“It’s not?” Greenblatt said.
“In no way. Technically,narcoticmeans something that puts you to sleep, which cocaine isn’t. But in general usage, narcotic means a derivative of the poppy—namely, opium, heroin, or morphine. Cocaine is a derivative of the cocoa leaf and is an entirely different substance chemically. It is a stimulant, not a depressant, with a completely different effect on the metabolism. The autopsy report clearly differentiated the matter—evidence of morphine compounds, and no cocaine traces or its by-products.
“Now, when I arrived at the scene, I felt that there had to have been a murder, because the room had been so carefully staged. I mean wiping fingerprints, removing the pipes, straightening the desk, and so on. But you see, the staging didn’t make sense. It didn’t make the crime perfect. It made it irrational and messy. That, coupled with Mr. Mann’s extraordinary desire to get rid of the film magazine earlier in the night, suggested to me that it was guilt that had provoked the cover-up. He felt he had to hide hiswishto kill McDougall, even though he didn’t actually kill him.”
“So how does Chadney fit in?” Greenblatt asked.
“Once I knew that Mann had gone back to McDougall’s room, I began to wonder if there were any witnesses. The Holiday Inn is shaped like an L, and that means that one wing can look at the corridor of the other. Anybody in the short wing of the L could see people coming and going in the corridor. Of course, most people would be asleep and not looking out their windows. But I thought somebody might be too nervous to sleep. I checked the schedule for the next day, and sure enough, a stunt was scheduled.
“Chadney’s room was looking out on the corridor. He was, according to his girlfriend, jumping out of bed to look out the window every few minutes, all night long. He saw Mann coming and going. The next morning, McDougall is found dead, and Chadney puts two and two together. He knows, for instance, that he’s been supplying opium, but there’s no opium in McDougall’s room at the time the body is discovered. So he puts the squeeze on Mann. And it works.”
“That little son of a bitch...”
“Suddenly you were faced with the fact that by cleaning up a death you had nothing to do with,” Perkins said, “you were in reality very vulnerable to an investigation. It would look bad because you were acting guilty. You had visited McDougall’s room at three a.m., and you had cleaned up the mess around five forty-five. You were in real trouble. Chadney had you over a barrel, just as McDougall had had you over a barrel. Only this time you were going to fight back.”
“He wanted a hundred thousand dollars,” Mann said, his voice so low that we could hardly hear it. “The bastard thought he could stick it to me.”
“And so you changed the settings on the nitrogen ram,” Perkins said.
Mann kept his head down and didn’t answer.
Up ahead, I saw the airport. Greenblatt glanced at his watch. “I’ll just make my plane,” he said. And then to Perkins, he added, “By the way, do you have any idea how far behindBloodrockis now?”
“I’d say eleven days and five hundred thousand dollars.”
Greenblatt nodded. “I think this will all work out,” he said.
The limousine pulled up in front of the airport. Greenblatt got out. Perkins got out. I stayed in the limo with Mann. Greenblatt leaned in and said, “I’ll call you later in the day, Charles. We’ll figure out how to handle this.”
Mann looked up at him, surprised. In that moment, I saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes. And I realized, because this man lived in a world full of money and top-shelf lawyers—and because the fate of the movie might ultimately mean more to the men in charge than the administration of justice—there was a very good chance he could walk away from this without ever being officially charged with attempted murder.
As I looked over at Perkins, I wondered what he was thinking. Surely he must have come to the same realization I had concerning the ultimate fate of Charles Mann.So yes, I thought.You succeeded in your mission. You brilliantly cracked the case. But are you satisfied?I couldn’t read the answer on his face.
The limousine driver turned back to look at us and said, “Where to now, gentlemen?”
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
Everything that happened next is pretty much public knowledge. It was reported in the trades the following Monday. Charles Mann cited ill health as his reason for resigning as producer ofBloodrock. The columnists said it was a bleeding ulcer, the unfortunate result of all the pressure off a difficult production. A new producer was brought in, and Mr. Mann took the position of executive producer. But he left the location.
He was never charged,of course, and he was actually made executive producer, in part because he had such a large piece of the picture. As producer, he already had 2 percent of the gross to break even and 10 percent of the profits. And he was so confident of the success ofBloodrockthat he persuaded the studio to sell him another 2 percent of the profits for $5,000 cash. That wasn’t reported in the trades, but I can tell you that it happened.
The new producer was Jack Kenyon, a competent man. We made up four days and were almost back on schedule when we returned to the studio to finish our interiors. The company was happy and confident.
Everybody was still with us, except Al Chadney. Greenblatt pulled some strings and got him a big job as stunt gaffer onThe Saturday Boysat Warner’s. And there are rumors that when that’s over, he’ll do the stunts forMadame Bovary. I didn’t know there were any stunts in that story, but maybe they’ll put some in. Anyway, I assume Chadney is happy.
I’m okay myself. The publicity onBloodrockhas been excellent. Even Appelbaum is pleased. Every time I see Greenblatt, he tells me that I’ll be doingBovaryfor sure, and I believe him. Sometimes you know when a man isn’t lying.
I saw Mann the other day. I was driving along Sunset Boulevard one Sunday afternoon, and he went past me, going the other way, in a white Rolls convertible. He was smiling, and he had a blond girl sitting next to him. I don’t think it was Sally, but I couldn’t tell for sure. I don’t know why he was smiling, but I just read in the trades today that he’s probably going to produce the remake ofGunga Dinwith Redford and Newman and Michael Caine. That may or may not be true. A lot of what you read in the trades isn’t.
But stranger things have happened, and maybe it doesn’t really matter. When I first came to LA from Vegas, I got an apartment in a very old building off La Brea. The manager told me it used to be Myrna Loy’s apartment. I liked it because it had a marble fireplace and terrific wooden beams on the ceiling. The only trouble was that somebody had painted over the wooden beams. I wanted to have them stripped and restored to the natural wood color. So I got this guy who’s a wood-stripper, and he came in and took a look and said the beams weren’t wood at all. They were plaster molded to look like beams. And sure enough, when he pointed it out, every beam was the same—a crack in one beam had an identical matching crack in the next one, and the next one.
And the “marble” fireplace was also painted to look like marble. It wasn’t real marble at all.
This guy told me that the old stars used to get studio technicians to come in and do the work on their houses and apartments. The apartment interiors are just like sets, after all.
I asked him what I could do, and he recommended this old guy who’s a retired studio painter, and he came in and painted the wooden beams and aged them and they look absolutely real now. It didn’t cost much. When people come in and compliment me on the ceiling, I don’t tell them it isn’t real wood.
Maybe I should tell them, but I don’t. Does anyone really care if something is fake or real anymore? Not in this town.
