Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune 2)

"Where?"

"Ohio. Outside of Cleveland."

"I don't know any academies or studios there."

"It was the middle school. I was in the Thanksgiving pageant."

He stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

No sense of humor, she noted. "That's a joke."

"Uh-huh."

"I was also a snowflake once. And in high school I painted backdrops for South Pacific.... That's another joke. Look, sir, I just want to act."

"I'm a coach," Tucker said. "That's all I am. I improve, I don't create. If you want to go to school, study drama, come back, I may be able to help you. But for now ..." He motioned toward the door.

Rune said, "But my friend said you're the best in the city."

"You know one of my students?"

"Shelly Lowe," Rune said and pressed the button of the little JVC camcorder in her bag. The lens was pointed upward, toward Tucker. She knew she wouldn't get the whole angle, but she'd see enough. Also, she thought the little black border might give it a nice effect.

Tucker turned to look out the window. A pile driver in a nearby construction site slammed a girder down toward the rock that Manhattan rested on. Rune counted seven bangs before he spoke. "I heard what happened to her." Tucker's ruddy face gazed at Rune from under those bushy white eyebrows. Did he brush them out like that? Rune changed her mind: He'd be a much better wizard than a president. A Gandalf or Merlin.

Rune said, "Whatever else about her, she was a good actress."

After a long moment Tucker said, "Shelly Lowe was my best student." A faint, humorless smile. "And she was a whore."

Rune blinked at the viciousness in his voice.

Tucker continued. "That's what killed her. Because she sold herself."

Rune asked, "Had she been coming to see you long?"

Reluctantly Tucker answered her question. Shelly had been studying with him for two years. She'd had no formal training other than that, which was very unusual nowadays, when schools like Yale and Northwestern and UCLA were producing the bulk of the professional actors and actresses. Shelly had a superb memory. She was like a chameleon, slipping into parts like someone possessed by the character's spirit. She had a talent for dialects and accents. "She could be a barmaid from northeast of London, then change herself into a schoolteacher from Cotswold. The way Meryl Streep can."

Tucker spoke these words of admiration with troubled eyes.

"When did you find out about her film career?"

His voice was bitter again. "A month ago. She never said a word about it. I was stunned." He laughed with derision. "And the irony is that when it came to her legitimate auditions she wouldn't take just any job. She didn't do commercials or musical comedy. She didn't do dinner theater. She wouldn't go to Hollywood. She did only serious plays. I said to her, 'Shelly, why are you being so pigheaded? You could work full-time as an actress if you wanted to.' She said, no, she wasn't going to prostitute herself.... And all the while, she was doing those ... films." He closed his eyes and moved his large head from side to side to shake off the unpleasantness. "I found out a month ago. Someone was returning a tape at the video store I go to. I glanced at it. There she was on the cover. And, what's more, it was under the name Shelly Lowe! She didn't even use a stage name! When I found out I can't tell you how betrayed I felt. That's the only way I can describe it. Betrayal. When she came in for the next lesson we had a terrible fight. I told her to get out, I never wanted to see her again."

He spun around to face out the window again. "Every generation has its candidates for genius. Shelly could have been one of those. All of my other students--" He waved his hand around the room, as if they were sitting behind Rune. "They're talented and I like to think that I helped them improve. But they're nothing compared with Shelly. When she acted you believed her."

Just what Tommy Savorne had said, Rune recalled.

"It wasn't Shelly Lowe on stage, it was the character. Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, the Greek classics, Ionesco, Ibsen ... Why, she came this close to the lead in Michael Schmidt's new play." He held his fingers a millimeter apart.

Rune frowned. "The big producer? The guy gets written up in the newspapers?"

He nodded. "She went to his EPI--"

"What's that?"

"Equity Principal Interview. It's like an audition. She met with Schmidt himself twice."

"And she didn't get the part?"