Hollywood Stuff (16 page)

“Greg,” said Louise, standing,” maybe you ought to call it a night.”

Jeb shook his head and gave Jane, Tim, and Oh one of those looks that once again made him the parent, this time giving them the what-can-you-do-with-crazy-kids shrug.

“We’re having a meeting in the study. The B Room, I mean, is having a meeting now. Please stay and have coffee and dessert,” Jeb said, including Oh in the invitation. “Bobbette makes a wonderful chocolate mousse cake. Make yourself at home. Or if you’d rather, you can have it served in the guesthouse,” he offered.

Louise, already up, was speaking quietly to Greg. Rick stood up, carrying his coffee cup. Tim, with more enthusiasm than he’d shown since they’d arrived at Jeb Gleason’s house, jumped up and said he thought having dessert in the guesthouse was a wonderful idea. Jane and Oh stood up together, Oh watching Jeb as if he were waiting for him to finish his earlier story. Jane, facing a case on the opposite wall, noticed for the first time that Jeb had a large collection of books, all sheathed in the acid-free clear plastic jackets with which collectors protected their precious volumes. She would have to explore the titles later.

The sharp slam of the door to the dining room made them all, to one degree or another, start. Even Greg, whose reaction times were slowed by alcohol, gave a slow-motion head snap. Odd, Jane noted, that none of them were facing the door. Had they been looking in that direction, they might have been even more startled if the odd trio had simply walked in on them without the warning shot.

Like a bizarre tableau from a souped-up version of
The Wizard of Oz,
Bix stood in front of them. Her braids pointed in all directions, taking the place of Dorothy’s tamer pigtails. She had her left arm linked through Scarecrow’s arm, tonight being played by Lou Piccolo, in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. Her other arm, heavily bandaged, rested on Skye Miller’s arm. Skye was decked out in a wildly fringed, long, and loosely hand-knit gold vest. A not-so-cowardly lion, she shook her giant mane of honey-blond hair and smiled sweetly at Jeb.

“Did we scare you?” asked Skye. “At the hospital, I heard you mention there was going to be a meeting tonight.”

After the first moment of silence, the group crowded around Bix, asking her about her arm, her hospital stay, her hospital exit, her pain, her pain medication.

“Any extra Vicodin for Uncle Ricky?” Rick said, pulling on one of Bix’s braids.

“I’m absolutely fine. The surgery was to reduce the scarring from some jagged glass that went into my arm when the box blew. I have recovered from the shock and my arm is recovering from the cut and all is well. Skye and Lou are practically fighting over who gets to take care of me, so what’s not to feel better about? If I don’t recover, I won’t be able to get rid of either one,” she said, laughing.

“I’ll amuse myself studying your bookshelf while you have your meeting,” said Lou to Jeb. “Don’t worry about me listening at the keyhole.”

“All the books are cataloged, Lou, so don’t think I don’t know what I have and where it’s shelved,” said Jeb. He was trying for a light touch, but fell short. The remark tumbled to the ground with a thud and made him sound like a petulant child.

Instead of trying to recover by saying anything more, he put a proprietary arm around Bix and escorted her away from Lou.

Pausing at the doorway, Jeb turned back to the room, where everyone was either waiting to follow him into the meeting or, in the case of Jane, Tim, Oh, and Lou, be served Bob-bette’s famous chocolate mousse cake.

“So what is the title of the late Patrick Dryer’s new novel?” asked Jeb.

Although Tim was upset about the quote on the author/ novel postcard, Jane felt that its importance paled in contrast to the other information gleaned from the focal point of the mobile. The book cover had been obscured by the author photo, so the title of the book was not noticeable when they had first found the crude objet d’art in Bix’s hospital closet. Jane, after scrutinizing the postcard in the guesthouse, could hardly contain herself when she saw the cover clearly. She’d wanted to reveal the title earlier when the group was sitting around the dinner table. Although then she thought it the perfect time, she realized now, as Bruce Oh often told her, the perfect moment presents itself to one more often than one is able to invent the perfect moment. Now, in addition to an audience made up of Jeb, Louise, Rick, and Greg, she had the complete cast of characters in view. Bix, Skye, and Lou now looked at her as expectantly as the others. Even better, she had Oh there to help Tim and her assess the reactions of the group.

“
The D Room
,” said Jane.

As soon as you hear about a meeting to which you are not invited, fight fire with fire. Call your own meeting. And don’t invite anyone from the first one. But, and this is key, make sure one of the noninvitees sees your memo.

—
FROM
Hollywood Diary
BY
B
ELINDA
S
T
. G
ERMAINE

Jane knew she didn’t trust Jeb Gleason, but she wasn’t sure, after tasting Bobbette’s chocolate mousse cake, whether she could brand him an out-and-out liar.

“This is unreal,” said Tim. “It’s like the cocoa bean’s last request.”

“Not last request,” said Jane,” too grim. More like favorite place to set up housekeeping.”

“Perhaps,” said Oh, lifting another bite and studying it for a moment,” it is chocolate’s highest calling.”

The three of them sat around the table in the guesthouse with generous slices of the cake in front of them. After their first bites, they uniformly slowed down, wanting to make this incredible treat last.

Lou Piccolo had declined cake, claiming he just didn’t get what the chocolate thing was about. Instead of joining them for dessert, he said he was going to go smoke a cigar by the pool.

“I pick and choose among the common vices and these babies have never let me down,” said Lou, holding a monogrammed leather cigar case in front of him, Holy Grail–style.

Detective Oh put down his fork and stood up from the table. He walked to the window and made sure Lou was thoroughly involved in reading
Variety
and savoring his cigar.

“While we are alone, perhaps it would be the best time to show me this mobile you described and I can give you the package I brought,” he said.

Jane had the mobile in her bag, which rested on the floor next to her, and she fished it out, carefully unwrapping the origami from the postcard. Oh studied the hand-printed quotation.

Jane unwrapped the package Oh had laid on the table. He had placed his find in a brown paper bag and taped it so it appeared to be a thick manuscript. Jane was delighted to see it was one step beyond loose manuscript pages.

“How did you manage this?” asked Jane, holding the paper-bound galley of
The D Room
by Patrick Dryer. The cover was plain heather-gray card stock with the title and author’s name in black. In a large circle under the title was printed,
Advance Uncorrected Proofs.
In the lower left corner was the publisher’s name and logo. “These aren’t available to the public.”

“When you told me the title and the publisher, I phoned an old schoolmate of mine who owns a bookstore in San Francisco. I asked him if one could ever obtain a book before it was available to the public and he explained that these paperbacks, these bound galleys, are sent to booksellers in advance so they will better be able to discuss the author’s book with their customers. My friend knows all the independent booksellers in the area and offered to phone them and track down who in Los Angeles might have been sent a bound galley of
The D Room.
He gave me the name of a splendid fellow at the Mystery Bookstore who goes by the curious name of Dark Bobby. Bobby offered me the store’s copy. He said that neither he nor another bookseller there, Linda, predict a large success for the book. The entire staff read it, hoping it would be good, since it was set in Los Angeles. He did tell me, though, that Carol, the bookkeeper, mentioned something interesting after she finished it. She said that every time Patrick Dryer introduced a character, she felt she was supposed to know who it was, as if the book were a roman à clef, but none of the characters were famous enough to be truly recognizable.”

“Ouch,” said Tim.

Jane opened the book and scanned the acknowledgments. Patrick Dryer thanked his agent and his editor, which Jane assumed was predictable. He also thanked some office assistants and a few experts who advised him on copyright law.

“Listen to this,” said Jane, reading aloud.

At some point an author of fiction is supposed to note that any resemblance between real people and his characters is an accident. The author is supposed to claim that each man, woman, and child who makes an appearance in his book is purely a figment of his own imagination. Well, I won’t do it. Are these characters based on real people? Yes. Are they as silly, vain, greedy, and ignorant as I make them here? Yes. And would they ever sue me over their portrayal? No. Not one of the models for the members of
The D Room
would ever do that. They are, after all, television writers. They don’t read books.

“I repeat, ouch,” said Tim. “You going to finish that?” he asked, pointing to Jane’s cake with his fork.

Jane moved her plate out of Tim’s fork’s range and continued reading silently.

“The origami swan is not that difficult,” said Oh, holding up the mobile, turning it slightly, and allowing the swans to move freely. “Fish base, mountain fold…of course, the swivel for the neck might take some practice.”

“Didn’t Rick say he knew something about origami? Something about a bone folder?” asked Jane.

“Or Greg. Until Greg got drunk, I couldn’t see much difference between the two of them,” said Tim.

“And now?” asked Oh.

“Greg’s the drunk one,” said Tim.

“This is one bitter man,” said Jane, still reading Patrick’s ac-knowledgments. “He won’t even thank his parents without a sarcastic slam at Nurture vs. Nature. Listen to this. ‘As far as my parents are concerned, I thank them for not drowning me at birth. That’s all I can think of at the moment. Since they are dead now, I hurt no one by paraphrasing the poet Philip Larkin, agreeing with his poetic line,
they fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ “

“Brutal,” said Tim.

“Remind me to call Nellie later,” said Jane.

“Mrs. Wheel,” said Oh, “at the hospital where my wife’s aunt and Ms. Bixby were patients, there was a family arts and crafts room. Yesterday and today, Claire and I walked the entire hospital, keeping ourselves busy. In the family room this afternoon, a volunteer was teaching paper craft. It is possible that anyone waiting to see a loved one could have dropped in and learned to fold a simple shape such as the swan.”

Jane nodded, putting down the book for a moment and taking the mobile from Oh.

“Yes, but the paper. Whoever made this just happened to have a television script in her purse,” said Jane. “Or his messenger bag.”

“
Southpaw and Lefty
is an old show. Only one of the writers or someone connected to it would have an old script,” said Tim. “And it’s hard to believe even one of the B Room would have pages just lying around like that. Haven’t they all moved on to other projects?”

“Aren’t they all still meeting together as if the show were never canceled?” asked Jane, looking toward the main house. “How weird is that? If you told me they slept on mattresses stuffed with old scripts, I think I ‘d believe it.”

“I’m not sure I can stretch my visit here too much longer, Mrs. Wheel. I am, after all, simply a professor dropping off a manuscript. When I get back to Claire’s relative’s home, I am going to call Officer Dooley and explain the situation. There is a threat to everyone in this house, including you, written on this mobile. We cannot ignore it.”

Jane nodded. She agreed that the quotation that someone had filled in on the postcard sounded like a threat. Sort of. But Jane didn’t feel threatened.

“It’s too cute,” said Jane. “Too literary, too.”

“What does that mean?” asked Tim.

“Feels like a pose, doesn’t it? How many people who really want to kill someone leave him or her a note? I mean, other than in mystery books? Origami-trimmed art-project-type notes, at that?” asked Jane. “I mean, if I wanted to kill someone, wouldn’t I just do it? No muss, no fuss, no additional artifacts to trace back to me?”

“I agree with you, Mrs. Wheel,” said Oh, nodding. “Creating and planting this mobile is a childlike exercise.”

“Yeah, well, childlike can be
childlike
…all innocent fun and games, or
childlike
…as in
The Bad Seed
or
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,
” said Tim. “I think the thing is scary as hell.”

“I also agree with you, Mr. Lowry. Childlike can be quite dangerous. The police have to be alerted. After all, Patrick Dryer was murdered, and it was his picture on the mobile, so there seems to be some connection, even if the threat to you, Mrs. Wheel, is not something that you feel so strongly.”

Jane placed the bound galley of
The D Room
on the butcher block next to the refrigerator and covered it with a dish towel. She didn’t want any of the others to see it if they happened to wander in. Looking out the window, she saw Lou Piccolo still sitting by the pool, puffing on what she assumed must be an exceptional cigar. When he first settled in, he had opened a magazine and seemed to be engrossed. Jane had noticed, as they sat there eating cake and discussing Patrick Dryer, that Lou had never turned a page while he was in her sight. The window was open, but they had talked quietly and his chair was twenty feet from the guesthouse. Unless Lou Piccolo possessed superhuman hearing, he was not privy to their conversation. The magazine rested in his lap and he sat perfectly still and smoked.
Automatic pilot. He’s smoking in a trance.

Jane looked beyond the pool to the main house. It epitomized grand old Hollywood. The coffee-with-cream-colored stucco walls looked as if they’d feel warm to the touch. The house sprawled comfortably, curving itself around the pool, which glimmered and beckoned. The property wasn’t all that showy, Jane realized, not as immense as it had seemed when they drove up earlier. It was the relationship of Jeb’s house to those immediately surrounding it that gave it its imposing stature. The others that Jane could see across the lawn, their windows now warm squares of light, were attractive houses, quite desirable pieces of real estate, Jane was sure, but they were smaller, more sensibly scaled residences. Jeb’s place, though a manageable size, was still the biggest house on the block.

Turning back to the main house, Jane could see that the B Room had either called its meeting to a close or its members were on a break. Jeb stood in the window, looking out toward the pool, and said something over his shoulder to Louise, who was trying to see around him. Maybe they were speculating about the normally loquacious Lou’s pensiveness. Or maybe they were wondering if Jane Wheel had figured out who rigged a box to explode and who was sending malicious notes. And worrying about whether that
who
was the same
who
who killed Patrick Dryer.

“Who kills a writer?” asked Jane out loud.

Detective Oh looked at her expectantly. A man who loved questions almost as much as he loved answers, he seemed delighted that his protégée was asking an interesting one.

Tim, a man who preferred answers, his own, offered, “Critics?”

“They don’t need a hammered silver letter opener. They use a pen,” said Jane,” or if they really want to make their victim suffer, they probably use the silent treatment.”

“How about a nightcap?” The voice was Jeb’s, a bit muffled, but loud enough to make them all start, although Jane had already jumped at a clicking noise that had preceded the invitation.

Jane, Oh, and Tim looked first at each other, then each of them looked around the room, their eyes falling on the intercom speaker next to the light switch at about the same time.

“Why not?” said Tim, directing his voice to the hole in the wall.

“Fine. Come over.” There was a click, then silence.

Jane approached the small speaker and pointed. “I didn’t see this before. Do you suppose…?”

Oh examined the speaker and the off-and-on switch underneath it. It was turned on. He switched it off, back on, then off.

“This is an old system, not sophisticated at all. We were sitting in there around the table until a few minutes ago and we clearly heard the monitor on their end turn on and off. I don’t believe anyone was listening to our conversation, Mrs. Wheel.”

Tim shot Jane an I-told-you-so look. He slipped his jacket on and shook his head. “If I could understand why…how you dated that guy…”