Hollywood Boulevard (31 page)

I 
didn't need my little mirror to tell me it was evening whenI woke up. My head felt mushy. No one had broken down the door to liberate me, and now my hands were tied and attached to my waist by lengths of— oh, very funny, Sylvia— black fishnet stockings, the old kind that you'd need a garter belt to hold up. She'd tied me up and doped me first to do it. I thought as I tugged my hands apart, how could diminutive Sylvia have lassoed me all by herself ? Doped or not, she'd have had a struggle. Did she have help? My mouth was dry as sand. I shook my head like a wet dog, trying to clear it. My body felt stiff. My hands were tied about ten inches apart so I could use them, but clumsily. I couldn't lift them much higher than my chin.

I had to pee. This was going to be tricky. I lifted the skirt and

lowered my drawers and with no way to balance myself I squatted over the pot. I forgot the toilet paper. It was over by the water, only I couldn't reach it tied up. I fell on my knees and then down on my stomach and moved the toilet- paper roll with my chin until I got it near my hands. Getting back up and over the bowl was a workout. What would happen when I had to move my bowels? Had Sylvia thought of that? Christ! I twisted around and shut the lid over the pot so I wouldn't smell my own urine. Then I grabbed the water bottle and dumped what was left into the bowl, tossed Sylvia's Mickey. Trouble is, I was thirstier than ever. "Shit," I said out loud. I reached for the other bottle and examined the seal. It wasn't broken, so I opened it and took a long drink.

    That was when I smelled smoke. "Sylvia! What's going on?" If she was there, she didn't make a sound. I pushed my face up against the door. What if she set the room on fire and left me there? Is this what she did to poor Lucille Trevor?
"Sylvia!"
Nothing. "Answer me, you bitch,
Sylvia!
" Not a word. "Are you going to set me on fire too? Are you smoking in bed? Everyone knows I don't smoke! It won't work this time!"

    "So you
do
think I killed her?" She opened the door to the chain and moved back.

    She was smoking. No lights were on in the bedroom. I took a breath, coughed. "Well, how does it look to you, Sylvia? You take me at gunpoint, lock me in the closet, dope me, and tie me up. Did I leave anything out?"

    "You found the sandwich?"

    I hadn't seen a sandwich, but there it was on the pillow, a small tray with a paper napkin and a glass of milk, nice and neat; white bread, no mayo or mustard or Swiss, just a wilted piece of iceberg lettuce, the crusts cut off. I was hungry. "How do I know it's not laced?"

    "Smoking is such a lovely habit," Sylvia said thoughtfully. "Your generation ruined it for all of us."

    I looked out through the door opening again. I could see half of Sylvia, and that half was stubbing out the cigarette. I thought she said she didn't smoke anymore? I picked up the sandwich, sniffed it, and looked at the meat. I shrugged and took a bite. I waited a few minutes and took another. It would be in the milk, I figured: no milk. I wolfed the sandwich down.

    I heard Sylvia moving. She turned on a lamp by the bed. "I saw the young woman, Krolla? The one always with your husband—"

    "Carola? You spoke to her?"

    "We've spoken several times. She knows I was in show business."

    Show business? That's a laugh! "She's first assistant director on my husband's film."

    "Yes."

    Why
not
talk to Carola? Sylvia lives here, she walks her dog . . . why would I be the only one she chatted up? She could have chatted with all of Andre's people.

    "They are considering Nicole Kidman."

    
"What?"

    "To replace the French actress."

    "Carola told you that? Nicole Kidman? She's all wrong; she's brittle."

    "So? Why do you care?"

    The Australians; they must have said to forget Ardennes Thrush, go for Kidman. Andre would never do it. I think he'd abort the film first. Sylvia had to be mistaken.

    "Lucille was bitter," Sylvia said in a thoughtful tone I hadn't heard before. "But not brittle. She was a good actress and might have been great. They were noticing her up top. I pulled all the strings I could with the actors that liked to see me strip — and there were plenty of those, and they had
real
strings to pull, I could name names— but she wanted to dance, wouldn't let it go."

    I peeked out through the opening again. Sylvia was fitting another cigarette into a zebra– patterned holder. She did not light the cigarette. Mucho was asleep on a cushion next to her, on the floor: the Peaceable Kingdom. They made a team, all right. I almost laughed. At least the drug was wearing off, my brain clearing.

    "Her skin was flawless, like pearls. Her mother kept her from the sun, the little ballerina. That was me in her Vegas dance number, my body— in the movie. They said I had million- dollar legs. Some said million- dollar everything else, and they all had good looks at most of it."

    "Why are you telling me this, Sylvia?"

    "She believed she was more disfigured than she was. The limp wasn't so noticeable as she thought; the scars were bad, but makeup could hide them easy enough. As long as she didn't dance." She laughed a kind of sneer. "Hollywood! Lucy flung herself at the men, and the animals flung back. She only toyed with me. Here in this apartment." She grew thoughtful again. "I massaged her aching legs. I used oils and creams, touching her . . . when she let me. . . ."

    She trailed off into her sordid memories. I pictured Lucille and Sylvia on the bed, Sylvia inching slowly closer. Did she kill Lucille because she rejected her? Why drag me into it? Andre cast Kidman? Never!

    "Did Carola really say that, Sylvia?"

    "I was out with Mucho. We say hello."

    "How did she seem?"

    "Serious."

    "Did you see Andre— my husband— demand ransom or something like that?"

    "You should rest."

    "I'm plenty rested. You knocked me out, remember?"

    "I used your own Valium and a sleeping pill. No harm."

    Ah! Then she'd gone back to the suite, rifled through my bedside drawer, maybe all the drawers. Did she take my computer, my address book, the cell charger? I only kept the Valium around for emergencies, like flying. I wasn't used to full doses, never mind a sleeping pill on top. "I'm wide awake! And I won't drink the milk."

    " Drink it. I only needed to be able to tie you up."

    "I'm pretty sure you're out of your mind, Sylvia."

    "I could very well be."

    "Can't you tell me what you want?"

    "I want to rest." And with that she kicked the door closed, almost on my eye, locked it, and shut off the light.

    No, no, no! Blackness again. I fished around for the flashlight. I was afraid of the batteries not lasting the night. I wanted so badly to cry. I thought of my father in the Ardennes Forest. Was he this afraid under the winter trees, the Nazis ceaselessly firing their big guns? I was sorry now I'd tossed the Valium water into the chamber pot. There wasn't a sound from the bedroom outside the closet. I might as well be dead. I drank the milk.

    I am dead.

    I've been dead since Joe.

    Is that true?

    Why did I marry Andre?

    At twenty I played Blanche DuBois. A hole- in- the- wall theater downtown, the play staged by a moody Yale Drama dropout. He was a rich kid; his parents paid for the production, gave sonny a chance to sow his oats, and then they'd rein him in. He hated his mother, and from the little I saw of her I understood why: a clenched, dried- out woman, meanness itself to the imaginative soul. He cast me the day I auditioned; we slept together almost immediately. I was too young for Blanche, but he got me there. He rehearsed us hard. I stayed in character even in bed with him, right down to the Southern accent. The production received no press, not one review, but we got audiences, full houses every night and standing ovations. I hired a guy to video the production and that was how I got my Actors Studio audition.

    I met Joe at a reading there, a play by a friend of his. I was reading, but not the lead. Joe came up to me afterward. He had this smile— sweet, like a child's, only he smiled so rarely. We went out with the others after the reading and then the two of us alone. He had this intelligence, any topic I brought up. Not cheap opinions, but knowledge. I told him it wasn't the applause in acting but
get
ting
the character, and then the audience to go along, seducing them into believing what I did with her; a creative act to take a character and make her breathe and bleed and feel; a magical illusion.

    I couldn't take my eyes off Joe. I stopped seeing the
Streetcar
director, Dennis, cut him off just like that. I don't know what became of Dennis. He didn't show up again in the theater, not that I knew of, so Mommy must have worn sonny down. It wasn't like we would've lasted; Joe just sped things up. Dennis knew Blanche, though; boy, did he ever know Blanche DuBois. Tennessee Williams would have leaped for joy at that little nowhere production. I think I maybe gave my best performance under Dennis, a close second under Andre— no pun intended.

    And now I'm dead.

Then, sharply, as a headache can suddenly stop, something yielded, long griefs eased.

—E. Annie Proulx,

A
ndre told the Detective he had doubts. He thought his wife would have left him a note at the very least.

"You don't believe the message that your wife went off to Indio to think? She's never done this sort of thing before?" Detective Collins asked.

    "Not like this." Yes, Andre admitted, he'd been upset and was wrong to have taken off, gone to another hotel for the night. Yes, it was an unusually bad moment between them, but she still would have written a note. He was sure of it. He remembered that his wife had gone to Indio with a friend once, but the name of the friend— a costume designer or set dresser or whatever from a film she'd worked on four or so years ago, or maybe earlier— escaped him. He was sorry; he just wasn't good with names— or dates. To Detective Collins's suggestion that perhaps he hadn't listened, Andre suggested perhaps not always.

    He'd been in New York, he explained, and she'd awakened him to tell him about an incident, forgetting the time difference. "With the bird," he replied when asked what incident. "The bird at night was all I ever knew of Indio."

    "What happened?"

    "They were attacked by some sort of owl. Ardennes called around midnight, West Coast time; I was asleep."

    "You weren't concerned, two women alone in the desert?"

    "We spoke the next day. Brenda! That could be the friend's name."

    "No last name?"

    "I'm afraid not. We laughed about the bird attack the next day. She went back to L.A., packed up, and returned to New York soon after."

    Detective Collins was quiet, thinking things through. Andre was seated at the dining table; the Detective stood leaning on the wall separating the kitchen. "Do you think your wife
could
be in Indio, left the phone message instead of a note?"

    "I don't think so, but I can't defend that idea— I mean why I think not. Why would she go there?"

    "Why mention Indio if she didn't go there?" Detective Collins was thinking out loud. "To say she's been attacked?" That got Andre's attention. That was when the Detective let him know about Eddie Tompkins and the series of hang- up phone calls.

    "Why didn't I know anything about this man?"

    "You tell me why your wife never mentioned she was being stalked."

    Andre moved— abruptly, for him. The Detective took a step closer. Andre was slim and compact at just under six feet; the Detective was broad, imposing, muscular and solidly six feet tall, a little over. Andre turned to the open balcony door. "This man— Eddie?— you say was arrested?" He stepped out onto the balcony. White Shirt was outside, on the edge of his lawn above the garage, leaning out over the railing. "I've seen that man before, Detective, looking over here like that."

    Detective Collins walked out onto the balcony. "Can you tell from here where he's looking? With any degree of certainty?"

    "No, of course I cannot, but he has been there before. I've remarked on it to Ardennes."

    "What did she say?" Andre shrugged. "Is it possible Ms. Thrush went to New York?"