Star Witness

by D. W. Buffa

  “I think they just want to know what she was like ... what she talked about ... that kind of thing—the few days before her death. At least that’s what the investigator they sent to talk to me wanted to know.”

  “This is terrible,” remarked William Pomeroy, visibly agitated. “This won’t look good at all. You’re going to testify against Stanley, after how close the two of you have always been? You must feel awful, having to do this.”

  Bradley waited, his mouth partway open, and then replied with a shrug. “Yeah, well, we’ve known each other a long time, that’s true. But I wouldn’t say we were ever all that close.”

  For the first time, Wirthlin laughed. He bent forward, both elbows on the table, twisting his head until he was looking straight down the table at Louis Griffin. With a smug, vindictive smile, he nodded toward Bradley.

  “You see, Louis. You’re the only one left; the only one who still believes Stanley didn’t do it.”

  Wirthlin glanced around the table, an expression of amazement on his face, as if astonished that anyone, even Louis Griffin, could still believe in the innocence of Stanley Roth.

  “I’ll bet even his lawyer thinks Stanley did it, murdered Mary Margaret.”

  Wirthlin’s eyes met mine and immediately moved away. “But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. The fact is, as I was trying to tell you earlier, three out of four people—and we have the surveys to prove it—now think Stanley murdered Mary Margaret.”

  It took a moment for me to be sure I had heard him right. They had done a survey—taken a poll—to see whether the public thought Stanley Roth was guilty of murder? What conceivable difference did it make what people who had not spent any time in the courtroom, had not heard any of the testimony and did not know anything about the witnesses yet to appear, thought about Stanley Roth? They were not going to decide what happened.

  “It doesn’t matter how many people out there think Stanley Roth is guilty,” I reminded him forcefully. “It doesn’t matter if everyone thinks he’s guilty. The only opinion that counts is the opinion—the unanimous opinion—of the twelve members of that jury; who are, by the way—unlike the members of your supposedly scientific statistical sample—listening to all the evidence and not just to what they hear from some self-proclaimed expert’s twenty-second sound bite!”

  I might as well have suggested that he believe in miracles and the power of faith. Michael Wirthlin was far too sophisticated to believe there was anything more important or more powerful than public opinion. That the opinion of the public might be wrong was simply beside the point. He dismissed what I had said with a contemptuous glance.

  “Even if Antonelli does what he’s paid to do,” said Wirthlin, taking in the table with his gaze, “and gets Stanley off, everyone is still going to think he did it. The public—the moviegoing public—has turned against him. And we all know what happens in this business when that happens. He’ll be an outcast; no one will want to have anything to do with him; no one is going to be willing to invest any more money in Blue Zephyr—not while he’s still running it.”

  Wirthlin paused, a glimmer of self-satisfaction in his eye. He had just thought of something that would prove his point.

  “Tell me, Walker; are you interested in making another movie at Blue Zephyr?”

  Bradley tried to put the best face on it he could, but for all his stammering good intentions, all his self-righteous insistence that he was not going to prejudge anything, it was clear that he had already done precisely that. Louis Griffin could not resist getting in a little of his own. “You needn’t worry, Walker. Stanley has already decided that he needs someone else for the lead in the next movie he is going to make.” He looked up from his coffee. “Someone younger.”

  Bradley raised his thick eyebrows, smiled knowingly to himself, and then, like a bored adolescent, slouched in his chair, both hands shoved down between his legs. He began to laugh, again, like the smile, more to himself than for the benefit of anyone else.

  “Michael is right,” he said finally. He raised his eyes just far enough to get a sideways glimpse of Louis Griffin sitting over his coffee at the far end of the table. “There isn’t going to be another picture. Stanley won’t be able to raise the money.”

  Griffin continued to sip his coffee, serene and quietly assured. He put down the cup, sniffed once and then looked at his guests, a thoughtful expression in his eyes.

  “I’m afraid Michael isn’t right at all, Walker. Oh, you may be right, Michael, that Stanley won’t be able to hang on to Blue Zephyr; but what I think you’ve never quite understood is that for Stanley at least, Blue Zephyr isn’t that collection of sound stages and equipment; it isn’t the dressing rooms and the offices and the costumes and the special effects; it isn’t all the buildings and all the land. No, for Stanley Roth, Blue Zephyr was never anything tangible: it was never something on which someone could set a value, a price. That’s what you never understood, Michael; what you’ll never understand. Stanley Roth is the closest thing to a genius I’ve ever known in this business. Stanley Roth is Blue Zephyr—the idea of it, Michael; the idea, the idea that becomes the movie—that’s what Blue Zephyr stands for: the idea that you can invent a story, imagine what it will look like, feel how all the parts of it will work together, see it the way an audience will see it when it’s finally finished and be able to do all that before the first foot of film has been shot. Money can buy you a studio, Michael; money can buy you almost anything if you have enough of it; but it can never buy you that, it can never buy you genius. You only get that the way Stanley Roth got it: you’re born with it.

  “You can leave, Michael; you can pull out your money and you can make sure no one else provides the kind of financing necessary to keep the studio running. You can do that, Michael: you can close the studio. But there is one thing you can’t do: You can’t stop Stanley Roth from making another picture. Stanley and I started out making movies when we didn’t have any money at all, and now Stanley and I have all the money either one of us could ever want, and maybe more than anyone should ever have. No, Michael, we can make another movie. And, frankly, I wouldn’t mind if we had to do it that way—with our own money and whatever we could borrow from a few friends. When you reach my age, Michael, the idea of starting all over again has more attraction than you might believe.”

  Every face was turned to Louis Griffin, listening in astonishment to this politely phrased act of defiance; all, that is, except Michael Wirthlin. He kept stirring his coffee, methodically, like someone sitting all alone in a crowded restaurant, barely aware of the noisy conversations going on all around him, lost in thoughts of his own. That at least is what he wanted everyone to think: that he was, if not entirely oblivious, then largely indifferent to what was being said to him. It was an impression that became more difficult to sustain with each word Louis Griffin spoke. Wirthlin’s eyes grew hard, cold; his jaw clenched tighter and tighter until the color began to drain from his lips. When Griffin finally finished, Wirthlin let go of the spoon. With both hands he carefully pushed the cup and saucer a few inches forward on the white linen tablecloth. He straightened up, shook his head like an adult marveling at the willful stupidity of a child, and proceeded, one by one, to study the faces around him, as if he wanted to make sure they understood the true meaning of what they had all just witnessed.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” said Wirthlin with a withering dismissive glance at Griffin. “This isn’t the same business it was when you started; maybe it never was. You and Stanley—always talking about the way pictures used to be made! Pictures cost money—serious money—the kind you have to raise in the financial markets, not the kind you get by going around borrowing it from your friends. You think Stanley Roth is Blue Zephyr? There wouldn’t have been a Blue Zephyr if I hadn’t come in, and there won’t be a Blue Zephyr after I’m gone.”

  Griffin had kept Wirthlin under his s
teady gaze. He never once looked away, never once tried to create an impression of anything except unwavering patience and the good manners of a well-bred man.

  “I agree, Michael, that without you, Blue Zephyr could not have been started. I also agree that it is now time for you to go.”

  Wirthlin did not quite believe it; did not quite believe that Louis Griffin was willing to see him pull out of Blue Zephyr. A smile started, then died stillborn on his lips. His eyes seemed to turn inward, as he calculated what to do or say next. With his hands on the sides of the seat, he moved his chair back from the table, ready to get up. He was just about to say something when from down the hall came the sound of the front door being slammed shut and the hurried shouts of voices coming quickly closer.

  “I can find my way without your help!” cried an angry, familiar voice.

  With a helpless, embarrassed look, the Japanese butler held open the doors as a drunken Stanley Roth reeled into the dining room and immediately began searching for Michael Wirthlin.

  “There you are you miserable son of a bitch!” he exclaimed, waving a sheet of paper he was clutching in his hand.

  Roth started to say something more, something even more unpleasant, when it caught his eye, that paper he was waving in the air, as if he had just become aware he was doing it and was not sure what it was. Then he remembered, and a shrewd look of triumph entered his eyes. He started to laugh, stopped, staggered a step forward, and stopped again. A sheepish grin on his face, he stared down at the floor.

  Louis Griffin began to rise from his chair. “Stanley, I... ”

  Roth’s head snapped up. His mouth twisted back at the corners.

  “How could you have done this?” he demanded of Griffin.

  “Done what? I haven’t done... ”

  Roth wheeled around until he was face to face with Wirthlin.

  “You really thought I’d sign this?” he asked, shaking at him that sheet of paper he held in his fist.

  “What is it, Stanley?” asked Louis Griffin, standing at the end of the table. His voice was calm, but firm. He knew Stanley Roth, knew him far better than I did, and from the way he was watching him I knew he was worried.

  “What’s in that paper you’re holding? I swear I don’t know.”

  Roth did not turn to look. He kept staring across the table at where Michael Wirthlin sat trying to look unconcerned.

  “You know what’s in it, though, don’t you?” insisted Roth as he tossed it underhand, a crumpled ball of paper that bounced on the table and rolled into Wirthlin’s waiting hands.

  “What is it, Michael?” asked Griffin in a tone so commanding that Wirthlin did not even think to hesitate before he answered.

  “My last attempt to save the studio.” He took his eyes off Stanley Roth just long enough to explain: “It’s a dissolution agreement. Stanley leaves, gives up all interest in Blue Zephyr. The partnership remains, but there will be only two partners, not three.”

  That look down the table was all Stanley Roth needed. Pushing Julie Evans aside, he picked up her chair with both hands and sent it sailing over the table. Wirthlin managed to duck out of the way. The chair grazed his back and flew against the window behind him, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces. Shrieks and shouts filled the room as everyone dove for cover. Instinctively, I pulled my arm in front of my face. When I looked up, Roth was already on the other side of the table, right next to where Wirthlin was crouching down, shielding his head with his arms. Roth reached for an open bottle of wine, grabbed it by the neck and raised it high in the air. In a way it was almost funny. He had turned the bottle and I could see the label. There was a color drawing, a Parisian dancer in the Moulin Rouge, a redheaded, high-stepping can-can dancer with her thick fluffy dress pulled up in front. Held in Stanley Roth’s threatening hand, the bottle and the label were upside down and it struck me that her dress was going to fall right over her shoulder and off her head.

  That is all I remember: that redheaded dancer with her flashing eyes and flying legs, upside down on a painted label. I do not remember diving across the table, trying to stop Stanley Roth, trying to keep him from smashing a bottle over the head of Michael Wirthlin. I do not remember hitting the floor when I tackled Stanley Roth, and I don’t remember anything about the way it felt when the jagged edge of the broken bottle cut its way into my face. All I remember is lying flat on my back in a strange bedroom while a doctor dressed in a business suit wove a needle and thread in and out of my skin. He was humming to himself as he worked, a song I kept trying to remember, a song I thought I knew. Then, just as I thought I had it, everything went dark and I did not care anymore what it was. I did not care about anything at all. Nothing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “THE DOCTOR SAID YOU WERE lucky.”

  Sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window. I shifted position until it was out of my eyes. Louis Griffin was sitting in a square, low-backed chair. I started to raise my head off the pillow, but it began to throb with a harsh, relentless pain.

  “Lucky?” I mumbled, laying as still as I could, hoping that if I did not move the throbbing would stop.

  “Let me close the blinds a little. Perhaps that will help,” said Louis sympathetically.

  As the light grew dimmer, I began to feel a little safer, a little more confident that I could look around without my senses being struck with the same violence as before. At first I did not do anything but move my eyes. I was in a large bed, and the bed was covered with a quilted pink satin comforter. The sheets were smooth and slick, gray satin sheets that seemed to slide underneath me each time I moved my legs.

  I must have looked surprised. Louis laughed quietly and explained that it was not the room they normally used for guests.

  “It was my daughter’s room. We thought you would be more comfortable here.”

  He placed a second pillow behind me as I managed finally to sit up. The throbbing was still there, but it was nothing like as severe as before and it lasted only until the movement was complete and I was once again perfectly still.

  “You took quite a fall. It would have been bad enough hitting the stone floor the way you did; but the bottle hit it first and broke and you landed on the glass. That’s why the doctor said you were lucky. A fraction of an inch lower and instead of a gash along your eyebrow you could have lost your eye.”

  I ran my finger across the line of stitches furrowed into my head, wondering if anything that felt that grotesque could ever really heal and what I was going to say about it when I got to court. Then I remembered. I slid my legs across the smooth satin sheets and put my feet on the floor. I had moved too quickly and for a moment I was blinded with pain. My hands shot to my temples. Gritting my teeth, I stared at the floor. Louis was at my side, helping me back into bed.

  “You need to rest.”

  “I have to get up,” I protested. “I have to be in court this morning. What time is it, anyway?” I asked as the pain began to subside.

  “Court has been cancelled today,” said Louis in a soothing voice.

  “Cancelled? Why?” I asked blankly.

  Adjusting the blinds, Louis let in a little more light. On a bureau underneath a mirror, a simple framed color photograph sat at an angle, a picture of a teenage girl in riding gear holding the bridle of her horse.

  “Cancelled because the defense attorney had an accident last night,” explained Louis. “He tripped on the steps after dinner at a private home in Los Angeles and suffered a mild concussion.”

  “There were other people here last night,” I said skeptically. “You don’t think any of them are going to tell anyone they saw Stanley Roth try to kill Michael Wirthlin?”

  Griffin glanced around the bedroom once occupied by his now grown-up daughter, but he was not thinking about her, and he was not really thinking about what had happened last night. He was thinking, if I’m any judge of that look of nostalgia in his eyes, about something that could not be defined by any one thing or any one perso
n. He was thinking about his whole life, and what it had come to, and whether, really, it had any meaning at all.

  “You did a very brave thing,” he said as his eyes came back to mine. “You didn’t hesitate, not for an instant. I admire you for that. You thought you were saving someone’s life. But—and this doesn’t change at all how much I admire what you did—Stanley was not going to hit Michael with that bottle. He was threatening him,” he added before I could object; “warning him. He might have thrown that bottle—the way he threw that chair— right past him, close enough to scare the hell out of Michael. He could have hit him with that chair, you know,” insisted Griffin. “He could have come around the table and hit him with it, but he didn’t do that. He threw it through the window instead, didn’t he?”

  He wanted me to agree; he wanted me to say that his partner, his friend, the great Stanley Roth, never intended to hurt anyone, after I had seen him with my own eyes hurl a chair straight at Michael Wirthlin’s head and then pick up a wine bottle to finish the job.

  “I saw him do it. I saw him throw that chair. He wasn’t trying to miss. I saw him grab that bottle, saw him lift it up. He wasn’t doing that to scare him—he was doing that to hit him.”

  Griffin sat down. He nodded his head, agreeing, not with what I had seen, but with my belief that that was what I thought I had seen.

  “Yes, exactly; that’s what you saw, because that is what you thought you saw.”

  Griffin placed both feet on the floor, put his hands on his knees and bent forward, an earnest, wise look on his face.

  “You don’t know Stanley Roth the way I do. He’s temperamental, volatile; but he would never hurt anyone on purpose. He isn’t that kind of man.” A subtle, cunning smile traced its way across Griffin’s mouth. “He’s too intelligent, too selfish to do that.” He paused. “He has too much ego for it. He can go into a rage, throw things around, break a few windows if he feels like it—but deliberately strike someone? No, that would suggest he didn’t have any other way to deal with them; which in turn would suggest that they were more powerful, more important, than he was.” Griffin raised his eyes and laughed softly. “A long time ago, when he was just starting out—long before he had Blue Zephyr, long before he had any reason to think he would ever have a studio of his own, he had an idea for a picture, something he really believed in. He must have been turned down by every major studio in town; not just turned down, but ridiculed, insulted, told to his face that what he wanted to do would never work, and that even if he did get it made, no one would ever pay money to see it. At the end, when there was no place left to go, no one else to ask, he went on a two-day drunk.