The Perfect Ghost (5 page)

TB:
Okay.
Blue Flame
was such a success that there was a lot more money available for
Green Gem.

SD:
The money wasn’t that significant.

TB:
But by the time you did
Red Shot …

SD:
It still wasn’t big-budget. Mainly the money went to hiring better actors.

TB:
Like Claire Gregory? Can you talk about Claire?

SD:
God, what can you say about Claire that hasn’t been said? Cancer, and so fast, such a tragic loss. God, she was beautiful clear through, like an angel. My Catholic grandmother would have said God wanted another angel in heaven, that Claire was too good for this world, but I don’t go there, either. Just a damned rotten shame. Pancreatic cancer, and it was before they had all this gene-matching and long-term treatment. It was quick and painful. A wonderful talent, and the sweetest sweet woman, too. Once they married, I’d certainly never—damn. I’m not going there, Teddy.

TB:
She was easy to work with?

SD:
I only worked with her film, and the only other actress who has that kind of range, that kind of luminosity, where you can see what she’s thinking, like she’s almost transparent, is Meryl Streep. And Claire, when she was young, had the kind of humor Meryl only developed with age. So—I don’t know—do you remember Carole Lombard, or is that too long ago for you? I think of her because of her humor and her command, and because she died young, too. The only problem working with Claire was that every scene, you wanted to use every take.

TB:
It’s something to be proud of: the Justice trilogy.

SD:
Those films were such a joy. I was disappointed Malcolm didn’t keep the series alive. At the time, it was pure selfishness: I thought I’d never work again. It was such a long time ago, and such a short time, if you know what I mean. After the Bond films, they were the ones, the new ones, the bright-tomorrow pictures. People love them even now, they quote them, they have their own fan sites and blogs devoted to Benjamin Justice. They were the films of our innocence, the one-man-can-save-the-world films. No wonder they’re still popular. They were funny and clever and they didn’t try to be more than they were: entertainment, date-night movies, old-fashioned fun. They weren’t dark like the Bourne franchise. They were free and crazy and funny.

TB:
And they moved.

SD:
They soared. They rocked. The film scores were addictive. It pains me to hear them in elevators now. Makes me realize what a relic I am.

TB:
Claire was already a well-known actress when she signed on for the third film, but who’d ever heard of Brooklyn Pierce?

SD:
He was Malcolm’s discovery, the quintessential beach boy. Yeah. Bad screen test, but Malcolm took one look at him and knew. Brooklyn had that special quality: He made all the other actors look better than they were. He had those great eyes, too. His love scenes were electric, even in the first film. By the time he got to partner with Claire, the chemistry sizzled. It was chemistry that grounded the films, made them more than what they were on the page.

TB:
Were Malcolm and Claire an item then?

SD:
Oh, Teddy, you keep trying.

TB:
An innocent question. Just trying to keep the time line straight.

SD:
Then you know Malcolm and Claire were just about to be married. She was pregnant with Jenna, but nobody knew it then.

TB:
Do you think that’s why he stopped the series at three? Because of Claire?

SD:
You’d have to ask him, Teddy. And tell him if he ever does another Justice sequel, I’m available.

TB:
Any favorite editing moments with Malcolm?

SD:
So many. The detail work that man would do! The homework! He loved doing research.

TB:
For instance?

SD:
Remember the arson sequence in
Blue Flame
?

TB:
Of course.

SD:
He spent days with a specialist from the fire department, learning different methods of fire-setting, deciding on the best technique. So that when he finished filming, I had every conceivable shot I needed, twice over. We argued about that sequence. I think he’d had such fun learning about fire that he thought the audience would like an education, a break in the middle of a tight action film for a little schooling on arson methods. He totally obssessed about the fire-starters, the alarm clocks the terrorists rigged to delay ignition. I used a few quick cuts, close-ups, the wooden floorboards, the damaged propane tank, the flaring lighter. He played with the sound, too, the long hiss of the escaping gas, the striking of the lighter. He was a stickler for authenticity.

TB:
Over the years, how would you say Malcolm has changed?

SD:
Like everyone does, he became more himself. After the Justice films, he took a break. Then he did the two comedies,
Rip Tide
and
Still Moon.
The critics didn’t like that. They thought he was taking too long a break, like he’d gone on an extended vacation, but I think those films are way undervalued. Underrated. They’re worth watching for Claire’s performances alone. They’re sweet and unassuming, small but intense. They were much more popular in Europe than they ever were in the States. And then after Claire’s death, he concentrated on those two incredible noirs. The similarities in his films, the obstacles his heroes face, and overcome or don’t overcome, those are his trademarks. The intensity of his characters, the way they experience the world, the way they persevere.

TB:
Do you see Malcolm as being like the heroes in his films?

SD:
It’s too glib, too easy, Teddy. He had a hermit-like tendency from the start; but with Claire, he socialized. With her gone, he shut down for a while. But he came back and made some superb films. And then the isolation, the theater group on the Cape, it’s like he’s gone backward—toward the limitation of theater over the freedom of film, but that’s just how I see it, because you can’t manipulate live theater in an editing room. Maybe he feels he has more control as a theatrical director, but it makes me sad.

TB:
Why?

SD:
Because he doesn’t need me anymore, I guess, although I wouldn’t like to read that in your book.

TB:
Off the record, then.

SD:
It’s like he’s living in the past. Staying on the Cape where the Justice films were shot, where Jenna was born, working in theater like he did when he was a child. It seems like a retreat somehow, and I wish he’d come back to film. It’s not like we don’t need him. He’s one of the great film talents, up there with Scorsese and Coppola, and
that
you can absolutely quote me on.

CHAPTER

six

Rain pelted down on the Southeast Expressway. Windshield wipers clacked like a metronome, and I found myself wondering whether Malcolm and Sylvie had done it. Did you decide one way or the other, Teddy? Malcolm was drop-dead handsome then, dark and brooding, and he had a reputation for that kind of thing. When he acted, they said he slept with any available starlet. When he directed, he moved up to leading ladies. Would he have drawn the line at an editor, or jumped in the sack with her?

A more relevant question: How had Caroline gotten her hands on a tape that should have been safely stowed in the office? Did you make a copy and take it with you to the Cape? I peered into the Bloomie’s bag and checked the tape’s label. It looked like the original, so consider yourself scolded for lifting it without telling me. God, Caroline could have tossed it in the trash on a whim.

Now that I’ve scolded you, let me also praise and bless you. The tape made me remember how I loved the sound of your voice, Teddy, that deep bass-baritone with the growl around the edges, and how grateful I was that you’d taped the out-of-towners first. If I’d needed to board an airplane, interview La Duchaine in Paris, track down Malcolm’s friends and colleagues in Los Angeles or London, I don’t know what I’d have done.

The bus to Hyannis was bad enough.

I sat bolt upright on the padded seat and calmed myself with a silent recitation of facts: Caroline hadn’t canceled the lease, so I had a place to stay. I knew my way around the Cape. One of my few fond childhood memories is of a house—a shack, really—near Truro. Not because of the people I was with, one foster family in a long string of them, but because of the wild beauty of the dunes and the surging ocean.

I’m not sure how old I was, but my knowledge of beaches was restricted to TV simulacra, smooth white stretches of sun-warmed sand. The Truro beach proved television wrong. Brown and chilly, its grainy sand lay buried under a sharp layer of pebbles. The swarm of local kids wore hard rubber beach shoes. My foster father yelled and called me a baby when I complained that my feet hurt.

Once I had painfully waded deep enough, it was heaven to lie back, float, and imagine what a wonderful life I could have led as a fish. With my ears underwater, I assumed it would be understood that I couldn’t hear anyone calling my name. It was blissful, the quiet fish-world peace. I felt utterly alone, but free and unenclosed. I wanted to stay in that world, dwell there forever. My foster father splashed through the waves to carry me out, which seemed like a reasonable alternative to stepping on sharp pebbles at the time. He wasn’t drunk then, not yet. The sharp crack of his slap across my face was still to come.

The Peter Pan Bus Line runs down to the Cape. Maybe that’s what made me think of childhood. For years, vacation to me meant stones cutting into my feet, fear of tracking blood on the floor.

The bus lurched and belched alarmingly. With a start, I realized I hadn’t finished examining the contents of the Bloomie’s bag. I reached into its depths and pulled out a book of matches, two business cards—one from a realty firm, one from a legal office—and two partially chewed pencils.

I’d have noticed the notebook right away if it had been turned right side up, but it lay facedown, its yellow pages obscured, its cardboard backing a close match to the bottom of the brown bag. I jiggled it loose, found the binding ragged with remnants of torn-off pages. At first, I thought the remainder of the book was blank.

A page near the back crawled with letters and numbers, quickly and carelessly written as though you’d been taking notes or doodling during a phone call. One sequence could have said “JULY,” or maybe “JFLY.” Another looked like “HMB,” a third said “2nd BST BD.” The numbers were large, with comet trails of zeroes: 11,000,000.00, 48,000,000.00, 118,000,000.00.

Expert as I was in deciphering your handwriting, I struggled with the letters and numbers. July meant nothing to me; it was April. Had you meant to rent property on the Cape in July? Was the Realtor’s card connected to the month? I fingered the business cards. Picarian Realty. Not the firm I’d dealt with on the rental and you hadn’t said anything to me about July. The lawyer’s card read:
RUSSELL, AMES, AND HUBER.
I quickly folded it and jammed it in my pocket.

“HMB” rang no chimes, nor did the astronomical numbers. I was stumped and puzzled by the figures. They couldn’t be dollars, but what about lira? Had you gotten a foreign offer for the book? Accepted the “second-best bid”? Why didn’t I know about the first one, about either of them? One worry led to others, spreading, deepening. Yes, Caroline hadn’t canceled the lease, but what if she’d persuaded the neighbors not to let me in? What if no snug picket-fenced house awaited, no bedroom where you’d slept, no couch with the indentation of your body, no desk where I might sit, knowing you’d sat there, too? The prospect drained the heat from my body, and not till we’d crossed the icy ribbon of the Cape Cod Canal, passing over the metal span of the Sagamore Bridge, did I convince myself that my plans remained solid.

Caroline had expensive tastes. Caroline needed the next installment of the advance almost as much as I did. Caroline wouldn’t jeopardize the book. She wouldn’t interfere.

CHAPTER

seven

The bus was bad enough, the car only marginally better. A cobalt blue Ford Focus with barely enough trunk space for my duffel, a midget compared to your Explorer, waited in Hyannis at a rental dealership near the bus stop. I drove it quickly off the lot, pulled over at a level spot two blocks away to adjust the seat and the mirrors. The rain had slackened, so I paced the exterior to make sure they hadn’t tried to pawn off a vehicle with a dinged fender or a hissing tire. When I popped the hood, the engine looked clean, but I pulled the dipstick anyway, then opened the engine oil cap and peered inside through the oil-filler hole. Everything looked shiny, so I got back inside, flipped on the engine, and walked around back to examine the exhaust, which was fine, just white water steam. Consulting the rental company’s map, I reaffirmed the straight shot up Route 6. The map was small, but reassuringly detailed.