Natural Causes (17 page)

When I asked Seymour if there was any possibility of
tracing the local calls, especially the last one, he said, "Not
a chance. The hotel phones are direct-dial within Los Angeles county.
All you gotta do is punch '9' and make the call."

"How about the car ride?" I asked. "Any
idea where he went?"

"Tell you what you do," he said. "Go
downstairs, buy yourself a map of L.A. Get a compass. Set the point
on the Belle Vista Hotel. Then draw a circle with a thirty-mile
radius. That's where he went, man. Somewhere in that circle."

"Thanks for the help," I said.

"Don't mention it," Wattle said.

"I may have another job for you, Sy."

"Great. I could use the bread."

"Hit a losing streak at the ballpark?"

"Hell, no," Seymour said. "The track.
Lost a bundle on a gray horse. I'm a sucker for a gray."

"Well, I've got a sure thing for you."

"I hear you," Wattle said.

"Ask around. See if you can find anyone who's
done business with our boy in the last few weeks."

"What kind of business?" Wattle said.

"The TV kind. A new soap opera, maybe. A
nighttime show. Maybe even a movie."

"That's a lot of asking around."

"There's two bills in it for you. And if you
come up with anything I'll see to it that you get a fat bonus."

"How fat?"

"Something in the four-figure range."

"Get right on it, man," Seymour Wattle
said.

After I got done with Seymour, I called Jack Moon's
room. There wasn't any answer, so I called Helen Rose's suite at the
Belle Vista. Moon picked up the phone. "Black hole of Calcutta,"
he said.

"I take it things are not going so well."

"You take it correctly." He put his hand
over the mouthpiece. "Sally Jackson's here. From the network.
She and Helen just had a little spat."

"What about?"

"This'll amuse you-Walt's document. You know,
the one that he wrote all by himself?"

"What about it?"

"Sally claims he stole it from another show. She
used to work with Russ and Walt on 'Young and Restless,' and she
claims it's Leonard's work. Can you beat that with a pair of leather
thongs?"

I started to laugh. "Where and when does it
stop, Jack?"

"It never stops, Harry.
Plus
qa change, plus c'est la meme chose
. Or
something like that." He laughed himself. "Can you believe
that little putz? Jacking us up about a document he didn't even
write? Bluffing Helen and Quentin and me, too? God Almighty, what a
world!"

"What does Walt say?"

"He says--and I quote--'It may bear a
superficial resemblance to Russ's work. So what? It's still good,
solid material.' What the hell, he's probably right. They all steal
from one another anyway. Quentin did it. And Russ did it, too. It's
like running a foundling home for plagiarists."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"What do you think?" Jack said. "Nothing.
Oh, Helen will have a little talk with Walt, slap his hand. But it's
too late to back out of the deal. The show just couldn't stand
another writer change at this point. The brands are already nervous,
and the network is just hanging on by their nails. Anyway, Walt's
been on the team from the start, so we couldn't do without him in any
case. And he knows it."

"Son-of-a-bitch," I said. "Do you
think Dover knew what Walt was planning?"

"Naw," Jack said. "Actually, it's the
kind of stunt that Quentin himself would have pulled--in his heyday.
But he was too much of an egotist to think anyone else could bring it
off. There is a kind of poetic justice about it, though."

He sounded pleased.

"So Walt didn't have a document of his own,
after all?"

"Nope," Jack said. "He just buffaloed
Quentin into thinking that he did. And fooled all the rest of us,
too. Some sweet guy, huh?"

"A slice of marzipan," I said. "I've
got some news."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Quentin wasn't in his hotel room on Friday
night or Saturday morning."

"Yeah?" Jack said with interest. "How
in hell did you find that out?"

"From a maid at the Belle Vista. She went into
his room on Saturday--to clean up. And there was nobody there. No
luggage, either."

"I'll be damned," Jack said. "Where
was he?"

"Out trying to hustle himself up another job, I
think."

This time he didn't try to talk me out of it. "Maybe,
he was. I mean, if our new head writer can foist a four-year-old
document off on us as his own work, then anything's possible."

"Where would he have looked, Jack?"

"Not at United," Moon said dryly. "Hell,
at any of our competitors, P & G, General Foods, ABC. Or maybe at
some freelance production company. The possibilities are endless."

"He was apparently going behind his agent's
back, as well as behind yours. Could he have gotten away with it?"

"I don't know. I suppose he could have slipped
out of the United contract on the grounds of poor health. And a lot
of writers have more than one agent, although I'm pretty sure that
Quentin dealt strictly with Sugarman."

"Why would he bypass his agent?"

"Why do you think?" Jack said. "Money.
If he was dealing on his own, he'd have saved himself ten percent."

"Was he that hard up for cash?"

"I don't know. It's something to look into."
It was, indeed.

"I think I'm going to catch a flight back to
Cincy this afternoon," I said. "I'd like to talk to
Quentin's mother again. And to his wife."

"I'm sorry to hear you're leaving," Jack
said with regret. "It's been fun, with you around."

"I'll stop over at the Belle Vista before I
leave. Maybe we can have a drink together."

"Just name the time."

I took a look at the clock on the nightstand. "It's
tenthirty now. I'll meet you at noon. O.K.?"

"See you then," he said.
 

20

I called LAX and made a reservation for a two o'clock
flight that would get me into Cincinnati International at nine-thirty
P.M. Eastern time. Then I called Glendora.

I'd been holding off making the call for two
days--primarily because I didn't have anything to tell him. Now I
did. And I had a few questions to ask, too. Hearing that measured
voice again reminded me of his sad-eyed, preacher's face.

"I was beginning to wonder what had happened to
you, Harry," he said. He didn't sound angry, exactly--which is
what I'd expected after I'd ignored his calls--more bemused, the way
he'd sounded when he'd been talking about the 'Clean & Fluffy'
snafu. "Is everything coming along all right?"

"I've uncovered a couple of things. If you want
to wait until tomorrow, I'll tell you about them in person."

"You're returning to Cincinnati?"

"Tonight. I want to talk to the Dovers again.
And maybe to Quentin's lawyer. You wouldn't happen to know his name,
would you?"

"As a matter of fact I do. Seth Murdock. He's my
lawyer, too. Quentin kept singing his praises so highly that I
decided to try him out."

Frank Glendora was probably the last person on earth
whom Quentin Dover could still bamboozle. It was almost touching.

"I'll call Seth for you, if you'd like. Clear
the way."

"Great," I said. "There are a few
matters I'd like to talk over with you. Maybe we could meet for lunch
tomorrow."

"I think I could take a lunch on Saturday,"
Glendora said, paging through a calendar. "Yes, I'm free. Shall
we say twelve-thirty at the Maisonette?"

That would make the second time I'd been to the
Maisonette in less than a week. The second time in ten years. "Sounds
fine," I said.

"I'm sorry about that Russ Leonard thing. Jack
told me that you were rather upset with him. And with me, too. It
just didn't occur to either of us to mention it, what with Quentin so
newly dead." Glendora sighed. "The family buried him on
Thursday afternoon, by the way. I wish to God that we could bury this
whole saddening business with him."

I didn't realize it at first, but he was asking me a
question.

"Can we bury it, Harry?" he said straight
out.

"I don't know, Frank. I'm not through with the
case yet. I can tell you this much--I haven't come across anything
that would compromise United's image yet. At least, nothing relating
directly to Dover."

"That's wonderful," he said with relief,
although I wasn't sure if he was relieved for United or for Quentin.
Probably a little of each.

I told him I'd see him the
following day and hung up.

***

I watched myself pack my overnighter in the bedroom
mirrors. I'd gotten used to all those reflected versions of me by
that point. When I was fully packed, I saluted myself one last time,
put my bag outside in the corridor, and closed the door on that
snazzy room full of telephones and shiny mirrors. I caught an
elevator down to the lobby and checked out. As I was waiting for them
to tally the bill, I took a look at the newspaper rack by the front
desk and found a map of L.A. It had sounded silly when Seymour
suggested it on the phone, but I decided that there was no harm in
drawing a couple of circles with a compass. Anyway, it was a souvenir
of an odd August week.

Once I'd paid my bill, I walked out to the
smoked-glass elevator on the top landing. This time I couldn't
resist. I stepped into it, feeling like an oversized parcel of mail
in a pneumatic tube, pressed a button, and was lowered twelve feet to
the sidewalk."Now you gettin' the spirit," the black
doorman said with a grin.

I laughed.

The doorman flagged down a cab. I got in, carrying my
suitcase in my hand.

"We be seein, you again, sir?" the doorman
asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"Via con dios." He patted the door and the
cab pulled out into traffic.

It was a sunny day--a little warmer than it had been
earlier in the week. I hadn't noticed the heat before, even though it
had been running in the low eighties. That Friday there was more
moisture in the air and suddenly it felt hot. I took off my
sportscoat and draped it over my arm.

"You goin' to the airport?" the cabbie
said.

"Eventually. Right now I want to go to the Belle
Vista Hotel."

We drove up Hilgard to Sunset. Bel-Air ran up the
canyonside, north of Sunset. A maze of walls and gates and flowering
trees and brief glimpses of white masonry, like glimpses of bare,
beautiful flesh seen through a hedgerow.

The driver turned left on Sunset Boulevard and then
right on Green Canyon. We coasted under the towering oaks up to the
walled compound of the hotel. I had the cabbie drive past the gate in
the south quadrangle before letting me out in the lot. I was pretty
sure that was how Quentin Dover had slipped away on Friday
night--through the gate--unless he'd sneaked past the front desk or
hiked across the gully of flowers that separated the lobby from the
parking lot. There was no other exit.

I got out of the cab--suitcase in one hand, coat in
the other--and walked up to the bridge. Jerry was leaning against a
strut, staring at his reflection in one of his glossy patent leather
shoes.

"Hi," I said to him.

"Hi," he said dolefully.

"Sorry about yesterday. I had a long afternoon."

"Oh, that's O.K.," he said. "It
happens to everyone." He looked at my bag. "You leavin'
us?"

"Yes. Back to Cincinnati."

"Yeah? Is that where you're from? WKRP-land?
They got a good football team."

"That's one thing that can be said for it."
I put my bag down on the pavement. "You want to make another
quick twenty bucks?"

He grinned. "Do you need to ask? What is it?
More questions about the guy who croaked?"

"Yeah."

"Shoot," he said.

"What time did you say you got off Friday
night--the night that Dover took the car out?"

"About eleven-thirty, quarter of twelve,"
the boy said. "And what time did you go back on duty the next
day?"

"Nine-thirty in the morning."

"Where was the car parked when you came in?"

"Over there," he said, pointing to the
south end of the lot.

"That's a long way from the bridge," I
said.

"He probably didn't have much of a choice. All
the good spots get snatched up by midnight or one."

"So you figure he came back after one?"

"It's possible," the boy said. "Maybe
he just parked down there 'cause he wanted to stretch his legs."

"He had a heart condition."