Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (38 page)

"You goddamned bitch!" Webb was panting-the force and fury of her attack had taken him by surprise, bringing out an answering savagery in him. He looked down at her-loose strands of hair straggling down her neck and clinging to her sweat-damp face, the sunlight harsh as hot hands on her pale gold breasts, nipples erect now that they were freed from the confining material of her dress.

She was trying to clamber back to her feet to come at him fiercely again, but the long skirt hampered her attempts, and now, as the grinning, villainous-looking band of extras crowded closer, either jeering or applauding, Anne seemed to become aware for the first time of the torn bodice and her exposed breasts. Her eyes widened, she seemed to stay poised there on her hands and knees as if she had been frozen in place; and then, sitting back on her heels, she made instinctive, ineffectual motions to clutch the ripped bodice over her nakedness. A second ago she had been stilI glaring at him; now she appeared to shrink into herself as the circle of grinning men tightened. The male animal smell of lust was only too real now. Any moment one of them would reach for her, and it would be like a signal, they would all ...

Rufus Randall and Harris Phelps were watching. Randall's eyes were slightly bloodshot. He was chewing on his cigar, hands thrust into his pockets. Harris Phelps wore a fixed, mirthless grin, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead that he did not bother to brush away. Now, he was thinking, Now!

I wonder if . ..

They were all caught up in what was happening-the extras, even the crew. And Yves had wisely seen to it that there was plenty of cover-cameras following the action from all angles. Expensive, but in this instance expense didn't matter, just so long as the results were what they needed. And Anne was reacting perfectly; that surprised him.

He had almost expected take after take, but as long as this one was going so right and so well, Yves wouldn't call for a cut. If Webb Carnahan didn't blow it . . . he seemed to be holding back for some reason, almost as frozen as Anne herself.

But then one of the extras, obviously a man with imagination, readied down with a laugh and fondled a breast, his fingers brown against the creamy flesh. She cried out wordlessly, striking out, and at last Webb moved, knocking the man aside as he yanked her ruthlessly to her feet.

"Seems like you keep asking for it, Glory!"

She struggled against his grip. "You-you brute, you bastard! Let me go .. ." , She noticed with satisfaction that blood oozed from the scratches she had put on his face.

She hated him, hated him!

"Don't think I will. You're going to make a useful hostage once I get you tame." "You'll never-don't you know how much I hate you and despise you? I don't want you to touch me. I'd rather die!"

"Would you rather I turned you over to them?" He grinned down at her, openly mocking. far too sure of himself. "Come on, baby. Once you let go like you did before, you might even enjoy the time we're going to spend together."

"No, damn you!"

"Stop fighting me. You know damn well you're going to give in, in the end."

Why did she continue to fight against him when she knew how useless it was?

Taking her sudden stillness for surrender, he laughed again, pulling her up against his body with a sudden, savage motion, releasing her wrists to catch her hair at the nape of her neck. And if she let him kiss her she knew with a feeling of despair that she would be lost. He mustn't know that the closeness of his body and just the thought of his mouth crushing hers could reduce her to a prideless nothing.

There was no one else but the two of them and the struggle between them under the hot blue sky, and some instinct as primitive as the merciless sun that beat down on her head drove her now. There was a knife in his belt, and she grabbed for it without thinking. The knife was a silver flash in the sunlight that almost blinded her as she struck out wildly with it, the bone handle feeling heavy and unfamiliar in her grasp ...

"Cut!" Pleydel shouted, trying to make himself heard over the startled cries of some of the bystanders. "Anne! Merde, have you gone crazy with the sun? You were not supposed to ..."

She didn't hear. Her arm felt shattered and nerveless from the wrist up, and she knew she'd dropped the knife only when Webb gave her wrist a second, savage twist, making her cry out with pain.

"Holy shitl She stabbed him for real!"

She heard the words from somewhere off in the distance, but they didn't register.

Webb's eyes held hers-as yellow as the sunlight and just as harsh. There was the warm stickiness of blood, running down his fingers, dripping onto her skirt to mix with the sweat that still poured from her pores. Why was he standing there looking at her?

And then he dropped her wrist, and she flinched instinctively when she saw his hand go up, knowing that he was going to strike her again. But he was touching his arm gingerly, still looking down at her without having said a single word. It was only then that reality came flooding back, engulfing her.

"I DIDN'T . . . I don't know what happened! It's like a some kind of dream .. ."

Hal Brightman put a soothing hand on Anne's arm.

"Listen, it was one of those things! A freak accident-you just got caught up in the role you were playing. In any case, it was only a scratch-you heard Carnahan say so himself."

"But-but I wanted to kill him! Don't you see? I kept thinking 'Webb' instead of 'Jason,'

and I was trying to kill him, and I might have ... I killed my grandfather, too, did you know that? And maybe Violet as well, because if not for me .. ."

"Anne, be calm. You haven't killed anyone. If you were the cold-blooded murderess you try to make yourself out to be, you wouldn't be so upset! Relax now, I'm going to give you a shot of something that will help you and make you see things in their proper perspective. But understand-you haven't killed anybody."

She hardly felt the needleprick-she was sobbing now, trying to get words past the constriction in her throat. "You don't know about my grandfather? He had the heart attack when I told him-because i

told him. He had been asleep when I came running up from the beach, and his face ..

."

"Anne!"

"And Violet-if I hadn't been with Webb that night ... it was me they were after, I know it! If I hadn't ... if I hadn't .. ."

The sodium Pentothal began to take effect and her words became slurred. Her head fell back, and Brightman held her pulse, keeping his voice low and soothing.

"It's all right, Anne. Everything's going to be fine. You're going to forget about Violet and about your grandfather and go back to long before-to when you were a little girl.

You're going back now, Anne. To the time before the beginning of the bad dreams.

And this time you're not going to be afraid to talk about it, because when you do, the Dream will go away and you'll be free of it forever. Do you understand?"

Free. Running backwards down passages of time that turned almost imperceptibly into the caves. Forbidden. But she'd grown bored and tired of minding, and there was her curiosity as well, her resentment at being left behind on the nicest days while her mother went down to the beach alone. Well, not always ... She wanted to giggle, but not for long. It wasn't fair, why shouldn't she go, too?

She was running towards the light now; she didn't really like the damp darkness of the caves, they were scary, even to an Indian princess. And then she saw the shadows that partly blocked out the light, and heard angry voices. Voices ... What was he doing back? 'Why did he have to come? She didn't want to go away again, back to the cold and that big old house that was too quiet and dull and .. ..

He didn't really love them, and that was why he stayed away so much. She'd heard Mommy saying so, crying. Mommy only laughed these days when she was down on the beach with her nice friend that Anne wasn't supposed to know about. He didn't want them to be happy, and she didn't really like him-oh, why did he have to come?

The voices beat against her ears, and even covering them didn't help. They seemed to come out of her head now, for all that she tried to shut them out.

"How long has this been going on? These clandestine meetings on the beach?

Damnit, don't try to evade me-never mind how I heard! Who is he, Helen? What's his name? Do

I know his face, this secret lover of yours? Tell me, damn you!"

When Mommy laughed this time it wasn't like the other times. It was a shrill, funny-sounding laugh like the sound of beating your hands on a piano without looking at the notes.

"You mean that something I do can really get under your skin?" More hurting laughter. "Well, why don't you try and find out, Richard dear? Not that it makes any difference at this point, because I'm going to divorce you. Yes, I am, and you can't stop me! My God, I've finally found a real man who wants me and treats me like a woman, instead of a-a commodity, and I just might go away with him, do you hear? I don't give a damn about your precious job or the scandal you worry about or-or you, either! Yes! At least he's helped me find out what you are. Not even a ... a ..."

'What happened then?"

"I don't want to tell!"

"You must. For your own sake. What did you see or hear after that?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure, really! They were shouting so, and I was so scared! I-I think he hit her, and she made a funny noise and I saw her fall-and then I ran! I thought he might hit me, too, I guess-only I was so scared I forgot the way back and got lost, and that was more scary even than the beach, so I-went back. And that's when I ..."

"That's what started the nightmares, isn't it? But you're not going to have them anymore. No more guilt. You're not to blame for anything, Anne, and now that you've been able to talk about it, all the fears are going to go away. You'll remember that when you wake up. You'll remember only that you're among friends who want to help you, who care about you. And you're going to be a great actress. Never mind today

..."

The voice went on and on, very gentle, very quiet, sinking into the suddenly empty space inside her mind before she drifted into a peaceful sleep.

Dr. Harold Brightman tried to hide his elation as he stored the little cassettes away carefully. Breakthrough at last! And he'd done what other psychiatrists hadn't been able to do over years-although, of course, it had taken a traumatic shock to lower the barriers thrown up so long ago by her subconscious mind. But he'd done it, just as he'd made her an actress. Right up to the moment she'd actually stabbed Webb Carnahan on the set in front of a hundred watching eyes, it had been a perfect take-she'd reacted perfectly, without a flaw in her performance!

He frowned slightly. He'd hoped it wouldn't take the sodium pentothal to do it.

However, she wouldn't remember, he'd made sure of that. And he'd got rid of her nightmares for good. She'd wake up feeling fine. His method always worked.

He allowed the feeling of satisfaction to seep through him as he stretched, looking down at the sleeping girl with traces of the tears she'd shed still etched against her cheeks. In spite of the tear stains and the ripped, blood-spotted clothes she hadn't had time to change out of, she was beautiful. There was a kind of purity about her, and yet at the same time, in costume, she was Glory-every man's fantasy woman.

With difficulty, Brightman brushed away his own forbidden thoughts, superimposing the image of his wife and children smiling back at him from the photograph he always kept on his desk.

Sighing, he sat down and began to write, forcing himself to concentrate on adding to the detailed notes he had kept making. But even while his pen moved doggedly over paper he found his mind going back. "The Mallory House Tragedy," the newspapers had labeled it. He remembered his mother reading aloud in a hushed, pitying voice.

"How terrible for that poor little child! Can you imagine ... ?"

Strange that that same child should be Anne, and that he should be the one to finally discover the secret she'd carried locked away in the deepest caves of her mind.

Thoughtfully, he tapped the end of his pen against his teeth. Of course, there were the implications. Her father-wasn't he someone very important in government circles?

And how much, even with changing names and locales, could he actually incorporate in his new book? And then he went back to writing again. Harris Phelps would know, and advise him. And Harris had a special interest in Anne Mallory. As soon as he finished with his notes, he must go and talk to Harris.

Harris Phelps was still sweating, Randall noticed, in spite of the air conditioning. But Randall himself was too elated, in view of what they'd just witnessed and heard, to pay it too much attention. He expelled his breath heavily, lighting up another cigar.

"Jesus Christ! If we needed a final ace, that should be it, huh? That goddamned sanctimonious bastard ..."

Harris shrugged, and except for the beads of sweat on his forehead, he showed no emotion as he carefully put away the videotapes.

"It won't pay to underestimate Reardon, in spite of that." He nodded towards the screen. "However, it should help, no doubt of that. I'll see that these are stored away in the vault at once."

"How about Brightman?"

"Hal is very sincere, of course. And very cautious. I'm sure he'll come to me with his little dilemma, and naturally, I'll give him the right advice."

Randall said abruptly, "I wonder what made her do it? Go for him like a hellcat with that knife, I mean. She didn't strike me as the type. Jealousy? Didn't I hear rumors that there used to be something between them?"

He was a man who prided himself on his observation of people, and now, without seeming to do so, he watched his companion's face narrowly.

Harris Phelps's fingers went up in a characteristic gesture to touch his mustache, but apart from that he showed no real emotion. "Oh, there was something to the rumors-for a time. But I think Anne's seen through him. No woman enjoys being lied to, after all."

"Huh!" Randall sounded doubtful, although he didn't pursue the subject, switching instead to another. "What about Carnahan? You hear anything yet? Think we ought to know for sure where he stands."