“Well, you’ll watch it out there. I mailed it to you.”
“Here?”
“Don’t worry. I FedExed it.”
I didn’t know why it seemed like a lousy idea, but it did. Something told me it wasn’t safe to have Troy Kevlin anywhere near the film. Besides, what if it got lost? There were trivial cops; maybe there were trivial mailmen.
“I put it to your attention, Roy, don’t worry.”
For all her common sense and competence, Dena still lacked the essential irrational paranoid quality that distinguished the trivial. I liked her and hated her for it. Regardless, it was too late to do anything but wait.
“When I get it, I’m going home. Even Abner is better than this.” I surprised myself, saying it. But as my wall creaked again, I began to prefer the devil I knew.
“Keep me posted,” Dena said, warmly.
“I will.”
Neither of us spoke then. Between Dena’s father and my mother, I supposed we were filling in as family for each other. Maybe that would explain the awkwardness about everything else. It also explained why, when I hung up, I felt alone. And a little afraid.
I tiptoed out of my room, carrying my toiletries. I looked to the left, saw the bathroom. I looked to the right, saw the room next to mine.
The door was open a bit. The light was on, and I heard strange, shifting movements. Then I heard a woman’s voice.
“Roy?” Marthe called.
I cursed, silently. A little earlier, I would have welcomed more contact with her. Now I dreaded it. Things change—and faster in L.A.
“Yes?” I said.
She didn’t answer. I had no choice but to enter the room.
Marthe was indeed alone. She was lying on her back in the middle of the floor. She wore only a leotard, and her long brown legs were sticking straight up in the air. She brought them down slowly over her shoulders. Then she rested her knees on the yoga mat beneath her.
“I’ll be right with you,” she said.
I sat in a chair, as she breathed in and out, meditatively, curled in her half-circle. I tried not to stare, to respect the contemplative nature of her activity, but soon simply had to. The backs of Marthe’s perfectly shaped thighs, covered in black tights, rounded near her ears, were too compelling.
“Do you mind my doing this?” she asked, moving slowly back to a seated position.
“Not at all,” I replied.
“I have to. Otherwise my sciatica is too bad.”
I nodded, as Marthe tucked one leg beneath herself and stretched the other.
“This is why I quit modeling,” she said.
She pointed her toes, an activity I had never thought erotic before. She grunted, as she gripped the ankles of her elongated leg. Then she looked over at me, her face glistening with sweat.
“There’s a terrible pain in standing still.”
The comment seemed to have a hidden meaning. Her glance had a not-so-hidden one. I was meant to leave my chair and join her. Trying to avoid the terrible, entrancing power of her gaze—one she’d perfected in that shoot with the ocelot, I thought—I had to turn away.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here.”
“What?” Marthe had just switched tucked and untucked legs.
I didn’t want to mention that Clown might be headed my way; why whet her appetite, and what if it weren’t true? I also wished to be discreet about our host.
“Troy’s into bad people for something. I think he may need me a lot more than I need him.”
As if on cue, there was a sound from upstairs. A door creaked open. I heard a man’s voice. And, unless I was crazy, a woman’s.
I was about to ask if Troy had company—so soon after being beaten, he was in better shape than I thought. But Marthe spoke before I could.
“He’s not the one who needs you,” she said.
She had me; I looked her way. Marthe was sitting up, her feet splayed apart, like a rag doll or a child. One of her hands was extended to me, the fingers trembling. She looked gauche; to be more accurate, she looked painfully human.
The noises from upstairs grew louder, then softer, then stopped. I rose from the chair and flew to her, like the female vampires in Dracula. Director Tod Browning had meant to make the film with Lon Chaney but the actor died. So he cast Bela Lugosi.
“Tell me something,” she said, as I joined her on the mat.
“What?”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
I looked into Marthe’s eyes, which were glistening with interest. I knew suddenly what she wished for me to say.
