Ellipsis (11 page)

“Or Bill Clinton.”

“What did he founder?”

“He found her in the Oval Office.”

“A punster. God spare us.”

“I apologize.”

“Some things are unforgivable,” she said, not entirely in jest.

“The conversation seems to have taken a wrong turn,” I said when I couldn't think of anything else to say.

Jill sighed like wind through the willows. “So has my life. Professionally, at least.”

Her despair swept through the line and made me shiver. “That bad?”

“At least.”

“So I guess it's not a good time to ask how you enjoyed the after-hours activity last night.”

She giggled and diluted her mood. “Very much. Except it didn't last long enough.”

I reddened for the second time in an hour. “I could try Viagra, I guess, but I didn't think it was so bad. I also think when we get more accustomed to each other's—”

“I didn't mean
that
way, stupid. I meant the good feeling ended by the time I got to the office this morning.”

“Oh.”

She laughed. “Premature ejaculation is the least of my problems, believe me.”

“Do you think that's an issue, honestly, because—?”

“Relax, Marsh. I'm joking.”

I chose to believe her so I could choose to drop the subject. “The grand jury's not going well? Seriously?”

“Grand jury proceedings are secret.”

“I know.”

“If I divulged them, I could be prosecuted.”

“I know.”

“So, seriously? I'm toast.”

“Why?”

“At this point there's no proof of anything more notorious than minor bribes and low-weight drug deals. If I don't have more by the end of next week, I'll have to wrap it up without seeking a true bill.” She paused to ask a question that didn't need voicing.

“I told you before you got started that this was your baby and I wouldn't get involved with it,” I said.

“I know what you told me, Marsh.”

“I don't even know if I've got anything for you. Now that Charley's dead, my sources in the department are few and far between.”

She fired for effect. “I think Charley told you lots more about the Triad than you've told me.”

“He didn't. Not really. Though I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘told.'”

“Jesus. You
are
like Clinton.”

“He's a premature ejaculator?”

“You know what I mean.”

I paused to let her cool down. “Maybe I should come over.”

“Sorry, but I have two witness examinations to prepare tonight.”

“I could bring a treat. Ice cream. Those brownies you like. We could take a little break.”

“You know what happens when we take a break.”

“Not always, it doesn't.”

“Always.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Good for me.”

Her voice dropped to a level of despondency that was unique in our relationship. “I'm in big trouble on this, Marsh. I'm going to end up looking like an ambitious idiot who couldn't deliver the goods. I'm probably going to lose my job because of it.”

I sighed. “Maybe I can help.”

“How?”

“Give you a name.”

“What name?”

“Not yet. I have to think about it first.”

“Well, think fast, goddammit. If you have anything, I need it tomorrow night.”

Chapter 11

Chandelier's ex-husband lived in surprisingly tasteful decorum on the western edge of the city in a mock-Tudor house with a nice view of the Pacific as it assaulted Ocean Beach with a succession of blunt instruments in the form of twelve-foot breakers. The house was new and incongruous in an area of more eclectic homes that had been warped by the rain, bleached by the sun, and rusted by the salt in the breeze off the sea. Many of them looked more like barnacles than dwelling places, but not the one I was visiting. How Mickey Strunt came to possess such handsome digs remained to be seen.

I knocked on his door at precisely ten o'clock. From the time it took him to answer, I guessed that in Mickey Strunt's world it was still the middle of the night.

After unlatching at least three locks, Mickey stood in the doorway like a toad just jolted out of hibernation. He was short and overweight, with vast patches of body hair on his chest and back and a bulge in his belly that looked like a Christmas prosthesis. As he stood scratching his balls and squinting his eyes, he looked as confused and vulnerable as a toddler. An instant later he retrieved his chosen persona and became as bellicose and belligerent as an adult.

“What the hell do you want?” he demanded with ersatz anger, his rotund arms crossed over a tank top that was numbered 23, his stubby legs sticking out of baggy red satin shorts that were also of the House of Jordan. The sleepwear was fitting, I decided—the only way Mickey Strunt would get to the NBA was in his dreams.

“Are you Mr. Strunt?” I asked unnecessarily.

He drummed his fingers impatiently, as though he were so busy the slightest interruption might delay his discovery of the origins of dark matter. “That depends. You a cop?”

“Not at all.”

“Collection agent?”

I shook my head and stuck out my hand. “My name's Tanner, Mr. Strunt. I'm vice president for product development and concept content for one of this country's leading media corporations,” I burlesqued heartily, playing the role I'd concocted on the way over, one that was calculated to find out if Mickey was threatening his ex-wife and, more important, to get him to stop if he was.

“Yeah?” Mickey shook my hand reluctantly, with all the spunk of a punk. “What's that have to do with me?”

“Simply this. My employer is considering a major commercial involvement with your ex-wife, and believe me, the operative word is
major
.”

Instantly roused by the scent of money, he struggled to remain impassive. “So?”

“Before we finalize any agreement, we need to know what kind of person she is. And what kind of relationships she maintains.”

“Why?”

“We need to know whether she's worthy of a sizable investment, quite frankly.”

Mickey shook his head in reluctant admiration. “Damn. The bitch made it to the movies without me.” A moment later he drew in his wonder and redonned his mask. “Am I right or not?”

“I'm afraid I'm not in a position to comment on the specifics of our proposal at this time. It's a cutthroat world out there, as I'm sure you know, especially in the entertainment industry. We've found from experience that absolute secrecy in these matters is the only way to maintain a competitive edge.”

His brain awash in fantasy, he didn't hear a word I said. “What's the deal? Miniseries? Feature film? Biopic? Multimedia release?”

I kept my nonexistent cards close to my nonexistent vest. “Let's just say everything and anything is on the table.”

He literally began to drool. “She getting a producer credit?”

I shrugged casually, to suggest I answered such questions daily. “That's not my decision, but I wouldn't be surprised.”

“How much are we talking? On the front end, I mean?”

I stayed silent and shook my head.

As if he'd mainlined a steroid, Mickey swelled toward the size of the Cliff House. “I'm gonna tell you what, Mr. Vice President of whatever, you
best
get it through your
head
that you're not going to
screw
her. Not if I have anything to say about it, and you better believe I
will
.”

I frowned in all innocence. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Mr. Strunt.”

He sneered at my naïveté. “Here's the way it goes down or Chandelier doesn't play ball. First, gross profit participation is a must, plus a percentage of syndication rights and creator billing in any series spin-off. Second, sequel and prequel rights will double the pickup price. Third, dramatic rights to the main character are not exclusive. Fourth, electronic rights remain in reserve, with terms to be—”

The Hollywood jargon sounded as alien in his mouth as the particulars of particle physics. “You seem to know a lot about the entertainment business, Mr. Strunt,” I interrupted.

“Ought to. I been in it for almost twenty years.”

“Really? In what capacity?”

He started to answer, then slapped himself on the forehead in unconscious tribute to the Three Stooges. The blow seemed to dislodge his ingrown personality and replace it with a more civilized version. “I got the manners of a mule. Come inside, Mr. Tanner. Let me get you a drink or something. How about a beer?”

“Coffee would be nice.”

“Instant okay?”

“Actually, I—”

“Got steaming-hot water right out of the tap. I can have a cup of Folgers in front of you in twenty seconds.”

Mickey Strunt backed inside his house and made sure I followed him as he penetrated its core. I'd dangled the biggest bait you can use on a homo sapien in the nineties—participation in a movie scheme of any size, shape, or sleaze—and Mickey Strunt had bitten. I was getting to be such a good actor, I should have been making movies myself.

Predictably, the refinement of the structure was confined to the exterior—the living room was an idiot's idea of chic. The art had been bought in a mall, the furniture came out of IKEA, the wallpaper was whorehouse red flecked with metallic accents in the shape of potato chips, and the carpet pretended to be Spanish tile. There were empty beer bottles everywhere, a half-eaten pizza still in the box, and enough crumpled bags of Frito Lay and Kettle chips to gorge a Dumpster. But the junk-food wrappers were only accessories to the predominant paper product, which was skin magazines. A dozen or more littered the living room, hard-core editions known only to the cognoscenti and featuring behaviors and bodies that were decidedly abnormal if not anatomically impossible. The only point in Mickey's favor was that none of them featured kids.

Mickey scraped his idea of fine art off the gold velvet couch and motioned for me to sit down. “So you need some backstory from me, is that it? To put Chandelier in a context?”

“That's it exactly, Mr. Strunt.”

“Call me Mickey. So I guess the rumors finally got down to L.A.”

“What rumors are those?”

He puffed like pudding. “That I made Chandelier what she is today.”

“Really.”

“Hell, I don't like to brag, but I wrote her first three books myself.”

“Really.”

“Damned straight. Well, maybe not word for word exactly, but I told her what to put down. Hell, the main character's modeled after me.”

I looked as puzzled as I felt. “The main character's a woman.”

“Yeah, well, you know what I mean. The macho stuff—gunplay and martial arts and that shit—it all come from me. Hell, Chandelier didn't know a cap pistol from an assault weapon before I come along.”

“When
did
you come along, Mr. Strunt?”

“Mickey. Back in '83.”

“How did you and Ms. Wells meet?”

“I laid her carpet.”

“You what?”

“Laid her carpet,” he repeated proudly. “I laid rug in the east bay for eight years. Kramer Koverings, you probably seen the ads—guy laying green shag over a golf green at Tilden Park, that was me. I still get residuals.”

“Really.”

Mickey paused for breath. Something about the look on my face made him want to define the relationship with his ex-wife more precisely. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you think. You can't figure what a woman like Chandelier seen in a guy like me, but listen up. She wasn't who she turned out to be back then. Not by a long shot.”

“How so?”

“She was fat, for one thing. Two-forty easy. And working for pennies at Kmart. On her feet all day stuffing size-twelve women into size-eight dresses. Compared to the duds she saw around there, I came on like the fucking king of fucking Egypt.”

“She's undergone quite a change, then.”

“Damn right she has, and I'm the one who got her going. When she got that first piddly-assed contract, I said, ‘Babe'—that's what I always call her, Babe—I said, ‘Babe, there's a pot full of money out there just waiting for someone to grab it, and that someone might as well be you.' Then I told her how to go about it.”

“How was that?”

As lively as an inspirational orator, Mickey held up his fingers in turn. “She had to be glamorous but not ritzy; smart but not intellectual; funny but not silly; feminist but not butch; and hip but not political.”

“Sounds like sage advice.”

“Damned straight it was. So she goes to a fat farm and drops fifty pounds. And to a surgeon who cuts back her boobs, which I wasn't entirely in favor of, by the way. And to one fag to learn how to fix up her house and another to learn how to wear clothes. Two years and six books later, she gets a half-million advance from Madison House and ain't looked back since. And that's pennies to what she gets now.”

“So you made her a star. Sort of like Pygmalion.”

“More like Sonny Bono if you ask me—Pig whoever didn't have nothing to do with it. Without me, Chandelier Wells is still Betty Moulton under the flashing blue light. Yeah. That's right. I come up with the name, too.”

“Seems to me you don't get nearly enough credit, Mr. Strunt.”

“Mickey. Yeah, well, I can't eat credit, know what I'm saying?”

I nodded as he rubbed his fingers together in the universal tic of the hustler. “Which brings me to one of the reasons I'm here,” I said.

I had his full attention. “Yeah? What's that?”

“We were wondering what kind of financial arrangement you have with Ms. Wells. Is it a formal one? Reduced to a writing of some kind?”

He shook his head. “Handshake deal, is all.”