Cards on the Table - lanyon Josh. Страница 7

He said, «You want to go grab a couple of burgers somewhere? There are a couple of things…»

I gazed at him with disbelief. «No,» I replied shortly. «I don't. I'm tired. I want a shower and dinner and a couple of mindless hours in front of the tube.» I didn't wait for his reply, uncoiling from the chair and going into the adjoining kitchen. Yanking open the fridge, I took out the still half-frozen tilapia and tossed it on the counter. It landed with a little bang – louder than I'd intended. There was no point getting mad. I knew what this was about: Jack feeling guilty. Jack trying to make good on his hope that we could still be friends.

Every muscle in my body tensed as he rose and came over to the bar separating the kitchen from the dining alcove. Watching me ripping open the plastic wrap on the fish, he said, «Sorry. I should have thought. There's nothing that can't wait till later.» I gave him a brief look. «Good.»

He turned and opened the apartment door. «Don't forget to lock this,» he said, and went out.

Netflix had delivered Danger in the Dunes, Eva Aldrich's last film, so I popped it into the player and watched it while I ate my dinner.

It was not a brilliant film. One of those convoluted VistaVision adventure-romances, the plot had something to do with a lost city and Tuaregs and the rekindling of an old romance. Eva played a feisty lady reporter who, following a plane crash in the desert, gets foisted on her old explorer boyfriend played with GI Joe-like stiffness by the implausibly handsome Stephen Ball. What the story lacked, the chemistry between the two leads more than made up for it. Eva and Stephen Ball were hot together. Hot, as the movie trailer would have it, as the sizzling desert sun. And I didn't think it was acting, because neither of them was particularly gifted in the thespian department.

True, sexual chemistry didn't necessarily mean they loved each other – or even liked each other. But, according to Gloria, Eva had gone to that fateful party at the Garden of Allah to see Ball. This, only three days after ending her engagement to gangster Tony Fumagalli.

Neither Fumagalli nor Eva had given an official explanation for the end of their engagement. Had the reason been Stephen Ball? Eva had been briefly engaged to Ball soon after she landed in Hollywood in the early fifties. She'd broken it off to marry William Burack, a wealthy local businessman, but that hadn't taken either, and two years later she had divorced Burack with some untactful comments about the grease under his fingernails. It was a matter of public record that garage-station owner Burack had not taken the split well and had continued to try to «woo» Eva back. Nowadays his idea of «wooing» would be classified as «stalking,» but things were different back in the fifties, and a lot of people were sympathetic to the idea of a husband wanting his headstrong wife back.

There were plenty of good reasons for suspecting Burack of killing Eva – including a drunken threat that if he couldn't have her no one could – but the cops had been unable to shake his current paramour's alibi. And Burack had a few influential friends. So he had

evaded arrest, though not scandal and suspicion, and when he died in 1965, most people believed the answer to who had killed Eva Aldrich died with him.

But if Burack had killed Eva, why was someone so anxious that I not look into this half-century-old murder?

I needed to talk to Stephen Ball, but so far he had refused all my requests, and my publisher's requests, for an interview. He still lived in the Beverly Hills mansion he had bought decades earlier.

Watching him and Eva locked in one of those grand Hollywood clinches, I had to admit they made a beautiful couple. He was tall and dashing, although I never trusted a guy with one of those pencil-thin mustaches, and she was beautiful in a bargain-basement Elizabeth Taylor sort of way.

As I studied Eva, I realized I still had no fix on her character. I'd seen most of her films – there were only twelve of them – and I'd talked to a number of people who had worked with her, but I still had no sense of who she was. She remained as impervious to analysis as her screen character was unsmudged and unmussed by sand and wind and plane crashes and Tuaregs and all that kissing.

Was that because, dying at twenty-four, her character had not been fully formed? Or was she just a shallow party girl? Or had no one really known her very well? Or maybe the people who knew Eva best still weren't willing to talk about her.

Gloria Rayner could certainly have told me a lot more, and maybe she would the next time we talked.

Speaking of talking, it would have been nice to be able to bounce some of my thoughts off someone, share my theories – not that I had a lot of theories at this point – but it would have been nice to…hell, watch this awful movie with someone.

Since the accident I'd cut myself off from most of my friends. From everyone, really. I didn't see that changing anytime soon. My experience with Jack had confirmed what I already knew. Jack.

Who was I kidding? The someone I wanted to talk to, share my theories with, bounce my thoughts – and other things – off was Jack. Even now. And how sad was that? It was pathetic. * * * * *

I didn't sleep well that night. I kept thinking I heard someone outside my bedroom window. I got up and checked a couple of times, but there was no one there. When I dozed, I dreamed of burly shadow shapes warning me to mind my own business, and in my dreams it seemed like a good idea.

When I finally drifted off, it was after four in the morning, and I ended up oversleeping, which meant I had to rush to make my interview with Roman Mayfield. I didn't want to take a chance on being late since he'd already canceled three previously scheduled meets. I had to skip my morning swim, scarf down my breakfast of instant oatmeal – chased by the usual meds and vitamins and eleven different herbs and spices –and then run for the bus. I was so goddamned sick and tired of having to take a bus everywhere.

Mayfield lived north of Sunset Boulevard in a pseudo-French chateau built by an oil magnate in the 1920s. A security guard, suspicious that I had arrived on foot, eventually –after much back and forthing on the security booth phone – finally let me through the towering wrought iron gates. I hiked up the long, tree-lined drive to the mansion.

A maid opened the double front doors and escorted me down a mile or so of parquet floors and chandelier-lined ceilings to my audience with Mayfield. The hall was lined with photos of Mayfield and a galaxy of celebrities stretching from the late '40s to current day.

The maid led me through an arched doorway and I found myself in a huge room with a ceiling painted midnight blue and speckled with gold and silver stars like the night sky. At the far end of the room was an enormous desk. A very tall, very thin, bald man sat behind the desk, and behind the man was a huge black and gold astrology chart.

He watched with an intent, unblinking gaze as I walked toward the desk – and he said not a word. He looked like Hollywood's idea of the head priest in an ancient Egyptian temple – if Egyptian priests wore black silk turtlenecks and Armani slacks. I said, «Thanks very much for agreeing to see me, Mr. Mayfield.»

«Exactly as I thought!» Mayfield exclaimed in a deep, melodious voice, and he rose from behind the desk. «Sagittarius. The Archer. Am I correct?»

He was correct, actually. My birthday was December 19. But he could have found that out a number of ways; I didn't believe he could tell just by looking at me. «Timothy North,» I responded.

«Curious, direct, sincere, and idealistic. Useful traits for a journalist.» He came around the desk and offered his hand. «I've been looking forward to this meeting.» I shook hands and said, «I know. I got your calling card.»