That’s probably more than you wanted to know, but the point is, on my drive from the Beverly Hills Police Department to my apartment, I did the cell phone shuffle. First call, movie star Lisa Montgomery. “How you coming with the ransom?”
“I’ve got the money, in used hundred dollar bills like he asked.”
“Good. And don’t worry about a backpack to put it in, I’ll bring one.”
“Okay ...” With a trace of fear in her voice, she added, “Look, Gideon, do I really have to come with you tomorrow? Can’t you just take him the ransom and let me stay here?”
“If you want the sperm back he says you have to be there.”
“Is it true what they said on TV? Do you really think it’s Jason Tucker?”
“Looks that way.”
“I told you this was all your fault, Kincaid,” a voice screeched. It was Lisa’s manager, Joan Hagler, on an extension.
There was real fear in Lisa’s voice now. “He’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not. I’ve got a plan, Lisa. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
“You can’t guarantee that,” Joan Hagler said. “Don’t listen to him, Lisa. Let’s just leave town.”
“We’ve been through this before,” I reasoned. “If you leave, he’ll find you. The only way to be safe is to let me handle it. You won’t get hurt, I promise. Okay?”
A long pause, then a hesitant, “Okay.”
I was in trouble. They were ready to bolt. I had to do something to keep them in town. In a perfect world I’d drive over there now and stay with her until the drop tomorrow. But the world’s never perfect and I needed time to make my little Gravesnatcher surprise. “Tell you what, I’m going to send over one of my operatives, Hillary Bennett, to stay with you for a while. I’ll come by later on tonight. Just to make sure nothing happens ...”
“I’m an operative now? That is so cool.”
“Yeah, well, all you’ve got to do is keep Lisa’s manager from talking Lisa into leaving town.”
“Not a problem. I’ve always been a good debater.”
“Debate if you want, but if you want my advice, lock the bitch in a closet.”
“If you don’t mind a little constructive criticism, Gideon, you are always a little too quick with a
violent solution to every problem. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised what a quick wit and facile tongue can accomplish. According to ancient Hindu teachings and Maharajah—”
“Please, no New Age gibberish. Just do whatever it takes to keep Lisa home.”
“You can count on me, chief. Oh, do you want your messages before I go bodyguard my little heart out?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, a bunch more reporters, more secretary wannabe’s, a producer from 60 Minutes and the Pope.”
“The Pope?”
“Just kidding. You’re not that famous yet. And Amy called from Pac Bell. She’s pissed. Me, too, by the way.”
“Why are you pissed?”
“I thought we were a team. Partners, with you being the most senior and only licensed member of the team, I’ll admit. But partners shouldn’t have secrets from each other.”
“What kind of secrets?”
“Telephone secrets ...” She was using that ‘only an idiot’ tone again.
“Okay. Uncle. I give up. Please tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Amy said you paid for the cell phone. That you’re paying the monthly bills. On your credit card.”
That son of a bitch, I thought. Just like Doggieworld. “No,” I said. “Somehow the Gravesnatcher got hold of my Visa number. He also used it to order the dog collar.”
“Sneaky. Well, I’ll call Amy and tell her you’re not a scum sucking bastard for wasting her time.”
“Her words or yours?”
“Hers. Oh, I almost forgot, your agent, Elliot, called. He said he knows you don’t want to talk to him but, like, it was urgent. Then he spelled it: U-R-G-E-N-T. I think you should call him.”
I did.
“This is the big one, Gid baby, the once in a lifetime moment that all dream about but few realize.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Books Read2U. They want you, Bubele. They want to make a deal for Death of a Gravesnatcher. They plan to do a deluxe edition: a nice photo of you, then pictures of all the victims and with any luck a shot of Jason Tucker’s dead body. They want a fold-out map illustrating all the ransom drop sites and murder locations. Plus, if you want, you can record it yourself. Since your voice is a little nasal, I suggested Robert Downey, Jr. I bet he can sound like a tough PI.”
“If I remember right, Death of a Gravesnatcher is what you want to rename Rear Entry, if I somehow manage to live through all this.”
“Keep breathing and I’m dealing!”
“And does Books Read2U have a plan if I’m killed?”
“As a matter of fact, we did talk about that. I mentioned my Ultimate Sacrifice idea and they flipped. Dig this: they’ll shape the entire package like a coffin!”
“Brilliant.”
“And that’s why it was U-R-G-E-N-T that I talk to you. They want you to record a Preface, a brief capsule of your feelings and emotions before you face the greatest challenge of your career. Just in case you, you know ... And time is of the essence. Tragedy could strike at any minute. I was wondering if you could stop by the office right now, so we could lay down the track.”
“Why don’t you ask Robert Downey to drop by to do it for me?”
“Believe me, I’ve thought of that. He’s in Hawaii until next week. I wonder how they’d feel about Mark Wahlberg?”
“Elliott, I think we’ve got a priorities problem here.”
“Hey, if tonight’s not good, I can book the studio first thing in the morning. But you have to promise me you won’t do anything dangerous tonight.”
“I have bigger things to worry about right now than the damn book.”
“Really? Well, maybe that’s because I haven’t told you the really B-I-G news.”
“What could be bigger than Books Read2U?”
“The latest sales figures on Rear Entry.”
“They’re up?”
“These are just L.A. figures, but how’s this sound? Barnes and Noble at the Westside Pavilion, sold out. Barnes and Noble at the Grove, sold out. The Barnes and Noble on Pico, do I even need to say it? Sold out! The trend’s your friend, Gid baby, and it’s up, up, up. Of course, most of the stores only stocked two or three copies, but still, it’s amazing what a little publicity, murder and mayhem can do for a career.”
“Elliott, if Rear Entry is selling so well, we don’t have to rename it to take advantage of the press. It’s happening already.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Rear Entry is fine. Death of a Gravesnatcher will be your second book. All you’ve got to do is write it, and I guarantee a New York Times bestseller. It all hinges on you living through this, of course. Use your literary future as inspiration. Now I’ve got to go, Gidman. Lines two, three and four are blinking, and that can only mean one thing: money, money, money. Ciao.”
Another Country Heard From
I hung my proverbial hat and the rest of my actual clothes in a one-bedroom apartment in Sherman Oaks. Decent enough building on a quiet enough street—Milbank, just two blocks from the never quiet Ventura Boulevard. The best thing about the apartment was Delany’s, an ersatz Irish pub within walking distance. Walking distance was important for those all too frequent nights since the divorce when I drank myself into a weaving, wall-banging, only-a-fool-would-be-driving oblivion.
Stacy got all the furniture in the divorce. The lawyers got all the money. A quick trip to a used furniture store on Sepulveda got me the basics: a brown Naugahyde couch—its numerous rips patched with spray-painted duct tape—small dining room table with one short leg and only three matching chairs, a queen-size mattress and box spring that sat directly on the
floor, and a laminated, four drawer bureau. I didn’t realize until I got it home that someone had lined the inside of the drawers with Winnie the Poo wallpaper. And that was it.
I remember the day I moved in. My clothes were piled in a pyramid on the bedroom floor. Cardboard boxes full of books and a lifetime of junk lined the living room. I sat amid the rubble, staring at the bare walls, and wondered what the hell I’d done to my life. I’d lost my job, my wife, and my passion.
Passion had driven me to police work. Passion had driven me to marriage. I had deprived myself of both. Without passion I had no direction.
When I was a kid I plastered my walls with pictures and posters: baseball players, rock stars, astronauts, movie stars. I’d sit on my bed staring at them, dreaming of all the things I could become.
When I was married to Stacy, travel became my obsession. I peppered the walls with pictures of all the places I wanted us to go together: scuba diving off Grand Cayman, photo safari in Kenya, fly-fishing in Alaska. I’d look at those pictures cut out of the Sunday travel section and take thrilling imaginary adventures. But that’s all we ever took—imaginary vacations. Besides our honeymoon in Maui, we never left southern California.
For years the walls of my Milbank apartment remained bare. I had no passion. No obsession. I’d even become a PI by accident. After I resigned under pressure, Mary Rocket felt sorry for me and suggested I become a private investigator. She sent me my first client, the father of a Chicago runaway who he thought may be hiding out in Hollywood. I found her before the vultures had done too much damage; she had a tattoo of a butterfly on her ass, a stud through her tongue, and a ring through her belly button, but she wasn’t addicted to heroin yet and had only done two pornos. I was paid five hundred bucks by the grateful dad and had a new business. But it wasn’t my passion.
For the next few years, I drifted. Working enough to pay the bills. Drinking enough to dull the pain. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting to find a new passion.
It came by accident, during a stakeout on an unusual corporate vandalism case. Every few weeks on a Monday morning, Mark Weller—the President of Weller, Bindleman and Schuster, an L.A. advertising agency—would walk into his office and find a pile of fecal matter in the middle of his desk.
Fecal matter, as in human excrement. That’s right; someone would take a shit on the middle of his desk and leave it there as a not-so-subtle message.
It had happened three times during the preceding six months. At first Weller thought it was a sick practical joke. The second time got him worried. The third time was my charm and he hired me to find out who was leaving the surprise package and catch the person in the act.
I planted a video camera in Weller’s office and set up a weekend surveillance HQ in an unused corner of a file room. The file room was at the far end of the building, but at a full run I could get from the file room to Weller’s office in forty-six seconds. Plenty of time to see the perp arrive on video and reach him before he finished his ‘grunt’ work.
If you think surveillance is boring, then imagine surveillance of an empty office on a weekend. It’s torture. My partner on any surveillance was a book—usually a thriller or mystery. Over the years I’d read hundreds, and having been a cop, I always found them fun either because the writer got it so right, or so wrong.
Well, I got it wrong this Saturday morning. I’d brought the wrong book—the one I’d finished last night. I had nothing to read. By ten a.m. I was bored out of my gourd. After counting all the holes in the ceiling tiles I thought about running out to pick up a book at a 7-Eleven. But I was sure that the minute I left, the perp would show up, so I decided to stay.
And that’s when it happened. From out of nowhere this thought wrapped itself around the right side of my brain. If you can’t read a book, then why not write one? I found a yellow pad on one of the shelves, took out my pen and went to work.
It was love at first scrawl. Soon I was writing all the time. When I wasn’t writing, I was reading about writing, thinking about writing, dreaming about writing. I went back to that Sepulveda furniture store and bought a desk. Went to the office supply next door and bought a laptop.
Then one day I was in Barnes & Noble buying a dictionary and thesaurus when I noticed they were throwing away a poster for The Scarecrow, a fabulous book by Michael Connelly. I asked for it. My wall finally had something on it. The Scarecrow soon had company—pictures of Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler and Micky Spillane.
I found myself spending less time at Delany’s and more time at the computer. The boxes lining the wall were finally unpacked. The pile of clothes began to shrink until everything was in the bureau or the closet. And I spent a lot of time looking at my wall and dreaming.
By the way, the shitter was one of the Creative Directors, Artie Palmer. Seems Palmer dreamed up this great campaign for Ford Motor Company, using famous Norman Rockwell paintings for all the new commercials but electronically replacing the old cars with new Fords. Weller loved the idea, taking credit himself during the big presentation. Artie didn’t mind that so much, but when he asked Weller for a raise after the agency had landed the account, Weller said no. He said Artie was paid enough for his work. “Thinking up ideas is easy, fun even,” Weller said. “I’ve got the tough job. All the shit comes across my desk.”
Weller did the same thing a few months later. Stole Artie’s idea for a new Cocoa Puffs campaign. They got another megabuck account, and when Artie asked for a raise Weller told him, “I get the big bucks because all the shit comes across my desk.”
“I was just proving his point,” Artie said after I caught him squatting on Weller’s desk. After listening to Artie’s side of the story, I began to feel sorry for the guy. I mean, who among us hasn’t been screwed over by a superior? And what’s worse than taking credit for someone’s work?
So I made a deal with Artie. He stops dumping on Weller’s desk, and I’d tell Weller word had leaked out about the hidden camera in his office so there’s no way the perp would ever reappear. Artie agreed and Weller bought it. Case closed, passion reignited.
Anyway, I got home, pulled into my underground parking garage and took a new backpack out of my trunk. I was in a hurry. I wanted to make the bomb and get to Lisa’s house as soon as possible.
I burst through my front door and headed for the bedroom closet. I’d installed a safe in the closet wall to keep a little cash, guns and a few explosive goodies. As I turned into the corridor I heard: “You fuck her yet?” Stacy’s unmistakable voice.
I backpedaled into the living room. Stacy was sitting on the battered couch, her legs tucked under her. She was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I loved that look on her and she knew it. She wanted something. “Who?”
“Who else? Little Miss Hollywood. Lisa frigging Montgomery.”
“If I had it’d be none of your business, but just to keep the record straight, no. I don’t intend to, either.”
“Yeah, might as well wait until you’re married again. Break some other woman’s heart.”
“What’re you doing here?”
“I don’t know. I was home, alone, with nothing to do. You see, I’ve got nothing to do because I’ve been taken off the biggest case to hit L.A. since O.J., because of you.”
“Me? You got put on ice because you turned Magic Land into a battlefield. And how’d you get in here, anyway?”
“You forget who taught you to pick locks?”
She did. A few weeks after our wedding we’d gone to Santa Barbara for a weekend. We locked ourselves out of our room one night after one too many bottles of wine. I was going to the office for another key when Stacy told me to wait, and pulled a lock picking kit out of her purse. “Watch,” she said. “Learn.” Moments later we were inside. Then she waggled the picks in front of my face. “I bet these would work on your zipper, too.” Then she slipped them into the pull-tab and slid it open. “Bingo.”
“Let me try.�
� I used them on her skirt’s zipper. Then I used the picks to undo the buttons on her blouse. We were laughing by then, drunk and happy. Stacy fell into my arms and we made love right there on the floor.
I looked at her now, sitting on the couch. “You taught me to pick locks.”
“I thought of that night in Santa Barbara when I came in tonight. We used to have some fun, didn’t we?”
We did, and many times I’d lie here in bed, alone, remembering them.
Stacy got off the couch, drifted toward the pictures on the wall. “You’ve gotten really serious about this writing stuff, haven’t you?”
“Yeah.”
She pointed. “Dashiell Hammett, right?”
“Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, right.”
“Nick and Nora Charles. You used to say we were like them—the drinking, and the wisecracks. And you know, even though you said that all the time, I never read the books.”
“Little late now.”
“I read your book, though. And except for the unfortunate description of the woman who was stabbed thirty eight times, I thought it was surprisingly good.”
“Okay, now I know you want something. What is it, Stacy? Spill.”
“Why do I have to want something?” She stepped in closer. “What if I were to tell you that spending so much time with you the last few days made me remember how good we were together.” Even closer. “And how I may have acted a little too emotionally, a little too hastily, to your little ... indiscretion. In fact, it was probably all my fault.”
“Your fault?”
Closer still. “You were going through hell. You’d been kicked off the force and didn’t know what you were going to do with the rest of your life. Instead of trying to understand you, help you, I only thought of myself. How your problems might hurt me. I disconnected from you, emotionally deserted you at your most desperate time.” Her lips were millimeters from my lips. Her brown eyes drilled a hole in my corneas. “How can I ever make it up to you?”
Dead and Not So Buried Page 18
