Black Is the Fashion for Dying (14 page)

“Like I said,” he said. “Better in here lonely.”

Still not hurrying, he went out.

Fabro, now back of the desk, sank into his chair. “Unions,” he growled. He pulled a piece of Kleenex from a drawer, wiped his forehead. “Can't fire anybody.” He balled the Kleenex, dropped it on the rug and mustered up a tired smile. “Except myself.”

Grimsby's thin lips curled in a brief, perfunctory response. Then, a schoolteacher again, he glanced at his notebook. “I have a question, Mr. Fabro.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Gordon says the blanket was off the body when he went into the tent.” Grimsby paused, flipped the notebook's pages. “Yet when we arrived the body was covered.”

“Yes,” Fabro said. “I pulled it up.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Fabro's voice was uncertain. “I suppose … because that's what you do with bodies. Cover them.” His eyes closed in somber recollection. “She looked so … vulnerable, lying there.”

Grimsby wrote in the notebook. Then, ball point pen poised over the page, he asked, “Did you touch anything else?”

“No. Just the blanket.”

Grimsby wrote again in the notebook. He looked at Gordon, wrote something else. He closed the notebook, put the pen away and went to the door. He paused there, said, “I'm glad your stories coincide, gentlemen,” and went out

Fabro, watching from the desk, grimaced. “Cold potato.”

“Cold? Alongside him, absolute zero is tropical.”

“Blanket,” Fabro said reflectively. “Not important.” He sank back in his chair, covered his eyes with a palm. “Where was I?”

“Chasing T. J.”

“No. The picture.” Again he picked up the exact words. “I liked Blake's speech for Caresse. ‘Black's the fashion for dying …' But he can do even better with the new ending. At the jail where the girl says good-bye to the white hunter.” The voice emerged from the stomach loudspeaker in a scratchy monotone. “He blames himself for what has happened, but she is above human frailty, like a figure in a Greek tragedy.”

The loudspeaker paused. Fabro's hand, falling from eyes to desk, uncovered his expressionless face. It was, Gordon thought, as though voice and face had nothing to do with each other. As though a corpse had been wired for sound. Presently the electronic words began to flow again.

“Caresse's death, the abortive murder plot are pieces of a pattern woven a million years ago. The girl is grateful for having been permitted to love the white hunter. The Fates have given meaning to her life. He must believe that, must believe she is content, even though the long years stretch ahead. Tender, spiritual, mystical, she comforts him, and then, a nun entering a convent, she is led into the prison.”

“Big wooden gates closing,” Gordon said.

“Yes. We hold on the gates, then pan to the white hunter. He turns, walks slowly, brokenly into the jungle. Music up and we fade.”

There was a long moment of silence. Then furling lids revealed glowing amber eyes. They fastened on Gordon. “Well?”

“Five handkerchiefs,” Gordon said.

“You'll shoot it?”

Gordon stared uncertainly. The idea was good. No doubt of that. It would work fine, at least as far as finishing the picture went. Better than the old ending. And he could use the screen credit. But the rub was: would it be a credit? A freak picture featuring the bumping off, both figuratively and literally, of its leading lady?

“What about censorship?”

“Dozens of pictures have been approved with dead actors in them.”

“Not murdered dead actors.”

Fabro shrugged. “We release it seal or no seal.”

Gordon eyed him silently.

“I can get another director,” Fabro said.

“The girl?”

“She'll be there.”

“No bail on a murder charge.”

“Let me worry about that.” Fabro's voice was confident. “Get hold of Blake. Start him on the script. And be ready to shoot tomorrow.”

“I don't know.”

Ominous lines appeared at the corners of Fabro's mouth, twisted down the puffy lips. “Have you considered the alternatives?”

“What alternatives?”

“A breach-of-contract suit. Your last payment withheld. A complaint filed with your guild. Your name on the black list at every major studio.” Fabro's voice rose to a hoarse, vindictive shout. “And, by God, damages! Every penny you got in the world!”

For a moment Gordon met the inflamed porcine eyes, feeling a hot rush of blood. He felt his right hand clench, his weight shift onto the balls of his feet, but as his shoulder muscles tightened he knew the punch was stillborn. Ten years ago he would have let fly and to hell with the consequences. But there were too many things involved now. The back taxes for fifty-seven. The bank loan. Agnes and the kids. The big house on Rodeo and the beach house at Malibu and the apartment on Miller Place. And the bills, piled high each month like Montana snowbanks.

He sighed, suddenly ninety-three years old, and settled back on his heels.

“Well?” Fabro demanded.

“All right, Fatso.” Gordon smiled wryly. “Since you've asked me so nicely.” He started for the door. “But only on one condition.”

“What's that?”

Hand on the doorknob, Gordon turned. “That big funeral you're throwing for Caresse …”

“What about it?”

“I get the popcorn concession.”

Karl Fabro

The thing couldn't see. It had no eyes. But it was watching. He could tell by the small of his back. Even while Gordon was there he'd felt it watching, felt the slow creep of flesh, a chill warning, no doubt, from some long-atrophied jungle sense between his shoulder blades. It was a queer feeling, as though a piece of ice had been grafted to his skin. Nerves, of course, but why this particular aberration? When the damn thing couldn't see?

Abruptly, convulsively, he swung around.

As it had for two years now, the golden statuette stood on the shelf, poised under the jewel-encrusted dagger. A meaningless abstraction, it had no expression, watchful or otherwise. It had no eyes. Barely a face, actually.

It was just a piece of metal.

He stood up, feeling oddly relieved, so strong had been the sensation of being watched. He stared at the statuette and then, suddenly amused, he chuckled. Watched by an eyeless watcher. By the deity of Hollywood success. The Oscar god! He chuckled again. Let the thing watch, if it could. It was his. And in one more day he'd have another.

“
One more day!
”

The gleeful voice startled him. He grunted sardonically, dropped heavily into the chair, swung back to the desk. Ice along his spine, and now talking to himself. Or rather to that gilded chunk of bronze he'd somehow gotten a fixation about. If things kept on he'd be needing to see Dr. Abernathy again. But they wouldn't keep on. It was almost over. Only a few moves left, as simple and inexorable as chess moves against an already beaten opponent

He thumbed down the intercom lever. “Find T. J. yet?”

Miss Earnshaw replied promptly. “No, Mr. Fabro. But there are a dozen people—”

“I can't see them.”

“But—”

He cut her off, a brief rage at T.J. flaring. One move, an important move, maybe the most important move of all, depending on him, and the twirp had apparently taken the afternoon off. No, that was impossible. He'd never dare. He'd turn up eventually, as he always did, burbling some macaronic excuse or other. And that would be time enough. The chess game, actually, was ahead of schedule.

Tiger in the Night,
for instance. A pawn, maybe, among knights and kings, but already in place. The prison set being built. A promise from the District Attorney that the girl, if not free on bail, would be allowed to finish her scenes at the studio. Gordon in line, as he knew he would be. One day's shooting and the picture would be in the can. Let Benjy try to junk it then.

Lips curling contemptuously, he found a scratch pad, began to jot down the symbols he knew by heart now. Figures, really, representing common shares of Major Pictures stock, each worth $21 as of the close of yesterday's market. But symbols, too, of votes in the annual election of directors. He placed them in two columns:

Not much of a margin, ten thousand votes. Almost too weak, too dubious a chessman to be reserved for the final pouncing move. But if he could save
Tiger in the Night
over Benjy's protests, save Major two million dollars, the chessman would stand up, bolstered by the little voters hungry for dividends. And with it he would sweep Benjy clear out of the company. Or upstairs, into some kind of a prop job, if he was willing to give up without a fight. With the Fox syndicate solidly in back of him, and Denning and Irene …

Somewhere in his brain an alarm sounded. One move he'd forgotten to make. He thought about Irene, remembering what Caresse had said. “Honor thy father and mother.” Then, picturing Irene's soft, tremulous, eager-to-please face, he snorted scornfully. No trouble there. Early on their honeymoon he'd found the key to her, found the exact mixture of contempt and brutality that appealed to the queer masochistic streak in her nature, kept her meek and submissive. She might want to honor Benjy, but she'd never have the courage. Just to be safe, though, he'd get that power of attorney drawn up, make her sign—

A sound at the door brought his eyes up from the desk. T. J., looking flustered as usual, trotted into the room, trotted back to close the door, trotted back to the desk.

“You wanted … me, Karl?”

“Where in hell have you been?”

“Why … Irene …”

“Irene!”

Red splotches appeared on the pale cheeks. “She telephoned …” Pausing to gulp in air, T. J. finally managed two complete sentences. “Mrs. Turnbell was driving her down to the studio. So I went out to meet her.”

“For half an hour you've been meeting her?”

“She was late.”

Fabro glowered at him suspiciously. “People can get laid in half an hour.”

“Karl!”

“Where is she then?”

“She never came.” Clasped together, T. J.'s hands made wringing motions. “I know you're joking, but I swear …”

Staring at the agonized face, the face of a crucified Angora rabbit, Fabro suddenly experienced one of his familiar intuitive flashes. The twirp was in love with Irene. And, more than likely, Irene with him. That was the cause of the dark stirrings in his subconscious these last few weeks. But it was nothing to worry about. It wasn't the kind of love that led to quick feels under tables and rumpled motel beds. It was twirp love, T.J.-type love, noble, and romantic and hopeless.

Still he didn't exactly like it.

“How'd you and Cynthia ever get that daughter of yours?” he asked derisively.

“Pamela?”

“Artificial insemination?”

“I don't understand …” Bewilderment slowly gave way to the haunted expression of terror and grief mention of Cynthia and Pamela always brought to T. J.'s face. “You're not being fair, Karl.”

So he wasn't, Fabro reflected irritably. A wife dead from pre-vaccine polio. A daughter permanently paralyzed. Unfair subjects for jokes, maybe, but he didn't give a damn. About them, or about T. J.'s feelings.

Except insofar as they affected the chess game.

He quelled the irritation. Let T. J. enjoy his star-crossed love. Let him keep on mentally fornicating with Irene, if he'd ever gotten that far. Until the game was over, until the surviving pieces were in their ordained squares, he couldn't afford to alienate him.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I was off base.” He sighed, ran a hand over his face. “Nerves, I guess. Raw. Too many things rasping them.”

“If you don't want me to see Irene …”

“I do.” He came around the desk. “I'm glad you like her.” He clasped the thin shoulder. “And I hope you still like me, too.”

“Oh, I do”

“I'm a bastard.”

“Not really.”

“Then in spite of everything, we're friends?”

“Of course.” T. J.'s eyes glistened. “You know I'd do anything for you, Karl.”

“I certainly hope you mean that.”

“There's something …?”

“Yes.” Appraising the absurdly resolute figure before him, a middle-aged Boy Scout ready to rescue an old lady from a traffic island, Fabro hesitated. He'd mapped out the approach, but it was tricky. Best to play it by ear. “Something special”

The cornflower blue eyes widened, but the resolution was unabated “Just name it.”

“It's to do with Caresse.”

“Her funeral?”

Fabro forced back his irritation, forced a smile. “No. Something that might mean
my
funeral.” He paused to let this sink in. “Caresse has, or I guess I should say had, some things I have to get hold of.”

“And you want me …”

“… to get them.”