Dream of Fair Woman Page 10

  ‘You ought to know,’ said the girl sulkily. ‘I’ve been scared to death, ever since I read about you shooting your mouth off.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ said Bobbie passionately. ‘Nobody tells me anything. I thought it was you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The girl who was wearing a green dress that was much rumpled, shoved at her blonde hair and said, ‘As long as you’re here, you got any cigarettes?’

  ‘Smoking again?’

  ‘You better believe it!’ said the girl, and cast herself down on the day-bed.

  ‘O.K.’ Bobbie fished a package of cigarettes out of her large handbag and threw them at the girl. She sat down in the softer of the two chairs. ‘So I had to go and make a fool of myself, and now I want to know the reason why. I hope you realise your sister is maybe going to die.’

  ‘Naw,’ said Alison.

  ‘Where did you go? How come you’ve holed up here? Come on. Give, baby.’

  ‘All right, if you want to know. I better hide. I maybe know too much.’

  The girl lit a cigarette and blew out smoke jauntily and then collapsed and began to cry.

  ‘Tell Mama,’ said Bobbie in a moment. ‘You’re Mama’s girl. You know that, baby?’

  ‘Well, listen’—Alison sat up and mopped her face—‘and then you tell me. Somebody called me. She got my number from Central Casting. It’s this dame I had a job with once. Megan Royce.’

  ‘Yeah, they asked about her.’

  ‘Who asked?’ The girl was stiff with alarm.

  ‘Never mind. Nothing. I didn’t say a word. Go ahead.’

  ‘So she says do I want a job and I said I did so I went to her apartment. That was Monday.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘She told me not to tell. It was a funny kind of job, Mom. There’s this Dorothy Daw, who looks just like me. Well, she’s Miss Rich-Bitch herself.’

  ‘Just like you, baby?’

  ‘Oh, I knew that, years ago.’

  ‘How come I didn’t get to hear about it?’

  ‘I didn’t tell you everything,’ said Alison, sullenly. ‘You mess things up, Mom.’

  ‘You better,’ said Bobbie grimly, ‘tell me now.’

  ‘And so Megan says that Dorothy Daw wants to get away from the newspaper reporters. So she wants me to act like her—you know, stand-in? And all I have to do is have lunch with Megan and Dorothy’s uncle on Tuesday. She says that’s the first step, and if I get away with it, maybe there’ll be more. She says Dorothy is made of money and couldn’t care less what she pays. And I’ll get five hundred bucks, just for Tuesday.

  ‘So why should I complain? So I met her in her apartment Tuesday morning, and she’s got an outfit for me to wear and it fits. So I put on this suit … you should have seen it. It must have cost three hundred bucks if it cost a nickel, Mom. And a hat that was out of this world. Then she takes me up to this big old mansion which is the uncle’s dump. He wasn’t there. She takes off. And then I’m supposed to call a cab, see, and take it to the restaurant. So I did. So here was Uncle Leon. Well, I met him once.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Listen, I’m telling you. So Megan told me what to say. I can act, you know. Well, we ate lunch and I swear that was all there was to it, as far as I could see. Except afterwards, I had to pull a kind of disappearing act. This uncle-type puts me in a cab and I’m supposed to tell the driver to take me to the railroad station, which he does. Then I got to go to the ladies’ room, put on this coat I’m carrying—and it cost plenty, too, you got to believe it—and take off the hat and let my hair hang down. And then all I had to do was put the hat in the suitcase and put the suitcase in one of those lockers, you know? And then walk out of the station and over to Olvera Street. It’s not too far. You know? And I walk all the way through Olvera Street from Sunset and when I get to the other side, Megan is there in her car to pick me up.

  ‘Well, that was O.K. And she said I did great. And she takes the key to the locker, you know, and she hauls me back to her place and she takes all Dorothy’s clothes back and then she says … she’s kind of excited … she says, “How would you like to play Dorothy Daw some more?”

  ‘So I said as long as the price was right, why not?

  ‘So that’s when she said I’d better move in with her because I’d better not be running around the streets looking too much like myself. She says it’s luck I’ve been in Spain. And better not spoil the luck.

  ‘So—well, she’s got this huge place and everything real plushy and what did I have to lose? So I came home, you know, Tuesday? And that’s when I packed my stuff and I walked all the way down to the bus and went to her place. And everything was ducky. Oh sure, just ducky!

  ‘So she has a fancy meal sent in, just for me though. She went off to have a date with Uncle Leon. And here I am, watching TV. By myself.

  ‘Then there was this thing on the eleven o’clock news and that’s when I began to smell something. Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘What?’ Bobbie hadn’t seen it.

  ‘There was the body of a blonde girl found in a truck, upstate. It was on the local station. The guy gives her measurements and that’s when I …

  ‘Listen … Sure, this Dorothy has got millions and all that … but … See, at first I didn’t think so much about it. But I went to bed and then I got to thinking and I couldn’t figure why they’d pay me five hundred bucks for just eating a big fat lunch, like that. And I couldn’t figure how the heck what I did was supposed to protect this Dorothy from the newspapers. I didn’t see anybody from any newspapers. It was just too damned fishy, Mom. You see what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bobbie. ‘They were using you.’

  ‘Sure they were using me, but for what? I mean, I dunno, but there was this dead girl. And what if they wanted it to look as if … somebody wasn’t dead?’ Alison stared at her mother and added, ‘Yet.’

  ‘Oh, baby,’ said Bobbie. ‘Oh, baby.’

  ‘Well, Megan comes in and I’m still not asleep. I was so nervous, I got up. And she was as drunk as eighteen goats, Mom. And she needed a nightcap like a hole-in-the-head, but that’s what she had. And me, too. I didn’t know what to do—what to say. I kept watching her. She was feeling pretty high. She says she’s going to marry Uncle Leon, and then she laughs and says maybe he doesn’t know that, yet, but he will. Then she says, “You stick to me, kid.” She says, “There’s more gold in them hills than you ever saw in your life.”

  ‘Then I said—I couldn’t help it—I said, “Is Dorothy dead?”

  ‘And she starts looking mean. And she says, “What makes you say that, dahling?”

  ‘And I said “I don’t know. It just came into my head.”

  ‘And she says, “Well, you just better put your busy little head on the pillow and sleep that off.”

  ‘And I said, “It is late, isn’t it?” Mom, I was never so scared. I was lying there, just trembling all over.

  ‘And finally it was about five o’clock in the morning and I hadn’t even closed one eye. I couldn’t stand it. So I got up and sneaked into my clothes and I took my stuff and I could hear her snoring. So I sneaked out. There wasn’t anybody around. I walked about two miles. Finally I got a bus and then I … didn’t want to come to your house because listen, Central Casting has got your number. She could find out where it is. She phoned there, for Pete’s sakes. So I came here. And Lilianne let me in.’

  ‘She did?’ said Bobbie who was licking her lips in agitation.

  ‘Yeah, but you know how she is. So I said, “Look, sister mine, I got to stay here. So if you don’t like it, why, you go elsewhere. You can go to Alfreda, can’t you?”

  ‘And she says, yes, she can. She must. She will.

  ‘And she was looking goofy, as usual. I told her she had better not even mention that she had a twin sister.

  ‘And she said I needed to be alone and think over my past sins. Phooey! Well, so she packed up a couple of things. And I … well, you know … I c
an always play Lilianne. And I was scared. So I took her ident out of her handbag. I took everything when she wasn’t looking. But I gave her money, Mom. I gave her half of my five hundred bucks. You got to admit that was fair enough. I told her she could pay Alfreda board and room out of that.

  ‘So she said some kind of mumbo-jumbo—God bless me, and so on—and she went. I didn’t know she was sick, Mom, or going to get sick. That’s if she is sick. She’s O.K. in the hospital, if you just keep on … I mean … not letting them get her. Otherwise,’ the girl wailed, ‘what am I going to do? Mom, I don’t want to be in a mess about a murder. With cops and all. Gee, I mean, they’d make the connection. And if they did, there goes my career. The kiss of death. And you know it. But listen, I don’t want to get myself murdered, either.’

  Bobbie said firmly, ‘They’ve got to be wondering where you’d run away to. Some dame already called up, twice.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Wednesday morning and Thursday, too. She hints around about a job. Listen, I didn’t know where you were—don’t forget.’

  ‘You bet you didn’t.’

  ‘So on Friday, they saw the picture, too.’

  Alison said, ‘Lilianne isn’t talking.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Bobbie squirmed. They looked at each other, at first fearfully, and then with thoughtful eyes.

  ‘I got to get out from under,’ Alison said. ‘You know that. And you know Lilianne, it doesn’t make that much difference.’

  Bobbie sighed. ‘You got any schnapps?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Yeah, I thought it might calm me down, but it didn’t. I sneaked over to the liquor store, playing Lilianne. Wait.’ Alison got up and fetched her mother a bottle.

  Bobbie drank from it without even looking at the label.

  ‘Honey,’ she said at last, ‘I’d say you oughta go to the cops if you really knew anything. But you can’t prove anything, right? And maybe, you know, you could be wrong. Maybe this Dorothy had already disappeared, see, and—something to do with the money—they needed you to stand in. Maybe they really do think it’s Dorothy in the hospital. I coulda let them think so. I might have goofed already, see, on saying it was you.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Well, you know your mole? If I’d have looked, in the hospital. Never crossed my head that was Lilianne. Jeepers, I never see her anymore—year in and year out. I practically forgot about her. She never … Well, you know how that is.’

  ‘You told, huh? You told how to tell us apart?’ The girl was frightened and angry.

  ‘No, no. Nobody even knows there is any Lilianne. Listen, why should I tell the world I got a nut for a daughter? I never do that. It’s not good for your career. What I say—so let them think it is Dorothy Daw in that bed. I mean, you know—you could be wrong.’

  ‘I can’t go very far on two hundred and forty-two bucks,’ said Alison, ‘or I’d been long gone.’

  ‘I think,’ said Bobbie briskly, ‘we got to know more. Lie low, baby. Nobody’s going to find you here.’

  ‘If I don’t go crazy,’ Alison said.

  ‘One thing. You don’t have to worry about Larry.’

  ‘What about Larry?’ The girl jerked her head up.

  ‘Oh, he wants no part of it,’ Bobbie said. ‘He comes crawling to me. He says I don’t have to tell that he was ever married to you. His new wife might have a fit if she, you know, made the connection. He was pitiful, I’m telling you. He says not to drag him into it. Let him alone and he’ll let us alone. And that’s all about that.’

  ‘He better keep still. Why don’t we let the whole thing alone? Huh? For a while?’

  ‘If they did anything to Dorothy, then they got to say she’s Dorothy.’ Bobbie wiped the bottle’s mouth with a nervous finger.

  ‘Maybe Lilianne is really sick, this time. What do the doctors say?’ Alison was breathless and eager.

  ‘What do they know?’ said Bobbie. She braced up. ‘Somebody says the cops are snooping around. Maybe they’ll find out what’s up.’

  ‘Sure they will. Who knows, huh? Maybe it was some bum, or sex-fiend. I mean, poor Dorothy, Huh, Mom?’

  ‘I don’t see how you’d be in any trouble if they do find out in the end,’ Bobbie said. ‘After all, you did a job, and then you got scared and ran out on this Megan. But you don’t really know a thing. Do you, baby?’

  ‘I sure don’t,’ said Alison dismally. Then she said, righteously, ‘I just felt nervous, because I wouldn’t want to do anything dishonest.’

  ‘That’s right, baby.’ They were both bright-eyed, and pious, in decision.

  ‘Well,’ said Alison, ‘look, if the cops should get them for whatever they did, couldn’t I say it was Lilianne who played the stand-in? That way I’d get out from under the whole thing.’

  Her mother looked dubious.

  ‘I mean, maybe Lilianne is never going to wake up this time. Well, we can’t do anything about that. I mean, she’d have the best of care, but if that’s no good … I could say I went on a little trip or something and then when I’d come back … There might be publicity but it wouldn’t be bad publicity. Mom, if it comes out that Larry and me did three months’ time for you-know-what, I’m cooked for ever!’

  ‘Ssh. They won’t make the connection. It was under a different name.’

  ‘I know. I know. Oh God, if Lilianne dies and they think it’s me—then the whole thing dies!’

  ‘You could even,’ Bobbie said, musingly, ‘get a driver’s licence.’

  Bobbie took out her lipstick. She began to paint her mouth, contorting it violently. She spoke in the midst of this performance. ‘Lilianne always thought that I was a devil and drove your saintly father out. Some saint, eh? So why didn’t he ever come back and take her with him? He coulda had her, for all of me.’ She put the red paint away and said piously, ‘I did the best I could, for both of you. It wasn’t easy.’

  ‘Listen, Mom, I was always on your side, wasn’t I?’

  ‘That’s right, baby.’ Bobbie stared at her daughter. ‘I guess we can get along,’ she pronounced. She got up to go. ‘Well, I’m glad at least I know what’s going on.’

  Alison said coaxingly, ‘Don’t be mad at me.’

  So Bobbie embraced her, briefly.

  Alison said tearfully, ‘You’re tops, Mom. I mean, honest. Wait.’

  Bobbie had cracked the door. ‘Nobody’s around,’ she said.

  ‘No, I mean … if anybody does show up, here, I’m going to be Lilianne. I’m Lilianne.’

  Her mother didn’t answer. She went away.

  Leon Daw was walking back and forth in his den, a large room at the back of his house, with sliding glass doors to a patio. The glass was covered with heavy draperies now.

  He said, ‘I wish I had your nerves, believe me. What if that kid wakes up? Don’t you ever think of that?’

  ‘She probably won’t,’ said Megan Royce, who was sitting in a chair beside the cold fireplace, nursing a long drink. Her lean feet, in her very high-heeled shoes, were placed arrogantly.

  ‘Probably! Probably!’ stormed Leon. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she had this damned mother?’

  ‘How did I know she had a mother? Or that the mother was around? They’ll give you the girl. You’ll see. And then what?’

  ‘You’re so right,’ he snarled. ‘And then what?’

  ‘Could we bring her here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish you hadn’t messed in, with your brilliant ideas.’

  ‘You do?’ she said sweetly. ‘And what were you going to do if I hadn’t? Maybe I shouldn’t have “messed in,” as you put it. Maybe I should have walked in on you, choking your darling niece to death, up in her bedroom, on Monday noon, and maybe I should have turned right around and walked out and called the police?’

  ‘I didn’t—’ Leon rubbed his face. ‘You know damned well I didn’t mean to. It was just that she was going to wrap up the whole thing! Give the whole fortune to this damned medical miss
ionary, or whatever he is, and drop me. Just drop me. At my age! Out. Just out. When I could have chiselled, here and there, for years. And never did! And never did! She’d made a date with St John Cotter. She was going through with it. She wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Possibly, she thought it was her money,’ said Megan frostily.

  ‘It was my job, my living, my income! I didn’t inherit. She got it all. Certainly it was her money. But she was absolutely maddening. She never knew anybody else was alive, except little Dorothy. She didn’t understand money. I could have stolen a million or two. And never did.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t blame you for being annoyed,’ said Megan.

  ‘I’m not a murderer. I’m an honest man. I never meant her to die. You know that.’

  ‘I do?’ said Megan, smiling.

  ‘Just don’t get ideas now,’ he snapped. ‘You’re just as guilty as I am, now. You unmade her date with Cotter. You made the reservation to San Francisco. You cancelled it.’

  ‘Haven’t I,’ said Megan, ‘been the busy little bee? That’s what I wanted to explain to you. Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Megan, shifting angularly, ‘but I am a little weary of holding your nerves together. You’ve muffed too much, already. You chickened out on getting her ready. Who had to fix her fingerprints? You chickened out on driving her down to the ocean. Oh no, you had to put her away in that damned truck. And don’t think they won’t know where that happened. The driver knows where he parked and where he ever left it. And where it could have been done. Don’t kid yourself, darling. She’s been found. The police have already come sniffing around. So what would you do, if you didn’t have a perfect alibi? If you weren’t seen, lunching with your dear little, rich little, niece at Nickey’s, a whole day after that corpse got to be one?’

  ‘All right,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Who remembered that she had a double?’ Megan went on relentlessly. ‘You didn’t even remember that until I did. And who knew exactly how to get hold of this Alison? And who conned her into the act? And who stage-managed that whole scene, and did it damned well, too?’