“Did it look like the same killer?”
“Well,” Vince said carefully, “of course, I am no Detective Anderson.…”
“Thank God for that.”
“But it didn’t look like it. The eye was gone, and naturally Anderson jumped on that and said quod erat demonstrandum.”
“He said that?”
“Words to that effect. Fewer syllables,” Vince said. “Anyway, he was sure it was the same. But the thing is, the body was a mess. Eleven stab wounds, including a couple that chopped open the carotid artery.”
“Oh, my,” I said, thinking of the great awful gouts of sticky wet blood.
“Yeah, really,” he said. “And even worse? There was vomit all over. Like he took a look at what he’d done and then blew lunch. I really hate working with vomit.”
“Cheer up,” I said. “In a few hours you’ll be right back with severed heads and fecal matter.”
“Fascinating stuff, fecal matter,” Vince said thoughtfully. “It’s in all of us.”
“Some more than others,” I said. “Thanks, Vince.”
“Hey!” he said, before I could disconnect. “Are you hanging out at the movie? With Robert?”
“He’s around somewhere,” I said. “I’m supposed to give technical advice—and also,” I said, trying to sound very casual, “I have a small speaking part.”
“Oh, my God,” he said. “You’re gonna be in this?”
I covered the phone with one hand and changed my voice. “Five minutes, Mr. Morgan!” I said, and then, back into the phone, “My call. Gotta go, Vince. Say hi for me to all the little people.”
“Dexter, wait!” he said. “Is Robert—”
I broke the connection and stood up.
I wandered down the hall to Wardrobe. Jackie was still in conference with Sylvia, standing with her arms held straight out while Sylvia made marks on her shirt with a piece of chalk and her two assistants ran by; one carried an iron, the other an armful of rubber boots.
I closed the door and looked around. I had nothing to do for at least another fifteen or twenty minutes, so I indulged my curiosity and went to take a look at the soundstage. I had never seen one before, and if this was going to be part of my new life as Dexter Demosthenes, I thought I should see what it looked like.
I went through the heavy metal door and into the room. It was about the size and shape of an airplane hangar, with a high ceiling and a cement floor. Except for isolated patches of illumination from electric lights, the room was dark. There were no windows, or anything else that might let in light, and thick black curtains hung down from the walls.
The crew swarmed in and out of the pools of light like ants skittering around on a hive that someone had smacked with a stick. In twos and threes they hurried by, performing their mystical tasks, slapping tape onto the floor in precise and nonsensical patterns, moving metal light stands from place to place, rolling out thick cables, two and three bundled together, and carrying odd bits of scenery: a window, a bright red fire door, a swivel chair.
I took a few steps into the darkness and was nearly beheaded by three people carrying what looked like the back wall of Captain Matthews’s office. “Hey, watch out,” one of them called cheerily, a wiry young woman with short blond hair and a hammer hanging from her hip. She hustled on by with the other two, rapidly easing the wall around lights, more scenery, and other workers.
I stood and let my eyes adjust to the darkness before I began once more to edge carefully through the room, alert for any more lethal scenery. In the center of the room, rimmed by a cluster of lights, cameras, and some intense technical action, stood a scenic wall, edge facing me, and I moved toward it to see what it was. I scooted around two men fluttering large squares of colored, transparent plastic in front of a standing light, and I peered around to see what the wall might be. As the far side of the wall came into view, I stopped and stared.
I was looking at what seemed to be the inside of an apartment on Miami Beach. A sliding glass door led out onto a balcony, where the top of a palm tree waved in front of a gleaming greenish-blue expanse of Biscayne Bay. For a moment, it was very disorienting, and I actually stepped back and looked at the other side of the wall, just to be sure it was really only two-dimensional. Happily for me, it was.
I moved a few steps closer and looked again. The scene still looked very real to me, except that as I watched, a stout, red-haired man slid open the glass door and stepped off the fake balcony to stand in apparent midair in front of the palm tree, and began to fuss with the fronds. It was an eerie illusion; if the palm tree was real, then it had a red-haired giant floating in the air beside its fronds.
I admired the surreal view until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a bearded man, about forty-five, with three rolls of duct tape hanging from his belt.
“We gotta focus the lights,” he said. “Can you stay back over there?” He waved a hand at the far wall of the room and pushed past me, pulling a long strip of tape from one of his rolls.
“Of course,” I told his back, and I made a mental note to try his tape dispenser arrangement sometime soon.
I walked carefully to the area Mr. Tape had indicated, and it turned out to be a wise move. Nestled into the corner, tucked away in the sheltering half darkness, I found a long table absolutely groaning under the weight of a remarkable array of food. There were bagels, cream cheese, thin-sliced tomato and onion—and real nova lox! And there was even a large bowl filled with M&M’s, and a platter with three kinds of cheese, a huge tray of yogurt, bananas, apples, oranges, and trail mix. And on the far end of the table, right next to a large coffee urn, was a pile of pastry boxes, eight high, from Muñequita Bakery, my very favorite pastry shop.
I had just grabbed a guava pastelita and a jelly doughnut and settled into the shadows on the edge of the set when I felt some hostile presence steaming up behind me, and I turned around, prepared to slay it with the pastelita. But I held my fire when I saw that it was only dear demoted Deborah, face clenched tightly enough to crack walnuts.
“Good morning, sister dearest,” I said. “Isn’t it wonderful to be here at the heart of Hollywood?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said.
“Perhaps a little later,” I promised. “After I finish my pastelita.” She said nothing, just stood there glaring at the set and grinding her teeth loud enough that I thought I could hear molars shattering. “Would you like a doughnut?” I asked, hoping to soothe her just a bit.
It didn’t work. Before I could even blink she whipped a fist at me, landing it solidly on my upper arm hard enough that I almost dropped my jelly doughnut. “Ow,” I said. “Would you prefer a bagel?”
“I would prefer to kick Anderson in the balls and get back to doing real police work,” she said through her tightly clenched teeth.
“Oh,” I said. “So it didn’t go well when you told the captain about Patrick?”
“He ripped me a new asshole,” she said, and she ground her teeth even harder. “With Anderson watching. Smirking at me the whole fucking time, while the captain told me what a fucking idiot I am.”
“Ouch,” I said. “But he didn’t suspend you?”
“He near as fuck did,” she said. “But he figured if I was suspended I’d go after the killer on my own time.”
I nodded and took a bite of guava. From what I knew of Deborah, that’s exactly what she would have done. It was a very shrewd guess, and my opinion of Captain Matthews’s savvy went up.
“So he ordered me to stay on the set,” Debs said. “So I can’t do a single fucking thing except stand around and babysit. While Anderson fucks up the case and fucking laughs at me.”
“Oh, he’s not just fucking up the case,” I said. “He told Jackie he wants to be her security blanket, twenty-four/seven.”
She snorted. “He said that? To Jackie?!”
“Yup,” I said.
“What did she say?”
I smiled at the memory, as close
to a genuine smile as I have ever managed. “She told him she already had one,” I said. And I took a very satisfied bite, getting the last third of pastelita into my mouth.
Deborah looked at me, a hard and searching look, and I wondered if I was unconsciously chewing with my mouth open. I put a hand up to check; I wasn’t. I swallowed the pastry and looked back at her. “What?” I said.
“You son of a bitch,” Deborah said, and somehow her anger was now focused on me and I had no idea why.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“You fucked her!” she hissed at me. “You fucked Jackie fucking Forrest!”
I looked at Deborah in astonishment, trying to remember whether I had said anything at all that might have tipped her off; there was nothing, but clearly she knew. Maybe there really is something to the whole Women’s Intuition business we’re always hearing about. Because Deborah knew, and she was obviously very upset about it.
“Deborah,” I said, flailing about desperately for something to say that would explain everything, calm her down, maybe even change the subject. But nothing came to me; I stood there with my mouth hanging silently open and my sister glaring at me hard enough to dent a Buick’s fender.
“You stupid piece of shit,” she said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” It was not a well-thought-out question: I had a very good idea what I had done. I had done it more than once, and had an idea that I’d like to do it again—but that did not seem to be the same idea Debs had.
“A wife and three kids,” she snarled, “and you have to do this. Fucking leap into bed with Jackie Fucking Forrest.”
“Yes, but, Deborah,” I said, and it didn’t matter that I had nothing else to say, since she went right on without waiting for my contribution.
“I swear to fucking God,” she said. “I know all men think with their dicks, but I thought you were different.” She poked me in the chest with a very hard finger. “And then Jackie comes along and you’re just as fucking stupid as any other ball-brained asshole and you have to go and fuck her.”
“She helped,” I said, and it sounded horrible even to me.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, Dexter!” she said, and she was getting loud enough that a few technicians began to look up from their work and glance our way.
“Deborah, we’re supposed to be quiet in here,” I said. “Can we talk about this later?”
“There’s not going to be a later,” she said. “I don’t think I ever want to talk to you again.” And she slapped both hands into my chest, hard enough to make me take a step back, and then she turned and walked away to the far side of the set, pushing past the scurrying crew people and nearly knocking over two different lights.
I watched her go, wondering if she meant it. Never talk to me again? Me, her only sibling? Was it possible? I had never even thought of the possibility—had never for even a half moment considered that anything I did with Jackie could possibly affect my relationship with Debs. She was my sister—wasn’t that supposed to be a forever kind of thing? She had stayed my sister even when she discovered my wicked true self. As I understood things, what I did on my Special Nights was considered to be far more socially unacceptable than what I had done with Jackie.
And yet Deborah had instantly flown into high, possibly permanent dudgeon, just because I had dented a few trifling marriage vows, mere ritual words, mumbled in a meaningless rite in front of a hypothetical deity—and now she would never speak to me again?
I have said many times that I do not understand human behavior—but I had always paid Deborah the compliment of excluding her from mere humanity. She was above the routine idiocy of the rat pack, with one foot on the Olympian heights I occupied. And yet here she was, acting just as foolish and fallible as any reality-show-watching couch potato. Never again speak to me, just because I had done something human for once? It couldn’t be.
I looked across the set to where she stood, back turned to me. Even from this distance I could see the angry tightness in her shoulders, and she did not loosen up nor look toward me. She looked like she might really be angry enough to carry out her threat—but why? Why would such a small indiscretion spark her to such a massive reaction? How did my tryst with Jackie touch Deborah?
And why did the thought of Life Without Debs make me feel so hollow?
TWENTY-NINE
SADLY ENOUGH, DEBORAH DID NOT RELENT. SHE AVOIDED ME for the next two days, which took a certain amount of work on her part, since both of us spent twelve hours each of those days on the same soundstage. It was a relatively small space, and the areas where we were allowed to loiter were even smaller, but somehow she managed to find a way to make sure that my offensive shadow never fell across her righteous one. I had thought that a few hours of actual thought would calm her down and remind her that I was her only living family, but it didn’t happen. And when I tried to speak to her, she stalked away without even a glance in my direction. If I even leaned toward her from across the room, she would stomp off, as far away from me as she could get without leaving the building.
And after a while, my ex-sister’s behavior began to make me mad. Who was she to judge me, and why should I care if she did? She wanted to fling me from her life? Fine, consider me flung. It was no loss to me—we weren’t really related anyway, not by blood, which is really all that matters. We had grown up in the same house, but I knew of no law stating that shared real estate was a tie that binds. What did it matter if we never spoke again? Speaking is overrated, a waste of time and energy when there were more important things to do—like sampling the pastelitas on the food table.
In any case, I had already left Deborah’s tiny, morally constricted, hard-knocks world, and entered a new and better one. I was now flying in Jackie’s lightly scented orbit, with fresh flowers and chocolates on the pillows, and I liked it a lot more than I had ever liked serving as Deborah’s punching bag.
Debs wanted no more to do with me? So be it. One less messy and annoying tie to a life I was eager to leave behind.
Besides, I had work to do. I was in three scenes as Ben Webster, Forensics Whiz, and in two of them I had actual words to say. Not many of them, of course, but they were important enough to include in the script, and I felt I should give them my all. So I flung myself into the brutally hard work of remembering the twenty-two words I had to say in front of the camera—and to be fair, just remembering them was not enough. They had to come at the right time, and in the right order, and they had to be said in a way that was convincing and interesting. Acting really is much harder than most people imagine, and I spent many long hours searching for just the right way to say, “The lab results are back.” I found eleven different inflections before settling on the best one.
Two long days on the set, and two more nights with Jackie, nights that seemed far too short. Our idle hours of sipping mojitos and watching the sun set were a distant memory now; after twelve hours on the set, Jackie was so tired that when we got back to the hotel, it was no more than a quick meal, a brief but intense period of studying the next day’s script, and then a shower. Of course, the shower was a mutual one, and lasted a little longer than usual. But then it was straight off to bed for a few hours of precious slumber, only occasionally interrupted by nonsleep activities.
No life is without its puzzles, and my new one was no exception. For starters, Robert seemed to be avoiding me. Maybe I had broken his sweet little heart, and maybe he caught it from Deborah, but there was no doubt about it. Like my sister, he fled from my very shadow. There were no more invitations to lunch, no more vapid questions about fingerprints. He made himself unavailable and unapproachable, spending his time either in his dressing room, “studying lines,” or off the set altogether, gone away to no one knew where.
Even Renny talked to me now and then, skillfully pulling a few compliments out of me about his Saturday-night performance. But Robert was elusive; if I passed him in the hall he would nod and hurry past before I could speak, and if I saw him grabbing a cup
of coffee, he would give me a quick and cheery hello, and then rush away still stirring his cup. I did not actually mind not speaking to him, but it was a little bit unsettling to have it be his decision, and it made me wonder whether I should change my mouthwash. But Jackie hadn’t complained, and she would certainly know better than Robert if I was suffering from Fetid Breath Syndrome.
It occurred to me that maybe Robert was avoiding me because of his animosity toward Jackie, and because I was so obviously with her now—and in fact, the last time he had really spoken to me was at the wardrobe room in the hotel, when he saw me arrive with Jackie. And then my kids had shown up, and we had all gone our separate ways, and of course he couldn’t confront me, point an angry finger at me, and accuse me of being straight. Whatever; I did not regret the way I had gone, even if Robert probably did.
Whatever his reasons, Robert stayed away, and that made it very difficult to give him technical advice. But I managed to contain my dismay somehow and still gather my share of pastelitas.
And for some other reason, those two days also went by without any progress in catching Kathy’s killer. It seemed impossible, at least to Anderson, but somehow he was no closer to finding his perp than he had been the day he was born. He was still convinced Kathy’s murder had been the work of the same killer, and so it was naturally hard to find any leads. I would have been very glad to lead him to Patrick, especially if I could leave them together underwater, but of course that would be against the rules: Being an Odious Dumbfuck did not make Anderson eligible for my Special Attention. Besides, Patrick did not kill Kathy. And since I really had no interest in finding out who did, I let Anderson flail around in his dull and ignorant fog. I hadn’t really liked Kathy, and it wasn’t my job to bring her killer to justice. And in any case, I was much too busy practicing my lines, and shooting my first two scenes.
My acting seemed to be reasonably well received. At any rate, nobody actually complained, and when I finished the first scene, the one where I told Jackie, “The lab results are back,” she gave me a hug.