Sex and Death: The Movie: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 6)

by J. J. Henderson

  “She’s good. Fine and dandy. As for me? I used to have a career. Now I wipe butt,” she said. Paul laughed, a little uneasily. Grace looked grimly amused.

  “That’s the deal I hear,” Lucy said. “For a while anyways.”

  “Yeah. And then they turn into ingrate psychos,” Carole weighed in. “I’m like so not going to have kids. Everybody I know who’s a mom just complains all the time about…”

  “Hey, I have three and I like it,” said Paul. “Like them, even if they…”

  “You’re not the mom, hubbie,” said Grace. “You’re the dad—and the movie director.”

  “Yes, well, good thing so we can afford those high-priced multi-lingual baby sitters.”

  “Hey, hey,” Chris said, “This kid chat is all very nice but we’re here to talk about my—excuse me—our movie. So you think the script can be sorted out?”

  “Quiet on the set! Mr. Young, Rich, and Single speaks,” said Grace.

  Chris managed a smile. “Touche, Mrs. Wittgenstein. And believe me, I can feel your pain,” he said. “I, too, was once a baby, and I remember oh so very clearly how my mother suffered.”

  “Sorted out? Of course,” said Lucy, back on point. “Paul’s story is brilliant, even if that hack you guys hired did make some blunders. One thing I’d get rid of is the LA sister. She’s nothing but a distraction. Also I’m thinking of a way to bring Mr. Florida up here rather than go there to shoot.”

  “But we wanted to…”

  “I know, I know, but that’s bullshit, Paul. This movie is about New York and you don’t need to waste money frolicking in South Beach. I’ve already got it sorted out, so put your suntan lotion away, boys.” She stopped, a waiter approached. “I’ll take a frozen margarita in a martini glass, no salt. You guys eating? Can I have some soft corn tortillas and guacamole, please? With a side of salsa fresca, muy caliente if you have it. Thanks. I’m wondering about some of the things we talked about today, Paulie. The stuff with…”

  “Manny? I know, I know.” Lucy glanced at Carole. She seemed to be awfully chummy with Chris Wadsworth. Paul had more than suggested she was sleeping with the old actor Manny. So what was up?

  “But I want to do Florida, Lucy,” Chris said. “I love South Beach.”

  “Me too,” said Carole. “It’s getting cold here, and I just got two new bikinis.”

  “Woo woo,” said Grace.

  “What are you guys talking about, this Manny business?” Chris said.

  “Whatever it is it can wait,” said Grace. “Here’s the Manster now, and he’s got his posse along.”

  “We’ll talk later, Luce,” Paul murmured, as the three approached. Manfredo Carapini was well north of sixty if not seventy, but he stood straight up, slim and snappy-cool in a tailored suit and a neatly creased fedora. As they approached he removed the hat, revealing a sleek, full head of silvery hair combed straight back. His face looked hawk-sharp, smart, no nonsense. Lucy watched him taking the scene in, not missing a thing as he sized her up and noted Carole’s proximity to Wadsworth. Manny’s wife, the Broadway diva Marie-Claire Saint-Just, “as French as my uncle Seymour,” as Paul had it, held Manny’s arm and waltzed alongside, stepping lightly upon her own red carpet. She wore an electric blue boa casually tossed over her shoulder, a short red skirt, a shiny silver shirt, long, dark red hair, and too much make-up layered atop what was once, clearly, a strikingly beautiful face. She had been a major and then minor Broadway star for nearly thirty years, and still thought she could play the ingénue, according to Paul. Behind her came Jack Mackris, another aging Broadway thespian, thicker through the middle than Manny but in his tailored suit—these guys came from a time when you dressed to go out—also elegant and graceful. He played the older brother, or cousin, or friend, or whatever he turned out to be when the dust settled on the final draft of the screenplay Lucy had just spent the first six of what would be many, many hours, dissecting and rearranging.

  Meanwhile, this moment in the Café Sayulita felt like a tipping point, one of those confluences that might move the narrative forward with a lurch rather than a glide, as positions were staked out and revealed. This wasn’t the movie, this was real life that fed the movie, yet already Lucy sensed the possibilities. What next, on screen or off?

  Introductions, rising, sorting out, seating. Lucy ended up between Manny and Jack, the two old gents.

  “Lucy Ripken,” Jack mulled. “I know your name from somewhere, but…”

  “Oh, she was…she did that reality thing last year,” said Marie-Claire, flourishing her boa. At all times she sounded, and moved, as if on stage. “What did you call it? X Babes, or…”

  “X Dames,” Christopher said. “Lucy was one of the stars of her very own reality television movie. It was kind of a murder mystery, and very cool, I thought.”

  “I didn’t see it,” said Manny. “I’m too busy. But I’m sure…”

  “It was quite the thing, for a moment, there, Miss Ripken,” said Marie-Claire. “But in reality television, I gather, those—moments of fame—can be fabulous but fleeting. Is this not true?”

  “Mine was definitely fleeting,” Lucy said. “And not at all fabulous. That’s why I’m here instead of on the beach in Malibu, know what I mean?”

  “I certainly do,” the grand dame answered tragically. “I have spent—perhaps wasted—much of my life in pursuit of fleet-footed fame.” She then turned her attention to Carole. “I understand you’re playing Manfredo’s daughter in this—little—bit of business of Paul’s.”

  Carole looked at her. “That’s right, lady. Marie-Claire. Except that now I hear maybe she’s not Manny’s…”

  “Hey, Jack,” Lucy interrupted, catching a slightly desperate glance from Paul. “I was telling Paul I remembered you had a part in a TV series from the 1980s but I couldn’t recall what it was.”

  “It was called Definitely Maybe,” Jack said. “I played the uncle who is definitely maybe gay but nobody ever comes right out and says.”

  “That’s it!” Lucy said.

  “Half a season,” Jack said. “Eleven, twelve shows? But with re-runs and syndication it supported my off-Broadway career for years.”

  “I recently read a piece that explored early closeted gay tv themes,” Christopher said. “You were mentioned as one of the real pioneers.”

  “Jack Mackris, the world’s first prime time homo,” Manny said, smirking. “Jackie, you changed the course of history.”

  “Oh, Manfredo, you are so tiresome,” Marie-Claire said. “Talking like that.” Manny shot a glare at his wife. She didn’t deign to notice. “Forgive him, at heart he’s just a meatball from Brooklyn, and sometimes he simply can’t help himself. Especially since he ‘joined the mob’,” she mimed quotation marks around the words, “on TV that is.” She smiled at Manny fondly, then looked at her watch. “Meanwhile nice meeting you all but if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to run. I promised my friend Jessica I’d see her show tonight. It’s barely opened and now its closing in under a week, poor dear.”

  “Manny, if you hadn’t fallen into your cable thug thing and then this movie, you’d still be riding on MC’s shoulders,” he said. “So don’t go talking down at my work, old man.” He turned to Lucy. “The guy made a thousand bucks a year for twenty-five years while Marie-Claire toiled in the trenches of Broadway, keeping him in fancy suits and custom shoes. Then he gets lucky and lands in Palermo, New Jersey, and now he knows everything. Mister Cable TV.”

  Manny mock-glowered at him.

  “Guys, save the rage for the fight scene,” Paul said. “We’re going to shoot it soon.”

  “I’ve really got to run,” Marie-Claire said, standing. “Nice meeting you all. Home by midnight, Manfredo. Don’t keep me up.” She gave him a look, and Lucy decided he would surely be on time.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lucy said, standing. No one else did. The lady took Lucy’s hand, looked into her eyes, briefly allowed Lucy to see the real soul behind the mask; and then she float
ed away, leaving a moment of silence, and a lingering, powerful aroma de drama in her wake.

  “Well,” said Grace after a moment. “Your wife’s quite the lady, Manny.”

  He looked at her deadpan. “That she is. I’ll take one of those,” he said to the waiter, pointing at Lucy’s margarita; then he faced Lucy. “So a few minutes ago you interrupted Carole when she was about to talk about some script changes,” he said. “Did you and Paul talk about…”

  “Manny, slow down,” Paul said. “We’re still working on it. Lucy?”

  “The first thing I already did was come up with a scheme to get rid of the Florida stuff and the LA sister,” she said. “As for your—relationship with Carole—Delia, that is—I’m still not sure where you guys want to go with this.”

  Manny gave Paul a narrow-eyed, hard-guy look, one he’d perfected on his gangster show. “I thought we already agreed that it was going to turn out that she’s not my daughter, and that the two guys are…”

  “Right,” Paul cut in. “She’s not Conrad’s daughter, she’s Morris’s. But we’re still not sure if we want to have them not be brothers and…”

  “Look,” Lucy said. “Manny, I can appreciate your—interest in having these changes made, but…”

  “Whoa, whoa,” said Christopher. “How is it you guys have decided to like totally change the script without even telling me about it?”

  “It’s not a major deal, Chris,” said Paul. “It’s just that…” he hesitated.

  “God, I wish I could smoke in here,” said Carole. “This new smoking law sucks.”

  “Let’s go have one,” said Chris. “I like the occasional hit of nicotine myself.” He stood. So did Carole. “Back in a minute, guys. That’ll give you time to get your story straight,” Chris added with a laugh as he and Carole headed to the door.

  “Listen to me, Wittgenstein,” Manny said, eyes shifting from Paul to Carole’s swaying rear end and then back to Paul. “You agreed with me that we would change the story. You know I’m—not interested in finishing this movie unless you make that part of it more like what we talked about.”

  Facing the implied threat, Paul took a deep breath. “OK, look, Manfredo. I…Lucy and I talked and we’ve agreed to let you and Jack here be friends not brothers. We’ve agreed to let your character and Carole’s character discover that they are not father and daughter. I am able still at this point to realize my own vision of this movie while accommodating these changes but I need to know something before we go any further: so you tell me and Lucy here, since she’s going to be rewriting the god damned thing, and since your wife is not here and Carole is outside smoking with our producer, who runs the bank, just what it is you want this story to do.”

  Paul and Manfredo gave each other the long, cold stare. The eye contact broke as Chris and Carole opened the door and came in. “Hey, I don’t know,” Manny said with a sharky grin at Lucy. “You’re the writer. You figure it out. Make me happy.”

  “Manny, you’re a pissant,” Grace said softly as Carole and Chris sat down together, side by side, across the table from Manny. The tension cranked up a notch, Manny glowering at Chris, Carole smiling sweetly at Manny.

  “Now all we need is the dude playing the Italian restaurateur,” Lucy murmured to Paul. He rolled his eyes.

  “What’s that?” Manny snapped at her. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, Manfredo,” Lucy said. “Not a thing.” She took a belt of her drink. “So, to loosely quote one of my favorite screenplays, daughter, sister, daughter, sister, whack, whack, whack.”

  “What?” said Chris.

  “She’s talking Chinatown,” Paul said. “You know, the scene where Jake Gittes confronts what’s her name, the Faye Dunaway character, and slaps the truth out of her, and as it turns out the strange little girl is both her daughter and her sister. Jake—and the audience—are shocked, as intended, by this revelation of just how evil the John Huston character really is.”

  “Excuse me,” said Chris, “But what exactly does this have to do with our movie, Paul?”

  “Luce?” Paul said.

  She kept her eyes on Manfredo. “Manny wants to change the script so that his character, Conrad, is not Morris’s brother but just a friend, or a second cousin, or something along those lines, so that at a certain point—we’re not sure when yet, or how it’s going to work—his relationship with Delia, whom he thought was his daughter but as it turns out isn’t—in any case, Manny thinks this part of the story should take a, well, a romantic turn of some sort. So I’m thinking, just joking here, you know, daughter, girlfriend, daughter, girlfriend, daughter, whatever.” Manny gave her the evil eye. “Hey, I’m just trying to figure out where to go with this, know what I mean?”

  “A romantic turn? What, he’s going to have an affair with his own daughter?” Chris said.

  “But she’s not his daughter, and if he’s not Morris’s brother then—“

  “Why not?” said Paul.

  “Yuck. Because it’s creepy and I don’t want to do it,” said Carole. Then she smiled. “I like having you for my daddy, Manny.” She giggled. “Can’t we just keep it like that?”

  Manny gave Carole the same nasty look he’d given Lucy. Carole met his stare defiantly. This was a girl keeping all her options open, Lucy thought.

  “God damn, you guys sure know how to get your knickers in a twist,” said Grace. “I read the synopsis for this script before Paul handed it to that clown Waxman, and all this crap you’re talking about wasn’t even in there.” This stopped everyone for a few seconds.

  “We’re not done yet with this rewrite business,” Manny said, abruptly standing. He looked at his watch, and then at Carole. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

  Not moving, she looked up at him, and sipped her cocktail. Then she said, “I don’t think so, Manny. Not tonight.”

  He gave her a single, venomous glance, then tuned her out as he put on his hat. He said, “Jack, you coming?” then moved towards the door.

  Mackris jumped up. “Great to see you all,” he said. “I gotta head out.”

  “We’ll talk in the morning, Jack,” said Paul. “We’ll get this sorted out.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jack said. “See you Lucy. Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Lucy said, half-rising, then sitting. They watched the two old men leave.

  Carole leaned on Chris, intent on ignoring what just happened, or, more likely, Lucy decided, enjoying the afterglow. “So are you guys going to the club tonight?” Carole said.

  Something came over them—-over Paul, Grace, Chris, and Carole collectively—that Lucy didn’t quite get. “Hey, what club is that?” she said.

  They all smiled a little uneasily.

  “Manny’s going to make some serious trouble if we don’t do what he wants, Carole,” Paul said. “You do realize that.”

  “Hey, do what you have to, Paul,” she said. “I can handle that geezer with both eyes closed.” She laughed nastily. “At this point that’s about the only way I can stand handling him.”

  This was getting weird. “So what club are you guys talking about?” Lucy asked.

  After a pause of a few seconds during which many loaded glances were exchanged, Grace said, “Hey Luce, have you ever been to Bloodfire, or the Black Castle, or—“

  No, not once, in all her years in decadent New York. She’d heard, she’d read, she’d been told, she’d even been invited. But she’d never been. “Those S and M joints? Nah, not my cuppa tea.” Then it dawned on her. Angel had told her about it. Paul had been itching to clue her in. She looked at Paul and Grace. “You guys are into that stuff?”

  “Hey, BDSM can be fun, Lucy,” said Grace. “And it sure beats the hell out of boring old missionary-style monogamy.”

  Paul looked embarrassed. “Little did I know, marrying America’s sweetheart, that I was going to be plunged into the abyss of bondage, domination, and sado-masochism.”

  “That’s where we met,” said Chris. “
I had seen Paul’s book, of course, but it wasn’t until I went to Paddles that we actually got it together.”

  “Paddles?” Lucy smirked. “I’m assuming this is not a ping pong joint.”

  “It’s just good dirty fun,” said Paul.

  She looked at them, faintly disbelieving. They were talking about it like it was a Sunday picnic. Lucy couldn’t help but picture them all in greasy black leather, whips and ropes and chains, studs and strap-ons, masks, boots—the paraphernalia of…of what, exactly? “But…but what do you do?” she asked.

  “Come tonight,” Paul said. “See for yourself. If you don’t like it you leave, OK?”

  “Damn, Paulie, you and Grace? You are full of surprises!”

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, girlie,” said Grace, standing. She could barely contain her glee. She put on her best bad-girl sneer. “Let’s get this party started.”

  “I’ll take a rain check,” Lucy said quickly. “I’ve got something else to do. Hey, give me the address, maybe I’ll see you later.”

  Paul scrawled a note and handed it to her. “I wouldn’t give you this if I didn’t think it was good, if not exactly clean, fun, Lucy.”

  “Yeah right,” she said, checking the address. “Big time hijinks out there in the abject depths of Brooklyn.” She shoved the note in her bag and checked her watch. “A perfect location I would say. Well, gotta run. I’ll talk to you in the a.m., Paul. We’ve got to move on this if you want to keep shooting, right?”

  “Yeah. But maybe we’ll see you later?” He gave her a sort of pleadingly seductive look. “Lucy, it is good, harmless fun. I swear to God and all his cousins.”

  Damn, he really wanted to draw her into whatever it was. “Maybe, maybe. But don’t wait up for me. Bye all.”

  She gave a wave and dashed out, having suddenly decided that what she really needed to do was follow Manfredo Carapini, seeking motivation. From what she’d read and seen this BDSM bullshit wasn’t part of the movie.