Soap Opera Slaughters Read online

  Hilary drew me aside. “What happened? Where’s Lainie?”

  “Upstairs trying to find the phone number of Joanne’s pharmacist. I met him earlier.” Briefly I outlined my suspicions. Hilary listened intently, absorbing every detail but offering no comment one way or the other. Remarkable, I thought. Since when does Hilary soft-pedal a chance to play detective?

  Just then, Joseph T. Ames stormed into the business office, obviously trying to avoid a skinny youth in brown pullover, slacks and horn-rims trailing in his wake and waving a thin sheaf of papers at the older man.

  “Franklin, leave me alone,” the white-haired executive thundered. “I’ve got enough troubles without having you to deal with. Put that damn thing away, I’m not interested.”

  “Really? I’m sure they’d love to know that at Corporate.” The kid reminded me of early Roddy McDowall. His brown eyes, magnified by his spectacles, were cobra-cold; there was a supercilious slant to his mouth, and his voice matched the sneer.

  Ames shook a finger in Tommy Franklin’s. “Threaten me, junior, and I’ll boot your ass out of here so fast—”

  “Come off it,” the other interrupted, pointedly yawning. “I’m the only writer you’ve got left, you’re not about to fire me.” He shoved the batch of papers he was holding at the producer. “You saw Jess Brass’ column this morning. You damn well better take time out of your precious schedule to read this. I—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish. Ames snatched the papers away from him, growled that Franklin was probably Brass’ spy, then clumped into his private office, banging the door behind him.

  Franklin smirked smugly, waved the middle finger of one hand at Ames’ sanctum and sat down at one of the desks to await the producer’s verdict on the material he’d given him to read.

  Micki hung up, looked at me and said, “They’ll have a limo at the front entrance in five or ten minutes.” Inclining her head in the direction of her boss’ office, she asked, “Does he know yet?”

  “About Joanne? I doubt it.”

  Rolling her eyes ceilingward, Micki slowly, hopelessly shook her head as she approached the producer’s door.

  “Hey,” Franklin protested, “leave him alone, he’s busy with something important.”

  “Oh, shut up, Tommy,” she snapped. She rapped on the door of the ogre’s lair. Ames roared an order to go away. I motioned Micki aside.

  “Let me be the bearer of evil tidings.”

  “Be my guest,” she said, stepping back. I turned the knob and entered the den of the beast.

  The producer sat behind a huge walnut desk cluttered with show business memorabilia, trinkets and awards. The five pages the young writer pushed at him were spread out side by side before him.

  He glared up at me. “And just who the effing hell are you?”

  “Never mind. Joanne Carpenter’s sick.”

  He yelled for his assistant through the open door. Micki hurried through, stopping breathlessly beside me.

  “Is Carpenter on the sauce again?” Ames asked darkly.

  “I don’t know any of the details,” she replied.

  “Well, what am I paying you for? Find out! Call Zack whatsis.”

  “That’s what I was doing.”

  “What did Zack say?”

  “I didn’t reach Mack. I was trying to when—”

  “Well, go do it,” Ames cut in. “Why the effing hell are you wasting time in here?”

  Biting her lip to keep from answering, she stamped out, bumping into Tommy Franklin on his way in.

  “Who invited you?” Ames asked the writer. “Why don’t both of you get out of my office?” Then he wagged a finger at me and demanded to know what I knew about Joanne.

  “She says the prop medicine she drank made her sick.”

  “Actors!” Ames pronounced with great loathing, the corners of his mouth turning down as if he’d just sampled slop. “They blame everyone but themselves.”

  “Forget about her,” Tommy declared. “Read my ‘Bible.’”

  Ignoring him, the producer asked if I knew how far they’d run the scene before they had to stop the tape. I told him. It seemed to put him in a slightly better mood. Again he bawled through the door at his assistant.

  “What?” she yelled back.

  “Have you got Zack on the line yet?”

  I’m just talking to Mack!

  “Punch him up on 4402, and give him to me.” Ames grabbed his telephone and without preamble fired a rapid succession of brusque questions at the hapless floor director on the other end. I pitied Mack, ditto Micki, ditto anyone who had to work for J. T. Ames, with the possible exceptions of Florence and Tommy Franklin. (What had Lara called the young writer? “L’enfant terrible—literally—of the midday mellers.” Or did Hilary say that? No, she’d just referred to him as a “snotty twerp,” hardly up to my old friend’s usual level of eponymous invective.)

  Franklin slung one leg over the edge of Ames’ desk and perched there, playing impatiently with some of the producer’s paraphernalia. He seemed especially enamored of an Emmy statuette. He hefted it in one hand as if it were an Indian club, possibly rehearsing for the day when he’d be able to wave his own in the air.

  Just then, Hilary called my name. Going to the door, I saw her in the outer office with her cousin, who was holding Joanne’s purse. I joined them, took it from Lara and rummaged through the bag till I found the plastic pill container of Antabuse. Its label had the pharmacy phone number typed on it.

  “Manny? We just met. I’m Joanne Carpenter’s friend.”

  “I remember. The ‘just a friend’ boyfriend. What can I do you out of?”

  “Manny, brace yourself. I think Joanne’s having an Antabuse attack.”

  “Gevalt!

  “What should I do for her?”

  “First aid? Treat her for shock. Cover her. Loosen any restraints.”

  “I did both. What else?”

  “Nothing. It’s too complicated. Get her to a doctor.”

  “There’s a car ready to run her to Polyclinic.”

  “Good, I’ll call ahead so they’ll be expecting her. Just don’t panic.”

  “Then why do you sound so worried?”

  “Gene, I won’t kid you. How she does depends on her general physical condition. If she’s basically healthy, she should weather it, but if she’s got heart trouble or any of a whole batch of other complaints, it could be an enormous strain on her system. Just get her to the hospital stat.”

  As I hung up, Ames emerged from his office.

  “Zack says we’re okay,” he told his assistant. “We can cut into the tape and save the scene.” Ignoring four sets of angry stares, the producer shouted for Tommy Franklin.

  The writer put down Ames’ Emmy and sauntered into the outer room. “Well?” he asked in his usual insolent tone. “Are you going to read it or not?”

  “I glanced,” the white-haired producer said. “The second paragraph needs fixing.”

  “You’re kidding! That’s the one I thought you’d especially like!”

  “I do. I just can’t show it to—” Ames stopped himself and looked furtively in our direction. “Franklin, we’ll talk later. Go see Zack on set, show him how to shoot around Carpenter. The bitch has the DTs again.”

  Hilary, Lara and I left then, which was lucky for Ames’ neck, which I was about to break.

  “Second paragraph of what?” Lara asked suspiciously as we hurried up the stairs.

  “Franklin submitted a new ‘Bible,’” I explained. “I’ve got a hunch there’s something in it Ames doesn’t want your friend Florence to see.”

  NEITHER JOANNE NOR HARRY were in her dressing room. Donald Bannister, the elderly character actor, sat at the makeup table chewing on the stem of his unlit pipe.

  “DB, where is she?” Lara nervously demanded. “I left her here with Harry!”

  “Lass, calm down.” Bannister gazed at us over his thick spectacles. “She got sick to her stomach again and he ca
rried her to the rest room.”

  “Where is it?” I asked. “The limousine should be ready by now.”

  “It’s around the corner,” said Lara. “Come on.” She darted from the room with me and Hilary close behind her. The old man followed. We turned right a few yards down the corridor and entered another hall perpendicular to the first Not far off, Harry stood alone outside one of the doors.

  “Harry,” I yelled, hurrying up to him, “you shouldn’t have left her by herself!”

  “I didn’t. She’s inside with Florence.”

  Lara gasped. I uttered a terse oath and told her to get inside fast, but she was already on her way, Hilary right behind.

  Harry winced, immediately grasping the situation. Six months with Hilary must have honed his intelligence. “Damn it, Gene, how was I supposed to know? I thought it was a good idea when Florence offered. It is a ladies’ room.”

  “Not your fault,” I told him, “but it’s like putting a rabbit in the protective custody of a wolf.”

  Just then, Bannister—whose age had caused him to lag behind—joined us and motioned for me to step aside with him. I did.

  “What’s up?”

  “Laddie,” he said sotto voce, “is this likely to involve the police?”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “I don’t like to get anyone in trouble... He paused meaningfully.

  “Joanne might be in critical condition,” I said. “If you know something, you’d better tell me.”

  “All right,” he nodded grimly. “I saw somebody on the hospital set fooling around with the medicine bottle.”

  “Who?”

  “Kit Yerby.”

  My head began to spin in forty directions at once, but before I could pin him down on details, the rest room door opened and Lara emerged, looking stunned. She held the door while Hilary supported Joanne, now wearing nothing over her panties and brassiere but the skimpy hospital bedgown she got from Wardrobe. She looked a lot worse: eyes squeezed shut, flushed, body soaked with sweat, her breathing rapid. She held one hand pressed against her chest, the other on her stomach, and stumbled and tottered under Hilary’s guiding arm. Behind her, last out of the rest room, came Florence McKinley, carrying the tan quilt. I took it from her and wrapped it around the sick girl.

  Hilary told Harry to help Joanne downstairs. “By now,” she said, “there ought to be a limo waiting for her at the front entrance.” Bannister remained behind with McKinley, while I assisted Harry in carrying the actress down several flights of stairs while Hilary and Lara hurried on ahead and opened doors for us. Once we reached the ground level, Harry said he could manage Joanne the rest of the way. He led us through the halls of WBS, ignoring stares and questions from the curious. I followed him, with Hilary and Lara on either side of me.

  Hilary murmured that she’d found Florence in the rest room taunting Joanne as she lay on the floor, cheek against the cold tiles. Lara said nothing. Glancing at her, I saw shock in her that her friend Flo could behave so callously.

  “Two minutes ago,” I told Hilary, “I would’ve said McKinley was responsible for this, or at least considered it the most probable explanation.”

  “But now?”

  I told her what Donald Bannister said about seeing Kit Yerby tampering with the medicine bottle.

  “Kit was fired,” Hilary reminded me. “She’s working now at “Ryan’s Hope. ””

  “Well,” I argued, “maybe she sneaked into WBS through a side door.”

  “But didn’t Kit play a nurse on this show?” Hilary asked. I said yes. “Then isn’t it more probable, Gene, that someone borrowed her costume and Bannister mistook the impersonator for Kit?”

  I nodded. Hilary was probably right. The elderly actor had been on vacation, hadn’t even heard about Niven’s death, so he very likely didn’t know Kit was no longer in the cast. Maybe he just glimpsed a woman in white hospital uniform and assumed it was the actress he knew. I remembered the costume room Joanne took me to was virtually unattended, anyone could walk in and take any outfit.

  It was looking worse for McKinley. She’d been lurking in the vicinity of the hospital set. I knew I ought to call up Lou Betterman, but was reluctant to get Lara’s friend Flo in further difficulty till I was absolutely certain.

  I glanced over at Hilary. Her attitude was puzzling me nearly as much as the “Riverday” situation. Here she was, in the middle of an investigation, a circumstance that normally set her adrenaline pumping, but she seemed cool and detached. I knew she’d surmised something was going on between me and Lara, but in the past, purely personal considerations wouldn’t stop her from playing detective. I just couldn’t flatter myself that I’d grown to mean that much to the lady.

  Could I?

  LARA COULDN’T LEAVE THE studio, she still had one more scene to do and, since the shooting schedule was being rearranged to work around Joanne, she had no idea when Mack might want to tape her and Florence, so she stayed behind with Hilary.

  Harry was done for the day, though, so he came with me and Joanne as the limousine rounded the corner of Twelfth Avenue and skirted the western edge of Manhattan until it could turn into an eastbound street. We didn’t have far to go, but the city’s one-way traffic system made a straight-line route to Polyclinic impossible.

  Joanne’s breathing was a little less rapid at the moment, but she complained of a tightness in her chest and throbbing in her head and neck. As she leaned against Harry’s shoulder, I gently pushed away a strand of hair from her eyes.

  “Joanne,” I asked, “have you ever had an Antabuse attack before?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “I talked to Manny.”

  “Who?”

  “Your druggist friend Manny. He says you’ll be fine,” I exaggerated. “Basically, you’re in good health, aren’t you?”

  She winced from a sudden pang. “What?”

  “Your health. Generally good?”

  She nodded weakly.

  “No serious complaints?”

  “S-such as?”

  I was reluctant to specify, lest it cause additional stress, but we’d be in Emergency soon, and they’d want to know. “Look, Joanne, have you ever been diagnosed as having heart trouble?”

  She looked at me oddly, but then another pain took her and she couldn’t keep her mind on anything else. When she finally turned to me again, Joanne looked puzzled. Her pupils were dilated, and she squinted, probably unable to focus. She murmured something that was too thick to distinguish, though it might have been “Eddie.” I repeated my question.

  A furrow of concentration. “No, no heart trouble. Who—?”

  “Who what?”

  “Somebody else a—” The rest of the sentence was canceled by a cramp that doubled her up. I hated to keep pestering her with questions, but once she got to Polyclinic, I doubted anyone’d have a chance for hours.

  “You were saying something about somebody else?”

  “Y-yes. Somebody else asked me the same thing.”

  “About having heart trouble?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Who?

  But she was too groggy to bring it to mind.

  Manny was already waiting for us at Polyclinic. With flowers for Joanne. She disappeared into another section of the Emergency ward, and the three of us—me, Manny and Harry-waited in tense silence in the visiting area. After what seemed like hours, a burly giant with bristling black beard and mustache stepped into the room and introduced himself as the resident on duty. He seemed slightly amused when three whey-faced young men converged on him.

  “All of you relax,” the physician told us, “we’ve got the reaction under control, Ms. Carpenter’s going to be fine. Fortunately, she’s got a good, strong physique.”

  Clutching his bouquet, Manny asked hopefully whether he could see her for a minute.

  “Better make it this evening,” the resident smiled, “she’s already asleep. An attack like this usually exhausts the patient You could l
eave the flowers with the nurse on duty.”

  I asked whether they’d have to monitor Joanne’s condition, just in case.

  “As a matter of course, certainly, but there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll keep her here overnight, and she should be able to go home tomorrow.” Up to that moment, the physician exuded absolute confidence, but a sudden change came over his and he seemed all at once unsure of himself. “There’s just one thing—” he began, then hesitated, afraid to continue.

  “What?” Manny anxiously asked.

  “When she’s feeling better...do you think she’d mind signing a few autographs?”

  WE PARTED AT NINTH Avenue, Manny continuing west on Fiftieth, while Harry and I walked past the decaying storefronts and sun-flaked churches and cantinas lining Ninth. After I made a brief stop in a Woolworth’s to pick up a few articles of clothing, a toothbrush and shaving things (in case I spent another night at Lara’s), we entered a coffee shop a few blocks further north.

  While we waited for our sandwiches, I told Harry about DB supposedly seeing Kit Yerby meddling with the medicine. “It probably wasn’t her,” I observed, “but she should be spoken with, anyway. Want to?”

  “Want to what?”

  “Talk to Kit for me?”

  He gave me a sharp look. “Since when do I have your vote of confidence?”

  I shrugged. “You’ve worked with Hilary long enough to pick up on some of her techniques. I assume you know her fairly well by now.”

  “Not half as well as you seem to think.”

  “Really? How about that time in Washington?”

  “Oh, Christ, are you still brooding about that?” He sucked in enough air to declaim thirty lines of Shakespeare on one breath, but the arrival of the waitress with our food deflated him.