“No,” Judith said. “I thought she’d pitch a fit.”
Renie got up from her kneeling position. “What
time do they leave for the premiere?”
“Five,” Judith replied, heading for the kitchen.
“That doesn’t give them much time to dress,” Renie
pointed out.
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“They’re dressing at the hotel with the others,” Judith said, putting a mixture of salmon pâté into the
food processor. “The movie theater is just a minute’s
walk from the Cascadia, but they’ll still show up in
limos, so I suppose they’ll drive around the block a
couple of times first.”
“It’ll be a mob scene,” Renie remarked, cutting up
scallions. Her gaze traveled to the American artists’
calendar she’d given Judith for Christmas. “Say, how
much have you learned about twentieth-century
painters from that? I hoped it would be a teaching
tool.”
“I’ve learned there are a lot of them I don’t like,” Judith replied. “I must admit, though, September taught
me something. I didn’t realize that John Singer Sargent
painted anything but portraits.”
Renie went over to the wall and flipped back a page.
“Ah— Spain. Sunlight and tiled roofs and fat green
plants in terra-cotta pots. Done with daubs and blobs.
Very different from Madame X.” She returned to dicing
vegetables. “How many are coming for the midnight
supper?”
“The current guest list,” Judith said, “plus a few others connected with the film.”
“Not the entire Hollywood crew?”
Judith shook her head as she went to the pantry to
get a jar of mayonnaise. “This bunch will mingle with
the others at the costume ball in the hotel.”
“I hope they don’t stay late,” Renie called after her
cousin. “You know how Bill likes to make an early
evening of it.”
“He’ll have to tough it out tonight,” Judith said,
holding the jar of mayo and glancing out the back-door
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85
window. “I really appreciate—” She stopped. “There’s
Dade Costello. He just came out of the toolshed.”
The screenwriter shambled along the walk, indifferent to the rain that had begun to fall again. Judith
opened the door for him.
“Hi,” she said. “Were you visiting my mother?”
“Mrs. Grover?” Dade nodded. “Interesting woman.”
“She is?” Judith bit her tongue. “I mean, you found
her interesting.”
“Yes.” Dade proceeded down the hall, through the
kitchen, the dining room, and disappeared.
“Good grief,” Judith muttered. “I hope Mother
wasn’t telling Dade a bunch of tales like she did with
Bruno.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Renie said.
Half an hour later the limo drivers arrived, along
with a small van in which the other costumes were
loaded. The guests straggled downstairs, Bruno and
Winifred first, then Dirk Farrar, Chips Madigan, and
Angela La Belle. Ben Carmody came next, apparently none the worse for his three shots of vodka.
Ellie Linn descended the stairs backward, humming
to herself. Finally, Dade Costello appeared. As usual,
he seemed to detach himself from the others as the
limos filled up.
Judith and Renie watched from the entry hall. At
precisely five o’clock, the trio of sleek white cars
pulled out of the cul-de-sac like so many ghosts floating just above the ground. Blurred by the rain, even the
headlights seemed ethereal in the gathering darkness.
“To work!” Renie exclaimed, holding up a finger
and marching into the kitchen.
But Judith paused at the foot of the stairs. “Now that
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Mary Daheim
they’re gone, I’ll straighten their rooms. Arlene should
be here to help in about twenty minutes.”
The state of the guest rooms was no better and no
worse than when they were used by more ordinary
mortals. Indeed, Dade Costello’s small quarters looked
as if it had never been occupied. The bed was made,
the bureau was bare, and no clothes had been hung in
the closet. Everything that Dade had brought with him
appeared to be contained in a suitcase and a briefcase.
Both were locked.
Though it showed signs of human habitation,
Winifred’s room was also orderly; so was that of Chips
Madigan. The bathroom that Chips shared with Ellie
and Angela was another matter. Hairdryers, curling
irons, magnifying mirrors, and at least two dozen
beauty products were strewn everywhere. Judith
looked around the sink for any signs of what Joe had
deemed to be cocaine. There were none.
Room Six, where the two actresses were bunking
together, was as untidy as the bathroom. Clothes were
everywhere, all casual, all bearing designer labels. At
least ten pairs of shoes littered the floor. Upon closer
scrutiny, Judith saw that except for some size-four
cross-trainers and strappy sandals, the rest belonged to
Angela’s size-seven feet.
In Room Four, Dirk and Ben’s movie stardom was
made known by a pile of scripts and a file folder
marked projects. Judith glanced at the script on top
of the stack. All the Way to Utah, by Amy Lee Wong.
Flipping through the script, she saw severe editing
marks on almost every page as well as derogatory
comments, some of them obscene. She replaced the
script, then dared to look inside the project file,
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87
which contained loose newspaper and magazine clippings.
Judith extracted one of the clippings, which was
printed on slick paper. The headline read, MUCHO
MACHO COSTS FARRAR A GAUCHO.
Hunkster Dirk Farrar’s two-fisted attack on Mighty
Mogul Bruno Zepf has cost the actor the lead role
in Zepf’s Argentine epic, El Gaucho Loco O No.
The brouhaha occurred outside a restaurant last
week in Marina Del Rey when producer and actor
got into an argument over who would star in All the
Way to Utah, a project Zepf has temporarily put on
the back burner.
Judith slipped the clipping back into the file. She
shouldn’t be wasting her time snooping. There was
work to be done. Briskly, she went into Bruno Zepf’s
room. On the nightstand were at least ten pill bottles
along with a couple of tubes of ointment, an inhaler,
and two small brown-paper packets that felt as if they
held some kind of tablets. A tiny scrap of paper that
looked like part of a prescription lay on the floor. Judith picked it up, but could only make out the words
pharmacy and thalidomide. She looked at the medications on the nightstand, but their labels were intact.
With a shrug, she put the little scrap in the wastebasket, then returned to her tasks.
Straightening the bed, Judith noticed a thick book
with a tattered cover and frayed pages slipped under
one of the shammed pillows. She picked it up, barely
making out the sunken lettering on the cover.
The Gasman.
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Mary Daheim