The Ticket Out Read online

  I heard footsteps on the pavement and looked up. A guy loomed in the garage opening. Before I could react, he snatched the script and the floor plan out of my hands, and backed away glaring. It all happened very fast.

  I dusted myself off and stepped out of the garage. He slammed the door down and kicked it shut. I could see the guy better in the sunlight. He wore chinos, moccasins, and a polo shirt. His mouse-brown hair was thinning and receding, and he had a weak, spoiled face.

  I said, “You’re Neil John Phillips.”

  The guy pulled out an expensive miniature cell phone. “No, I live next door. You’re trespassing. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call the fucking cops.”

  “My name’s Ann Whitehead and I work—”

  “OoOOoooo, the movie critic. I know who you work for.”

  What a prick, but I stayed cool. “Do you know where Phillips is?”

  The guy nodded his head. I waited for more, and finally said, “Where is he?”

  “Out of town.”

  “Where out of town? How can I reach him?”

  “You can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s writing—he goes underground when he writes.”

  I stuck out my hand, palm up. “Can I borrow your telephone?”

  “What for?”

  “To call the cops. Phillips’s ex-writing partner was murdered, and you can’t dick the cops around.”

  I took a step toward him. He said, “Desert Hot Springs.”

  “Where in Desert Hot Springs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I faked a grab for his phone; he jerked his arm back. “I don’t! Neil checks in every couple of days!”

  I got out a pen and a business card and wrote my home number on the front. “Have him call me next time he checks in. Tell him it’s urgent.”

  He took the card without reading it or looking at me. I shrugged and walked away. As I walked up the drive, I looked around. He was folding the floor-plan sketch and putting it back between the pages of the script.

  I SAT IN my car on Phillips’s street and made a load of phone calls.

  I started with Edward Abadi—the agent of both Stenholm and Phillips. I called Creative Artists. The receptionist at CAA said that Abadi no longer worked there. I asked every way I could think of, but she wouldn’t tell me when, why, or where he’d gone.

  I called Abadi’s Malibu number. A machine picked up, and a woman’s voice said, “I’m not here right now. If you want to speak to Arnold Tolback, he’s moved to the Chateau Marmont.”

  Arnold Tolback?

  I hung up and rechecked Abadi’s number off my notes. I had dialed it correctly. I called Information; there were no Edward Abadis listed in the L.A. area. I tried the other big talent agencies. ICM, William Morris—no go. I tried UTA—no go. I tried the Marmont on a slim hope. Arnold Tolback was not in his room, the restaurant, the lobby, or out at the pool.

  That was very strange. Hollywood agents were the most locatable people in the world. You might not be able to talk to them, but you could always find them.

  I gave Edward Abadi a rest and tried Stenholm’s two USC classmates. Hamilton Ashburn Jr. wasn’t home, but Penny Proft agreed to see me “toot sweet.” She knew Stenholm was dead because the morning Times had published a second squib with the victim’s name. She gave me the address, and I drove over to talk to her.

  Proft lived in a pint-sized bungalow in the crowded flatlands adjoining the Beverly Center. A stout woman answered the front door. She was talking into a cordless telephone and held up one finger to say, almost done. I followed her into the living room and took a seat.

  “... A breast cancer movie for cable? No frickin’ way!...”

  She had a brutal New York accent and wore baggy warm-ups. With her round face and round body, she looked like a comic career-woman troll.

  “Uh-huh ... yeah, yeah, uh-huh ... Okay, if you can get my price, I’ll do it.... Yeah, thanks for nothing, you hump.”

  She mashed down the aerial and looked at me. “I never dreamed I’d get a breast cancer movie and meet our notorious bad girl all in one day. You were way right about Moulin Rouge and Shrek, Ann, but so not right about Bridget Jones’s Diary. Bridget Jones was a howl, and Colin Firth, pass me a spoon, I’d eat him with fudge sauce any day. I’ve heard he’s straight, tell me it’s true. Luckily, you’ve never reviewed a movie of mine, but that’s only because I’ve never had a script produced—a minor technicality.”

  What could I do? I laughed.

  “Holy Mother of God, it laughs! The gals down at the Guild will never believe this.” Proft threw herself on the couch and tucked the phone into her pants.

  I said, “Let’s talk about Greta Stenholm.”

  “I warn you, I never liked that woman. It doesn’t surprise me one bit she got whacked. Cherchay le homme, is what I say.”

  She pronounced homme like “homey” and kept going. “Don’t tell me, you’re looking for the killer and a Pulitzer Prize, right? Or maybe you want her life story for a movie. It’s been done before, but the world loves a dead blond—”

  I cut in. “Do you mind if I say something?”

  Proft made the zipper sign across her lips. “Be my guest, chiquita. I’m just tickled you’re here.”

  “You went to SC with Stenholm.”

  “For three unforgettable years. The women loathed her and the guys groveled at her feet while she acted like Little Miss I-Live-For-My-Art all the time. I heard she was frigid.”

  “Were she and Neil Phillips a couple?”

  “That dweeb? Euuuh, no way.” She pretended to brush an insect off her leg. “The only person Neil wants to nuzzle is Irving Thalberg.”

  I flashed on the memos in his garage, and the lion-head knocker. “I understand he’s a fan of the old MGM.”

  “A fan? He’s positively cracked about it. They were a pair, those two, with their pet obsessions. He was going to be the greatest screenwriter who ever lived. She was going to direct wide-screen adventure movies. What a yutz—you can count on no hands the number of women who’ve directed adventure in the entire history of the studios.”

  I said, “Better to stick to breast cancer and other female complaints?”

  Proft laughed. “Hey, I’m not here to change Hollywood. I just want my slice of the pie.”

  I said, “What happened after Stenholm graduated? She and Phillips sold one screenplay, and then she dropped out of sight.”

  “Hah! That’s the best part! Miss I-Live-For-My-Art was headed straight for the top. I heard she fucked everybody and their spotted dog—”

  “She was frigid and promiscuous?”

  Proft shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I heard. And the great part is, she never got anywhere. She slept her way to the bottom!”

  I smiled. “What happened exactly?”

  “Do I care? I never saw her after SC, thank the Lord. I could speculate, though.”

  I said, “So speculate.”

  “Only an actress gets anywhere by being a slut. Women writers have to pick their affairs. The best bet is to hitch your wagon to a director, or producer, or another writer—male, of course. That’s when women really go places around here. Greta and Neil broke up after school, and lone females scare the doo-doo out of movie executives.”

  Proft paused. “I hate to sound sympathetic, but you also have to think that Grets was too beautiful. A town like this and a shikse like that? The guys don’t want her to direct their precious movies, no sirree. They want her to suck their cocks and show her bosom to the camera.”

  “I think she became a feminist, too.”

  Proft whistled through her teeth. “That’s the Kiss o’ Death right there. You have to be super-ultra-hyper-careful how you’re a feminist in Hollywood. If I know our Greta, she’d spout off about it.”

  I was digging Proft’s candor. Industry women almost never talked about sexism to the press; I knew because I’d tried to get them to. “So Stenholm was am
bitious and talented, but not very realistic?”

  “Exactemente—no concept of what she was up against. ‘Off I go to be Steven Spielberg, tralalalala.’”

  I said, “Do you know who she slept with?”

  Proft shook her head. “I can’t remember any names offhand. It’s just gossip I heard over the years—you know, in-one-ear-out-my-mouth kind of thing.”

  “But you said, ‘Cherchez l’homme.’”

  “Well, there’s a story about her and her agent that made the rounds last year.”

  “Edward Abadi?”

  “That’s him. He was a CAA comer and West Bank wet dream, if you get my ethnic drift. It appears Mr. Ted was slipping Greta the schnitzel behind his fiancee’s back—his fiancée being Hannah Silverman, Oscar-winning art director and world-class witch. And I heard recently that Greta was playing bury the brisket with Hank’s new boyfriend, I forget his name, some producer. The name ends in ack—Prozac, halfback, something-ack.”

  I took a guess. “Arnold Tolback?”

  “Voilà! Tolback.”

  “What happened to the affair with Abadi?”

  Proft hooted. “You are really out of the loop, babycakes.” She flattened her nose to one side and made a gun with the other hand.

  “Bang! Bang! I heard Greta fucked him not two hours before it happened, in the house he shared with gnarly Ms. Silverman. Edward is sleeping the big sleep, Ann—somebody shot him.”

  I CALLED MARK when I got back to the car. He’d been trying to reach me for hours. He’d heard about the murder and had looked up the original news item. It was dated July 13, 2000, and he read it directly off his computer screen:

  “‘The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed today that Edward Abadi, thirty-five, a movie agent, was found dead at his Malibu Beach home late last night. The cause of death has not been released. Sheriff’s detectives are investigating.’”

  That was it, apart from two short obituaries in the trade papers. Mark had phoned around for more information. Abadi was a Lebanese American from Encino who’d started as a gofer at CAA and rocketed to junior agent. Smart and ruthless—that was the book on Abadi. Conflicting rumors had him dying of a congenital heart defect, and a gunshot to the head. CAA wouldn’t discuss him or the circumstances of his death. He had merely “left the organization.”

  I asked if the murder rumor was ever confirmed in print. Mark said no, it never was. He also said he couldn’t do any more work for me—Barry’s orders. He’d gone in to ask about the guest list and Barry got pissed. Barry claimed there wasn’t any written list and pressured Mark to tell him what we knew. Mark appeased him with a few scraps, but he was finished as my researcher. I was supposed to call Barry ASAP. He told Mark to remind me that Lockwood was due Tuesday.

  Mark hung up and I sat in the car thinking.

  Why had Abadi’s death barely made the papers? One: it was a congenital heart defect. Two: it was murder. Either Abadi’s family or CAA put a lid on publicity, or the killing went unsolved. There were a lot of murders in L.A. The dailies only wrote up the crime, the arrest, and the conviction—unless it involved a celebrity or some baroque circumstance. If there was nothing else in the archives, it probably meant they’d never made an arrest.

  I started the car and headed out for Malibu. I used one hand to drive and dialed my phone with the other.

  I punched in the Palm Springs area code and sweet-talked an operator with hints about multiple murder and police bungling. I got her to give me the names of every hotel and motel in Desert Hot Springs. There were a ton—it was a resort town. The drive took an hour, and I scribbled names and numbers the whole time. I had to talk to Neil John Phillips.

  Finding Edward Abadi’s address was no problem. His former house sat on the beach, on a side road just off the coast highway. I parked opposite the house and ran across the street.

  The house was protected by a stockade fence. There was a door, a mail slot, and an illuminated bell set in the fence. I leaned on the bell and waited. I leaned on it again: nobody. I jumped in the air, but I wasn’t tall enough to see over. I debated, checked around for neighbors, and thought, Fuck it.

  Backing up, I ran at the fence, jumped, grabbed the top, and pulled myself up. I swung my legs over and dropped down to the patio.

  The house sat north-south, perpendicular to the beach. It was a weather-worn, shingled job perched on pylons sunk in the sand. I reached into the mailbox and pulled out bills and liberal junk mail for Hannah Silverman and Arnold Tolback. I put the mail back, checked the garage, and found a shiny black Humvee. I wrote the license number on my hand.

  I knocked at the front door. Nobody answered. I tried the knob; the door was locked. I pressed my face against a window. I could see straight through the house—the whole back wall was glass. I held very still. There was no sound or movement inside.

  A sloping stone path led to the beach. I followed it out to the sand. A sundeck jutted off the back of the house, high over my head. I stood behind a pylon and checked both directions. There were people way down on the public beach; nobody close.

  I took the wooden stairs up to the deck. The main floor had sliding glass doors; one was unlocked. She must be home, I thought. I slid the door open and called Hannah Silverman’s name. No one answered. I waited, listened, looked both ways again, and slipped inside. I stood there a second to slow my breathing down. I was feeling some nerves.

  The rooms were big and flowed together to show off the ocean view. The furnishings were designed and coordinated down to the last lamp shade. I found the one bedroom by process of elimination. It was a pigsty. There was an open Vuitton suitcase on the bed, and women’s clothes thrown everywhere, like someone had been packing in a fit. I checked a few labels: pricey stuff.

  An office adjoined the bedroom, and it was a pigsty, too. Drawers stood open; the desk was covered with messy junk. On the floor I found a half dozen framed photographs. The glass had been smashed to slivers.

  The pictures showed the same loving couple posed in trendy locales. I recognized Bali and the waterfront at Cannes. The woman was too thin, and she had a snotty way of standing with her chin in the air. Hannah Silverman. Her companion was shorter, younger, and clearly having a better time. He looked like a fraternity boy; she looked like a prime neurotic.

  I glanced around and saw bare nails sticking out of the walls. Only one photograph was still hanging and intact. Hannah Silverman stood beside an exotically handsome, Arab-type man in what looked like a hotel ballroom. They both wore business suits and she held a folder that said SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL. There was a marquise diamond on the third finger of her left hand.

  The fraternity boy had to be Arnold Tolback. The Arab-type man had to be Edward Abadi. Like Tolback, Abadi looked ten years younger than Silverman. He held a cell phone and stared past her as if he’d spotted his next deal coming through the lobby. I studied the picture up close. Abadi and Stenholm would have made a spectacular pair.

  A second room led off the office. I walked in and found a combination gym and sex playpen.

  Twin stair-step machines faced a ceiling-high entertainment center. The center featured a massive TV set, a smaller set, a DVD player, a VCR, a tuner, a six-CD player, and a pair of speakers taller than me. Bookcases lined another wall. They held videos, DVDs, CDs, magazines, free weights, mats, towels, yoga props, Evian vaporizers ... and bondage paraphernalia.

  There were whips and leather masks, collars, leashes, and padded handcuffs—all looking brand-new and sitting in plain sight. Mirrors covered one entire wall. A video camera stood on a tripod in one corner. A big hook was screwed into the ceiling, with chains dangling off. The effect was so corny and antiseptic that I had to laugh.

  An unlabeled tape was sticking out of the VCR. I pushed it in and turned on the small TV.

  An image jumped onto the screen. I caught a vignette in progress.

  The scene was set in a brick cellar. A small window was inset high in the back wall, and a ha
rsh light glared down from the ceiling. A ratty curtain partly hid an iron cot. A fake-platinum blond was parading around in Gestapo drag. She pointed a toy pistol at a naked young guy who was kneeling by the cot. He wrapped his arms around her ankles and pressed his face into her leather boots. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  I hit the volume.

  He was sobbing, “Oh, please, spare my life! I’ll do anything you want, only spare my life!”

  The she-wolf leered at him. He crawled up her jodhpur leg and revealed a hardening penis. He stroked it to a full erection.

  The she-wolf slapped him. She said, “It iss zo zmall,” in a silly accent. “It muss be ffery larch to mekk pleashure to Helga.”

  The guy sobbed and stroked his dick. It was plenty large in my opinion, but Helga had different standards. She snarled and pressed her pistol into his neck.

  I burst out laughing.

  A voice shot from the front of the house. “Is that you, Arnie, you faithless son of a bitch?!”

  Hannah Silverman.

  I recognized her from the answering machine. The front door slammed; keys jingled. She yelled, “I turned you in to the cops yesterday! Ask me if that felt good!”

  I lunged for the sliding door, ran out to the deck, and took the stairs two at a time. I hit the sand hard and tripped forward on my face.

  The voice came closer. “Arnie, you bastard!”

  I rolled under the deck out of sight. Jumping up, I raced for the path, up to the street, and threw myself over the front fence. I landed off balance and almost fell into traffic.

  I looked over my shoulder. Hannah Silverman was nowhere. I dodged across the road and ducked behind my car. I was panting. I peeked around the bumper.