I broke off a piece of my bagel, waiting for Abner to get to the point.
“And not just any girlfriend. They want him to get it on with Lady Baluga. Queen of the Second Peninsula? They want me to add a love story between Prince Corno and Lady Baluga!”
Abner was so distressed that he was hardly touching his butter-slathered pancakes. Then he pushed the plate away altogether.
“Hey,” I said, torturing him, “you signed on for this. That’s the outside world.”
“I don’t—” he checked around again, lowering his voice. “I don’t blame them. They’ve made a huge investment, and they need everyone on earth to show up. Canoodling between Corno and Baluga will add more of the fifteen- to thirty-five-year-old-female demographic, which is the only sector that’s lagging in their focus group testing. I understand that.”
I knew what he meant, but hassled him again anyway. “It’s like you’re speaking in a foreign tongue.”
“In other words, Milano, it wouldn’t be that big an issue. Except that … it’s gotten out. And the information’s fallen into the worst possible hands.”
I nodded, slowly perceiving where he was going.
“You mean …”
“Exactly. The fans. Someone working in the movie studio—some secretary, some nobody!—leaked the information to the fan Web sites. Now it’s all over the Net. And so is my face!”
His wide hands shaking, Abner slowly unfolded a printout from his pocket. It had been reproduced from a Web site called Quelman House: All Things Quelman. There was a fuzzy photo of Abner, with the word traitor stamped on it. The article below featured the headlines: COOLEY UNCOOL, SAY NO TO HOLLYWOOD DESECRATION, and, in smaller print, HE SHOULD ONLY HAVE AN OWL.
I couldn’t help but smile at the irony. Now Abner represented Hollywood venality; he had been betrayed by the very underlings on whom he had once depended. But the bigger man’s obvious, sincere dismay was starting to work on my sympathies.
“I wouldn’t have minded just the threatening phone calls or the harassing e-mails …” He unsteadily opened another sheet. It was an electronic missive that started, “Eat this, you fat, betraying sack of …” and Abner’s elbow obscured the rest.
“I mean, that’s a healthy debate,” he chuckled, uneasily. “But … the other thing is really freaking me out.”
To my shock, Abner started to undress. I wondered if his discombobulation had officially unbalanced him. He unbuttoned his collarless, Seventies-style shirt, and exposed a vast pink-and-blond chest. He also revealed something else: two small and encrusted stab wounds.
“Look,” he said. “This is what I’m talking about.”
“Jesus.” I didn’t know what was harder to witness: Abner’s flesh or his flesh wounds. Either way, getting the point, I gestured for him to cover up.
After he had, he continued. “It wasn’t the first time he came at me, but it was the first time he got me.”
“He? Who do you mean?”
“This guy, this fanatic. He’s followed me down the street. He’s chased me in a car. One night, he waited for me, in the lobby of our building. That’s when he did this—with an X-Acto blade. ‘This is for Corno, you bastard!’ he screamed, as the knife went in. ‘And this is for Baluga!’ I had to run. From my own house! When I got back from the hospital, he was gone. Lucky for me the blade didn’t go in too deep.”
I nodded. “What did the cops say?”
“The cops?” Here Abner looked surprised. “What do you think? While they laughed, I made out a report.”
I was almost touched. I knew what it was like to try and get help from a cop. For all his newfound success and arrogance, Abner was still, in the eyes of the authorities, a worthless misfit. Whether aspiring screenwriter or sleuth, we would both always be reminded of who we really were.
“That’s why I’m talking to you, Milano.”
“Really?”
“How’d you like to come work for me? Find this guy. That’s what you do least badly, isn’t it? Find things?”
I slowly swallowed a chunk of my bagel. It was the closest Abner could come to a compliment. Since I’d found Ambersons, his respect for me had obviously grown. Especially if he could make use of my services.
“It’s an interesting proposition” was all I said. “But how much are we talking about?”
Abner told me. In the scheme of things, it was a weak offer; he was still a cheap louse. But compared to what I was getting for working with a balloon, it was a ransom. However, I didn’t reply.
Snooping for Abner was an indignity I could never have imagined. But more money would mean more help for my mother. And this job was sort of in the new profession that I wished to pursue. I just hoped Annabelle the farmer would understand.
I held out until Abner upped the price a bit. Then I shook his hand, wet from syrup and sweat. We agreed that I would start immediately.
I started sooner than that. Just then, a bullet hit the window.
A REAL BULLET WOULD HAVE SHATTERED THE GLASS. AT LEAST THAT’S WHAT I assumed from all the movies I’d seen. This projectile just made a deafening sound and formed its own sunburst. It loomed right over Abner’s head, giving him a halo that was anything but innocent.
I only knew one thing. The shot had come from inside the restaurant.
As Abner hit the dirt, literally scrambling beneath the booth table, I whirled around. The few others eating in the dingy diner were also staring, hiding, or, in the case of one old gal, calmly turning a page of a newspaper.
One man was running out the door.
He was wiry and in his thirties. His face was covered by a ski mask, his body by a peacoat too heavy for the day.
Within a second, I was after him. I didn’t even think. This was my job again, wasn’t it?
When I got out to Park Avenue, I saw the shooter heading south. I realized two things: I wasn’t wearing a jacket, and I was scared. A mix of chill and raging sweat gave me this information. As I took a deep breath and began to pump toward him, I remembered that Tyrone Power had died of a heart attack on the set of Solomon and Sheba. The producers had replaced him with Yul Brynner.
The guy was pushing people out of the way, though no more brusquely than someone late for work. The worst he got were dirty looks. Running against lights, dodging cars, he reached Fifteenth Street, on which he took a shrieking left, going east. I had drifted a street and a half behind. What kind of obsessed geek was in such good shape? I wondered.
Hanging the turn at a slower pace, I saw him farther down Fifteenth, on his way to Irving Place. He was fast approaching a mini–theater row of off-Broadway houses. He glanced around once and, for a second, I caught his eyes, which were circled by the mask. Then I looked at the pocket of his coat, which I assumed held the pellet or beebee, but still dangerous, weapon he had used.
Turning forward again, he nearly smashed into a theater crew, which was loading in a show. Blocking the street, they lugged cables, props, and furniture. After skidding to a halt, he disappeared into their midst, then was covered by a scrim of gray sky being carried by a grip. When the clouds parted, he was gone. The door to the theater stood open.
Reaching the theater crew, I did more than he had done: I gave a heartfelt apology. Then, weaving through them, I ran inside the theater, too.
Within the small lobby, I caught a glimpse of the ski mask as it disappeared down a central stairs. I saw him reach a floor below and dart inside the theater space, the doors of which hung open. Panting, my legs throbbing, I followed him, breaking into the theater with a helpless gasp.
I thought: Bette Davis had replaced Claudette Colbert in All About Eve, after the latter hurt her back.
Onstage, more people from the crew were hanging lights and hoisting flats. The theater held about one hundred and fifty seats. In a center row, the man in the ski mask was moving toward the farther side.
When I looked where he was heading, I saw a ramp that led, I would have bet, downstairs.
I descended another tiny set of steps and cut into the row. As I did, the man turned around once, then moved faster. We couldn’t help but attract attention from those onstage.
“Hey!” somebody shouted. “What, are they shooting something?”
“What is it, Law and Order?”
