Show Business Is Murder (10 page)

Evelyn drifted in a fog, waiting for the autopsy results. Maybe the pathologist would find something that would exonerate her. Maybe Margaret had been stung by a bee and gone into shock. Maybe Evelyn didn't kill her mentor and best friend.

But when the report was released, Evelyn knew there would be no reprieve. Margaret had extensive swelling of
the face, lips, and tongue. She'd suffocated. The details were too horrible to think about.

The pathologist said the severe symptoms were caused by an overdose of Coumadin. Margaret had been taking the blood thinner for her heart. The pathologist believed Margaret had mistakenly taken a double dose of Coumadin and died from it. Her death was an accident.

Only Evelyn knew it was no accident. Only Evelyn knew she'd killed her best friend. And she couldn't figure out how.

At the station, Evelyn stumbled through her standups, missed deadlines, flubbed her lines. She felt numb. She didn't care, not even when the station did not renew her contract. She knew Tiffany would take her anchor spot.

She didn't know why Margaret died, and that made her crazy.

Margaret had only had one-third of a normal dose of Coumadin. It shouldn't have killed her, even if she was already taking the blood thinner. The sun, celery, and rue might intensify the effect, but Margaret was a brunette. It should have been blonde Tiffany who swelled up from the sun exposure. It should have been Tiffany who died.

All Evelyn could do was ask herself, “What went wrong?”

She found out at Margaret's memorial service. Margaret's grieving family displayed photos of their daughter throughout her too-short life.

Evelyn saw the first-grade picture of a grinning gap-toothed Margaret. The little girl was blonde—and not just blonde, but so pale her hair was almost white. In high school, a teenage Margaret used too much eyebrow pencil and mascara to darken her pale brows and eyelashes.

By college, Margaret was a stunning platinum blonde. It was only after graduation, when she got her first job at a little station in Sedalia, Missouri, that Margaret had dark hair. She was a brunette in every photo after that.

“You were Margaret's best friend,” said her mother, a
plump gray-haired woman in black. She took both of Evelyn's hands in hers.

“I didn't know she was a blonde,” blurted Evelyn.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Margaret had lovely hair. Natural platinum. But Margaret said she couldn't take the ‘dumb blonde' jokes at work. She said when she dyed her hair dark, her IQ went up 50 points.”

That's where I went wrong, Evelyn thought.

Margaret was blonde. And Tiffany? She remembered why Dolly Parton said she wasn't offended by dumb blonde jokes. “ . . . I know I'm not dumb. I also know that I'm not blonde.”

Tiffany must have dyed her hair blonde. She recalled her nasty remarks about Mr. John being the city's finest colorist . . . “so natural.” Of course. He certainly made Tiffany look natural. That's why the poison salad didn't bother her. She wasn't a real blonde.

It was the ultimate blonde joke on a dumb brunette. It never occurred to Evelyn that Tiffany was a bottle blonde. She should have known. Everything else about her was fake. And in TV, mistakes start at the top.

Evelyn realized Margaret's mother was still holding her hands and talking. “I told her, ‘Margaret, it is a sin and a shame to cover up that beautiful platinum hair.' And you know what she said? ‘Mother, I would rather die than be a blonde.'

“Evelyn? Are you okay? Why, you're white as a sheet, dear. Sit down here. It's not healthy to be that white . . .”

ANGELA ZEMAN

HERMIONE LISTENBERGER CONTEMPLATED
her name as she plucked a slow riff of perfect, clear notes from her six-string acoustical Gibson (the three-quarter size model to better fit her small frame).

The ringing tones mellowed the acrid air with a leisurely sweetness she hoped would entice the West 50th Street subway patrons to slow their mad pace. In a few moments, after the number 9 train resumed its screaming rush downtown, she'd segue into her next tune.

Just this morning she'd re-strung the guitar with all steel strings, although this type of guitar was really created for nylon. As the train sat gathering its strength, she took advantage of the relative quiet to listen hard to the steel's sharper delineation of each note. As she had hoped, the sounds lingered longer, blending and reaching deeper into the tiled subway tunnel. The tunnel itself was her sound system.

Excellent.

Her attention returned to her name. Hermione possessed an orderly mind that trudged remorselessly down the path she had laid for herself. A new name was next on her agenda. Something memorable. Striking. Not for the first time, she marveled at her parents' choice. Did it reflect the stultified
Utica environment they adored? As soon as she had judged herself wise and strong enough to protect herself among strangers, she'd run to Manhattan with the desperation of a drowning man who knows only one place to find air. Hermione? Coupled with Listenberger it lost all hope of working as a stage name. For one thing, it was ugly. Now, ugly might have worked if it fit her musical image. However, she knew her music was strong. Also disturbing at times, an effect that delighted Hermione. But not ugly.

Also from long, detached inspections in bathroom mirrors she knew that she herself had beauty of a type. After careful consideration, she had eventually chosen to make her beauty an asset, to play it “up” onstage. Even though her current finances forced her to sluice her body as completely as possible in public facilities and to subsist mainly on juice and discarded sandwiches from overflowing trash barrels, her ivory skin was of such luminous softness that it seemed to invite touches from fascinated admirers. However, she allowed no touching. Her healthy abundant hair shimmered in any light, from bright brassy gold in the sun to a dusky red glimmer in the tunnels under fluorescent lights, even in subway air dusty with stressed steel and crumbling cement. In this July heat, tiny curls edged her peach-flushed face. In winter cold, she paled, her hair reddening by contrast, a flame in frost. Her figure had never had the leisure or the income to pad itself with baby fat. She had the lean litheness of an athlete.

Never mind. A name. Suddenly the edge of her consciousness registered that the train had left. After so many months, one learned to tune out the subway roar and thunder. So she quickly launched into a new song she'd written. With this one, she tasted success in its notes. Instinctively she knew this was going to be her signature, her door into the world of success.
The
song. It wasn't yet at its peak, but with practice she'd soon polish it into the perfect gem she'd heard in her head when she first thought of it.

She launched her voice, clear and high, with a fierce push on the highest notes, a rough drawl for the low ones: “Leave me now, I've moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, lah tee dah . . .”

To her annoyance, a tall young man in vintage bell-bottom cords and a skin-tight tee shirt with the sleeves and neckband ripped out stopped short and stared at her in shocked recognition. She was used to this. Some of these guys were twice her size and sometimes nuts from drugs, or just plain nuts. Some were musicians who recognized her talent and wanted to use her to elevate themselves. Either way, she wished—oh how she wished—she had some means to keep him and those like him away, for there had been many.

This one was a musician. She read the thoughts crossing his face as if they were the moving electric letters on the Times Square news sign: He heard the work behind the melody, the breathing techniques that gave her voice the unearthly compelling quality that, although he probably didn't know it yet, was her trademark. He would want to hook up with her. They all did. It was a Manhattan thing, nearly half the population wanting to be a singer, an actor, an artist. A thousand competitors for each elusive “break.”

Her eyes closed, not to submerge into the heat and thrum of the song, but in irritation. Yep, he was coming closer. She felt his intent stare through her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and glared. Oblivious, he inched closer until rage, far too familiar by now, rose in her anew, choking the words in her throat. For a few lovely seconds an image of herself transformed into a she-wolf came to mind, bringing her visceral pleasure. With little effort her imagination gave her razor teeth with which to gnaw insanely at the muscular throats of these leeches, glorying in the taste of their ruined flesh. She dreamed how, covered with blood, she would lunge at horrified spectators, making them squeal, the spectacle a warning to others to leave her alone! Her frustration
had reached a pitch where mere escape from their self-serving attentions would no longer satisfy.

But she was small and slight, and no fool. So she swallowed her fury yet again and only turned slightly to face another direction. Hoping the song and not her body had attracted him, she stopped playing to fuss with the tuning keys at the top of the guitar neck.

He howled like a wounded dog, “It's in perfect tune now, don't spoil it!”

“A stranger and the bastard's ordering me around! They're all the same,” she thought.

She sighed and glanced at the huge round clock hanging near the stairs. Jeez, nearly twelve, and she hadn't come up with a good name yet. She'd wanted to get acquainted with her new name, live in its skin for a while, own that name before moving her act to a spot at street level she'd found near the Grand Central double doors on 42nd. Nobody there yet; she'd checked it out for several days. So in her mind it was already hers. But not Hermione Listenberger's, it was . . . she didn't know who yet.

She glanced again at the intruder. Not even one friggin' dollar in his hand to throw into her open guitar case that she'd seeded with a few crumpled bills as a hint to the listeners. She had a pretty steady following down here, made enough to keep her in juice and toothpaste, but was still sleeping in a secretly hollowed out refuge between some boulders in Central Park. She wanted, needed, more money. She faced him squarely, hating the creep not only for his intrusion, but for his cheapness too.

“What!”

Unfazed, he said, “We should join up.”

As her head automatically began shaking side to side, he started singing her song,
her
song . . . “Leave me now, I've moved on anyhow . . .”

“Hey!” she roared.

“It's a great song! What's the rest of it?”

“Right, so you can steal the whole thing!”

“No, no, you misunderstand! I'm a singer too!”

“I work alone!”

He said with careful patience, “Just sing it with me and listen. I can counterpoint you. We'll do fantastic. It's really good, you realize that?”

“I work alone!”

“It's got elements of jazz and blues intermingled, and with us both—”

God, they never even hear me speak. It's like having breasts renders me insignificant. “Damn you to hell.”

He shrugged, obviously unimpressed with her hostility. “Okay. Um, do ‘Baby Jones' instead.”

She thought a minute. It was already a favorite of the “underground entertainers,” so no big deal. And if it would make him disappear faster . . . grudgingly she started. As promised, he leaped in, his voice alternating between falsetto and baritone, curling around hers. They sounded good. Great, in fact. Several people threw dollar bills and coins into her case. Some stood in rapt attention, wanting the whole song before moving on.

She had to admit when they finished, although her guts revolted, that he was an asset. She scooped up the bills, ignoring the coins, and split the take with him. He squatted and dipped into the coins. “All adds up,” he grinned at her, holding up a fistful of quarters and dimes, roughly half; he didn't cheat.

Standing again, he towered over her by at least a foot, rail-thin but not wasted. If he had a monkey, it wasn't hurting his body or mind yet, at least visibly. He was blond, the bleached kind, with dark roots on a short but shaggy head. Doable.

“What's your name?” he asked, reminding her of her goal for the morning.

“What's yours,” she countered, angry again. Damn him. Sure, money was good, but the right name would improve her future quicker. He'd slowed down her professional growth.

“Sody,” he said. “Garrett.”

Sody Garrett. Original, but not worth stealing, so he could keep it. With a resigned sigh she started strumming random chords again.

“Hey. I asked you your name.”

“So?” She shrugged, again shifting slightly to face a new direction. A direction in which he wasn't the center of her line of vision.

“You come here every day?” he asked.

Not any more, she said silently. “Oh, yeah!” she replied, her smile almost too quick to catch. Polite, but not exerting herself. He wouldn't knife her. She knew what he wanted, and it had nothing to do with harming her. Another talent leech.

Sure enough. “I'll meet you here tomorrow, but earlier. I play bass guitar. Perfect with your tenor. Acoustics fab down here, the steel strings work perfect without amps. Smart!” She nodded. Duh. Why else would she replace nylon strings with steel. She returned to her immediate task, in her mind running through the names of all the movie stars she could think of. Willing him to disappear.

She started silently reciting a list of her high school classmates' names. The popular ones.

“Don't forget,” he added anxiously, interrupting her musings.

She raked one hand through her hair in frustration. “You bet. Tomorrow!” Just leave, you maggot. Briefly she considered the name “maggot.” No. Wrong image.

She considered image. What image did she want to convey? Costuming came after picking a name, but both were totally related to the issue of image. Folk song shtick? She shook her head. Her stuff was more hard-edged but yet had
a ballad structure. Deep in rumination she never noticed when Sody left. Besides, folksongs had died out in the seventies and RIP. Pop ballads. She did those sometimes, earned her big bills in the 42nd and Broadway area. All the Midwest tourists loved elevator music. She grimaced. Not ever.

She loved alternative, but couldn't do it well alone, on one guitar. Maybe with a synthesizer, but she couldn't play one if she had it, and she didn't have it. Hip hop wasn't her, either. Okay. Time to play again, the foot traffic had sped up, tired of her random chords.

“Leave me alone, or take me with you, I'm the woman you wanted all your life. Not a wife. Not a child, not a ruby on a pillow, a womaaaaan . . .” They loved her songs. Edgy. Janis Joplin-ish . . . keep that in mind, she admonished herself. She could do worse for style.

Angrily she thought of Sody Garrett. Jesus, what a name. She ran through random names, still singing, but on autopilot. Auto. Ata. Atai. Alai. Alianna. Lianna. Well, think about that one.

She showed up the next day, having totally forgotten Sody Garrett's existence. She had her new name. Lian Logan. Since it had come to her late in the night, she'd decided to devote one more day at the familiar West 50th Street stop to “live” the name before moving to Grand Central. She wasn't Irish, but the Irish were famous for singing and writing and entertaining. Better than Listenberger. A Listenberger sounded like a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. At best.

She considered picking up a slight Irish brogue. Clearing her throat she began, “Aye, 'tis so, me lad.” Ick. She debated different ways to pick up a true Irish voice. Movies—too expensive. And what VCR would she use to play a video, even if she could pop for the three-dollar rental fee? Sometimes she stood and watched entire programs at the Wiz before being chased off. But some of those actors couldn't handle
the brogue either without sounding like fake mish-mash. She put the thought aside for now.

The answer would come to her, like all the other answers. Luck shimmered in the air around her, it always had. She felt it. Ideas and songs—the assurance that all would come to her swam invisibly around her, nudging her in the right directions, bringing her whatever she needed. It was all there.

She started to strum, nudged her open case lid with one slender foot, moving the heavy molded-plastic case into the edges of the path of the crowd, not an obstacle, just a hint. Two crumpled dollar bills there already, her seed money. And then Sody walked up to her, shocking her into remembrance of yesterday's intrusion. She groaned to herself, wishing she'd gone to Grand Central after all.

On one thigh, he humped his big bass guitar in a black case. Duct tape patched several splits in the cheap cardboard, holding it together. It barely covered his guitar. She grimaced. You had to protect your instrument. His looked like he kicked it around on off days.