The Last Story (16 page)

We will wait. Here, at the end, was she suddenly afraid to die? Did she honestly believe that there was a hope of escape? To these questions she had no answers. Yet she knew she needed to confront the enemy. To look into his face, his eyes, and see whether she had seen him before.

"And whether I will see him again," she whispered.

"What did you say?" Pareen asked.

"Nothing. Are their airlocks compatible with ours?"

Pareen checked his instruments. "Apparently. Several of them have already entered the lock. There are six of them. They are pressurizing the chamber." He paused.

"They'll reach the bridge in two minutes."

"Have you set the nanoegg to explode on my voice command?"

"Not yet What word would you like to use as the trigger?"

"The word C/ra."

"Why that word?"

Sarteen smiled sadly. "Did you know I had a daughter?"

"You never told me."

"It was many years ago. Her name is Cira. Was Cira."

She added softly, "She lived on Malanak, the fifth planet."

Pareen was sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

Sarteen sighed. "At least it ended quickly for her.

That's why this captain lets us live this long. He wants our end to be painful. It's pain that feeds him."

"How do you know that?" Pareen asked, working his instruments.

"You will understand when you see him."

"Surely the captain will not be a member of the boarding team."

Sarteen shrugged. "Why not? He thinks we're helpless.

He can't imagine we would intentionally kill ourselves.

He can't imagine an existence beyond the body.

You know, that's what this is all about. The Orions don't believe we have souls." She paused. "Maybe they don't."

"Don't say your daughter's name again unless you want the nanoegg detonated."

"Understood. Where are they now?"

"Coming up the elevator." He pointed to the door at the rear of the bridge. "They will come through there."

Sarteen stood, faced the elevator. "How long?"

"One minute. Maybe less."

Sarteen gestured for him to stand beside her.

"Pareen," she said. "This last thousand years, has it ever bothered you that I was the captain and not you?

We're about to die. You can tell me the truth."

He came close. "Yes. Many times. When I disagreed

with you. But at each of those times I later saw the wisdom of your decisions." He nodded toward the elevator door. "This plan was clever. We can stop them now. The others will escape."

"If I say my daughter's name."

"I believe that would be the wise thing to do."

She put an arm around him. "Trust me this last time, Pareen. I won't let you down."

"I trust you, Sarteen."

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "They have taken the Earth, but it does not belong to them. Let's make a vow to each other. If we are ever given the chance—in whatever time, whatever place—to get the Earth back, we will give it our whole heart. We will not rest until our home is returned to us."

"Agreed." Pareen paused and stared into her eyes.

"Did I ever tell you how I feel about you, Sarteen?"

She smiled sadly. "No. Did I ever tell you?"

"No." He glanced at the elevator. "And now there's no time."

She hugged him again. "There's time."

But maybe she was wrong.

At that moment the elevator door opened.

"What does Eworl look like?" I asked my computer screen. "How does Sarteen trick him?

How does she get out of this mess?"

Word processors were great inventions. They allowed you to cut and paste and delete and replace.

But they could not write your books for you.

Certainly they could not help you with your own

life. The questions I asked—I wondered if they were for Sarteen or for myself. I felt a deep kinship with her—the whole universe was tumbling down on both our heads.

Turning off the machine, I went to bed.

I slept, a little. There were no dreams.

CHAPTER

XIV

JL HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Sunday, after shooting another wet scene as Mary, Garrett agreed to meet me in his office on my lunch hour. Mary was also in the scenes that were to be shot that afternoon and evening; I had only a few minutes to spare, but I had asked him to meet me in person, rather than talk to me on the phone because I wanted an excuse to leave the set. After coming so close to having sex with Roger the previous night, I found it difficult to act casual around him. I was ashamed and in lust at the same time. He kept smiling at me; it was unnerving.

Garrett offered me coffee, which I refused. He came straight to the point.

"You were right when you said Roger Teller was an elusive guy," he said. "I ran into problems with something as simple as the DMV check on his car."

"What kind of problems?"

"It turned up nothing."

"What does that mean?"

"His license plate is phony. Assuming you wrote down the number correctly."

"I gave you the right number. How could he have a phony license plate?"

Garrett shrugged. "It's not hard to make a fake license plate, if you're so inclined. It's just that I've never met anyone who went to the trouble."

"Why would he have a phony license plate?" I asked.

"To prevent someone from checking up on him, and it worked. It was a dead end for me.

So I decided to check into his past acting jobs."

"They also turned out to be fake?"

"No. Each of the places he said he'd been, he really had been. The two acting classes he took, the three plays he was in were genuine. What was curious was how the people in those places talked about him."

"Go on," I said, my curiosity sparked.

"Let me tell you what his last acting teacher, a Mr. Hatcher, said. This Hatcher was on a sci-fi TV

series a few years ago. He was, and is, a pretty good actor. Anyway, Hatcher runs a workshop where actors write one-act scripts alone or in pairs and then act them out with a partner in front of the class. Being a producer, I assume you're familiar with the format. By the final class, everyone in the workshop—except Roger and his partner—had done their scenes.

Roger was determined to be last.

He had gone out of his way to chose the most beautiful young woman in the group as his partner.

Hatcher said she seemed very sensible when she

joined the workshop. Yet when Roger performed his scene with her, Hatcher had doubts."

"Why?" I asked.

"In front of a class of approximately thirty people, Roger and the girl did a scene where he simulated raping her and stabbing her in the leg, before finally befriending her."

I frowned. "I don't see how that would work."

Garrett snorted. "It's not a question of whether it would work. It's disgusting!"

I nodded. "I understand that. But you don't work in Hollywood. There are rape scenes on prime time TV. That he wrote and performed such a scene is odd, but it doesn't mean he's disturbed."

Garrett stared at her. "I don't think I would fit in in Hollywood very well."

I shrugged. "On a clear day you can see the city out the window of your office. What did the other people say about him?"

"Hatcher gave me a list of people who had taken the workshop. So far, I've been unable to reach the young woman who worked with Roger on the scene. But I did talk to a guy who occasionally went out drinking with him afterward. They would go to a nearby bar and stay out late. Roger, the guy said, could really put them away."

"So? Lots of people drink."

"You asked me to check up on him. To a detective, this is significant. The guy drinks a lot. Not only that, the man I spoke to said he never saw Roger drunk."

"Yes? Am I missing something?"

Garrett scratched his head. "I don't know. I don't even know why I'm telling you this.

Except the guy I spoke to—he found Roger's tolerance amazing. He said Roger could put away two bottles of wine and six beers and be perfectly sober."

Garrett paused. "Have you seen him drink on the set?"

I hesitated. "Not on the set. But afterward."

Garrett consulted his notes. "Next I spoke to the director of a play Roger was in called Summer Sleep. Are you familiar with the story? A woman by the name of Annette Ginger wrote it at the turn of the century. She's not well known nowadays, but in her time she was considered brilliant."

"I'm afraid I've never heard of her."

"Summer Sleep is a murder mystery. A group of young men and women travel to a large mansion in upstate New York. There's the usual big storm to isolate them from the rest of the world, and the typical history about how people have died in the mansion under strange circumstances. Yet the mystery is unique; it goes in unexpected directions.

Roger played the role of the villain, who was in reality the grandchild of one of the mansion's original victims. It will take me too long to explain the whole story but suffice it to say the role is a demanding one because it requires the actor to be the obvious suspect from the beginning, yet disarm the audience with his innocence. The character does and says one thing after another that incrimi

nates himself. Yet the way Ms. Ginger wrote the play, if the actor can pull it off, he can stun the audience."

"Because his guilt is so obvious he couldn't possibly have committed the crime?"

"Exactly. You should read the play. You'd enjoy it."

"I'll see if I can find a copy of it." I paused. "How did Roger do in the role?"

"Excellent. The Chicago Herald reviewed him. It said he was someone to keep an eye on.

The only trouble was the play closed after opening night."

"Why?"

"The actress who played the heroine got beat up."

I grimaced. "How bad?"

"Her jaw was broken. She was cut on her cheek.

The director said the wound took twenty stitches to close. Something like that would scar, I'd think. I know the question you want to ask. Was Roger responsible for what happened to her?

The police say no, although Roger was taken in for questioning.

The girl herself never said it was Roger."

"Then why are you building this up to make it seem it might have been Roger?"

"Because the director thought it might have been him."

"Did he have any proof?"

"No hard proof. But I find it strange that a director who worked daily with an actor would suspect him of such a heinous crime. You see, Roger was involved with this young lady. They were living together. And the police report on the crime does state that the girl refused to cooperate with the police in apprehending the criminal."

"Why would the girl protect Roger if he had hurt her so badly? It makes no sense."

"Why would she refuse to cooperate with the authorities if she wasn't protecting someone?

Sometimes you have to ask the question backward to arrive at the real question. I had a case a few years ago—when I was still with the police force where everyone thought a seventeen-year-old girl had committed suicide by jumping off a balcony.

On purely circumstantial evidence, even her friends assumed the girl had killed herself.

Yet, at the time, I kept asking myself, why would she have done such a thing? She had her whole life in front of her. And until someone could prove to me that she wanted to die, I proceeded on the assumption that she had been murdered. Turned out I was right. Oh, by the way, you might have heard of the girl. Her name was Shari Cooper—the same as your pen name."

I had to remember to breathe. "You know who I am?"

"Yes," he said casually. "You're the writer."

"Have you been checking up on me as well, Mr.

Garrett?"

He snorted. "Hardly. My daughter has read a couple of your books. I mentioned to her that you were the producer on a movie called First to Die and she got all excited. I guess it's one of her favorite books. Since you told me you were presi dent of Cooper Productions, I put two and two together." He paused, uncertain. "You are Shari Cooper, aren't you?"

I smiled faintly. "I'm Jean Rodrigues. But I would be happy to sign a book for your daughter, if she wishes." God, I thought. It had been madness to come to this office. I continued.

"It seems to me you're condemning Roger on purely circumstantial evidence. The same way this Shari Cooper's friends did."

Garrett watched me closely. Somehow, I had pushed a button in him, not a wise move. I had to remind myself how shrewd he was; how he could take the obvious, and see the hidden motive behind it. He had caught Amanda easily enough, thank God. She was another person I had to look up someday, when I was feeling reckless. I wondered if she was still locked away. I never talked to Jimmy about her. The subject pained him too much.

Garrett took his time responding.

"You misunderstand me," he said. "I'm not out to condemn Roger. I'm impartial. He's your employee, not mine. You have to work with him on a daily basis. Once again, you hired me to find out these things I'm telling you. For that reason, I must in good conscience offer you my personal evaluation of what I've uncovered. Already I see a pattern here. You may not recognize it, but I do. Roger Teller is a young man who uses young women. I don't care how fanatical you are about your art.

You don't write a scene about rape and stabbing and play it out in front of people unless you have

serious emotional problems. And you don't beat up your girlfriend and simultaneously scare her so badly that she's afraid to talk to the police." He added, "Not unless you have serious emotional problems."

"Why do you assume he hurt her? I don't get it?"

"Why do you assume he didn't?" Garrett paused.

"Unless you're personally involved with him."

I stiffened. "My personal business is just that personal. I don't pay you to pry into it. Have you anything else to tell me?"

Garrett was unmoved by my rebuff. President of a production company or not, I was still just a punk kid to him. "Nothing new. Just a reminder that two separate men—an accomplished actor and a respected director—did not like Roger Teller. They didn't trust him, and I don't think you should trust him either. Not a guy who goes to the trouble to manufacture a phony license plate."