Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rune closed the file cabinet, checking distances, checking exits. She was on the fourth floor. That was forty feet. Would a jump through the window kill her? Might.

Traub stepped toward her, shaking his head. "Gosh, here we are in New York, crime capital of the world… I mean, there are people from Iowa hold on to their wallets when they flyover New York in an airplane. This city's got such a bad rep, I can't believe it."

"I was just-"

"And what do we have here? A young lady stealing ^iles! My God! Does she realize that those manila folders cost a couple cents each? Steal a hundred thousand of them-"

"I was-"

"-and she could buy herself a set of Tupperware. Or a Big Mac feast for her and her friends. Trying to fence them though's a little tricky…" The smile faded. The audience was gone. "Okay. What the fuck you doing here?"

He walked over to where she was standing and lifted the file out of her hands. Glanced at the name on the folder. He nodded knowingly. Tossed it back into the cabinet.

As he was turning to her Rune dropped to her knees and pulled the tear gas canister out of her purse.

But Traub moved faster. He grabbed the cylinder, ripped it out of her hand and shoved her into the couch. He looked at it closely, amused, it seemed. Rune sat up. "What's this all about? And don't gimme this cute Nancy Drew shit. I had a fucking bomb take out my star and a floor of my company. I'm not in the mood."

Rune didn't say anything. Traub pointed the tear gas spray at her face.

Remembering the terrible sting, she cringed, looked away.

"Answer me."

Breathlessly she said, "You didn't tell me you had a policy on Shelly Lowe." He frowned. "A policy?" "An insurance policy."

"That's right. I didn't. But you didn't ask me if I had one, now, did you?"

"It seems like that'd be a pretty normal thing to mention, I tell you I'm doing a film about one of your stars." Traub glanced again at the tear gas, weighed it in his hand. "You're asking all this shit for your film? Is that it?" He leaned up against the door. Rune saw his muscles stand out, sinewy and pale. He reminded her of one of the flying monkeys inThe Wizard of Oz -the characters that scared her the most, even more than the Wicked Witch. "The police know I'm here."

Traub laughed. "That's like on D-Day, yelling to the Germans: 'Ike knows I'm here.' " He looked her over and the motion of his eyes was like his tongue coursing over her body. She pulled away from him, crossed her arms, glanced down at the desk for paperweights. There was a letter opener she might go for.

"So, you think I killed Shelly, do you? That I planted a bomb so I'd get the insurance money."

"I didn't say that."

Traub paced. Intermission was over; he was looking around once more. "That's pretty good detective work this cookie's done, don't you think? She's a star, she's a regular little Sherlock Holmes. Well, you got me, honey. Yep, yep. The insurance company paid off. I got myself a check for five hundred thousand dollars."

Rune didn't answer.

Traub set the tear gas down. He looked at Rune, then took a key out of his pocket and walked behind his desk. Rune leaned forward, putting her weight on the balls of her feet. He was going for a gun. He could just shoot her like a burglar and the police wouldn't do anything.

Traub glanced at her. "On your mark, get set… I don't think she can make it in time."

He grinned and pulled out the black pistol.

Enjoyed the sight of her eyes widening.

"Here's a present for our little Ms. Detective."

Rune winced. When it looked like he was going to pull the trigger she'd just dive forward, grab the tear gas and hope for the best.

Then Traub's other hand emerged with a piece of paper.

Neither of them moved for a moment.

"I don't know about her but the suspense is killing me. Is she going to read it? Is she going to make a paper airplane?"

Rune took the sheet of paper and read:

Dear Mr. Traub:

With intense, heartfelt gratitude, we acknowledge receipt of your check in the amount of $400,000. Your generosity will go very far in supporting research to find a cure for this terrible affliction and in easing the burden of those whose lives have been affected byit…

The letter was signed by the director of the New York AIDS Coalition.

"Oh."

Traub dropped the gun in the drawer. " 'Oh,' she says. 'Oh…' Well, you know, there's still a hundred of the insurance proceeds unaccounted for. But since I personally take home a hundred fifty a year cash, off the books, you can probably deduce that I ain't gonna kill my biggest star to pick up fucking chicken feed. Oh, by the way, my personal property insurance has a hundred thousand deductible so with the repairs to the floor downstairs this whole thing was a wash for me."

"I'm sorry."

He tossed the tear gas to her. "I think it's time for our little detective to leave. Let's give her a big round of applause."

Throughout the interview Arthur Tucker never quite got over the shock that two police officers were questioning him as a suspect in a murder case.

They were polite as they asked him questions about Shelly Lowe. They tried to make it seem casual but there was something they were trying to get at. Something they knew.

What? he thought desperately. He felt vulnerable-as if they could see into his mind but he had no clue as to what they were thinking.

One of the officers glanced up at Tucker's medals. "You in the service, sir?"

"I was in the Rangers."

"You ever do demolition?"

He shrugged. "We all knew how to use bangalore torpedoes, grenades. But that was forty years ago… Are you suggesting that I had anything to do with those bombs?"

"Nosir. We're just looking into what happened to Ms. Lowe."

Tucker looked perplexed, confused, and asked them about the Sword of Jesus.

They continued to be evasive.

But it was more than evasion. They were grasping at straws and even then they came away holding nothing at all. He wondered how on earth they had come to think he might be the killer. He supposed that Shelly had written his name in a Day-Timer or a wall calendar. Maybe she kept a diary-he told all of his students to keep one-and she'd written about one of their lessons. Maybe about one of their fights.

That could have brought them here.

But as he thought about Shelly, his mind wandered, and with his strong will and talents at concentration he brought his attention back to the policemen.

"She was a fascinating person, Officer," Tucker explained, with the sorrow and reverence one should have in his voice when speaking of a fascinating person who had just died. "I hope you're close to catching these people. I can't condone her career-you know how she made her living, I suppose-but violence like this." He closed his eyes and shuddered. "Inexcusable. It makes us all barbarians."

Tucker was a good actor. But they didn't buy it. They looked at him blankly, as if he hadn't said a word. Then one officer said, "I understand you write plays too, sir. Is that correct?"

He believed his heart stopped beating for a moment. "I've done just about everything there is to do in the theater. I started out as a-"

"But about the writing. You do write plays?" "Yes."

"And Ms. Lowe did too. Isn't that correct?"

"She may have."

"But she was your student. Isn't that something you'd talk about with her?"

"I think she did, yes. We were more concerned with acting than writing in our-"

"But let's stick with the writing for a minute. Do you have in your possession any plays that she wrote?"

"No," Tucker answered, managing to keep his voice rock-firm.

"Can you account for your whereabouts the night Ms. Lowe was killed? At around eight p.m.?"

"I was attending a play."

"So I guess there'd be witnesses."

"About fifteen hundred of them. Do you want me to give you some names?" Tucker asked.

"That won't be necessary."

The other cop added, "Not at this time."

"You mind if we look around the office?"

"Yes, I do. You'll have to get a warrant for that."

"You're not cooperating?"

"I have been cooperating. But if you want to search my office you'll have to get a warrant. Simple as that."

This didn't evoke any emotion at all in their faces. "Okay. Thank you for your time."

When they were gone Tucker stood at his window for five minutes-making sure they'd left the building. He turned back to his desk and with unsteady hands found the script forDelivered Flowers. He put this into his battered briefcase. He then began looking through the manuscripts on his credenza. Throwing the ones Shelly had written into the briefcase too.

But wait…

One was missing. He searched again. No, it wasn't there. He was sure he'd left it there. Jesus… What had happened to it?

Then he looked up and saw the glass door to his office, the replacement for the one that was broken the other day in that abortive robbery. He'dthought nothing had been stolen in the break-in.

Tucker sat down slowly in his chair.

The House O' Leather filming had been arduous.

Larry had taken Rune off catering detail for the time being and actually let her operate the camera during one session.

It had been a long shoot. Daughter had needed eighteen takes before she could get two lines of dialogue in the can. But Rune didn't care-the camera was a real Arriflex 35, a beautiful piece of precision machinery, and feeling the mechanism whir beneath her fingers made up for a lot of the recent grief she'd been put through at the company.

Mr. Wallet-she justcouldn't remember his name-had turned out to be not so bad. He thanked Rune whenever she brought him something to eat or drink and, on a break, they'd shared a few words about recent movies. He had pretty good taste.

Ad director Mary Jane, though, was a different story. She hovered over the set, wearing a distracting blue-and-red suit with shoulder pads like a linebacker's. Wanting to correct the light, wanting to look through the Arri's eyepiece. And when Rune wasn't behind the camera the woman would ask her to make copies and retype memos. Shewondered a lot (her favorite phrase seemed to be "I wonder if it might not be better to…"; the second was "I would have thought you…"). Her saving grace was that, unlike Mr. Wallet, she didn't ask Rune to fetch coffee-which told her that in her pre-Ann Taylor incarnation Mary Jane had been a put-upon secretary (the resentments of servitude run deep, Rune knew).

The shoot was finished and Rune was in the office late, checking props for the dramatic logo scene, to be shot in a day or two. This was Bob's idea; it would be a tracking CU-a moving close-up shot-of dominoes falling over, followed by a pullback to reveal that the dominoes had formed the company's name and logo. It had been Rune's job to find and rent thousands of white, dot-free dominoes.

Rune heard a noise. She looked up and saw Sam Healy standing in the doorway.

She said, "If you're here in a, like, official capacity I'm hauling ass outa this building right now," she said. "So you reallydo have a job." "That's a real liberal use of the wordjob, Sam." He walked inside and she opened the massive refrigerator and gave him a beer.

"We've got one more shot for this stupid commercial. Then the boys collect a nifty two hundred G's. And that's profit."

"Phew," Healy whistled. "Not a bad line of work. Beats civil-servant pay grades."

"At least you have your dignity, Sam." She showed him the studio, then ran some of the rushes from the House O' Leather shoots on the Moviola. "I can set you up with the daughter, you want." "That's all right. Think I'll pass." They walked back to the office and sat down. He said, "A couple buddies from the Sixth Precinct checked up on Tucker. He looked guilty, they said. But so do most people when they're being interviewed by two cops."

He continued: "But here's the gist of it. They checked out his military history. He hardly ever saw combat and once he was discharged never had anything to do with the military again. Was in theater all his life. No criminal record, no apparent contact with criminals. Attends church regularly. He-"

"But he still knows how-"

"Hey, hey, let me finish. They also checked out what an original play by an unknown playwright is worth. You're talking in the thousands, tops, unless a miracle happens and it takes off-like Cats or something like that. And that's a one-in-a-million chance. Believe me, nobody's going to risk a murder conviction for a couple of thousand dollars."

"But the play… I saw he'd changed the name."

"Sure he did. She was killed and he figured he'd steal them and make a little money. Her estate wouldn't even know about it. That's larceny. But who cares?" Healy looked into one of the hundred of boxes of dominoes that surrounded Rune. "So?"

"So?"

"You out of the detective business?"

"Totally and completely."

"I'm really glad to hear that."

"I have some information," the young woman's voice said.

Sitting at his oak desk, Michael Schmidt held the phone receiver in one hand and with his other tapped on the unopened lid of the carton of clam chowder.

The voice, a woman's and disguised somehow, continued. "It links you to Shelly Lowe's death."

He poked his finger listlessly against the cello packet of saltines until each cracker popped into crumbs. "Who is this?"

"I think it's information you'd be interested in."

"Tell me who you are."

"You'll meet me soon enough. If you're not afraid to."

"What do you want? You want money? Are you trying to blackmail me?"

"Blackmail? It's funny you should mention that word.

Maybe I am. But I want to meet you in person. Face-to-face."

"Come to my office."

"No way. Where there are plenty of people around."

"Okay. Where?"

"Meet me at noon at Lincoln Center. You know the tables they have set up there?"

"The restaurant outside?"

"Yeah, there. Meet me there. And don't bring anybody with you. Got it?"

The line went dead.

Schmidt sat staring at the glossy black-and-gray phone for a full minute before he realized he was still holding the silent receiver. He hung it up angrily.

He felt like swearing, though he knew that if he did he'd immediately regret saying the cuss word. He was proud of the fact that he was both a tough, moneymaking businessman and a deeply religious man who abhorred the use of obscenities. With his thumb he continued to crush the crackers into dust.

His appetite for the soup was gone and he pitched it into his wastebasket. The lid came off and the soup spilled into the plastic bag lining the garbage can. The smell of fish and onions wafted up, which made him even more angry.

But he remained completely still as he folded his hands together and prayed until he was calm. That was one thing he had learned to do-he never made a decision when he was in what he called a secular state.

In five minutes the spirit of the Lord had calmed him. His decision was to do exactly what he'd thought of doing when he'd hung up after speaking to the girl. He picked up the phone and gently pressed out a number.