A Knife to Remember (12 page)

“Isn't it awkward working with them?”

Someone walking by him tripped and sloshed some coffee. George quickly picked up the costume hat he'd set down next to the chair and checked it for spots. Satisfied it was unharmed, he said, "Not for me. Roberto's unhappy with it, but that's his problem. He hates me. I think he feels that I deliberately unloaded shoddy goods on him. It
wasn't
deliberate, but she sure is shoddy."

“You really dislike her?"

“Mrs. Jeffry—"

“Jane. Please."

“Jane, in a business that attracts and creates gigantic egos, hers towers over everyone else's.

She's truly the only totally self-absorbed person I've ever known. To the point of psychosis, I believe. If you asked her what a mailman does for a living, she'd say he brings her mail. It would never cross her mind, such as it is, to imagine that anyone else
gets
mail, except those few she might write to. I honestly believe she'd have trouble understanding the truth if you told her. She must know there are millions of people in the world, but to her they're divided into fans of hers and those half dozen pseudo-people who aren't. I blame Olive as much as anybody."

“Olive? The older woman who's always with her?"

“Yes. Poor old Olive is both the perpetrator and the victim of the Ego That Ate the World. Lynette treats her like shit, but Olive seems to thrive on it. Do you know, when Lynette and I were first married, Olive actually expected to sleep in the room with us?"

“You're kidding!"

“I'm not kidding. And it gets worse! Lynette couldn't quite grasp why I objected," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. "I got Olive out of the bedroom, but I always suspected she was sleeping across the doorway in the hall, like a medieval serf. She was an actress herself once. Not a very good one, I'd guess."

“I can't imagine that."

“Lynette told me she was, but it is hard to picture. If I'm remembering right, she was one of those 'born in a trunk' kids. Too late for vaudeville, of course, but the parents were in some kind of touring company — a country and western road show maybe — and dragged her around, sticking her in their act, until she was a teenager, then she got away from them by becoming a nanny to Lynette's family. Lynette's mother was one of those real remote high-society types who only wanted to see the kids all spilled up for five minutes before dinner and it was Olive who filled Lynette's mind with the idea of acting. Olive found the teachers, took her to dancing lessons, made sure she got braces on her teeth, harassed the booking agents, set up her retirement fund for all I know. And created an egomaniac. Oh, well. To each his own, I guess.”

Interesting as this might be, it wasn't shedding light on the immediate problem. "So, you've played all kinds of roles then?" Jane asked.

“Just about anything you could imagine," George answered easily. "College profs, garbage collectors, sheriffs—"

“What about porn movies?" Jane asked quickly before her nerve failed.

George's head snapped around and he stared at her for a long minute before saying, with a laugh, "So the lurker's been gossiping to you!"

“Lurker?"

“Yeah, whoever was eavesdropping on Jake and me told the police and I guess is spreading the word far and wide.”

Jane prayed her face wasn't as red as it felt. "Oh, surely not," she said.

“Don't be embarrassed about knowing," Georgesaid in a kindly manner that made Jane feel even worse. "It's not something I take out billboards about, but it's not such a deep secret. Sure, I did a couple porn movies way back when. My wife had some kind of expensive female troubles after our second kid was born and we were on the brink of welfare. It was a job. And my wife approved. She even vetted the contracts. She was always good with stuff like that.”

Jane decided, since she was playing the innocent, she might as well play it for all it was worth. "What do you mean about Jake? What's Jake got to do with it?"

“Jake was trying to blackmail me. Stupid waste of time, but Jake was good at wasting time." "Blackmail you into what?"

“Into trying to get that little chippy Angela Smith into a scene with Lynette and me. As if Roberto would care what I wanted. Ridiculous. Jake was really scraping the bottom of the barrel when he got to me."

“Do you think he'd tried it on other people? The blackmail, I mean."

“If he had anything on them, yeah, probably." "But you don't know who else he tried it on?" "No idea."

“What did you mean about his wasting time?"

“Just that he has — had a reputation for being a niggling perfectionist. It was his gimmick. He's shut down work for hours getting some damned trivial piece of something exactly right and as often as not, it wasn't even in the frame anyhow, but it got everybody bowing and scraping to him as a master."

“So he wasn't good at what he did?"

“Oh, he was good all right. But no better than a dozen others in the business. He just invented this mystique about himself and a lot of people bought it. The more of a bastard he was, the more the 'legend' grew. Well, it worked for him."

“Angela believed in the legend."

“Well, she would. She's his niece."

“His
niece!"

“
Yeah, what did you think?"

“She said he was trying to seduce her.”

George laughed. "Then that lie was the only good bit of acting she's ever done. Angela Smith's shoulder blades are rubbed raw from sleeping around. She's normally a hopeless excuse for an actress. My daughter took some acting lessons once and ol' Angela was in the class. Angela got to be a legend herself for sheer awfulness."

“I wonder what else she lied to me about—" Jane said.

She wasn't able to pursue this, however, as a production assistant burst through the "doorway" in the scenery just then and said, "Oh, Mr. Abington! I've been looking everywhere for you. Mr. Cavagnari wants you for a run-through. And Mrs. Jeffry, you can let your dog out now for" — she consulted her watch—"seventeen minutes.”

Jane met up with Shelley while she was dragging Willard out to his dog run. "Learn anything while I was gone?" Shelley asked, pitching in and pushing on Willard's back end.

“Yes, that Angela Smith lied to us. At least George Abington says she did. Unless" — she looked up at Shelley—"unless George Abington lied to me, too.”

15

As the morning wore on, the whole atmosphere seemed gradually to become electrified. A photographer from
People Weekly
magazine showed up with an assistant who was ruthlessly snagging people to interview, and a whole crew of individuals from "Entertainment Tonight" arrived on the scene and got underfoot in creative ways. These outsiders made a difference in the mood of the set. Crew members who had previously appeared practically comatose bustled around looking busy and vital. Grips hauled things about in an intense, frantic manner, calling out, "Look out! Coming through!”

Jane caught up with Butch Kowalski briefly when he was having a short break at the craft service table. "How's your hand?" she asked.

“I'd almost forgotten about it," he admitted. "It's fine." He was slathering mayonnaise on a piece of bread.

“You'll ruin your lunch."

“Oh, I won't have time for lunch today," Butch said, slapping slices of ham on the bread.

A young man suddenly yelled at him from the break in the scenery. Butch turned and watched theother young man make some gestures, then laid his half-constructed sandwich down and gestured back with his still-bandaged hand.

Jane watched this, fascinated. "What was that all about?"

“Huh? Oh, we're setting up for an important scene and Ted wanted to know about where to put some stuff."

“Who's Ted and why all this," Jane said, imitating Butch's hand motion.

“Oh, Ted's an intern. Getting school credit for helping Jake. Now for helping me. And the sign language is what Jake made everybody who worked for him learn. Cuts out a lot of yelling across the set. Jake hated yelling. He said it was an undignified way to work.”

And that kind of attitude probably added to the "mystique" that George Abington was talking about,
Jane thought. "How are you doing on your own?" she asked.

“Okay, I guess. Jake had everything laid out to the littlest detail, so I'm just following his directions, but it's kinda scary anyway. If there's something missing or wrong today, I'm in big trouble without Jake to tell me how to fix it."

“You'll do fine," Jane assured him.

He was gulping down the sandwich now, his mind obviously on the important work ahead, so she left him alone.

Jane looked around for Shelley, but couldn't spot her anyplace. Maisie, however, waved her over to where she was using an unexpected bit of leisure to rearrange her first aid kit. Maisie's springy dark hair looked electrified, but whether it was from the humidity or neglect, Jane couldn't guess. "Hi, Jane," she said, ticking off small boxes of gauze on a checklist.

“What's with everybody?" Jane asked. "There's suddenly a different mood.”

Maisie finished her chore and closed the box her equipment was in. "Oh, partly it's the end of the film hysteria. It sometimes happens that way. But mostly it's because there's an important scene this afternoon that calls for everything in the book. Cameras panning on tracks, lots of extras, different scenery, possibly a special effect if the 'rain man' can get his rain machine fixed. There's some kind of problem with the hydrant the water's supposed to come from."

“So is that why the magazine and television people are here?"

“No, they're here on the scent of blood. Jake's. Hoping there might be a spectacular arrest. It's the one kind of publicity nobody wants."

“But I haven't even seen the police," Jane said, meaning she hadn't seen Mel all day even though she thought she'd noticed his little red MG parked way down her block. But with all the extras' cars clogging the street, she couldn't be sure.

“Oh, they're here in droves. Roaming around on the set, driving everybody mad. The police can't seem to grasp why everybody's going on with a silly movie in the face of murder and Roberto can't grasp why the police keep interfering in an important thing like a movie for something as trivial as murder. I wouldn't be surprised if Roberto doesn'tend up in jail himself eventually on a charge of tangling the wheels of justice or something."

“Maisie, who do you think killed Jake?" Jane asked, imitating George Abington's apparent bluntness.

“I can't imagine," Maisie said, not the least surprised by the question. "I really can't. I don't know anybody who didn't find him offensive, but there's a lot of people in this business who make a life's work of being offensive and they don't end up murdered."

“But Jake was blackmailing people. That's a considerable step up from 'offensive.' "

“Was he really? I'd heard gossip this morning. To be honest, Jane, I don't put much credence in blackmail as a motive. Not with actors anyway."

“What do you mean?"

“Well, actors love to talk about themselves, get `reputations,' be closely involved in scandals. Not all of them, of course, but most of them will tell you their life stories at the drop of a hat. They never get tired of hearing about themselves, even if it's from their own lips."

“So I've noticed."

“So it's hard to blackmail a performer. And especially so nowadays. It used to be that a charge or alcoholism or homosexuality could destroy a career, but these days it's the 'in thing' to share their most intimate secrets with the public. Anybody who's anybody has been in drug rehab. In fact, I understand there's quite a hierarchy of places to go for it. Some of the rehab units even have their own publicist handing out 'star-studded' lists of former patients."

“So is nothing worth keeping a secret?"

“You tell me. Willie Nelson has told the world about his tax problems. Everybody on the screen or stage wants to talk about their infidelities and brushes with the law."

“I guess you're right."

“Even the things they
haven't
done are on the front page of the tabloids and most performers seldom even bother to sue the rags. Sometimes they even have their staff plant the fake stories. I guess they figure any publicity is good publicity. Besides, Jane, the blackmail didn't work."

“What do you mean?"

“Angela didn't get the part. That's what the gossip mill says he was working on, getting Angela the vacant part yesterday afternoon."

“Oh, I found out something interesting about Angela. At least I think I did. George Abington says Angela was Jake's niece.”

Maisie laughed. "Oh, was she?"

“George Abington says so. Do you suppose he's right?"

“I have no idea. Never met the man before. He could be a pathological liar for all I know. But — he could be right. I just assumed it was a romance from all the attention Jake paid to her, but it could have been plain old nepotism. Come to think of it, she looks sort of like him. The same coloring and the sharp planes of their faces. They could be related."

“But she told me he was trying to seduce her."

“That's when she was trying to impress you, right? I heard about you being a famous scriptwriter. That doesn't happen to be true, does it?"

“No, of course not. But it does make people talk to me. I didn't come up with it. Shelley did."

“Then that's why Angela lied. She was trying to get you to see her as the poor, virginal heroine and write her a tasty role.”

A hand fell heavily on Jane's arm.

She turned and looked at Shelley, who was wide-eyed and stunned-looking.

“Shelley, you look like somebody just hit you with half a brick," Jane said. "Come sit down and tell me what's wrong.”

They took up their positions in their lawn chairs. "I've been talking to Lynette Harwell. Or rather, I've been being talked at by her. I knew you wouldn't want to have a chat with her, so I gave it a shot."