CHAPTER EIGHT

I WOKE UP thinking about Isabelle Pavich and her taunt: “Friends of Greta Stenholm tend to get dead.”

It was now Thursday morning. Greta Stenholm was murdered Tuesday and I had a major urge to shake some answers out of Pavich. I spent an hour on the computer, searching the Times archives for murders. After an hour of frustration I decided to call Pavich. Then I changed my mind. I had USC names of my own, and Pavich gave me the creeps. I’d exhaust every possibility before I made a deal with her.

Vivian left a message while I was at the Chinese. The LAPD had no record of a break-in at 7095 Hawthorn; and she’d try to get more background on Lockwood, but she wasn’t optimistic. I left a return message. I told her about the Lockwood-watcher journalists, and the information trade I wouldn’t agree to. Maybe she could get something out of them, I said.

I checked my face in the mirror. My cheek was better; it felt more stiff than painful now. I popped four aspirin, dosed the bruises with arnica cream, and had toast and coffee. The dead-friends remark nagged at me. The burglary nagged at me. Why would Stenholm not report it? There were only two reasons I could think of? Either nothing happened, or something happened that she didn’t want to tell the police.

I packed up my notes, raided the attic for more money, and headed out. First stop was the bank, to change the hundreds into smaller bills. Next stop was the gun store.

Gun Galaxy backed onto a liquor store just east of Beverly Hills. The owner was a mild-spoken black man who hated whites and made his money arming them. I always bought my shells from him—although he disapproved of the Colt as old-fashioned and unwieldy.

He was unlocking his doors as I pulled into the parking lot. He greeted me with his usual pitch for a Lady Smith & Wesson. I laughed and laid out my problem: the cops had seized my gun and I needed immediate, concealable protection. He didn’t ask questions; he just listed everything he had in stock, legal and illegal. It was a substantial list.

I bought a can of Mace, brass knuckles, a sap, and a pair of handcuffs. I might have bought a Lady Smith & Wesson if it hadn’t been for the fifteen-day wait and the fact that I couldn’t manage an automatic without practice. As it was, I walked out of the store with a miniarsenal. It made me feel nervous but safer.

The ambush the other night had been educational. I learned that my reflexes were rusty; I’d gotten out of the habit of selfdefense. And being jumped by a stranger was different from being jumped by someone you knew. When the little goon grabbed me, I seized up: that had never happened before. I’d have to prepare myself to fight back, like I’d done with Father all those years.

Neil John Phillips, Stenholm’s writing partner, was next on the agenda. He lived in the Fairfax District not far from the gun store. I drove over there.

Phillips’s block was lined with old Spanish duplexes. I knew that he’d filed for bankruptcy, but these places ran three grand a month at least. I parked in front of his address. It was a ground-floor apartment on the corner. An engraved business card was taped to the mail slot: NEIL JOHN PHILLIPS—WRITER OF SCREEN PLAYS.

I banged the lion-head knocker and waited. Nobody answered. I circled around to the back door and knocked again. The screen was latched from the inside. I stood on the steps and tried to see in the kitchen window. The louvers were frosted glass and shut tight.

The backyard was all pavement and a row of garages. They were marked with the duplex numbers. I walked over, lifted Phillips’s door, and got hit with a blast of hot air.

The garage was crammed with cardboard boxes. It was so full there almost wasn’t room for a car. But there was no car. I went to the nearest stack and opened the flaps on the top box. It held hundreds of brittle yellowing memos, stamped with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo. I picked one up and the edges crumbled in my hand.

The memo was dated June 6, 1944, and was sent by Louis B. Mayer to a Mrs. Chadwick. It began “Re: Miss Garland’s weight” and continued with detailed dietary instructions. The studio was putting Judy Garland on a stringent no-fat regime, and prescribing more amphetamines. I tried to think how old Garland would have been in 1944. Twenty?

I dug through the rest of the memos. Lots of them mentioned famous stars and seemed too valuable to be sitting in someone’s garage; they were crumbling to dust. I caught references to Miss Crawford’s freckles, Miss Garbo’s large feet, and Mr. Gable’s chronic infidelity. Louis Mayer had sent some; heads of production units and departments had sent others. There were even a couple signed by Irving Thalberg, MGM’s legendary head of production.

I circled the garage looking into the most accessible boxes. All I found was old MGM paper—routine bureaucratic stuff of no interest.

One box contained a dozen bound scripts. The first few were authored by a B. N. Hecht. They were new scripts, not collector’s items, and it took me a minute to figure them out. I realized that “B. N. Hecht” must be a pseudonym for Neil John Phillips. The blackballed Phillips must have borrowed a name from MGM’s classic years: Ben Hecht was one of Hollywood’s great screenwriters.

I found a copy of The Last Real Man. That was the script that had caused the controversy and ended Phillips’s career. I opened the cover to take a look. A large piece of paper fell out from between the pages. I caught the piece of paper and unfolded it.

It was a pencil sketch of some kind of floor plan. The structure had long approaches from three directions, a central courtyard, and rooms labeled EDITING, and PROJECTION. There was a kitchen, a commissary, several offices, and a long hallway lined with bedroom suites. It was a weird hybrid, a cross between an open-air house, it seemed like, and a rudimentary movie studio. But there was nothing to identify the sketch—no address or name. I flipped the drawing over: the back of the paper was blank. I couldn’t tell if the building existed, or if it was a film geek’s vision of nirvana.

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 ambitious 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 harsh 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.

The front gate opened and Silverman stuck her head out. The look on her face was hilarious: a snarl worthy of Helga.

I said, “Dilettante perverts,” and laughed again.

 

SILVERMAN TOOK off while I was hiding behind my car. I tailed her along the coast road and lost her at a light. I wandered around Malibu, saw no black Humvees, gave up, and drove back into Hollywood.

I parked in an alley by Greta Stenholm’s and walked to the Chinese Theater. Hollywood Boulevard was the usual zoo—a cleaned-up zoo since the big rehab and new subway. The tourists were out in force like always, but the street freaks had been displaced by hip and happening locals.

I’d shelved Neil John Phillips and Arnold Tolback for the moment.

I’d called hotels in Desert Hot Springs on my way in from Malibu. I didn’t find Phillips. I’d also dropped by the Chateau Marmont: Tolback wasn’t around. But I did a lot of interviews at the Marmont and knew the desk staff there. The guy on duty said that Tolback checked in the week before. I made a note of the date: August 23. I promised him twenty bucks if he’d call me the minute Tolback showed up. He said he’d rather have a tape of my interview with Clive Owen. I said fine.

Hannah Silverman was not shelved. I didn’t know which movie she won the Oscar for; I didn’t remember ever hearing her name. A world-class witch, Penny Proft had said—with a thing for younger men and corny discipline games. And the third party in two love triangles, if Proft’s gossip was reliable. Stenholm had slept with Edward Abadi and Arnold Tolback. That was more than coincidence; it looked deliberate. But why would Stenholm want to mess with Silverman?

Lockwood knew why.

I’d called from Malibu and caught him at the station. He didn’t like it that I knew about Edward Abadi. He confirmed that Abadi had been shot, but wouldn’t expand or explain. I asked him straight out: why would Greta Stenholm want to mess with Hannah Silverman? Lockwood said he’d meet me at my place later, named a time, and hung up. He hadn’t gotten my messages and didn’t give me a chance to mention them.

I walked into the forecourt of the Chinese, glad I hadn’t agreed to his one-way “cooperation” deal. I would have known exactly nothing right now.

The forecourt was jammed with people. They were pouring out the theater exits, lined up behind velvet ropes, and taking pictures of the footprints in cement.

I stopped to remind myself why I’d come.

Last Friday, four days before she died, Greta Stenholm spent a chunk of time seeing movies on the Boulevard.

I was filling in the blank week in her calendar. On Thursday she went to the library and read about herself in the Hollywood Reporter. She saw movies all day Friday and vandalized candy machines on Saturday.

The question was: Why would Stenholm come here? Maybe she still lived in the area; the movies she saw, except the documentary at the Cinematheque, were playing citywide.

Was it another way to celebrate the sale of her script? Was she saying good-bye to five years of failure? Was it an act of triumph and revenge, like defacing the Reporter piece? Or was she a fan of movie history like her ex-partner Phillips? The El Capitan was a landmark. The Cinematheque was in the Egyptian Theater. The Egyptian was Sid Grauman’s first theme palace in Hollywood, the Chinese was his second, and both theaters had been restored to their kitschy ’20s splendor.

I didn’t know the history of the Vine, but she went to see a Steven Spielberg double feature there.

Where did she get the cash to buy tickets? She was bouncing checks and stealing from candy machines, and she died broke. Did she spend her last dime on movies?

I walked up to the main doors of the Chinese, flagged down an usher, and asked him to get the manager. The kid ducked into the lobby and came back with a frazzled-looking man. I showed him my press card. I said I was doing a piece on Hollywood hopefuls and trying to locate Greta Stenholm. He didn’t register the name, so I showed him the Reporter photograph.

He smiled when he saw it. She was a regular at their discount matinees, he said. “A lovely young lady, crazy for movies and very bright.” The day shift loved her and wished her luck with the new screenplay. He hadn’t seen her last Friday, but he knew one of her haunts: a pizza place across from the Egyptian.

I walked east and found the pizza place. It was a biker hangout with brown Naugahyde booths, but it was clean and it smelled good. I showed my Stenholm picture to the guy at the counter. He identified her right off. He knew her first name and said she was a longtime customer.

According to him she’d talked about nothing but her script for the past month. She’d also looked more and more ragged because the studio negotiation was driving her nuts. She’d made calls from the pay phone, and gotten calls back—from her agent, she’d said. And she’d eaten there every day for the past two weeks. The counterman admitted he was feeding her for free. He couldn’t let her starve, he said, when her script was going for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He saw her last on Monday, the night of Barry’s party. She’d made a few calls, eaten a calzone, and gone to a movie down the street.

I ran back to my car and drove down to the Vine Theater. There was no place to park, so I left the car in a loading zone. I bypassed the box office and asked an usher to get her boss for me. The usher wanted to know why; she was busy. I told her my “Hollywood hopefuls” story and showed her the picture of Stenholm.

The usher turned to a shaggy surfer boy who was working the concession stand. He wore a beaded choker with his uniform. She called, “Yo, Harrison! She’s got your girlfriend here!”

The usher giggled at the look on the surfer kid’s face. He left his popcorn popper and came over.

He said, “Hi, can I help you?” His face was tight. I steered him away from the giggly usher.

I said, “It’s about Greta Stenholm.”

His face changed. He whispered, “But I talked to the cops yesterday. Is this going to start again?”

“Is what going to start again?”

He shook his head and clamped his lips together. I showed him my press card. “I’m not the police.”

The kid just shook his head. I said, “She saw a movie here last Monday and I know for a fact she was broke.”

The kid sagged against the wall. “Oh, man. I’m going to get fired this time—I’m going to get fired.”

I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and put it in his hand. “Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

He passed the bill right back to me. “I don’t want money.”

“Then I’ll have a few words with your boss.”

He said, “No!” and moved to block my way.

“Then talk. What is starting again?”

The kid hesitated. “A dude ... like ... got iced last year.”

“Her film agent?”

The kid nodded.

“And?”

“And, like, she was here when the deal went down.”

“Here at the Vine?”

“Uh-huh, watching movies. She used to come every week, sometimes more than once. Sometimes she’d be low on cash or whatever, and I let her in for free.”

I saw what he was getting at. “You let her in free that night, so she had no proof she’d been here, no ticket stubs.”

The kid nodded. “But Greta covered for me down the line. She told the cops she lost her stubs, and anyway, two of us saw her that night—me and this other girl.”

“Did the cops suspect her of the killing?”

The kid rolled his eyes. “Oh man, like, for real. They wouldn’t leave us alone. They kept coming back until the other girl quit because she couldn’t take it anymore.”

I said, “Now Greta’s dead and the cops are back again.”

The kid smiled for a second. He was missing teeth. “But not the same ones. These dudes are, like, cool. I told them about the ticket stubs and they believed me, and they won’t narc me to my boss.”

I described Lockwood and his partner. The kid nodded. “That’s them.”

“Did they know that Greta had been here Monday night?”

“Nuh-uh—not until I told them.” He looked over at the concession stand. The line was getting long and there was only one other kid to handle it.

I poked his arm. “Greta was here last Friday for two shows. Were you working that night? How did she act?”

“She was, like, strange, man. She asked if she could sleep in the ladies’ lounge.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “She couldn’t go home maybe.”

“Do you know where she was living?”

The kid shook his head.

“Did you let her sleep in the lounge?”

“Nuh-uh—I’d get in trouble.”

I said, “Do you know where she did sleep that night?”

He shook his head and pointed at the lines. “I can’t talk anymore. I have to go.”

“One more question. What happened Monday night?”

“Monday I let her watch A.I. for free.”

“Didn’t she see it on Friday?”

“Uh-huh, but she did stuff like that, like, see the same movie over and over. But she left in the middle of the show to meet somebody about a movie she wrote.”

“What time was that?”

He shrugged. “Nine-thirty?”

“Was she going to meet her agent?”

The kid shrugged. “That’s all I know. She said she was seeing somebody about GBDB.”

“G-B-D-B?”

He shrugged again. “Whatever—I guess it’s the name of her movie. Now, like, I really have to go. And don’t talk to my boss, okay?”

He ran back to the popcorn machine. I pulled out my pen and wrote “GBDB—???” on the palm of my hand.

As things got more complex, I got more excited.

A film-school star reviving her dead career. A beautiful blond, flat broke and scrounging free meals and movies. Two murders, a burglary, a blackmail scheme—and a six-figure film script that told the truth about the condition of women.

My Hollywood story.

One article wasn’t going to be enough. Greta Stenholm would need a series, and I already had the title. I was going to call it “A Bright Young Woman.”