Siren Queen(63)

He bared his teeth, and they looked long and yellow to me. I would have said that whatever demon lived in Jacko Dewalt was becoming more overt, less subtle, but of course there was no demon at all, only the man and his hungers and grudges.

“I couldn’t believe that you really burned those pictures. Those were the real ashes you sent me in that goddamn bottle. I checked, you know. Down in Pescadero, old Ma and Pa must have kicked up their heels when their precious Baby Jenny could walk and talk and dance and sing again.”

I had. A voice like Hezibah Wiley’s told me to keep those pictures close and dear. They might have prevented what was happening now at the very least, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what would happen when I burned them, but I knew it would be an ending of some kind.

He laughed, shaking his head at my idiocy.

“All right. You say you don’t care about that. Well, CK, you better fucking care about this. You fuck me over on this picture, and I’ll have Wolfe send you to the loony bin. Tell him you were shacking up with Harry Long and lost your mind. He’d do it too, because he remembers that stunt you and Caroline Carlsson pulled two years ago, believe me.”

I did. None of the studio heads were known for a short memory.

He glared at me, but when I made no response, he decided I was cowed, or he decided to believe I was, anyway.

“Whalen Mannheim is gone now. He liked you a lot, you know, and even if he was an asshole who thought your pussy opened sideways, it wasn’t nothing. Harry Long’s gone too. Yesterday he stood for you, and today he’s bones in the desert.”

Jacko watched my face for a flinch, and when I refused to give it to him, he bared his teeth at me again.

“You had some heavy hitters in your corner, and when they realized they couldn’t just give a white girl from Detroit your face, maybe you were untouchable for a while. You’re not. You’re a monster, and eventually, CK, monsters go down. I want to make this movie and I want the payoff more than I want you ground back down into Hungarian Hill trash, but only a little more, you get me?”

I was as still as a statue, but in my purse, I knew I had a small knife. I had liberated it from the craft services table. I resisted the urge to reach for it …

“So we’re going to finish this picture. And maybe I want to see you humiliated a little too, enough so that I smile when I go see this godawful shit in the theater. And then we’re done.”

Jacko slapped a script against my breasts, hard enough the skin stung.

“Get your ass out of here. Read the script, I’m addressing the crew in an hour, and we’re going to start filming two hours after that.”

I was steady walking out of his trailer, even through the lot, but my skin was burning. When I finally locked myself in the tiny women’s bathroom, I pressed my forehead against the wooden stall door, forcing myself to breathe. I would have been ill if there was anything in my stomach. Finally, I ran water as cold as it could go out of the faucet and let it flow over my hands. They were almost completely numb before I drew them away and dried them.

My fear drew itself into a small ball at the center of my belly, but I knew it wasn’t dead or even dormant. My hands were steady, however, and that was all I needed for the moment. I took the script back to my chair and started to read.

They would be able to use at least some of Harry’s footage, though Annette’s was a lost cause. She was gone to a convalescent home, ostensibly treating her grief over Harry’s absence and incidentally her growing dependence on benzodiazepines. Instead, in a scene shot with a man in shadow and imitating Harry’s distinctive voice, the torch would be passed to his daughter, described in the script as a virtuous maiden, one who had no idea of the terrible burden her profligate father had inflicted upon her.

It was a surprisingly daring take for Wolfe Studios, and I read on, intrigued. My first major scene would be a confrontation where the siren menaced the daughter, Olivia Nemo, telling her she would never be as mighty as her father, and that I would relish getting the chance to slaughter the last of the Nemo dynasty. Then I disappeared, and Olivia fought her way past a bevy of the siren’s minions, aided by a handsome soldier who seemed brought on specifically to act as a vehicle for some young star or other. He barely had a name, and I could tell that Olivia was the real centerpiece of the story—the hero, not the heroine.

For the first time in a while, I found myself envying the actress who got to play Olivia. After the first rush of heartbreaks at being passed over for such roles, I had given up wanting to play any of the shrinking violet lead actresses in the siren movies. I never quite got over envying Harry, but that was its own impossibility, not something I paid much mind after a while.

I read with interest, almost forgetting Jacko and Harry as I did. Then on page 110, I found Jacko’s revenge. No maids or funny accents, but it was there all the same.



* * *



Olivia stood bowed but far from beaten, her father’s sword fallen from her numb fingers. The siren, monstrous and strange even in her death throes, hung on to a spar of rock, maintaining consciousness only by some animal instinct.

“It’s over,” Olivia said, her voice tremulous but strong. “You are beaten, and your people will never rise again.”

“We will always rise,” the siren protested, but its voice was finally as weak as it truly was. No more illusions, no more tricks; it was, after all, only a monster, and monsters were made to be beaten.