Hide and Seek (18 page)
“Welcome,” said Suzanne Purcell, “to
Primrose
.”
I
COULD STAY with Will in Australia for only a week. Barry kept pleading with me to finish the new album, and eventually I had to agree to come back to work.
As my car pulled up to 1311 Broadway, I thought back to a storm-blown morning years before.
Look how far you've come
, I told myself, and I had to smile.
A singing star. Happily married. Occasionally a sex junkie. Not bad. And not the same unsure and frightened Maggie who came to Barry for a job, any job
.
Today, Barry popped out of his office to greet me. He brought
me
coffee. “Come across the street with me to the studio. I've been working on several arrangements for ‘Just Some Songs.’ Wait till you hear them.”
“Barry, I've got two new songs. From Australia.”
“The arrangements first, then I'll listen. You look great, Maggie. Still glowing. Marriage is obviously agreeing with you.”
“I'm happy, Barry. Really happy,” I told him. Of course, Barry would never admit that he might have been wrong about Will, or anything else, for that matter.
Once in the studio, it was business as usual between the two of us. Nothing had changed; we loved our work and the chance to be together. The tough challenge was to make each album—each
song
in each album—different and better. We didn't always succeed, but we always tried like hell.
The work went extremely well that day. I was pleased with Barry's arrangements (I almost always was, though I was far more critical than I had been when we first met); he loved one of my songs and liked the other. The album was going to be a very good one.
It was midafternoon by the time we knocked off, and I decided to do some shopping. A reward. A splurge. Then home to the kids. I was cooking tonight. Then we planned to watch
Forrest Gump
, on video. We'd seen it only six times already. Maybe I'd make Bubba's Shrimp for dinner. That would give Jennie a laugh.
I found a little doodad I wanted at Bergdorf Goodman and left the store a little after three-thirty. Fifth Avenue was filled with taxis, buses, the usual pedestrian parade. I didn't see my car and driver right away.
Then,
trouble
.
A TV camera suddenly surfaced like a submarine scope out of the street crowd. Two young bearded apes from Fox News jockeyed up to me. Bad-looking guys. Real neanderthals from the look of them.
“Maggie. Maggie Bradford,” one of them shouted. Instinctively, I moved away, desperately searching for my car.
“Maggie. Over here, Maggie. Is it true you and Will were having difficulties in Australia? Is that why you came home?”
I could hear the whirr of a camera. Pedestrians stopped to look at us.
Oh, damn these TV people
, I thought.
Get a life. Let me live mine
.
“No.” I was curt with them.
“We hear he's gotten real close to Suzanne Purcell. That's the buzz. Know anything about that?”
My stomach spasmed. “No.” Will and I knew there would be rumors about him and Suzanne. If there weren't, the studio would probably start them.
“So you didn't see this photograph?”
“No. No comment. Bye now. Nice sharing vicious rumors with you.”
I couldn't push through the crowd and get away from them.
Where was the car, for God's sake?
“The photograph, Maggie.” A pushy, little bald man from Channel Five was shoving a microphone in my face. “It was in all the papers. Will and Suzanne Purcell.
Very cozy
. You didn't see it?”
I shoved him aside, pushing him back into the cameraman. I saw my car finally, and I ran and shut myself inside.
It wasn't until we were gliding through the green woods near home that I began to relax.
The nerve of those insensitive bastards!
It wasn't the first time I had clashed with a reporter. It had happened in Rome and once in Los Angeles.
What happened to privacy?
I asked myself.
Who do they think they are?
I wished Will were home right now. In the car with me.
Oh, Will, forget about being a big movie star. Let's just disappear and be nobodies for the rest of our lives
.
Will and Suzanne. The picture. Could it possibly be true? No, I didn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. I felt that I knew Will by now. I was sure that I did. The picture was just more paparazzi crap. It wasn't the first, wouldn't be the last
.
In the car, I dismissed the thought. But it came back to me when I went to bed that night. It kept me awake through the witching hours, two and three in the morning.
Will and Suzanne Purcell
.
No
!
Damn the paparazzi anyway
.
T
HERE WERE NO paparazzi for this particular moment.
SCENE: Ellie's bathroom. Beautiful morning light everywhere. Ellie is soaking in a tin tub, covered with thick suds, occasionally brushing them aside so she can look at her stomach. North enters, looking concerned
.
CUT TO: Ellie's reaction. She looks at her husband with shame. North kneels next to the tub. He's not like most men. He understands the way his wife thinks
.
NORTH:
Why have you been avoiding me, Ellie? Ever since our baby, you won't let me come near you. This isn't the way we wanted it.
ELLIE:
’Cause I'm not pretty now. That's why. (She begins to cry.) I'm never going to be pretty again. That baby ruined my body. It's made me an old woman.
NORTH:
Nineteen isn't old. You're as pretty as ever. You're my beautiful wife. (He starts to brush away the mounds of suds.) You're Ellie, and that will never change.
ELLIE:
Don't! Please … oh North, please.
NORTH:
Hush. (He swipes away the suds, revealing her breasts.) See, you're very pretty. You're so pretty, I almost can't stand it.
ELLIE:
I'm swollen, like a suckling pig. I ache and I feel old, even if I'm not.
NORTH:
(Picking up a washcloth and tenderly caressing her body with it, his hand hidden by the suds as it goes beneath her breasts): Not here, you're not. Or here … Or especially here.
CUT TO: Ellie's reaction. She is obviously excited by his touch. She smiles, and the smile is beautiful. Ellie is as beautiful as North says she is
.
NORTH
(Continuing to caress): My beauty. My Ellie.
ELLIE
(Breathing hard): Am I still? Am I?
NORTH:
Yes, you are. You always will be. I told you that, and it will never change. Even when you do become an old woman.
CLOSE UP: Ellie and North kiss
, more and more passionately. Suddenly the room is extremely steamy.
CAMERA: Moves down to show the bathwater moving as North's hidden hand gets more and more agitated
.
“Cut!” Michael Lenox Caputo's voice knifed through the stillness of the scene. “Great take. Wrap it. I have to go masturbate now!”
Neither Will nor Suzanne Purcell stopped though. The technicians kept their cameras rolling, and would soon have film of the two stars that they could sell to any of the tabloid TV shows.
Will and Suzanne seemed to notice nothing around them. She had stepped out of the tub and, naked, unashamed, was laughing and pulling at his belt. He picked her up and, mouth on hers, in a kiss no patron of
Primrose
would ever see, carried her to his trailer. Will slammed the door behind him with his foot.
The werewolf of Perth
.
“
W
HAT HAPPENS NOW?” Will asked. Principal shooting on
Primrose
was finished; only editing and dubbing remained to be done.
He and Suzanne were walking together on the dusty plain. He hadn't meant to get involved, but as they say, shit happens. Suzanne was truly one of the most beautiful women in the world, and Will had always appreciated the very best.
“I go back to California, you become Mr. Maggie Bradford, just like you were.”
Will blinked. The words stung. “And what we had out here?” he asked Suzanne.
“We had some fine times, didn't we? You're good, Will. One of the best.”
“
One
of?” He snorted out a laugh. “You're beautiful
and
you're a comedienne.”
Suzanne laughed as well. “Yes, I have a brain, Will. Oh, sweetheart.
I've had
the best! Actors, other athletes, ski bums. But you are very good. No worry there.”
He could feel ancient demons. Roused from sleep, they began to claw upward, from the pit of his stomach to his brain. Jesus, he hated to lose. He couldn't bear failure.
“This picture will make me a star,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “Then I won't be ‘Mr. Maggie Bradford.’ ”
“I made you the star,” Suzanne Purcell said. “Don't forget that. You really shouldn't let this insane business get to you anyway. It can, you know.”
Destroy her
, he thought.
But not now. Take it easy, Will. Go slow. You learned your lesson in Rio
.
He kept silent. They turned back toward the hotel. “One last time?” he asked.
Suzanne grinned and reached for him. “Now that's the proper spirit. Your room or mine?”
“Yours,” he said. “We'll use your toys.”
Suzanne Purcell had no idea how she had gotten herself into this mess. She felt as though she were having an out-of-body experience.
The moment she'd stepped into her hotel room, Will had hit her from behind. Not that she could tell what had happened at first. She'd felt a hard wallop between her shoulder blades. Then the blue shag rug seemed to be rushing up at her face. She hit the floor hard, and lost consciousness.
And she awoke
like this
.
He'd tied her with jump ropes that she used as part of her exercise routine. He'd gagged her with her own bra, and more rope.
Then he'd put her in the bathtub
.
That was when it started to get bad, unbelievably bad.
He cut both her wrists and watched her blood flow into the tub and down the drain.
He just sat there and watched her bleed
.
Suzanne struggled wildly against the ropes, and made strange, muffled sounds.
She had tried to scream, but the gag was too tight. Finally, she decided to plead with Will—using her eyes.
“Oh, I see,” he finally spoke to her.
“Now you
want to talk things through. You probably even want to take back some of those nasty remarks you made outside? Am I right, Suzy? You see,
I have a brain too
.”
She nodded her head as best she could. She was losing a lot of blood, and she was starting to feel woozy—as if she might pass out.
“I know this isn't an authentic suicide, but it's like one. The next best thing,” Will said. “It's fascinating to watch someone die. You can't imagine. Your eyes are amazing to watch right now. About a thousand thoughts coursing through your brain, right? You can't believe that you, the great Suzanne Purcell, are about to die. It's too weird, right? Your life can't just end like this, right?
It's all in your eyes, Suzanne
. Extraordinary.”
Will suddenly stopped talking.
He just watched her—bleed. It was definitely like a suicide. Like his father's.
When Michael Caputo came to Suzanne's hotel the following morning, he wanted to wish her a safe trip home, and thought, maybe, he might get lucky. Suzanne didn't answer the house phone or respond to his knock.
He finally got the manager to open her door.
Drugs
, he thought.
Damn her. Why did nearly every beautiful woman have to be a head case?
He found Suzanne naked and badly cut, unconscious but still alive. She was handcuffed to the hotel bed. It would be half a year before she could act in another movie, and her close-ups would never be the same.
Suzanne swore to Caputo, and then to the police, that it hadn't been Will. She would say no more than that. She wouldn't press charges.
Not a word to anybody
.
He had scared her that badly. She believed that Will was capable of murder, of anything.
Dark Side of the Moon
I
AM NOT a murderer.
I never murdered anyone
. Or so I've begun to tell myself, over and over again.
As we entered the courthouse everyone was staring at me, and I couldn't catch my breath. I felt I must be going mad. Maybe I am.
Policemen from the prison, as well as my faithful cadre of expensive lawyers, had me surrounded, penned in, claustrophobic. I remembered how it had been in the crawl space under the house at West Point. All the horror stories seemed to be coming together.
It was pouring, and hundreds of people, mostly with black umbrellas, but a few with blue and red ones, had turned out to catch a glimpse of the so-called famous murderess.
It destroyed me to know that my children would see me like this—
in handcuffs, wearing my scarlet M
.
We marched into the courthouse and upstairs to a room where Judge Andrew Sussman was waiting. The judge was a large man, about six foot six, with a salt-and-pepper beard that he allowed to grow in wild and bushy. He was probably in his mid-forties, and reminded me of a rabbi. That was a good sign; it made me think that he would be just and fair. That was all I wanted.
Justice. Fairness. The American way, right?
Judge Sussman was holding the formal murder indictment in a solemn-looking black folder. My lawyers had told me what to expect—but I couldn't get used to it.
What in the name of God was I doing here? How could this be happening to me?
I wasn't the bad person in all of this—I was the victim. How could I be on trial for murder?
The press who would be covering the murder trial were already in the courtroom. Not one, but several artists were on hand to draw versions of the way I looked today. How goddamn
artistic
!