Dead and Not So Buried

by James L. Conway

  On the back cover was a drawing of a chisel-faced detective kissing a nearly naked blonde. The blurb:

  When starlets start dying in tinsel town, there’s only one man for the job: Hollywood’s toughest PI, Dempsey Magee

  .

  There followed a few quotes by popular thriller writers:

  Written by a PI who knows what he’s talking about.

  A rough and tumble ride through the mean streets of L.A.

  Dashiell Hammett would’ve loved this guy.

  I knew the publisher had solicited quotes from some of their other writers to help sell the book, but I still enjoyed reading them.

  Inside the back cover was a black and white photo of me and short bio. It would’ve been nice if I looked anything like the drawing of the hunk on the cover of the book, but I don’t. My hair is light brown, on the long side, a bit unkempt. My eyes are hazel, my nose a little too small and my chin, a little too big. A sly smile tugged at my lips. You know that kid in class who was always making wisecracks? That’s me.

  The bio mentions my years as a cop and PI and says I’m currently sleuthing away in L.A. while I work on my next book. I would be working on my next book if I could decide what to write. I knew it would be another Dempsey Magee mystery, but I hadn’t decided on the plot. A crooked charity. Jury tampering. Or maybe illegal shenanigans at Santa Anita racetrack. I had a few ideas but none that really turned me on. Based on my agent’s less than glowing assessment of Rear Entry’s prospects, I’d better decide quick.

  I put the book back, moved to the A’s, pulled down a copy of Edward S. Aarons’ The Sinners, and went to work.

  Two hours later I found eleven books I wanted to buy and the book I was looking for, Eternal Love, by Barry Winslow. On the cover was a drawing of Christine Cole’s open, empty crypt. Sound familiar? The blurb on back:

  Panic strikes Hollywood when a madman kidnaps the corpse of Moviedom’s sexiest leading lady, Christine Cole.

  Barry Winslow’s picture was inside the back cover. A handsome guy, maybe fifty, with a long face, bushy eyebrows and impossibly green eyes that looked out at you with fierce intelligence. But he was trying a little too hard to look hip in his luau shirt, jeans, and snakeskin cowboy boots.

  His bio said:

  Winslow is the author of three books and creator and executive producer of the hit TV series, Payback.

  I’d seen Payback a few times. The hero was a world-weary ex-boxer turned detective. Good stories with lots of action. I liked it.

  I wondered for a moment whether I could turn my hero, world-weary PI Dempsey Magee, into the main character in a TV series. Maybe I’d ask Barry Winslow about it—right after I asked him if he knew who kidnapped Christine Cole.

  Then it hit me. Those three words: I am anyone. What better way to describe a writer? He becomes all his characters. All his characters are part of him. He is, in fact, anyone. Promising, very promising.

  My collection of eleven books in hand, I was heading for the cashier when a thought stopped me in my tracks. What if word spread through a big chain like Barnes and Noble that an obscure new mystery was starting to sell like hot cakes? Would they order more copies and move it to the front display? I grabbed the two copies of Rear Entry, and, balancing the pile of books like a street juggler, made my way to the front counter.

  The cashier, Emily—if you could believe her nametag— smiled. “Looks like someone’s going to open their own bookstore.” Emily had UCLA co-ed written all over her. She was cute, if bookish, nineteen or twenty at the most. Brown hair tied in a bun, big brown eyes hiding behind retro glasses. Freckles everywhere.

  “Just doing a little catching up.” I showed her the two copies of Rear Entry. “And buying a treat for a couple of my friends. This is the best mystery I’ve read in years. A real rough and tumble ride through the streets of L.A.” A stupid thing to say, I know. But I’d just read the quote and, you know how it is.

  “Really,” she said, looking at the cover. “With that title I thought it was about, well, an alternative lifestyle.” She turned the book over. “Isn’t that funny. Amos Parker thought it was a rough and tumble ride, too.”

  Oops. “He’s a great writer. He should know.”

  “Maybe I’ll give it a try.”

  “I bought your only two copies, but tell you what … why don’t you keep that one and I’ll buy another when you order more.”

  “Actually, I was just being nice. I’m majoring in eighteenth century English literature and I think pulp trash like this has poisoned the minds of the masses and slowed the mental evolution of the species.” She smiled sweetly and handed me back the book. “Now, will that be cash or charge?”

  Poisoning the minds of the masses, indeed! I tried to think of a witty comeback for Emily. Some intelligent defense of the literary form I love. An example of how mystery fiction has bettered the lot of the common man. How the hours of entertainment enjoyed by reading “pulp trash” has inspired ordinary men to extraordinary acts of courage or great leaps in science or even little leaps. But I couldn’t think of any.

  Okay, mysteries haven’t added a lot to the collective knowledge of our planet. But is there anything wrong with giving the masses a little pleasure? Eighteenth-century English literature, indeed. You need a dictionary to read that shit.

  Anyway, I looked into those freckle-framed eyes and said, “Cash.”

  Take that, college girl.

  Beam Me Up

  I drove through the Paramount gates at a few minutes after six p.m. I spent a lot of time here a few years ago when they hired me to find out who was stealing props from the set of Star Trek. Things like phasers and tricorders kept disappearing from Paramount and showing up at Star Trek conventions held all over the country. Authentic props from the show, whether stolen or not, were worth thousands of dollars. I hid a video camera in the prop room and caught the thief poaching two bars of Ferengi latinum and a Klingon disrupter—the perpetrator was one of the studio medics.

  Paramount was thrilled and spread the word about my reliability to the other studios. Since then Warner Brothers had asked me to find out who was leaking script secrets from The Vampire Diaries to the National Enquirer (one of the hairdressers) and Disney had asked me find out who stole the President’s chair from the Scandal set (the key grip).

  Getting in to see a hot producer like Barry Winslow wasn’t easy. But Hollywood is a town of well-scratched backs. Everyone is always doing a favor for everyone else. So I called Paramount’s head of security and he called Barry Winslow, who agreed to give me a few minutes.

  In the Payback production office I was told Barry had been called to the set. They were shooting on the New York street, an amazingly lifelike collection of storefronts and shops. They even have a subway entrance.

  I arrived to find Rick “Tornado” Marshall—the world weary ex-boxer—standing in the middle of the street talking to Barry Winslow. Winslow’s outfit matched the one on the book cover—luau shirt, jeans and snakeskin cowboy boots.

  Tornado, a former heavyweight boxer, stood six foot three, a buzz cut framing his battered face. His dialogue on the show was usually limited to a few grunts and lines like his patented, “Big mistake.” He wasn’t a great actor, but he oozed charisma, and that’s what TV stars are made of.

  Tornado and Barry were surrounded by five guys dressed in black Ninja outfits, an impatient director and a bored crew.

  Tornado didn’t look happy. “Why can’t my shirt be ripped?”

  “Tornado,” Winslow said, “your shirt’s ripped in every episode. It’s becoming a joke. The audience knows we’re coming to the final action scene because your shirt always gets ripped.”

  “How else they going to see my muscles?”

  “They don’t have to see your muscles every week. The audience tunes in to watch you kick ass, not flex your lats.”

  “I look good in a ripped shirt.”

  “You look good in anything, babe. Now, come on, this week let’s j
ust try it with our clothes on.”

  Tornado draped a muscle-bound arm around Barry’s shoulder. “I spend two hours a day in the gym, Barry. Two hours of lifting, pressing, curling, sculpting. Two hours of aching and sweating. Jumping. Jogging. Rowing. Light bag. Heavy bag. Two hours every day. And I don’t do it to be hidden under a fucking shirt.”

  The friendly arm around Barry’s neck was now a headlock and the producer’s face was turning bright crimson.

  “I see what you mean, Tornado,” Barry croaked. “You’ve got a great body, be a shame not to show it off.”

  “Exactly.” Tornado released his grip. “That’s what I love about television,” Tornado said. “It’s a collaborative art.”

  “I don’t know why I put up with this shit.” Winslow and I were walking back to his office. His color had returned to normal, but his ego was still sucking oxygen. “I got the idea for Payback watching the Tornado’s last fight. Remember how Jacobson had Tornado on the ropes; landing punch after punch to his head, and the dumb, crazy, son of a bitch just wouldn’t go down? There was no quit in that man. I said, ‘Now there’s a real hero. What he lacks in talent, he makes up for in courage and stubbornness.’ Americans love that. Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. John Wayne in just about anything. Tornado was a natural.

  “So I go to see him the next day in the hospital. He’s just found out that after he pays his trainer, corner men, sparring partner, publicist, training camp, ex-wife, and taxes, all he’s going to have left from his three million dollar purse is eight grand. Not a lot to show for having your jaw shattered, your nose broken and your brains scrambled. And he was depressed as hell. So when I told him I was going to make him a star he did everything but kiss me. Talk about grateful, hell, during the first season he called me ‘Mr. Winslow.’ Always respectful, never changed a line of dialogue. Used to begin every interview with, ‘I owe it all to Mr. Winslow.’

  “Then Payback makes the top ten. Tornado is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and Time. He gets a big time agent and falls in love with a money-sucking bitch who fills his head with buckets of shit. Suddenly all the scripts stink and he wants to choreograph all the fights. He’s got to have more money. Bigger trailer. Full-time masseuse. Chef. And now it’s ripped shirts in every show ... Christ, I hate television.”

  “Why don’t you stick to writing books?”

  “Money. I produce twenty-two episodes of Payback a year. I make more money producing just one episode than I’ve made writing my three books combined.”

  We entered the Cooper Building. As we walked into Winslow’s office he was descended upon by his assistant—an officious black woman who must’ve outweighed Tornado by twenty-five pounds—and with her dreadlocks, pierced ears, nose and eyebrows, she looked meaner.

  “Mission accomplished,” she said. “The rough cut’s been changed to three o’clock. Music spotting at five. I moved the story meeting to eight-thirty Friday morning and casting’s been set for eleven. At one-fifteen the limo will take you to LAX and Air France will whisk you away to Paris.” She handed him an envelope. “Tickets for you and the lucky lady. Don’t forget your passports.”

  “Thanks, Maggie.” Maggie went back to her desk and Winslow turned to me with a sly smile. “Another perk that comes with producing a television show. I can afford to fly to Paris and impress the shit out of hot young actresses. Not to mention my two million dollar condo in Century City or my Porsche.” He slapped the plane ticket into the palm of his hand with a grim satisfaction. “When I was writing books I lived in a one bedroom dump in North Hollywood and drove a Volkswagen Rabbit. Believe me, rich is better.”

  He settled into a leather chair behind a mahogany desk filled with piles of scripts and DVDs. He gestured for me to sit as he asked, “So, what can I do for you?”

  I thought about telling him that I, too, wrote novels. Well, a novel. That I thought Dempsey would make a great character for a TV series and maybe we could develop it together. After all, I’d like to fly to Paris whenever I got horny. And a condo in Century City sounded great.

  But I was here on business. Somebody had desecrated Christine Cole’s grave. Blackmailed the cemetery. Switched the bones. And my only lead was Winslow. In spite of my earlier musing on the I am anyone connection to other writers, I didn’t think Winslow had done it. He didn’t sound like he needed the money, and I’d never met him before so I don’t think I owed him big time. But his voice did sound a little like the guy on the phone, so, watching him carefully for any reaction, I said, “Somebody’s kidnapped Christine Cole’s remains.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Just like in your book. Someone broke into the crypt, blackmailed the cemetery for two million bucks.”

  Winslow barked out a laugh. “You know I’ve always worried about some bozo reading something I’ve written then doing it for real. A really rockin’ bank robbery. A cool murder. But I never figured anyone’d actually try and kidnap Christine!”

  Winslow’s surprise seemed genuine. If he was lying, he was damn good at it. I said, “The kidnapper also switched the bones when we made the ransom exchange.”

  “Just like my book. Hey, I hope the real life case has a happier ending.”

  So did I. In Winslow’s book the villain went on to steal the bodies of Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe before finally being killed in a bloody shootout.

  “Just out of curiosity, Mr. Winslow, where were you last night?”

  “What? Am I a suspect?”

  “No. But you did write the book, and while anyone could have read Eternal Love and gotten the idea, well, you did get the idea first. So, I have to ask.”

  “You’re not going to like the answer. I was home. Alone.”

  “See any of the neighbors? Talk to anyone on the phone?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you don’t have an alibi.”

  Winslow’s impossibly green eyes flared. “You’re starting to sound more like a cop than a PI.”

  “Sorry. I used to be a cop. Old habits die hard.”

  “Cop, huh? LAPD?”

  I nodded. “Thirteen years.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  Hell of a question. I could have told him the real reason— that if I hadn’t resigned I would have gone to jail. Instead I gave him my stock answer: “I got tired of all the bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” he said, interested. “Like what?”

  Writers love talking to cops. Cops are the living, breathing, three-dimensional versions of what writers just imagine. And an endless source of story ideas.

  “Like suspects who kept trying to change the subject when I was interviewing them,” I said.

  He bristled. “Look, Gideon, I’ve got nothing to hide.” Then he laughed self-consciously. “It’s just that I don’t have an alibi for last night.”

  “What about for three o’clock this afternoon?”

  He started to look nervous, uncomfortable. “Why three o’clock?”

  “That’s when the kidnapper picked up the ransom.”

  “This is spooky, man. At three o’clock I was standing in front of the Cinerama Dome waiting for my agent.”

  “Then you do have an alibi.”

  “No. I waited half an hour but he never showed up.”

  “You call his office?”

  “Yeah. But he was out.”

  “But you talked to him when you made the appointment.”

  “No. Maggie gave me the message.” He called out, “Maggie!” She stuck her dreadlock-drenched head in the door. “Did you talk to Glen personally about that three o’clock meeting?”

  She seemed confused for an instant, and then brightened. “No. A message was left on voicemail during lunch.”

  “See if you can get him now.” She ducked back out.

  “Anybody see you at the Dome?”

  “Sure, plenty of people walked by. Nobody who’d remember me.”

  “So you
don’t have an alibi.”

  “No.” He laughed again, but this one was humorless. “If I didn’t know better I’d say someone

  was trying to set me up.”

  Maggie yelled from her desk: “Glen’s still out.”

  Winslow shook his head. “Shit. Well, as soon as I talk to him I’ll find out if he called or not, but in the meantime, you’ll just have to take my word that I didn’t steal the body.”

  One thing you learn in my business is that everybody lies. Not all the time and not always on purpose. But they lie. And if you’re good at your job you learn to tell when someone’s lying. Sometimes it’s obvious: sweat on the upper lip, halting answers as their mind races. Sometimes it’s subtle: a contraction of the pupil, the picking of a cuticle. Sometimes it’s invisible and you have to go on instinct. Nothing Winslow did gave him away, but deep down I knew he was lying. So was Maggie.

  That momentary hesitation when Winslow asked her about the agent gave her away. She didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but—ever the loyal assistant—she’d cover his back until he could explain.

  Winslow suddenly stood up. “So if you don’t have any more questions I’ve got a TV show to run ...”

  I had two choices. Turn up the heat on the interview, and risk getting thrown off the lot by studio security. Or withdraw gracefully and do a little more checking into the world of the increasingly enigmatic

  Barry Winslow. I stood up, took out one of my business cards and handed it to him. “Thanks for your time, Barry. If you think of anything else, please call me.”

  “Will do. And let me know how it turns out. After all, I’ve got a vested interest.”

  At the very least ...