The Burning Plain

by Michael Nava

  It was essentially the one Richie’d told me weeks earlier, about the battle between Parnassus Studio and its corporate parent, Parnassus Company, over the direction of the studio and the distribution of credit and profit. Continually thwarted by the Company’s board of directors, Asuras and his boss, Raskin, had conducted secret negotiations with Reverend Longstreet to buy a majority interest in the Company and stack the board with directors favorable to Raskin and Asuras.

  There was nothing libelous in the first few pages of the article, which outlined the byzantine machinations of the parties. Although the studio had become wildly profitable under Asuras, the company’s stock value had never completely reflected this profitability. A majority of the board of directors, led by its chairman, an investment banker named Adler, blamed this on Wall Street’s continuing doubts about Asuras’s personal honesty and integrity because of his record as a convicted embezzler. Adler and his allies had tried to force Raskin, who had final authority in personnel matters, to fire Asuras. Raskin refused, igniting a corporate civil war. Raskin himself could not be fired by the board, even had Adler had the votes, because there were two years remaining on his five-year contract. The article detailed acrimonious board meetings, venomous memos, leaks and counter-leaks, all of which were slowly eroding the studio’s standing as Hollywood’s “creative community” awaited the outcome of the power struggle. Projects that would have been offered to Parnassus were now shopped elsewhere first while other studios openly poached projects already in development there.

  Asuras and Raskin had devised a plan to invite a third-party investor to buy Adler out and replace him and two of his allies with directors who would give Asuras free rein. The third-party investor would make Adler an offer he couldn’t refuse: triple the value of his stock. If he did refuse, the investor would launch a public takeover of the company. To finance that kind of warfare, Asuras and Raskin needed deep pockets, a cash-rich investor with a burning desire to get into Hollywood. They found one in Reverend Longstreet, sole proprietor of a billion-dollar media empire anchored by his cable network FVTV or Family Values Television. FVTV alternated reruns of fifties and sixties sitcoms and self-produced religious epics with the most rancid hate-mongering on the public airwaves. In the margins of the story, Richie had quoted from Longstreet’s writings and set them off in bold, oversized type: “God does not hear the prayers of Jews”; “God has ordained the family for the propagation of life and it is not a voluntary association”; and “God hates homosexuality today as much as he did in Lot’s day.”

  “You can imagine the Reverend’s movies,” the writer noted, “Walt Disney meets Leni Riefenstahl. They’d make The Sound of Music look like Last Tango in Paris.”

  According to the piece, in a series of meetings between Longstreet and Asuras and Raskin conducted in secret at the home of Cheryl Cordet, a director Longstreet admired, the three men had plotted the takeover of the company, which was to be announced on September first. Longstreet was dispatched in a few paragraphs. The real venom was saved for Asuras. The section on him began: “To call Duke Asuras soulless gives him too much credit. When someone asked him back in the seventies, during his earlier incarnation as a million-dollar-a-year agent (this was before he kited $20,000 worth of checks from a brain-addled, heroin-addicted client), what he wanted, Asuras summed himself up in a single word, ‘More.’”

  I skimmed the account of Asuras’s embezzlement conviction until my eye fell on the words “Rios, a prominent criminal defense lawyer.”

  “Richie, you didn’t,” I sputtered through a mouthful of cornbread.

  “Adding to the studio’s troubles, there are rumors that Duke might be up to his old tricks. Henry Rios, a prominent criminal defense lawyer, recently had a secret meeting with Parnassus’s head lawyer, the incredibly shrinking Nicholas Donati. Rios would only say he’d been hired by the studio to represent an employee under investigation by the police for ‘a serious felony.’ Like embezzlement?”

  “Richie …” I muttered. An accusation of criminal activity was slander per se.

  “No one’s saying, but negotiations between the two sides suddenly stalled and then the criminal lawyer appeared on his mysterious errand.”

  I suddenly understood why Donati had been so sharp with me when we’d talked earlier. He had obviously seen the article and concluded that I’d given Richie an interview because we were friends. The phone in my office rang. I tossed the magazine aside and went to answer.

  “Mr. Rios?” as unfamiliar woman’s voice asked.

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “I’m Kate Krishna from Eyewitness News on KVUE,” she said. “I wanted your comment on a breaking story that involves a man named Robert Travis …”

  I cut her off. “What story? What are you talking about?”

  “Our sources tell us that Mr. Travis was arrested for the Invisible Man killings in West Hollywood earlier today, but then he was released by the District Attorney handling the case even after a witness identified him as the murderer. As his lawyer, you …”

  “How did you find out about this?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Was it Detective Gaitan from the sheriff’s department?”

  “You were a suspect in this case yourself at one time, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, and he probably leaked that to you, too,” I said. “Doesn’t that give you some idea of his reliability?”

  “So you’re saying your client’s innocent?”

  “Are you admitting your source is Gaitan?”

  After an equivocal silence, she said, “Will you talk to me if I tell you my source was someone in the sheriff’s office?”

  “I’ll talk to you after I’ve talked to my client.”

  “Okay,” she said, “but we’re running this on the ten o’clock broadcast.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter after eight. “You can run my denial,” I said. “Oh, and remember Richard Jewell before you convict my guy on the air.”

  “Richard Jewell? Who’s that?”

  I hung up, called Travis and reached his answering machine. I was halfway through a message when he picked up, sounding groggy but sober.

  “The press has got your story, Bob. I just got a call from a reporter from Channel Three.”

  “She called me, too,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say, so I hung up on her.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I talked to her. Have you heard from any other reporters?”

  “Just Channel Three,” he said. “Who told them?”

  “Gaitan,” I said. “He’s trying to embarrass the DA who let you go this morning. She was already working on obtaining an arrest warrant. This will cinch it.”

  “An arrest warrant? I didn’t do anything.”

  “The eyewitness, the woman who said she saw you in the alley …”

  “I wasn’t in the alley. I wasn’t driving the cab.”

  “The judge they go to for the warrant won’t know that,” I said.

  “Can’t you tell him?”

  “Unfortunately, the way it works is you don’t get to challenge the warrant until after it’s been issued.” I paused. “I’m trying to tell you that you may be spending some time in jail until I can challenge the warrant.”

  “Oh, man, this is a nightmare.”

  “I’m going to call the DA and try to find out what’s happening over there,” I said. “If the cops come, call me at this number.” I gave him my private, unlisted home number. “And Bob, I threw out all the drugs I found in your bathroom. If you have any others, get rid of them. You don’t need a drug charge in addition to everything else. Has Donati called you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “He said he would.”

  “I’ll call him,” he said.

  “Good idea. Remember, if the cops show up, you call me, no matter how late it is. I’ll be in touch.”

  I left messages for Serena everywhere I could think of, but by ten o’clock I had st
ill not heard from her. I turned the TV on to Channel 3 and pressed mute. The two anchors, an elegant black woman and a white-haired, crinkly eyed white man, sat shuffling papers importantly, and then on the screen behind them a graphic appeared showing a male outline and the words INVISIBLE MAN. The male anchor began to speak. I clicked on the sound.

  “… learned today that a suspect in the murders of three young men in West Hollywood last month was actually released from custody after he was arrested by order of the District Attorney handling the case. The suspect, thirty-three-year-old Robert Travis, was arrested this morning at the county jail, where he was reportedly identified by an eyewitness as the murderer but then released a few minutes later at the direction of assistant prosecutor Serena Dance. We go now to Kate Krishna, who’s at the Criminal Courts Building where the District Attorney has his offices. Kate.”

  The camera cut to a beautiful Indian woman standing on the steps of the shuttered court building.

  “That’s right, Larry. Apparently the police actually had their man this morning in these brutal killings, but then they were told to let him go by Serena Dance, the head of the Hate Crimes Unit in the DA’s office, and the prosecutor in charge of this investigation. I talked to Dance about an hour ago, as she was leaving the building on her way to a meeting about the case at the sheriff’s headquarters.”

  The screen showed the reporter accosting Serena on the steps of the CCB. She looked exhausted. Her exhaustion changed to tight-lipped fury when Krishna asked her, “What do you say to the residents of West Hollywood when they wonder why you released this suspect back into their community?”

  “This investigation is ongoing,” she seethed. “I have nothing to say about it at this time.”

  “Can you confirm that Mr. Travis was arrested and then released?”

  “I have no comment,” she replied, batting the reporter away.

  “What is the purpose of this meeting you’re going to with the sheriff?”

  “What part of ‘no comment’ don’t you understand?” she snapped, and stormed off.

  “Attempts to reach Travis were unsuccessful, but his lawyer, Henry Rios, denied that his client was guilty. We’ll be following this story in the days to come. This is Kate Krishna at the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles.”

  “Kate,” the male anchor said, “before we lose you, is it true that the suspect was identified as the killer by an eyewitness just before the DA released him?”

  Krishna frowned. “Well, not exactly, Larry. Apparently the suspect was identified by an eyewitness who reportedly saw him leaving the area where one of the bodies was found,” she said. “As far as we know, there were no eyewitnesses to the murders themselves.”

  The camera went back to the anchor, who insisted, “But he was arrested for the murders.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course, even someone who gets arrested still has to be convicted of the crime …”

  He cut her off. “Which the DA made harder by releasing the killer,” he said. “A shocking, shocking story. We will keep you informed. Now, in other news …”

  A few minutes after the broadcast ended, the office phone rang. It was Serena Dance.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said.

  “I heard,” she replied. “I’ve been in a meeting.”

  “I know. I saw you on the news. What’s going on, Serena?”

  “Gaitan went to the media, I got screamed at by the DA and the sheriff, and your client is about to be arrested.”

  “You don’t mean now?” I said. “It’s after eleven.”

  “Judge Perez signed an arrest warrant and a search warrant twenty minutes ago,” she said. “I’d expect the cops are arriving at your client’s house right about now.”

  “This is scapegoating, pure and simple.”

  Wearily, she said, “Tell it to the judge, Henry. I’m going home.”

  Chastened, I asked, “How bad was it for you?”

  “Bad,” she said. “The sheriff accused me of giving preferential treatment to your client because you’re gay.”

  “From Gaitan’s lips to the sheriff’s ear.”

  “The old boys,” she sighed, then added, “You know, Henry, you’re a little bit of an old boy yourself.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “You’ve patronized me since day one,” she said. “You assumed I didn’t know the reason I was in charge of the task force was to give the sheriff political cover with the gay community. You were wrong. I understood the score going in. I knew Gaitan was a cowboy. I knew he had the sheriff’s ear.”

  “Then why did you take the job?”

  “Because,” she said, in a wrung-out voice, “I want the killer to be caught.”

  “So do I, Serena,” I replied. “I just don’t think it’s my client.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Henry, but since the sheriffs started focusing on your client, the killings have stopped.”

  She hung up.

  When no one picked up at Travis’s apartment, I pulled on a shirt and shoes and headed to West Hollywood. Friday-night traffic rendered the streets nearly impassable and I didn’t reach Flores Street until a quarter to twelve. I was immediately aware of the lights, the flashing blue and red of squad cars, the flickering red of an ambulance, the white glare of TV cameras following cops going in and out of Travis’s building. The cars created a cordon, so I pulled into a driveway and parked. A swarm of people on the sidewalk were being held back by sheriff’s deputies. I approached one of the cops.

  “My name is Henry Rios,” I said. “I’m Bob Travis’s lawyer. I need to get into to see him.”

  He gave me the cold cop stare, then called over his shoulder, “Hey, Detective, this guy says he’s Travis’s lawyer.”

  A moment later, Gaitan materialized out of the darkness, smoking a cigarette. “Rios,” he said, grinning.

  “I want to see my client.”

  He flicked the cigarette to my feet. “No problem.”

  The door to Travis’s apartment was open and people were spilling out into the hall—cops, paramedics, crime-lab types. When I recognized a woman from the medical examiner’s office, I got a bad feeling. Inside, two deputies were inspecting some of Travis’s gewgaws, one of them lisping mocking commentary to the other. A sandy-haired paramedic was standing at the doorway to the bathroom, looking in. Gaitan asked him to move aside and then stepped back so I could see what he’d been staring at.

  Bob Travis knelt in front of the toilet, his head completely submerged in the bowl, water and vomit spilling down its sides.

  “What happened?”

  Gaitan chortled, “He drowned, man. In his own puke.”

  Stunned, I turned away from the sight and met Gaitan’s eyes. They were amused and contemptuous.

  “What do you mean he drowned?” I demanded.

  He reached into his coat pocket and removed an evidence Baggie containing a brown prescription bottle. “Valium,” he said. “Found the bottle by his bed, empty, and an empty fifth of vodka in the kitchen. He got loaded, got sick and passed out while he was puking. It happens, Rios. Remember Lupe Velez?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Actress in the forties, the Mexican Spitfire,” he replied conversationally, as if the smell of vomit wasn’t oozing through the warm air. “She decides to kill herself, right, so she eats a big Mexican meal and downs a bottle of pills. She gets all dressed up and lays down on her bed to die, like it was a movie, but the food makes her sick to her stomach, and she runs to the john, puking all over the place. She passes out with her head in the toilet, like your compadre here, and that’s how they find her.”

  “Mexican Spitfire?” I said incredulously. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You don’t look so good, Rios,” Gaitan said, following me out. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  I tumbled into a chair in the living room. “I wanted to be present when you arrested him.”


  “Who told you we were going to arrest him?”

  “The DA.”

  He smirked. “Dance? I shoulda guessed. You people are tighter than the Jews. You queers.” He bit off the word, then smiled. “That’s right, isn’t it, Rios? Don’t you call yourselves ‘queers’?”

  The two mocking deputies fell silent.

  “Knock yourself out, Mac. Call me whatever you want, if it makes you feel like more of a man. You can use all the help you can get.”

  In a single, swift motion he reached down, grabbed my jacket and pulled me to my feet. “What do you know about being a man? You stopped being a man the first time you let someone fuck you.”

  “How do you know what I do in bed? Or is that an offer?” I smirked. “Sorry, Mac. I’m a top, but I could probably set you up with—”

  He threw me against the wall. “You make me sick.”

  “You might try therapy,” I said. “Now let go of me, you asshole.”

  Rage flooded his face, rising in a red tide. He took half a step back, tightening his hands into fists. I got ready to swing back.

  I heard Odell before I saw him. “What the hell is going on here?” He stepped between us. “This is a crime scene, not a schoolyard.”

  “Hello, Sergeant,” I said.

  “What are you doing here, Counsel?”

  “I heard my client was going to be arrested. I wanted to make sure it was all aboveboard.”

  Odell said, “I wouldn’t worry about it. The only place he’s going to is the morgue. Take off.”

  I looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ll see to things here.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll expect a thorough investigation into Bob’s death.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Odell said.

  Outside on the street, the TV reporters were clustered around Serena Dance. I slipped past the cameras, disappearing into the crowd of spectators on the sidewalk, and looked for my car. Across the street was another knot of spectators. One of them broke loose and came toward me. Nick Donati. His expensive suit was wrinkled and he was tieless.

  “Henry,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”