Hollywood Gothic (18 page)

“Don’t be silly, don’t talk like this,” she whispered. “If you start to give in now, you’re a dead duck. Look at my position if you want to see something idiotic. I’ve got to keep from letting myself go with you, I can’t give in to the normal urges I feel. I’ve never been able to just let myself be serviced, like an animal, because I need it, because it would feel good and calm me down … no, not me. I have to care about a man, and even I can look at you and see I ought to be careful, you’re not a really great bet, not yet. Still, still … I want to be with you. I want to go to bed with you. But what if they catch you, what if you can’t find your way out of the mess—I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not tough. I try to take charge, stay busy, but I’m not tough, Challis, I’m just not tough.”

“Maybe I’m like you,” he said after a moment, feeling the weight of her body against him. Her hips pressed against him, and finally, calling on an effort of will he wasn’t sure he possessed, he pushed her gently away, turned her around to face him. Her wide pouty lips parted, and he heard her breathing. She looked at him levelly, her eyes enormous and open wide, pale green jewels.

“I will, though,” she said softly. “I will right now … I can’t convince myself I’m not alive, I
am
alive, I’m ready for you.”

“But I’m like you,” he said. “I can’t let go and forget about it. I’d care, really care, and if they do catch me, then I’d go crazy. … Let’s just try to get through it the best way we can, then we can see … I’ve had a dream for as long as I can remember, a man in a white suit looking out across the water …”

She nodded, sniffed. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” She tried to laugh, looked up at him. Then she pulled away. “My God, Challis, I’m behaving like a frustrated spinster. The truth is out. I’m not a seventies girl, I guess. Now, let’s straighten up and behave ourselves and go to my party—”

The doorbell made an erratic, malfunctioning buzz.

Challis remained by the sliding door as Morgan went to answer it. He could see over her shoulder when she opened it. There were two men in damp raincoats, and Challis never doubted for a moment who they were.

Cops.

Morgan led them in, her face expressionless as she walked toward Challis. “Darling,” she said in a voice he’d never heard before, “these two gentlemen are from the police.”

A tall man who looked like a leathery, thin-faced cowboy pushing sixty came first and extended a large bony hand with his buzzer in it. “Otto Narleski,” he said, and nodding toward the stocky, younger man who looked around as if he hated to intrude, “and Sergeant Overmeyer.”

“Ed Streeter,” Challis said, for some reason remembering the car parked outside and the chance that it could be checked on from the license plate. “Miss Dyer and I were just leaving …”

“It doesn’t matter,” Morgan said. “We just saw the television news—it wouldn’t take a genius to realize you fellows were going to be stopping by.” Detective Narleski stood quietly in front of the fireplace letting her talk. “I’m assuming this is about the—what was it?—the Bandersnatch man?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Narleski said. “The Bandersnatch man—where are you going, Sergeant?” Overmeyer had slid the screen onto the patio and was going outside.

“I just wanted to see the view, Otto. Anything wrong with that?” Overmeyer sounded innocent rather than naive, but Narleski looked at Challis, closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“Sit down, Detective,” Morgan said. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Iced tea?”

“No, nothing, thanks. I just wanted to ask you about this Bandersnatch thing—the little boy, Stevie, is adamant about seeing this guy covered in blood.” He cleared his throat. He was still standing. Challis saw Overmeyer moving in the dark and rain out past the pool, out of the glow of the floodlamps. “You said nothing about any man accompanying the children when they arrived at your lodge. I would like you to look back, Miss Dyer, and take another crack at that, ma’am?”

“There’s really nothing to go back to,” she said. She sat down on the couch, calmly shaking her head, the blond hair swaying, leaning back, the picture of relaxation. “I either saw a man with the children or I didn’t, it’s not something I could have been mistaken about, is it? The children got into my house by the back door. I was drying my hair after a shower. By the time I was aware they were inside, they’d found the living room and were just sort of standing there being very dear and unsure of what to do next—there was no blood-drenched man, just the kids … a sort of fat one, older, called Ralph, was the natural leader … they just interviewed him on TV.”

“But no man,” Narleski said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But no man.”

Narleski put his hands in his raincoat pocket and looked glum. “We haven’t found a trace of this Challis fellow, the murderer. No leads, and the weather’s so bad on the mountain we can’t do any tracking up there … we’ve tried to throw a cordon around the mountain, but it’s a waste of time now. It was probably a waste of time by the time the storm that brought the plane down subsided. He’s either dead in the snow or off the mountain.” He sighed and looked from Morgan to Challis. “What the devil is Overmeyer doing out there?”

Challis looked, said, “He’s back by the hedge, looking at the view.”

“It would have been nice if Bandersnatch had been real—he’d have been our man.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have had to make it all the way to my house,” Morgan said. “Maybe they saw him, then separated from him before they got to my place …”

“Doesn’t make any sense,” Narleski said. “Nope, there’s a flaw there. Ralph, this bigger kid, says there was
no
man, period. Stevie says there was. Nobody else is saying nothin’. So it looks to me like you’d have seen the man, if there was a man. And Stevie … well, he says the bloody man was with them at your house.”

“I didn’t realize that,” she said.

“No, how could you? But he does.”

“Excuse me,” Challis said, “but if Ralph and Miss Dyer say there was no man, what’s the problem?”

“Well, Mr. Streeter, the problem is that I wasn’t there, I didn’t see who was there … so somebody’s lying to me.”

“Not necessarily. Miss Dyer and Ralph concur, little Stevie has his own story … it seems to me that Ralph’s explanation is pretty logical. An overworked imagination.”

Narleski stopped pacing when he reached the sliding screen. “I suppose that’s the answer,” he mused. “There was no man, little Stevie’s not playing with a full deck. To quote Ralph.” But his voice said a lot beyond the words. “Overmeyer, get in here. You’re all wet, man.” He turned and looked at Challis. “Tell me, Mr. Streeter, have you ever been up to Miss Dyer’s lodge?”

“Why, yes, I have. Just once. Last fall.”

“Just once, you’re quite sure?”

“Yes, last fall.”

“You couldn’t possibly have been up there when the children arrived? That might explain things … say, Stevie got up to use the john in the middle of the night and saw you … say, he was the only one who saw you—
that
would be an answer, an entirely innocent, plausible answer that would put my mind at ease.”

“I’m sorry,” Challis said. “I wasn’t there.”

“Of course not, of course not. Just looking for the easy way out.” Overmeyer pushed into the room, stood blinking. “How was the view?”

“Fine, sir. A fine view … helluva view. But the hillside’s giving away.” He wiped his face. “God, I’m dripping on your carpet!” He hurried across the tiled entryway.

“We’ll be going now, Miss Dyer,” Narleski said. He looked sad. “We’ll be in touch if anything else comes up. Stevie’s story is the only one that constitutes a lead on Challis.” He shrugged. “What we’re going to do with it, I just don’t know.” Stopping at the door, he looked out at Overmeyer, who had reached the plain car and was sitting behind the wheel speaking into a two-way. “Thank you for your time, Miss Dyer, Mr. Streeter. Overmeyer thanks you, too. Good night.”

Morgan and Toby watched him hurry through the rain and get in on the passenger side. Overmeyer was peering at the Mustang’s rear end and talking into the black mike. Rain streaked the windows, blurred their faces. Morgan waved and closed the door.

“I feel like throwing up,” she said. “They believe Stevie.”

“That’s fear talking. But if the rest of the kids blow, well, it might get pretty sticky … it’s up to Ralph, if he can keep them in line. I really mean it, I’m sorry you’re in on this and you’re getting deeper—”

“Where did you get Eddie Streeter, anyway?”

“It’s his car. He parks cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It’s a damn good thing I thought of it, too. Overmeyer was checking the plates just now. I don’t think I’m cut out for this sort of thing.”

She frowned. “Who is?”

M
ORGAN LED THE WAY OVER
the hump of the mountains and down into the valley, with Challis in the Mustang behind her. The rain couldn’t quite make up its mind, and the spray was just enough to keep the wipers going. The bookstore was on Ventura, and the activity inside lit up the street in front, threatened to spill out onto the sidewalk. Morgan drove slowly past, then around the corner and into the alley, where she pulled into a place next to a trash barrel behind the store. Challis sidled the Mustang up close and got out. They stood under the eaves beside the back door. They could hear the hubbub of the party inside.

“My partner, Marjorie, has got everything going nicely, thank God. All you have to do is go in, eat some pâté and little doodads, drink some Mumm’s, and be inconspicuous. I’ll do some maneuvering and get Jack ready in my office—just don’t worry.” She touched his arm and smiled reassuringly. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Morgan was swept up in the greetings, and Challis did as he’d been told. The champagne was good, made him realize how hungry he was. He loaded pâté, which was topped with walnuts and tasted lightly of cognac, from a thick dish with a traditional rabbit-head cover onto a quick succession of crackers, wolfing them down. Terrifyingly, he knew half the people crowded into the store. Ray Bradbury was beaming expansively while a short man with wavy gray hair told him how wonderful the stage production of
The Martian Chronicles
was … Richard Anderson, tall and tanned, was shaking hands with a television writer who’d done several scripts for his two shows,
The Six Million Dollar Man
and
The Bionic Woman.
“Good to see you, pal,” Anderson said softly, and the man turned to his wife: “Honey, meet the only man ever to star on two networks at the same time.” Challis knew them all, walked away.

“Look, Harry, I saw that blond’s test—you know the one—and lemme tell you, she’s table-grade stuff. I wouldn’t push hamburger at you, Harry.”

“Listen, Begelman’s the top of the iceberg, kid. I hear there’s a cool million missing at Twentieth and nobody wants to go to court.”

“Charlie, how many times I gotta tell you, mystery pictures are dead. Too much talk … people get ants in their pants, they want to watch a nine-point-two hit LA, hospitals coming apart, big fish eating kids, we’re dealing with an audience with a twelve-second attention span and you’re gonna have to face it.”

Irv Letofsky of the
Times
looked deadpan at a man laboriously drawing toward the end of a story. “It’s not funny, Marvin. Don’t you see that? It wasn’t funny when the Captain and Tennille did it, and it’s not funny now. It’s like my root-canal work, one of the least amusing things that’s ever happened to me. Sorry.” He smiled to himself as the man walked away.

Where the hell was Morgan? The crowd seemed to be inflating as if it were required to completely fill the room. The walls, top to bottom, were lined with shelves of mystery novels, volumes of true crime and memoirs, books about mystery movies, busts of Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe and Nero Wolfe, hardbacks, paperbacks, spiral-bound collections of film scripts. A display of pretend murder weapons filled a glass-fronted case: a pistol, several daggers, a syringe, a length of silk stocking, a heavy chipped ashtray stained with very real-looking blood. A slipper full of tobacco, reminiscent of Holmes, rested on the mantelpiece, nearby a London bobby’s domed hat. The space above the fireplace was dominated by a large movie poster of
The Big Sleep.

“About a week ago I heard my house begin to kind of moan,” a woman said. “Death throes, I said to myself, moaning that came and went each day. Well, what was I to do? I couldn’t get a cottage at the Beverly Hills, so I wound up on top of the Beverly Wilshire … guess who’s my neighbor? Warren Beatty. I see him every day—my God, talk about the years being kind!” She cackled. “The house went yesterday, slid down the hill.”

He was thinking about another crack at the pâté when Morgan joined him. “Enjoying the party?”

“I still haven’t seen the novelist.”

“He’s sitting down at the table signing books, little white-haired chap … maybe you should sign some more of your books for me, remind me, will you? It’s time. I left Jack in my office, he’s waiting. I just said there’s someone who wanted to see him on an urgent matter. Alone. He took my word that it was important.”

“Oh, God,” Challis said.

“Come on, I’ll leave you at the door. Just go in.”

Challis opened the door leading from a quiet passage at the back of the shop into Morgan’s office. The room was simultaneously neat and messy. There was a large framed portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Paget, a replica of the black, stocky statuette of the Maltese falcon as it appeared in the movie, a statue of Inspector Maigret serving as a paperweight atop a stack of foolscap beside an old typewriter.

Donovan was waiting, even more massive in the small crowded office than he’d been in his own more spacious quarters. He stood behind the desk, half-turned toward the door as if he’d been inspecting the bookshelves while waiting for the mystery guest. His face was still the same shade of pink, a large head with the features glued onto the front, like a Magritte man. His expression was a compound of Irish wit, anxiety, charm, impatience. He picked up the Maltese falcon in a huge hand with almost no hair on the back of it, waved it toward Challis, almost like a weapon, but there was the grin in the pink face behind it.