by Susan Braudy
After a silence Barry said, “Okay, okay, you’re right, how’s my girl?”
“Frazzled.” Suddenly I felt guilty. I had a movie star in my goddamn bed. I had never let Barry sleep on my side.
“You knock heads together in Israel?”
“Yup. How are you?”
“Lonely, but—”
“But?”
“I’ll live the rest of my life for my work,” he said majestically, “and I will die happy and alone.”
“You’re too mean to die,” I said tartly. I had to get off the phone.
“Let me come over and make up with my girl tonight.”
“No, Michael’s in town.” I took a deep breath. “Barry, it doesn’t work with me as your girl.”
“Never wrong except with you,” he sighed. “Okay, I’ll work alone all night. I’m close to a model for the brain,” he whispered conspiratorially. “But my lab assistant has pneumonia.”
“That’s awful. What kind?” I covered the receiver.
“Rosemary, call the receptionist and find out when Michael’s leaving.”
“It doesn’t matter, pneumonia’s the body’s way of saying it’s giving up. Hello, what are you up to?” Barry asked angrily.
“Checking on my next meeting.”
“How are your personnel problems?” His voice had an edge. “Did you have a fond reunion with your teenage crush?”
“Stop baiting me,” I snapped, feeling like a cheat.
“It’s because I hate to lose you,” he said in his most formal voice.
“You’ll never lose me as a friend.”
“What about tonight?”
Rosemary handed me a scribbled note: “Ten more minutes in the screening room.”
I stood up, reaching for my shoulder bag, overwhelmed by guilt. “Barry, not tonight, I just can’t for a while.” I waited for the onslaught of anger.
“Very well, my dear,” he said gently. “I’ll live with your conflicts.”
“Thanks.” I felt like a complete louse. I stared at the phone. It was ironic. Barry talked like he was available for a real relationship, but he couldn’t sit through dinner with me without blowing up. Jack sure wasn’t available, but we were talking and talking together.
My private line flickered. I hesitated and then grabbed it. It was Sam avoiding the office switchboard and Rosemary.
“Congratulations on the half million,” I said, hoping he’d let some valuable information slip.
“Call it my Guggenheim.” He sounded guilty as hell. “Nothing better than free money.”
“You holding out for the full amount?”
“Yup. I’m buying a word processor and taking a house in Montego Bay to write my script. I can’t let them kick me around, then they’ll know I’m shit.” He laughed unhappily.
“Sam,” I said, “you been busy while I was in Israel.”
Something crashed in Rosemary’s office and she bounded to the doorway. “Let me talk to him, come on, I been calling him for two days.” She held out her hand for the phone.
I mouthed, “Wait.”
“Why’d you do it?” I demanded.
“You know how I am, I had a glass of wine, and it was fun, she had fun, ask her.” He spoke rapidly. “She’s feisty, the only girl in her family, horsing around with three older brothers.” He lowered his voice. “What a story. I think you were asking for trouble; you really think she’ll leave that street stuff behind?”
“My office is none of your business.”
Rosemary’s eyes filled with tears.
“We’re good friends,” he interrupted, his voice high with hurt. “You been a friend to me, better now than when we were going together. Boy, were you rigid.”
I opened my mouth and closed it, fuming silently. He went right on. “You took a big risk hiring Rosemary, and that’s what I like about you, you go out on a limb for people. You should be a mother, cara mia.”
“Don’t give me that Italian line.”
“Well, don’t bully me, then.”
Rosemary lowered her head.
“Sam, what do you want from me?”
“Jack Hanscomb. I got a great role here, and knowing you, I bet you know exactly how to lay your hands on him.”
I swallowed. “Certainly, he’s in Israel.”
“Then I’m flying to Israel.”
“Why?”
“I’m writing about a reformed gangster and nobody’s going to finance it without a big star like him.”
“I can’t help you. I don’t want to help you,” I said, glancing at Rosemary. She looked desperate.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning. But he’s still there, right? I been hearing strange stories.”
“Don’t go near that set.” Anita would go nuts if Sam appeared on her territory.
“I can’t make my movie without Jack Hanscomb. Come on, I’d do it for you. Put in the good word and you get first refusal on the whole project. Tell him he better get serious and collect an Oscar. Tell him he’ll play a confused man of virtue; those Hollywood sleazes love that kind of role.”
“Spell it out in a letter.”
“You don’t trust me,” he yelped.
“Why should I?” I was watching Rosemary’s strained face. Her switchboard was flashing like a bomb. I covered the phone. “Why don’t you go back to your desk?”
She didn’t budge.
“Think it over. I’ll call from the airport, cara, to see if you change your mind.”
“If you go near her set, don’t bother to call ever again,” I said. “Rosemary wants to talk to you.” I thrust the phone at her outstretched hands.
“Ladies’ room,” I said, running by her, “but only if somebody asks.”
I had a big new headache. Sam going on Anita’s set was like Ike flying to Berlin to recruit Hitler’s favorite aide.
I took the elevator down three floors and ran into the dark projection booth. Eddie was loading a heavy tin suitcase with film reels. The sound track was distant and muffled. He pinched my elbow. “Shush,” he said, as he opened the little window in the screening room. I peered over his shoulder at the long beam of light filled with whirling dust and cigarette smoke resolving into a picture of me and Anita arguing in the farmhouse kitchen in Israel.
I cursed aloud. There was Michael in the front row of my screening room watching a documentary of me betraying his orders. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What a genius I was at covering my tracks! Then the reel changed to dailies of a young black-eyed Jesus in front of the sacred scrolls.
Eddie closed the window on Michael. “Good rushes, Carol.”
“You can’t tell a thing from rushes.”
He laughed. That was a cliché.
“You can hope,” he said in his Brooklyn accent. He watched movies endlessly and blissfully, and he loved his job especially because he didn’t have to dress for it.
“Don’t tell him I’m here,” I told Eddie. I watched Michael pick up a phone by the reclining chair. Never comfortable unless he was connecting to somebody powerful. “How long has he been at it?”
“Five hours,” Eddie said. “Now he wants to see the last reel of the documentary of her making the movie.”
“I thought all documentary footage stayed in Israel.”
“Arrived four a.m. by express plane from the lab in Rome.”
I felt a fresh pang of fear. “He’s gathering all the information he can before he makes his move,” I said aloud.
Eddie was picking up his phone. “Yessir, Mr. Finley … Oh, you got maybe another hour and five minutes of this stuff.”
The reel started tight on Anita’s impish face. “Wet down the streets,” she said, grinning at six crew members holding gurgling hoses. It was a night shoot and the wet streets looked surreal. “Move that big hose,” she exulted, turning in a pirouette and winking over her shoulder at the camera. A hose broke and drenched her blouse. She laughed and advanced toward the camera, her eyelids half closed. The camera lurched. “You�
��re doing a good job,” she told the lens. “Zoom closer, come on, you can do it. Usually I hate a camera on me, but you’re good, baby,” she said seductively.
Eddie was mesmerized. The phone blinked again. Eddie picked it up, and I heard Michael. “Turn this shit off. If the operator calls back with Mr. Hanscomb in Israel, have her page me with our lawyers at the Russian Tea Room.” Then he trotted toward the door and a quick light from the hallway shined on his slicked hair. I shuddered. Michael was moving like a tank to destroy my career.
“What’s he really like?” Eddie turned on the light. A studio president is an industry superstar. His whim makes movies.
“He’s a worthy opponent.” I was counting seconds before I could make a run for the elevator without bumping into him.
“Good luck, Carol.” Eddie grinned at me, rewinding a reel on the projector by hand.
I took the service elevator to my floor and ran down the corridor.
Rosemary was nowhere in sight. What a day. Her desk drawers were open. She never left like this. I closed Rosemary’s desk and attacked my stack of incoming memos.
An hour later, her emergency buzzer sounded. “Your uncle from Philadelphia on line two.” Ivy poked her head into my office.
When I picked up the phone, I heard Jack cough.
Ivy looked intently at me. “Family problems?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m cured,” Jack said. He was holding the phone close to his mouth, so that his consonants made tiny explosions.
“Great. We’ll find you a hotel tonight.”
“I’m going out looking now.”
I shook my head. “Please wait for me. And don’t answer my phone.”
“Too late.” He sounded pleased with himself.
“Who called?”
“Your mom, a guy who wouldn’t leave a name, and Barry.”
“Oh, no,” I shrilled. But Barry hadn’t even mentioned calling my house and finding another man there. I struggled to control my panic. We broke up, I reminded myself.
“I feel like taking the big mutt out for a run.” Jack sounded irritable. “Maybe I’ll go apartment hunting. I changed my mind about Italy. Too hot.”
I had to move Jack into a hotel fast.
“Your other line’s ringing in the bedroom,” he said.
“Let it ring.” I flopped down on my back on the couch and pulled the silk pillow over my eyes.
I had to be nice to him. I couldn’t let Michael get to this guy. “You need rest,” I said sweetly.
“Don’t worry about me.” He sounded happier. “I answer your phone and pretend like I’m the answering service.”
“Lucky for me there are a few skills involved in being a movie star.”
He sighed. “Minimal.”
“Come on, cheer up,” I said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you. I’ll come home early.”
He growled melodramatically. “You want to play house?”
“No, but you can play by yourself for an hour if you want. Turn on the videocassette. Watch some old movie, open my dresser drawers, read old love letters.”
“It’s no fun with permission.”
“Okay, I forbid it.”
“I’ll wait around if you’ll promise to have a real date tonight. That was you sleeping on the other side of the bed, wasn’t it? What were you wearing?”
“Not much, hang on,” I told him, and pressed my hold button. Ivy tossed the day’s Variety in my lap. He must be feeling better.
I opened it and dropped the phone. The bright red headline was: “JACK H. AWOL. Studio denies foul play, pic amok.”
The item was short. Starting with a quote from Michael: “ ‘Yes, our star is missing from location in Israel. We got no plans to shut down Prophet. No reason to believe Jack Hanscomb has met with foul play. This isn’t some movie plot.’ ” The last paragraph was one line: “The director couldn’t be reached for comment.”
What a toughie. Michael gave this interview yesterday, and today he was here arming himself for a gigantic shutdown. When would he go public?
I shivered from the top of my head to the small of my back and clicked Jack back on the line. He was chuckling. “I’m out of work for two days and some executive puts me on hold.”
A smile pulled up one corner of Ivy’s full mouth. “That fellow’s no uncle,” she whispered, “he’s more like a kissing cousin.”
She’d recognized Jack’s voice. My heart was hammering. I whispered back, “Mum’s the word.” Then I flinched. Some killer executive. I shouldn’t be admitting I was talking to Jack.
“Mum, honey.” Ivy put her forefinger to her lips and she walked out.
“Hey? Hello?” Jack wasn’t on the line. I heard my living-room doorbell chiming in the background. My heart stopped. Cradling the phone, I dashed back into Rosemary’s deserted office and pulled the insurance forms for the movie from her tidy files. I flipped through the clauses. Jack had to be missing from the set eight full days before Michael could make a claim for damages. I slammed the drawer closed. I had five days left.
“Hey, Carol? Somebody wants to fix your bathroom sink.”
“Do me a favor,” I stammered. “Promise me you won’t leave my place. Don’t answer the door unless it’s a fire. It’s for your protection,” I lied.
“I don’t believe you, Superwoman. Anybody find that passport of mine yet?” He chuckled.
I shivered. “No, and I tell everybody I’ve got three beauty queens on the payroll watching you lose hundreds of dollars at the tacky casino downstairs at the Cairo Hilton.”
“Am I getting laid in Cairo?”
“No, but you’re making bad jokes. You’re fine.”
“I’m never going near the Middle East again.” He sounded defensive.
The reception buzzer vibrated. I had to get out of here. I gave up and put Jack on hold again.
“Where’s Rosemary?” There was a steely edge to Ivy’s voice.
“Gone.”
“Listen, she’s got trouble. Cops.”
I drummed my fingers on the blinking telephone. “Where?”
“On the way over here.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t say.”
I sat in stunned disbelief. Before I hung up I told Jack I had visitors. I told him to nail himself to my apartment.
Ten minutes later Ivy sat behind her huge square desk, her switchboard blinking like a pilot’s console. A policeman in full rich navy strode by her. His partner closed the reception door. I led them back into my office. I pictured Rosemary’s fragile white skin.
The younger one took off his hat and sat on my visitor’s chair. He had short black hair. His knees apart, he took out a note pad. He held his head high, his shoulders squared. He wore a silver ID bracelet, no wedding band. But I pictured his wife, slim, smiling, cooking in her blue jeans, wiping kids’ chins. I envied her. I wished Rosemary had washed her hair last night.
His eyes flickered at my photograph of Jimmy Dean in front of the Indiana barns. “What’s that from?”
“Before your time. Rebel Without a Cause.”
The policeman began spinning his hat lightly on his fingertip. “We got a civil case, probably not criminal but touchy. You employed Rosemary Lund for the past thirteen months, is that correct?”
“Is she okay?” I blurted.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Doorman at 121 Duane Street, in Tribeca, admitted her inside an apartment at five after two this afternoon.”
That was Sam’s building. I was wringing my hands like Rosemary had earlier. The policeman read from his note pad. “Tenant claims she tore up film reels, slashed a projection screen, and smashed a video camera. He plans to press charges.”
I sat on my hands. Rosemary had gone off the deep end. “She’s not hurt?”
“Well, she’s not in custody. A description that fits did come in last night from Times Square. She was loitering.” He glanced at my finge
rs jammed under my thighs. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but are you aware of a juvenile drug violation before she came to work here?”
“I am.” I folded my hands on my knees. That bastard Sam.
“You see her today?”
I checked my watch. “An hour and a half ago.” I said smoothly, “I sent her to the Forty-second Street Library for some religious pamphlets. She called me twenty minutes ago with a couple index questions. Maybe the doorman was wrong.” I had seen a hundred movies where people established alibis for their pals.
The young cop checked his notebook. Without looking up at me, he said, “You’re aware that Rosemary Lund had a serious drug problem at one time and was questioned for loitering at a bar?”
“That’s a figment of that director’s imagination.”
The cops just looked at each other.
“I know that girl since she went to school in Minnesota.” I couldn’t believe how well I lied. Of course, it’s one of my main job skills. “How long has Mr. Falco known her?”
The cop flipped through a few pages of his notes. “Not long. How’d you know about him and her?”
“What, that they had a liaison?”
“How’d you know, ma’am?” he repeated patiently.
“They both told me,” I said shortly. “He must be very insecure if he figures one night in his bed and a girl wants to wreck his apartment.”
“We dusted for fingerprints.”
“That’s irrelevant,” I said. “She was there with him three nights ago, dancing and watching movies.”
The young cop squared his shoulders more. He was pale; his kids probably got sunburned sitting in their strollers. “But the doorman remembers a big red-headed girl today.”
“He loves big redheads. He dates four,” I improvised.
My phones blinked, all of them. I hoped Ivy was covering the lines.
The cop stood. “If you find her, let us know.”
It sounded like she was on a self-destructive binge.
“Let’s go, Kevin,” said the cop in the doorway, turning away. She wasn’t their biggest case.
Kevin’s hand was warm and plump. “Ma’am, these things have a way of working out.”
“What’s your full name?” I blurted at his back.
He kept walking. “Connell, Kevin Connell.”
“How old are you?”
