Fade to Black

by Ron Renauld

  “I think he’s going to pull through fine,” Moriarty said, “so long as the parole board doesn’t drop in on one of his sets.”

  “Well, I’ve got an eye-opener for you,” Anne said, cruising north toward Santa Monica.

  “They got Binford?”

  Anne shook her head. “I think half the force is out on the prowl for him, though. We did turn up something that’s right down your alley.”

  “What’s that?”

  “As near as we can figure it, his first victim was a Stella Binford. She supposedly fell down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair about a month ago, just before the whore got eighty-sixed. It was her room that had been cleared out.”

  Moriarty stroked his chin.

  “How does that qualify as being right down my alley?”

  “That’s only part of it, Jerry. This Stella Binford was supposedly Eric’s aunt, only it turns out she was actually his mother.”

  Moriarty shook his head. “You’re right. I know a lot of people that are going to have a field day with that one. Why the charade?”

  “She was a fledgling dancer before Eric was born, just starting on her way up. She never married, so when she got knocked up, she apparently didn’t want a scandal on her hands, so she came up with this angle. Gallagher figures the guy who did it was in a position to help out her career as long as word about him didn’t get out. Her career never panned out, and when she was paralyzed in a car accident when Eric was four, she just kinda withdrew from the world . . .”

  “ . . . taking Eric hostage,” Moriarty finished as they approached Rose Avenue. He suddenly slammed his fist on the dashboard and shouted, “Anne, take a right!”

  “Wha—?”

  “A right. Here!”

  Anne screeched her brakes as she swerved around the corner.

  “What is it, Jerry?”

  “Marilyn O’Connor,” he exclaimed. “Jesus Christ! Why the hell didn’t I think of it before?”

  “I’m still half a step behind you, Jerry,” Anne said, following Moriarty’s directions to Marilyn’s house.

  “You will when you take a look at her,” Moriarty said as they got out of the car.

  The porch light was on, as well as an indoor lamp, but no one answered Jerry’s knock.

  “Damn it!” Moriarty cried, frustrated. “If I would have been thinking . . .”

  “Thinking about what?” Anne asked as they started back down the steps. “Jerry, would you please tell me what it is—”

  The front door opened behind them. Moriarty turned around and bounded up the steps to find David standing on the other side of the screen door.

  “What is it, Doc?” David asked demurely, opening the door. “Come in.”

  Moriarty stepped inside. Anne followed close behind.

  “I’m looking for Marilyn,” Moriarty said, noticing a red-haired woman sitting on the living room couch.

  “You and me both, Doc,” David said. “Oh, Dr. Moriarty, this is my sister-in-law, Kay Allman. Kay, this is Dr. Moriarty and . . .”

  Anne introduced herself.

  “Kay works for the Price Agency,” David explained. “They handle a lot of commercial talent, a few up and comers in television. I was going to surprise Marilyn with a chance to do a reading, but things sort of backfired.” He dabbed the scratch marks on his cheek. “We’ve been waiting for her to show up for the past hour or so, but—”

  “And you have no idea where she might be,” Moriarty asked.

  David shook his head.

  Anne looked into the bedroom just past the front hallway and frowned, bending over to pick something off the floor.

  “Jerry,” she said, standing back up. “Were you about to tell me Marilyn O’Connor looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe?”

  “Yeah, how did you . . .”

  Anne showed him the flier Marilyn had taken from the sandwich board earlier in the day. Cody Jarrett’s name was there. So was the address of Blow Up studios.

  “Oh my god,” Moriarty murmured.

  “What is it?” David demanded.

  “Where’s the phone here?” Moriarty asked. He spotted it on the coffee table in front of Kay and picked it up, dialing the number on the card. The line was busy. He hung up and called again.

  After two rings, a recorded message came over the line.

  It was Eric’s voice.

  “This is Cody Jarrett. The Marilyn Monroe lookalike has already been selected. Thank you for calling. This is Cody Jarrett . . .”

  “Outpost Drive,” Anne read off the card. “I know where that is.”

  “What’s going on here?” David cried.

  “There’s no time to explain,” Moriarty said as he and Anne rushed out the door. “If Marilyn shows up, you keep her here and stay with her, do you understand?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  Moriarty and Anne charged down the sidewalk to the patrol car and drove off. She reached for the microphone of her police radio. Moriarty grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.

  “No, Anne. Please. I want to get to him first.”

  “Jerry, I can’t—”

  “You have to!”

  Anne turned onto Lincoln and raced to the entrance ramp leading to the Santa Monica Freeway, heading east toward Hollywood.

  CHAPTER • 32

  Eric had spent all day and all his money preparing for this evening. He’d never felt better in his life.

  Watching Marilyn sitting before the mirror, he smiled warmly. We’re doing it, he thought to himself. Everything according to plan.

  He opened the champagne, watching the top shoot up against the studio ceiling and roll across the floor. He raised the bottle to his lips and drank down the foaming overflow until it subsided, then poured the effervescent liquid into separate crystal glasses.

  Into one of the glasses he dropped two white pills. They dissolved immediately.

  He walked over to Marilyn and gave her the doctored drink. Her hair was tousled now, her lips a sparkling crimson. She was dressed in white silk, her neck and arms dripping with synthetic diamonds. She watched herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw and toasted herself, looking up into Eric’s reflection, standing over her shoulder.

  “Here’s mud in your eye,” she said flirtatiously, enjoying the moment.

  Eric smiled, maintaining his role as he daintily sipped from his own glass.

  “Most amusing,” he said endearingly. He set his drink down on the makeup table in front of Marilyn, bending down onto one knee so that he could stare at her, face to face, and keep his voice low, lulling.

  “The time is 1911. The city, London. We are destined to meet. You are the beautiful American showgirl. And I . . . am but a lonely prince.”

  Marilyn stared back at him, as swooned by the fantasy as he was. She tilted her head back, let her lengthened eyelashes dip down gently to give her a dreamy, continental look that took over her voice as well.

  “At first I resist you,” she said, pulling herself slowly away.

  “But Fate takes a hand,” Eric whispered, entwining his fingers in hers, drawing her closer to him. He leaned forward himself, letting their lips meet and linger upon one another. They passed their loneliness between them, and in the sharing created a togetherness, a moment of enjoined totality that fulfilled twin lifetimes of longing.

  The mood set, they gently broke their kiss and Eric helped Marilyn to her feet, leading her to the center of the room.

  The studio was white, stunning, and brilliant. Eric had found enough props to provide the suggestion of an aristocratic ballroom. What he hadn’t been able to find he had bought at one of the shops just down the road along Hollywood Boulevard.

  There was a polished marble fireplace, unused and bordered with chiseled swirls and curlicues and a table, covered with a fine, delicately embroidered white cloth. On the tablecloth was a bowl of fruit and a candelabra that matched the overhead chandelier with its finely cut glass tears, faceted so that they threw back light with a shimmer
ing dazzle and chimed melodiously when any two touched. On the fireplace was an Oriental vase holding the bouquet of roses from Marilyn Monroe’s crypt.

  And there was music.

  Eric cued up a record on an antique gramophone, and the studio swelled with a dreamlike waltz. “The Blue Danube,” as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert van Karajan. It was from the soundtrack of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The music filled the room. Eric and Marilyn danced together, lost in their world. Marilyn began to feel slightly dizzy, more lightheaded than a glass of champagne could account for.

  Bliss, she thought.

  Eric led, staring down at Marilyn, smiling constantly. She followed, nestled in the bend of his arm, feeling him guide her across the floor, around the table, before the camera.

  When the waltz ended, they slowed, dancing the last few steps in silence, ending it with a kiss.

  Eric left Marilyn at the table and crossed to the gramophone. He turned the record over, setting the needle on the “Gayne Ballet Suite,” with Gennadi Rozhdestvensky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic.

  He turned to find Marilyn leaning over the table, swaying uncertainly on her feet.

  “Cody,” she whispered, “t . . . t . . . tired. I have to rest.”

  Eric hurried to her side, holding her up, leading her away from the table.

  “Not just yet, my precious,” he told her gently, trying to resume their dance. “There will be a time for that. Soon, very soon.”

  “No,” she said sluggishly, sagging in his arms. “So . . . so sleepy.”

  “Please, my love,” Eric told her, “it is not yet time.”

  “Eric Binford! Where are you!”

  Moriarty’s voice broke the spell. Eric looked toward the closed door of the studio. The voice had come from the other side.

  “What’s that?” Marilyn mumbled, stirring faintly in Eric’s arms.

  Eric reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a small tin container filled with more pills. He turned Marilyn around to face him.

  “Wake up,” he said, “it’s over.”

  He placed two more pills against her lips. Confused, already under the influence of the first dose, she meekly complied.

  Eric walked over to the gramophone, pushing the needle across the grooves to the end of the record, then reached for a handgun lying on a nearby chair. He pointed it at the door and waited.

  There were muffled voices on the other side, and then a loud thud, the sound of a body charging the locked door. It didn’t give until the second charge.

  Moriarty tumbled into the room, falling over the toppled door. Anne stepped into the room behind him, her finger on the trigger of her service revolver.

  Marilyn screamed.

  Eric fired at Moriarty, who shouted in pain and grabbed at his leg. Eric turned the gun on Anne.

  “Drop it!”

  Anne held her revolver a moment, then slowly lowered it and set it on the floor in front of her.

  Eric pulled Marilyn close to him and pointed the gun to her head.

  “Eric, stop right now,” Moriarty gasped through his pain. “You’re Eric Binford.”

  “Follow me and I kill her,” Eric threatened, taking a step back toward the rear exit from the studio.

  “We can help you, Eric,” Moriarty continued.

  Eric looked at him strangely.

  “Who?”

  He backed up all the way to the door, Marilyn held in front of him.

  “Eric Binford. Eric Binford! That’s you!” Moriarty howled, hoping to shock Eric to his senses.

  Eric laughed pathetically. “Who the hell is Eric Binford?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. Pushing the door open behind him, he stepped outside, dragging Marilyn with him. She whimpered, but did not scream again. She was having a hard time staying on her feet.

  Inside, Anne stepped over the door to Moriarty, offering him a hand.

  “Come on,” she told him, “You and your goddamn therapy! Are you okay?”

  Moriarty nodded, saying through clenched teeth, “Get me to the car.”

  “Okay,” she said, helping him up. “Lean on me. I’ll call in and see if they can get a copter over here. They could hide out in the hills all night and we’d never get to them by car.”

  “No!” Moriarty said. “We have to try to get to them first.”

  “You tried your way, damn it, Jerry! It won’t work!”

  Behind the studio, Eric took the gun away from Marilyn’s head and led her across the parking lot, past the parked Packard, and into the brush. The night air helped her some, although she still stumbled along, barely aware of her movements.

  “You must forgive me, my darling, but there was no other way.” Eric’s voice was like an errant tuner on a radio, refusing to focus on any one voice. He spoke at first like Olivier, but quickly drifted back into Cagney. “It was the coppers, see? We had to lam it any way we could.”

  Marilyn was bleary-eyed, following along but giving no indication that she understood, or cared.

  There was a walkway winding down the hillside toward Pinehurst. Eric led her down slowly, trying to think. Everything was going wrong. It would have been so perfect back at the studio. They would have danced some more, made love, then ended it in each other’s arms. But now . . .

  Pinehurst led to Orchid, taking them down the gentle slope toward Hollywood Boulevard. Eric kept the gun hidden beneath his vest as he helped Marilyn along, glancing around for a trace of the police.

  He saw the line in front of the Chinese theatre, reaching back through the courtyard and down the boulevard, joining two others in front of the newly added twin theatres next door.

  Eric smiled sardonically. This might do, he thought. More of Cody’s kind of ending anyway.

  There were sirens howling in the distance, and overhead a helicopter hovered, flashing its beam of light downward as if dueling with the skylights promoting the theatre’s premiere. The crowd made no effort to resist Eric and Marilyn, perhaps thinking their costumes made them part of the proceedings. The ushers knew better, however, and Eric had to pull out his gun to gain entry to the theatre.

  Anne and Moriarty heard the helicopter driver report Eric and Marilyn’s approach to the theatre, and they raced down Franklin and Orchid, turning onto Hollywood Boulevard and screeching to a halt in the parking zone for celebrity arrivals.

  “Jerry, be careful,” Anne warned Moriarty as they got out of the car. She stopped, hearing a call for her on the radio.

  Moriarty was too excited to heed Anne’s warning. Trying to ignore the pain shooting through his leg, he broke into a run. The leg was less than co-operative, and after a few steps he sprawled headfirst across the pavement.

  “Binford, hold it!” he shouted out, seeing Eric lead Marilyn inside.

  Anne hung up the radio and ran to Moriarty’s aid.

  “Gallagher is going to be here in three minutes. He’s ordered us to wait.”

  “Jesus Christ, Anne! Why didn’t you give me a chance to get a hold of him first?” he shouted with frustration. “Goddamn it!”

  Inside the lobby, Eric waved his pistol at the smattering of people standing around the concession stand. He was laughing sickly now. No one moved toward him.

  Marilyn swooned and fell to the floor. Eric helped her up and led her into the empty theatre.

  It was an orgy of red relieved only by the massive white screen stretching the length of the stage. They were halfway down the main aisle when Moriarty came in behind them, alone.

  “Eric!” Moriarty shouted out. “Eric Binford, let me talk with you.”

  “I don’t need to talk to you,” Eric shouted back.

  “Let her go,” Moriarty said evenly.

  “Forget it! She’s mine!”

  “Eric, trust me,” Moriarty continued, trying not to raise his voice, gasping through the searing pain in his leg. “I’m a friend. I know all about you now.”

  “You don’t know nothin’, see?�
� Eric reverted back into Cody Jarrett. “You’re nothin’ but a stinkin’ copper.” He raised his gun, pointing the barrel toward the ceiling. “I own this place, and nobody . . . nobody takes Cody alive!”

  The gunshot exploded in the empty theatre, echoing a moment. Eric fled with Marilyn in its wake.

  Although she was still groggy, the activity had pulled Marilyn away from the death grip of Seconal.

  Once they reached the front row, Eric slowed down. His head. He groaned miserably, leaning against the bottom of the silver screen and pounding his fist on it, as if to transfer the agony.

  Marilyn touched him, stroked his head. “There,” she said softly, “it’s all right.”

  Eric rolled his head around his shoulders. Marilyn reached down to his side and rested her hand on the gun.

  “You don’t need this anymore,” she whispered.

  Taking cover behind a row of vacant chairs, Moriarty looked up over the backrest before him.

  “Run, Marilyn, run!” he shouted.

  It was enough to alert Eric. He came to his senses and tightened his grip on Marilyn, dragging her across the stage and past the curtains to the back stairwell.

  Gallagher rushed into the courtyard, confronting Anne.

  “Where is he?”

  “Inside,” Anne told him.

  A blue-uniformed member of the SWAT team ran up to Gallagher, a high-powered rifle in his hands.

  “Captain . . .”

  “Everybody in position?”

  “We’ve got four men in the courtyard, perimeter’s set.”

  “Fine,” Gallagher said. “Now listen to me. Nobody fires unless he fires first. You understand?”

  The SWAT officer nodded and rushed off.

  The waiting line for the movie had been cleared away, but they remained on the sidewalk, spilling out into the street and blocking traffic in the boulevard.

  Moriarty finally limped out of the theatre, joining Anne and Gallagher.

  “Oh, hello, Sherlock,” Gallagher snapped contemptuously. “We finally got the slimy bastard cornered, right?”

  “Captain, listen—”

  “I’m tired of listening to you, Irish.”

  “You can’t kill Binford in cold blood.”