Shooting Hollywood Read online

  “I have to go to makeup. They want to change the color of my hair. Make it more golden or something. I kinda like my color. Gordon calls it dirty blonde.” She giggled. It was a strange, spasmodic laugh connected to nothing funny.

  “Can I meet you at your car?” she asked.

  “Sure. I’m in the underground parking lot in the Executive Building.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “Green Jag. It’s unlocked. My air conditioner’s not working so I left the windows down.”

  “I’ve always wanted a Jag,” she said moving toward the door. “Oh,” she stopped and looked at me. “I saw you talking to Mrs. Keith.”

  “Yes?”

  “I recognized her car. What did she have to say?”

  “It was just a conversation between two old friends,” I lied.

  I thought she might have said something about me.”

  “No.”

  “Gordon tells her everything. Everything that he and I do with each other.”

  “Do you like that?”

  For a moment her mouth looked soft, almost sweet. But it was only a moment. “She has a great car. I wouldn’t mind having a Mercedes. See, ya.”

  Wynn left me feeling I was being drawn into something. Something Gordon wanted.

  The wardrobe mistress shuffled in wearing bedroom slippers and hung three dresses on the clothes rack.

  “I’ll be right back with your shoes,” she said in a tired voice, and scuffed out of the room.

  I got up and looked at the dresses; they were perfect if I were doing Tobacco Road.

  An hour later I walked down the ramp into the underground garage. I removed my sunglasses, letting my eyes adjust from the bright sunlight to the cool darkness. My heels echoed the sound of a lone female as I made my way toward the car. And again I felt the sharp pain of loss.

  I didn’t see Wynn. I didn’t see anybody until I approached the driver’s side of the Jag. Gordon was sitting in the passenger seat.

  “You always lurk in underground garages, Gordon?” I asked, sliding into the car. My skirt hiked up and I felt something warm on my thigh. Gordon didn’t answer. I looked at him. His head flopped back against the head rest. His mouth sagged. One eye was open, the other closed as if he’d died in the middle of a leering wink. Blood trickled down from a hole in the side of his head. Slowly I became aware of bits and pieces of his hair and flesh on the burl wood dashboard. His hand rested casually on a gun. I looked down at my thigh. Blood was smeared across it.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” Wynn stood next to the car quivering, repeating over and over. “Oh, my God, my God.” Then she screamed and ran toward the ramp.

  I stared straight ahead at the cement wall in front of me. Soon I heard footsteps and voices coming toward the car. But I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to find me. It was getting dark in the garage. So dark.

  “Colin,” I murmured, opening my eyes. My mouth was dry. I was lying down trying to bring recessed lighting into focus.

  “I bet your pardon?”

  The man’s voice came from somewhere across a room.

  “Colin.”

  “Who’s Colin?” the voice asked.

  I slowly sat up and swung my legs around. I was on the red leather sofa in Gordon’s office. I stared at the smeared dry blood on my thigh and it all came back to me. I pulled my skirt down.

  “Who is Colin?” he asked again.

  Sitting behind Gordon’s desk was a lean, unassumingly handsome man in a cheap suit. He was about my age. His intelligent blue eyes studied me.

  “Colin is my husband.”

  “He was in the garage?”

  “No, no. Colin’s dead. Died of a heart attack. Who are you?”

  David Lang, L.A.P.D., Detective. Homicide.”

  “Yes, of course, the police. Homicide?”

  “There’s a dead body.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “About an hour. We had the studio doc check you.”

  He peered at Gordon’s telephone with all the buttons and began pushing each one. Finally the door opened and Rose came in; Her skin was as gray as her hair.

  “Did he keep any booze in here?” he asked.

  “In there.” She pointed to a lacquered cabinet.

  “That’ll be all,” he said.

  “Mr. Howard March, the director, is outside. He wants to know if you’re…well, if you’re…”

  “Yes?”

  “Going to arrest Mrs. Hudson.”

  “Diana Poole,” I said automatically. “Arrest?” That word didn’t come out so easily.

  She turned to me. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Marsh doesn’t know whether he should recast or not. Your scenes shoot tomorrow. He’s in a terrible snit.”

  Now we both looked at Detective Lang who was taking a glass and a bottle of brandy from the cabinet.

  “Tell him to wait,” he ordered.

  Rose sighed and left the room.

  He poured the glass full of brandy, handed it to me, then sat back down in Gordon’s chair.

  “I saw you, a long time ago, in a Burt Reynolds movie. Something about truckers,” he said.

  “Highway Blues.”

  “I was on a date. Took her to a drive-in. I was going to score. You came on the screen. I’d never seen anyone as beautiful, so sexy.”

  Score? I hadn’t heard that word in twenty years. Not since I was so beautiful. So sexy.

  “Are you thinking of arresting me?”

  “My date, I can’t remember her name now, she was kind of cute and plump. But I kept looking at you. Now and then I’d sneak a look at her and suddenly she became just this plain, fat girl. Did you kill him?”

  “No. Did you score?” I took another swig of brandy.

  “No. Why don’t you tell me what happened from the moment you arrived at the studio.”

  I told him everything that had occurred. But there were nuances I couldn’t quite capture.

  “Hard to think of you playing a mother to that blonde bimbo,” he said.

  “I don’t like the word bimbo. I was called the equivalent of that when I was young and trying to make it. I’d like to wash the blood off my leg, if you don’t mind.”

  “It’s on your thigh.”

  “My thigh.”

  “I have this need for exactness. Drives people crazy, including my ex-wife. You can’t wash the blood off your pantyhose. I assume you’re wearing pantyhose. We may need them for evidence. I can get Sergeant Blake in here to help you. She’s seen it all.”

  “I’d just like to throw some water on my face.”

  “Sure. Right in there.” He leaned back in Gordon’s chair, cocked his hand as if it were a gun—a gesture I could have done without—and pointed toward a door by the liquor cabinet.

  The bathroom was done in black marble and tan wall paper. The toilet seat was up. I raised my skirt and looked down at the caked blood. I wasn’t wearing anything under my pantyhose. I never did. What the hell, I’d had enough of Gordon Keith. I pulled off the pantyhose and wrapped them in a hand towel. The towel smelled of Chanel No. 5. It was strong. Vivian had been in this bathroom sometime during the day. I slipped my skirt back down. The silky lining felt cool against my buttocks and thighs making me aware of my nakedness. I slipped on my shoes; they felt stiff on my bare feet. I thought of Wynn, with her long naked legs, dangling her black high-heeled shoe from her toes. I turned on the water, washed my hands, and dabbed at my face with a damp towel. I needed lipstick. I smoothed my hair and thought of Vivian remembering me looking into a mirror, smoothing my hair. A moment in the past which meant nothing to me, and yet meant so much to her.

  Lang was just hanging up the phone when I walked out of the bathroom. I placed my little bundle in front of him.

  “Here’s your evidence.”

  He picked it up and smelled the towel. He did this as if he were judging the bouquet of a glass of wine.

  “Not your perfume. Yours is more subtle, cleaner smelling.”<
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  “Chanel No. 5. Vivian Keith wears it. Have you talked to her?” I asked, sitting back down on the sofa.

  “How did you know about this TV role?” he asked, purposely ignoring my question.

  “Sam Marks is Colin’s agent. Was Colin’s agent. He’s been a friend to both of us for years. He handles writers mostly. But when I told him I wanted to get back into acting he said he would help me out. He set up the appointment with Gordon Keith.”

  “Small role.”

  “I’m not exactly in demand.”

  “You went to bed with him. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The bim…Wynn Larkin.”

  “Well, I didn’t go to bed with him. But I’m the only one who seems to think I didn’t.”

  “Probably doesn’t matter. Just had a phone call. It seems the men way high up at this studio are talking to the people way high up downtown. And they, being such good detectives, think it’s a case of suicide. Closed case. What do you think?”

  “Was it his gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “His fingerprints on the gun?”

  “Hasn’t been thoroughly checked yet, but unless you were so careless as to leave yours, I bet they’re his.”

  “Why my car?”

  “Good as place as any, I guess.”

  “Who do you think killed him?”

  “I think Vivian Keith did it. Or Wynn Larkin did it. Or Diana Poole did it.”

  He turned and began pushing the buttons on the phone. Rose came in.

  “Tell Marsh he doesn’t have to get a new actress for the role.” He looked at me. “Sergeant Blake will drive you home.”

  “I have a six o’clock makeup call in the morning,” I told Rose. “I’m without a car.”

  “Mr. Marsh said that under the circumstances he’d have a car pick you up.” She walked briskly out of the office.

  “I’ll be talking to you,” Lang said, casually resting his hand on the towel wrapped around my pantyhose. “Too bad this is evidence. I’d like to keep it. Might be worth something one day. Famous producer’s blood on actress’s intimate apparel.” He leaned back and laughed.

  The phone rang. Its shrill scream knifed into my sleep. I awoke breathing hard, as if I’d been running. Reaching across the empty side of the bed I grabbed the receiver.

  “Hello?” I blinked at the clock, it was three-thirty in the morning.

  “You finally took him away from me.” It was Vivian. She was either doped or drunk. “You took him away from me. You murderer! You bitch! You slut!”

  I hung up on her. I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling. I could hear the ocean slapping against the sand. The telephone rang again. I leaned over and grabbed it.

  “Look, Vivian, I didn’t fuck your husband. I didn’t kill your husband.”

  There was silence, then that strange disconnected giggle.

  “It’s Wynn, Diana.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Gordon. And I try to study the script and I can’t remember my lines.”

  “Marsh doesn’t know how to move actors around for a whole page of dialogue. Don’t worry about your lines.”

  “Gordon said you were great in bed. Gordon said there was nobody better, not even me.”

  I felt my body turn cold. I pulled the blankets up around me.

  “I had to tell the detective that,” she said. “I had to tell the truth. I’m going to look awful tomorrow. Big dark circles under my eyes.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Wynn?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Gordon thought you did.”

  She giggled. “Goodnight, Diana.”

  Again, I stared up at the ceiling. Everyone thought I had gone to bed with Gordon Keith. Even Gordon. I had the feeling that my life might be easier at this moment if I had gone to bed with him. I got up and stared out the window. The moon draped a silver glow over the water and the sand. I knew one thing. Gordon would never kill himself. He wasn’t that thoughtful. So was it the wife? Or the girlfriend? I watched a man walk a large black poodle near the water’s edge. Its pom-poms were silhouetted in the moonlight. Welcome back to Hollywood, Diana.

  “Action!”

  I moved from my mark, a strip of tape with my initials written on it, which had been stuck to the carpeting. I walked around the coffee table to the desk, hitting my next mark. The brilliant lights were warm on my face and arms. I had forgotten how comforting that warmth was. I could feel the makeup, a tight drying layer on my face. I opened the desk drawer, pretended to search through it, found the letter the prop man had put in there, took it out, opened it, pretended to read, brought my hand to my mouth—a corny gesture—and repeated my lines.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God.” Then I screamed.

  “Cut!” Marsh snapped.

  I stopped screaming.

  “Print,” he commanded.

  “Next set up. Clear the set! Clear the set!” the first assistant director yelled.

  I made my way over the cables and around the lights.

  “The hand gesture was a bit much, wasn’t it?” Vivian wore dark glasses. “Oh, my God, Oh, my god,” she imitated me.

  I stared at her, but thought of Wynn standing in the garage by my car saying the exact same words. She had even screamed the way I had just screamed. The way it was written in the script. The trouble with clichéd writing is that it’s usually true. Tired and unilluminating, but true. People did react that way.

  “What are you doing here, Vivian?”

  “Do you know they’ve already given Gordon’s parking space away?”

  Following me toward the sound stage door she said, “I have to talk to you.”

  We walked out into the bright morning light. Across from the sound stage was a row of portable dressing rooms shaped like big gray boxes. On one of them my name, written in felt pen on a slip of paper, was stuck to the door.

  Inside Vivian said, “God, I remember when you used to have a trailer on the set. When they thought you had a chance to make it big.”

  She sat down on the sofa. I took the chair at the built-in makeup table.

  “What do you want, Vivian?”

  “I want to apologize for my behavior in the car yesterday. I’ve lived my life totally obsessed with Gordon and with you. I know he’s had other affairs. But you were the first. The first to hurt me.”

  “I never went to bed with…”

  “Let me finish. I even became a blonde because of you. God, how he talked about you. It’s ironical that you should be the one to remove my obsession. I want to thank you for that.”

  “For what?”

  “For killing him,” she said in a low voice.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “I don’t want you to admit it. The police think it’s suicide. That’s fine with me.”

  “What kind of game are you playing, Vivian? You telephoned me last night and called me a slut and a murderer.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Too drunk to remember?”

  “I was cold sober last night. For the first time in my life I didn’t need booze or pills to sleep. I didn’t need Gordon. I couldn’t see what the bastard was like in life, but in death I could suddenly see him for what he was. That’s why I wanted to thank you.”

  “Stop thanking me, Vivian.”

  “Look at me, Diana.” She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were bright and clear. Perfectly made up. “Do I look like the grieving widow? Do I look like somebody who was up drinking and making phone calls in the middle of the night? I only wore these dark glasses because I thought it was appropriate. I had one of the best nights of sleep I’ve ever had.”

  “If you didn’t call me then who did?”

  “Ask Wynn. She used to call Gordon and imitate my voice. Pretend she was me and tell him I/she was going to kill him. Then she’d break up laughing.”

  “How do you
know this?”

  “Gordon told me. He told me everything. That’s how I knew about you and him. He told me how you liked it. How you would moan and scream out.”

  “I never went to bed with him, Vivian.”

  “It’s all right, Diana. You don’t have to lie. Gordon told me how Wynn likes it. He told me everything about her. You know, I never really enjoyed sex. Gordon was a man who tired of what he had and always desired what he didn’t have. I thought that made us perfect for one another. Except he started to use his affairs against me. Tell me about them. In defense I made myself blonde, and for a while I tried to be what he wanted. A dirty blonde. But let’s face it, I’m just a brunette with a low libido.” Vivian laughed. “I have to be going. And again, thanks.”

  “Were you in Gordon’s private bathroom yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “You should’ve said yes, Vivian.”

  She studied me for a moment then left.

  Tired I lay down on the sofa. Maybe Gordon did kill himself. Maybe men become just as tired as women. But Vivian was in that bathroom and she lied about it. Why? There was a knock.

  “Come in,” I said, not moving.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Wynn peered down at me. Under her heavy layer of makeup I could see dark circles below her eyes.

  “I was up all night trying to memorize my lines.” She peered at herself in the mirror. “I look awful.”

  I sat up. “Don’t try so hard to memorize. It’s the worst thing an actor can do. Just keep reading the scene over and over, the lines will come.”

  “I can’t concentrate. Will you help me? Can I come by tonight?” She looked so young and needy.

  “Sure. Come by around eight.”

  “I keep thinking of Gordon in your car.” She spoke to her reflection. “All that blood.”

  “Vivian told me that sometimes you pretended to be her and call Gordon and threaten him.”