Start Shooting (17 page)

“I’m so sorry.” Sarah hugs me. “I didn’t know.”

“Not many do. But that’s about to change.”

Sarah glances at Moens again. “The
Herald
’s exposé, while painful … could be a help. One never knows, and investors want publicity if it’s positive.”

Frown. Now I’m thankful for the Valium. “Sarah, I want to be Blanche DuBois with my whole heart and soul. Would die for my chance. But Coleen being murdered is not part—not now, not ever.”

Sarah hesitates again. “I understand completely, I do. But this tragedy will be revisited in the
Herald
no matter what we want. And likely on every channel if there’s actually a new story there.”

A Ford Crown Victoria turns onto Monroe.

My eyes lock on the windshield. No,
please
. Fight-or-flee ramps up my back. I force myself still. Doesn’t have to be Ruben Vargas; Ford made millions of—Threat radiates off the car. I step back, flex to run—Ruben eyes me over his sunglasses, slows, then notices Tracy Moens and accelerates. Sarah feels the adrenaline in my posture, thinks it’s stage fright, and turns us to the Shubert’s doors. “Not lions,
investors
. Let’s show them their next franchise.”

Ruben passes between Moens and me. Poise. Be the lead, not the
victim. I take three steps away from murder world—
bury it; be Blanche. Be Blanche
—and into the Shubert. My eyes acclimate, framing … Renée Zellweger? She’s at the lobby bar chatting with a ring of admirers. If they can afford Renée Zellweger as Blanche DuBois, why am I or anyone else here?

Sarah guesses and presses her hand into my back. “Not Renée. She flew in for tomorrow’s Olympic benefit.”

I feel Ruben in the shadows, somehow, and turn to look. “Who, then?”

“Right after we meet the investors.” Sarah turns me back, focusing our attention forward. “Ladies of the South don’t worry, or perspire.”

Two men disconnect from the bar group and walk toward us, one late forties, the other early sixties, urbane summer suits, one with tie, one without, both with 2016 Olympics pins. The one without the tie used to be the theater critic for the
Sun-Times
. He eyes my Cubs hat and extends his hand. “Ah, a Cub fan; you know betrayal.”

I megawatt smile and shake his hand. “Arleen Brennan.”

“Kevin Nance, we’ve met before.” He points. “This is Peter Steffen.”

In person Toddy Pete Steffen is a shock. He could be Robbie, if Robbie had class and education. Six foot two, sturdy shoulders, lean hips, kind eyes, perfect haircut in white. “
The
Peter Steffen?”

Mr. Steffen smiles and offers his hand. “Let’s hope you mean that in a good way. You’re Ms. Brennan, Arleen, as I remember?”

“Yes.” I take his hand. “Sorry. Yes, in the best way. For … thanks for supporting
Streetcar
and all the other productions.” He hasn’t let go of my hand. “Without you and Mr. Nance we wouldn’t have theater companies in Chicago.”

Toddy Pete Steffen, father of a son I left bleeding in an alley six hours ago with two dead Koreans, extends his arm lightly around my shoulder and says to the others, “I saw Arleen in
Jersey Boys
and
Chorus Line
but didn’t know you’d cast … were considering her for Blanche.” He hugs my shoulder. “Wonderful in both. Absolutely magnetic for such tiny roles.”

His arm feels fatherly. I smile past him toward Anne Johns. “Please tell your director.” His son has to be alive or Mr. Steffen wouldn’t be here, smiling. I want to glance for Ruben but don’t.

Kevin Nance says, “Sarah tells me you’re up for
Chicago
and
Toyland
.”

First I’ve heard—and highly unlikely. Big grin, fingers crossed, like the possibility isn’t complete agent-sales-job fantasy. “We’re hoping this is my year.”

“Would you prefer
Toyland
over
Streetcar
?”

My shoulders and ponytail ease into Blanche DuBois. I wilt her accent, a Southern patrician on a hot day. “I know Blanche, Mr. Nance, in the way I know my mirra’ on a woman’s sad day. And would be pleased, proud to portray her for this comp’ny more than anything on God’s earth.”

Mr. Nance grins as his eyes widen. “I always felt you were quite good.”

I half curtsey in my Cubs cap and ponytail.

Mr. Steffen’s arm stays around my shoulder. He says, “Let’s all go to N’awlins, gumbo and sherry at the Napoleon House.”

Sarah brightens. “I’m free.”

Mr. Steffen says, “Wish that I could, but I’m due back at the hospital.” He grimaces, explaining to me, “My son was shot—he’s a policeman.”

I don’t have to make my eyes go wide.
Poise, Arleen, own the ground
.

“He’ll survive, thank God, but it will be touch and go for a while. I did want to meet you, though. This production of
Streetcar
is crucial to the Shubert Theater Company and our plans for its future, the entire theater district for that matter.” He touches his Olympics pin. “A great asset we have that Tokyo doesn’t.”

“I’m
so
sorry about your son.”

His arm tightens slightly and lets go before my trembling is obvious. “Thank you, and thank you for coming by.”

Kevin Nance adds, “It was a pleasure, Arleen. Go Cubs,” and shakes my hand. “Let’s hope it’s their year, too.” He and Mr. Steffen return to the alcove bar and Renée Zellweger. She beams a stunning movie-star smile. Sarah pats my shoulder. “That’s us one day very soon.”

“I’m ‘thirty-nine’—better be
Sun
-day.”

Sarah turns us away and toward the front doors. “Glenn Close couldn’t have played those five minutes any better.” Sarah doesn’t mention how unfortunate it was that a megawatt movie star dressed for the evening was here, too, not the comparison any girl would want—taffeta prom queen versus sandlot baseball fan.

“Who’s the other actress? She here yet?”

Sarah stops us at the front doors, puts both hands on my shoulders,
and stares. “She doesn’t matter. You matter. All your energy—fear, hope, love, anger, death, life—all of it goes into Blanche tomorrow morning. You will win this role if you do that. I feel it here.” One hand pats between her breasts. “Arleen Brennan will go on to Broadway and then … anywhere she wants.”

I glance through the doors for Ruben Vargas and complications Sarah couldn’t quite fathom.

Sarah kisses my cheek. “I’ll step back to the bar to chat, keep us on everyone’s mind.” She winks. “Go on home, chil’, and think those New Orleans thoughts.”

I smile, turn and wave to Mr. Nance waving from the bar group, then use both hands to push open the doors. The marquee lights are on and illuminate the sidewalk. I stand underneath, bathed in the fire and let it incinerate Ruben’s horror world. One actress to beat and,
finally
, this fire will be mine. I’ll walk out here after a show—maybe opening night—into a crowd, and cameras, and flashbulbs like the ’50s … and people love me, love my work. And inside I have a family that bet their present on me and won. Me.

My phone rings. Bobby Vargas says, “Been thirty minutes, just wanted to say hi.”

I pirouette into my answer, the glorious future that—Ruben Vargas, ten feet away, staring at me. Shit! No, chill, he can’t, won’t shoot me out here under the lights. If I don’t get in his car he can’t try to kill me again. I tell my phone, “Can’t talk.”

Bobby’s voice goes to static and the call drops.

Ruben scans my face, posture. I don’t show him fear or rage, nothing but control. Two brown fingers remove his toothpick. “How’d our meeting go?”

“Couldn’t get within a block because every squad car and news van in Chicago was there.”

“You weren’t there?” Ruben eyes my purse and his gun in it.

“I just said I wasn’t. That means I. Wasn’t. There.”

“First good news I’ve had today. Our Korean friends are smokin’ opium.” Ruben Vargas, Homicide cop, homicidal criminal grins his pimp smile. “But I think I can put a lid on ’em. Let’s go somewhere and I’ll explain—”

I jump at him, halfway across the wide sidewalk. “I talked to Tracy Moens, she already
explained
. I didn’t tell her about your little party, but I could’ve. So, yeah, you
explain
how that alley’s full of dead people and why I wouldn’t have been one of them.”

“You think I—” Ruben shakes his head. “No, no, that’s crazy talk,
niña
. We’re in this together.” He gestures toward his passenger door. “Hop in.”

“Can’t. Toddy Pete Steffen’s inside, one of the show’s investors, don’cha know. He wants to talk to me.
Again
.” I want to spit “Furukawa” at Ruben—Toddy Pete’s gigantic sponsorship victory that Ruben and Robbie are willing to risk destroying—but don’t because I wasn’t in the alley, so Robbie couldn’t have screamed “Furukawa” at me; that “the Jap motherfuckers would eat us alive” if Ruben and his Vietcong partner cut Robbie out.

Ruben stops smiling and replaces the toothpick. “Careful, Arleen. Careful with my little brother, too. Bobby’s in a fair amount of trouble. Don’t get him thinkin’ you two got some kinda reunion comin’.”

“Your brother’s a cop. He can probably take care of himself.”

“Read tomorrow’s paper. It won’t be about Coleen”—Ruben shakes his head—“it’ll be about Bobby and another kid from the Four Corners, Paulito Cedeneo.”

I don’t know what that means, want to ask, want to know how Ruben knows I talked to Bobby, but don’t want Toddy Pete Steffen or anyone else to see me here with Ruben. And I don’t want Ruben Vargas to corner me anywhere and “explain” the alley or his blank papers in the envelope. And I don’t want him to grab my purse—find a gun with my fingerprints that killed a man five hours ago. If I hail a cab he can stop it wherever he wants. “Okay, meet me at Hugo’s in thirty minutes.”

Cop fish-eye. “Gonna be there?”

“As soon as
Mr. Steffen
and I are done.”

“Better you get in the car, give me back the envelope and that protection I lent you. We talk, I bring you right back.”

“Sorry.” I step back. “Mr. Steffen’s waiting.”

Ruben stares, not believing, then points one finger at the marquee above me. “Looks like you might belong here, shame to blow it now. Age ‘thirty-nine,’ doors startin’ to close …”

“Keep that in mind, asshole, next time you hire an errand boy to front your lies. If I’m lucky enough to have something to lose, you and your partner have nothing to worry about.”

He accepts the threat like he didn’t hear it. “Always good not to worry.” Both Ruben’s hands push him off his car.

I jump back, showing fear I wish I hadn’t.

“Girl, we can work things out, but what we
can’t
do is walk away, just pretend we ain’t where we are. Choa—and others—ain’t having that. And we got business to do.”

“Not
we
, Ruben. I already covered that with you.”

“Saying it don’t make it true.” Movement at the corner. Ruben’s hand slides fast to his gun. He hard-eyes three Asian men a hundred feet away; crouches like he might draw but doesn’t. Still fixed on them, Ruben says, “We get the business done, this thing cleans itself up,” then nods at the marquee. “Bright lights, kid. Your turn maybe. Hope so, but the wrong people can see these lights, too, know right where you are.”

“You heard me, right? Who’s inside this theater? Who has money in this show? That was his
son
in the alley. And it’s
your
fault.”

Horn
. A red Jaguar turns the corner at Dearborn. We both guess who it is. Ruben taps his watch, angry, off-balance. “I’m trying to help you not be stupid. Thirty minutes. Tell your good friend Toddy Pete I said, ‘
Qué onda, vato?
’ ” The Jaguar tries to change lanes but can’t. Ruben’s tone drops to ice as he turns to open his door. “
Be there
, Arleen. We get our business done, now, or it swallows you.”

I focus on the Jaguar, then the three Asian men on the sidewalk … Ruben lunges and rips my purse off my arm. I scramble for it with both hands, miss, and he throws it through the driver’s window into his car. We’re three feet apart, close enough he could grab me or me him. He can’t have the purse; I swing; he ducks, pivots, but doesn’t grab me.

Horn. Horn
.

Ruben doesn’t look. “Be at Hugo’s.” He jumps in his car and accelerates east before Tracy Moens can cut through the traffic.

I watch his taillights. A Homicide cop has a murder weapon with my prints. But I wiped the gun, didn’t I? When I was behind the bar at the L7. Used a bar towel stuffed down in my purse. How much wipe
is enough? I wanted to dump the gun in the trash but the bins were overflowing with cans and bottles.

Ruben turns at State Street. Meet him in thirty minutes means I have thirty-five to disappear and not die. But Ruben Vargas has the gun, and he’s a Homicide detective. He can get the real ballistic evidence and manufacture more, make up whatever matching story he wants. I check the sidewalk; the three men weren’t Koreans. The Jaguar pulls to the curb; not Tracy Moens. Voices gush behind me; I spin and five strangers exit the Shubert. Don’t stand here. Do something.

I fast-walk east toward State Street, want to run, want to cry—
Cry?
My feet stop and I look east into the coming night, see all the way to Venice Beach, to the Four Corners, to my sister’s alley in Greektown.
Cry?
I turn back to the Shubert’s brilliant marquee. The thirty-foot illuminated wedge reaches to the street. On opening night it will cover patrons in suits and gowns, alive with laughter and anticipation. Photographers will pop and celebrities will arrive in shiny black cars. Backstage, the crew and my fellow actors will hold hands in a big ring. I know exactly how it will be; I’ve seen it almost every night since Coleen and I were kids.

And this time, the dream is not a five hundred to one cattle call or a Palm Springs promise or a cocaine dream. I’m one director’s decision, one unnamed actress away from winning a
starring
role, a chance, a
career
, family forever. I can make all that happen. All I have to do is win. Stay alive, play my one chance to the walls, and win.

Siren. A squad car wails east.