Natural Causes (6 page)

I wanted to try the elevator, but Moon made me climb
the stairs to the lobby. Inside, the Marquis was surprisingly
old-fashioned and ornate. The walls were wainscotted in walnut;
handsome oriental rugs were scattered on the hardwood floors. There
was some very busy wallpaper by the elevators, but for the most part,
the lobby was as trig and traditional as a seven-layer wedding cake.

We settled into two suites on the seventh floor. My
suite consisted of two apartment-sized rooms, with two TV's-a
big one in the living room and a slightly smaller one on a stand by
the beds--four phones, including a wall unit mounted by the toilet; a
wet bar, refrigerator, and dining table off the living room; two
desks; six chairs; two kingsized mattresses; and so many mirrors
on the walls that I could have rented the place out as a funhouse. I
saw myself everywhere I looked, from bath to bar. The mirrors made
the rooms look larger, although they were plenty large as it was.
They also duplicated every item in sight; and in a couple of spots,
where the mirrors were set across from each other, they created an
endless perspective of replication, like the famous shot in Citizen
Kane. The suite was an egotist's delight, but it made me dizzy and a
little sick to my stomach.

Jack seemed pleased with the accommodations. "Can't
say we don't treat you right," he said proprietarily and waved
his arm, which waved again in the mirrors.

"Just don't move around a lot," I said,
shutting my eyes.

"You're probably still motion sick from the
flight."

"Yeah, well the decor isn't helping things. Who
designed this place? Narcissus?"

Jack laughed. "This place and most of Bel-Air."

"Could we get a drink, Jack?" I said.
"Preferably in some dark and quiet place?"

"I think they cover the mirrors in the hotel bar
until after the sun has set. 1 believe that's the law in this town."

"Fine. Let's go."

"You go ahead. I'll meet you in a few minutes. I
want to call Liz and let her know that the insurance check won't be
coming this trip. I also want to get in touch with Helen Rose."

"You might call your cop friend, too."

"Check."

I wandered down to the Marquis bar, which was
relatively dark and bar-like, and ordered a double Scotch. I was
working on my second round when Jack showed up. He'd changed from his
suit into a pair of slacks and a sporty, short-sleeved shirt.

"When in Rome," he said, pulling up a
chair. "God, I love L.A. It's the only place in the world where
you can be yourself and everybody else at the same time."

A waiter came up and Jack ordered a martini.

"And don't put any fruit in it, O.K.?"

The waiter smiled.

"You've got to watch that around here,"
Jack said. "You order a Tom Collins and they put half a
cantaloupe in it as a garnish. Christ, they're proud of their
produce."

"Did you talk to the cop?"

"Yeah. He's going to meet us here for a drink in
an hour. And we're supposed to have supper with Helen tonight at the
Belle Vista. She's really in a bitchy mood. She took Quentin's death
as a personal insult, as if he'd deserted to The Other Side."

"She's pretty involved in the show?"

"Is the Pope Polish?" he said. "It's
her whole life. Not a healthy situation. But she doesn't have much
else going for her. Three or four divorces. A movie career that
fizzled out. She eats, drinks, and dreams 'Phoenix.'"

"How about Quentin? How involved was he?"

"Not as much," Jack said. "It was his
livelihood, and he took a businesslike interest in it. And, of
course, he was vain about the drivel he wrote. But not as vain as the
worst of them--like Walt. Let's not talk about Walt, O.K.?"

"Quentin's mother mentioned something about a
new project he was working on. You don't know anything about that, do
you?"

"Was it a TV thing?"

"That's what she thought."

"Beats hell out of me," Jack said. "It
wasn't for us, I can tell you that much. And if it wasn't for us, it
wasn't for daytime. Quentin had a little rider in his contract that
gave us an exclusive option on his services as long as he was working
on 'Phoenix.' And he loved that half a mil too much to queer the
deal." Moon scratched his beard. "It'd be interesting,
though, if he had been fishing around."

"How's that?"

"There's been some friction on the team. The
usual back-stabbing and chicanery. I'll tell you, Harry, when the
stakes get this high, it's amazing what people will do to keep their
Mercs and Corniches coming in."

"I thought Dover had family money. That's the
impression his mother gave me."

"I don't know," Jack said. "I don't
think so. He certainly didn't give us that impression when we hired
him. He seemed desperate for the job. Of course, all the writers act
that way. The company counts on it. In a business where the quality
factor tends to be on the low side, a healthy greed is the next best
thing to a healthy sense of self-esteem. You can always count on
greed. And, then, it breeds its own screwy ethic and its own
aesthetics, for that matter. Learning that ethics is what this
business is all about."

"Where did Quentin get his practice?"

"He worked some in nighttime television before
hiring on with us. I've got a dossier on him, if you want to see it.
He had his share of screen credits. Nothing major. Just solid,
workmanlike stuff."

"Do you know how he started out?"

"I probably do," Jack said. "I've
heard several different versions of his life story over the years.
Let's see if I can make up a composite." He took a sip of his
drink and put the glass down gently on a paper coaster. "Quentin
either went to the Yale Drama School or to Harvard or to
Northwestern, depending on whom he was talking to. Sometimes, he went
to all three and was booted out of each for some adorable, boyish
prank in which one was meant to see, like the glimmer of a flame, the
hard, gemlike genius that was to erupt into 'Phoenix'.  After
the college years, he spent some lean times either as an actor or a
playwright or a novelist. Once again, the big picture depended on his
audience. But the features were usually the same. He had a tough go
of it. His hard, gemlike genius went unappreciated. But he
persevered, insinuating himself, somehow, into the world of the very
rich, where he charmed his way from estate to estate, all the while
picking up the polish and skills that were to make him such a shrewd
judge of human nature--as in the case of his wife. He did, in fact,
seem to know an awful lot of gossip about some very rich people,
which came in handy on the show. But I never quite treated his
worldly wisdom as genuine. I don't know why, but Quentin never really
impressed me as a truth-teller. Even his lies were lies. Anyway, to
pick up the saga again, Quentin made his way to Hollywood on the
stomach of a well-known actress. Or was it on the back of a rich
Broadway producer? Or on the petticoat of the Broadway producer's
wife? In rare instances, it was on the merits of a screenplay he had
written about an actress, a Broadway producer, and the producer's
wife. Quentin was a great one for threesomes. The screenplay, which
I've seen by the way, was a transparent version of
A
Double Life
, and it was never optioned or
produced. In spite of this paradox, Quentin's fortunes were on the
rise. He was soon writing scripts for TV serials. It was tough making
do on a couple hundred grand--he actually said that to me once--but
he kept at it, hoping for a break. And two years ago, the break came
in the person of Helen Rose, who hired the great bag of wind as head
writer on 'Phoenix.'

"And that," Jack said, downing the rest of
the martini, "is the true story of Quentin Dover."

"You wouldn't happen to have a picture of the
prodigy on you? I haven't seen his face, yet."

"I think I might."

I thought he was kidding, but Jack dug into his
wallet and pulled out a snapshot of a lean, fleshless, vaguely
reptilian-looking man. He had thick, black, shiny hair, combed
straight back from the forehead without a part, sunken cheeks, a
hawklike nose, a pencil moustache, pointed chin, tiny mouth, and the
dark, elliptical, heavylidded eyes of a lizard. The photograph
was inscribed, "To Jack-All the Best."

"He was a real looker, wasn't he?" I said.
"A dead ringer for Nosferatu."

"How come you kept the photograph?" I said,
handing it back to him.

"That kind of ugly is rare," he said and
tucked the snapshot back in his wallet. "It goes right through
to the bone. And believe me--the picture doesn't do him justice. He
was much worse in the flesh, although a lot of people--including
Helen--wouldn't agree. Women seemed to find him attractive. He had
the sort of ugly face that's almost as striking as a real beauty."

"If you say so," I said.

"Well, look at Marsha, for instance."

He had a point, though Marsha hadn't struck me as a
particularly discerning judge of anything.

"He looked a lot older than thirty-eight,"
I said.

"His heart did that to him. He used to be kind
of pudgy before his attack. After that, he could barely look at food.
And then all the booze dried him out pretty good and killed his
appetite, to boot."

"For a sick man and a hypochondriac, he had some
bad habits."

"Yep," Jack said. "Ile picked his
vices foolishly. But then most of us do. I led rationalize the booze
by saying that it raised his HDL cholesterol and stimulated his
circulatory system. As for the sleeping pills and tranquilizers and
Demerol ... well, I guess he found some quack who was not only
willing to prescribe them but to recommend their abuse. He always had
his reasons, although I don't think he really believed in them. He
was scared--that was the real reason."

"Scared of what?"

"Dying. Failing. Succeeding. Take your pick.
Different people will give you different answers."

"I'm asking you, Jack," I said.

He pulled the swizzle stick out of his martini glass.
It was a piece of plastic shaped like a cutlass, with a lemon rind
impaled on its tip. "He didn't have any guts, Harry. I told you
that. He didn't have anything inside. He was all sham and bluster.
And he was in a business that depends entirely on personality--on the
show of complete and unassailable self-confidence. Hell, nobody knows
what show is really going to sell more soap. It's all a guessing
game. And the man who makes the most dough is the man who can
convince everyone else that he's the best guesser. Quentin had Frank
and Helen convinced, but he couldn't fool himself. Jeez-Marie's, man,
there was half a million bucks riding on Quentin's ability to fine
tune his nervous system. Maybe a quarter million more come contract
time. That's a helluva load. You asked me what he was afraid of. I
think he was afraid that somebody would find out that he was running
scared." Jack pulled the lemon rind off the sword and dropped it
into an ashtray. "And now that we've hired you, maybe somebody
will."
 

8

Halfway through his second martini, Jack got an
attack of the munchies and ordered a plate of shrimps. They didn't go
particularly well with my Scotch, but I ate a few anyway, just to put
something in my stomach. I really had been feeling addlepated after
the plane ride; and it was half-past seven, Cincinnati time, so the
jet lag was creeping up on me, too. Neither the plane ride nor the
jet lag seemed to bother Jack Moon. He ate and drank and chatted
amusingly about Liz and Nick. We were just finishing the last of the
shrimps when a tall, tan, strikingly handsome man in a silk safari
shirt and khaki shorts walked into the bar.

I took a look at him and said, "Is that someone
I should know?"

"They all look like movie stars out here,
Harry," Jack said, biting the head off a shrimp. "He
probably hops cars at the Brown Derby."

The guy said something to the bartender and when the
bartender shrugged, the man turned to face the room, parked his
elbows on the bar rail, and said, "Harry Stoner?" in a very
loud, very deep voice. Everyone in the place looked up.

Jack dropped the tail of his shrimp on the plate. "I
guess he is somebody you should know. That must be Goldblum."

"Good Lord," I said. "Is he your idea
of confidential?"

Jack laughed. He stood up and waved an arm at the
man. "Over here, Sy."

Sy Goldblum pointed a forefinger at us and came
striding over to the table. He was a large man--about six two,
heavily muscled on his arms and legs. His physique was the only thing
about him that reminded me of a cop, and even that was too good for a
guy who spends most of his time sitting in a patrol car or behind a
desk. The rest of him was pure Hollywood--thick razor-cut brown hair,
blue blue eyes, a neatly trimmed moustache precisely one shade
lighter than his sideburns, a half dozen gold chains around his neck,
and a couple of diamond pinkie rings sputtering like neon on his
manicured fingers. He'd left the top four buttons of his safari shirt
open--to give everyone a good look at his hairy pecs.