Show Business Is Murder (12 page)

About an hour later, Joe reluctantly descended into the tunnels himself. They'd all three almost exclusively ridden
the 9 train, so he anticipated finding both Sody and Lian with little trouble. At the 59th Street station, he heard an unusual commotion. Not that the tunnels weren't always echoing one racket or another, but this was different. These sounds were of terror, like animals trapped in a burning pen. As he threaded his way to the front of the crowd, Joe glimpsed a body being strapped onto a gurney in preparation to be lifted up the steep stairs to street level.

“What happened?” he asked a plump fiftyish Hispanic woman near him whose frozen expression reflected his own.

“He fell,” she whispered, fear stark in her creamy brown eyes.

Just before the medic pulled the covering over the body's face, Joe recognized the corpse. He stifled a sharp cry and stumbled backward to nearly fall over the Hispanic woman, who hadn't moved.

“He—Madre de Dios, he fell!” she whispered again to herself. She shuddered, then suddenly retreated to huddle against the gate, far from the edge of the track platform and began mouthing words only she could hear.

Prayers, Joe guessed, and from a youthful habit, himself shakily began, “Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .”

Then Joe's mouth couldn't quite close and he suddenly felt claustrophobic in the tunnel. Grimy oil-slick stairs going down to lower, filthier tunnels, and more stairs to other dark exits and entrances taunted and closed in on him like living threats. He hoisted his keyboard in his arms like a long heavy baby and darted for the stairs to the street.

When he emerged, he raised his face to the sun and breathed until he could calm himself. A small hand touched his elbow, and he jumped, choking back a fearful cry. When his vision cleared he discovered Lian gazing at him in astonishment. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“Sody!” Joe's voice cracked. He coughed, then tried again. “It's Sody, lass. He's gone.”

“Gone? What?” Lian suddenly huddled against his hard-muscled arm as if frightened. “You mean he's dead, don't you! How?” she demanded, but her voice was soft, trembling. “He was awfully tense about the audition. Did he . . . ?

Joe's testosterone kicked in and he straightened his shoulders. “Nay, lass,” he began, “He had no reason to—the crowds . . . he fell. It was an accident.” He shook his head. “He was looking for you. We both were. Where've ye been?”

Lian looked at him strangely. “Resting. For our audition today. Weren't you?”

“Nah. We came to play as always. Like a rehearsal. If ye wanted to rest today, why didn't ye say so yesterday? We worried! If we hadn't, then maybe Sody might still be . . . might not've . . .”

Lian shuddered. “You mean it's my fault, then? I'm sorr—“

“Nah. Didn't mean that. Forgive me. No fault to yersel'. He slipped, is all. It's so dark down there, and crowded, the floors coated with grease from the trains. I hate the tunnels, truth be known.”

He put one arm around her and she leaned against him and they stood entwined in silence. “I'm scared, Joe,” Lian finally said, her voice small. Joe's arm tightened around her and he let his keyboard slide to the sidewalk.

He kissed the top of her head and swallowed hard. “Lian, my angel, no reason to fear wi' me around. Ye must know how I've felt about ye since the first day . . . doesn't seem right to say so now with Sody gone . . . but . . .” He shook his head. “I'm here for ye, Lian. Always. I think ye know that, don't ye.”

Lian lifted her head at that and sang softly to him, “Always, and forever, in darkness of night, in darkness of daytime, in darkness of sight . . .”

Joe's eyebrows lifted and he gazed tenderly at her soft mouth as it moved, digging words out of her brain, making a new song.

“Yer lovely, my Lian. A nightingale.”

She backed away. “Joe, we have to go back down there right now.”

“What! To the tunnels? Why?”

“It's my place. My luck. I must go! I can't let Sody's ghost keep me away. Joe, take me. Be with me. I need this, or I can't succeed at the audition! But I can't go down there alone!”

At the balky look on Joe's face, she said softly, “We'll pick a different station. A lighter one, cleaner. Where isn't important. It's that—I can't sing without my luck. And my luck lives in the tunnels. We have only an hour before our appointment with fame. Fame we deserve!”

Joe stared at her, then at his feet, then away. “Yer daft, lass. No good going down there again. Make your luck come up to you!”

She jerked herself away from him. “Forget it, then. No appointment.”

Joe exhaled sharply as if she'd punched him in the stomach. “Audition alone? Me? I'm a keyboarder who can sing some, but not like you! Ye'd ruin me chances by leaving!”

“I have no choice. I can't go without my luck! And it's down there!”

Joe breathed heavily, lips pale.

Lian said, “Are you afraid of Sody's ghost? He loved us! He wouldn't hurt anybody, let alone you. I'm not afraid.”

“Okay, okay!” Joe turned, then stopped. “Not here, for God's sake.”

“I said so, didn't I? Our old place. 50th Street. Let's go there. And we'll walk, not take a train. Can you carry the keyboard that far?”

Joe nodded wordlessly and they walked side by side, Joe unhappy but unable to stop his Lian. “My Lian,” he murmured to himself, as if comforting himself that she was “his” and so worth facing the tunnels. Worth facing the
fright the tunnels had always held for him, but he'd kept concealed. As he walked on, gradually he relaxed and eased nearly all the way back into his normal cocky self.

AT FOUR, LIAN
Logan appeared at Krim Recordings. When she stepped into the office of the man who'd worn all black when he'd first heard her sing, she saw that he was again dressed in all black. She idly wondered if he had four or five identical outfits like that.

Buoyed by this opportunity that her luck had brought, she stood straight and as tall as her small frame allowed. Krim Recordings was the top studio in Manhattan. Probably the Western Hemisphere, she speculated.

The man backhanded a flaccid wave at her in greeting, not rising from his black leather chair, rather leaning back and swiveling as he wordlessly examined her like a doctor preparing to give her a physical. She made a mental note that when she rose to the top she'd make sure every man in every room she entered would rise in respect. Soon.

“Where're your partners?” he asked.

“They weren't my partners. I work alone.”

“And the music . . . ?”

“Twenty-seven of the songs are mine. I wrote them and own the copyrights to them all.” Her assurance carried her through the long moment during which the man stared at her.

Suddenly she said, “Listen to my signature song. I don't believe you've heard it. It would be the showpiece of my first CD.” And without permission, she lifted the Gibson from its case, slipped the strap over her shoulder and began, “Leave me now, I've moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, lah tee dah. . .”

At the end, the man sighed. “Totally. Totally.”

She nodded, taking the compliment as her due.

Then he rose from his chair, opened the heavy oak paneled door to his outer office, stuck his head through and shouted, “Get Bobby in here. And Frank—no, I don't care what they're in the middle of, get them now.”

He shut the door again, smiled into her perplexed face and sat. “It'll only be a minute.”

“What will—”

But just then the door opened and in strolled two young men. The blond one with very long hair had that emaciated, bad facial-skin look of chronic drug use, although his eyes were clear. Fresh from rehab, Lian guessed. The other looked like an ex–beach bum, sun-streaked curly mop of dark hair, dark tan, lean and muscled, his shirt unbuttoned to display sixpack abs and an outie belly-button ring. The ring had a large stone in it, all too obviously a cubic zirconium—if it had been a diamond, he'd have needed a body guard, she thought scornfully. The rings in his ears were too numerous to count, ending in one large stud in his right earlobe. Shmuck, thought Lian to herself. Both men gazed at her expectantly.

Then she got it. Lian exhaled deeply. She turned to the man in the chair. “They sing.”

The man nodded enthusiastically. “You need partners. You three will blend like sons of bitches. And if not,” he shrugged. “We have technology that will—“

“I work alone,” said Lian, her voice deeper and clearly full of anger held in only tenuous check.

She repeated, in case he hadn't gotten the idea. “I work a—“

“You sing for us, we handle things the way we want. Only deal you'll get.”

“And my songs?”

“Oh, you'll be the headliner, no question. Songs and all. We'll fix you up with some backup instruments.”

Lian listened as the man in black outlined the next years of her life. The two “singers” bobbed their heads like plastic dogs in a back window of a vintage car. First Lian examined one, then the other. She nodded to herself, as if agreeing with a voice inside her head.

She turned her attention back to the black-clothed manager from Krim Recording Studios. He was digging in his drawer for a contract form. She read it over twice, crossed out one paragraph outlining a few rules about her so-called “band,” then altered the three-year length of the agreement to one year. She raised her eyebrows to see if the man would object.

He waved away the rejected paragraph, but then looked up in disbelief. “One year? Most performers would give their mother's arm to increase their time with Krim!” He pronounced the agency name as if speaking of the pope.

“We'll see how you do,” she only said.

He gave a short laugh, shrugged, initialed the changes, then signed and initialed three more copies. She did the same. He gave her a copy that she tucked into her deepest jeans pocket.

As he carefully recapped his burgundy Mont Blanc pen, she said, “I like to spend time underground.”

The man's brow furrowed. “Under—“

“In the subway tunnels. The action there inspires my songs. I can't write them anywhere else.”

The man waved a magnanimous hand at the two male “singers.” “Hey! I understand art. You guys go with her, practice down there. You might even pick up her style better down there. Worth the effort.”

The two men shrugged, obviously under total control of the man in black.

Lian placed her guitar carefully back into its case, hefted it up over her shoulders. She nodded at the two. “Bobbie?” she asked the ex-druggie.

He shook his head. “Frank. This here's Bobbie.” He thumbed in the other singer's direction.

Lian ignored Frank's outthrust hand. “Meet me eleven
A.M.
tomorrow at . . .” she considered. “The East 34th Street entrance to the downtown tunnel. Right?” She felt she'd worn out the usefulness of the West 50th Street station.

The two nodded.

DAVID BART

“IS SHE DEAD?”

It was a feminine voice, echoing through the hollow darkness in which Matt Corey lay; perhaps a faint glow from somewhere removed, he couldn't be sure.

A booming sound had preceded the unseen woman's question; something loud enough to have awakened him . . . though he must surely still be dreaming, suspended without sensation in this featureless void, a profound absence of feeling throughout his entire body . . . except maybe his face, seemed he could feel movement of air.

“I did the guy,” the male voice said, followed by an ominous clicking sound.

Weird dream. Maybe one of those lucid kind where you—

—
another booming roar!
—
streak of fire pierced the blackness, briefly illuminating a . . .
hell, he couldn't be sure he'd glimpsed anything really.

“Never would have suspected she had a lover,” the male voice declared over a papery sound; back of a hand scraping the edge of a lamp shade, groping for a switch.

The woman blurted, “What're you,
jealous?
”

The conversation seemed too linear for a dream; Corey's dreams were usually fragmented, jumping back and forth
along the temporal line like a decaying quark, and he didn't really
hear
voices in other dreams, somehow just sensed them.

—
incredibly harsh light flashed through Corey's eyes to the back of his brain!
So phenomenally bright there should have been pain—which quickly faded into a dark-spotted glow, like flashbulbs discharging in your face, reminding Corey of the hoards of paparazzi at some promo tour or movie premier.

The male voice, exclaiming, “Wha—who in hell is this?”

The words were clear but also distant, like conversation skittering across a still lake at night, voices originating a half-mile away but so distinct it's as if the people stood next to you on the dock.

“I recognize
him,
I think, but that's not your wife!” the woman said.

Vague images began to congeal within the fuzzy glow before him, black spots fading . . . indistinct forms and surfaces grew ever-more defined, though his line of vision was along a single plane—couldn't move his eyes or even blink—staring fixedly upward at an angle.

The upper edge of a huge, Spanish-style armoire appeared in the gathering clarity, and a mirror, presumably attached to a dresser below . . . a closet, though all Corey could see were tops of louvered, white folding doors—above it was all black and empty, as though the periphery of tunnel vision. He was unable to move his line of sight downward, see if there were bodies to go with the voices.

Was there another form next to him? Another person? He sighed inwardly; if there were two of them, lying side-by-side, then this is definitely not a dream. This is getting caught in the act.

Corey felt a movement of air pass over his face, very cool but oddly abrasive, and he could suddenly
sense
that another form had moved next to the bed, standing there looking down on him—could make out a vague form at the edge of his view but could not move his eyes in order to define features.

“A
movie star
for Christ's sake,” the male voice exclaimed. “Why the hell would someone famous be in my house?”

“They're naked, Vince,” the female voice replied dryly, “it's obvious what they were doing—what I'd like to know is who's the woman, and why is she in
your
bedroom?”

LAST SUMMER . . .

Corey had removed a section of railing and was sitting on the elevated redwood deck of his Malibu home, legs dangling, gazing out over the frothy surf at the distant horizon of a startlingly blue Pacific—ignoring the giggling covey of string-bikinied starlets jogging by on the raked sand below, glancing up at him, unabashedly displaying their pendulous attributes, doing so with a great deal of enthusiasm.

All Matt Corey noticed was the emptiness he felt. He had always labored under the dense weight of some kind of indefinable angst, but lately the burden of this dark mood had grown intolerable . . . and now, when he sighed, it was as if it were his last breath.

Margo Aston lay behind him on a chaise longue, topless and gleaming under the afternoon sun—poster girl for tanning oil. “Whatsa matter, superstar?” she asked, using the term she knew he detested, trying to get him stirred up a little—even his explosive anger was better than this tiresome depression.

Making a point of looking around him, palms turned upward, Corey sighed yet again, asking, “This is
it
—all those movies and all the money, famous all over the planet, and this is all the better it feels?”

“You think too much, Matt,” Margo said, raising eyebrows and causing mirror-glass shades to slip down onto the bridge of her nose.

He pulled up his legs and turned to look at her. Great body. Great personality. Average mind. “And
you
think too
little,” he replied, though of course that was bullshit; he knew she was always thinking, especially about whatever movie project she was producing—she just didn't cotton to philosophical musing.

Margo put a mirrored gaze on him, saying, “You work more than Hackman, never seen anybody work harder—you need to learn to play hard, too.”

Corey smiled. “You complaining?”

“Not talking about sex, I'm talking about taking chances, living on the edge.”

“You want I should rob a bank?” Pointing a cocked thumb and extended finger her way.

Shook her head, short red hair hardly moving. “Not anything illegal, just improper—course illegal would be better—but nothing with guns or where somebody gets hurt,” Margo said, turning onto her flat stomach.

“You speaking from experience?”

Shrugged, resting her head on crossed hands. “When Jack and I were together we used to . . .” and she explained some adventures her former lover and she had gone on in Hawaii, Paris, São Paulo, and Morocco. “You could do things like that, too,” she said, “nothing really dangerous, but risky in some way . . . gotta have an imminent deadline, clock ticking, a threat of being caught, something to lose.”

Might work, Corey thought . . . then wondered what in hell was wrong with him; he was known by a couple billion people around the planet, richer'n Croesus, have any woman he wanted, and yet he was still not satisfied. Looking for some meaning to it all.

Course maybe it was true, you had to struggle to be genuinely happy . . . take a risk now and then, put something on the line—start out with a few break-ins, then maybe something riskier; he needed something to fan the flames, 'cause it sure seemed that getting there wasn't just half the fun, it was the whole enchilada.

. . . THIS IS DEFINITELY
not a dream, it's a real bedroom.

Not
his
bedroom but something familiar about it.

Those roars must've been gunshots. Though if he'd been shot, why no pain? Was he in shock? Trauma-induced catatonia—like that horror flick he'd done early in his career about being buried alive? Or had a bullet severed his spine?

A sudden thought shied beneath him—the body next to him, who was it?

Margo? Yes, it had to be Margo. That was the second shot. Ah, damn . . . not Margo.

He tried to turn his head but couldn't move . . . after a few moments, various lines he'd memorized for doctor roles over the years began echoing through his mind:
I'm sorry, Mrs. Baker . . . no sensorimotor impulses emanating from your husband's brain . . . can't move a muscle.

That fits . . . friggin' statue, stone cold and helpless.

Of course now something else has begun to happen—surroundings are growing darker, as though someone was slowly dimming a light switch; could still make out objects, top of the walls, but they seemed vague and indistinct. A grainy dense fog began to materialize in the air, dull and menacing . . .

Oh, Christ, he's losing even this limited vision . . .

—another part he'd played on daytime TV resonated inside his skull:
It appears certain, Ms. Moore, that your boyfriend is going blind, what we in the healing business call vision-dead . . . this is a condition caused by the fact that his primary visual cortex has nearly ceased functioning due to the extensive brain damage.

Having recited that unwieldy line, the script had demanded even more from his character:
All that remains for your poor dear companion are the few moments left him before the rest of his brain dies,
he'd said.

The actress playing the girlfriend had cried out inappropriately, as though startled, emitting a strange, sustained shriek, sounding more like she'd been goosed than expressing anguish. Broke the whole crew up—even the asshole director had laughed.

Corey attempted a deep breath, though couldn't tell what was going on in his chest, thinking:
got no smell. Losing sight. Can't move. Margo dead. Christ, with all this crap there must be a pony in here some
—

“My God, lookit the blood,” the female voice exclaimed.

Something about the exuberance in her voice made Corey want to scrunch up his nose and sneer . . . if only he could.

Because even spatial orientation was difficult, though he knew he was prone on a bed next to Margo—but it still felt like he was floating. A memory came to Corey as if it'd happened only yesterday . . . he'd been buoyed in a sensory deprivation tank on the set of a movie about regressive therapy; scene involved a portrayal of his character experiencing weird visions, archetypal images, and finally a kind of body-death, but with total consciousness. One line he'd had to recite:
“I can almost touch my soul.”

Corey hadn't wanted to say it but didn't have enough clout back then to refuse. Now he'd tell the biggest director in Hollywood to shove that line where the sun don't shine.

Complete darkness settled silently over him like a shroud of heavy ash . . . he was now totally blind—
where the sun don't shine
. Couldn't feel any movement in his chest, couldn't see, couldn't smell, didn't know if he could still hear or not . . . for all Corey knew, he was dead, his consciousness remaining behind like a child at the top of the stairs, not wanting to miss anything going on down below.

LATER THAT LAST
summer . . .

“What if we get caught?” Corey whispered, his hand on Margo's shoulder as they both crouched in darkness next to the house, suddenly feeling he might have taken a wrong turn in his quest for meaning.

“That's the point, Gomer—things can go wrong—your crime could be reported in the tabloids, the cops would treat you like a felon, your career would be crippled by the notoriety . . . but you can't have the juice without the risk,” Margo said.

She'd jimmied the door and turned off the alarm the way some ex-con crewman had shown her earlier that week at the sound stage. It was pretty dark in the foyer, though some faint light was coming from a distant room.

They made their way quickly up to the master bedroom, knowing they had less than an hour or so before the owner was to return to the house.

Making love was heightened by every tiny noise they heard, but it was as much the idea of trespassing that turned Corey on; brought up by an aunt and uncle who were fanatics about their privacy and respecting the privacy of others—step off the sidewalk onto somebody's lawn and you got a good smack on the back of the head. He'd learned to avoid the edge, not even walk along it.

After the lovemaking, they decided to not straighten the covers, Margo reciting from “The Three Bears”: “Somebody's been sleeping in
my
bed,” leaving washcloths and towels strewn about on the bathroom floor—then down to the kitchen where she made them sandwiches while Corey poured them stemmed glasses of wine, dribbling some on the counter.

They ate, drank, and talked until they heard the garage door go up—that would be Garry Howard, the former producer who owned the place returning home; this was a guy who hated Corey because he'd refused to do a couple projects
and the industry rags had picked up on the rejection, ridiculing the executive, ultimately getting him demoted a few notches, assistant-assistant to someone or other.

Corey knew Howard would press charges if he caught them. Scream to the tabloids. Yeah, this little game was something of a risk—but they were both grinning at each other as they jumped to their feet, headed for the side door leaving the mess on the counter, laughing and giggling like teenagers.

DEAD.

An intense feeling of remorse flooded through Corey; he wanted so very badly to be able to look at Margo at least one more time—and in the wanting he could almost hear her breathing—no, that was the other woman, Vince's squeeze.

“What're we going to do?” the female voice asked anxiously, the sound of fingernails being nervously clicked together over and over.

“Jesus, why's some movie star in here anyway—my wife doesn't know anybody like that.”