Self-Defense (56 page)

Bleichert said, “I hear everything you’re
saying, Land, but she raises a valid consideration.”

Talking about Leah as if she wasn’t there.

MacIlhenny thought for a while. “There could
be other evidence, Stan. Theoretically.”

“Like what?”

“Audiotapes. Terrence Trafficant telling
his story.”

Leah said, “Theoretical.” She looked
disgusted.

MacIlhenny shrugged. Pounds of flesh
shivered. “It’s been a long time. Memories fade. Clean out an attic, no telling
what you’ll find.”

“Malibu attic?” said Leah. “Or the one in
Holmby Hills?”

“Here’s my offer,” said Bleichert, “take
it or leave it. Mr. App confesses to his involvement in Karen Best, Felix
Barnard, and Denton Mellors. Involuntary manslaughter on Best,
conspiracy-second on Barnard because Mellors was the shooter, and straight
second degree on Mellors, all sentences to run concurrently. If we avoid a
trial—”

“Stan, Stan.”

“Hold on, Land. If we avoid a trial and if
Lowell is
convicted
of first degree because of information provided by
Mr. App, Mr. App’s sentences are suspended.”

Leah’s huge eyes were hot skillets.

MacIlhenny pretended to deliberate.

“Just one thing, Stan,” said Leah. “By all
accounts, Barnard was premeditated. We could go for Conspiracy One and by the
same token, straight One on—”

Bleichert shushed her with a short, angry
hand movement.

MacIlhenny said, “What do you mean by
confession?”

“Written, sworn, all the details, no
evasion of questions, full acknowledgment of complicity.”

“Like in church,” said App softly.

MacIlhenny’s eyebrows sank. “What about
the dope?”

“If you can work it out with the feds,
total walk,” said Bleichert. “But
only
if he admits guilt in writing and
only
if his information leads
directly
to Lowell’s conviction. And
no own-recognizance, he stays put. What I said before about Lompoc stands, and
I’ll grant you the protective custody—hell, I’ll put him on a cellblock with
ex-senators.”

Leah cracked her knuckles.

Bleichert said, “Why don’t you go get all
the files, Lee? So we know what to ask Mr. App.”

She stomped out of the room and walked
right past me.

Just as the door to the hall slammed,
MacIlhenny said, “Pretty girl.”

App and MacIlhenny conferred with the
sound off and App started dictating to the lawyer.

During the break, Bleichert returned to
his office and Leah Schwartz to hers.

Before she left she said, “Going to wait
here?”

“Till Milo gets here.”

“Well, be careful. Hang around here too
long, you’ll need to be disinfected.”

She slammed the door and App heard it
through the glass and jumped. His fear had always been there, hiding just
beneath the cashmere.

MacIlhenny patted his shoulder and App
resumed dictating.

Twenty minutes later, Milo still hadn’t
come back from accompanying Lucy and I wondered why.

A half hour after that, MacIlhenny stopped
writing.

Bleichert ran his finger down the center
of the page. Speed-reading. Then a slower perusal.

He put it down.

“It says nothing in here about who shot
Mr. Mellors.”

“A guy named Jeffries,” said App, as if it
didn’t matter. “Leopold Jeffries. He got killed himself, five years ago—check
the police files.”

“What did you have to do with Mr.
Jeffries’s death?”

App smiled. “Nothing at all. The police
shot him, in the middle of a robbery. Leopold Earl Jeffries—check it out.”

Calm again.

Bleichert read the confession again. “This
is okay, for a start.” Putting it in his pocket. “Now fill me in on
Trafficant.”

App looked at MacIlhenny. The fat lawyer
sucked his cheeks.

“There are tapes,” said App. “At my house
in Lake Arrowhead. Feel free to get them without a warrant. They’re in the
basement, behind one of the refrigerators.”

“One of them?” said Bleichert, writing.

“I have two basement refrigerators at
Arrowhead. For parties. Two Sub-Zeros. Behind the one on the right is a wall
safe. The tapes are in there, I’ll get you the combination. They’ve got Terry
Trafficant telling me everything. I taped him because I thought one day it
might be historically significant. Terry got fed up with Lowell’s manipulation
and looked to me as someone he could trust. I paid him every penny of his
option money. I also paid him for a screenplay he did. Every penny.”

“In return for all his future royalties?”
said Leah.

“That, too,” said App. “He got the better
end of the deal. I haven’t earned a thing in years.”

“What kind of screenplay?” said Bleichert.

“Not really a full script, just a summary
of some horror flick
—Friday the Thirteenth
type of thing, women getting
chopped up by a maniac.”

“Title?”

“The Bride.”

The treatment I’d read, Trafficant’s.
Title stolen from a dead man’s novel. For the petty thrill? The allure of crime
had never left him.

“I thought,” App was saying, “with a few
changes—more character arc—it had potential. If Terry hadn’t disappeared, I
probably would have produced it.”

“Hooray for Hollywood,” said Bleichert.
“So far I don’t know much more than when I came in.”

App wore a meditative look.

MacIlhenny handed his client water, and
App sipped delicately.

Putting the glass down, he said, “The key
to all of it is Lowell’s creative block. He went into a massive block years
ago—thirty years ago. Just couldn’t break out of it, maybe because of his
drinking or maybe he’d just said all he had to say. But Trafficant didn’t know
that. He spent most of his youth in prison, found Lowell’s old stuff, and read
it, had no idea what was going on in the outside world. Then he ended up in
some sort of creative writing program the prison was experimenting with and got
the idea he could write. So he wrote to Lowell, stroked Lowell’s ego, the two
of them started a correspondence. Trafficant started writing poems and keeping
a diary. He sent it to Lowell. Lowell was impressed and started working for
Trafficant’s parole.”

Pausing.

“That’s the part the public knows. The
truth is, Lowell and Trafficant cut a deal, back when Trafficant was still in
prison. Lowell hatched the whole thing, telling Trafficant poetry was a
financial loser in the book business, it was almost impossible to get
published. Except for a few famous poets like him. Lowell promised to agitate
until Trafficant got early parole; meanwhile he’d also be editing Trafficant’s
poems, then submit them for publication under his own name. Trafficant would
get the money and Lowell would also get the diary published under Trafficant’s
name.”

“And Trafficant went along with this?”

“What did he have to bargain with, a loser
behind bars? Lowell was offering him freedom, lots of money, possible fame if
the diary hit big. So he wouldn’t get credit for the poems; he could live with
that. He was a con, used to deals.”

“How much money did Lowell get for the
poems?”

“A hundred and fifty thousand advance
against royalties. Lowell took fifty for himself, Lowell’s agent got fifteen.
The retreat—Sanctum—was started as a way to transfer the rest of the eighty-five
thou to Trafficant.”

“Sounds like you were in on it from the
beginning,” said Bleichert.

“I helped finance the retreat because I
believed in Lowell.”

“Idealism.”

“That’s right.”

Bleichert said to MacIlhenny, “So far the
tone of this is very self-serving.”

MacIlhenny said, “Be frank, Curt. This old
nose tells me they’re operating in good faith.”

App hesitated.

MacIlhenny patted him.

“All right,” the producer said. “I used
the retreat too. To launder money. Nothing big. Some friends of mine—kids, people
in the industry—were bringing marijuana up from Mexico. We didn’t consider it
really a drug, back then. Everyone smoked.”

He picked something out of his sweater.

Bleichert moved his head impatiently. “I
hope there’s more.”

“Plenty,” said App. “Lowell was hoping the
poems he stole from Trafficant would put him back in the spotlight. They did,
but in the wrong way. All the critics hated them and the book bombed. Meanwhile,
Trafficant’s
book became a fu—a best-seller.” He chuckled, wanting everyone
else to join in. No one did.

I remembered the enraged letter Trafficant
had written to the
Village Voice
in support of Lowell. Mustering the
only real passion a psychopath can ever develop: self-defense.

“What made Lowell think Trafficant would
keep quiet about the deal?”

“Lowell was desperate. And naive—most arty
types are. I’ve dealt with them for thirty years; take my word for it. And the
fact that the book failed
protected
Lowell. Why would Trafficant want to
claim authorship of a turkey, especially with his other book doing so well? But
Lowell wasn’t even thinking in those terms at the beginning. He was
obsessed
with his place in history, freaking out that his reputation was rotting. He
used to sit in that cabin on his property all day, trying to produce, but nothing
came. He kept drinking and doping to forget, and it only made matters worse.”

“How’d the failure of the poetry book
affect him?”

“He drank himself unconscious, then came
out of it saying it was Terry’s work anyway, Terry had no talent, was just a
slick criminal who’d taken advantage of him. Meanwhile, Terry’s doing
interviews with
The New York Times
and selling a thousand books a week.
Lowell stopped talking to him, and Terry knew it was only a matter of time
before he’d be leaving Sanctum. That’s when he transferred his royalties to me
for safekeeping. For all his tough talk, he was still a con, had no idea how to
cope with the world, so he came to me.”

“And you taped him.”

“For his protection.”

Bleichert grunted.

“Irony,” said App. “It’s the key to a good
story line. Lowell’s name on that book of poems was supposed to buy success but
it didn’t. Trafficant became the darling of the literary set. You could package
it as a comedy and sell it to cable.”

Bleichert said, “So Trafficant spilled his
guts to you because he was worried about making it in the outside world.”

“That, and he wanted to talk. Cons always
do. No self-control. Never met one yet who could keep a secret.”

“Know lots of cons, do you?”

App folded his hands across his sweater.
“I meet all sorts of people.”

“I still haven’t heard any details about
murder,” said Bleichert.

App smiled. “Lowell killed Terry. Two days
after the Best girl’s accident. Things finally came to a head, because Lowell
was shaken up by what had happened, ready to close down the retreat. And still
pissed at Terry. He ordered Terry off the premises. Terry cursed him out and
threatened to go public with the whole book scam. When Terry turned his back,
Lowell hit him on the head with a whisky bottle, kept hitting him. Then he panicked,
called me, blubbering. I went over and we buried Trafficant.”

Clapping his hands once.

“And with that,” said Bleichert, “you were
able to buy Lowell’s secrecy on Karen Best forever.”

“Keeping quiet about that was in Lowell’s
interest, too. His reputation was lousy enough without someone dying at his
party.”

“Where’s Trafficant buried?”

“Right underneath Lowell’s writing cabin
—Inspiration
he called it. That’s where he killed him. The floor was dirt; they just dug
down.”

“Who’s they?”

“Lowell, Denny Mellors, Chris
Graydon-Jones.”

“Why Mellors?”

“He was a weeny—and I’d say that if he was
white. He hated being black, as a matter of fact. Denied it. He thought if he
just kept writing and kissing ass, he’d be rich and famous. Anyway, that’s
where Terry is. I don’t know if the cabin’s still standing, but I can find the
spot—right near the pond.”

“Not far from Karen Best,” said Bleichert.

App didn’t answer.

“Any other bodies we should know about?”

“Not to my knowledge. You’d have to ask
Lowell. He’s the creative one. Did you know that he published his first book
while in college? Everyone told him he was a genius. Fatal error.”

“What was?”

“Believing his own reviews. Now can we get
the ball rolling on transferring me to a decent place?”

“So you’ve been collecting Mr.
Trafficant’s royalties all these years.”