Murder on Location (18 page)

“Tell me about his girlfriends in those days.”

“How long have you got? You got some nerve coming in here with your questions. I'm only talking because Gerry says it might help Harve. But I guess Gerry and I could tell you about Furlong's girls all right. There was Dulcie. She was about sixteen or so. Jailbait. Geez, Gerry, she'd be nearly thirty now. Funny, huh?” Gerry smiled mechanically. “Tell you one thing about Dulcie. She was a hot little bitch, whatever Harve says. Ain't that right, Gerry?”

Gerry pulled at his chin and nodded. “Another thing: she couldn't drive a car in a straight line sober, let alone liquored up the way she was when she got killed. I caught her driving Furlong a few times. One night I nearly ran the pair of them in. But he was such a twister. Charming, I guess you'd call it. He turned everybody into a pal. He was Mister Personality when he wanted to be.”

“Was Dulcie the only liquored-up minor?”

“Hell, he had women like I got dandruff. And he never listened to a word they said,” Hatch observed, running a handful of fingers through his hair. “Gerry, remember the one that used to sound off all the time?”

“Have a heart, Hatch. That's a dozen years ago.”

“She had a great little figure on her and could curse up a storm.”

“There was one used to drink straight Scotch. Used to toss it back like tomato juice. Geez, what was her name?”

“If you asked a month ago, Gerry, I wouldn't have been able to tell you, but it just happens I do know her name.”

“That's because she was in here on New Year's Eve. Right?” I said. Hatch looked at me like I'd guessed that his middle name was Heathcliff. “Was that the first time you'd seen her since the old days?”'

“First time in a dozen years. You know Billie?”

“I know her, and I'd like to find her. She hasn't been in since New Year's?”

“No.”

“Well, then, that's another cold trail. Only one question left to ask. Who was she with New Year's Eve?” Hatch threw a look at Gerry, the cop, and broke into a broad grin.

“The fellow we've been talking about.”

“Harvey Osborne?”

“No. I'm talking about Neil Furlong.”

FIFTEEN

As soon as I stepped back into the lobby of the Colonel John, I saw Marvin Raxlin sitting stunned on a plumcoloured velvet ottoman. He was looking straight ahead of him without seeing. I went over. He blinked his red-rimmed eyes and didn't focus on me as I sat down beside him. An executive assistant in a three-piece suit I'd seen around was hovering near a square pillar talking to the hotel manager but watching Raxlin for the slightest tremor for which he held the antidote.

“They found coke in her room,” Raxlin said. “How do you like that? That's all I need: drugs on top of everything else. How could Miranda do this to me? Every minute we're closed down is costing me. What can I do? The head writer is in mourning. He's on golden time and he can't get hold of himself. Miranda's scenes, they can be fixed; but what a blow this is. I get calls from the coast: ‘Is the production jinxed?' I get calls from New York: ‘What's going on up there?'”

“You look terrible,” I said. “Why don't you try to get some sleep? The cops won't bother you again tonight. They know where to reach you.”

“That's the trouble. Everybody needs me. How many hands can I hold at once? That's why I've come down here. Every three minutes the phone rings. Alvin,” he called to the man at the pillar, “show the revised production schedule to Mr. Sayre and tell him I'll talk to him in the morning.” We both watched Alvin unlatch himself from the manager and head toward the elevators.

“Mr. Cooperman, you're a detective and you're working on a case, right?”

“Right.”

“You ever take on other cases that may be related?”

“I might. It depends. You want to talk about it?”

“You were asking me about the men who came to see me. You called them thugs.”

“And you corrected me; said they were more like businessmen. They wanted changes in the script.”

“You were closer to the truth. I met them this afternoon and went with them to see one of the bosses.”

“First of all, who met you?”

“Hoods. Hoodlums. What do you want me to say? Dressed in four-hundred-dollar suits they were still hoodlums, street rowdies. They collected me at lunch, took me to the Pagoda.” He was wiping sweat from his forehead with a Kleenex. He wasn't used to being pushed around.

“So you talked to Tullio Solmi? Or was it the other one?”

“You know him? My God, he threatened me. He asked if I enjoyed living. He told me the name of the school my daughter goes to. He showed me her picture.”

“What did you give him?”

“A man like that … there's no telling where …”

“What did you promise him?”

“They want script changes. You know about that. They want a piece of the picture. It's crazy. He wants a piece of my end. He says he doesn't like dealing with the studios. He threatened accidents that won't be accidents if I don't do as he says.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I spent four years putting this package together.”

“So?”

“Four years of my life!”

“So, you gave in. Well, at least now you have syndicate protection and syndicate money. You could be worse off: You could have no money and no protection.”

“Four years into the ashcan. That's what it means. Why me? Why this picture? Because it's going to be very big, that's why.”

“Tell me what you saw and heard.”

“I told you. I met Solmi in his outer office. Some vending company.”

“Was he alone?”

“The heavies that brought me went into another room. We talked alone for about twenty minutes.”

“Why the outer office? You were having a private talk, weren't you? What was going on in the private office?”

“They said Solmi's wife was using it.”

“This happened when exactly?”

“Two, two-thirty, three, who knows. I wasn't timing it.”

“There's a missing piece in all this, Mr. Raxlin.” He looked up with watery, innocent eyes.

“What are you talking about? I told you like it happened.”

“So how did they get to see the script? How did they know about the Pagoda getting in the story?”

“They have ways, those people.”

“Those people put money in your picture, didn't they? I mean
before
the threats started.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In a picture you get all kinds of backers. Nobody looks at the list too closely. Money has no criminal record. It doesn't wear stripes. In fact some kinds of money go around looking like lawyers, or hoodlums in fourhundred-dollar suits.” He was still for about the count of five, then his head went down so that he could see his shoes better.

“All right! Shoot me! I had to keep the picture going. You blame me for that? You think that's the only block of dirty money in this picture? Grow up. Get some education.”

“If you're talking about Tony Pritchett's money, I know about that. He wouldn't care if you put Solmi and Cohn in the script without changing their names. But you've had a juggling act to see that they don't find out about one another.”

“You wouldn't believe,” Raxlin said. “You wouldn't believe.”

“And how does Neil fit into all this? You thought you were paying for an original screenplay. Pure fiction.”

“He told me that it was loosely based on fact. But I thought ancient history. This reads like a documentary. If we don't get killed we can get sued. That's why the changes. You think it's cheap to rewrite on location? With everybody on golden time? You're crazy.” I tried to ease the pressure.

“I think you could use a drink.” He lifted his head high enough to see a cat smile. He looked like a tire with a slow leak.

“Yeah,” he said, blowing to bits the scrap of Kleenex, “I guess you're right.”

We didn't talk in the elevator. Raxlin studied the imitation woodwork finish on the metal sides of the car. I found a table with a view of the American falls. We sat by the window, and both of us kept quiet until Raxlin's drink had been ordered and disposed of in a single neck-cracking belt.

“You know I'm looking for a guy's missing wife,” I said at last.

“You told me. An actress, wasn't it?” I nodded.

“Her husband's my client. But I don't think he'd mind my taking a side-trip to see what can be seen from Solmi's office in the Pagoda. If I find anything of interest to you, I'll let you in on it.”

“Paper you won't find. There's nothing in writing. He might have the script in the office his wife was using.”

Raxlin was smiling now with a second drink in his hand. Then a familiar face came into view.

“Hello, chaps. Mind if I join you?” It was Dawson Williams, smelling of cold cream and looking rather pink. It was odd seeing his craggy jaw this close. The lines were powerful, but the skin was as smooth as a certified cheque. “Bloody cold out there this afternoon. Some are cold but few are frozen, what? Reminds me of a winter I spent in Wadsworth, Nevada on a Ford picture. Ten of us living in an unheated circus train. Say, I enjoyed your friends last night. I like his Lady Macbeth idea. I think it would go down very well.” Raxlin raised an eyebrow of inquiry, but I ignored it for the moment. “Peggy was quite taken by the little fellow.”

“You mean Will Chapman. Quite a man in his day. He was once a champion singles rower when he went to Cranmer College. That's a private boys' school in Grantham. Not much of him left these days.”

“Well, old boy, our Peggy was quite taken with him.”

“Maybe she's trying to make Hampton Fisher jealous. He's taken over the top floor of the Colonel John.” Raxlin was now restored to order, and I escaped at the first opportunity. It came after a brief mention of Miranda.

“She's just gone on ahead, old boy, that's the size of it. Stealing a march on us. She was a game old girl. Ah, well, we all come to it, what?”

“Not that way, I hope,” said Raxlin.

“We have heard the chimes at midnight, we two,” he said. “The readiness is all.”

I changed the Colonel John for the Tudor, following the traditional escape hatch through the kitchens. From the lobby, I tried Sayre's number on the house phone. Adela answered. When I apologized for bothering her and tried to wiggle out, she told me that Jim was in the shower but would be out and with a drink ready for me when I got off the elevator. She sounded friendly enough, so I pushed the button for the penthouse.

When I stepped out of the car, the door was open; but it was the door to Penthouse One. From it I could hear women's voices soothing and cajoling.

“Peggy, come on now. Look in the mirror. You look wonderful.”

“Nicole's right, Peggy. You just glow. It's radiant …”

“I hate it! I feel fat and fifty in this. I don't care what you say. It's how I feel that matters.”

“Peggy, why won't you trust me? Why would I say you look fine if you don't? What's my motive? You believe in an honest interpretation of a character. If I lied to you, it wouldn't be consistent with me as you know me. Come on back into the bedroom and we'll look again.”

“I hate being crowded this way! Why won't you let me do it my way?” The voices moved further away from the door, retreating to the far end of the suite. When I looked up, Adela was standing with her head cocked to one side in her own doorway.

“Women are like that,” she said with a smile. “From the Colonel's lady to Judy O'Grady.” Adela was striking. She was wearing a dark green pyjama suit of some shimmering cloth that flattered her figure in all the right places. Without the half-moon glasses I'd seen on her earlier she looked almost frivolous. “Nicole and Lynn have their hands full sometimes, but I think in the main it's clear sailing. Peggy is basically a very sweet, downto-earth girl.” As if to confirm this, we could hear laughter through the open door.

Adela led me into the suite I'd first seen less than a week ago, but it seemed like a half a century. “I used to be able to judge that man's showering time, but I'm losing my touch. Maybe he's giving himself an extra rinse or spin dry in your honour.” She'd made a few changes in the furniture to try to get rid of the denatured look. There were new pictures on the wall; some I thought I'd seen before. A couple of tables had been pushed together to make a large desk area. At one side, a portable typewriter had been set up, and near it lay piles of pages in pink, green and blue. There was even a little ordinary white on display. Crumpled wads in all colours dotted the broadloom. Another table against the outside wall had been commandeered to make a bar. It was loaded with every bottle permitted across the border. My stomach was beginning to protest in advance against another onslaught of sour-mash whisky. But maybe Sayre had lost interest in converting me after that first attempt.

I took a seat in velvet splendour and so did Adela. I could see that under her banter she was troubled by what had been happening, and I didn't blame her.

“You heard about poor Miranda?” she asked. I nodded. I didn't offer any details, since she didn't seem to know that I'd known first. “She was a good friend. One of the best. We go back a long way. It still hasn't completely hit me yet. I keep thinking the phone'll ring and it'll be her. Tonight I'm coasting on a prescription and pure nerve.” Adela lit a cigarette from a black butane lighter and sent the blue smoke skyrocketing to the hotel ceiling, showing off her long, attractive neck. I helped myself to a Player's from my pocket. Adela leaned over, lighting the cigarette herself. This close I could see age in her face, but she had the kind of bones and carriage that go on forever. I heard a rumble from the next room. Jim Sayre was having a good hack in private so he wouldn't cough in public. Then in he came with a nearly empty glass in his hand. There was something about the way he held it that told me the ice had melted. He took it to the liquor table like a caddy takes a ball to the rinse bucket.