Hollywood Stuff (24 page)

“Hello?” Tim said in his best James Bond–speak. The drawer he had opened had random bar accessories and kitchen utensils. Two tarnished sterling silver individual lemon squeezers which he would love to pocket to add to his collection of beautifully rendered, yet truly gratuitous dining objects, but he resisted temptation. The object he instead lifted out of the drawer, using a linen towel to pluck it from among the other items, was a four-or five-inch plunger and tube device, almost an inch in diameter. If one were prone to doctor’s office nightmares, this would be the instrument with which the evil nurse would approach to give you a flu shot. It was a syringe-type in-fuser, fitted with a sharp point, originally intended to infuse meats and poultry with a marinade. Now it was half filled with a viscous brownish goo, dried onto the sides of the tube.

“Looks like Jeb Gleason has found a use for all those cigarettes he gave up,” said Tim out loud, “or he’s been mainlining cocoa.”

When he heard Bobbette’s voice, and footsteps in the kitchen, Tim dropped the syringe into his jacket pocket. Finding this little object of evil was going to be good for a promotion. What came after sidekick? Costar? God, Tim Lowry loved Hollywood. When he turned to go back into the kitchen and saw the gun pointed at him, he sighed.
Sidekick
to
costar
to
special appearance
and
in memory of
—all in one episode.

Detective Oh had performed the role of dutiful husband on the trip to California. His wife, Claire, had an affection for this elderly aunt and felt obligated to be with the odd remnants of family who had collected together out here for the vigil at her bedside. Oh had agreed to accompany Claire when she asked, since they so rarely traveled together. Oh did not like to leave his home and his work and Claire preferred, on her antique-buying trips, to work alone. This time, however, as she was making her reservations, she announced that the airfares were excellent and she would appreciate his support. Always a gentleman as well as a husband, Oh had agreed to the trip.

He left Mrs. Wheel and Tim Lowry at Jeb Gleason’s house in plenty of time to arrive at the hospital at the promised hour.A few minutes before noon, he walked into the family lounge on his wife’s aunt’s floor and found his wife having a disagreement with a cousin over some family heirlooms.

“Bruce, please give us your thoughts,” said Claire, standing, using her full six feet to impress her opinion, and, she hoped, her husband’s, on her second cousin. “Is it morally right to keep museum-quality porcelains hidden away in private homes or should they be made available to the public for viewing and study? How do you feel about this?”

Bruce Oh studied his wife’s face and took a deep breath. “If you are referring to your great-aunt’s collection, I believe, at the appropriate time, you should talk to her eldest son, your cousin, and see if she made her wishes known. If not, then the vases should be appraised as part of her estate, distributed as her will instructs, and the fortunate person who takes possession will be left with that difficult decision.”

The cousin gave just enough of a satisfied smile to signal to Oh that his wife would no longer be soliciting his opinion. Oh excused himself to take a solitary walk around the hospital. It had become a daily ritual, while visiting Claire’s aunt, to wander though the corridors. Oh found each waiting room, with its domestic scenes, mysterious tears, odd pairings, compelling. It was addictive, this daily drama that unfolded before him.

There were recurring players, the nurses and assistants at their stations, who had become familiar, nodding to him, smiling as he passed—and the changing cast, the new weeping sons and daughters, shocked parents, patient spouses.

Oh was thinking about the people who worked here, their complete immersion in an important and precise world each day, wondering if everything outside of the hospital became so much less important to them, when he found himself standing in front of a nurses’ station where a friendly argument was going on.

“Celie, played by Skye Miller, was still a regular character when the show went off the air, she just wasn’t in it all the time. She was supposed to be away at college or something. But she was in the credits, she was still a star,” said a nurse standing with her back to Oh, who became very interested in a wall chart next to the station that enumerated a hospital patient’s rights.

“I heard she was Sandy Pritikin’s mistress by the end of the run. She broke up his marriage,” said a man with a plastic carryall filled with labeled vials of blood.

“Bullshit,” said the standing nurse. “She was as sweet and innocent as—”

“As an actress who hasn’t had a role since her hit show went down the tubes,” said another woman, who was seated at the desk in front of a stack of charts.

“She’s a writer now,” said the nurse who was Skye’s champion. “She was here taking care of her friend, who is a writer, too. They worked on
Southpaw and Lefty
together. Those rumors about Sandy Pritikin, I remember them. When Skye was here, I asked her about him, what kind of guy he was. And she said she shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, wouldn’t gossip. Remember, he had that heart attack two years ago? But she did say that the rumors about her weren’t true. She was real up-front about it. Said that the publicists were always trying to put something out there about her and people on the show, but it was because they wanted them in the news, didn’t care what kind of news it was.”

A nurse who was working at a computer at a counter behind the front desk had her back to the group. She turned around and Oh glimpsed her face. So tired and drawn.

“I am finally out of here,” she said, standing. “I’ve worked enough doubles to last me a lifetime. And, my little Hollywood reporters, I was on duty the night the famous Skye Miller stayed with her friend and she might be all smiles and generous with the autographs, but she’s tough as nails, too. Some guy got in, after hours, to see her friend, Bixby, and when she came back up to the room with food and found him, she flipped. She tossed his ass out. Threatened to call security and have him arrested. Gave all of us a piece of her mind after he left.”

The tired nurse waved good-bye, picked up what looked like a heavy purse, and walked toward the elevator. Oh followed and got into the car with her.

“I am so sorry to admit this, but I was caught by the conversation back there,” said Oh. What would Mrs. Wheel do in this situation?

“I am such a fan of the TV show I heard you talking about. Was the man who came here an actor from the show, too?” Oh did his best to look like a real television fan. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he slumped his shoulders and nodded his head as he talked. He felt like a bobble-headed doll, but it made him feel more like the television watcher he was pretending to be.

The nurse shook her head. “He was a writer, I think. Said everyone was going to be a lot nicer to him when his book came out.”

“Wow,” said Oh, possibly for the first time in his life. It just seemed like the correct word for the circumstances.

“Yeah.” The nurse yawned. “I don’t really watch television, but I read a lot. I paid attention when he mentioned a book.

Skye just laughed at him and said it must be great. She heard he had a heck of a publisher.”

“A heck of a publisher?” Oh asked.

“Something like that. I just remember the phrase because I noticed she wasn’t swearing. Heck of a world when you actually take notice of the words that aren’t swear words, huh?”

“Yes,” said Oh, “heck of a world.” He held the door open for her as they exited the hospital together. For good measure, he added,” Wow.”

Save everyone’s business card. It comes in handy to know where people used to work.

—
FROM
Hollywood Diary
BY
B
ELINDA
S
T
. G
ERMAINE

“Heck lived in Los Feliz, too? In Jeb’s neighborhood?” asked Jane as Louise headed her Prius back the way they had come from Jeb Gleason’s that morning.

“Who doesn’t?” asked Louise. “I have a place there, too. Bix, Skye…we all live within a mile of each other. Greg and Rick live in Echo Park.”

“How about Lou?” asked Jane. “Was he part of the neighborhood?”

“No, but not so far away. I think his house is in Silver Lake. Never been there. He never invited anybody. Not to his place in Ojai, either. Except Bix, of course.”

Jane listened for the third time to Tim’s answering tape, but didn’t leave a message. Where was he? Probably househunting with Bobbette. Why wasn’t he picking up, though?

“ Why ‘of course’?” asked Jane.

“They were an item. As were Bix and Jeb,” said Louise.

Jane figured since Louise had faced a bit of breaking and entering with her and hadn’t seemed all that protective of her friend Bix’s office, perhaps her friend Bix wasn’t that much of a friend. Maybe it was time to break down the script and figure out who was really who in this cast assembled by mentor-turned-Svengali Jeb Gleason.

“I know that Jeb got me out here under false pretenses,” said Jane. “My story had no real movie potential, but since I was an old friend and a PI, he thought I might be able to figure out what was going on without making any waves. But two people are dead. Three if you count Heck as part of all this.” Jane paused, hoping this was having the right effect. “So, before we go into Heck’s…anything you want to tell me about your B Room meetings?”

“Jeb works magic. He pulls stories and pilots out of the air,” said Louise. “I am not kidding about this. He has kept us all working, all successful, because he has never run dry. He is a genius.”

Jane knew this wasn’t true. It wasn’t true in college and it wasn’t true now. The statement told her nothing about Jeb, but everything about Louise. She was in love with Jeb. And if one loved someone, it was easy to lay the mantle of genius on his shoulders. Jeb was glib and handsome. His style exerted a powerful influence over his fellow writers from his early days as a writer on
Southpaw and Lefty,
but Jane knew that did not make him a genius. If Patrick and/or Lou had been providing Jeb with the source for his genius—and they were both gone—Louise was going to know the truth about Jeb soon enough, so it wasn’t up to Jane to blurt anything out. Jeb had a bank from where he drew his genius material and Jane had a feeling, as they pulled into the drive of a small stucco home with an arched roof over its porch, she was about to discover it. There was a low second story and a squared tower on top of that with a platform all around it. Two orange trees dominated the small front yard. Grass had gone to weeds. A homeless person was a sad sight, but, Jane thought, an abandoned home gave off its own sense of loss.

Louise shifted the car into park, but made no move to shut off the engine. Her hands remained on the steering wheel.

“Right back there, around the corner of the house, is a brick patio. I know the second story doesn’t look very high. Heck went out the window of his little observatory. He must have been pacing on the platform, then slipped under the railing to get onto the roof. The police said he must have really thrown himself off…with an effort, they said. He landed facedown, broken neck. Dead. The funny thing is, the house isn’t so tall, is it? If he had landed on the grass, he might not even have broken a finger.”

“Did the police investigate this as a suspicious death?” asked Jane.

Louise shrugged. “They were inside the house. I think they made up their minds.”

“What do you really think?” asked Jane.

“I’m not going in,” Louise finally said.

“Is there an alarm system?” Jane asked, opening the car door.

Louise shook her head. “I told Heck he should get one, since he always thought people were after him. He said an alarm system was the first step to letting them control you. He was paranoid and mentally ill. He never even locked his doors.”

“You’re the owners now, right? Do you?”

“Side door is always open. I’m not sure about the front. We don’t come here,” she said. “We haven’t touched it.”

Jane got out of the car and walked to the front door. The doorknob turned easily enough, but the door itself was difficult to push open. Once Jane was inside, she saw newspapers stacked to the side that she had caused to slide over and scatter by opening the door. So far, Louise had set her straight. Heck’s friends used the side entrance.

The living room was crowded but manageable. There was no single object in the room. Everything was in multiples. On the coffee table were six identical hobnail glass ashtrays. Three baskets all filled with pencils were under the table. The pencils were all sharpened to a fine point although most of them were tiny stubs, no bigger than two inches. Rugs lay on top of other rugs. Jane noted that some of them were quite valuable; two beautiful old Persians caught her eye. She was embarrassed to notice them, but it was the same as what happened at any estate sale. She entered the house with respect for the person who had lived his life within, she felt sorrow for his loss, and then she began eyeing his property. She wasn’t proud of this behavior, but she had come to accept it in herself. She was drawn to the stuff of peoples’ lives and even after the person departed, the stuff remained.

The living room had four large wooden desks. On each were stacks of scripts. There were a few title pages, shows Jane had never heard of. Heck had spent the last ten years writing every day for shows that played in his head. He must have ended up with enough new programming material to run three networks out of his living room. Jane picked up a few pages. The script pages were in no particular order. Or at least the order was not decipherable to Jane. Each page was coded and numbered in the right-hand corner. Jane took a breath and looked around the first floor. She needed to see the big picture, find the key to all of this.

The kitchen was small and every bit of limited counter space was filled with stacks of food. Cans of pickled beets were stacked ten high. There were three towers of chicken gumbo soup. Jane opened a cupboard to see if Heck had filled it with similar foodstuffs and found mixed nuts. At least a hundred pounds of mixed nuts. The containers were large gift tins and Jane picked one up. It wasn’t heavy enough to hold five pounds of nuts, but it did feel like it was full of something. Jane pried open the lid.

The first tin held pieces of card stock, hand-cut to the size of business cards. On each card was written a title. The titles sounded like television show titles, but Jane didn’t recognize any of them. Jane tried to imagine Heck sitting in this house, cutting up pieces of cardboard on which to write the hundreds of titles that floated into his mind. Jane wondered how it worked for him. Did he draw out a card and did the idea for the show come to him as a whole piece?

Jane opened another tin and in it were the same types of cards, this time all light blue, with character names and brief descriptions printed on them.
Sue Rennicker, unmarried attorney who gives up work to raise daughter. 10 years old, disappears. Sue’s back to work to forget. Hard, haunted.
There were hundreds of cards in the tin and at least twenty tins in the cabinet.

Jane looked at the tins she had just opened. The title cards were in a container marked “unsalted.” The characters and descriptions were in the “salted nut” tins.

It was like an elaborate parlor game. Draw a card here, pick a card there. Put together a show by a kind of lottery system. No wonder Heck never left the house. He must have been busy every minute of the day.

Jane heard a noise above her head at the same time she heard a car. Had Louise driven off? Jane looked out the window and saw the Prius. Louise wasn’t in the car. Maybe she was out looking through things in the garage. Jane noticed that the side door was open.

Patrick Dryer had either figured out Heck’s code or persuaded his cousin to explain it to him before he took his fall off the roof. Jane didn’t think Dryer killed Heck. What was it Tim had said? Yo u don’t kill the goose who can lay the golden eggs. Of course, Dryer could be guilty through sheer neglect. He knew Heck had lost touch with reality, but his derangement was so damn profitable to everyone else. He was crazy, but he was a character and plot machine. If Dryer’s novel,
The D Room,
was any indication of what was left of his talent, Patrick Dryer himself was finished as a writer. With Cousin Heck’s material, though, he could be Hollywood’s newest writing sensation. If only he hadn’t tied himself to Lou Piccolo and made himself into the fount of wisdom for the B Room.

So Patrick Dryer was a user, a thief, and a bad writer. Those added up to make him a creep. People disliked him, for sure, but was being unlikable enough to drive someone to murder him? The work he stole from this house and passed off as his own was really written by Heck, but Heck couldn’t be the murderer—he had been dead for months. Lou and Patrick were fighting, but Lou needed Patrick’s access to the material and figuring out how the pages worked—for Lou’s own career and for what he could now supply to the B Room. Lou, if he had the key to everything in this house, could be the new Jeb.

Jane dialed Tim again and this time she left a message. “I’m standing in the middle of a giant file drawer of television writing. We have one crazy genius, one greedy dried-up cousin who didn’t inherit the family fortune or talent, apparently, one Machiavellian who wants to take over the kingdom—and they’re all dead. Who profits? Timmy, where are you? Get over to Heck’s—the house is three blocks from Jeb’s.”

Jane opened a kitchen drawer. Inside was a wooden flatware divider, but instead of knives and forks and spoons, Heck had used it to store pens. Black pens, blue pens, and red pens filled the compartments. Hundreds of pens. Jane noticed he separated the plastic ballpoints with advertising on them from the simple Bics. There was a highly evolved sense of organization to his madness. Jane found herself admiring the efficiency with which he channeled his manic energy. If only it had given him satisfaction.

Jane heard the faint chiming of a cell phone. It was the sound signaling a message had been left. Could Heck still have a working cell phone somewhere in the house? A battery would have expired, so the phone must be plugged into a charger. Jane would check upstairs. Might be interesting to see who was a good enough friend to have his cell number, but not close enough to know he was dead.

Okay, Jane thought, let’s just say Lou figured out that he could access the writing Heck left behind and didn’t need Patrick, who had become a pain in the ass, was suing him and trying to publicly humiliate him. Plus get his money. Why wouldn’t Lou kill him?

Jane had to admit that he might. It was the method used to kill Patrick Dryer that Jane questioned. Lou might call himself a hack writer, but he was savvy enough about story and structure to know better than to choose a murder weapon that was one of his favorite collectibles. Also, he loved his letter openers. No collector would use a Kalo silver arts and crafts letter opener to kill someone—not if it meant leaving it with the body anyway.

Each room downstairs—living room, dining room, and den—was similar. Multiples of objects filled every surface. Jane noticed in the den that six towers were built floor-to-ceiling with See’s candy boxes. Jane went over and carefully extracted one of the boxes from the middle. It was light, no candy. Jane was relieved somehow that Heck had eaten the chocolates. It made her think Heck had at least experienced some sensual pleasures. She shook the box and heard the swish of paper. He must have left the wrappers. Jane lifted the lid.

Jane needn’t have worried about Heck enjoying sensual pleasures. The ten photographs in the box were of a naked woman. Although the woman, more a girl, really, had a game smile, she seemed sad and uncomfortable. The pictures were taken in Heck’s living room. The same coffee table was in front of the couch. For some inane reason, Jane noticed that there were only two ashtrays when the photo was taken. Jane thought perhaps she would be able to put the boxes of photos—she was sure now that’s what all of these boxes held—in some type of chronological order by the number of objects visible in the pictures. Jane opened a few other boxes and found the same types of photos, all with different women. The oldest couldn’t have been more than twenty-one.