Natural Causes (13 page)

I stepped through the gate onto a plank court
fronting a row of two-story bungalows. Each bungalow had its own
entryway, running off the common court and up to the front door.
Mack's house was the third in a series of five. They were all built
in the same beach-house style-cedar shakes on the outer walls, flat
shingled roofs, windowless first floors with redwood spilings
underneath them, and huge sliding glass doors and balconies on the
second floors, where the houses peeked over the fence and looked out
on the ocean.

"Nice," I said.

Mack shrugged. "I want one in Malibu--right down
on the beach. Maybe I'll get one now. It's been a dream of mine."

He opened the door and I followed him into a narrow
tiled hall. There was a decorative mirror on one wall and a brass
clothes tree on the other. Mack stripped off his jacket, draped it on
the tree, then pulled off this tie and unbuttoned his shirt.

"Jesus, I hate wearing ties," he said,
studying himself in the mirror. "Why don't you go upstairs and
make yourself comfortable, Harry, and I'll get this phone call out of
the way."

He pointed to a circular staircase off the hall. I
walked up to the second floor. There was another hall at the top of
the stairs with a doorway on either side of it--the right-hand door
led to a room at the back of the house, the left to the room with the
balcony. I turned left--into a small den with white, stippled plaster
walls and a glossy hardwood floor. There were only a few pieces of
furniture in the room--a gray silk davenport; a low, candy red
Parsons table in front of the couch; and a black Barcelona chair to
the left of the table. The sliding glass door dominated the room.
Through it I could see the cove on the other side of Highway One and,
beyond the cove, the huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean, breaking on
the beach in white, even, sunlit waves. It was the first time I'd
seen the Pacific since I'd come home from `Nam. I stared at it,
listening to the rush and boom of the breakers.

Beneath me, on the first floor, Walt Mack was talking
softly on the phone. The sounds of the ocean covered his voice, but
now and then I caught a word. And once I heard him distinctly.

"Fine, Mother," he said. "Everything's
fine."

I sat down on the Barcelona chair and waited for him
to finish with Mom. There was only one picture hanging on the white
walls--a huge lithograph called "Telephone." It was by
Richard Lindner, and, like most of Lindner's stuff, it was
deliberately overripe and repellent. This one featured two stylized
grotesques--a man and a woman--talking to each other on phones. The
woman had huge purple breasts, and the man wore a trenchcoat and
slouched hat. I wouldn't have been able to live with it, but then I
wouldn't have rushed home to call Mom, either.

After a time, Mack came upstairs. He stood in the
entryway and looked at me in a friendly, slightly curious way.

"You want a drink, Harry?" he said.

"Yeah, I'll take a Scotch. No ice."

Mack went down the hallway and came back a few
minutes later with two glasses of booze. He handed one of them to me,
then walked over to the davenport and sat down.

"You ever been to L.A. before?" he said,
stirring the drink with his fingertip.

"When I was in the Army," I said.

"You were in `Nam?"

I nodded.

He leaned back against the couch and took a sip of
booze. Away from Helen Rose and Jack Moon, Mack seemed like a
different man--a much quieter, much more phlegmatic personality. I
thought perhaps the phone call home had taken something out of him.
Or perhaps he just didn't know what to do with me.

"It's been a long couple of days," he said,
as if he'd been reading my mind. "And I'm worn out. You know,
it's a funny thing. I've waited years to get this break. Paid a lot
of dues. And now that I've got it . . . " He stared out the
window at the surf. "I wonder if it was worth the trouble."

"I thought you wanted the job," I said.

Mack stirred up a smile. "Sometimes it's hard to
know if you really want something until after you've gotten it, if
you know what I mean."

It sounded like the sort of thing you said when you'd
strong-armed your way into someone else's job, but then I'd heard a
lot of things about Walt Mack.

"You want to talk about Quentin, don't you?"
he said.

"Yeah. I want to ask you a few questions."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'm willing to answer
your questions. But I'd like to ask you something first."

"What?"

"As I understand it, Quentin's death has been
ruled an accident by the coroner's office. Is that true?"

"The preliminary autopsy indicated death by
natural causes, yes."

"Then why are you investigating him?"

"I thought maybe you could help me answer that
question," I said.

"Me?" He pointed to himself. "Why me?"

"Frank Glendora hired me because he'd heard
rumors about Dover's private life. It's my impression that you were
the one who'd been spreading those rumors."

Mack laughed nervously. "Who told you that Jack
or Helen? I'm sure it wasn't Glendora. I've only met the man a few
times."

"It's no secret that you didn't like Quentin."

"There was nothing there to like," he said
cooly. "Dover had a personality like a black hole. He sucked in
everything around him and gave nothing back in return. I suppose some
people found that fascinating or alluring or sad. I didn't. I wasn't
taken in by his act, that's all."

"And others were?"

"Yes," he said with a bitter smile. "Others
were."

"Dover came to L.A. on Friday of last week,
instead of on Sunday. He made a special trip. Do you know why?"

"No," Mack said. "We hardly talked to
each other, outside of weekly story conferences and occasional phone
calls."

"Did he say anything at the last story
conference--anything that might explain why he came in on Friday?"

"No," Mack said again. "I told
you--outside of business, we didn't travel in the same circles."

"And he didn't get in touch with you this
weekend?" Mack glared at me. "Did somebody tell you that he
did?"

I said no.

But he didn't believe me. "I can just imagine
what Jack and Helen have been saying. And they claim I'm the one with
the big mouth!" He laughed scornfully. "The last time I saw
Quentin Dover was a week ago Monday at the Belle Vista. And he didn't
say anything. He just sat there, popping pills and smiling. He'd take
another pill and smile a little more. He was a burned-out house,
Harry. There was nobody home just the rats in the rafters."

"What was the story conference about?"

"What they'd been about for the last twenty
weeks--the fact that we didn't have a story line." He looked at
me for a second. "Do you know anything at all about this
business?"

"Not really," I admitted.

"Then maybe I'd better explain a few things to
you--some fundamentals--so that you can get the picture. O.K.?"

"Fine."

Mack, leaned back on the couch. "The head writer
on a soap, Quentin, in this case, writes the long-term document--a
ninety- or a hundred-page plot outline that provides three to six
months worth of story material for the subwriters. Without a
document, the whole process is screwed. The breakdown writers, a
group that used to include me up until today at about 12:15, expand
on the long-term, by turning it into daily narratives, in which the
plot is fleshed out and the dialogue is indicated. We don't actually
write the dialogue; that's the job of the scriptwriters, who turn the
breakdowns into scripts--pure dialogue in dramatic form. Usually one
of the breakdown people acts as chief breakdown man. That was my job
before today. The chief breakdown man has a little more say about
story, but the head writer has the overall responsibility, or he's
supposed to have, for writing the document, seeing that the
breakdowns are done, editing the scripts, and delivering all the
materials in a satisfactory form to the producers. When things are
run well, by an experienced hand, it's a remarkably efficient way of
doing things. It actually works. I've seen it work. I got my training
under one of the best writers in daytime, so I know what I'm talking
about. When things aren't run well, as in the case of our boy,
Quentin, it's like slow death. Without a document, we have to make
the story up from day to day, vamp for weeks on end. It's not a
healthy situation."

Mack hardly looked old enough to have had much
experience, yet he talked as if he'd been in the business for years.

"How did you get involved in 'Phoenix'?" I
asked him.

"I started working on 'Restless Years' as a
scriptwriter under Russ Leonard. Russ was a close friend of mine.
When he was made head writer on 'Phoenix' in '79, he took me along
with him as his chief breakdown man."

"Dover wasn't the original head writer on
'Phoenix'?" I said.

Mack laughed snidely. "They didn't tell you
about that, did they, Harry?"

"No, they didn't," I said uncomfortably.
"Was Helen the producer in '79?"

"Yeah," he said. "She's always been
the producer. Jack wasn't made exec until right before Quentin took
over in '8o."

"Why did Quentin take over?"

"Oh, that's the good part," Mack said. "You
know, Quentin Dover wasn't the first death on 'Phoenix.' No, sir. But
they didn't tell you about that either, did they? They just told you
that Walt was spreading scurrilous gossip about poor dead Quentin.
Only Walt seldom talks to anyone higher up than Helen. So you tell
me, Harry, how did big bad Frank Glendora hear all those awful
stories?"

He laughed again and jingled the ice in his glass. "I
need another one of these. How 'bout you?"

"I'm fine," I said.

"Sure, you're fine, Harry," he said as he
got up from the couch. "You're a real he-man."

He walked out of the room and came back with a full
glass and a bottle. He dropped the fifth on the Parsons table and
raised his glass in a toast. "Cheers." Walt swallowed all
of the whiskey. "Got to get primed for this one," he said,
pouring another shot. "Always get primed for my Russ Leonard
story. Where was I, anyway?"

"You said there was another death."

"Oh, yeah. It was Russ. He died."

"How?'

"Well, it wasn't in the bathroom. He had a
little sense of style, Russ did. How did he die? Let me see. He died
of loss of blood--I believe that was the coroner's verdict."

"Like Quentin?"

"Nooo," Mack said. "Not like Quentin,
because of Quentin. Quentin and Helen."

"What does that mean?"

Mack took another swallow of booze and set the glass
down hard on the tabletop. "I mean someone started up some nasty
rumors about Russ. Isn't that a coincidence! A year into the show,
and they started talking him down. Helen didn't like his long-terms.
She said they didn't measure up. Enter Quentin Dover--Helen's 'story
consultant'. Dear Quentin. Dear, sweet Quentin. He stepped on the
scene like something out of Henry James--one of those charming,
worldly-wise, rotten little bastards without a heart for anything but
himself. He stepped in all paternal kindness and good manners. He was
going to help straighten everything out, then go on his merry way,
leaving a happy world behind him. It was like a visitation from a
god. What bullshit! You know, I learned one thing from the bastard. I
learned that you can get whatever you want if you just ask for it in
the right way. There was a three-month transition period, while the
rumors percolated and Quentin lorded it up. Russ held his breath and
made nice-nice to Quentin and tried not to hear the names they were
calling him behind his back. Then Helen put her foot down--right on
Russ's neck."

"She fired him?"

"You got the picture, Har'," Mack said.
"Smart as a whip. She not only fired him; she ruined him. She
and Quentin buried him so deep in shit that nobody would ever touch
him again."

"Why?"

"You've got to pile it on deep, Harry, when
you're trying to cover something up. Hell, the show wasn't doing well
enough. We had a seventeen share. Never mind that we were slotted
against one of the top-rated shows on daytime or that we'd only had a
year to get established. Those share points, Harry, they mean money.
And money is life. I really believe that. Helen wasn't about to take
it in the pants. But somebody had to. Who did that leave?"

"What happened to Leonard after she fired him?"

Mack sat back on the couch and tossed the rest of the
bourbon down. His face got red and he blew noisily out his mouth.
"Whew! I'm getting crocked. Sure I can't pour you another one?"

I shook my head.

"What happened," he said, sweeping the
bottle off the table and tipping it with a click into the glass, "is
that Russ went home and put on a record. Then he sat down on the
floor and began to cry. You know how I know that? Because I got there
before the tears had dried--right after Helen passed me the word
about firing him."