Devil's Dance

by Daniel Depp

  ‘Tried?’

  ‘Apparently she woke up when he climbed into bed with the knife or something.’

  ‘At least half this sounds like the usual Hollywood bullshit and you know it. If Wet Eye gets an Oscar for Best Director the same people who said this stuff will be ringing his phone off the hook and trying to nominate him for Pope.’

  ‘I don’t like the fact that you like him.’

  ‘Would any of this have to do with you being worried about me drinking again?’

  ‘There’s a lot I’m worried about,’ she said. ‘Walter, I worry about him, he’s killing himself but there’s nothing anybody can do, it’s as if he’s beyond redemption. And I get mad at him for what he does to you. I know Walter loves you but he can’t help destroying the things he cares about most. I was glad when Anna showed up, she’s turned everything around for you, you’re different since you met her, you’re even strong enough to stand up to Walter’s efforts at Armageddon. I don’t want to see you screw this up, David. You’ve got a shot at being happy finally. And now this thing with Dee.’

  ‘I thought you liked Dee.’

  ‘I do like Dee. She’s a wonderful woman but just not for you. There, I finally said it. There’s no question that Dee is a saint but you are a poor flawed truly human bastard and it’s painful watching you kill yourself trying to live up to her exalted standards. Anna is no angel but she’s human, just like you, which is what you need.’

  Spandau was quiet.

  ‘Am I fired?’ she said.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Well fine if I am fired I don’t care,’ she said in one breath. ‘Walter is lost and I can’t bear watching you get lost again too. I just can’t.’

  ‘Pook …’

  ‘This is where you very sweetly thank me for my concern but to mind my own goddamned business.’

  ‘Right, Pook, except maybe not so sweetly, okay?’

  ‘I bet you think I’m going to cry now, huh? Shows you how much you know about women, buster. I do however have this thing in my eye that urgently needs removing,’ she said, hopping up from the table and walking quickly towards the restroom.

  Spandau sighed, got out his cell phone, and read the notes that Pookie had sent him. When she came back, still dabbing at her red eyes, she said:

  ‘I wasn’t crying so don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘And still nothing from Charlie?’

  ‘He’s not using the cards, at least not yet anyway. No more activity on the bank accounts, and he hasn’t phoned.’

  ‘This means he’s eating into his stash, so he isn’t going to wander too far from home.’

  ‘Unless he’s winning,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a gambling junkie. If the cards are running well he’s not going to walk away on his luck. Either way he won’t go far. Just far enough away to feel safe from Atom and the Chipmunks.’

  ‘Atom and the Chipmunks,’ she repeated.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Spandau. ‘Get a list of friends from Dee and the sister. Press the sister for a list of old girlfriends – there must be some around. Follow up on that. My guess is that he hasn’t gone far and is laying up with somebody. Do not let Dee know that we’re following up this ex-girlfriend thing. It’s ugly enough already. Stop looking at me that way.’

  ‘You really do love her.’

  ‘This is enough of you getting all gooey on me. At least start pretending you have a smidgeon of professional objectivity, or I’m going to remove your petite Ivy League buttocks from this case before it has a chance to start it. Are you reading me?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Meanwhile I go on with this Jerry thing. How fresh are these addresses?’

  ‘Wives one and three are out of state, one in Louisiana and the other in New York. Wife two is currently in San Diego, Escondido to be exact. An ex-soft porn actress who now sells real estate. Just your type. How’d you like the photo? Those breasts aren’t real, by the way.’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy?’

  ‘Not on your life. Anybody can buy a set of plastic jugs. It’s working with what you’ve got that makes the woman.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  The trick of driving from LA to San Diego is simply refusing to do it. It took two hours to make the trip one way, so, given the traffic patterns on the roads between, you were bound to get snarled in traffic either coming or going. There was no way around it. He got to Escondido just after four in the afternoon, one jump ahead of the wave of traffic that would surely engulf him on the way back. Oh joy.

  In the few instances Escondido is mentioned in the travel guides, it is referred to as a sleepy, working-class suburb. Working class it is, but not so much sleepy as already comatose. Vicky Rawlins lived at the end of a short cul-de-sac lined by stubby palm trees and oversize pickup trucks. Between her house and the neighbors there was a lovely unimpeded view of a freeway. Maybe it was southern California but for all you could tell it could have been Oshkosh. Spandau rang the bell, which apparently didn’t work. He knocked and that didn’t work either, so he peered in through the living-room window to catch a large, well-built man attempting to initiate sex with a girl maybe one third his age. She seemed fairly practiced at pushing his hands away and appeared more bored than terrified, but she was getting tired and both of them knew it was only a matter of time. Spandau banged on the window. The man pulled his hand out of her blouse and let her go, drifting toward the back of the house. The girl straightened her clothing and came to greet Spandau.

  When she opened the door she was even younger than he thought, fourteen or fifteen, and was nearly past that weird stage when baby fat struggles to morph into the lush body of a young woman. Her eyes were red and a bit unfocused, as if she’d been crying, but her languid voice and the smell of pot wafting out of the door gave it away.

  ‘You the detective guy?’ She stood there surveying him, one hand on the door knob and the other on her hip.

  ‘That’s right. I’m David Spandau. Mrs Rawlins said to meet her here.’

  ‘She called and said she’d be a little late. I’m supposed to keep you entertained. Whatever the fuck that means.’

  ‘You’d be her daughter, right?’

  ‘Yup.’

  She didn’t invite him in but stood aside. Inside the smell of dope was stronger. The big muscled guy came out of a back room toking on a joint. He stopped for a moment, glared at Spandau, then went on into the kitchen and out of a door to the garage. Spandau heard a big-engined car and the opening of the garage door. A Mustang Cobra backed roughly out of the drive and tore off down the street. Both Spandau and the girl watched the car through the front windows. She turned to Spandau and said,

  ‘Asshole.’

  She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

  ‘You want something to drink? Like a beer?’

  ‘Nothing, thanks.’

  The girl took out a beer and popped it open. She walked into the living room and flopped down cross-legged in a chair. She drank the beer and made an effort to look bored. She stared at Spandau and waited for him to say something. He didn’t.

  ‘You can sit down if you want,’ she said finally.

  Spandau sat on the sofa across from her.

  ‘That guy a friend of yours?’

  ‘You are joking, right? Don’t make me puke. He’s my mom’s old man. Why? Did you recognize him?’

  Spandau shook his head. ‘Am I supposed to?’

  The girl took a roach from an ashtray on the coffee table. She lit it, took a few hits, offered it to Spandau. He shook his head.

  ‘He’s supposed to be famous or something,’ she said in that squeaky I-don’t-want-to-waste-the-dope voice. Then she exhaled. ‘He’s some kind of porn star. Carl “Hogsleg” Hogg. His thing is huge. Maybe when he comes back he’ll show it to you. You probably won’t be able to stop him.’

  ‘He often come on to you like that?’

  ‘Oh, you mean just now? Yeah. Old Ca
rl is pretty persistent okay.’

  ‘He ever, ah …’

  ‘No! God, yuck, no way. I mean he wants to, he’s like pushing that thing up against me all the time, you know, like I’m supposed to be all worked up by it. It’s ugly. I mean, I’m not like an expert or something but that doesn’t look anywhere like normal. Ugh.’

  ‘You told your mom any of this?’

  ‘Are you kidding? First time one of her boyfriends tried this shit I was, what, maybe ten, and she chewed my ass out all over the place, said it was me having a filthy mind and trying to flirt with him. I was fucking ten, for chrissake. How freaking sad is that, this thirtysome-year-old woman with tits is jealous of her ten-year-old daughter. I tell her any of this shit now and it’s just not worth the hassle it’ll bring down. It’s just easier to let Carl grab my boobs every now and then.’

  ‘How much longer you think you can fend him off?’

  ‘He’s starting to get bored with her, you know. Greener pastures. They never stay that long. She’s just too, like, fucking needy. He will be gone like the others in a week or two. I mean, that’s the pattern, right? They get fucking tired of her and then they start really coming on to me. I fucking hate men. Fucking pigs. I’d rather do it with a girl. That shock you?’

  ‘No. Frankly, after what you’ve told me I think it’s a wise decision.’

  She laughed. ‘You are so funny. It doesn’t turn you on a little, two teenage chicks getting it on?’

  ‘I was wounded in the war,’ he said. ‘One day you’ll read Hemingway and you’ll understand.’

  ‘Jake Barnes!’ she shouted.

  ‘Wow, now I am impressed.’

  ‘I read it this summer. This guy in college I was seeing, he said there’s this weird famous book they were making him read for Freshman Lit about a guy who got his balls blown off but otherwise goes around acting perfectly normal, like it didn’t bother him very much. So I thought, wow, that’s kind of cool, like, what would a guy do if he lost his nuts. So I read it and I actually thought it was a pretty cool book, I liked that Brett babe, but I could never figure out if Jake was really worried about losing his balls or what.’

  ‘He wasn’t a happy camper, I’m pretty sure about this.’

  ‘And was it his balls or what? They never really said. That bugged me.’

  ‘Now you get to join in with eight bazillion other literary critics and draw your own conclusion.’

  ‘It was symbolic, right?’

  ‘It probably was to Hemingway,’ Spandau said, ‘but not to Jake.’

  ‘Cool,’ she said.

  Another car pulled into the driveway.

  ‘I want you to do me a favor,’ Spandau said. He took out his business card and handed it to her. ‘I’m sure you have the situation well under control and all, but, let’s say old Carl is getting a little too persistent, you can give me a call.’

  ‘What are you going to do, beat him up for me? How much will it cost?’

  ‘I’m not going to beat anybody up. I’m the quiet type. I’ll just talk to him. And there’s no charge for a fellow Hemingway fan.’

  She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to figure out what he was up to. Then she shrugged and tucked the card out of sight into her bra just as her mother came in through the front door.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ she said. ‘A last-minute looker. The market is so lousy right now, I can’t afford to let any get away.’

  She tossed her purse on a table by the front door, took off her jacket and hung it in the closet. ‘Will you get me a beer, hon?’ she said to her daughter, and sat down heavily in the chair where the girl had been. ‘Where’s Carl?’

  ‘How the hell should I know,’ said the girl. ‘I hope he drives into a telephone pole and burns to death.’

  ‘You got any kids?’ Vicky asked Spandau.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You ever have any, kill them when they’re small and defenseless, that’s my advice.’

  The girl brought over the beer and handed it to her mother. When she crossed behind her she made a face at the back of her mother’s head and gave Spandau a big smile.

  ‘What kind of trouble is the crazy son of a bitch in now?’ Vicky asked Spandau.

  ‘Someone is releasing all his dirty little secrets to the media.’

  ‘He’s got a few of them. They blackmailing him?’

  ‘Not so far. It looks more like somebody’s just trying to hurt him.’

  ‘The Oscar thing?’

  ‘Yeah, that seems to be it, given the timing. Nobody’s asking for money, so it’s personal. And somebody close to him. Or was close at one point.’

  ‘And you think maybe it’s me because I wrote that book.’

  ‘You said some harsh things about him. It wasn’t a pretty picture.’

  ‘The truth is I’ve regretted the hell out of that damned book ever since I wrote it. And anyway I didn’t write it, not really. The publishers hired some asshole to ghost it. I just answered whatever questions he asked me and took the money. The ink on the divorce papers hadn’t dried and I was still hurt and angry. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘That whole broken-jaw thing. I mean, he hit me, yeah. But I damn near killed him with a heavy glass ashtray. And he didn’t break my jaw. That writer son of a bitch, he put that in there, I kept trying to tell him but once I signed the contract they just glad-handed me and wrote whatever the hell they wanted. Jerry was no picnic but I don’t hate him and I don’t want to hurt him anymore.’ She smiled. ‘Leastways not enough to do it for free.’ She took a swig of the beer. To the girl she said, ‘Carl say when he’d be back?’

  ‘Jeez, get a life, will you,’ said the girl.

  ‘So if you don’t want to hurt him, who does?’

  ‘Three ex-wives, a few hundred women he’s shit on over the years, any producer he’s ever worked for. Jerry’s got this knack for polarizing people. I mean, you either love him or you hate him, and sooner or later everybody gets their fair share of both. He can be the sweetest guy on the face of the earth, and then the next minute it’s like some switch goes off and he turns mean. He still drinking?’

  ‘There’s usually a bottle nearby.’

  ‘Let me tell you something. He’s like a child. That tough-guy routine, he’s the thinnest-skinned human being I ever met. You know how many times I’ve seen him cry? And I mean about stupid crap, just some tiny slight or something. He’d stand up to the studio bastards, god he fought with them like a junkyard dog every picture, but that never bothered him, not really. I mean it took its toll. But it was the small stuff that killed him, like somebody forgetting his birthday, or not getting invited to dinner, or him just being convinced somebody was mad at him whether they were or not. He told me once, he said the only things in the world that scared him were the people he loved. Everything else he could deal with.’

  Spandau sighed. Vicky laughed.

  ‘I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve seen him cause that face you just made. Welcome to the club. Nobody understands the bastard, he’s got us all confused. But he gets under your skin, doesn’t he? It’s amazing, absolutely amazing. You sure you won’t have a beer?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Why not.’

  Vicky signaled to her daughter, who brought Spandau a beer. ‘I think his movies suck,’ the girl said. ‘All this sick macho blood and gore shit. It’s all like this suppressed homo wet-dream stuff.’

  ‘Gay is one thing Jerry isn’t, I’m here to tell you,’ said Vicky. ‘Oh my.’

  ‘I do not want to hear this,’ said the girl. ‘The very thought of all you old people having sex turns my stomach.’

  ‘Look, honey, a woman hits her sexual peak at forty-two.’

  ‘Yeah, right, just in time to be tripping over her own tits. This “sexual peak” stuff is just a code word for desperate. Own it, Mother.’

  ‘I’m doing just fine, sweetheart, thank you.’

  ‘You mean your scu
zzy tripod boyfriend? Oh, puh-leez. It’s like this ridiculous dildo carrying this human-shaped thing around.’

  ‘And just how would you know?’

  ‘We get cable, Mother. Every third channel is showing porn. I’ve seen him. Not much in the way of creativity, is he? And doesn’t it just remotely bother you what he’s been doing with that thing all day?’

  ‘Look, it’s just business. Why is this any different than if he was a proctologist?’

  ‘God, Mother, that is the most desperate thing I have ever heard, even from you.’

  ‘I’m campaigning for a new California law,’ Vicky said to Spandau, ‘in favor of retroactive abortion. I should be able to kill her now with the state on my side. I’m sorry you get to witness this.’

  ‘I bet he loves it,’ said the girl. ‘Men just love catfights. It gets them hot. Are you getting hot?’

  ‘Jesus god,’ said Vicky.

  ‘This is all very entertaining,’ Spandau said to the girl, ‘and just like a Eugene O’Neill play. The problem is I’ve got this attention deficit disorder that only lets me concentrate on one thing at a time. If you’re still playing by Friday I can come back for the matinee, but for now all I can think about is Jerry Margashack.’

  From the kitchen, the girl hit him in the back of the head with a scouring pad, thankfully dry. ‘And I was just beginning to think you weren’t really one of the old farts,’ she said. ‘I’m going to my room and leave this place to the geezers.’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Vicky. ‘Kill them while they’re still babies. You want another beer?’

  ‘None of this makes sense,’ said Spandau.

  ‘That would be Jerry all over. Now try to imagine living with this twenty-four-seven and you begin to see what my life was like.’

  Spandau drank his beer and thought for a while. ‘What do you know about his life before you met him? His hometown?’

  ‘Somebody from Cheney come back to haunt him?’

  ‘He’s still got family there, right? Any long-term feuds you can remember?’

  ‘Both parents dead. His sister took over the ranch and then sold it and moved off fifteen years back. There are some cousins around I think, but nobody he was close to, except maybe the priest. I don’t know about him having any enemies there. The general opinion is that he didn’t really turn into a crazy pain in the ass until after he left and started making movies. Though his sister was a cold-hearted bitch too. It’s hard to know how much to blame on genetics and how much to blame on Hollywood. He refuses to help, huh?’