Murder on Location (4 page)

“You and me, friend,” he spat at Williams, “are nothing. Bugger all. You know that? We are nothing but grape seeds from somebody else's feast. Left-overs. Signatures in the air, that's us, friend.” There was a nervous laugh from Williams and his friends, three pale young men with the tell-tale signs of recent expensive barbering. Williams hadn't followed what Hayes had said any more than I had, but he'd taken exception to the word “left-overs.” That must have sounded a little too close to “has-been” to suit the aging hero.

“Steady on, old sport,” said Dawson Williams.

“Steady yourself, sport,” said David Hayes, dropping off his stool, managing to hold himself upright and actually take a step across to Williams' table where he supported himself by gripping tightly to the back of a chair. I saw real fear in Williams' eyes that did in the slightly bemused smile he was wearing, and I was suddenly glad that at least my brother Sam was spared the sight. I saw the actor's face cave in around his mouth for a second, and then he recovered.

“Why don't you and your friend join us?” He was Dawson Williams again, with lots of smiling friendly teeth showing. A place was made for the drunk at the movie star's table, but Hayes didn't move. Maybe he couldn't.

“The bastards will get all of us, if we don't take cover,” he shouted, and I shrugged at Williams when he threw me a look that asked was I the idiot's keeper. I got up and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hands off, friend. I have words for the great stone face.” So, Hayes had recognized his victim at least. “You think you're an actor? You think you count for something? Well I bring tidings, friend. It's all dust and ashes, dust and ashes. There goes What's-his-name. We're all What's-his-name.” I heard one of Williams' friends putting a label on Hayes.

“Just some crazy local actor. Friend of Miranda.”

“I'll go fetch the manager,” said another grimly.

“Hold your ground,” said Williams, a little more like himself again. I remembered the next line: “If they don't come out, we'll go in after them.” But he didn't say it.

The bartender had come around from behind the bar and shot me the same look that Williams had a few seconds ago. I pleaded bystander status, and the bartender moved in. “Look, Mr. Hayes, we got guests and you're talking kind of loud. Why not come back to your stool and finish up your drink, pay the bill and push off before I have to call a cop? Come on.” Hayes turned around, looked at me and then at the rest of the people in the lounge, who had given up all pretense of having affairs of their own, and then moved his mouth like he was going to say something memorable. Instead, he vomited on the table. The bartender grabbed him fast.

“That's it,” he said. The four men at the table had all got to their feet and stood against the panoramic window looking as though they thought Hayes was going to do it again. “I've been expecting this for the last two hours,” the bartender said, as Hayes doubled up and fell into me. I grabbed him, and he went limp.

“Well, you should have given him his marching orders two hours ago,” said one of Williams' pals. “Don't you know who he is?” He and his two friends shouldered the burden of indignation that rightly belonged to all four of them. But Williams was looking at Hayes with some sympathy and shaking his head.

“Does anybody know where he lives?”

“Don't you bother your head about him, Mr. Williams,” said the bartender. “We'll look after him. He's been drinking double Scotches since I come on, and he had a tab before that. Here,” he said to me, “hold him a sec.” I took his full weight, while the bartender leaned over and found a damp check near Hayes' glass. He looked at it, then picked up his share of David Hayes' one hundred and sixty pounds again. “He's in 1738. Help me get him to the elevator. Harry,” he yelled to the busboy, “watch the cash. I'll be back in a minute.”

We hefted his dead weight out of the lounge, and the last I saw of Dawson Williams was hidden by the scowls and ruffled dignity of his pals. We dragged Hayes along the carpet, leaving heel marks in a twin track. On the way down in the elevator, I fished around in Hayes' pockets for a room key. I would have given him a proper frisking, but it wasn't such a good idea with the bartender standing there. The double door opened on the seventeenth floor. We dragged the weight along the corridor about fifty feet and found his room. I got the door open without any trouble and between us we moved the body into the room and onto the double bed. I pocketed the key.

On the way back to the lounge, the bartender looked at me with a humorous grin. “If you can't hold it, you shouldn't drink it. Young lush. His old man used to be one, but he straightened out. I haven't seen this one for a donkey's age.”

“So he's no stranger?”

“He grew up in the Falls. His father was a druggist.” He must have caught some sign of more than usual interest on my part, so he stifled further comment. When I got him going again all I got was: “That's the way it is in a small town: everybody knows everybody else.”

“Have you seen him with a good-looking blonde in the last week or so?”

“Naw. He's the lone ranger; drinks by himself. He was in just after New Year's, though, with Miranda Pride. Is she good-enough-looking for you?”

“For anybody. But I was looking for local talent.”

“Well, I get paid for serving drinks, I don't pay too much attention to who's holding them.”

By that time we had returned to our starting places: he was polishing a glass behind the bar and I was paying my tab and collecting my coat. The Williams table was deserted.

“The movie stars have run out on you.”

“They'll be back. Peggy O'Toole is coming into town tomorrow. Things are looking up in the old burg. All week business has been as silky as a mouse's ear. Williams is playing the big lead opposite O'Toole. I hope he brings her in here some night. I'd like to have a real close look at her.” I agreed and said good night. I could feel the key in my pocket as I waited for the “down” elevator. It began to itch, so I went back to Room 1738.

Hayes was still dead to the world. I rolled him over on the bed, fished out his wallet and went through it fast without seeing much. I guess I was getting sleepy myself.
To tell the truth, I didn't much like the smell that kept Hayes company on the bed. As a matter of fact, I didn't like my own smell all that much. I looked over at the sleeping man and discovered that his eyes were open and that they were fixed on me. The hand with the wallet in it dropped.

“Take the money, pal, and leave me alone.” His voice was thick and his words came slowly with some effort.

“I'm no burglar,” I insisted, throwing the wallet to the bed. “I was with you when you passed out. The bartender and I brought you back to your room. I was just returning your wallet. You remember giving it to me don't you?”

“Sure,” he lied. “Passed out, eh?”

“After sounding off to a star of the silver screen.”

“So, I passed out and you carried me home.” He waved a crooked finger at me like a court-appointed lawyer who wasn't sure of his client's name. “I gave you my wallet.”

“That's right. How do you feel?”

“Terrible. Could you go away, please? I don't feel well.” Even dead drunk he'd never say “good.” That's class. He was lying full length on the hotel's idea of a contemporary bed cover. His jacket and pants were stained. His collar was still buttoned down, which made him look more alert than he probably felt. I turned to go. But he called me back.

“I think I remember you from the bar. They used to give you peanuts. Do you like peanuts?”

“You were telling me about Billie,” I said.

“I spared you nothing. Billie hated peanuts. Otherwise an admir … admir … a very fine woman. Sorry I lumbered you, friend.”

“What are friends for? Easy to see she meant a lot to you.”

“Well, she did and now she doesn't. Time past and time present …”

“Don't kid a kidder. Nobody heals that fast. You want some coffee? It might clear your head.” He nodded, and stared down at his long legs like they had recently been added to the ensemble. I picked up the phone and called room service.

“Billie was a friend, she was sweet Stella for Star, Stella for Star. Oh, I knew she was married. All's fair in … But where is she now? I need her right.” He banged the bed with the limp back of his hand. “I've got her face stuck in my head.” I nodded with as much sympathy as I could manage.

“Where's Billie now?” I asked. I tried to let it fall as casually as you please, like a gum wrapper on the sidewalk, but it didn't work.

“Who wants to know, pal?”

“I'm interested in the end of the story.”

“So why do I get the feeling you're pumping me? Who the hell did you say you were?”

“Don't get hot at me, Hayes. I brought the body home. Remember? I'm the guy whose car you're blocking. Remember?”

“A regular nursemaid,” he said. “You got all the instincts of a baby sitter. Like Monty. He couldn't take care of himself, so he looked after other people. An Anglican saint, that's what he was.” He lurched himself upright, waved in the wind like the last leaf of summer, his ski-jump nose wrinkling, then he started to stagger to the bathroom. I followed to the open door in case he needed support. He was staring absently at the white porcelain like he'd forgotten to read the instructions on how to use the facilities. He caught my eye in the mirror. “God a-mercy, old heart,” he said, and I couldn't attach that to anything, except maybe a line from a play he'd done. Then he looked in the mirror again, experimented with his arms in suiting large theatrical gestures to his talk and at the same time trying not to lose the focus. “I know what you're thinking. I'm a wet bastard, young behind the ears. Spoiled rotten. Enjoying grief to the hilt. Well, friend, I'll have you know, announce it throughout my host, that I spent the day in toilsome labour. I'm not cadging a free ride; I'm working my passage. Put that in your copybook and blot it. Who the hell did you say you were? I keep letting it fly away.” I told him my name again, and when it looked like he remembered about bathrooms, I left him alone. He came back into the bedroom muttering about trading in his kidneys.

There was a loud rap at the door, which startled both of us, although I was a couple of seconds faster off the mark. I guess we were both expecting a genteel rap. The waiter wheeled a rattling cart into the room and uncovered
the coffee. I took the bill and paid it. What's the sense of getting expenses if you don't have expenses? The waiter made the tipping process as awkward as usual, standing there as quietly assertive as a parking meter. I guess it goes with the territory, like the tan pants with maroon stripe and ill-fitting jacket with the hotel's logo over the breast pocket. I pulled the trolley closer to Hayes. He crawled higher on the bed with his elbows. I poured him a cup then one for myself, added my regular four lumps of sugar and stirred, watching Hayes sip and spill alternately.

“Billie,” he whimpered into the half-filled cup. “Billie.”

“You both went to see Noonan about the movie?” He looked across at me, remembering that I hadn't left with the waiter.

“He took one look at her, one look, and I haven't seen her since. Took her to meet the assistant director. Now she's … oh, what does it matter? They deserve each other. Perfect casting. Both a couple of fakes, I say. Both consumers of people.”

“The assistant director?”

“What? The assistant director? Don't make me laugh.”

“Who then?”

“The assistant director's gay. He wasn't interested. And now he's gone back to California to direct. Not interested in Billie. It's all the pits. You and me. The whole world. Life is the pits.”

“You told me. I've heard that part. Tell me who Billie's with. Noonan?”

“What's the difference. You and me, friend. We're nothing. Less. You gotta do it big.” He put the cup on the edge of the bed and let his head lie back on the bolster. He kept whispering “It's the pits” a few times, then closed his eyes. I tried to keep up my end of the conversation, but after a minute I was talking to the bedclothes. I finished my coffee, put down the cup and moved both his wallet and coffee cup to safer places, then left, taking the key with me. Hayes wasn't going anywhere that night and I was beginning to think fondly of my hotel room in Grantham. I should have played the scene differently of course. There were questions left unanswered because they hadn't been asked. But right then a hot shower looked better to me than a whole room-service trolley full of answers.

FOUR

I awoke from a dream in which I led a small British force of the Royal North Surreys through the Fuzzy-wuzzy lines to the Nile. In the dream I looked a lot like Dawson Williams, and the Khalifa, wearing patched robes, looked like David Hayes. I tried to keep away from him, but, as it is in dreams, wherever I looked over a bit of scrub, there he was, looking like he was about to vomit at me and what was left of the North Surreys. When I opened my eyes at last and with relief, I was where I wanted to be: in my own bed looking up at the familiar crack in the ceiling and seeing the sun shine through the same old dusty curtains. I got up and showered and shaved, vaguely aware that one aspect of last night and my dream was still sharing the room with me. I rolled my suit into a ball and threw it near the door, promising myself I'd take it to the cleaners on my way out. I had another pair of pants under the mattress and found a jacket that I hadn't used for at least six months. I couldn't discover why I had abandoned it, so I put it on.

Outside on the street, the sun was shining, melting the snow on cars parked overnight at the curb, and allowing a little drainage from the gutters to the sewer gratings.
There were a couple of sparrows fighting over something by the Harding House back door. I made my way by them without looking too closely, searching for breakfast myself. As usual
Bagels
was out of bagels. I looked at the Toronto paper over coffee and an English muffin at the counter. There was a picture of Dawson Williams on the front of the Entertainment section with an interview by the regular theatre critic. Williams said how happy he was to be in Canada, how he was looking forward to making a film in the Falls and working again with director James A. Sayre, who made
The Legion of the Hanged
with him ten years ago in Mexico. He was also looking forward to shooting scenes with Peggy O'Toole, who was due to arrive in Buffalo later that day. Although they had never played in a film together, he was a great fan of hers. She was a new kind of beauty for a new age. And her last film, like his own, had already grossed its first eight million. Williams was quoted as saying that being type-cast as an athletic adventurer in most of his early films hadn't bothered him. He enjoyed doing romantic pictures too, because they didn't break as many bones. He then went on to describe his various fractures and related each to the scene in which it had occurred.