Final Curtain (6 page)

Tim and Placenta glanced at each other. “These nonprofessionals don’t know what a dog-eat-dog business we’re in,” Polly said. “You and I both know that some people in this town will do anything—including bludgeon a director to death—to secure a role. Stranger things have happened. It goes further back than Fatty Arbuckle and the famous Coke bottle! However, I do agree that there are a few unanswered questions, like why would Sharon be summoned to the theater so early in the morning? Okay, so she was going to be fired, and perhaps Karen wanted to spare her the embarrassment of being given the news in front of others. Or she didn’t want to give her the news over the phone. Still, Tim and Placenta seem to think that doesn’t make sense. Go figure. What do you think?”

Charlotte looked at Tim and Placenta as if they were morons. “Anyone who has watched Sharon Fletcher’s soap opera knows that she’s capable of murder. She killed a couple of ex-lovers and a maid who forgot to clean the lint tray in the clothes dryer. Kinda like Naomi Campbell without the anger management classes. She’s a real-life phony baloney, for sure. I don’t buy her off-camera sweet-as-pie act one teensy bit.”

Placenta nodded. “Only the Lord knows what’s in Sharon’s heart. But before I judge the girl as guilty, I need to see some hard facts, not just circumstantial evidence.”

“I’m the last one to cast aspersions,” Charlotte said, “but I think a jury would have an easy time convicting Sharon. She had motive, means, and opportunity. She was disgruntled over being fired. The blood all over her Emmy was Karen’s. She was alone in the theater with Karen. It seems like a slam-dunk case for the district attorney.”

“Absolutely! I couldn’t agree more,” Polly said. “Don’t forget that she lied to the police and that her fingerprints and Karen’s were the only ones found on the bloodied Emmy. And I’ll testify that her car was in the theater parking lot at the approximate time of the murder. But so was Gerold’s. Do you buy his alibi? Out walking?”

“No reason not to.”

“On that lovely note…” Polly rose from Shelley Winters’s sofa. “We both need our rest so we’ll be in top form for Gerold tomorrow.”

As Polly and her posse said good-bye to Charlotte, she gushed about having a lovely evening and that the next time they got together it would be for a dinner at Pepper Plantation. Charlotte was thrilled with anticipation and accepted for any night that Polly found convenient. “Let’s check our calendars and discuss a date tomorrow,” Polly suggested as she stepped out into the cool evening air and walked down the sidewalk. As she waved back at Charlotte she said sotto voce to Tim and Placenta, “The wine tasted like Listerine.”

Settled into the car and cruising down Fountain Avenue toward LaCienega Boulevard, Polly said, “Let’s recap. Likes dead celebrity possessions. Quick to convict Sharon. Admits to having a temper. Somehow got her old job back.”

Placenta added, “Sally Struthers isn’t in Cleveland. I was in line with her at Gelson’s Market yesterday. She was buying up all the Entenmann’s cheese Danish rings.”

“Add liar to Charlotte’s resume,” Polly said.

T
he world of regional theater was a distant universe, far away from the mundane bore of an insurance company office or auto parts warehouse. However, regardless of where one worked, there was one common denominator: sex. In every show, on the first day of rehearsal, the cast and chorus sized each other up and soon partners were paired up for friendships and sexual trysts that seldom ran beyond the end of the production. Girl dancers two-stepped with boy dancers. Boy dancers do-si-doed with other boy dancers. An ingénue might fancy the older star who was on television when she was a kid. The female lead might take a chorus boy for her temporary lover. There were as many backstage sex scenarios as there were worldwide productions of
Mama Mia
.

Polly had seen the entire spectrum and combinations during her years in television and touring in summer stock. She had witnessed wives arriving from out of town with the kids to join their actor husbands on the road for the summer, missing by moments the actor’s boyfriend or girlfriend scurrying out of the hotel room. She’d overheard actors on their dressing room phone lying, “Honey, we’re working really hard. If you visit right now, I don’t know when I’d get to see you.” In the meantime, a new paramour in the dressing room was doing God only knows what to satisfy the actor.

A star of Polly’s stature was particularly vulnerable to someone paying romantic attention to her and she could succumb in a nanosecond. Therefore, when they traveled, Tim felt it incumbent upon himself to assess the members of the theater company and decide who in the show might be particularly stupid enough to try to latch on to his mother. Thankfully, this time out her daydreams were not about a muscled twenty-something dancer with a prodigious hokeypokey; her thoughts were preoccupied with police detective Randy Archer.

It was already warm and smoggy in Glendale when Polly, Tim, and Placenta arrived at the theater at eight thirty the following morning. Tim parked the Rolls near the stage entrance and no one in the car missed seeing that Gerold’s Jaguar was in the lot too. “I wonder if he’s out walking off his Häagen-Dazs today,” Polly said. “I’ll wager that his happy hands are getting their exercise on Mag Ryan.”

Placenta scoffed, “In that case, there ought to be a portable heart defibrillator backstage. I’d love to give that ape a jolt of seventeen hundred volts.”

The trio stepped from the car and walked through the doorway marked
ENTR
É
E DES ARTISTES
. They whispered good morning to George, the half-sleeping old man supposedly guarding the door, and Tim signed them in on the visitor log. Then they made their way down the hall toward the stage wings.

In her trademarked yodel, Polly called out ahead as she approached the stage. “I’m hee-er!” she announced. As Polly predicted, Gerold and his young girlfriend were already at the reading table when she walked under the proscenium. He was giving her a shoulder massage. Mag looked up. “Is that her?” she said.

The kid wasn’t subtle, or quiet for that matter, and the acoustics amplified her voice. Gerold simply cast a steely look at Polly, who beamed a bright smile back at him and headed straight for Mag. “Indeed, it is I,” she said in an exaggerated theatrical voice. “I’m
the
Polly Pepper. You must be the immeasurably talented Mag!”

The young girl blushed and cast her eyes to the floor.

“There’s no place for modesty in the theater,” Polly gently reprimanded. “I’ve heard gads about you, and surely Gerold has told you tons about me. All lies of course.”

“Cool,” Mag said. “I mean that you’ve heard of me…and all.” She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “I’ve heard of you too.”

Polly held out her hand to shake Mag’s. “
Enchanté
.” Polly assessed the young actress and smiled. “I can tell that you’re going to be memorable as Gloria. If there’s any teensy thing that I can do for you, I trust that you’ll feel completely comfortable about calling on me.”

Mag smiled. “This is totally rad. It’s like, you know, so awesome that you’re in my show. Like you used to be a totally big star, and all. Way cool.”

“Way,” Polly deadpanned. “
Your
show will be most amusing. I have a sixth sense about all things related to masks of comedy and tragedy. Instead of ‘I see dead people,’ I see ‘stars on the rise.’” Polly thought for a moment. “As a matter of fact, I’ve begun to see dead people a lot lately too. But that’s another story.”

Gerold interrupted with a gruff rebuke of Polly for bringing guests to the rehearsal.

“Good morning to you too, Gerold,” Polly said. She squared her shoulders and offered him the same hard look she used on her agent J.J. when he tried to convince her that an endorsement for Gerber’s new line of pureed liver and onions for seniors would do wonders to increase her public visibility. “Our director has been murdered. A maniac is on the loose, and the killer may well be someone connected with the theater…perhaps from our very own cast. Are you going to spend big bucks for a security detail? Not just for me, but for the entire cast? If so, I want a posse of no-neck wannabe rappers with loads of tattoos and ostentatious bling to escort me to and from the theater each day and night.” Gerold stared at his shoes.

“I thought so,” Polly said. “Then you won’t mind that my entourage will be at my side every day until the end of the run of this show. If you have any complaints, take them up with Actors’ Equity and my agent. But I don’t think you want J.J. coming down here to play referee.”

Gerold heaved a deep sigh. “Is this how you’re going to start off? The ‘maniac’ who killed Karen is behind bars, thanks to the fast work of the police, and Sharon’s sloppy commission of the crime.”

“You know that the killer isn’t Sharon Fletcher.”

Mag blanched.

Just as Gerold opened his mouth, a happy voice issued from the wings. “
Buenos dias,
amigos!” It was Charlotte Bunch heading onto the stage, followed by the actors playing Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside and Vera Charles. Hearing the tale-end of the conversation, Charlotte asked, “Our little murderess isn’t guilty after all?” Her tone was equal parts excitement, skepticism, and disappointment. “Gerold’s ready to say who did the evil deed?”

“No! Nobody!” Gerold spat. “Not nobody,” he corrected himself. “Sharon, of course. There’s nothing to suggest otherwise. End of subject. Where the hell are the others?” He looked at his watch, then looked around the stage and auditorium for his cast. Everyone had quietly assembled.

By the time the company had their first break, the tension between Polly and Gerold had softened. In fact, everyone in the principal cast was getting along well. The table reading was going smoothly, and Polly discovered that Mag wasn’t untalented. Her line readings were thoughtful and she had a flare for comedy. Unless she suddenly developed stage fright, she was not going to be an embarrassment to the production, as Polly had feared. When Gerold called, “Fifteen!” and left for the bathroom, Polly pounced on the opportunity to sidle up to Mag and pour out her charm.

“You’re doing well, my dear!” Polly cooed, taking a seat at the table beside the young actress. “It’s taken me this long to refine my perfect comedy timing. You’re a natural. You must have studied Doria Cook’s performance from the movie.”

Mag smiled awkwardly and Polly knew that she had never heard of Doria Cook. Nor, Polly surmised, had Mag seen what was affectionately known as
LucyMame
—the Warner Bros. musical debacle that screwed Angela Lansbury out of the film version of her Broadway triumph in the title role. That film practically sank the unsinkable Jerry Herman musical, and it tarnished the otherwise sparkling career of Hollywood legend Lucille Ball. As one reviewer said at the time of the film’s release in 1974, “Lucy wanted to make
Mame
in the worst way—and that’s what she did.”

Polly rambled on. “Never mind, Mag. You’re doing a lovely job on your own. I imagine that Gerold’s a marvelous help at home. What I would have given to live with my director on that stupid indy I made in Mexico,
It Oozed Through the Crack
—the better to get extracurricular coaching. Gerold’s probably much better than stiff ol’ Karen would have been. Poor Karen. What a shame. Dead at such a tender age. Perhaps the publicity from her shocking demise will pay off at the box office. Does Gerold like to walk? Does he often stroll through Glendale early in the morning? Does he have another alibi?”

Mag asked in a low voice, “Does everybody know that I’m ‘the girlfriend’? Do they think I got this role just because Gerold and I have feelings for each other?”

Polly put her arm around Mag. “Does a smart young woman such as you give a rat’s ass that her colleagues are tittering under their Max Factor mask-of-comedy faces? We know that it doesn’t matter how we get our big breaks. The important thing is to have the talent to back up the opportunity when he, er, it, comes along. You’ve got loads of talent. But don’t let your relationship with Gerold get in the way of you becoming part of the company. It’s important that you spend time with the rest of us. Get to know the chorus kids and stage hands. Have your meals with us. Spend your off hours with members of the company. It’ll be good for dispelling all the rumors and for us to learn all about you.”

Mag looked nervous. “Rumors?”

“The usual. That you’re using Gerold for career strategy, and that you and he lied to the police.”

Mag swallowed hard. “Why can’t people mind their own business? Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Gerold or the nosey cast?” Polly suggested that the kid playing Little Patrick in the show claimed he saw Gerold in the theater early the morning of the murder. “Which contradicts Gerold’s insistence that he was taking a long walk.”

“Damn kids, as my father used to say,” Mag pouted. “If Gerold hears this, he’ll drag that little monkey out of the show. He gets way cranky whenever the subject of the murder—especially the police investigation—comes up. He’s, like, in my face twenty-four-seven if I ask about the girl who murdered Karen. I swear, sometimes he’s a totally gnarly drag.”

“You know how actors love to chat. Backstage gossip is de rigueur, especially when you’re sleeping with the leading man or the director or the producer, or all of the above. But almost everybody sleeps with those who can help advance their careers.”

Mag involuntarily smiled. “I’m not trying to be a star, or anything. I just want to do good work.”

Polly forced a smile and patted Mag on the shoulder. “That’s all any of us want for ourselves. As well as fame and fortune. But doing our best isn’t always enough. We have to be our own cheerleaders. We have to push and fight and do whatever it takes for the right people to notice us. It’s a killer business, and I think it’s even harder for young people like you who are just starting out. You have to be willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to get ahead.”

“I’m willing,” Mag said in earnest. “I’m totally focused. What else do I have to do?”

Polly nodded. “Do you take acting lessons? Elocution? Dance? Singing? Are you immersed in the works of Mamet, Strinberg, and Cole Porter? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you even know who Ethel Merman is? Did you kill Karen Richards for a job?”

Mag quickly stood up. “That’s a terrible thing to ask. Is that one of the rumors circulating among the cast? Gerold’s not going to like it when he hears that people are talking this way behind his back. Duck and cover is what you and everybody else should do. Gerold warned me about you. I was almost ready to tell him that he’s an idiot, but now…”

Polly shrugged. “But he
is
an idiot, dear. He’s like my manicurist who thinks that Ann Coulter is a messenger from the one and only true
Republican
God. Leave it to Coulter to have a partisan creator, and to Gerold for wrongly thinking that Sharon Fletcher killed Karen Richards. It’s true that there appears to be lots of silly stuff like…evidence…against her, but all of that can be explained. I won’t believe in Sharon’s guilt until she confesses. Even then…Let me ask just one dumb question. Where was Gerold during the time of the murder? Walking off the Ben & Jerry’s from the night before? Enjoying an intermission with you? Throwing Emmys as though they were horseshoes?”

“I’m way insulted, Miss Pepper. Like I’m totally stalled by your insinuation.”

“It’s just that a man with his, shall we say, girth would have been perspiring heavily in the heat of the morning if he’d been walking for two hours. He didn’t have one bead of sweat when he arrived at the theater.”

Polly reeled herself in. “I apologize, dear. I have a nasty habit of saying whatever comes into my mind. Thoughts just tumble past my lips.”

“Then it obviously crossed your mind that I had something to do with Karen’s death,” Mag shot back. “I didn’t even know the woman.”

Mag turned on her heel and walked off the stage. When she eventually returned, she was beside Gerold and speaking in a voice too low for anyone to hear. Every few seconds they glanced at Polly with threatening eyes.