Really Dead

  “That blasted woman. I don’t know why I put up with her insolence.” Dan brought the megaphone back to his mouth. “What took you so long?” Even though he hadn’t screamed, the decibel level of his voice was still painful.

  A woman, who looked like the quintessential spinster in her fifties and from the fifties, was walking toward us from the main building. Her chunky high heels thumped against the flagstones. She was wearing a suit, a tweed suit — despite the heat, the skirt went just below her knee, the short jacket was buttoned up, and her legs were covered in thick stockings. Her hair was a mix of black and white, the strands contrasting as sharply as a skunk’s stripe, and it was all twisted up in what looked like a long braid that had been rolled around and around into a tight bun on the back of her head. “I was on the phone.” She stood in front of the cameras, her back defiantly to them, clutching a couple of small slips of pink paper.

  “Is there a clause in Ariel’s contract about what drinks we have to have here for her?”

  Winnie immediately closed her eyes and just stood there.

  “Photographic memory,” Dan said to me. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things agents wrangle for their clients in contracts. That idiot Regent has a whole clause about red flowers. Red flowers! Who’s scared of red flowers, I ask you? Every single arrangement for his villa had to be …”

  “No,” Winnie’s eyes popped open, “nothing about drinks. Her assistant has a peanut allergy though, so the island has to be peanut free for the duration of the movie shoot. I sent the head chef a memo about that weeks ago.”

  “There you go, Ted my boy, problem solved. Now go get her order put together and don’t let one of the waiters deliver it to her, you do it. And make a point of apologizing for the delay.” Dan pointed his megaphone at the girl who was standing behind the crew. I recognized her, and her pink bangs, as the girl who’d been shooting me when I arrived on the island. “Who’s covering your team, Pam?”

  She looked surprised at being spoken to. “Norbert.”

  “Tell him to get a shot from a second-floor balcony, with the movie crew unloading the equipment down below in the background, when Ted’s delivering Ariel’s food.”

  “Howie just told him to go over to —”

  Dan cut her off. “I don’t care where he sent Norbert. I’m telling you where I want him!”

  “But, like, Howie’s kind of the director and isn’t he supposed to say where the cameras go?”

  “Does Howie sign your paycheque?” Dan said through his clenched teeth.

  “No.” Pam took a deep breath and blew out the air with enough force to make her bangs lift off her forehead.

  Dan leaned back and relaxed a bit. “Right. Who does sign it?”

  “Well,” she bobbed her head from side to side slightly, as if trying to make up her mind how to answer Dan’s question, “James does, actually.”

  Dan froze, only his eyes expressed his anger. It was an intense (and kind of scary) anger. “Do you want him to keep signing your cheques?”

  Pam nodded. “That’d be nice. And, in return, I’ll keep showing up for work.”

  “James?” Dan didn’t take his glare off Pam.

  James’ shoulders slumped. He looked, and sounded, the part of a spineless lackey. “Pam, tell Norbert to get a shot from the balcony. If Howie gives you grief, tell him to come talk to me.”

  Pam shrugged her shoulders and pulled the radio off her belt. “Okay.” She spun around on one heel and walked away from our table.

  Dan turned on James. “For the second time, I’m telling you to fire her. She’s nothing but trouble.”

  James sat up just a bit straighter. “For the second time, no. Pam’s a damn good PA.”

  Little brother had one or two vertebrae left after all.

  Dan aimed his anger and frustration at Ted. “What are you waiting for? GO!”

  Ted nodded and bolted to the doors at the end of the pool, his crew running right behind him. Winnie, on the other hand, didn’t budge.

  “We’re done,” Dan waved her away and lifted his glass. “That’s all I wanted.”

  “We’re not done yet. I came out to give you two phone messages. One,” she handed him the top piece of pink paper, “Harvey Levin wants to talk to you.” She looked up at Dan. “I leaked the clip of the Albert incident this morning. Do you want to call him back?”

  Dan shook his head and handed the paper back to Winnie.

  Winnie folded the slip of paper and then handed the one beneath it to Dan. “Two, you have to deal with this — quickly.”

  Dan’s face fell as he read whatever was written on the paper. “Shit!” He scrunched it into an extremely tight ball. “It’s the insurance company,” he said to James.

  James’ forehead instantly creased with multiple worry lines.

  “How did they find out?” Dan was struggling to control his voice.

  “First guess, someone told them.” Winnie didn’t appear to be having any problems staying calm. “They’ve called twice now. I told them you were off island and that you wouldn’t be back until later this afternoon.”

  “Is this about —” James started to ask.

  Dan shot James a look that screamed “shut up” just as loudly as it would have if he’d been using the megaphone.

  “They know about Chris Regent’s night on the town in St. Thomas. They’re threatening to cancel the policy.” Winnie sounded bored.

  Dan re-inflated and fired off orders. “Call his agent and read him the riot act — his client will be in breach of contract if he does it again, the sobriety clause is two fucking pages long! Remind him that I can replace the little fucker at the drop of the hat. Val McCubbin would give his left nut for this part. Tell Regent’s agent that!”

  “His manager’s with him, remember?” Winnie took advantage of the pause while Dan inhaled. “Mike’s babysitting Chris until he gets to location.”

  “Well, he’s doing a shit-ass job of it! Make sure he knows that. And send someone to Regent’s villa before he gets here. No! You go, go over the place like the sniffer dog I know you are. I want your personal guarantee that he hasn’t got something stashed away in there, waiting for him. Flush everything you find down the toilet. And call Judy, she’s on the boat going to get him, tell her to take every bottle on it and toss it overboard. Chris better damn well show up sober and stay sober.”

  “Anything else?”

  “When are the speedboats supposed to be getting here?”

  “Now,” she pointed to the sea below us.

  Dan spun around in his chair and looked down at the marina. “They’re blue!”

  I had to sit up as straight as I could and lean at a strange angle to see what he was talking about. Two identical big speedboats, both blue, were barrelling and bouncing over the waves, heading straight for the marina. They reminded me of the speedboats that were used in the opening montage of Miami Vice.

  “They’re fucking blue!”

  “Unless you’re going to ask me to go paint them some other colour, I’m done here.” Winnie turned around and stomped on her square heels back to the building.

  “Cheeky bitch,” Dan muttered under his breath as he turned around and looked at James. “Blue! Who puts a blue boat on blue water?”

  “What’s wrong with blue boats?” I asked James more than Dan.

  “No contrast against the water.” He finished his second drink. “They’ll stand out more in the shot if they’re yellow or red …”

  “I don’t care if they’re fucking polka dot, as long as they’re not blue!” Once again, Dan’s frenetic attention shifted. Someone had run down the other side of the pool and was moving the orange cones that separated Ariel’s table from the rest. Dan stood up and spoke in a much calmer voice. “Time for me to make my cameo. I’m going to officially welcome my star.”

  Dan had timed his welcome to coincide with the delivery of Ariel’s food — both of which were going to be shot by the television crew that was fol
lowing Ted as he carried a large tray on his shoulder from the main building to Ariel’s table. He unloaded the plates and full glasses from the tray so professionally that I had to assume he’d started his hospitality career as a waiter. While Ted set the food on the table, Dan slipped into the chair next to Ariel’s. He was all smiles and had left his megaphone behind at our table.

  “Is he clinically insane?” I asked James. Our father had been a highly respected psychiatrist but even he would have thrown his hands up in defeat if he’d had a patient like Dan.

  “No, he’s just Dan. You get used to him after a while.”

  “Is Winnie his secretary?”

  James nodded. “She’s been with him since he started out.”

  The blue boats slowed down and pulled up next to one of the docks in the marina. “Why does he need two identical speedboats in his movie? Rebecca died in her sailboat.”

  “She’s going to blow up in Dan’s version. One of the boats will be used in travelling shots and close-ups and the other one will be rigged up with radio remote and the explosives.”

  I didn’t say anything right away; I wanted a minute to think. There were many possible responses running through my head. I chose the explosive one. “Like the boat they blew up with the dummy named Albert in it?”

  James looked surprised. “How’d you hear about that?”

  I fiddled with what was left of my salad and tried to sound nonchalant. “Rob mentioned it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What else did he mention? You two sure hooked up fast enough.” The anger in James’ voice killed my appetite.

  “He came to my door with one of your contestants and I invited him to stay. He told me that he thinks you’re stressed out and working too hard on this production.” I forced myself to meet his glare. “He’s worried about you. And, I’ve got to tell you, so am I. You look awful, you’re drinking, and …”

  “Of course I’m stressed out! Do you have any idea how much is riding on this show for me?”

  “Is that all it is? The show?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” His lower lip was quivering and his eyes started to get watery. “If this show flops, I’m screwed. I’ll lose my shot at features, Dan’ll never team up with me again, which will mean I’ll lose his distribution contracts for any shows I make after this. Aunt Patti and Uncle Richard will be angry if they don’t get the promo they’re expecting. Even if the show flies they’ll probably be mad at me. Dan just told me that he wants one contestant to win and Aunt Patti’s already told me that she wants the other one to win, so no matter what happens someone’s going to be pissed. And,” he stood up with a jerk, “while all of this crap is going on, my wife is threatening to destroy me financially. Other than that, life’s just peachy. You sure picked a great time to stick your nose in my business, Ria. Family interference is that last thing I need!”

  “How about some family support? I’m on your side, James. You know that.”

  “Right now, the only thing I know for sure is that I have to go talk to one of my producers about how we’re going to deal with the budget overruns that Dan’s stunts have caused.” Those few remaining vertebrae were having a hard time holding his spine straight. “Dinner’s at seven. Dan’s set up a special dinner for you and Ariel.” He looked and sounded as if those few remaining vertebrae had collapsed on themselves.

  I wanted to run after him and give him a great big hug but knew, given his mood, that he’d just push me away. How the heck was I going to get him to open up to me? He was in one of his the-world’s-against-me moods and until that mood eased off he wasn’t going to let me in.

  On the other side of the pool Ariel and Dan were in the middle of a heated argument. Ariel had her script open and kept jabbing at it with the arm of her sunglasses. Dan looked like he was trying to reason with her, touching her arm and smiling a lot — but his actions weren’t calming her down any.

  It seemed like the only people who were actually enjoying themselves in the Caribbean paradise were the off-duty crew. They were laughing and splashing like a bunch of kids at summer camp. Even the working crew on the docks below the pool deck were enjoying themselves, their laughter and friendly shouts were carried up to me by the onshore breezes. I could hear one of them whistling while he worked and, from my vantage point, they did look like the seven dwarves times five.

  “Fine!” Ariel’s strong voice startled me. “I’ll play it your way, but you’re wrong.” She didn’t float away from the table, she marched — quickly.

  I decided to follow her lead. I’d lost my appetite anyway.

  Kate, or whoever she was, closed the door slowly, leaned her back against it and crossed her arms over her chest. “Can’t you just find someone else to interview? There must be hundreds of people who work on television shows and movies in Toronto. Why are you so interested in Kate?” The corner of her mouth slid up into a sly smile. “You’re not doing an article about just any production, are you? You’re looking for the inside scoop on Kate’s supposed disappearance. He’s good, I’ll give him that.”

  Glenn forced his lips to stay together. Yeah, he had a million questions screaming through his head and wanting to be let free, but sometimes not asking them left the person he was interviewing wanting to fill the silence in the air with more answers than they normally would have given.

  “Listen, there’s no story here, okay? Honest. Kate’s fine. He’s just using this as a publicity stunt.” She waited for Glenn to say something. He stayed silent. “Kate left by choice and I guarantee you she’ll reappear in a big way very soon.”

  Salem started to purr in his sleep. Dr. Phil continued to talk in the next apartment. Glenn finally broke the impasse of silence. “Why did you lie to the police about being Kate?”

  “Because I don’t want to be me right now. That’s why I’m actually staying here, not just coming over to feed Salem.”

  “And you are?” Glenn already knew the answer. It was obvious that she was Kate’s twin. He never would have guessed her name, though.

  “I’m Allie,” she pointed at the Kate & Allie poster on the wall. “Our parents watched way too much television!”

  “Why are you hiding in Kate’s apartment and identity?”

  “It’s a matter of wanting all my body parts to stay attached, okay?”

  Glenn immediately thought of the unattached foot. “You’re scared of someone hurting you? You think the police would hurt you?” Maybe there was a real investigative piece here after all?

  She shook her head. “Not them, but my ex did some less-than-legal things and they want me to testify against him. He’d do whatever it took to make sure I couldn’t talk.”

  “The police could protect you.” Glenn said with little conviction. The police would do all they could to protect her, but often it wasn’t enough to guarantee safety.

  “That’s what my lawyer says, too, but I’m still not convinced.” She pushed herself off the door, walked over to the couch and sat down tentatively, as far away from the sleeping Salem as was possible. “It’s a long story. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Glenn sat on the torn arm of one of the padded chairs. “All right, let’s talk about Kate then.”

  Allie crossed her legs under herself. “If I answer your questions, will you promise not to tell the police that I’m here?”

  Even though he didn’t feel comfortable about promising something like that, he couldn’t very well claim to be Mr. Honesty when it came to the police. More often than he liked to admit, he’d been less than one-hundred-percent forthcoming with some of the information he came across during his investigations. His sources told him things because they knew they could trust him to keep their identities anonymous. That’s all Allie was asking for. “Promise.”

  Allie stared at him for a few minutes. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where’s Kate?”

  “I don’t know exactly where she is, but I have a pretty good
idea. I can’t believe he called the police to report her missing, though. Slip the story to the press, like you, okay, but call the police? That was taking it too far.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The old guy, what’s-his-name, the producer.”

  “James Butler is the producer on Kate’s production …”

  “Yeah, you already said that, but he’s got a partner.” She jumped off the couch and went over to the table where the digital picture frame was. After pushing a button on the back of the frame several times she stopped the picture show at one of the first photo’s Glenn had noticed. “Him. He knows damn well she’s not missing. His secretary even called me last weekend, the day after the cops came, and she asked me to let Kate know that they’d deposited her final payment into her bank account.”

  Glenn’s right hand involuntarily formed a fist — the fist he wanted to shove down Bobbie’s throat for messing with Ria. “How did she know to call you?”

  “Kate had to give them the name and number of a family member, you know, in case of emergency. But Pooh Bear wasn’t calling about any emergency. She was just making sure that Kate knew she wouldn’t be getting any more money from them.”

  “Pooh Bear?”

  “She said her name was Winnie Pavlovich, like Winnie the Pooh, right? Movie people are all weird. I don’t know how Kate stands them.”

  “So, you’re saying that the old guy called the police to report Kate missing just for publicity? How could having one of your employees go missing be good publicity?”

  Allie put the picture frame back down and Glenn watched James’ face come onto the screen next.

  “Kate told me some of the stuff he’s done for publicity. He doesn’t care if it’s good or bad, just that it is. When Kate left he must have decided to use that to his advantage, too. He’s a real dirt bag. He’s who you should be doing a story on.”

  “Do you know him?”