Blues in the Dark

by Raymond Benson

  He gently pushed her away and looked at her. “Blair, you don’t look so good. Are you all right? What happened to you?”

  She shook her head. “Ray, I was kidnapped and held prisoner. Oh, God, Ray, I had a baby. Hank’s and my baby!”

  His eyes went wide. “Wha—well, where is it?”

  “Dead. She died. Ray, I killed someone, the woman who was guarding me. Where is Hank? Why won’t you tell me where he is?”

  “Blair, please. Slow down. Hank—he’s been missing since February. No one’s seen him. Everyone thinks something bad happened to him. We had a gig at the Downbeat Club one night. He was going to catch the bus. Me and the other fellas, we decided to go over to the Dunbar to have a drink. I almost went on home, but then I changed my mind and wanted that drink. Anyway, I ran to the bus stop to tell Hank I’d buy him one, too, ’cause he needed it. He was missing you so bad. I saw him with some white men getting into a black Cadillac.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “They drove away. And that’s the last I saw him.”

  She crumpled to the floor and started to cry. Ray got down on his knees with her. “Most of his stuff is still in his room, but we’ve been using it a bit. There are a couple of other families in the house now. I won’t let ’em touch Hank’s room, so Loretta uses it.”

  She sobbed into his shoulder as he held her.

  “Gregory—my boy—he said you was at the house. You were in the bedroom …?”

  She lifted her head and nodded. “I took Hank’s gun. I have it.”

  “Blair … ”

  “I’m going to do something about this, Ray. Will you help me?”

  “I don’t know, Blair …”

  “I can’t stay here. They’ll be coming after me. I’ve got to flee. Get out of town. But first I need to do something. Will you help me?”

  Ray rubbed his chin. After a moment, he said, “Darlin’, I made a promise to my best friend, Hank. He made me swear that if anything ever happened to him, Loretta and I should do everything we could to protect you. You know what? I made that promise. You’re family, Blair. I’ll help you.”

  32

  KARISSA

  Karissa and Marcello received welcome news the next day from Tony Davenport. The attorney had managed to completely reverse the fraudulent pilfering of their bank accounts and received an “all clear” from their financial institution. New security measures were put in place so that it would be very difficult for something like that to happen again. Davenport also said that his firm was carefully looking into Azules Oscuros S.A., but they were hitting a brick wall. It was definitely a shell company, which meant it was masking the true proprietors.

  Now back to square one, the producers set out to continue approaching studios to finance what they were calling Femme Fatale—The Blair Kendrick Story. It was time to initiate the hiring of a screenwriter who could put something on paper. They met with Miranda Jenkins, the talented scribe who had penned Second Chance for Stormglove. Another candidate was Jules Franken, an older writer whose work with several independent production companies was well received. Both were black, which would highlight Stormglove’s aim for diversification. After all-day interview sessions with both candidates, they went with Jenkins, having enjoyed working with her before. She wanted thirty thousand dollars to develop a spec script.

  “Do we have that kind of money in the Stormglove account?” Marcello asked Karissa after the writer had left the meeting at their office. “I mean, I know we do, but can we afford to do without it right now?”

  “I know what you’re saying,” Karissa answered. “We need the capital for expenses, the rent, and paying our attorney, among other things. But this is important.”

  “Normally, we’d make a deal with a studio first, and they would pay the writer.”

  “I know, but in this case, we need to be going out with a script, don’t you think? Hirsch and Ultimate are probably putting out the word against us to other studios, just like William Randolph Hearst did to Orson Welles. We need to show whoever we talk to that we’ve got something worthwhile.”

  “Funny how the name Hirsch sounds a lot like Hearst. So how do we get the extra thirty grand?”

  “I think I have a solution. You may remember I was given some found funds that we can use for development.”

  Karissa revisited Seymour at the gold and rare coin collector shop on Wilshire. After the familiar playful haggling with the sweet old man, Karissa sold him the D Indian Head Gold Eagle ten-dollar coin from 1911 and walked out of the place with a check for fifty thousand dollars. After depositing the check at the bank, Karissa drove home. For the first time in several days, she felt confident and reasonably happy. The incident at Musso & Frank’s with Justin Hirsch had reenergized her. While the situation between Stormglove and Ultimate Pictures was by no means resolved, she felt good enough about the confrontation that they were probably safe to proceed with the picture.

  Did she feel any guilt about selling coins that were possibly stolen from Eldon Hirsch?

  Not really. She couldn’t say she did.

  Karissa drove south in the left lane on Western Avenue toward the I-10, taking the most direct route to her house. Traffic was starting to build, as the rush hour usually began by 4:00 p.m. Cars were going slow, and both lanes were full.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Karissa noticed a black sedan pull up beside her in the right lane as she waited for a light at Washington Boulevard. She casually turned to look—and froze.

  Barry Doon was behind the wheel of his black BMW, and he was staring at her.

  Oh, Christ, she thought. Is he going to pull out a gun and shoot at me?

  The light turned green up ahead. As the cars began to move, she swerved over into the left turn lane. The oncoming traffic was heavy, but a guy driving a pickup truck was looking at his phone and didn’t move up with the cars in front. A space opened, and Karissa sped through it onto Washington.

  Her nerves shattered, she drove along, cursing to herself. Was Doon heading for her house? What should she do?

  She came to a right turn onto Harvard Boulevard, so she took it. Karissa wasn’t familiar with much of the street geography in the part of West Adams Heights north of the freeway; it would be easy to get lost. The section of Harvard she was on, however, curved back to the west and became W. 21st Street, before circling back up to Washington. She thought that perhaps Harvard may have been a through street before the interstate was built. I-10 cut across it directly to the south, and her home was on the other side of the freeway.

  Karissa took a left onto Washington and made her way back to Western Avenue. She turned and went south again, crossing the interstate on the overpass. Normally, she would turn left onto W. Adams Boulevard, make another left onto Hobart, make a quick right on W. 25th Street, go around the traffic circle to Harvard, and she’d be home. But the BMW was there on Adams, in the opposite lane, pulled over to the curb. Doon spotted her, shot out into traffic, and made a screeching U-turn to come back up behind her. Karissa kept going east on Adams, for once wishing she could move faster. She was not one to be a daredevil behind the wheel of a car, but she was prepared to attempt a Fast and Furious maneuver if she had to.

  Traffic moved along for several blocks. She could see the BMW in her rearview mirror, three cars behind her. The only thing she could do was try to lose him. But then what? He knew where she lived.

  She reached for her purse on the passenger seat, opened it with her right hand while keeping the left on the wheel, and dug for her cell phone. She attempted to pull it out, but it got caught on the edge of the purse and slipped out of her hand, falling on the floor of the passenger side of the car where she couldn’t reach it without unbuckling her seat belt and leaning way over.

  There was another opening in oncoming traffic, so she recklessly made a left turn onto S. Congress Avenue, heading north. The BMW tried to follow her, but Doon was stuck waiting for a break in the oncoming traffic before he could make the turn. In t
he meantime, Karissa pulled a fast right onto S. 24th Street, going east again. She sped along as fast as she dared, barely halting at the stop sign at Normandie, and zipping through another miraculous break in the heavy traffic on that avenue to reach the other side. Continuing to travel on 24th, she didn’t see the BMW in the rearview mirror. Perhaps she had lost him. She could stop, pull over, and get her phone. But then what? Call the police again? Hello, there’s a car following me, and I think the driver wants to shoot me. Would they think she was nuts? Maybe not—they already had a case on file that she was the victim of a drive-by shooting. The problem was that the cops didn’t seem to believe that a Hollywood studio executive was the one who had done it.

  Eventually Karissa made a right turn to go south on S. Catalina Street, heading back to W. Adams Boulevard. Just to be safe, she made another left on 25th to lose herself further in the grid-maze of side streets of Sugar Hill. She crossed Vermont Avenue, continued east on 25th, and finally headed south again on Ellendale Place. She meant to turn right and head back west on Adams, but she was confused and went east instead.

  And then she saw it.

  The little house. The tiny house that was in the old photograph, the one she knew she’d seen before. The one with the pianist from Ray Webster’s funeral, taken when she was a young woman.

  Karissa saw an empty space at the curb on the right and managed to swing over. She parallel parked the Nissan and sat there for a moment, catching her breath. She checked all her mirrors for the BMW—no sign of Doon. She unbuckled the belt, reached over, and grabbed her phone—but then stopped. At this point she felt silly about calling the police. What the hell would she say? Instead, she put the phone back in her purse and exited the car.

  Karissa approached the house. It looked like a garden shed compared to the large structures on either side of it. She wondered if the owner had been solicited to sell the property numerous times over the years and refused; hence, its incongruous appearance on the boulevard. It hadn’t changed much since the old photo had been taken, but recent paint jobs, more modern landscaping, and better window frames had given it a facelift. A wire fence surrounded the yard. She opened the gate and walked to the front door.

  Was she crazy? It was entirely possible that the pianist never lived there. She may have been posing in front of a friend’s house. Or she may have had moved away a long time ago.

  Karissa rang the bell. The worst that could happen was an awkward exchange—“Oops, wrong house”—and she’d leave.

  To her surprise, the door was opened by James Trundy. Her landlord.

  For a second, she was speechless.

  “Ms. Glover?”

  “Mr. Trundy! What are you doing here?”

  “My mother lives here. What are you doing here?”

  “I—well, maybe I’m here to see your mother. Is she, by chance, a pianist?”

  He looked up and down the street and then held the door open wider. “You had better come in before someone sees you.”

  As she stepped inside the small entryway, Karissa thought, What did he mean by that?

  “Please come this way,” he said.

  They didn’t have to go far. Trundy led her into a small living room that contained a couch, coffee table, another chair, and a television. Through an arch was a kitchen and eating area. Another arch must have led to one, maybe two bedrooms.

  The white-haired African American woman sat on the couch.

  “Momma, you have a visitor,” Trundy said.

  The woman’s jaw dropped. She said, “Oh, Lord, she can’t be here!”

  “She is, so we might as well talk to her.” He turned to Karissa and said, “Ms. Glover, please meet my mother, Regina Trundy. Her big brother was a man named Hank Marley.”

  33

  THE MOVIE

  Ominous music builds on the film’s soundtrack as we see a long exterior shot of the Ultimate Pictures lot. It’s just after dusk and the sun has gone down, but it’s not completely dark yet. Very few cars are in the employee and visitor parking area.

  “I must have gone mad while I was at that house on the beach,” the voice-over tells us. “I was going into the lion’s den, but all I could think of was getting revenge. I didn’t care if I was sent to prison or if I was killed. I had played criminal bad girls in movies, so I guess life was about to imitate art.”

  We see Blair’s Oldsmobile drive off the main street and pull into the lot.

  Barney Johnson’s jaw dropped when he saw who had driven up to the gate. In his twenty-four years of guarding the main entrance to Ultimate Pictures, he had never been so flustered.

  “Miss Kendrick? Is that really you? I can’t believe it!” He stood up from the stool inside the little guardhouse.

  She smiled at him through the driver’s window and rolled it down. “Hi, Barney! You miss me?”

  “I sure did! We all did! I was just about to leave to go home. Are you—are you feeling better? We heard you … we heard you were under the weather for a while.”

  “I was, Barney, but I’m much better now. Got a doctor’s release and everything!” She blew him a kiss.

  The wrinkle of his brow didn’t exhibit certainty. Blair realized she didn’t look so great. She wasn’t wearing makeup, her hair was a mess, and she hadn’t had a bath since the day before she’d left her prison on the beach. No wonder he was looking at her funny.

  “Oh, Barney, I know I don’t look like my usual glamorous self. I don’t have a bit of makeup on, as you can see. I’m going to the hairdresser first thing in the morning. Please understand. I, uh, I just got out of bed. I’ve been resting all day, and I decided on a whim to come to the studio and see Eldon. Your wife doesn’t get out of bed looking like a movie star, does she?”

  Barney laughed. “No, I guess she doesn’t. She’s as pretty as a movie star, though, in my opinion!”

  Blair laughed, too. “I bet she is. Now could you please open the gate so I can go inside?”

  “Sure, Miss Kendrick. It’s very good to see you again!”

  He ducked back into the booth and raised the long, slender barrier. Blair figured it really wasn’t much of an obstacle. Someone could drive right through it if they wanted.

  She gave him a wave, drove on in, and parked in an empty spot. She didn’t recognize any of the cars there, but three of the studio’s black Cadillacs were sitting in the lot.

  Blair took her purse and got out of the car. She went across the pavement to the door where another security guard would typically be posted at his desk, but she knew he would already be gone for the day. Camille, the ever-watchful Cerebus guarding the entrance to the Underworld, had also left for home hours before. There was nothing and no one to get in her way.

  Barney Johnson scratched his head. He had never seen Blair Kendrick look so … distraught, despite her cheerful greeting. Instinctively, he knew something was wrong. Several minutes went by before he decided to do something about his misgivings. He reached for the phone to call Buddy Franco’s office. He knew that Camille had left for the day, but the boss was still there along with Franco.

  Another car—a black Cadillac Sixty Special in all-new sheet metal—pulled up to the gate. Very fancy, like the one Buddy Franco drove. Two people in the car—a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. Had he seen her before?

  Barney leaned out the checkpoint window. “May I help y—?”

  The gun blast hit him across the right collarbone. He fell to the floor as the car burst through the flimsy gate into the lot. The guard attempted to stand and sound the alarm, but blackness fell upon him with the weight of the world.

  The thin strip of light under the door at the end of the hallway revealed that Eldon Hirsch was inside.

  Blair suddenly had the sensation that she was no longer inside her body. It was true that she hadn’t been thinking straight for months. The ordeal at the beach had seriously damaged her, both physically and emotionally. She was intellectually aware of that truth, but at the same time s
he didn’t know how to deal with it. Only one thing propelled her forward, and that was to avenge what had happened to her. Someone had to pay for the pain and suffering she had endured. Someone had to be punished for what she feared had become Hank’s and her baby’s fates.

  Slowly, she walked down the dark corridor toward that slit of light. As she did so, Blair opened her purse and retrieved the Smith & Wesson, now fully loaded with six rounds. She held it in her right hand behind her back and slipped the purse strap over her left arm. As she moved toward the door, it appeared as if it was retreating, away from her. The hallucination was disorienting. Why am I not getting closer to that office?

  But then, suddenly, she was there. She had no sense or memory that she had traversed the corridor. The door was right in front of her, slightly ajar. She pushed it open with her left hand. There was no squeak or creak, so Eldon Hirsch didn’t hear her. He sat at his desk on the other side of the dimly lit room, the golden glow of the lamps’ illumination reflecting off the carpet and furniture.

  The devil is bathed in the effervescence of the fires of hell.

  That thought almost made her laugh, but she remained silent.

  Hirsch was studying something on his desk. Binders. The coin collection, of course, that he loved so dearly.

  She began to move toward her nemesis. Blair made it halfway across the room, to the point where the sofa and coffee table were located. It was the spot where she had become sick and thrown up on him.

  I’m going to do a lot worse to you now, Eldon.

  He sensed her presence and looked up.

  “Who’s there?” He squinted. “Who is that? Malena?”

  She stepped forward. “It’s me, Eldon.”

  His eyes bulged. “Blair?”

  “That’s right.”

  He reached for the phone on his desk. She brought the pistol out from behind her back and pointed it at him. “Hands off. Put your palms flat on the desk.”

  “Blair! What are you doing? Put that gun away.”

  She crept closer until she stood just on the other side of the desk, the gun barrel five feet from his face.