A Knife to Remember

right.'

“That must have made him popular,' Shelley said.

“No, not popular, but he was right. And he was meticulous about being right. That's what made his reputation so great. If a person takes that kind of attention with little things, you know they'll never make big mistakes.”

Jane wasn't so sure she agreed with this, but didn't argue. Angela was obviously working at leading them off the scent and Jane wasn't to be deterred. 'So he was great with things, but not with people, you said?”

Angela looked defeated. 'Yeah.'

“And what had he done regarding you that you objected to?' Jane felt she was stabbing another pin into this beautiful butterfly. But having come this far, they couldn't release her before she confirmed their suspicions.

Angela looked down at her cup of cocoa, the marshmallows now melted down into a repulsive skin on the surface. 'He'd threaten people,' she said softly. 'He didn't say so exactly, but I could tell what he meant. He was such an overbearing turd when he wanted something.'

“But he wanted it for you, not himself,' Jane pointed out.

Angela laughed bitterly, looking ten years older than she had moments before. 'Don't kid yourself. Jake never did anything for anybody without a payoff in mind. He thought he'd do me a favor and I'd fall into bed with him. And in the meantime, half the cast and crew would have hated me for this goddamned 'favor' he was supposedly doing me. Some fucking favor!' she said, bursting into tears.

1 3

Jane patted Angela's hand absently while Angela cried it out. Shelley leaned over and whispered to Jane, 'Don't let her off the hook yet. Find out what he had over people.”

Jane whispered back, 'A little recess first.' Shelley nodded her agreement.

Angela was sniffling into a paper napkin. 'I'm — I'm sorry. I didn't mean to — I wasn't—'

“It's all right,' Jane said in her best motherly tone. 'We artists often wear our hearts and emotions very close to the surface.”

Angela clutched her hand gratefully. 'You do understand! I knew you would.'

“If you aren't in a scene this morning, what are you doing here?' Jane asked, shifting the subject.

Angela relaxed visibly. She sniffled a few more times and pulled herself together. 'I came to watch Miss Harwell do the crucial scene when Dora — that's the character's name — comes back years later and meets the man who betrayed her years before. It's a make-or-break scene any actress would kill for, but be terrified of. Very emotional. Calls for enormous restraint without actually pulling backand will take perfect timing. It's a long, complex scene with a lot of emotional shifts. I thought I might learn a lot from watching her. Whether she gets it right or wrong, there's bound to be a lesson in it.'

“Do you think she will get it right?”

Angela thought a while before answering. 'I don't know. She's done so many doggy films that she may have lost whatever magic she once had,' she finally replied. Now that the subject had turned from her, she had a surgical coldness regarding another's performance.

“Why do you think she made those films?' Jane asked. She wasn't fishing for anything in particular, just trolling for facts and impressions.

“Drugs, I guess,' Angela said. 'People do a lot of really stupid things for drugs. Not only to get their hands on the money they need, but because it makes their judgment real bad. Who knows? She might have actually thought they were good films.'

“She does a lot of drugs?' Shelley asked.

“Oh, not anymore!' Angela said. 'Not with that dragon woman on her case.'

“Olive Longabach? Wasn't that her name?' Jane asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I heard Miss Harwell went to one of those Betty Ford places and since then the keeper won't let her out of her sight. I think this is the first film she's made since they dried her out.'

“How do you suppose she got cast for such a good role? I'd have thought her career was pretty much dead,' Jane said, genuinely curious now.

“That's quite a mystery. Her and Cavagnari. You know he's never done anything but spaghetti westerns and some male adventure stuff. Made a ton of money on them. Big box office, but no respect. The critics think he's a joke. Everybody's wondering how he and Harwell got chosen for this movie. It would have been a great role for Glenn Close or Meryl Streep or even Jane Fonda, if she was still making movies. There are a lot of big box office stars of the right age who can still just barely pull off looking young enough for the early scenes. There was even gossip about Cavagnari really wanting Jennifer Fortin, but I guess he was so glad to get the job himself that he didn't dare push too hard for her.'

“Jennifer Fortin?' Shelley asked. 'Why is that name familiar?'

“Oh, Shelley. You know who she is. She's done a lot of little arty things and got an Oscar a year or two ago for that film about Catherine the Great that you and I went to see and liked so well.'

“Oh, yes! She was terrific!'

“This is very odd,' Jane said. 'Why not get one of those actresses for this role?”

Angela shrugged. 'Who knows?”

In the back of her mind, Jane sensed gears turning, but couldn't quite sense what it all meant. Still, she was sure it meant something. 'Just what kind of movie is this? We can't tell from back here.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth she suddenly remembered that she was supposedto be 'unofficially' involved in it, but apparently Angela was so interested in expounding her own theories that she didn't notice this gaffe.

“Arty and commercial both. Everybody's always looking for the perfect mix. You know, The Last Emperor, that kind of thing. Not that this is on that kind of scale and budget, but you know what I mean. Something the critics and the public will like. It almost never happens, but it might with this one. And if it's a success, Cavagnari and Harwell will both have it made. As long as the luck holds for Harwell…' she added.

This rang a faint bell in Jane's mind. 'Oh, yes. Somebody else said she'd been on bad luck sets. But nothing's gone wrong on this one, has it? Until Jake's death, I mean.'

“Only that girl getting sick and somebody at the studio got a burn from a light. But that's normal stuff,' Angela said. 'But Jake's death — well, that's really beyond bad luck, isn't it? I mean, somebody killed him. It wasn't just one of those things that happen for no reason. Now, about those scripts of yours—”

Recess was over.

“Who did Jake talk about you to… when he was trying to help you get that speaking part?' Jane asked before Angela could finish her own question.

“I don't know exactly,' Angela said. She was starting to get a bit truculent. 'George Abington, I think. Maybe Miss Harwell. Cavagnari. Possibly the producers. He hinted that he knew who they were. I don't know who else.' 'And what did he say to all these people?'

“Just that he thought I'd be good for the role that was left vacant.' Angela was verging on snappish now. Jane sensed she couldn't string her along much farther.

“No, I mean what 'pressure' was he applying to them?'

“I don't know! You don't think he'd have told me any of his secrets, do you?'

“No, I guess not,' Jane said mildly.

She asked Angela a few more innocuous questions to defuse the young woman's growing irritation, made a few vague half promises about keeping her in mind when she was working on the next script, then excused herself to go in the house and make an imaginary call to her agent.

As she expected, Shelley followed along a few minutes later. 'I wonder,' Shelley said, 'if she realized she was providing herself with the perfect motive for bumping off Jake?'

“I thought about that, too,' Jane said. 'By trying to help her, thereby getting her into his bed, he was wrecking her fledgling reputation in the business. If she's ambitious and greedy enough to fall for that ridiculous story about me being a famous writer, and put up with what we put her through just to suck up to me, she might have been ambitious enough to kill Jake to keep him from messing up her life.'

“—and was she telling us because she's dumb, because she's innocent, or because she's smart enough to