Cheating at Solitaire(91)

“I got that bit,” Stewart said. The waitress had come with the coffee. He thanked her for it and gave it a go. It wasn’t bad. He’d spent a lot of his youth being forced to eat in the little convenience areas for British Rail, and almost any other coffee wasn’t bad. He homed in on what seemed to be the issue. “Is that true?” he asked. “Is Arrow Normand out of the picture?”

“Not off cially, no,” Carl said. “And I’ll have to admit, until Kendra came to see me, I’d been operating under the assumption that we’d find some way to pull it out of our asses. It’s a small part. She spends the only significant time she has in the movie singing, and Kendra Rhode can sing well enough to handle that particular scene. And I’ve got to at least contemplate the possibility that Arrow won’t be available for any further flming.”

“You mean because she’ll be in jail?” Stewart said. “There’s no chance of that. Even if they charge her, they’ll never keep her locked up until the trial. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble, and what would be the point?”

“It used to be standard operating procedure before the seventies,” Carl said. “You always kept people charged with murder locked up.”

“That was because they never had people who brought paparazzi with them when they got locked up,” Stewart said. “It was hassle enough when the accused was Robert Blake, for God’s sake, and he was pretty much washed up. The only interest the press had in him was that he was charged and he used to be famous. And Phil Spector. Legendary to people who know the business, but nobody in particular to the man in the street. But you’re talking about Arrow Normand here. She’ll slide into oblivion in another five years or so, but at the moment she’s the biggest thing in Manolo Blahniks.”

“Used to be,” Carl said.

Stewart shook his head. “It will be used to be when the slide is over. But they like the slide, those people. They like to watch people fall on their asses, or worse. There’s no point in holding Arrow. It’s not like she can disappear. She’ll be hounded anywhere she goes. I can’t even figure out why she’s still locked up. It’s been days. Clara Walsh says it’s because she’s been clever—that Clara has been clever, not Arrow Normand; Arrow Normand is never clever—but my best guess is that for some reason, Arrow doesn’t want to leave. Considering what’s waiting for her on the outside, I don’t blame her.”

“Well, there’s something else to think of,” Carl said. “Maybe we shouldn’t want her on the movie anymore. She’ll bring bad publicity. Or maybe she’ll just be so stressed she won’t be able to work. There are reasons why we might want to replace her, Stewart. The question becomes whether we should replace her with Kendra Rhode.”

“No.”

“It’s not as stupid an idea as it sounds,” Carl said. “She’s well known. A lot of people love to hate her. She’ll be at least something of a draw for those reasons alone. And this picture might need the help, if it ever gets done.”

“No,” Stewart said again. “And what’s more, you agree with me. You can’t stand the woman. So what’s this about?”

Carl Frank sat far back in his chair, smiling slightly. “Do you think Arrow Normand killed Mark Anderman?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s not, because she’s not—” Stewart didn’t know how to put it. “She wouldn’t blast somebody in the head at close range. She wouldn’t be able to stand the noise and she’d go completely crazy with the blood, but in the end she’d probably miss because she’d be closing her eyes as she went along. The whole scenario is wrong. It doesn’t fit her. And I don’t think she gave a damn about Mark Anderman, any more than she gave a damn about Steve Becker, or the six or seven others before that. She had no reason to kill him. And no capacity.”

“Do the police think Arrow Normand killed Mark Anderman? And don’t look like that, Stewart. You’re in contact with the police. You’ve got a lot more contact with them than I do.”

“It’s not a matter of the police,” Stewart said. “It’s the crown prosecutor, or whatever you call them here, that seems to be in charge. And I don’t know what she thinks. I think she thinks that she doesn’t have any other explanation. That’s why I called Gregor Demarkian.”

“Exactly,” Carl said. “But if they don’t come up with any other explanation, Arrow Normand will be assumed to have committed murder, whether they try her or not, and whether she did or not. And then the movie is left with a hole because we couldn’t put it out with her in it under the circumstances. So I’ll ask you straight-out. Would you have any objection to Kendra Rhode taking over Arrow’s part in this movie?”