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  I didn’t say anything this time. He had obviously been stung by what I’d said on the phone, and I owed him a chance to speak his piece. From what I’d seen, he didn’t often get that chance around Helen or Walt.

  “As far as Russ Leonard goes,” Jack went on, “Glendora didn’t mention him because he didn’t think that Leonard’s suicide had a bearing on Quentin’s death. I didn’t mention Russ because I’d just started working for United at the time of his death, and it didn’t occur to me to tell you about him. I can’t speak for Helen, but you ought to know that Russ was a good friend of hers and she took his suicide very hard.”

  “So Walt told me,” I said.

  “Did he also tell you that Russ Leonard was his lover? And that Leonard had severe personality problems, as well as a thousand-dollar-a-day cocaine habit?”

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t tell me about the drugs.”

  “Understand, I hardly knew the man. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t talk about him. Most of what I’ve heard, I’ve heard from other people—from Helen, Frank, and Quentin. However, I do know Walt Mack, and I can tell you right now that he is a dishonest and manipulative person, with some fairly hefty personality problems of his own.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as a long history of sordid sexual encounters that have resulted in several scandals that Helen—and Quentin, to be fair—helped bail him out of. There have been drugs, too. Walt is one fucked-up human being, Harry. And by all reports, so was Russ Leonard.”

  I said, “Mack seemed to feel that Leonard’s problems stemmed from the way he was treated by Helen—that she made him the scapegoat for all her problems and that she and Quentin drove him to suicide.”

  Moon laughed bitterly. “Well, let me tell you that this scapegoat was so stoned most of the time that he couldn’t even dress himself, that Helen begged him to see a psychiatrist and even offered to pay his way to a clinic where he could have dried out, that she only fired him after he’d threatened to kill her and himself.”

  “Why did he threaten to kill her?”

  “The man was psychotic, for chrissake! He’d blown half a million dollars up his nose. He claimed that Helen was trying to ruin his career when she hired Quentin as a consultant on the show.”

  “Was she?”

  Jack eyed me coldly. “Anyone else would have fired Russ Leonard months before that. Helen was trying to help him. Quentin was never supposed to end up as head writer on ‘Phoenix.’ He was brought on initially to lend Russ a hand until Leonard could get his life together. But Russ didn’t see it that way. Or, at least, Walt didn’t. Walt was always the more ambitious of the two. He pumped Russ up with so much paranoid hatred that Leonard finally blew his stack.”

  “Why would Walt have done that?” I asked.

  “You met him, Harry,” Jack said. “He only thinks of one thing—himself. And if you ask me, he deliberately played on Leonard’s paranoia, hoping that Helen would end up firing Russ and replacing him with Walt himself. And it looks like he finally got his wish.”

  I asked Jack what I’d asked Walt Mack. “If he’s such a rotten bastard, why do you deal with him?”

  Jack shook his head, as if I’d missed the point of what he’d been saying. “They’re all rotten bastards. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Russ, Quentin, Walt—they’re all branches of the same tree. This is a tough business. Writers get chewed up and spit out every day. Remember, these guys have to write five hours worth of story every week of the year. That’s like a novel a month. That kind of work load destroys people who aren’t strong enough or vain enough or jaded enough to forget that what they’re writing is as disposable as toilet paper. It takes a peculiar personality to bear up under that much pressure. And the fact that they all develop kinks and warps like stress fractures is to be expected. Russ Leonard made himself strong with drugs, until he fried his brains out. Quentin did it with constant lies and lots of booze, to kill the pain. And Walt does it by spreading poison about the other guy before he can be poisoned himself.”

  “Yeah, but Mack claims he wasn’t the one who’d been spreading the poison about Quentin, that Helen and you were doing it. He also claims that Helen did the same thing when she wanted to get rid of Russ Leonard.”

  “What can I say?” Jack held up his hands. “Call Glendora. Ask him how he heard about Quentin’s problems or about Russ.”

  “All right, Jack,” I said. “But why couldn’t you have explained all this to me in the first place?”

  “I already told you—I didn’t think it mattered. And then I don’t like to spread gossip if I don’t have to.”

  “You didn’t hesitate with Quentin,” I said.

  “He was different.”

  “How different?”

  Moon looked guiltily into my face. Weariness and the unpleasantness of having it out with me had loosened something up inside him—some constraint. I could almost see it giving way. “I used to like him,” he finally said. “I guess that’s why. I used to think he was an exception. But then I was new to the job and didn’t really know my way around. If you’d asked me what I thought of Quentin Dover when I met him two years ago, I would have told you that I wished he’d adopt me. He was that goddamn convincingly paternal. It was as if there wasn’t anything that he hadn’t done or seen or heard about. I was impressed. Hell, we all were. He had everybody sold. Especially me.”

  He ducked his head as if he’d admitted something shameful.

  “We all make mistakes, Jack,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I was the asshole who recommended Dover to Frank and Helen.” He tugged gently at his curly black beard. “I really liked him at first, Harry,” he said with regret. “The son-of-a-bitch really fooled me.” Moon stared out the lounge window at the dark trees. “Somehow they always do.”

  Around eight-thirty, Jack stretched his arms and said, “I guess I’d better check in with Helen. She had dinner with Ted Griffith, our agency man. They’re planning strategy for tomorrow’s meeting with Sally Jackson.”

  “How’s it been going?”

  He shook his head. “Not good. We’ve just got too many strikes against us. Three head writers in three years does not make for continuity. And then we’ve got that thirteen share and a so-so document. Even United is going soft on this one. It’s my guess that we’ll get the ax. Not right away, but thirteen weeks down the road.”

  “What happens to you?”

  “Who knows?” He patted the tabletop with his fingertips and smiled. “Could be I’ll junk it altogether. I’m not really cut out for this job, Harry. I told you that.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Maybe I’ll try to make it as an actor again. Maybe I’ll try something else. If I had a little money, the choice would be a lot easier. It wouldn’t take much. Just enough to pay the mortgage and keep Liz and Nick happy. If I didn’t have to worry about them, I’d have quit a long time ago.”

  “You’re lucky to have somebody to worry about,” I said.

  “Yeah?” He smiled at me. “Maybe so. You know, just because I may not be working for United much longer doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have a drink now and then. You might have to pick up the tab...” He laughed, but I could see from his eyes that he was thinking uncertainly of his future. “Then again, maybe I’ll stick. There’s something to be said for a regular paycheck and Blue Cross. Jesus, I sound like Frank.”

  He got up. “So long, Harry,” he said. “It’s been a good night. Bad day, good night.”

  “So long, Jack,” I said.

  I watched him walk out of the restaurant into the garden. Then I went over to the register and paid my bill.

  18

  I TOOK a cab back to the Marquis. There were two messages on the floor this time. One of them was from Frank Glendora, asking me to call if I got in before eleven, Cincinnati time. The other was from Maria Sanchez. It took me a second to realize that she was Maria the maid. There was a number on the message card. I dialed it from the
bedroom phone, but no one answered. It was too late to call Glendora.

  I lay down on the bed and tried to think about the Dover case. But I ended up thinking about Jack Moon, instead. His disappointment with Quentin Dover was like a boy’s disappointment with his father, when he first discovers that Dad can act like a kid, too. Only Quentin hadn’t ever stopped acting like a child or holding to a child’s belief in the inviolability of his charm. He’d wanted everything for himself, including to be loved for his lies. And the amazing part was that he’d gotten what he wanted—that was apparently the way it worked in the TV biz. Ask in the right way and ye shall receive. But Jack, who could be boyishly charming himself, hadn’t been so lucky. Helen and Walt and Quentin had forced him to grow up all by himself—to clean up their messes, while they played in the back-yard sandbox. That would have made me resentful, too. Made me wonder why some people seemed to be blessed beyond deserving. It was a shame, because, outside the job, Jack Moon was a likeable man. He was owed a break, and I hoped he’d get one, although I didn’t think it was going to come in the world of daytime television.

  I fell asleep on the bed and woke up two hours later to a ringing telephone. I glanced at the clock, which was showing half-past ten, and reached for the receiver. A woman with a soft Hispanic voice said my name.

  “Yeah?” I said groggily.

  “Is Maria,” the woman said. “You know? From the Belle Vista?”

  I sat up on the bed and tried to shake myself awake. “Yeah, Maria. I got a message that you’d called.”

  “I check you out, and it’s O.K. So you wanna talk now? About Dover?”

  “If you’ve got something to say,” I said. “I’m willing to listen.”

  “Yeah, but how much you willin’ to pay?”

  “It depends on what you’ve got.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I got somethin’. But is gonna cost you two hundred.”

  “We’ll see. I have to hear it first.”

  She put her hand over the mouthpiece, and I could hear her say something in Spanish to someone off the phone. When she came back on the line, she said, “O.K. But’chu gotta come here. I don’ have no wheels, you know?”

  “What’s the address?”

  She gave me a street number in Pacoima. I wrote it down on a notepad that the Marquis had thoughtfully placed on the nightstand by the bed, along with a half-dozen glossy picture postcards of the hotel—to make all my friends jealous. “I’ll be over there as soon as I can catch a cab.”

  Maria hung up. I stared at the notepad for a second, wondering if it was such a bright idea to go traipsing off into the Los Angeles night with a couple hundred dollars in my wallet. But I didn’t see where I could afford to pass up a lead. Nothing else about the case had materialized, with the exception of the Leonard business—and that was the wrong scandal. I went into the john and splashed a little tepid water on my face, then picked up the phone by the toilet and called for a cab.

  ******

  It took the cabbie about forty minutes to get to Pacoima on the Golden State Freeway, and halfway there I started to have second thoughts. To Maria, I was just a dumb gringo passing out twenty-dollar bills. That’s probably what Jerry had told her, too—that I was easy pickings. Plus the girl had already talked to the cops, which meant that anything she told me was either going to be evidence that she’d withheld from the police or an outright lie. And I was in no position to know which was which.

  By the time we arrived at her home, I had to force myself out of the cab. I took a look at the place and told the cabbie to wait.

  It wasn’t that awful, really. But then I didn’t know what awful was—in Pacoima. From the outside it looked a little decrepit but respectable—like a clean old man. There was a palm tree in the front yard, its bark diamonded like a pineapple skin and peeled back on top, where the fronds hung above the rooftop. A small barrel cactus huddled in the dirt by the door, squat as a fire plug. The place itself was thirties Spanish modern. Stucco walls, rounded arches, wrought-iron trim, and the ubiquitous red tile roof. It wasn’t very large—no more than three or four rooms. A cottage house. The dark little street was filled with them.

  There weren’t any lights showing through the windows, but I went up to the door anyway and knocked. A second later the door opened, scaring a scarab beetle that was standing by my foot. The bug lumbered off toward the cactus and I looked nervously over my shoulder at the cab.

  Maria peeked around the door. When she saw it was me, she smiled.

  “Hello, Harry,” she said.

  She opened the door fully and leaned against the jamb. She was wearing a red kimono with a blue and yellow parrot design. I didn’t think she was wearing anything else beneath it. She smelled too ripe.

  “Come in,” Maria said.

  I walked through the doorway into the living room. Maria closed the door behind us. A candle in a red glass globe was burning on a table parked against one of the walls. It sent a red glow throughout the small room, making the patterns on the few pieces of furniture shift with the flickering flame. The room smelled strongly of dust and cuminos—like a pepper tree.

  “You think you could turn on a light?” I said to the girl.

  She shook her head. Her lips were thick and heavily rouged with candy red lipstick. “I like to, Harry. But we don’ got no electricity. They come’n turn it off a couple days ago.”

  Swell, I said to myself.

  “You don’ have to worry none. Is better this way.”

  Maria took my hand and pulled me over to a couch. It appeared to be covered in a pebbled blue material embossed with palm leaves. A cushion spring sang out as we sat down.

  The girl stared at me for a second. Her teeth looked blunt and off-color in the candlelight. Without a word, she slipped the kimono off her shoulders and let it fall to her waist.

  “I thought we were going to talk,” I said.

  “We coul’ do both,” she said.

  Her breasts were small and brown, with dark areolas covering most of their tips. Her pubic hair was thick and black.

  “Don’chu like me?” she said coyly.

  “Sure, I like you. But let’s talk first.”

  She pulled the kimono back up but didn’t cinch it—just left it hanging open.

  “You a gay boy?” Maria said, leaning back on the couch.

  “No.”

  “You don’ look like no gay boy.” She ran a hand through her dark, tangled hair. “But is hard to tell, you know? Like Jerry. He go both ways, you know? Acey-deecy. Me, I’m straight, you know?”

  “Great,” I said.

  “Maybe for the right kinda bread, I’m not. But nobody give me that kinda bread ‘round here.”

  “You from here? From L.A.?”

  She laughed. “Shit, no. I come up from TJ. Gotta make some bread, you know? Ain’t nothin’ goin’ on down in TJ, man. Just same old, same old. You sure you don’ wanna fuck, huh?”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Maria sighed. She pulled the kimono shut and tied it at her waist. “You wanna do some smoke?”

  I said, “No.”

  “You’re some swinger, ain’t you, Harry?” She got up and walked over to the candlelit table. “You ain’t vice?” she said, looking at me over her shoulder.

  I said, “No.”

  “I’m askin’ you, man. You gotta tell me, now. The law say so.”

  “I thought you had me checked out.”

  “Shit,” she said. “That Jerry, man. He’s too damn cold, you know? Think he’s got it all figured out. You don’ answer my question, yet.”

  “I’m not vice. I’m not with the LAPD. I’m a private detective.”

  “Yeah?” She turned back to the table and pulled a fat yellow joint out of one of its drawers. She stuck it in her mouth, bent over the candle, and lit it—filling the room with a sweet, unmistakable smell. “Who you workin’ for.”

  “Some people who are interested in Quentin Dover.”

/>   Maria walked back to the couch, the joint smoking between her lips. She cinched the robe tightly, tucked it beneath her legs, and sat down. “Yeah? Wha’chu wanna know about him for?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  She pulled the joint from her mouth. “You got the bread, pachuco?”

  “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  “Wha’chu wanna hear?”

  “When’s the last time you saw Dover?”

  “On Monday,” she said with a smile.

  “Before that.”

  “I seen him a coupla weeks ago. I seen him a lotta times, you know? He come to the hotel every week. Leave me big tips, you know, if I clean his room up good.”

  “You ever sleep with him?” It seemed like a natural thing to ask Maria.

  “Once or twice,” she said, to my surprise. “He ain’t very good in bed, you know? He can’t fuck ‘cause he’s too scared about his heart. So I suck him off a couple times. He says I’m a good girl. Says he usta fuck different chicks every night. But he can’t do it no more, ‘cause of his heart. Real macho, you know? I think it’s bullshit. ‘Cause once he gets kinda fucked up. Starts tellin’ me ‘bout his old lady, you know? ‘Bout how much she like to ball, and how he can’t ball her no more, ‘cause he’s scared he’s gonna croak. He says he’s scared the bitch’s gonna walk. She’s been fuckin’ ‘round so much and other shit. I say, ‘Why don’chu dump on the chick, man?’ But he says he can’t do it, ‘cause he still loves her. Is bullshit, you know? I’m suckin’ him off and he’s sayin’ he loves his old lady.” She curled her lip in disgust. “Don’ nobody love anybody like that. He’s just fucked up, you know? Later on, when he comes he gets real nervous, man. He says, ‘Forget what I say. Is just bullshit, you know?’ I think he’s scared it’s gonna get back to his old lady—what he been doin’ with me. I say, ‘Don’ worry. I ain’t gonna say nothing.’ He gives me a big tip.”

  Maria took a long toke from the joint.

  “It’s interesting,” I said. “But it isn’t worth two hundred.”