Black Is the Fashion for Dying (4 page)

“You're not going to.” She shoved the bottle towards him. “Here. Have a slug, and then scram. I'm throwing a party.”

Instead of taking the bottle, he put one of the legal forms, face up, on the bar. She peered at it over the rim of her inhaler. “‘… not exercising our right of option,'” she read softly, and then met his eyes. “Isn't it customary to use the word ‘regret' somewhere, Karl?”

“Look,” he said. “You know this is just temporary. In three months, six months at the most, I'll give you the straight ten-year contract. Fifty-two weeks a year, no options.”

“We've been over that.”

“I'll put it in writing, if you want.”

“I almost think you mean it.”

“I do.”

She smiled indulgently. “Do you honestly believe you can take the company away from Benjy?”

His face must have betrayed his shock, because she laughed.

“Oh, I know what you've been up to, lover. Buying stock under half a dozen names.”

“My God! You mean, everybody knows?”

“Just me.” Her Egyptian-looking eyes studied him reflectively. “You see, I'm deeply interested in your career.” She came around the bar, holding the inhaler in cupped hands, like a priestess. “But you're counting on something you shouldn't, sweetie-pie. Irene's little dowry. She'll vote it like Papa says.”

“She wouldn't dare.”

“‘Honor thy father and mother.'” She halted at the glass-topped table, turned to look at him. “Did you have a father and mother, Karl?”

He barely heard her. If she was right about Irene! It
was
a possibility. He'd have to plug the loop-hole quick. A power of attorney. Yes, that would do it, if he could find a way of getting her to sign one. Caresse's voice, underlined with anger, prodded him to attention.

“Put that silly notice away.” Still at the table, she was staring down at the silver-framed portrait. “It wasn't even a good bluff.”

“I can't put it away.”

“Can't!” Her voice was vibrant with anger. “Karl Fabro. Writer-producer. An Oscar for
Sky Without Stars.
A near miss for
Merchant of Hate.
And now
Fox in the Vineyard.
” She glared at him over the portrait. “A shoo-in for this year's writing award, isn't it, Karl?”

“I suppose.”

“And I didn't even get to play in it.”

“Don't, Caresse.”

“A power in the industry,” she went on remorselessly. “From assistant producer to executive head of Major Studio in six years. The atom-age Thalberg. And you still haven't got the guts to buck that diabetic rug peddler in New York.”

“Too much depends on it now.”

“Now? Now was six years ago. That was the time of decision. That was when you, no,
we,
God help me, made our decision.” Abruptly, she backhanded the silver frame, sent the portrait crashing onto the loggia's marble floor. “
Let my
words rise from my ashes!
” she cried in a choked voice. “And to hell with you, Karl Fabro!”

Really alarmed, he gaped at her contorted face. She looked all of forty-five now, a witch at a masquerade ball. God! If she really meant it! But she couldn't. It was an act. She was too old a campaigner, too shrewd, too tough inside to let her emotions run away, with everything at stake. Unless she'd suddenly lost her mind. The idea churned his stomach. The menopause, he thought. Women sometimes became irrational then. No. Not a woman like Caresse, with stainless steel guts. It had to be an act.

“I know how you feel,” he said soothingly. “But like you said, we got into this a long time ago. There's nothing we can do now. I have to give you the notice.”

He paused to peer across the table. Her face was composed again, a dead white mask with big tears rolling down it, quick-silver drops on a China plate. Once more, fear knotted his stomach. He'd never seen her cry. Suppose she
was
unbalanced, didn't care what happened? What could he do then?

“I have to give you the notice,” he heard himself repeating and added: “I have to play along with Benjy until things work out.”

“Then down the drain we go,” she said, a curious singsong lilt to her voice.

He stared at her uneasily. “You don't mean that.”

“Don't I?” The tears had stopped rolling and she was smiling the famous wistful Garnet smile. “We'll see.”

“That's better,” he said, not really believing it. She was certainly strange tonight. “When you think it over—”

“Good night, Karl.”

He didn't like it at all. Yet it had to be an act. He was a fool to let her upset him. “Good night, Caresse,” he replied.

She went past him to the bar, put down the inhaler and picked up the dismissal notice. “I'll show you out.”

Side by side, they started down the wide hall. As they neared the dining room doors, now open, he heard the violins again, muted and tender. Caresse began to hum softly, moving the dismissal notice in time with the waltz, and when they reached the open doors she glanced into the dining room, smiling happily.

He followed her eyes, casually noting the great damask-covered table with the empty place at the far end. He saw water and wine glasses, Wedgwood and silver glittering in candlelight. He saw the harlequin colors of the eleven silent guests, dressed as nautch girls and waterfront harlots and Parisian coquettes, as Arabs and cowboys and 1910 aviators. A costume party, he thought, and then his blood froze in his veins.

The 1910 aviator was Wally Reid!

His eyes fled down the two lines of smiling faces. Garbo as Camille. Valentino, hawklike features half hidden by a white burnoose, Jean Harlow. The nautch girl—Bessie Love? Charlie Chaplin, Pola Negri, Milton Sills, Tom Mix, Carole Lombard. The dead risen! he thought wildly, knowing that was wrong, that they weren't all dead, and at the same instant perceiving the figures were wax dummies, bland, oblivious, unearthly guests at a feast no sane mind could have conceived.

He cast a horrified glance at Caresse, smiling her strange happy smile, and simultaneously caught sight of smoke rising from a tuxedo-clad figure to the right of the vacant place. One of Caresse's ex-husbands, he saw it represented, poor, legless Ashton Graves. With a lighted cigar in his—its mouth. Oh, God! he thought, and hearing Caresse begin to laugh far down in her throat, a retching almost, rather than a laugh, he snatched the dismissal notice from her and hurried down the hall towards the waiting limousine and sanity.

Caresse Garnet

Sweet Jesus! The look on that porcine face when he saw the table! She would never,
never
forget it. Absolutely convinced she'd flipped her wig! Stark, raving mad! And that shambling flight, two hundred pounds of pygmy elephant plunging into the night, leaving behind an actual animal stink of fear. Laughter bubbled from her throat. Clever, clever Caresse!

Yes, clever Caresse. Thrifty Caresse. Hoarding the memory of a remark dropped years ago, a brief, passing admission to an almost pathological fear of the insane, some childhood experience, he'd hinted darkly, and she hoarding the memory for just such a time as this. Shrill, off key, the laughter rose. Clever Caresse!

Ashton was staring at her from the far end of the table. She choked off the laughter, took a deep, sobering breath. “I'm sorry, darling—”

“What did Fabro want?”

“Come back to the loggia. I'll tell you there.”

Knowing how he hated to be seen struggling with the mechanics of walking, she went on ahead. All the laughter was gone now, and the party that had seemed such a mad, whimsical, inspired idea no longer amused her. Still, she was safe from Fabro for another year, and there was only poor Ashton to deal with.

In the loggia she found Leon sweeping up the bits of broken glass. She took the brush and dustpan from him, said, “Go put the dummies in the projection room the way I told you.”

“Yes, Miss,” he said, his young Filipino eyes frightened, and as he hurried away she wondered momentarily if he thought she was crazy, too. Maybe she was. Like a bitch fox, she thought, in quick negation. How else would she have kept Caresse Garnet on marquee lights for all these years? If she wasn't a bitch fox?

But even a bitch fox grows old, she thought, bending to push the last fragments of glass into the dustpan. And lonely. Just as Ashton was. Poor, sweet Ashton. The only really good man she'd ever known. Well, married at least. And there was the title now. Letty Johns, just back from London, hadn't waited a second to tell her. Ashton's older brother. Sir Ralph Graves. Leukemia. Only a month or two to live, but keeping it very quiet. Even Ashton didn't know, Letty said. Ashton? Sir Ashton Graves. Baronet!

Hearing measured footsteps approach, she hurriedly turned the silver-framed photograph face down on the coffee table, hid dustpan and brush back of the bar. She was pouring Benedictine, Ashton's favorite, when he came in, methodically thrusting one leg forward and then the other, like a man wading through mud.

“Contract trouble, old girl?” he asked, following up the Fabro thread.

“No longer, darling,” she said brightly. “Option picked up for another year.”

“I don't see how you do it.”

“You're not very flattering.”

Backing awkwardly, he pushed his rump against one of the bar stools, raised himself on it with his hands. “No,” he said, letting the metal legs swing free. “I'm a boor. Actin' and looks, you're still tops, as they say.”

Smiling, she handed him the glass. “I'm glad you think so.”

She appraised him covertly as he frowned at the Benedictine, straw-colored brows hooding his blue eyes. He really was a handsome man, an English squire sort of man with a ruddy, open, wholesome country face. He'd make a fine baronet.

“Ledgers,” she said.

“Ledgers?”

“That's how I keep my options picked up. Magic words from magic ledgers.” She smiled mysteriously. “Remember the Chinese chest you bought me?”

“In your bedroom?”

“That's where they are. Some day, if you're nice, I'll show them to you. Show you Edgar's magic words.”

“I don't understand.”

“You're not supposed to. Nobody is.” She leaned over the bar, patted his arm. “And besides, we've magic of our own to make.”

“We have?”

“Didn't you like the surprise party, darling?”

“I don't know …” he began, and then said, “A bit eerie. But yes, I liked it.”

“And did you remember?”

He nodded. “The silly list we made out once. Our favorite people.”

“Yes.”

“You must have gone to a deal of expense.”

“I wanted to. And I've still another surprise.”

Abruptly, he asked, “What are you up to, Caresse?”

For a second she debated evading the question. But he knew her too well to be taken in by anything she could say. Had always known her too well. It would be best, for once, to be truthful.

“I think we should get married again.”

It didn't seem to surprise him. “I knew it couldn't be money,” he said. “Because I haven't any.”

“I'll have enough, darling.”

His puzzled cornflower-blue eyes searched her face. “When you left me, Caresse, you said something that's stuck in my mind ever since. You said I was only half a man. Now—” He swiveled his hips, set his legs swinging from their knee hinges. “—now I'm only half of half a man.”

“I'll make you whole again!”

“No. It's too late, old girl. The Dagos fixed that at Tobruk.”

“Poor Ashton.”

“I don't mind any more.”

“Of course you do.” She felt a strange rush of emotion, of anger and pity and affection. “But let's quit yammering about your God-damn legs! I want to live with you again. I don't say I'm madly in love with you. Maybe I can't love anybody. But you need me, and I need you, and we'd be good together. So why not face it?”

“We did face it once. Remember? For almost three years.”

“That was long ago, Ashton. I'm different now.”

“I wonder.”

“Why do you suppose I got you the McGregor part in
Tiger in the Night
?”

“So you'd have somebody to bitch at on the set, I imagine.”

“Silly! That's professional. You know how I am on the set. A bitch fox.”

“Vixen.”

“All right, vixen. But there's nothing personal in it.”

“How about that drab female today? Mrs. Grumpert?”

“Mrs. Grumpert! My God, Ashton! Do you realize she tried to kill me once!”

“And with good reason.”

She turned to hide the anger in her face, fumbling for the Bisquit bottle on the shelf back of the bar. Was it her fault the insipid creature couldn't hang on to her husband? Al Grumpert. Who would want Al Grumpert? A second-rate cameraman with big shoulders and a thick neck. Yet Mrs. Grumpert, Isabella, she vaguely remembered, must have wanted him, otherwise she wouldn't have tried to force her way into the house that night, drenched from the long vigil in the cold January rain, waving the .25 caliber pistol and caterwauling about broken homes until the police had come and taken her away. And the publicity! She swung back with the bottle, not caring about the anger now.

“She almost wrecked my career.”

“Yes, that was wicked of her,” Ashton said. “But it happened twenty years ago.”

“How could they have let her out of that institution?”

“She recovered, undoubtedly.”

She had poured too much brandy in her glass, but it didn't matter. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I am not going to have her on the set with me.”

“That's understandable, but you needn't have had her fired. A poor wardrobe woman.”

“I won't have her in the same studio!”

He grinned at her enraged face. “I wouldn't be surprised if she really took a shot at you now.”