“Drive on, please,” he said. “Ahead. Indulge me.”
The view ahead changed shape, becoming more like the one he expected. Costa asked her to stop at the next junction. Opposite was a plain two-storey house with scaffolding along the side obscuring the long windows of what must have been some kind of living room. The curtains were closed. A builder was working on the exterior, setting up a cement mixing machine.
Tom Black’s words kept coming back to him.
They screw you up … they screw everyone. Scottie. Me … I never thought this’d happen. Not when we went to Jones …
There was a scene in the movie … Jimmy Stewart’s character stared out from his living room window towards the Bay Bridge, admiring this very view fifty years before from the building across the road. This was Scottie’s old home on Lombard, the very building Hitchcock had used. The front, with its long living room window, was on a street called Jones. Someone who didn’t know might think that was its real address.
Tom Black hadn’t been talking about a man, Costa realised, cursing his own stupidity. He’d been remembering a place. Somewhere he’d met a movie-obsessed individual who’d stolen his name from Vertigo.
He climbed out of the car and walked across the road. The builder was a big man, his hands smeared with plaster, his face wary, full of suspicion.
“I was wondering if Scottie was in,” Costa asked as if it were the most natural question in the world. “I heard the lucky bastard got some nice old car from somewhere. He promised to show it to me when I was in the neighbourhood.”
The man looked him up and down carefully. “Only his friends call him that. Never seen you before.”
“Been a while.”
“Mr. Ferguson went out this morning. I don’t expect him back while I’m here, and I’m here all day.”
“The car?”
“Remind me …?”
“Green. Jaguar. Nineteen fifties? Scottie said it was a beauty.”
That broke the ice.
“Oh, it’s a beauty, all right. I guess that’s why it hardly ever gets out of the garage. Bad luck, though — it’s not here today.”
“Where …?”
“I don’t know.” He took off his hard hat and scratched his head. “Maybe it’s at that theatre of his. Don’t know …”
“The theatre?” Costa asked.
“That weird little dump on Chestnut, down the Marina. The one with the tower. How the hell Scottie manages to make a cent out of that …”
Costa picked up a steel-headed mallet from the side of the concrete mixer.
“Now,” the builder said, “let’s not do anything hasty …”
The door looked so old he felt sure Jimmy Stewart had touched it. People made things well back then. It needed three swings to smash through the hardwood slab.
3
The package arrived at ten, along with the man from the movie festival offering to give her a ride to the event. Maggie Flavier glanced at the box in his hands and asked, “Costume?”
He was in his early thirties, sturdy and very clean-shaven, with soft, pale skin that belied his heavy, calloused hands, worn jeans, and white T-shirt. A pair of thickset black plastic sunglasses sat on his face.
“The festival people said …” he began.
“They didn’t mention anything about a costume to me.”
She didn’t know what they’d said. She couldn’t remember. This engagement had been on her schedule for weeks. Her agent had arranged it while she was filming in Rome.
He took off the glasses. Bright blue eyes. Too blue. She wondered if they were coloured contacts. Hangers-on at the fringes of the business sometimes had affectations, too.
“If it’s a problem … forget it. They went to a lot of trouble to get this dress. They said it was important. But if they screwed up …” He shrugged.
“What am I supposed to be doing?”
“My name’s John,” he said, smiling pleasantly, and holding out his hand. “John Ferguson.”
She shook it. He had the strong grip of a workman.
“What am I doing today, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Marina Festival of Fifties Noir. Sponsored by the local organic supermarket, a bank branch, and an arts foundation. Opened by Miss Maggie Flavier. Fifteen minutes in public, a couple of smiles, and you’re done.” He peered at her. “You do know the Marina Odeon, don’t you?”
“Sorry. Movies are work, not leisure. Also, I never quite hit the Marina scene. It’s a ways from here.”
“Ah …”
“Noir?” she asked.
“We open with Touch of Evil and close with The Asphalt Jungle. Talk about doing things backwards, but I just fetch and carry. Programming’s someone else’s job.”
He put down the large cardboard dress box and extracted a slip of paper from his jeans pocket.
“According to my schedule you cut the ribbon for the opening at one-thirty, then we show the Welles film at two. You don’t need to stay after that, if you don’t want to. We have one reporter and one TV crew. No one else will be allowed inside. We got the message from your agent about not wanting too much press there.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “And if we get there quick, no one’s going to be outside either. The festival people would like to get a few words from you first for some DVD they’re putting together. Just a few questions …”
He nodded at the box. “It’s all for charity, you know. Gorgeous dress. I got the limo around the corner.”
“Why do I have to wear the dress?”
“Came from some society lady in Russian Hill. Of the period, or so they say.” He sighed and shrugged again. “I’m just the messenger here. I’m sorry. After all this awful stuff I read about in the papers, I understand if you don’t feel up to it. If you want to cancel, just say so. I can tell them … It’s no problem.”
“No, no …” Maggie hated letting her fans down. It seemed so selfish, given the money and acclaim she got in return for what, in truth, was a small amount of talent and a lot of luck.
She opened the box, took out the garment, and found herself wondering for a moment whether to believe what she had in her hands. The dress was a long, voluminous silk evening gown, low cut, the kind of thing glamorous women wore in old movies. It was a dark, incandescent green. The same green as the one in Vertigo. It was so beautiful she could scarcely take her eyes off it.
“What is this?”
“They said it’s a copy of one Janet Leigh wears in Touch of Evil.”
That was a film she did remember. The sight of Orson Welles’s fat, sweating face looming out of the Mexican darkness was hard to forget.
“I thought that was made in black-and-white.”
“Well, I guess the movie was. Not the clothes. What do I know? Don’t shoot the messenger, remember?”
She hesitated. The death of Simon Harvey and the dark succession of events that preceded it had exhausted her. She felt tired and uncertain about the trip to Barbados. Uncertain, too, about what might come afterwards …
She remembered Scottie’s nightmare from the movie, of falling into a deep, shapeless abyss. Vertigo. It wasn’t just fear of heights. Vertigo was fear of the unknown, too.
“We need to go, Miss Flavier,” the man insisted, gently. “If you want to. The limo can’t wait forever.”
One last appearance, and then some space. Some time to think about who she really was, what she really wanted …
“Do you want me to put it on now?” she asked, looking at the dress in her hands.
“Nah. There’s a dressing room at the theatre.”
He carried the box carefully in his arms, following her all the way down to the parking lot.