Double Exposure Page 9

  “I have very bad news, Denise: Lee is dead. She’s been killed.”

  The shot turned into a freeze-frame: Hummel gaping behind the Moviola, Denise on the high editor’s stool, me with my hand still on the door knob. Her face showed absolutely nothing.

  Hummel sputtered to life: “Christ almighty...!”

  “Hush, Harry.” Denise still didn’t move. “What... happened?”

  “I found her on Isaiah Hammond’s boat. She was beaten to death.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday, around twilight.”

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  I told the whole story, ending with, “When I tried to call you at home this morning, the cleaning woman said you were here. I came right over.”

  She remained absolutely frozen while Hummel vaguely flapped his arms: “Jesus. I mean, who’d of...?”

  “Please, Harry.” She sat some more. “Are you sure it was Lee? You never did meet her.”

  I shook my head. “But I studied the tape very carefully. It was her body, all right.” I stopped, surprised by a surge of angry grief.

  Denise spun the shaft of the film synchronizer on the bench. Its ball bearings whickered faintly in the silence. She spun it again, deliberately, as if intrigued to learn how long it would revolve on a single twist.

  Hummel shifted from foot to foot.

  Denise sighed. “Dead.” She pressed a catch idly and one of the synchronizer’s multiple jaws sprang open. It gnashed mechanically when she pressed it down. “Dead. I can’t take that in.”

  Hummel cleared his throat. “Thing is, this makes a couple problems with the studio.”

  Denise said gently, “Not now, Harry.”

  Hummel assumed a protective stance behind her, one hand on her shoulder, as if posing for a daguerreotype. “You gotta be practical. Like I said, we got a deal working. Arab types, right? They want things done real quiet.”

  I considered Hummel’s unprecedented flight of imagination. “Arabs.”

  Denise looked uncomfortably at the paw on her shoulder. “I guess Harry’s right. We can’t afford any public trouble until the studio’s sold. Oh, I feel terrible saying that.”

  “You gotta be practical. Winston, you tell the cops?” I shook my head. “Great, then there’s no problem.”

  “But I’ll keep on looking.”

  Hummel shook his head. “No way. That’s a wrap for you.”

  “What do you say, Denise?”

  “I don’t know. It’s so awful about Lee. But she is dead. And you said there wouldn’t be any evidence. I just don’t know.”

  “What about the tape?”

  “Well, I haven’t heard any more and the sale is about to go through. I thought maybe just... let it alone. For now?” The last question was an appeal.

  I wanted her to tell me explicitly. “So I’m not working for you anymore, is that it?”

  Denise tried to smile. “Tell you what: I said you were on the payroll for two weeks. I’ll pay you the twelve hundred dollars and you take the rest of the time off. Is that fair?”

  Again, I felt resentful grief. Denise cared no more for Lee than Hummel did, or Hammond. So be it, then. I nodded.

  She stood up uncertainly. “I’m going home now.”

  Denise closed the door very slowly behind her, leaving me to Hummel. “Hummel, why are you here?”

  “Hey, what’re friends for at a time like this?”

  “But why do you have this cutting room?”

  The usual shifty glance, then: “Well, she’s got this empty room and I got like six spots to cut. We’re sorta partners.”

  “And partners sorta get a cutting room rent-free.”

  “I mean I’m doing her a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Whadda you care? Just keep your nose outta my asshole.”

  “Hard to avoid.”

  “Huh?”

  “Considering its percentage of your surface area.”

  I still had to connect with Low Profile’s porn operation, so I needed an excuse to be here in the studio. “When do we start editing those commercials, Harry?”

  Hummel’s glance grew even shiftier. “You’re not cutting the spots.”

  “Oh?”

  “Thing is, I got this UCA kid - in the film school? Says he wants the experience.”

  “And only fifty dollars for the job.”

  “Whaddya think I am? I’m paying a hundred.”

  To edit six commercials. I looked at him with ostentatious sorrow. “I don’t know why I’m bothering with you, but I have to be honest.”

  Suspicious look: “Honest?”

  “Think about it. Denise is paying me twelve hundred dollars and I’ve earned less than half of it.”

  “Yeah, she shoulda consulted me before she did that.”

  “So I really owe her a week’s work.”

  A shrug: “That’s her problem.”

  Shaking my head doubtfully as I continued miming my quandary: “But you said you and Denise were partners.”

  “Yeah, sorta.”

  “If you look at it that way, then I owe you the work.”

  I paused patiently until the dawn finally broke: “Hey, hell yes! You do.”

  “So you don’t need to pay another editor.”

  Suspicion again: “Why you telling me this?”

  I looked superior: “Standards, Harry.”

  Triumphant grin. “Damn right, and where do they get you?” He suddenly felt secure. “Okay, I got dailies coming out at noon - with the mag tracks. I want ‘em synced by tomorrow.”

  “The usual lab?”

  “Yeah, and listen, go get a key from that old fart out front. I can’t screw around here anymore; I got things to do.”

  He bounced out. Nothing like saving a buck to put the bloom back in Hummel’s cheeks.

  And nothing like a cutting job to justify my presence on the lot.

  I pulled myself together as I descended the creaking stairway and headed for the front desk. Pausing at the lobby door to force a cheerful look by pure act of will, I swept into the lobby to court tubby Gladys with my most accomplished impression: W. C. Fields: “Ah yass! There you are, my veal cutlet, casting your glow upon these dismal premises!”

  Quick Gladys picked up Mae West: “Whatcha want, big boy?”

  “Merely to bask in your radiance, my dove, and perhaps a friendly hand of gin.”

  “I thought ya drank it from a glass.” In her normal voice: “No wonder radio died. What’s up, Stoney?”

  “Turns out I was right, Gladys; Harry Hummel’s setting up in cutting room one. Can I have a key?”

  “Have to loan you the sub-master again.”

  “I’ll be here half the night syncing dailies. Can I get in and out?”

  “That key’ll do it.”

  “Thanks. See you later.”

  “Not if I see you first.” Gladys must go back to Smith and Dale.

  Chapter 9

  Trudging across the hot asphalt of the film lab’s inner parking lot with my burden of priceless work print: 1,600 feet of 16mm Ektachrome film which in due course would celebrate Cutrate Cola in the form of six commercials, each precisely eighteen feet long. This would mean choosing the best 108 feet to useCor in the case of Hummel’s footage, the worst 1,492 feet to dump.

  I flung the film into the Rabbit’s back seat next to the box of sound track and chugged through the motor-driven chain-link film lab gate. Then down town on the Hollywood Freeway toward the office of our Great Metropolitan Daily and my friend Delbert Mundt, whom I’d lured to a meeting with the promise of a drink.

  I’d been thinking of Del when I told Sally I might enlist some friends to help me. He’s the paper’s third-string film critic, condemned to rating trash cranked out for drive in movies on the cornpone circuit. He spends his days in dark communion with chain saw killers, berserk bikers, and psychic, sex-starved girls. Del is resigned to reviewing this drivel because he’d rather study bad f
ilms than no films at all. Considering Hummel’s commercials, I’d guess Delbert is to reviewing what I am to directing. A sorry comment on us both.

  Del was loitering in front of O’Leary’s Cow, an instant Irish pub plugged into the lobby of a gunmetal skyscraper. Pushing through art nouveau doors, we walked a twisting wooden hallway whose changing levels had been built at great expense over the original concrete floor to a back room packed with grazing stockbrokers. We outraced three of them to a booth table defaced by factory-carved initials and obtained British pub mugs full of Budweiser.

  “You look bleary, Delbert.”

  “You would too.” Del pushed his horn-rims up and squeezed the bridge of his potato nose.

  “What was it this time?”

  “I swear I don’t recall.” He consulted notes on an envelope plucked from his vest pocket: “Mincemeat. Let’s see, uh, driven bonkers by the sight of couples doing it on moonlit high school lawn, hero steals father’s tractor and mows lawn, fornicators included. I stuck it out for forty minutes.”

  Del slumped in his seat, displaying an incipient dowager’s hump. “Can you see a thirty-five-year-old man doing this for a living? Jee-zus!” He combed his remaining hair with his hand, one strand per finger. “Cheer me up, Stoney; tell me something nifty.”

  “Delbert, I have a possible scoop for you.”

  “I’ll stick a press card in my hatband.”

  “Seriously; a potential story.”

  “Then find a reporter.”

  “A media story.”

  Del looked pained that I should have sunk so low: “Are you hustling PR now?”

  “Not that kind of story. I’m talking financial hanky-panky.”

  “Oh, well that is exciting, but I was hoping for a Halloween feature.”

  “It isn’t a joke, Del. Please.”

  Del’s posture had degenerated until he resembled a pile of tweed suits put out to go to the cleaners. “I promise to remain conscious.”

  I told him what I’d learned about Isaiah Hammond’s finances: the disappearing love offerings, the troubles with the state, Hammond’s less than ascetic life style.

  Del slouched even lower, if possible.

  I outlined the week’s events, ending with Lee Tolman dead in Mixed Blessing’s quarter berth. That sat him up an inch: “But how does she connect with the financial thing?”

  “That’s for you to find out.”

  He licked suds off his wispy mustache. “I have nothing to do with news; I barely work for the paper. What can I do?”

  “Look Hammond up in the morgueCdo they still call it that?”

  “How would I know? I’ve never used it. Winston, they pay me to review garbage movies. I have no reason to go rooting in the files.”

  “Del, after all these years, why are you still reviewing garbage movies?”

  “I’m missing your driftCif any.”

  “You’re a perceptive, eloquent critic. Hell, your film reviews are better than the films.”

  Del’s posture was approaching total collapse, but he seemed grudgingly pleased by my compliment. “It’s a hopeless job. No one who’s bright enough to read me ever sees the movies I write about. So what’s the point?”

  “Exactly. Isn’t it time they gave you something worth your talents?”

  “Oh my stars! And don’t I just say those very words to the publisher every time we two have lunch together.” Del bestowed a look suitable for Hare Krishna panhandlers.

  “I know, Del. But all the other critics write features too.”

  “They get the assignments.”

  “Why wait for an assignment? Remember that big studio scandal?”

  “The embezzling mogul? Sure. The paper overlooked it for weeks after it broke. Embarrassing.”

  “All right, suppose the paper got onto Isaiah Hammond before he hit the fan. And suppose you did it for them.”

  Del looked thoughtful. “They might even let me write it.”

  “Three thousand words: front page, left column.”

  “It’s pretty feeble, Stoney. And I’m touched that you’re waving my flag.”

  “Pure selfishness. Look, Hammond probably knows I found Lee’s body, so I have to protect myself from him. But I haven’t enough to tell the police and I’ve run out of leads. If you could give me some, then I could give you the story.”

  Del gazed at the bottom of his dimpled stein as if reading tea leaves in it. “I’ll see what I can do. I have to go in today to write up Mincemeat.” Del reassembled himself more or less upright. “You know, Stoney, you sound like a movie plot.”

  “So life does imitate art?”

  “Don’t force it. Life isn’t a story line. If you force it into one, you’ll get in trouble.” Delbert looked uncomfortable, as if he’d been trapped into seriousness. “Quotations from Chairman Mundt.”

  He blundered out, looking like a turtle in a three-piece suit.

  * * * *

  Sitting on the redwood deck cantilevered out from the upper level of Sally’s house, I watched my beloved landlady pursue her only known obsession: fitness.

  “I meant it, Sally. You’ll get muscle-bound.”

  “Thin too.” Fingers laced together behind her head, she swept her elbows back and forth like a radar antenna.

  “Why on earth do you want to be thinner?”

  “I just don’t want to be any fatter, and we have spaghetti for supper.”

  “I’ll cook; I can boil spaghetti. Did you find out about the studio?”

  “Dynamite software. My customer accessed a regional database and developed a whole spreadsheet analysis.”

  “I’m lost.”

  Squatting, hands on hips, Sally approximated a Cossack dance. “To be brief, Tolman Studios is not a hot property.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “It’s too little. The stage isn’t big enough for anything but commercials and - what do you call them?”

  “Inserts?”

  “That’s it, so nobody’d want to use it as a studio.”

  “How about converting it to something else?”

  She stood up, breathing hard, and the late afternoon sun turned her hide from tan to bronze. “Too tall. Nobody needs a building with a first floor forty-foot high.”

  “They could tear it down and start over.”

  “Maybe. But my customer says those old sound stages were built like concrete bunkers. That’s how they soundproofed them, back in the early thirties.”

  “Expensive to raze them.”

  “That’s what he says.” She dropped to the deck and started puffing through a round of sit ups.

  “How about the land value?”

  “Rising. That part of Hollywood’s really (grunt) coming back. Studio’s on two acres (grunt) and the zoning’s right. That’s enough virtue for one day.”

  “But the cost of pulling down the building would detract from the land value?”

  “Affirmative.” Sally sometimes lapses into executive speak.

  “Then it’s unlikely that Denise will be able to sell the lot.”

  “I’d say so. If you’ll make a salad too, I’ll do the sauce. And sourdough bread with garlic butter. Yummy.”

  “We’ll both need exercise.”

  “We can work something out.”

  “Garlic permitting. But first I have to go see Delbert Mundt.”

  * * * *

  An hour later I was heading west through the warm twilight on Franklin Avenue toward Delbert’s home in East Hollywood, spaghetti and garlic bread urging me to nap instead of work.

  But Lee’s body was out in the shipping lanes, a hundred fathoms down.

  Weird orange sky as the sun behind me settled into the smog bank. Wonder what Del found in the newspaper morgue.

  Regrettable word, that.

  Del rents an old bungalow tucked in behind the ABC production center, a squat little clapboard house with ugly porch columns of cemented cobbles. Mozart floated in the warm air as I climbed four c
oncrete steps, pushed the bell, and waited. The door swung open.

  “Winston?” The voice seemed to come from a twelve-year-old boy and the reedy silhouette in the doorway supported this.

  “Yes. I’m looking for Del.”

  “Come on in. We haven’t met. I’m Janice.”

  Fully lit, the “boy” revealed bare feet with blood-red toenails, thin legs, and a spindly body in denim shorts and black leotard. Straight brown hair; large eyes behind larger glasses. Janice thrust out a hand to shake.

  “Del and I are living together.” This in the no-nonsense tone of a person who likes things defined. She led the way into the living room.

  Del’s home is a museum of movie trivia: posters, press kits, glossy stills in drugstore frames. A wall of shelved scripts and another half hidden by machines: videodisc player, Betamax and VHS videotape recorders, two monitors, and an elaborate audio systemCplus thirty running feet of audio and video disks and cassettes. No wonder Del buys thrift shop suits.

  He was lying on a sofa in his customary pile. “Nice timing, Winston; supper’s on.”

  “I’ve eaten, thanks.”

  “You met Janice? What am I saying. Obviously, you met Janice. God, I’m turning to mush. Must be Alzheimer’s disease. Sit down.”

  He pulled his necktie down to half-staff. “Big treat tonight: mock meatloaf and spinach salad. Never hook up with a vegetarian. The jug’s full of Chablis.” Del discarded the record jacket he’d been reading. “Janice is a researcher at the paper so I turned her loose on your stuff.”

  Janice appeared on cue with two table settings and a glass for me. “Eat! I get really pissed off when people let good food get cold.”

  Del rolled minstrel show eyes toward heaven: “Mouf, don’ fail me now!” Then he fell to obediently, chewed a bite of indeterminate protein, and shot me a look full of martyrdom.

  Janice, on the other hand, dispatched her plate as if showing it who was boss. Then she gulped her wine and slumped back in her big armchair until all I could see was her small face floating above widespread, bony knees.

  Her gold-framed eyes sparkled. “Well, Hammond has a file all right. You better take some notes.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  She frowned at this unprofessional approach. “Okay, but it’s complicated. I’ll start with the bio. Hammond’s fifty-one; came out of Arkansas; degree from a jerkwater Bible college; ordained by mail or something. No criminal record.”

  “Jan, do I have to eat the sprouts?”

  “Don’t interrupt, Del.”

  “Jeez, I feel like a cow.”

  “Anyway, he came out here; changed his nameChe was born George GutwilligCstarted a little church. Got pretty popular, but nothing special.” Janice crunched a piece of ice like a dog biscuit. “Then he met one Nahan, comma, Wilton M.”