by Robert Bloch
Picking up her purse from the counter, she turned and tiptoed out. The precaution wasn’t really necessary; in the second bedroom on the far side of the bath, Connie was still snoring away. Jan’s roommate would probably be dead to the world until noon and wish she were dead when she finally awoke, hungover and overhung with remorse for last night’s fun and games.
But as she made her way down the hall to the front door, Jan felt a nagging prickle of envy. Connie didn’t have to slave away in front of a mirror; a cold shower and a quick comb-through would do the trick when she arose. No point in her worrying about a perfect makeup job, not with that big nose and those tiny tits. What you needed to cut it in this business was a small nose and big tits, and that let Connie out.
Abruptly, Jan felt a sudden surge of shame. Connie wasn’t to blame for the way she looked; at least she was honest and didn’t try to fake it with a nose job above and styrofoam below. She did the best she could with what she had, and that deserved praise, not a putdown.
Jan shrugged as she let herself out and locked the door behind her. Connie would manage; right now it was time to consider her own goals. That’s why she’d spent an hour on makeup, that’s why the neat little Toyota stood waiting for her in the carport. Every time she thought of the monthly payments, she shuddered, but when she opened the door and got a whiff of that wonderful new-car smell, her good vibes returned.
The Toyota wasn’t a luxury; it was part of her outfit, her image. And the new-leather smell was as necessary as the Chanel she sprayed on after a shower, even though gas was beginning to cost more than perfume. If you want to get to the top, don’t take the bus.
Starting the motor, she backed out carefully, then climbed the road and turned east on Mulholland Drive. Clusters of homes huddled at intervals along the winding way, but most of the stretch was given over to cliffside and brush. In the Monday-morning mist it was still possible to catch a glimpse of gophers, coyotes, joggers, and other forms of wildlife.
Ignoring them, Jan stared down into the San Fernando Valley at her left. Rising out of the yellowish smudge of smog, she could see the sound stages of Coronet Studios, midway between CBS Studio Center and Universal’s black tower.
Now the Toyota turned left again and began its descent. Jan took a deep breath, just as she always did before spiraling down into the smog. The damned stuff ate right into the Toyota’s chrome; God only knew what it did to human lungs. But when you’re headed for the top, sometimes you’ve got to go down into the pits.
Crossing Ventura Boulevard, she drove north to the studio gate on her right. A shiny Rolls preceded her, then halted at the guard’s cubicle ahead, but only for a moment. The striped crossbar blocking the entrance swung up quickly as the uniformed man at the gate grinned and waved the driver forward. The Rolls moved onto the lot.
Now, as Jan came abreast of the cubicle, the crossbar dropped back into place. The guard stared at her.
She gave him a smile. “Jan Harper,” she said.
There was no change in his expression—or lack of it. “Who did you wish to see?”
“I’m on the lot. With the Driscoll unit.”
“One moment, please.”
Turning, the guard entered the cubicle and checked the listings stacked on a shelf beside the doorway. Then he peered out and nodded. “Okay. Better tell them to give you a sticker.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
The crossbar lifted and Jan drove on, hoping her smile hadn’t cracked. That wimp in the Rolls got the big hello, but after all these weeks the guard didn’t even remember her name.
Cool it, kid. Someday when you drive through that gate, they’ll lay out a red carpet for you all the way to Driscoll’s office.
Jan was passing that office now, in the Administration Building at her right, but she didn’t stop there. All the parking slots were posted with neatly lettered signs reserving them for executive personnel. That was the way the system operated: execs had the spaces nearest the offices; working stars and directors got choice spots next to the sound stages; top production people owned the openings before their headquarters.
But signs can be rubbed out and new names lettered in. And the way things were going in the industry, the sign painters had the only steady jobs in town.
Jan shrugged and headed for the parking area at the rear of the lot, moving past mailboys on bicycles, elderly producers with motorcarts, drivers of vans and trucks filled with props and camera equipment. The Toyota edged through narrow openings between portable dressing rooms and trailers, then halted before a stage as a red light flashed and whirled, signaling a take in progress, which could be ruined by traffic noises.
The industry was turning out its product.
Once upon a time these studio streets had been glutted with glimpses of glamour: bit players in oriental robes conceived in Arabian nightmares; pirate outfits; French Empire ballroom gowns; Confederate cavalry uniforms. Dress extras had sauntered along in top hats and tails, chorus girls had paraded like walking rainbows. Indian chiefs, wearing full warpaint, and cowboy stars with white suits and matching Stetsons had mingled with leading ladies resplendent in creations designed in the cerebral salon of Edith Head’s head.
But the costume picture had been swept away in a tide of red ink. Today, Valentino’s Sheik would be a squat little oil profiteer in a business suit, sunglasses, and a soiled kayyifeh. The pirate ships were sunk, discos had replaced ballrooms, the Confederate army was gone with the wind. Fred and Ginger had hung up their dancing shoes forever, Indians carried briefcases when they went on the warpath at Senate hearings, cowboys looked like any bearded university student, and most leading ladies performed in bedroom scenes, wearing nothing at all. When you go to a studio now, don’t look for glamour—look for a parking place.
Jan drove into the rear area, glancing at her watch. Quarter to ten; she still had fifteen minutes. But the lot was already full, or almost so.
Circling, she found an opening at the far end and started to angle in, then braked quickly as the door of a car on her right swung open and a figure backed into her path.
She leaned on the horn. “Hey, watch it—”
The figure turned, and Jan recognized Roy Ames.
He waved and moved to her left as she parked. “Sorry, I didn’t see you coming.” Opening the door, he took her arm as she slid across the seat.
Jan suppressed her frown, but she couldn’t suppress her thoughts. What was with this character? Even after all these weeks of contact, she still couldn’t get used to his here-let-me-help-you routine. Common courtesy wasn’t very common nowadays; most men let a girl emerge from a car unaided, and a fairly high percentage would goose her as she backed out.
Roy Ames was a problem case. He didn’t even look like most of the other screenwriters she knew. To begin with, he was well groomed—not exactly handsome, but far removed from the specimens who were heavily into hair and horn-rims. His wardrobe lacked Levi’s, and apparently he’d learned to ride a typewriter without wearing boots. She’d never seen him stoned or strung out, and if he had other hangups, he did a good job hiding them.
Hiding. These straight-arrow types were usually hiding something. So where was he coming from, behind his old-fashioned manners and the open grin?
And where are you coming from? Jan caught herself wondering what was wrong with her. Why did she automatically suspect instead of respect a man like Roy? There was no reason for it; he was probably as upfront as she was.
They crossed the lot and started down the street, dodging agents and clients en route to Monday-morning meetings, carpenters scurrying onto sets, memo-bearing messengers racing their rounds—the usual organized confusion.
“I called you earlier,” Roy said. “Connie told me you’d left.”
“How’d she sound?”
“Bitchy. Guess I woke her up.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll survive the shock. I did.”
Roy glanced at her. “Then you know about it.”
/>
“Know about what?”
“Didn’t you listen to the news? Norman Bates escaped.”
“Oh my God.”
“Report says he went on another murder rampage. Five victims. They’re not sure, but he could still be on the loose.”
Jan halted. “So that’s why Driscoll wanted us to come in! You think they’re going to shut down the picture?”
“Maybe.”
“But they can’t—” Jan put her hand on Roy’s arm. “We’ve got to stop them. Please, promise me you’ll help.”
He was staring at her. Why didn’t he say something?
Taking a deep breath, Jan gave him her best shot. “It’s not just my part I’m worried about. You need this picture too, that screen credit is your future. Don’t throw it away.”
Roy’s eyes were ice. Suddenly his face contorted and his voice rose. “What the hell’s the matter with you? A maniac breaks out and kills five innocent people, and all you’re worried about is killing a goddam movie!”
He jerked his arm free so quickly that for a moment Jan thought he intended to hit her. Instead he turned and strode away, leaving her stunned and shaken.
She’d guessed right, after all. There had been something hidden behind the good manners and the friendly smile, and now she knew what it was.
Violence.
Oddly, she felt no fear of him. But after the initial shock faded, the emotion that remained surprised her. It was disappointment.
Damn it, Roy must have been turning her on more than she’d realized. Even now it wasn’t possible to reject him completely. Maybe she wasn’t as hard-nosed as she pretended, because a part of her had really responded to that Mr. Nice Guy image.
Perhaps his anger was justified; his concern about those murders might be genuine. And if it was—
Jan shook her head. What he believed was his own business, but she couldn’t go along with him. She’d worked too long and too had to settle for that.
All her life, ever since she was a little girl, staring into the mirror at her acne-riddled face and wondering if she’d ever grow up and find someone who thought she was pretty, someone who’d love her, she’d been working—working to become the kind of person who would deserve attention, the kind she saw in the movies and on TV.
And now she had grown up, she’d been on TV, she was going to be in the movies, and they’d all love her—not just a single someone, but everybody. She was going to make it. Not just for herself; it was a debt she owed to that pimply-faced girl in the mirror, the little girl with the big dream.
Watching Roy enter the Administration Building, Jan started forward with renewed determination. All the violence in the world couldn’t hang a guilt-trip on her now. Feeling sorry for the victims, whoever they were, wasn’t going to help them. They were dead and she was alive and what you called “a goddam movie” was the break she’d worked and waited for. She and the little girl.
No matter what happened, Jan wouldn’t let them stop the picture.
— 13 —
Anita Kedzie was ambidextrous.
Seated in Driscoll’s outer office, with copies of Variety and Hollywood Reporter resting on her desk, she turned their pages simultaneously in search of items that might interest her employer and circled them in red with a felt-tipped pen.
Jan had observed this ritual before, and she’d never been able to figure out just how Miss Kedzie managed to read both trade papers at the same time. But one had to remember that the woman was a little strange; anyone who would take a job as a producer’s secretary had to be strange. Part insect, perhaps. Weren’t there some insects whose eyes functioned independently, so that they could see in two directions at once?
Correction: three directions. For, without shifting her gaze from the pages before her, Miss Kedzie said, “Please go right in. Mr. Driscoll will be with you in a moment. He’s running a little late this morning.”
Jan nodded and moved past the desk and through the doorway behind it.
He’s running a little late this morning.
So what else was new? According to their secretaries, producers were always running a little late, like cheap watches. An apt comparison, really, because you always had to keep an eye on their hands, and some of them wouldn’t give you the time of day.
Of course, there were exceptions to the rule, men whose talent and good taste were indisputable and indispensable. The industry couldn’t survive without them.
But nowadays anyone could call himself a producer. All he had to do was plant a few items in the trades announcing the purchase of properties for future filming, rent office space, put his name on the door, and wait for the chicks to walk in and lie down.
Marty Driscoll didn’t seem to fit into this category, thank God; he’d never tried to come on to her, and he certainly had an impressive layout.
Jan glanced around the private office as she entered, taking inventory of the Daumier prints on the walls, the oversize couches right-angled before the huge glass coffee table, the massive fruitwood desk with its intercom system and the silver-framed portrait photographs of the most recent wife and two smiling children.
Impressive, that was for sure, but not entirely convincing. Something about the office disturbed her.
From what she’d seen of Driscoll, he wouldn’t know a French print from a French postcard. The contemporary décor, however elaborate and expensive, reflected no particular style except Early Executive—running a little late, of course. And the family portraits in their expensive frames were standard equipment; the whole spread might have come straight out of the studio’s prop department, just moved in and set up overnight. Which meant it could be moved out just as quickly when Driscoll lost his parking space. And that was what bothered her. The décor wasn’t contemporary—just a temporary con.
Jan dismissed the thought quickly. Driscoll wasn’t a phony; he had a long track record as a producer of top-grossers. At least he’d taken credit for them, and that was what counted. He knew the business, knew where the money was, knew where the bodies were buried.
Bodies. Five victims, Roy said. Don’t think about it.
She glanced across the room and saw Roy, already seated in the corner with his back to the doorway. Oblivious to her quiet entrance, he was leaning forward and talking to Paul Morgan, her co-star in the picture.
Come off it, she told herself. You’re no co-star—he gets the billing.
And why not? Paul Morgan was almost an institution. Standing there silhouetted in profile against the light from the window, he looked like a miniature model of his oversize screen image. It still puzzled her to think he’d take an offbeat role like Norman Bates.
But then, he was probably just as puzzled to have her as his female lead instead of a name star. Maybe that was why he ignored her now as she came in; come to think of it, Paul Morgan hadn’t said a dozen words to her directly since the day she was set for the part.
Whatever his reason, she’d better do something about it, and fast. Chat him up, stroke him, make it plain that this was his ego trip and she was only along for the ride.
Jan started toward the two men, then halted at the touch of a hand curling around her waist. A wave of sickly scent accompanied the movement.
A good thing she already had a smile on her face, intended for Morgan; now she could give it to Santo Vizzini. Not that he didn’t deserve a smile for his own sake; after all, he’d been responsible for her getting the role. But it wasn’t easy to register pleasurable emotion at the sight of the man with the caterpillar moustache. The odor of his perfumed presence was overpowering, and his fingers probing and moving downward toward her thigh gave Jan the creeps.
She turned quickly, preserving the smile and hoping it would atone for her evading his touch. “Mr. Vizzini—”
“Santo.” The caterpillar was crawling now as the thick lips parted beneath it. “Please, there is no need to stand on ceremony.”
Jan nodded. I get the message, buster. You don’t want
me to stand on anything—just lie down.
But she didn’t say it. Luckily she didn’t have to say anything, for now all conversation broke off as Marty Driscoll’s voice echoed from the outer office.
“Hold my calls,” he said.
It was part of the ritual, the classic invocation signifying that the conference, the meeting, the ceremony was about to begin.
The next step was Marty Driscoll’s own, as he moved into the room. The fat, balding producer had a tall thin shadow; it glided behind him, closing the door as Driscoll hunkered down into the overstuffed chair behind the big desk. The shadow’s name was George Ward, and its hair and face had gone gray in long years of service as Driscoll’s eminence grise. Now the shadow slithered to a halt at the end of the desk, poised for a signal.
It came as Marty Driscoll hunched forward, broad shoulders bowed under the weight of the thick neck and heavy head. “Sit down, everybody,” he said.
Roy Ames and Paul Morgan took the sofa facing the desk. Vizzini lowered himself on a lounger at the right, near George Ward, while Jan settled into a chair on the left.
Now she waited for Driscoll to utter the prescribed opening: “Anyone want coffee?” Instead he sat silently, a tonsured Buddha, staring down at the desk top through heavy-lidded eyes. He might have been meditating on Infinity or contemplating his navel, but Jan doubted it. From what she knew of Driscoll, he was neither a mystic nor a navel-observer. All he did was make her nervous, and perhaps that was his intention. A quick glimpse of the others grouped before the desk told her that they were equally uncomfortable as they waited for him to break the silence.
Then, abruptly, the head arched upward and the eyes widened.
“You all know what happened yesterday,” Driscoll said. “Since then, I’ve had some second thoughts about the picture.”
Second thoughts. The phrase echoed and Jan stiffened in response. He’s going to shut down. Roy was right.
And Roy was speaking now. “You’re not the only one. I was just telling Paul the same thing. We’re in trouble.”
