Deadly Dues Read Online Free

defensively, looking at Gretchen.
    Wally rolled his eyes and disappeared. We had a lot of credit with Wally. Like many actors, we pinched our pennies and tipped the minimum in slow times. But Wally had learned that if he hung in there long enough, we tipped well (to the point of bankruptcy) when we felt flush. Not that any of us had felt that way recently. Over the years, Wally had learned all our secrets as he leaned his stringy, balletic body across the table to deliver our drinks. He knew our fortunes from his tips. He kept tabs on our respective love lives from our presence or non-presence. He knew when any of us were depressed and sometimes slipped us an extra drink as a consolation prize for not getting the role. We were grateful. But we were also aware that Wally could retire on our collective tips. (Gretchen exempted, as always.)
    Murphy strolled by and beamed at us. We were good for business, even now.
    â€œHey, guys. Next round on the house.”
    We nodded appreciatively. Murphy, who seems like a big side of beef in a slimmed-down world, doesn’t miss much. He reached down and touched my shoulder gently. I looked up at him in gratitude. He moved on to the bar, where an out-of-work director and a bipolar screenwriter were getting into it about a long-gone shoot. Goes to show that even Billie Holiday can’t quell the savage beast in men, sometimes.
    â€œIf we’re lucky,” I continued, “nobody will know we were there.”
    We sat in silence for a moment. Another Chardonnay slid discreetly in front of me. And another round of drinks for all. Was this a great life or what?
    â€œAren’t we jolly?” trilled Wally, and away he went.
    â€œWe should get jolly,” said Pete. “How does this look?”
    The great thing about actors is that we can change gears in a nanosecond. Gretchen suddenly leaned her head against the booth and laughed that wonderfully wispy little souffle that had stopped the show in Noises Off . Geoff turned expansive, flung his arm around me and laughed deeply and heartily, using his deepest baritone, the one that entranced all women, from makeup artists to high-profile stars shooting on location. Pete planted a warm smile on his face and plunked his chin onto his hand, doing his “just a happy gardener” look from the Sunny Plants and Pots Nursery commercials he had done a decade ago, which had paid off his mortgage. Bent just bent over his beer and looked like Bent, which, in its own demented way, was a great cover. I asked my dimple for triple time and it obliged.
    â€œSo,” hissed Bent. “What next?”
    â€œI think we should lay low and see what happens,” smiled Pete serenely. “We just pretend we weren’t there. If anybody makes suspicious noises about any one of us, we all come forward and confess.”
    â€œConfess!” Geoff, Gretchen, Bent and I shrieked in perfect unison. We could have been the chorus from The Trojan Women .
    â€œAre you kidding?” said Geoff, his blue eyes almost rolling up into his hairline.
    â€œI don’t mean confess in the classic sense,” said Pete calmly. “I mean we confess that we were there.”
    â€œBut we didn’t do anything,” Gretchen added.
    â€œNo matter what we do,” I said. “It’s going to look lousy. Any one of us could have done it.”
    â€œOh, thanks,” Geoff said grimly.
    â€œI mean, we all had a motive,” I said.
    â€œAnybody who knew Stan had a motive,” said Pete.
    â€œThere must have been somebody who liked him,” said Gretchen plaintively, losing another IQ point right in front of us.
    â€œMaybe Sherilyn liked him,” I said tentatively, mostly for Gretchen’s sake. “They were a good-looking couple.”
    â€œYeah, he must have been dynamite in bed,” said Gretchen wisely.
    We all looked at her in barf mode. The thought of getting into bed with Stan Pope was a close second