Bannerman's Law Page 3
On the road at thirteen, Lisa noted. Possibly a runaway. No mention of theatrical parents. Then, by fifteen, a featured film actress. But that was not, Lisa knew, all that unusual. The Gish sisters had made some seventy-five movies between them before they were out of their teens. Mae Marsh and Mary Pickford had made their first films at sixteen and Norma Talmadge at fourteen.
Youth was king in Hollywood back then. It had to do with the film quality and the lighting technology available at the time. Klieg lights hadn't been invented yet, reflec tive lighting was still experimental, and the nitrate film stock then in use had trouble distinguishing between soft shading and dark shadow. The result was that any facial line was enhanced on the screen. Actors and actresses in their early twenties looked to be ten years older.
Nellie, like most of them, cranked out six or eight movies a year until she finally hit it big in Broadway. Married 1921, widowed 1923. Husband was a rancher turned actor, killed doing a stunt in a western movie. But no children, apparently, from that union. Nellie kept on making pictures right up through 1928. Two talkies. Then a series of nervous breakdowns. Her voice was said to be shrill, nasal, irritating.
Wait a second, thought Lisa. From the little she'd heard, it certainly had never been nasal. On the contrary, it was low, soft, throaty. Might even be called sexy. And she'd had two years with a stock company, probably performing twice a day in small towns all over the Midwest, which meant she came to Hollywood knowing how to say lines and how to project.
She would ask Nellie about that. And for a few more details about these children she seemed to think she had. The daughter, apparently her mother's age, would be about sixty now. And she was the eldest.
Hmmm. Hold it.
These kids, if they existed, would have been born after Nellie had her first breakdown. In fact, probably well after she'd been committed to Sur La Mer. Which meant that they were very likely a delusion. But the son's name, or names, anyway, did not seem likely to have come out of thin air. Maybe there really is, or was, such a person. Named Dunville or D'Arconte. No mention of either in The Film Encyclopedia or in any of her other directories.
But Dunville. That name seemed to ring a tiny bell.
In her files, under “miscellaneous,” she found several xeroxed pages with references to Sur La Mer. And there it was. Dunville. It was the name of the executive director of Sur La Mer—Carleton Dunville—and of two of its senior staff as well. V.P. Administration—Carleton Dunville II. V.P. Admissions—Henry Dunville. Must be a family enterprise. Maybe Nellie had just given her the first familiar name that popped into her head. But then, where did D'Arconte come from?
She could ask Professor Mecklenberg to do a computer search. He had files on everyone, from 1907 on, who ever spent fifteen minutes near a Hollywood camera. But he'd ask why she wanted to know, and where she'd heard those names, and she would have to lie to him. Or, worse, she'd have to break her promise to a sad, sweet, dotty old woman who saw, in her, or in the color of her hair, the daughter she probably never had.
It would keep. At least until Sunday. One more meeting with Nellie. Ask her the dozen or so questions she'd prepared. She would bring a recorder this time. Get Nellie's voice on tape . . but only if she agrees to it . . and if she even knows what a tape recorder is.
4
Lisa could see sky now through the sugar pines. Quietly, but for her own labored breathing, she climbed forward. She saw the roofline of the chateau.
It occurred to her that the greased rocks and the trip wires she'd passed would be just as effective at keeping people out. Not that any of the members could have managed that slope, trip wires or no. She thought of the two, the younger ones, with the bandaged faces who seemed to have been breaking a rule by merely sitting on the terrace steps. Could they have been prisoners here? Committed here? Lisa doubted it. They seemed too . . . confident for that. And that other man had seemed intimidated by them.
She stopped, still inside the trees.
The old actress was on her bench, waiting, as if she'd never moved. Same hooded coat, her back to her, keeping an eye on any movement from the main house. Lisa looked over the grounds. No sign of Jason Bellarmine. No one else in sight either. Seemed strange. She was tempted to wait for another member or two to be wheeled out, some sign of business as usual, but Nellie, suddenly, raised a gloved hand. Must have heard her. Or sensed her. She was motioning her forward, signaling her to stay low beneath the hedge. Lisa, crouching, stepped from the trees. Her own eyes on the chateau, she followed the beckoning hand. She saw it open, as if to take her own hand in welcome. Lisa reached for it.
The old woman's grip, the strength of it, surprised her. Nellie's body half-turned. The other arm came up, reaching behind her neck as if to embrace her. No. It was seizing her. The fingers were gripping the hood of her running suit, pulling it down over her eyes, jerking her forward. Now Nellie was rising, wrestling with her, driving her sideways until her legs struck Garbo's bench and her body slammed against it. Lisa cried out, more startled than afraid, but a hand, a third hand, now reached in from the side and clamped firmly over her mouth. She saw a flash of red. A sweatshirt. Her eyes widened. It was that man. The jogger from Tower Road. And the woman wasn't Nellie at all. The face was young, dark, the skin deeply pitted.
Suddenly all fear was gone. She felt a warmth. A heaviness. The marble bench began to soften. Her body was sinking into it as if it were a bed. She saw, or thought she saw, a syringe being drawn from the flesh of her forearm, now bare. She wondered, vaguely, what it might be doing there. Then, in seconds, she no longer cared.
It seemed to her that she was home in bed dreaming. Her dreams annoyed more than they frightened. She tried to wake up, to shake them, but she could not. She was in a white room, like an operating room, strapped to a table, and she felt no clothing against her body. It seemed that her nakedness should have bothered her more than it did.
There was a single bright light above the table. A doctor, an older one, was talking to her, asking her questions. Most were about school. The woman with the pitted face was there. And there were other people who came in, looked at her. The woman showed them her recorder and some things from her purse. That was funny. Lisa tried to think. It seemed to her that she'd locked the purse in her car.
The doctor asked if she had family in the area. Did she have a boyfriend? No? Then whose warmup suit was that? She did not mind answering.
One of the men who came in held out his hand for her keys. She tried to see his face but she could not move her head. Then he stepped closer and she recognized him. It was the man in the red sweatshirt except that he had showered and changed into a sport jacket. It was also the man she'd seen the Sunday before, arguing with the bandaged man.
With his free hand he reached out to her and, his eyes becoming strange, began exploring her body, feeling the slight mound of her breasts, the flatness of her stomach, touching his fingers to her lips. The woman spoke sharply to him. He stepped back, sighing. Such a waste, she heard him say, as if from a great distance.
Time passed. Minutes . . . hours, she wasn't sure. The lights came on again. The dream continued. The man who had touched her was back. Asking more questions. Who was her professor? Had he seen any of her work? Had she spoken to him, or anyone, about Sur La Mer? Did she have a locker at school and what was its combination? As he asked these things, he sorted through notebooks and papers that Lisa thought she recognized. Yes. They were hers. From her apartment. He was scanning them, discarding some, selecting others and making a pile of them on her bare stomach. Next came two yellow Fotomat envelopes. He went through the photographs that she had taken seven days earlier. He selected several, laying them out across her thighs.
Her mind was clearing, slowly. This wasn't her bed. And she was not dreaming. The doctor came forward. He held a syringe. But the man she'd seen jogging waved him back. No more, he said. Leave us alone now. The doctor seemed as if he might protest. But he didn't. He left the room.
“What good will that do?” The woman's voice.
”I want to be sure. I want to see her face when she sees that we have this girl.”
“Henry . . .” she hesitated. “It's been a week. She probably won't even remember that the girl was here.”
“She remembers more than all of you think. Bring her.”
A pause. “The Weinbergs are with her. They are watching films.”
“So?”
“Mr. Weinberg has . . . asked us ... not to bother her.”
Henry Dunville bared his teeth. He snatched at one of the photographs, his fingernails gouging the inside of Lisa's thigh. She cried out. He ignored her. He thrust the photograph toward the woman.
“Show this to him,” he hissed, “and then ask him if he would rather be bothered himself. You might ask him, while you're at it, just who the hell he thinks he is.”
More time passed. The waves washing over her brain were coming less frequently. She could feel her body. It ached in places and burned in others. Her thigh, she thought, was bleeding. The realization that she was naked—not just dream-naked—became more focused. They could at least have given her a sheet. Not just those papers. She heard voices. Two men. One was much deeper than the other and slightly muffled. Something else about it. She tried to listen but the voices stopped.
A white mass floated above her. She squinted at it. She saw an eye. Oh, yes. The man with the bandaged head. Same white robe. He was looking, closely, at her face. Then her body. The head stopped above her thighs.
“She took these pictures?” she heard him ask. Something about his voice. Muffled. A trace of an accent. German, maybe.
“They were in her apartment,” the jogger answered.
“All this, too.'' He gestured toward the many papers. “Even a map of our security system.”
A snort.
“We caught her, didn't we?” came the icy reply, petulant.
A wave of the hand. Dismissive. “Who is she?”
”A film student, or so it seems. Apparently doing some sort of thesis.”
The larger man straightened. ”A student? That's all she is?”
“If she's anything more, she'll tell me. I'll especially find out what she wanted with pictures of you and your wife.”
The man known as Weinberg was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, it was very quietly. “Why,” he asked, “did you not simply take her to a room and question her, threaten her with arrest, as you would any other intruder?”
“Because she spoke to Nellie. More to the point, I think Nellie spoke to her.”
“Nellie does not speak. I would know it if she could.”
Dunville shifted some of the papers on Lisa's stomach, uncovering a pocket-size notepad, left open. He jabbed his finger, jarring her, at several lines written in her hand.
D'Arconte?
Dunville?
Daughter/b. 1931-2/strawberry birthmark
Who are “those people” in the house?
“Where,” asked Henry Dunville, “would she have gotten that information if not from the old woman?’'
The man called Weinberg closed his one eye. The bandaged head shook slowly, wearily. His hands reached for the papers and photographs that covered Lisa's body. He gathered them all, then stepped to a cabinet where he found a supply of linens. He shook out a light cotton blanket and covered her with it.
Next, taking a full five minutes, he scanned the notes and photographs, including those that Dunville had discarded into a separate pile. This, he noticed, seemed to make Dunville ill at ease. He soon discovered why. There, before him, was a shot of Henry Dunville, mouth forming a silent curse, his middle finger extended at the backs of Weinberg and his wife. He smiled beneath his bandages. The photograph, he sensed, was taken to no purpose other than a conviction that cowardice should not go unrecorded. He was beginning, he decided, to like this girl.
“Has it occurred to you,” he spoke at last, tapping a finger against the open notepad, “that this is not information at all? That these are simply questions based on rumors, legend, which she came here hoping to have answered?”
It was Dunville’ s turn to snort. “Why, then, would she have taken your picture?”
“Because she had a camera,” he answered patiently, his voice pained. “And because I was there. She photographed everything she saw, Henry, from the main gate, to old Mr. Bellarmine's red seascape, to your rude little gesture.”
Dunville’s jaw tightened but the chin came up, defiantly. “Well,” he sniffed, “we'll know soon enough.”
“What have you given her?”
“Heroin. Scopolamine.''
“How long until her head clears?”
“Two hours. Maybe less.”
“I'll question her then.” He raised a hand to stay any objection. “Why is she naked, by the way?”
The other man shrugged,
“Is it because you've been playing with her, Henry? Or does that come later?”
His tan deepened but he said nothing.
Weinberg reached an arm around the smaller man's shoulder. He stiffened but did not pull away. Weinberg guided him toward the door. “Henry,” he said, shaking his head, “I'm going to try to explain what you've done here . . .”
Lisa listened to the fading voice. The man who had covered her. She did not want him to leave.
“By the way . . .” The man called Weinberg paused in the corridor outside the surgery, ' ‘when your little assistant asked me who I think I am, she wasn't speaking for you, was she?”
No answer.
“Because if she was, I'll tell you. Or would you rather I showed you?”
“What you are,” he managed, the chin rising again, “is a guest in this house. Kindly keep that in mind.”
”A paying guest,” Weinberg corrected him. “And wouldn't you say that all that money should entitle Mrs. Weinberg and myself to a measure of peace and quiet?”
“It does not entitle you to interfere . . .”
The bigger man squeezed his neck, silencing him. ”A little college girl climbs up through the trees, making it past that wonderfully sophisticated security system of yours because she's doing a term paper about old movie stars and, quite naturally, she thought she'd try to talk to one or two. She gets in here but she has only anecdotes to show for her trouble. She has spoken to a blind old man about marble benches and to a nice old lady who can't talk back and who, even if she could, is in another world. Are you with me so far, Henry? Just nod.”
He nodded.
“Enter Henry Dunville. You learn that this little girl has been here, having bested you, and you overreact. You deprive poor Nellie of her bench so that you and your little friend can . . .” Weinberg stopped himself. “How did you know she was coming, by the way?”
Dunville’ s expression became smug. “Her license plate was recorded when she first approached the gate house. Her face and voice were recorded as well. Mr. Bellarmine confirmed that the voice was that of the girl who spoke to him from Nellie's bench. She's been under surveillance for a week. When she left her apartment this morning, heading this way, obviously outfitted for a return visit, we were alerted. We were ready for her.”
“And you got her, didn't you, Henry.” Weinberg punched his arm, lightly. “You jumped her, drugged her, strapped her naked to a table and you burglarized her apartment. In the end, Henry, do you feel that this will make her less curious, or more curious, about Sur La Mer?”
“We can't let her go. Not now.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because she's seen you. And for all the reasons you just mentioned.”
“What she has seen is gauze, Henry. And anything she has seen or heard since you drugged her will have been through a fog. She's not going to die for that.”
“We can't take the chance. What if she . . .”
Weinberg squeezed him again, very hard, shutting off his air. “I
n a little while,” he said, “Mrs. Weinberg will come down. She will rap that girl smartly across the back of the head and then she will put her clothes back on. Your surgeon will put a few stitches in her scalp. When she revives, you will tell her that she hit her head when you grabbed her, which you regret, and she's been in the infirmary ever since. Whatever she seems to remember, you and the doctor will assure her that no such thing happened. I will then come in and, standing behind a light, I will proceed to frighten the wits out of her. I will tell her that Nellie Dameon suffered a stroke immediately after her first visit and is now in a vegetative state. I will threaten her with arrest on a charge of criminal trespass and with a lawsuit for the damage that she has done. I will then send her home to await our wrath. With all that on her mind, Henry, she might not even report the burglary of her apartment.”
“But if she does . . .”
“Let her. You know nothing about it.”
”She…she's been injected,” Dunville said, flustered. “What about the marks?”
“Give her a tetanus shot and a painkiller. Use the same holes.”
Dunville appeared to consider it. Then his jaw tightened. He began to shake his head. The man called Weinberg reached for his right hand, forced it open, then wrapped his own fist around the offending middle finger. “Must I put it another way, Henry?” he asked, gently.
”N . . . no.”
“My bandages come off in three days. One week after that, Bonnie and I...''He corrected himself. “Barbara and I ... will be gone from here. Until then, promise me, Henry, that you will do nothing to disturb the serenity of our stay.”
“Let go of me. Please.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Weinberg patted his cheek. “Thank you, Henry.”
Lisa heard banging. First a door, slamming. Then muttered curses. Then things being thrown. A face came into view. Her eyes were slow to focus but she knew from the deep tan and the color of the shirt that it was the jogger.