Final Curtain (16 page)

Tim cried out in pain but knew it was nothing compared to what he might have felt had the attacker chosen to beat him, or worse. “Mom! Are you all right?”

As Polly cut Tim free with a pair of toenail scissors, she said, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! This man”—she pointed to a body lying facedown on her bathroom floor—“came into my room holding a gun—unannounced no less. I had to take drastic measures. I got him in the eyes with my spider spray. Anyway, while he was wailing like a little crybaby, I clobbered him with the Emmy—exactly like someone did to Karen. It was handy and I acted on instinct. Who knew these things made such great weapons!”

Polly and Tim hugged each other tightly. “Oh my God! My poor Placenta! Come! First lock the bathroom door so the asshole—if he’s alive—can’t get out,” she said. Then hand in hand the two walked with trepidation down the staircase to the body on the first floor.

“This one fell so hard, he’ll be lucky if he only has a broken neck,” Tim said. “I think we can leave him. I doubt that he’s going anywhere.”

Tim led his mother through the house, still mindful that there might be other intruders. First, they checked the kitchen—there was no sign of Placenta or anyone else. When they finally reached the great room, they raced to Placenta’s side. They could see that she’d been roughed up, but at least she was conscious. When she was released from her bonds, Placenta sobbed an apology. “I let them in. I thought it was Randy. I didn’t bother to ask who was at the gate.”

Polly and Tim both hugged Placenta. “It was a natural mistake,” Tim said.

“They came around the same time that Randy was expected. You couldn’t have known,” Polly cooed. “Look what those animals did to you!” She helped Placenta over to the sofa and then ran to the bar for a cold bottle of champagne to place against Placenta’s cheek.

“I think we’d all rather be drinking this stuff,” Placenta said. “Bring three glasses and a cold damp towel.”

“I’ll never again threaten you with having to work for Candy Spelling!” Polly cried.

The trio was suddenly startled by the sound of the chimes from the front gates. Walking past the still unconscious intruder at the foot of the staircase, Tim went to the intercom by the front door. Reminded of what Placenta hadn’t done, Tim now asked the visitor to identify himself. When he heard Randy’s voice, he quickly pushed the entry button and returned to the great room. “Our knight in shining armor is here. If a bit late.”

A
s a team of police EMTs placed the two now-conscious Pepper Plantation intruders on rolling transfer stretchers and wheeled them out of the house, Polly, Tim, and Placenta formed a receiving line beside the waiting ambulances. “The next time you want an autograph, send ten dollars and a self-addressed stamped envelope,” Polly said to the man whom she’d clobbered with her Emmy. For extra measure, she rapped the back of her hand against the bandages on his head. She looked at the smaller man. “As for you, pipsqueak, don’t ever underestimate the strength of a legend.”

Addressing Randy Archer, Polly proclaimed, “Take ’em away!” She gave a slight giggle. “I’ve always wanted to say that! Better yet, ‘Off with their heads!’ I once played a mean but somehow lovable queen on my show. Got to turn Jerry Lewis into a dog’s behind, which is actually his natural state.”

“But you digress, Mother.” Tim ushered her and Placenta and Randy back inside the mansion.

While a team of police inspectors and forensic experts were dusting, scraping, photographing, and recovering bits of hair, fingerprints, blood samples, and wads of duct tape, Polly and her family were busy relating the chronology of the evening’s events to Randy. When they got to the part about Polly planning a clandestine rendezvous at the Chinese Theatre and her resolve to forfeit another Emmy for the sake of information leading to the clearing of Sharon’s name, Randy became edgy. “I guess I make a rather good pawn. Good ol’ Randy. He can be wrapped around Polly Pepper’s little manicured finger.”

“I simply didn’t want to worry you any more than I had to, dear,” Polly explained. “Don’t tell me that your masculine ego is bruised because I was thinking only of your well-being. I was doing what I considered to be the right thing at the time. All right. You win. I was stupid and naive. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not going to show up at Fred Astaire’s feet tonight or give away another Emmy just to help Sharon out of this jam she’s gotten herself into. Sorry, Sharon,” Polly said loudly, as if transmitting her thoughts out through the window, into the garden, and all the way to Sharon Fletcher’s jail cell. “Although I have complete faith that you didn’t kill Karen, all the necessary evidence to support my intuition will have to be revealed without any further support from
moi
.”

Randy wasn’t appeased by Polly’s declaration, but he tried to show appreciation. “It’s not that I don’t value your help, Polly,” he said, giving her a hug. “I admire how generous you are to actresses who somehow find themselves jailed for murders they didn’t commit. But I don’t like to see you in jeopardy.” Randy gave her another tight hug. “In a few hours we’ll have a complete biographical profile of who your uninvited guests were. Perhaps they’ll lead us to Karen’s killer. Presuming there’s a connection.”

“There is,” Polly prophesized. “I feel it. Call it my Agatha Christie complex, but I have a sixth sense about these things. During the past week I’ve been stalked and stolen from and ransomed and lied to, and now it seems that I’m on a hit list, just like Ann Coulter. Odds are two to one that if I hadn’t been on my knees behind the bed searching for the top to my Chanel bottle when that orangutan lumbered into my room, he would have seen me first and probably emptied his Saturday night special into my head! I was lucky too that my Emmy was at hand, and that he was distracted by his melting eyeballs. I suppose my bloodstained Emmy is joining Sharon’s as crime evidence down at the Beverly Hills Police Station, eh?”

Randy nodded. “We’ll take good care of Emmy. I promise.” Almost bashfully, Randy looked down and mumbled, “I guess you’re exhausted from all the excitement.”

“You have a sixth sense too,” Polly kidded.

“Then I suppose we should postpone our dinner and…”

Polly, still wearing her gorgeous, red Antoinette Catenacci dress, said, “Under the circumstances, since I’ve been brutally attacked by an army of murderous marauders in the sanctity of my very own twenty-seven-room Bel Air mansion from which, on a clear day I have a view of the Pacific—”

“Absolutely, I understand,” Randy said.

“—I’d feel safer if I could be with you for the night.” The two smiled at each other. “So let’s wrap up this dreary official business and get down to monkey business.” She blushed as crimson as her dress when she caught Tim’s and Placenta’s eyes.

Dinner was at Crustacean in Beverly Hills, and as Polly and Randy were sipping champagne and holding hands across the table, several of Polly’s friends and colleagues dropped by to say hello and to get an up-close look at her beau. “Oh, don’t stand on ceremony, dear,” Chita said to Randy as he began to rise from his chair to greet the Broadway legend. She shook his hand, and then kissed the air beside Polly’s check. After whispering a lascivious thought into Polly’s ear about Randy and chuckling conspiratorially, Chita demanded a call first thing in the
A.M
. “Just the facts, ma’am,” she teased.

As the Broadway diva departed she was replaced by Tony Bennett, who was elegantly dressed in an Armani blue blazer, gray slacks, and an impeccable red silk necktie. His perfect toupee too was exquisitely styled and taped firmly in place. He gallantly kissed Polly’s hand and introduced himself to Randy. “We don’t see enough of you,” he said to Polly in his seductive voice. Before the dessert menu was presented, Polly and Randy had received Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, Diahann Carroll, and George Clooney.

Although Randy was heady from champagne and the reflected starlight from a galaxy of celebrities, he nevertheless remembered that he had to call the police station for an update on the identities of the men who had trespassed into Polly’s home. “Do you mind?” he asked, holding out his cell phone.

As Randy spoke to a colleague at the Beverly Hills Police Station, Polly tried to read his body language. A nod of his head. A roll of his eyes. The knitting of eyebrows. All of Randy’s mannerisms might have spoken volumes to a psychic, but Polly couldn’t interpret the cryptic gesticulations. When Randy finally closed his cell phone he was silent for a long moment. Polly nudged his arm. “What gives?” He took a deep breath and sighed.

“What?” Polly asked.

“The good news is that we have positive identification.”

“No bad news tonight, please,” Polly begged.

“They’re both actors.”

“Oh, that
is
bad. Imagine, actors in Hollywood. There goes the neighborhood. Thespians come in and take all the really good jobs, like cater waiters, temporary office help, and tour guides at the Universal Studios Tour.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Randy said, trying to get a word in.

“God knows that acting leads to aberrant behavior, most notably from divas, has-beens, and Australian Catholic alcoholics with too many children and a Christ complex.”

Polly was quiet for a long moment. She asked, “But why would anyone want to break into my house? If they were auditioning for assholes of the year, they win those roles, hands down!” Polly caught herself swearing in public, an image-destroying practice that she tried to avoid at all costs. She looked around. “Excuse my unattractive language,” she begged to anyone who might have overheard her.

“They aren’t just any garden variety actors who work in storefront theaters on Melrose Avenue,” Randy began.

“Don’t tell me. Mr. Affectation, James Lipton, has interviewed them on
Inside the Actor’s Studio
.”

“Let me finish giving you the full report.” Randy poured the dregs of a bottle of Dom into Polly’s flute. “Another bottle?”

Polly shook her head. “When we get to your place.”

“When you hear the rest of what I have to say, you may have a headache and need to go home.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Your two attackers are Jonathan Martin and Clem Collins. They have a lot in common with Sharon Fletcher.”

“Other than being actors, what could those two Geico Neanderthals possibly have in common with chic Sharon?” Polly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see Sharon as the type to associate with lowbrows.”

“For one thing, they share Sharon’s address.”

“She mentioned that she likes to fool around with trash,” Polly recalled.

“For another, they’ve appeared on her daytime drama,” Randy continued.

“I don’t understand.”

“They rent Sharon’s guest house.”

“She gives thieves a place to live and offers them parts on her show?”

“Bit roles. One liners every now and then.”

Polly stared for a long moment into the stalks of bamboo growing in large cloisonné pots against the wall behind Randy’s back. Then she smiled. “That solves the mystery of why anyone would want to harm poor defenseless me. It’s obvious that Sharon must have talked about visiting Pepper Plantation and how large and elegant my Bel Air palace is. These two unemployed actor thugs decided to try to make a heist at my expense. That’s the last time I invite a relative stranger over without first having Homeland Security do a complete background check and credit report on them and all of their friends. There! I’ve solved the puzzle, or at least part of it.”

“What part?” Randy asked.

“The part about why they broke in—”

“They were let in,” Randy reminded Polly. “There may be other reasons for their coming to Pepper Plantation.”

Polly stopped a waiter and ordered a glass of Cristal. In a moment a cold and effervescing flute was placed before her. She took a long sip. “Years ago, I had a fan who would do absolutely anything for me. He was happy picking up my laundry and staying in the house when I had to be away for extended periods. I was his idol, of course. Or so I thought. He turned out to be Eve Harrington’s more aggressive and devious evil fraternal twin. He thought that if he insinuated himself into my life, I’d offer him a role on my show, or one of my TV specials. I truly believe that he would have gone so far as to knock off Kate Jackson if I’d asked him too. Don’t think I didn’t consider that after she sucked all the fun out of the atmosphere the week she guest-starred on my show. What if these two wannabes knocked off someone for Sharon?”

“Namely…?”

“Karen Richards.”

Randy nodded. “Far-fetched, but nothing surprises me anymore,” he said.

“Perhaps they thought that I was getting too close to the truth about who bashed in Karen’s pretty skull and came after me.” Polly set her champagne flute down on the table. “I’m probably looking at the murderer and am too close to see him.”

A
fter a fulfilling night in the arms of her police detective lover, Polly returned to Pepper Plantation in a cheerful disposition. She bathed, applied new eyelashes, and dressed for the day and the first full-cast rehearsal of
Mame
.

Polly skipped down The Scarlett O’Hara Memorial Staircase and waltzed into the kitchen, where she found Tim draining his mug of coffee and trying to focus on
Doonesbury
in the
L.A. Times
. Placenta was standing at the center island watching the
ABC Morning News Money Report
. By now, Polly’s sleepovers were no longer an exciting novelty, and they didn’t look up when she sat down with a loud and happy sigh.

“Good morning to you too,” Polly said. “Never mind. My ego is strong enough today not to require your undivided awareness of my presence. Just know that Polly Pepper is alive and well and having a passionate midlife Carnival cruise.”

“If this is your midlife, I guess you’re planning to stick around until you’re about a hundred and ten,” Tim said.

“Pooh!” Polly playfully jeered. “Scoff all you like at my extracurricular activities. You’re just envious because I have a beau and you don’t.” Polly took a sip the virgin Bloody Mary that had been waiting for her. “As I see it, yesterday we were almost the twenty-first-century version of the Manson murder victims, complete with worldwide front page headlines and gruesome photos in the
National Peeper
. But thanks to those two thugs, the incident has made me much more aware of how tenuous life is. Perhaps
your
libido can wait. Mine can’t.”

Tim sighed. “You’re right, of course, I am jealous. Not counting Randy, I haven’t had a sleepover since…I can’t remember.”

Polly took another sip from her BM. “You’re such a baby for a man who’s supposed to be somewhere in age between Neil Patrick Harris and David Hyde Pierce. As I don’t reveal my own age, I’ve forgotten yours. But I know that you’re old enough to be playing house in the cottage behind the garden shed. What the heck are you waiting for? As Mame says, ‘Live! Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!’ In the looks department you’re pretty much the eighth wonder of the world. Don’t end up like those gardens in Babylon—a withered myth.”

Placenta took a seat beside Polly and began eating her bowl of Heart Smart breakfast cereal flakes. Polly reached out and touched the back of her hand to Placenta’s lacerated cheek. “Oh, my poor Placenta. I’m so sorry that you endured the brunt of those trolls’ viciousness. At least they’re now in a hospital jail cell. I hope that when they’re strong enough to bathe themselves they both drop their soaps in the communal showers beside someone named Tito or Big Bow Wow.”

Placenta milked her minor injury for all that she thought she might be able to get away with. “I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Don’t expect me to work.”

Polly shook her head. “When have I ever expected that? Frankly, none of us has time for a breakdown. We’ve got a ton to do. I want this murder investigation wrapped up, pronto.”

Now sufficiently infused with caffeine, Tim put down his mug. “How many times are you going to tell your new man that you’re
not
involved with his case, then the moment his back is turned, you end up in hot water?”

Polly shrugged. “I’ll handle Randy. By the way, I had a brilliant idea last night while playing ‘Red Light, Green Light.’”

“Light what?” Placenta put her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to know!”

“Something that Randy made up especially for me,” Polly said. “I think. I hope. Traffic citations, scandals, and bribes, oh my! Ha!” Polly sniggered, then blushed as she recalled intimate moments with Randy. “Let’s just say that I’m on the verge of being sentenced to perform community service.”

“Is that what you young-uns call it today?” Tim smirked.

“Speaking of being sentenced,” Polly added, “Sharon won’t be. I’ve figured everything out.”

Tim stopped midgulp of his second mug of coffee.

Placenta missed what the news anchor said after “The governor fought rumors about his alleged affair with singer/songwriter…”

Polly backtracked. “Not exactly everything. But enough to remember what dear old Uncle Alfred Hitchcock said to me about finding murderers….”

Polly was enthusiastic about getting to the Galaxy Theatre for her first full-cast rehearsal of
Mame
. While Tim stayed home to supervise the installation of the backyard tent for Monday night’s party, and to personally interview and handpick the catering staff, Placenta drove Polly to the theater.

They arrived ahead of the other members of the company. While Polly had the stage all to herself, she walked through the scenes and dance steps. She was now comfortable with the choreography, and the famous Lawrence and Lee dialogue came tumbling back to her. For the first time since agreeing to reprise her role as Mame, Polly was at ease with the part and with herself. “That felt worthy of a Tony Award!” she exclaimed to Placenta, who was seated in the third row of the auditorium. “I feel like a million. Not even gruesome ol’ Gerold can bring me down from my high.”

“It’s still early,” a voice called from the back of the auditorium. It was Gerold Goss. “So glad that the reports from Tanya were inflated. I sorta liked what I just saw.”

Polly curtsied. “Old leather breasts ratted on me, eh? I suppose you know that Tanya drastically altered Onna White’s original choreography. That’s got to be against union rules. Still, I’ve practiced until my feet are worn away up to my ankles!”

Other members of the company now dribbled into the theater, and Gerold ascended the steps to the stage to begin conducting his rehearsal. Mag Ryan wandered in with Stewart Long, the company’s adult Patrick Dennis. What appeared to be an intimate conversation between them abruptly came to a halt when they both caught the eye of Gerold, who was taking inventory of their behavior and body language.

Charlotte Bunch arrived next with a loud clacking of heels on the wooden stage. The moment she saw Polly, and for the benefit of all others present, she called out in a voice that imitated Charles Gibson on his nightly news broadcast, “A lesson to be learned. If you break into Pepper Plantation, the mistress of the manor will shatter your vertebrae!” Charlotte switched to what was considered her real voice. “I heard all about the excitement,” she said, drawing as much attention to herself as possible. “Drugged-out skinheads crashed her gates and Polly single-handedly defended her castle and sent the pervs up the river via the Cedars Sinai emergency room! Howard Stern was practically peeing in his pants about it this morning. He thought it was too funny. He usually has such mean things to say about you.”

Polly waved away Charlotte’s absurd scenario about the intruders to Pepper Plantation. “They were hardly skinheads,” she said. “My experience with the underworld yesterday was definitely traumatic, like the time I was on
Celebrity Jeopardy!
Who knew that P. Diddy could tell the difference between a .44 magnum, and
The Magna Carta
? Or that Jessica Simpson would know the name of the house the president lives in? But the show must go on. I’ve always been a trouper, so here I am to honor my commitment to the theater and to all of you!”

Soon Gerold was playing his role of bombastic director and ordering his cast and the stage manager around as though he was the alpha pack leader and the talent merely obedient dogs. “We don’t have the luxury of time!” Gerold bellowed. “We’ve got to run through the entire production before noon. Our freaking orchestra costs a fortune! You’ve all had plenty of time to learn your lines, so you’d better be off book. I’m not your prompter! Now git. And remember your cues!”

As the cast disbursed into the wings, Mag frantically reviewed her Gloria Upson dialogue in the script.

Charlotte was annoying everyone with her tongue-twister vocal exercise: “Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather.” With each set of “Red leather, yellow leathers” she switched voices from Tallulah Bankhead to Jay Leno to Joan Rivers to Homer Simpson.

Emily Hutcherson sidled up to Polly. “I know that you’ve done this show gads of times. As a matter of fact, I caught your performance at the Ogunquit Playhouse about a decade ago. When we get to our ‘Bosom Buddies’ number, try not to step on my laughs.”

Polly concealed her resentment that a second-rate actress and a third-rate Vera Charles would accuse her of purposely stealing a scene. “Don’t worry about getting laughs. I caught your off-off-Melrose musical production of
The Man with the Golden Arm
. Honey, when you were onstage the Laugh-O-Meter went berserk. I remember the
Daily Variety
review. ‘Ms. Hutcherson’s notes are so sharp that she punctures the score.’”

Emily looked as though she’d just been slapped with a lawsuit and she walked away.