The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (16 page)

Blake not only managed the office and directed some movies but he starred in them as well. He played a supernatural murderer called the Blade and even billed himself as Erik “the Blade” Blake.

I found a file of his work schedule. He was due in at seven
A.M
. to start prepping for a flick called
No Boundaries
.

The last couple of days caught up with me. I felt a cool, deep exhaustion rippling through me. The pain in my ribs had become a sharp, short shiv. I threw back another Perc. I knew I should stretch out. There was a nice leather couch up against the far wall. I lay out, put my feet up, and let myself drift and nod. It was dangerous to be here. I liked the feeling. After a couple of hours napping I felt better and phoned Darla.

The first time it rang through to voice mail so I tried again. This time she picked up. “Hello, Terrier.”

She knew how to say my name in a way that made me actually proud of it. “Hi,” I said. “Sorry for waking you.”

“It’s okay,” she said sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Nearly three in the morning.”

“Do you want to come over?”

I did, actually. “I can’t, I’m in the middle of a score.”

“A score? You mean you’re stealing something right now?”

“More or less. More more than less.” kind of needle?” h M

“And you stopped to call me?” A husky purr entered her voice. “I’m touched. That’s very sweet. A girl likes to feel important.”

“Listen … I know your douchebag husband was your aspiration, but have you thought of acting as a creative venture in recent years?”

The question didn’t throw her. She took it with ease. “In what regard? I’ve never had any training.”

“Well, how about B movies? Horror fare. Being chased around with a guy with a butcher knife. Topless, probably.”

“Those kinds of movies usually star teenagers with perky tits.”

“You can show them all up. I have an in with a producer of slasher pictures. I don’t know. Figured I’d ask, in case you wanted to pursue it. It’s not yarn or books, but it might be fun.”

She took a deep, erotic, semisleepy breath and let it out slowly. It fired my pulse. “You do continue to surprise me, my friend. What’s your in with him? Is this the person you’re stealing from?”

“The less you know the less you’ll have to deny later on, if you’re ever asked.”

“I see.”

“So what do you think?”

“You sound excited by this.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I explained. “But I have some stuff going on in my life that’s got me on my toes.” I glanced through the hundred grand again. “You can try it out for a while and see if you like what it offers, if you want. All Hallows’ Eve Films.” I read some titles off the posters. “
Killing Vault. My Bloody Grandma. Nun Will Survive
, and nun is spelled N-U-N.
Stake Through Your Heart.
”

“And this is all right with the powers that be.”

“Part of being a criminal is sort of stealing the power from the powers that be.”

“I always heard the mob ran Hollywood.”

“The mobs run everything.”

“When can I see you again?”

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you for thinking of me.”

“I do it a lot.”

I disconnected and went through the DVDs on the shelf until I found a couple that were directed by cousin John. I loaded one called
Hello, Baby, Goodbye
into Blake’s laptop.

There was an actual storyline, which surprised me. Narrative arcs in horror flicks seemed to go out with the grindhouse movie theaters on Forty-second Street in the late eighties. The plot wasn’t much but it was there. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they try to have a kid and can’t, girl is artificially inseminated, baby turns out to be maniacal, boy looks for sperm donor who turns out to be a serial killer. Violence, bloodletting, revenge, potential redemption, love conquers all ensues.

John had a moody style about him, lots of shadows and high angles, intentional lens flares, distant tracking shots. Dramatic close-ups. There was emotional tension, some complex characterizations, a lot of unspoken dialogue written in the actors’ the only one I had leftndor expressions, and the blood was only used to accent story, mystery, atmosphere.

The film ended with the young lovers renewing their wedding vows on the lawn of the Montauk Lighthouse. I recognized the spot immediately and my back went rigid. It was where Kimmy and I had planned on getting married.

The grand vistas of the cliffs and the ocean, with the lighthouse in the background, and watching the guests all raise their glasses of champagne got to me. John had laid out some big money to rent the area for the afternoon. I rewound and replayed that final scene a couple of times. I heard myself laughing angrily. I popped the disc out and made as if to hurl it across the room. I caught myself and froze. I replaced the DVD in its case.

Blake came in early. At five to five I heard a car pull up outside. I
peered through the blinds and saw Blake and a big guy I assumed was Nox park and climb out of a cherry red Taurus, each holding a large Styrofoam cup of coffee. Nox looked like every thug I’d ever seen. Tall, massive, with a dull expression, no neck, and a face that had lost ten thousand bar fights.

I shut the door to the office and reengaged all three locks. I heard the men come in and futz with the alarm system keypad. Blake’s voice was thin and high-pitched. He discussed his shot list. He talked about actresses he wanted to fire for being late constantly. Nox said nothing in return.

I took up post behind the door. The locks turned and clicked. In they walked.

When they got three steps inside I gently swung the door closed behind them.

“Hello, Blade,” I said.

I held his own gun pointed loosely in his direction.

Fear and shame passed over Nox’s face. I knew what it meant. He wasn’t armed. He hadn’t been expecting trouble at the office at five in the morning. He was exactly as stupid as I’d anticipated.

Blake didn’t rattle. He eyed the methamphetamines on the desk, sipped his coffee, and said, “So who are you? Wait, let me guess. I know your face. You’re Johnny Crowe’s little brother.”

“Close.”

“I can tell you belong to that family. You all look alike.”

“We do. But we’re not all the same.”

He frowned, blowing trails of steam. “Whatever that means. You want to direct too? Or maybe star in a couple of features? Meet some of the girls? No trouble at all. You want your girlfriend to star? We have a shoot going on today. I can always use a new face.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’ve already got a job. I’m a cat burglar.”

Nox thought about rushing me. He thought about tossing the hot coffee in my eyes. He thought about getting those huge hands around
my throat and choking me into submission. I pointed the .38 at his belly. I hated guns but they came in handy on occasion to help keep certain situations from derailing.

I cocked the hammer, released it, and cocked it again to make sure I had his attention. His shoulders slumped.

“You and Perry have been at odds lately, Blake.”

“He’s a prick.”

“True. But it’s his and Will’s company.”

He sneered. “I made it what it is, not them. They’d kind of needle?” h M never even seen a horror film before I got involved. Neither one of the’t ther

At six-thirty I crept the Crowe house. My grandmother’s
bedroom would be next door to Perry’s, I guessed. Just close enough so that if old Crowe needed to shout for a pill she’d hear him and come running.

I slipped inside. It was still dark out. There was a night-light bathing the room in a soft bone-white glow. I watched her sleep. She was a handsome woman now that I got a chance to actually see her face clearly. I saw a hint of my mother there.

On her nightstand were easily thirty bottles of meds and a couple of different boxes with the days of the week on them for dispensing pills. I didn’t recognize a lot of the medication, but those I did fell into two categories. Heart meds for Crowe and antidepressants for her.

Whatever happened to her had happened slowly, steadily, the way it does for all of us, over a great amount of time. No one’s personality is subsumed overnight. It might not be subsumed at all, except here in this place, in the presence of her husband. Maybe that just appeared to be the case. She was bound to have her secrets too. Maybe she screwed the pool boy. Maybe she was as nuts as her husband. Maybe she plotted perfect murders. Maybe she loved horror flicks like cousin John. Her eyes moved beneath the lids. She could still dream.

“Grandmother,” I said.

She woke instantly, without a start. Her eyes found me. She wasn’t surprised or scared.

“I thought you might come back, Terrier,” she said.

“Why?”

“To do something awful to him.”

“To him? Or for him?”

“Either. Both. Are you going to kill me?”

There was no emotion in the question, just the barest lilt of curiosity. Like somebody asking how do you get to the highway, make a left or right? She was tough at the core despite the servile attitude and the inability to look my mother in the face. She was full of regret and resentment, but had learned to live with it well. Much better than I had.

“My God,” I said, “you people. Why would you think I’d do that?”

“I think it’s what he wants. And because you must hate us.”

“I never even knew you existed up until a couple days ago.”

“All the more reason. Do you want money?”

“Everyone wants money, but no, I don’t want your money.”

“I have a lot. I’ll give it to you.”

She reminded me of Gramp. There was something else alive in her someplace deep, but it was buried there under paralysis. She hadn’t moved an inch since I’d entered. She watched me steadily. The pills were doing their job. She wasn’t depressed. She was feeling no pain. She was feeling nothing at all.

“I’m confused,” I said. “Are you offering me money
not to
kill you? Or are you paying me
to
kill you? Or him?”

She blinked at me. Her lids came down and her eyes stayed shut for a three count, and then she opened them again. “To just go away.”

“Why wouldn’t you talk to my mother?”

An animal moan started to climb from her throat. She covered her mouth with her hand and squeezed her eyes shut until the moment passed. “Because I’m ashamed.”

“Everyone’s ashamed of something. You had a chance to put some mistakes behind you. Why didn’t you take it?”

“You can’t put a mistake like abandoning your daughter behind you.”

“So how does ignoring her when she’s face-to-face with you for the first time in decades make it any better?”

Her small, wrinkled, age-spotted hands balled into fists and she thumped the mattress once, like a child. “It doesn’t. Nothing does. I begged him not to call her. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He never hears what I say. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. And he was. He truly was. But he wasn’t sorry enough. Not nearly. He’ll never be sorry enough. Not after what happened. Not after what I allowed to happen.”

“You’re probably right about that.”

I stood. She fumbled for her pills. I watched her carefully. She only took two. It was probably foolish thinking that a septuagenarian might off herself. She was simply too used to the way things were. That’s why all this talk of murder and fear. She was just that shaken by what had happened yesterday.

There was nothing left to say.

I went away, like she wanted.

I stepped into old Crowe’s room.

He’d hidden a few things the first time around so he wouldn’t appear so weak. Two IV bags were pumping him full of fluids. A colostomy bag was now in view hanging off the side of the bed. There was an oxygen tank propped next to the headboard, with a mask placed on the closest bedpost. I opened my satchel and set it beside him on the bed. I picked up the tinkly bell and rang it once.

His eyes opened. He went into a coughing fit for a solid two minutes while I passed him wads of tissues. He was hacking nothing but blood after a while. When he was done there was a nice rosy glow to his cheeks.

“Here’s your money,” I said. “And the discs and flashes containing about fifteen films that haven’t been released yet. Also another dozen that were produced at S&D but were sold under the table to another studio called Fireshot Pictures.”

“Fifteen! Those bastards have been busy doing a lot of straight-to-video franchising at my expense.”

He huffed heavily. I wondered if he’d go for the oxygen mask in my presence or tempt fate some more. He eyed me and then eyed the tank. I turned it on for him and unslung the mask from the bedpost. He held it to his face and sucked heavily.

“And all right under Will’s nose. And John’s.”

“And yours.”

“And mine, yes. Just so.”

“Blake had a pretty sophisticated operation going.”

“Did you kill him?”

I sighed. “You really think it’s that easy, don’t you?”

“Maybe not. Maybe it’s difficult. But I need to know if you did it.”

“No, I didn’t. I told you I wouldn’t. You shouldn’t have asked me. It’s insult kind of needle?” h Ming and stupid.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I made him listen to reason.”

My grandfather thought about that for a moment. He seemed to be trying to figure out if I was lying. In the end he decided not to pursue caring.

“Fireshot is Sal Domingo’s outfit,” he said. “I guess that son of a bitch knew the whole time.”

Sal Domingo was another big name in Hollywood who’d won awards once upon a time, had his ups and downs, his hits and misses. More misses than hits recently. It was news that he did a couple of season finales for some hit TV shows. It was news he’d filed for bankruptcy but wasn’t going to lose his mansion in Roslyn on Long Island Sound.

“All you hotshots have a plan B to keep the cash rolling in, huh?”

“It’s not only practical, it’s a necessity.”

“You couldn’t invest in a coffee shop franchise? Maybe open a health food store?”

“In this economy? Too risky.”

I leaned in. “All right, now I want something from you, old Crowe.”