The Perfect Ghost (33 page)

BP:
Jamie says Mal owes him for what old Ralph did, cutting him out of the will ’cause he caught him one time with a boy, and for what Mal did, passing Jenna off as his own, said it was some kinda fraud. That’s what Jamie says, and he’s my friend. Mal shoulda given Jamie a big chunk of land, bought him off a long time ago. Jamie’s always after him, picking and picking. You know how Malcolm wants to fix it so nobody can ever build?

TB:
Lower his taxes, right?

BP:
Jamie’s about given up with Mal, but Jenna might listen. Jamie wants Mal to quit what he’s doing with that conservation shit, ’cause if he does that, Jamie will never be able to talk Jenna into giving him a hunk of land, or even selling it cheap. Mal’s a fucking artist, busy playing with his doll-actors. He’s not an adult, he’s still a fucking child-genius-director, too busy doing holy theater, too damned holy to cast a movie star as Hamlet.

TB:
Has Jamie ever canceled a board meeting?

BP:
He does a great Mal imitation. And Jamie’s got this local guy, writes a gossip blog or something. Jamie plants shit with him alla time, keeps the townies fired up against the theater. Stall, stall, stall.

TB:
Right. And then you handed him the keys to the kingdom.

BP:
Mal hasn’t exactly helped my career, you know what I mean? Everybody figures there’s a reason he won’t work with me, like I’m unreliable or something. And I wasn’t, not back then. Shit, I was somebody. I was box office gold. God, if he’d just give it to me, I know I could do it. Goddamn, but I want that part.

TB:
“They all want to play Hamlet.”

BP:
Don’t go making fun of me.

TB:
No, I wasn’t. I wouldn’t.

BP:
He won’t give it to me. Christ, I shouldn’t be talking to you. I screw everything up, don’t I? Sometimes I wish I was fuckin’ dead, wish I had the guts to swim out into the ocean, just swim out till I can’t move my arms anymore, just let go and drown. “’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.” See? I could do it; I know I could.

TB:
You’d be great.

BP:
Don’t fuckin’ make fun of me. What the hell do you want anyway? I shouldn’t be talking to you, either. I yak it up when I drink. Am I talking too much?

TB:
So there’s nothing to that thing about Mal setting the clinic on fire?

BP:
Hell, no, just Jamie’s idea of a good climax for the screenplay, see? You’re not taping anymore, right? Hey, is that bottle empty?

TB:
No, no. Here you go.

BP:
And why shouldn’t I help Jamie out? Jamie’s gonna get land for his hotel now, get this place, too, so maybe he’ll be satisfied, but I don’t care. Fill my glass up, okay?

TB:
Don’t tell me you’re not going to get anything out of the deal?

BP:
Money is all. I’m gonna get some money, Jamie says, but I don’t care. Because that’s not what I want.

TB:
What do you want, Brook?

BP:
Besides another drink? Hell, I want to be seventeen again. I want to play Ben Justice again. I want to play Hamlet. And don’t you even say it. You know what? I don’t like your fucking attitude. I’m changing my mind about this, okay? This isn’t something I ought to be doing. I want that tape. C’mon, give it to me.

TB:
Hey, you can trust me. You know you can trust me. This is all off the record.

PB:
You promise? You fucking promise?

TB:
Cross my heart.

CHAPTER

fifty-three

Sound engineer:
I’ll give you a ten-count. Remember to look directly at Camera Three. Okay, we’re going live: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five …

Music up and Voiceover:
And now, welcome back to the Angela Rivers Show.

Angela Rivers:
I’d like to welcome our next guest, Em Moore, the woman behind
The Blue Flame: Garrett Malcolm and the American Cinema.
C’mon, people, put your hands together and clap. Em—can I call you Em? Your book couldn’t be more timely. I understand the publisher pushed up the publication date, rushed it into print. You were actually finishing up the book the night the beach shack burned? Have we got a visual on that? Yes, this was taken the next morning after the fire, filmed by a news photographer from a boat off the Cape Cod coast.

Em Moore:
The ruins were still smoldering. Even though it was so close to the water, there was nothing anyone could do.

AR:
The shack actually exploded.

EM:
At first, I thought it was a beach fire, a campfire on the beach that had gotten out of control. But it was too big and it kept growing. The sky turned red. It was like an early sunrise, but it was much too early for the sun. I called 911.

AR:
And you ran down to the shack in time to see Malcolm try to break in.

EM:
The structure was engulfed in flames. He was incredibly brave.

AR:
Did you realize anyone was inside?

EM:
He did. He knew Brooklyn Pierce was staying there.

AR:
You’re seeing film of the floral tributes left on the gate of Brooklyn Pierce’s apartment building in L.A. Police had to erect a barrier to keep fans at a distance.

EM:
The outpouring of grief has been amazing.

AR:
Yes, it has. And no one else had any idea Pierce was staying on the Cape? Besides Garrett Malcolm?

EM:
. Well, Glenn McKenna, the gossip columnist, must have known.

AR:
That’s the man who ran the Cape Cod Truthtelling Web site. His was the second body found at the shack. Hold on, I think we’ve got a few visuals from the Web site. Joey, can you run those, please? The site was taken down by law enforcement personnel shortly after McKenna’s death.

EM:
Yes.

AR:
So were you surprised when Malcolm was arrested? Shocked?

EM:
I’m sure the police will find they’ve made a mistake. The case against him is entirely circumstantial.

AR:
He took out a restraining order against McKenna.

EM:
Yes, but that’s hardly—

AR:
And the method the arsonist used, wasn’t it exactly the method detailed in Malcolm’s film,
Blue Flame
?

EM:
Millions of people world-wide have seen that film. Glenn McKenna could certainly have seen the film.

AR:
So you’re making the case for murder-suicide, that McKenna set off his own funeral pyre? And decided to take Brooklyn Pierce along for the ride?

EM:
I didn’t say that.

AR:
Didn’t the police find a screenplay Brooklyn Pierce had written? Isn’t it true that the screenplay gives a motive for the crime?

EM:
If it did, wouldn’t Malcolm have destroyed it?

AR:
There’s been a lot of speculation about what’s in that screenplay.

EM:
It’s a Ben Justice script, I know that. Titled
The Black Stone
.

AR:
You’ve seen it then?

EM:
A short excerpt. Of an earlier version.

AR:
Brooklyn Pierce had never written a screenplay. His agent says he didn’t know anything about a screenplay.

EM:
Pierce had every reason to want to play Ben Justice again. It was his most successful role. Maybe he thought he understood the character better than anyone, that he had an inside track with the director. A lot of actors turn to screenwriting as they get older. Look at Garrett Malcolm.

AR:
You must have heard the rumors? That Pierce wasn’t so much submitting the script to Cranberry Hill Productions as he was giving Malcolm the chance to pay him not to show it to anyone else? TMZ and several other sites have speculated that the manuscript outlines a story in which a man, a movie star, comes forward to the media with evidence that he is the biological father of another man’s child. That the other man is a successful director with one daughter …

EM:
There are always rumors.

AR:
One site says that characters in the film are identified only by initials, that the woman who has the affair with the actor while married to the director is identified as CG. Garrett Malcolm was married to Claire Gregory.

EM:
I don’t think that’s true, and even if it is, they’re just initials.

AR:
But isn’t it true there’s a lot at stake here? A considerable amount of property was deeded to Malcolm’s daughter on the assumption that she was his biological heir.

EM:
There will be a trial. I don’t think it’s fair to assume—

AR:
But if Malcolm refused to pay, and Pierce was actually meeting with a man who ran a celebrity gossip site? Don’t you think the fire was just a bit too convenient?

EM:
Garrett Malcolm was very kind to me during the time I was writing
Blue Flame
. I hope this terrible event doesn’t cloud the way people remember him as an artist. I’m sure that in the long run he’ll be found innocent.

AR:
And meanwhile, your book has found a very receptive audience, here and overseas, and I understand there’s an incredible amount of interest in Hollywood. Are you going to write the screenplay?

EM:
Angela, I really haven’t thought about it. I don’t have any experience writing for the screen.

CHAPTER

fifty-four

You would have been proud of me, Teddy.

Everyone applauded. Jonathan beamed and patted my arm. Marcy showered me with air kisses and asked how it felt to be a celebrity. There was champagne in the green room, and by the time I left, I had a bit of a buzz on. I know you always longed to do
The Angela Rivers Show,
but she didn’t ask about you, Teddy, didn’t so much as mention your name. It was as though you’d never existed.

Marcy’s driver dropped me at Penn Station. The train was running twenty-seven minutes late, so I settled into a metal chair in the waiting area. A long-faced woman in the next row of seats hauled her laptop out of her luggage and set to work with a sigh. A man complained about Amtrak, always late, always crowded, at megaphone volume via cell phone. A teenage boy, slim in frayed jeans and gray hoodie, slouched by. He reminded me of the mechanic with the scarred face who worked at the Dennis garage.

How much?

That’s all he said. Before I even got the question out of my mouth.
Did you happen to find—?

Underweight and pimply, he made a cup of his outstretched hand. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. There was a line of grease under his ragged fingernails. His other hand rested too casually in his pocket and we both knew what we were talking about, and we both knew we weren’t going to bargain now or talk later.