Show Business Kills (4 page)

“My God! What is it?” Jan asked him. But before he could answer, she heard one of the grips holler, “It’s okay. Not to worry,
folks. We got him. He’s outta here.” Hal was heaving hysterical breaths that made Jan afraid he was going to have a heart
attack. Finally he fell on her in a sweaty hug.

“It’s okay. They got him. It was that guy again, hon,” Hal said, trying to catch his breath. “That fan. I just caught sight
of him lurking back there by the coffeemaker. He must have gotten past the Pinkerton security boys downstairs and wanted to
say hello to you. That’s all.”

That’s all, he said, but he looked more afraid than she was. It was the man, that fan of hers who sat across the street from
the studio every night so he could wave to her when her car drove out. And today he’d managed to get all the way onto the
lot, and the sound stage, and the set, and Hal, who now pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped the sweat from
his own face, kept repeating the words “That’s all.”

Chilled with dread, Jan sat on the bed on the ICU set and tried to calm herself. Soap-opera fans were notorious for believing
the characters on the show they watched were real, so every day there were weird letters and phone calls and threats to the
producer’s offices from fans who obsessed about their favorite character’s fate.
AUBREY FLYNN IS A DEAD MAN IF HE DOESN’T GIVE HIS SON THAT MONEY HE ASKED FOR. WHO DOES THAT BITCH MAGGIE THINK SHE IS? FLIRTING
WITH EVERY MAN THAT GOES BY, IF I EVER GET MY HANDS ON HER
…

“Jan, you okay down there?” she heard the director ask from
the booth as she and Hal made their way back onto the office set. Hal was so shaky she felt as if she was holding him up.

“I’m fine,” she said, even trying to force a smile, but her face was twitching. “What did they do with the man?” she asked,
hoping someone would assure her that they’d taken him to jail.

“Nothing much they can do. They threw him off the lot,” came the voice.

“That’s all?” Jan asked. Bert was touching up the concealer under her eyes. A few pats with the sponge, his Royal Lyme engulfing
her. “Look up, sweetheart. That’s it. Look up.”

“He didn’t do anything,” the disembodied voice from the booth told her dismissively.

Jan tried to make her breathing normal as Bert left the set, and she looked around at all the people who were uncomfortably
looking anywhere but into her eyes. They were afraid for her, and probably for themselves. Last year, at Universal Studios,
some nut stood outside the executive office building and let go with an automatic rifle. And everyone knew about the fan who
tracked down and murdered that poor young actress Rebecca Schaeffer.

She sat down at the desk in Maggie’s office and tried to regain her composure. “Is he going to have to kill me before they
arrest him?” she said to nobody in particular. No one answered. Tom Patterson patted her hand as if to tell her he understood.
But he didn’t understand. She was panicked. What if that man waited outside the lot and then followed her home? What if he
hurt Joey? She wanted to stand up and scream, “Somebody help me,” but she knew none of them could or would.

“Can we go on?” the director’s voice asked, as if he’d been inconvenienced by Jan’s popularity. There were three
directors who alternated shooting the episodes of this show, and there was always competition among them about coming in on
time and under budget. If someone had called the police, their intrusion on the set would have slowed things up significantly.
This little incident could have thrown off the whole day. They had to keep moving.

“Let’s make this one, people,” Hal called out, his voice still quivering. “Places, please. Here we go in five, four, three,
two…”

“You can imagine how worried I’ve been,” Tom Patterson said as Aubrey to Maggie. “I mean, there’s no mistaking the look in
Phillip’s eyes when you walk into a room. I thought perhaps you felt…”

It was Jan’s cue. “Darling, don’t be silly.” She managed to say Maggie’s words, but inside she was trembling, worrying about
driving home alone and wondering if that fan had any idea where she lived.

“All those late meetings you two were having. It made me worry.”

Jan turned away, as Maggie had been directed. It was all by rote. Years of technique taking over. Thank heaven she could rely
on the automatic system she’d developed after playing this part for so long, because her heart and her brain were not there,
and her insides were rumbling with fear. “Darling, don’t be absurd,” she said, afraid she might lose it any second. Nobody
had spotted that man today, and he’d made it all the way onto the set. Only a few yards away from her. No one mentioned whether
or not he was carrying a gun.

“You aren’t in love with Phillip Jenkins, are you, Maggie?”

“Oh, Aubrey. Don’t be absurd,” she said, as the camera moved in for her close-up. Later everyone commented when
they watched that episode that Maggie really looked as if she was afraid Aubrey had finally caught her cheating on him. And
how ironic it all was, in light of what happened later.

Today was a block-and-tape day, which meant that the actors taped each scene immediately after they blocked it, so after the
scene in Maggie’s office, and one more in the reception area of Flynn Laboratories, Jan’s shooting day was over. She spent
a quiet time in her dressing room, removing her makeup, changing into leggings and a long sweater. When she opened the big,
heavy studio door, she squinted, surprised to see the sun. It was the first time in weeks she’d actually left work while it
was still daylight.

As she drove off the lot in her silent black Lexus, she looked both ways to see if she could spot anyone suspicious pulling
away after her car, but in the early afternoon the streets were quiet and surprisingly traffic free. She put her hand on her
car phone and considered calling The Prince of Power. Just to tell him what happened and hear him say, “Oh, sweetheart, I’m
so sorry.”

Sometimes she could get through the first and second assistants to his executive secretary, who had worked for him at that
studio and the one before it, long enough to remember the way in the old days he had a phone on his desk with a private number
just for her calls. Sometimes Isobel would still hustle her call through so she could hear his husky voice say, “My angel
face… how awful you must feel. I’ve got Barry Diller holding. I’ll ring you back.”

No, she wouldn’t call him. It didn’t matter. In a few minutes she’d be hugging Joey, and that would make the insanity of the
day disappear. It amused her that hurrying home to be with her son excited her more than anything she’d ever felt when she
was on her way to a tryst with The Prince. This little boy was
magical for her. And every day she thanked heaven for the day she’d finally had the guts to adopt him, finally admitted to
herself after too many difficult romances that waiting for some man to someday make a family with her was a vain hope.

Everyone thought she was crazy to start raising a child at this stage in her life. The other actors on her show, her sister,
and of course The Prince all advised her to forget it. But Marly, Rosie, and Ellen urged her to go for it. Ellen had recommended
the adoption lawyer, who found Jan a birth mother willing to turn over a baby to a single working woman. Marly found Jan a
therapist who specialized in adoptions to prepare her for the experience. Rose found a good obstetrician for the birth mother.

All three of them managed to have careers and children, but to a woman they reported that nothing in their work lives, no
matter how big a part, how hot a deal, “not even my Oscar nomination,” Rose said, could compete with the love of their children.
Jan had envied them for so long, watched their joy while she played Aunt Jan to all of their kids.

Joey’s adoption ceremony was an emotional event from start to finish. Jan dressed him in a sailor suit, and no one could get
over the way he laughed and smiled through the entire ceremony. And none of them would ever forget the tender moment when
Marly, Ellen, and Rose all stood in a circle, and as they passed the infant boy to one another’s arms, each made an eloquent
and loving promise to him, like the fairies did in
Sleeping Beauty
, to guard him with their lives.

Today as Jan drove up the long, winding driveway and pulled into the carport of her house, she congratulated herself again
for buying it. It wasn’t grand, just a little two-story, built-on-stilts Laurel Canyon house. Stucco with the fifties’ sliding-glass-door
style. But what had sold her on it, the
minute the broker walked her in, was the panoramic view from every room. On days when the air wasn’t too thick with smog,
she could see the mountains that were miles away.

And at night, the lights below twinkled and made the view look just the way she remembered it in the opening of a TV show
she used to watch as a kid, where the searchlights spanned the night sky and the announcer’s voice said, “Lux… presents Hollywood.”

“Mommmeeee,” Joey shrieked happily, running to Jan. She crouched so her arms would receive her four-year-old, whose wispy
blond hair and blue eyes ironically made him look just like the baby pictures she had of herself.

“Hello, my lovely boy,” she said, inhaling the dear little-boy scent of him. It was unusual for her to be home in time to
be the one who made Joey dinner instead of arriving just in time to tuck him in. Hurrying in to give him a few pre-sleep kisses
and then watching him drift off. It was an incredible luxury to have hours of daylight left to play with him. Jan nursed a
glass of wine while they sat on the floor and put together a jigsaw puzzle. Then they each colored a page in the “Beauty and
the Beast” coloring book, Jan carefully shading a blue dress on Belle, and Joey scrawling with bright red all over the Beast.

“Some children are natural nurturers,” a child psychologist told her. “From the start they feel that they’re here to take
care of you.” Ellen told Jan that her son, Roger, had always been a caretaker. Joey was like that, too, with Jan. When her
mind wandered to the man breaking in onto the set today, he climbed into her lap and gently patted her face.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” he said. “It’s okay.”

The day was getting just a little gray, and the sky over the valley was orange and magenta when she stood at the stove,
tasting the DynoMac pasta to see if it was ready for the sauce. She promised herself that one of these days she’d stop giving
Joey such junk food, but she kept breaking the promise because he seemed to love it so much. She was getting the milk out
of the refrigerator when the phone rang.

“They’re fucking you, babe.” It was her lawyer.

“Ooh, Bernie, I hope so,” she kidded, while she mixed the cheese and the milk into the pasta. “I also hope like hell they’re
using protection.” Bernie had his serious voice on. He was bringing what he thought was grim news from Ed Powell and the other
producers of “My Brightest Day.”

The scene between Maggie and Lydia for Friday was leading to a shooting followed by a prolonged hospitalization for Maggie,
as a warning to Jan that she was dispensable. To make sure that she’d accept the meager raise they were offering for a new
three-year contract. An offer Bernie was telling her was “a real up-yours.”

“But, Bern,” she said, “I’m happy they want me back. I was starting to think Maggie Flynn was going to have soap opera reincarnation
as a younger actress. Thank God at least I can get some more time out of this deal. I have a child to feed, sweetie.”

“If I were you, I’d threaten to walk,” Bernie said. “Otherwise they’ll shit all over you. That new girl? The twenty-two-year-old
with the headlights out to Kishnev. She started on the show with a higher salary than they’re offering you after fifteen years.
So I don’t want you to be a schmuck. I mean, you can be a schmuck if you want, but I wouldn’t cave at this point. I’d say
no to the offer and let them come back to us.”

“Yeah? And what if they say, ‘Okay. Thanks for the fifteen years, and ciao, baby?’ ” she asked, spooning the minidinosaurs
smothered in the gooey orange cheese sauce onto a “Ninja Turtle” plate.

“Well, that’s the chance we have to take, isn’t it?” Bernie said.

“Bernie, I’ve watched them get rid of other actors on this show with great ease. I did a guest shot on a high-rated prime-time
show because my old college chum gave me a handout. The producer of the show probably resented it so much that he’ll never
use me again. No one is exactly beating my door down to beg me to do anything else. I’m a forty-nine-year-old actress, and
a long-running soap is asking me back. I appreciate you wanting to get me some fancy raise, but I am unable to authorize you
to tell them I’m walking if they don’t give me what I want. If I don’t send my sister a monthly check, she’ll be moving into
her car. Close the deal,” she said.

“Janny, let’s take a day or two or three to get back to them,” Bernie said. “Maybe you’ll change your mind and give me some
leeway.”

“We can take a few days, Bern,” she said. “But I’m not going to turn my back on a real live job.”

“Call me next week when you’re a little more rested,” Bernie said.

“Fine,” Jan said, and she caught the telephone receiver just before it fell from under her ear into the DynoMacs.

She put the dish in front of Joey at the table, and Marie poured some apple juice into a plastic glass for Joey and put that
on the table, too. “I tell my husband I stay here Friday night so you can be with Misses Marly and Ellen and Rose,” Marie
said. “I stay the night to watch Joey, and you go have fun with your friends.”

“Thank you, Marie,” Jan said. “I can’t wait!”

  
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