I DROVE BACK TO THE Bel Air Hotel with the cool breeze in my face and the shadows creeping across Sunset Boulevard. The traffic moved smoothly on the undulating surface and I let the Caddy drive itself. I figured it knew the way. It gave me time to think about Stryker and his A-rab in Paris who’d said he knew JC’s escape route, Morris Fleury and the file on me that Sally Feinman had been going to give him but which was now we-knew-not-where, and Freddie Rosen who’d found JC’s last song in the mail a month ago … twenty years after JC died.
It was a heavy load of thinking because it was so laden with implications, all of which seemed to involve me. Did anyone really think I’d killed my brother? Or killed someone else so my brother could take a powder? And who was killing people now? Why? Sally Feinman and Shadow Flicker—was there going to be a next? Was it going to be me?
What exactly had Bechtol gotten me into when he dispatched Heidi Dillinger to bring me back alive? Was I supposed to find JC per our agreement? Or was there some other role I was playing but didn’t know about? Was half a million, assuming I lived long enough to collect the second half, enough?
The shadows were deep on the grounds of the hotel. The smell of flowers and vegetation was heady and thick. It was a far better example of hacienda building than Freddie Rosen’s place. The black swan, haughty as all get-out, hadn’t yet knocked off for the day. I wondered who represented the swan. Mike Ovitz, if I knew my swans. The swan had a deal you were bound to respect. I cross the little bridge, checked for messages, and was given an envelope. My name was handwritten in microscopic letters and the stationery bore the hotel’s imprint. Who else but Heidi Dillinger?
I went to my room, ordered some ice and a bottle of Scotch, and took a quick shower. When I came out there was a knock at the door, room service with the goods. I avoided looking at the bill, which I signed, then I poured myself a drink and called Heidi Dillinger’s room. There was no answer, so I rang the desk to see if she’d left word as to when she might be returning.
The guy told me that he’d already given me the envelope she’d left for me. I said I hadn’t looked at it yet. He explained in a tone appropriate for explaining the details of toilet training to a moron that Ms. Dillinger had suddenly checked out an hour ago. It was business, she’d said, and she’d left the envelope. He was sure there was something more pertinent if I’d only open the envelope and peruse the contents. He sounded as if the strains of his occupation had him very near the abyss. He was still talking to me when I hung up on him.
I’d been looking forward to spending the evening with her and now she was gone and I felt sorry for myself. I was also very, very tired. I’d lost three hours during the flight and Morris Fleury had used up most of the previous night. I opened the envelope and read the note while I lay stretched out on the big bed. I could hear the little night sounds outside as darkness fell.
Tripper
Sorry to leave you in the lurch like this but the siren call of Herr Doktor Bechtol was heard in the land. So, I’m off. What can I say after I say I’m sorry? But I’ll be popping up when you least expect me. I guarantee it.
I found out what I could about the fate of your friend Flicker. Didn’t amount to much. Someone cut his throat. Etc., etc.
There is an open investigation but the feeling I got was that it was all drug-related and not of any great interest to the cops. I mean, they are trying but they are not knocking themselves out. A newspaper reporter told me that the cops are shy of digging too deep because “the guy was a music-business parasite, had mob connections, was a druggie, and nobody wants to open all those cans of worms.” You get the idea?
But I do have a lead for you, proving once again that research is my middle name. Donna Kordova is Flicker’s widow. They split up a month ago but they stayed close. She’s bound to know things we don’t and some of it might be useful. Shouldn’t be too tough for a guy like you—that charm, that smile. Her address is on the enclosed sheet.
Keep digging. Be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
I like that in a man.
Yours till Niagara Falls
Dillinger
She had the tiniest handwriting I’d ever seen, each stroke straight up and down, utterly precise. I wondered what that meant. She’d have been excellent, say, at inscribing The Lord’s Prayer on the heads of pins.
There was something about her. She was growing on me.
I liked that in a woman. Whatever it was.
I know how ridiculous it sounds but it took me three hours to find the Marina City Club. Don’t laugh if you haven’t tried it yourself. It was a jungle out there. There was a thick, wet, chilly morning fog inching its way across the Malibu beach when I got to the very end of Sunset. I looked around for Jim Rockford’s beat-up old trailer but couldn’t find it. He was just the guy I could have used, too. I headed south following the directions I’d squeezed out of the guy at the desk. He’d intimated with a grin that it would be quite a drive with a maze waiting for me at the end.
There was the Santa Monica Pier pointing like an accusing finger into the fog where the Japanese fleet might be waiting. Reality had gone to hide in the hills. I wondered how people dealt with the fog on a regular basis. It was like taking a nap and waking up on Mars. There was Venice, and Marina del Rey, and I felt as if I must be closing in on San Diego. I smelled oil. On the side of the road a truck was burning like a huge flare guiding us on our way. Christ, get me out of here!
With a sigh of relief I finally saw a promising road sign and staggered off the freeway and plunged into the maze. I stopped at two liquor stores and a gas station asking directions. In time I drove through yet another set of gates, these manned by an elderly gunslinger who wasn’t looking for any trouble and wanted only my name and the name of the resident I was visiting. I told him I was Chevy Chase and he didn’t bat an eye, didn’t put a warning shot across my bow, just wrote it down. It turned out that Donna Kordova had only arrived the day before yesterday. I was her first visitor.
The maze and the fog inside the boundaries of the Marina City Club kept me at bay for awhile. I was a bulldog that morning, however. And I really wanted a break before having to find my way back onto the freeway. So I stuck with it and finally found her. I rang the doorbell and while I waited I looked out across the marina at the masts of the sailboats and the various antennas of the cabin cruisers. I heard the ghostly lap of the water sucking at the piers, the hulls softly bumping. Sea gulls squawked, swept in and out of the billowing fog.
The door opened behind me. I turned around and saw a thin, rather pale woman with mousy light-brown hair cut short and gray eyes the size of silver dollars. She was wearing a T-shirt with something I hadn’t seen before spread across the front of it. It was the stylized logo of A Damned Good Thrashing. It must have been a very new T-shirt. The logo was a smiling, trusting face. With a bullet hole between the eyes. She folded her thin white arms across the bottom of the logo. Any expert on body language would have told me I was in for tough sledding.
“Who and what are you?” Her voice was high and cracked like a dry stick. She licked her lips. Her mouth was very dry. “If you’re a reporter, you’re in the wrong place. If you’re not a reporter, you’re in the wrong place. I am not expecting guests.” She stepped back and began to close the door.
“Please, I’m not a reporter. I was a friend of your husband’s. A long time ago. My name’s Tripper. Lee Tripper.” I smiled as bashfully as I could. “You know … the brother. I’ll bet you even knew JC back then—”
“Wait. Let me get this straight. You’re JC Tripper’s brother and you knew Shadow?”
“That’s right. I just thought I’d stop by and pay my respects. I was awfully sorry to hear about Shadow—”
“And you’re not a reporter? This isn’t some sleazy trick?”
“No, no, take a look at my driver’s license.”
She actually waited for me to get it out. Then she looked at it. Then she looked up at me and squinted.
“It is me,” I said.
“Come on in,” she said, having decided that maybe I was who I said I was. She was wearing Guess? jeans that were way too loose on her. She was a bony little thing. She looked like a little girl who had by some caprice of fate found herself in her forties. At least she wasn’t poor. I’d checked the Los Angeles Times real estate classifieds at breakfast and the condos in the Marina City Club kicked in at $350,000 and then took off like Saturn rockets. “I’m just moving in, getting furniture delivered from the stores, everything is a mess. I found the coffee maker yesterday, thank God, you want a cup?” I nodded at her and as she picked her way through the boxes and wadded-up packing paper she looked over her shoulder and said, “We’ve met, you know. You and I. You danced with me once. About twenty years ago. Oh, God, maybe more. I hate realizing things like that—it all seems like yesterday. Twenty-three or twenty-four years ago. Yes, we danced. You and I.” She went on into the kitchen. “Your famous brother didn’t have time to dance with me.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember very much from those days. Where did all this happen?”
“The Grammies, I guess. Some big awards thing. JC won for best single and best album. Grace Slick got to dance with JC. I got the brother. You were nice, though. But, let’s face it, kind of a consolation prize. You’ve changed.” She poured two cups of coffee. “We’ve all changed. Sob, sob.”
“Some of us have changed more than others. JC and Shadow have changed even more than we have.”
“Black or light? Sugar? Sweet ’n Low?”
“Black’s fine.”
“Don’t lean there. Painters just finished some custom trim. It’s wet.”
She handed me the cup and I followed her back into the two-story living room.
“Pull up a box, Tripper.”
There was a good-sized aquarium that she’d obviously set up and connected first thing. The bubbles were rising in a steady column. The fish were purple and blue and yellow and red and black and pampered. She sipped her coffee and said, “Why did you really come here?” The fog at the window was seeping into the room.
“Do you have any idea why Shadow was killed?” It was hard to look away from the fish.
“I’ve been told not to talk about it.”
“That’s absurd. Your husband gets murdered, it’s in all the papers, he’s a prominent show-biz figure in LA, and you’re not supposed to talk about it? Was there ever such a controlled person? You know I’m not a reporter—”
“And I also know you’ve dropped in out of nowhere. Shadow didn’t talk about you. You weren’t old pals or anything.” She shrugged. “Don’t try to convince me that you came here all grief-stricken over poor Shadow.”
“So who told you not to talk about it?”
“What do you care? Why are you here? Really?”
“Did Shadow ever talk about my brother?”
“I don’t remember—”
“Did he ever say he thought my brother might still be alive? I’m not kidding, Donna. It’s not just Shadow who got murdered. There was another murder just a few days ago in New York. There’s a real possibility that JC was the link between the victims … A lot of people seem to think JC is alive and worth looking for—”
“Oh,” she gasped, “that song came in the mail!” Before she could go on, her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes were round with surprise at her own indiscretion.
“So that’s where you got the T-shirt,” I said. I was developing detective instincts. It was fun. It was like playing chess and knowing you’ve outthought the other person.
“Where?” she asked defensively.
“Freddie Rosen. Relax, Donna … Was Freddie the one who told you not to talk about the murder?”
She grinned and nodded. “All right, but will you promise not to tell him I blew it? Do you even know him?”
“Of course. I’m Lee Tripper, Donna. I spent yesterday afternoon with him. And Freddie the Deuce, too. Just saw Sam for a minute, but a minute’s usually enough. Sure, Freddie and I go way back.” It wasn’t a lie; it was encouragement for Donna Kordova. “He didn’t come right out and say anything, but I got the feeling you two are … well, you know … close.” Well, that was a lie, okay?
“Freddie told you where to find me,” she said.
“Who else?”
“Well, you should have said so. Freddie’s been very good to me since Shadow’s death. He and Shadow, they were real close. Shadow’s show was the place Freddie debuted MagnaDisc’s new stuff. Shadow’s the only jock in the world who’s played these guys.” She pointed to the logo on her shirt.
“Freddie thinks JC’s alive,” I said. “He told you about the song coming in the mail—”
“Isn’t that something? I was just floored. So was Freddie. He wasn’t as happy as I thought he’d be—I mean, think of the publicity a new Tripper song could generate. I thought he’d be in heaven … but he seemed stunned, almost unhappy—”
“Or afraid? Worried?”
“Maybe. Worried. He said he was going directly to the top with it. To MagnaGroup … that guy who runs the whole show. The one out in some apolis or other—”
“Apolis?”
“You know, Minneapolis or Indianapolis, like that.”
“Which guy is this?”
“The one with the hotsy-totsy name. Cotter Whitney the Third. The big chief.”
“Freddie mentioned him …” She was up now, sprinkling food into the aquarium.
“Donna, let me ask you again … and think about it—why might somebody have killed Shadow? Who could have had a reason? You and Freddie must have talked it over … there must have been something Freddie meant when he told you not to talk about it to anyone …”
She was staring into the fish tank, watching the bits of bright color darting and flashing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Little did they know. I’d once had some fish. The air-pump motor overheated one night. I flushed the tiny bloated corpses down the toilet. Very delicate, tropical fish, and they don’t do well in hot water.
“Shadow was in very deep with MagnaDisc.” She had lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “It went back to the sixties. Sometimes he served as the middleman between the company and the artists … you know what I mean, Tripper. It was your world as much as your brother’s. Say something!”
“You’re doing fine. Keep talking.”
She put her hands on her bony hips. More body language. “Jesus,” she sighed. “He delivered things. He performed services. It was good for him to maintain a special relationship with MagnaDisc. So he delivered things … girls, boys, drugs … he wasn’t an angel. It’s not a business for angels.”
“What it boils down to is this,” I said. “Shadow may have known too much and somebody got worried. Is that an old story or what? But if what he knew got him killed—well, it makes you wonder what was suddenly so important … or how did things suddenly change, what new element was introduced?”
“I really don’t know. And now I’ve talked way too much. Freddie’s been so good to me.” She looked around the room as if it were the evidence of Freddie’s goodness. “Don’t let him know I went on and on, please?”
“Freddie and you, you’re a thing, I take it.”
“A very quiet thing. But he’s a sweet guy in his way and I love the way he is with his son and, heaven help us, you should get to know that wife of his sometime. Spend some time with her.” She made a face. “Freddie felt responsible for me … no, don’t ask, I don’t know why. But we’d been lovers for a long time—”
“Did that bother Shadow?”
She laughed, not particularly bitterly. “Not Shadow. Shadow led his own life. When he died, Freddie came in and did everything for me.” She shrugged helplessly. Her lower lip was trembling. “Nobody had done things for me in a long time.”
I didn’t want to be there when the tears came. If they came. I got off my box and told her I appreciated the chance to talk with her. I assured her that my lips were sealed.
Standing in the doorway she watched me watching the fog. “It’s usually burned off by now. I guess it’s just one of those days.”
“One last thing,” I said. “Shadow. Did Freddie ever tell him about getting ‘Everything’s Hazy in Tangier’? Did Shadow ever mention it?”
“He never mentioned it to me, but, look, they were always talking, always on the phone, having lunch—Freddie must have told him. He was always after Shadow’s opinions about anything to do with the business.”
“Thanks, Donna.”
“Tripper?”
“Yes?”
“Save the last dance for me, okay?”