Magic Hour by Susan Isaacs (i want to read a book TXT) 📗

a hundred percent sure, Steve. I haven’t been in the business long enough to really know. I mean, when Sy asked, I pretended to have an opinion and crossed my fingers and hoped I didn’t sound like a complete fool. But whatever reactions I have, they’re still pretty much the same as the man who buys a ticket and sits in a multiplex with a box of popcorn: either bored or enjoying himself. As far as I could see, Lindsay was doing all right. And she looked—there’s no other word—breathtaking.” Robby started his compulsive Lindsay nodding. “But I think I understood what Sy was talking about. Whenever Lindsay was on the screen, I wasn’t riveted—except by her beauty. I looked, but I didn’t really listen. My attention wandered. And to be honest, it

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probably would have wandered more if I hadn’t been involved in the movie.”

“But she wasn’t a disaster?” I inquired.

“Not her acting per se. But I think from Sy’s point of view the movie itself was a disaster-in-progress, because the audience had to love this woman. And even I could see you did not love. Lindsay in those dailies. Actually, you didn’t even like her all that much. You just didn’t care.”

Robby took over. “Was Sy going to Los Angeles to speak to Katherine Pourelle about taking over Lindsay’s part?”

Just before Easton whipped his head around to face Robby, I saw his reaction: absolutely stunned at how far we’d come so fast. “Jesus, who told you that?” Neither of us responded.

Finally, Easton spoke. “Well, congratulations! Whoever your source was knew what he was talking about.” He turned back to me, really curious. “Who told you?”

“I can’t, East.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be pushy….”

He smiled. “Well, not too pushy. In any case, Sy was going to see Katherine Pourelle. But as far as I was concerned, it was just a typical Sy maneuver. You see, he would let word leak out that he was speaking to Pourelle and her agent. That would put the fear of God into Lindsay, make her wake up and start—well, start acting. But I swear to you, Sy never would have fired her.”

“He told you that?” Robby asked, then cleared his throat.

He was getting hoarse. It had been a long day, and he looked like one exhausted Howdy Doody. Even the perky points of the yellow handkerchief in his breast pocket had gone limp.

“No. But you see, I’d gotten to know Sy. He could be objective, tough, even callous about Lindsay the 132 / SUSAN ISAACS

actress. But he was completely vulnerable to Lindsay the woman. She had an enormous hold over him.”

“Sex?” I asked.

“Yes,” Easton responded.

“Was it just a sex thing, or did love enter into it too?”

Robby inquired.

“It must have been both.” Easton lowered his head. His shoulders rose and fell with each of his sighs. And all of a sudden it hit me. Easton, like Sy, was being objective about Lindsay’s performance—but not about Lindsay herself. He couldn’t hide it. He’d actually fallen for her.

“It’s not just that she’s beautiful, or talented or intelligent,”

he was explaining, trying to sound detached, “although she’s all those things. She has a way of getting to a man.” Robby was bobbing his head again: Yes! Yes! Yes! “Sy…Sy needed Lindsay too much to fire her.” I heard Easton swallow. He seemed to have needed her too. He had one hell of a lump in his throat.

“He needed her even if it cost him twenty million dollars?”

Robby asked.

“Yes.”

But what about Nick Monteleone’s theory that Sy had chilled on the fair Lindsay and was, in fact, getting his toes curled elsewhere after he left the set every morning at eleven?

I thought about those long, unblond hairs caught on the headboard in the guest room.

“Were you there for that conversation about if lightning struck Lindsay?” I asked.

Easton’s posture went ramrod straight. Once again, he seemed amazed that we actually had been doing what we were supposed to be doing: being detectives. Finally, he said:

“God, you two are thorough! And…well, yes. I heard Sy say that. But that wish-MAGIC HOUR / 133

ing Lindsay were out of the picture—literally—was just Sy’s way of blowing off steam.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was a big disappointment, but he wouldn’t have fired her. Trust me, Steve. There was no way he would have been able to cut her loose.” Easton’s tongue came out to moisten his lips. “He was helpless when it came to Lindsay.”

Normally, I would have gone after him, half kidding, half zinging it to him, saying: Him helpless? What about you, sucker? I’d have given him a lot of shit about falling for a movie star. But I wasn’t going to embarrass my brother in front of Robby. Also, I realized that even if this was a hopeless crush, it was important; this was the first time in Easton’s life where he was showing some passion. It was not something to laugh about.

“What about the other investors?” Robby asked. “It wasn’t just Sy’s money, was it? What about Mikey LoTriglio?”

“Mikey!” Easton said. “Yes, of course. He’d slipped my mind. God, you should see him. What a tough act. Makes Marlon Brando in The Godfather look like a pussycat.” He stopped and considered what he’d been saying. “But maybe that’s not fair. He has a thick New York accent. And he looks like such a…hood. Maybe that makes him seem tougher than he is.”

“Was Sy afraid of him in any way?”

Silence. Easton must have been chewing his lip over that.

I peered around. There was a script on the coffee table in front of the couch. I picked it up. My brother turned at the sound of paper. He saw what I was holding. His body sagged; his poise deserted him. He seemed to have forgotten about Robby. “See that script, Steve?” He sounded like a kid a few seconds from tears. “Sy gave it to me Thursday, the day

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