The Straight Man - Roger L Simon (16 page)

Sonya and Jacob looked at each other. Chantal glanced
at them, then slowly sat back down, studying me with an expression
halfway between relief and wariness.

"A restaurant sounds like a better idea,"
said Jacob.

"Thanks for your support," I said.

"
You don't have to do me any favors," said
Chantal. "I mean, you don't owe me anything."

"
I know."

We sat silently for a moment.

"Well," said Sonya finally. "You're
going to start your own CIA. How're you going to do that? Go to the
bank and get a loan?"

"First we're going to finish the Otis King case.
Or the Ptak and King case or whatever it is. It's sure to be big news
in L.A., in fact everywhere, for the next few months, and whoever
breaks it open will get a lot of great publicity."

"Suppose it's already solved?" said Jacob.

"That's a risk we have to take." I lit up a
joint and passed it over to Chantal. "Meanwhile, I'll show you
how to drum up some business on your own. If it works, if you bring
in enough on your own, we'll stick with it. If not . . ."

She nodded, sucking on the joint and passing it over
to Sonya, who held it at arm's length. "You still insist on
giving me this stuff," she said. "You know I consider it a
sign of bourgeois decadence and also this young man is a minor.
You're corrupting him."

"I'm seventeen," said Jacob. "At the
age of twenty Alexander had already attacked the Persian Empire with
thirty-five thousand troops."

"
Yeah, and at twenty-three Dennis Kucinich was
elected mayor of Cleveland. We all know this is a world of prodigies,
but in deference to this woman's age, and to the indisputable fact
that we will all be Gray Panthers one day, let's cool it." I
took the joint and snuffed it out. "Also, it's almost midnight.
Why don't you give your great-aunt a ride home?"

I kissed Sonya good night and gave Jacob a quick hug,
and they shook hands with Chantal and left. Then I went into the
second bedroom to check on Simon. He was already fast asleep with his
head on the unopened math book. I slid it out, took off his shoes,
and tucked him in. Then I walked back into the kitchen and sat down
opposite Chantal.

"Well, here we are," I said.

"
Yes." She looked at me for a moment, then
picked up the joint and stared at it. "Your therapist—what did
he mean about 'figure' and 'ground'?"

"It's kind of like that old perceptual trick,
being able to pick out a pattern in a field of dots. Or the cliché
about not seeing the forest for the trees."

"And you don't do that?"

"Sometimes I let my problems interfere. At least
he thinks so."

"But that's true for everybody, isn't it?"
She turned the joint in her hand and put it down. "My ex would
use all those terms—neuro-this, retro-that—for things that were
common knowledge anyway. In the end I saw he was using them as a way
to control me. At least most of the time." She looked up at me
and smiled. "But you do all right the way you are. I can tell."

"Thanks. You do too."

She shrugged, a funny little line curving up just
beneath her lower lip and disappearing in the hollow of her cheek.

"You know, it's a long time since I thought I
was falling in love with somebody." The words weren't
premeditated. They just came out of me from some mysterious place.
Like the ground coming out from under the figure—or was it the
reverse?

Chantal blushed slightly and looked away. I felt
embarrassed too. I didn't say anything until she turned back to me.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to . . ."

"No. That's okay. Those are just big words and .
. ."

"You've heard them before."

She nodded. We sat there in the kind of uncomfortable
silence they say you can drive trucks through. I could hear her
breathing and feel my pulse rate going up. After a while we were
staring at each other like a couple of seventeen-year-olds at a
drive-in.

"You know, for somebody who was a stand-up
comic, you're very shy."

"That's not so strange, is it?"

"No, I guess it's not." I looked at her
again. "You wanna break your rule?" I asked.

"
Yes."

I took her hand and we walked slowly into my bedroom.
In the green light of the neon wall clock, we began to undress each
other.

"Y0u're trembling," she said.

"So are you."

"It's not so serious."

"No, it's not. At least I don't think it is."

Our clothes fell to the floor and I could see her
body outlined in the closet mirror. It was long and smooth with a
soft round butt that curved neatly into white-white thighs. Her pubic
hair was the same auburn as her head but coiled in tight little
springlike curls against her skin. I wrapped my arms around her and
we lowered ourselves onto the bed. And then we made love. The earth
didn't move or anything. But considering we had never done it before,
and considering what had gone on that day, and considering the battle
scars of the participants and that I still couldn't move off my right
side because of my mending ribs, considering all that, you could say
it was pretty terrific.

The phone rang the next morning at 5:46. It felt like
a terrorist attack. I fumbled for it in the dark, almost knocking the
radio and lamp off my headboard.

"Hel1o," I groaned.

"Hello, Mr. Wine."

"Yeah?"

"My name is Nick Steinway—no relation. Would
you mind coming down to my office? I'd like to speak with you."

"Speak with me? Do you have any idea what—"

"It's a short day, Mr. Wine. And there's only so
much time to get things accomplished. If you could be over here in,
say, fifteen minutes, I'll have you done and out by six-thirty."

"What is this—a haircut?"

"Cute. Look, Wine, be here. You'll be glad you
did."

"Where's here?"

"Global Pictures, Executive Building, Suite Two
Hundred. How do you take your eggs?"

"
Sunny side."

He hung up.

I looked over at Chantal, who was staring groggily at
me. "Go to sleep," I said. "I'll be back in a few
minutes." I got up and gave myself the two—minute shave. At
precisely 6:05 that morning I walked through the door that said
PRESIDENT, WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION into Nick Steinway's reception room.
The way things were operating, it could have been three in the
afternoon. Two bearded guys of about thirty were talking anxiously on
a white leather couch with an attractive silver-haired woman about
ten years their senior while, through an open doorway, a group of
four men in suits were visible going over some papers amidst pots of
coffee in a dining alcove. But they all seemed to have something in
common: they were all rubbing their eyes.

"You must be Mr. Wine," said the secretary,
a motherly type in a gray smock. "Mr. Steinway wants to see you
straight away." She buzzed the inner office. "It's Mr.
Wine."

I turned as the office door swung open by itself, or
rather by a remote control operated by a short, wiry man in his late
twenties seated on another white leather couch, this one about twice
the size of the one in the reception room. He was talking on the
phone while glancing at about a half-dozen scripts that were stacked
on his lap. "He can call me what he wants," I heard him say
as he gestured for me to come in. "He's three days behind and
he's going to have to cut ten pages." He hung up and stood,
shaking my hand. "Mr. Wine, I presume .... Just a second. I'11
be right with you .... Did you get those eggs?" But before I
could answer he walked right past me into the reception room. "Have
you solved that second act?" he said to the two guys on the
couch. "When you have it, let me know, And don't forget, your
next project is with me." Before they could answer, he was into
the dining alcove, leaning over the table of suits. "Yes to a
negative pickup," he said. "But you have to give us Europe
and a completion bond." He picked up an empty pot. "Get
these guys some more coffee, Elizabeth." He replaced the pot and
shot past them back into his office, closing the door behind him.
"Now," he said, "let me tell you the problem we have."

"Let me guess. You've signed a
multi-million—dollar deal with a man who's just been arrested for
murder."

"Correct."

"
And you have to decide whether you want to back
him up or not."

"Exactly. But we have to decide quickly because
a lot of public relations damage is already done. I'd say in about a
week Global Pictures will have to get behind him or let him twist in
the wind. I can't imagine he's innocent, but we can't afford to
project a bad image on this. It's even more extreme than the Landis
case. Try dealing with the talent in this business." He shook
his head. "Oh, well, on an assembly line you have to work with
asbestos."

"
Why me?"

"I saw you at the benefit yesterday. I heard you
were working for Emily Ptak."

"Who told you that?"

"Eddy Sandollar."

"
How'd he know?"

"
Eddy knows everything. It's his business. You
might turn out to be a big donor, after all. Anyway, l checked you
out. I have facilities to do that in a hurry. So, how much do you get
for this?"

"
Five hundred a day plus expenses."

"Five hundred? You've been making two hundred."

"You know my fee?"

"That's my job. An agent comes in here asking a
hundred thousand for a screenplay, I have to know if that's what the
writer's been making."

"Five hundred or forget it."

"All right," he said. "But I was going
to offer you another arrangement. Your regular fee and a
fifty-thousand-dollar bonus if you solve the case. It's what we call
a step deal."

"I'll take it," I said.

When I arrived back, Chantal was sitting in the
kitchen reading the paper and drinking coffee.

"
Luck is on our side," I said, coming up
from behind and kissing her. "We've already got a new client."
I told her about Global Pictures and its junior workaholic president.
"The only drawback is," I explained, "we've got to get
it solved in a week. Otherwise it's of no use to them. Steinway takes
us off the payroll. And needless to say, we're never to tell anyone
who we're working for."

She pointed to the three-column headline on the front
page above photographs of Bannister and Otis: NOTED COMIC HELD IN
PSYCHIATRIST SLAYING.

"Anything new in it?"

"They found the corpse exposed in a ravine
behind the Serra Retreat. Apparently it was buried under some leaves
and slid down."

"That fast? Who found it?"

"
Some wranglers at the ranch—Jack Goldman and
Danny Aronowitz."

"Kosher cowboys," I said, pouring myself a
cup of coffee · and slugging down some quick caffeine. "Where
was the knife?"

"They don't say. But it was discovered by a
Marianne Walders, an aerobics teacher at the Malibu Movers. We'll
have to go see her."

"I'll do that. I'm going out there to look at
the scene of the crime. I want you to stay here and check with
Stanley Burckhardt. He's bound to have turned up something by now,
and if he hasn't, I'd like to know why. Also, I want to know more
about Nastase's trips to Trieste. Get the precise dates and
destinations if you can. Where he stayed. Who he saw. Whatever. Check
with the INS and see where and when he got his citizenship. There
might be something in that.

Also, go down to the Hall of Records and find out
whether Bannister owned his own house—Sixty-three A, Malibu Colony.
It may not tell us much, but it's standard operating procedure. Then
meet me at two o'clock at Zucky's Delicatessen on Wilshire."

"Yes, sir." She looked at me cooly.

"Look, I know what you're thinking. I'd love to
spend the whole day with you, do this together, but if we're going to
solve this thing, we're going to have to divide and conquer."

"That wasn't what was bothering me. But anyway .
. ."

She shrugged, looked away. "When're you going to
investigate your shrink?"

"What for?"

"You told me you saw those matches in his
office. And that he's Emily's psychiatrist too."

"Yeah, well, I've been thinking about it. It
doesn't make much sense. I mean he can't even get around by himself."

"
You mean he doesn't have a car?"

"He's got this dark green van parked in his
driveway. But I don't know how he uses it. I mean, I don't even know
if he lives alone."

Chantal looked at me. When the last words came out, I
realized how strange they sounded. In Freudian circles it was
conventional thinking for the patient to know little or nothing of
his analyst. But those days were long gone, especially in California.
So I wondered why I, a private detective, had preferred to remain in
the dark. Was there something I didn't want to know? And was it about
Nathanson or about me?