Free The Perfect Ghost by Linda Barnes

coulda-been, which is a level down even from a career as a has-been like me.
     
    TB: Do you still act?
     
    JF: Kind of you to ask. I dabble in a few things. Investments, real estate, and I do voice-overs, read for books on tape, which still qualifies as acting, I suppose. If I wanted to, Cousin Garrett would employ me as the third spear-holder, but I don’t want his charity and he knows it. I don’t want his bit parts, either, to tell the truth. I’m a traditionalist and I don’t like the way he does Shakespeare up there now. I go by the book, and I don’t want any modern interpretations. The old stuff is good enough for me, but Cousin Garrett is always reanalyzing, doing the plays in ways Will never dreamed of. I can’t abide that showy garbage, and so we go our own ways artistically. And you can see who has trod the most successful path.
     
    TB: Wait a minute. You were in one of the Justice movies. I recognize you now. The third one, the one Claire Gregory was in? You had blond hair?
     
    JF: Almost white. Yep. I was a minor bad guy, Sal, one of the few parts I ever played who had a real name. Brookie shot me on the bridge over the Bass River?
     
    TB: God, yes. You were terrific.
     
    JF: Thanks. I only had two lines, but it got me my SAG card—Screen Actors Guild. God, we had fun. That night was so cold, when I got shot, and we did that bit so many times, at the end we were screaming loonies. I thought that role would lead to something else, that’s what you think when you’re young. You do one role and it’ll lead to another role, and so on and so on, up the mountain range, each peak bigger than the next. You don’t realize you’re at the top of the hill until you’re down in the valley. At least I wasn’t in the valley alone.
     
    TB: You’re talking about Brooklyn Pierce? You call him Brookie?
     
    JF: Brooklyn was a blast to work with, but Garrett didn’t like sharing the spotlight, didn’t want anybody to outshine the director. People talked about the Justice movies like they sprang out of Brookie’s head, didn’t give Garrett proper credit or respect. Jesus, cut all that shit, that’s all off the record, okay? Brookie had a swelled head, too. I mean, how could you not, with the reviews he got, the attention he got. He was young, too, hell, we were all young.
     
    TB: Are you still in touch with him? With Pierce?
     
    JF: Yeah, we’re old buds. I’ve been talking to him about collaborating on a screenplay. You might mention that to my dear cousin Garrett, if he asks how I’m doing.
     
    TB: Sure. And if you talk to Pierce, can you tell him I’d like an interview? I’ve been trying to get in touch through his agent, but—
     
    JF: Brookie can be hard to reach. Look, if there’s anything else you want, let’s do it another day, okay? My head’s pounding. That’s enough for now, okay? I need another cigarette. Maybe a drink?
     

 
     
    CHAPTER
    twelve
     
    I congratulated myself: The scrawl on the yellow pad was most likely JFLY, not JULY, and it probably referred to your interview with Garrett Malcolm’s cousin, James Foley. You often took notes in a consonant-only shorthand. JFLY = J. FOLEY.
    Teddy, as I listened I realized it wasn’t your questions but your silences that made your technique so devastating, those long, unspooling voids during which the interviewee waited for the next question, waited, but heard nothing, and so rambled on almost in desperation, answering the question he heard in his head as the logical follow-up. You got not only what he deemed important in the subject’s life, but what was vital in his own. You got insight.
    Your silences worked their magic in your classes and in your office hours as well. How many times, when you were a professor, did you wait your faithful students out, luring them to volunteer? Remember that girl, Doris, the one who was so eager to get an A? She served as your unpaid teaching assistant; she’d volunteer for anything, even