Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 21

years ago, so they were of no use. She called a young man in the Arts section, with whom she had had a dalliance.
    “Jess.”
    “Kelli, how you doing?”
    “Okay. You’re a film buff, right?”
    “Gee, how’d you guess? Could it be because I review them for the paper?”
    “Tell me about Vance Calder.”
    “Hollywood great, up there with Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, and Cary Grant; five Academy Awards, eighteen nominations, both records for an actor. What else do you need to know?”
    “Personal stuff.”
    “Bachelor for most of his life, lived quietly, didn’t give interviews—print or TV, except once for a New Yorker profile. The old-timers like Calder didn’t do the publicity thing much.”
    “How come?”
    “They didn’t need to. The studios handled publicity but kept the press off their backs. I mean, you never saw Clark Gable on The Tonight Show , did you?”
    “Then why would Calder sit still for a New Yorker profile?”
    “The most prestigious of all magazine pieces, and he was nearer the end of his career than the beginning. It made quite a splash at the time, as I recall.”
    “Do you know anything about Christine Carter, who wrote the piece?”
    “Was that her name? I forget.”
    “She apparently hasn’t written anything since.”
    “Maybe she got married and quit.”
    “Not until Christmas Day of this year, I think.”
    “Married or quit?”
    “Married.”
    “I don’t know if you’ve heard about this, Kelli, but people sometimes marry more than once.”
    “Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Jess.” She hung up. Now, how the hell could she research somebody who fell off the map fifteen years ago? There was no résumé attached to a marriage license.
    Then she had a thought. She checked her makeup, then walked across the room and down a corridor where senior people had actual, enclosed offices, some of them with windows. She stopped before one; the name on the door was Prunella Wheaton. Prunella was an old-line gossip queen whose column had been running in the paper for something like fifty years. The door was open, nobody home.
    “Can I help you?” a deep female voice said from behind her.
    Kelli turned to find her—tall, slim, beautifully dressed, and with just enough surgical work done to keep her breasts high and her wrinkles in check. She had to be eighty, but she didn’t look a day older than sixty. “Oh, Miss Wheaton,” Kelli gushed. “I’m Kelli Keane. I’m on Page Six. I wonder if I could talk with you for a moment?”
    Wheaton shrugged. “Come on in, sweetie, and take a pew.”
    Kelli perched on a chair across the desk from the woman. “I’m looking for information on Vance Calder, the actor.”
    “Of course,” Wheaton replied. “What do you need?”
    “Did you know him, by any chance?”
    Wheaton leaned back in her chair. “Know him? I fucked him.”

26
    K elli laughed in spite of herself.
    “And not just once or twice,” Prunella Wheaton said, smiling a little. “Often, and with enthusiasm, for the better part of a year.”
    Kelli started to ask a question but decided it was better to shut up and listen.
    “Vance had won an Oscar for his first film outing, a western called Bitter Creek . During filming his girlfriend, whose name I’ve forgotten, was murdered by some maniac, and he was very depressed about it for a while. I was an aspiring actress then, and I went to Centurion for an audition, which he attended, and I guess I caught him on the upswing. Vance was about twenty-one but looked five or six years older. I was about your age, and I got the part, a good one. I had a couple of other decent film parts, then I made a stinker that marred my career. I cried on the shoulder of Louella Parsons, and she took pity on me and offered me a job as her assistant. I learned the trade from her, and when Louella kicked off, I got my own column.”
    “Did you continue to see Vance after that?”
    “Occasionally. We remained on good terms, and he would let me call him now and then for a confirmation on a story. He never leaked, though, and I respected him for that.” She smiled again. “In addition to being the handsomest man I ever met, Vance was also the best lay I ever had—really adventurous and a sweet lover. I never did as well again.”
    “Did you know his wife? The one he married in his sixties?”
    “No, by that time I was in New York and out of touch with Vance. The only time I heard anything about them was when a rumor circulated that she had been