The Stand-In (4 page)

He had gone at Boy as if he were all the fags at the My-Oh-My Club, and the last thing he'd heard was Boy screaming. (He had had to pay thirty-five pounds for the rented Rosalind dress, which was torn to rags.) Before it got rough, though, when Desmond was trying to be polite about turning Boy down, Boy had said something about getting his money back from Ronnie, so he knew that Ronnie had pimped and expected a commission. And that was the worst, that his “friend” had done it to him for money.

In the shadowy tent, a short, swarthy man was wiping people away from the little star, making a clean space around her. He was a still photographer. Desmond saw that he was about to take stills of Coral Reid's kid.

The man said to the kid, “You do just whatever you want, sweetie pie, just whatever you want!” Then he explained to everybody that this was his method with children. Did he think that was original, for God's sake? The kid wanted to climb up on one of the canvas chairs and asked the woman with the photographer, who bobbed her head, yes, she could.

Now he realized that this one who had been on her knees before the kid hadn't been one of the star-gazers. She must be the kid's nursemaid. Now the kid was up on the chair, bouncing. This was too much for the rotted canvas, which shot like a rifle, ripping, and the kid fell through. Big deal! My God!

“
Is she okay? Is she hurt? Oooh, ahh-er-aw!”

The nursemaid lifted the kid out and then knelt again, feeling down her for anything broken, while everybody else held their breath.

“She's okay, Alec!”

Hallelujah, hallelujah!
The still photographer, Alec, thanked his God. Alec would have committed hara-kiri if that adorable little kiddie had got a scratch on her!

That was when Desmond had walked out of the tent. He would have puked if he had stayed, because that was just how they'd been with Bran Collier, exactly. As Bran's double and stunt boy
he
could have smashed every bone in his body, but who knelt down to feel
him?
He was wasting time, anyhow. Coral Reid wasn't in the tent, and he'd better look for her.

He found her in the main reception hall of the hospital, wearing a blue and pink Victorian evening dress with roses sewed on. She looked as if she were on her way out. She would have been out, you could see she
wanted
out, but her director was holding her by one of the puffed elbow-length sleeves.

Desmond recognized the director, Nubar Ossian, very dark, very thin, about five-eight, kind of boyish if you didn't get close. He had begun as a character actor in legit, gone to Hollywood, where he did okay and began to direct, then became a producer-director. For a long time, Ossian had been the hot-shot director, the trendsetter. You'd hear now he was slipping, but the picture business loved to throw out banana peels.

Two men were talking to the director, cameramen, Desmond thought. Mr. Ossian was listening but holding on to his star.

“Just a minute, darling,” he said to her, then, “Yes, Jimmy?”

Desmond placed himself in the shadows but near enough so he could see and hear, not conspicuous because there were six other nurses and even some men who looked to him to be doctors standing around rubbernecking. Wouldn't you think, with sick people needing them, doctors would have better things to do? Where had he got the idea they'd have more sense in England? Didn't they hand out titles to stars?
Sir
Lawrence Olivier,
Sir
Michael Redgrave!

That tall doctor there with white hair, when he got home he wouldn't tell the wife about the lives he'd saved on the operating table, hell, no! “My dear, who do you think I saw today at St. Andrews? Coral Reid, the American film star!”

The cameraman finished talking. Ossian was one of those rubber-face thinkers. Now he sucked in his thin cheeks, he bunched his lips, puffed out his breath so his lips shook like jelly in a wind. He rubbed his stiff-looking hair with his left hand but—God damn it—still held on to Reid's sleeve with his right.

“Let go that sleeve,” Desmond commanded silently. “Go and deal personally with the problem the cameraman brought up. You know no one but you can come up with the right answer!” Then he could waltz up to Reid, catch her before she got out that front door, and in his old high voice with a British accent and old Daph's bossiness he would say, “Miss Reid, matron asks if you would step up to her office.”

Reid would say, “But I'm in a hurry.”

There was no doubt about that. She wanted out, and the director knew it. He probably liked it that she was in a rush but he could force her to wait. (Directors weren't the only ones who could force stars.)

Coral Reid would say, “But what does this matron want me for?”

“I couldn't say, I'm sure.”

Now Bran had come in and was whispering to his wife. It was plain he had something important on his mind but didn't dare interrupt the director. But Coral Reid could interrupt and didn't have to whisper. Loud and clear. “When she gets in, tell them to have her call me at the party. Nube, do you have the telephone number at Lady Whatsit's house?”

While the director continued talking to the cameraman (He could do six things at once was the idea) he took out an address book, opened it, and held it toward his star. She bent over it and read a telephone number.

“It's Lady St. Justin, Bran. Did you get that number?”

If Bran hadn't got it, Desmond had. He memorized it, although he didn't know why then. Bran walked off to do her errand. For the benefit of his audience, he was putting on a show, but he was only being an errand boy.

Mr. Ossian said to Coral Reid, “Where's he going, darling?”

“To telephone, Nube.”

“Now?
Well, we can't wait for him. With traffic, it will take over an hour to drive to Lady St. Justin's, and the light won't last. They're ready for us. You'll go with me in the Rolls.”

“I'll wait for Bran, Nube. We have the Ferrari, and the way Bran drives—you know …”

She meant: You know how he'll like his wife arriving with the director in the Rolls and him trailing after. Mr. Ossian knew, sure he knew, but he didn't give a shit and just stroked the arm he'd been clutching.

“You have to be there. You go with me.” To the cameraman. “Now we're straight, aren't we? Jimmy, on your way back find Mr. Collier and ask him to drive to—” He consulted the notebook again.

She said, “Bran won't like Jimmy telling him …”

Mr. Ossian smiled. “Should we get your sister to tell him? No? Then let's go, Coral.”

As the two of them walked past Desmond the pain in his gut began again. Because he hadn't been able to get her. Needing to wait until the pain stopped, Desmond just stood there in the hospital lobby. In a couple of minutes he saw Bran Collier coming back in. Bran had the expression on his face that, when he was a kid, meant in a minute he'd be down on the floor kicking and yelling, and everybody would be kneeling down like that nursemaid in the tent had kneeled in front of Bran's kid, trying to sweeten him up. Only now nobody was kneeling. But then he remembered Bran pulling out his notebook and giving out about “his” picture. If it clicked, they'd be kneeling again; Bran still had that ace up his sleeve. The ace was the fifty thousand pounds Bran had paid for the movie rights of
Wild West Wind
, which he was, for God's sake, going to direct. This had been in Eunice Merson's column, and standing there it hit Desmond: A kidnapper would figure if Bran could raise that bread for a picture he could raise it to save his kid. That was when Desmond first thought that if he couldn't get to Coral Reid one way, why not use her kid, the little star, the one they'd all been kneeling to? That would pay Coral back and Bran, too, make them sweat. And that was when he went back to the tent, thinking
click, click, click
—I.B.M.

This was how it went: The kid hadn't been in costume, so they weren't going to use her any more today. (And if her nursemaid had already taken her away, he told himself, he would just go to the St. Georges Hotel on Langham Place where Eunice Merson's column said Coral Reid was staying.)

When he went back, the kid was still there. It was going to work out just like it had worked out that last night in New Orleans.

“Just one more picture, sweetheart!”

Now the photographer was posing the kid, had her at the tea urn, holding out a cup to one of the extras in costume.

“Smile, sweetheart, I want to see your dimples. That's it! Beautiful, sweetheart!”

Then Desmond got into the act and
it
was
beautiful, sweetheart!
He marched over to the woman he thought was the kid's nursemaid. “I am Sister Crossman. I am to take the child to Lady St. Justin's house in Wembly.”

“Take Kitten?”

“Yes, miss. Miss Reid and Mr. Ossian are on their way. I am to bring the child.”

“To the
party?
But, Alec, they weren't going to use Kitten any more today.” She had turned to the still photographer.

“I know, Millie, but that's my cousin Nube.”

The photographer turned to him.

“This was Mr. Ossian's idea, I suppose.”

He promptly deloused the photographer with one look, the way a nurse can. “I don't know, I'm sure. I was asked to bring her.” He gave that line full value. “I don't know, I'm sure” meant “I don't know what's going on. I don't like film people running wild in my hospital.” It meant, “I'm a hospital nurse, not a nursemaid. This is giving me a swift pain in the ass.”

“But she'll never get back by bedtime.”

“I was to say that Lady St. Justin has a room prepared and I am to stay the night with the child.”

“Oh, my goodness!” The nursemaid turned to the photographer again. “Over
night!”

“Millie, if cousin Nube has decided he needs her there, then it's better she shouldn't come back so late; sleeping over makes sense!”

The photographer made out as if he knew everything. Because he was Ossian's cousin?

“What about her nightgown?
Things
. Shouldn't I get her things from the hotel?”

“I am to start at once, miss.” The photographer helped out again.

“If the Great One said at once, I wouldn't advise you to let her things hold him up.” He rolled his eyes. “Theirs not to reason why, right, nurse?”

Desmond gave the photographer the fish eye, letting it be known again that he was browned off. He saw the photographer put his hand on the nursemaid's elbow and nod she'd better go along, and she surrendered.

“But still I don't see, Alec, why
I
can't take her.”

“Doll, yours not to question why, doll. Yours but to do or die, just like sister, here. That's what they say here, Millie—‘sister.' Sister got her orders, too. She'll be right there with Kitten; after all, she's a trained nurse, sweetheart.”

“Yes. Oh. Please call her Kitten. It's her pet name.”

“Quite.” The newspaper said Coral's daughter's name was Cornelia.

“And she better not have a real supper, they've been feeding her junk here. Just a glass of milk, no need to warm it, and some crackers. Oh, you call them biscuits.”

“Milk and some biscuits.” Then his mind clicked I.B.M. “I'll take proper care of Kitten. I'll even sing a lullaby.” Because using the old singing voice would clinch his being a woman and, at the same time, tell this nursemaid he was getting browned off with
her
, he gave them a line of Rockabye Baby in the Tree Top. It worked. The nursemaid went to get the kid.

The photographer pointed after her. “Millie hasn't left Kitten since they reached London. A night off is just what the doctor ordered.” He winked. “I think I'll ask if I can show her a little old London tonight.”

Desmond had a hunch it wasn't only little old London that the photographer wanted to show the nursemaid. (She wasn't bad looking.) And here she came, the little star! She was saying that yes, she'd be a good girl. She'd be a good big girl, yes.

“You can believe that, sister, Kitten's a living doll! Millie, I was just telling sister here I'm going to show you a little old London tonight. That okay by you, Kitten?”

The kid looked at him and then at her nursemaid; then she bobbed her head up and down. Royal permission! The nursemaid stroked the kid's hair, like a slave being grateful. My God! “Come along, little girl.” The kid held out her hand, so he had to take it and to slow his steps, but that was a good thing because he wanted to make absolutely certain that by the time he got to the gate all the cars would be gone and the buses and the trucks.

No one was outside the gate, not even the guard. He stopped and took a deep breath because this was the moment of truth. Now it was the real thing; nobody was going to believe that he only wanted to give Bran and Coral a hard time—from now on he was a kidnapper. He waited for butterflies but they didn't come.
“We are a professional organization, Miss Reid. If you contact the police we will know it, so if you want your little girl back you'll do exactly what we say.”
Having a low voice and a high voice, with both British and American accents, he was a whole one-man gang, he thought. No one else can make that claim.

“I can't walk so fast,” the kid said.

Because she wasn't important, he had forgotten her. “You can if you try. You're a big girl.”

“I can say the alphbet. A,B,C,D,E,F,G.”

“Very good.” She was looking up at him. Probably hadn't
Oooh-Aahed
enough. They praised this one for breathing.

“I can
write
the alphbet.”

But probably couldn't read. Would have boasted.
Click, click
, a ransom note they could recognize but not trace to him. “You are a big girl! You're a big star!”

“I know that, too. ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are.'”