Chapter 10
TEN
And then, Kathleen spun on her very tall heels and left the stage. Her son trailed after her. We all gave each other ‘what was that?’ and ‘oh my God’ looks, but no one said a word for at least a minute.
Wendy stepped over and whispered something to Donald, who then he said, “Okay, uh, Finn, would you mind terribly saying something about Juicy Juice?”
“Sure, yeah, no problem.”
Wendy rushed over to the stool and handed Finn a slip of paper. He read it quickly and then said, “Okay, we can go.”
“Hey man, I want to thank you for this amazing juice drink from Juicy Juice right here in the valley. It’s a delicious, healthy drink. I mean, this is my third. Right?”
Donald nodded over the camera. “Wonderful. Thank you.” Then he asked, “Finn, what’s the funniest thing you remember from the show?”
“The funniest thing? Wow, there’s so much. I mean, man, we had fun, didn’t we?” He stopped and thought for a moment. Like any good actor there seemed to be a lot going on behind his eyes. But was there? Was he thinking hard? Or was he just waiting to make his response as dramatic as possible. Then he said, “Wes. Wes and I playing pranks. Mostly on you, Donald. You used to drink a lot of coffee and we’d put vodka in it when you weren’t looking. And then you wouldn’t notice, which cracked us up.”
“I, uh, I don’t remember that.”
“Well, yeah, you probably wouldn’t. Another time we wrote our own filthy lyrics for one of the songs.”
“Okay, that I remember.”
There was a bit of a pause, and then Finn said, “I hope you don’t mind, but there are a few things I’d like to say. I was taking drugs during that time. Not heroin. Not yet. Mostly coke. I mean, we didn’t even think it was addictive back then. So, yeah, I was doing coke. And I had a doctor who would give me as much valium as I wanted, so I was always see-sawing between the two. The doctor eventually cut me off, and that’s when I started doing heroin, snorting it at first, then smoking it, and eventually shooting up. By the time I started making movies, when Young Leonardo was on hiatus, I was a full-blown addict. I managed to be kind of sober when I was making films, but I did cause problems. Delays. I know I hurt people and I’m sorry for that. It’s taken three stints in rehab to get me this far. I don’t want to go backward. I won’t go backward.”
“We’re all proud of you Finn. You’ve come a long way.”
“Thank you.” Then he said, out of nowhere really, “I feel sleepy.”
“We’re almost done,” Donald said. “Remember to leave a beat for the edit, please.” I could see him counting to five. Then, “Can you tell us about your new movie, Running Toward Justice ?”
“It’s about a drug deal gone wrong… an’ no… is not auto… auto… is not about me. I’m serio-th, I’m gonna fall athleep.” Then he laughed, and said, “My tongue feelth funny.”
Amber yelled, “Cut!” Though I didn’t remember anyone giving her permission to say that. She rushed over to Finn. With two fingers she opened one of his eyes. Then said, “You idiot.”
“Wha… I didn’th do anythin. I’m jus tired. It’s late. Isn’t it late?”
Amber turned around, pointed at me and Eldridge, and said, “You two. Help me get him back to his dressing room.” To Donald she said, “Give me an hour or two. I’ll get him sobered up.”
“I’m not high. Honeth.” He began laughing at how foolish he sounded. “I have a lipth… Call the tabloids… Finn Henderson hath a lipth.”
Eldridge and I got there to help him off the stool. We got on either side of him. My first thought was to let him get off the stool on his own, especially when he said, “I can do ith.”
But when he tried he nearly fell, so Eldridge and I each took an arm and began to lead him off the Guessmate? set. As we led him around the giant desk, he said, “I don’t feel too good.”
Which, in my limited experience of alcohol and/or drugs, meant he was likely to puke.
“Let’s take him that way,” I said, nodding my head toward the southwest corner of the building. Since I’d quickly learned my way around while trying to find an open door, I knew that was the fastest way to get to Finn’s dressing room.
We hurried him by the office, and then Amber was holding open the door to the Emery dressing room for us to enter. He immediately pushed away from us, rushed into the bathroom, and vomited. Loudly. Disgustingly. And presumably, very greenly.
“There’s 7-Up and I’ll look around to see if there’s anything like a cracker,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take of care of it. You don’t need to do anything,” she said that so confidently, I knew she’d done this before.
“Are you sure you can handle this? He doesn’t need to go to the hospital?—”
“No! God no! If he goes to the hospital, he’ll never work again. You have no idea how hard it was to get him insured?—”
There was another loud, gagging groan from the bathroom.
“Someone should be in there with him,” Eldridge said.
“God damn it,” Amber said, and then went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. That left Eldridge and I alone in the dressing room.
Eldridge mouthed the words, “Oh my God!”
I whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”
In the hallway, I said, “I think I should bring them some 7-Up anyway and just leave it. In case.”
“He might need coffee. I mean, if he overdosed. Is he overdosing? What do you think he’s on? He just said his problem is with heroin, right?”
“Amber said something about a speedball,” I said.
“That’s what killed John Belushi,” Eldridge said.
“Wow, I’m impressed. You were barely even born when he died.”
“I was seven or eight,” Eldridge said as though that was somehow ancient. Or, at least, old enough to read tabloids.
We reached the craft room and found Louis and Marc in there. The light above them was still flickering. When he saw us, Louis said, “I can’t believe this. I have to make a Jungle Juice… for Keely.”
“You’re kidding. And she’s letting them?”
“She says she just wants to get this over with,” Marc said.
I couldn’t blame her there.
“What’s going on with Finn?” Louis asked.
“Apparently, he’s taken something,” I said. “He’s puking, but his manager says he’ll be okay.”
“Do you think he needs a doctor?”
“His manager is adamant that a hospital trip would ruin his career.”
“Dying would also ruin his career.”
“When did he find the time to take something?” Marc asked. “His manager has been with him the whole time. She hasn’t left his side.”
“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “She got out of the limo for a few minutes, and then when I went around and offered people coffee she came out of the dressing room and got pop.”
“It’s so cute that you say pop,” Eldridge said.
“Stop it.”
“Would that be enough time to shoot up?” Louis asked. Then he hit a button on the blender and none of us could speak for almost thirty seconds.
When the blender stopped, I said, “I don’t think any of us would know how long it takes to shoot up. But I’m guessing no. I mean, from the movies I’ve seen, he’d have to get out his syringe, and a rubber tube for tying off his arm, and a spoon and a lighter, and then the heroin in a tiny baggie, which he’d have to heat up in the spoon… Yeah, no. I don’t think his manager was out of the room long enough.”
“Not to mention,” Eldridge said. “After he shot up he’d have to put everything away really quick, but he’d be high, which would make it hard to do, wouldn’t it?”
“Right,” I said, a little bit impressed by him.
“I’m going to take this out to Keely,” Louis said. “And maybe apologize. At least it looks like it will taste good – it’s mostly passion fruit, banana, coconut milk and pineapple. And the secret powder, of course.”
Before he could leave, I asked, “Did you notice Heston True’s eyes?”
“You mean the fact that they’re identical to Finn Henderson’s,” Louis said very casually.
“What?” Eldridge asked. “I didn’t—they both have blue eyes?”
“The same, distinctive blue eyes,” Marc said.
“Okay, wait a minute,” Eldridge said. “Mikey said you guys like to try and figure out murders. But this is genetics. Do you know something about genetics?”
“You don’t need a doctorate in biology to figure out when a teenager doesn’t look like his father,” Louis said. “Excuse me.”
He left the room.
“Does it make any difference if the True kid is actually Finn Henderson’s son?” Eldridge asked.
“Supposedly, Finn is in recovery. It might explain why he had a slip,” I said. “I mean, either he knew and he’s nervous about meeting his kid, or he didn’t know and he just figured it out.”
“Not to mention it would explain the tension between Finn and Kathleen,” Marc said. “You did notice that, didn’t you?”
“I think they noticed it on the moon.”
I put a couple of cans of 7-Up onto the tray and two cups of ice. I decided against coffee. A cup of tea might be good, but first Finn needed to drink the soda. I was also hoping he’d stopped puking.
Eldridge said, “I should probably go check the table. See if anything needs to be refilled.”
“And I need to go watch Keely pretend to be White,” Marc said.
We all left the craft room and went our separate ways. I went back to the Zola Emery dressing room and tapped on the door. I didn’t wait for anyone to say enter, since I was afraid Amber might not let me in. When I walked in, Finn was on the sofa. While I was gone his pants had been removed. He wore a pair of tighty-whities that didn’t conceal much of anything. Amber was closing up a big leather handbag.
“What do you want?”
“I brought some 7-Up to help settle Finn’s stomach.”
“Mr. Henderson, please,” she said.
That seemed awfully formal for someone I’d just watched throw up. Still, I said, “Okay… Mr. Henderson.”
I set the tray down on the makeup table and poured out a cup of soda. “I brought one for you as well, Ms. Bright.”
“No, thank you,” she said. She stood there with her arms crossed seeming to assess Finn as she did.
I brought over a cup of pop and tried to hand it to him. Instead of the cup, he grabbed my arm and said, “You have to help me. She’s trying to kill me.”
I looked back at Amber. She rolled her eyes and said, “It’s not the first time he’s said that. He doesn’t mean me.”
I pulled away and stood up. “Do you know who he does mean?”
“Hard to say. A mermaid, the wicked witch, a Valkyrie, his mother, one of the furies, the queen of the Martians, Joan Rivers, Zola Emery’s ghost… His delusions are vivid but not especially specific.”
“I heard Finn, uh… Mr. Henderson saying he wanted to fire you,” I said. “What was that about?”
“Excuse me?”
“Right after we got here, through the door, I heard you say something about him firing you.”
“You were listening at the door? What kind of person?—”
“I was walking by. Your voice carries.”
My bet was that she’d heard that before, because it was true. She took a deep, annoyed breath. “Don’t pay any attention to that. He threatens to fire me all the time. He knows he can’t actually do it. Not contractually. If he could, I don’t think he’d threaten me like that.”
“Was it something specific though? A reason he wanted to fire you tonight?”
“Excuse me, but I think you’re here to get us snacks. So why don’t you go take care of that.”
“Um, yeah, of course…”
I was still holding the soda that Finn hadn’t taken. I went to set it on the counter before leaving, but she apparently reconsidered, saying, “Look, don’t say anything to the others, but he didn’t want to be here. I pushed him into it. I thought it would make a good counterpoint to all the stories about what a druggie he is. And it would have… if he’d stayed sober.”
“Do you know who gave him drugs?”
“I wish I did, but I can’t figure it out.”
“Did it happen before he got to the studio?”
“He was fine in the limo. You don’t need to?—”
“You left him alone with the driver. The driver could have had the drugs. Finn could have?—”
“If the driver gave it to him, he didn’t take it. I’d have noticed the difference in his behavior. That’s enough, okay?”
“Of course. None of my business. But let’s say the driver did give it to him. He was alone in here when you came out to get a Diet Coke. Could he have shot up or whatever then?”
“Not enough time,” she said, confirming what we’d already decided.
“Were there any other times you left him alone?”
“I was with him the whole time.”
Meanwhile, Finn had begun to babble… “Officer, officer, I had no idea there were drugs in the bag. When we got to the house my friend made me go in. I didn’t want to. They gave me the bag and said I knew what to do with it. But I didn’t know. I had no idea. And those guys… I don’t know who they were. I barely know what they looked like. I was too afraid to look at them.”
I looked at Amber who said, “Lines from one of his movies. I don’t even remember which one. I don’t imagine he does either.”
I picked up the 7-Up and offered it to him again. “You should try to drink this.”
This time he took the drink. “Is it a magic potion?”
“Sorry. It’s not,” I said. “We ran out of magic potions.”
He nodded like that made sense and took a sip of the pop. I hoped it helped him.
I tried to get back to what he might have taken. “It couldn’t have been something he just swallowed?—”
“That’s enough. Get out.”
“Okay.”
As I reached the door, she added, “And keep your mouth shut. Don’t get any ideas about selling any stories to the tabloids. You try any bullshit like that and I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“Good to know.”
I stepped out of the dressing room and closed the door behind me. Okay, that was weird. I brought a sick guy a pop to settle his stomach and ended up getting threatened with absolute destruction. I really should have asked more questions about this job.
I nearly walked away. I probably should have. But... well, I’d confronted killers in the past, not always deliberately, but I had. So what did I really have to be afraid of? Finn really should see a doctor. There was no question about that. Someone needed to make that happen, and since Amber obviously wasn’t going to and I was right near the D.W. Griffith Memorial Office, which had a telephone, I thought why not me?
Just a few footsteps later, I was standing in the office behind the desk staring at an old-fashioned, black desk phone. I picked up the receiver and dialed 911. Nothing. I hadn’t used a rotary phone in, like, forever. Did I not remember how to work it? I pressed down the little knobs in the cradle—they have a name, I just don’t remember it. I waited for a dial tone. Nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. I tried a few more times. Well, a lot more times.
Finally, I admitted to myself the phone was dead. I followed the cord from the back of the phone, over the edge of the desk, and down to the phone jack on the baseboard. At first it looked all right. Then I gave the cord a little tug. It came away easily. It had been cut.