“What are you doing about Herndon and Marburger, not that it’s any of my business? Do you know where either of them is?”
“I’m working on it. Please get out of my office and let me work on it. Good-bye.”
***
I went back to my office. No new messages on the answering machine, but then I still hadn’t erased all the messages that had built up since the previous Wednesday, the day before the break-in. So I hit Play and listened through a bunch of duds until I came to the gravelly voice of Fritz Marburger telling me, “Listen to me, Guy Mallon. If you can hear my voice, God damn it, pick up the God damn phone, excuse my French.”
And the recording continued, a full record of my last conversation with Fritz, ending with “…if you hear any more on this fire thing, you call me right away. I mean it. You understand that?” That was Fritz.
“I’m not an investigator. Besides, you’re hard to reach. You’re never home.” That was me.
“I realize that, but I pick up my messages. You can leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
Click.
The time had come. I had reasons of my own to talk to the man who was so interested in ruining me. A chance, maybe, to redeem myself, if it wasn’t too late.
I called his home number, the one at Casa Dorinda, and got the same answering machine message I’d heard every other time I’d tried to reach him. Where, I wondered? Rancho Mirage? Or maybe that bungalow.…
That bungalow. At the Biltmore Hotel. He and Lorraine had rented that bungalow for the summer.
A long shot, but if somebody at the Biltmore could tell me anything, anything at all.…
I stood up from my desk and went to my production shelves, where I pulled out the original manuscript of Lorraine Evans’ novel, Naming Names.
***
I walked into the dining room of the Four Seasons Biltmore with Lorraine’s manuscript under my arm. The hostess said, “One for lunch?”
“I’m meeting someone,” I said. “Fritz Marburger?”
She consulted a list on her podium. “Mister Marburger? He doesn’t seem to have made a reservation. We haven’t seen him for over a week. Oh well, no problem, there are plenty of tables. Come with me.”
She led me across the restaurant and out onto the terrace. “He and Miss Evans usually like to sit outside,” she told me. “Will this be okay?” She laid two menus down on one of the wrought-iron tables close to the garden.
“Fine,” I said. I checked my watch. “He hasn’t arrived yet, huh? He’s usually prompt.”
“As soon as he shows up I’ll bring him right out,” the hostess said.
A busboy filled my water glass.
A waiter offered to tell me the specials and I told him I’d wait for Mr. Marburger.
I let half an hour go by, drinking ice water and admiring the clipped lawn and the topiary camellia bushes. Time’s up. I stood up and returned to the hostess’ station. “I don’t understand this,” I said. “Maybe I’m supposed to go to his bungalow. Does he ever order his meals delivered over there?”
“Not usually,” she said. “I could call his bungalow and see if—”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just go on over. I have to deliver this manuscript to Lorraine Evans anyway. What’s his bungalow number?”
“What’s your name?” the hostess asked me.
“Guy Mallon,” I told her. “Miss Evans’ publisher.”
“Just a minute.” The hostess called the front desk and asked if there were any messages for Mr. Mallon from Mr. Marburger. No? What’s his bungalow number? 107. Thank you.
“Thank you,” I said. “Sorry I dirtied a water glass. This is for the wait staff.” I laid a five-dollar bill on her podium and walked out into the tiled lobby, carrying the manuscript in my tight, nervous grip. I’m a lousy liar.
***
A dusty DO NOT DISTURB sign hung on the doorknob of Bungalow 107. I saw a maid pushing a housekeeping cart along the tiled pathway and I approached her. “Excuse me,” I said, pointing at 107. “Have those people been away long?”
The maid smiled nervously at me and shrugged.
“I mean, have you seen them? Mister Marburger or Miss Evans?”
She shrugged again and shook her head.
“No?” I asked. “When did you last see them?”
“No ingles,” the maid told me.
Oh. I smiled at the maid, and then spotted a dark-skinned fellow weeding a flower bed in front of Bungalow 108. I motioned to the maid to wait right where she was, then walked over to the gardener and said, “Excuse me, sir. Do you speak English?”
He looked up, smiled, and said, “Yup.”
“I wonder if you could help me out. I’m trying to ask that chambermaid a few questions, and I wonder if you’d be willing to translate for me?”
“Can’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t speak Spanish.”
Oh. “Sorry,” I said.
“That’s okay.” The gardener stood up and took off his gloves. “What kind of questions?”
“The man in Bungalow 107,” I began.
“Mister Marburger?”
“That’s right,” I said. “He told me to put this package inside his bungalow, but I see there’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door.”
“He’s not around, far as I know,” the gardener said. “Haven’t seen him for several days.”
“Right. So I was wondering if somebody could let me in for just a second.”
He shook his head. “I don’t have a key. And you don’t want to get the maid in trouble. You could leave it at the front desk.”
“No, has to be inside the room. He was very clear about that.”
“Have you tried the door?”
“That’s a thought,” I said. “Thanks.” I checked my watch. Two-fifteen, and I still hadn’t had anything to eat since my breakfast doughnut.
Yeah, right. Just open the door. But what the hell.
And I did. And it opened.
Nobody home, but Fritz still occupied the place. A pair of slacks over one chair, a shirt on the back of another. A couple of video cassettes on the bed.
I walked across the room and laid Lorraine’s manuscript on the teak desk. Next to the phone was a courtesy notepad and ball-point pen. The letterhead on the notepad and the logo on the pen were not from the Biltmore. They were both from The Missing Links Golf Resort and Luxury Spa in Rancho Mirage. I tore a sheet off the pad, folded it, and put it in my shirt pocket.
Then, before leaving the bungalow, I took a closer look at the video tapes on the bed. Two of them.
IN THE BUFF AND IN THE CUFFS!
Starring Amazing Grace, the Bondage Queen
THE ISLAND OF LESBO’S
Starring Pussy Katz as Helen of Troy
Love Goddess of the Ancient World!!
Beautiful packaging. Well, no. Sleazy, but the women were beautiful, or maybe they just seemed to be beautiful because they were friends of mine. And on the back, next to the barcode, the name of the film company: “XXX-Tra Credits. A Division of Caslon Oldestyle Publishing.”
Which, if I remembered correctly, was a division of Marburger Enterprises.
Chapter Sixteen
I got to Rancho Mirage the next morning a little before eleven. I’d never been there before, but I had no trouble finding the Missing Links Golf Resort and Luxury Spa; it had the grandest stone gateway on Frank Sinatra Drive. The entrance was lined with stately palms, their shiny fronds fluttering in the fall breeze against a sapphire sky. The mountains in the background looked close enough to smell the chaparral, but all I smelled was the fragrance of flower beds lining the driveway.
I drove past the valet parkers and found a space in the guest lot, right next to a blue vintage Mercedes-Benz. Bingo. Locked my car and walked back to the front entrance, which a uniformed attendant held open for me. I was dressed in shiny brown loafers
, tan slacks, and a red shirt with a green alligator on my chest, so I guess he thought I was a golfer.
I didn’t bother with the registration desk. I was running out of lies. I followed signs down the hall to the left, which led straight into the one room in the joint where I expected he’d be known. The Good Sport Bar and Grill. Dark wood panels, a wall-sized fireplace, paintings of famous golf courses, rich dark wooden tables and chairs, a long luxurious bar, and wooden stools with red leatherlike upholstery fastened to the seats by brass tacks.
The Good Sport was empty except for the woman behind the bar. I took a stool and sighed as if I’d been on the road for four hours—which I had. The bartender flipped a coaster in front of me and smiled. She wore a starched white shirt with a black clip-on bow tie, and a name plate that said “Roxie.” She said, “Howdy. What can I get you?”
“Samuel Adams?”
“Tap or bottle?”
“Draft.”
“You got it.”
When she brought me my beer I said, “Roxie, I got a question for you. That’s your name, right? Roxie?”
“That’s right, guy. What can I do for you?” She wiped the bar down while she talked, but there was nothing to wipe. She just wanted to look busy. Still smiling, though. Her short hair was streaked with bleach and her face was leathery, but both effects might have come from life under the desert sun. Her eyes crinkled as if she enjoyed a good laugh whenever she could find one.
“You know a man named Fritz Marburger?” I asked.
She stopped wiping the bar. She also stopped smiling. “What about him?”
“He been in here lately?”
Roxie said, “What’s up, my friend? Mind clueing me in?”
I took a sip of Sam Adams. “Nothing, really. I have a lunch appointment with him, and I’m a little early. Just wondered if this was a good place to wait for him.” I guess I wasn’t out of lies after all.
“He won’t be coming in here,” Roxie told me. “He a friend of yours?”
Clearly he was not a friend of Roxie’s. “Business associate,” I answered. She nodded, like go on, and I went on. “He’s trying to put me out of business, and I drove all the way here to tell him to stuff it.” Which was true, sort of. And also sort of a lie.
Roxie laughed out loud. “Well, you can tell him the same for me. Actually, I already have, so don’t bother. Anyway, you won’t find him here in the bar. He’s still a member of the club, and he’s still allowed to stay in the rooms and use the golf course and gym and eat in the dining room, but he’s not allowed in the bar for six months, by which time I hope I’ve found another job. I’m not supposed to be telling you all this, I mean talking about the members and all that, but, well—” She shrugged. “Know what I mean?”
“What happened?” I asked. “Did he make a scene?”
“Shit. Excuse me. Yeah, he made a scene. The both of them. She was throwing glasses across the room, and he was yelling at her, words you wouldn’t believe, and I’ve heard a lot of language.”
“Do you remember when this was?” I asked. “How long ago?”
“Let me see.” Roxie turned around and punched some numbers on her cash register. She turned back to me and said, “Saturday, September ninth. My last Saturday night, thanks to those two. About eleven p.m. They were both plastered, and by the time we got them hauled out of the bar, they’d pretty much cleared the room. I lost a lot of tips that night.”
“The woman,” I said. “Lorraine Evans?”
“That’s right. The singer.”
“I guess she’s in Betty Ford now.”
“That’s what they say.”
“Maybe I could go over there and have a talk with her? She’s a pretty nice person, actually.”
Roxie snorted. “Oh yeah, right. Go on over to Betty Ford and ask to speak to one of their celebrity inmates. Sure. Get real. Yeah, she is a pretty nice person, I guess, but that Fritz is a hemorrhoid. God. You want another beer?”
“I better not.”
“You don’t really have an appointment with Fritz, do you?”
“No. But I’m here to talk with him. He is staying here now, right?”
“I have no idea. But if he’s here, he’s out on the links. The guy’s obsessed. How about you? Do you golf?”
“Miniature,” I said.
Roxie shot me a smile. “Go on, man. You’re not that small. Anyway, go on over to the pro shop. They got a list of who’s out there swatting ’em.”
***
So I walked over to the pro shop. Sure enough there was a chalk board out front, with the names of the golfers and their tee times. There he was. Fritz Marburger, playing eighteen holes all by himself. I checked his tee time against my watch; he’d been out there for two hours. Not being a golfer, I didn’t know how far that meant he’d gotten, but I figured I could catch up with him if I just started walking. I found the first tee and set off at a brisk pace down a gentle slope.
“Excuse me, sir! Can I help you?”
I turned around, and there was a golf cart bearing down on me from behind. The young man driving it wore wrap-around mirror glasses. He stopped the cart within a foot of my legs and stepped out. Tall and blond and tan as a football, he wore pressed slacks and an olive blazer with the Missing Links coat of arms stitched to the pocket. “Can I help you?” he repeated.
“I have to go talk to somebody who’s out on the golf course,” I explained. “Thanks, but I don’t need a ride.”
“Sir, you can’t just walk out on a golf course,” he said.
“I can’t?”
“Hop in, sir. I’ll take you back to the pro shop.”
“But listen—”
“Hop in, sir.”
“But—”
“I said get in.”
“No.”
The young man pulled a cell phone out of its holster, opened it up, and pulled out the antenna. “Security,” he said.
“Wait.” I took a deep breath. “Jesus, wait. I need to talk to Fritz Marburger. It’s urgent. He’ll be glad to see me, I promise. I need to give him an important message.”
The bouncer sighed. “Okay,” he told the cell phone. “What cart is Mister Marburger using? Thanks.” Then he punched a series of numbers on his keypad. He looked at me and said, “Your name?”
“Mallon. Guy Mallon.”
“Yeah, Mister Marburger? Sorry to bother you, but there’s a Mister Mallon who wants to see you, says it’s urgent?” He listened to what sounded, even to my ears, like blistering abuse, then said, “Thank you, sir. I’ll bring him right over.” He closed his phone and shoved it into its holster on his belt, then looked at me and said, “Get in. Sir. He’s on the fourteenth fairway. I’ll take you there.”
“So he’s expecting me?” I asked as we bounced along over green hills and valleys.
My chauffeur shrugged.
“And how did you know how to reach him on the phone?”
“All the carts have mobiles,” he answered. “Safety precaution. We have a lot of older members.”
Fritz was on the green of the fourteenth hole, lining up a putt. The young man stopped just short of the green, and he and I both watched Fritz miss an easy shot. Fritz wheeled around and faced us as I stepped out of the golf cart. His golf shirt was pulled out of his jackass slacks, and there were dark pools under his armpits. As usual, his hair was a thicket of gray that couldn’t get along with itself.
“Okay, Mallon,” he said. “What’s so god damned important?” He turned to the young man and said, “Okay, okay you can take off. I’ll bring him back with me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Yeah,” Fritz said. We watched the cart hum away in the direction we’d come from, and Fritz turned back to me. “So?”
“Well, Fritz,” I said, “I guess you’re off the short list.”
“Fuck are you talking about? What short list?”
“It appears you weren’t in Sant
a Barbara the night of September ninth, so I guess you didn’t burn my warehouse down.”
“My warehouse, you mean,” he said. “What’s all this short list shit?”
“It was down to you or Roger Herndon,” I said. “In case you weren’t aware, that fire was no accident.”
“So that leaves Herndon, is the way you figure it? Well, the way I figure it, it could have been you. Or your wife.”
“Not me,” I said. “I have an alibi. I had a date that night with Helen of Troy.”
Fritz chuckled. “You are one weird duck. Your wife, then. Or was she part of your date?”
“I’m not married. If you mean Carol, of course she didn’t do it.”
“How do you know that, if you were off someplace else doing God knows what?”
“Carol Murphy is no barn burner.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, but I could give a shit about that building. That lot’s worth more to me than the building. If it was Herndon who burned it down, then I have him to thank, but first I have to find him, which is where you come in. Where is Herndon, Guy? Tell me that. Where is Herndon? You were supposed to be finding that out. Where is he?”
“I have no idea. You’re not the only one who wants to know.”
“I told you to find him!” Marburger was squeezing the handle of his putter so hard the blade was shaking. His glittering blue eyes twitched.
“And why do you expect me to do that for you, Fritz,” I asked. “As a favor? What? Why do you need him so much?”
Marburger sighed. “The man owes me a great deal of money. Why else would anyone in his right mind want to to see Roger Herndon?”
“What kind of money?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“If you want me to help you, you’d better start talking.”
“Fuck off.”
“Okay. I’ll walk.” I turned. I could see a foursome in the distance, waiting at the tee of the fourteenth hole for us to get out of the way.
“Wait.”
I turned back.
While I was waiting for him to speak, we heard a member of the foursome behind us shout, “Hey! Mind if we play through?”
Vanity Fire Page 13
