Hollywood Gothic

by Thomas Gifford

  Carl stepped forward, hands out. “Now, come on, Mr. Challis. This isn’t going to take much longer, so calm down. We really do appreciate what you’ve been through … if you’ll just bear with us, Mr. Laggiardi is trying to make this all as easy as he possibly can …” His arms closed around Challis. It felt like an injection of Novocain. Challis knew his strength was dribbling away. “Just come back and sit down, that’s the way, just hear us out, Mr. Challis, and then you’ll be on your way safe and sound.” He was almost crooning as he led Challis back to the couch. The words were immaterial, it was the sound, hypnotic and soothing. Challis slumped, sighed, and leaned back.

  Laggiardi clinked ice in his glass, held it up to Bruce, who took it to the bar for a refill. Laggiardi said, “You see, if my homicidal maniacs had killed Jack Donovan, then I’d have the diaries … Kay Roth’s diaries, the ones Goldie Challis found … but I don’t have the diaries. So … my conclusion is that some other homicidal maniacs or single maniac, if that is the case, left old Jack with only half as much head as he needed. Deep down inside, I still pick you, young man, which means you’ve got the diaries. It simply stands to reason, the killer got the diaries. Thank you, Bruce, thank you.” He had some more Perrier, bumping ice cubes against his nose. “Have I made clear my position regarding the morality in question here? You kill Donovan, that’s your business. You take the diaries, that’s my business. I’m not going to turn you in to the cops … but I might have somebody chew your ear off over the diaries. I need those diaries as a kind of hole card—do you see what I mean? It’s entirely possible that Aaron Roth is going to see things my way, that our interests will be entirely congruent, and nobody will have to get angry … but what if he acts up? Where am I then? Do I want to tell him that if he doesn’t do things my way I’ll have one of my homicidal maniacs pay a visit on his adorable little Daffodil or that fine son? Would I want to threaten him that way? Of course not. If I actually have the diaries, other threats become irrelevant. With the diaries I own Aaron Roth … I own Maximus.”

  “Out of idle curiosity,” Challis said, “why would you, with all your other holdings and interests, want to own Maximus? I don’t see it.”

  Laggiardi stood up, put his hands in his jacket pockets, and assumed a philosophical pose. “Two reasons. First, have you any idea what Star Wars meant to Twentieth? Jaws to Universal? The Godfather to Paramount? To a businessman, a gambler, the lure is more than obsessive. Second … second, Mr. Challis, is that it’s fun. It’s within my reach and it is fun. More fun than I find in my other businesses. Got it? That’s the sum total, all the explanation you are about to get from me.” He paced across the gray light of the high windows, penumbras of grayness moving with his outline like a visible aura.

  “One other question,” Challis said. “What is in the diaries that gives you ownership of so dubious a property as Aaron Roth?”

  “You have the diaries—is this a purely rhetorical question?”

  “I don’t have them and it isn’t.”

  Laggiardi turned to face him head-on, the dark eyes piercing him like a hypnotist’s. He squinted slightly, as if confronted by a particularly irritating riddle.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Challis.”

  “Pardon me, but I don’t understand—”

  “I don’t know. I took it on faith. Jack told me that it showed Aaron Roth for what he is … Jack was doing this for me, the whole blackmailing number, for me, because, shall we say, he owed me? From the old days. He said we owned Aaron … that we would own Aaron so long as we alone had the diaries. Goldie was his problem. Keeping her quiet, I mean. Maybe you’re right, maybe Jack did kill her—I don’t know. But I’m positive he was right about the diaries. Aaron came up with a million dollars. Proof, at least in my circles. But what’s in the diaries? You’re in a better position to know than I. I’ve known Aaron Roth a long time, too, see? Back to the same old days when I knew Jack … young men, all of us. And I’ve got a lot of bad stuff on Aaron … you wanna know like what I’ve got maybe?”

  Before Challis’ eyes, Laggiardi began to transform himself, become a protean shape, tensing, arching, posturing almost like a street punk. The shallow patina of restraint and observed manner cracked, chipped, slid away like cheap plaster. “He’s a welcher and he’s a crook. He’s owed me money for a hundred years, but I play him along … I’ve always played him because of who he was, his connections, because he’s Solomon Roth’s son. Creeps like that, a smart man knows they’re gonna do you some good one day, right? He has me to his house, I go to his parties, I do business with his movie friends, the years go by.” A fine dew had broken out on his bronze forehead. His gold signet ring flashed as he gestured. “You wanna know what kind of a porker Aaron Roth is? I’ll tell you what kind. He was desperate and I was squeezing just a little bit … you know what this guy did? He gave me his wife! That’s right, he said to me, here’s Kay Roth, Vito, she’s yours, you can have her for as long as you want her. Can you believe that? And she went along with it … and that’s show biz, right? Jeez, Challis, you oughta see your face, man! The poor woman was on the edge by then, drinking and pill-popping …” He wiped at one eye with a fist. Challis wondered: was it a performance? If so, why? “And so help me God, I’ll have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life … I couldn’t resist the offer! The shame of it. Screwing this woman, this poor creature, but she was still Kay Roth. I’d fly to Paris to screw this woman. I don’t know, Challis, maybe I fell in love with her. Or what she had been once.” Abruptly he turned his back on Challis, stalked to the windows, folded his arms, and stared at the weather. Challis heard a sniffle, saw the paisley handkerchief flourished across the face. Woodruff stood nervously looking into the middle distance, rubbing his hand against the boil. One of the homicidal maniacs whistled under his breath. Rain blew against the window. Finally Laggiardi turned back, the swarthy face composed and impersonal. “Kay Roth’s famous comeback? I paid for that, financed the whole thing. I did it for Kay. This was a woman headed for death as fast as her legs would carry her, but the talent, my God, the talent was still there, and I made sure she got to use it, she died having done that … so Aaron kept on stealing her money, even from those last years, very successful years, and I let him do it. Sooner or later I’d call everything back in … it wasn’t a bad feeling for a guy like me.” He smiled bleakly, just the corners of his tight mouth. “And now it’s time for Aaron to pay up. Get it? The markers are coming in … Vito is collecting. But you’ve got to have the edge when you’re picking up the paper on heavy people. Aaron? Not so heavy, but Aaron and Solomon and Maximus? Lotta heavy there. Which is why I want the diaries. I don’t give a shit, y’know, about what’s in ’em—no matter what it is. It gave Donovan a million-dollar edge, it gave Goldie the hold she wanted, so it comes down to that—whoever’s got the diaries has got the edge he needs, has got Maximus. I stand here looking at you starting to shake and look like you’re going to puke, I say to myself this guy’s got the diaries. Or knows where they are. I’m never wrong about stuff like this, see? So, where are they?” He looked at a gold watch the thickness of a dime. “Whattaya say, Mr. Challis? And let me assure you, you don’t talk to us, Mr. Woodruff is going to use your girlfriend’s eyeballs for martini olives.”

  “I had the diaries,” Challis said, taken aback by the pathetic weakness of his own voice. “And …”

  “And?”

  “This morning after we glanced through them—and honest to God, I didn’t see anything like what you’re talking about … I swear it, nothing but the kind of stuff you’ve been telling me …” The fight was gone: he felt like a pig wallowing in a slop trough. Where had bravery and frustration and anger gone?

  “Where are they, Mr. Challis?”

  A helicopter hovered beyond the window like a monster gnat. The fog was coming closer, the day darkening too soon.

  “I mailed them to my agent. This morning. Put them in a couple of Jiffy bags, sent them third class to my agent. Ch
rist, I haven’t got a home.”

  “Who is your agent?”

  “It’s the Kreisler office on Sunset. Ollie Kreisler. You’d like him, you wouldn’t want to hurt him. He never goes to the mail room. Never.”

  “They were actually sent to Mr. Kreisler? Personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Can you get something straight now? Are you listening to me, Mr. Challis?”

  “Attentively. All ears.”

  “You’ve got troubles of your own. I realize that. You don’t want to go back to jail … you want to clear yourself. That’s fine. Good luck to you, in fact. You say that you came by these diaries in the course of discovering Jack Donovan’s corpse. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. There’s a lot about you I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know if you were even looking for the diaries … maybe they leaped off a table into your hands. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I have no business with or interest in you, aside from getting those diaries. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Abundantly.”

  “But I do want to impress one thing on you. Carl, Ted, would you assist Mr. Challis to his feet? It’s a matter of a quick look into your future.”

  Carl and Ted stood beside Challis. Then they were holding his arms tightly, pinning them against his body. It was like being in the little airplane again, feeling it dropping down through the snowstorm … maybe this was worse.

  “Now, Bruce, would you come over here? I want you to help Mr. Challis to see what the future could hold.” Bruce came toward him, took something from his pocket. “While Bruce is one of my many attorneys, he is also one of my many homicidal maniacs.” Laggiardi almost grinned. “Show him your Swiss army knife, will you please, Bruce?” The bright redness gleamed in the pudgy hand. “You’ve seen these, of course. Lots of blades, scissors, corkscrews, awls, leather punch, maybe.” The fat fingers slipped several times, the red plastic moistened from the hands holding it, finally the punch was separated from the thick bulk of the knife. Bruce held it unsteadily before Challis’ face, maybe six inches away. Bruce’s eyes began to cross watching the silvery punch. “Forty-eight hours, Mr. Challis,” Laggiardi said. “You know what would be worse than going back to prison? I’ll tell you. Going back to prison blind. Even blind in one eye would be no fun, would it? Forty-eight hours. Imagine what the experience would be like—acute pain, maybe? Beats me. Lots of nerve-tissue damage. Blood vessels rupturing … I’ve heard of heart attacks at such moments of stress. Then—one of your eyes looking back at you from an ashtray. I want you to think about that. You’ve got forty-eight hours to get the diaries to me. Fuck me over on this one, and first some guy in Brentwood gets up for his morning swim and finds some pet food that used to be Miss Dyer in his pool … and then Woodruff starts playing mumblety-peg with your eyeball. Does that frighten you, Mr. Challis?”

  Challis nodded.

  “Well, that’s fine, then. Go now and do your best. And more likely than not we’ll be watching you.”

  Carl and Ted loosened his arms, and Laggiardi walked beside him to the door.

  Laggiardi slapped him on the shoulder, said, “You’d better put your prayers on the U.S. mail, my friend.”

  24

  “A BOY-SCOUT KNIFE?” SHE looked at him in mock horror, handed him a cup of coffee. The diaries were open on the kitchen table. The coffee tasted of orange peel.

  “A Swiss army knife, actually.” He was cold and the coffee was building a bridge between him and real life, warmth. He poked around in his guts for a smile, couldn’t find one. “Listen, it’s no joke. That is one scary bunch of guys. The trick with the threatening business is to make the poor guy you’re threatening believe it.”

  “And you believe it?”

  “Oh, how I believe it. You should see Bruce, watch him sweat … you don’t believe he’s capable of anything, you’re crazy and they’re all so polite … everybody’s a Mr.”

  “But we’ve got the diaries, Toby. Why not just give Laggiardi the diaries … we’ve read them, we’re not going to blackmail anybody. And in the end they could hurt us, they could prove we were on Donovan’s boat.” She was wearing a heavy blue fisherman’s sweater against the cold, a cotton turtleneck underneath, French jeans. She was leaning back in the kitchen chair and had draped her legs over the corner of the table. She looked about six-three. She brushed blond hair away from her eyes.

  “Contrariness maybe. I was so damned scared … I can’t explain it. I almost made a mess on the floor when Carl and Ted had me stand up. I resent it, I’ve gone through enough, and now this sweaty creep was running a knife up my nose. So I told them a lie they’d believe and now we’ve got forty-eight hours and the diaries. The thing is, Laggiardi convinced me of their worth—whether we know what makes them so important or not. Let’s just say he’s right … let’s say they confer this crazy power on whoever holds them. Then we’ve got the power, the magic—it doesn’t make any difference if we understand why … we’ve got them, we might just as well use them.” He smelled the coffee as he drained the cup, watched her legs, let his eyes roam the length of her body. He didn’t want to think of her that way. He needed his concentration, the tunnel vision that might get him the hell out of the hole he’d been in so long.

  “I’m just hoping that we’ve got the forty-eight hours,” she said. “The news of Donovan’s murder is all over the radio, they’ve got promos for the evening news on TV—‘Murder of publishing tycoon in Castle Moon Bay, film at five,’ blah-blah-blah. I’m really worried about the cops, Toby, they’re not dumb and they’ll start seeing the patterns—”

  “We’ve only got about forty-six hours as it is,” Challis said. He set the cup down and stood up. The wind shook the plate-glass sliding door, whipped the shrubbery edging on the patio. Rain still slanted. The fog had closed in, erased Los Angeles, sealed them off on the canyon wall. “Where can we hide the diaries, just in case Carl and Ted decide to do some checking up?”

  “See the little shed back at the edge of my property? Right where the fog starts? Pump for the pool, lawn tools, croquet set. We can put them in there, under the leftover swimming suits.”

  The lock had gotten rusty, but a little patience and Three-in-One oil did the job. The swimming suits were growing mold, and a variety of spiders had set up housekeeping. It was the perfect spot. He worked quickly with Morgan standing guard on the patio, keeping an eye out for the enemy, whoever it might be. Through the fog he glimpsed a team of men trying to shore up the hillside beneath a white villa. The owner looked down at them from the remains of his terrace.

  Challis locked the door again and went back to the house, through the wet leaves and grass. Morgan had put her glasses on, as if they helped her think through difficult problems. “Are you still scared?” she said, touching his arm.

  He shrugged. “I think I’m scared for good. Let’s get going.”

  “Where? I’ve been thinking and … well, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Think about the diaries—it’s all we’ve got to think about anymore. I’m terribly confused and my brain is damn well going on strike if I try to tie this all together one more time. But we have got a time limit, two time limits actually—Vito’s and the cops’. And we’ve got the diaries. The only thing about the diaries that makes no sense to us is all those checks—Priscilla Morpeth, God love her. We know her husband got killed, but why the checks? Were they just charity? But if they were, why would Goldie have felt responsible for keeping up the charity? And even if she did it for the memory of her mother, something to keep the continuity … why the hell should Jack Donovan keep paying? That’s what I can’t figure out.” She nodded; Challis went on: “So there’s nothing left for us to do but keep pushing against what we don’t know—Priscilla Morpeth. And Herbert Graydon is the fellow who befriended her, identified Morty Morpeth’s body—”

  “And Tully Hacker,” she said, “covered the whole thing up. Okay, let’s go.” She hugged his arm. That was
all.

  The Mustang nosed fearlessly into the narrow corridor between the grasping leaves and green, sinewy arms of the vegetation, negotiated the turnaround without slamming into one of the Rolls convertibles and a white Stutz that had put down an anchor in a widening puddle. Behind the pink walls and gray shutters, lamps blurred in the late-afternoon fog shroud but you didn’t get the feeling that there was life in there. In the stillness their feet crunched loudly on the wet gravel. No one had picked up the tricycle. Herbert Graydon answered the door, his impassive face adjusting to accommodate what was for him a warm smile.

  “Come in, come in, Mr. Challis,” he whispered, his head turning quickly to check the foyer. “You just missed them … they left not more than ten minutes ago.”

  “Who, Herbert?”

  “The police, I’m afraid. They were here to talk with Mrs. Roth. From what I gathered, it was concerning the possibility that you might show up … they were circumspect but I got the impression that they had some kind of new lead. But nothing specific.”

  “The Donovan thing,” Morgan said softly. Challis introduced her, and Herbert’s face brightened again.

  “I worked with your father, Miss Dyer. A fine man … and a great pleasure to meet you.” He shook her hand. “Mrs. Roth is soaking in a hot tub. What, may I ask, are you doing here? I don’t think this is altogether a safe place for you to be, sir.”

  “We’ve got to talk.”

  “But not here in the foyer,” Herbert said. “Follow me.”

  At the end of a dim corridor, not far from the kitchen, he ushered them into a comfortable, book-lined room overlooking the terraces that led down toward the turquoise glow that was the pool. “My private quarters,” he said softly, closing the door. “Not a bad life for a broken-down old actor. All the books I want, color TV, good antiques—sit down. Sherry? Something stronger … a damned stiff shot?” His manner had changed, the performance of the faithful family retainer abruptly shed. He nodded, poured three stiff shots of Glenlivet, and sat down across from them in a shiny leather club chair with brass studs. He unbuttoned the black alpaca coat, lit a deeply colored meerschaum pipe, and leaned back as if he were moving on into the character of a kindly old professorial type. “Now, then, what’s this all in aid of? How can I help out?” He sucked the pipe and tamped it down with a stubby index finger.