Show Business is Murder

Slap by MAT COWARD

I USED TO rob women, which is how I got into acting. I don’t do it any more because it is morally indefensible (I’m talking about robbing women), but it was a good living for a while. I could easily make five hundred pounds in a day, if it was a good day.

Women in the UK spend twelve million pounds a year on anti-cellulite treatments. There is no such thing as an anti-cellulite treatment, it is a scientific impossibility, but British women spend twelve million quid a year on them. And that is only the tip of the icebird. If you factor in the billions spent on women’s magazines, makeup, slimming pills, and so on, you begin to get a picture. I’m not saying all women are stupid, but enough are stupid that robbing them is never hard.

For my targets, I would choose women who were not attractive. I didn’t choose out-and-out hounds, because they have nothing to lose-no dignity, no delusions-and so they might possess confidence. I chose women who were just sufficiently the right side of ugly so that they’d spend every minute of their lives in a preoccupying torment of hope. I picked them up on the pavements outside busy shops in the West End. I knew the location of every CCTV camera in Oxford Street, believe me.

I would approach them smiling. This in itself is confusing. Do they know me? I’m a good-looking young man, quite tall, slim… I’m smiling at them, but if they knew someone like me surely they’d remember? I’d walk right up to them, my smile not crazy, just confident, and then when I got up close enough to smell their breath, still smiling, I’d slap them across the face with my open hand. Right hand. Big swing. Exactly the way a woman slaps a man when he tries to kiss her in an old film.

Her hands go to her face. Naturally-instinct. She can’t help it. If she’s carrying anything, she drops it. If her bag is still on her arm, I take hold of her wrist and slide the bag off. Then I run, and I can run fast. Along the way I dump the bag; I only ever take cash. Cash is safest.

A woman of that sort-even once she’s recovered from the astonishing shock of being slapped like that, almost certainly for the first time in her adult life, and by a handsome young man who was smiling at her-it’s going to take her several seconds before she can bring herself to react. To raise her voice, scream, say something, tell someone. Get her breath back. Five seconds, maybe more.

And in five seconds, believe me, I’m in a different borough.

ONE SATURDAY AFTERNOON during this period of my life I was in a pub in Fitzrovia, having finished work for the day, and the old potman was telling me about some mate of his who’d died the previous day during an operation to remove a brain tumour. “Well, that’s the thing about brain tumours,” I said. “You can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em.”

The potman laughed and said, “I don’t know, son, the things you come out with!” Then he went back to collecting pots and I went back to reading the international news in the paper.

I was reading about an attempt by lawmakers in Arkansas to force teachers to declare atheism or agnosticism along with previous criminal convictions on job application forms, when a female voice said in my ear: “Five hundred quid. Half now, half after, and more to come.” Of course, I looked up and smiled.

She had one of those chafed faces, as if her midwife had buffed it up the middle with a sander. It was pink, with invisible eyelashes, a bent-back tip to the nose, and a moist, quivering chin which was trying to hide behind her Adam’s apple. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who would have the confidence to say the sort of thing she’d just said, to a handsome young stranger. She was about forty and rather thin. No man had ever looked at this woman lustfully, unless it was her own father. Still, though stereotyping can be a useful tool it makes an unreliable master.

“Have a seat,” I said, standing up and touching her elbow. “Gin and tonic, is it?”

“Thank you,” she said. “No ice.”

I fetched the G &T for her and a particular beer for me. There are great beers from around the globe available easily in London, if you care enough to look for them.

“Do you,” she said, “ever watch daytime TV?”

“My life has never yet been that empty of purpose,” I admitted.

She sipped her drink. “Fair enough. Well, in that case, you won’t have seen a cable show called Libby’s Place. It’s presented by a young woman, a very forceful young woman, named Libby Priest, and it takes the form of an audience-participation discussion show, centred around a number of invited guests.”

“Not really my sort of thing. I prefer history shows.”

“Really?” She looked at me over her glass. “Any particular period?”

“All periods,” I said. “There is only one period.”

“The past, you mean?”

“The present,” I said. “From then to now, it’s always the present when it happens.”

She nodded. She wasn’t that interested. “Well. Libby’s Place can, itself, be quite educational. The invited guests that I mentioned just now, they aren’t experts or celebrities-they’re ordinary members of the public. Extraordinary ordinary members of the public. People to whom things have happened, or people who have done things, and they tell Libby about those things, and then the audience-”

“Rips them apart?”

“Discusses what has been shared.”

I finished my beer, and she went to fetch another round. I watched her at the bar, and noticed that not one man looked at her for more than a second, not even the barman. When she returned, I said: “You work on this show?”

“I’m an assistant producer. Specifically, I source guests.”

“You source them?”

“Yes.”

“And you wish to source me?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll pay me?”

“Yes.”

“And there’s a hell of a lot more to it than that?”

She smiled. When she smiled, her face looked like something her worst enemy had done to her and then said,

“What’s the matter, can’t you take a joke?”

“Yes,” she said. “There is more to it than that.”

And that’s how I got into acting.

SHE TOOK ME out to dinner, to a Thai place, and at the table she showed me her business card and her building pass because she didn’t want me to have any doubt about her genuineness. Her name was given on both documents as Annabelle Inwood. She didn’t ask for my name. It was Jez Becker, but she didn’t ask for it.

“The trouble is,” said Annabelle, as I ate my curry and she poked at hers with a fork, “there aren’t enough genuine weirdoes to go around. This isn’t America. In California-I worked there for a while-all you’ve got to do is open the office door, grab the first half dozen people you see, and you can rely on at least four of them being completely eccentric and perfectly telegenic.”

“But not over here.”

She shook her head. The motion failed to dislodge the piece of rice which was stuck to her chin. “We are handicapped in this country by an archaic belief that personal grief should be kept private. We’re getting over it, slowly, but in the meantime-well, there are a lot of shows like mine to be filled.”

“A lot of guests to be sourced.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think five hundred pounds is very much.”

“Ah,” said Annabelle. “But, like I said, more to come.”

“I don’t see how,” I said. “Surely, once I’ve been on the show once…”

“You’d be surprised. Provided we handle things subtly, and make good use of lighting, makeup and so on, it’s perfectly possible for one guest to appear on many shows, over a period of time.”

“And nobody notices?”

She put down her fork. “Look, this kind of program-people don’t exactly give it their full attention, you see what I mean? It’s something you watch while you’re doing the ironing, or feeding the baby.”

“Or applying wrinkle cream.”

She snorted, and the piece of rice finally fell from her chin. “Yes, sure, whatever. So, if a guy called Joe comes on the show and says he’s just got engaged to his sister, and then six weeks later a guy called Phil, who looks maybe vaguely like Joe, only without the mustache and with darker hair, says he was born a man but he had an operation to become a woman, only now he’s had an operation to turn him back into a man because he dreams of being a professional footballer-well, who’s to notice? Who’s to care?”

I ate the rest of my meal, even though it wasn’t very good, because it is morally indefensible to waste food, and then I said: “What happens when you get caught?”

“We don’t get caught.”

“But if you did?”

She shrugged. “Slap on the wrist from the regulators. It’s not exactly genocide, is it? It’s just showbiz.”

We ordered coffee. “For five hundred pounds, who would I be?”

She got her personal organiser out, and flipped through it to find her place. “Okay, if you’re available on Monday, it’d be a choice between ‘Youth Detention Center Turned Me Gay,’ or ‘I Oppose Legalising Drugs Cos It’d Put Me Out Of Work.’ ”

I stirred my coffee. “I wouldn’t like to be a drug dealer. It might cause complications.”

“All right then, you’re a queer ex-con. Shall I pencil you in?”

“You have the money with you?”

“Half the money, like I said. Got it right here.” She tapped her trouser pocket. “I never keep money in my bag.”

“Very wise.”

“I know,” she said. She smiled.

I smiled back. “I might be available on Monday.”

“Good.”

“Sure. I think I might be.” I called the waiter over and ordered a brandy. “But I’d like to know why you chose me.”

She shrugged. “Spur of the moment. I saw you in the pub and thought you looked like the right kind of guy for the job.”

“What kind of guy is that?”

“Guy like you. You see, what we’re looking for are people who are convincing, imaginative, talented-and reliable.”

“You could tell all that from looking at me in the pub?”

She picked up the bill, glanced at it, put it back in its saucer and laid her credit card on top of it. “I’ve watched you working,” she said. “You’re a good actor. The way you smile at them.”

I felt like someone had slapped my face.

I DID THE Monday gig. Annabelle gave me a basic script-more of an outline, really-around which I improvised. That’s what it’s called, in acting, when you make stuff up: improvisation. Elsewhere, it’s just called making stuff up.

The whole thing took maybe two hours. I met Annabelle at a cafe around the corner from the studio, she took me in through a back way, and a makeup woman dusted my face with powder and gave me a shirt to wear. My own shirt wasn’t in character. The shirt she gave me was pink and had sweat stains under the arms, though it smelled fresh enough.

I was the first performer (or “guest,” as they say) on the show. I sat on a tubular steel chair and told Libby Priest my sad story. Once or twice she asked a question which I might have known the answer to, but didn’t, so when that happened I just cried and said I didn’t want to go there. The sad story had a happy ending (“I’ve learned to accept myself for who I am, and to be my own best friend”), which pleased everyone. The audience offered me various pieces of advice, all of them flatulent. I didn’t see anything of Libby Priest before or after my performance, which suited me. I don’t care for artificial women.

My work was clearly judged a success, as Annabelle sourced me for several other roles over the next couple of months. I appeared, under various guises, not only on Libby’s Place but also on a spin-off program named Libby’s Out, in which the studio audience ruled the set in Libby’s absence (a far superior format, in my view).

I wore spectacles of various types, and disposable coloured contact lenses during all my performances. Sometimes the makeup woman, or some other functionary, would ask me to take them off, saying they weren’t in character, but I always refused. I am no more immune to vanity than anyone else in showbusiness, but I’m not stupid. When you slap a woman’s face and take her handbag she will remember your eyes, if nothing else. She may be wrong about your height, build, beard, or clothing-and casual witnesses, bystanders, will be even less accurate-but she will remember the eyes, for sure. And the smile, of course.

It was a decent living; not as rich as robbing had been, but good enough and much easier. I had no regrets about leaving my old line of business. The work came naturally to me. In essence, all I needed to know was when to smile and when to slap. Indeed, life in general can be reduced to this formula, as any study of history will quickly prove.

The TV life is an enjoyable one; drugs, food, and alcohol (sex, too, no doubt, if that is one’s preference) are all freely available, and available free. I indulged carefully. It’s always best to be careful.

Every now and then-and constantly, at the back of my mind-I wondered what Annabelle might have meant when she said she’d seen me working. I didn’t ask her. If she didn’t want to say, I wasn’t going to ask. You have to know when to smile.

I was confident she couldn’t have been one of my victims; she was quite the wrong sort for me. Besides, I have a good memory for faces. I can remember them all. Not the features, as such, but there was a particular look I used to scan for when I was working as a robber, something of the woman’s spirit displayed on her face, and that look always stayed in my mind.

She could’ve been a witness, it was possible, but if so how had she tracked me down? I am a fast worker, and a fast mover. Just chance, maybe-she remembered me, and then saw me again some time when I wasn’t working. Possible. London’s a big city, but the West End is a small town. It could be coincidence. Or doggedness, or professional assistance.

At one point, after we had been working together for a few weeks, Annabelle asked me if I was still working. I pretended not to know what she meant, and tried to change the subject. We were in the studio canteen, speaking quietly.

“Doesn’t bother me if you are,” she said. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with the show.”

The way she spoke it seemed almost as if she was encouraging me to continue in my old trade. I thought that perhaps she found the idea of it exciting, in an indecent way. There are such women.

ONE BRIGHT DAY, the traces of makeup sticky on my face, I was exiting the studios in the direction of the Underground-my work as a Bus Conductor Who Converses with Dead Passengers done for the day-when I felt an unsought and unwelcome female touch on my elbow.

“George? Or whatever your name is. Can I have a word? It’s about money.”

I turned, to greet an ordinary-looking young woman of the sort who makes a great effort with herself which doesn’t quite come off. I was about to smile at her, when I realised that I knew her face. I frowned. I had to hope that a frown, and the sunglasses, would be enough to save me.

“I’m in a hurry,” I said. “I have another appointment.”

“OK, sure, I’ll make it fast. My name’s Miranda-hi.” She put her hand out for shaking. I didn’t take it. She took a few nervous breaths and stuck her snubbed paw in her back pocket. “You’re in a hurry, I know. Sorry. Here it is: I admire your work, and I-”

“My work?”

“You own the screen. I’m not kidding. And at the same time, you’re so versatile that a casual viewer wouldn’t recognise you from one part to another. I, obviously, am not a casual viewer.”

How much could I trust the sunglasses? How much would the frown protect me? “I have to go.”

She scrabbled at her handbag-a small thing, chic or childish depending on your viewpoint, its strap looped sensibly over her right shoulder and under her left armpit-and pulled out a business card. “Give me a call. Okay? I think we could do good business together. But don’t tell Annabelle, whatever you do! She’ll kill me-probably kill you, too.”

She got in her car and drove off, and had hardly vanished around the corner before Annabelle was upon me. Her face was blotched red and white, her teeth were exposed, and her hair frizzed as if before a storm.

“What the hell were you doing talking to that bitch?”

“She approached me,” I said, my voice considerably quieter than Annabelle’s. “Apparently she knows you.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t know who she was?”

I shrugged. “Miranda something, that’s all I know.”

“Miranda something! Miranda Denny. She’s one of the best known talent spotters in TV. Or used to be. She’s been off sick for the last year, with depression or something. You’re saying you didn’t recognise her?”

“I swear to you I have never seen her before in my life.” I crossed my heart and kept my face straight.

“Well, all right.” Annabelle seemed calmer now. “Fair enough. What did she want?”

“I think she wants to employ me.”

“Oh, does she?” Annabelle put her hands on her hips. She stared through me, and bit repeatedly at her bottom lip. “Does she, the bitch? I’ll bet she does! Oh yes, that’s Miranda’s style, right enough. The bitch.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry, I’m not-”

“Do you know what I think I’ll do?” She stopped fidgeting, looked right into my face, her eyes glowing. “I think I’ll get you to kill her.”

I was aware that people in show business take their rivalries as seriously as Mafiosi take theirs, but even so I was somewhat taken aback. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I think I will.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” she said. “My mind is made up. You’re to kill her, Jez.”

I took off my sunglasses and wiped the sweat from my eyes. “Why would I do such a thing? Annabelle, our relationship is based on business, not friendship. I owe you no favors, I am not under any obligation to you. What makes you think I would do you such an extraordinary service?”

Annabelle smiled. “Due to blackmail. If you don’t do it, I’ll tell the police what you do for a living.”

Did for a living, I thought, but didn’t say. “Any crime I may or may not have committed in the past has certainly been a lot further down the scale than murder. Even supposing you had something to blackmail me about, and even supposing you told the police, I would sooner be given community service for a lamb, than jailed for life for a sheep.”

“Do this for me, and you won’t have to do either.”

“I’m not a killer,” I said. “I’ve never killed, I never will kill.”

“We’ll see,” she said over her shoulder, as she left me standing alone by the back door.

“We won’t,” I called after her. And I meant it.

On the other hand, and there was no gain in denying this to myself, Miranda’s death would be convenient and reassuring, should it happen suddenly and soon. She hadn’t recognised me today, I was sure of that, but if she saw me in the unadorned flesh for any length of time she certainly would. If she saw my eyes, and my smile.

I had no direct evidence to support my fear. I had never actually been recognised, on a tube train or in a pub, by a shop assistant or a tourist, but I was convinced I was right: Surely, no woman I had robbed could easily forget the slap, or the smile. Or really, I mean, the both of them together.

Even now, perhaps, Miranda’s memory was tickling her, whistling at her, trying to attract her attention. If so, eventually she would turn me in. If not, then she would pursue me, for professional reasons, and then she would remember me… and turn me in. And if she didn’t, it seemed now, Annabelle was quite willing to do so, the moment she feared she was losing control of me. Really-ideally-I could do with being rid of both of them. I felt it was time for me to move on, in any case. I was already thinking of sidestepping from people shows into, maybe, commercials. An actor must constantly seek to stretch his craft.

I couldn’t kill, though. Killing people is morally indefensible. Still, if Annabelle hated Miranda so much, perhaps I wouldn’t have to.

“I’LL DO IT. But I’m going to need two things. First-money. A lot of money.”

“That’s no problem,” said Annabelle. “Say, five thousand?”

“Say ten.” I sipped my beer. She hadn’t touched her G &T. If the tonic was as flat as the beer, I didn’t blame her. The pub we were in was a filthy dump, not the sort of place either of us would normally frequent. Which was why we’d chosen it, of course. “In advance.”

“Ten. Okay. Sure, I can go to ten.”

“And the other thing,” I said. “The other thing I need. You’ve got to come with me. When I do it, I want you there.”

She grinned. “What, the big, brave ladykiller needs Mummy to hold his hand?”

I wondered again what she knew about me, and how. “I need Mummy to be in it with me. In as deep as I am. I’m being frank with you here, Annabelle. When this is done, we’ll never meet again, and whatever it is you think you have over me will be cancelled out by what we’ll both have over each other. You understand?”

She picked up her glass, fished out the slimy slice of lemon and put it in an ashtray. She put the glass down again. “I understand. That’s no problem, either. In fact-yes, in fact, that’ll be fine.”

More than fine, by her tone. “What is it?” I said. “What is it, that makes you so keen to see Miranda die?”

With her finger, she pushed the piece of lemon around the ashtray, as if cleaning it. “We used to be close friends.” She looked up at me. “Very close friends.”

“I see.” Such matters, though disgusting, were none of my business. “So you know where she lives.”

“Better than that. I have a key.”

“All right.” I finished my beer, unappetising though it was. “How are we going to do this, have you thought about that? Fire, maybe?”

Annabelle shuddered. “God, no!”

I thought of making a joke about old flames, but decided it might be considered tasteless. “I understand, you don’t want her to suffer. That’s admirable.”

“Admirable?” She laughed, in an unattractive manner.

“What do you have in mind, then?”

“A gun,” she said.

“I see. Do you have a gun?”

“No. But I suppose you can get one, easily enough.”

I thought about that. Yes, I probably could. Easily enough, and safely enough. “All right,” I said, and it was decided.

Less than a week later, we sat in Annabelle’s car outside the Bloomsbury mansion block which contained Miranda’s flat. The gun was in the pocket of Annabelle’s raincoat. She’d suggested that she keep hold of it until we were inside, in case I needed both hands free to prevent Miranda from fleeing. I’d agreed to that-though only after what I hoped was a convincing show of reluctance.

I was confident that once the action was underway, Annabelle herself would do the shooting-and do it with pleasure. Whenever she spoke to me of Miranda, her ugly face burned with anger. Despite what she’d said in the pub, it was clear to me that she was the one who needed the reassurance of company on this outing.

I had told her that I had plans for disposing of the body which it would be better for her not to know about. In fact, the thing being done, I planned to leave the scene with all the considerable speed I could muster. Afterwards, Annabelle either would or wouldn’t be arrested. An ex-lover would, no doubt, be an obvious suspect. If she was, she wouldn’t tell the police about my part in the business since that could only serve to upgrade a case of manslaughter between lovers to one of conspiracy to commit murder. To be on the safe side, I would disappear for a while, until it seemed prudent to emerge, during which time I thought I might indulge in a little plastic surgery. Nothing major, a small nose job, which I hoped would enhance my employability as well as my anonymity.

If she wasn’t arrested, then so much the better. I’d still be free of her, since I could in theory turn her in at any time. Either way, I’d be free of Miranda.

We paused on the landing outside Miranda’s door. Annabelle handed me a large envelope containing my money. I checked it quickly, and nodded my acceptance. She inserted the key in the lock, more noisily than I had hoped. Before turning it, she said: “Here goes. Give us a smile for luck, Jez.”

Miranda Denny stood before us, in the center of her hallway, completely naked.

“Grab her!” said Annabelle, closing the door behind us.

I did so, overcoming my natural revulsion. She didn’t struggle. I heard Annabelle breathing heavily as she came up the hallway towards us. “Get ready,” I said, and I threw Miranda away from me with all my force, so that she bounced off a closed door and slumped onto the carpet.

I saw a flash of light in front of me, and then a nauseous pain colonised the back of my head and everything I had ever held to be true gushed out of my nose and down my shirt and onto the floor.

“YOU GAINED ACCESS to the flat by means of a door key which you had stolen from Ms. Inwood’s handbag when you visited her office earlier in the day,” said the detective chief inspector sitting opposite me in the little interview room. “Surprising the two occupants of the flat in bed, you became irate and irrational, ranting and saying that you were in love with Ms. Denny.” He put a finger on his notebook to mark his place, and glanced up at me. “Do you deny any of this, Mr. Becker?”

I said nothing. I had said nothing since waking up in the hospital, two days previously.

“They tried to reason with you, and were able to persuade you to retreat as far as the hall. But then you pulled out a handgun and said that if you couldn’t have Miranda, then no one could. You raised the gun and made as if to fire it at Ms. Denny. At this point, however, the lady’s partner, Ms. Inwood, hit you over the head with a Chinese dog.”

“With a what?”

He checked his notes. “Sorry, a china dog. An ornament, which had stood on a side table. So, you have got a tongue after all?”

I regretted my involuntary outburst, and said nothing more. There was very little I could say. Perhaps forensic evidence would have assisted me, but the police would only look for it if they had reason to-and I could not afford to give them that reason. The truth was useless to me, not only because it wouldn’t have been believed, but because, if it was believed, it would only place me in a deeper hole than the one I was already in. I did not wish to face charges of robbery and conspiracy, in addition to those already proffered against me.

“The gun went off as you fell,” said the policeman, “causing a single round of ammunition to enter the wall of the hallway at about head height. No one was hurt as a result of the shooting.”

I didn’t listen to the rest of what he had to say. I used the time instead to ponder upon the disgraceful nature of the events which had overtaken me. It was a mortal outrage that I should face time in prison for attempted murder, when I had never in my life attempted to murder anyone, and for firearms offenses, when I had never in my life handled a firearm of any sort (except very briefly, and then only as an intermediary). It was a mortal outrage that an ugly woman and a plain one should conspire to take such disproportionate revenge on a man whose own crimes were minor-and who had, in any case, renounced his former trade, and reformed of his own free will.

My life ruined in exchange for a purse full of cash: Yes, I would call that disproportionate. I would call that a mortal outrage. I would call that a slap in the face of justice.