“No.”
“Of course. That was Dick Wadd. Anyway. Got a No Entry sign tattooed just above my backside. So there’s no mistaking my sexual leanings.”
“I saw you with Geneva. I don’t think anyone’s gonna make that mistake.”
Ziff’s show of bravado evaporated, and his shoulders sagged. He leaned back on the cream settee and let out a quivering sigh.
“I wondered how long it’d be before you came knocking on my door again.”
“I didn’t knock.”
“Knew you wouldn’t leave me be.”
Grant stepped farther into the room, glancing at the corridor leading to the guest bedrooms on the second level. The lights were off and the shadows grew deeper along the hallway. Ziff pushed himself up off the settee.
“You want a coffee and a biscuit?”
“Can you make a latte?”
“Milky and tasteless. I can manage that.”
“Then I accept. Thanks.”
Ziff walked through the wide doorless opening into the kitchen and started boiling some milk. Grant kept station in the middle of the living room, protecting his flanks while keeping a safe distance from any approach on all sides. He glanced at Ziff to make sure he wasn’t trying any funny business, then focused on the smoked-glass bookcase at the back of the room. The pale wood blended with the décor of the bright and airy room. The smoked glass reminded Grant of the room he’d been in on his last visit. The angle of this hidden camera was just right, the positioning ideal, for looking down on the cream leather settee.
Grant caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Ziff sidling to one side, stiff and awkward. A row of gleaming sharp kitchen knives hung from a magnetic strip on the wall. The coffee was nearly ready. There was no need for Ziff to be moving away. Grant stepped into the kitchen.
“You’re not thinking of using one of those, are you?”
“Don’t need a knife for coffee.”
“Depends how thick you make it.”
Grant noticed a drawer partly open next to Ziff’s right hip. He reached past the producer and opened it wider. The chrome finish .38 snub gleamed brighter than the knives. Grant took it, checked the load, and slipped it in his jacket pocket.
“I thought you’d learned your lesson with guns.”
Ziff stirred the coffee with a noisy spoon.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting to ask me some more questions.”
Grant followed the producer as he brought the second mug of coffee into the lounge.
“You suppose right.”
Ziff handed Grant the coffee, then indicated a chair that matched the settee.
“Might as well make yourself comfortable then.”
The music changed. Still Morricone but this piece Grant did recognize. Soft tinkling chimes played a simple intro from a scene in For a Few Dollars More. The pocket watch scene where El Indio challenges Colonel Mortimer to a showdown. Go for the gun when the music stops.
The chimes grew louder.
Ziff sat on the settee.
Violins bled in and augmented the chimes.
Grant sat on the chair.
They sat opposite each other and prepared to face off. Two pairs of eyes stared across the coffee table. Two sets of lungs took deep breaths. The showdown music grew into a sweeping crescendo, then it was simply the chimes again. Growing slower as the watch wound down.
Grant started with a direct question.
“Where’s the girl?”
Ziff was taking a drink of his coffee. He stopped drinking and held the mug in both hands as if trying to warm them on a cold day. It wasn’t cold in the living room, but the distraction allowed him time to think.
“I told you before. I don’t even know the girl.”
“What you told me before, when I asked the girl’s name, was, ‘How the fuck should I know? She’s not with the Screen Actors Guild.’ Something along those lines.”
“Yeah, well, nothing’s changed. She still ain’t with SAG.”
Grant lowered his voice but injected added menace.
“She might not be with SAG, but you’re wrong. Plenty has changed.”
Ziff selected a finger of shortbread and dunked it in his coffee. Another delaying tactic. He held the biscuit under while his mind scrambled for a suitable response. He waited too long. The biscuit broke off and bobbed about in his coffee.
“Shit.”
Coffee splashed the settee. Ziff fished the floater out with three fingers and popped it in his mouth. The biscuit was too hot, and it burned his tongue.
“Shit.”
This time the expletive spluttered wet crumbs across the cream leather. He put his coffee down on the table and took out a handkerchief to dab up the spillage.
Grant kept his tone light. “Considering the stains that settee’s had to suffer”—but the menace was still there—“it’s a good job you chose leather over fabric.”
“Coffee stains leather as well.”
“Semen stains it even worse.”
Ziff stopped dabbing.
“What?”
“Don’t know if you ever got it over here, but back in England we had a kid’s TV show called Captain Pugwash. Cartoon about pirates and stuff. Kids didn’t understand that half the crew of the Black Pig had suggestive names. Master Bates. Roger the Cabin Boy. And Seaman Stains. Became one of the great controversies of our time. Except it wasn’t true. Just a rumor that spread like wildfire. The only truth is that semen does stain.”
Grant leaned forward, careful not to spill his own coffee.
“And this settee has had plenty of semen.”
With his short, round face, Ziff could have made a passable Captain Pugwash. All he needed was a skull-and-crossbones hat and the blustering red cheeks. The red cheeks he already had, and his protestations were bordering on bluster.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Grant put his coffee on the table and stood up.
“Oh yes you do.”
He walked around the back of the settee, forcing Ziff to crane his neck to keep him in sight. Grant continued.
“Reason that scene in The Hunt for Pink October was made to look like it was CCTV footage is because it was CCTV footage.”
“What the fuck you talkin’ about?”
The bluster had no conviction. Ziff knew the game was up. Grant crossed to the bookcase and opened the smoked-glass door. The hidden camera was small but perfectly formed. It was held in place by an adjustable bracket. Wires from the back of the camera housing disappeared through a hole in the bookcase.
“Smile. You’re on Candid Camera. Did you get that show over here?”
Ziff ignored the question, trying one final distraction.
“I don’t understand Roger the Cabin Boy.”
Grant mimed holding onto somebody bent over at the hips and thrust his groin in and out, twice, doggy fashion.
“Rogering is slang for fucking. And you’re fucked.”
Ziff deflated like a slow-pricked balloon. He spread his arms across the back of the settee in an affectation of nonchalance, but it was really just to stop him falling sideways. The music changed. Still Morricone but the piece used at the wedding chapel for Kill Bill 2. Slow and threatening while David Carradine sat on the porch. Grant couldn’t remember what movie Tarantino had stolen it from. He preferred the beginning of Kill Bill part one, the instrumental prelude to “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” The cowboy boots in close-up, crunching along the bare wooden floorboards amid a litter of spent bullet casings.
Grant’s black K-Swiss tennis shoes didn’t crunch as he walked around to the front of the settee. His footsteps made no sound at all on the deep pile carpet but they kept pace with the music. Slow and threatening. The smell of coffee was as strong as the scorched blood and cordite of the wed
ding chapel massacre. He stood over Ziff and didn’t need to threaten the smaller man. Ziff had seen Grant in action. Yet he still insisted on trying to play it cool.
“Is that why pirates always fly the Jolly Roger?”
Grant didn’t respond. He simply stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, shoulders braced. Ziff knew what that stance meant. All the blood drained from his face. Grant tilted his head as if studying a strange creature.
“Zed Productions is about to go into liquidation.”
He took half a pace forward.
“You remember what I said to your hired muscle? That bit from Pulp Fiction? The girl with the squeaky voice saying to Bruce Willis, ‘Who’s Zed?’ And Willis saying, ‘Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.’”
Grant looked Ziff in the eye, feeling a bit like a schoolyard bully but ready to take it to the next level if required. He didn’t think it would be.
“Well. If you don’t tell me where Angelina Richards is, Zed’s going to be worse than dead.”
Ziff gulped, his eyes wide open. Grant waited for him to spill the beans and was so intent on watching the diminutive producer that he didn’t notice the movement along the hallway until the door clicked shut. He spun around toward the sound, arms relaxed and prepared to repel boarders.
The figure that came out of the shadows wasn’t Mark Spitz or Danny Swallow. It wasn’t one of Ziff’s hired muscle either. Angelina Richards walked into the living room and stood beside the bookcase. She looked calm and relaxed.
“It’s okay. You can tell him.”
FORTY
All three sat around the coffee table, fresh drinks steaming in the overhead spotlights. Jim Grant, Stuart Ziff, and Angelina Richards. The tension had leaked out of the atmosphere, and they sat like a group of old friends chewing the fat or passing the time chatting about what they’d done this week. What Angelina Richards had been doing wasn’t what Grant had envisaged.
Angelina sighed as if the pressure had been lifted.
“So I grabbed the master copy and came here.”
Grant took a sip of milky coffee.
“Just that scene. Not the complete film.”
“The uncut footage of that scene. Yes.”
Grant pieced it together.
“In a hurry. Explaining the video cabinet being messed up.”
“Yes.”
“What about the window?”
“I broke it for effect. You know—in case anyone came looking.”
“I did come looking. You should have broken it from the outside.”
“I shouldn’t have cut myself either. What can I say? I’m no burglar.”
“I’ve met some burglars were dumber than you. One kid dropped his bus pass in the house he’d screwed. Name and address and a photo on it.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Isn’t it just? Told him he should try another line of work.”
“Did he?”
“He didn’t get caught again. So either he did or he got better at it. Prison does that to you. One way or another you change.”
Grant looked across at Ziff.
“You could end up making decent movies.”
Ziff jerked back like a startled rabbit.
“I’m not going to prison.”
“You think?”
“You heard what she said. She came here of her own free will.”
“And you filmed her having sex with a gray-haired guy. Now you’ve got the uncut recording. Extortion you got done for wasn’t it? Before.”
“I’m not blackmailing nobody.”
Ziff didn’t sound convincing. Grant ignored the double negative.
“It’s not always what you did that gets you sent down. It’s what I can convince the jury that you did. You think everyone I sent to prison was guilty of what they were sent to prison for? They were all guilty, though. Of something. You’re guilty of something. I just haven’t figured out what yet.”
Angelina held her mug in both hands, fingers interlaced, as she spoke.
“What about pandering? That’s a crime, isn’t it?”
Grant turned his attention back to Angelina.
“Like grooming? Pimping? That kind of pandering?”
“That’s right.”
He nodded at Ziff.
“You saying that’s what he did?”
“Not him.”
“Who, then?”
Angelina stared into her coffee and shivered. It wasn’t cold in the lounge. Her eyes lost focus and she looked as if her mind was somewhere else. Somewhere not very pleasant. This was a delicate subject. Grant wasn’t a delicate cop. That’s why he never specialized in sexual abuse cases. It took patience and sympathy to interview damaged girls. Sympathy he could muster, but patience wasn’t one of his virtues. One thing he was certain of: Angelina Richards was a damaged girl. Grant decided to slide past the subject until later.
“What about your bankcard?”
The girl came back to life, her eyes back on Grant.
“At the ATM? That was my idea. To try and get you off my trail.”
“You use it yourself?”
“No. That could have backfired. We got someone else to use it.”
“But it was the police got the message to me.”
“Yes. Stuart’s got a police contact. To make sure the message got through.”
Her eyes dropped to her coffee for a moment. Something about what she’d just said wasn’t entirely true. Grant filed that away for later too.
“You might not know how to fake a burglary, but you’ve got a devious mind. I think you’re learning all the time.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to think on your feet.”
“Daughter of a rich and powerful man—I wouldn’t think you’d need to do much thinking on your feet.”
“Then you’d think wrong.”
A hint of anger entered her voice. The father-daughter schism exposed. Grant remembered her mother mentioning the gulf that was growing between the doting father and the headstrong daughter. It was time to approach the subject head-on.
“When your dad showed me the film…the reason he engaged me was because he wanted me to stop you making them. To warn the producer off.”
Ziff stiffened. The girl’s eyes sharpened. Grant continued.
“I told him he should ask you to stop himself.”
Angelina stared at Grant but kept quiet. Grant continued.
“He said it didn’t work that way. Your mother too.”
“She would say that.”
“You blaming your mother for this?”
“She knew what was going on.”
Grant felt he was getting close.
“But didn’t stop it?”
Angelina shook her head but didn’t speak.
“What didn’t she stop?”
She still didn’t speak.
“What did she know?”
Three mugs of coffee steamed in the silence. Creaking noises echoed through the cavernous room. The house settling around them. A gentle breeze had sprung up outside, rustling the leaves in the garden, but the double-glazing dulled the sound down to nothing. Ziff sat completely still, holding his breath. Angelina stared at Grant, her eyes unblinking. Grant lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Why didn’t he ask you?”
Angelina blinked. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
“Because there was no point.”
One leaked out and ran down the side of her nose.
“Since he was the one who got me to shoot the video in the first place.”
The revelation should have been a shock, but somewhere in the back of Grant’s mind the answer had always been there. No wonder Maura Richards had been so upset. Guilt was a powerful motivator, but it could also cause complete paraly
sis: the inability to move or act or do anything to rectify the situation. It sucked you in and bogged you down. Angelina’s mother had been bogged down and could no more act to save her daughter than she could admit to herself that she’d failed her.
Senator Richards was a different animal.
Grant hadn’t liked him from the start.
“This was your first movie, wasn’t it? The Hunt for Pink October.”
“Yes.”
“Your only one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Angelina took a sip of coffee, the preferred delaying tactic of both Ziff and the girl. She warmed her hands around the steaming mug and lowered her eyes to stare into the swirling cloud. She looked like a woman lost in a cloud, unable to see a way out of the trouble she was in or the life that had been forced on her by an overbearing father. Grant disliked Richards even more.
She kept her eyes down and spoke into the mug.
“Why was it the first one? Or why was it the only one?”
“Take your pick.”
Another sip of coffee while she gathered her thoughts. She raised her head and let out a long, deep sigh. Her eyes roamed across the ceiling, then the bookcase, and finally settled on the fireplace. Anything to avoid looking at the man who had come to save her. She was beyond saving.
“It was the first one because it became necessary.”
Ziff placed a paternal arm across her shoulders, a gesture that seemed completely out of character for the small-time crook and pornographer. More fatherly than the father she had left behind. She appeared to take comfort from the contact.
“It was the last because it was no longer necessary.”
Grant shifted in his seat and rested the mug of coffee on one knee. The heat warmed through the denim of his jeans. It counteracted the cold that was creeping over him.
“You get any more cryptic and you’ll be compiling crosswords.”
Her eyes fixed on his again.
“My life is cryptic.”
She didn’t blink.
“Has been since I was ten.”
The cold feeling began to spread and sent a shiver running down Grant’s spine. Angelina caught the look in his eyes.
“Not the way you’re thinking. Just…complicated.”
Montecito Heights Page 23