Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

Sunday, to make sure he was safe in California. But I called MGM Grand and asked if the plane, the ten-fifteen morning flight, had taken off on time and they said yes, it had, and it had landed in L.A. a little after four New York time. That’s how I knew”—he squared his shoulders; so proud—“that he was there!”

“You didn’t call him, just to make sure?”

The pride evaporated. Easton seemed to shrivel into a smaller, older man. “I didn’t want to seem overanxious, make Sy think I wasn’t up to handling it. He said we should call each other, because that would be the normal thing to do, but not to go overboard.”

Easton was holding something back. I could tell. He had that insecure, twitchy-tentative Dan Quayle smile, the one he’d put on as a kid when my mother asked him how he was doing at school and he’d say “Fine!” not mentioning that he’d gone through the mail, found the Failure Notice in geometry and torn it up before she got home from work.

“You’re leaving something out, East,” I said good-naturedly.

“Come on. What is it?”

MAGIC HOUR / 429

“Sy left a message on my machine.”

“What did it say?”

“That he was taking a helicopter and going to make the seven o’clock flight instead of the morning flight, and that he’d call when he got to the hotel. But you see, I didn’t play back my messages when I got back from the city. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even look at the machine to see if I had any. I can’t believe I could have missed something so obvious. That’s so sloppy. It’s not like me to be sloppy. But I just changed out of my suit—”

“Into the thongs?”

“Yes. And a good pair of shorts and a shirt, so I’d look like I belonged.”

“Where was the rifle?”

“Oh, once I took it from the cabinet, I kept it in the trunk of my car, in one of those canvas sports duffels. Sy told me to do that, and to fill the duffel up with a bunch of clothes, so if anyone saw me, it would look like I was carrying a full weekend bag, not a rifle. He said carrying a rifle alone might call attention to the bag, make it look funny, bottom-heavy.”

“Then what?”

“I did everything Sy told me to do. Drove up to the side of the house, near the garage, to that space where there’s room for three or four cars. You can’t see it from the front.

I opened the window, turned off the engine and sat for five minutes, by my watch.”

“He wanted you to make sure you didn’t hear anyone.”

“Right. Then I got out, took the duffel and walked to that place right under the porch.”

“What time was it?”

“Sometime after four. I knew the Starry Night crew was doing the scene where Lindsay runs into the ocean, but I was praying she’d be very tired and 430 / SUSAN ISAACS

bitchy and they’d let her go the regular time. They’d done that the last two Fridays.”

“Because she was tired?”

“No. Because she was Sy’s, and she was spoiled rotten.”

“Would they stop filming once she left?”

“No, they’d keep going till six or seven, but they were scheduled to do Nick Monteleone’s reaction shots. Most actors want the actor they’re playing a scene with to be there so they can have a true reaction, but believe me, Nick would have been delighted to have Lindsay go home. I was counting on that.”

“You weren’t worried about Mrs. Robertson?”

Easton clapped his hand to his forehead. “Oh my God.

That’s right. It was Friday!”

“Forgot about her?”

“Totally. Did she see me?”

“Come on, East. You know I can’t tell you that.” I tried to make it sound as though we were kids playing a hot game of Candyland and I couldn’t break any of the rules. Before he could think: This is no fucking Candyland, I pushed him further. “So you were at that spot just under the porch. What happened?”

“Well, she was there. Standing alongside the pool, talking on the portable phone. Except it wasn’t her.”

“You couldn’t hear the conversation, I guess.”

“How could I? There’s always the sound of the ocean, and there was classical music playing through all those speakers.”

“And his back was toward you.”

“Yes, and he had on a white robe, like the one Lindsay always wears. Well, there are robes like that all over the house, for guests, but it looked like Lindsay. It did, Steve.”

“I’m sure it did. Short, small—and with the hood up.”

MAGIC HOUR / 431

My brother looked baffled. “Why would he put the hood up?”

“He’d gone for a swim. His head was wet.”

“That was so dumb! If the hood had been down, I’d have known right away.”

“When did you know it was him?”

He swallowed hard. “When I got home.”

“You shot him and then turned around and drove home?”

“Yes. That’s what he told me to do. Drive right home, not too slow, not too fast. As if I could go fast, in that traffic!

And then call him at the Bel-Air, and if he wasn’t in, leave a message that I met with the casting director; that’s if everything went okay. If there was any problem, I was supposed to leave a message that I was Fed Ex-ing another three copies of the script to him.” He uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. “I can’t tell you…those messages on my machine!

First playing them back and hearing Sy’s voice saying he was taking the seven o’clock flight. And then…” There was no doubt Easton was genuinely crying again, but overall his performance stank; he stood, walked over to the wall, rested his head against it and then pounded it with his fist, again and again. It was something Sy would have rejected in one of his movies. Overdone! Sy would have snapped at the director. Lose it! “And then,” Easton went on, “there was that kid, that P.A. saying that I ‘might want to know’