The Reporter (10 page)

Rodger scoped the place for a spot where the light was best, while Maxi scanned the hall to see if she recognized anyone she
could grab for a sound bite. Feeling a touch on the shoulder, she jumped.
Tension,
she thought. When Jack Nathanson was in a room—and she could definitely feel him in this room—there was tension. Sexual tension,
excitement, anxiety, hostility—conflicting emotions, but never indifference.

“Hi, Maxi…Forgive me for startling you.” It was Janet Orson.

“Hello, Janet.” She smiled. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s
going,”
Janet said. “It’s
all
going! Sotheby’s has agreed to take whatever’s left for a lot price, so today will be the last of it.”

“You got a good turnout,” Maxi said, attempting to ease the awkwardness they both felt in this situation. The two looked around
the room. A tall, stunning woman with titian hair, in leather shorts and suspenders over a halter top, was ambling about,
inspecting the paintings.

“That’s Taryn Zimmerman,” Janet offered. “Lived next door to us for a while. She was married to Irving Zimmerman, the developer.”

“I know,” Maxi said. “She came to the station and tried to sell us on doing a story suggesting that her ex-husband had Jack
killed.”

“Did she tell you she was having an affair with Jack?”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew. Wives know.”

“The old Jack Nathanson mystique.” Maxi sighed.

“Yup, they can’t get enough of him, even after he’s dead.”

At that, Maxi scrutinized Janet’s face—the widow looked surprisingly like she didn’t give a damn.

“Oops, there’s another one,” Janet said, mischief in her eyes. Maxi followed her gaze to an emaciated young woman who might
have been beautiful once, but now, her eyes hooded, her skin pasty, her auburn hair hanging in tired clumps, she looked
like another casualty of hip L.A.’s love affair with drugs. “Meg Davis, the child actress in
Black Sabbat.”

“She was at the funeral,” Maxi observed.

“And now she’s here. Probably was also hooked on Jack.”

They took another look at the woman, who was unsteadily holding a glass of champagne in one hand and a bidding card in the
other. “She looks like she just got here on the mother ship and she’s still on Venusian time,” Janet commented with an impish
smirk, again surprising Maxi with her lack of even a trace of bitterness.

“Guess Jack collected them,” Maxi offered absently, then quickly added, “I’m sorry, Janet; that was probably offensive.”

“Hardly,” Janet said with a wry lift of her brow. “You’ve
been
there. By the way,” she added, “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I had no choice,” Maxi rejoined. “My boss has some goofy idea that by cozying up to the people who knew Jack, I might sniff
out his killer.”

“Not so far-fetched,” Janet remarked, scanning the massive auction hall. “I can see at least half a dozen people right now
who might have had the motivation to do it.”

A couple in their fifties, conservatively dressed, were approaching them. The woman reached for Janet’s hand. “Hello, dear,”
she said. “My husband was the director of photography on two of Jack’s films. We had dinner with him several times. He was
charming and witty, a wonderful man.…”

After some reminiscing the couple drifted off, and Janet surreptitiously rolled her eyes. Maxi was seeing a whole new side
of Janet Orson, and she was enjoying her.

“I’ve got to get to work, Janet,” she said now. “If you spot the killer, bring him over to my camera, would you? My boss would
be so proud.”

Janet’s smile reached her eyes. “You’ve got it. Meantime, if you see anything here that you want, let me know. For you, it’s
free.”

Maxi scanned the hall. “How about that black boxwood corner number adorned with the ormolu gargoyles with the ivory teeth?”
she said, pointing to an oversize, dreary-looking Gothic cabinet propped against a far wall. “I used to keep Yukon’s toys
and dog food in that thing.”

“I’ll have it shipped to your house,” Janet deadpanned, and she gave Maxi a gentle elbow to the ribs. Maxi couldn’t wait to
tell Debra—this woman was definitely a new member of the Club.

She moved off through the furniture and the crowd to where Rodger had set up lights and was shooting B-roll. As soon as she
came close enough, his eye still in the camera lens, Rodger grabbed her arm with his free hand. “Here’s your story, Max!”
he whispered. He was rolling tape on Meg Davis, who was now bidding on some kind of movie prop that had been used in
Black Sabbat.

The auctioneer’s voice droned on, and each time the bid price escalated, Meg Davis raised her bidding card again. Rodger was
getting it all on tape. Maxi checked out the item on the block, an ornamental crucifix of some kind.

“Sold,”
sang the auctioneer with a bang of his gavel, “to the woman with bid number three-eleven. Congratulations, ma’am. You can
claim your purchase at the desk in about an hour, after it’s processed. Next item, lot number fifty-six, a painting by…” And
on it went.

“Let’s go,” Maxi said to Rodger, and as she ran ahead to where Meg Davis stood, she spotted other reporters rushing toward
the woman. Maxi got there first, with Rodger on her heels, toting the camera.

“Ms. Davis,” she said, “I’m Maxi Poole from Channel Six. Can you tell us about the purchase you just made?”

“N-no. Please…” the actress stammered, holding her hand up in front of her face, palm out, as if to ward off something evil.
Maxi saw fear in the woman’s eyes. As other reporters swarmed around, Maxi held her own hand out to keep them at bay. Meg
Davis dropped her bidding card, turned on her heel, and fled. The press contingent, Maxi included, stood and watched as she
pushed her way through the crowd, stepping on shoes, causing one startled woman to spill a drink, until she made it to the
front of the hall and disappeared inside the women’s rest room.

Maxi looked at her colleagues. “Guess she isn’t giving interviews,” she said to no one in particular.

“What the hell did you say to her, Maxi?” a friend from Channel Four asked.

“Nothing, honestly—” Maxi started.

“Shit, I think she’s still in the coven,” a cynical reporter from
Access Hollywood
threw out, causing the rest of them to laugh as they began to disperse in pursuit of more willing interview subjects.

Maxi stood alone with Rodger. “You got the bid from the beginning?” she asked him.

“Almost the beginning. I got more than enough.”

“And did you get a close-up on the item she bought?”

“Of course.”

“Great. Let’s go grab someone from Sotheby’s to talk about exactly what the thing is. Then I’ll voice over your setup shots
of the merchandise, and do a stand-up close in front of the auctioneer’s podium. Then we’re done.”

The reporters’ mandate at Channel Six News was that no story was worth more than a minute-thirty, unless it was the Second
Coming; then you could go a minute-forty-five. And Maxi wanted to get out of there. She had just learned that the movie prop
Meg Davis had purchased was the cross that the child witch had masturbated with in
Black Sabbat.

Z
ahna Cole had walked into the crowded auction hall just as a strange-looking woman was making a successful bid on a strange-looking
artifact, a heavy, ornate metal cross about fifteen inches high, painted in a medley of faded colors and peculiarly cast into
a sharp point at the bottom. Circling the massive showroom, she’d picked up the buzz in the crowd—it was the
Black Sabbat
cross, people said, fashioned expressly for that period movie twenty years ago, and frighteningly memorable in it. And it
was whispered that the woman who bought it was the now grown-up actress who had played the child in the film, Meg Davis.

Zahna had watched as Maxi Poole and a man carrying an intimidating-looking video camera on his shoulder aggressively approached
this Meg Davis, which seemed to frighten her into running from them. Jack had told Zahna plenty about his then-wife Maxi Poole.
He’d said she cared only about herself and her trivial news stories. Watching her now, acting so important while other reporters
crowded around her, Zahna could see that in her. Jack was dead, but that didn’t seem to bother Ms. Maxi Poole at all, or upset
her perfect life.

Zahna ran her hand along the curved contours of a cherry
wood table that had once stood in the foyer of Jack’s Stone Canyon house, with a Tiffany lamp on it, a small silver tray where
Carlotta had always put Jack’s mail, and usually a bowl of fresh flowers. She sat down on a glossy German leather couch that
they had made love on in the days before he married Janet Orson.

She had never met Janet Orson, but she’d seen pictures of her in the press. And there she was, cool as you please, moving
all businesslike among the furniture, speaking to people like some detached vendor. Janet Orson was certainly a woman who
got the job done. She got Jack to marry her because she had the power to help his career. Looking over at her, so attractive
and self-assured in her chic white suit and gold jewelry, Zahna was sure that Jack’s widow didn’t much care that he was dead,
either.

Zahna cared, and she could tell that the woman who bought that curious-looking cross, Meg Davis, cared. Spotting her in the
crowd again, she studied her. About her own age, taller than average, excessively thin and carelessly dressed, no makeup,
long hair untamed. Zahna watched her as she made her way unsteadily to the front desk. This was no seasoned auction-goer,
no Saturday afternoon bargain hunter, Zahna knew, nor a former colleague or fan of the late Jack Nathanson simply interested
in owning a part of his legacy. This woman was damaged goods, like herself, and Zahna’s instincts told her that the damage
was somehow attributable to the ghost whose palpable presence stalked these rooms among his own worldly possessions.

Zahna stood a few feet away as Meg Davis presented a credit card that had to be verified—it was a joint card in her mother’s
name, she heard her explain. She paid $1,400 for the movie prop; Zahna had the feeling that, like herself, she had paid a
whole lot more than that in emotional currency. The woman picked up the cross in both her hands and headed uncertainly toward
the exit. Zahna followed her out the doors.

“Hi there,” Zahna said, catching up. “What’d you buy?”

“Oh, it’s just a prop from one of his movies,” Meg Davis answered.

“No kidding—which movie?”

“Uh,
Black Sabbat.
It’s the cross that the minister used to ward off evil,” Meg Davis said. “It’s sentimental to me.”

“Yes, you played the child in
Black Sabbat,
didn’t you?” The two walked together toward the parking lot. “You were great,” Zahna said.

“It was a long time ago,” Meg responded. “Excuse me; they’re bringing my car.”

“I’m Zahna Cole. I knew Jack, too. Would you like to have a drink?” she asked, extending her hand.

Meg accepted it uneasily. “No, I have to be somewhere,” she said, “but thank you.”

“I have some really good grass,” Zahna whispered, smiling.

Meg hesitated. It had been a long time since she’d toked up, and it was tempting. “No, I don’t have time,” she finally said.
“I have to get out to the beach.”

“Oh, do you have a date?” Zahna asked. She had a compelling need to talk to
somebody
about Jack, but there wasn’t anybody. In those rooms full of people at Sotheby’s, there were many who knew Jack Nathanson,
but none she could talk to. She sensed that Meg Davis was a kindred spirit, would have stories to share.

“No,” Meg replied, “I just like to sit on the sand near the ocean—it calms me.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Zahna returned. “I could use some calming myself. Would you mind if I tag along? I’m a disc
jockey and I work nights, but not on weekends, so I’m loose tonight, and I don’t feel like going home just yet.”

Meg shrugged. “If you want to,” she replied, feeling some kind of kinship with this offbeat woman, and thinking that it would
actually be nice to smoke a joint again. “Just follow me,” she said, and she climbed into her car.

Meg waited until she saw Zahna’s car come up behind her, then headed out to the beach. She would listen to music and concentrate
on this interesting new acquaintance, and try to keep the thoughts from taking over.

She focused on the headlights
of
the dented black Volkswagen Rabbit. She didn’t want to lose it; she was looking forward to getting high now. Meg had made
frequent forays into drug rehab over the years; now the twelve steps didn’t seem to mean much in the ragged framework of her
life. She’d dropped out of high school, moved into her own apartment, had a series of sexual encounters and love affairs,
two abortions, a short-lived marriage to a guitar player in a rock band. She hadn’t achieved any real success at acting. She
had always been famous, of course, for her role in that one very famous movie, but she’d never again come close to that single,
memorable, brilliant performance.

Six months ago, when she became unable to care for herself physically, emotionally, or financially, she’d moved back in with
her mother, who was married to a good man, Dr. Alexander Shine, a dermatologist. But her presence in the home put a tremendous
strain on her mother’s marriage. Tension hung in the air, all generated by Meg and her formidable problems. Husband and wife
decided to try a separation, and mother and daughter moved into the high-rise in Century City. Now Sally’s first priority
was Meggie.

And Meg’s priority was the girl. She had to protect Gia from being permeated by evil like
she
was; she had to make that child’s life worth living, as hers was not. It was her mission, she knew, and God had now sent
her the cross, the talisman that would enable her to do it.

She’d read about the auction in the trade papers and she went to Sotheby’s, and there it was. The multicolored cross that
tied her youth together with Gia’s, that drove the spirits out of the fictional child of Jack Nathanson in the movie, and
would
now keep them from invading the child born of Jack Nathanson in life.