Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery (5 page)

O’Neil, not much of a negotiator, reopened the talks. “Look, let’s keep calm. No one is saying you and your daughter ought to be banned from future red carpets, but…”

Five minutes ago I would’ve half-thought this O’Neil guy was cute, but if this was some new twenty-first-century form of flirting, give me the old-school flowers and vodka shooters.

“We’ve got to go,” I said, taking Drew by the hand.

“Yes,” said Malulu, relieved.

“Yip,” added Killer.

“Sorry, but I can’t let you leave until you hand over the videotape,” O’Neil said to Danny.

“Hey, no need to get all threatening or anything,” Danny said. “See, there isn’t any videotape.”

“What?” we all said at once.

“Yeah, well…” Danny tugged on his baseball cap. “My camera doesn’t use tape anymore. When I’m rolling, I’m just sending a live feed back to the truck. The director is in the booth there and decides what shots he wants, and the technical director pushes the buttons. It’s a live show.”

I knew that Will Beckerman and crew were working in our portable TV control room in a large trailer parked on a side street a block away, where they received the live shots from all the roving cameramen plus the interviews shot by the fixed cameras covering Drew and me. What I didn’t know was that they edited the
show as it went directly to the viewers watching. Who can keep up with the technical details? Apparently, there was no film or videotape in our camera.

“No tape?” O’Neil said, tapping the large camera mounted on a tripod next to Danny, unconvinced.

“Not here.” Danny wagged his head side to side.

“Well, then where?” O’Neil asked, still not losing patience.

“They can record a tape from the live mix.”

“They?”

“The guys in the truck.”

“You didn’t think you should’ve mentioned that a little earlier?” asked O’Neil, disgusted.

Alas, O’Neil was learning what all of us already knew: Danny was a nice steady camera operator, but he’d spent a few too many lost years listening to Santana and smoking pot. O’Neil just shook his head and headed away toward the production truck.

“That’s good luck for us,” I said, smiling again. “Glam will never give up that tape.”

“That interview with Halsey is gold!” crowed Cindy, who had finally been cleared by security to enter our secured area and had completely missed our tense standoff. “Did I deliver or did I deliver?” she asked, beaming. No one spoke. “Okay, I get it. A little shaky on Joaquin Phoenix, yes, I know, but then I pulled through in the clutch, baby!”

“Not bad,” I told her. “I doubt dear Sam Rubin will ever return my calls again, but not bad. However, it was Drew who got us that interview.”

Danny looked mournful. “Max, we have big problems.”

“What?”

“I don’t think they ever taped Halsey’s spot. You were going way, way over our time.”

“I realize that,” I said, exasperated. I was wearing a $140,000 watch, wasn’t I?

Drew jumped in, looking upset. “Mom couldn’t exactly get a coherent word out of Halsey.”

Danny looked sick. “See, the thing of it is, Max, we were cut off.”

“What?”

“Glam and Will in the truck. They cut the feed when we started to go over time.”

“Cut the feed?” I screamed. “What the fuck are you talking about? You mean no one saw my interview?” A bit of dead leaf fell off the butt of my gown, fluttering to the carpet.

Danny said, “I don’t think so. My camera went dead, Max. Will must have pulled the plug.”

“That idiot!” I shouted. I felt the back of my neck getting as red as the carpet!

“Come on, Max. You know the rules,” Danny said in a don’t-blame-me voice. “We’re never allowed to spill over into the Oscars. We’re contractually obligated to stop our show so there’s no overlap when the real Oscar telecast begins on the network.”

“Of course I know that,” I yelled. But that rule just pertained to entertainment, and Halsey’s collapse, right here, right now, had been
news
. After all these years in the business, I was pretty sure news trumped all. What the whole world apparently wanted was to look hard and close at whatever had happened to that poor young woman, including watching her fabulous collapse in a heap in front of us. And what I wanted was to simply save my
show for one more year. And all that could have been accomplished if they hadn’t turned off the camera.

“Oh, Mom,” Drew said, her face ashen.

“No,” I yelled. “No, no, no! Those idiots! Didn’t they understand? We had
news
tonight! Look, I have a big heart. I would never wish an alcoholic relapse on anyone, but if Halsey chose to have one on live television, on my red carpet, it’s goddamned news.” I shook my head in disbelief. “We had the most stunning interview in the history of interviews, and they blew it. We had Halsey Hamilton, live.”

In a nanosecond the dreams evaporated: I saw a stack of bills. My old coat. A little house in the South Bronx.

“But you had her, Max,” said Cindy, throwing her note cards down on the ground, kicking off her high heels, still proud. “Whether you used her or not, you had her, and I got her.”

“Mom,” Drew said, her voice hushed. “Maybe it’s best that we let Halsey have some privacy after all.”

“Honey, don’t you think I wish she’d been sober? But the fact is America’s troubled sweetheart was breaking down, the poor, unhappy child, on live TV, and our director, that idiot, that jerk, that ignoramus, he actually cut us off? I’m gonna kill myself.”

“Mom, calm down. Calm down,” Drew said.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. America lost its only chance to view what really happened to Halsey just as she collapsed. And those idiots in the booth lost what would have been their biggest ratings ever.”

Danny shook his head. “No red light, no feed. And no feed, no backup videotape in the truck.”

I shook my head in utter frustration.

Drew started to cry.

“It’s okay,” I said, patting her hand. My dear girl knew what a bitter blow this network blunder had turned into. I pinched her cheek and smiled. “We’ve had bigger idiots do stupider things, haven’t we? And we’ve always survived.” I looked at my little group of staff, hoping they understood. “I’m just getting that awful feeling I sometimes get.”

“Indigestion?” asked Malulu.

“No.”

“Restless leg syndrome?” Malulu guessed.

“No!”

“What feeling, Mom?” Drew asked.

“About what happened to Halsey.”

Drew nodded. “Me too. After all she did to get clean and sober, what could have gotten into Halsey?”

“You saw,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “Another misstep.”

“But drinking? On the night of the Oscars? Even Halsey would never ever do anything that foolish,” Drew said. “I was so sure of it.”

“People fool us,” I said. Then I thought of that poor girl, probably in a hospital emergency room, cold and all alone when she came to. Or maybe cold and all alone and just…getting colder.

“Drewie, I was just wondering. Do you know where Burke is tonight?”

“What?” Her delicate chin turned sharply. “What about Burke?”

“This is not a big thing. I’m only asking. When you and Burke broke up this last time, didn’t you tell me he was going away?”

“Don’t get on Burke’s case, of all things, Mother. He just took some time to sort out his issues.”

“What issues? He’s a good-looking boy with not enough talent for making a living.”

“Why are you starting on Burke, again?”

“Something came up. Actually, I need to talk to him.”

“Really?” Drew brightened a little.

Did she think I wanted to talk him into getting back together with her? Oh, my God, no!

She added, “He may be at one of the Oscar after-parties.”

“Perfect.” Drew and I try to get to most of the big studio parties. With our names on those precious guest lists at the door, we go in, circle the room once, sip a bit of wine, and connect with as many stars as we can. Once you’ve met socially, it’s hard for them not to talk to you on the carpet. “Which party?”

Drew gave me a small shrug.
“Vanity Fair.”

I cursed. That was the one party, out of all the glamorous parties, that never invited us. Each year we get invitations from Sony, Warner Bros., Miramax, and Elton John. But the puffed-up powers at
Vanity Fair
cannot be coaxed or bribed to put our names on their list, claiming that, although we are noted entertainers, for this one night we’re competing press.

“Vanity Fair?”
I snarled, my eyebrow lifting. “That piece of yellow journalism?”

“Mom,” Drew said, her voice lowering, half in resignation, half in fear, “what do you have in mind?”

I had in mind two things: one, that I wanted to take my tight bustier off immediately, and two, that I needed to track down my AWOL hairdresser, Unja, because I’d bet money that he was the only guy with the wall-to-wall home videos of this evening’s preshow event in its entirety stuck in his hat. If I knew starstruck fans, and I do, I knew that Unja would never,
never
have cut away from
taping Halsey Hamilton’s slow, dramatic collapse just because some stupid clock said our time was up and some even stupider contract said we weren’t allowed to continue to film. That tape of Unja’s would have answers.

But I knew that wasn’t what was worrying my daughter. She stood staring at me. “Mom?”

Okay. I also had in mind that Drew and I, before this night was through, would be crashing the most uncrashable party in Hollywood, brilliantly dodging four mammoth bouncers, just so I could finally talk to Drew’s no-good ex-boyfriend Burke about a girl who I was rapidly coming to believe might not be waking up from her last plunge.

“Mom?” Drew’s voice now held a more frantic note. She’d seen me like this before.

And she knew me. I wasn’t going to lose this story, and if all else failed, I had in mind to run over to Cedars, the posh hospital that catered to movie greats, and stalk the emergency room, if I had to, to find out what had happened to that beautiful falling star.

C
entury City. The roped-off entrance to Craft. The ever-crush of paps and fans along the curb and spilling into the street. It was after-party time.

Drew and I had gone back to the Renaissance Hotel, where Glam-TV had given us rooms in which to freshen up and watch the Oscar telecast. Throughout it all, no mention had been made on-air of the Best Actress nominee who had collapsed on the street outside the theater. Inside, it was one glorious polished celebration, and the show must go on.

While we waited for news of Halsey, with Drew sending out texts to all their mutual friends, we watched our hotel television set in rapt attention as the awards were handed out, taking copious notes on the stars’ fashions for our fashion-review commentaries.

“She must be okay,” Drew said more than once. “There’s no announcement.”

Even when Daniel Day-Lewis was handing out the prize for Best Actress, and they showed all the nominees in their seats, all except Halsey, no mention was made of what had happened on the red carpet—the underwear, the slurring, the collapse. And when the Oscar went to another actress, Halsey’s moment quickly passed completely, as she moved from missing hopeful to absent also-ran. Not a good night for Halsey Hamilton. I called in favors, but still no news came to us about Halsey, and so as the award show ended, we left the hotel to find some answers. I was determined to hunt down Burke.

Flashbulbs shot off in record numbers as our limo cruised slowly up to the curb in front of the Century City restaurant that was the new setting for the
Vanity Fair
party. It may have been Dr. Bob’s latest dermabrasion that had given me that extra zing, I don’t know, but I detected the paparazzi approved of my glow as they seemed near frenzy when Drew and I emerged from our limo in front of chef Tom Colicchio’s latest hot spot.

“Max! Max! Drew!” came the shouts as we straightened our couture and faced the cameras.

Since the venerated Morton’s had closed, the new location for this most elite post-Oscars bash had become stylish American-cuisine food-star Craft, a spot close to the hearts of the power agents and entertainment attorneys who worked in the nearby luxury towers, probably the only people in town who could afford the joint’s $98 Wagyu rib-eye steaks and $21 side order of mushrooms.

“Mom,” Drew said, her voice getting that let’s-be-reasonable tone, as here and there entertainment reporters in the throng
faced their cameras, one hand up to their ears to block the din, broadcasting their live remotes back to a couple of dozen nightly news shows.

“Max!” came the shouts. “Drew! Look this way.”

“Smile, darling,” I said between clenched teeth. The press were animals tonight. They couldn’t get enough of us. How sweet it felt.

“We’re not on the list,” Drew reasoned as we faced the reporters, this time on the side of the celebrities ourselves. “You know that, Mom. They won’t let us in!”

“They’ll change their minds.” I kept smiling and turned Drew to face another phalanx of photographers. “And if you don’t stop worrying, you’ll get that tiny frown line on your forehead.”

“The one I inherited from you?” she accused.

Touché.

“Max!” yelled Nicholas Tostado, an adorable reporter from KCAL-News. His camera was hot, and so was he. “You were standing with Halsey a few hours ago. What happened to her? Is she all right?”

So. The crazy-wild reaction to our arrival had nothing to do with my new glow. Damn.

Several other microphones were being shoved in our direction. What could I say? That Halsey was a wreck, a girl soaked in booze or high on pills or both? That I had serious doubts she would survive many more of these lapses? I lost some of my radiant smile, debated how exactly to respond, then said, “Tell them, Drew.”

Microphones were immediately swung toward Drew, who had the presence of mind not to glare at me on-camera and quickly answered, “We don’t know what happened, but we love Halsey and hope she is doing well.”

Many more questions were yelled out, but I put my arm around Drew’s waist and pulled her toward the door to Craft, where we were admitted to the roped-off entrance outside the front door by a young woman who was still gaping at the huge reaction we had received upon leaving our limo. A table was set up outside Craft where a young man wearing a high-tech headphone tended an impressive leatherbound book. The guest list. At the front door a few feet away stood two massive men wearing earpieces. The bouncers.

“This will end badly, Mother.” Drew sprang a tiny frown line. “Remember what happened at Morton’s in 2007.”

I pointed at her forehead, and she stopped.

“Oh, dear,” said the young man at the table when he spotted us approaching. He had the air of a man who was preparing to toss me out on my ass. Believe me. I know that look.

“You got the news,” I said with a conspiratorial whisper.

“Ms. Taylor. It’s a pleasure to see you tonight,” he started. Smooth. Then came the word: “But…” Both he and I remembered well our famous tussle in ’07. And in ’06 for that matter. Only the cancellation of the
Vanity Fair
party in ’08 due to the agitation over the Writers Guild strike had spared us this indignity a year ago.

“And you. And thank heavens you know about the story,” I confided.

“The story?” He worked for the magazine and the word
story
stopped him.

“Yes,” I continued. “You do not have my name on your guest list, do you?”

He shook his head. “No, I—”

“And no matter how many times I have my publicist call your
people, we never seem to agree that Drew and I are not in competition with your wonderful magazine. We are, after all, celebrities ourselves.”

“That is never in question, Ms. Taylor,” the young man said, suddenly becoming very officious. “It’s just, as I’ve explained before, we—”

“You have taken the position that, on this one night only, we are also the competition. Ridiculous!”

“Please don’t yell,” he said snippily.

“My mother never yells,” Drew roared in my defense.

“Oh, dear,” said the young man.

“We are here tonight to bring
you
the story,” I said. “
The
story, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid—”

“Halsey Hamilton,” I said in a raspy whisper.

“Oh my God!” he whispered back, suddenly all attentive. “I am
dying
to know what happened. You were with her, Ms. Taylor! Was she wasted or what?”

I turned to Drew. “Sweetie, who’s that guy we know at the magazine. The guy who called tonight begging us to come to the party and give him all the sordid details?”

“One of our writers?” asked the man at the table, alert.

“You know,” I continued to Drew, “when we said we were giving the exclusive story to
People
magazine when they promised us the cover?”

“Wasn’t it that writer,” Drew asked, vamping merrily, “that President Clinton hates?”

“Todd Purdum?” breathed the young man at the table, quivering a little at the name of the hard-hitting
Vanity Fair
reporter.
He put up his index finger and then began talking into his headset in a whisper.

Just then an overzealous elderly reporter pushed his way past the roped-off barricades and called out to me, “Max, it’s nine forty a.m. in Germany! Just a word about Halsey for the
Stuttgarter Zeitung
?” Within five seconds the two towering brutes had bounded over from the entrance to Craft and put the poor German reporter in a headlock.

“Wait!…Wait!…Wait!…Just one minute more, please,” begged the young man as he tried to reach someone inside the party to give him the okay to let us in, presumably to be interviewed by this Todd person. All this blasted technology. I had to hurry things along.

“We can’t hold this story much longer, honey,” I said sadly to Drew. “Look. It’s already breaking in
Stuttgart
. And it’s not like
Vanity Fair
has shown us any love all these years. Hmm.”

“We are the only people who know what Halsey said before she collapsed with you, Mother,” Drew offered.

The young fellow sucked in his breath. I turned back to Drew. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

“Please,”
he called after us.

No one can watch a story walk away. No one. Why hadn’t I ever thought of this idea before?
Be the news
. Hell, I could easily have shot Nicole Richie in some nonlethal body part or perhaps slept with Robert Downey Jr. during one of his lost phases and waltzed right into this party years ago.

“Wait!” the young man pleaded. “Ms. Taylor, I’m—”

I spun back to him and said to Drew, “Well, well, well. I think this very nice young man from
Vanity Fair
wants to apologize.”

Drew smiled.

“Yes,” he said earnestly. “I do.”

“For all the years of mistrust and insults?” I asked.

“I am so sorry.”

“And?” It was a pretty sweet moment, so I waited for more.

“And…,” he said, breaking into a tiny sweat. “I’ve always been a huge fan of yours, Ms. Taylor. You know that. This little misunderstanding each year, it’s always made me sick.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Just tell me,” he breathed. “Halsey. Is she back in rehab? Does she wear hair extensions? Is she still doing the horizontal hula with that fake Hispanic guy?”

I put my finger to my lips. “Yes, yes, and even under the tables at IHOP,” I lied three times.

“Jonathan!” the young man called out, his voice ringing with middle management command. One of the beefy monsters came to our side.

“Please escort Ms. Taylor and Miss Taylor into the party.”

Just like that. Fourteen years of waiting. Fourteen years of begging. Fourteen years of rejection. A freaking hot story scoops all.

As beefy Jonathan opened the door to Craft, allowing us to pass into this most anticipated party, the young man at the table called out to us cheerfully, “And don’t worry. I’ll keep phoning. I’ve got everyone’s cell numbers. I’ll get Todd and make sure that he meets you for your interview! You won’t have to wait long.”

Was that a less-than-trusting gleam I saw in his eye?