Being a ghost means becoming indispensable by figuring out what is needed, by your client, by the story, by the reader. Memoirs are meant to be tell-alls, but of course some only give the illusion of transparency. As a ghost, you must possess a second sense for what a story requires and what readers will and won’t believe or tolerate. Sometimes the truth is just too much, and sometimes it’s not enough. You are a conduit for the story, but you don’t control it, any more than you do your client. When handled with craft, though, even flawed tales can provide valuable takeaways and add up to more than their individual parts.
Mari had come a long way since her job interview with Anke at the Polo Lounge, a week earlier. On this Sunday morning, she assumed the Anke role, striding through the dining room at Bouchon, Thomas Keller’s Las Vegas outpost, behind the maître d’hôtel. As she entered the private dining room and pulled out a chair, Jack appraised her. “Hello, Miss Masseuse.”
“Hello,” she said. “I’m actually a ghostwriter, but you know that.”
Mari gave Jack her most winning smile, turned to the maître d’.
“I’ll have a glass of champagne, please,” she said. “Would you like one, Jack?”
“So, I have Sigrid to thank for this tête-à-tête, then?” Jack asked, ignoring her question.
The maître d’ hovered, unsure if he’d been dismissed.
“To be fair, I didn’t give her much choice.”
“I’m impressed. Please bring me a champagne.” Jack nodded to the man, and he left.
“I’m sure you’ll hear all about it, along with the update she was meant to give you today on whatever she’s fixing for you,” Mari said.
“You make it sound like something out of le Carré, but she’s the band’s day-to-day manager. Yes, she may keep a closer eye on Dante, so he doesn’t dodder off in his book, which I have no idea why he’s writing, given his memory. But we’re in constant contact, about travel plans, costumes, staffing issues, dinner reservations—don’t faint from the intrigue of it all.”
Their two chilled flutes arrived. Mari lifted hers, clinking it against Jack’s glass.
“Cheers,” he said dryly. He took a robust sip.
Mari waited to say more until the waiter had taken their order and gone.
Jack was the picture of relaxed ease as he held his drink. Like Dante, he had been at the top of the heap for so long, little could rattle him. “So, you have come to interview me, then?”
“Something like that.”
“Lucky me,” he deadpanned. “Well?”
“I’m not trying to annoy you,” Mari said. “It’s for your own good. You may have known about them, but I was surprised to find several bootlegs of your Hollywood Bowl show.”
Jack looked irritated, and Mari hurried it along.
“Anyhow, I thought it would be helpful for my research to hear them. When I’m ghosting, I like to immerse myself in the world of the book.”
“How fascinating.”
“When I got the Japanese version, it came with a bonus album, of the previous night’s rehearsal. I guess there was a recording made off the soundboard.”
The waiter reappeared with their entrées, and fresh champagne. When you were rich and famous, people gave you all the nicest stuff. It was up to you to exercise self-control. Mari sipped her water, determined not to outpace Jack.
“There have been many leaks over the years,” Jack said. “That’s why we keep any loyal staff we can find, such as Simon, Izzy, and Sigrid.”
“Yes, Sigrid is very devoted to you, isn’t she?”
“Just remember, Marianne Hawthorn, I could have you removed from this dining room at any moment, from your hotel—the Wynn, I believe?—should I choose.”
If he knew all that, then Sigrid was feeding him intel, and there was something to be uncovered. Her risks were merited, even if they hadn’t paid off yet.
“I never forget how tenuous my position is,” Mari said. “I’m always in the room at someone else’s whim. A perilous way to live, but also not without its advantages.”
He looked at her with a seriousness he hadn’t shown before, perhaps startled by this confession. She allowed herself a mouthful of champagne, even though he had not touched his.
“So, back to this long-lost recording,” she said. “The practice kicks off at ten—you come in with Sigrid, your then manager, and the band, except for Mal, of course. And Dante. At first, it’s like playing hooky. You do ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.’ Always been one of my favorites. You play around with a new song, ‘The Strip.’ At eleven, Dante comes in. Someone speaks into the mic like it’s a war documentary: ‘Oh-twenty-three-hundred hours, all quiet on the western front.’ Dante tunes up. The weed guy stops by. The band prepares to run through the Hollywood Bowl set list, from ‘Portrait of the Artist’ to ‘On the Lash’—but you’re not there. Dante pitches a fit. Even though he was an hour late.”
“Typical,” Jack said.
“Your wife comes in, looking for you. The band does a riff on ‘All Along the Watchtower.’ At midnight, you’re back at your mic. This time, it’s on the recording, because Dante is sure to tell you how late it is, what he thinks of your tardiness. Anger does seem to be a kind of fuel for the band, as you tear through the whole set in ninety minutes. Pure fire.”
Jack reached for his champagne before responding. “Please don’t tell me that we’re going to go through every night in such detail.”
“The time I’m interested in is between eleven p.m. and midnight. That’s when the coroner estimates Mal died. Of course, back then, the science of forensics was not what it is today. But they can say with a fair degree of certainty. Plus, Nancy told the police she got up at one a.m. to use the bathroom, and that’s when she made the discovery—”
“I was at practice, with my ex-wife, only she was my wife-wife then.”
“She comes in without you, on the tape, and she’s pissed. Something about you forgetting to send a limo. She had to take a taxi to rehearsal. You try to put her in the limo to go back to the hotel, but Syd’s taken off with it. You yell for Sigrid to call your wife a cab, but—”
“Fine, then. My wife should never have come to LA that summer. I’d warned her. Sigrid even mistakenly booked her flight to Berlin instead of LA, but she was stubborn. Truth is, we were out at a club the night before, and I’d met this—cigarette girl?”
Mari nodded, her mind caught on the “mistaken” ticket, but she didn’t want to lose focus.
“Anyhow, I had her come round the studio. She waited for me in the loo in case I needed to relax between takes. When Dante was a no-show, I nipped in. I can’t see how my bathroom shag merits mention in the books of either Dante or Anke. Well, at least that bathroom shag. Anke can say what she likes. She didn’t take any money from me. She’s a free woman.”
“It’s just interesting because you were the one who had the most to benefit from Mal’s death. You shared the most cowriting credits with him, so when he died—”
Jack’s posture relaxed. He lifted his napkin from his lap, dabbed his lips.
“You must be aware of Mal and Nancy’s son, Byron,” Jack said.
Mari nodded stiffly. She did not like the relish in his voice.
“What about Brenda O’Shaughnessy, in Ireland? She’s got a daughter who bears a startling resemblance to Mal. Plus, there’s three children who were known to him before he married Anke. Altogether, there’s five, all over the world. Of course, the bulk of his estate went to his widow, Anke, I believe. None of it had anything to do with me—I wasn’t privy to the details, but I’d imagine when Anke goes, his kids will turn up, if they haven’t already. These kinds of high-profile estates are always in and out of the courts.”
“Oh,” Mari said.
She didn’t like being wrong. She studied Jack, weighing whether he would retaliate for her vulgar questions, and wondering how to smooth things over.
“So, you’re the girl who’s been entrusted with writing Dante’s book? Have you written anything I’ve read?”
“Do you watch any Real Housewives?”
He laughed. “No, somehow I haven’t had the time. Touring the world. Getting knighted.”
“You’d be surprised. People love the Housewives.”
“You must have done something right. Or Sigrid would never have let you get this far.”
“I can be way more charming than this.”
“Not a commodity in Sigrid’s world, although she can turn it on,” he said. “She may be the only one left who’s immune. Makes her incredibly trustworthy and a great fixer. Is there anything else?” He checked his phone, looking as cool as the cucumber in a Pimm’s cup.
Mari pulsed with anxiety. Jack was describing a much savvier, more conniving Sigrid than how the manager presented herself. Had Mari allowed herself to be tricked when she gave herself credit as the one who could read any person in the room? She willed her attention back.
“You tell me, Jack—”
He ran his fingers through his hair in a practiced, rakish way. “There are many lies on the internet. Now that you’ve punctured my privacy, have Sigrid put you in touch with me if you’re ever in doubt. I’ll never write a book, by the way. Can’t see why anyone would. But Dante needs the attention. Anke, probably the money, a small place in history.”
“What kind of mistruths?” Mari asked.
Jack had eight children by six different women, and those were just the acknowledged ones. He had been the lover of several of his generation’s sexiest male rock stars. He had been avoiding full taxation for decades. What could he care about correcting in print?
“I’m five-seven. The internet often says five-four. But that’s wrong. Measure me.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m getting five-eight from here.”
“You are good,” he said. “Now, there are six places I needed to be thirty minutes ago.”
“Of course,” Mari said, accepting air-kisses. “Thank you for your time.”
“Oh, and Marianne,” he said, turning back. “Sigrid has been with the band so long, it’s like a marriage. Don’t try to dissect it. You’ll never get all the nuance.”
“A convenient way to describe someone who does your dirty work for you.”
“If I thought of it as dirty work, I’d never have made it. Sigrid prevents the unpleasant and inconvenient from intruding on me so I can be creative. I don’t ask how she does it.”
He blew Mari a kiss on his way out, and she found she believed him.
Mari reached for Jack’s untouched champagne flute and downed it in one go. When the waiter returned, she was sipping her own second glass.
“Is there anything else you desire, mademoiselle?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” She held up her glass, indicating when she finished, she would leave.
“Excellent,” he said. “I’ll leave this for you. No rush.”
With dawning horror, Mari realized Jack had stuck her with the bill.
Nicely played, prick.
She sighed and pulled out one of her credit cards. Jack seemed to be telling the truth. She had eliminated him as a suspect and somehow gotten him to be available to her during her research and writing, which she had never expected. So, $100 well spent.
As she stepped out into the glare of the noonday Vegas sun, Mari felt woozy from the champagne and multiple nights without proper sleep. This was her last full day in Vegas, and if Jack was guilty of nothing more severe than vanity and a wandering eye, that left her no closer to learning what had happened to Mal. She had been pushing for answers from every possible direction, but she had encountered nothing but dead ends. And now she wasn’t feeling well.
When Mari got back to her hotel, she was in desperate need of a nap. She’d have to hope pounding some caffeine would help. She had only a few hours to make real progress on Dante’s sample material before their next—and final—meeting. Mari was heading to the Urth Caffé for a matcha latte when she got trapped between the front entrance and a blitzed bachelorette party. The bride-to-be lurched toward Mari, who reversed away from her just in time. Feeling herself back into someone, Mari turned around, already saying, “Excuse me. I’m so sorry.”
She was startled to find it was Sigrid she had bumped into. And then she wasn’t. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me,” Mari said, keeping her tone light.
Sigrid laughed and stalked away. Mari felt relief, but her time here was almost up. She had to force herself to keep pushing, while not letting on that she was. She ran after Sigrid.
“Wait, Sigrid, can I buy you a drink?” Mari said. “I wanted to thank you for your help.”
As soon as they found a table and ordered, Sigrid leaned toward her. “Well, ask your questions.”
Mari smiled, about to reiterate her gratefulness, then realized it was pointless.
“So, you seem very interested in what goes into Dante’s book, and what doesn’t.”
“That is my job, to care.”
“Do you care what goes into Anke’s book? She seems quite ready to blame herself for the four Mandrax she thinks caused Mal’s death.”
“Maybe it would be good for her, to take responsibility, for once,” Sigrid said. “Why is it you care since she is seeking your replacement? You work for Dante now, remember.”
“I’d expect more loyalty for your oldest friend. She is why you’re here, and me, too.”
Sigrid leaned around the waitress as she served their wine, losing her masterful control.
“No, Anke left me to be thrown to the wolves. She got the papers signed. She got me a job with Jack. But then she loses herself to the drugs. She is selfish and lazy. She cares only about herself. It nearly cost me everything. If Anke goes down now, what is that to me? She has had a good life, so maybe the tab comes due. I am here today because of no one but me.”
Mari nodded her head, relating more than she cared to admit. It took a specific kind of courage and tenacity to live by your wits, to remain indispensable. With no safety net, the stakes were even higher. She studied Sigrid, seeing one of her own potential futures, wondering if it was a good one, compared to all the other possible ways to live.
“I don’t believe you no longer care for Anke,” Mari said. “But you’re right, that’s not my business. I’m here to write a bestseller for Dante. To do that, I need to get at Mal’s death. We all know four Mandrax was nothing to Mal. I know Anke wasn’t responsible for his drowning.”
Mari held her breath.
Sigrid had been drinking with workmanlike efficiency and had one swallow of wine left.
“So, was Dante somehow responsible for Mal’s unfortunate final swim? Is that why you’re micromanaging his book?”
“Dante is old,” Sigrid said. “Jack is old. No one likes to see them as such, but they are. Dante’s memory is the Swiss cheese. To write the proposal to sell his book, we had to hire a private investigator to uncover the stories Dante cannot recall. Don’t you think he would have found out if Dante had killed Mal? You are grasping at ghosts.”
“But—”
“Your fantasy has wasted my time. We are busy. Do the job the first writer could not.”
Sigrid was calm and collected once again; their conversation had clearly put her at ease.
Mari was more uneasy than ever. And less sure of what she should do next. What wasn’t she seeing? Simon had sauntered into the bar without noticing them and was ordering a drink. Sigrid called out to him. With her would go Mari’s access to the band. She couldn’t lose that.
“You said Anke almost cost you everything, but Jack kept you on anyway. He gifted you his favorite necklace. Had you serve, for all these years, as the band’s day-to-day manager.”
“Not the necklace again. It is a cheap trinket. But yes, Jack is loyal. So am I.”
“‘Loyal’ is not a word I’d use to describe Jack. But you’re different. You’re his fixer.”
“You like to throw this word around, but you have no idea what it means,” Sigrid said.
Holding his beer, pretending he hadn’t heard Sigrid, Simon strolled onto the casino floor. Sigrid stood to leave. What do I mean? Then it came to her, Jack’s “mistaken” ticket. When Jack got tired of a woman—his first wife, Anke, his current wife—Sigrid made them go away.
“I know you fix the plane tickets,” Mari said.
“A common job of both the assistant and the band manager,” Sigrid said, shrugging. But she didn’t turn to go. Simon would get to enjoy his drink after all.
“And Jack’s preferred method for disposing of women.”
“Those are your words. Just because a woman is given a ticket to a city where the band is not, it does not mean she must go away. Maybe he is just asking for a little break, a little space. When she decides to leave him over this matter, that is up to her. If you want to hurt Anke by bringing up this story of Jack’s plane ticket, now, so many years later, that is your choice.”
“Anke’s version of her breakup with Jack is good enough for me, and it’s not my story to write anyhow. But I am interested in this band’s longevity, and how a fixer might have been compensated for everything they fixed to ensure that longevity.”
Sigrid shrugged, as if excusing any moral laxness Mari was implying.
“It is fortuitous we have met like this,” Sigrid said. “There has been a change of plans.”
Mari’s self-assurance had been growing, but now it teetered.
“As it is Dante’s last night before tour,” Sigrid continued, “he has decided to have what he would call a proper send-off, at his house in Joshua Tree. He will leave this afternoon, and so your final meeting must be truncated. You will ride with us to practice now.”
Mari couldn’t let herself get pushed to the outside. She needed more interviews with Dante. She needed this book to not fall apart. She needed to prove she could pull this off.
“It would be incredibly helpful for me to attend Dante’s send-off tonight,” Mari said.
Sigrid smiled, but her voice said no: “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I need as much time as possible for his book, especially if there are no files from the first writer, which is unheard of. And. That is the cost of my silence about what you do for Jack.”
“Who cares what I do for Jack?” Sigrid said. “You will have to try harder.”
“The people who renew your work visa might care,” Mari said. “Since you’ve never succeeded in becoming an American or British citizen. I wonder why…”
Sigrid looked startled. She hadn’t counted on Mari’s skill at gaining insider information. Mari knew her accusation had glanced off the top of Sigrid’s secrets, and she had better be sure of what she was doing. But at least in the moment, Sigrid nodded her head, deferring to Mari.
“You will come to Dante’s dinner tonight,” Sigrid said. “Because it is good for his book.”
“Thank you,” Mari said, making her smile as pleasant as possible, since they were about to step into tight quarters with the man himself.
The aroma of marijuana and old-fashioned shave cream hit Mari when she climbed into Dante’s Sprinter van. Mari had decided not to mention she would be attending his family party.
“Dante, thank you for letting me tag along,” Mari said. “I won’t waste a moment.”
“Sure, luv, I’m all yours.”
“Yesterday, we were talking about the summer of ’69. What do you remember of the Hollywood Bowl show?” Having been warned off the subject of Mal, she didn’t mention it had become an impromptu tribute to him in the wake of his death.
“The show was highly regarded,” Sigrid jumped in. So, she would give Mari time with Dante but domineer the conversation. “The band set attendance records for the Bowl. And the critics adored it. Even Lester Bangs, who was the biggest crank.”
“Is that so? Well, you know, I never had much time for critics. If they think they’re so grand, why don’t they learn three chords and piss off? But yeah, we played well. Without Mal, we zipped up into this tight unit. It sounded good, which felt horrible, to be honest.”
Mari dared a look at Sigrid. If Dante, not she, brought up Mal, surely it was okay.
“You were glad he was gone.”
“You know when you’ve met your soul mate, found a hundred pounds in the street, and won the Nobel Prize, but your best mate just got bit by his dog and left by his wife?”
“I’m usually the one with the dog bite,” Mari said.
Dante laughed with gusto.
“Don’t fret, luv, your spaceship will come in—for everything there is a season.”
“Your season has lasted a long time,” Mari said.
“My season has lasted a long-ass time. But I’ve had my share of knocks.”
“There’s a rumor, deep in the fan chat rooms, that your drug bust in the fall of ’69 was the authorities’ cover to bring you in for questioning about Mal’s death,” Mari said.
“All right, Woodward and Bernstein, whose book is this?” Dante asked, waving to Sigrid.
She poured him a drink from a cut glass decanter.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Mari said. “I’ve found it’s best to beat your critics to the punch. Anticipate the worst thing they might say, any reason they might dismiss your book, and walk right into the line of fire. If you go there first, what ammunition do they have?”
“I like that—‘walk right into the line of fire’—that’s on the short list of titles.”
Mari let herself relax, having dared to be brash and (hopefully) earned respect.
“But—” she said.
He laughed, once again at ease, sipping his drink. Having been on top for as long as he had, he wasn’t scared of much. That’s how it was to be king of the jungle.
“But my dear,” he said, “I don’t care what some rotter has to say in some chat room somewhere. As long as people still buy tickets for our concerts. And people will always buy tickets for our concerts. If the past fifty-five years are any measure, there will be an audience for this book. As far as Mal or Anke or Ody goes, I don’t have to say squat about diddly.”
She smiled, signaling she wasn’t ruffled and Dante should continue. By now, Mari was convinced Dante hadn’t read his book proposal, but how to find out without suggesting he wasn’t aware of what his team had written?
“Mark my words, none of us are as relevant as a redwood in the grand scheme of things. But I’m not afraid of anything you or anyone else can ask. It was lousy of me to go behind my bandmate’s back, with his girl, but the way he was treating her was worse. As soon as I found out we were pregnant, I put her on the highest, shiniest pedestal I could build. By now, you’ve heard me go on about Ody for hours—you know how proud I was, and am, of my firstborn son.”
Their vehicle had reached their destination. The driver had been instructed to take her back to the Wynn. Mari felt so close—she wasn’t sure to what, but to something crucial.
“And?” she prompted.
“And yes, the police asked about Mal’s death. I told them what I’d tell anyone. I was fed up with his violence and his soul full of garbage. But I didn’t kill him. Don’t have it in me. Had no reason to, because by the time he died, Anke had agreed to be my old lady. He’d moved on to Nancy. And he was walking over his own grave by then anyhow. Nothing left to battle for.”
Mari didn’t believe Dante, but he appeared to be lying for his son. Everything he had said about Mal seemed true. Dante glanced out the window at the practice space, where Simon stood waiting for him with a guitar case in each hand. She was losing him. Just in time, it dawned on her. “Oh,” Mari said, “I realized I never asked for a copy of your book proposal.”
“Whatever you need,” Dante said. He kissed her cheeks and glided out of the van.
Sigrid watched him stroll away. When she turned back to Mari, she wore her normal smile, but it was rigid, as if she had snapped it onto her face like a mask. A shiver raced down Mari’s spine. She thought of her sister, her dad, herself, understood that surviving was the goal, but what was required to pull it off could wreck you in the end.
“I will call with our travel plans,” Sigrid said.
Mari nodded. She was often frightened by the challenges of her job, but they were just social anxieties, fear of failure. Now she was scared. There was still so much she didn’t know.