Steven Bochco (9 page)

CHAPTER 17

Most cases are solved either because someone rats out the perpetrator or because the perpetrator commits another crime for which he's finally caught, and winds up going for the five others he did. And then there's the fact that most of the time, criminals wind up making a mistake that gets their asses nailed to the wall. As Dennis is fond of saying, “Thank God they're stupid.”

The problem with this case, so far as Dennis can tell, is that whoever killed Ramon wasn't stupid. Angry, yes—stupid, no. Dennis is pretty convinced that Ramon was killed either by the woman he was fucking or by some other woman he
wasn't
fucking, who was jealous of the one he was, or by a husband or boyfriend of same. Dennis is inclined to discount the husband/boyfriend theory off the crime scene itself, on the assumption that if Ramon had been killed by a man, there would've been more signs of a struggle. Which only leaves a couple of hundred women this guy fucked over the last year or two as potential suspects.

Between them, he and Lonnie have interviewed maybe a third of the women on the tapes and maybe another dozen more who'd been in Ramon's class but, at least going by their absence from the tape library, hadn't fucked him.

There were fingerprints all over the house and all over the bedroom—Ramon's, the maid's, maybe ten other women's, but none of them looks good for the murder. And since there were no prints at all on the murder weapon, Dennis assumes the assailant had enough presence of mind to clean up after herself.

The phone dumps haven't given them anything much, there aren't any witnesses who saw anyone coming or going the night of the murder, and two hundred suspects are as bad as no suspects at all.

Comparing notes with Lonnie almost a week into the investigation, Dennis realizes that basically they're nowhere. It may be too soon to throw up his hands in surrender, but Dennis knows the drill. Fresh murders take precedence over cold ones, what's on the front page on day one gets buried on page sixteen of the Metro section on day five, and in another week, for all practical purposes, the case is deader than the proverbial doornail. And it's during Dennis's morose meditation on the stalled progress of the case that Bobby Newman calls.

Bobby introduces himself as a screenwriter who's currently writing a script about a murder investigation, telling Dennis he got his name from Linda Paulson, who had nice things to say about Dennis after being interviewed by him regarding Ramon Montevideo's murder.

This is Hollywood, so Dennis is not unaccustomed to the occasional phone call from writers looking for technical advice, and since he recognizes several movies that this guy says he wrote, Dennis agrees to meet him for dinner that night at the Palm, on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Dennis can't stand watching movies and TV shows about cops, because the writers don't generally give a shit about authenticity, so when he does get a chance to help one of these guys out, he usually does it. Besides, they always pick up the tab, they eat up his stories along with their prime rib, and there's always the off chance you can actually wind up making some dough as a technical adviser.

That night, Bobby gets to the Palm about ten minutes early and orders a Tanqueray martini straight up, with extra olives. He's on his second one by the time Dennis arrives, and Bobby recognizes him instantly by the way he carries himself and by the way he scans the patrons at the bar. Bobby half shouts, “Dennis?” over the din in the room and waves him over.

Bobby likes Dennis instantly. He doesn't seem to have that defensive attitude that a lot of cops he's met over the years have, particularly in L.A. In that regard, he reminds Bobby more of some of the New York detectives he's met—friendly, talkative, with an easy sense of humor.

Dennis orders a Jack Daniel's on the rocks, and while he's waiting for the drink, he asks Bobby what is it exactly he's working on that requires his technical expertise, or does he just want to know what most writers want to know?

“Which is what?” Bobby asks.

“How to get away with murder,” Dennis says deadpan, using his forefinger to swirl the ice cubes in the Jack Daniel's the bartender puts in front of him.

“Every successful writer I know gets away with murder every time he sits down at his computer,” Bobby says, and Dennis graces him with half a smile. “Actually, if I had the balls to commit a murder, I probably
would
ask.”

“Truth is,” says Dennis, “anyone's capable of murder under the right circumstances.” And just like that, they're talking about Bobby's favorite subject these days.

“So you know Linda Paulson,” Dennis says, and Bobby tells him he doesn't know her very well, but they wound up having a chat at the premiere party for the new Tom Hanks movie, which he worked on, by the way, and the subject got around to Ramon Montevideo's murder and the coincidence of both her and Bobby's wife having taken his class.

Arguably, Hollywood's filled with more gold diggers than any other city in the world, Bobby observes, but at least Marv Paulson got his money's worth when he hooked up with Linda. Bobby says he's got to respect the fact that she's stayed with him over the years in spite of the fact that everybody in town knows what a sleaze Marv is. “You married?” Bobby asks.

Dennis says no, he's been divorced for years and isn't sure he'll ever get hitched again. “You said you were married to an actress.”

“Currently separated,” Bobby tells him, “but I'm hoping we can maybe work it out and get back together. Actually, I'm surprised you haven't interviewed her yet.”

“What's her name?”

“Vee.”

“Wallace?”

“Yeah, that's her professional name.”

“I did interview her,” Dennis admits, “but I didn't know she was your wife. She seems like a nice girl. I hope you work it out.”

A sudden image of Vee going down on Ramon flashes across Bobby's mind, and he actively banishes it—something he couldn't have done a couple of weeks ago. Practice makes perfect, he thinks, then tells Dennis it's a tough town to stay married in given all the career conflicts people in the entertainment business have, but even so, he's hoping they can figure things out.

Dennis says it's not the easiest thing in the world being married to a cop, either. Cops work odd hours. They interface with strange people. They're susceptible to corrupting influences. It's tough on relationships, especially when the cop blows off steam by going out drinking with his co-workers, not unlike a billion other guys after a long, hard day on the job. The problem is, those billion other guys don't have a gun on their hip and a badge in their pocket. A cop who's metabolizing a six-pack and gets cut off on the freeway by some idiot in a pickup can put a very different spin on the notion of road rage.

By now they're in a booth, Dennis is on his third Jack Daniel's, and Bobby's halfway into a bottle of Paul Hobbs Chardonnay. Bobby asks Dennis how the case is going, if Dennis doesn't mind his asking.

Dennis says it's a tough case—Ramon was a big-time womanizer—and in a situation like that, you're looking at a lot of suspects. You've got to interview every one of the women, their jealous boyfriends or husbands, neighbors, friends—it takes fucking forever, and you don't even know if you're going in the right direction.

“For all I know,” Dennis says, “it could've been a simple break-in, some junkie looking for a quick score, and maybe the woman Ramon was fucking is taking a leak in the bathroom or she's in the kitchen getting a bottle of water, she hears the commotion, and hides out till it quiets down. And then, after the junkie kills Ramon and flees the scene, she splits too, and doesn't come forward, because she shouldn't have been there in the first place.”

“See, I never would've thought of that,” Bobby says.

Flattered, and embarrassed that he is, Dennis changes the subject, asking Bobby again what he's working on.

Bobby tells him he's developing a kind of
L.A. Confidential
type of television series for HBO. “Basically, I'm a movie guy,” he tells Dennis, “but HBO's almost as good.
Sopranos, Sex in the City, Six Feet Under.
I figure if Alan Ball can do TV, so can I.”

“Who's Alan Ball?” Dennis asks innocently, and Bobby grins, not sure if Dennis is making fun of him, but thinking that if he is, he's good at it.

By the time dinner's over, Bobby and Dennis have hit it off, talking about their respective careers and the seemingly natural Hollywood intersection of cops and writers. Dennis shares some of his better cases with Bobby, and Bobby flatters Dennis again by telling him he's got a natural sense of story, suggesting maybe they could work on the HBO thing together. Dennis would supply the raw material, Bobby would do the writing, and together they'd make some real dough, like that New York cop did on
NYPD Blue.

Outside, after Bobby's paid the tab and shmeared the weasel and while they're waiting for their cars, he invites Dennis to come up to the house one afternoon on one of his days off, maybe shoot the shit when they're not too loaded to remember what they talked about.

Dennis says that'd be great, and as Bobby gets into his car, he says that if he gets pulled over by the cops for DUI, he's going to tell them it's Dennis's fault.

And that's dinner.

CHAPTER 18

I'm always amazed how secrets, lies, and general bullshit never seem to get in the way of mutual interests, or even friendship for that matter. Take Dennis and Bobby. Dennis has a serious crush on Bobby's wife, Bobby knows who killed Ramon Montevideo, and neither man has any intention of confiding in the other. Nevertheless, they're instinctively drawn to each other, which is why, on a warm Saturday afternoon, Dennis drives up to Bobby's house, where, over a couple of Coronas on the deck in back of Bobby's house overlooking the canyon, they dig into each other's lives a little, and Dennis confesses that he's always wished he could write.

“Anyone can write,” Bobby says. “You're a cop, you've got great stories, you know how to tell 'em. And if you can tell a story, you can write a story.”

“I don't know,” Dennis says. “Every time I ever tried to write, my brain would freeze up.”

“Which is why we should be working together,” Bobby says. “You tell 'em to me, I'll write 'em.”

Which gets Dennis to grilling Bobby about writing in general, as in how do you get your ideas, how do you develop them, do you come up with characters first, or stories, how does it work?

Bobby says that sometimes it starts with a character, sometimes it's a situation or a story notion, occasionally it's something of a thematic nature, but that whenever he gets an idea, he dumps it into his computer and leaves it there to cook. He tells Dennis it's like meeting an interesting woman for the first time. “I always wait a week to see if I'm still thinking about her before I call. That way, I know I'm not wasting my time. It's the same with an idea. If I'm still thinking about it a week later, I know it's worth developing.”

“Of all the stuff you've ever written,” Dennis says, “what's your favorite?”

“Seriously?” Bobby asks. “Ever?”

“Sure.”

“You're going to laugh, but my favorite piece of writing ever is a short story I wrote about five years ago that I've always wanted to turn into a novel or a film but never got around to.”

“What's it about?”

“It's basically about a talking dog.”

Dennis does laugh. “Are you kidding? Like a kids' movie?”

“Kind of,” Bobby says. “But I think adults would like it, too.”

“I'd like to read it.”

“I've never shown it to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“It's not the kind of stuff anyone would take seriously.”

“How do you know if you've never shown it to anyone?”

“If you're serious, I'll print out a copy for you. You can read it the next time you're taking a crap.”

And while the printer is exhaling pages, Bobby opens another couple of beers and takes them out onto the deck, handing one to Dennis. “What about you?” he says. “Do you like being a cop?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”

“What is it you like? The danger? The romance? The adrenaline rush of going through doors?”

“I hate going through doors,” Dennis says. “I hate the violence.”

“Then why did you become a cop?”

“I guess because I wanted to help people, and I accepted that violence was a part of it.”

Bobby confesses that he's always been afraid of violence, and Dennis points out that people who are afraid of violence usually live longer.

“I've never had a fight in my life,” Bobby admits.

“If you really had to, if your life was on the line, or the life of someone you loved, trust me, you'd fight.”

“I don't know if I'm brave enough.”

“Fighting isn't about bravery,” Dennis says. “It's about failure. Failure to communicate, failure to compromise, failure to say ‘I'm sorry.' “

“How many fights have you had?” Bobby asks.

Dennis smiles ruefully. “Let's just say I've had my share of failures.”

And back and forth it goes, both men being uncharacteristically intimate, enjoying the surprise of new friendship.

Over a third bottle of beer, Bobby tells Dennis his HBO pitch, which is basically a contemporary version of
L.A. Confidential.
Having written about cops as much as he has, Bobby's take on them in general, and the LAPD specifically, isn't that far off the mark. The problem is, as Dennis sees it, there's nothing particularly fresh about it. Denzel Washington played a rogue narcotics detective in
Training Day;
there's this cue ball named Michael Chiklis who plays a similar-type asshole in
The Shield.
But does anyone really need to see yet another show depicting the LAPD as a bunch of immoral, fascist boneheads who kill, brutalize, and trample citizens' rights under color of authority?

“Are you saying it doesn't happen?” Bobby asks. “That certain cops don't keep a cold gun handy just in case they need to kill somebody off the books? Or that Rafael Perez
didn't
shoot those gangbangers or steal all that dope and plant all those weapons or lie like a fucking rug under oath to secure dozens of wrong convictions?”

“I'm not saying it doesn't happen,” Dennis says. “All I'm saying is, there's over eight thousand cops in L.A., and suddenly it's all about the few rotten apples instead of the vast majority of good, hardworking cops who bust their asses trying to make L.A. a better, safer place to live.”

“People
want
to see Denzel being a badass or Chiklis putting his gun in some guy's ear. That's the shit they love.”

“Well, at least you admit it's shit,” Dennis says.

“Okay,” says Bobby. “I'm Chris Albrecht at HBO and I come to you looking for a fresh take on cops. I tell you I'm open to anything as long as I'm not seeing it everyplace else. What do
you
pitch me?”

“I don't know,” Dennis says. “I never thought about it.”

“Think about it now. How do you put old wine in a new bottle so people
think
they're getting something new, which is what they always
say
they want, but you're actually giving them something familiar, which is what they
really
want.”

Dennis gets up, goes to the railing, and looks down into the canyon. “You know what my favorite realistic cop show of all time is? The one that made me want to be a cop in the first place?”

“I don't know,” Bobby answers.
“Dragnet?”

“Uh-uh.
Columbo.
”

“You said realistic.”

“It was realistic.”

“Come on,” Bobby scoffs. “A shabby cop with a glass eye, all he ever wears is that stupid raincoat, going up against all these arrogant, smart-mouth killers, always pretending he's an idiot”—and here, Bobby goes into a pretty decent Peter Falk imitation—“Oh by the way, y'know, I got a cousin, and his wife's sister's daughter says blah blah blah, and y'know this old dried-up piece of chewing gum I scraped off the bottom of the chair in your private screening room? It's got
your
fingerprint smack in the middle of it, from when you wadded it up and stuck it under there, and when I test it for DNA, it's going to prove
you
killed your gorgeous, two-timing wife with that frozen leg of lamb.”

And by now Bobby's got Dennis laughing, shaking his head, saying, “No, no, you're missing the point. Sure, the
show's
unrealistic, but the
character
isn't. Columbo was a real
detective.
He
solved
crimes. He caught bad guys. And he didn't do it with his fists or his gun, he did it with his
brain,
which is what really good police work should be. He always made the bad guy think he was smarter, that he could fuck with Columbo's head, and then Columbo'd lull the guy into revealing some clue or other, and little by little, piece by piece, he'd put the puzzle together and get the guy, because the guy was too fucking arrogant to see how smart Columbo really was. Shit, it's thirty fucking years, the guy's gotta be over seventy years old by now, and they're still making
Columbo
movies.”

“Your point being,” Bobby prods.

“My point being, forget about your old-wine-in-a-new-bottle shit. It's about
great
wine in any bottle, because great wine just keeps getting better with age.”

“So you're saying what? Go to HBO with a fucking thirty-year-old
mystery
show? I can see them right now, leaping out their forty-second-floor office windows with excitement.”

“Bust my balls all you want,” Dennis says. “I'm just telling you, as a cop, what gets me going.”

And out there on the deck, going back and forth at each other, having fun with it, Dennis starts screwing around with Big Bushy, swinging it left and right, trying to focus on various points of interest in the canyon below. “Look at that,” Dennis says, like Christopher Columbus discovering America. “You can see Ramon Montevideo's house from up here.”

Seeing the opening he's been looking for, Bobby says, “So okay, suppose you're Columbo. How do you think your way through
that
case?”

So Dennis takes him through it, leaving out a lot of the specifics, but in general terms telling Bobby that in a case where there are so many suspects, you try not to form too many opinions too early.

“You interview all the women he's screwed, you consider the possibility there's a jealous boyfriend or husband in the picture, or that maybe it was a simple break-in gone bad. Basically, I'm just trying to get a handle on the case, but I'm spinning my wheels. By this time, most cops would be getting frustrated, or bored, and would move on to other things. But not Columbo. Columbo knows that if someone's gotten away with murder, or knows something about someone who's gotten away with murder, either they're eaten up with guilt or they're bursting with pride, and one way or the other, they want to talk about it. So if I'm Columbo, I hang around, I keep talking to people, and finally, what happens? Suddenly this screenwriter guy, completely out of the blue, calls and says he's looking for help with a project, could he buy me dinner and pick my brain. And as it turns out, he's married to one of the actresses in Ramon's class, and on top of that, their marriage went south right around the time Ramon got whacked. So now I'm up at this writer's house, and what do you know? He's got this big-ass telescope, and when you look through it from the deck of his house, you can see Ramon's place. You're practically on top of it.”

And now it's Bobby laughing. “See? I was right. You would make a good writer, 'cause you think that way.”

On a roll now, enjoying the warmth of Bobby's undivided attention, Dennis says, “So I think to myself, maybe this guy's looking through his telescope one night, the wife's supposed to be at her acting class, but instead, he sees her banging this guy Ramon so close up you can see the pimples on his ass, and in a jealous rage, he goes down to Ramon's house to confront him. One thing leads to another, push comes to shove, and the writer clocks him over the head and kills him, like that movie where Richard Gere kills this French asshole his wife's banging.”

“Unfaithful.”

“Yeah, that's the one.”

This guy is good, Bobby thinks, then says, maybe with a little more sarcasm than he intends, “Now all you gotta do,
Lieutenant,
is find the piece of chewing gum with my perfectly preserved fingerprint on it and you've got me dead to rights.”

“Nah,” Dennis says. “You didn't kill this guy. I'm just saying, though, that's how you learn to think—that's how Columbo thinks—one thing leading to another, and before you know it, you've caught a break.”

Disregarding the age-old cautionary “If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” or maybe it's the one that goes “Let sleeping dogs lie,” Bobby says, almost like he's offended that Dennis dismissed him from suspicion so easily, “How can you be so sure I didn't do it?”

“Because it was a crime of violence,” Dennis explains, “and you told me you're afraid of violence.”

“I
am
afraid of violence, but if this guy's screwing my wife, maybe I'm so angry and jealous, my natural timidity gives way to my need for revenge.”

“Except there were no signs of a struggle, which you'd expect if Ramon had been killed by a jealous husband.”

“I don't know,” Bobby says. “You confront a guy in bed with your wife, you hit him a quick shot over the head with his own Alma, that'll take the struggle right out of him.”

“Uh-uh,” Dennis says. “You may be a lot of things, but a murderer isn't one of 'em.”

What he doesn't say, of course, is that Bobby's just given him his first break, since it's not public knowledge that Ramon was killed with his own Alma. Which means either Bobby's a mind reader or he's in shit up to his hips. And the strong
eau de pee-yew
suddenly wafting up the canyon on the wings of a late summer breeze leads Dennis to suspect the latter.

Which reminds me of this joke about the guy who dies and goes to hell. The Devil welcomes him and shows him three doors, telling him that behind each door is a different vision of hell and he's got to choose one of them to spend the rest of eternity in. The Devil opens the first door, and the guy sees a vast ice floe, with half-frozen people, blue and shivering with cold, dressed in nothing but loincloths, picking away futiley at the glacierlike ice with tiny little hammers. The guy says to the Devil, “Don't make me go in there. I can't stand the cold. I moved down to Miami just to avoid New York winters.”

The Devil says, “No problem,” and opens the second door, behind which are countless naked, sweating people, blistered and bleeding, shoveling molten rock out of a volcanic sea of hot, bubbling lava. The guy gasps. “Shut the door—it's horrible. I once took a helicopter tour of the volcanoes in Hawaii and had a panic attack. I can't catch my breath just thinking about it.”