The Age of Dreaming (24 page)

After avoiding me for altogether for several months, she telephoned me twice. The first time was early in January, to wish me a happy new year and to congratulate me on my just-released film. Again we stayed away from any difficult subjects, but we had a pleasant conversation about the weight we’d both put on from all the holiday parties, and the havoc wreaked on our gardens by the recent rains. Elizabeth sounded well, and I remembered how pleasant she could be when she wasn’t distorted by alcohol. As I laughed at her stories of trying to save her drowning plants, I realized how much I had missed her. We approached each other with the hesitation of new friends, potential lovers, and I enjoyed this careful tenderness, this polite feeling out, and looked forward to what would happen between us next.

* * *

Elizabeth’s second call, in February, was very different. I had been up past midnight, drinking alone, and for this reason I was not totally myself when the phone rang at 6 in the morning.

“Jun,” said the voice on the other end, and it was so racked with sobs that at first I couldn’t place it. “Jun, you have to come quickly. Ashley’s dead.”

Now I realized that it was Elizabeth. And since her words made no sense, I assumed she was drunk, or else I was having a dream.

“Ashley’s dead!” she repeated.

“What?” I said. “What are you talking about?” I was still half asleep.

“He was found dead this morning, right there in his bedroom. I was with him last night, Jun. He was fine!”

I was starting to comprehend what she was saying. “You were with him?” I didn’t know whether the twisting I felt in my stomach was shock over the news or jealousy.

“Yes, I was with him, but I left around 9, and he walked me out to the car. The next thing I know, I get a phone call this morning telling me he’s dead!”

“Who called you? The police?”

“No, no. The studio.”

“The
studio
?”

“Yes, I don’t know who found him, but the studio is calling people. Tom Stewart from Benjamin Dreyfus’ office called about half an hour ago.”

“Why did he call you? What did he say?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going over there. I think people are there already. Jun, will you please come with me?”

I couldn’t answer right away—this was too much information to consider all at once. Tyler, my favorite director. Tyler, the man who everybody seemed to admire. Tyler, my rival for Elizabeth’s affections. Could it be true that he was dead? I couldn’t believe it, and I had no desire to go to his house, not even for Elizabeth. But in the end I couldn’t deny her, not when she was in such a state, so I agreed to meet her at the director’s home.

Tyler’s bungalow court was not unlike the one I live in now—a group of two-story buildings arranged in a U-shape around an open courtyard. I arrived before Elizabeth and stood there in the morning winter cold, still trying to absorb the news. There were no police yet, no reporters, no indication that there was anything amiss. I saw a drape stir behind the window of another apartment, but nobody came outside. Elizabeth appeared shortly, her eyes red and her coat drawn tightly around her. She gripped my arm hard and I remember thinking, bitterly, that she never held me with such urgency when I made love to her. I resisted the urge to shake her off and placed my hand on her back, guiding her to Tyler’s front door.

I didn’t recognize the man who answered our knock, but he appeared to recognize us, for he stepped aside without speaking and let us in. I had never before been inside Tyler’s home, and my first thought, as I laid eyes on the couch, the fireplace, his fine paintings and pieces of sculpture, was to wonder about the hours he passed there with Elizabeth; how often and in exactly what posture they had talked. Despite the good furniture and expensive art, the place already felt lifeless to me. It was dark and sad and too carefully decorated—the home of a man concerned more with appearances than comfort.

But perhaps it was unfair to judge Tyler this way, for his home was already changed. What we found when we stepped inside was five gloved men engaged in frantic activity; the sounds of furniture being moved around above us indicated that there were more upstairs. These were studio employees, several of whom I recognized, and they were working so fast they didn’t stop to acknowledge us. One of them was going through Tyler’s desk. Another was examining the hutch in the dining room, removing and replacing every plate. A third was lifting each painting, touching its frame, and feeling the wall behind it. Yet another was on his hands and knees, peering beneath the couch. I didn’t know what they were searching for, but there was a growing collection of papers and photographs on the dining room table, along with two bottles of whiskey. The whole tableau made me think of a film set, the final frantic preparation that went into making it perfect before the actors stepped in to perform their scene.

Elizabeth gasped when she saw what was happening and gripped my arm even tighter. She wavered a bit as she walked, and I wasn’t sure if her unsteadiness was due to alcohol or grief. She led me to the kitchen, and I realized with a fresh spasm of pain that she knew every inch of the place. We found an older black man sitting at the table, and when he and Elizabeth saw each other, they both let out a cry.

“Willy!” she said, rushing over to him.

“Oh, Miss Elizabeth,” the old man answered, “I can’t believe it.”

Once again I suppressed my distaste. The man seemed respectable enough—he was neat and well-dressed—but this was the person on whose behalf Tyler had testified in court to combat the morals charge. After some more tears and sounds of grief, Willy relayed his story. He’d come in right at 5 a.m. as always. He first took in the dishes that Tyler and Elizabeth had left by the couch, and then fixed his boss a pot of morning tea. But when he took it upstairs, he found Tyler on the bedroom fioor. He knew immediately that Tyler was dead, but was uncertain about what to do, so he called David Rosenberg at home.

“I thought Mr. Rosenberg would ring the police or the doctor,” he said. “And then the next thing I know, all these men showed up. I don’t like them disturbing Mr. Tyler’s things, Miss Elizabeth, but what can I do? Maybe they’ll listen to you.”

Elizabeth sat down at the table and didn’t answer. It occurred to me—as it must have to her—that there were certain things she might want removed. “Where is he, Willy? I need to see him.”

“I’m not sure you want to do that, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Please, Willy.” And after considering a moment, he said, “All right, then. Let’s go upstairs. He’s in his room, right where I found him.”

We walked past the men in the living room, who continued to ignore us. Willy led us up the staircase to the second fioor, and as Elizabeth’s breathing grew more labored, I thought I smelled a faint trace of liquor. There were two doors on each side of a long, lit hallway, and Willy led us to the second one on the left.

Tyler was lying faceup on the carpet, just at the foot of the bed. His body was perfectly straight, hands at his sides, legs and heels together. He looked, as always, unfailingly proper, as if he’d observed his sense of decorum even into his death. He was wearing a heavy crimson robe, the top half of which was open, revealing a triangle of pale white fiesh. His eyes were open and he appeared startled; it was hard to know if this had been his final expression or if it was part of the mask of death. The sight of him was like a blow to the stomach. Beside me, Elizabeth let out a small cry.

“Oh, Ashley,” she said. She kneeled down beside him and took one of his hands. “I didn’t know he was ill. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with him.”

“Neither did I, Miss Elizabeth,” said Willy. “He always seemed like he was in such good health to me.”

I stood there suspended, not knowing what to do. It was real, the body was real, the man was truly deceased. And yet what I felt more strongly than the shock of his death was jealousy at the sight of Elizabeth kneeling beside him, caressing his lifeless hand. I did not wish to look at Tyler anymore, so I raised my eyes to watch the studio men. There were two of them working in the bedroom as well, going quickly through Tyler’s closet.

“What are they doing? What are all these men doing?” asked Elizabeth, as if she had just then noticed them.

We heard the sound of someone mounting the stairs, and then David Rosenberg appeared. From his face it was clear he was surprised to find us there. He nodded at the studio men, who kept working. Then he walked over to Tyler’s body.

“Jesus. This is terrible!”

Willy faded back against the wall, making himself invisible, and Rosenberg kneeled down to question Elizabeth. “When did you last see him?”

“Last night. I came to visit him about 7 o’clock, and left about 9. He walked me out to my car and gave me a book and kissed me goodnight. I had no idea that …” And now the tears began again.

“Did anyone see you?”

“My driver,” she said. “And anyone who was near their windows in the evening.”

David nodded. When he used a handkerchief to wipe off his face, I saw that his hands were shaking.

“Sir,” said Willy from the back of the room. “Sir, has anybody called an ambulance? Or the police?”

“Yes, we called the police,” said David. And then a statement I found very odd: “They’re giving us another ten minutes.”

David got up slowly, his large frame filling the space of the bedroom. He moved around, looking at a picture here and touching a book there, as if he were an anxious visitor examining the furnishings while waiting for his host to appear.

Elizabeth continued to kneel with Tyler, and I almost felt sorry for her. “Oh, Willy,” she said. “He was such a good man. What am I going to do?”

It was not a frivolous question. His friendship had been critical—for keeping her fading career alive and, apparently, for her efforts to curtail her drinking.

The stairs creaked again as someone walked heavily up them, and then several policemen appeared, wearing high-laced boots and mackinaw jackets. As they entered, I realized that I’d seen one of them before—at the studio, on sets, sometimes as security, sometimes filling in as an extra when the script required a police officer. “I’m Captain Mills,” he said to Elizabeth, and I saw that she recognized him too. Then he glanced over at me and lifted his eyebrows. “What’s the Jap doing here?”

Elizabeth stood up. “He came with me,” she said defiantly. This did not address, of course, the question of what
she
was doing there, but that question remained unasked. Instead, the police went right to work.

They all fanned out around the body and Elizabeth moved back, looking like she wanted to protect him; it seemed so odd, so improper, even to me, that all these strangers should see Tyler in this state. Captain Mills kneeled down beside his left shoulder and held his ear to the dead man’s nostrils. “Cold as ice. Been dead for a while, I think.” He stood again, and had just turned toward the other men when Elizabeth clutched my arm and made a sound. She gripped me so hard her fingernails broke through my skin, and I looked where she was pointing: at the fioor, where Captain Mills’ black leather shoes were leaving marks in dark horseshoe shapes all over the wood.

“Uh, Mr. Rosenberg, sir,” said Willy. “Look, sir. Look at the floor.”

Everyone stared, Mills twisting around to see the marks his shoes had left. Then he took a white handkerchief out of his pocket, lifted his foot, and wiped the bottom. It came away dark red. He rushed back over to Tyler, and two of the other policemen bent down and rolled the body over.

There was a melon-sized crater in the lower part of Tyler’s back. It looked like the inside of a volcano—dark, red, churning. On the robe and on the rug were bits of bone, intestines, coagulated pockets of blood. Elizabeth screamed when she saw this and fell into my arms. I, already numb from the shock of his death, could not assimilate this new information. And now we saw an even darker stain on the rug, spreading out to the left of the body and toward the bed. The policemen turned the body on its back again, and one of them opened the robe. There, just below the navel, was the entrance wound, and then the sand-colored curls, the shriveled penis. The men examined the wound, and then lifted both sides of the robe.

“It went clean through,” said one of the kneeling cops. “Couldn’t see the hole from outside.”

Captain Mills shook his head and whistled, and even Rosenberg seemed at a loss for words. “Well, this changes things a bit,” he said.

Elizabeth leaned heavily into me and I thought she would faint, but instead she just started to cry again, gulping for air as if she were drowning. “Somebody shot him?” she asked.

“Looks that way,” said Captain Mills.

She looked at Rosenberg. “Oh, David, who could have done such a thing?”

“Good question,” said Rosenberg. He seemed truly shaken.

“Did he have any enemies?” asked Captain Mills, as the officers stood up and began to examine the room once again. “Any unpaid debts, angry lovers or husbands, a dispute over one of his pictures?”

Rosenberg shook his head. “Not that I know of. People liked him. And women couldn’t get enough of him. It was the accent, I think, and his high-class looks. All these British bastards have it over us that way.”

“All the more reason to look at women and husbands. Was there anything else? Disputes with employees? Some actor or actress he didn’t cast?”

Rosenberg shrugged. “You can never keep actors happy, but that’s nothing new …”

“Miss Banks,” the policeman asked, “do you have any idea who might have done this?”

She shook her head, still clutching my arm. “No, I can’t imagine who would have done something like this. I can’t imagine who’d want to hurt Ashley.”

Captain Mills had taken out a small notebook and was scratching in it with a pencil. “Who has access to the house?” he asked of no one in particular.

Rosenberg thought for a minute. “Well, he asked Gerard Normandy to keep an extra set of keys. Other than that,” he said, looking at Willy, “the only person I know of is him.”

All four of the policemen turned toward Willy now, who instinctively stepped back. “I found him this way,” he said. “I came round about 5, like I always do, and he was laid out just like that.”