Deadly Dues (14 page)

I then realized everything had gone black. I couldn't hear much, either. There was something black around my head, like a really cut-rate, bargain-basement black babushka.

• • •

My fashion concerns diminished pretty rapidly when I realized that this babushka meant business. Fashion, shmashion—somebody was trying to smother me. The so-called babushka was tightening around my face. Somebody was pulling it around my neck and cutting off my breath.

I thrashed around, frantically trying to remember any self-defence moves I had learned in my past career. Damn, I had memorized all this stuff, but the moment the gig ended—gone!

Hey—knee to the groin! Time-honoured and politically incorrect ploy!

But how could I do this? The black thing over my head was pulling me backward, and I just knew I was going to have to see a physiotherapist or a chiropractor if I survived this (and I was not entirely sure I was going to, even though I am an optimist). I was beginning to slope downward, fighting the overwhelming need to just give in, stop breathing, stop fighting, and say hello to oblivion.

Nevertheless, the memory of a particularly wild
Darling, Detective
episode sent my heel zooming up at high speed into the personal areas of whoever was behind me, and hallelujah, it must have landed somewhere appropriate, because the knot around my neck loosened. I barely heard an anguished whimper, then a shuffle, then some limping out the door, as if a jungle creature were making a fast but inelegant exit.

I was alive.

But maybe only briefly. Where was Mitzi? Where were the stick-figure sales staff? How could they miss somebody being nearly garrotted on their side doorstep? Surely it wasn't all a plot against me, Lu, lovable dog-food pitcher? How much could people hate dog-food commercials? Not that much!

I crashed back through the door and landed on the lovely plush carpet. I pushed the black babushka off my face and tried to catch what was left of my breath.

Mitzi's pink slides landed beside my face. Her toes wiggled in annoyance.

“Oh Lu, how could you?”

I turned my face to look up at her, still gasping. I tried to get some words out, but the babushka garrote had left its memories around my throat.

“Aaargh . . .”

Mitzi looked down at me and shook her head.

“I told you to take it easy. If only you paced yourself like me. And what is that horrible thing around your neck? Have you been shopping at the dollar store again?”

• • •

When Mitzi dropped me off at the condo, I could tell she was feeling a little guilty. That red mark around my neck was a big sympathy grabber. We didn't call the police, because, having acted in so many bad (and occasionally decent) crime shows over the years, I knew from secondhand experience that a little roughing up counts for nothing in police terms. And, to be honest, I didn't want to attract any more attention to myself. Mitzi was solicitous and curious, but I also knew that she was mentally counting how many days it would be until the red marks faded, just in case—
ha ha
—somebody phoned with a gig for me.

I turned the key in my door, then felt a pang of panic as I realized Horatio wasn't thumping against the door. He had gone out on the town before, looking for girlie girl dogs who liked big handsome fluffy guys, but I didn't feel right about this. I needed him now. Where was he?

My message light was flashing and I hit the playback button with reluctance: Serial killer? Ghost of Stan? Or Mr. Size Twenty? Who could be leaving messages to haunt me?

The voice on the phone was none of those. It was my father, with my mother doing backup.

“Honey, how are you? Mona Shapiro, do you remember her? She was at your first birthday party. She has a lovely son and he lives in your neighbourhood. We gave her your number. She said he was so excited, since you used to be—” (I heard my mother jabbing him with her cigarette holder.) “—I mean, since you are a TV star, and so we thought that maybe . . .”

Although extremely intelligent and accomplished people (my father was an oil company executive before he retired, and my mother taught school before moonlighting as a champion bridge player), my parents manage to fall into the abyss of cliché when it comes to their Dora Darling daughter. They are proud of me, but despite my years, still hope the right man is just around the corner. I try to tell them the right man may or may not be around the corner, but I will continue to walk in my own shoes until then. Lots of high-minded phrases from me, and even more love and caring, however misdirected, from them.

I called them back, even though I was emitting a sort of death gurgle as I pushed the return call key.

“Honey, he wanted to make the call. He has no idea. What can I say?” I heard him crabbing at her in the background. Then I heard her put her hand over the phone and say to him in a muffled voice, “Jimmie, you're an idiot. You might as well tell her you want to set her up with an axe murderer.” Little did they know. I love my parents, and there was no way I was going to cause them unnecessary worry by telling them about the events of the past day. Plus, I couldn't handle the hysteria. I was hysterical enough.

Then she came back on the line. “Sweetie, I know you hate setups. So would I, if I were your age. But you have to give people a chance. Be open to adventure!”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, as I rummaged in the refrigerator.

“I told her about your cute licence plate, too. So if he saw your car, he'd know it was you. How many people drive around with a licence plate that says Bow Wow?”

Not many, I guessed. And I wouldn't be, either, except that it was a gift from Bow Wow Dog Food, and seemed like a good idea at the time.

“So you'll call Harry?”

I found a box of high-end chocolate truffles, pure cocoa, the sort of chocolate that sends you to the ceiling and back on the first bite.

“When I have a moment.” Which was my version of a little white lie, not to be confused with major big-business bad lies. After all, time is relative, and having “a moment” to do something can vary from person to person. I always have a moment to put on mascara, but not necessarily do I always have a moment to load the dishwasher.

I hung up the phone and opened the box. I had eaten the first half after a particularly disappointing audition. I now had the last half for my very own. Who was I going to share them with?

The first truffle was amazing. It might have been a few weeks past the prime of its life, but who cared? It was a truffle, rich and gorgeous, and an aristocrat among chocolates. It tasted better than a shoe—and, I was sure, was way better than a date with this Harry Shapiro.

I settled onto my sofa for a well deserved nap, ignoring the sombre autumn light filtering through the curtains.

When I opened my eyes, it was late afternoon. I looked at my watch. Time for dinner. Cereal or macaroni and cheese? Tough choice.

Should I get up? Option A: I might get mugged again. I might get murdered. Option B: Go to bed. Hide. Whimper pathetically. Never experience the joy and adventure of life again. This was very appealing. I had had enough joy and adventure for a few weeks, maybe a year, maybe even a lifetime. Although, as that self-pitying thought flitted across my mind, I remembered how much more fun it is to be alive, engaged and excited, no matter how gruesome the circumstances, as opposed to living a life of excruciating boredom. I might be mired in depression and poverty, but—hallelujah—I was still alive, in both my senses and my hopes.

I was old enough to know that some days you are just meant to nap and think about important things, like which thrift store put out the good stuff on this day of the week.

The phone rang. Damn.

“Lu!” Gretchen shrilled into the phone in her strange, high-pitched whisper. “Lu! Are you there?”

“Gretchen, do you have to scream?”

“I never scream.” She was affronted. I could tell by the different tone of her whisper.

And she was right. She never screamed. But her whispery voice had undiscovered, undocumented decibels that so far nobody had identified. I bet she could stop a charging elephant or a runaway bus with that whisper. Maybe even reach Horatio, wherever he was.

“Can you come over?”

Going to Gretchen's place was about number eighty-five on my list of desirable outings. That creepy house, the winged things that flew around (I know bats are good for the environment, but that doesn't mean I have to be best buddies with them), the general weirdness and the horrible compost she served as tea.

On the other hand, I had never spent much time at Gretchen's. Her parents, when they were alive, had discouraged guests. They were strange, rigid, right-wing religious folk who had frowned on her choice of career. She hadn't been allowed out of the house alone until she went to acting school (over their protests and threats of disinheritance of the fortune they had accumulated from the sale of oil rights on a farm they had long since abandoned), and even then she had a curfew. Whenever an unsuspecting suitor drove her home, he was always greeted by the sight of Mater and Pater standing grimly on the front lawn, with pitchforks in hand. No wonder that once they passed away, she threw off the enforced nunnery behaviour and started to have fun with whoever crossed her path. Not that Gretchen's relationships were ever fun. Just ask Geoff. You didn't need a degree in psychology to figure out that she was striking back at her dear departed prison guards by doing everything that they had condemned. Now that she lived in the castle of terror (
whoops,
heritage building) alone, very few people had seen the inside.

I felt sort of guilty when I thought about it. I had known Gretchen for years. People thought of us as best friends.
How strange,
I noted,
that I would say that instead of “we were best friends.”
That told me something about our relationship. I was fond of her. I cared about her. I hated that Stan had ruined her career. But I didn't really
know
her. She never shared details of her personal life. I knew her bedroom must have seen more traffic in the last year than mine had in the last decade, but I never saw her in public with any of her lovers.

She wasn't a person I would call when I needed an ear, a drink, a smile or a shoulder. I would go to Pete first, then Geoff. And always, Mitzi. I had civilian friends, too, but they were only good for the spiritual, existential stuff, which everybody has. For the really important stuff, like why you didn't get the role, or whether you had lost your talent, or for important advice on whether or not to cut your hair to improve your career, I went to Pete, Geoff, Mitzi and Jerome, who wasn't really a civilian, because he had been a makeup artist before he turned to academia. Pete and Geoff had helped me shoot the audition video that had landed me a callback for
Darling, Detective
. (Of course, I ensured that they both landed guest roles in the series.) Jerome had stepped in when the hairdressers on the Bow Wow shoot, over my protests, had tried to tame my adorable curls into a sleek bob. If I looked adorable to all those dog lovers, it was because of Jerome. Mitzi, no matter what terrible setbacks I encountered, insisted that I was absolutely the most brilliant talent she had ever met. (I suspected she told this to many of her clients, but I never told her to stop saying it.)

I heard myself say, “Right now?”

“I'm afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid to be alone.”

“We're all afraid to be alone sometimes.”

“Lu!” she moaned. “I need somebody. Now.” A pause. Then a thoroughly pathetic, “I thought I could count on you.”

“Of course you can,” was my Pavlovian response. I suppose it has something to do with my generation. When I grew up, nobody got cut up into little pieces on television on a nightly basis. Even in my teenaged circles, there was a constant sense of social responsibility. Now, years later, something in me always responds to a cry for help.

Which is why I was in my Sunfire, driving down Ellsworth and cutting a right onto Twenty-sixth Avenue, to get to Gretchen's by back streets and shortcuts before she turned hysterical. I had my cell phone on, and kept glancing at it anxiously, wondering what I would do if it rang and she screamed and I was still driving, and whether I would be liable if I crashed a car because I overheard a murder being committed. Who would be my character witnesses at the trial? And what would I wear? Would it help my career?

• • •

Gretchen opened the door before I had a chance to knock or hit her non-working vintage doorbell.

“Oh, Lu!”

She threw herself on me, her little teeth gnawing on my Jones New York jacket (four dollars, Salvation Army).

I tried to heave her away. She was ruining my jacket. And she was embarrassing me. Plus, she wasn't that good an actress.

“Gretchen! Get a grip!”

She stepped back and looked at me reproachfully. Her foyer was all dark wood and faded wallpaper. The stairs appeared to climb up to nowhere. Maybe the ghosts of dear old Mom and Dad were lurking at the top. The ceiling was high, and dust motes floated around in the light from the round window above our heads. She pushed back a tendril of blonde hair and looked terribly pathetic and birdlike.