The Woman Who Fell From Grace (22 page)

I found him lying down in his room with the shades drawn. “Stewart Hoag, Mr. Ransom,” I said to the dim shape there on the bed. “We spoke on the phone.”

“Oh, yeah, the writer. Sorry, musta dropped off — trip kind of wore me out.” He reached over and turned on the bedside light.

It was some kind of mistake. This wasn’t Rex Ransom. Not this bald, shriveled old man with no teeth who lay there on the bed before me with his shoes off. His color wasn’t too good — unless you consider gray good — and he’d lost some weight. The skin on his face and neck fell in loose folds, and his polo shirt was a couple of sizes too big for him. So were his slacks. His belt was cinched practically twice around. He sat up slowly, put on his glasses, and lit the stub of a cigar that had gone out in the ashtray, his hands trembling. The cigar didn’t smell too good, but it smelled better than his socks did.

He got to his feet with a groan and offered me his cold, limp hand. He was no more than five feet four in his stocking feet. “I know, I know,” he said quickly. His voice was thin and slightly nasal. “You always thought I was a lot taller. That’s ’cause I’m big through the shoulders and chest.” He looked down at himself and frowned. “Used to be, anyways. And I wore lifts.”

I was staring. It was so hard to imagine him as the Masked Avenger, that fearless doer of good who rode so tall and proud in the saddle. Now I knew why I hadn’t seen him in anything for so long. And why Merilee had said, I hope he doesn’t disappoint you.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Ransom,” I finally said. “I carried your lunch box.”

“One of my kids, huh?” he said with a gummy smile. “Yeah, you look about the right age.” He went into the bathroom. A moment later he returned wearing his teeth and his toupee. It was a bad rug. The hairs looked sticky and dead and didn’t match the color of his sideburns. “Made two fifty a week to do that lousy show. Low point of my career. Christ,
television
. Wasn’t until I had the job I found out they was gonna put me up on a goddamned horse. Damned horse hated my guts, too. Always tried to throw me. We used two different Neptunes, y’know. First one broke a leg doing some damned fool stunt, had to be put down. Nobody knows that. Go ahead and put it in your article. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

“Actually, I’m not writing an —”

“Hey, you got a pooch!” he exclaimed, noticing Lulu for the first time. “I love dogs. Landlady won’t lemme keep one.” He bent over and patted her. “Jeez, her breath … ”

“Your landlady’s?”

“No, the pooch.”

“She has strange eating habits.”

“It was the war, y’know,” he declared, chewing on his cigar.

“The war?”

“Old man Goldwyn, he was gonna make me a leading man. I was on my way up when we wrapped this picture. Then I had to go into the service. None of that public relations flyboy crap, neither. I fought hand to hand in one lousy, stinking Pacific jungle after another. Killed three men. Woulda killed three more for a decent meal. When I came back, it was all different. They wanted dark and brooding — Greg Peck, Vic Mature, Bob Mitchum. I was an old face. Nothing worse in this business. Best I could get was two-line bits. Bartenders, cops, cabbies, maybe a few weeks here and there in a horror picture. … Hey, you want a drink or something? They said I can order room service. Food, booze, anything.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

We sat in two club chairs by the window, which overlooked the tennis courts. No one was using them.

“That lousy series, it’s all I got, y’know,” Ransom went on. “On in reruns all over the place. I dont get a nickel off residuals, but I still do the sci-fi conventions, mall openings, junior high assemblies. I put on my costume and my mask, sign a few autographs, make a few bucks. My kids still love me. And I love them. They’re my family. I got no one else.” He shook his head. “And now they won’t let me do it no more.

“Who won’t?”

“These sons of bitches. Same studio that’s doing this
Oh
,
Shenandoah
thing. Seems they’re making this fifty-million-dollar
Masked Avenger
special-effects movie with some twenty-three-year-old weight lifter playing me. They want the public to think of him as the Avenger now, not me, so they’re hassling me about making my appearances. Like I’m some kinda threat to ’em or something. All I make is a few bucks. I’m just an old man trying to get by. I got a one-bedroom apartment in Studio City, an eight-year-old car, no pension, hemorrhoids hanging from me like a handful of table grapes. And now they want to take it away from me. I tell ya, I’m so pissed off I didn’t want to come to this thing. But what the hell, they’re paying my way with a little something on top, so I can’t afford not to. What kinda story you writing, kid? What can I tell ya?”

“I’m not a reporter, Mr. Ransom.”

“Make it Mike. That’s what my friends call me. My real name — Mike Radachowski.”

“I’m working for the Glazes on the sequel to
Oh
,
Shenandoah
, Mike. Right now I’m collecting anecdotes for an introduction. I wondered if we could talk about Sterling Sloan’s death.”

“Sure,” he said easily. “Some kind of stroke, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think so. And I don’t think you do, either.”

He examined his cigar butt. It was cold. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”

“I have an idea you do.”

He kept on examining his cigar. He looked worried now. “Sloan died a long, long time ago. What does it matter now?”

“It matters.”

“I’d like to help you, kid,” my boyhood hero said slowly. “But I really can’t say nothing about it.”

“About what?”

“The studio … ”

“The studio is fucking you over.”

“I still gotta make a living.”

“They just said you can’t.”

“That’s true,” he admitted. He hesitated. “I don’t know … ”

“Why don’t you do what I do when I’m in doubt?”

“What’s that?”

“Ask myself what the Masked Avenger would do.”

“That was comic book stuff,” he scoffed.

“If we kept on believing what we learned in comic books, we’d all be a lot better off.”

He looked at me curiously. “Y’know, you’re kind of a strange young fella.”

“Yeah, I’m what’s known in the
New York Times
crossword puzzle as a oner.”

“I don’t know … ”

“Trust me, Mike.”

“Trust you? I don’t even know you.”

“Yeah, you do. I’m one of your kids.”

“Look, I hate to let you down, seeing as how you are, but … ” He thought it over. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“What you saw and heard.”

“You mean gossip?”

“Okay.”

He relaxed, relieved. “Well, hell, that’s no problem. I can tell ya right off — it was a horny set. So what else is new. Errol, he was shtupping Laurel Barrett under Sloan’s nose. Helene, Jesus, I had her, Dave Niven had her, we all had her — except for Sloan, who turned her down cold.”

“Because of his wife?”

“Naw, on account of he had something else going. At least, that’s what we all figured.”

“Who with?”

“That got to be a major topic of conversation, you wanna know the truth. Sloan was very closemouthed. Not one of the gang. Didn’t like to drink with us, play pinochle. You play pinochle?”

“Who was the smart money on, Mike? Who was Sloan’s girlfriend?”

He crossed the room slowly and got a fresh cigar from the nightstand. He lit it, puffed on it until he had it going to his satisfaction. Then he turned around. “Ethel,” he replied, standing there in a cloud of blue smoke. “Ethel Barrymore.”

“But she was —”

“Old enough to be his mother, I know. What can I tell ya — nobody’s ever accused picture people of being normal.”

“Any chance it was Alma Glaze?”

“The author? I doubt it. She wasn’t exactly the cuddly type.” He slumped on the edge of the bed and puffed on his cigar. “Still, you never know. Sloan was married to a great beauty. When a guy cheats, he always goes for something different. Coulda been. All I know is there was somebody, and I guess him and Laurel had some deal where it was okay for her to play around but not for him, on account of she let him have it but good.”

“When?”

“That night. They had one hell of a fight in their hotel room the night he died.”

“How do you know, Mike?”

“I had the room next door. Heard ’em hollering.”

“What were they saying?”

“Couldn’t hear no words.”

“Then how do you know what they were fighting about?”

“What else do a husband and wife fight about besides money, and with their two paychecks money wasn’t no problem.”

“You’re sure it was Laurel?”

“It was Laurel.”

“And you were in your room when he was stricken?”

He nodded. “Getting dressed for the wrap party. Tux, studs, the works. I looked like a million bucks in those days. Rock hard, broads fallin’ all over me. So I hear ’em goin’ at it, a real doozy, and then … ”

“And then?” I prompted.

“Then it got real quiet. I guess that’s when the thing in his brain blew. Right away she comes running out in the hail screaming for Doc Toriello.”

“As I understood it, he first complained of a terrible headache. She sent a bellhop out for some aspirin. Then Sloan got worse and
then
she called for the doctor.”

He shrugged. “It coulda been that way. Sure. I don’t remember so good.”

“What really happened, Mike?”

He got up and went into the bathroom and filled a glass with water — an evasive maneuver. He returned with it and sat back down on the bed, mouth working furiously on his cigar. He said nothing.

I shook my head at him. “You’ve been holding the truth in a long time, Mike. You’ve kept your mouth shut, been a good soldier. And look what it’s gotten you. Look how they’ve treated you.”

He drank some of his water, smacking his lips as if it were good scotch. His eyes were on Lulu, who dozed at my feet. “I’d like to help you, kid. I would. But whatever a married couple does behind closed doors is their own goddamned business. And picture people — we don’t tell stories on each other.”

“Okay, Mike.” I sighed heavily. “Only, you’re really letting me down. … ”

“Aw, don’t pull that,” he whined.

“I’m sorry, Mike, but it’s true. You’re letting one of your kids down. One of those eager, fresh-faced kids who grew up in front of the television set believing every single word you told him about truth and justice and tooth decay.”

“That’s low. That’s awful fucking low.”

Lulu stirred and looked up at me funny. I think she was having trouble imagining me as eager and fresh faced.

“People are getting murdered, Mike, and you’re the only one who knows why. I can come back with the sheriff if you want, but if I do, everyone is going to find out you talked. Tell me now and no one will. You have my word.”

“Jeez.” He got up and started pacing the room, rubbing the lower half of his face with his hand. “The law. Jeez.”

“What’s it going to be, Mike?”

“You won’t tell anyone where ya heard this?” His voice trembled.

“Not a soul.”

“Okay, okay.” He slumped back down onto the bed. “I was … I was dressing, like I told ya. And that’s when I heard it.”

“Heard what?”

“The gunshot,” he said quietly.

“Gunshot?”

“Yeah.”

“She shot him?”

“Blew half his head off. I pulled on my pants and went over there. Door was unlocked. He was on the floor. Blood all over the rug, the wall. Laurel was covered with it, screaming hysterically, the crazy fucking bitch. In and out of the bin after that, but they never prosecuted her. Whole thing got buttoned up nice and tight.”

“Who was in on it?”

“They all were. The sheriff, Doc Toriello, the local doc, the hotel, funeral parlor … Money changed hands all the way down the line. Lots of it. Melnitz, Goldwyn’s hatchet man, he took care of it. It was like it never happened. He came into my room later that night and told me just that — it never happened. I said okeydoke, you’re the boss.” He shook his head in amazement. “She was the star of a major motion picture. They could get away with murder in those days. She sure as hell did. And that’s the story, kid. Kind of glad to be telling somebody about it, you wanna know the truth.”

“What exactly was Laurel doing when you first went in there?”

“She was hysterical, like I told ya. I called the desk first thing. They got hold of Toriello.”

“Was she holding the gun?”

“Uh … no.”

“Did you actually see the gun?”

“No.”

“Did anyone tell you for a fact that she did it?”

“Nobody said
nothin’
.”

“Then how do you know it was actually Laurel who shot him?”

“Nobody else was there,” he replied. “Who the hell else could it have been?”

“A third party. Someone who arrived before the shooting, then hustled out before you got there.”

He shook his head. “No chance of that. I could hear their door from my room: They didn’t have no visitors.”

“You said you were dressing for the party.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you take a shower?”

“Sure I took a … ” His eyes widened. “You’re right, kid. I was in the shower two, three minutes washing my hair. Had a whole head of it then, thick and blond. Somebody coulda knocked and gone in then. I wouldn’t a heard. Only, why are you so convinced it wasn’t Laurel?”

“Because Laurel Barrett is long dead. No one here would bother to kill two people now, fifty years later, if she were Sloan’s murderer. Someone local shot Sloan. Had to be. And someone local is still trying to keep it buttoned up.” I got up out of the chair. “Thanks, Mike. You’ve been a big help. And it’s been a genuine thrill to meet you.”

“Sure thing, kid. Glad to have ya.”

I started for the door, stopped. “Would you do it for me, Mike? Just once?”

He grinned at me. “Do what?”

“You know what I want.”

He did indeed. Because something was already beginning to happen to him there on the bed. The blood was pumping harder in his veins. His chest was filling out, his shoulders broadening. He cleared his throat, and then he did it. He cried, “Neptune,
awaaaaay!
” His old cry. The one from long ago. He puffed on his cigar. “How was that?” he asked.