Make Believe

The question, hurled so brutally at her, stunned her.

She’d been sipping water, a gingerly movement she’d obviously appropriated from some Jean Harlow movie, but my words made her sputter. Water dribbled down the side of the glass, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes darkened, scared. For a second, she reached up to check on her puffed platinum hairdo, as though she feared it had collapsed like a surprised souffle.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“A guess, and not a very clever one, Liz. Someone visited Max that evening. You didn’t answer when Tony called you from the Paradise, which surprised him. No witness has come forward to the police, so far as I know, and, frankly, you’re one of the few players unaccounted for that evening. I had the feeling that Tony was suspicious when you weren’t home. As I say, a guess.”

She grinned. “A good one.”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing really to tell, though I don’t want anyone to know. I mean, like Max got killed right after that visit. So I can’t go to the police…”

I cut her off. “Of course, you can. You have to.”

She shook her head. “God, no. They’ll think I…”

“Tell me what you know. Liz.”

She sat back, folded her arms across her chest, glanced around the crowded room. She leaned in and seemed to be weighing her words, time for intimate confession. “I’m sick of it all, Miss Ferber. I’m sick of Tony. Of Ethan. Of Frank. All of them. I stayed too long at the fair, as they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve had it. You gotta know that I told Tony he had to get out of my place now that he’s lost that dumb job in the valley. Yeah, quite the job! A measly few dollars a week, lost on the ride back home. Drinks and poker. I mean, I sort of love the slob- I mean the old Tony who made me laugh, who bought me cheap trinkets on Sunset, who promised me the moon.” She sighed. “Before everything fell apart. The drinking. You know, I won’t allow that in my apartment. I don’t even wanna be around him then-like that night at Ava’s when we showed up there with Frank and Ava was having that cocktail party. I told them I didn’t wanna go. I know how those nights end, for God’s sake.”

“So he drinks at the Paradise.”

“Yeah, that sleazy gin mill.” She bit the corner of a nail. Red enamel flecked off. “You know, I started thinking about my life. My career. I was dumb enough to believe that Tony had some influence-with Frank and Ava. But they’re in their own pretty little worlds. Frank’s mean to me. Ava is sweet but only looking at Frank. Ethan thought I’d be good for Tony- he pushed the relationship on me, paid for everything. He planned it like a military operation. He didn’t know how to handle Tony-once Tony became this…you know, different guy. Get Tony out of his hair once and for all. But Ethan’s a jerk, too. ‘Are you going out looking like that?’ ‘Why would someone your size wear a dress like that?’ That’s how he talks to me. I know style, Miss Ferber. I got a chinchilla fall jacket with a velveteen collar. High style. Look at Ethan. Mr. Neat Freak…ooh ooh ooh, I got me a button loose. Help me! Ooh ooh, somebody scuffed my shoe.” She paused, out of breath.

“Don’t let people be mean to you, Liz.”

She nodded, eyes wide. “Anyway, I decided to back off, cut my losses, you know. Especially now. It’s annoying how one day you wake up and there it is slamming you in the face: time is going by, lickety-split, and I’m wasting it with a bunch of creeps. Tony is the dirt road to nowhere. I’d thought I’d get parts by now.”

“You got Max as your agent through Tony, right?”

She rolled her eyeballs and grunted. “That’s funny. I had this here agent-at least he had a card that said that-when I met Tony. Ethan introduced us. Max was Tony’s agent. Tony started out okay, a decent stand-up comic making fun of himself. Real likeable. He ain’t as stupid as…well, he lets on like he is. It made for a funny act onstage. But he got fat and drank and started wearing those sequined tuxedo jackets with wide lapels with bells and whistles all over them, and he practiced insulting old ladies in the grocery store. Real clever, no?”

The waitress placed our sandwiches on the table, poured coffee, so Liz stopped talking, watching her intently, waiting until she moved away. She spoke in a theatrical whisper. “Waitresses hear too much, Miss Ferber. They’re phonies. I don’t want to end up in the gossip sheets.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

She squinted at me. “I am with you. You’re famous.”

“Not in this restaurant.”

“Well, anyway, Max said some nasty things to me. I started hating him.”

I bristled. “Max could never be unkind.”

“Try going into business with him, lady.” She rolled her tongue out suddenly, like an anxious frog. “Lord, I shouldn’t speak bad of the dead, right?”

I shrugged. “I do it all the time. The dead are wonderful targets.”

Now her tongue rolled over her lower lip, the frog having captured the unsuspecting fly. “Not surprising to me. You got you some mouth.” She looked smug, happy with her put down.

“Go on, Liz. In a war of words, I…well, never mind.”

She leaned across the table, her pale gray eyes becoming dark marbles. “I just lied to you, Miss Ferber. Max wasn’t that bad. I mean, I used to get mad because he couldn’t find me no work. But then Max married Alice, and all hell broke out. World War Three. I mean, Tony went ballistic. Ethan couldn’t speak in complete sentences. I only met this holier-than-thou Lenny one time, but he was a grease ball, flashy suits and women and doling out those dollar bills to the dizzy boys. But suddenly everything had to change. Tony quit Max. So I did. It was a dumb move because it left me with nothing. But at the time I thought-well, Tony says Frank Sinatra is going to get him gigs. Why not me, too?”

“Was Ava around then?”

“Yeah, Ava was in the picture then. The first time we met she was real nice, which surprised the hell out of me. When Frank made fun of me, she rubbed my shoulder, like we were old girlfriends. I mean, you’d think she’d be a bitch.” She smirked. “I would if I was her. With that face. I used to be friends with a crew guy at Metro. He said she was common people. She’d eat lunch with the crew, not in her dressing room. So I thought, well, she’d help me. I wasn’t allowed to ask her. Ethan warned me-don’t you dare ask for a favor. Frank’ll go nuts.”

“Tell me about Frank.”

“What’s to tell?” Liz took a compact from her purse and checked her face. “Excuse me a sec, Miss Ferber.” She found a tube of lipstick and dabbed at her lower lip, then rolled her tongue over her lips. Satisfied, she sat back.

The waitress dropped dessert menus with us, and Liz deliberated with rapt concentration, her fingers pointing from one to the other, unable to decide. “The cheesecake,” she told the waitress. “You know, a big slice.” She checked her wristwatch. “I gotta watch the time, Miss Ferber.”

“Frank,” I repeated.

“A smug bastard. Treats me like I was a streetwalker. But then he treats all women that way, even his beloved Ava. He likes that about her. He’s got a voice and all, but so what?”

“I know. It’s amazing how the world makes excuses for people with talent or genius. The poor slob who plods along at his job is roundly upbraided for a minor mistake, while Einstein can routinely and carelessly spill his coffee on you and we’d find it harmless, if not an amusing lapse. A charming idiosyncrasy perhaps.”

Wide-eyed now. “What?”

“Do you think that he could kill anyone?”

The question stopped her cold. A giggle escaped her throat. She pointed a finger at me, a gun, while she mouthed the words: bang bang. “Anyone could. You could.” She gave me a creepy smile. “You probably have, Miss Ferber.”

I grinned. “I’ve been tempted.”

She laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.” She lit a cigarette as the waitress placed a slab of cheesecake before her.