Final Curtain Read online

  “I thought so,” Polly said. “Then you won’t mind that my entourage will be at my side every day until the end of the run of this show. If you have any complaints, take them up with Actors’ Equity and my agent. But I don’t think you want J.J. coming down here to play referee.”

  Gerold heaved a deep sigh. “Is this how you’re going to start off? The ‘maniac’ who killed Karen is behind bars, thanks to the fast work of the police, and Sharon’s sloppy commission of the crime.”

  “You know that the killer isn’t Sharon Fletcher.”

  Mag blanched.

  Just as Gerold opened his mouth, a happy voice issued from the wings. “Buenos dias, amigos!” It was Charlotte Bunch heading onto the stage, followed by the actors playing Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside and Vera Charles. Hearing the tale-end of the conversation, Charlotte asked, “Our little murderess isn’t guilty after all?” Her tone was equal parts excitement, skepticism, and disappointment. “Gerold’s ready to say who did the evil deed?”

  “No! Nobody!” Gerold spat. “Not nobody,” he corrected himself. “Sharon, of course. There’s nothing to suggest otherwise. End of subject. Where the hell are the others?” He looked at his watch, then looked around the stage and auditorium for his cast. Everyone had quietly assembled.

  By the time the company had their first break, the tension between Polly and Gerold had softened. In fact, everyone in the principal cast was getting along well. The table reading was going smoothly, and Polly discovered that Mag wasn’t untalented. Her line readings were thoughtful and she had a flare for comedy. Unless she suddenly developed stage fright, she was not going to be an embarrassment to the production, as Polly had feared. When Gerold called, “Fifteen!” and left for the bathroom, Polly pounced on the opportunity to sidle up to Mag and pour out her charm.

  “You’re doing well, my dear!” Polly cooed, taking a seat at the table beside the young actress. “It’s taken me this long to refine my perfect comedy timing. You’re a natural. You must have studied Doria Cook’s performance from the movie.”

  Mag smiled awkwardly and Polly knew that she had never heard of Doria Cook. Nor, Polly surmised, had Mag seen what was affectionately known as LucyMame—the Warner Bros. musical debacle that screwed Angela Lansbury out of the film version of her Broadway triumph in the title role. That film practically sank the unsinkable Jerry Herman musical, and it tarnished the otherwise sparkling career of Hollywood legend Lucille Ball. As one reviewer said at the time of the film’s release in 1974, “Lucy wanted to make Mame in the worst way—and that’s what she did.”

  Polly rambled on. “Never mind, Mag. You’re doing a lovely job on your own. I imagine that Gerold’s a marvelous help at home. What I would have given to live with my director on that stupid indy I made in Mexico, It Oozed Through the Crack—the better to get extracurricular coaching. Gerold’s probably much better than stiff ol’ Karen would have been. Poor Karen. What a shame. Dead at such a tender age. Perhaps the publicity from her shocking demise will pay off at the box office. Does Gerold like to walk? Does he often stroll through Glendale early in the morning? Does he have another alibi?”

  Mag asked in a low voice, “Does everybody know that I’m ‘the girlfriend’? Do they think I got this role just because Gerold and I have feelings for each other?”

  Polly put her arm around Mag. “Does a smart young woman such as you give a rat’s ass that her colleagues are tittering under their Max Factor mask-of-comedy faces? We know that it doesn’t matter how we get our big breaks. The important thing is to have the talent to back up the opportunity when he, er, it, comes along. You’ve got loads of talent. But don’t let your relationship with Gerold get in the way of you becoming part of the company. It’s important that you spend time with the rest of us. Get to know the chorus kids and stage hands. Have your meals with us. Spend your off hours with members of the company. It’ll be good for dispelling all the rumors and for us to learn all about you.”

  Mag looked nervous. “Rumors?”

  “The usual. That you’re using Gerold for career strategy, and that you and he lied to the police.”

  Mag swallowed hard. “Why can’t people mind their own business? Everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Gerold or the nosey cast?” Polly suggested that the kid playing Little Patrick in the show claimed he saw Gerold in the theater early the morning of the murder. “Which contradicts Gerold’s insistence that he was taking a long walk.”

  “Damn kids, as my father used to say,” Mag pouted. “If Gerold hears this, he’ll drag that little monkey out of the show. He gets way cranky whenever the subject of the murder—especially the police investigation—comes up. He’s, like, in my face twenty-four-seven if I ask about the girl who murdered Karen. I swear, sometimes he’s a totally gnarly drag.”

  “You know how actors love to chat. Backstage gossip is de rigueur, especially when you’re sleeping with the leading man or the director or the producer, or all of the above. But almost everybody sleeps with those who can help advance their careers.”

  Mag involuntarily smiled. “I’m not trying to be a star, or anything. I just want to do good work.”

  Polly forced a smile and patted Mag on the shoulder. “That’s all any of us want for ourselves. As well as fame and fortune. But doing our best isn’t always enough. We have to be our own cheerleaders. We have to push and fight and do whatever it takes for the right people to notice us. It’s a killer business, and I think it’s even harder for young people like you who are just starting out. You have to be willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to get ahead.”

  “I’m willing,” Mag said in earnest. “I’m totally focused. What else do I have to do?”

  Polly nodded. “Do you take acting lessons? Elocution? Dance? Singing? Are you immersed in the works of Mamet, Strinberg, and Cole Porter? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you even know who Ethel Merman is? Did you kill Karen Richards for a job?”

  Mag quickly stood up. “That’s a terrible thing to ask. Is that one of the rumors circulating among the cast? Gerold’s not going to like it when he hears that people are talking this way behind his back. Duck and cover is what you and everybody else should do. Gerold warned me about you. I was almost ready to tell him that he’s an idiot, but now…”

  Polly shrugged. “But he is an idiot, dear. He’s like my manicurist who thinks that Ann Coulter is a messenger from the one and only true Republican God. Leave it to Coulter to have a partisan creator, and to Gerold for wrongly thinking that Sharon Fletcher killed Karen Richards. It’s true that there appears to be lots of silly stuff like…evidence…against her, but all of that can be explained. I won’t believe in Sharon’s guilt until she confesses. Even then…Let me ask just one dumb question. Where was Gerold during the time of the murder? Walking off the Ben & Jerry’s from the night before? Enjoying an intermission with you? Throwing Emmys as though they were horseshoes?”

  “I’m way insulted, Miss Pepper. Like I’m totally stalled by your insinuation.”

  “It’s just that a man with his, shall we say, girth would have been perspiring heavily in the heat of the morning if he’d been walking for two hours. He didn’t have one bead of sweat when he arrived at the theater.”

  Polly reeled herself in. “I apologize, dear. I have a nasty habit of saying whatever comes into my mind. Thoughts just tumble past my lips.”

  “Then it obviously crossed your mind that I had something to do with Karen’s death,” Mag shot back. “I didn’t even know the woman.”

  Mag turned on her heel and walked off the stage. When she eventually returned, she was beside Gerold and speaking in a voice too low for anyone to hear. Every few seconds they glanced at Polly with threatening eyes.

  Chapter 9

  As the publicity campaign for Mame ramped into high gear, the streetlamp poles in Glendale were hung with banners depicting the famous Hirschfeld caricature of Polly from her infamous musical flop, Erma La Douche. That show never made it past t
he savage critics in Chicago. They had lambasted the star for her attempt to reinvent her goody-goody image in a Las Vegas extravaganza–style show about a blithe Parisian prostitute. Equally excoriated were the lascivious choreography and the mundane songs. (However, rap artist Vel-Vee-Ta recorded the show’s most memorable songs: “Romeo in Juliet” and “Tits a Wonderful Life.”) Under the headline FOUL PLAY, the Sun Times critic wrote of the musical, “The cacophony is as monotonous and incessant as the screeching of a baby on an airplane.” Polly’s sights on Broadway were diverted back to Bel Air.

  The backers of the show lost their investments, and the producers lost any chance of seducing funds from their wealthy friends for future projects. All were ruined, except Polly of course, who survived the disaster because the John Q. Public had more pressing priorities in their lives than to ferret out theater reviews of a stage musical. Other than the audiences who squirmed in their seats through the half dozen performances of the show in the Windy City, few people even knew that Polly was on the road desperate to get to Broadway.

  Remembering Chicago, Polly said, “God, that banner brings back memories of my recurring nightmare during the show’s short run. The one where I morph into Anita Bryant while singing ‘Oklahomo!’” Although Polly complained, she loved the attention. She hadn’t known this sensation since before the cancellation of her legendary musical variety television series in the 1980s. Although that show, The Polly Pepper Playhouse, had run for more than a decade, and earned her a dozen Emmy Awards as well as a worldwide legion of fans, none of Polly’s subsequent projects ever lived up to the freak success of that classic sketch comedy and music program.

  When anxiety descended on Polly Pepper, there was only one thing to lift her spirits—besides a Xanax and champagne chaser. “Let’s have a party!” she said to Tim, as he parked the car in the theater lot. Throwing a big social soiree was Polly’s antidote for everything from low quarterly earnings in her stock portfolio to higher than believable White House approval polls.

  Everyone who had ever been to a party at Pepper Plantation agreed that Polly was unrivaled as a hostess and that her son, Tim, was a champion in the art of creating high-end Hollywood shindigs. Just as an invitation to Elton John’s Oscar night party used to be the most sought-after social ticket in town, everyone wanted to receive a call to a Polly Pepper blowout. But after the success of his last big bash, Tim knew he’d have a tough time topping his Immigration Reform theme. For that affair, which was given in honor of the Mexican consulate who had written a gushy fan letter to Polly, Tim had outdone himself. The dress code mandated that guests wear (without first washing) the sweat-stained work clothes of their gardeners, maids, mechanics, handymen, or plumbers. On the other hand the valets and catering staff wore Dior evening gowns and Hugo Boss tuxedos.

  The character reversal playacting probably didn’t change any political minds, but the guests whooped it up mimicking the various foreign accents of their “domestic engineers” and addressing each other with names and epithets that if used on their real employees would have them being sued for unlawful workplace harassment. Still, Polly felt she had performed a social service by reminding her friends that their so-called menials were an important part of the fabric of their cushy lives.

  “The party that I have in mind is just for the cast and chorus kids,” Polly added, sensing Tim’s unspoken reluctance to tackle a big affair.

  Tim sighed and shook his head. “You hardly know these people.”

  “All the more reason for a party,” Polly declared. “Relax. Make it a simple theme.” She thought for a moment. “How about a cell phone swap? Everybody tosses their phone into a bowl, and then blindfolded they reach in as if they’re drawing a prize. Like the old car key games of the swinging sixties!”

  “Ooh! Then everyone dials their own number and they go home with the person who answers their line!” Tim laughed with excitement. “But you’re not entertaining Charlie Sheen. Sophistication is clearly the guide for this event. These people all have you pigeonholed as a legend, and they’ll expect nothing less than high style. Waiters with crudités on silver trays. A champagne fountain. The usual. Trust me, business attire and a string quartet and a giant ice sculpture of your initials will make them remember the night forever.”

  “Boring,” Polly complained. “You know that I always hate to see my PP drip!”

  Placenta nudged Tim. “We’ll have that cell phone party the next time your mother goes…”

  As the trio approached the stage door entrance, Polly suddenly stopped. She sniffed the air, as if she were a deer sensing a nearby hunter. She looked around the parking lot. “Hmm. Notice anything unusual?”

  Tim and Placenta followed her gaze. After a long moment Tim said, “Um, isn’t that Hiroaki Goldfarb over there? In the Honda Civic?”

  “Bingo!” Polly said.

  Placenta squinted. “You can’t tell it’s Hiroaki.”

  “Don’t say ‘Because they all look alike,’” Polly demanded.

  “I’m just saying I can’t identify who’s in the car from this distance,” Placenta insisted. “All I can see is that the car is black and it’s obviously been in an accident. Look at that front end. Anyway, he doesn’t drive. He doesn’t have a job here either. So it’s not him.”

  Polly shrugged and quickly turned away. As she led the way through the theater entrance she said, “I read somewhere that criminals return to the scene of their crime. Hiroaki had a motive to kill Karen!”

  “Arsonists return to the scene of their fires,” Placenta corrected.

  Tim quickly pointed out that Hiroaki had taken the city bus to the theater the day of the murder and, in fact, had arrived just before the call time.

  “Or so he says,” Placenta added. “Did the police ask to see his bus ticket?”

  “No ticky,” Polly said. “I noticed that he carries a monthly pass. It’s in a plastic sleeve on a lariat that he wears around his neck. That doesn’t prove that he actually rides the bus, or that he didn’t take an early one as he did the day he was first fired,” she continued. “Hmm. I’m beginning to think we have to pay a visit to Mr. Hiroaki Goldfarb.”

  “What the hell kind of name is that?” Placenta said. “I never heard of a Japanese Jew. And I’m not a racist! I’m an observer of cultural phenomena.”

  Polly was exhausted when rehearsals ended for the day. But she proposed they drive to Reseda.

  “Hiroaki will never believe that you were ‘in the neighborhood,’” Tim sassed his mother.

  “I’ve always wanted to see how the Northridge Quake improved Reseda by flattening the place,” Polly said. “I can say that I’m researching a new role and need to find out why the hell anyone would purposely chose to live over a major fault line.”

  Tim gave her a baleful look.

  “Okay, so I’ll call him first. Speed-dial and hand me the phone.” Polly let out a deep sigh of dissatisfaction, accepted the phone, and after a brief exchange with Hiroaki, the car was gliding toward the Ventura Freeway.

  When Tim finally saw the Sherman Way off-ramp he signaled a right-hand turn and rolled down to the surface street. Following directions from his Magellan, Tim passed dozens of gas stations and strip malls before being guided by the sultry voice in the GPS to Pacific Gardens Terrace. “We’re nowhere near the Pacific, I don’t see a single garden, and the only terraces are on those awful faux Spanish-style apartment buildings,” Tim said, cringing.

  “It’s a darling little bedroom community,” Polly said facetiously. “I may be in the market for some cheap income property. But I have to wonder what people do here.”

  “They plot their escape,” Placenta said. “Now, in which building do you suppose Hiroaki resides?”

  “That one,” Tim said and pointed to the shabbiest three-story structure on the block. “He’s in unit 303.”

  “The penthouse!” Polly trilled.

  Tim found a parking spot not far from the apartment building and the trio stepped ou
t of the car. “We’ll make the visit as brief as possible,” Polly promised.

  When they were at the front entrance, Tim’s eyes scrolled down a list of residents behind a glass-encased directory. “Goldfarb, H.,” he said triumphantly. “Code 303.” He pressed the numbers on the keypad and in a moment, Hiroaki’s baritone voice was on the intercom.

  “Sweetie, it’s Polly and company. Can we come up for a teensy while?”

  “I’ll meet you at the elevator,” Hiroaki said before pressing the buzzer to let his visitors in.

  Tim pulled the handle and held the door open for his mother and Placenta and immediately wanted to wash his hands. When they were in the so-called lobby, which was a musty-scented tiled room with gold-veined smoked mirror squares on the walls, the threesome looked at each other as if they’d stepped into a condemned tenement. “The lobby is usually the nicest part of a building,” Tim said. Then he pushed the cracked button for the elevator.

  When the car arrived, Tim stepped in first to make sure it was suitable for his mother. It wasn’t. The walls were covered in plywood that had been scarred and defaced with graffiti. “All clear,” he said and ushered Polly and Placenta into the wooden box. “Don’t touch anything or you’re liable to catch Ebola,” he cautioned as he pushed the button for the third floor. After an inordinately slow ride, the car came to an abrupt halt and the door slid open. As promised, Hiroaki was waiting to greet them.

  “Follow me,” Hiroaki said without further salutation. Polly and her troupe accompanied the actor down a long corridor. They passed a warren of doors leading to other apartments, all of which, Polly suspected, were cookie cutouts of the others. After several right turns, they arrived at number 303. Hiroaki unlocked the door and his guests followed him inside.