Light Before Day (16 page)

"Yep."

"You think that two weeks ago, Corey got some dirt on Billy and used it to get something out of him," I said. "You think this was it? You think it's got something to do with Spinotta and the Vanished Three? Maybe he knows where they are."

Jimmy just smiled.

"What?" I asked him.

"You should write fiction, too."

C H A P T E R 7

We pulled over at a hamburger stand on Santa Monica Boulevard just west of Crescent Heights.

The place had a warren of tables and chairs under a rippling plastic tarp, and the neighboring businesses were small bars with patrons who remembered what it was like when the most dangerous STD you could get was hepatitis.

Jimmy walked out onto the sidewalk to make a phone call. I wondered if he was phoning his mysterious wife to tell her that his adversary Linda Walsh had not shot him. I was left with a chiliburger and a file on Joseph Spinotta that was as thick as a novel. Jimmy had used his LexisNexis account to print out everything that had ever been written about the man. He also located a photograph of the guy online. I studied it, trying to see what Billy Hatfill had seen in him besides dollar signs. Spinotta had a thatch of black hair and a long, angular face. His black eyes were mostly iris, and his high cheekbones and dimpled chin looked constructed by a surgeon.

When Spinotta first arrived in Los Angeles with his big idea to transform entertainment by bringing it to the web, it seemed as if most of the reporters who profiled him were convinced they were covering the first wave of a revolution. Spinotta abetted them, making extravagant prophecies of a new world.
Wired
quoted him as saying, "When you consider the limitations of television and film and then when you look at the stranglehold they have on all forms of creative media, you have the kind of situation that led the French to leave their lattes and start building barricades in the streets."

But the irony behind Spinotta's rhetoric wasn't lost on most of the reporters who profiled him. He was securing gobs of investment money from the very media tyrants he was assailing in the press. At the time, Silicon Valley's billions were starting to make the Hollywood Hills look like a third-rate suburb. Joseph Spinotta promised to link the two in the interest of making the entertainment industry more cutting-edge, and allowing Hollywood moguls to co-opt and quash any industry that was more profitable than their own.

The early articles mentioned neither Spinotta's sexuality nor his young companion, Billy Hatfill, but as his venture capital mounted and Broadband Access Media neared its vaunted launch, another element crept into Spinotta's public comments. "Young people are tired of being condescended to," he told the
Wired
website. "Every horror movie geared toward the young audience tries to teach them that their sex drives are evil. One of the great advantages of BAM is that we won't be hamstrung by a set of outdated Puritan values that alienate our nation's young people."

It was a brazen misstep for a man who had been so good at propagandizing his vision.

Spinotta's musings on outdated Puritan values elicited fiery responses from several conservative columnists. Some commentators went so far as to accuse Spinotta of seeking to sexualize the nation's children for the delectation of the cabal of gay men who secretly ran Hollywood. A few even blamed him for the massacre at Columbine High. Spinotta responded to his critics by inviting all of them to become columnists for Broadband Access Media.

Amid all the hype, it was difficult to find any concrete biographical information on the man leading the charge. An early BAM press release made mention of the fact that he had "been part of the innovative tech firm that conducted the first test of a satellite-based phone system." But if you read between the lines, it was clear that the words
first test
meant the test had failed, and the fact that Spinotta's specific role in the project wasn't mentioned meant it was possible he was working in the company's mailroom at the time.

None of the profiles mentioned any degree from Yale Business School, a detail I had picked up through word of mouth, and I wondered if it was merely a rumor started by the man himself.

There was a mention of the project that had first brought Spinotta to Southern California. In early 2000, Spinotta had been hired as an independent contractor by the real estate firm of Cale

& Faulkner, which was well known for the massive cookie-cutter subdivisions it had laid out all over Southern California. I realized that the Cale in the company's title was Martin Cale, Corey's uncle. Meadow Oaks was the name of the project Billy Hatfill had mentioned to me, the one that had first brought Spinotta to Southern California.

Spinotta’s quick rise ended thanks to one small detail: the website itself. Rumors had surfaced that the site was running behind schedule in producing its promised original dramatic programming and was probably not going to make its much-touted launch date. Stories surfaced of a massive but badly run office in a Culver City warehouse where employees fresh out of high school flitted around on scooters, neglected to return people's calls, and kept A-list actors and directors waiting for up to an hour.

Then the site debuted, a slick page with four links to pages that were still under construction and four original movies that required high-speed connections that most users outside of major cities didn't have yet or couldn't afford—especially the kids who were Spinotta’s targets.

The press turned on the mogul as quickly as it had embraced him. Within a week of the site's inauspicious launch, a middle manager fired all of the forty-five Culver City employees, and when reporters attempted to contact Spinotta at his home, they were told that he was unavailable.

A few days later, it became clear that Spinotta and most of the venture capital had gone with the wind.

Those BAM investors who didn't support gay marriage probably had an about-face on the spot. Even though Billy Hatfill had regularly attended meetings with Spinotta, he was not listed as having any stake in the company itself. Spinotta’s Sunset Strip mansion had been fully paid for and placed in Billy Hatfill's name before BAM's incorporation. There was no bridge the angry investors could cross to collect on their investment from the young man Joseph had left behind.

The press framed Spinotta’s exit from town as a shameful exodus. My impression was

different. The media interpreted his big talk and bluster as symptoms of a shameless self-promoter painfully out of his depth. I heard a scam artist who was playing on the sensitivities and fears of his wealthy investors.

There had barely been a week between the site's disastrous launch and Spinotta’s flight.

Wouldn't a man with Spinotta’s ego have held on a little longer? Spinotta had also taken pains to make sure that Billy Hatfill would be protected after he left. I filed these details alongside the facts that Terrance Davidson had canceled his dial-up service and that Ben Clamp's beeper had yielded a sparse client list.

* * *

"Speak," Jimmy said, taking a seat across from me. The tables around us were now mostly empty.

"I don't think Spinotta had any interest in creating a website," I said. "I think the whole thing was a scam."

"There are easier scams out there," Jimmy said, but I could tell he was just playing devil's advocate.

"Not the kind that yield tens of millions in venture capital. He made sure Billy was taken care of, months before he left. He skipped town right after the site's debut. He didn't hang in there and fight, didn't try to stonewall the press with talk about how BAM had just hit some bumps in the road." I now had Jimmy's full attention. "I think he was planning to leave the whole time."

Jimmy's thoughtful frown told me he was impressed. His eyes cut past me to the sidewalk.

The man approaching our table was over six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds. His head was a bald dome with a neat fringe of red hair, and his dark green polo shirt strained against his beer belly's weight. He studied me with beady eyes nearly buried in the folds of his face.

"Adam, this is Dwight Zachary. He's a homicide detective for the LA County Sheriff's Department—"

"Jimmy!" the man named Dwight barked.

"He also doesn't want you to know that," Jimmy added. "See, Dwight and I have what you might call a special relationship."

"Who's the bottom?" I asked.

Neither man got it.

"Dwight is the real Joe Ring," Jimmy announced.

He saw my confused stare and his face went red. "Joe Ring. My series character. The reason I can afford an office that's detached from the main house and a view of every mini-mall from Burbank to Panorama City." I still didn't say anything. "Jesus Christ. You haven't read a word I've written, have you?"

"I've been busy."

"Your whole life?

"Drunk mom, remember?"

Dwight Zachary took a seat and regarded me with dubious interest.

"Dwight has something to share with us," Jimmy said.

"I have something to share with
you,
Jimmy," he said.

"I
sent Dwight on a little fishing expedition and it looks like he caught something," Jimmy said to me.

"What was he fishing for?" I asked.

"Joseph Spinotta," Jimmy said.

Dwight looked from me to Jimmy and then back again, with his cheeks puffed and his lower lip jutting out like a sad baby's. "Your boss doesn't have much faith in law enforcement," he said. "He's barely told me what you guys are up to, and already he's phoning me like I'm his errand boy. But Jimmy and I are friends. And he says you two might be onto something big. I figured I would help out. That way, if Jimmy gets ready to throw shit at a fan, I can step in and unplug the fan first."

And land a high-profile arrest, I thought, and maybe get himself written about in another installment of the Joe Ring series. I had an automatic respect for most cops, but I didn't see their desire for fame as any more noble or interesting than that of the pretty Starbucks employee who screws up your order because she's too busy reading Tony Barr's
Acting for the Camera.
I managed to keep my mouth shut.

"A friend of mine's at the Santa Clarita Station," he continued. I noted that he didn't give us the friend's rank because he didn't want us to identify the person. "She used to be over at the West Hollywood station before she put in for a transfer. I asked her if the name Joseph Spinotta meant anything to her, and it was like I had told her what day she was going to die."

"Memories from West Hollywood?" I asked.

"Nope," he answered. "A little over three years ago, a girl came into the station in Santa Clarita, scared out of her mind, said she had to talk to a woman. The only woman there was my friend, so she agreed to see her, just to calm her down. The girl said a friend of hers had been raped at one of Spinotta's parties."

"A male friend?" I asked.

He nodded, and my chest knotted as I asked the next question, "How old?"

"Fifteen," he said quietly. I saw Jimmy's eyes light on me and was grateful that mine were hidden behind sunglasses.

"He identified Spinotta?" I asked, my voice reedy.

"He told the girl it was Spinotta," he answered. "Technically he never identified anyone. The boy wouldn't come in. Didn't think it was a big deal supposedly. I doubt that. If it wasn't a big deal, why'd he tell his best girlfriend about it? Maybe all he needed was some convincing."

"Did anyone try?" I asked.

"The only person in a position to do that was the girl," he said. "My friend suggested she try to talk to the kid's mother about it."

"Did she?" I asked.

He met my eyes. "She said she would," he told me. "And she never came back to the station.

A few months later the boy got shipped off to boarding school. No one ever said which one."

"Dwight, what was the boy's name?" Jimmy asked him.

"You didn't get it from me," he said in a low voice. "As in, if you're hanging off the side of a cliff in Angeles Crest with a blade against your throat and a shotgun up against your ass, you still didn't get it from me. My friend even had a problem giving it over, but I told her it was related to a case of mine. She couldn't pursue Spinotta without a statement from the alleged victim, so I had to convince her to break personal ethics, not department regulations. Not to mention the fact that the girl didn't even give the boy's name. My friend did a little digging to figure out who die boy was." Dwight Zachary glared at both of us. He was the kind of guy who could attach an ultimatum to his every trip to the bathroom.

"Fine," Jimmy said.

But it was obvious that I was the one Dwight Zachary had a problem with. He gave me a narrow stare. "Jimmy and I have a deal," he said. "That means you two don't put a word to paper until law enforcement has their say. I don't care if you turn up something I need to deal with, LAPD needs to deal with. FBI. NSA. Not a word, you understand me."

"Fine," I said.

Dwight reached into his pants pocket and removed a crumpled Post-it note. "Brian Ferrin,"

he said. "Lives on Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City. Drives a blue Acura Integra."

Jimmy reached for the crumpled Post-it note and picked it up without opening it. "Thanks, Dwight."

Dwight eyed me. "You don't look so good."

"It's Wednesday," I said. "I hate Wednesdays. Middle of the week and all that."

He cocked one eyebrow and gave me a slow, patronizing nod. He was goading me. "Come on. You must have something to say about all this. I thought guys like you stuck up for your own kind. Do you think Joseph Spinotta's innocent or not?"

"Rushing to conclusions sounds like your job, Detective."

Jimmy's stifled laughter came out as a series of hacking coughs. Dwight reddened, braced both of his elbows on die table, and gave me a furious glare that must have worked for him in the past. "Sometimes you people act like cops have never done anything for you," he said. "But you know damn well that the West Hollywood Station has to hold a press conference every time some guy's scented candle doesn't smell right."