Stardust by Robert B. Parker Read Free Book Online

“I’ve got to go to work. I need to know.”
    Still I stared at her. She was trouble, alcoholic, drug addicted, nymphomaniac, egocentric, spoiled brat trouble. She leaned a little toward me, her eyes the size of dahlias. She moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue.
    â€œAre you?” she said. “Please?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I’m going to do something about this.”
    She nodded her head too many times and then headed out toward the soundstage. I was reminded of a child, off to kindergarten, frightened, sad, trying to be grown up; marching off like a little soldier, with two lines of coke up her nose.

7
    P AULIE spent most of his time downstairs in the production office drinking coffee with the other drivers. Someone beeped him when Miss Joyce was ready. Anyone could have wandered in there and hung the doll.
    The transportation captain, a big gray-haired guy named Mickey Boylan, sat in while I talked with Paulie.
    â€œYou need any help on this, you let me know,” he said when Paulie had told me all he knew. And maybe a little more. “This show is good for us, gotta lot of people driving.”
    Boylan was a business agent with the union.
    â€œI’ll take anything I can get,” I said.
    â€œYou think there’s somebody really after her?” Boylan said.
    â€œI guess so,” I said. “Otherwise what am I doing here?”
    Boylan grinned. “This sow’s got a lot of tits,” he said. “Could feed one more easy enough.”
    I gave Boylan my card.
    â€œI hate to spin my wheels,” I said. “Even for money.”
    â€œNo other reason to do it,” Boylan said as I left.
    I wandered back down to the soundstage and leaned against the wall out of the way and waited for Jill Joyce. Watching a television show being filmed was like watching dandruff form. It was a long, slow process and when you were through, what did you have? Maybe Boylan was right. Maybe this was just a boondoggle and I was getting paid to make Jill Joyce feel good. She had yet to tell me a goddamned thing about herself. The hanging doll was easy to fake and came at the right time. I didn’t even know what other harassment there had been. So why didn’t I take a walk? The money was good, but there’s always money. Why didn’t I walk right now instead of standing around listening to some of the worst dialogue ever uttered, over and over again? I had my leather jacket hanging on a light tripod. Now and then someone would glance my way and do a short double-take at the gun under my left arm. The rest of the time things were much calmer. My head itched. The watch cap made my hair sweaty, but if I took it off, the way it matted my hair down made me look like an oversized rock musician.
    On set, out of sight, but sadly not out of hearing, Jill Joyce was selling the closing lines of her scene for the fifth time.
    â€œWhere there’s love,” she said, “there’s a chance.”
    I knew why I was waiting for her. It was what Susan had said at dinner. She doesn’t have anyone to look out for her. There was something so small and alone in her, so unconnected and frightened, that I couldn’t walk away from her. If she was staging these harassments she needed help. If she wasn’t staging them she needed help. I was better equipped to give one kind of help than I was the other. And equipped or not, whatever she needed, I was the only one willing.
    At 4:25 the director said, “That’s it, thanks, Jilly. See you tomorrow.” And without answering, Jill Joyce walked around the set partition and stopped in front of me.
    â€œYou’ll drive me home,” she said.
    â€œYes,” I said.
    The people who’d been lounging around glancing at my gun were now busy dismantling the set wall in front of us. They swung it out to open up the set and two people moved the camera dolly around into the space where I was