grabbed once or twice before the good guy went back to Arleen Whalen or Joan Leslie. She would have to be at least fifty. Twelve years older than he was. Or maybe a little more.
He didn't want to sound dumb. Like the president of a fan club. Miss Shaw, I think I saw every picture you were ever in.
She said, without looking at him, 'You don't happen to have a cigarette, do you?'
It was her voice. Soft but husky, with that relaxed, off-hand tone. A little like Patricia Neal's voice. Jean Shaw reminded him a little of Patricia Neal, except Jean Shaw was more the mystery-woman type. In movies you saw Jean Shaw at night, hardly ever outside during the day. Jean Shaw could not have played that part in Hud Patricia Neal played. Still, they were somewhat alike.
'I can get you a pack,' LaBrava said. He remembered the way she held a cigarette and the way she would stab it into an ashtray, one stab, and leave it.
'Maury said he'll bring some. We'll see.'
'I understand you're old friends.'
'We were. It remains to be seen if we still are. I don't know what I'm suppose to do here, besides stare at the ocean.' She came away from the window to the sofa, finally looking at him as she said, 'I can do that at home. I think it's the same ocean I've been looking at for the past... I don't know, round it off, say a hundred years.'
Dramatic. But not too. With that soft husky sound, her trademark.
He said, 'You were always staring at the ocean in Deadfall. I thought maybe it was like your conscience bothering you. Wondering where the guy was out there, in the water.'
Jean Shaw was seated now, with the Miami Herald on her lap. She brought a pair of round, wire-framed glasses out of the robe and slipped them on. 'That was Nightshade.'
'You sound just like her, the part you played.'
'Why wouldn't I?'
'I think in Deadfall you lured the guy out on the bridge. You were having an affair, then you tried to blackmail him... In Nightshade you poisoned your husband.'
She hesitated, looking up at him, and said very slowly, 'You know, I think you're right. Who was the guy in the bridge picture?'
'Robert Mitchum.'
'Yes, you're right. Mitchum was in Deadfall. Let me think. Gig Young was in Nightshade.'
'He was the insurance investigator,' LaBrava said. 'But I think he grew flowers, too, as a hobby.'
'Everybody in the picture grew flowers. The dialogue, at times it sounded like we were reading seed catalogues.' She began looking at the front page of the Herald. Within a few moments her eyes raised to him again.
'You remember those pictures?'
'I bet I've seen every picture you were in.' There. It didn't sound too bad. She was still looking at him.
She said, 'Really?' and slipped her glasses off to study him, maybe wondering if he was putting her on. 'On television? The late show?'
'No, in movie theaters, the first time.' He didn't want to get into ages, how old he had been, and said, 'Then I saw some of them again later. I'm pretty sure about Deadfall and Nightshade because I saw 'em both in Independence, Missouri, just last year.'
'What were you doing in Independence, Missouri?' With that quiet, easy delivery.
'It's a long story--I'll tell you sometime if you want. What I could never figure out was why you never ended up with the guy in the movie, the star.'
She said, 'I was the spider woman, why do you think? My role was to come between the lead and the professional virgin. But in the end he goes back to little June Allyson and I say, 'Swell.' If I'm not dead.'
'In Deadfall,' LaBrava said, 'I remember I kept thinking if I was Robert Mitchum I still would've gone for you instead of the guy's wife, the widow.'
'But I was in on the murder. I lured what's his name out on the bridge. Was it Tom Drake?'
'It might've been. The thing is, your part was always a downer. At least once in a while you should've ended up with the star.'
'You can't have it both ways. I played Woman as Destroyer, and that gave me the lines. And I'd rather have the lines any day than end up with the star.'
'Yeah, I can understand that.'
'Someone said that the character I played never felt for a moment that love could overcome greed. The only time, I think, I was ever in a kitchen was in Nightshade, to make the cookies. You remember the kitchen, the mess? That was the tip-off I'm putting belladonna in the cookie batter. Good wives and virgins keep their kitchens neat.'
'It was a nice touch,' LaBrava said. 'I remember he takes the cookies and a glass of milk out to the greenhouse and practically wipes out all of his plants in the death scene, grabbing something to hold onto. Gig Young was good in that. Another one, Obituary, I remember the opening scene was in a cemetery.'
She looked up as he said it and stared at him for a moment. 'When did you see Obituary?'
'Long time ago. I remember the opening and I remember, I think Henry Silva was in it, he was your boyfriend.'
She was still watching him. She seemed mildly amazed.
'You were married to a distinguished looking gray-haired guy. I can sorta picture him, but I don't remember his name.'
'Go on.'
'And I remember--I don't know if it was that picture or another one--you shot the bad guy. He looks at the blood on his hand, looks down at his shirt. He still can't believe it. But I don't remember what it was about. I can't think who the detective was either, I mean in Obituary. It wasn't Robert Mitchum, was it?'
She shook her head, thoughtful. 'I'm not sure myself who was in it.'
'He seems like a nice guy. Robert Mitchum.'
She said, 'I haven't seen him in years. I think the last time was at Harry Cohn's funeral.' She paused and said, 'Now there was a rotten son of a bitch, Harry Cohn, but I loved him. He ran Columbia. God, did he run it.' She looked up at LaBrava. 'I haven't been interviewed in years, either.'
'Is that what this is like?'
'It reminds me. Sitting in a hotel room in a bathrobe, doing the tour. Harry would advise you how to act. 'Be polite, don't say shit, keep your fucking knees together and don't accept any drink offers from reporters--all they want is to get in your pants.' Where in the hell is Maurice?'
LaBrava glanced toward the door. 'He said he'd be right back.'
There was a silence. He had been in the presence of political celebrities and world figures. He had stood alone, from a few seconds to a few minutes, with Jimmy Carter, Nancy Reagan, George Bush's wife Barbara, Rosalynn Carter and Amy, not Sadat but Menachem Begin at Camp David, Teddy Kennedy a number of times, nameless Congressmen, Tip O'Neill was one, Fidel Castro in New York, Bob Hope... but he had never felt as aware of himself as he did now, in front of Jean Shaw in her blue bathrobe.
'I was trying to think,' LaBrava said, 'what your last movie was.'
She looked up from the paper. 'Let's see, I made Let It Ride at Columbia. Went to RKO for one called Moon Dance. A disaster...'
'The insane asylum.'
'I quit right after that. I tested for a picture that was shot right around here, a lot of it at the Cardozo Hotel. I thought sure I was going to get the part. Rich widow professional virgin, my first good girl. But they gave it to Eleanor Parker. It didn't turn out to be that much of a part.'
'Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson,' LaBrava said, impressing the movie star.
She said, 'That's right, A Hole in the Head. Frank Capra, his first picture in I think seven years. I really wanted to work with him. I even came here on my own to find out what rich Miami Beach widows were like.'
'I think you would've been too young.'
'That's why Frank gave it to Eleanor Parker. Before that, half the scripts I read had Jane Greer's prints all over them.' She said then, 'No, the last one wasn't Moon Dance. I went back to Columbia-- oh my God, yeah--to do Treasure of the Aztecs.'
