Getting Old Is Criminal (31 page)

I decide to ask Bree, “Doesn’t anyone move slowly?” She looks horrified. “Not on this show!

That’s if you want to keep your job.”

I peer at her, thinking she is kidding, but she is serious. We reach a door that says, in large gilt letters, glory hill, executive producer.

Inside, I find three secretaries on different phones, earphones in ears and hands free to busily write down messages. The walls are filled with photos; I assume they must be of Glory Hill, shaking hands with many, many celebrities. There is also a huge glass china cabinet filled with awards.

At the far end of this large office, someone is sitting with a stack of what look like scripts. She is writing on each of the covers.

When I listen more carefully, I can tell the secretaries aren’t on business calls but on personal calls, chatting and wasting time, and what they are scribbling on their pads is doodles.

My tour guide speaks to one of the women who just hung up.

“Cheryl, this is Mrs. Gold. She has a noon appointment.”

“The queen is still on her throne.” Mild smirking at that.

At that moment, a loudspeaker blares in the room and a loud hoarse voice, with a pronounced British accent, is heard. “Get on the horn and get me eight tonight at La Funicular, table for two.”

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 3 1 1

The voice stops. In the ensuing silence I just blurt it out: “Is your producer British?”

The room erupts in screaming laughter.

“Hoddley, m’dear.” The one I was just told was Cheryl speaks in a falsetto British parody. “She was born in Flatbush.”

The male tells me, “That’s in Brooklyn. And don’t ever mention you know that or heads will roll.”

I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth.

“You make the call, Jody,” says Cheryl. “I’m not about to get screamed at by that maître d’

again.”

“Tim, it’s your turn,” says Jody, passing the buck to the young man at the third desk.

“Why bother. We know what they’ll say.” He puts on a snobbish accent. “ ‘Ms. Hill is no longer welcome at this establishment.’ ”

They laugh. Apparently they don’t care that a total stranger is privy to their snide comments about the hand that feeds them. “Call La Finestre.

She’ll never remember which one of the ‘La’s she asked for. They haven’t thrown her out. Yet.” He makes an elbow/hand-to-mouth gesture that tells me he is referring to too much liquor and probably the behavior that went with it.

My tour guide giggles, but looks at me with embarrassment.

The voice of God blares again on the speaker.

“Make the reservation for five more people. This 3 1 2 • R i t a L a k i n

whole frigging writing staff is having a working dinner meeting.”

Now the laughter really erupts. “Poor SOBs,”

Tim comments. “Wait ’til you see the bar bill.”

“It’s the only way they’ll survive it.”

“And none of them will remember a note they take!” Tim sneers.

Bree touches my arm. “Would you like to see where the writers meet?” I think she wants to get me out of there.

In the hall, Bree feels she needs to apologize.

“There’s always a lot of tension on a show. I mean, we have so many deadlines. And sometimes the writers can be slow. I mean, they try hard, but Ms.

Hill is so demanding. She comes from New York, you know, and she expects us to keep up the same standards. I mean, scripts have to be written over and over again. I mean . . .” She stops. She’s run out of “I means”. I’m getting the picture, though.

Apparently the writers’ meeting has just ended.

Five exhausted, angry-looking people drag themselves out of a conference room. Various ages, both sexes. They carry arms full of scripts and notebooks and look only at the floor. I hear the same hoarse voice coming from inside the room.

“And I hope that by tonight one of you, just one of you, will have an idea. Any idea. Something that hasn’t been rehashed a thousand times before.”

And there she is, the famous Glory Hill. Tall, incredibly skinny, with very short bleached orange-red hair and—truthfully? Very ugly. I wonder how G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 3 1 3

many face-lifts she’s had, how many experts worked on attempting to change that mug, how much makeup was tried. But there was nothing that would fix that pointy jaw, the sagging eyelids, the ratty hair, the gray, sallow complexion, probably from years of smoking. Which would also explain the voice. All those experts at her command, all that beauty surrounding her, all that money—

and there she is. Margaret Hamilton’s twin, the wicked witch in
The Wizard of Oz.
Makes millions of bucks selling beauty she can’t have. What irony.

“Who’s she?” Glory Hill says, annoyed, pointing to me.

“Your noon appointment,” Bree answers. I swear she’s shaking.

She comes alongside me, dismisses Bree with the back of her hand, keeps looking at her notes, and beckons me to follow. All without missing a step.

Here we go again, fast walking. This would be a great place to work if one wanted to lose weight.

Or have a heart attack.

“I don’t have much time. Taping begins in fifteen. So state your business and be brief.”

I don’t work for her. I don’t need to put up with her tyranny, but I could see how one could get caught up. I automatically get in step with her and state my case. “I need to know about Philip Smythe, the character, and Ray Sullivan, the actor-writer. Specifically I need to know as much as you can tell me about the seducer/serial killer character 3 1 4 • R i t a L a k i n

he created and acted out.” Whew. See what pressure can do?

She turns and actually smiles at me, still not slowing up. “Very precise. Organized thoughts.

Maybe you’d like a job writing this show. The losers I have to put up with are pathetic hacks.”

I smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m a retired person. However, I’m working with the Florida police, who believe Ray Sullivan may be a serial killer who has been murdering elderly women for as long as eleven years, using his character’s name.”

Glory Hill actually stops in her tracks. Her eyes light up. “Ray Sullivan. I fired that drunk from playing that part. And you’re telling me he continued acting it out in the real world? Hot damn! I could redo this story as a sequel. Is Feldkin still his agent?”

“Slow down,” I tell this whirlwind. “First things first. I want to know where he got the idea from. In fact, I want to know everything about this story line—and could we please sit down somewhere?”

She has incredible reflexes. Without missing a beat, she practically pulls me into a room that looks like a costume storeroom. There are two metal folding chairs. She points to one and takes the other. She kicks the door closed and lights up a cigarette. “Nobody but me can do this. Got it?”

She takes out a portable, foldable mini-ashtray and looks at her watch.

G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 3 1 5

“Got it.” I guess I better talk fast.

Now I have to put up with her secondhand smoke. And the costumes will probably smell by the time we leave.

“Ray came up with the idea. He felt his character of Philip, the rich, lazy playboy, was getting stale. When we’d work late hours and he’d drink a lot, he ranted about his rich old aunt Dorothy, whom he hated and had to take care of all the years she was sick, and how he wished he could have killed her and put her out of her misery. He was stuck with taking care of her until she died. I encouraged his rage. Turn your anger into a story, I told him. Good drama. I told him to write it up.

He was around sixty at the time, and not only could he write it, it was perfect for Philip Smythe to evolve into this sexy older, sophisticated gent who went bonkers and started killing old ladies.

But here’s the funny thing. The next day when Ray was sober, I congratulated him on his story idea.

He didn’t remember it.”

Glory Hill is a great storyteller herself. I’m sitting on the edge of my seat. “But, but—”

She shuts me up. Ms. Hill, I realize, does not like to be interrupted.

“When I told him, he gave me this funny look.

He said he loved his aunt Dorothy and willingly took care of her. Ha-ha. That’s booze for you.

Some people cannot hold their liquor.”

I smile, thinking of her secretaries’ imitation of her drinking habit. “But being smart, Ray 3 1 6 • R i t a L a k i n

recognized a good plot when he heard it, and so began that story line. Even though, I must admit, he wasn’t comfortable writing it. Audiences thought it was great. And scary. And, my dear, the ratings shot up to the sky.”

“Do you remember the aunt’s full name?”

“Yeah, she was some heiress, Dorothy Sullivan.

Ray was the last in a line of a very rich family. It’s in my files.”

“The story line. What was in it?”

“So Ray, the writer, had Philip, the character, go from one retirement home to another. He’d pick a woman who had no living relatives. They must be real old and near death, or have an illness that would kill them soon. On a certain date, he helped them leave the world forever.”

I can hardly sit still, I’m so excited. Everything fit. He was our man, all right. “What did he gain by killing them?”

“Ray didn’t want to write the cliché of Philip Smythe being after their money. No, Philip was a mercy killer who dearly loved the old biddies and didn’t want them to suffer. But he always took a souvenir.”

I want to jump up and down for joy. Maybe this is the missing piece. “Such as?”

She laughs. “He was a killer with class. Whatever he took was in excellent taste. He took a painting or an Oriental rug or a rare piece of an-tique jewelry.” She looks at her watch again and G e t t i n g O l d I s C r i m i n a l • 3 1 7

taps her long bright orange Cruella De Vil finger-nails along the edge of the chair.

I spoke faster. “Why did you fire him?”

“Because we began to realize the audience was freaking out. Soaps are about love and sex, not about scaring the crap out of the viewers. We were getting terrified letters. Especially from old broads who were afraid to go to sleep at night. Now, get this, you’ll love it: I told Ray to kill Smythe off or put him in jail, or have him find God and repent.

Just stop the story. He agreed. It was even making him queasy. But Ray, the actor, wouldn’t do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ray, in his tuxedo, would get on the set and fling the script against a wall and say, ‘Philip Smythe has to keep killing!’

“That was it, the booze had taken over. Maybe even drugs. Who knows? He was getting crazier and crazier. I like that in my writers, but he fell off the edge. He was drunk on and off the set. I had no choice. The network made me dump him. So good-bye, Ray.”

Wow! I can hardly wait to call Morrie.

Glory snaps her little ashtray shut and she’s on the move again.

I rush after her. “Did you ever hear about him or from him again?”

“Funny you should mention that. I get a note three times a year. Not signed, but I know it’s from him.”

“How do you know?”

3 1 8 • R i t a L a k i n

“He includes a photo. A rug. A rare piece of jewelry. You know, like all the souvenirs he took on the show. I thought he was just teasing me. To tell me what I’ve missed by firing him.”

I feel my heart popping out of my chest. “Please tell me you saved the photos.”

“Of course I did. I never throw anything out.

Everything goes in my memoirs. If I ever stop working and write them. A lot of people will be sorry when I do. You want them?”

“You bet!”

Looking at the watch again. She reaches the stage. “Time’s up. We’re through talking. Go back to my office, and tell Tim to go into my private files and get the photos for you. Videos of those shows, too, if you want them. Make sure he makes copies of the originals and you sign for them. I want first rights to the story of his trial. Hmm, I wonder if they’d let him out to play himself? Good-bye, Mrs.—uh, whoever you are.”

And the whirlwind is gone.

I can’t believe it. I have all the proof the police need!

And, while I was at it, I got a huge pack of auto-graphed eight-by-tens of all the stars on both her old show and her new one to take home to Dora Dooley.

FIFTY

ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO

Icall Morrie from home. “This is Gladdy. I have something very important to tell you.”

I can hear Morrie getting angry. “What did I tell you? You didn’t listen, did you?”

“Before you make a
tsimmis
out of it, I have positive proof. Positive proof that Ray Sullivan is a killer.”

That stops him. “Then get it over to the station right away. I’ll have the task force waiting for you.” I guess he isn’t mad at me anymore.

Ida picks up on my excitement. “So you got the goods on him.”

“He’s finished.”

“When are they gonna rescue Evvie?” Sophie asks.

“It better be soon.”

3 2 0 • R i t a L a k i n

Bella is concerned. “But won’t she be sore if they take Philip away from her?”

“Not when she realizes that he is a killer after all.” I exchange glances with Ida. She knows how difficult that will be.