Natural Causes (2 page)

I passed another guy at a water cooler, who gave me
the same "Bad Day at Black Rock" look. But I'd grown fond
of it by then.

"Where's Frank Glendora's office?" I said
to him just to see how he'd react.

He pointed wordlessly at the double doors in front of
me.

I stepped up to the doors and knocked.

"Come in," a man called out. I, walked in.

Glendora's office was large and tastefully decorated.
There were posters on the walls, framed in glass. Broadway playbills,
opera festivals, gallery showings. A set of shelves built into the
east wall was filled with editions of plays. I went over to the desk
and sat down on a tan, tufted arm chair. The man sitting behind the
desk stared at me for a moment.

"You're big," he said in a whimsical voice.
"So I've noticed."

Glendora smiled to himself. He was a good-looking man
in his late fifties. Very thin and gray, with sad eyes and large,
uneven teeth. Perhaps it was all the talk of Presbyterian decency,
but something about Glendora's face reminded me of Billy Graham's
haggard, resolute handsomeness: they both had the same burnt-out look
of suffering for a cause.

"Did Jack fill you in on things?" he asked.

"Only on this." I handed him the agreement.

"You signed it?"

I nodded.

"Good," he said with a sigh of relief. "I
like to have things in writing. Force of habit, I guess." He
read through the agreement quickly, said "good" again, then
laid it down on his desk.

"We've got a problem," he said, staring
sadly into my face. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, like a man
reading aloud from a difficult text.

"You've also got your own security people, don't
you?"

"It's not that kind of problem. I suppose you
know that we've been suffering through a crisis of sorts."

"You mean the flap about your soap?"

Glendora frowned. "It's all so very silly that I
don't know what to say. However, the suit is a fact, and it must be
dealt with. And so," he said with another sigh, "is this
Quentin Dover thing."

"Is that what you need me for?" I asked.
"This 'Quentin Dover thing?'"

He nodded. "It's important for you to understand
our position in this matter. If it weren't for the pending court
action and the unfortunate publicity surrounding the suit, we would
probably be much less concerned about Quentin. I mean, in a business
sense only. Naturally we'd be concerned. We're always concerned when
one of our employees dies."

"He's dead?"

"Yesterday. Or, at least, that's when they found
his body--on Monday. In L.A. My understanding is that he'd been dead
for some time."

"And what did he die of?"

"No one seems to know at this point. Of course,
an autopsy was performed, but the preliminary findings were
inconclusive. His body ... it had decayed. Right now the Los Angeles
police are officially terming it an accident. Death of natural
causes, precipitated by a fall in the shower."

I glanced at the agreement I'd signed and then looked
up at Glendora's sad-eyed face. He was having trouble getting to
it--the reason why Quentin Dover's death needed investigation--so I
decided to make the next step easier for him. "I take it there
is some reason to believe that his death was not an accident."

"1'm afraid so."

"And what is that?"

Glendora looked embarrassed. "This is difficult
for me, Mr. Stoner. I am not a gossip. Moreover, I believe that every
man has the right to live his own life in any way he chooses. I know
we have the reputation for being an ultraconservative organization,
with all that that implies. And while the company would undoubtedly
prefer its employees to be ethical people in every aspect of their
lives, all that it demands is that they be ethical, productive
workers. Quentin Dover was a brilliant writer and a very charming
man. I, personally, liked him enormously. And if it weren't for
certain circumstances, I would just as soon let the poor, troubled
soul rest in peace." He said the last part with quiet dignity,
as if he were literally speaking for himself. He was so convincing
that I had to remind myself that he hadn't gotten that office on the
tenth floor by questioning company policy.

"I have heard some reports, mostly from members
of the production team, that Quentin ... well, that he didn't always
comport himself the way a man should."

I hated to make him say it, since it obviously
embarrassed him, but I couldn't conduct an investigation on the basis
of euphemisms. "Are you saying he was a homosexual?"

"I don't know what he was," Glendora said.
"No man is just one thing or another, anyway. All I know is that
the company feels that we can't afford even a small scandal at this
time. God knows we've had enough bad publicity as it is. In order to
forestall that possibility, we would like you to conduct an
independent investigation of Quentin's death. Of course, if there is
reason to suspect something more than a scandal, we would expect you
to consult with the proper authorities at the proper time."

I smiled at him. "Who determines that, Mr.
Glendora? The proper time?"

He gave me an icy look. "Let me make this as
plain as I can. We are not engaging you to perfect a conspiracy to
obstruct justice. I am not hiring you to do that, nor have I
suggested it at any time. Do you agree?"

What could I say? "I guess so."

"No," he said firmly. "That's not good
enough. I want it understood that you are being hired to conduct an
investigation to determine whether Quentin's death might compromise
our company's image and standing. We are not hiring you to cover
anything up. On the contrary, we want to determine the truth of the
matter."

I almost said, "And if that truth turns out to
be disagreeable?" But I didn't. I just said, "I
understand."

"Good," Glendora said. "We will make
arrangements to fly you out to L.A."

"There are a couple of problems with that. I'm
not licensed to practice in California, and I don't have any contacts
on the L.A. police force."

"We will make arrangements," he said again.

"Dover lived in California?"

"He lived in Indian Hill. He sometimes worked on
the coast--both coasts, actually. His wife and mother are here in the
city. You will undoubtedly want to talk with them and with the
members of Quentin's team. I'll have Jack arrange that for you. Jack
will be your contact here and on the coast. And of course I will be
available if you should need me." He folded his hands on the
desk. "I guess that covers it. All except for your salary. We
will pay you twice your normal rate, plus all reasonable travel and
other expenses. Is that agreeable?" He extended his right hand.

"It's downright generous," I said, shaking
with him.

"Good. Welcome to the fold, Mr. Stoner."
 

3

I found Jack Moon sitting, cross-legged, on a
visitor's bench beside the secretary's booth. He patted the cushion
beside him and I sat down.

"So how'd it go?" he asked.

"All right. Glendora says I'm part of the fold."

He grinned at me. "You sold out, huh? Well, I
guess everybody's got his price. What did he offer you? Gold, jewels,
women?"

"Just plain old dollars.

"Yeah? How many?"

I glanced at him. His pally voice said that he was
only kidding, but something in his clever eyes really wanted to know.
When he saw that I'd figured that out, he ducked his head.

"Guess it's none of my business. Did His Nibs
have anything to say about me?"

"You're my contact."

"I figured," he said without enthusiasm.
"Well, you must have a few questions you want to ask, so let's
go down to my office and start cleaning up the mess that Quentin left
behind him."

I had a few hundred questions I wanted to ask Jack,
but when we got to his office--a small, windowless room furnished
with a Steelcase desk and a padded desk chair and one visitor's
chair--the first one that came to mind was, "What kind of man is
Frank Glendora?"

"Frank?" Moon scratched his curly black
beard. "Frank is one of those guys who didn't miss his calling
in life. He's a born company man. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant,
sober, pliable, loyal, and discreet. United hired him out of college
at the end of the Second World War, and he's never forgotten the
favor. Or ever let anyone else forget. Frank's got what you could
call a case of hard-core gratitude. The company gave him a home when
times were hard and that makes anything the company wants to do O.K.
by him. Jesus, you should hear him when he gets started on the
subject. It's like it never occurred to him that some of us don't
want to stick around for thirty-five years of regular promotions and
Blue Cross, just to end up as head of production for a corporation
that sponsors 'The Young Interns.'"

"He's United's head of production?"

Moon nodded. "Yeah. Why are you asking about
Frank?"

"No reason," I said. But I had a reason. I
was trying to figure out what Frank Glendora really expected me to do
if I unlocked the wrong door and found that scandal he seemed to be
afraid of.

"He's relatively honest," Moon said, "if
that's what you're wondering about. He can be a bastard when the
stakes are high enough, but then who can't?"

"All right," I said. "How about
Quentin Dover? How honest was he?"

Jack sat back in his chair. "Ah, Quentin,"
he said. "There I can speak with some authority. You know, I
worked with him. He was head writer on 'Phoenix'."

"Was he a good writer?"

Jack threw his hand at me in disgust. "Naw, he
was a terrible writer. A hack. What you got to understand, Harry, is
that 'good' doesn't enter into it when you're talking about daytime
TV. Frank and Helen aren't interested in good; they're interested in
the old 41/42."

"And what is that?"

"Forty-one or forty-two minutes of playable
story, every day of the year, year in and year out, with no summer
reruns. In that respect, Quentin was a great writer. Or, at least, he
was up until a few months ago. Quentin was a rarity--a man with no
mind of his own, no artsy pretentions, and no sense of shame. He was
perfect for daytime."

"How was he during the rest of the day?"

Jack grinned maliciously. "He couldn't pour a
cup of coffee without taking a stiff drink first. He was thirty-eight
years old and he'd already had a quadruple bypass. Does that give you
any idea? Quentin Dover was Type-A incarnate. He was a walking basket
case. He once told me that he took fourteen different pills every
day. Fourteen! He carried a thermometer in his coat pocket. He
couldn't pass a blood pressure machine in a drug store without
slipping a quarter into it. His life was one long stifled scream."

"Glendora seemed to think he was charming.

"Glendora didn't have to work with him every
day," Jack said bitterly and stared at his little desk with
scorn. "Yeah, sure he could be charming. Most neurotics are. He
had an act he went into when he was around the big boys. Frankly, I
don't know how he brought it off. For a man without a shred of real
confidence, he could put on the damndest show of self-assuredness you
ever saw. They say money talks; well, if it does, Quentin had the
accent down to a tee. He was a name-dropper, a gossip, a jet-setter
without wings. You should have heard him go on about Back Bay Boston
or about his days with Armand Hammer or about the time he escorted a
starlet to a hot-tub orgy in Hollywood. He had the accent, all right.
And that's what guys like Frank love to hear. It gives them a little
goose, like paging through the National Geographic.

That's what Quentin was to them: a trip to the
respectable unknown, with a glimpse or two of naked savages along the
way."

"It's the not-so-respectable unknown that they
seem to be afraid of," I said.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about
that," Moon said. "Outside of work, Quentin and I didn't do
much socializing. You see, we weren't in the same league-money-wise.
And money was all-important to Quentin."

It seemed to be rather important to Jack Moon, too.
But I didn't make a point of it Like he'd said, he had a big appetite
and the job just didn't satisfy his hunger.

He must have recognized the rancor in his voice,
because he straightened up in the chair and gave me a weary look of
apology. "You don't know what it's like, Harry," he said.
"Having to nurse these talentless bastards all day long. That's
all I do--run a daycare center for neurotics. It gets old after
awhile."

"I thought you were the executive producer of
the show?"

He laughed biliously. "Executive producer is
just a fancy name for go-fer. I'm United's boy at the plant, that's
all. The show is run by Helen Rose. She's the producer, and the only
person she's responsible to is Frank. I'm along for the ride--to pat
Helen's hand for her when it needs patting and to count Quentin's
pills for him when he loses track. Shit, do you know how much money
Quentin Dover was making,?--he didn't wait for an answer. "Better
than half a million dollars a year."