Indiscretions - Elizabeth Adler [143]
Bill sat with his head in his hands listening as Rory described how he had taken Jenny’s money. It was unbelievable that he could have been such a goddamn fool. And who the hell was he talking to? Obviously someone he considered a good friend—he kept on repeating that, saying how good it was to have a friend he could really talk to, how the whole thing had been on his mind, sometimes he even had dreams about it….
Fitz pressed the pause button to stop the tape. “I think you should listen to this part carefully,” he suggested, clicking the machine on again.
“I’ve got to tell someone, Bob, and I know I can trust you….” Rory’s voice was emotional, as though he were on the verge of tears, and Bill felt his stomach tighten in sudden fear. “After I left, Jenny did some checking up. She called me on the set that day, threatened to go to the police. She made me promise to meet her, to talk things over. I meant to go, but we worked late that night. I was messing up my lines because she had me worried, and we were running behind schedule. When I got home it was nine-thirty and Margie was here. She’d picked up some coke for me and she had it all set up … it got a little wild, I was really high, higher than I’ve ever been—but I felt good, y’know, like nothing could get to me now, and Margie was cute. I just kinda forgot Jenny. And then she called—said I’d better get my ass over there, or else! Christ, I wish you could have heard her, Bob, talking to me, Rory Grant, like I was some dumb kid or something! I told her I wasn’t about to drive all the way to Beverly Hills for no one, so she said okay, the beach house—and now! I decided I was gonna tell her where she got off, no old-time movie actress was gonna teach me my manners. … I took Margie’s Seville because my black Ferrari would have been goddamn conspicuous parked outside her beach house. She was there, waiting for me. … I guess it must have been about three o’clock then, and she could see I was high and it got her mad, really mad. She said she was going to open the windows to get fresh air into my lungs so I could talk straight and I told her not to be such a goddamn mother to me—I already had one mother and that was enough! She hit me, Bob! Scraped her long goddamn nails all down my cheek—and I had close-ups the next day! Jesus, she got me mad. I just let her have it—oh, not physically, I didn’t hit her; even stoned I’m not the kinda guy who beats up his women. But I wounded her verbally, Bob. I got to her in the way I knew mattered to her most. And ever since, I’ve wondered whether it was because of me she ended up at the bottom of Malibu Canyon. …”
Rory’s voice grew thick with emotion, strangling on a sob as he poured out his fear. “I swear to God I didn’t mean anything by it—they were just words, easy clichés hurled at her in the heat of the moment. … I told her that of course I’d taken the money—why else would I have stayed with her? She was just an old has-been movie star no one wanted anymore. I told her to take a good look in the mirror in daylight—without the backlighting and the makeup. Her body was sagging and her jawline had gone and she still thought she could play the young leading lady … even her agent had left her. Nobody wanted to know. She was lucky I’d stayed as long as I did, considering the tight rein she tried to keep me on … of course I’d taken the money. What the hell else did she expect me to do?” There was another long pause and then Rory’s voice came back, quieter this time.
“She just stood there gazing at me with those big blue eyes and I could see the fear