Death of a Blue Movie Star

the nose-pinching, sweet smell of paint and varnish. Lumber was in constant motion, carried by husky men in T-shirts printed with the names of long-gone Broadway plays. Cables snaked along the dusty, battered stage.
    Shouts, the
boom, boom, boom
of hammers, the shrill screech of electric saws, routers, drills.
    She walked into the wings of the stage. True, she’d painted backdrops for one high school play, as she’d told Arthur Tucker. And she had been in several pageants. But she’d never been backstage at a real theater. And she didn’t realize how much space there was behind the curtain.
    And what an ugly, scuffed, beat-up space it was.
    A huge cavern, a massive pit in the Underworld. She made her way unnoticed to the front of the stage. Three people sat in the front row, bent over a script. Two men and a woman. Their discussion was animated. They were having a disagreement.
    Rune interrupted. “Excuse me…. Are you Michael Schmidt?”
    A man about forty-five looked up and his first motion was to remove his reading glasses, which had half lenses in the bottom of the frames.
    “Yes?”
    The others—a heavy man in a work shirt and a woman inhaling greedily on a cigarette and looking grim—had not looked up. They stared at the script as if they were identifying a body in the morgue.
    Rune said, “Your office told me I could find you here.”
    “Did they now? I’ll have to talk to someone about that.” Schmidt was short, very compact, and in good shape. Rune could see his biceps squeezed by the cuffs of his close-fitting short-sleeve shirt. Though he was muscular his face looked unhealthy; his eyes were red and watery. Maybe allergies.
    Maybe, she thought, CS tear gas …
    She looked around the seats near the producer for a red windbreaker and a hat. Didn’t see any.
    And he didn’t seem to recognize her as the person he might’ve attacked on the pier. Still, his profession was creating the illusion of the theater….
    “What do you want?” he said curtly.
    Rune said, “Can I have your autograph?”
    Schmidt blinked. “How the fuck did you get past security?”
    “Just walked in. Please, I’ve always wanted your autograph.”
    He sighed.
    “
Please
.”
    He glanced at the others, who were still staring at the script and whispering darkly. He stood. Schmidt was limping and winced once as he climbed a stained set of plywood stairs onto the stage.
    She stuck her hand out. He glanced at her without a bit of expression on his face and walked past. Went to the coffee machine and poured himself a large cup. He returned, glanced again at the arguing writers, or whoever they were, and said, “Okay.”
    “This is so neat. Thanks.” She handed him a piece of paper and a Crayola.
    “To who?”
    “Mom.”
    He scrawled some illegible words. Handed it back. Rune took it, then gazed up at him. He sniffled, blew his nose with a linen handkerchief and asked, “Anything else I can do for you, Miss Rune?” He stood with a cocked hip, looking at her, waiting.
    “Okay.” She put the autograph away. “I lied.”
    “I figured that.”
    “Well, I did want your autograph. But I wanted to ask you a couple questions too.”
    “I don’t do casting. Give your resume to the—”
    “I don’t want to be an actress either.”
    He blinked, then laughed. “Well, in that case you’re the only woman under twenty-five in the whole city who doesn’t.”
    “I’m doing a film about an actress who auditioned for you. Shelly Lowe?”
    Did his eyes flutter like a startled squirrel’s? So maybe had he recognized her now?
    He said, “I don’t recall a Shelly Lowe.”
    “You must. I heard you almost offered her a part in this play.”
    He laughed, startled. “I
must?
Well, young lady, I don’t.”
    “She was going to be the lead.”
    “There were hundreds of actresses who hoped to be the lead in this play. We finally selected one. It wasn’t a Ms. Lowe. Now, if you’ll—”
    “She was killed.”
    His attention wavered. He studied some of the construction. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    Which he wasn’t, Rune could see. She remained silent, staring up at him.
    Schmidt finally said, “And you’re doing her life story?”
    “Something like that. Here’s her picture.” Rune handed him a publicity still that Nicole had given her. He studied it with the detached interest of a bored traffic cop reading a driver’s license and handed it back to her. “Don’t recall her. Why do you think she auditioned for