Getting Up With Fleas (Trace 7) (16 page)

Birnbaum stepped up to the closed gate.

“Folks, I’m Biff Birnbaum, producer of
Corridors of Death
. If you will be patient, we’ll have a statement for you in a little while.”

The five newspeople abandoned Sheriff Tillis and flocked toward the closed fence. Tillis looked at me and I winked and he smiled back.

“Was Scott a heavy drug-user, or just a recreational drug-user?” the male reporter asked.

“Jack Scott was my partner for ten years. He never took a drug in his life.”

“He was a drunk, though, right?” the woman reporter said. “Everybody knew he was a drunk.”

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to miss, but your information is wrong. Everybody who knew Jack Scott knew he did not drink. Please. Hold your questions. I’ll have a statement very soon.”

“Who’s in there? Is Tony McCue in there?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know where Tony McCue is,” Birnbaum said. I thought maybe he went to a Jesuit college too because it was a neat mental reservation of the first order.

“Who
is
in there?”

“Yeah. Who?”

“I’ll have a statement shortly,” Birnbaum said. He turned to the guard. “Please keep this gate locked and let no one in.”

“Mr. Snapp told me that already,” the guard said.

“We’re the press. We have a right to be in there. You don’t have any right to keep us out,” the woman reporter yelled.

“Is Mrs. Scott in there?” the man yelled at Birnbaum. “I want to talk to Mrs. Scott. Send her out here.”

“I’ll provide a statement in a little while,” Birnbaum said.

“What kind of a name is Biff Birnbaum anyway?” the woman reporter sneered. “You sound like a porn producer.”

“A statement soon,” Birnbaum said as he walked away.

The sheriff drove off and the guard moved over to stand in front of the closed gate.

“Who are you?” the woman yelled at me through the iron bars.

“My name is Devlin Tracy.”

“Who are you with?”

“Nobody,” I said.

“What’s your name again?” the male reporter repeated.

“Devlin Tracy.”

“I never heard of you,” the woman reporter shouted.

“Too bad,” I said. “I’ve heard of
you
in every football locker room from here to Los Angeles.”

I walked away. Behind me, I could hear the two reporters screaming.

“We want McCue.”

“We want Mrs. Scott.”

“First amendment.”

“Censorship.”

“Let us in.”

I wondered if sometimes the cameramen were embarrassed by the low caliber of the people they had to work with.

The crowd of reporters and cameramen outside the gate had swelled, and Clyde Snapp had put an extra guard on duty patrolling the grounds to make sure nobody sneaked in.

I was watching them through the lobby window, and the mob scene, now grown to about twenty, reminded me of some band of rabble demonstrating outside the gates of an American embassy somewhere. The barbarians versus civilization. It was real strange. Only when stacked up against the press could these Hollywood types I was with be representing “civilization.”

Tony McCue came to stand alongside me.

“Listen to them,” I said. “You’re a big hit out here in the sticks.”

He cracked the front door a few inches, and the sound of the gentlemen and ladies of the media drifted in.

“We want McCue.”

“Send out McCue.”

“Where’s Tony McCue?”

He let the door swing closed and looked at me with a shrug.

“I guess they weren’t satisfied with Birnbaum’s statement,” I said.

“What’d he say?”

“He said that there was a tragic accident, that one of America’s most beloved entertainment figures had died, that specific information on the accident would have to come from the police, that he planned to go ahead with this film as a monument to a great entertainer. He made some reference to Scott’s clean personal life—no drugs, no alcohol—and to their long friendship.”

“The part about drinking’s true enough,” McCue said. “The little shit didn’t even enjoy taking a drink.”

“And Birnbaum told them that his wife was under sedation and would make no statements until she returned to their home in New York City and everyone here would appreciate it if they would please leave and show some consideration for the grieving widow.”

“And what’d they say?”

“One of them said, ‘Fuck you, Birnbaum.’”

“It’s amazing how the media can ruin even the best of times,” McCue said.

“Best of times? You know, Tony, you don’t seem real broken up about Scott’s death.”

“Come on, Trace. What’s one producer more or less? They’re fools and thieves. And there are new fools and thieves standing ten deep to replace him. The only creatures worse in the world are these bastards of the press. Do you know that for four years they have been dogging my footsteps wherever I go, rooting through my garbage, disguising themselves as waiters in restaurants so they can listen in to table talk. They bribed a maid of mine once to tell them about my sex life.”

“They must have run that article as a series,” I said. “What’d she tell them?”

“That I screwed her and gave her plane fare back to Puerto Rico.”

“Was it true?”

“Yes. She was lousy in bed. Who needs that kind of maid? I gave the employment agency hell.”

He pushed open the door again and listened to the reporters, who were still shouting. Then he walked inside the dining room and came out with a paper bar napkin that he stuck into his pocket.

“I think it is entirely appropriate that I should talk to the press,” he told me. “After all,
le cinéma c’est moi
.”

I followed him outside. He put on his reading glasses as he approached the gate, and the reporters cheered his approach.

“Statement.”

“Who supplied Scott with the drugs, McCue?”

“Isn’t it true he died after an all-night drinking bout with you?”

“Tell the truth, McCue.”

“How much responsibility do you feel for causing his death, McCue?”

McCue stayed inside the gate and raised a hand for silence.

“All in good time,” he said. “I have a statement.”

He took the bar napkin from his pocket.

“I’d like to read this,” he said. “Are you ready?”

The reporters all shouted at once and McCue shouted back, “Will you hold it down so I can read this? I’m reading it only once.”

The reporters grumbled but started to quiet down.

Using his deepest, most sober voice, McCue looked down and pretended to read from his cocktail napkin.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press.” He stopped for a moment and looked up. “Are all those cameras running? I’m not repeating this.”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead, McCue, go ahead.”

“All right.” He cleared his throat and pushed his eyeglasses farther down his nose.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I have been asked to comment on the tragic death of Jack Scott. My only comment is this: you people of the media are a disgusting batch of assholes. You are fucking vampires. If I had children who wanted to be reporters, I would send them out on the street to give blowjobs instead. America would be a richer country if it repealed the first amendment and threw all of you motherfuckers into concentration camps. You are shit. Your reports are shit. Your brains are shit. You may all go fuck yourselves.”

He stuck the napkin back into his pocket, took off his reading glasses, and said, “That concludes my statement. I will take no questions.”

He started back to the hotel. I walked along with him. The reporters were screeching behind us.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said. “I just hope it was live on some of the channels.”

“I hope so too,” I said. “McCue, I’m proud to know you. Come on. I’ll build you a drink.”

“You’re on.”

Naturally, Walter Marks wound up ruining the day by calling me. I thought he was going to congratulate me for keeping McCue alive. I should have known better.

“Why is it, Trace, that wherever you go, there’s trouble?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Not so fast. So what happened to Scott? Was it really an accident like the television’s saying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there a mad killer running loose up there?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?” he snapped.

“I know that you’re paying me five hundred dollars a day plus expenses, but if you’re going to keep calling me all the time, I’m going to raise the fee.”

“Not a chance. And you just keep an eye on that McCue. The television said he was not cooperative with the reporters. Was he drinking?”

“I thought he was very forthright and open with them. And he’s drinking like he always drinks, like a freaking fish.”

“You watch him, Trace. Don’t let anything happen to him. Six million dollars is a lot of money.”

“And on that highly informative note, I’ll say good night. Good night, Groucho.”

After I hung up, I tried Chico, but there was no answer. And Sarge didn’t answer either. So I went to bed.

McCue was snoring next door. God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.

In their own way, showers are pretty neat things. If you take one at night, it helps you sleep. If you take one in the morning, it helps you wake up. I don’t know what would happen if you took one, say, at two P.M., and I’m going to have to find out.

I thought maybe I’d ask Chico when I saw her; that woman knows everything.

Anyway, I was thinking of that, and it reminded me of the old joke about the guy who tells an interviewer that the greatest scientific invention of all time was the thermos bottle. He was asked why and he said because it keeps the hot food hot and the cold food cold.

“What’s so big deal about that?” the interviewer asked.

“How does it know?” the man said.

Same thing with showers.

Anyway, I took a shower and fell right to sleep, but it was troubled sleep, and that was unusual for me. Troubled sleep is for people who worry about what they’re doing, who care about what other people think. I didn’t have any of those problems, but I kept waking up in the middle of the night, mind chewing over the death of Jack Scott.

I’d wake up, think for a moment in the twilight of my semi-sleeping brain, and then doze off again.

I wondered why Jack Scott would be fooling around with a dumbwaiter rope. Was it possible that he just fell into the dumbwaiter shaft by accident and the rope incredibly twisted around his neck? But why the hell did he open the door in the first place? Or did someone else unlock it?

And another time, I woke up and thought, Suppose Scott has been murdered. Why Scott? Tony McCue was the one whose medicines had been spilled out; Tony McCue was the one on whose head the large rock almost fell.

And then I woke up again later and thought, Maybe not. Maybe the rock was meant to kill Roddy Quine. Maybe there had been three murder attempts and only one successful. Could that be so? But what about the hit-and-run?

Later I thought, maybe somebody wanted to kill anybody, somebody, everybody, a lot of people. Who, though? Everybody here hated somebody else, but I didn’t think somebody hated everybody. Who would have anything to gain by multiple killings?

Then I thought about the hotel. Was it possible? The owner of the place had rented it to the movie company for a whistle, somebody said. Just for the publicity, which would help him reopen the place and make a buck out of it.

Who was that owner? Had he thought of a really wonderful way to get publicity? By killing people? It had already worked. The press goons had spent the whole day and night standing outside the front gate of the Canestoga Hotel.

I decided that in the morning I’d have to find out something about the owner of the hotel. And I’d have to talk to Sheila Hallowitz again because I didn’t believe for a minute that she and Scott had gone out into the grounds of the hotel during a rainstorm so that they could discuss a budget.

I fell back asleep. Then another disturbance.

I thought I felt someone crawling into bed with me.

I did. There was someone under the covers. I was awake now and I felt a hand touch me.

I should have locked the door. Why did I always forget to lock doors?

I felt a soft feminine hand touch me under the sheet.

“I told you, I’ve gone straight,” I mumbled.

The hand stroked me more insistently.

“Thank you,” I said, “but you’ve got to go now. I’m bespoken.”

The first hand was joined by a second hand, which did nice things to my stomach. I grabbed both hands, pulled them outside the sheet, and pushed them away.

“My girlfriend wouldn’t like that,” I said. “Now get out of here before I call the police.”

A soft voice whispered in the air with an accent borrowed from Zsa Zsa Gabor.

“Don’t you like me, dollink?”

“I’ll like you better when you leave.”

“Veil, dollink. I’m not leavink, not ever.”

I sighed loud. “Okay,” I said, and rolled over on top of the woman next to me.

“You prick,” the voice said. No accent this time.

“Why, Chico. What a surprise.”

“I’ll bet it was a surprise. I’ll bet you never expected it was going to be my bones you were jumping on. Get off me, you huge philandering cretin, you.”

I reached over, turned on the light, then propped myself over her on extended arms.

“Why are you smiling?” she said.

“Just surprised to see you. When did you arrive?”

“Screw arrive. I’m leaving,” she said. “Let me out of here.”

Her pretty bow’s mouth was fixed in a scowl. Her sloe eyes were narrowed, the dark pupils glinting in the harsh bed lamp’s light. She looked at me and then slowly her expression softened.

“How’d you know it was me?” she said.

“I didn’t until you started doing Zsa Zsa Gabor. You do the lousiest Zsa Zsa I ever heard.”

“Oh, aren’t you nice?” she said. “When you thought I was somebody else, you were going to chase me away. Now that’s loyalty for you. Trace, I’m impressed.”

I rolled over onto my back. “Not really,” I said. “I thought you were that goddamn queen, Roddy Quine. Now, if you had been one of the thousands of beautiful chickies who are running around here half-naked all the time, it might have been a different story.”

“Who? What beautiful chickies?”

“Let’s see.” I stretched it out as I lit a cigarette. “There’s Blow-blow La Flume. She’s the production coordinator on this opus. And then there’s…Oh, bullshit. When’d you arrive? What are you doing here?”

“I heard on the news about Scott’s death, so I figured, Screw the packing, it’ll wait, and I lucked up and caught a plane right away and came here. Is it murder?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have an extra gun for me? In case it is?”

“I don’t even have one for myself. Did you talk to Sarge?”

“Yes. He told me my gun permit arrived. I still think you lied and tried to hide it.”

“Why do you think that ridiculous thing?” I asked.

“’Cause Sarge told me that you did.”

“The uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice won’t stand up in court,” I said.

“It won’t go to court. So you don’t have a gun?”

“No,” I said.

“That’s all right. I’ll buy one tomorrow.”

“I figured you’d have one by now. How’d you get past the guard at the gate if you didn’t shoot your way in?”

“The guard’s not too bright. I razzle-dazzled him with my business cards.”

“The ones that say ’Chico Mangini and Friends, Private Investigators?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Take off your clothes and stay awhile.”

“I’ll do both. You tell me what’s going on. I want something to drink. You have a refrigerator?”

“No.”

“These old hotels always have refrigerators,” she said.

“Sorry, babe. I don’t have one.”

“I bet everybody else has got a refrigerator.”

“Did you come up here to harp on the lack of respect shown me?” I asked.

“No. I came up here to show you what a lack of respect really is. What the hell is that ghastly noise?”

“Your first encounter with a star,” I said. “That’s Tony McCue snoring.” I jerked my thumb toward the wall behind the bed.

“We’ll straighten
that
out tomorrow,” she said. She bounded out of bed. She was wearing a white skirt, cut short to show off her really marvelous legs, some kind of dark-blue striped blouse, and a pink jacket of soft leather.

A leather garment bag lay on the floor, next to one of those gigantic pocketbooks that women always seem to carry just to make sure they can never find their keys when they need them.

She rooted around inside the purse for a few moments, then came out with a can of ginger ale and a sandwich in plastic wrap.

“
Voilà
,” she exclaimed.

“Congratulations. Mealtime’s not for a couple of hours yet. I don’t know how you would have survived.”

Without moving from the spot where she was standing, she ripped open the plastic wrap around the sandwich and took a large bite. “Ham and cheese,” she said. “I love ham-and-cheese sandwiches.” She was talking with her mouth full.

“Hey, save that for the tourists,” I said. “I’ve seen you eat. If you were hungry, you’d love grasshopper-and-grub chips.”

“Food is the music of love, and I do believe in playing on,” she mumbled. The sandwich was already half-gone.

She took a big swallow, a sip of soda, and said, “I haven’t eaten since my plane landed at Ithaca. What’s been going on? Why didn’t you bring the tape recorder?”

“First of all, I didn’t expect anybody to die on me here. And second of all, I don’t want to keep being a slave to the tape recorder. If you’re going to make me work for Sarge’s agency, I’m going to do it my way. No tape recorders. This is the new me.”

The rest of the sandwich vanished inside her mouth. One more swallow and it would only be a memory. I once saw a snake ingesting a frog in the San Diego Zoo. This was the same. She gulped.

“You should use your tape recorder all the time. Trace, you haven’t any memory.”

“Sorry. I forgot.”

“Tell me about Scott and who’s here and all.”

“Only if you come to bed,” I said.

“You first.”

So I started recounting the events of the last two days and the cast of characters at the hotel. It was not an easy job because I kept getting distracted as Chico, between sips of her ginger ale, started to remove her clothes, one slow garment at one slow time.

“Why are you stopping?” she said.

“How the hell do you expect me to concentrate when you’re doing a striptease?”

“I didn’t think I affected you anymore,” she said.

“I’ll let you know when you don’t. Now get your clothes off and get into bed if you want me to finish my story.”

“All right, if that’s the price I’ve got to pay.”

“That’s only part of the price,” I said.

“As my favorite writer says, ’Nothing is more unbooted than blab, more nowhere than hustle,” she said. She took off all her clothes. Most women need clothes to cover their flaws. Chico has no flaws. Naked, beautiful, she padded around the room, carefully hanging her clothes up in the unused closet.

“I can see you’ve done your usual dresser-drawer number with your clothes,” she said. “Don’t you ever unpack?”

“I didn’t unpack them in New York. I didn’t see any reason to unpack them here. When they’re all dirty and I get them cleaned, then maybe I’ll hang them up.”

“Or when the board of health comes for you, whichever occurs first.” She slid under the sheet next to me and said, “You come here often, big boy?” and snapped imaginary gum at me.

“Now that you’re here, I would hope so,” I said. I rolled on my side and kissed her. “Hello.”

“Good-bye. Tell me first what’s going on.”

Once Chico gets an idea in her head, there is no deflecting her. I lit another cigarette, lay back, and continued the two-day report. I tried to leave nothing out, not even Tami Fluff coming on to me.

“Bitch,” she said.

“Come on. You can’t blame the poor girl, can you?”

“Can’t blame her? First she sneaks into McCue’s room to do boom-boom, then the next afternoon, she’s after you. She ought to have a governor installed on her crotch. I’ll bet that was her I saw when I arrived here.”

“What her? Who?”

“I saw two people put alongside the hotel, on the grounds. They were walking together. It looked very sexual.”

“How does walking look sexual?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

“Who were they?” I said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anybody here yet and I couldn’t see them real well. It was probably Tami Fluff. Probably picked up a sailor somewhere.”

“If you’re going to be narrow-minded, I’m sorry I told you.”

“That’s it. Take her side. Go on with your stupid story.”

I plugged along until I thought I was finally done, but she quickly disabused me of that.

“You have done some piss-poor job,” she said.

“Hey, babe. McCue’s still alive. If you listen, you can hear him snoring. That’s what I’m paid to do. I did it. Get off my case.”

“So
was
there anything funny in the pills in his room?”

“I don’t know.”

“See? That’s what I mean,” Chico said. “Piss-poor. If you don’t find out if there was anything in the pills, how can you know if somebody was trying to kill him? Hah? How?”

I sighed. “I thought I would just wait for you to arrive and straighten it all out for me.”

“Then I’m here just in time,” she said. “Go to sleep.”

“I want to fool around,” I said.

“I want to think. Go to sleep.”

“Think while we’re fooling around,” I said.

“Go to sleep. I’ll wake you when I’m done thinking.”

“That better be a promise,” I said.

I went to sleep and she woke me up.

“You done thinking already?”

“No. Did Scott have anything on him when you found his body?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know. Nothing like a gun, though. The sheriff would have said something about that.”

“Damn.”

“There was water in the dumbwaiter shaft,” I said.

“What kind of water?”

“The usual kind. Wet, colorless, the kind that wets the knees of your pants. And a plastic container.”

“What kind of container?”

“Damn it, I don’t want to answer questions. I want to trick.”

“What kind of a container?” Chico asked.

“Plastic. Like a margarine container. Something like that.”

“What was in it?”

“Nothing. It was empty,” I said.

“Was it wet?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s the container now?” she asked.

This woman was turning into a large pain in the ass.

“I don’t know where the container is now. Probably in the garbage,” I said. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Yes. No. Wait. You say Birnbaum’s room is on top of Scott’s?”

“Right. And McCue’s is still farther on top.”

“Come on, Trace. Get up,” she said.

“I thought I’d never hear that. I’m already up.”

She jumped out of bed. “Hold that thought,” she said, “while you put some clothes on.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

She grabbed my foot and pulled me out of bed.