FIFTEEN

Salzman was in his office pushing paper and picking sleep from the corner of one eye when the corn-line rang.

“Yeah.”

“A Mr. Jenrico on one for you.”

“Who?”

“Says his name’s Jenrico.”

Salzman thought for a moment. “I don’t know any . . . Wait a second.” The idiot was looking for the contract. Salzman couldn’t believe it. What balls.

“Do you want me to tell him you’re out?”

“No. No, I’ll take it.” He sat for a second, then punched the button for line one. “Hello.”

“This Mr. Salzman?”

“Mr. Jenrico, how are you?”

“I thought maybe you forgot.”

“How could I forget.” Salzman was smiling so the phone would catch the proper tone, beefing it up.

“Where are you?” He was hoping that Joey was at the studio’s front gate where he could let him in, arrest his ass, and charge him with fraud.

“The airport. L.A.,” said Joey. “I was wondering where the contract was? Thought maybe we could have a meeting.”

“That’s what I figured. There’s been a little problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Just a slight technical matter,” said Salzman.

“Tell me,” said Joey.

“Seems someone else claims they wrote the book.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“You there?” said Salzman.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“We don’t know what to do about this.”

“They’re lying,” said Joey.

“That’s what they’re saying about you. Lemme ask you a question. We know you’ve never written a book, but have you ever read one?”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“You can read?”

“Yeah, I can read.”

“Then read my lips,” said Salzman. “Go fuck yourself.”

And he hung up.

“Stupid son of a bitch.” Salzman went back to his papers.

Thirty seconds later the corn-line rang again.

“Yeah.”

“He’s back,” said the receptionist.

Salzman punched the button on line one. “What part of the message didn’t you understand? Lemme explain. You take your dick. You can find that?”

“You don’t understand. I got somethin’ I think you might wanna see.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not interested in seeing you or anything you have. Whadda you think, we’re stupid?”

There was some silence while Joey considered the matter.

“That mean you ain’t gonna pay me?”

Salzman couldn’t believe it. “That means if you bother me again I’m gonna take personal pleasure in hunting your ass down and having it committed.”

“That would be a mistake.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because you don’t know who wrote the book.”

“Oh, we know. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“No, you don’t,” said Joey.

“The author’s name is Jack Jermaine, alias Gable Cooper.” Salzman knew because Weig’d put Jack’s picture under the clear acetate cover on his desk blotter as a reminder of how he’d screwed up.

“You’re wrong,” said Joey.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for more bullshit.”

“No. It’s the truth. He didn’t write the book and I can prove it.”

“And how would you know that?”

“Because I have the original copy,” said Joey. “The thing. The manuscript. At the house after you guys left. I looked and I found it. Somebody else wrote it.”

Salzman had visions of Joey typing, hunt-and-peck. “Now lemme guess. You want to sell us this piece of shit manuscript?”

“I was figuring if you didn’t mind.”

“Blow it out your ass,” said Salzman.

“Guess I’ll have to take it to the magazine,” said Joey.

“What are you talking about?”

“He was real interested. Just as soon as I told him your studio was involved. I sent ’em your card.”

“What magazine?”

“The Intruder.”

The mention of the name raised bumps on the back of Salzman’s neck.

“They’re interested. They want to meet with me,” said Joey. “That’s why I’m down here.”

The Intruder was the kind of magazine that hung on the fringes of entertainment, pissed off stars by reporting that they gave birth to cosmic aliens. To call it a tabloid was an insult to yellow journalism.

“They pay pretty good,” said Joey.

“What did you tell ’em?”

“Nothing. Yet.” It was Joey’s turn to smile.

Salzman was already in the doghouse with Weig. He was responsible for Jenrico getting in the middle. Maybe it was bullshit. But what if he was telling the truth? What if he did have information and they were being scammed? It was the kind of story The Intruder would love, and not the kind of buzz the studio wanted. If there was substance, other papers might pick it up. The star would get cold feet. Three million bucks for film rights down the tubes. And Weig would blame it all on Salzman.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Show me the color of your money,” said Joey. “We can meet and I’ll show you what I got.”

Shit. Salzman thought it but didn’t say it. Another meeting with the idiot.

“How much?”

Joey thought for a second. “Same as the last time. Twenty-five thousand.”

“That’s when you were writing the book,” said Salzman.

“How much you willing to pay?” said Joey.

“Two thousand, if your information is good and what you have is real.” Salzman was going to have to dig into his personal savings. He had no intention of telling Mel Weig anything, not until he had a chance to look at whatever it was Jenrico was peddling.

“Ok, I’ll come to the studio.”

“No.” Salzman thought for a moment. “I want to meet with you, but only in Seattle.” He had no intention of letting Joey anywhere near the studio.

“Why do that? I’m already down here,” said Joey.

“I’ll wire you some money. A couple hundred. Show of good faith,” said Salzman. Anything to keep Joey at arm’s length. “The Red Lion by SeaTac Airport. You know where it is?”

“Yeah.”

Salzman looked at his calendar. He was booked solid with meetings. He would have to juggle. “Next Thursday afternoon. Two o’clock. Come to the white courtesy phone in the lobby and ask for me by name. They’ll put you through to my room. And bring the stuff. The manuscript. And don’t even think about copying it.”

“You bring the money,” said Joey. “And wire me something.”

He never got an answer because Salzman hung up.

Abby went stand-by on a late night flight, New York to Seattle with a stop in St. Paul.

She tried to snooze, propped her head against the window on one of those little pillows, and covered herself with a blanket. The rumble of the engines would ordinarily put her to sleep, but tonight she was immune. She closed her eyes and saw only one thing, Jack Jermaine’s face in Owens’s office. He might have had the looks to stop time, but there was something else, something in the eyes that caused her to be cautious. The way he’d forced himself into her life was unsettling. She wondered where he was at that moment, and what he was doing.

With her head against the plane’s inner curve, her nose pressed to the Plexiglas counting clouds out the window, she tried to sleep, but it wasn’t working. Abby’s mind was in overdrive. She tried to regroup. Things had gone dangerously out of control since leaving Los Angeles. She took some solace in the fact mat the basic elements of her plan were still in place, though she wondered if she was deluding herself. How much control did she really have? How long before Owens tried to go around her directly to Jack, to get more books or some other concession?

There were serious legal questions here. Jermaine was, for all intents and in the eyes of the law, her agent-in-fact. She had cloaked him with apparent authority by pushing him up front as the author. In their ignorance, Owens and Bertoli had a right to rely on this. If Jack signed further contracts without her knowledge, Abby would be bound by his actions. Jack had all the signs of a loose cannon. Abby would have to lash him to the deck and do it quickly.

She thought about Morgan. At the moment he was her psychic safety net, the only one she could run to with problems. She had confided in Theresa, but Theresa was useless when it came to business.

Morgan was a lawyer with a good mind. He was cool under pressure. She would sit with him in the morning in his office and go over the events of the last several days, Jack’s insertion into her life, and work out her next move. Morgan would have answers. In his own way he had a calculating mind. She was unwilling to allow a stranger to control her. If need be, if Jack pushed her, she would come clean with Owens, tell her the truth about the book.

Six million dollars. How much of it would vanish with Jack if she told the truth? Would they still want the book without his face on the dustcover? It was a good story. It had driven intense interest in Hollywood. But now Abby had created certain expectations. Would they accept it with a woman as author? It was a strong male part, written in a male voice. Part of her wanted to know. Part of her didn’t. How many novels got this far—unless you had a gimmick, a celebrity? It was a sad commentary. She consoled herself with the thought that she was not playing by any rules she had made. It was a deal with the devil and he had made all the rules.

It cost Abby nearly eighty dollars to get her car out of hock at the airport, almost more than the vehicle was worth. She was caught in the early rush hour and labored up I-5 in the slow lane stop-and-go until she passed the business district. Then traffic thinned and she moved at a breakneck forty miles an hour to her turnoff just beyond the bridge and the University. She was in a daze, half asleep, car on autopilot as she rolled through the stop signs and took the curves leading to her house. Her sleepless night was catching up.

As she turned onto her block all the anxieties that had been lapping at her subconscious suddenly crested and crashed. There in the middle of the street were flickering blue and red lights, a fire truck, and police cars. Abby wanted to think a dozen things, a kitchen grease fire, a car crash, a neighbor’s heart attack, but in her mind she knew what it was. The only question was how badly he’d beaten her this time. And from the lights on the street, it didn’t look good.

A lone cop in uniform was stringing yellow tape from the trunks of trees in front of her house.

Abby parked haphazardly at the curb. Left her purse and her luggage in the car, the door half open, and ran the distance toward the house. She was stopped at the tape.

“I live here. It’s my house.” She tried to push her way through, but the cop stopped her and called another.

“Wait here.” The young cop held her at the line while a sergeant talked to somebody in plainclothes. The young cop went back to his tape but kept an eye on Abby.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Lieutenant will be here in a minute.”

When the older cop returned he was with a taller man in a gray suit, slender with dark silky hair and looks that reminded her of a film star she couldn’t place. There were wisps of silver at his temples, and a devious smile on his lips. Kiss of the Spider Woman.

“I’m Lieutenant Luther Sanfillipo.” He spoke with a Latin lilt to his voice. “You are?” He looked at Abby.

“Abby Chandlis. I live here.”

“Of course.” He lifted the tape and Abby slipped underneath. By now a camera crew for one of the local television stations had found the action. Seeing the cops and Abby headed for the house, they trained their camera, the reporter shouting something barely audible from a distance as a uniformed cop held them back. It was the same question Abby had: “Can you tell us what happened?”

The detective ignored them. “Get those people off the grass,” he told the young cop. “I’m sure Ms. Chandlis here does not need to have her garden trampled.” He smiled at her and they walked on a few more steps.

“Tell me what’s happened,” said Abby.

They walked far enough to be out of earshot of the camera crew and stopped on the path that bisected the lawn at the front of the house.

“Do you live here alone?” he asked.

“I have a friend staying with me.”

Knowing looks passed between the cops.

“What’s happened? Is Theresa alright?”

“Theresa?” said Sanfillipo.

“Theresa Jenrico.”

“She is the friend who lives with you?”

“Tell me what’s happened?”

“Can you describe Ms. Jenrico for us?”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“A description. It’s a simple request,” he said.

“Five-five. Dark hair, shoulder-length.”

The detective’s eyes grew a pained expression. He turned around to one of his subordinates. “Do we have a Polaroid?”

They looked at one another, a lot of shrugging shoulders; the cop’s universal reply to the unknown.

“Well get one.” Sanfillipo snapped his fingers a couple of times, and in that gesture Abby placed his looks, the cutting image of the late Raul Julia. Tall, dark, with Latin good looks and the perpetual enigma of a half-smile.

They stood awkwardly for several moments, Abby, Sanfillipo, and his entourage.

“May I ask you where you’ve been?”

“Traveling,” said Abby.

“I can see from the state of your house that you have not been here. Pleasure or business?” he asked.

“What do you mean the state of my house?”

“Please just answer my questions.”

“Business.” She handed him a card, the last one from her coat pocket.

His brows arched as he read the card.

“What type of law do you practice?”

“Mostly business, some bankruptcy and domestic relations. What has this got to do . . .?”

“Nothing criminal?”

“No.”

“No clients you have ever represented who might want to vandalize your house?”

“Is that what’s happened?”

He gave her a look that was something just short of confirmation.

“May I ask you the nature of your business trip?”

“No, you can’t.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me where this business took you?”

“Los Angeles and New York.”

“And how long were you there?”

Before she could answer, Sanfillipo was interrupted by one of the uniforms coming toward him holding two wet Polaroid prints out to dry.

“It’s about time. Let me see.” He looked at the pictures, then shook his head grimly trying to decide which one.

“This is difficult.” Sanfillipo made his pick. “It is not pleasant. You might want to prepare yourself.” He held the two photographs like a poker player, close to his vest.

Abby steeled herself.

“Do you recognize this woman?” He finally handed her the one in his right hand.

For a moment her eyes refused to focus on the picture and instead looked over the top at the detective and the cops hovering at his shoulder.

“Please,” said Sanfillipo.

When she finally looked, it didn’t appear real; skin the pallor of blue-gray and bulging eyes. The face was swollen, tongue protruding, bitten through in one place. There was no word for it. Grotesque was too mild. There was something about one of the eyes, Theresa’s beautiful eyes. The lens was fractured like a piece of glass.

“Oh God!” Abby slumped and one of the cops caught her. She was gasping, trying to fill her lungs with air, uttering the only question she could think of. “What happened?”

“Perhaps an accident,” said Sanfillipo. “Get a chair.”

Abby’s knees went weak. She stumbled a little but didn’t fall. Sanfillipo grabbed her by one arm.

Abby stiffened. “I’m O.K.”

He gave the order for a piece of lawn furniture on the porch, a light wicker chair, to be brought down.

“No. I want to see her,” said Abby.

“Now is not the time,” said the detective. “For identification I must know. Is that your friend?”

Abby looked one more time. She nodded but couldn’t speak, evaporating denial mode.

“The woman in the picture is Theresa Jenrico?” He pressed for unequivocal identification.

“Yes. How did it happen?” She wanted answers.

“Electrocution,” said the cop. “For now we are investigating. Do you know anyone who would want to vandalize your house?”

Abby shot him a look. “One person.”

“Who?”

“His name is Joey Jenrico. They were divorced.”

Sanfillipo had one of the other cops now taking notes.

“He’d beaten her several times. He wouldn’t let go. Check your computer, you’ll find a record. He was arrested and charged. More than once,” said Abby. “No convictions.”

Sanfillipo raised an eyebrow.

“Theresa wouldn’t prosecute,” said Abby.

He nodded like he understood. “Do you have an address for Mr. Jenrico?”

“She has a little book in her purse. It’s in there.”

“That may be a problem,” said the detective.

Abby looked at him.

“We are having some trouble finding things inside.”

“I don’t understand?”

“You have not yet seen your house,” said the cop.

They couldn’t find the directory, Theresa’s purse, or much of anything else. Everything was in pieces.

The coroner had removed Theresa’s body in a black bag, but not before Abby had insisted on one last look. In her mind she prayed that perhaps she had leapt to conclusions with the photograph. Lying on her back on the gurney, as deformed as death had left her, the features of Theresa’s face were now burned into Abby’s mind. It was an image she would carry to her grave.

Morgan Spencer had arrived. Abby had called the office.

Spencer took charge while Abby slumped in a chair on the front porch. Forensics was still picking through the belongings in her house. Abby could see some of the damage through the windows, though they wouldn’t allow her inside. Morgan confirmed for Sanfillipo and the coroner the identification of the body.

“Then you knew her as well?” asked the cop.

Morgan nodded. “Socially,” he said. “We’d met a few times.”

“You will have to find other accommodations for tonight,” the detective told Abby.

“She can stay with me.” Morgan spoke before Abby could answer.

“Are you sure?” She looked at him.

“I insist.” Morgan was halfway to having Abby move in. What he’d always wanted, even if it was separate rooms. He’d work on that later.

“Any sign of the purse or the victim’s phone book?” Sanfillipo had stuck his head in the front door and directed this to one of the officers. They were now pawing through the carnage in the living room. There were a lot of stooped backs and shaking heads. The detective stepped back out.

“How are you feeling?” Luther asked Abby if she was up to a little walk.

“Where to?”

“Around back.”

Abby and Morgan followed the detective through the side yard to the back of the house.

“Mr. Spencer, if you would wait here.” Sanfillipo took Abby by one elbow and ushered her through the door, down into the basement.

“Where are we going?”

“Show you in a minute,” said the detective.

There were two forensic technicians dusting for prints near the work bench. The surface of the bench was scorched, an arc of charred wood.

“Is this where it happened?”

Sanfillipo nodded.

“When is the last time you changed a fuse in the service box?”

Abby thought for a moment. “Maybe a month ago. It didn’t work very well. An old system,” said Abby.

“Yes. Do you remember this?” He pointed down to a heavy piece of wire that ran out from under the work bench several feet.

Abby shook her head. “What is it?”

“It’s attached to the back of the fuse box. There was water in a puddle under the bench. When she turned the fuse in the right socket, it completed the circuit, pressed the wire to make contact. Two hundred and twenty volts,” said the detective. “She must have been standing in the water. Touch the box and you’re dead.” He turned to Abby. “You’ve never seen this wire before?”

“No,” said Abby. “It wasn’t there.”

“It appears someone was arranging an accident,” said the cop.

“Joey,” said Abby.

He looked perplexed. “How would he know that his wife would replace the fuses?”

“He wouldn’t,” said Abby. “He wouldn’t care. I represented Theresa in her divorce.”

Suddenly Sanfillipo got big eyes. Things were starting to make sense.