“I’ll get on it right away.” I started to get out of bed.
“Just a minute,” Greenblatt said.
I stopped getting out of bed.
“You should know what I am doing,” Greenblatt said. “There’s a release in it. Today I am sending for Harlow Perkins. He’s in New York doing an audit, but he will be flying out. I want him to look into all this.”
“Harlow Perkins?” I was astounded.
“Jason,” Greenblatt said, “I want this fucking mess cleaned up, and cleaned up fast. Perkins is honest and he’s smart and he knows movies. In addition.” And then Greenblatt stopped.
“In addition?”
“In addition, nothing,” Greenblatt said. “Just get the release out. Len will be contacting you about Perkins’s flight. Arrange to meet the plane.”
Click. Buzz.
I started to get dressed. Tucson, Arizona, in September is damned hot. Most of us had been going around in shirtsleeves, but today I put on a coat and tie. Also, we had all been shaving at night, not in the morning—when you’re working in the high desert with all that sun and wind, it’s better to shave at the end of the day, not the beginning. But this time I shaved in the morning.
And then I went out to see about our dead writer.
CHAPTERTWO
It seemed like the whole production company was standing in the corridor of the Holiday Inn. The morning call was for six thirty, which meant that all the actors and crew were to have eaten breakfast and be ready to get on the bus. But it was now after seven a.m., and they were still here, so I assumed the morning shoot was canceled.
That made sense, but I didn’t think it was a good idea, publicitywise. We had a total company of about 120 people to leave idle, sitting around gossiping and speculating and drinking coffee—and talking to reporters, if any showed up. Movie people love to talk, they’re very gregarious, and they love gossip. This could make my life murder.
As I pushed my way down the hall to McDougall’s room, I reminded myself to talk to the production manager about keeping people busy. The door to McDougall’s room was shut and a cop was standing guard outside. I said I wanted to go in and gave him my name. He checked inside, then let me through.
It was a regular Holiday Inn room, the same as mine, the same as everybody’s. There was a bedroom with two double beds and a TV set in a corner, and a phony antique writing desk in another corner. A bathroom off to one side, past a sort of closet-and-dressing-table area. It was hot in the room, with lots of cops milling around, and most of the attention seemed to be focused on the bathroom. I saw and heard the pop of flashbulbs.
Then I saw Charles Mann, the producer, talking to the cop who seemed to be in charge of everything. I wasn’t particularly happy to see Mann there in the room.
Charles Mann is a big person. He must go six three and 240 or 250, and he’s in good shape. He’s Greenblatt’s friend—they work out at the gym together and trade dating stories, things like that—which is no doubt why Mann got the job of producing the studio’s biggest production of the year,Bloodrock. Mann was pulling down a hundred grand and he had two points at the other end, which was a lot of money to be giving your workout partner.
Not that Mann has to worry about money. He was the heir to some real estate fortune in Ohio, and he came to LA as a rich boy playing around with the other rich boys in Beverly Hills. He’s a real stinking-rich BH brat, as they say, all grown up.
Anyway, that’s not the trouble with Mann. The trouble is, he’s a flaming hysteric. He shrieks at the tiniest difficulty. He also shrieks when all hell breaks loose, but he doesn’t seem to know the difference. He yelled just as much the time we misplaced a hat for one of the female extras as when the flash floods put us three days and $60,000 back. He just seems to like yelling. Somebody once asked him, in the middle of a yell, if he was “primalling.”
“What’s that?” Mann asked. “Some hippie joke?” He isn’t exactly up on psychological things. In fact, he isn’t up on anything. I never said this, but if you had to pick a word for him, the word would bestupid.
I expected him to be shrieking about the murder, but he wasn’t. He was talking very quietly to the cop, who was making notes on a pad. I was astounded by how quiet Mann was, and also how pale. He’s one of those people with a permanent suntan, but today he was looking very white.
He jerked his head toward the bathroom. I went to look.
Six cops were wedged in the bathroom, taking fingerprints and photographing stains and making diagrams. But I hardly noticed them because I was staring at Art McDougall.
Now, it’s a funny thing about working in movies. You see a zillion dead people, only they’re not really dead; they’re just made up. You get a certain funny view of things. When I first saw Arthur McDougall, my very first thought was:Damned realistic. It was the little touches that were unexpected, like the fact the eyes were closed instead of open, and the fact that there was no blood on the face at all, and the expression on the face was so peaceful. I mean, no sort of pain at all.
And then I began to get that stink of blood, and I saw all the blood in the room, and I noticed how awkward McDougall’s body was, slumped over in the bathtub with his feet sticking up in the air, one shoe on, one shoe off, with the sock off, too, and the naked toes, with dirty toenails.
Andbang! I felt sick, almost vomiting on the spot, until I turned and quickly went back to the bedroom. I heard one cop say, “Must have fallen against the sink and cut his head, then fell into the tub.”
Mann was still talking to the head cop in the bedroom. I went over to him. I was queasy, and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could.
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said, “but I just talked to Greenblatt.”
“Oh yeah?” Mann said, very tough and bored. That meant he was feeling down because he hadn’t talked to Greenblatt himself.
