the beach was precarious in the darkness. Flashlight extinguished, muscles tensed, wary of falling, I wound up crawling backward down the slope, twining my hands into the tall beach grass. The sand, when I finally reached it, felt gritty and cool. I felt my way up the steps with little difficulty. The trivial lock would have been no challenge, but I chose not to tamper with it. I knocked instead, waited, then knocked louder. Malcolm had assured me Pierce had moved on, but I took that for what it was worth.

  “‘Doubt truth to be a liar.’” He’d quoted Hamlet’s love poem and stared into my eyes. “But never doubt I love.”

  “My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

  That I have long longed to redeliver.”

  So speaks Ophelia. Act Three, scene 1.

  But Hamlet denies her. “I never gave you aught.”

  “What? Huh? Who is it?” A lamp flared in the window.

  In the doorway, sheltered from wind and cameras, I peeled off the blond wig and stowed it in my bag. Knocked again, louder.

  Feet lurched unevenly to the door and hands cracked it open. Brooklyn Pierce blinked red-veined eyes and expelled foul breath into the salty air. I’d prepared a tale about returning the missing tape, asking more questions.

  “Hey, great, Jamie send you over? What’s your name, baby? Hey, c’mon in and have a drink.”

  “Hey.” I didn’t need a tale because the movie star, reeling drunk, supplied his own backstory. Because he didn’t recognize me, and why on earth had I expected that he would? I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see the angry flush rise in my cheeks.

  “C’mon in, honey. Jamie’s the man, a fuckin’ prince.” His words were slurred. He leered at me, hands poised to grab, but then he halted abruptly, perhaps questioning my mousy, wig-mashed hair, lack of bosom, and blotchy, flushed face.

  “What the fuck’s Jamie playing at?” he muttered.

  He was no treat, either. I’d admired his naked body when he ran into the waves, but that was a long-distance, panning shot. In close-up, it was hard to believe this drunken wreck had ever been a movie star.

  “I don’t know anything about Jamie,” I said. “They sent me down from the Big House. To clean up.” The pungent stink of vomit hung in the air, and the role of maid suited me better than interviewer or author. Maid became me better than lover, fiancée, or hooker hired by a pal for an hour’s entertainment. If I hadn’t been the victim of temporary blindness, a kind of self-regarding insanity, I’d have appreciated my true worth sooner. I stepped briskly through the portal.

  “Clean up? This late?” He rubbed his red eyes, sniffed, and shook his head like a weary dog.

  “If that’s okay?”

  Puzzled, he retreated before my energetic onslaught. “What the hell kinda hours you work?”

  I shrugged as I flipped on the overhead light. “Sorry if I’m bothering you. I can come back some other time.”

  Blinking, he gazed at the disordered room, sink mounded in filthy dishes, floor littered with greasy take-out wrappers. After the fresh air he’d inhaled at the door, the indoor fug would be newly offensive.

  He ran a hand through his hair and yawned. “I suppose it’s okay. Long as you don’t use any damned machines, nothing makes a damned noise. You got a mop? I think there’s one in the closet. A couple things might’ve got busted.” He leaned against a wall, yawned again, then slumped into a chair.

  Since I was the maid, he didn’t comment when I donned plastic gloves. I doubt he noticed them as I diligently emptied the ashtrays and swept the wooden floorboards, leaving his empty bottles in situ, adding my own touches as I progressed, setting the stage, dressing the set. As I placed the lighter from Malcolm’s desk drawer next to Pierce’s packet of Camels, I could almost see the movie and hear the tape recording in my head, Teddy, and the two combined to form an instructional video. I could hear your patient voice and Sylvie Duchaine’s accented, enthusiastic response:

  TB: Remember the arson sequence in Blue Flame?

  SD:… he’d had such fun learning about fire that he thought the audience would like an education, a break in the middle of a tight action film for a little schooling on arson methods. He totally obsessed about the fire-starters, the alarm clocks the terrorists rigged to delay ignition. I used a few quick cuts, close-ups, the wooden floorboards, the damaged propane tank, the flaring lighter. He played with the sound, too, the long hiss of the escaping gas, the striking of the lighter.

  If Pierce hadn’t been so drunk, I might have inquired about you, for curiosity’s sake. Asked if you’d known his favorite liquor, encouraged his confidences with a bottle or two, bribing an alcoholic with his poison of choice. You were such a naughty boy, Teddy.

  I’d taken a bottle from the shelf in Malcolm’s office, Johnny Walker Black, expensive stuff, but I hadn’t found anything cheaper. By now, Pierce was snoring and that became the soundtrack as I pried open the Scotch and splashed a few shots across the floorboards. I refilled the actor’s half-empty glass, added crushed Xanax, and placed it near his outstretched hand, so he wouldn’t need to move if he woke and wanted refreshment. I downed a shot of my own, unadulterated, for courage. The alarm clock came from the office, too, the wire from a shelf in the Old Barn, the fuse cord from the backstage pyrotechnic box. As the warmth of the liquor hit my gut, I carefully unwound the cord. There was enough to easily reach the propane tank and the old grill stored under the shack. I used the movie star’s own cell phone to text McKenna at the number he’d given me in case of emergency, twenty-four/seven.

  The Ghost made her preparations, fully awake, alive, and yet in a kind of trance, almost a dream state. The sequence of events seemed predetermined, inevitable, done, the metal jaws of the trap already snapped shut. I had thought the waiting time would be the hardest, but it wasn’t because I knew he would come. One of my step-fathers, a stern and bitter man, made me watch while he baited mousetraps with treats, peanut butter, cheese, and chewing gum, made me watch while the mice came to the traps. He called it an experiment, but I saw his eyes when the traps did their job, and they were shining.

  When McKenna came, we sat on the moonlit steps and I filled his ears till his eyes shone as well, till they glittered. Filled his ears with tittle-tattle that he accepted uncritically, every dubious morsel lapped up as eagerly as a dog laps blood. I filled his ears with gossip and his mouth with whiskey, and I kept one eye on my watch. He didn’t seem to notice the bitterness of the drink, and the Ghost thought only of fire. Fire, the cleanser; fire, the eraser; fire, the god, and it seemed good, the anticipated unleashing of inferno. By the time McKenna, at the Ghost’s urging, at my urging, climbed the stairs, his steps were heavy and his eyes half-closed.

  They were sleeping fitfully, snoring in their chairs, mouths agape, when I left a few minutes later.

  Malcolm was sleeping, too, later that night when the fire broke out.

  CHAPTER

  fifty-two

  Tape 128

  Brooklyn Pierce

  April 4, 2010

  Teddy Blake: Go on, Brook. Hey, don’t fall asleep on me, buddy. You were telling me a story.

  Brooklyn Pierce: Yeah, right, a story. But come on, don’t you think I’d have done a good one? One for the ages? Like Burton and Branagh?

  TB: No hope of Hamlet, huh?

  BP: No hope. Pour me another one, okay? A stiff one. I’m gonna quit tomorrow. Cold turkey, I swear, that’s the only way to go.

  TB: And nothing doing with a Ben Justice revival?

  BP: I told you the damned story, what he sees when he looks at me. Didn’t I already tell you? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

  TB: But that’s all there is? Christ, then he doesn’t know. You said you don’t even know whether—

  BP: Not for sure and, hey, I don’t wanna know. Jamie’s the one wants to make trouble, test everybody’s DNA, but what the hell? I don’t want screen credit, you know what I mean? Christ, I shouldn’t let Jamie talk me into this kind
a shit. Is your glass empty? Fill it up. C’mon, I’m not drinking alone.

  TB: You’re just an agreeable guy.

  BP: Right, that’s me, whatever, I roll with it.

  TB: But you did do it, you and Claire?

  BP: Hey, man, I rolled with it. I mean, we coulda done the turkey-baster thing, but we figured we’re grown-ups and Mal’s puttin’ it to her, too. I mean, they didn’t quit screwing, so Jenna could be his kid, for all I know. It’s not like docs are never wrong.

  TB: And with the screenplay, you weren’t worried about the legality, about the police?

  BP: I let Jamie do the worrying. And he said first off, Mal would never call the cops on us. Hell, call the cops, he might as well call People magazine—

  TB: But when did you tell Jamie? If he’d known when the old man was alive—

  BP: Christ, I don’t remember, musta been pretty recent. This visit. I don’t remember telling him, honest, but I must’ve, huh? I oughta lay off this stuff, quit it cold. Anyhow, what was I saying? Yeah, yeah, second thing: We can’t get in legal trouble ’cause none of it’s fuckin’ true. I mean, hey, it’s a screenplay, piece of fiction, made-up shit. Right? Claire didn’t come on to me like that, like in what we wrote. Asked me, as a friend, as a favor. Christ, I musta been pissed.

  TB: Drunk?

  BP: Pissed off, angry, and hell, drinking again, too. Telling Jamie. I mean, I didn’t think screwing Claire would fuck up my life, you know? I was so young, and she was so damn beautiful. I guess I wasn’t thinking at all much, but I figured we’d still work together, Malcolm and me, but it was like, after that, every time he looked at me, you know, he musta sensed it. He’s lookin’ at me, but he’s seeing a man who fucked his wife and I blame Claire, which is shitty ’cause she’s gone. But she had no business telling, threatening him when she left. Mal was always gonna get screen credit for Jenna. That was the deal.

  BP: And the property passed to her.

  TB: But that’s got nothing to do with it, never did. No, really, Mal loves her, and I barely know her. I mean, I went to parties with her when she was on the Coast. Jamie wanted me to come on to her, marry her, you know? Get the land back for him. That was a little too weird for me, I’m telling you. Plus, she was practically jailbait and when Mal found out she dated me, he damn near threw her out of the country.

  TB: So she doesn’t know?

  BP: Jamie says Mal owes him for what old Ralph did, cutting him out of the will ’cause he caught him one time with a boy, and for what Mal did, passing Jenna off as his own, said it was some kinda fraud. That’s what Jamie says, and he’s my friend. Mal shoulda given Jamie a big chunk of land, bought him off a long time ago. Jamie’s always after him, picking and picking. You know how Malcolm wants to fix it so nobody can ever build?

  TB: Lower his taxes, right?

  BP: Jamie’s about given up with Mal, but Jenna might listen. Jamie wants Mal to quit what he’s doing with that conservation shit, ’cause if he does that, Jamie will never be able to talk Jenna into giving him a hunk of land, or even selling it cheap. Mal’s a fucking artist, busy playing with his doll-actors. He’s not an adult, he’s still a fucking child-genius-director, too busy doing holy theater, too damned holy to cast a movie star as Hamlet.

  TB: Has Jamie ever canceled a board meeting?

  BP: He does a great Mal imitation. And Jamie’s got this local guy, writes a gossip blog or something. Jamie plants shit with him alla time, keeps the townies fired up against the theater. Stall, stall, stall.

  TB: Right. And then you handed him the keys to the kingdom.

  BP: Mal hasn’t exactly helped my career, you know what I mean? Everybody figures there’s a reason he won’t work with me, like I’m unreliable or something. And I wasn’t, not back then. Shit, I was somebody. I was box office gold. God, if he’d just give it to me, I know I could do it. Goddamn, but I want that part.

  TB: “They all want to play Hamlet.”

  BP: Don’t go making fun of me.

  TB: No, I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.

  BP: He won’t give it to me. Christ, I shouldn’t be talking to you. I screw everything up, don’t I? Sometimes I wish I was fuckin’ dead, wish I had the guts to swim out into the ocean, just swim out till I can’t move my arms anymore, just let go and drown. “’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” See? I could do it; I know I could.

  TB: You’d be great.

  BP: Don’t fuckin’ make fun of me. What the hell do you want anyway? I shouldn’t be talking to you, either. I yak it up when I drink. Am I talking too much?

  TB: So there’s nothing to that thing about Mal setting the clinic on fire?

  BP: Hell, no, just Jamie’s idea of a good climax for the screenplay, see? You’re not taping anymore, right? Hey, is that bottle empty?

  TB: No, no. Here you go.

  BP: And why shouldn’t I help Jamie out? Jamie’s gonna get land for his hotel now, get this place, too, so maybe he’ll be satisfied, but I don’t care. Fill my glass up, okay?

  TB: Don’t tell me you’re not going to get anything out of the deal?

  BP: Money is all. I’m gonna get some money, Jamie says, but I don’t care. Because that’s not what I want.

  TB: What do you want, Brook?

  BP: Besides another drink? Hell, I want to be seventeen again. I want to play Ben Justice again. I want to play Hamlet. And don’t you even say it. You know what? I don’t like your fucking attitude. I’m changing my mind about this, okay? This isn’t something I ought to be doing. I want that tape. C’mon, give it to me.

  TB: Hey, you can trust me. You know you can trust me. This is all off the record.

  PB: You promise? You fucking promise?

  TB: Cross my heart.

  CHAPTER

  fifty-three

  Sound engineer: I’ll give you a ten-count. Remember to look directly at Camera Three. Okay, we’re going live: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five …

  Music up and Voiceover: And now, welcome back to the Angela Rivers Show.

  Angela Rivers: I’d like to welcome our next guest, Em Moore, the woman behind The Blue Flame: Garrett Malcolm and the American Cinema. C’mon, people, put your hands together and clap. Em—can I call you Em? Your book couldn’t be more timely. I understand the publisher pushed up the publication date, rushed it into print. You were actually finishing up the book the night the beach shack burned? Have we got a visual on that? Yes, this was taken the next morning after the fire, filmed by a news photographer from a boat off the Cape Cod coast.

  Em Moore: The ruins were still smoldering. Even though it was so close to the water, there was nothing anyone could do.

  AR: The shack actually exploded.

  EM: At first, I thought it was a beach fire, a campfire on the beach that had gotten out of control. But it was too big and it kept growing. The sky turned red. It was like an early sunrise, but it was much too early for the sun. I called 911.

  AR: And you ran down to the shack in time to see Malcolm try to break in.

  EM: The structure was engulfed in flames. He was incredibly brave.

  AR: Did you realize anyone was inside?

  EM: He did. He knew Brooklyn Pierce was staying there.

  AR: You’re seeing film of the floral tributes left on the gate of Brooklyn Pierce’s apartment building in L.A. Police had to erect a barrier to keep fans at a distance.

  EM: The outpouring of grief has been amazing.

  AR: Yes, it has. And no one else had any idea Pierce was staying on the Cape? Besides Garrett Malcolm?

  EM:. Well, Glenn McKenna, the gossip columnist, must have known.

  AR: That’s the man who ran the Cape Cod Truthtelling Web site. His was the second body found at the shack. Hold on, I think we’ve got a few visuals from the Web site. Joey, can you run those, please? The site was taken down by law enforcement personnel shortly after McKenna’s death.

  EM: Yes.

  AR: So were you surprised when Malcolm was arrested? Shocked?
/>   EM: I’m sure the police will find they’ve made a mistake. The case against him is entirely circumstantial.

  AR: He took out a restraining order against McKenna.

  EM: Yes, but that’s hardly—

  AR: And the method the arsonist used, wasn’t it exactly the method detailed in Malcolm’s film, Blue Flame?

  EM: Millions of people world-wide have seen that film. Glenn McKenna could certainly have seen the film.

  AR: So you’re making the case for murder-suicide, that McKenna set off his own funeral pyre? And decided to take Brooklyn Pierce along for the ride?

  EM: I didn’t say that.

  AR: Didn’t the police find a screenplay Brooklyn Pierce had written? Isn’t it true that the screenplay gives a motive for the crime?

  EM: If it did, wouldn’t Malcolm have destroyed it?

  AR: There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s in that screenplay.

  EM: It’s a Ben Justice script, I know that. Titled The Black Stone.

  AR: You’ve seen it then?

  EM: A short excerpt. Of an earlier version.

  AR: Brooklyn Pierce had never written a screenplay. His agent says he didn’t know anything about a screenplay.

  EM: Pierce had every reason to want to play Ben Justice again. It was his most successful role. Maybe he thought he understood the character better than anyone, that he had an inside track with the director. A lot of actors turn to screenwriting as they get older. Look at Garrett Malcolm.

  AR: You must have heard the rumors? That Pierce wasn’t so much submitting the script to Cranberry Hill Productions as he was giving Malcolm the chance to pay him not to show it to anyone else? TMZ and several other sites have speculated that the manuscript outlines a story in which a man, a movie star, comes forward to the media with evidence that he is the biological father of another man’s child. That the other man is a successful director with one daughter …

  EM: There are always rumors.

  AR: One site says that characters in the film are identified only by initials, that the woman who has the affair with the actor while married to the director is identified as CG. Garrett Malcolm was married to Claire Gregory.