Copp On Fire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp, Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  "You think . . . ?"

  "Haven't you? Does your mind work as fast as your jaw?"

  She was wearing a small smile now. "You're not supposed to talk to me like that."

  "Works both ways."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Status of your marriage, for starters."

  "Dead. He was what they call a man of the world, he'd already screwed up three previous marriages. I was a nineteen-year-old kid—trusting, dumb as hell. He signed me to a marriage contract so he could dump me cheap when something better came along. My lawyers have been working on that. We figured we were ready to face his lawyers in court. So now he's dead and we won't have to do that, will we? Does that make me a suspect? Well forget it, because now we have to sue his estate, all the previous wives and God knows how many kids who might crawl out of the woodwork. Am I sad he's dead? Hell, no. I'm madder'n hell, though, and I could kill the son of a bitch that did it to him and complicated my life."

  "Let the state do it for you," I suggested. "Help us do it for you."

  "What else do you want?"

  "Tell me about Albert Moore."

  "Albert is a geek."

  I waited.

  "A geek is a sideshow freak who eats live chickens. Albert would eat live chickens if he thought it would please Bernard. If I hadn't known better for sure, I'd have suspected, like they say, an unnatural attraction between the two."

  "I see. But you know better for sure."

  "Unless they're both bi, yes."

  "Okay. Let's try another. Melissa Moore Franklin."

  Mrs. Wiseman laughed and retreated a couple of paces. "Melissa Moore rhymes with whore, and that is what she is for sure."

  I wondered what I was getting here. "A whore for sure?"

  "Melissa Moore—or Franklin or whatever she calls herself these days—is a whore for sure. Haven't you seen her old movies?"

  "Which are those?"

  "Cinderella Balls?, Passion's Pucker? She's sucked and fucked every porno stud in town. Cops don't watch porn like other natural men?"

  Well, you can see, I had a live one too.

  She invited me into the gym for tea and I took her up on it.

  I had a live one, yes. And I began to wonder how long I could keep her that way.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I loved and hated the lady. She could be bitchy but also frank and witty. Everything was right upfront. She said what came to mind, never picked at words.

  She'd been married to Wiseman for thirteen years, which made her thirty-two now. If she'd ever been nineteen and dumb, no one would ever guess it. Her husband had become disabled after their separation, the result of a freak horseback accident in Mexico while he was down there with one of his location units—some sort of spinal damage. Says she went down to visit him in the Mexican hospital and he ordered her out. The injury had done nothing to improve his character—and it was shortly after his return to L.A. that he took up with Melissa, who just months earlier had married the screenwriter Charles Franklin.

  I wondered about his paralysis and his ability to work out with Melissa. Justine assured me that he would find a way; she was just as sure that Melissa would find something to suffice in her bag of tricks.

  I also wondered about Albert and how he might have felt about chauffeuring around his ex-wife with his boss.

  "He did more than chauffeur," Justine informed me. "He also bathed him, put him to bed, and probably shook his dick when he peed. So maybe Albert helped out in bed too. I told you, he would eat live chickens for Bernard. What does an ex-wife have to do with anything? My God, if he could stand the porno studs, what couldn't he stand?"

  "Were they married while she was doing that?"

  "Not to hear them tell it, but as far as I know she's still doing it. How old do you have to get to disqualify as a starlet?"

  "How old is she?"

  "Twenty-eight going on eighty, depending on which part of the anatomy you're wondering about. If you figure roughly six inches to the stroke and a hundred strokes to an encounter... that's right about fifty feet of cock per orgasm. About a hundred of those gets you a mile. She's got to have at least fifty cock-miles on her."

  She gave that to me with an absolutely straight face.

  I wanted to talk some more about her husband but Justine was itching to get out of her tights and into the shower. The "gym" was a room about twenty-by-fifty feet with Nautilus equipment and an aerobics mat, massage table, a corner lounge with overstuffed couches and large-screen TV. It connected to her bedroom via a huge bath with a circular sunken tub, island shower, another massage table . . .

  "There's room for two in the shower," she told me, and casually stripped off the tights as I sat there.

  I said weakly, stupidly, "Thanks, I had mine Saturday."

  She shrugged, went into the bathroom, kept on talking to me through the open doorway while she showered. Wasn't much of a conversation because she couldn't hear me over the shower noise and I wasn't about to get any closer.

  Under almost any other circumstances I can think of I would have carried that lady into her shower and carefully scrubbed every inch of her. Probably I would have contributed to her cock-miles.

  But this wasn't James Bond time. I was burning, true, but not with sexual passion . . .

  Later I was glad I'd kept perspectives intact. Because this big Viking of a woman came in shortly thereafter and began preparing the massage table—chiseled body, muscled thighs, looking as though she could wring you dry and squeeze the life out of you.

  She looked at me. "Shall I put the tables together?"

  "Thanks, I can't stay."

  No way was I going to become hamburger patty sandwiched between those two. The Viking was naked as her mistress and breaking out the warm scented oil.

  I like to think of it as a strategic retreat.

  Actually I fled.

  And I could hear the laughter all the way to the front door.

  So what did I have? I knew what it meant in a general sense...that sleaze walks the high roads as well as the low, not exactly a big revelation. I worked for ten years behind a public badge in this town and I found most of the surprises during the first couple of years. You haven't met sleaze until you've been exposed to the corporate variety, to Beverly Hills sleaze, high-rise sleaze. These folks have it refined to high art. Wasn't it the rich and powerful who invented the orgy? Nothing wrong with sex, it's what you do for it or with it that makes for sleaze.

  No, I don't have a Ph.D. in psychology and I've never sat on a philosopher's stone, but I've cruised these streets and I've dealt firsthand with most every variety of human misery. Don't talk theory of plumbing to a guy who's down there with his hands in it. And don't talk social theory to a cop who lives the reality the profs write about.

  What does this have to do with my case?

  The aroma of sleaze was strong in my nostrils.

  What does it have to do with the case?

  Take a good close look at this cast of characters.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Charles Franklin's place was up in the Glendale hills, not swank but no shanty either. He's an urbane man of forty-five, handsome, well set up. I knew at the front door that I did not want to play cute with this one, so I took it straight to him.

  "My name is Joe Copp. I'm a private investigator. I've become involved in the Wiseman case."

  He took the play away from me right there, stepping back quickly and swinging the door wide to invite me inside with a restrained flourish. "I suppose I've been half expecting you to call," he told me in a voice that sounded a bit like Dick Cavett's. "I knew that Melissa was trying to reach you. Have you spoken with her?"

  I resisted the urge to finger the wound on my scalp. "Yes, we talked briefly yesterday. She isn't home, by any chance?"

  He said, "Oh, Melissa doesn't live here. I haven't seen her for days. She did call early yesterday afternoon sounding sort of mysterious and troubled. Of course I'd already heard the
news about Bernie, so . . ."

  He had led me into the interior of what could have been a plush mountain cabin on a ski slope somewhere. Outside was the usual stucco and brick but inside was pure Aspen with oversized fireplace, paneled walls, wooden floors with scatter rugs, open beam ceilings and a picture window that probably looked all the way to Catalina on a clear day. Nice place, and it said "bachelor" to me all the way.

  He was smoking a pipe as we settled into chairs near the fireplace. I already knew that this guy had been a screenwriter for the past twenty years and I'd been impressed with his list of credits.

  I asked him, "How long have you and Melissa been separated?"

  "Oh, we're not separated," he replied quickly. "That is, not in the conventional sense. It isn't like a breakup or any of that. We've never lived together."

  "Why'd you get married?"

  "Marriage of convenience," he said, smiling.

  "Okay."

  "We're the best of friends."

  "Okay."

  "How can I help you?"

  "I was just with Justine Wiseman. I have her view of... the personalities involved. I'm trying to understand the various relationships."

  "Justine can be very direct," he said for the understatement of the day.

  "I'm hoping you will be too."

  "Glad to try. If you're working for Melissa you're

  working for me too in a way. What can I tell you?"

  I didn't tell him I was not working for Melissa. I said, "Give me a verbal script, set up the characters for me."

  He smiled. "A story treatment."

  I nodded. "Whatever you call it."

  He stared out the window, got up to stand with an arm on the fireplace mantel, worked at his pipe. "Begins with a boy genius, a prodigy who was playing Brahms at the piano before most kids get free of the playpen. Very gifted, and not just in music. He masters music, in fact, to his own satisfaction at least, and has gone on to other interests by the time he's twelve. Shy, reclusive boy—not big on relationships or peer groups or any of that. Then he discovers sex and begins a five-year affair with one of his tutors. He—"

  "Male or female tutor?"

  "Female. Linguist." He puffed his pipe. "She teaches him all the tongues."

  "Five years starting when?"

  "Starting at the age of twelve. He's already mastered the usual studies that take a normal kid through high school. Now he's concentrating on economics, languages and sex. He—"

  "Who is this kid turning into?"

  "Sorry, thought you knew. He's turning into Bernie Wiseman."

  "Okay. Please go on."

  "He gets a Harvard A.B., economics major, gets bored with the B-school, goes into Wall Street at the age of nineteen. At twenty-five he's CEO of one of the big investment firms and bored again. Now he's playing too hard and gambling too much. There's a small scandal involving an insider trading deal. He's into therapy now and is often seen in the company of...cheap-looking women."

  "How old now?"

  "Still twenty-five. Moves west and is married at twenty-six, divorced and remarried at twenty-eight, again at thirty. The third marriage lasts five years. Meanwhile he's become interested in movies, works briefly in the distribution and marketing end, jumps into production and finance with a small firm that's doing sexploitation pics."

  "Porno."

  "No. There's a difference. The Russ Meyer sort of thing but without Russ' special touch. These are just . . . you know, drive-in movie stuff. They'd get a PG rating today, and even the thirteen-year-olds would turn up their noses at them. These were grinders. Five days on a sound stage, a day in the cutting room and into the drive-ins next week. He made piles of money, needless to say. But it wrecked his marriage."

  "Problems with the casting couch."

  "Probably. The problem was always there. Now it was being fed by an inexhaustible supply. The stories are, as they say, legend."

  "What stories?"

  "In the business, I mean. There was no gossip-column interest in Bernie back then."

  "What stories?"

  "Oh ... that he had a different girl for lunch every day in the office ... a girl comforting him from beneath the desk while he's conducting business . . . similar attention in his car on the freeway, hand jobs beneath the table in fancy restaurants. Those kind of stories."

  "The American Dream, eh?"

  "I think it was more like a nightmare. I've known the man for ten years, worked with him on six pictures, and that is not the Bernie Wiseman I've known."

  "Tell me about that one."

  "Kind, generous, compassionate. Those stories have become legend too, by the way. Gifts to repay a kindness, never forgets a favor, never turns on or forgets a friend."

  "How about wives?"

  "Well, he's just had one since I've known him. Lord knows he tried to get along with Justine. But she can be something of a wildcat."

  "How heavy was he into alimony?"

  "Pretty heavy, I gather. Joked about it sometimes. Like Carson, just smiled and went on. He's been paying Justine a very generous allowance for the past two years."

  I said, "She's still not mourning."

  "Well . . . perhaps not—"

  "Definitely not."

  He restoked his pipe. "Sad. They were very cozy once. I think it came apart for good in Mexico. Did she tell you? He blamed her for the accident with the horse. Very irrational, it was the first time I'd ever seen that in Bernie. He could get fixed on something and you'd have a devil of a time dissuading him, but usually he would yield if you could show him exactly where he was wrong. Not that time. I guess he died blaming her . . ."

  "Are we sure he died?"

  Franklin gave me a startled look. "I understood there was no question of that."

  "There wasn't much left to identify," I said.

  "But the medical records, dental charts . . ."

  "Why would he blame Justine? She wasn't even there, was she? Were you there?"

  "I was, yes. It was my picture—my script, that is. No, Justine wasn't there. They were already separated. He actually thought she had put a contract out on him. But it was just a freak accident. The horse stumbled and rolled over him."

  "So why would he think—?"

  "Oh, there was some question about... they found brambles or something wedged beneath two of the horses's shoes, enough to make it very touchy at times. The location manager couldn't figure it out because he said that kind of vegetation didn't even grow in that area and they were local horses. Bernie built that inconsistency into a murder plot, and, of course, he blamed Justine."

  "Why 'of course'?"

  "They were having a bitter wrangle over the divorce settlement. He'd been worried about a loophole in the marriage contract and—"

  "What loophole?"

  "I don't know all the details. But he seemed to think that she would profit more from his death than from any divorce settlement."

  "How much, would you say, was at stake there?"

  "Millions. Bernie had a beautiful incentive program at UT. Bonuses, you know, profit sharing. And he's turned nothing but smashes for several years now."

  "How did your picture do? The one in Mexico."

  He smiled. "That was Bonaparte's Reprise."

  Not bad. It had taken a couple of Oscar nominations and was a top grosser last year. I'd seen it myself and I rarely go to movies. I asked the writer, "Do you usually go on location with your pictures?"

  "Depends on where the location is. Actually, for Bonaparte, I'd just flown down with Bernie for a weekend visit. I did change a couple of scenes while I was there but. . . well, of course, the accident was very demoralizing for everyone. Delayed the shooting for a week. I was doing another script for Paramount at the time. Bernie was down there for several months recuperating, but I was there for only a few days."

  "Why did he stay so long? With an injury like that I'd want to get back home with the best medical attention possible."

  "Not Bernie. He
really liked it down there and had confidence in the doctors. And of course he had this fixation about Justine, a paranoid fixation. I do believe he was afraid to come home until he was on his feet again."

  "And he never got on his feet again."

  "Well, but there was some hope for a while, some possibility that the damaged nerves would mend themselves, regenerate."

  "That never happened."

  "Never happened."

  I said, "Could we talk a bit about Melissa? Did she make porno movies?"

  "Did Justine tell you that?"

  "Yes. Have you seen them?"

  "I scripted one of them."

  "Why?"

  "Why not? It was fun. Pay was lousy but, I admit, it stirred my fantasies."

  I said, "What's to script? I figured those movies were thrown together on the spot."

  "Not all. It can be a challenging assignment. The one I did was upscaled a bit, good storyline, some humor."

  "But no Oscars."

  "Matter of fact, it won a porn award."

  We both laughed and then I asked him, "That's when you met Melissa?"

  "No, actually Melissa came to me and asked me to do the script. I'd known her since her first week in town. She—"

  "This was before her marriage to Albert?"

  "Yes, about a year before. She'd done a couple of the adult films when we first met. I didn't know about that at the time. She had an interest in writing and I was doing weekend seminars at UCLA."

  "So you got together over the writer's version of the casting couch."

  "Oh no, not me," he protested amiably. "I suppose she would have but—"

  I asked it pointblank: "Are you gay?"

  "As a circumstance of birth, yes. As a choice of lifestyle, no. I haven't slept with a man since I was eighteen. Fallen in love with a few, yes, but I never worked it out through the act."

  "Must be difficult."

  He smiled, relit his pipe. "Not really. There are other ways of working it out. I have a rich fantasy life. It suffices."

  "Ever fantasize about Bernie Wiseman?"

  "Of course." He said it easily. "I was in love with Bernie."

  "I see."

  "Do you?"

  "Not really, but it's okay by me if it's okay by you. Maybe I'm out of line to say it, but you don't act like a man whose lover just died."