Natural Causes (8 page)

Stone walkways angled off the court, running past the
spare white buildings and back into the grounds. The walks were
narrow, tree-lined, and heavily ornamented with shrubs and flowers.
The place had the look of a private garden. And the smell of a
garden, too. The mixed fragrances of the flowers were like a taste on
the tongue--a sweet, thick, maraschino flavor of oleander, jacaranda,
and bougainvillea.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Jack said over my
shoulder.

"Yes."

"It's like a conservatory out there. They even
have name tags on the trees and flowers."

"Mr. Moon?" the woman at the desk called
out. Jack and I turned around.

"Miss Rose would like to talk to you. You can
take it on the phone in the corner."

Jack walked over to the corner booth and I went up to
the desk. The woman smiled at me. She had a pretty, slightly
aloof-looking face that fit beautifully into that pretty, exclusive
garden spot.

"Do you like our hotel?" she said.

"It's lovely."

"Yes," she said with pride. "It
affords our guests a measure of privacy that's unusual in this city.
I mean, of course, outside of a private residence in Bel Air."

"You must meet a lot of famous people."

"A few," she said mildly, as if she weren't
interested in pursuing the topic.

"Where do all the paths lead?"

"To different quarters. We have a number of
separate accommodations, tailored to the needs of our guests."
"I suppose you could get lost out there."

"Not really. There are signs and, of course, the
grounds are walled. So you couldn't go too far wrong."

"Are there any other entrances?" I asked.
"I mean, other than the lobby?"

The woman gave me an odd look. I was beginning to
sound like a detective. I could hear it myself.

"There are no other entrances, although there
are locked gates in the walls."

"I'll have to take a stroll."

"By all means," she said without
enthusiasm.

Jack came back to the desk and touched me on the arm.

"Excuse us, won't you?" he said to the
woman.

She said, "Certainly."

Jack pulled me aside. "Helen is in one of her
moods. Things didn't go well today with Walt--the little prick. He's
angling for Quentin's job. And when Walt angles, he does it with a
meathook. And then the taping got fouled up this afternoon--some flap
over one of the scripts."

"Does that mean dinner is off?"

"What that means," Jack said, "is that
we're in for another bumpy flight. Helen is really a very sweet
person. But she's got a tough job and she cares very deeply about the
show. Too deeply for her own good. When things go wrong ... it gets
to her. And between Walt, Quentin, and the flap on the set, a lot has
gone wrong this week. Plus she's got to meet with Walt again tomorrow
morning and with the network and agency people in the afternoon.
Between you and me, the show has been slipping in the ratings lately,
and we're all a little afraid that we may not make it through next
spring."

"You mean you might get canceled?" I said.

"Or re-slotted." Jack gave me a nervous
look. "This really isn't for public consumption, Harry. I'd
appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself."

I was surprised that Jack had kept it to himself for
so long. It seemed like the sort of thing I should have been told.
"Could that have been why Quentin was thinking about another
show--the fact that 'Phoenix' was in ratings trouble?"

Jack shook his head. "I think that's a red
herring, Harry. There's nothing in the world in smaller demand than
the services of the head writer of a canceled soap. If the show died,
Quentin died with it."

"Perhaps he was planning to get out before the
ax fell."

"And kiss goodbye to half a mil? Be serious.
Besides, Quentin was contractually obliged to stay on the show until
the end of this thirteen-week cycle. And believe me, United has no
sense of humor when it comes to contracts."

I thought of the one I'd signed and sighed. "Maybe
his mother was wrong, but there had to be some reason why he came out
here on Friday afternoon instead of on Sunday night, like he usually
did."

"Well, I don't know the reason, but I seriously
doubt if it was another show. Maybe you should talk to Quentin's
agent, Harris Sugarman. Or maybe Helen can help you. His trip could
have had something to do with 'Phoenix.'"

"Let's go talk to Helen, then."

"O.K.," Jack said ruefully. "But
remember, I warned you that she's in a bad mood."

"You warned me once before about Marsha Dover.
Am I in for another suicide attempt?"

"Helen's a good Catholic. She might take a life,
but she'd never take her own."

"That's promising," I said.

We walked through the French doors onto the court,
then turned left down a path lined with palo verdes and jacaranda.
The path took us behind several buildings and ended in another court
of grass and blue wildflowers. There was a small stone pavilion in
the middle of the lawn, with a bowl-shaped fountain sitting on a
pedestal in its center. It reminded me a little of Dover's topiary
garden, with its statue of Cupid. At the far end of the court, a
serpentine wall--twelve feet high and dripping English ivy--ran from
one side of the grounds to the other. Huge oak trees towered up
behind it, casting long, leafy shadows on the pavilion and its
fountain. Something moved against the wall, picking up a piece of the
fading sunlight and tossing it brightly in the air. I went over to
the wall and looked.

It was a hummingbird--no larger than a
butterfly-hanging above a bell-shaped flower. It darted away as
I came close to it, disappearing through an iron gate set in the
wall. Through the gate, I could see a street and several cars parked
in the shade of the oaks. I rattled the gate, but it had been locked
with a key.

"C'mon, Harry," Jack said. "Helen's
waiting."

We walked south beside the wall to the corner of the
court. A stucco building ran the length of the eastern edge of the
pavilion. If it weren't for the number of doors and windows set in
its facade, the building wouldn't have looked anything like a hotel.
Jack went up to one of the doors and knocked.

"Just a goddamn minute!" someone inside
hollered.

Jack smiled at me. "Fasten your seat belt,"
he said.
 

10

A few minutes passed, then a small, skinny woman in a
yellow poncho and black, ankle-length skirt opened the door. Her hair
was as thick, curly, and colorless as a Kewpie doll's, and like a
Kewpie doll's it was massed in girlish bangs above a lean,
hollow-cheeked face. There was nothing doll-like about the woman's
eyes, however. They were brown and bloodshot and circled with dark,
wrinkled flesh. The combination of that little-girl hairdo and those
bruised eyes gave Helen Rose the weepy, suffering, mortified look of
an abused child.

"Oh, Jack, honey," she said in a pained,
husky voice. "I'm sorry for shouting like that. But I've had
Walt here all day long, and I just don't know what to do anymore."

"You're going to sit down and have a drink,"
Jack said, taking charge. "And then you're going to have
something to eat."

The woman smiled at him affectionately. "Baby,
what would I do without you?"

Jack walked into the room, picked up the phone, and
ordered two double martinis. "Scotch for you, Harry?"

"That'll be fine," I said.

"And send us some menus," Jack said into
the phone.

"Who's your attractive friend?" Helen Rose
said, giving me a look.

"Harry Stoner." I held out a hand.

"Helen Rose."

We shook hands.

"You're the detective, aren't you? I don't think
I've ever seen a detective before, unless one of my ex-husbands had
me tailed by one. As they used to say in the movies, you've got an
interesting face." She turned to Jack and said, "Hasn't he
got an interesting face?"

Jack grinned.

The woman turned back to me with a playful smile. She
had very white, very even teeth; and her smile made her look years
younger. "You'd make a good heavy. Wouldn't he, Jack?"

Jack laughed. "I don't know about that."

"Don't be disagreeable," the woman said. "I
say he'd make a good heavy, and I'm always right. Aren't I?"

"Always," Jack said.

She winked at me and walked over to one of a pair of
white sofas set in front of a tile fireplace. A log was burning on
the andirons, filling the room with a warm, cedary smell. It was a
big room, decorated in shades of white and pink.

"You have no idea what I've been through today,"
Helen Rose said to Jack. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give me
strength. Do you know what our friend told me? Or should I say
demanded?"

"What?" Jack said irritably.

"He told me that he was going to quit and take
the rest of the team with him, unless we gave him Quentin's job."

"He's bluffing," Jack said.

The woman flapped one of her hands equivocally.
"Maybe. Maybe not. You never know with a fegalah."

"Never fuck a fag, Harry," she said,
looking up at me.

"I don't intend to."

She laughed abruptly. "Christ, what a mess!
Maybe he's bluffing. Who knows? He says he's been carrying Quentin
for the past two years, and now he wants to get paid for it.

"He probably has been," Jack said.

"That's beside the point," Helen Rose said.
"And he knows it and you know it and so do I. He's got us over a
barrel, Jack." She looked up at the high, beamed ceiling.
"Quentin, damn you, why did you do this to me? Why did you leave
me like this? Just when I needed you?" She shook her head and
looked down at the plush, white carpet. "That's not fair. I'm
sorry, Quentin. I'm sorry that you're dead."

"Did you go to Mass this morning?" Jack
asked.

"At nine. I lit a candle for him." Helen
Rose sighed. "Oh, well. I guess we'll just have to give Walt
what he wants."

"Helen, he's not the only fish in the sea."

"Then you deal with him," she snapped. "In
case you've forgotten, Jack, I've got the network coming in tomorrow.
We pulled a thirteen last week. A thirteen! What am I supposed to say
to Sally Jackson? 'Sorry, dear, but we don't have long-term to show
you? Or a team to write one?' My God, she'd pull the plug as she left
the room. This is the tenth week we've been below a seventeen. What
am I supposed to do? You tell me."

"The brands are standing firm," Jack said.

The woman grunted. "Yeah, sure. For the next
thirteen weeks. And then what?"

"It's blackmail, Helen," Jack said angrily.

"Oh, wake up, Jack!" she said with disgust.
"He's chief breakdown man. And the subwriters are a bunch of
sheep. They probably will bolt, if Walt tells them to. Hell, what do
they have to lose? We've got a thirteen share! Right now, he's all
we've got. And furthermore, he's got the long-term document."

"Quentin said that he and Walt were working on
the document together."

"I remember," she said. "And Walt
spent the entire afternoon telling me a different story. You know
what? I believe him. And so do you, Jack. You just said so a minute
ago. So let's not have any more talk about blackmail, sweetie. Or
about who wrote what for whom. Let's just get on with it, O.K.?"

The woman turned her head to me. "It's been a
bad day for 'Phoenix,' Harry. A bad day for all of us. I'm sorry for
the shop talk."

"That's all right," I said. I'd found the
little of it that I'd understood interesting.

"Have you seen the show?" she said
pleasantly.

"No."

Her face fell. "He doesn't like the show, Jack,"
she said. "I can tell from his voice--he doesn't like the show."

"Helen," Jack said long-sufferingly.

"What is it? The writing? I'll admit that the
writing hasn't been up to par lately, but that was Quentin's
fault-damn him. Is it the production? We've got a new line
producer, and she just doesn't know how to block a scene properly.
Did you see all those isos today, Jack? Not one two-shot in the lot.
Christ, how is the audience going to get involved, if they can't see
that the characters are involved? Walt went on for an hour about it.
And he's right. He's absolutely right. She's got to go, Jack. Is that
what it is, Harry? Is it the production values?"

She sounded so earnest that I was almost afraid to
tell her the truth. "I don't own a TV."

"Oh," Helen Rose said. Then she started to
laugh in a loud, gutty voice. "That's different."

The waiter came with our drinks. Jack organized the
dinner orders, then the three of us sat down on the white couches.

"Just what is it you're looking for?" Helen
said, taking a sip of her martini.