While I Disappear

by Edward Wright

  “How well did you know her?”

  “Not extremely well, but as fellow workers, you might say. We had had a few scenes together in the film and had spoken a few times. I thought her a lovely girl, very sweet, very interested in improving herself. Studious, almost. And, of course, I knew of her involvement with our director.”

  “Was anyone else in the room? A man?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see anyone leave the room just before you went in?”

  “No.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well…there was some incoherent talk between Rose and myself. I naturally asked her what had happened, and she was evasive. She was insistent that we get help for Tess, but equally insistent that we not cause a stir. Without either of us being specific, I think I understood that Rose was at some risk over this, and that if I were not discreet…. In other words, her fate depended to some extent on my behavior.”

  “Did you think she was responsible?”

  “I knew she had done something. When her wrap fell open in the front, I saw that her dress was dark with blood, almost as much as…. But I didn’t know exactly what. I think I instructed my mind not to go down that particular path, if you know what I mean. I thought the world of Rose and would not have wanted to cause her harm in any way. I asked her what I should do, and she said, ‘Go find Jay.’ That is what I did. Jay Lombard came to the bedroom, and he and Rose closeted themselves for a few minutes while I waited outside. Then they emerged, and it appeared they had a plan.

  “Earlier in the evening, someone had removed the house fuses, cutting all the lights for about half an hour. Now I did the same. There was much screaming laughter, as before. While the house was dark, the three of us wrapped Tess in a sheet and carried her down the back stairs and out to Jay Lombard’s car. He seemed to be in charge by then. Rose was almost in shock, and I was…I’m sorry to say, I was being amenable to whatever they wanted to do. As I said, my main thought was to protect Rose. We drove to the nearest hospital. The emergency entrance was quiet. We laid her by the door, and Lombard blew his horn several times. Then we left.”

  He exhaled loudly and opened his eyes but didn’t otherwise move. For a minute, the only sounds were of Richwine’s heavy breathing and the distant noise of street traffic.

  “That was it,” he said finally. “The last time I saw Rose for many years. I was so horrified by the events of that night…. It was as if, by mutual consent, we had decided that we wanted to close that chapter in both our lives. I never sought to contact her; she never sought me either.

  “Years went by, and then one day she called. As I told you last night, she seemed in obvious need, and I found her a room at Rook House. We resumed our friendship, without speaking of what had separated us. Then, one night, we had dinner, and she brought up the subject. She told me she was tired of carrying around the guilt over Tess’ death. She intended to go to the police and tell them what she had done. She wanted to warn me. But at the same time, she said she knew her responsibility was far greater than mine, and she didn’t plan to incriminate me in any way. I was very grateful to her for that.”

  “Did she ever tell you exactly what happened in the bedroom?”

  “No, and I never asked. How could I?”

  “Over the years, were you ever in touch with Jay Lombard?”

  “Oh, yes. Even when I had lost track of Rose, he seemed eager to stay in contact with me, although we had never really been friends. He would call periodically and invite me to dinner. That sinister companion of his would always drive us.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Oh, it was a couple of months ago, I think. We dined at the Hotel Bel-Air. He seemed somewhat agitated, which was unusual for him. He quickly brought up the subject of Tess and the party. He seemed to need my reassurances that I had no intention of ever talking about it to anyone.” He looked rueful. “A pledge that I kept until today.”

  Horn briefly described the letters Rose sent to Tess’ parents. “She told them that someone else was responsible for the murder too. Did she ever—”

  “No. She named no one else.”

  “Not even Dex?”

  When the other man didn’t respond, Horn pressed on. “You were good friends with him, but you haven’t spoken to him in years,” he said. “I think I can guess why.”

  “No need to guess,” Richwine said, the melancholy now plain in his voice and his sagging features. “I suspected him.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps because he seemed to be the cause of so much intrigue and unhappiness. Deceiving his wife, then throwing over Rose to take up with still another young woman. As much as I respected him professionally, I had only contempt for his personal behavior. Whatever Rose said about those events, both then and in the future, I always guessed that someone else had been involved along with her, someone capable of more violence. I have no reason to think Dexter would have deliberately sought to harm Tess, but considering all the outrageous behavior that took place in my house that night, one can easily imagine a scenario in which three people, inflamed by drugs and recklessness, may have lost control, with tragic results.”

  Horn thought that over. He imagined a scene of three-way sex, orchestrated by Rose, that got out of hand. It was surprisingly plausible.

  “In one of her letters, Rose mentioned an unidentified man being in the room, but she said nothing about Dex,” he said.

  “My dear boy, wasn’t that typical of her? She was protecting everyone but herself.” His eyes looked beyond Horn, beyond even the room where they sat. “The guilt was too much for her,” he said. “In some way I don’t understand, it brought about her death. I should have tried to help her. If I had, she might be alive today.”

  “You shouldn’t think that.” Horn rose from his chair and stretched his arms overhead to work out the stiffness. “I appreciate what you’ve told me,” he said. “I’ll see myself out.” Then he remembered something. “Cassie said she saw you standing outside the rooming house one night, looking up at her window.”

  “Yes. Well, it wasn’t always her window,” Richwine said. “I don’t believe I need anyone’s permission to look at it.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t. Is it all right if I go upstairs and have a look at the bedroom? I won’t be long.”

  “Go ahead,” Richwine said. “Forgive me if I don’t accompany you.”

  He took the stairs up to the second floor, then turned and walked the short distance to the only bedroom at the left of the landing. He opened the door and flipped the light switch.

  It was an ordinary bedroom, although it looked long disused, and the window curtains were drawn against the sunlight. The double bed, an old-fashioned four-poster with a canopy, was covered by what appeared to be a handmade crocheted spread that had once been white but was now a mottled ivory. The carpet and furnishings were worn, and everything sat under a layer of dust. Horn wondered if anyone had slept there in years.

  He stared at the bed for a moment, imagining things he could only half-see. Then he turned out the light and left.

  Downstairs, his host had not moved. “Thank you. I’ll leave now,” Horn said. “I think you should be real careful, Mr. Richwine. Don’t tell Jay Lombard or anybody else about our talk. Whoever killed Rose may be looking at anybody else who had a connection to that night.”

  Richwine’s eyes were closed once again. “I’m so tired,” he said with a faint smile. “I’m not sure I really care.”

  * * *

  It was a little after ten in the morning when he left the house. He drove down to Wilshire and pulled in at the first cafe he spotted. Inside, he sat at a lunch counter and tore through an order of eggs, sausage, and toast, along with several cups of coffee. Then he asked for the biggest cinnamon bun in the glass display case.

  The cafe had a phone booth just inside the door. Horn took his coffee cup and cigarette inside. He started to call Rook House, then remembered that Cas
sie had worked most of the night and would no doubt be asleep. She would be interested in the gray man’s revelations, but he could report to her later.

  He dialed Diggs’ number. Sometimes, he knew, location shoots ran over schedule, and he wanted to make sure that Dex was still expected home that evening. Evelyn assured him that such was the case. “We’ll look for you around nine,” she said.

  He was about to say goodbye when she spoke up. “Oh, I have a message for you. Dolores Winter called earlier this morning.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “She sounded agitated. Said she couldn’t reach you at home and needed to see you.”

  He thought about how tired he was. More than anything, he wanted to drive home and sleep for a while. “I don’t know if I can—”

  “She said right away. And if you’d heard her voice, you’d know she meant it.”

  “All right. Did she say where?”

  “She said to tell you she’ll be at the studio all day. And that she’d leave word at the gate.”

  Leaving the cafe, Horn took Highland north into Hollywood and turned east on Melrose. Many who had known Rose, he reflected, had reason to feel guilt over her death. He certainly did, and Cassie as well. Quinn was going through some kind of torment. And now Alden Richwine…. He wondered what was going through the mind of Dexter Diggs. And Jay Lombard. And Dolores Winter. And he wondered if any of those had been the one who knotted the cord around Rose’s neck and strangled her to death on her bed, watching as she died.

  On the radio, the Ink Spots were weaving their way through The Gypsy. He had always enjoyed the song’s mellow, soothing harmonies. Now he also responded to its message. Somewhere, the lyrics said, was a mysterious lady with the power to read your palm and tell you the direction your life would take. He needed the truth, and he wasn’t totally confident in the fortune-telling powers of Ruby Renfrew, the Detroit Firecracker.

  In his exhaustion, his mind churned over the dark visions thrown up by Alden Richwine’s recollections. By the time the truth was fully known about that New Year’s Eve, Rose was sure to be tainted by it in some way. Possibly Dex, too. The knowledge saddened him.

  But he had acquired one good thing that morning, and he took it out of a compartment in his memory and turned it over like a shiny new penny. It was the photo of Rose taken on the set of her last silent film. For too long now, he had carried with him the mental picture of her features twisted and made ugly by death. Now he had something to replace it with—a radiant image of a face at peace and transformed by love, its cheek and brow etched in silver.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Medallion Pictures, Horn’s old studio, was part of what movie people called Poverty Row, where studios churned out B-movies on limited budgets. He had never been on the Magnum Arts Studios lot, one of the landmarks of Hollywood. Although many of the big studios such as MGM and Warners were located in relatively unglamorous places such as Culver City and Burbank, Hollywood still boasted two of the giants, Paramount and Magnum Arts, anchoring opposite ends of Melrose Avenue.

  He turned in at the main gate and stopped at the guard shack. As promised, his name was on the guard’s list. The man handed him a visitor’s pass and waved him through. “Sound Stage Nine,” he said. “I’ll let them know you’re coming. You can park just beyond the building.”

  Horn drove along the road that took him past the elephantine sound stages. Along the way, he passed workers wheeling pieces of scenery and extras garbed for various productions. In one building, a warehouse-size door was open, and beyond it he glimpsed the bustle of a set under construction. He marveled at the enormity of the place. Back in the days when he was welcome at any studio, he had once visited the sprawling Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to see a friend. MagArts, as this place was familiarly known, was easily as big as MGM and just as impressive.

  He found the lot and parked the Ford. At the entrance to Sound Stage Nine was mounted a sign: Yukon Queen Wardrobe Tests. Do Not Enter When Red Light Is On. The light was on. He rapped lightly and heard a voice say, “Come on in.”

  As he stood inside in the relative darkness, he became aware of a man sitting nearby on a folding chair. It was Lewis De Loach, Dolores Winter’s husband. Ex-husband, he corrected himself.

  “Hello,” De Loach called out. “Come have a seat.” Horn went over and sat in a chair next to him. “We were hoping you’d come by,” De Loach said, sticking out his hand without getting up. He wore rumpled khakis and a loud Hawaiian shirt, tail out, and he sat forward in the chair as if he were not quite comfortable. “Doll’s about to take a break. I’ll walk you over in a minute.”

  About fifty feet away, beyond a clutter of set construction, Horn could see the edge of a brightly lit area. “She hates wardrobe tests,” De Loach said lightly. “And makeup. And rehearsing. And everything that precedes the real thing. Once the camera starts rolling, she says, she takes a deep breath and says to herself: Finally.”

  “I remember it that way too,” Horn said. “Even though makeup, wardrobe, and all the rest took about five minutes where I worked.”

  As he spoke, his eyes adjusted to the low light, and he noticed that De Loach’s left arm, which was tucked protectively into his side, was covered by a plaster cast from wrist to elbow. He could also make out a brilliant shiner that was starting to spread its dark colors around the other man’s left eye.

  “What happened to you?”

  De Loach shrugged, wincing slightly. “Something strange. What happened to your face?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “It must be going around,” De Loach said wryly. “Well, I’ll let Doll tell you about it. If she wants to.”

  “All right.”

  “I was a little disdainful of your studio the other day,” De Loach said. “Didn’t mean to sound so prissy.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Horn said. “I know what kind of work we turned out, and I don’t go around bragging about it. To me, it was just a job.” Bullshit, he thought. Every time you gave some kid your autograph and he gave you that hero-worshiping look, you thought you were hot stuff, didn’t you?

  “I’ve had a little career trouble lately,” De Loach said. “Nothing too serious. But that was the reason I may have sounded a bit condescending. It wasn’t your studio or your work I was commenting on—I’ve never seen any of your movies, although I’d like to. I was really thinking of Ben Greene and the other holier-than-thou bastards here at Magnum Arts who wouldn’t know talent if it punched them in the nose. Which I came close to doing a couple of times.”

  “Any problem in particular?”

  “Creative differences,” De Loach said. “I’m creative, and they’re different.” He looked eager to change the subject.

  “Actually, when you think about it, the western is important to us,” he said. “It’s our national epic, and the cowboy is our epic hero, the way Odysseus was to the Greeks and Roland to the French and Arthur to the English.”

  He laughed. “Now I’m sounding like a screenwriter. I made my reputation with romances and drawing room comedies, and they never asked me to do anything else. But someday I’d like to try a western, something with a truly big theme. An uncomplicatedly heroic character.”

  “I’m afraid you’re too late,” Horn said. “The kind of western I made is dead or dying. The ones coming along are all about characters with problems.”

  De Loach sighed and made a face. “Damn,” he said with a rueful grin. “I’m always too late.” He looked over to the set area, where the bright lights had gone out. “We can go now.”

  He got up slowly, bracing himself on the arms of the chair. As they walked into the cavernous interior, he limped slightly.

  They passed an array of sets done in different styles and motifs, in various stages of being dismantled. Off to one side was a green and lovely garden with an ivy-clad stone fountain at its center. The fountain—which Horn could now see was not stone but papier-maché—was draped in electrical cords, and resting on its ri
m was an empty Nesbitt’s orange soda bottle and a partially eaten sandwich on wax paper, the remnants of a crew member’s lunch.

  “Here we are,” De Loach said. “I know she wanted to see you, but I’ll ask you to try not to stay too long. When you see her, you’ll know why.” He walked away, still limping.

  The wardrobe tests were being conducted on a small, gaudily decorated set that could have been a room in a fancy hotel, gambling hall, or bordello around the turn of the century. Nearby huddled a group of technicians, talking quietly and occasionally glancing toward the set and its only occupant, Dolores Winter. She wore an ostentatious but elegant off-the-shoulder gown in forest green, its waist nipped in severely, with matching high-heeled, lace-up ankle boots. Her hair was swept up in an elaborate, pillowy style, and she sat on what appeared to be a burgundy velvet love seat, knees spread ungracefully, head in her hands.

  She looked up when Horn rapped his knuckles on the frame of the big 35-millimeter camera. At first she seemed to hardly recognize him. Her pale green eyes were rimmed with exhaustion or the residue of tears, or both.

  “I told them all to get lost,” she said in a voice that almost cracked. “No more tests for this little birdie today.” She sighed, straightening up. “‘You shoot the way I look, it’ll break the camera.’ That’s what I told them.”

  “What’s wrong?” He went over to stand by her. “What happened to Lewis?”

  “Oh, God.” She compressed her lips into a thin line, as if to squeeze some kind of resolve into herself. “Someone tried to kill him.”

  “When? Where?” He quickly sat down beside her.

  “Last night. He’d been out with friends and came in late, sometime after midnight. Someone was waiting for him in the garage. Came up behind him when he got out of his car, started choking him, with a rope or something—”