The Ticket Out Page 6

  The file ended there. I picked up Vivian’s note and laughed at her first line: she thanked me for hogging two great stories. The rest was gossip and advice.

  “Rumor is rampant that DL came back from Mexico a changed man. My p.d. contacts won’t discuss it, and the groupie girls, long on libido but short on insight, can’t describe the change. DL is a major groupie heartthrob, especially now that we hear he and his wife are splitsville. By all accounts he was faithful while married (‘divine but unfuckable’ in the words of one oversexed admirer), unlike your average cop. Now that he might be free, there’s a scramble for his favors. Your story is this change. Imagine what DL must have gone through. What is he thinking and feeling since the siege?”

  I reread the note, flipped the stack of pages, and started over from the beginning.

  I WAS NOT happy with Barry’s clip file.

  I wasn’t happy because it didn’t answer the critical questions. What exactly had happened inside the Burger King? Was Lockwood guilty or not? If he was a changed man, what did he change from? I knew from Vivian that every cop had a personnel package; it contained citizen complaints, Internal Affairs findings, letters of commendation and support, and ratings reports. The contents were confidential, but the information could be had from friendly sources. What did Lockwood’s package contain?

  Vivian’s note also threw me off. She spent a lot of time around cops and would call a pig a pig. She didn’t take that line with Lockwood.

  I left a message on her voice mail, then checked the file for recurring bylines and started phoning around.

  I found two Lockwood reporters at their desks. They recognized my name and knew about the murder in Los Feliz; they’d even been trying to reach me. But neither of them was willing to talk for free. They would only trade information—if I told them what I knew, they’d tell me what they knew. I said I wasn’t trading, and the conversations ended there. I did find out that the cops still hadn’t released Greta Stenholm’s name. That’s the first question the reporters asked: could I confirm the name of the victim?

  I got off the phone and played my messages. The light had been blinking since yesterday but I’d been ignoring it.

  Most of the calls were from reporters; I erased them as I went. My sister had called twice to tell me about dinner with Father tonight. I checked the clock. I knew I’d have to see him sooner or later, so I decided to show up for dessert.

  I went to work annotating the Lockwood file. I was still annotating when a long fax arrived from Mark. I put Lockwood down and skimmed the pages as they came in.

  Reading made my head ache, and coffee and aspirin only helped some. It occurred to me to try ice. I made an ice pack, took Mark’s fax over to the daybed, and stretched out flat.

  It was a relief to switch to Greta Stenholm. I had no personal interest in cops or their lives. Stenholm, I understood immediately.

  I held the ice against my cheek and read with one hand.

  She was the daughter of rich Kansas ranchers. She discovered movies at college and decided to go to graduate school in film. Her father cut her off because he wanted her to study business; so she borrowed and worked her way through USC. Despite the financial pressures, she became the Class of ’96 star. She won the award for best senior film and left school with an agent—Edward Abadi at CAA—and a writing partner, Neil John Phillips. She and Phillips had just graduated when they sold a screwball comedy for big money. Name actors chased the title role, but the script disappeared after a series of rewrites and executive purges.

  Stenholm disappeared, too. She did uncredited polishes and rewrites, and worked odd nonmovie jobs. Phillips, on the other hand, was hot until last year. His screenwriting price had gone up and up until 1998, when he sold an action script for $1.1 million. MGM wanted to launch a retired football star as “the New Stallone.” They let the football star fine-tune Phillips’s screenplay, and the finished movie was a disaster. It tanked at the box office; the critics trounced it; the studio looked stupid; and Phillips’s overpriced script was blamed. But Phillips fought back. He filed lawsuits and took out ads in the trades to defend himself. He wouldn’t take his screwing quietly—which upset all the people who did. The Industry blackballed him and he filed for bankruptcy late in 2000.

  Unlike the Burger King siege, I remembered this scandal well. The Millennium film section had even weighed in on Neil John Phillips’s side. It was wild that he and Greta Stenholm were connected. I shuffled through the xeroxed pages. Stenholm had numbers and addresses for Phillips and her agent, Edward Abadi.

  I called Mark and told him I’d take it from there. Mark was full of news. The morning Times had given the murder a long paragraph in the Metro section; Stenholm wasn’t identified and Lockwood got most of the space. Then two plainclothes cops stopped by the paper to interview him and Vivian about the party.

  There were also things he hadn’t put in the fax.

  He said that USC hadn’t been much help, but I should pursue a guy named Steve Lampley. Lampley was an Academy librarian and part-time film teacher. He’d followed Stenholm out from Kansas and was trying to make it as a screenwriter; he provided most of the personal facts. Lampley told him that Stenholm spent her spare time at the Academy library. She was there last Thursday: she was the one who defaced the Hollywood Reporter piece on the Class of ’96.

  I flipped through the fax pages to the Reporter piece. Stenholm had written “CHANCE!!!” in the margin of the article—right on library property.

  Mark said that everyone called Greta Stenholm a “bright girl” or a “bright young woman.” It was uncanny how the word bright kept coming up, as if by consensus.

  He’d also talked to Stenholm’s sister-in-law, the wife of her brother in Kansas. The parents were dead and the brother didn’t intend to talk to the media. Heavy implication: we are private people, butt out. The brother had just left for L.A. to claim the body. The wife wouldn’t give Mark his flight information or hotel.

  I asked about the party guest list. Mark said that Barry wasn’t around, and Barry’s assistant refused to give it to him.

  I told Mark to keep all this to himself, hung up, and started on the Reporter piece. It was dated May 21, 1996. It reviewed the SC information I already had, and added more.

  Stenholm and Phillips shared an agent: Edward Abadi. I drew a fat box with stars around that name. It also listed two more outstanding students: Hamilton Ashburn Jr. from Georgia, and Penny Proft from Brooklyn, New York. I checked Stenholm’s address book for an Ashburn or Proft. Neither of the names appeared.

  A photograph of Stenholm had run with the piece. It was a picture of her making a movie in the rain. She stood under a canopy, leaning on the tripod of a Panaflex camera. Her hair was tangled, she wore gum boots and a wet poncho, but she looked radiant. She looked like she was queen of the world: she looked like she wanted to sing. I juxtaposed that picture with the woman I met at the party. The change was stunning. Five years—and a million Hollywood miles later.

  I read down to the Stenholm section. The writer had given her a lot of play.

  She was quoted praising mainstream American movies and defending people’s right to escape and forget. She also defended the Industry’s right to make movies about males for males, if that’s what sold.

  The piece ended with a rousing Stenholm speech:

  “I want to be the next Steven Spielberg. Spielberg represents the very best of Hollywood with his dazzling technological and cinematic sophistication, and his basic emotions, universal in their humanity. He’s had the privilege of maturing onscreen, and now he has the freedom to make whatever films he wants, whether they be light or serious. I aim for a career like his.

  “Contrary to what people say, I believe that Hollywood is wide open to any woman who wants to direct commercial movies. But they can do more than domestic drama and romantic comedy. They can be trusted with big budgets and Oscar material. They can make action films, war films, crime films, adventure films, sci-fi films—
any type of film. All you have to do is give them the chance.”

  Stenholm had underlined the last sentence in ink. She’d crossed out “chance” and written “CHANCE!!!” in big letters in the margin. She pressed so hard that her pen ripped through the original page.

  I ran a finger over the rip. It was a jagged black line on the fax page.

  Stenholm had come back to this article after five years. I understood the impulse. She’d sold her Thelma & Louise sequel and wanted to celebrate the victory. But five years had changed her. In 1996 she defended escapist male entertainment. In 2001 she wanted the moviegoing public to know the truth about the condition of women.

  The bell rang at the driveway gate.

  I looked out the window, ready to hide my papers. But it wasn’t Lockwood—it was a woman.

  She rang the bell again. I knew I’d seen her some place recently. Then I remembered: the petite woman from Barry’s party. She’d worn a black pantsuit and couldn’t get Scott Dolgin’s attention in the reception line at the end.

  I walked outside to see what she wanted. The sunlight made my left eye water. I wiped it on my shirttail and shaded my eyes.

  The woman waited for me to get close. When I was, she said, “What happened to you?”

  She had a pixie haircut and a pointy freckled face that she powdered white. Her hair and lipstick were the same red. She wore a cutesy summer dress and carried a straw basket for a purse. Her car was cutesy, too, a little two-seat roadster.

  I stopped at the gate. “Did you ever talk to Scott Dolgin?”

  The remark caught her by surprise. “What? We haven’t ... No, what do you mean? I never met Scott before the party.”

  I made a note of that nonanswer. I said, “How can I help you?”

  “Let’s get out of the sun.” She rattled the gate.

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  “You’re wigged about the murder, aren’t you? You can let me in. I promise I’m not—”

  “What do you want?”

  She shrugged, reached into her basket, and passed a business card through the bars. Her name was Isabelle Pavich. She worked in development at a company in Studio City.

  I put the card in my pocket. She said, “I’m always on the lookout for original stories and I heard through my SC connections that Greta wasn’t your average murder victim.”

  I called up the names from my research. “Let's discuss USC, then. What can you tell me about Edward Abadi, Neil John Phillips, Hamilton Ashburn Jr., and/or Penny Proft?”

  She ignored the question and smirked at me. “I heard she was killed in the pool house.” She pointed across the patio.

  I said, “Get lost.”

  She grabbed the bars and shook them. “Talk to me, Ann! We can write a treatment together and I’ll get us a development deal. Who do the cops think did it?”

  I said, “Get lost.”

  She smacked a bar with her hand and turned to leave. Then she turned back. The movement made her dress puff out. She noticed the effect and twirled on her toes to repeat it. She checked to see if I was watching, and smiled. “I know something you don’t know.”

  I started to walk away.

  She said, “Friends of Greta Stenholm tend to get dead.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  Pavich laughed, swung the straw basket around, and skipped back to her car. She made a big deal of backing out, smirking the whole time.

  I leaned against the bars and watched her drive off.

  Jesus, I thought. I’d found the body thirty-six hours ago, and I was already way out of my depth.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FATHER WAS bombed. My sister had mashed herself into the corner of the booth and was picking at a piece of cheesecake.

  The Pacific Dining Car was an old-fashioned steak house on the edge of downtown. It catered to business and City Hall people, and the movie stars who still ate meat. My father’s Dining Car routine never varied. He always sat in the darkest room. He always sat on the same side of the same booth, so he could see into the bar and catch the game on TV. He always ate a shrimp cocktail, a T-bone, and onion rings; and when he paid the check, he always told the waiter he’d rolled a drunk for his credit card.

  They both spotted me as I came in. Father said, “Well, if it isn’t my long-lost daughter, by god! Hello, stranger!”

  I shook his hand and slid in next to Sis. She said under her breath, “You came—I can’t believe it.”

  I said, “Howdy, pardner. Texas still hot to secede?”

  Father said, “It sure the hell is. You still writing for that commie rag?”

  “‘You have nothing to lose but your chains.’”

  Father laughed and I took a good look at him. He’d aged since I’d seen him last. He was going red in the face, and running to fat on his scotch and fried-everything diet. More and more he looked like what he was: an old-style Texas oilman.

  Father signaled the waiter. “Name your poison, child.”

  I said, “Just a Perrier. I’ve eaten.”

  Father rolled his eyes and pointed to his half-empty scotch. “Put this up on its feet, Diego, and bring two Perriers for the girls here.”

  The waiter took Father’s glass away. I was bored already; I wanted to be somewhere else, thinking about other things.

  I’d stopped by the paper on my way to the restaurant. Mark was in and I asked him to help check the computer archive for murders in Greta Stenholm’s circle. I searched Vivian’s filing cabinet for more Lockwood background. But everything she had, I already had. I raided Barry’s office and struck out: the guest list for the party was nowhere.

  Sis nudged me under the table and pointed at my bruised cheek.

  I dipped my head in Father’s direction, then shook it. That meant he wasn’t responsible. Sis glanced at him and blinked three times. That meant he was so loaded that we could talk in code all we liked. I nodded and ate a strawberry off her plate.

  My sister looked bad.

  I watched her pick at her cheesecake. She hadn’t looked happy or well for a long time. Two years to be exact.

  Two years ago she tried to commit suicide. It was the second time she had tried. The first time was right after our mother’s inquest. We were both flipped out; I quit college and wanted to leave the country, and Sis took a bottle of sleeping pills. When she recovered I asked her to come to Europe with me. She wouldn’t because she thought Father shouldn’t be left alone. So she’d lived with him for the next ten years—until she’d tried to kill herself again. I had flown to Texas, sprung her from the hospital, and brought her back to L.A. by force.

  She and I used to resemble each other. We were both blueeyed and built small, and we had curly brown hair that we didn’t like to comb. My jaw was stronger than hers, which always made her the “pretty” sister. I could only be “attractive” because, as our mother had liked to say, there were too many opinions on my face.

  We didn’t look like each other anymore. Sis was sober, but boozing and depression had ravaged her. She was sallow, limp, and too skinny, and her spine had settled into a permanent curve. She looked older than me, not younger, and so sad.

  I hated to see her like this, but I was also tired of worrying. I’d done what I could to help; after that, I figured it was up to her. She was an adult—her happiness was her responsibility. But she wasn’t getting better and it had put a strain on our relationship.

  The drinks came. Father lit a cigarette and took a swallow of scotch. He said, “Sara Lucille, tell your sister what we were discussing.”

  Sis sighed. “Daddy wants us to move back to Fort Worth.”

  “It is a mystery why daughters of mine would live in this armpit. Hollywood, for Christ’s sake. It’s nothing but Hebrews and homosexuals—”

  I stuck my fingers in my ears; Sis copied me. It was one of our oldest gags. Father shook his head. “I have raised two bleeding hearts, to my undying chagrin.”

  I dropped my hands and changed the subject. “Sis says
you’re here about gas leases.”

  “I’m scouting properties for an old boy in Houston.”

  Sis piped up. “Better California than Alaska.”

  Father guzzled more scotch and launched into a rant about the state of the oil business. He had been on the skids ever since the domestic oil industry went bust. He refused to work for the big companies, so he’d wildcatted dry wells and flopped a string of get-rich-quick schemes. Natural gas was his latest inspiration. I didn’t know how bad business was until I went to pay for Sis’s rehab. I found out that he’d been looting our trust fund for seed money. I called him on it, and Father’s response was that rob and loot were strong words: he preferred borrowed. Sis and I used to joke about being minor-league heiresses, but there was nothing to inherit now. Our money was gone.

  Father took a swipe at environmentalists and stood up without a pause. He leaned against the booth for balance.

  The waiter saw Father stand up and came over with the check. Father signed the credit card slip and left a gargantuan tip. He said, “I count on seeing you next Wednesday, Elizabeth Ann.”

  I said, “Have you heard from our lawyer?”

  Sis looked at me and frowned. Father said, “I had the authority to borrow from you girls.”

  “You know you didn’t. You forged those releases.”

  “Oh, horseshit, Ann!”

  He turned away too fast and had to grab the booth again. He steadied himself, focused his eyes, and walked out of the room using the booths as his plumb line.

  Sis was still frowning at me. I said, “I called a lawyer. I knew you wouldn’t go for it, so I didn’t tell you.”

  “I won’t sue him, Annie.”

  “I’m not talking about a lawsuit, I’m talking about a crime. DA, grand jury, prison—groovy stuff like that.”

  “I’ll never—”

  “Don’t get upset, it’s probably a waste of time. What’s this about next Wednesday?”

  Sis sighed. “He wants to take us out to the San Andreas Fault, you know, one of his famous geological expeditions. He leaves next Friday.”