Blue Screen (16 page)

J
ESSE CAME TO
my loft in the evening with a bottle of Iron Horse champagne. I put it in an ice bucket to chill while I gave him a tour. Touring my loft is not a long affair, even if you stop, as we did, to look at the half-done painting on the easel under my skylight.

“Park Street subway entrance,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“When it’s done,” Jesse said, “I’ll like it.”

“You’re interested in art?”

“No,” Jesse said. “I’m interested in you.”

I nodded.

“That would be the better choice,” I said.

Lying on her side on my bed, Rosie watched us as we walked around. She had wagged her tail when she saw Jesse, but she was too deeply into lying on her side to get up and greet him. When the tour was over, I put out two champagne flutes, some cheese and fruit, and a loaf of French bread. Jesse opened the champagne and filled the glasses. We sat at my little table by the window. The cheese and bread did what Jesse couldn’t. It stirred Rosie from the bed, and brought her to us.

“May I give her something?” Jesse said.

“She’ll eat a grape,” I said.

Jesse pulled one from the cluster, put it in the palm of his hand, and handed it to Rosie. She took it happily, chewed it carefully, and swallowed.

“Lot of dogs don’t like grapes,” Jesse said.

“Rosie is not like other dogs,” I said.

“Of course she’s not,” Jesse said.

We clinked champagne glasses and drank.

“So,” I said. “Is this business or pleasure?”

“I have a little information,” Jesse said, “that Cronjager dug up for me.”

“So it’s business,” I said.

“You are always a pleasure, Sunny.”

I nodded and took a small piece of cheese and ate it.

“So is it both?” I said.

“That would be something for both of us to say.”

I nodded again.

“When I knew you were coming over,” I said, “my plan was to observe you closely, assess whether you were thinking we made a mistake the other night, see if you were feeling that maybe it was too much too fast, and never let on that I was worried about such matters. But the hell with that. Should I back off or jump in your lap?”

“Is there a third option?” Jesse said.

“Of course,” I said. “I was being a little simplistic.”

Jesse gave Rosie another grape. She was pleased.

“I turned her picture over when I was with you the other night,” Jesse said. “I wish it were that easy.”

I felt a little tightness in my stomach.

“Jenn,” I said.

“Yes.”

“She’s still part of the equation,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “But so are you.”

I nodded.

“And, I guess, so is Richie,” I said.

He nodded. I hoped he felt a tightness in his stomach.

“When we started,” Jesse said. “The other night. We both noticed that it was a time to be careful.”

“And that hasn’t changed,” I said.

“But there’s something going on here,” Jesse said.

“So we’ll proceed,” I said, “carefully.”

He smiled at me. “Have you shaved your legs?”

“Yes…”

“But?”

“But it might be a part of being careful,” I said, “not to jump into bed every time we’re together.”

“It might be,” Jesse said.

“Damn,” I said.

“Damn?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was hoping you’d talk me out of it.”

“I wish you were wrong,” he said.

“I love having sex with you,” I said, “and I want to again.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“But we have to know we are not just fucking each other to relieve pain.”

“
Fucking
is a one-way verb,” Jesse said. “We were doing more than fucking.”

“I think we were too,” I said. “But we need to know that.”

“Yes.”

“So let’s not, tonight.”

Jesse nodded.

“Just to see what it’s like,” I said.

“To see,” Jesse said.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said.

“I don’t think you’ll lose me,” Jesse said.

“And I don’t think you’ll lose me,” I said.

“If we can’t survive a sexless evening,” Jesse said. “We have no future anyway.”

“And if we do survive it, there will be other evenings.”

“Yes,” Jesse said.

“Meanwhile,” I said, “we can proceed like two professional investigators, working together on a case.”

“You bet,” Jesse said.

We drank some champagne. I looked at Rosie. She did not seem caught up in the conversation.

“Too bad,” Jesse said, “that you wasted the leg shave, though.”

“It will just make it easier next time,” I said.

I
FELT DRAINED
. Jesse was quiet. I couldn’t tell what he felt. But it seemed to me we had done something. On the other hand, I knew in moments of strong feeling, things took on meanings that they might not really have. And maybe all we had done was pass on a fun evening….

“What did Captain Cronjager tell you?” I said.

“You met a guy named Sol Hernandez out there?”

“Yes. He went with me to see Gerard.”

“He took an interest in the case”—Jesse smiled—“or you, and has made it a kind of a hobby, trying to figure out what happened.”

“It was probably me,” I said.

“How could it not be?” Jesse said. “This started, Cronjager says, right after you were out there. He didn’t just start when I called.”

“Sol seemed very intense about things.”

“He is,” Jesse said.

“Could be a good thing or a bad thing,” I said.

“Could be,” Jesse said.

“Intensity can get you in trouble,” I said. “If you get too involved.”

Jesse smiled.

“Let’s stick to this case,” he said. “Since Sol seems especially intense about Gerard Basgall, for our purposes, it’s a good thing.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Case is still open, though Cronjager admits not, ah, very, ah, active, and Sol has talked with the guys assigned, and has been accumulating information, whether it seems to be useful or not.”

“Intensity and patience,” I said. “That’s usually good.”

“Why do I feel we’re talking about two things at the same time?” Jesse said.

“Probably because you are a trained and intuitive police officer,” I said.

“And a chief, at that,” Jesse said. “So Sol’s got a big file and there’s a lot of stuff in it that seems aimless at the moment—where Basgall went to high school, Erin’s gyno, stuff like that. But he also found the law firm that Basgall used when he got busted, or when vice swept up some of his girls.”

“It wasn’t Arlo Delaney?” I said.

“Nope. It was an outfit called Jacobson and Fine. The guy that worked on Gerard’s cases was the criminal-law guy, Perry Kramer.”

“So?”

“So Sol, being an intense guy, went a little further. He checked the employment records at Jacobson and Fine back five years and there, doing the entertainment-law work, was the late Arlo Delaney, before he left to go into partnership with the late Greg Newton.”

“This is beginning to make my head hurt,” I said.

I got up and got some yellow paper with blue lines and a black Bic pen, and sat down.

“Basgall was Erin and Misty’s pimp,” I said, and wrote down the names, “who had a lawyer who worked in the same firm as Arlo Delaney, who is Moon Monaghan’s cousin. Whom he connected to Buddy Bollen to make movies starring Erin, who is pimped by Basgall.”

“Makes sort of a nice circle,” Jesse said.

“It does,” I said. “Does it tell us who killed Misty?”

“Not yet,” Jesse said.

I looked at my list of names with little arrows I’d drawn connecting them.

“It must lead somewhere,” I said. “This is just too many coincidental connections.”

“Agreed,” Jesse said. “But does it take us to who killed Misty?”

“We could look at motive,” I said. “Buddy owed Moon money. Moon has a history of collecting debts by killing off someone close to the debtor, to scare him.”

“And killing off Erin wouldn’t work for Moon,” Jesse said. “Because if there’s a cash cow in Buddy’s barn, she’s it.”

“And Moon is there, in Boston.”

“So is Buddy,” Jesse said.

“But what is his motive?”

“Because we don’t know it,” Jesse said, “doesn’t mean he hasn’t got one.”

“Gerard claims he loves Erin,” I said.

“So why would he kill Misty?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If we could prove that he wasn’t in Boston when Misty died, we could eliminate him.”

“Healy is trying to find that out for me,” Jesse said. “State cops got more resources than the Paradise PD. They’re checking airline passenger lists and credit card records.”

“Of course, it could be somebody we don’t know anything about and never heard of,” I said.

“Except it would be hard to get in there unannounced with all the security.”

“But not impossible,” I said.

“No. But is it a useful hypothesis for us?” Jesse said.

“No. Does Sol have anything else?”

“Cronjager says that Sol just caught a case involving multiple murders,” Jesse said. “Maybe a serial killer, high-profile, some celebrities. Misty is on back order for now.”

“So maybe I need to go out there again,” I said.

“Maybe I should go with you,” Jesse said.

“In the continuing spirit of professionalism,” I said.

“You bet,” Jesse said.

“See what we can accomplish when we’re not preoccupied with sex,” I said.

“Who’s not preoccupied with sex?” Jesse said.

I smiled and finished my glass of champagne.

“Nobody I know,” I said.

G
RIM OVERCAST
. Cold sea smell. Logan Airport. American Airlines. 757. Bad lunch. Dumb movie. Neither of us drank. LAX. Hertz. Ford Taurus. 405 northbound. West on Wilshire. Smell of ocean and flowering trees. Temperature 73. No wind.

At 1:11 in the afternoon, we parked the Taurus at a meter in front of a silly-looking cream-colored stucco building on 4th Avenue, at the corner of Wilshire, in Santa Monica, where Jacobson and Fine had offices.

“Is this your first time back?” I said.

He nodded.

“It’s the way the air feels,” he said, “and the way it smells. Isn’t like anyplace else.”

“That might be a good thing,” I said.

There was an open two-story elevator shaft in the lobby of the small building, wrought-iron, filigreed and fanciful.

“I liked it here,” Jesse said.

“Except when you didn’t.”

“Except then,” Jesse said. “But that wasn’t LA’s fault.”

The cute blonde receptionist in the law office wore a hands-free headset and harlequin-shaped glasses with candy striped frames.

“Stone and Randall,” Jesse said. “To see Perry Kramer.”

The receptionist relayed that information into her headset.

“You know, actually,” I said, “not for nothing, but if you were to be alphabetical, it would be Randall and Stone.”

“God,” Jesse said, “what a blunder.”

A door to the reception room opened and a guy said, “I’m Perry.”

He was tallish and thin with a short, neat beard and too much black, curly hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, like you never see anymore, a flowered shirt, white duck pants, and leather sandals.

“Come on in,” he said.

His office was small, with a view of Wilshire Boulevard. The desk was a maple conference table. On one wall was a large framed picture of a woman with three adolescent girls.

“Randall and Stone,” I said. “I’m Randall.”

Perry looked at some notes on his desk.

“Sunny,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And Jesse.”

Jesse nodded.

“I’m Perry,” he said. “You want to talk about Arlo Delaney.”

“For starters,” I said. “We’re also interested in Gerard Basgall.”

“Um-hm,” Perry said.

“Start with Arlo,” Jesse said. “He worked here?”

“Yeah. Dave Fine—Jacobson’s been dead twenty years—Fine wanted to establish an entertainment-law department. I don’t know where he found Delaney, but he came cheap, and he was a pretty shrewd guy.”

“Do I hear a
but
in your voice, Perry?” I said.

“But,” Perry said, “he had the ethical scruples of a fucking tarantula. You don’t mind swearing do you, Sunny?”

“I like it,” I said. “Isn’t this the right business, in the right city, for a man with the ethical scruples of a fucking tarantula?”

“Fine’s kind of aberrant,” Perry said.

“How about you?” I said.

Perry grinned. “I’m kind of aberrant, too.”

“Practicing criminal law?” Jesse said.

“That’s why I’m in a small office,” Perry said, “out here at the beach.”

“You ought to be ashamed,” I said.

Perry nodded sadly.

“So,” he said, “Arlo comes here, and brings a few second-string clients along with him, for starters. Not much, but he hustles, and in time he brings in some names you’d know. We’re not talking George Clooney or Julia Roberts here, but some game-show hosts, some television people. He’s doing okay. He’s billing enough to keep Fine happy.”

“How about Gerard Basgall?” Jesse said.

“How about him?”

“What can you tell us about him?”

“Not much. He used to be a client. There’s the confidentiality thing.”

“Sure,” Jesse said. “Did he know Delaney?”

Perry thought for a moment, apparently saw no conflict, and said, “Yes. I put them in touch.”

“Because?” I said.

Perry thought some more and then shook his head.

“Perry,” I said. “I understand the whole lawyer-client thing. We know Gerard is a pimp. We know you represented him and his whores when they were arrested. We know that everybody has a right to the best defense they can get.”

Perry smiled.

“Sadly for them, that was usually me,” Perry said. “Without acceding to your characterization of them, I did sometimes represent Gerard and some of his female employees in criminal matters.”

“Nicely put,” I said. “We have a dead woman back home who was once an employee of Gerard Basgall. There is some sort of connection to Arlo Delaney, and we’re trying to see if we can close the circle with a connection to Gerard. Do you represent Gerard now?”

“No,” Perry said. “I knew most of the girls; who was it?”

“Edith Boverini,” Jesse said.

Perry was still for a moment.

Then he said, “Shit.”

“You knew her,” I said.

“Misty,” he said, “that was her, ah, professional name.”

“And her sister?” I said.

“Ethel,” Perry said. “Aka Erin.”

“Do you know who Erin is now?” I said.

“No.”

“Erin Flint.”

Perry was silent a minute, then he said, “Woman Warrior.”

“That would be Ethel,” I said.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“You never saw her movies?”

“Oh hell,” Perry said. “Of course not. What happened to Misty.”

“Somebody broke her neck,” Jesse said.

“With malice aforethought?”

“We believe so,” Jesse said.

Perry was quiet for a moment.

“I liked Misty,” he said.

“And somebody killed Delaney,” I said.

“Yeah, I read that,” Perry said. “It was a while after he left here to become a mogul.”

“Did he succeed?”

“He and Newton were getting a lot of financing done. I don’t think he had made mogul yet.”

“You seem sadder,” I said, “about Misty.”

Perry nodded.

“I liked Misty,” he said.

“We think Misty’s death and Delaney’s death may be related,” I said. “And we want to see where Basgall fits in. Did he know Delaney?”

“Yes,” Perry said.

“Tell me about that.”

Perry nodded thoughtfully.

After some silence he said, “I introduced them.”

I waited. Jesse was quiet, which I had come to learn was not unusual. One of the things I liked about Jesse was the steady depth of his silence.

“Later,” Perry said, “if you need to, we can discuss what’s on the record, but right now it will be easier if I just talk for your ears only.”

He looked at Jesse. Jesse nodded. He looked at me. I nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Gerard’s an odd duck. He’s a pimp. He’s a violent guy. I’m sure he’s killed people. But he also treats the girls better than pimps generally do. I never had any reason to think he slapped them around or didn’t pay them fair. And he was always careful about the situations he put them in. If it was hinky, he’d stay right around and make sure they were okay. Some of the violence that got him into the trouble and that I had to get him out of was probably against johns who misused Gerard’s girls. This was in the early days, when Gerard’s enterprise was a hands-on deal. Now he’s like a big executive and delegates things. I don’t know how the girls do now.”

“A nice pimp,” Jesse said.

“No, Gerard’s not nice. He’s a mean, arrogant bastard. But he always seemed to like the girls.”

“Most pimps don’t,” I said.

“Most pimps hate them,” Perry said. “But Gerard didn’t seem to.”

“All the girls or just the Boverini sisters.”

“All the girls,” Perry said. “It registered because you never see it much.”

“So why did you hook him up with Delaney?” Jesse said.

“He was looking to get Erin and Misty into the movies.”

“Real movies?” Jesse said.

“Real movies, not porn,” Perry said. “He asked me if I knew somebody.”

“And you knew Delaney,” Jesse said.

“Yeah. He had left here already, and set up with Newton.”

“What did you think of his idea.”

“The wrong thing,” Perry said. “He said they were so good-looking he was sure they could make it. I told him they were good-looking, especially Erin. But that beauty was the staple commodity out here. Everybody’s beauty queen comes here to be a star.”

“But he insisted they were special,” I said.

“Yeah. I told him he’d probably make more money out of having them fuck rich drunks in luxury hotel suites. Shows you what I know.”

“Maybe you were right,” I said. “I don’t know how much he’s made out of her success.”

“She’s not with him anymore?”

“No.”

“And Misty is dead. She ever make it?”

“In the movies?” I said. “Not that I know.”

“Too bad.”

“And you know that he actually hooked up with Delaney,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

“How about next of kin?” I said.

“He had a wife, Doreen, I think.”

“Got an address?”

“Lemme look,” Perry said.

He didn’t have a Rolodex; one point for him. He got an address book from his middle drawer and thumbed through it.

“Last place I got for him,” Perry said, “is Sherman Oaks.”

He wrote the address on a yellow sticky and handed it to Jesse.

“Know anything else?” I said.

“About Gerard?”

“Yes.”

“Gerard and I had a disagreement, and he left for another lawyer.”

“What did you disagree about?” I said.

“He always lied to me about things,” Perry said. “I told him I couldn’t represent him well if he lied to me.”

“How did he react?”

“He told me I didn’t represent him well anyway, and suggested I fuck off.” Perry smiled for a moment. “Last time I spoke with him.”

“Anything you disagreed about that would help us?”

Perry shook his head slowly.

“No,” he said. “It was more like…if Gerard gave you the time of day, it would be wise to check with a second source.”

“No wonder he wanted to get into the movie business,” I said.