Excerpt
Episode One
Where a young A-listed movie star encounters more than himself in his reflection and discovers he might not be alone in his hotel room.
1
A thin membrane separates the reality of the many worlds we regard as the universe — the whole of life and creation. But most folk are single-worlders because most folk are destined to one life and one world — no more, and sometimes less. Occasionally, in momentary flashes, the one dimension folk sense the stalkers from other-worlds — a bridge glimpsed but never crossed. But sometimes that which is beyond us, desires and beckons us apart from the mere trickle of wishes — forces which command the web between the seen and unseen, demanding a few selected souls cross between the worlds. This is when the mirror reflects more than a self-image. This is the shiver at midnight. This is the break between the dawn and the day.
2
“I’m a star,” he whispered to the young man in the mirror. “A star,” and then chuckled as he thought about a giant gas ball, ignorantly fixing planets in orbit for no other reason but gravity.
Harris Cartwright, born nineteen years earlier and christened Humphrey Kopfstutter, smiled dimly in the mirror — dimly, because the hotel room shone in upscaled amber ambience — flattering light designed to be so. Still, in any light, this star of stage and screen was the picture of Narcissus, although sometimes tamed by his reflection.
Harris moistened his bottom lip with his upper, and then winked. He shrugged, and then preened, coming close to his reflection, nearly kissing the glass. He laughed, grin exposing a brilliant smile, a gap between his two front teeth — a chasm his mother meant to have corrected when he had landed his first role as a wee urchin in a Dickens remake. However, the gap and his alluring eyes kept the roles coming until . . . well, until adolescence leaped the gulf between child actor and teen idol, which he accomplished without scandal, drugs or an arrest record. Now Harris leaped a second gulf — youthful high school parts to the dashing heroes.
He winked again, and then turned about on the stool. This hotel could accomodate a range of actors from A-list to C, now that the Tribeca Film Festival had rolled into town. The SoHo Grand, the classiest bed roll in this lower Manhattan neighborhood, had no vacancies this weekend.
Harris stood, and then stretched. He had slept the day away and, now as evening hugged the New York skyline, he was up for nocturnal festivities — a sneak preview of his new film The Magic Planet to be followed by a Q&A panel and light refreshments. Who knew what would come after that? These junkets, regulated to a point, still burst like fireworks when the rocket spent. Harris might take an evening romp with his co-star. The prospects loomed, so Harris stretched, chucked his underwear, and then headed for the shower.
3
The hotel room shimmered. All that wasn’t silk, was satin. When not occupied by a nineteen-year old A-listed actor, the king size bed wore an olive satin spread, seagreen silk sheets, a princely counterpane and stately pillows. Now the bedding was tossed as if cats had fought in a sack. Clothes were strewn on the floor, a trail from dresser to bed, from bed to shower. Books and scripts kiltered on the dressing table, and the telephone directory sprawled beside a tray with last night’s room service caking in partnership with this morning’s breakfast. No lunch — evidently.
The shower room opened directly into the boudoir, a glass panel separating it from a minibar. To Harris, the steaming water would be his wake-up call. He wasn’t sure of the time (and he didn’t worry, because Tony monitored those details). However, his schedule would kick in eventually. It always did on publicity junkets. Soon, a flock of studio bullies, who, as well-meaning as they pretended to be, would restrict his freedom. They were the paycheck, after all, and who was he?
“I’m a star,” he gurgled, spitting out a mouthful. He laughed again, the stream plastering his curly hair into a black slick. He shook the cascades from his eyes and laughed again, and then ran a soapy cloth over his newly formed biceps. His last flick demanded his body beef up from a teenage lanky noodle to a swashbuckling space pirate. He was unaccustomed to the added musculature, although the chicks dug it.
At the thought of chicks, Harris smiled, leaning against the glass wall and letting the shower permeate every pore — every crevice. Feeling giddy, his hormones having run the gamut of sexual urges and experiences lately, he resisted declaring a preference in public. Privately, he could be a weather vane, but he hadn’t time now to ponder the issue or do more than scrub his groin in this shower-call.
“Maybe later,” he mused, and then hastened to finish, turning off the taps, waiting for the steam to clear.
Harris reached for a towel — a preliminary dry, beginning with face and hair, and then creating a silly turban, which didn’t squat well on his noggin. He grabbed a second towel for his nether parts, tying this more ample terry around his waist into something akin to Pharaonic kilt.
“A star,” he said again, and then slid open the glass door.
When the room’s chill met him, he noticed something queer. On the shower door, written in the condensation — letters. He squinted, thinking he might have accidentally etched these, but he hadn’t. These were letters — clear and definite.

C U L8R C M J

“What the fuck?” he said, pawing the initials. “See you later — CMJ?”
He turned, looking for uninvited company.
“Tony?” he called. “Are you here?”
Harris inspected the room, walking over the debris, pushing linen with his feet and picking clothes up as he went. Opening the closet door, he expected to encounter Anthony Bentley-Jones, his co-star and best friend.
A joke, perhaps.
However, the closet, devoid of actors, contained only tonight’s wardrobe.
Harris threw off the turban, and then returned to the shower door, hunkering for another inspection before the initials faded. They were still clear. He tried to erase them, but they remained. He pushed back, landing on his ass.
“They’re inside. Whoever wrote this was in the fucking shower with me.”
He crabbed back to the bed, took in the room again, and then laughed.
“You’re nuts, Humphrey. Scared by a little soap scum?”
He shook his damp hair, and then sought the dryer.

Episode Two
When our actor recalls a recent memory, which weighs on his mind; and when his co-star makes a dramatic entrance, dashing all chances for reverie.
1
A little pebble thrown into a calm lake —a puzzle — can disturb the surface and throw out rings to distant shores — shores unseen — shores mental, quite unbidden in a contented reality. But contentment is never so complacent to be real. Tranquility and serenity dance a wild folk reel below the ripple. Turn quick and you will miss it. Turn slow and it will get you, perhaps to whisper in your ear and entice you away from your contentment — away from the world you thought grasped your soul and rocked your cradle. Little pebble — little pebble — strike the lake. Head turns to catch the ripple, only to hear the passing whisper calling you to the edge.
2
Again the mirror loomed. Harris dried his hair, and then inspected his cheeks for blemishes and his chin for a scar — a nick from a sword accident on the last film. It healed nicely — nothing makeup couldn’t hide, and was more pronounced two weeks ago, when he had walked the red carpet in L. A.. Tony had fussed over the scar; so much so, Harris thought Mom had tagged along. Mom wasn’t the stage door kind, but she had rules — good rules, which worked well for a child actor transitioning through this Thespian world. Mom’s rules guided Harris to regard acting as a job rather than a privilege. A good thing, because he loved his job. He hated these junkets and the crowd’s rush. The red carpet was his least favorite thing, although he was gracious to his fans and never withheld his autograph.
Harris mused on his last prance on the red carpet. Unlike tonight, a public preview at a festival, two weeks ago the event was an invitation-only première. He was tuxedified and spotlighted — the press in full attendance — interviewers great and small, each with frivolous questions like did you find the battle scenes hard? Did you perform your own stunts? We hear talk about you and Romey (Romaine Rowan — the heroine). Any truth to it?
Drone. Drone. Drone.
Harris danced around these questions. He had hugged Romaine and Tony and the director, McCann Phillips. He stood with them and posed and preened and bathed in a shower of flashbulbs and strobes behind the usual studio spoiler backdrop. It was a whirl until he saw . . . saw her — a fan, who cocked her head and grinned. She, dressed in black denim and a leather cap, unlike other fans, who stretched arms forward, pens in one hand, books in the other — this girl in black denim stood patiently, smiling confidently, and then . . . winked.
“Do you see her?” Harris whispered to Tony.
“What ya talkin’ about, mate,” Tony replied. “All I see is a sea of screamin’ Mimis, and you know not one of ‘em’s me type.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Harris said. “I mean, focus your ass and look at that one over there — the one that’s casing me.”
“They’re all casing you. I mean, who wouldn’t, you damn cutie?”
“Stop it.”
But Tony wasn’t in the mood for sightseeing. The whirl distracted him. They were the attraction. The stars. The fans, and the white noise.
White noise.
Except that one, there. That one in black stillness. Then Harris, compelled to speak with her, broke ranks, despite the push to enter the theater.
“Where ya goin’, mate?”
“Nowhere,” Harris muttered, his eyes drifting toward that wink in the crowd.
He went to the sidelines, suddenly accosted by hundreds of arms and pens and books and screaming women. They broke his reverie. He grasped one book, and then another, and yet another, signing and scribbling on demand. When he looked up, she was gone.
“Gone,” he said, now into the hotel mirror, and then pouted.
But Harris had seen her again; last week near his mother’s house in Santa Monica. While he headed to the Yatzy Club with his little sister, Harris donned his usual public disguise (thick glasses and a false nose). He encountered a gaggle of fans. Sarah, his sister, always a good shepherdess, tugged him across Santa Monica Boulevard to avoid detection. There was a time for adulation, and a time for anonymity. Harris liked the Yatzy Club because the DJ, although recognizing him, would never blow his cover.
Normality.
Crossing the boulevard, he spotted a lone wolf coming in the opposite direction.
“It’s her,” he muttered.
“Her who?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, loosening himself from his sister’s arm.
The lady wore black denim — the same outfit she had at the première. She swaggered, her head down, but she did look up when she passed Harris. She winked, her chalk-white skin amplifying crimson lips. She had a green beauty mark on her right cheek. Harris gasped — his chest hitching. But even as he turned to follow her, she hastened to the curb.
“Wait,” he called.
She didn’t. She raised a departing hand — an alluring fist wrapped in a black fingerless glove — on her finger, a captivating jade ring. Then, as if the night had swallowed her, she disappeared. Harris reached the curb.
“Do you know her?” Sarah asked. “You look . . .”
“No.” he replied. “She’s . . . How do I look?”
“Smitten, Humph. Let me fix your nose.”
They had neared the gaggle of club girls. One latex slip and Harris would be a rooster fending for his life in a henhouse. He let his sister repair his nose and straighten his thick glasses. Still, he meant to pursue the phantom lady, only . . . where did she go?
“She’s a dream now,” he said into the mirror, the hairdryer aimed at nothing in particular.
The lady in black denim — the evasive girl of the night, was no longer a reality. She stalked Harris’ dreams. He spent the afternoon trying to escape her clutches. But she lingered — on the red carpet and at the curb, winking and waving, and then coming close to his ear, her crimson lips and chalky cheeks an arabesque. Good dreams, these, but fell short of The Magic Planet. Harris had spent so much time on bizarre sets, this shade had to be a remnant hallucination from a cut scene — a snippet chastised by better reason, never to be seen through a projector’s flicker.
“You’re spoiling me,” he muttered, shutting off the dryer and nodding before his image.
A knock at the door interrupted this reverie.
3
“It’s open,” Harris shouted.
“What d’ya mean, it’s open, mate?” came a voice from the hall. “‘ow can it be open?”
Harris set the dryer down and let the towel fall, and then opened the door for his co-star.
“Well, don’t cover your nuts for me,” Tony said, bouncing in as if it were his room. “And what d’ya mean, it’s open?”
“I was testing you,” Harris replied. “And you didn’t mind me butt naked last week.”
“Well, we’ve no time for that sort of thing now. We’re late, and King McCann’ll have those balls if there’s a repeat of . . .”
“Hush up,” Harris said, without malice.
“Is your minibar stocked?” Tony asked, aiming directly for it. “Or should I ask? You sip only fizzy drinks and water, unless there’s a bloody ‘eifer up ‘ere filling jugs with chocky milk.”
“You know we have to pay for that shit.”
“You’re payin’, thank ye. Me cooler’s gone empty some ‘ow.” He shrugged, then and grinned. “Get dressed and . . .” Tony raised his hand toward the bed. “What a toss we ‘ave ‘ere? Did you ‘ave some birds in? I’m green with envy.”
“No. Nothing like that,” Harris said, pulling on his briefs and heading for the closet. “I slept . . . mostly.”
“Looks like you wrestled the queen ‘ere.”
“No, you weren’t anywhere around,” Harris replied, chuckling. “Get your drink. I’ll be ready in a shake.”
Anthony Bentley-Jones, the draw of the East end and many a rear end, bowed first to the bed, and then the minibar. He was a good egg, as they said across the pond. He was four years older than Harris, but in the biz longer, having made his first cereal commercial at age two, his Mummy hell-bent on keeping ‘erself in gin and marijuana. The Bentley-Jones franchise (which began as the Koslowsky enterprise) was not as smooth and carefree as the Cartwright-Kopfstutter dynasty. Little Antonin’s Mummy drove him from stage door to audition to rock video to TV commercial to rascal roles until, by age ten (just over a decade earlier) he was a bundle of talented nerves and molested by a string of equally talented directors. He still landed plum roles, but his decadence overshadowed many actors three times his age. However, he had his good looks and came out of the closet three years ago, with much aplomb. The rumors that he had slept with every one of his co-stars (male and female) were true, or so he told the press.
They don’t call me Bentley-Jones for nothin’, dearies.
Tony pulled the minibar door ajar and perused a choice of little bottles.
“I see the munchies ‘ave gone missin’.” He glanced at the floor. “Your aim is bleedin’ off. I ‘ope you made it to the loo better’an you did the dustbin.” He rattled through the shot bottles, putting a few in his jacket pocket. “And what’ll grace your glorious body tonight?”
“Something simple.”
Harris alluded snidely to Tony’s over-the-top outfit — very Dorsetshire — a flowery shirt beneath a blue blazer, a pink hankie mushrooming from where the yacht insignia should have been — a fedora (duck feathered – green) and, of course, an Ascot.
“Simple? Jeans and shitekickers?” Tony drawled like a Dallas native just short of Yorkshire. He turned, and then glanced over his tinted glasses at the young American. “Now that’s bloody fetchin’. Turn ‘bout and let your Auntie Antonia assess.”
Harris had donned a green silk shirt and a white jacket with matching pants. He was stunning. He knew it, but dummied down this wardrobe choice. He was more comfortable in, as Tony had stated, jeans and shitekickers. He refused to do a runway twirl for Auntie Antonia, although he had seen the runway on many a fashion week.
“Listen,” he said sternly. “I told you the judge is still out on me and the coming-out ball.”
“I ‘ate when a man can’t make up ‘is own mind,” Tony said, pouting. He held a gin sample in one hand and a Post-it in the other. “You just want the best of both worlds — and I guarantee that you’ll never get anything better ‘an me.”
“Stop it.” Harris squinted. “What’s that?”
Tony lifted the bottle.
“Gin.”
“No . . . that?”
“Oh. This was stuck inside ya minibar. Maybe a note from the mice that you ate their munchies. Stole their splif too, I bet.” He looked at the Post-it, and then frowned. “Not the mice. It’s from a secret admirer. It says,” he adjusted his glasses. “It says — I C U and C U l8r, CMJ.”
Harris shuddered. He rushed to Tony’s side, swiping the note, and then stared hard.
“You did ‘ave a bird up ‘ere in this cage today,” Tony said, fretfully. “You needn’t ‘ave lied. I mean, we’re not a couple or anything like that.”
“Nothing like that, and I didn’t have . . . a bird in this cage today.”
Tony shook his head knowingly.
“Ah, you said the door was open. So that’s ‘ow it’s done. You know in some cat ‘ouses an open door is a signal for . . .”
“Stop it. I had no one here. At least, no one that . . . Anyone could have stuck this in the fridge.”
Tony pocketed the gin and shut the minibar door with his foot.
“Keep your little secrets. Let’s just get a move on, mate. The limos’ll be lining the curb and we mustn’t keep a Rolls-Royce waitin’.”
Harris Cartwright, star of stage and screen, sighed. He glanced about his home away from home and wondered about the journey. This was the only life he knew, and now he must move along a professional course.
“You’re right,” he said. “We’re stars — giant balls of gas. Let’s go fill the galaxy with our stink.”
“Why, what’s crawled up your arse, mate?”
Harris grinned. He was the master of the moment in his green shirt and white duds. He had a Q&A to give and flashbulbs to embrace. It was illusion, but he knew no other life.
Episode Three
Where our A-list actor takes a fateful turn away from the red carpet and pursues a black denim phantom.
1
There is a routine to living in the one world we know — sliding from one appointment to another, watching the gridiron of time tell us precisely when we should be and where. Our feet turn up as expected — when expected, to crowds of similar time watchers, who hope to get a glimpse of a luminary or three. Expectation is a tough mistress. But then those who are desired and beckoned let time slip and fall from expectation. Illusions are ruined. Mist and vapor cloud the path. And the lure of the unexpected sweeps the ground before us in rash moments, unbidden, but welcomed in retrospect.
2
Harris peered through the limousine window watching the passing New York City lights — lights like none other on the planet. The Manhattan skyline always fascinated him. He had lived here for a brief spell when he made his crime drama Bad Boys in the City. He had invested his time exploring the museums, the clubs (those that let him in as a courtesy and not by proof of age), and the hustle-bustle of Greenwich Village at night. His destination tonight was the Village 7 Theater, a Tribeca Festival venue.
“There she be,” Tony said, pointing through the traffic. “Small, but at your service.”
“Are you shit canning your accent tonight?” Harris asked.
“What accent, mate?”
Harris laughed. Tony could slather the Yorkshire when he wanted the audience to lean forward and listen attentively. Gets their undivided attention, it does, he would say. However, Tony played Captain Joseph Baneworthy in The Magic Planet, a character as American as American could be — not a hint of the Yorkish tongue. He could have been cornbread Des Moines. Mr. Bentley-Jones was an actor, after all — a star and, as gas giants went, as seamless as the sky.
“Get ready for the crush,” Harris warned.
“This is a wee preview, laddie,” Tony replied, tipping his head backwards to empty a minibar special.
“You’ll need a breath mint,” Harris said, fishing in his pocket.
“Nothin’ doin’. I’m ‘ard drinkin’ Joe Baneworthy, the Commander of The Galaxy 12. The public should expect ‘ooch on me kisser.” He laughed. “Besides, a preview crowd’s shy of the première crowd with only ‘alf the paparazzi.”
“I know. Still, the world’s watching us.”
“Not without a ticket, mate.” Tony yawned. “I could use a noddy ‘fore I get too pissed.”
“You can’t sleep through your own performance.”
“Why not? I was sleepwalkin’ on the set. I could ‘ardly watch the rushes. I mean, when we do the legitimate gig, we’re not in the audience enjoyin’ us. It’s bloody work, you know. We’ve no right to sit quietly and look into the lookin’ glass.”
The looking glass. Harris knew the looking glass. Sometimes he winced at his own performances. In the beginning, it was fun, but he was a kid then. Now, whenever he was in the audience, he became critical. Always something — a misplaced inflection or a facial twitch. Directors were the ultimate critics, and if satisfied, actors could be happy. Still, Harris couldn’t imagine sleeping at either a première or a preview seeing himself twenty-feet high, luminous in the dark and delivering art to a crowd of adoring strangers chomping popcorn and silencing cell phones.
“You don’t want to know whether or not they liked your performance?” he asked Tony, who leaned forward preparing to exit onto the red carpet.
“I can tell without watchin’. I listen to the chairs.”
“The chairs?”
“Aye, laddie. Silent chairs mean I’ve earned it. Creaky chairs means the lions are restless and are owed a refund.”
Harris laughed, not because it was funny (which it was), but true.
“You’re not that rich,” he replied.
“But you are, mate.”
The limo door opened; and the flashing commenced.
3
The crowd, large for the space — Eleventh Street being narrow, the red carpet had been shortened between a few silver stanchions. A modest festival security detail pressed the fans to the curb.
Harris popped a grin, radiating his famous tooth gap. Shouts of Harris cut the night air, with here and there an Anthony and a Romaine and an Audra and a Max and a Milton. The entire cast arrived in mixed fashion and different length limousines. There were some calls for McCann, but directors usually weren’t regaled from curbside. However, this was a prestigious festival, and a fan or three were here to admire the McCann Phillips’ screen craft. Generally known for television work and three romantic screen comedies, The Magic Planet was his first foray into epic fantasy. His chops rode on its success.
Flashes pumped like fireworks and interviewers massed at the theater’s glass doors, microphones at the ready. There, Harris groped for Tony, as the cast coagulated into a lineup — posing for the world. Harris trotted out his latent humility to assure the paying public their icon was human and, like the rest of the species, flushed the toilet.
Harris waved at the fan blur. If the cordons fell, the crowd would charge him like the bulls at Pamplona, skewering him with adoration. But his mother had coached him well:
Humph, she had told him, never look upon their love as real. They have lives beyond you and, when you’re bigger and older, they will embrace the image fixed within your work and not the one hidden from their view — the true you.
Mother Kopfstetter was right, of course. Harris was wise enough to keep his work life separated from his personal life. But Mama never said to ignore the sweet aroma when the two overlapped naturally.
Scanning the face blurs and following the interviewers with their lollipop mikes, which accosted Romaine with questions about a recent tumble she took over her pet poodle, Harris spotted one clear face in the crowd. He shook his head, because he didn’t trust what he saw.
“Tony,” he whispered. “Is she here again?”
Tony placed his chin on Harris’ shoulder to capture the sight line.
“That’s ‘er, all right, mate. You got yourself a class-A stalker.”
“No,” Harris replied. “I don’t think she’s stalking me. I think she wants to talk.”
“C U l8tr, mate and all that.”
Suddenly, Harris was beside himself. Could she be his mysterious scribbler? Only one way to find out. He broke ranks and retread the red carpet, Tony at his heels.
“You can’t do this, mate. Trust me. McCann’ll ‘ave your balls.”
“I don’t care. He’s not God.”
“Maybe not, but ‘e can blackball you all the same.”
Harris reached where the lady in black denim had stood. Again, gone. Fled. Immediately, the crowd crushed in, trying to tear off a souvenir — his white jacket perhaps. Perhaps his ear. A security guard pushed the fans back.
“Mr. Cartwright,” the guard said. “Mr. Bentley-Jones. It’s best you both go back to the press queue.”
“Listen to ‘im, mate.”
Harris ignored them. He saw his target on the other side of the street, and in motion, heading south on Third Avenue. He glanced at the guard, assuming command.
“I need to leave,” he snapped. “If you don’t want my body in a bag, you’ll corral these fans and clear a path.”
The guard blinked, but then waved two other guards to follow the order. When a gas giant speaks, who disobeys? They pushed the adoring fans to form a narrow path.
“‘arris,” Tony shouted. “This’ll be on the Internet in less than an ‘our.”
“I don’t care. Enjoy your sleep.”
Harris didn’t wait. He scurried between outstretched arms and dashed along Third Avenue into the night.
4
Harris had lost sight of the lady in black denim at once; but he felt her presence — a pheromone trail. He couldn’t tell why. Was he a lion stalking an antelope? But who stalked whom; and was Tony’s suggestion true? Could the lady be the stalker? Could she have planted those mysterious messages in his hotel room? Even so, why was a West Coast denizen attending a festival on the East Coast? Harris didn’t need answers to these questions. He needed her; and he couldn’t tell why.
This feminine magnet drew him through Cooper Square and had him tramping in the Bowery, the homeless haven. Drunks huddled in doorways, some strewn to the curbside. One staggered to a stopped car and cleaned its windshield with a dirty rag. Harris’ pace quickened. What if his progress were captured on YouTube? What would Mom think about her squeaky-clean little boy?
Suddenly Harris heard the click of high heels — stilettos. Had he entered the realm of prostitutes and street-walkers? This was the East Village, after all — a neighborhood that never closed its doors to business. But no. Ahead he spotted his target. He followed cautiously crossing Second Avenue and then, First.
The lady in black denim turned left, and then, crossing the street, halted in front of Happy Pings, a landmark Harris knew, although he had never been inside. Happy Pings — a Chinese restaurant with a twist, all the waitresses being drag queens — an illusion of China. That this lady stopped here gave Harris pause — a pang of wonder. She haddn’t entered, so Harris hid himself, quickly darting into an alleyway, peeking over the garbage cans — a spy. Then, a rat distracted him (or perhaps a prowling cat). When he refocused, the lady was gone.
“Shit.”
She probably entered the restaurant, he thought.
5
Harris hugged the concrete wall, moving along it, the bricks marring his white jacket. Then, he sensed a presence behind him. He turned and, from the darkness, a shadow emerged.
“Fuck,” he yelped. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“You should be scared,” she said, her voice hollow. “I do not take well to stalkers.”
“Stalkers? Me, a stalker? I’m not the one who shows up everywhere I show up.”
She laughed. When he thought about it, he laughed too.
“So here you are again,” she said. “And you showed up just where you showed up.”
“It’s stupid, but you know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
He got a good look at her face. Bleach white — unnatural — a canvas for face paint. Her lips were crimson, and she still had a green beauty mark on her right cheek. She smelled of roses — a whole damned floral shop.
“I’m sorry if I’ve jumped to conclusions,” he said. “It’s just, I thought . . . I thought, since I keep seeing you, you might have . . . might have . . .”
“Been looking for you?”
“Well, you’ve crossed my path more than once — here and in L.A. What am I to think?”
She lit a cigarette, took one draw, puffed out smoke, and then crushed the butt on the alley’s foul pavement.
“The least you could do is buy me a drink.”
Harris regarded this transformation into Mae West with suspicion.
“Sure,” he said, affably. “You were heading into . . .”
“Happy Pings. Do you know Happy Pings?”
He clicked his tongue, scuffing his feet.
“Not personally,” he replied, and then decided on full disclosure. “Damron gives Happy Pings one-and-a-half to two stars for Szechuan cuisine and . . . drag queen waitresses — a gay hoot.”
“Good. It is one-off . . . like me.”
Red flag. Harris smelled a practical joke — a Bentley-Jones practical joke. Revenge. Harris put one over on Tony on The Magic Planet set. Good, clean fun, but not taken in the spirit intended. McCann Phillip’s assistant, Pam, usually slipped script changes under the actors’ trailer doors — line alterations for the next day’s shoot. Harris jiggered these with devilishly inappropriate dialogue for his co-star. Tony dutifully memorized them and came swaggering onto his starship’s deck delivering (in his best American accent) the bogus lines.
Last night’s prawn have made me ill today. Who’s got the cuttlefish for the cure?
Everyone roared — Harris doubled-over. However, McCann was furious, and not at Harris, but at Tony, who flew off the handle in his best Yorkish — a word-shower of fookin’ arse’oles and bloody mudder’umpers. He didn’t talk to ‘arris for a week.
Harris thought now: This is revenge. Hire a drag queen to allure him at the première, and then have her show up in New York (with mysterious Tony-planted messages). Then, when the sexually ambivalent Mr. Cartwright came to it in the end, he’d be up on YouTube in the arms of a dick-and-balls Amazon (shy the black denim). Kinky and mean. With these thoughts, he paused.
“Are you coming?” she asked, beckoning with her eyes. “Or are you afraid to be seen in public with me?”
“I’m coming. I’m surprised you’d want the drink at . . .”
“Oh, I get it.” She pressed him against the alley’s wall, smothering him in floral iniquity. “Go ahead. Explore if you must. Satisfy your curiosity.”
Her aroma overcame him, his heart beating wildly. But the invitation to feel her up would dispel doubt. He decided to accept, feeling her firm breasts as they engulfed him. If these were falsies, they were good falsies. They terrified him at first. As attractive as she was, Harris wasn’t into the bizarre.
Was this the revenge to the prank script?
His hand crept down to her skirt buttons. Nervously, he explored, cautiously travelling toward her crotch. No bulge, thank God. Not Bruce in Black Knickers.
“Satisfied?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
Harris withdrew his hand like the Dutch boy from the dike. She gave him a wet kiss, and then drew back, continuing her course toward the restaurant. He galloped after her.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said. “I’m not a prig. I’m open to almost anything. But I think of you as a woman and, if you turned out to be a man, I wouldn’t get violent or anything, but . . . but when I look for blueberry pie and discover steak tartar, it’s a letdown.”
She lit another cigarette, took a deep drag and blew smoke over his head.
“Shut up.”
He noticed that brilliant jade ring on her right hand — incised with a funny emblem — a shepherd’s crook or something like it. His eyes followed the ring as she smoked.
“You like my ring?”
“It’s bait to wear it on First Avenue. I’ve expensive bling, but I wouldn’t sport it in this neighborhood.”
“No. You are just sporting a completely white outfit, walking the streets like a lighthouse in a storm.” She turned him around. “Nice brown brick mark on the back.”
Harris slipped off his jacket and stared at the stain — brown as if he had changed a diaper on his new, Indochino dinner jacket. This outfit had been earmarked for fashion week. Now it was earmarked for the dumpster.
“I’ll leave it off.”
“You will not,” she snapped. “You look like the Green Hornet with it off.”
“Do I?” he laughed. “The Green Hornet?”
“I did not mean to flatter you.”
She tossed the cigarette aside, not bothering to stomp it, then grabbed the jacket, holding it high. Her black fingernails, the most prominent items free of her fingerless gloves, raked the stain. She turned the coat around, and then presented it back to him — clean as the day it was bought, only two days ago.
“How did you do that?”
“Magic is my hobby. My daddy is a magician.”
Harris grinned, and then donned the jacket.
“You could open a dry-cleaning business.”
She didn’t seem amused. Instead, she retrieved her still-burning cigarette from the pavement, and took another drag, before extinguishing it on the restaurant’s stoop. Harris wondered if she just lit up for effect. At any rate, he never would pick up anything from the pavement and shove it between his lips.
Yuck.
“So are you up for me?” she asked, the hollow ring in her voice unsettling.
Harris chuckled. He was up and hoped he could keep his self-control in the restaurant, especially one served by flaming Chinese drag queens.
“I’ve come this far,” he said.
She gave him her arm, allowing him to escort her beneath the chintz lanterns into Happy Pings.
Episode Four
Where our errant actor encounters an oriental fairy world and a labyrinthine mystery with his bete noir date — cuisine being an afterthought
1
Sometimes the feet follow the heart and take steps in a mysterious direction. Sometimes the heart has little to do with the course, other vital organs taking precedent. Still, when following shadows in the dark into the glitter of chicanery, heart and feet do not matter. Destiny is the trump card — the game a trap beyond companing. Whether played well or poorly, the feet and heart lose after the first step, a dizzy slip through the thin membrane of the worlds,
2
Happy Pings bustled — a glitter palace for every bad choice in Chinese décor — paper lanterns, dragon tinsel, lucky characters and, of course, six drag queen waitresses running the gamut from Suzie Wong to Mei-lin Schwartz (outsized in a tight dress like a squid overhanging its cuttle bone). The Maitre D’ (a Mandarin named Jose) popped two menus from a large red fan-shaped rack, and then bowed. Harris expected Fu Manchu to roll by in a rickshaw.
“How many, prease?”
“We’re here for drinks only,” Harris replied.
The man raised an eyebrow, and then returned the menus to the bin.
“You can feed me, while you are at it,” the lady in denim chirped. “I am far from home and could stand a meal.”
“Of course,” Harris said, grinning. “Then it’ll be two for dinner.”
The Maitre D’ snatched the menus again, bowed (again), and then pointed the way — a short flight to the mezzanine, which had a fine view of First Avenue. Suddenly, he halted, turned, and then looked Harris over.
“Wait,” he said. “Aren’t you . . .”
“No,” Harris snapped. “I know what you’re about to say. People often mistake me for him, but I’m not him.”
Jose, or whatever his name was, grinned, registering disbelief.
“The customer is arways light,” he said, in his best (or worst) imitation Charlie Chan. He strode toward the table, pushing aside a beaded chandelier while waving the menus at a few gawking diners. “No,” he barked. “It’s not leary him. Just a rook-a-rike.”
Harris tried to hide his face. He was in no mood to hold court. Only one person held his attention and not for autographs. (Jose) halted at a window-side table — a perfect view of First Avenue.
“Bo Peep will be your server,” (Jose) said, dramatically presenting the menus. “Enjoy your happy meal at Happy Pings.”
He drifted back to his station, whispering to anyone who would listen:
That man over there is Hallis Cartlight, but no one ret on.
Harris shifted his face to the shadows. He fumbled the menu, perusing an unusual blend of Chinese-Jewish entrees.
“What looks good?” he said to the lady.
She reached across the table, and then pushed the menu flat.
“I do.”
Harris smiled, his gap most fetching.
“I won’t argue with that, although . . .”
“I am different from your usual fare.”
“Just like this menu. But how d’ye know that?” He paused. “Ah, yes. You’ve been . . . you’ve been watching me.”
He wanted to say stalking, but feared renewing that discussion.
“You have been watched before.”
“By whom?”
“Millions.”
“That’s not what I meant. Millions don’t know me. They certainly don’t know my dating habits. I’m careful. I don’t know why you think you’ve figured it out.”
“Regard this as an audition.”
Cheeky comment. Perhaps the lady went too far. Still, as she said audition, she smiled for the first time, her ivory whites beaming between those luscious, crimson lips. Harris chuckled, and then lifted the menu.
“Are you on the menu tonight?” he asked, a good opening line.
“That depends.”
“It certainly does.” He laid the menu flat now, and then stared into her eyes, trying not to be sucked in. “I generally don’t date fans.”
“Generally or never? Am I a fan? Is this a date? I do not recall being asked out, and for that matter, accepting. Who is the pickup here?”
“Is this a pickup?”
She didn’t answer, but raised her menu, blocking eye contact. This released Harris from a dozen other questions. Drowning a first encounter in a rhetorical sea was always unwise. Was this the Q&A he had bolted from at the Tribeca? Then, at the menu’s edge, he spotted the ring — the jade ring with its curious sigil. Fascinating. It unsettled him. He thought he heard it hum, so compellingly he looked away, through the window onto First Avenue. But in that glance he saw the reflection of a woman draped in gaudy robes with a shimmering tiara. He gasped before realizing it was their server’s reflection — the ever-fetching Bo Peep.
“Do you need a few minutes, hon?” Bo Peep asked in a raspy stevedore’s voice.
The server, poured into a costume — one-part Japanese, one-part Chinese, one-part Thai and the balance in Bangladesh, was a Cook’s tour of Asia from crown to toe. She sported a lampshade-hat crowned with red tassels and a swirl of golden spikes. With a five o’clock shadow at midnight, dim light was Bo Peep’s friend. Bo Peep tapped his pencil on the pad.
“I guess you lovebirds need more time.”
Bo Peep’s retreat unplugged the interrupted conversation. The lady fanned herself with the menu, and then batted her lashes.
“I am a fan, Harris Cartwright,” she said emphasizing his name.
He shot a look toward the other guests, hoping this announcement wouldn’t trigger an autograph stampede.
“Glad to know it,” he whispered. “I usually don’t announce my name when I’m out.”
“Trust me, they know who you are and will try nabbing you at the first chance they get. But they cannot.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes. I shall prevent them. If hounded, I shall ring you with fire and singe their eyelashes. I will bite their fingers and devour their passions.”
He laughed.
“Hungry, eh?”
“You do not know how hungry,” she said. “My appetite brooks all.”
Brooks all? Harris thought. She must be in the Berkeley crowd.
Suddenly, Harris became passionate, from his little toe to his groin — less hungry now. More horny. The lady continued to fan and preen like Theda Bara in a silent film classic.
“I am a fan,” she murmured. “Your biggest fan. You will never know one as ardent as I.” He flinched. “Does it scare you?”
Harris recalled police cases — fans latching onto the objects of their devotion and never letting go until they hacked their obsession to bits.
“It scares me a little.”
“You should be scared,” she said, as she had in the alley. “I get what I want. Do you know what I want?”
“Egg Foo Young?” He chuckled nervously, and dived for the menu. “We ought to look this thing over before Miss Bo Peep tackles us.”
“Such talk endears you to me. I have always enjoyed it when you talk like that.”
Odd comment? Harris blushed, and then tried to escape her eyes, but the ring caught him. He gawped, the jade mesmerizing him.
“That ring dances,” he muttered.
“So it does. My prize possession — a captivator, like you.”
“I’m at a disadvantage,” he stammered.
“No ring of your own?”
“No. You know who I am and evidently did your homework; the fan sites on the Internet, I guess. There’s a trove of info about me. I hear they have my jock size listed.”
“But you do not wear a jock.”
He tensed, trying to decide which was stronger — the hormonal dance or the urge to run. The hotel was only two blocks away. Its proximity could serve either purpose.
“You know everything about me, but I don’t even know your name.”
The lady lowered her eyes — an overall diminution of her luster.
“I assumed you knew,” she said.
“How would I know your name?”
“I should be insulted.”
Harris grasped her hands across the table, gazing into her eyes.
“Why should you be insulted? How could I know it? If you sent me fan mail, understand that I get so much I read only one in a thousand. And I answer one in five thousand. It might sound cruel, but that’s reality.”
“No,” she said. “No fan mail.”
He released her hands.
Perhaps a Post-it or a shower stall scribble?
He winced.
“I’m at a complete loss.”
“Perhaps my expectations are high,” she said, looking away. “We should order. Miss East Asia comes again.”
Bo Peep returned. Pencil tap. Suggestions? Surprise us (as if we’re not already surprised). Ah! Two orders of Happy Pings’ Mu Shu Pork Wraps with a side of Potato Latkes. Wunderbar!
3
“Charminus,” she exclaimed, offhandedly.
“Excuse me?”
“My name is Charminus Montjoy.”
She announced this with aristocratic punch, contradicting her Goth-girl appearance. Harris decided she was a fellow actor — perhaps a distressed one, out of work and seeking a part in a future film. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d been tapped.
“Charminus Montjoy?” he mimicked, condescendingly matching her tone. “Sounds stagy. Are you in the business?”
“What business?”
“Acting. I mean, you know me through my films. You’re a fan. But with a sweet name like Charminus Montjoy, I could see it on the boards. Is that why you expected me to know you?”
She watched him spread his fingers, spotlighting an imaginary marquee.
“Enough, Mr. Cartwright,” she snapped, the aristocrat retreating. “Is Harris your real name?”
“You know better, knowing as you do. It’s Humphrey, as in Humphrey Bogart . . .”
“Or Master Humphrey’s Clock — tick tock.” She grinned. “I like Harris better, for now. We shall see.”
“I suspect you’ll call me something else later.”
“I do not know. Is there a later, Mr. Kopfstutter?”
“Now that’s a name that had to go,” he said, rolling his eyes. “My mother saw to that at once. Cartwright’s her maiden name.”
“And Harris?”
“That she snatched from thin air, I suppose.”
“You could have been Harrison or Harry or Horse’s Ass.”
“Some people think I’m a horse’s ass.”
“But not enough horse to need a jockstrap.”
He laughed so loud, neighboring diner’s attentions were drawn to the window table. Even Bo Peep peeped.
“You have a sense of humor,” she said, flashing the ring. “You are as precious as my captivator. Where I come from you would be the village clown.”
“And from where do you hail?” Charminus Montjoy fell silent. The ring flickered as if attempting to shake the subject. “Really, Miss Montjoy, where do they name their children so regally?”
“Brooklyn,” she announced.
“Brooklyn?” he howled.
She was not amused. She pushed the ring into his face. Harris gawped at the jade. He suddenly thought he saw a different face — the face of an older woman — an aged version of the lady in black denim — a fleeting image, but it sobered him. He glanced out the window where he saw Bo Peep’s linebacker reflection approaching with the meal.
The Mu Shu and the Latkes came with a pu-pu platter — assorted fried crunchies — tasty and on the house for the rook-a-rike and his date. Accompanying the trays, pink cocktails fizzed, a concoction decorated with diminutive paper umbrellas, spiking maraschino cherries. Harris raised his glass.
“To Charminus Montjoy,” he said as happily as Ping.
The lady winked, raised her glass, and then sucked the cherry from its spike. Her tongue beckoned. Harris knew. He didn’t care whether she stalked him, was a nutty actress trying to break into the business or the lost Czarina of Russia. He had to have her, and soon. He couldn’t devour the pu-pu platter fast enough. His chest heaved and he reached for her hand. She might be a one-night stand or she might lock him in his room like the lady who kidnapped the novelist in the popular tale. He didn’t care. The mind ruled not, and neither did the heart. When he touched the ring, a hot wave flooded his soul. He felt faint.
“Charminus,” he whispered.
“CMJ,” said she.
He didn’t heed.
“Charminus. My hotel’s a hop, skip and a jump from here.”
“I know.”
“I would very much like it if . . .”
“I do not hop nor do I skip, and jumping is far beneath me. However, a brisk walk to your bed sheets might prove better than dessert.”
He grinned.
“Dessert?” croaked Bo Peep.
“Not now and not here,” Harris snapped at the server. “Just bring me the check.”
He left a good tip.