The Renewable Virgin (18 page)

‘So if I sign with you, Leonard will go bankrupt?' Nathan grinned, but didn't say anything. Nathan lied a lot, so I didn't completely believe that story about Leonard hanging on by his fingernails. But if it were true, Nathan would be quite willing to lure me away from Leonard
just
to bankrupt him, not because he had any big plans for me. In that case I'd be better off staying with Leonard.

Not to mention the fact that this man hustling me now was probably a blackmailer. I thought of poor Christopher Clive, the Shakespearean actor Nathan had made drop his trousers for a cheap laugh—just to prove who was boss. Had Nathan come between Ted and me for the same reason? Did he want to humiliate me, the way he'd humiliated Christopher Clive? And this was the man I was supposed to trust, the one I was to allow to make
all
the decisions concerning my career! Leonard Zoff sometimes drove me nuts, but he was still a thousand times better than a sadistic creep like Nathan Pinking.

I wanted Nathan's plans for me—the movie, the series—but without Nathan attached to them. How unlucky the two came together, package deals stink. From where I was standing I could see the framed photograph on the desk, the one showing Nathan's wife and daughters. How could they look so happy with an ogre like Nathan Pinking for a husband and father? ‘I'll think it over,' I told him.

‘I have a whole campaign in mind for you, Kelly. It's keyed to climax during the first season of your new series.'

‘You seem pretty certain there'll be a new series,' I said. ‘You can't be sure the network will buy it.'

‘Oh, they'll buy it,' he said, ‘if we go in with a sponsor already sewed up. And don't you worry, we'll have a sponsor.'

Sure. Cameron Enterprises.

‘Anyway, the way it works is like this,' Nathan went on. ‘All next season, we do this big publicity putsch about your new show, how excited you are to have your own series, the usual gaff. Maybe something about getting Nick Quinlan to do a guest role on your show. But here's where we pull a switch. When the new show starts, you begin dropping hints in interviews and on talk shows that somehow it's not quite as satisfying as you thought it would be.'

‘The show is not as satisfying?'

‘Not the show—the show's great, the cast is great, the writers are great, you've got a terrific crew, the whole schmeer. But
being a big television star
isn't the rewarding thing you'd thought it would be, and you're feeling a little disappointed. Then along about renewal time, you confide to Johnny Carson that what you really want is a home and family. That if the right man came along you'd give it all up like a shot. You see?'

‘I see I'm going to throw up in about two minutes.' I turned to leave.

‘No, wait, wait—look, Kelly, it's perfect. Every man in America will feel a little bigger when you say you're willing to give it all up for a man. And every one of them will have a sneaking suspicion that
he
's the man you're waiting for. And housewives all over the country will nod their heads in approval, because the famous, beautiful Kelly Ingram is at last catching on to what they knew all along. They'll be thinking here is this big TV star who wants to be just like
me
. It can't miss! You'll get the men and the women both, and the show'll be good for a long run, Kelly, much longer than
LeFever
. And I can make it all happen. What do you say?'

I said again that I'd think it over and left before I lost control of myself and kicked him in the teeth.

So I was to act out the male fantasy that what a woman really wants is a Strong Man to protect her, was I? Same old con. When I was growing up the style was unwed motherhood à la Vanessa Redgrave. But I remember looking at my mother's old movie magazines,
Modern Screen
and
Silver Screen
and
Photoplay
and a couple of others, and they all had articles about movie actresses who ‘really' just wanted to be wives and mothers, all sorts of different people like Lana Turner and Jeanne Crain and Rita Hayworth and even Bette Davis, I think. Even back then it was what people wanted to hear, how celebrities longed to be ordinary and just like everybody else. And here was Nathan Pinking proposing the same slop for me—and acting as if nobody had ever thought of it before. Nathan had never had an original idea in his life and he sure as hell wasn't going to start now.

Stupid part about it, though—before Ted Cameron I probably would have gone along without thinking twice about it. But this man who had thought up my new persona for me was the same thug who had Ted by the balls. And Nathan's little proposal had told me something, that little conference convinced me. Nathan was indeed Ted's blackmailer.

All I want is a home and family
, that was to be my line. But it wouldn't be very convincing if I was already married, would it? And Nathan Pinking, watching how much time Ted and I were spending together, had started to see his whole campaign for the new series going straight down the toilet. So one Thursday morning he calls Ted in and tells him to kiss Kelly goodbye.

It had gone too far. Nathan Pinking was controlling lives and money and television shows and indirectly even Cameron Enterprises—and he was getting away with it. The man had no
right
to that kind of power. He was sure to misuse it; Nathan wasn't really a very smart man. He was a
ruthless
man, and self-defensive—that's why he'd gotten as far as he had. Now he had to be stopped. It was clear the only thing for me to do was go to Marian Larch and tell her everything I knew.

And in doing so throw away my chance at my own TV series. My own series. Based on a pilot produced by Nathan Pinking. A chance I might not ever get again.

My own series.

Maybe I should wait until after the movie pilot was made.

CHAPTER 12

MARIAN LARCH

Captain Michaels was openly relieved when he got word from the DA's office to let Fiona Benedict go. The case against her had been shaky to begin with and she never had admitted shooting at Richard Ormsby. Now that it was clearly somebody else who killed Ormsby, the prosecutors knew they'd never make the charge of
attempted
murder stick. Especially since the earlier murder method had been repeated—a public shooting at a television station. ‘I always had a feeling she was innocent,' the Captain said.

‘Innocent my foot,' I said. ‘Innocent of Ormsby's murder, yes, but guilty of trying to kill him earlier. Two different events.'

‘Hey, what you got against little old ladies?' the Captain grinned. He was in a good mood since things were working out the way he wanted them to.

‘Surely she's not old enough for the little-old-lady label,' I said. ‘Early sixties. That's too young.' I refrained from pointing out that Fiona Benedict was only about ten years older than Captain Michaels himself. ‘She fired that gun at Ormsby—six times she fired it. The fact that somebody else came along and did the job right later on doesn't change what she did in that CBS studio.'

‘Bull,' said Michaels bluntly. ‘She should never have been arrested in the first place. That woman's no killer. You're the only one here who thinks she's guilty.'

‘Because I was the only one
there
when she first learned about Ormsby's book. It literally put her on her knees, Captain—it hit her that hard.' I didn't particularly want Fiona Benedict behind bars; there were far worse criminals roaming the streets. But any investigation of Ormsby's murder would have to take into account the earlier, unsuccessful attempt by Dr. Benedict. Whoever investigated mustn't make the mistake of assuming the same person shot at Ormsby both times. ‘I want to be assigned to the Ormsby investigation,' I told Captain Michaels.

‘You and every other gold shield in Manhattan,' he grunted. ‘No, you stay put on the Rudy Benedict case—I'm pulling everybody else off, I need the men. Anything new on the Pinking and Zoff power struggle?'

I thought
power struggle
too fancy a term for the sniping going on but didn't say so. ‘Only that Nathan Pinking is now indicating his willingness to sell his share of Leonard Zoff's agency. If the price is right.'

‘Why the change of mind?'

‘Zoff isn't taking the offer seriously. I think it's all part of the same game of cat and mouse those two have been playing for twenty-five years. That's how long they've known each other, a quarter of a century. And they've hated each other every minute of it.'

‘So why is Rudy Benedict the one who's dead?' Captain Michaels scowled. ‘Pinking bought scripts from him, period. That's the only connection, the whole relationship? And not even that much a one between Benedict and Zoff. There's some other connection we don't know about. Larch, I want you to find it. No more excuses, no more fiddling around. Find that connection.'

‘What if there isn't any?'

‘Find it anyway.'

Get out there and scrounge
. I left the Captain's office and went back to my desk. It was going to take some doing to concentrate; I kept thinking about the Richard Ormsby killing. Whoever had shot the Englishman had certainly done Fiona Benedict a favor. Two favors. Killed her enemy for her and got her out of jail at the same time. Two big favors.

Just exactly how good a friend
was
Roberta Morrissey anyhow?

Feeling an absolute fool, I called one of the investigators assigned to the Ormsby case and asked him about Roberta. He said she'd been talking long distance to her husband at the time Ormsby had been shot; the hotel switchboard records bore her out. I thanked him and hung up, feeling an even bigger fool. Was anyone in the world a more unlikely murder suspect than Roberta Morrissey? Well, maybe on the face of it Fiona Benedict was more unlikely—but look what
she'd
done. Little old ladies just weren't what they used to be.

I forced my attention back to Rudy Benedict. To Pinking and Zoff. Leonard Zoff and Nathan Pinking were involved in a one-upmanship contest that just kept accelerating and accelerating, with no real resolution in sight. Right now it looked as if Pinking was ahead in the success race, but I supposed that could easily change. I wondered if that was what really drove those two—the desire to outdo the other.

I thought about talking to both of them again, but there wasn't any point. Pinking would tell me some new lies and Zoff would call me Miriam and I'd be no further along than I already was. Kelly Ingram was making a TV movie and wouldn't be back in town for another week. Nick Quinlan was making a movie too, in Munich—in German, no less; his part was to be dubbed, fortunately. Fiona Benedict would soon be on her way back to Ohio, and Roberta Morrissey with her.

This might be a good time to go talk to Ted Cameron.

Homework first, though. I called Bill Sewell at Heilveil, Huddleston, and Tippet and invited him to lunch. He accepted; he always did.

Heilveil, Huddleston, and Tippet was a firm of stockbrokers, and Bill Sewell was a very junior partner there. He was a reliable source of useful information, if we didn't tap him too often. I think Bill enjoyed being a police contact, although he said he did it for all the free lunches he got. We met at a restaurant on St. Mark's Place, and I waited until we'd ordered to ask him about Cameron Enterprises.

‘Good time to buy in—shares are dropping a little,' he said. ‘But that's not what you want to know, is it?'

‘It might be. Why are the shares dropping?'

‘We're getting rumors of internal dissent. Happens a lot in these third- or fourth-generation family businesses. One small business grown into a conglomerate, squabbling among the descendants of the founder, family unity merely a fond memory from the good old days.'

‘Ted Cameron's in danger of losing control?'

‘That's about it. Way I hear it, Augusta Cameron and a few of the others haven't been too happy with the way Ted's been running things for some time now. But recently something's brought it all to a head.'

‘What?'

‘That I can't tell you—the rumors stop there. Haven't really tried to find out, though. But the shares go on dropping, a point or two a week—good indicator of how fast the rumors are spreading. Ted's been challenged before, and he's managed to pull out of it. But this time I think it might be different.'

‘Will it hurt the company?'

‘Depends on who ends up in charge.'

‘Do you know Cameron?'

‘Met him. Weird eyes.'

The food came then. I gave Bill a chance to take the edge off his hunger and then asked how the decisions for spending the advertising budget were made at Cameron Enterprises, but he didn't know anything about that.

‘Why the interest in Cameron Enterprises?' he asked.

The rules of the game were that you gave something for something—but the something you gave should always be less than the something you got, ‘They're sponsoring a television show next season, and we're investigating the death of a TV writer.'

‘Sounds pretty thin. Any connection between Ted Cameron and your dead writer?'

‘None that I can see. Frankly, we're reaching.'

He grinned. ‘I knew that when you invited me to lunch.'

I paid the tab; Bill waved a cheery goodbye and headed back downtown to his office. I went back to Headquarters and did the paperwork for other things I was working on; the Rudy Benedict investigation was no longer a full-time job. At four o'clock I had an appointment with Ted Cameron that had taken me a couple of days to get; Kelly's boyfriend was a busy man.

The corporate headquarters of Cameron Enterprises were on Lexington. The reception area was curiously undistinctive, but the receptionist was expecting me and led me to Ted Cameron's suite—where it took two secretaries working in relay to conduct me into the inner sanctum.