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Chapter 22
He waited until Marie was asleep to put in one of Bob’s movies. Marie knew about the stash of VHS tapes, of course, and the old VCR that had suddenly materialized. He could never hide anything in this house. Marie knew their home the way some people knew their bodies – she could detect any change in it, no matter how small. The house was her body, in a sense; she inhabited it the way a hermit crab lived in its shell, only she never outgrew it. She could be resting on the sofa in the evening, yet tell by sound alone if he put something away in the wrong place in the kitchen. Where would he hide her Christmas gifts this year, now that he didn’t have an office? But everything should be solved by Christmas, one way or another. It had to be. Bob’s estate would be settled, the other matter resolved as well, and he could tell Marie everything. Well, not everything, but he could tell her that he had decided to take early retirement, thanks to this windfall that Bob had engineered for them before he died. Even then, Marie probably wouldn’t want to watch the films. They always made her cry, even the silly ones.
When he brought the VHS tapes home, he had told a semitruth, as he liked to think of it. It was hard for him to think of anything he said as a lie, because then he would be a liar, and that didn’t fit with his sense of himself. He told Marie that while Bob’s estate was held up in probate, the Orphans’ Court had determined that certain items of no financial value could be removed from the premises. And a judge might have ruled that way, if a judge had been asked. In reality, he had made the ruling, after a fashion, entering and leaving with the set of keys that Bob had given him years ago – the same keys he had used to unlock the back door that day, after a week of Bob not answering his phone.
In his mind, he framed the memory as Bob might have framed the scene in his viewfinder. He did not see the kitchen through his own eyes but saw it as if the camera was watching him from the other side of the room – the door opening, his eyes moving slowly upward, only Bob’s feet and ankles on view. It was a clichéd way of seeing, a scene stolen from someone else – but then, he didn’t have Bob’s eye.
He had wanted to believe it was despair, nothing more, Bob finally laid low by some variant of the same odd brain chemistry that affected his only sister, Marie. But then he discovered what a mess Bob had left behind – the debts, the second mortgage, the refinance on the first mortgage, a balloon that was going to come due in a year, kicking up to a disastrously high rate. Then there was the lawyer, saying he was still owed money, even though it was his bills that had driven Bob to near bankruptcy in the first place, and that he pla
Still, they might try to take the movies from him, if they knew. He wouldn’t put anything past these people. Thinking about them, thinking about all the people who were allied against him, made his face grow hot, then anger and humiliation overtook him again, just as it had the other night. Quickly, he pushed the play button, desperate to lose himself in Bob’s meticulous fantasy world.
The film opened on a shot of a castle – this would be the decrepit old mansion on St. Lo Drive, but it looked so elegant on film, so much better than it did in life. Most things did. A knight and his squire entered the frame. Don Quixote? Ivanhoe? While some of Bob’s movies had dialogue, this one had only a musical score, and it quickly burst into a choreographed battle, with other knights emerging from the forest to challenge the hero. Ivanhoe. He and Bob were infants when that film was first released, the version with the two Taylors, Elizabeth and Robert, but they had probably caught it in reruns, on the old Picture for a Sunday Afternoon. Had that been Cha
On his screen, the eleven-year-old versions of Ivanhoe and his squire broke free and ran across the undulating hills of Clifton Park. Okay, he wasn’t objective, but it seemed to him that Bob’s camerawork was outstanding.
In the bedroom, Marie was snoring. He picked up the phone, called his contact.
“Have you seen the call sheet for tomorrow?”
“Yes, only – look, I’m not sure I should be doing this anymore. Someone was killed. There’s a lot more attention.”
“I know,” he said. “But that has nothing to do with us, does it?”
A short silence, as if the question was being considered. “You had the code, to get into the building. I gave that to you weeks ago.”
“I never used it,” he said swiftly. “As you pointed out to me, access to the building wasn’t worth anything, if I couldn’t get into the offices, and you said they were always locked tighter than a drum.”
“Of course, yeah, but – you can see why I’m creeped out. What if they find out I’m the one who gives you the information about the call sheet?”
“You told me the list is set up on a bcc, so they don’t even see the addresses. Even if someone goes looking for it, they’ll just think it was a mistake, an oversight.”
“I suppose…”
He turned off the video player, and watched the CNN crawl on mute, relying on silence to get him what he wanted, an old teacher’s trick. He could bring his classes to order simply by staring at the students, back in the day, although that had gotten more difficult toward the end of his time in the classroom. The children became so hard, so mean.
A resigned sigh. “They’re going to be at Green Mount Cemetery most of the day. With both Ma
“Thank you-”
“Also, there’s something else, something extra.”
“You already told me they’ll be shooting Saturday to make up for the missed day. But I don’t think I’m going to worry about that.” It was hard for him to get away on weekends. Besides, the person he needed was dead now.
“No, not shooting. Something else.”
“Yes?”
“You see, it’s extra. Outside our agreement, which covers only the information on the call sheets and other production-related e-mails. So…”
A childhood taunt came back to him – greedy guts. “How much do you want?”
“Fifty?”
The matter was open to negotiation, but he was too tired to barter. The fact was, when you were going broke, small sums became less urgent, paradoxical as that might seem. With only a few months between him and an abyss of debt, he couldn’t worry about the stray fifty here or there, especially if it led to his windfall. “Fifty it is.”
“There’s a memorial service Sunday, on the soundstage. For Greer. Everyone will be there. There’s going to be security – they don’t want any press – but I don’t think they’ll question anyone who claims to be family, and she’s got some uncles and cousins. You could blend right in.”
This was good information, although not in the way she thought. He could definitely use this. “Okay, look for an extra fifty in your pay envelope Monday.”
“I’ve been thinking – what will you do now? Without Greer, I mean. Didn’t everything depend on her?”
“You let me worry about that.”
“I might figure out a solution to your problem. I might be able to help.”
The impudence! So now it was to be a partnership – and he didn’t need or want a partner. He might not resent an extra fifty dollars here or there, but he wasn’t sharing the jackpot with anyone.