“That doesn’t fit Lee.” Or does it?
“Just happened, I guess. She got the job through the studio. Hammond shoots religious pictures there. I suppose one thing led to another.”
“With a minister?”
“He wouldn’t be the first one. I think he got tired of her and that’s how she came by the money. Hammond paid her for services rendered and laid her off.” A snort. “So to speak.”
“Did Lee tell you this?”
“Just a guess. She never talks much - at least to me.”
“But she did say she was involved with Hammond?”
“I had the feeling she did need to talk about that. But I guess I don’t handle the mother thing very well outta practice. She told me the main parts and then, well, kinda petered out.” The fleshy face was sagging now and the green eyes weren’t quite as sharp.
“Right.” I slid off the bar stool feeling faintly dazed. “I’ll find her.”
“Call me when you do. I guess I’d like to know.”
“I promise.”
“And you be careful, hear?”
“I don’t think there’s any danger.”
“I mean about Beverly. She’ll get to you. Prob’ly did already. She’s good at that.” Ritchie inspected her scotch. “But you won’t reach her. Nobody does.”
* * * *
Aiming the Rabbit down Conejo Grade, in conversation with another imaginary companion. This time it was Sherlock Holmes, who had temporarily taken over the driving.
“Where are we now, Holmes?”
“On Route 101 to Los Angeles. My dear Winston, do keep alert,” he added in a testy tone reminiscent of Basil Rathbone.
“Sorry, Holmes; guess I nodded off. Oh yes, we’re passing Thousand Oaks.”
“Precisely ninety trees, by my count, Winston. A typical example of California’s hopeful exaggeration.”
“Right; but Holmes, what do you make of this case?”
“Suspicious contradictions, my dear fellow.”
“Meaning?”
“Mrs. Tolman is afraid Isaiah Hammond will see her step-daughter’s unmentionable film. But the girl turns out to be the reverend gentleman’s, ah, favorite, so one wonders how much the film would disturb him.”
“That is a thought.”
“Adroit of you to recognize one.” Holmes avoided a lumbering truck with languid ease. “Moreover, Denise Tolman is attempting to sell her studio. If this be so, why should she care to retain the church’s business?”
“You’re right; it doesn’t make sense.”
“On the contrary, Winston, it makes perfect sense. We have only to discover how. You will have noted her strange behavior on the telephone.”
“That worries me. Perhaps I should go out there tonight.”
“I think not. Her tone suggested anger and distress, but no danger.”
“Tomorrow then.”
Holmes swerved the Rabbit around a trudging camper van. “Take care, Winston: you’re making excuses to visit the woman.”
“Now don’t you start on me. What about Lee Tolman?”
“The child had a bit of money - we know that - and an apparent affinity for religions of dubious orthodoxy, or so her mother implied.” Holmes filled and lit his calabash reflectively, steering with his knees.
“Do you think Lee’s in danger?”
“Rather more than that, Winston,” he replied gravely; “I shouldn’t be surprised if she turned up dead.”
“Dead?”
My shout vaporized Holmes and left me in my empty little car, staring past the sick green dashboard glow at the empty road.
Why would he say “dead”?
Chapter 5
Gazing, half awake, at Sally’s terry cloth back as she beat a pan of eggs into submission. Sally cooks with her whole body and her short robe was working loose around her swinging stern.
Scrub jays squabbling outside the French doors; sunshine and bacon smell filling the warm kitchen; even the newspaper’s ration of doom was reassuringly familiar. In fact, it was almost too good. The domestic clichés seemed orchestrated, like a scene in a TV commercial. Any minute now, Rover would shamble in with his bowl in his mouth, begging for breakfast.
Sally turned to deliver coffee and sure enough, the robe had quit trying to embrace her exuberance. She dispensed eggs offhandedly, deposited the skillet, and only then re-belted the robe. As if we were a long-married couple.
Grouch, mumble, grump.
Sally looked up from the sports pages. “You’re really Mr. Warmth this morning.”
“Not your fault, Sally.”
She returned to the paper. Pause; fade up ticking clock effect. At length: “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Something about the girl?”
“There’s nothing about a girl.”
“Don’t be crabby; I said the girl - the one in the film.”
“Hmp.”
“You need more coffee to grease your brain. I know you.” She reached to refill my cup.
“Do you ever wear clothes?”
“Yep, starting this minute. I have to be at the office at nine.” She strode off to the bedroom, shucking her robe as she went.
Sally reappeared two cups later in full business battle dress: flowing blouse and suit cut for success.
“Ready to say what’s bothering you?”
Might as well: “You act as if we’ve been married for years.”
Sally blinked at this typical male non sequitur. “How so?”
“The comfortable routine. The... I don’t know... matter-of-factness.”
“Is that a word?”
“Don’t get me wrong: I like bourgeois domesticity. But it usually starts with bourgeois marriage.’’‘
“Okay, I’ll play the tape again. I enjoy my work. I like making two thousand dollars a week. And I depend on nobody. There’s no way I’ll risk losing all that.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“That’s what my husband said - and he meant it as sincerely as you do. But somehow, equality never works out. Somebody has to be second.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I know, but it’s true.” Sally found her attaché case, checked its contents briskly, and started for the door. “Fact is, I kind of love you. Why does it have to be official?”
Exit Sally, screen-left.
* * * *
Out to Pasadena in the dry September sunshine, pining for remembered English thunderheads to relieve this blue, boring sky. The San Rafael area was deserted except for pickup trucks bristling with rakes and mowers. Behind the estate walls, it was gardener’s day. Mostly Mexicans, now that the Orientals are all preoccupied with medical school and systems engineering. Something to be said for California mobility: in twenty years, the Mexicans will run things, in their turn.
I found Denise in her pool, thrashing out clumsy laps. I waited for three round trips, then grabbed a long-handled pool brush and lowered it in front of her like a parking gate.
“Oh, Stoney. I didn’t see you.” She swam to the side of the pool and hung on to the lip. “Uh, go on in the kitchen, will you? I’m getting right out.”
“That’s okay.”
She looked at me with something like annoyance, then heaved herself up onto the deck, rotated awkwardly on her arms, and plopped onto the concrete. “Give me that towel, will you?” I handed her about fifteen square feet of heavy terry cloth, which she held in front of her as she rose. “This isn’t my company swimsuit.” She was wearing a faded bikini outgrown twenty pounds ago.
“Looks fine to me.”
She studied my face, then accepted my compliment and smiled. “Let’s go in the kitchen.” She picked her way on tiptoe along the garden stepping stones with elbows bent and arms raised like a schoolgirl running. I walked in her small, wet footprints.
“Now: how about some coffee? Or maybe a drink? A screwdriver? Why not?” Without waiting for my answer, Denise darted ar
ound the kitchen fetching glasses, vodka, orange juice in a cut glass pitcher.
“A bit early for me.”
“Oh, sin a little.” She flashed a nervous smile, caught halfway between humor and seductiveness. A glass went ting when she hit its rim with the pitcher.
“Denise, you know why I’m here.”
She nodded, her nervousness increasing. “Last night; your call.”
“Can you tell me what was wrong?”
She drank half her glass. “Nothing - really. Things just sort of got to me. I was, well, down a little.”
“But nothing specific?”
She shook her head and drained the rest of her glass.
I tried a new direction: “If you sell your lot, why do you need to keep the church’s business?”
She started absently on my glass, which she had forgotten to give me. A silence while she drank, then: “Well, I guess the same reason I want to keep my staff there. Harry said a buyer’d want to see that the studio had regular customers. And Hammond’s my only one.”
“Hummel seems to be giving you a lot of advice.”
Defensively: “Something wrong with that?”
“I don’t mean to intrude, but Harry’s not exactly a world-class businessman.”
Denise sipped and sighed. “I think maybe you’re right. But we once were... anyway, he’s all the advice I’ve got, now.” She finished my drink.
“Well I’m no expert, but you are paying me to help.”
“I hoped you could, Stoney, but I don’t know....”
“Last night, you said you were afraid to tell me something. Why was that?”
A long, indecisive look, then: “They said I’m not supposed to.”
“Who, the people who want money for the tape? What did they say?”
“I can’t...” She looked uncertain, then thought of something: “But they didn’t say I couldn’t show you. Come on.” Denise rose and led the way into the hall and up the stairs. “I put it away for safekeeping.”
Halfway up the stairs, she wobbled and leaned back, hanging on to the banister. I put an arm around her soft waist.
“Hoo, your hand’s cold. What’s happening?”
“Two screwdrivers in five minutes. You have any breakfast?” She shook her head. “No wonder. Come on.”
I helped her the rest of the way. In the upper hallway I turned her loose, and she walked unsteadily into a bedroom. I followed her into a blue-green riot of wallpaper, bedspread, and drapery flowers that threatened to overgrow maple dressers and a king-sized colonial bed. She rummaged in a drawer.
“This came in the mail yesterday.”
Plain bond paper with words penciled in an unformed but feminine script:
If you want to keep your studio safe, don’t tell anybody about the tape. We will contact you about the money.
“You see why I’m afraid to tell you? What if they do something to my studio? It’s all I own.”
“What could they do to a studio?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t take a chance. You have to forget the whole thing, Stoney.”
“Sit down, Denise. Let’s think about this.” We plopped on the bed. “Do you recognize the handwriting?”
She leaned over to look at the paper and her thigh pressed against my jeans. “No. I don’t think it’s Lee’s. I don’t know what to do.”
“Take it easy. Look, Lee is still the key. If I find her, I’ll learn who made that tape.”
“But if they know you’re looking....”
“No need to know. You can say I’m doing something else.”
“What?”
“Say - well, say I’m a consultant you’ve hired to advise you on... on what? On renovating your studio.”
“But I’m trying to sell it.”
“Right, but if people think you’re fixing it up, it’ll kill any rumors that you’re getting rid of it.”
Denise trained an ardent, unfocused stare. “Will it work?”
“I think so.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!” She draped an arm across my shoulder. “Stoney, you’re a marvel.” The expression on her face, six inches away, was unmistakable and I felt a slight impulse to respond. Besides, I liked having a woman call me a marvel.
“Denise, sitting on this bed with you is exciting, but there’s two problems. First, you just had six ounces of vodka on an empty stomach.”
Resentfully: “What’s the other?”
I delivered it with a smile, to take the edge off: “You smell like chlorine.” Before she could react, I stood up. “Now I have to see Isaiah Hammond.”
The subject change distracted her. “What for?”
“To learn where Lee went. I’ll tell him I’m a consultant directing your studio renovation, so I need to find out his production needs. After all, he’s your most important customer.”
“But I’ve never personally talked to him.”
“Then have Pepe call and get me an appointment.”
“I’ll have to give a reason.”
“Tell Pepe the same story: I’m a consultant. Phone him right now; maybe I can get an appointment today.”
“Okay. Just let me put some clothes on.” She smiled uncertainly, then picked up the bedside phone.
* * * *
Toiling up the Hollywood Freeway in my geriatric Rabbit, en route to Tolman Studios, I began to wonder if the late Roy Tolman was drawn to boozers. Ritchie last night and now Denise this morning; both of them packing it in.
Off at Santa Monica Boulevard, then left, past shabby ranks of porno shops: Le Sexe Boutique, Arnold’s Adult World. On an impulse, I pulled over and parked. Hm: this area must have the last nickel meters in town.
The shop was a blowsy storefront between a three-stool diner and a shabby store displaying hideous sofas on the sidewalk. Greasy curtains screened the shop interior from delicate pedestrians, one of whom had nonetheless heaved a rock at the front window. Its plywood-backed remnants said:
BOOKS ND MAGZ
NO ONE UND 21 ADMITT
Inside, the store was split in half. The left-hand doorway opened on a labyrinth of closed booths, each supplied with two coin-operated projectors. Large signs forbade multiple booth occupants and self-abuse, and a sort of menu described each film.
Several men lurked among the booths: a seedy geezer, a shabby adolescent, and a fugitive from an Elks Club lunch.
The other side bulged with films and tapes, books and magazines, plastic appliances, and elixirs guaranteeing priapic results. The high-racked magazines offered blacks, Asians, Lolitas, amazons in rubber knickers, obese matrons, and transsexuals with contradictory fixtures. Overall, a depressing reflection of the joyless souls driven to this refuge of fixed smiles and flaunted paper parts. Must be thousands of them hiding out there in the city, judging from the size of the stock.
The skinny clerk stood on a high platform behind a counter, where he could enforce the sign reading Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted! I grabbed a magazine at random and sidled forward, grateful that the plywood window screened me from the street.
“Six-forty, with the tax.” The clerk changed my ten and bagged the purchase deftly, then produced a glossy film box. “Here’s a brand new film: Bazoom Orgy. A guy and five chicks.” The satyr on the box photo was apparently romping with a small herd of Guernseys. “Need a projector? We gotta special. Everything’s goin’ to tape nowadays.”
“No, I have a setup. Matter of fact, I make my own - you know, with friends?”
“Yeah? You sell ‘em?”
“Don’t know how; who to see; that kind of thing.”
“It’s tough nowadays. Use to be, an innapendent could sell anything, but now it’s all perfessional.”
“Lots of money in it.”
“My boss makes his own line: Danish Party Films. He’s got outlets in four states.”
“They come from Denmark?”
“Hell no; makes ‘em right here. Gotta lab out in the Valley and a deal with a studio.
”
“What’s your boss’ name? Maybe I could interest him.”
“He don’t give it out. Keeps a low profile, right? Besides, like I said, he makes his own.”
“He must be big. Most people don’t shoot in studios.”
“Also, he’s gotta deal with the manager.”
“Hey, that sounds like Pepe Delgado. He told me all about it. Never saw your boss there, though. I thought Pepe ran it.”
“What you’re suppose to think.” A knowing nod: “Low profile, right?” Then to business: “Come back next week. We’re getting some new San Francisco Specials. Real dynamite.”
“Your boss make them?”
“Nah, that kind he won’t touch. You know: animals and stuff. I mean, you gotta draw the line.”
“How true.”
As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, a very pregnant Mexican woman glanced at me in passing. Avoiding her look, I scuttled back to the Rabbit, imagining the eyes of the neighborhood on my back.
As I closed the car door, I furtively dropped the bagged magazine into the street. The law doesn’t care if I buy pornography, but they’re very severe about littering.
I lurched along Santa Monica toward Tolman Studios, where Mr. Low Profile shoots his little epics. Check that one out.
I was delayed at Wilton Place by a bag lady, whose shopping cart self-destructed in the intersection. All traffic stopped dead while she retrieved and stowed her sacks, but nobody yelled or blew a horn. Oblivious, she made her glacial way to the opposite curb, as one traffic lane after another revved, roared, and started behind her.
Entering the musty studio lobby, I greeted Gladys Dempal: part-time receptionist, bookkeeper, and all-purpose office top sergeant.
“Hey, Gladys!”
“Stoney!” She pulled hornrims off her blunt nose, spread her stubby arms, and rose for a ritual buss on the cheek.
“Mmmmuhh!” At five feet even, Gladys resembles a fireplug in a gray wig. “What’re you doing here, Stoney? Don’t tell me we’re going to get some business?”
“I thought that church had you all booked up, Gladys.”
“Would it were so, dearie, but they’re falling off month by month. We’re dark more’n half the time now. Mornings I don’t even come in.”
“I know. Leaving things to Pepe?”
She snorted, grinning. “I run the front half and he runs the back. We stay clear of each other.”
“Pepe here?”
“I guess. He doesn’t tell me what he’s doing.”
I started for the inner door. “All right, I’ll hunt him up.”
“You never said why you’re here today?”
“Oh, just keeping in touch.”