High Fall (18 page)

And when the receptionist announced that Dolly would be “right with her,” Kiernan turned and nearly smacked into the man.

“I’ve been here forty minutes,” he whined, slapping his white plantation hat on the desk. His long, thinning gray hair bounced and resettled to show the hat line around his head. With his pursed lips and the slump of his shoulders, he could have been wearing a T-shirt emblazoned
BORN TO WAIT
.

The receptionist gazed at him as she might at a mendicant dropping in on the Pope. “If you’d had an appointment, Mr. Pedora—”

“Appointment? Death doesn’t make appointments!” He paused momentarily, as if savoring his last sentence.

Kiernan stepped back.
Jason Pedora! This
man was Greg Gaige’s half-brother? They both must have gotten all their genes from their not-in-common parents. Pedora looked every bit as crazy as Yarrow had said.

“Well, Ms. Uberhazy does expect appointments. Look, I’ve told you—”

The intercom buzzed. In a moment the receptionist said to Kiernan, “Dolly’ll see you now.”

Pedora glared from the receptionist to her.

“Kiernan O’Shaughnessy,” she said, extending a hand.

He jerked back, eyes narrowing. “Jason Pedora.”

“Jason Pedora, the writer?”

“Why, yes …”

To Kiernan’s right, the office door opened, and Dolly Uberhazy looked out. Kiernan handed Pedora her card. “Where can I reach you?”

Pedora froze, turned abruptly, and without a word hurried out the door.

“Crazy as a loon,” Dolly said. “I don’t know how the hell he gets onto the lot. He’s been barred from sets for over a decade, but the man’s a gopher, you can’t keep him out.” Resting her gaze on Kiernan, she said, “You’ll regret giving him your card,” and trotted back across the expanse of her office.

Kiernan followed, past a huge fish tank housing a sunken Fifty-second and First Avenue and a platoon of black and brown fish floating in and out of the empty apartment windows. A watery midtown Pompeii.

“Yesterday evening you were the union rep. In the middle of the night you were a gumshoe. So, sweetie, what are you this morning—a talent scout for third-rate writers?” Dolly motioned her into one of the hard boxy chairs on the low-rent side of a maharajah’s table—remarkably ornate, but still squat like its owner. Dolly Uberhazy was wearing the same ensemble she’d had on at the screening the night before—brown silk slacks and chocolate cloak-sweater—the kind of expensive garments the mother of Kiernan’s college roommate had favored, insisting they would last a lifetime. From the looks of her, Dolly was determined to find out. The creases and lines that wadded that sweater suggested Uberhazy had spent the entire night flopping in and out of chairs. Now she sat behind the maharajah’s table, in the only straight-backed chair in the room.

Bad back, Kiernan thought, and too much time behind the maharajah’s table. Don’t let her take charge; keep her on the defensive; set the pace. “You were the producer of the film Greg Gaige died in.”

“You work fast. Or were you investigating me before yesterday?”

“Before
Lark’s death? Why would you suspect that?”

The suggestion of a smile rolled down Uberhazy’s face, over her sharp brown eyes, the nose that hung a millimeter too close to her thin lips and a narrow chin that jutted minusculely forward as if to say:
I’ll take your shot, roll it around in my hands, and smack it back at you.
“Look, here, sweetie, I didn’t invite you up here to answer
your
questions. So tell me, just what are you after? You can skip the union rep story—I’ve got a few investigators of my own. I know your history and that you’re licensed
now.”
Her right forearm rested on the table, but she neither fiddled with a pencil nor tapped her fingers. She had too much control for that.

Choosing not to be distracted by the implied threat, Kiernan said, “Lark drank coca-leaf tea; she ate poppyseed bagels. That’s nowhere near enough opiates to toss her over the cliff, but it’s ample to skew a urine test. Before Lark began the Move, the cordon markers were shifted on the set—”

“So what are you saying—that that was deliberate—meant to kill her?”

“I don’t know yet why Lark died. But it’s certainly suspicious—doubly suspicious after Greg Gaige died in a fire after doing the same Move. And you were a power in both films.”

“There’s no connection,” she said too quickly.

Kiernan leaned toward her. “What do you know about Lark?”

Dolly shook her finger. “No, no. You don’t seem to get it. I’m not here to answer
your
questions. Besides, the answer is ‘nothing.’ She’s Cary Bleeker’s find. He asked all the questions about the stunts she’d done for her promo reel. I just viewed the reel.”

“I thought most senior vice-presidents had more power than that.”

“Right, detective, I could have overruled Bleeker. But Lark’s reel looked great. I saw Greg Gaige practice the Move. When Cary Bleeker offered me another chance, I couldn’t resist.”

“For yourself or the box office?”

“Without the box office, sweetie, there is no self.” She leaned back against the slats of the wooden chair, then added quickly, “If you want to know more, you’ll have to get it from Bleeker. If he’s in any condition to talk.”

“He seemed okay last night.”

“Shock can have delayed effects.”

“Why should Bleeker be so distressed?”

Dolly was silent. Considering? But no, she was not a woman who needed that long to make a decision. She was a judgment-a-minute woman, one who’d rather be wrong than indecisive. So why the hesitation?

Dolly leaned forward, elbows on the maharajah’s table. “I want you working for me.”

“Or you’ll take your ball and go home?”

“Or I’ll call back the San Diego cops and let them haul you in for housebreaking.”

Kiernan laughed. “Choose between jailers? No, I don’t think so. Besides, there are too many questions about Lark’s death; you’re not going to direct police attention back to the case on another front.” She waited a moment, accepting Uberhazy’s silence for acquiescence. “I’ll be straight with you. I want to know about Lark Sondervoil’s death as much as you wanted to see her do the Move. But in this case my services aren’t for sale.”

“The door’s behind you.”

“What I can tell you,” Kiernan said, making no move to leave, “is that I’m as good an investigator as you’re going to get. You’ve checked me out; you know what I can do and what I earn doing it. I know gymnastics, I’ve evaluated the insides of more dead bodies than you want to think about, and I am going to find out why Lark died—not because my rent depends on it, but for a much more pressing reason, because I want to know. So if you’re looking for the answer to why she died, all you need to do is wait. But you won’t have to wait as long if you tell me what you know.”

“I don’t plan to help you so I can read about this in the paper.”

It was capitulation. Kiernan smiled. “I’ll make you this much of a promise: I’ll give you first crack at my findings, before the press. Unless, of course, you are culpable.”

Dolly nodded.

“So why was Bleeker so distressed?”

“He knew the girl.”

“And?”

That challenging smile appeared on Uberhazy’s face. “Cary Bleeker’s had a string of bad luck, enough that I had to think carefully about hiring him. I was taking a chance.”

“But
you’re
not immobilized by all this.”

“I’m an executive. I can’t afford to go to pieces. And to be fair”—she laughed—”fairness is not exactly the main concern in this business. But to be fair, I’m not anywhere near as far out on the branch as Cary Bleeker. This is his last chance. When I first heard of Bleeker on
Bad Companions,
he was the golden-haired boy.”

“But?”

“After
Bad Companions,
he got the reputation as a bad luck director.”

“What kind of bad luck?”

“Hunt-and-peck kind of stuff. Engine caught fire on a crane, and the crane rolled back into the set. No one was hurt, but it took two weeks to get the set back in shape, and between the cost of rebuilding, paying actors, and the crews sitting in the sun with nothing to do, not to mention repairing the crane itself, it ran high enough so that the picture never got out of the red. That kind of thing.”

“And do you know what happened on the set of
Bad Companion
? Or were you too preoccupied with your tryst?”

Uberhazy nodded. There was no sign of that challenging smile. “The problems on
Companions
were a lot more benign, until the fire, but that had nothing to do with Cary. That truly was bad luck—”

“Tell me about it.” In her mind Kiernan could see the picture of Greg Gaige smiling as he did the Move. She pushed it away.

“Most of the things were small stuff, pain-in-the-ass nuisances like people leaving their cigarette butts in their napkins to smolder.”

“What people? Dratz stuff?”

It was a moment before Dolly said, “You know what a Dratz is?”

Kiernan couldn’t resist a grin. “I told you I was good at my work. A Dratz is a schlemiel sent by the studio brass, who talks on the set, second-guesses directors, instructs actors, and feels anyone is capable of doing any stunt short of the Gaige Move. And who’s got to be tolerated because he’s a bigwig’s son.”

Dolly nodded approvingly, but her eyes were drawn in, wary. She wants me to be good, Kiernan thought, but not too good.

“Okay, sweetie, Dratz drove Cary Bleeker crazy. Word of his screw-ups flew through the industry like wildfire. And then there’s the real fire, Greg Gaige dies, shooting’s delayed, scenes have to be redone, and the whole thing sends
Companions’
overruns into the stratosphere. And Bleeker’s name is tied to both: fire and Dratz.”

“So he hasn’t worked in all these years?”

Dolly shrugged. “Cary had some friends who had him coordinate no-brain stunts or direct run-of-the-mill second units. But Dratz is an albatross perched on his head. Look, things go wrong on every set. With that many people, all watching out for number one, there are bound to be screw-ups. Accidents happen, directors fume, producers throw tantrums, actors are hysterical—and then life goes on. But if Cary’s on the set, every problem is a disaster, and it’s caused by Bad Luck Bleeker. So no one’s willing to put his ass on the line to hire him.”

Uberhazy’s shoulders were pulled in tight, and those fingers, which had lain perfectly still in her early show of control, now made indecipherable patterns on the maharajah’s table. In a minute she’d be fingering her phone, and in another, ending the meeting. There was time for one, maybe two questions.

Lark Sondervoil was killed in front of many of the people who had been present at Greg Gaige’s death. Could Lark have been on that original set ten years ago? Seen something? Was that the connection? “Where was the
Bad Companions
location?”

“West of El Centro, almost spitting distance of Arizona and Mexico. Why?”

No time for explanations. “Were there any children on the set?”

“Not unless you count Dratz.”

“What happened to Dratz after that?”

“Out of the business. Even with a veep-Dad, a turd’s a turd.”

Kiernan leaned forward, making no attempt to hide her assessing gaze. “Dolly, you are a woman who has made it to the top in a tough business, a man’s business. You didn’t do that by being nice. And yet you are the only one to hire Cary Bleeker. You didn’t sign him up to direct background shots—you made him the director of a second unit that would be doing some very visible things. Then you let him hire an unknown to do an extremely dangerous Move, a maneuver intimately bound up with the movie that tarred his reputation. You took a risk, not a small one to begin with, then you compounded it. Why?”

Dolly’s dark brown eyes seemed to sink back into her head, as if she were pulling into a cocoon of thought.

“Give me the truth on this.” Kiernan didn’t need to add “or we have no deal.”

Dolly stopped the circling of her fingers. Hitting the table with one decisive tap, she said, “Unseemly decency? Guilt? Or hunch? Fact is, I was the producer on
Companions.
I’d seen Greg Gaige do his Move. It was a knockout. When Cary offered me Lark doing that same Move, I could see the possibilities.” She paused, and Kiernan had the feeling she was assessing her response. “Okay, no gag is going to carry a film; but this one, with its connection to Greg’s death, could be just enough to get notice.
Edge of Disaster
’s a good film. It could be a sleeper. Or a little notoriety will goose reviewers to the previews; they review it, which gooses the studio to advertise, which draws the public, and bingo—a hit!”

“A phoenix from Greg’s ashes?” Contempt rang in her voice.

“That’s Hollywood, sweetie. I gave you the truth; I’m not asking you to love me.” Her gaze met Kiernan’s fiercely.
Don’t you dare condemn me,
it silently demanded.

Deliberately, Kiernan didn’t reply to that. This was an opportunity, not to save Dolly’s soul, but to make use of her unease. “I need Lark Sondervoil’s personnel records.”

Clearly relieved, Dolly opened a drawer in the maharajah’s table and pulled out a manila folder. “She’s not a studio employee. She’s a day player for
Edge of Disaster.
You won’t find much in there.”

Kiernan opened it. She had ordered background reports on Lark, Bleeker, Dolly, Yarrow, and Greg before she left. But there hadn’t been time for BakDat to respond. It made her uneasy. She scanned the pages, and stopped at Beneficiary: the High Country Gymnastics Academy. “Do you know anything about this?”

“No more than you see. But for that little school, wherever it is, it’s going to be a boon. I just hope—”

“—they don’t sue?” Kiernan finished the thought. “Is there any way they would know about the bequest?”

“Not from us.” She looked from the folder up to Kiernan; her eyes narrowed. “And I’m not paying you to tell them.”

Kiernan laughed. “How many times am I going to have to remind you that you are not paying me at all? But for what comfort it is, I collect information—I don’t disseminate it without reason. What about Greg Gaige? Was his mother his sole beneficiary?”