Natural Causes Page 6

  The kid smiled. “You bet.”

  Jack smiled back at him. “Well, I guess we all do,” he said. “After all, I wasn’t born to be the executive producer of ‘Phoenix.’ It’s guys like Frank Glendora who have the luck. They want one thing and they get it. The rest of us keep riding the wheel.”

  Moon tipped the kid a quarter and we walked across the bridge, over a gully of flowers, and through a pair of French doors into the hotel lobby. The lobby was nothing more than a short breezeway with a second pair of French doors propped open on the far side of the room. A prim woman in a floral print dress was sitting at a desk beside the second pair of doors. She stood up when we came in.

  “Can I help you?” she said pleasantly.

  “We’re here to see Helen Rose,” Jack said. “Tell her it’s Jack Moon.”

  “I’ll ring her room.”

  While the woman was phoning Helen Rose, I walked over to the second pair of doors and took a peek at the hotel grounds. There was a small cobbled court behind the lobby, with long buildings surrounding it on three sides. The buildings were in the Monterey Revival style—stucco, lath, and concrete, with low, hipped roofs of red clay tiles and wrought-iron trim on the doors and windows. Stone walkways angled off the court, running past the spare white buildings and back into the grounds. The walks were narrow, tree-lined, and heavily ornamented with shrubs and flowers. The place had the look of a private garden. And the smell of a garden, too. The mixed fragrances of the flowers were like a taste on the tongue—a sweet, thick, maraschino flavor of oleander, jacaranda, and bougainvillea.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Jack said over my shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like a conservatory out there. They even have name tags on the trees and flowers.”

  “Mr. Moon?” the woman at the desk called out.

  Jack and I turned around.

  “Miss Rose would like to talk to you. You can take it on the phone in the corner.”

  Jack walked over to the corner booth and I went up to the desk. The woman smiled at me. She had a pretty, slightly aloof-looking face that fit beautifully into that pretty, exclusive garden spot.

  “Do you like our hotel?” she said.

  “It’s lovely.”

  “Yes,” she said with pride. “It affords our guests a measure of privacy that’s unusual in this city. I mean, of course, outside of a private residence in Bel Air.”

  “You must meet a lot of famous people.”

  “A few,” she said mildly, as if she weren’t interested in pursuing the topic.

  “Where do all the paths lead?”

  “To different quarters. We have a number of separate accommodations, tailored to the needs of our guests.”

  “I suppose you could get lost out there.”

  “Not really. There are signs and, of course, the grounds are walled. So you couldn’t go too far wrong.”

  “Are there any other entrances?” I asked. “I mean, other than the lobby?”

  The woman gave me an odd look. I was beginning to sound like a detective. I could hear it myself.

  “There are no other entrances, although there are locked gates in the walls.”

  “I’ll have to take a stroll.”

  “By all means,” she said without enthusiasm.

  Jack came back to the desk and touched me on the arm.

  “Excuse us, won’t you?” he said to the woman.

  She said, “Certainly.”

  Jack pulled me aside. “Helen is in one of her moods. Things didn’t go well today with Walt—the little prick. He’s angling for Quentin’s job. And when Walt angles, he does it with a meathook. And then the taping got fouled up this afternoon—some flap over one of the scripts.”

  “Does that mean dinner is off?”

  “What that means,” Jack said, “is that we’re in for another bumpy flight. Helen is really a very sweet person. But she’s got a tough job and she cares very deeply about the show. Too deeply for her own good. When things go wrong...it gets to her. And between Walt, Quentin, and the flap on the set, a lot has gone wrong this week. Plus she’s got to meet with Walt again tomorrow morning and with the network and agency people in the afternoon. Between you and me, the show has been slipping in the ratings lately, and we’re all a little afraid that we may not make it through next spring.”

  “You mean you might get canceled?” I said.

  “Or re-slotted.” Jack gave me a nervous look. “This really isn’t for public consumption, Harry. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself.”

  I was surprised that Jack had kept it to himself for so long. It seemed like the sort of thing I should have been told. “Could that have been why Quentin was thinking about another show—the fact that ‘Phoenix’ was in ratings trouble?”

  Jack shook his head. “I think that’s a red herring, Harry. There’s nothing in the world in smaller demand than the services of the head writer of a canceled soap. If the show died, Quentin died with it.”

  “Perhaps he was planning to get out before the ax fell.”

  “And kiss goodbye to half a mil? Be serious. Besides, Quentin was contractually obliged to stay on the show until the end of this thirteen-week cycle. And believe me, United has no sense of humor when it comes to contracts.”

  I thought of the one I’d signed and sighed. “Maybe his mother was wrong, but there had to be some reason why he came out here on Friday afternoon instead of on Sunday night, like he usually did.”

  “Well, I don’t know the reason, but I seriously doubt if it was another show. Maybe you should talk to Quentin’s agent, Harris Sugarman. Or maybe Helen can help you. His trip could have had something to do with ‘Phoenix.’”

  “Let’s go talk to Helen, then.”

  “O.K.,” Jack said ruefully. “But remember, I warned you that she’s in a bad mood.”

  “You warned me once before about Marsha Dover. Am I in for another suicide attempt?”

  “Helen’s a good Catholic. She might take a life, but she’d never take her own.”

  “That’s promising,” I said.

  We walked through the French doors onto the court, then turned left down a path lined with palo verdes and jacaranda. The path took us behind several buildings and ended in another court of grass and blue wildflowers. There was a small stone pavilion in the middle of the lawn, with a bowl-shaped fountain sitting on a pedestal in its center. It reminded me a little of Dover’s topiary garden, with its statue of Cupid. At the far end of the court, a serpentine wall—twelve feet high and dripping English ivy—ran from one side of the grounds to the other. Huge oak trees towered up behind it, casting long, leafy shadows on the pavilion and its fountain. Something moved against the wall, picking up a piece of the fading sunlight and tossing it brightly in the air. I went over to the wall and looked.

  It was a hummingbird—no larger than a butterfly—hanging above a bell-shaped flower. It darted away as I came close to it, disappearing through an iron gate set in the wall. Through the gate, I could see a street and several cars parked in the shade of the oaks. I rattled the gate, but it had been locked with a key.

  “C’mon, Harry,” Jack said. “Helen’s waiting.”

  We walked south beside the wall to the corner of the court. A stucco building ran the length of the eastern edge of the pavilion. If it weren’t for the number of doors and windows set in its facade, the building wouldn’t have looked anything like a hotel. Jack went up to one of the doors and knocked.

  “Just a goddamn minute!” someone inside hollered.

  Jack smiled at me. “Fasten your seat belt,” he said.

  10

  A FEW minutes passed, then a small, skinny woman in a yellow poncho and black, ankle-length skirt opened the door. Her hair was as thick, curly, and colorless as a Kewpie doll’s, and like a Kewpie doll’s it was massed in girlish bangs above a lean, hollow-cheeked face. There was nothing doll-like about the woman’s eyes, however. They were brown and bloodsho
t and circled with dark, wrinkled flesh. The combination of that little-girl hairdo and those bruised eyes gave Helen Rose the weepy, suffering, mortified look of an abused child.

  “Oh, Jack, honey,” she said in a pained, husky voice. “I’m sorry for shouting like that. But I’ve had Walt here all day long, and I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “You’re going to sit down and have a drink,” Jack said, taking charge. “And then you’re going to have something to eat.”

  The woman smiled at him affectionately. “Baby, what would I do without you?”

  Jack walked into the room, picked up the phone, and ordered two double martinis. “Scotch for you, Harry?”

  “That’ll be fine,” I said.

  “And send us some menus,” Jack said into the phone.

  “Who’s your attractive friend?” Helen Rose said, giving me a look.

  “Harry Stoner.” I held out a hand.

  “Helen Rose.”

  We shook hands.

  “You’re the detective, aren’t you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a detective before, unless one of my ex-husbands had me tailed by one. As they used to say in the movies, you’ve got an interesting face.” She turned to Jack and said, “Hasn’t he got an interesting face?”

  Jack grinned.

  The woman turned back to me with a playful smile. She had very white, very even teeth; and her smile made her look years younger. “You’d make a good heavy. Wouldn’t he, Jack?”

  Jack laughed. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Don’t be disagreeable,” the woman said. “I say he’d make a good heavy, and I’m always right. Aren’t I?”

  “Always,” Jack said.

  She winked at me and walked over to one of a pair of white sofas set in front of a tile fireplace. A log was burning on the andirons, filling the room with a warm, cedary smell. It was a big room, decorated in shades of white and pink.

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through today,” Helen Rose said to Jack. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me strength. Do you know what our friend told me? Or should I say demanded?”

  “What?” Jack said irritably.

  “He told me that he was going to quit and take the rest of the team with him, unless we gave him Quentin’s job.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Jack said.

  The woman flapped one of her hands equivocally. “Maybe. Maybe not. You never know with a fegalah.

  “Never fuck a fag, Harry,” she said, looking up at me.

  “I don’t intend to.”

  She laughed abruptly. “Christ, what a mess! Maybe he’s bluffing. Who knows? He says he’s been carrying Quentin for the past two years, and now he wants to get paid for it.”

  “He probably has been,” Jack said.

  “That’s beside the point,” Helen Rose said. “And he knows it and you know it and so do I. He’s got us over a barrel, Jack.” She looked up at the high, beamed ceiling. “Quentin, damn you, why did you do this to me? Why did you leave me like this? Just when I needed you?” She shook her head and looked down at the plush, white carpet. “That’s not fair. I’m sorry, Quentin. I’m sorry that you’re dead.”

  “Did you go to Mass this morning?” Jack asked.

  “At nine. I lit a candle for him.” Helen Rose sighed. “Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to give Walt what he wants.”

  “Helen, he’s not the only fish in the sea.”

  “Then you deal with him,” she snapped. “In case you’ve forgotten, Jack, I’ve got the network coming in tomorrow. We pulled a thirteen last week. A thirteen! What am I supposed to say to Sally Jackson? ‘Sorry, dear, but we don’t have long-term to show you? Or a team to write one?’ My God, she’d pull the plug as she left the room. This is the tenth week we’ve been below a seventeen. What am I supposed to do? You tell me.”

  “The brands are standing firm,” Jack said.

  The woman grunted. “Yeah, sure. For the next thirteen weeks. And then what?”

  “It’s blackmail, Helen,” Jack said angrily.

  “Oh, wake up, Jack!” she said with disgust. “He’s chief breakdown man. And the subwriters are a bunch of sheep. They probably will bolt, if Walt tells them to. Hell, what do they have to lose? We’ve got a thirteen share! Right now, he’s all we’ve got. And furthermore, he’s got the long-term document.”

  “Quentin said that he and Walt were working on the document together.”

  “I remember,” she said. “And Walt spent the entire afternoon telling me a different story. You know what? I believe him. And so do you, Jack. You just said so a minute ago. So let’s not have any more talk about blackmail, sweetie. Or about who wrote what for whom. Let’s just get on with it, O.K.?”

  The woman turned her head to me. “It’s been a bad day for ‘Phoenix,’ Harry. A bad day for all of us. I’m sorry for the shop talk.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. I’d found the little of it that I’d understood interesting.

  “Have you seen the show?” she said pleasantly.

  “No.”

  Her face fell. “He doesn’t like the show, Jack,” she said. “I can tell from his voice—he doesn’t like the show.”

  “Helen,” Jack said long-sufferingly.

  “What is it? The writing? I’ll admit that the writing hasn’t been up to par lately, but that was Quentin’s fault—damn him. Is it the production? We’ve got a new line producer, and she just doesn’t know how to block a scene properly. Did you see all those isos today, Jack? Not one two-shot in the lot. Christ, how is the audience going to get involved, if they can’t see that the characters are involved? Walt went on for an hour about it. And he’s right. He’s absolutely right. She’s got to go, Jack. Is that what it is, Harry? Is it the production values?”

  She sounded so earnest that I was almost afraid to tell her the truth. “I don’t own a TV.”

  “Oh,” Helen Rose said. Then she started to laugh in a loud, gutty voice. “That’s different.”

  The waiter came with our drinks. Jack organized the dinner orders, then the three of us sat down on the white couches.

  “Just what is it you’re looking for?” Helen said, taking a sip of her martini.

  “I’m not sure,” I told her. “I think I’m supposed to be looking for a scandal.”

  She snorted with amusement. “Well, baby, you’ve certainly come to the right place. We not only produce soap operas, we live them. Isn’t that right, Jack?”

  “Some of us do,” Jack said.

  “Don’t be such an old woman,” Helen chided him. “Harry looks all grown up. You’re all grown up, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “So how can I help you with your scandals?” she said with faint suggestiveness.

  “You can tell me about Quentin Dover, since he was apparently the guilty party.”

  “Guilty of what?” Helen said. “We’re all guilty of something, you know. What did Frank Glendora tell you that Quentin was guilty of?”

  “Of not comporting himself the way a man should. I believe that was the way he put it. He’d heard rumors.”

  Helen raised an eyebrow and Jack nodded at her. “What a schmuck that Walt is,” she said. “Christ, Quentin’s only been dead for four days and he’s already taken a shovel to his headstone.”

  “So you think Walt is the one who’s been spreading the gossip?” I said.

  “Who else? It’s his specialty. That and fist-fucking.” She covered her mouth with her right hand. “Oops! Did I say that?”

  “I’m afraid you did,” Jack said dully.

  “It’s this martini—it’s too damn dry. Well, Mr. Detective, Frank Glendora would believe that Jesus Christ Himself was a whoremonger, if Jesus Christ happened to get on the wrong side of the United American Corporation. He’s a goddamn Sadducee, that’s what Frank is.”

  “Helen,” Jack said in warning.

  “Oh, shut up, Jack. You know it as well as I do. Frank is a genteel, well-educated thug. Which i
s not to say that Quentin didn’t have his little faults.”

  “Such as?”

  The woman looked at me crossly. “Have you been listening to me or what? I’m not about to spread shit all over Quentin’s grave, no matter what Glendora says. I happened to have liked the man.”

  “Then it seems to me that you ought to tell me what you know about him, because all I’ve heard so far has been negative.”

  “Oh, it has, has it?” Helen gave Jack a bitter look. “Settling a few scores, are we, Jack, honey?”

  Moon ducked his head in embarrassment. “I just told him the truth.”

  “How could you tell, Jack? You’re so bought and sold yourself.”

  Moon turned beet red. For a brief moment I thought he was going to strike the woman. The moment passed and he sat back silently on the couch.

  Helen Rose looked at him and frowned. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. You’re a saint, Jack. You know how I get.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I’m just a bitch, Harry. A worn-out bitch, and you happened to catch me at the wrong time.” Her eyes got a little moist. “Forgive me, Jack?”

  “Consider it forgiven.”

  She wiped at the tears, but they’d dried up on their own. “Maybe I should tell you about Quentin, after all. It’ll be my good deed for the day.”

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  “I’ll bet you are. Little pitchers have big ears. And so do big pitchers.”

  “I’m not spying for Frank, Helen,” I said. “I told you exactly what I wanted to know.”

  She nodded. “If you spend enough time in this business, you get a mite suspicious, Harry. Just a mite. That was one of Quentin’s virtues. He was among the few people that I’ve known in this industry who were never deliberately cruel. He didn’t always tell the truth,” she said with a small smile. “But he was always gracious. Such manners! Such policy! He was Ronald Coleman, for chrissake. A gentleman to his toes.”

  Jack snorted with laughter and Helen threw a hand at him. “What would you know—you’re a man.”

  “A few minutes ago you were calling him a liar,” Jack said.

  “I was angry,” she said and shrugged. “All right, sure, he was a liar. But such wonderful lies! The places he’d been, the people he’d known!”