The Speculative Short Stories of Barbara Paul, page 23
“Come here, Mackie,” Tinyvoice whispered and swept him up into an embrace. “I need a hug.” It was McCat who got the hug, but he endured it because Tinyvoice was a good sort.
He also allowed her to carry him to where the others were going, as it was obvious he wasn’t going to get his space back anytime soon. On the other set, his humans were standing around looking uncomfortable... all but Groomer, who was patting his hair and smoothing down his clothes.
McCat wriggled free of Tinyvoice’s light grasp and headed toward a machine that sometimes purred and gave off warmth. But the machine was cold and quiet; not a good space today. McCat leapt to the top of a semicircular railing that was part of the set and walked daintily along the narrow top, looking for exactly the right spot. When he found it, he settled down, tucked in his paws, and did his Sphinx act.
Groomer was inspecting his short claws, undoubtedly hoping they’d grown some since the last time he’d looked, in response to something Female Stranger said, he replied, “I was seated right here during the entire scene.” He sat down and checked his reflection in a computer screen.
“I was moving around a lot,” a woman’s voice said. “I’m sorry... this is upsetting. I can’t remember my blocking. I’m not sure where I was at the end of the scene.” McCat knew that voice; it was Noseburner.
“Continuity!” Boss yelled. “I think you were down by Exit A, but let’s check it.” The human named Continuity hurried forward with a script.
McCat’s eyes closed as the humans went on moving around and talking. It was the same boring thing they did every day. Yak-yak-yak, change space. Change space, yak-yak-yak. He dozed.
Suddenly McCat’s sinuses were on fire and his eyes watering. He whipped his head around. Noseburner! She was headed straight toward him! He jumped down from the circular railing and dashed off the set as fast as his legs would carry him.
“That cat hates me,” Noseburner said wonderingly. “He’s always doing that.”
McCat didn’t hate her; he just hated her smell. Her smell hurt. Noseburner kept her painful smell in a bottle on her dressing table. On days she forgot to open the bottle, McCat liked her well enough.
But right now he felt the need for a little privacy; he’d had enough of the humans for a while. The game room would be empty this time of day.
A long mirror inside the door caught his attention. His reflection showed spanking-clean white fur, big yellow-green eyes. A fine figure of a feline.
McCat had two spaces in the game room. His public space was at the end of a long counter where he could watch what was happening. Every morning some of the humans came in and changed into creatures with scales or tentacles or feathers. They changed to bright yellow or green or purplish blue. Some of them developed forehead diseases. Even their smells changed. Then at the end of the day they’d all change back into humans again. It was a pretty good game.
But McCat had a private space there as well, and that was where he was headed. He’d discovered a cabinet door latch that didn’t quite catch, letting him crawl into the dark, warm place and nestle on the freshly laundered make-up towels. It was, if truth be told, his favorite space in the entire universe.
McCat nudged the cabinet door open and started to step inside—but stopped in shock, one paw suspended in midair. The place reeked of the same blood that had mined his other space, and a big metal thing was taking up his sleeping room.
These humans! Had they no respect whatsoever? Didn’t they understand a cat’s need for privacy. Did they think they could just go in anywhere they wanted and claim the space for themselves?
McCat threw back his head and YOWWWWLLLLLLLED until someone came to see what the matter was.
More strangers had come, taking up room and interfering with the day’s rhythms even further. Most of them had left, eventually, taking the very dead man with them; a few strangers wearing uniforms remained. But no one had cleaned away the dead human’s blood scent; McCat was beginning to think that that good space was gone forever.
But he’d found a new one, temporary in nature but nice nonetheless. He snuggled happily in the lap of Female Stranger, who was absently scratching him between the shoulder blades. McCat purred in contentment; it was the one spot he couldn’t scratch for himself.
“They use those pieces of pipe in nearly ever damned set they’ve built here,” Male Stranger was saying. “Then they shoot steam through them to create ‘atmosphere’—that’s why the murder weapon had holes drilled in it. The killer just picked up one piece of pipe off the pile of spares.”
“Which nullifies the spur-of-the-moment theory,” Female pointed out. “That death was planned. Someone carried the pipe around until the opportunity came up to use it.”
“And that doesn’t even rule out the actors. All those flowing robes and big loose sleeves? I thought spacefaring people wore jammies and miniskirts.”
Female shifted her position slightly in her canvas deck chair, causing McCat to open one eye at her. “What was Nathan doing on that other set? The props woman was there looking for their missing gizmo. But why the star of the picture?”
Male thought a minute. “Someone asked to meet him there?”
“But why there? Why not a dressing room or the make-up room or someplace private?”
“Could be Nathan insisted on someplace out in the open?”
Female nodded slowly. “That’s good. He knew there might be danger to himself. So he’d agree to meet only in an exposed area... except that it turned out to be not quite exposed enough. I think we’d better talk to the director again.” She turned her head and said something to one of the Uniform Humans.
“Guy from the ME’s office guesses epidermal hematoma,” Male said. “The blow opened an artery, looks like. And before you ask... he said a pipe that heavy would do the job by itself. He didn’t have to be hit especially hard.”
“So we can’t rule out the women. Reenacting where everybody was standing at the end of the last scene eliminated exactly three people from this mob we’ve got here. You know, I don’t think we’re going to nail this one through external evidence.”
Male didn’t look happy. “Motive. Personalities. All that messy stiff.”
Uniform Human came back with Boss, who approached them with a look of horror on his face. “You’re sitting in my chair!” he said accusingly to Male.
Male looked around at all the empty deck chairs nearby and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”
“You’re in my chair!” Boss went on in an outraged voice. “You don’t sit in the director’s chair, not ever. You sit in God’s chair... but never in the director’s chair!”
Male raised both hands. “All right, all right.” He got up and pulled over another chair while Boss reclaimed his own. McCat approved; one had to be on constant guard against space-usurpers.
Female said, “Tell me about this Nathan. I never heard of him. He was the star of the movie?”
“Costar,” Boss answered. “Or rather co-costar. Buddy picture plus female. A Hope and Crosby road picture.”
“A comedy?”
“Not intentionally.” Bitterly.
Male and Female exchanged a look. Male asked, “Not going well?”
“Three stars, three acting styles. And not one of them willing to give an inch.” Boss glowered. “Not exactly what you’d call ensemble acting.”
“So who was Nathan?”
“Oh, he was another of those Shakespearean Brits who’ve learned there are big bucks to be made doing American science-fiction flicks. This was his first Hollywood movie, but he’d made a name for himself in European cinema. Did a couple of plays on Broadway.”
“Then he didn’t know many people here?”
“Yeah, he did. Show people move around a lot. He’d worked with some of our people before.”
“With you?”
“Not with me. But we’d met a couple of times.”
“What kind of man was he?”
Boss shrugged. “Smug. Looked down his nose at the colonials. It may have been a defense mechanism, though. I think he might have been nervous doing this kind of picture. His last role was Richard III.”
Female leaned forward, crowding McCat a bit. “What made you think he was nervous?”
“Oh, he just acted edgy all the time. As if he was walking on eggs. So careful of everything he said and did.”
“As if he knew he was in danger?”
Boss stared at her. “That never occurred to me, but considering what happened to him—yeah, maybe so. But he didn’t really act afraid, you know. Just sort of... wary.”
They questioned him further, but Boss didn’t know much about Nathan’s personal life. The English actor had been married and divorced several times, but was currently unattached. Boss wasn’t even sure where he lived.
After telling the director he could leave, Male looked at his partner and said, “Not much there in specifics, but it does look as if Nathan was involved with someone he knew was dangerous.”
“Blackmail?”
“With Nathan as the blackmailer? Could be.” He sighed. “A Hope and Crosby picture, the man said. The Road to Saturn. So, what next?”
“Let’s go talk to Dorothy Lamour,” Female said.
McCat fussed a little when she gently pushed him off to the floor. He trotted along behind as they headed toward one of the trailers used as dressing rooms, wishing Female would perch somewhere and make a lap again. Then abruptly he stopped: it was Noseburner’s trailer door they were knocking on.
The woman herself opened the door with one hand while holding a towel in the other. “I just got out of the shower,” she said, “but come on in.”
McCat sniffed the air cautiously. No burning sensation in his nose or eyes; was it safe? At the last minute he slipped into the trailer just before Male closed the door behind him.
“Well!” Noseburner exclaimed when she saw McCat. “You’ve decided to honor me with your presence?”
“You don’t like cats?” Female asked.
“I like them well enough, but that cat doesn’t like me. He’s always running away from me.” She sat down at her dressing table and toweled her still-damp hair briskly, looking a question at the two detectives.
Male asked, “How well did you know Nathan?”
A sigh. “Nathan claimed he had a role in Coming Up for Air." At the detectives’ blank looks, she added, “That’s a movie I made in Rome years ago. You didn’t see it? But if Nathan was in it, I don’t remember him. It must have been a very small role.”
“I thought Nathan was a big star in Europe,” Female interposed.
Noseburner smiled at her condescendingly. “He is now. He wasn’t then.” She tossed her towel aside, a gesture that generated a flash of light from her left hand.
Female gaped. “Is that an engagement ring?”
The leading lady gazed approvingly at the huge stone she was wearing. “I am going to marry Sam Steinmetz. As soon as this picture is finished.”
The detectives nodded; everyone in Hollywood knew who Sam Steinmetz was. In Hollywood, there were big producers, Big Producers, and BIG PRODUCERS. Sam Steinmetz belonged to the last group.
Female smiled. “Well... best wishes to you both. Is Mr. Steinmetz producing this picture?”
“Oh, yes,” Noseburner replied airily. “I told him I’d never done a sci-fi movie, so he bought several properties and told me to choose one.”
“But as far as you’re concerned,” Male said, determined to bring them back to the subject, “you didn’t know Nathan at all before CyberLine started shooting?”
“CyberTime,” Noseburner corrected. “As far as I was concerned, Nathan was a total stranger. Afraid I can’t help you there, Detective.”
McCat was fastidiously exploring every corner of the trailer, checking for traces of the hurtful smell that might have escaped from the bottle on Noseburner’s dressing table. He thought he caught a whiff of it once or twice, but it was gone before his eyes could start watering. Once he’d assured himself this space was safe, he settled down to take a bath, tongue-washing his already clean white fur.
Noseburner was talking to the two detectives about the movie’s director. “Did he tell you that he almost directed Nathan once before? A television adaptation of a play Nathan had done in New York. It was for PBS—no money to speak of but a good showcase.”
“What happened?”
“Nathan preferred a more... prestigious director. A bigger name. And since he was the star of the show—what Nathan wanted, Nathan got.”
Both detectives’ eyes gleamed; it was the first hint of a motive they’d come across. “So the director bore a grudge against the actor?” Female asked.
A throaty laugh. “Not enough to kill him, Detective! But yes, there was tension between them.” Casually she pulled a bottle toward her and removed the stopper.
There it was: fire in the sinus, in the nostrils, behind the eyeballs. A growl started low in McCat’s throat and rose to a high whine. He hissssssed—and felt the fur on his back stand on end. He started dashing back and forth, looking for an escape route. Closed doors! Closed windows!
“What on earth?” said Noseburner.
McCat sneezed rapidly eleven times in succession and then started scratching frantically at the door, meowing piteously. Can't you see I'm dying here?
“It’s your perfume,” Male said.
Wonderingly, Noseburner looked at the stopper in her hand and then replaced it in the bottle. “The damned cat doesn’t like my perfume?”
Male picked McCat up and stroked him soothingly. “That looks like an allergy to me. All that sneezing?”
“Wait a minute,” Female said. “I’m wearing perfume. He sat in my lap okay. No reaction.”
Male nodded his head toward the dressing table, his arms full of cat. “Then it’s just that perfume. Cats can be allergic to only one brand.”
McCat gradually calmed down as the hurtful smell dissipated to a tolerable level. The three humans forgot about him, although Male kept stroking him automatically. Female said, “Back to Nathan. Even though you don’t remember him from before, did you get friendly with him later?”
Noseburner laughed her throaty laugh. “My, there’s a loaded question if ever I heard one. We were neither friendly nor unfriendly. He did invite me to lunch one day but I didn’t go.”
“Why not?’
“He wanted to have food sent in to his trailer. That’s not my idea of a luncheon date. And his trailer is smaller than this one.” She gestured vaguely. “At least, it looks smaller from the outside.”
“You’ve never been inside his trailer?”
“No reason to go. If he’d wanted to visit, he could have come here.”
“But he didn’t.”
“That’s right, Detective. He didn’t. Nathan wasn’t one for casual chat. Too reserved. He didn’t really fit in here, on an American movie set”
“Reserved, hm? Did he seem edgy, nervous? Uh... wary?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
Again, the detectives learned nothing about Nathan’s personal life in spite of their additional questions. Evidently the man just didn’t open up about himself. They thanked Noseburner for her cooperation and left, Male still carrying McCat.
“What about the other star of the picture?” Female asked. “Want to talk to him?"
“Might as well,” Male answered. “If he can stop primping long enough.”
Groomer’s trailer was on the other side of the huge set, as if he and Noseburner were putting as much distance between them as possible.
In answer to their knock, the star himself sang out, “Come in! Come in!” They opened the door to see the man they were looking for sitting at his dressing table, Combing his hair. When he saw their reflections in his mirror, he said, “Ah, the gendarmerie! And you brought Mackie with you. Come here, Mackie, you sweet thing.” Without rising from his chair, he reached up and took McCat out of Male’s arms and arranged the cat artfully across his crossed legs, holding him in place with both hands and making as handsome a picture as he could. McCat’s tail began to switch back and forth; he didn’t like being used as a prop.
The two detectives found places to sit and asked their usual questions about the dead man. Unlike the others, Groomer had a lot to say about Nathan. Unfortunately, it was all gossip.
“They say,” Groomer purred insinuatingly, “that Nathan keeps a pimp on retainer. Different woman every night. They say Nathan almost broke the pimp’s arm when the poor shmuck forgot and sent a hooker who’d been there once before.” He giggled. “Nathan really worked at maintaining a macho image.”
Male was scowling. “A nervous, reserved, macho actor,” he muttered. “I wonder if any of you were seeing the same man.”
“Oh, my dears, we saw only what Nathan wanted us to see. The man was acting all the time. So affected! Always giving a performance.”
Both detectives managed to keep a straight face; Female asked, “I suppose you didn’t know Nathan either before this picture started filming?”
“What do you mean, ‘either’? Almost all of us had crossed paths with Nathan at one time or another.”
“Your leading lady didn’t. Or at least she says she doesn’t remember meeting him.”
“Is that what she told you?” He laughed a descending-scale musical laugh. “Oh, that woman—she is incorrigible. He got to laughing so hard the he ignored the animal in his lap and carelessly stuck a finger into McCat’s ear. McCat bit his hand and jumped down to head for a hiding space he’d spotted.
Groomer cradled his not-really-injured hand and growled unpleasantries at the white cat. Male interrupted by asking, “What was so funny? Wasn’t she telling the truth about not knowing Nathan?”
The actor immediately forgot about McCat at this golden opportunity to spread a little dirt. “Oh, they knew each other all right! Did they ever. She and Nathan were in a movie together once, a dreadful piece of tripe called Coming Up for Air. But the way I hear it, they were hot and heavy for each other from Day One. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She was the star and he had some minor role... Lady Chatterley going for a roll in the hay with the groundskeeper, don’t you know. Steamed up the lenses of the cameras, they did—and they weren’t even playing love scenes!”
