Hollywood Gothic

by Thomas Gifford

  Challis and Morgan took champagne from a passing tray and looked for Aaron Roth. It took ten minutes in the glut of freeloaders. They finally saw him standing with Howard Laggiardi and one of the trade papers’ columnists. Aaron smiled distantly in the role of Laggiardi’s shepherd. Howard himself was pale, tall, and thin. He wore an expression of sincere interest which perfectly complemented his sincere gray flannel suit, a white button-down shirt, a red-and-blue-striped rep tie, black wingtips, a gold watch with a round face and a leather strap. He was an Eastern clone among Western clones, a product of money, good schools, and moderation in all things. His wife stood next to him, a large slightly horsey woman with a friendly face; she looked like she had a couple of kids and a master’s in English from Smith.

  They worked their way closer, approaching Aaron from the rear. He had been joined by a large man whose face looked like a bag of exploded veins. Aaron said, “Let me make my stance perfectly clear, Harvey. I’m interested only in the 1870 Château Lafites, nothing else. As many bottles as you can find, and you may go as high as one thousand dollars per bottle, not a penny more. And anyone getting that price for bottles in a single lot should thank his lucky stars and take it before I change my mind.”

  Challis stepped close, spoke into Aaron’s ear: “Why not have Vito’s assassins simply steal them … and you can spend the money to buy Kay’s diaries from me.” Aaron turned slowly, the silver-dollar spectacles momentarily opaque in the light. His soft, sensual mouth hung open for a moment. He said, “Harvey, will you excuse us, please?” He looked tentatively at the columnist, Howard, and Howard’s wife. They were chatting quietly, and Aaron turned slowly away, back to Challis and Morgan. “You … you …” he murmured, swallowing. He was keeping his voice quiet, precise. He smelled of sandalwood. “Come to my office.” They all moved slowly through the crowd, which itself was functioning in a kind of champagne slow motion. Across the room, down the hall, through the unmarked door which led directly to his office, missing the secretary. The Venetian blinds were immaculate, the draperies a putty color with a faint mauve pattern. The room was as carefully faithful to the past as the rest of the building. The mauve pattern was repeated in the carpet. Art Deco glasses and decanters sat on a glass-and-chrome tray which decorated a sideboard. Two lamps in the shape of early propeller-driven airliners flanked the marble pen set on Aaron’s desk. Challis half-expected William Powell and Myrna Loy to follow them into the office. The desk was a vast blond affair with swooping curves at the sides, which somehow became bookcases. You had to keep remembering who you were, what year it was. There was something terribly wrong with the scene. It ought to have been shot in black and white.

  “Who is this woman?”

  “Morgan Dyer. She’s my witness.”

  “Toby, you aggravate me more than I can tell you. Now, what in God’s name are you doing … what did that tasteless crack about poor Kay’s diaries mean?” He took a cigarette from a chrome box on the desk, lit it with a matching lighter. It was almost gray in the office. The only light came from the strips of window and the glowing, plump airliner. “Surely they’re going to catch you and tuck you back in prison at any moment …” He let the thought drift away on the cigarette smoke. “What do you want?”

  “It’s come-clean time, Aaron. Nobody’s going to send in the clowns this time. I’ve got Laggiardi’s torture masters and the police closing in on me. … You’re a liar, Aaron. At the very least. You lied about the diaries, you lied to your father, and just for the hell of it, you lied to me, and my life is at stake. I’ve read the diaries, I know that Kay’s not the disgrace in the family—it’s you, the smudge on the old Maximus shield.”

  Suddenly Aaron seemed to choke, his face turning red. The coughing jerked his body like electric shocks. Behind the glass circles his eyes bugged, watered. His hands clawed for a water pitcher. He poured a fat glass of water, hands shaking, water dribbling onto the desktop. From his pocket he pulled a pillbox, levered it open, and washed two small white pills down with water. Several pills spilled, rolled across the desktop. Aaron sank back in the chair, slipped the spectacles off, and held a white handkerchief to his eyes. Challis applauded.

  “I’ve never seen it done better,” he said. “Cut. Print it.”

  “Toby …” Morgan gave him an appealing look. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Aaron croaked, trying to clear his throat. Challis turned away, looked at the framed movie posters. They were all old, growing brittle behind the glass. “You wretch,” Aaron said to Challis. “You are a swine … you’d have let me choke to death.”

  “It’s better than you deserve.”

  “Oh, God,” Morgan said, standing between them.

  “So I’m the disgrace, am I?” Aaron’s small, finely manicured hands were flat on the desk before him, as if he needed to hold on. The color was leaving his face. His sloping forehead was covered with sweat. “Well, what does that mean? And what makes you think so?” His voice was dry, his tongue sticking. He sipped water.

  “The diaries. You stole from Kay, you drove her off the edge, you misused her in every way imaginable … and in the end you put her in Vito Laggiardi’s bed to save your own neck. You leave a trail of slime, Aaron. You stink of fear and corruption. You were afraid of Goldie because she had the diaries, and the diaries told the truth about you and Kay, they made it clear which one was the monster—no wonder she hated you, always hated you. She knew the truth, and finally she had the proof—”

  “Stop shouting, Toby.” His voice was barely a whisper. His face was like the putty color of the draperies and carpet. Without his glasses his eyes swam, the irises seemed murky, unfocused. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand you at all … my God, I could help you, and you choose to be unkind to me …” He swallowed with enormous effort, slid his glasses back over his ears, settled them in the red depressions along the bridge of his hooked nose. “Miss Dyer, reason with him—why is he doing this to me? Why shouldn’t I simply call the police now? I don’t have to listen to all this raving, I’m a sensitive man, I’ve got high blood pressure, and he has no evidence …” His voice had a faraway sound, disembodied, smaller than life. The words came out but didn’t seem connected to one another, unrelated to thought processes. A mechanical man, running down, running on empty. “No proof, no proof …”

  Morgan said, “You haven’t been listening, Mr. Roth. He does have proof … we have the diaries. Do you hear me?”

  “Oh, yes, the … diaries.” Aaron’s eyes moved slowly up to Challis’ face, as if the news had slipped his mind. “Kay’s diaries … but Donovan had the diaries, Donovan told me he had the diaries.” He sounded like a child trying to deal in abstract concepts for the first time. “My God, you took them from Donovan, from the boat … you killed him, Toby, you actually killed him!” The zombie was gone; his voice was coming back, and his hands were flexing on the desk, filling themselves with blood and life. “You are … are—”

  “So call the cops, Aaron. Call them now. I’ve got the diaries. I’ve got the checks.” Whatever the hell they were worth. Challis took a deep breath, wondered what he was doing. Wielding the power, the magic, was all well and good, but what did it mean? “I know about the Morpeth cover-up, and I know about Priscilla Morpeth … we’ve got three dead people and they’ve all written checks to Priscilla Morpeth …” There was no place to go from there because he didn’t know any more. “Now, it’s up to you, Aaron. Call the cops. Fine, they can have the diaries and the checks, and everything in your life hits the fan. Now, I don’t want to do all these bad things to you, I just want to know what’s been going on and how the hell I get off the hook. I want to know who’s been killing people … who killed Goldie. Did Donovan kill her? To shut her up about the diaries, so he’d have his million safe and sound?”

  With a ghastly moaning gurgle Aaron Roth began to cry. He snuffled, and the tears washed down his face, and the recovery he seemed to have been making began to collapse. Aaron Rot
h, as Challis had known him, had disappeared: the precision and discipline and style were gone, as if a devastating wand had passed over him, slain his dignity. The infection in the man was suppurating.

  Challis said, “Stop blubbering, you miserable shit! All right … so who killed Donovan? Did you kill him yourself?” He felt the red rage and fear and disgust boiling in himself. “Tell me!” He watched from inside his head, saw his own hand grab one of the airplane lamps and smash it to bits on the edge of the desk. Then he was around the desk, had Aaron’s head in his hands, wrapped his fingers in the tight gray curls, saw and felt and heard as he slammed the head, facedown, into the desk. He heard the glasses break. He yanked the head up, blood bubbling from the nose, the cheekbones lacerated by slivers of glass. He heard Morgan’s voice shrieking his name.

  Without warning he felt the heavy, hard slap, felt the bones in his jaw grinding and pain shooting in knife points into his ear. He turned to face her and she slapped the other side of his face. He cut the lining of his cheek on a tooth, tasted blood. Morgan was staring into his eyes. She was strong and angry and she drew back her open hand to hit him again. Challis shook his head, backed away, let Aaron Roth’s skull drop heavily to the desk. At rest, Aaron blew bubbles in his own blood, one eye open and watching Challis like a fish about to die, about to feel the knife sliding through its guts.

  Morgan grabbed Challis’ shoulders and shook him.

  “Are you crazy? Are you? You’ve gotten so far without killing anybody, do you want to start now? Don’t be an idiot!” Her voice hit him like a sledge. The heat in his head, behind his eyes, turned cold as he looked at her. “Now, behave like a human being.”

  “It’s hard,” he said. He felt her cool hand on his face. “All right, you’re right …”

  Aaron moaned, smeared blood across his face. Challis watched, fists clenched. The bent, broken airplane lay on the carpet. Glass and pills littered the desk. “Get back, just stand and take some deep breaths and try to remember how the hell human beings behave.” She grabbed a handful of Kleenex from a desk drawer, wet it from the pitcher, and began dabbing at Aaron’s face. She held his head up, gently leaned him against the leather back of his chair. She wiped blood away from his eyes, murmuring, “Keep your eyes closed, we don’t want any glass to get in there, that’s right, the cuts are actually very small … most of the blood is from your nosebleed, you’re going to be all right … do you have another pair of glasses? I’m afraid these are done for.” Her voice droned on, calming him. Challis leaned against the sideboard, getting his breath, forcing his pulse rate downward.

  One glass disk remained in the frame, and Aaron fumbled with the spectacles, tried to bend them back to what they’d been. Morgan watched protectively, ignoring Challis, helped hook the wire over Aaron’s small, perfect ear.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “You’re very kind … very kind.” Miraculously, with her hands, Morgan had undone the damage Challis had done with his. Aside from a smudge of blood on his collar, redness around his eyes, and the off-center glasses, Aaron had returned to normal. He took a sip of water, began sweeping the pills and broken glass into a pile before him. There was a smear of blood on the desk; slowly he wiped it away, crumpled the Kleenex.

  “Did you kill Donovan?” Challis waited, hands in pockets.

  “No, I didn’t kill Donovan.” There was a croak still stuck in his throat, and he coughed, smoothing his mouth into his cupped hand. “You must be insane, Toby. Me? Kill somebody? You know me, you must have noticed that in addition to my other failings, I am also a coward. He told me he had the diaries, he told me he’d go public with them if I didn’t let Laggiardi into Maximus. Well, what could I do? So I told my father that half-baked story about the diaries, making Kay the villain—she wasn’t the Virgin Mary, you know, a lot of it was true … I told him how Kay even from the grave could bring disgrace to the studio and the family, I told him that Goldie wanted to ruin us but that Donovan could save us. My only hope rested on the crucial assumption that Solomon Roth is crazy—he must be the last man on earth who could be blackmailed by a dead woman’s nutty diary. But he fell for it … when he could have just said the hell with it, let Donovan do whatever he wants with the silly damn diaries, all we have to do is cluck sympathetically about poor deranged, besotted, drugged Kay and nobody would have given a tinker’s damn a week after it was published … but”—Aaron sighed tiredly—“but he didn’t … he stayed true to form. My God, if he’d said no to the million, I can’t say what I’d have done. I was the one who needed the diaries suppressed, my father only thought he did. I’d have lost my father, I can’t imagine what he’d have done to me … but I gambled, won, and we paid Donovan the million.”

  “So, who killed Donovan?” Challis asked patiently. “And why? For the diaries? Who wants the diaries now? Laggiardi’s into Maximus, Donovan had his million, Goldie was dead … you were safe. So, who the hell killed him?”

  “I don’t know,” Aaron whispered. “Vito didn’t need him anymore, maybe he killed him, just tidying up … that Bruce creature of his. Then Vito would have simplified everything, one less complication. And with Donovan dead I think Vito owns the magazine, too … and Vito may have wanted to get his hands on the diaries, just as insurance.” Aaron sniffled, touched his nose tentatively. “My nose feels odd …” He looked at Morgan for sympathy. “But you’ve got the diaries … it looks to me like you must have killed him, Toby. You’ve tried to kill me—didn’t he, Miss Dyer?” He sniffled again, winced. He looked at her for help.

  “But Donovan was dead when we got there,” Morgan said. “Whoever killed him knocked me out and ran off, then Toby got there and we found the diaries.”

  “Tell me about Morpeth,” Challis said.

  “I don’t even remember Morpeth, he’s dead, thirty years ago.” He sucked breath desperately, eyes flickering wildly. “My nose, I’ve got to do something about my nose. … He was a criminal, a crook, he died like a crook.”

  “Priscilla Morpeth, then—what about her?”

  “What do you mean? What about her? I never knew her—she’s stuck away up there in that trailer camp.”

  “Kay, Goldie, and Donovan have been paying her off for years—why?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Toby. Please believe me.” Aaron was babbling. “They killed Morty, they found him after the fire was out, there was Morty under the rocks … he was always talking about how hot it was in Africa during the war … think how hot it was under the rocks … never knew what hit him, bang, poor Morty the war hero, dead and buried under the rocks.”

  Morgan said, “Who killed Morpeth?”

  “Don’t know, none of my business … hush it up …”

  “Maybe Priscilla knows who killed Morty,” Challis said.

  Aaron shook his head. “No, no, she didn’t come forward, she’d have come forward if she knew.”

  “Not if she was being paid off.”

  “But the checks didn’t start until later,” Morgan said. “Morty had been dead for years before the checks began.”

  Aaron moaned, hung his head, shaking.

  “Are you going to live, Aaron?” Challis said.

  Aaron looked up, blinking. “They’re going to get you, too, Toby. No more friends for Toby, not in this town. Vito’s going to get you, the cops … you should have gotten out when you could.”

  “All that matters to you is that I’ve got the diaries. You’d better hope nobody gets me … I’m a holy man as far as you’re concerned.”

  Aaron laughed, the sound almost unidentifiable. “Holy men die, too.”

  26

  CHALLIS WAS MOVING FAST WHEN he left the back door of the Executive Building; he heard Morgan behind him, she was calling to him angrily, but he didn’t slacken the pace. She would have to keep up, she could jump ship anytime she wanted to. His heart was beating too fast, his brain turning over as he moved. The images of the day flickered before him as he filed through them, heard the vo
ices feeding him impressions, memories, reflections: Vernon Purcell and Simon Karr and Vito Laggiardi and Herbert Graydon and Tully Hacker and Aaron Roth … Somewhere in that thicket lay the answers. But where? Where else could he go? How many sources were left? He heard Morgan but he wasn’t waiting. If she didn’t like the way he was handling the matter of his own fate, that was her business. Maybe it was a mistake, having trusted her. He was heading for the far end of the street, the little cottage in the cul-de-sac with the gingerbread bandstand in the grassy park which closed off the street. But that was crazy, Challis. Don’t turn against her, get control of yourself, she’s on your side … listen to me, Challis, the voice in his head said. He turned. “Come on, you don’t want to miss the heavy stuff.”

  She was out of breath. “Bastard! Violence freak!”