We. Okay, it wasn’t exactly deep mourning, but perhaps I’d finally found the one person at the convention who sincerely wished the QB alive again.
“You’d known each other a long time, hadn’t you?” I asked.
He nodded.
“More than thirty years,” he said.
Chapter 31
Yes! I thought, but I tried to stay calm and think of just the right thing to ask. If I wanted to be subtle, it was too soon to ask whether he’d been in love with her, or whether he knew anything about her buying the rights to Porfiria so soon before Ichabod Dilley’s untimely and downright suspicious death.
“What was she like?” I asked instead.
“I don’t know,” he said. “What’s anyone like when they’re young? Ambitious, impatient. Beautiful, of course. You have to be, to get anywhere in this business. And tough. I mean, I know a lot of people call her a bitch and a dragon, but that’s because they don’t understand what she had to go through to get where she is. You have to be tough.”
“And talented,” I suggested.
“Yeah, well,” he said, shrugging. “That’s not as important as you think. Not that she was untalented. But it’s not as if she ever pretended to be a great tragic actress or anything. Still, she could really have gone someplace, been much bigger if she’d only had the breaks.”
Just then we heard Maggie’s laugh, somewhere nearby. Nate smiled, involuntarily—the way most people seemed to when they heard her. Then he looked down at the table and sighed.
“Actually Maggie was the one who really should have gone someplace,” he said.
“Why didn’t she?” I asked.
“Who knows, with Hollywood?” he said. “She was good enough, and gorgeous enough, but maybe she didn’t want it enough. Or wasn’t mean enough. All I know is, I lost track of her for…I don’t know. Fifteen years? Maybe twenty. Then I got an invitation to this fund-raiser she was running, and I went, just for old time’s sake. And when I saw her, I thought, my God. She still had it. I thought it would be a great PR stunt, signing her for the show: old friends getting together to bring to life the long-neglected work of their dead buddy.”
“Oh, they were friends of Ichabod Dilley? Maggie and the QB?”
“They all worked on the same movie,” Nate said, shrugging. “I don’t know about friends, but they probably met, one time or another. And if they didn’t, what did it matter. It was just a PR stunt. Stupid idea.”
“Only problem is that word ‘long,’” I said. “As in ‘long in the tooth.’”
“Yeah, stupid me for not realizing that,” Nate said. “I was surprised when she hired Maggie anyway. And then, first week on the set, I realized why. Gave her the perfect excuse to make life miserable for someone she never liked. I was surprised Maggie stuck it out as long as she did.”
“Stuck it out? I thought the QB fired Maggie.”
“Yeah, she did, finally,” Nate said. “Soon as she figured out how much the fans loved Maggie. Or maybe realized how much better Maggie looked on camera. You ask me, Maggie was probably relieved that the battle was over, and she could go home to her animals again.”
“Her animals?” I said, feigning ignorance.
“Yeah, she runs this animal sanctuary up in the foothills outside L.A.,” Nate said. “That’s what she ended up doing when her career slowed down. Or maybe it was part of the reason it slowed down, that she started spending all this time rescuing abused animals. Not dog-and cat-type animals. Big animals. Orphaned lion cubs, neglected iguanas, abandoned boa constrictors.”
“Do you think Maggie running a sanctuary had anything to do with the QB trying to buy a tiger?”
Nate shuddered.
“God, if I’d known she was serious about that!” he exclaimed. “Yeah, probably. She doesn’t even like having to bother with a dog. I don’t know what she’d have done with a tiger. But she’s competitive. Maggie has tigers, she wants tigers.”
He kept talking about her in present tense. Was that significant? Perhaps it meant that he hadn’t really accepted her death. Didn’t really believe it possible, and therefore couldn’t possibly be her murderer.
Or maybe that was just what Nate wanted me to think.
“What did Maggie think about the idea of the QB owning a tiger?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We never talked about it. Maybe she wouldn’t—hell, that’s a lie. We both know what Maggie would have thought about it, if she’d known. She’d have thought it was a crime, giving the QB custody of a helpless animal. Or even a not-so-helpless animal. She gave the convention organizers what for about the monkeys. And the parrots. Says it’s cruel treatment, bringing them here.”
We both glanced upward, involuntarily. Half a dozen monkeys lurked near the ceiling, intently watching the bar’s human occupants. The staff had put the peanuts, pretzels, and other bar chum in jars with supposedly childproof safety lids, but the monkeys hadn’t given up yet. The several illicit customers scattered throughout the room kept one hand over their plates while eating with the other. Several parrots perched near the widescreen TV, intently watching a baseball game and learning to sing the beer commercials.
“You ask me, the monkeys and parrots are having as much fun as anyone,” I said.
“More than me, anyway,” Nate said. “I just wish I knew whether I still had a job.”
“When will you know?” I asked.
“No idea,” Nate said. “After all, I’m only the writer.”
I shook my head sympathetically, and then, as I’d expected, he shared what he’d found out.
“It’s probably a good thing we’ve got the third season in the can,” he said. “If we were in the middle of the season, with the meter running, they’d just shut us down for good. But this way, we’ll have time to come up with a solution to the problem.”
“Cast another actress,” I suggested. “Soap operas do it all the time. There’s no shortage of unemployed fifty-something actresses.”
“Yes,” he said. “But some fans always have trouble accepting the change. On the other hand, you can’t just kill her off—she’s the title character.”
“What would you do if she went out temporarily?” I asked. “You coped when Walker broke his foot.”
“We had Mephisto capture him and chain him to a dungeon wall,” Nate said. “For a couple of weeks, we just showed him lolling around in a loincloth with his cast hidden in some straw. The fans loved it. But who would have a reason to kidnap Porfiria?”
“Just have her kidnapped,” I said, shrugging. “Figure out who did it later.”
“Ooh! Yes!” Nate exclaimed. “And everyone accuses everyone else of being responsible. A power struggle over who runs Amblyopia in her absence.”
He reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a pen and a mini legal pad, and began scribbling words, and making little drawings to illustrate the action—though I don’t know why he bothered with the drawings. All he ever drew were stick figures, with or without indistinguishable objects stuck to the ends of their arms, so they all looked as if they were either shouting for help or brandishing dumbbells at each other. But it seemed to help him think.
“And then halfway through the season, we introduce a whole new group of villains!” he said, drawing another cluster of stick figures with such a heavy hand that he actually tore the paper, and then nodded as if in satisfaction at this concrete evidence of his new villains’ dastardly nature.
“See, I knew you could do it,” I said.