by Ed Kurtz
“The solution,” Lou said over coffee across Fairfax from the ATM, “is as fucking easy as A-B-C, my friend.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“We make a withdrawal. A big one.”
“You mean steal Helen’s money?”
“Temporarily. Most banks only let you take so much out at a time, and there’s no way we can con a teller into giving us anything, so my plan is to hit as many ATMs as we can in as short a time as possible and take out the maximum every fucking time.”
“Okay, so we start a rip-off spree until the bank catches on and freezes the account…”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe—maybe—get, what? A few thousand bucks?”
“If we’re lucky.”
“And then what?”
“Wait.”
“Wait?”
“Fucking wait.”
“For what?”
“For her—or somebody—to come to us.”
“Brilliant.”
Lou brightened. “You think so?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. I think it’s stupid. And probably dangerous.”
“Since when was any of this not dangerous?”
“You have a point, but I still don’t see the use. There’s three-quarters of a mil in that account. Who’s going to notice a couple thousand right away?”
“Whoever has access to the account. The bank is going to call them and fucking quick. ‘Somebody’s jacked your card and they’re stealing your fucking funds, bitch.’”
“I’m sure that will be their words exactly.”
“I’m serious, Jake. If it’s Helen’s money, she’ll get the call and want to find out what the fuck’s going on.”
“And if it’s somebody else’s?”
“Same deal, and hopefully they’ll lead us to her.”
“And what do we do, advertise in the L.A. Weekly?”
“That would take too long,” she said, completely missing my sarcasm.
A chick from Lou’s school of fashion came around to ask if we wanted another round of joe. Lou said we did, and a pair of crullers to match.
“It’s on him,” she added, gesturing toward me.
“I’m not rich, you know,” I said as the waitress sauntered off.
“Here’s an idea,” Lou said, ignoring that. “We only know of two places that Helen is associated with, right?”
“The apartment and Ray’s office.”
“Right.”
“But she doesn’t live there anymore and Ray fired her.”
“Oh,” Lou said. “Right.”
The coffee and crullers came, and after the waitress vanished again I said, “Okay, let me go back to the beginning here. Here’s what we know: when Helen was working at the theater, she met Leslie Wheeler and got well enough acquainted with her to suggest Graham for the Angel restoration.”
“Yep.”
“Graham—and I—came out here for that, whereupon Leslie ended up dead, Helen missing, and Graham shot at twice, the second time successfully, or semi-successfully.”
“Don’t forget that other lady, too.”
“Yeah, Florence Sommer. Also dead.”
“That’s pretty much everybody involved in this clusterfuck except one…”
“The Wheeler lady’s friend.”
“Right. Barbara Tilitson.”
“So how does she figure in?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t think of anything else to go on. Assuming she hasn’t been knocked off too, I say we look in her direction.”
“And forget about the money?”
“I’m not sure that has anything to do with this yet, but I wouldn’t discount it. I’m suggesting a bit of both plans—we make the withdrawals like you said, then track down this Tilitson woman and see if anything comes together.”
“Vague hunch, Kojak.”
“You got something better?”
She took a huge bite of her cruller and shrugged.
With her mouth full, she said, “Let’s make it happen, Cap’n.”
* * *
We were locked out after our third withdrawal. Each ATM yielded a max of three hundred, so we managed nine hundred before our fourth attempt went south. The screen politely informed us that the account was unavailable, pending inquiries, and to contact the branch manager as soon as possible. The fact that each machine came equipped with a surveillance camera that transmitted our pictures back to whatever security agency the bank used was on my mind, but the least of my worries. We took the nine Cs and went directly back to Hollywood, to the office of the Silent Film Appreciation Society, where this whole shindig got underway.
And there, we found Barbara Tilitson, who was three sheets to the wind, which is to say piss drunk.
The office was mostly picked up from the last time I saw it, with Graham, and the yellow police tape was gone, informing me that the cops were done with the place. We found the door open a crack and when I knocked, Barbara hollered something unintelligible that I choose to interpret as an invitation to come inside. So we went inside. And there was that nice old tea-sipping lady sitting on the floor with her legs splayed and a mostly empty bottle of crème de menthe between them.
“We’re not open,” she slurred, “but if you’ve got something to drink, you’re welcome to join me.”
“You’re in a state,” Lou said.
“And you’ve got metal in your face,” Barbara came back with a throaty laugh. “Sit down. Get a cup from the kitchen or drink straight from the bottle, I don’t care.”
“Do you remember me, Ms. Tilitson?” I tried.
“Sure, sure,” she said. “That boy from Boston.”
“One of ‘em. I’m Jake.”
“Sure, Jake. And Graham? The other one’s Graham.”
“That’s right. He’s in the hospital. In a bad way, actually. He was shot in the head, Ms. Tilitson.”
Her eyebrows shot up near her hairline, though her eyelids remained drunkenly droopy.
“Oh, oh, my. That was bound to happen, I expect. Yes, that was bound to happen.”
Lou said, “Why do you say that?”
Barbara Tilitson chuckled darkly.
“When you kick a tiger in the balls, it’s bound to bite you, sweetheart.”
I felt my neck get hot and struggled to contain myself. “What tiger, Ms. Tilitson?”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, call me Barbara. I’m not your grandmother…”
“Fine,” I said. “Barbara. What tiger are we talking about here?”
“Tiger, tiger, burning bright,” she recited, “in the forests of the night…”
Lou moved for the kitchenette, said, “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Better Irish that up, dear,” Barbara said.
I thought, This is going to be a long night.
* * *
Barbara insisted on finishing her crème de menthe before she’d touch the coffee Lou made. Neither of us argued. After we managed to get a couple cups in her, she lolled on the chair Leslie Wheeler died in, looking gray and defeated. After a while she drowsed for thirty or forty-five minutes and we let her. When she came back to, she seemed more than a little confused that we were there. I poured her another cup and Lou started some oatmeal she found in the cupboard to fill the old gal’s stomach.
“Lord, I never do this,” Barbara mewled after a few bites of the oatmeal. “The bottle was just there, a celebratory sort of thing. I’m sure Leslie must have bought it. I never go in liquor stores, God knows.”
“No judgment here,” Lou assured her.
“I don’t even…I don’t even know what day it is,” Barbara said with a choked laugh. The laughter descended quickly into small, heaving sobs. I was paralyzed. Lou hurried to her side and held her close. I was terribly grateful and not a little impressed.
I stayed quiet and still, waiting for Barbara to calm down a bit. There were a couple of near-misses, but she eventually stopped crying and wiped her eyes on the sleeve
of her sweater. She then took a deep breath and said evenly, “I just miss her so much.”
“I know,” Lou said. I was dumbstruck by how genuinely sweet she was being. With me it was all toughness and swear words. I decided it wasn’t the mystery I was going to solve this time out.
“Barbara, what did you mean when you said Graham was bound to be shot?”
Her face flushed. “Oh,” she said, “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“We’re just trying to get to the bottom of this,” Lou told her, pulling her in for a sideways hug on the chair. “Before anybody else gets hurt.”
“Good God,” Barbara said, shaking her head. “We were just so excited, finding that reel. Leslie and I, I mean. I’d never had imagined in a hundred years all the trouble it’s brought. She might have, but not me.”
“Why?” I asked. “What did Leslie know that would make her think that?”
“That woman…”
“Who? What woman?”
“That awful old…” She cut herself off before she was forced to swear again. Quite the contrast with Lou, I realized.
And it was Lou who got the lightbulb over her head. She said, “Wait—didn’t that kid at the theater say something about an old woman? He thought she might’a been Helen’s grandma, remember?”
I hadn’t made anything of that. But Lou tucked it away, the clever girl.
“I didn’t tell the police,” Barbara went on, stretching it out painfully. “I suppose I’ll get in trouble for that. But Leslie, my dear Leslie…she didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Know what, Barbara?”
She wrinkled her nose and covered her mouth. I was losing what little patience I had left. I said, “Look, we’ve been running all over the county trying to find Graham’s ex-wife, thinking she might lead us to the end of this bullshit, and you’re dangling the carrot right in front of us.”
“I’m starting to think we wasted our time taking that damn money,” Lou said.
“Money?” Barbara said, looking up with wet eyes at Lou. “What money?”
“Helen Bryan’s money—that’s Graham’s ex. It’s kind of a complicated mess, didn’t really go anywhere…”
“Oh, no,” Barbara whispered. “Oh, Jesus…you didn’t.”
“It’s not like we robbed her,” Lou said in defense. “The idea was to lure her out, like.”
“Listen to me,” Barbara said between harsh breaths, “Helen Bryan is probably dead by now. That’s how she works, how that terrible…listen to me. That isn’t her money. It belongs to some people, awful people, and when they find out you’ve taken it—”
“Wait a minute,” I barked. “What the hell do you mean, Helen’s dead? How would you even know that?”
“Leslie shouldn’t have involved her. She shouldn’t have involved any of you.”
“Hey, I’m just along for the ride,” Lou said.
Barbara was getting manic, starting to hyperventilate. I wondered if I should look for a paper bag she could breathe into—wasn’t that what you’re supposed to do?—when a thin, papery voice startled me from behind.
“Ah, you must be the two who went around town stealing from me this evening.”
Barbara muttered, “Mrs. Parson…”
I turned around quickly to see an old woman, deeply wrinkled and white as a sheet, her silver hair done up in a large old-fashioned bun. She was leaning on one of those canes with four legs and peering through hazy gray eyes. I guessed she was pushing eighty and there were a pair of mean-looking dudes flanking her right and left.
The old woman rasped, “Did you put these hoodlums up to it, Barbara?”
Barbara could only stare. The woman hissed a weak laugh.
“How about this one?” she asked, waggling an arthritic finger at Lou. “Your new conquest, I suppose? A bit young for you, isn’t she? But I don’t suppose your kind have much in the way of limits.”
“Watch it,” I growled at her. I wasn’t above putting an elderly homophobe in her place, never mind the heavies she brought with her. That is, until the one on her left moved his jacket to show me the gun in his waistband.
Lou stood up slowly and showed her palms. I wished she hadn’t. I remembered the little pistol in her purse, but I guessed the shock of the moment made her forget. She’d been hell-bent for leather to do some damage that night, but now was when we really needed her verve.
“Barbara didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said calmly. “We’re just trying to find a friend, not steal anything.”
I balked at her use of the term “friend,” not to mention the fact that these were very likely the people who killed Helen, if what Barbara said was true. But I stayed quiet, frozen. And I wondered if I’d survive a bullet to the dome the same way Graham had. Maybe they’d put me in the next bed over and we could be coma buddies. It almost sounded relaxing.
Lou dug out the money, nine hundred dollars, and reached it out as far as she could without stepping forward.
“Take it,” she said. “It was a stupid fucking idea, anyway.”
“It certainly was,” the woman Barbara called Mrs. Parson said. Then: “David.”
The guy with the gun had it out of his pants and aimed across the room quicker than my eye could follow. It was sleek and silver and it looked heavy, especially when it kicked and belched fire, sending a bullet spinning inches from my shoulder and directly into Lou’s chest. She made a high-pitched squealing sound, like a kitten, and bared her teeth as she spun awkwardly toward Barbara. The money went flying, fluttering like nine tiny green kites in the smoky air between her and the gunman.
If I expected a lot of blood, I was surprised not to see any at all. Just a small black hole in her top, right between her breasts, which she touched with a look of sad astonishment as she collapsed on top of Barbara. I think I must have yelled. I heard a yell, and my throat felt raw, but everything seemed to be happening apart from me, like an out-of-body experience. Barbara was crying again and the gun was still out, though the other man was now helping the old woman out of the office and into the shadows of the musty hallway. She called back, “Take care of it, David. Make sure.”
Lou was down and Barbara was more or less incapacitated, so the barrel bore down on me next. In that fraction of a second it occurred to me that for Graham to have survived a gunshot to the head was so statistically improbable it ranked as miraculous. There just wasn’t any way that was going to happen twice in a row, probably from the same gun. So I went limp the way kids do sometimes when you pick them up, like a marionette whose puppeteer dropped the strings, and fell to the floor the moment David squeezed the trigger. Glass shattered behind me at the same time the gun barked, one of those framed movie posters they had on the walls, and I rolled away from it, toward David’s legs. The gun followed my movement. I bit down on his ankle as hard as I could. He roared and the gun went up. He fired it at the ceiling. I hoped no one above us caught the bullet and reached up to grab the bastard’s beanbag, which I squeezed as hard as I was biting the ankle.
The gun clattered to the floor. David’s fist crashed down on the crown of my head and fireworks exploded in my brain. I released his balls but bit down harder still. He screamed and grabbed a handful of my shirt, lifted me off the ground. Next thing there was another shot and I squeezed my eyes shut, certain beyond a doubt that I’d caught a bullet and just didn’t feel it yet. I gave a good fight. Did the best I could. I was only sorry I never really found Helen for Graham and that Barbara was probably the next to go.
You can’t win all the time.
What a goddamned clusterfuck.
I opened my eyes and waited for the pain or, failing that, the end. Instead David fell into a heap beside me and lay still. His hair was a matted mess dribbling red. A few feet away, Barbara Tilitson stood trembling with the dead man’s pistol shaking in both hands. Her eyes streamed tears and her mouth jabbered silently, senselessly.
Behind her, bent over the Queen Anne chair, Lou said, “Oh, fuck.”
I scrambled for the phone and dialed 911.
Looked to me like Lou’s idea about withdrawing the money worked, to an extent. And to enormous cost, too.
* * *
She was still swearing at the paramedics when they rushed in to work on her. They tried to look at my head too, but I brushed them off. Lou was loaded up on a gurney and taken downstairs to the ambulance waiting in the street with dizzying lights.
She was dead before she reached the hospital.
I was weeping like a baby when I found out, sitting in the sterile waiting room with a bevy of cops around me. The police were not moved by my feelings and started into me right away. I said I wanted a lawyer and that I wanted to talk to Detective Shea. As luck had it, he was already in the hospital. When he finally made it down to see me, I learned why.
“Your buddy’s awake,” he told me. “Lucky son of a bitch. He’s going to be all right.”
I sighed with relief, but I was still crying. Poor Lou. I never bought her story about why she did it, why she came along with me. I never was going to find out. One last adventure for a lost soul, I guessed. It was going to have to do.
“What about the guy who killed Louise?” I asked.
“Dead, but I guess you knew that. It’s quite a trail of bodies you and your pal leave behind you, isn’t it?”
“And all over a damn silent movie.”
“About that,” Shea said, fishing a pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on. He squinted at his notepad and continued, “I’ve been digging around a lot, looking into that movie. The Internet’s a hell of a thing, don’t know how we ever got by without it.”
I raised my brows and waited for him to get to the point.
He said, “You’re the movie buff. Ever heard of Jack Parson?”
“No,” I said. “That old stuff is Graham’s department. Bores me to tears.”
“He’s the fella who directed your Angel of the Abyss back in the day. Turns out his son was a bigwig in the biz, too. Bigger than his old man. Exec type, money guy. Made a run for Congress, lost by a wide margin.”
