Stardust

by Robert B. Parker

  “And you know what cancellation is like, Milo. You have the top television star on the planet and you haven’t broken the top ten yet, you know why? Script is why. Jill’s been raising hell about them and she’s right. I want something better, and I want to start seeing it tomorrow.”

  “How come your scarf’s so long?” I said. Susan put her hand on my arm.

  Riggs turned and looked at me. “What?” he said.

  “Your scarf,” I said, “is dangerously long. You might step on it and strangle yourself.”

  Susan dug her fingers into my arm.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Riggs said.

  “Your scarf. I may have to make a citizen’s arrest here, your scarf is a safety hazard.”

  Riggs looked at Nogarian and Salzman. “Who the fuck is this guy, Milo?”

  Nogarian looked as if he’d eaten something awful. Salzman seemed to be struggling with laughter. Susan’s grip on my arm was so hard now that if I weren’t tougher than six roofing nails it might have hurt.

  “Looks dandy though,” I said.

  Whoever Riggs was he was used to getting more respect than I was giving him, and he couldn’t quite figure out what to do about me.

  “If you want to work around here, buddy,” he said, “you better watch your step.” Then he glared at all of us and turned and walked away. In a moment he was on the ascending escalator, and soon he had risen from sight.

  Nogarian said, “Jesus Christ.”

  Salzman let out the laughter he’d been suppressing. “Wonderful,” he said as he laughed, “a citizen’s arrest. You gotta love it.”

  “Who is he, anyway?” I said.

  “Senior VeePee,” Salzman said, “Creative Affairs, One Hour, Zenith Meridien Television.”

  “Why’d you lean on him?” Nogarian said.

  “He seemed something of a dork,” I said.

  Salzman laughed again. “You start leaning on every dork in the television business, you’re going to be a busy man.”

  “So many dorks,” I said, “so little time.”

  “It’s not going to help us with the studio,” Nogarian said.

  “Milo, it was worth it,” Salzman said, “watching Marty try to figure out who Spenser was so he could figure out if he should take shit from him or fire him.” Salzman snorted with laughter. “You ready for some lunch?”

  “Since breakfast,” I said.

  “Come on,” Salzman said, and we followed him up the escalator. The subway station was empty of film crew. The equipment was gone, the cables had been stowed. It was as if they’d never been there.

  As we went up the escalator Susan put her arm through mine. “I know why you needled Marty Riggs,” she said.

  “Sworn duty,” I said, “as a member of the dork patrol.”

  “You needled him because he ignored me.”

  “That’s one of the defining characteristics of a dork.”

  “Probably,” Susan said.

  We rode the rest of the way to the top, where the light, filtered through the glass, looked warmer than it was, and went out into the cold behind Salzman and Nogarian.

  2

  “I’VE got to have lunch with some people from the film commission,” Nogarian said. “Sandy can fill you in on our situation.” We shook hands and he headed down Winter Street toward Locke-Ober’s.

  “We’re feeding in the basement over here near Tremont Temple,” Salzman said. “I’ve asked Jill to join us.”

  We went across Tremont Street and in through a glass door into a corridor and down some stairs. At the bottom was a large basement room that looked as if it might be a recreational space for a boys’ club or a church group. There was a serving counter set up along one side, and tables with folding chairs filled the room. The crew was spread out, down parkas hanging from chair backs, down vests tossed on the floor, hunched over trays eating. There was roast turkey with gravy, baked ham with pineapple, cold cuts, cheese, two kinds of tossed salad, succotash, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, and baked haddock with a cheese sauce. I noticed that the official crew meal was some of everything. Salzman had some ham and some haddock and a large helping of mashed potatoes. I was watching Susan. Her normal lunch was something like a lettuce leaf, dressing on the side. She carefully walked the length of the serving table and studied her options. I waited for her. When she was through she came back and picked up a tray.

  “What do you think,” I said.

  “Eek,” she said. She put plastic utensils on her tray and had a large serving of tossed salad with no dressing on a paper plate. I had some turkey.

  Salzman had saved us a table in the corner, with space reserved for Jill Joyce when she arrived. Most of the tables seated twelve. This was the only small one.

  “So what do you know about the deal here,” Salzman said when we were seated.

  “I know Susan’s working for you as a technical adviser on this show, which is about a woman shrink and her husband who’s a cop.”

  “Right,” Salzman said. “You seen the show?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Premise is ridiculous,” Susan said.

  “Right,” I said. “How could a sophisticated psychotherapist fall for the kind of semi-thug that gets to be a cop?”

  “Semi?” Susan said.

  Salzman said, “Yeah, anyway. We got Jill Joyce to star. I assume I don’t need to tell you about Jill Joyce.”

  “I know about the screen persona,” I said. “Beautiful, wholesome, just kookie enough for a little wrinkled-nose fun?”

  “Yeah,” Salzman said. “She’s a little different, in fact.”

  “Un huh.”

  “Anyway, she’s been getting a series of harassing phone calls and things happening to her lately, and it’s making her nervous. When Jill’s nervous . . .” Salzman shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and shook his head slightly.

  “What do you mean, sort of harassing?” I said.

  “Hard to say exactly what it is. Jill’s not too clear on it. She’s clear that it’s bothering her.”

  “And the things happening to her?” I said.

  Salzman shrugged. “Things.” He turned a palm up. “That’s what Jill says, things.”

  “Anybody else heard these calls or seen these things?”

  Salzman shook his head. I looked at Susan. She shrugged.

  “So Jill’s, ah, demanding some action,” Salzman said. “And Susan mentioned that she had a friend and one thing and another so I suggested you come over and have lunch and meet Jill. See if maybe you can help us out.”

  “Would I be working for you?” I said.

  “Not technically.”

  “Who would I be working for technically?” I said.

  “Michael J. Maschio,” Sandy said.

  “Who is?”

  “President of Zenith Meridien Television, a subsidiary of Zenith Meridien Film Corporation.”

  “Not Riggs,” I said.

  “Hell, no, when Mike Maschio says ‘green,’ Marty Riggs says, ‘and a deep dark green it is, sir.’”

  Salzman ate some haddock.

  “But actually,” he said, “you’d be working for me.”

  He looked up and got to his feet.

  “Here’s Jill,” he said.

  I got to my feet. Jill Joyce, her black mink coat open, was swiveling through the dining room with Ray Morrissey a few feet back of her. Morrissey didn’t look very happy. He looked at me and I shot him with my forefinger. He nodded once and when Jill reached us, peeled off without a word and headed for the chow line. Salzman was holding Jill’s chair. She swivel-hipped around the table and sat in it and looked appraisingly at me from under her eyelids, slowly raising her head. Susan smiled and was quiet.

/>   “Jill, you know Susan Silverman, our consultant. This is her friend that I mentioned to you, Mr. Spenser.”

  “Do you have a first name, Mr. Spenser?” Jill said. She had a soft girlish voice with just a hint of huskiness at the edges. I told her my first name.

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t,” I said. “I’ve been worried about it all month.”

  A small frown line deepened momentarily between her eyebrows and went away.

  “I’ll just make up a name for you,” she said.

  Susan’s inward smile was widening. She said softly, “Boy, oh boy.”

  Jill stared at her coldly, and then turned back to me.

  “What shall I call you,” she said.

  “Cuddles,” I said. “Most of my closest friends call me that.”

  “Cuddles?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You seem to have awfully big shoulders for Cuddles.”

  Everything Jill Joyce said was said in a sort of half-childish lilt that implied sexual desire the way an alto sax implies jazz.

  “Well,” I said, “we’ll think of something, I’m sure.”

  “Sandy says you’re a dick,” Jill Joyce said.

  “Un hmm,” I said with a straight face. Susan looked down at her salad.

  “Are you going to help me, Dick?” she said. When she said help she leaned a little forward and let a hand flutter near her mouth. Tremulous.

  “Sure,” I said. “Tell me a little about what you need help with.”

  A dark-haired guy wearing a T-shirt and an apron came over with a tray. The T-shirt said First Run Catering on it. The tray carried a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket and a wineglass. The dark-haired guy put the tray down, opened the wine bottle, poured half a glass, waited while Jill sipped it. She nodded and he picked up the tray and departed.

  Salzman said, “Jill, let me fix you a plate.”

  Jill smiled rather vaguely and nodded. Salzman got up and headed for the serving line. Her eyes never left me. From the corner of my eye I saw Susan pick up a leaf of red-tipped lettuce, inspect it carefully, and take a neat little bite from one edge of it. Jill finished the half glass of wine and looked at me.

  “May I pour you some?” I said.

  “Oh, Dickie,” she said, “how sweet.”

  I poured the white wine into her glass, waiting for her to say when or gesture with the rim that the glass was full enough. She did neither until I stopped because it was full. She drank about a third of it.

  “So, Dickie,” she said, “you’re friends with, ah, this girl?” She made a sort of groping gesture with her left hand and finally nodded her head toward Susan.

  “I’m friends with that girl,” I said.

  “Good friends?”

  “Good friends.”

  “Sleep with her?”

  “None of your business.”

  Susan was still nibbling on her greens, but she looked less amused. I knew how much she enjoyed being referred to in the third person. Almost as much as she liked being called a girl. I paused, giving her a moment to kneecap Jill Joyce. Nothing happened.

  “Ohh, Dickie,” Jill said with her lilt getting more pronounced. “No need to be snarky about it. A girl needs to know things.”

  “So does a dick,” I said. “Tell me about these harassments you’ve been suffering.”

  Salzman came back with a dinner plate on which, carefully arranged, were small portions of nearly everything on the serving line. He put it down in front of Jill and slipped into his seat. Jill looked at the plate with distaste and drank more wine.

  “I don’t wish to discuss it in front of her,” Jill said.

  Susan looked at her quietly for a long moment.

  “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” I said softly.

  Then Susan smiled beatifically and said, “Of course.”

  “Of course?” I said.

  “Please, Dick,” Susan said.

  She picked up her tray and moved over to another table and sat down with a couple of people at the end of a long table across the room.

  “A girl has a right to privacy,” Jill said, her eyes cast down on her untouched plate, her hand fluttering again near her mouth. I looked across the room at Susan. The force of her look was palpable. Don’t make trouble, the look said. I took in a large amount of air and let it out slowly through my nose.

  “So tell me,” I said.

  She looked at her empty wineglass. Salzman reached over and filled it.

  “We got four and a half pages to shoot this afternoon, Jilly,” he said.

  “Fuck you,” Jill Joyce said without looking at him. The lilt left her voice for a moment, when she said it.

  Salzman nodded as if she had said something interesting. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms quietly. He didn’t seem upset. Jill drank some of her wine.

  “I think it’s one of those creepy crazed fans,” she said and smiled at me. When she smiled there was a deep dimple in each cheek. She was something to look at.

  “Un huh,” I said and waited. I thought of steepling my hands before me and placing them gently against my lips when I said it, but decided to hold it in reserve. So far un huh seemed enough.

  “Well,” Jill said, “do you?”

  “It’s a little hard to decide yet,” I said.

  “But it could be,” Jill said.

  “Un huh.”

  “I mean, you know about these people, like the one that killed John Lennon, people like that, crazy people.”

  “Um,” I said.

  “I need prodection,” she said.

  “How clever,” I said, “combining the words like that.”

  “Huh?”

  “You need protection during production so you put the two together and formed a neologism.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Dickie-do, but I sure love to listen,” she said. She didn’t wait for anyone to fill her glass now; she poured the rest of the bottle out and looked around.

  “Hey,” she yelled toward the serving line. “I need some wine, for Christ’s sake.”

  The same dark-haired guy in the T-shirt came over with another bottle, already opened. He put it down beside her and walked back to the line. Most of the crew had started to leave the dining room. Susan had eaten enough of her lettuce. She stopped by at my table for a minute.

  “I’ll be in the wardrobe trailer . . . Dick.”

  I nodded. Susan moved off and out of the room. Sandy Salzman was gazing at the ceiling, his arms still folded across his chest.

  “So you gonna protect me, Dickie-do? Or what?”

  “Soon as I find out from what,” I said, “I’m going to protect the ass off you.”

  Jill Joyce giggled.

  “I’m sick of it here,” she said. “Come on back to my mobile home and I’ll dishcuss it with you in more detail.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Sandy, you go shoot some fucking film, or something. This will be just me and Dickie-bird.” She giggled again. “Are you a dickie-bird?” she said.

  Salzman smiled as if Jill had suggested a new approach to lighting.

  “Sure, Jilly,” Salzman said. “Maybe a little nap before the afternoon is gone. The four and a half pages await.”

  “Four and a half pages of shit,” Jill said. “C’mon, Dickie-bird, we’ll fly over to my mobile home.”

  She picked up the second wine bottle and her glass and waggled on out of the dining room ahead of me. I looked at Salzman. He shrugged.

  “No reasoning with her when she’s drunk,” Salzman said.

  “Or when she’s not,” I said.

  3

  THE mobi
le home was parked on the Common behind the Park Street subway kiosk. It was big enough for Jill Joyce, or four hundred boat people. I wasn’t sure it was big enough for Jill Joyce and me.

  “Sit down, Dickie,” she said.

  She put her bottle of wine on the table in the breakfast nook and slid her black mink off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She slid in on one of the bench seats and let her long legs sprawl. The tight red dress was forced to hike up over her thighs.

  “Want a little wine?” she said.

  “Makes me sleepy,” I said. “I drink at lunch and I’m no good the rest of the day.”

  “Wouldn’t want that,” Jill said.

  She giggled and poured wine into a glass.

  “You know what I’ve been looking for since I came to Boston?” she said.

  “Two tickets to Symphony,” I said.

  She made a measuring gesture, holding her hands about two feet apart.

  “About that long,” she said. “I been looking for something about like that.”

  I studied her measure.

  “Looks to be about two feet,” I said.

  She held her gesture, staring at me with her head canted back. Her eyes were narrowed. She jiggled her hands as if weighing the two-foot length.

  I grinned and nodded. “You’re in luck,” I said.

  Her eyes got narrower and something that looked only a little like a smile moved on her lips.

  “You?” she said.

  I shrugged becomingly.

  “Unless I’m excited,” I said.

  The tip of her tongue appeared at the center of her mouth and moistened her lower lip.

  “Are you excited now?” she said. The huskiness in her little-girl voice had shaded into hoarseness. Her eyes had narrowed until they were barely slitted. Her body had gotten more lax as she talked and her thighs had slid forward on the banquette seat until her skirt was merely ornamental. Her breath was short now, and audible. Her body seemed entirely inert, almost boneless, and yet the tension in her was manifest; physical slackness over tight-coiled emotion.

  “No,” I said.

  There was silence. Jill Joyce stared at me through her barely open eyes.